#and it shouldn't be because he's the main focus of this blog

[seokminfilm]

fast pace 🍒 choi seungcheol

🍒 pairing, choi seungcheol x reader

🍒 warnings, non-idol au, marriage au, husband/girl dad seungcheol, overprotective seungcheol, wholesome family interaction, seungcheol calls reader "sweetheart" once, suggestive at the end (if you squint)

🍒 summary, your daughter was just like seungcheol—so alike it drove you a bit insane.

🍒 author's note, trying not to tweak out right now (just wrote a whole seokmin fic (@realmofclouds' request) to accidentally delete it all and have tumblr save the now-empty post 🧍) so here's this seungcheol fic to try to salvage something for you guys 😭 trust me i'll write a BUNCH next week to make up for it (spring break week woop woop!) please enjoy girl dad cheol i know i enjoyed writing it SJKJDFSJK

🍒 now playing, fast pace (seventeen)

🍒 word count, 1k (1k exactly what the hell) | for @kstrucknet

when you got the call that you would have to go pick your four-year-old daughter up from her kindergarten class, seungcheol would not rest until you had allowed him to drive you there.

"i want to see what she got in trouble for myself." seungcheol had a streak when it came to his daughter, mi-cheol (she did have part of his name, after all). he could never seem to believe that his daughter would do no wrong, and even when you had told him that she had gotten in trouble, he had asked you "are you being serious?" about seven times before you had broken down and shown him the message.

and so, here you were, sitting in the kindergarten lobby as the two of you waited to retrieve mi-cheol.

seungcheol sat in the chair beside you, glancing down at his watch as he grumbled something under his breath. as a businessman (and a slightly overdramatic father), seungcheol loved when things were speedy, especially when concerning his oh-so-lovable daughter.

seungcheol tapped his dress shoe impatiently on the tile, long eyelashes brushing against his eyebrows as he glared at the constantly ticking clock. sensing his impatience, you place a soft hand on his arm, side-eyeing him as he sighs.

"please, cheol. patience." you sounded like you were talking to a disobedient child—and you were, in a way. seungcheol was just like mi-cheol in that aspect—they couldn't listen to someone for the life of them.

as soon as the thought of your doe-eyed, pouty-lipped baby girl crossed your mind, out she came, backpack in tow as she grinned at you.

"daddy!" mi-cheol runs right past you and immediately clings onto seungcheol's dress pants leg. the smile that breaks on seungcheol's stern features is only one mi-cheol can bring out, and he reaches down quickly, swiftly swooping the four-year-old in his arms as he gives you one last glance before heading to the car.

apologizing on mi-cheol's behalf and signing her out, you follow the two shortly, getting in the passenger's side of the car as you grab the tail end of seungcheol and mi-cheol's conversation.

"so, what did she do?" you ask, knowing good and well it may not be a good idea to hear the story from seungcheol. luckily, mi-cheol steps up to the plate herself, clearing her throat after taking a few sips from her juice cup.

"a boy called me cute, so i slapped him in the face." the sentence is simple, but so absurd at the same time that you can't help but burst into laughter.

seungcheol, on the other hand, is absolutely seething. his eyes are dark as soon as he hears the words 'boy' and 'cute', and you can see him jumping to all sorts of conclusions in his head. his grip on the steering wheel is tight, and he's blankly staring at the road, probably fighting back a profanity or two.

seungcheol was overprotective, everyone knew that—he held both you and mi-cheol to a very high standard, and therefore watched the two of you with a hawkeye. he never let boys near mi-cheol, and lord forbid a guy would try to hit on you—he would let them know their place, quickly too.

"a boy?" seungcheol asks softly (too softly for your liking), and you can see mi-cheol nodding from her booster seat, cup in hand as she lets out a little scoff. "i am not cute."

"oh, baby. you are cute—you just...you don't want a boy telling you that, do you?" you question, and mi-cheol nods, an overdramatic pout similar to her father's adorning her face.

"yeah. the only boy i want to call me cute is daddy." mi-cheol makes a sound that you think may be similar to 'yuck', although it doesn't sound like that in the slightest.

seungcheol’s hard exterior is broken by that sentence in an instant, and he’s smiling from ear to ear in the cutest way possible, nodding as he looks back at his daughter with nothing but pure fondness.

“good girl, mimi.” seungcheol encourages mi-cheol with a proud grin on his face, and you sigh, knowing this would happen—of course seungcheol would say nothing about how his daughter’s actions were wrong.

if anything, he was overjoyed that she realized the rules seungcheol had set in place before she was even born—”boys are a no-no.”

“seungcheol.” you whisper, glaring at him as he catches your gaze. reading the disapproval in your eyes, seungcheol bites back an eye roll before sighing, biting his full lips as he returns to the hard exterior mi-cheol had broken with her confession.

“mimi, sweet baby girl—you shouldn’t handle things like that with violence, okay?. if a boy calls you cute and you don’t like it, tell it to him. don’t let him get away with it, of course, but don’t slap or hit him, okay? will you remember that for daddy?” you can tell it pains seungcheol to give this speech to his sweet little mi-cheol, watching the way his thick eyebrows twitch when he says the words ‘boy’ and ‘cute’.

“okay, daddy. i’ll remember it.” mi-cheol holds a thumbs-up to seungcheol, and he nods, giving her a small smile as he pulls up at a red light. proud of your husband for holding back his overprotective nature, you kiss his ring finger, warm lips ghosting the cool metal wedding band on his finger.

it makes seungcheol chuckle lowly to himself, reveling in your love as he smiles at you, glancing back at his mini-me (who’s currently eating a bowl of cherries).

"you owe me for this, sweetheart." seungcheol whispers, voice laced with a low, suggestive tone as he studies your face darkly. chuckling, you throw your head back, letting it hit the headrest as your hands rest on seungcheol's forearm.

"name your price, cheol. i'll give it to you," you add teasingly, and with the look and smile seungcheol gives you at your words, you already have an idea of what that could possibly be.

[chronically-ghosted]

i totally agree that it’s ridiculous for people to write fics for films that haven’t been released yet, but the problem isn’t the smut itself. people have every right to write porn if that scratches the itch.

i think your main point is the most important: it’s impossible to write a thoughtful, inspired fic when we don’t even know the story it’s based on. no one knows who this character is or what he’s like.

at this point, everyone should just call a spade a spade and write pedro rpf. all they care about is seeing his face in different situations.

so my earlier post was not so much a statement on Pedro Pascal Character fanfiction/porn, but the commercialization of art and I interpreted the thoughts and opinions of others through the lens of the medium I most often express myself with, which is fanfiction.

let me be clear: i have no problem with smut - pwp or otherwise. people are allowed to write whatever they want, about whoever they want, with whatever tropes make them happy.

my overall focus (and granted it was probably very muddled by the end of those - what, like three reblogs?) was an interrogation of fanfiction as art, and the state of art in this modern era. and after doing some more thinking and listening to more people much smarter than me (thank you to everyone who dm-ed me directly to talk further about this), my opinion is thus: the creation of content (not art) is more ubiquitous today is not because we are getting more stupid as a society, not because of our failing attention spans, not because we are on the brink of moral collapse but because we physically do not have the mental strength to be intellectually curious as a direct result of constant, distracting, emotionally-draining stimuli.

i can explain what i mean below the cut with two primary examples, specifically regarding the shift in fanfiction cult, and yes, the prominence of smutty oneshots in the pedro pascal character fandom of which this blog is a part of.

I have been in various fandoms for almost twenty years. I have been writing fanfiction for almost that same amount of time. In recent years, I've noticed two trends that initially discouraged me, but that I now believe is a symptom of our adjustment to a modern, constantly online era.

A severe lack of engagement within the artistic artifacts of a fandom

The quality of the fanfiction itself (because yes I do consider fanfiction to be an artform) has gone down hill - mostly.

Lack of engagement:

Art is inherently created to be shared. This is especially true for fandom because the community lives or dies by how many people are interacting with each other and sharing ideas (news, theories, fanart, fanfic, etc). If you say a fandom is dead, it means there haven't been any new posts or fic about it in years. So I don't wanna hear it when people say, "oh write for yourself, you shouldn't be chasing engagement" because that is antithetical to the very concept of fanfiction.

In recent years, I have seen and experienced myself engagement in my work only so far as a like or kudo. This is not how it used to be. Message boards (yes I am that old) and niche fandom sites were constantly abuzz with media sharing and excitement, and everyone enjoyed some version of praise (unless you got hit by the antis but they're never fun anyway). Initially I blamed this drop in engagement on laziness: people just want the next thing, they can't be bothered to appreciate the hard work writers put in and they just see content and art as the same thing - stuff to consume.

But I myself am GUILTY of minimal reblogs and comments and I LOVE what I'm writing - the impact certain works leave me with is long, long lasting but for some goddamn reason, I can't sit down and praise the author's works. Am I lazy? Possibly, but this is also not an isolated behavior and it's on the rise: people do not have time to engage with fandom/fanfic like they used to. Most people I know have worked at least two or three jobs at some point in their lives to just to make rent. This gen z is the first generation in DECADES to be worse off economically than their parents. With an interest rate at 8%, who the fuck can afford the security of a home anymore? We work ourselves to the bone for scraps and the realization that The Dream has officially died. And so what do we want to do in the free time we do have? Engage with the very bare minimum. We want to read things that we can at best skim, things we don't have to think about or engage with in any meaningful way. We want a way to turn off the noise of the next apocalypse and sometimes the best we can do is the tap of a thumb.

Which brings me to my next point: what the fuck happened to thoughtful fanfiction?

But this question is inextricably linked to the points above: oneshots are easier to write, faster to write, and if you write fic that is basically "Mad libs porn" (without ever engaging in the actual medium because it is literally not released yet), you are doing the most minimal work for the most amount of engagement. But I can't fault ANYONE for doing that. It feels good to be told your smut is "so hot" or "this exploded my panties" and in this era where the time available to create is so fucking small and minimized of course you're going to write for the most popular character, whether or not you're interested in the source material because we want our art to matter to someone. Intellectual pundits loooove to lambast our "shorter attention spans" but fuck, when are we allowed the time to think - in between this "100 year storm" that's happened twice in the past five years, or the global pandemic that turned millions of deaths into a political punching bag, or the next video of a white woman crying wolf to the police over an innocent black man, or - or - or - or

In a day where reality and the world as we know seems to be holding onto a thread, we turn to comfort: comforting tropes (dbf to rape/kidnap fantasies), comforting fanfic (pwp), and comforting ways to engage with fandom. There is nothing wrong with wanting your art to be appreciated and there's nothing wrong with inherently wrong with pwp - but I do believe its symptomatic of a MUCH larger and more sinister movement within ALL art right now.

I come from the generation who banished fanfic authors for scrubbing off the filing numbers to their fics and publishing it as original content because, in our communities, they were selling out. Fanfiction is inherently an act of rebellion. Every time you write fanfiction you break canon, an established structure with its own rules and boundaries. So by trying to appeal to the masses, to curb your own writing to fit whatever is mainstream, you are doing a disservice to yourself AND to the art of fanfiction. If something you write becomes popular, wonderful, great, you are very lucky and there is nothing wrong with that either. But do not sell out your 13 beloved fans who WILL take the time to leave a comment, who WILL take the time to reblog because your weird little fic spoke to them on a fundamental level and now is with them for the rest of their lives - in favor of a 100 thumb taps.

If you've made it here, thank you very much for reading. I've added some links to some additional references to see how this concept of "populist" art is having a serious negative down turn in the quality of art, but is also not any one individuals personal failings:

Why the world is addicted to background tv by Kayleigh Day

How Modern Audience are failing cinema by Like Stories of Old

Rupi Kaur episode of Rehash podcast

I'm always here to talk fic and art and what makes you excited about your writing. Much love and please rest. We need you here.

[cuphead-dragons]

OMGOMGOMGOMG GIVE FUN FACTS ABOUT EVERYONES DRAGON COUNTERPART PLEEEEASE

First I wanted to set some things up

Dragons are pack and social animals in my au, having similar family groups to that of a wolf pack, called a flock instead. (No, there is not 'alpha' there's a breeding pair, subordinates (older offspring) older hatchlings and young/newborn hatchlings) So because of this, seeing a lone dragon isn't very common unless they're a dispersal looking for a mate. Even injured members are cared for the best the others can do, they won't kick them from the "flock" While it's common to see dragons living close together in more human like communities minus buildings and such and more so socially, they still get incredibly territorial and will fight eachother over food sources. One flock of 4-5 dragons can eat about 4 deer in a day for example. (if there's two parents each of them will eat 1, and if there's 3 hatchlings, shared between them they'll eat 2.)

Dragons mate for life, not searching for a new mate when theirs dies, so there's something wrong when it's a one off to pass on genes, or if it's alone in general. Likely got chased away from any chances of being in a flock.

Another thing, flocks will take in other dragons. Especially if they're already familiar with them, such as family that's too old to survive on its own, or a parent with a hatchling that lost their partner. So again, if a dragon is alone, they're likely a menace.

Cuphead and Mugman

Obviously the main focus of this blog. The boys are juveniles and very destructive because of that. Definitely lets... others know where their flock is. They get into places and mess with creatures they shouldn't.

Elder Kettle

Lives in the same territory as his grandchildren. He watches over them as cautiously as he can when their parents are on a hunt or expanding territory. Though, he is old, and can only keep up for so long.

Morningstar (The Devil)

Unlike the rest, he is indeed a unicorn, particularly a nightmare unicorn. Unicorns in many a folklore are enemies to dragons, and that's true in my stories. He's not in a constant state of flame like in some tales, and instead only becomes charged when angry or actively trying to cause harm. No magic comes from his horn, but it's still a sharp and deadly weapon. Has mass hatred for unicorns for casting him away to the dragons for being dangerous, and dragons casting him away for being a unicorn. He finds himself alone, taunting with those who come near to make them miserable.

Dice

A dragon gone rogue with the enemy, he used to be close to Cuphead and Mugman's parents. Until some time before they were born and Dice ended up being suspicious, and was chased away near where Morningstar lives. So, he ended up being around the one he was conspiring with anyways.

Chalice

Still a juvenile, but younger than the brothers, she gets them into plenty more problems. (Orphan too)

Tea and Joe

The loving and protective parents of Cuphead and Mugman, they worry about the things their oldest hatchlings get into. Nothing bad will become of that, right?

...

There ARE other characters, but these are the mains. If you're curious about any others, feel free to ask! ^^ (I'll also be making a seperate post for other ocs soon)

(the bgs represent their territories btw)

Hiatus

[paladinsbrainrot]

in light of an imminent teaser......

it is very important that everyone acknowledges that the marketing team will largely base a teaser on what they think the general audience wants, because they're trying to build hype for the show, and will want to draw in as many viewers as possible.

this post said a lot of what i wanted to say but the main gist of it is that you shouldn't expect much of a will focus in the teasers to come -- but mayyybeee we'll get lucky in the trailer. my point is: because of how swept under the rug will was in s3/4, the GA probably doesn't care much about him. he's not super important in their eyes. they'll likely be more drawn to something with characters they're more familiar with, like eleven. this doesn't mean will won't have a main focus in the actual show, because we have proof of that from the duffers' interviews, it just won't be what the marketing team particularly wants to pander too.

noah schnapp has also been a veryyyyy controversial figure as of late, and this will only add to this idea of keeping will's focus on the down low until the season comes out. i don't like to talk about him on my blog bc i personally don't support him but i think it's just important to note. just think about when ross posted the will bts picture for the first time and everyone on twitter was flaming him, and how every bts picture of him that has come out since has been met with negative reactions from the GA. he will be criticized no matter what, if it is a will-centric teaser or not, but having a heavy focus on him in the teaser won't make those who don't support him and his beliefs want to tune into the show. this is just simply coming from a marketing perspective -- his reputation puts the show under hot waters. this is also likely why he wasnt in the tudum special that the show put out in september, while finn, gaten, and caleb were. i just want everyone to be realistic and temper their expectations so that they aren't disappointed when the eventual el-vecna centric teaser comes out. praying tumblr won't be a dumpster fire then.

additionally, -- while i'm not counting on any ship-related clips in the teaser, maybe in the trailer -- it is important to note that we shouldn't take any mlvn/byler clips at face value or put so much importance on them. the duffers and teaser editors will want to include clips that most excite their general audience, and that, unfortunately, may mean a few mlvn clips here and there, because it is what the GA is familiar with. but it doesn't necessarily mean that the scenes will be positive, even if it looks like it in the trailer. the teasers like to screw with us. think of the 003/creel house teaser where they picked clips where lucas was rolling his eyes at max, and max looked upset in response. i remember lumax shippers on tumblr freaking out because they thought their ship was dwindling. these clips were never shown in the actual show and their interactions in the creel house ended up being very positive, unlike how the teaser suggested. in the first s4 trailer we got, we got a short clip of mike and el holding hands while roller-blading. while it looks sweet in the context, when you actually look at the scene, you see that mike and el are being portrayed in a negative light as they were both putting on fake personas to impress each other, and that the whole scene ended up zooming in on will and focusing on him anyway. my point is, don't immediately feel disappointed if we get a mlvn clip. the duffers will only share what they want us to see!!!

so in summary just don't expect much. i really hope they prove me wrong and we get a will centric teaser because i am soooo interested in his arc this season but i'm not getting my hopes up.

[princelance]

a movie........

time for a rant that has been a looong time coming because

the FUCK??? NOOOOOOOOOOOO PLEASE NO NO NO PLEASE GOD IF YOU'RE OUT THERE NEVER LET THIS MOVIE SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY NEVER EVEN MENTION THAT SHOW EVER AGAIN IN MY PRESENCE it should fucking DIE and stay DEAD

the WORST fandom i've ever come across/been part of. everyone was so fucking braindead. god the bullying here was So Bad. vld fandom was the epitome of 'you can't enjoy what you like'. and the bullies were like, some of the most popular blogs here. the content creators (among others ofc) here were NASTY. the people making decent art were so fucking rude to almost anyone that didn't bow down to them and agree with their views on the show, sitting on their high horse like they were fucking gods or something when they were like, 17 or something. mind u voltron was a show about ugly transformers lions and a bunch of kids in space meant for 7 YEAR OLDS. like stfu it's not deep, it's not important. i get that this is the internet i really do but apparently everyone was a pedo and homophobic and racist and needed to be cancelled because they weren't pure angels. i hope the people who liked the show, both teens and adults alike, have grown up and learnt what those words actually mean and why you shouldn't just casually throw them around. i hated you all. u had to be so careful about what you said on here, it was like north korea or something. i remember how kids got bullied into deleting their harmless fanfics, the fucking voice actors got bullied on a daily basis, it was BAD. i remember i got hate for having shiro as my icon and the background was the bi flag colours. I AM BI. also, so what if i had headcanoned shiro as bi, you couldn't have stopped me or anyone else from thinking that, and also IT WOULD NOT HAVE MATTERED, HE'S FICTIONAL, HE'S JUST LINES AND PIXELS. i know this is going to shatter some of your worlds (or at least would have back then), but a random ass nobody on tumblr headcanoning a character as bi when said character is "actually" straight/gay/whatever is NOT going to affect irl queer people in any way, it does NOT have real life consequences. who gives a fuck. since when has the fandom given a shit about canon anyway? fuck you.

okay, i've been bitching about the fandom enough (no i haven't, there's no way you can ever bitch about the vld fandom enough). what about the actual show? well. once again it's meant for 7 year olds. who cares if it was good or not. i've seen seasons 1–6. i liked season 1, didn't really like anything after that since the show seemed to change so much. the first season kind of has a different vibe completely? idk how to explain it, it just kind of feels like the actual show and then the rest was just a long fanfic by someone who was in love with keith's character. but since i was watching the show with my sister who was 10 at the time, it was fine, otherwise i wouldn't have kept watching after seeing season 2 i don't think.

here are a few negative things about the show imo:

making keith the main character out of nowhere after s1 (where he definitely wasn't the main focus) was so dumb. god the showrunners loved keith sooo much, it was so stupid. keith was nooot a leader. whatever.

making keith the black paladin was also so fucking stupid my god. and yes, everyone here wanting LANCE to become the black paladin just because he was the fandom favourite (don't get me wrong, he was my fave too) was so fucking braindead too honestly. shiro or allura. no one else made any sense.

canon allurance SUUUCKED. like holy shit that was so bad and horribly written, even lotor and allura had a better love story and had waaay more chemistry (and their relationship ended badly, rightfully so). and NO klance was never ever ever going to be canon, you were so delusional. like lmaooo did we even watch the same show? i just really enjoyed their dynamic and that's why i shipped them together, whatever. but yeah, like i said the bullying here was disgusting and everyone was cancelled, great, klance seemed to be the only thing you were allowed to like so in that sense i was lucky.

everything they did with allura in the later seasons............ you know what? i'm not even going to start. because wtfffffffff, as a storyteller myself i ?????? what in the world were they thinking. but yeah whatever it does not matter.

the point of this post is that EW EW EWWWW FUCK THAT SHOW AND FUCK YOU, if you were in the voltron fandom in 2017/2018 i personally hate you

[ponett]

Hello, wanted to say thank you, I'm really glad I found your work and I find your insights very helpful.

I wanted to ask something strange, as someone who has gone out of their way to dedicate a very detailed blog to the works of an outspoken artist, can you give me advice how to maintain healthy distance with ideas and individuals I might outright oppose, but have morbid sense of curiosity about them? Or it it just better to not indulge at all?

It's a difficult balance to achieve, and I won't pretend I've always been perfect about it on TKP

The thing is that you have to not obsess over the person too much. You have to focus on their work, not detailing every single thing they've ever done or said to keep receipts on them. You do not, under any circumstances, want to turn into the freaks who make and watch hundred hour long "documentaries" on CWC and Sonichu, or the people who run the Bad Webcomics Wiki

The point is to do media criticism, not to make a callout blog. Details the artist has shared about their life may sometimes help inform your reading of the work - art isn't made in a vacuum, and artists' life experiences and worldviews often shape their art. But you don't need to pry too much and piece together their full life story and psychoanalyze them if that information isn't already available in an autobiography or whatever

On TKP, one of the most important things I do to try and keep that distance is simple: I don't follow Penders on Twitter. I don't need to know every single thing he says, nor do I need to report on it. I'll check in when I hear he's made some kind of announcement regarding his work, and when looking for behind the scenes info I'll sometimes term search on his Twitter because he's far more vocal about what happened behind the scenes than the rest of that creative team, but that's it. I'm not thinking about him every day. I also haven't gone in-depth on his non-Sonic work to help drive home the idea that TKP is a blog about the American Sonic comics with a quippy url, not a blog about shitting on Penders

(On that note: I don't interact with him directly, either. I do not need to dunk on him in his Twitter replies. I do not need to lure him into an interview where I totally own him. I am not sending him my criticism like he owes it to me to read it and improve his work. I leave the guy alone)

As the blog has gone on I've also tried much harder to be objective about him and his work. I'll admit that early on, before the blog blew up, I was eager to see what all the drama was about and why everybody hated the guy. But my goal isn't just to find excuses to hate on him, or to spread baseless gossip, and that shouldn't be the mindset you go in with. I've offered praise for some of his work where I thought it was deserved, and I frequently correct people on misunderstandings about him and the lawsuits, even defending him on certain points

This is an extremely basic and hopefully obvious element of good media criticism, but it should also be said that just because an artist depicts something doesn't necessarily mean they endorse it, and that your goal isn't to piece together the artist's beliefs based on their work and then call them out over it. It can go the other way around - you can analyze how an artist's stated beliefs and values are reflected in their work - but, like, Penders writing a story where Knuckles decides to forgive his shitty fascist uncle for no reason does not mean that Penders is a Nazi apologist. It's just a story.

Again: your main goal should be to criticize the work, not the artist

And, of course, a huge factor is simply how famous the creator in question is (and also if the creator is still alive). You wanna do a deep dive on the works of Steve Ditko and criticize his Randian objectivism? Go nuts, buddy! You wanna shit all over Lovecraft? Have at it! Wanna tear apart the neoliberal politics of Harry Potter? Well, okay, Shrieking Shack already did that one. But if the person you're thinking of doing a sprawling, in-depth teardown on is, like, a smalltime webcomic author? Some hobbyist indie dev? A fanfic writer? That sort of thing? Hell, even someone in the middle like a cartoon storyboarder, or a freelance writer who does articles for Kotaku sometimes? Maybe reconsider. Just because someone's online doesn't mean they're a Public Figure, and there's a line where a deep critical dive on someone's work quickly turns into painting a target on their back

(This ended up being more about Criticism than how to just engage with stuff you hate, but also you can just, like. Look away. And find something else spend your time thinking about.)

[pechaberriesandsoju]

Don't You Dare

This is a re-upload of the original Don't You Dare lyric fic I wrote back when I originally did my self shipping on a side blog. I finally decided to edit it up some more and put it here. I only finally decided to say fuck it and finish it up recently cause I got a bit stumped on my newest lyric fic and I thought this would help. And it kinda did. Also, for those who remember this from my old blog?? HIIII READY TO BE SAD AGAIN?????

Anyways, just like before, this is before Echo changed her name to Echo. Before she became an nsr artist. But it does take place after the main events of the game. And yes, there is a slight crossover mention here because your girl is addicted to crossovers, and it's incurable.

Pink italics are lyrics like before. The song used is Don't You Dare(Make Me Fall In Love With You) by Kaden MacKay.

Anyways, tw: Self Depreciation, blood and injury mentions, lots of angst, character a not noticing and acknowledging the signs that character b genuinely likes them. And possible grammar errors because grammar was never my strong suit.

Divider by @/cafekitsune

Pro.ship and com.ship and what not, do not interact. Respect my boundaries.

Don't you dare make me fall in love with you

Kore knew better. Or she should know better. He's an NSR artist for crying out loud - she's just an assistant.

Her job is to work on security drones and new tech with her father. His job is to sing and dance and make people swoon. He was literally programmed for it, after all. Maybe that's what this was - he was being kind due to his programming. These gestures of kindness are nothing but actions from his "perfect boyfriend" programming. Nothing more, nothing less.

Don't you dare enchant me with those eyes

Yet here she was, still enchanted by those eyes. Those damn glowing green android eyes. Curse Neon J for making them so expressive. She had to give him credit, though. They almost gave her a sense that there was genuine care and curiosity in his eyes. But that could just be her mind tricking her. She shouldn't be getting close anyway.

If I fell through your skies,

There's no way you would catch me

She stopped in her tracks when a hand gently pulled her back, eyes glancing back over her shoulder in time to make eye contact with bright glowing green ones framed by green curls. Shit was all she thought, as he carefully reached for a box she was carrying, a warm smile on his face. "Here, let me help. You looked like you were about to fall." His robotic voice still made her heart soar - she hated it. Kore didn't respond. She kept a straight face and nodded before continuing on, maybe even speeding up a little. She wanted to avoid small talk as much as possible.

There's a tear in my heart,

But your patch wouldn't match me.

She wished he didn't fret over her like this. She wasn't fragile. Yes he was an android and she was...human. Yeah, human. Another reason why they couldn't be together. They're too different. It could lead to issues in the future. Besides there are better humans he could fall for. Ones that weren't as short as her, not as scarred and battered as her. Physically and mentally. Eloni deserves better than her after all.

Being near you still adds to the size of my sighs,

Kore didn't get why he insisted on being near her when they visited. The other 1010 units would stick near by but not as close him. For the fifth time that day she let out a heavy sigh as she moved her line of sight back to the circuit board before her. She couldn't focus with him being so close to her. It made her mind wander to what ifs and maybes- things that wouldn't be possible. Not with him anyways. Not him with her to be exact.

There's still seismic events at hellos and goodbyes,

She hated how her heart ached seeing him have to leave. She hated how her mind tricked her into thinking he genuinely looked disappointed that he was leaving her behind. It wasn't real. It couldn't have been real and she needed to get it through her mind that it wasn't real. They wouldn't match anyways.

She especially hated how her heart leapt when he entered the room. The way it raced when he gave her that damn smile and waved at her like he was genuinely excited to see her. He was just being nice- it's all his programming she reasoned. It's not real.

And I still need reminders of why it's unwise

To stare

Kore cursed to herself when she realized she was staring at him. She only caught herself cause they made eye contact and he immediately smiled and winked at her. She had to pull herself together- this wasn't professional of her. She had to remind herself that it wasn't wise to be falling for him. To not fall for his damn programming. Not read into it. He was just being nice. She needed to pull it together.

So don't you dare

         ⋅⋆∘✯∘⋆⋅

Don't you dare make me fall in love with you

Don't you dare do something so cliché

"Oh stay still." She froze as he reached up to her face, heart racing as he gently pushed back some of her hair out of her face, fingers barely grazing her skin as he pulled away, a warm smile on his face. "There we go, wouldn't want that to get in the way as you work." He teased lightly, her chest growing warm from the action.

How long had these feelings been chewing away at her? They definitely got worse over time. She hated how it got harder to fight off. When he would make silly faces across the room to try and make her smile. She hated when it actually worked. And she hated how it made her heart race when he gave her that smile every time they saw each other. She hated how he genuinely brought a smile to her face and made her laugh. She hated how it made her fall for him more. It wasn't fair.

Just get out of my daydreams,

You're an unwelcome guest

Kore jolted with a start as she realized she was spacing out again. Her thoughts had turned into daydreams of what ifs again. Another dangerous habit she's developed ever since these feelings showed up. She couldn't let them distract her this much. It was bad for her work. Gold eyes glanced down to her sketchbook in front of her, widening at the sight of a small faint beginnings of a sketch of Eloni on the corner of her work. She muttered a curse under her breath as she quickly erased it. Her cheeks warm as she got rid of the evidence of her feelings.

And stop making me miss you

'Cause you leaving's for the best

She hated how she missed him. How she longed for him to walk through the door during those long weeks. How she wished he was there to make silly faces, and send absurd memes and videos to her during meetings, anything to make her break into silent giggles or snickers. She hated how her heart ached for him during these periods of time. It lead to more distractions. Distractions lead to more errors and more errors lead to more work.

'Cause I just couldn't stand having you as my crutch

The idea of blaming him for her errors felt unfair. But the emotions he was putting her through made it feel like it was justified. But Kore kept fighting it. She kept fighting the feelings. She should know better. She knows better. She'd hold him back. He didn't deserve to be held back.

You're a simmering stovetop, I was tempted to touch

But god, did she hate how she felt how relaxed she felt when he showed up the next day. She wouldn't admit how her heart almost leaped out of her chest when he sat next to her during the meeting. She wouldn't admit how she struggled to pay attention to Tatiana, Neon J, and Tony talking over the next upgrades and blueprints. She would definitely refuse to admit how her heart stuttered for a second when she felt his hand brush against hers under the table. How she fought back the blush the grew on her face when she saw his smile grow in the corner of her eye. How part of her wanted to reach for his hand, and just hold it, but then it came rushing back. She shouldn't. She couldn't. It wasn't real. It's the programming, Kore, she reminded herself. She would never admit how her chest ached when she pulled her hand away, and how she swore she saw his smile falter when she pulled away. It was more than likely a trick of the light. Why would he be disappointed about it? It's not like he actually really cared about her. It's more than likely a game to him anyway.

If you ever return, it'll burn me too much

To bear

Another distraction was another mistake - she hissed when she pulled her hand back, tools going scattering to the table as she stood up abruptly. Her hand stung from the hot metal. Even if it was touching her for a second, it burned. As she quickly made her way to a sink in the warehouse, it reminded her of why it wouldn't work between them. She was too accident prone, more these days now that he occupied her thoughts. It would be disastrous for him to be with someone who got injured as much as her. No one would want to be stuck with someone like her. She ignored how her chest and eyes burned at the thought as she ran her hand under cold water. It was a fact, after all. And you can't argue with facts.

So don't you dare

      ⋅⋆∘✯∘⋆⋅

And I know it's all so shallow, but a shallow cut still stings

Watching 1010 performances and interviews made her chest hurt. Alot. It was selfish of her to feel a type of jealousy when others held his attention. She knew it was selfish of her because he didn't return the feelings. She knew this by now. He just wanted to be friends. And she had been a shallow, selfish person for falling for him and that programming of his that made him this nice. For reading into it too much. She hated it, but it stung her heart so much. And she hated how it stung.

And before my heart becomes Amelia's heir, I need to clip its wings

"Fuck fuck fuck.."She cursed to herself as she stared at the page,  filled with sketches of him. This was getting out of hand. She couldn't be in love with him, she shouldn't be in love with him. He didn't even feel the same way towards her.  She swallowed her heart for once and ripped the page out of the sketchbook. She ignored how her heart started to ache as she crumpled the page and tossed it out. She ignored the tears that filled up her eyes as she slammed the sketchbook shut and stormed out of the warehouse. She ignored the ache all the way back home. She ignored it as long as she could. She had to after all.

So don't you dare keep mocking me with those

Thousand little things that I adore

Eloni made it hard to ignore these feelings every time he and his brothers visited. He'd always try to stick by her side when he wasn't rough housing with his brother or talking to the other NSR artists or B2J. He'd be sitting nearby as she sat on the ground, elbow deep in a bouncer drone, immediately handing her a tool she was reaching for when she didn't ask for it. Always helping without prompting. He kept talking to her about his day or about something that reminded him of her or showing her memes and videos that he thought would make her laugh. And it always brought a smile to her face no matter how much she tried to fight it. He made it difficult when he always helped her up from the ground when she didn't need it. Everything he did....she adored it. And she hated it. It made it harder to distance herself from him. From her feelings for him.

Let me ignore you, don't let me care

She tried to ignore him. Tried to distance herself as much as possible. She ignored how it it hurt her. How it made her feel awful doing this to him. But she had to stop this somehow. It was a difficult task but she had to if she wanted to spare him from her one sided attraction. She was almost successful for the day. Until the turrent drone they were testing started to malfunction. Mostly everyone got out of the way in time- except for him. She knew he could be easily repaired but she couldn't stand by and watch.

She acted before she could think. She didn't even realize she shouted his name as she tackled him out of the way. It only sunk in what she had done when she opened her eyes too look down at him, almost in the same position they were in when they first met. This time was different. She was the one above him this time, bright green eyes staring up at her in shock. Her heart stopped for a second when she saw a red droplet fall on his face, but then she remembered. Androids don't bleed. But she does.

The adrenaline started to fade, the stinging in the back of her neck came rushing in, the feeling of warm blood dripping down her neck registered not too long after. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she stared down at him with a straight face, ignoring how her body shook as she started to push herself backwards to sit on her legs, hand reaching to cover the shallow cut on the back of her neck, fingers brushing past what was left of her hair to try to stop the bleeding.

"Guess we're even now." She stated, ignoring the pain in her neck as the blood seeped through her fingers down her back, and how the ache in her chest came back. How guilt consumed her, dread of what would come next slowly creeping in.

    ⋅⋆∘✯∘⋆⋅

And don't you dare leave me still in love with you

It had been a week or so since the incident. Her neck had healed a few days after it had happened, but Tony insisted she rest longer. It was probably him worrying over her as her father, but more than likely, it was to keep the others from worrying and wondering about such a fast recovery. She was grateful for the time away, though. Yet it was also hell. The aching feeling came back when she realized she missed him. Kore tried to distract herself from how much she missed him as much as possible. It worked until he started texting her. Then it got harder. He'd check up on her, send her updates on what his brothers and his day were like, and wish her a speedy recovery. It warmed her heart yet made the ache so much worse. She hated it. She hated how she was still in love with him.

Nothing's fair when love is war

She responded to the texts at first, but it made her hurt more. So she gradually started to keep quiet. It made her feel guilty. It made her feel sick. Not as sick as the thoughts of how this was more than likely him being kind out of pity. It must have been. Or this was some sort of sick game. Some bet he lost or something. It didn't feel fair though.

And I just can't endure any more of the fight

It felt like a losing battle the longer she went on. The aching pain in her chest wouldn't leave, the doubt that he ever cared dug it's claws deep in her and refused to let go.They both made it hard to sleep. Hard to focus on anything. Made it easier for her to space out and think of those damn what ifs. They got cruel over time, reminding her of how they were never meant to be, should never be and could never be. She was exhausted from it all.

When the casualties rise with my heart rate each night

Then the gift came in. It made her heart sink and race all at once. Especially when Tony confirmed it was from Eloni. Part of her didn't want to open it. The other part was consumed with curiosity and was touched by this. Yet she was hesitant to open it as it sat on her bedroom desk. Her heart felt like it would burst out of her chest as she carefully opened it. Gently removing the soft grey and green tissue paper, her eyes widened at the sight of a plush bunny. It looked familiar to her. Then she remembered. Eloni was with her when she was looking at the listing for it. They talked about it for a while - she never got it in the end. Kore claimed it probably wasn't a good idea anyway, so why give into another childish desire.

Her eyes began to water, she acted quick and blinked them away as she gingerly took the plush out of the box, as if it would fall apart if she wasn't careful, like it was an illusion somehow. It was bigger than she thought, much softer too. Her fingers ran over the grey fur, gliding over the transition to pink fur on the left side of its face. She let out a sigh as she moved to sit on her bed, thoughts of doubt starting to speedily sneak up on her again. They sunk in faster than she expected, tears filling her vision as her mind raced with the thoughts and shame for even believing something like this would mean anything more.

Though I know I'm to blame for the glances I'd steal,

For the time I kept spending pretending it's real

She knew it was her fault as the tears streamed down her face, dripping down her chin. Her grip on the plush tightened as she brought it closer to her chest, body shaking as she let out a strangled sob. This was all her fault, for believing any of her hopes of being with him could be real. That there was a chance that he truly loved her the same way she loved him. The "perfect boyfriend" programming he had did its job- it made her fall for him no matter how hard she tried to convince herself she wasn't in love. She had fallen for an fantasy and now she was paying for it.

And now that it's ending, I still have more feelings to spare

The sobs slowly started to become to much for her, she fell backwards onto her bed, hold on the bunny plush still tight as she laid there staring at the ceiling with blurry vision. Kore mentally cursed at herself for falling for him, wishing she only saw him as a friend like he saw her. She wished it didn't hurt as much as it did. That her heart didn't ache so much over him. And she dreaded how the ache would haunt her when she goes back to work, and would double every time she saw him. She wished it had been easier to ignore him, to just not care. Maybe then her heart wouldn't be broken if she had just kept her walls up.

The wishing turned into hoping as she hoped she would be able to keep this under wraps. She didn't want to ruin what they had. Even if part of her was tempted to ruin it, just for a chance to admit how she truly feels about him. She didn't want to risk it. It wouldn't be fair. But it already wasn't fair, he had made her fall for him inadvertently just by being kind to her. It was too late now.It wasn't fair for him. It wasn't fair for either of them.

But don't you dare

How dare he, no- how dare she fall for him like this. How dare she fall for someone as perfect as him when she knew the risks.

Don't you dare

[cogbreath]

what's happening with thyrell? (forgive me if i have the url slightly wrong)

so im sure you've heard abt ppl discussing abt if aaron bushnell was trans or not, which in itself isnt inherently bad, but there was some ppl starting to take this as far as claiming that the real reason he self-immolated was related to the VA not wanting to cover bottom surgery anymore for transgender ppl under their care. tyler among many MANY others have taken issue with that specific thing because even if the intent isn't meant to be wrong, its still distracting away from the main and stated reason he did that. His intent was gaza. No matter what his identity was, he was specifically doing this over and in relation to gaza, these were his stated motivations. many white queers r stating so much passion and concern with bushnell than they are about the many many queer gazans that deserve eyes on them. This is what tyler's point was and the points of the rest of us as well. Here's the thing. People are saying that tyler is responsible for harassing these ppl and causing the op of that post to deactivate, when at NO point did he ever on his blog send anyone after anyone, he legit cropped all screenshots of ppls urls irt it. All it was, was a critique of the racist implications with the lack of focus on gaza that bushnell was ASKING for. thyrell started saying bogus shit blaming tyler in particular for all this. when ppl started to point out how the claims weren't even accurate to what tyler was actually doing, thyrell responded by saying anyone who believes in the point tyler was making should be "taken out back and shot". I shouldn't have to explain why the escalation of those kinds of violent statements when you're in a disagreement with ppl who are brown & black is far far from appropriate.

Addiitionally, he's allowing his followers to claim any of us who try to discuss this off anon to be fakes or trolls or claim we are making up the racism. when theres a known history on this site of black ppl getting our personhood erased under the pretense we are political trolls trhying to sew division or something.

[anxiouslyfred]

Sanders Sides wasn't intended to have a plot

I haven't seen the hounding (just the post saying we shouldn't be doing it and I agree with that), but I don't understand why anyone should be pushing for it, when the asides, the things Thomas is putting out now feel more like, well, his.

I remember seeing the plot growing, with names being introduced and then learning that happened when Thomas had more people working with him on the series and that was great. It was fun and interesting and made sense for a person to go through this development. For Thomas the character to have these discussions and this growth

And then the plot spiralled. Thomas the character stopped feeling like a character and started feeling like a framing device that wasn't working

I've seen a few blogs that still post at least occasional sanders sides things but have stopped keeping up with the episodes since Janus's name was revealed and I can't argue with that, because Thomas stopped being the main character of a series about his growth and development.

Sanders Sides as a series wasn't intended to have a plot. It was intended to introduce us to Thomas and when he carried on using the characters a few times, it was meant to help him talk about and come up with normal issues a lot of us will face in some form

Now we've had a wedding vs life changing audition scenario created for character Thomas to go through and people wonder why the series stalled out?

The sides can have their own narrative arcs, and they can be well done

But they can't be linear, and they can't be the focus when they are just literary devices to show Character Thomas's growth and understanding of himself changing over time.

While I would love the series to come back, I don't actually want a return to the plot lines there were. Thomas made up with Lee and Mary Lee (I think I remembered those names right), he possibly got a boyfriend or had a few dates with a cute guy he met at the mall, tried doing things to sort out his home and got a few cuddly toys,

I wonder what situations he's going to need the sides help addressing next

Cause shouldn't character Thomas be the main character we think of rather than the 6 literary devices he uses to reason through his issues?

[mdhwrites]

Have you ever talked about king? Like how the story gave him this big twist that he was a titan all this time. It was smth that I didn't know how to handle nor how to feel about it, I was like ok so he's a god, hmm... tragic?

Do you think they did it to solve the issue with the titan blood for the portal? If we forget that the collector exists (I wish) than that'd be all the purpose. Guess the whole younger sibling thing wasn't enough, everyone needs a tragic story in this show to be important? Poor gus never stood a chance. But then again, Boscha didn't either somehow.

I actually haven't talked much about King! And I'm going to ask that someone put in an ask about Titan's Blood because this blog got very long without touching on it and there's a LOT to talk about with Titan's Blood.

But to talk about King, I actually have to split his character in half between who he was in S1 and S2 because he's effectively a different character post Echoes of the Past and that's… Not a negative thing. King actually goes through a revelation in that episode that shifts his personal identity and how he sees the world enough that a change in character is actually warranted here. He's also young enough to be incredibly malleable as a person. It's not a bad way to do such a big revelation of this sort.

And that's about as positive as I'm going to get on this blog because King is a one note character and changing that note doesn't make him deeper. It just means he's not as stale.

Now I will admit that I am kind of biased here because I just was DONE with King by the end of S1. He has like two jokes to him, both centered around mocking the fact that he thinks himself a powerful tyrant (either him yelling about being powerful or people treating him like a child/pet while mocking him) and that's really it besides his focused episodes. At least, that's overwhelmingly how it felt to me and it got… Very boring.

And in S1, the times they try to go against this don't help? They're all theoretically meant to focus around his desire for power and attention and either how to do it right or that he shouldn't do it but he doesn't ever change after them. Instead, his two focused episodes both follow a formula of "Fuck over Luz, decide he feels bad about, admit his fault, and resolution." Which is fine but Small Problems is considered on of the worst episodes of the series for a reason because King in it, the one where he's actually more sympathetic, is actually so small and indecisive it feels out of character. The other one, Sense and Insensitivity, is better but you never see any real growth from it and it will eventually conflict with him having stage fright since he literally only realizes what he did to Luz was wrong because he's about to get killed because of it.

It's another moment where TOH's morality writing is… questionable. Much like Hunter's turn to good, King in Sense and Insensitivity needs an actual threat and punishment, beyond his friend being hurt and sad, to actually give a fuck. And that's not great.

What's worse is that Eda is mostly absent from being a part of King's character. Which… A different blog can talk about how weak the found family elements are, in part because there's no love between these characters minus very specific moments that come kind of too late. And, you know, S1 Eda just straight up is out of character with King for… The entirety of it? Period?

Which makes me assume King wasn't meant to be the Titan's son. To have the backstory that he did. That I don't know how much of a plan there was for King period. Remember when Eda threatened that he'd need to pay rent? When he was a infant that she decided on a whim to adopt and feed into his fantasies, despite S1 Eda being all about "Fantasies are dumb, you have to face reality kid," to Luz.

But King is ostensibly a main character and you can't keep making the same jokes forever so they figured SOMETHING out. This is where we get S2 King who has the uphill battle of never having felt like a main character, never felt important, felt mostly like comic relief… And now he's not funny.

He gets jokes of course but he's now all daddy issues. His one note is now wanting to know about his past. That's not unreasonable for him to desire but he stops even showing up for the most part because of it. You don't get nearly as many random gags with him so he starts just kind of fading away in the show for the cast that the writers very clearly care about more.

Even worse is that now they have a plotline with him are also still doing very little with him. He doesn't get a dedicated episode after Echoes of the Past, S2 Ep 3, until Edge of the World (which I usually call Titan Hunters) which is S2 EPISODE SEVENTEEN. Yes, he shows up between those two points but what does he actually do?

In Knock Knock Knockin', he's the comic relief episode as we're supposed to just laugh at his misery and failures until "Here's a power up kid." Which is actually what that episode ends up amounting to in the greater series for Eda too. Except Eda gets angst before getting a way to participate in fights. Eclipse Lake, he's just a joke too. These aren't about expanding his character but just that he's around so you have to acknowledge him at least.

And Eda's Requiem is great on Eda's side but they straight up admit that they used King legally changing his name… Just to fuck with Eda and allow more Eda angst. For a cheap twist and an emotional moment that should actually mean something for both parties, but they only allow to be truly something for Eda.

And for as much as I got so, SOOOOO very tired of the same jokes from King… I mean, at least they could sometimes make me laugh. S2 King was meant to be taken seriously but they do so little with it that it doesn't end up feeling true nor is interesting and so… Why should an audience care?

It's a general risk honestly with an ensemble cast. You have so many moving parts that you can just let one rot on the vine while dealing with other members of the ensemble. It's why TOH's glut of characters is such a detriment to it. Let alone, a character the writers didn't just not care about but had no idea what actually to do with.

Because then we do get almost four episodes in a row (skipping Labyrinth Runners) where King is the main character… And he's just lore acting the right way to get to the place he needs to. I'm not going to say everything done here is that bad. None of it worked for me but objectively, Edge of the World is at least a fine episode and the tropes they use with King in it function with his age.

What happens AFTER Edge of the World DOESN'T. Because with "O' Titan, Where Art Though", you have King's transformation into the wisest character in the show. Bare minimum, the wisest 8 year old I've ever seen. Any trace of his petulance, of his age, of his personal desires are erased to just be… A generically good person. But with a 30 in Wisdom for his character sheet versus most people's 15.

This culminates in one of the dumbest climaxes to a character arc where King, the eight year old child, is willing to bleed himself for the Collector with no hesitation. None. You need my help to get out? I'm not even going to ask how or ask if there's a way where I don't have to get hurt which would be reasonable for literally anyone to ask. No. He just knows that people can use his blood for things and so that's what he offers. And that… That is a level of maturity that I don't think King ever earned.

To make that moment, that sort of sacrifice, feel earned from where he began as a character, S2 would have had to treat him as a main character. Instead, he's still comic relief until the LORE of the world and the plans the author has force him to grow up out of nowhere and remember that he was one of the first four characters we were properly introduced to.

There's also stuff to be said about him breaking the "No Chosen One" rule by having somehow only been born literal thousands of years after it was possible for him to be laid, at least by the implications of the show, and his role as the 'Last Titan' but… I want to make something clear in ending this.

Lore does not make me care about a character. They could be claimed as the most important person in a plot, to have had ramifications throughout all of it and I don't give a fuck. If they're bland, if they're boring, if they are obviously more of a tool for the writer they don't care about than an actual character, no amount of back fill or worldly importance will change my mind on that.

I focus as much on the actions the characters make because actions speak louder than words. Because what a character does matters more than any amount of exposition. Matters more than their powers. When a character is great, the exposition, powers and words reinforce the character in some way.

When a character is bad, they don't match the tone, importance, etc. the show places on them. And well… S1 King was at least better than in S2 because the show understood what he was and never tried to pretend he was anything more if they weren't willing to put in the work for it.

[finalgirlminamurray]

last week i finished reading experimental film by gemma files, which i had heard talked up a lot in horror literature circles and was excited to finally read for myself, hoping it wouldn't end up being overhyped.

as soon as i read the summary for a book that mentions the main character having an autistic kid i have to brace myself for the question of "is this book going to make me feel condescended to or outright dehumanized" and i will say i was not feeling good about this one when i started it. i had to push past the parts talking about How Hard It Is living with this child so i could focus on the good parts because most of the book was pretty good. i wasn't expecting, however, for the main character to recall realizing that she fit all the diagnostic criteria for what they were then calling "asperger's syndrome" but was never diagnosed and her parents didn't believe her son's diagnosis had anything in common with her. i was struck by that because i was suspecting that lois was at least partly based on the author herself - not a direct self-insert but just a character who had a lot in common - and decided to read the book assuming the main character was also autistic.

that did make me view it in a different light than i would have otherwise. i really liked lois as a protagonist; i liked that she was often not written to be "likable" and made decisions that female characters so rarely get to make without being excoriated by audiences (she very much does prioritize her work and her pursuit of the central mystery above her family and i love that sorry. and she does openly admit to herself that she finds herself resenting her own child which made me think about what i really like about the babadook.) i think there was something very interesting there about how autistic people labeled as "high-functioning" will consciously or not look down on those labeled as "low-functioning" - as a kid i was diagnosed with "asperger's" back when that was a thing and i sometimes felt like i had to distinguish myself from the kids in the "special ed" classes; no, it's fine, i'm still normal, i'm not like them. and we do have to reckon with this. almost wish the book leaned into it more but i guess i wouldn't want it spelling too much out for us...right?

i think ultimately i just don't really like it when child characters in fiction aren't really characters so much as plot elements or props in the adult characters' stories. oh the kid is saying he sees things that you can't and he's reciting creepy nursery rhymes he's never heard before? sure. i think it would be really nice to see a book from the perspective of a nonverbal autistic kid - or hell, a nonverbal autistic adult, they exist - actually allowing them to be a full character with interiority and personhood. i don't know if that movie come play is any good. i also think i just wish the majority of autistic representation wasn't still white men and/or children.

this sounds like i didn't like the book but again i mostly did. i think the stuff about the film preservation field is really good, i always love reading something about that kind of niche area where you know the author has spent time in that field and is writing from experience about all the nuances of it, and i'm also fond of stories about people being increasingly drawn into learning more and more about some unsolved historical mystery and it takes a toll on their sanity but they have to keep going to know everything. i think it's also some good folk horror. i think i'd recommend it just with some caveats. as much as it does fall into some cliches of autism representation it's also a novel with an autistic adult woman as the protagonist who actually gets to be a complex character so there's always that - and yes, written by an autistic author.

i checked out gemma files' website after reading this and found this blog post which confirmed what i thought. i know people shouldn't be obligated to disclose all aspects of their identity before writing about characters of marginalized identities but it is nice to find that out you know. she also links to this review from a blog about autism representation in literature which was a good read, seeing another autistic reader's perspective, and another post from her livejournal talking more about her possible diagnosis. i won't directly link that one since it seems more personal but it's there for anyone to see. shoutout to anyone who's been made to doubt themselves because of a narrowly restricted set of criteria that some people think constitutes the only existing autistic traits, i do feel a bit privileged sometimes to have actually gotten diagnosed early in my life because having that sort of negates any questioning you might go through if you're considering whether to call yourself autistic later on.

(like. what do you MEAN autistic people aren't supposed to have an interest in fiction, i've seen a number of posts reminding people on here that special interests that AREN'T fiction-related exist)

also she has a tumblr but hasn't posted in a year. i hope she doesn't find this post hahaha (please don't tag authors in reviews of their work)

[trinskia]

Hello wandering Tumblr user!

My name is Trinskia and welcome to my little world. I'm an artist who specializes in drawing anatomically correct stick figures simply because I have beef with hair. I would also write at random times to cure my boredom.

My main focus is an original work of mine called 'A Place Of No Peace', also known as 'APONP'. I also do fanart/fanfics at random times if the content interests me.

I will draw/write gore, horror or suggestive content from time to time, so please be careful when exploring my blog.

I do not support nor endorse any of the heinous acts I depict the characters doing.

Also a little note: I do not support the LGBTQ community, but I do not support nor endorse the idea of threatening and attacking them. So, if you're a part of the community, I will respect you and your choices as long as you respect my boundaries when it comes to the queer theme.

Art requests: CLOSED

Writing requests: CLOSED

Asks: OPEN

Art requests/commissions:

For now, I do not have any interest in doing commissions, but I do like to do requests.

I would open my requests at random with 5-10 ask limits. You may freely ask me at any time anything about my original content or my headcanons for characters of fandoms I'm in.

If ever you decide to send me an art request, be informed that it'll take a while for me to do it due to certain events in my life, so please be patient.

Now onto the restrictions of your request.

Will do:

-Gore [not too graphic]

-Creepy stuff

-Oc art

-Sketches

[I will accept requests of queer characters, but I will not draw them kissing or flirting as I'm uncomfortable with it, but I will do hand holding/ hugging]

Won't do:

-Underage shipping

-Suggestive stuff [I'm fine with my own art thank you very much]

-Fully rendered artwork [this is a free request, not a paid commission]

-complex requests.

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Writing requests

Yes, I do write and yes, I will write for your OC's or a character of your choice.

You can also add prompts to your request if you like.

Will do:

-OCs (queer characters included.)

-Shipping (if it's one of the fandoms I'm in or if I like said pairing)

- (maybe) Yandere [no graphic details]

Won't do:

-Suggestive

- Child character x older character (unless platonic)

______________________________

Introducing my original content (have yet to attach the links since I'm lazy.)

................

A Place Of No Peace

Our protagonist, known as Grape, explores and survives in an unfortunate reality where things that shouldn't have existed do. He, his brother and his friends fight against hordes upon hordes of grotesque creatures that wish harm upon them.

However, when an entity decided to interfere with Grape's life, Grape found himself descending from the light he protected. He believed he was going to meet a fate worse than death.....or was he?

Characters and Description:

Light characters

Dark characters

................

ASCENSION LABS

[This is a part of APONP, but their story and importance was too precious to simply ignore]

Welcome to ASCENSION LABS!

We are a team of researchers whose goal is to inform the citizens of our world about all the dangers that lurk right outside of their home. There are many files and documents we have composed that will assist you in the understanding of our reality and all the bizzare things existing in here.

Staff

Information documents

The Journal of Hope

................

Mystic Isles [on Hiatus]

A magical place where things of fantasy thrive. You were introduced to the natives of these isles as a new species and was told to explore the vast landscape.

As you continued to explore however, the once happy facade of the place seems to fall apart.

Characters and Description

______________________________

Fandoms I'm in (request purposes):

Animator vs Animation

Animation vs Minecraft

[colleendsxmbryn]

4th and FINAL BLOG

After our lecture series, we dived into preparing for our demo day and pitching! It is an event wherein each section under GEE 16 are going to present their best team to compete for a pitching. The chosen teams are different business proposal that were merged together and their business proposal aims to provide a safe space for people to concentrate, hold a private meeting, and especially to study. There is also a mini cafe, so that the costumers could also have a drink or snacks while staying in Casa Quillo. In terms of studying, Casa Quillo also provides tutor services to the students who are having a hard time studying. So, in short Casa Quillo is like a haven for studying. In order to prepare for the demo day, the whole section worked hand in hand so that Casa Quillo will be a success. Other groups prepared for the promotional video, while the other groups prepared for the pitch deck and other more important things. It was a challenging one, as we we're kinda pressured cause we will be competing with higher years too, and also with other colleges that are focused on business. Still, we did our very best to show good results at the demo day. It was an amazing day, cause we we're given an opportunity to listen to many interesting startups. We were able to valuable experience as we dived into their ideas and ways of presenting their startups. After the pitch, one of the judges gave a comment that needs to be remembered.  He said that as a startup, we should start small, we shouldn't dive into a business that is too demanding. Casa Quillo was a lot, it had a lot of elements like the cafe, study services and also a study area. It was an eyeopener, as a week before our pitch, I learned about MVP, the term "minimum viable product," or "MVP," refers to a product with just enough features to draw early adopters and verify a product concept. Though our startup could draw customers, we confirmed it by validating, it was not an MVP, it was like the final phase of a business. I realized that we could have started small, like we could only focus on the tutoring services first, and if it succeeded, then we could slowly upgrade into a study area, in the end, we didn't make it to top 10. Well, it's fine since it was still a blast. I've learned a few other thing as well. For example, I now know that when creating a pitch deck, we should concentrate more on the main features of the product and save the specifics for later because it is very limited and if you include the specifics, you won't be able to finish your pitching. Additionally, you should make sure that your revenue exceeds both your fixed and variable costssince if you can't turn a profit, your business isn't actually a business.

It’ been a journey and I couldn’t trade my experiences and learnings in GEE 16 all thanks to our instructor, Ms. Shigella Hebra. Starting from the day we were tasked to think of a business proposal that could be the solutions to a problem and that could help secure funding, partnerships, and new clients up until to the final pitching is a very great experience. Throughout the time, where me and my groupmates share unique ideas, skills and talents, validations, having a little problem making our business proposal, and all necessary things we have to do to makes us do well and improve. Also, I’ve learned that business is not easy, there are so many things to consider, and it won’t be that simple and the flow won’t be so smooth. There are no easy success, trials and failures will come but with good planning, and being tenacious, you will be achieving the result even better than what you are expecting. Moreover, in business, we should learn from our failures and mistakes. "Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field." — Denis Waitley

This won’t be the end, but it’s an another start for a new beginning! Until next time!

[seaemberthesecond]

Okay I'm going to try to articulate what made Greywaren fall so flat for me with the disclaimer that a) I'm sure many people, much more articulate than me have already explained this better than I ever could, and b) this is purely my reading of the text.

It - hmm. Ok.

A really long time ago, back before TRK came out, middle school me was trawling through mstief's Tumblr blog looking for Declan crumbs (I'm an OG you could say) and I came across this really interesting thing she said in response to some ask I've since forgotten. It was something about how Declan's function as a character in TRC was that of a stage-hand. Think of the series as a play, and between scenes when the lights go off, furniture gets rearranged and sets get moved and props get added and when the lights come back on the stage is transformed. Declan, she said, was one of the characters doing this furniture rearranging. He's moving things around in the dark, and while it might not be acknowledged in the play itself, the evidence is in front of us.

Declan's interiority is not a subject for TRC and is only hinted at through the acts of furniture-shifting. But how many of us pay attention to that when it's easier to focus on what the characters themselves are saying on-stage?

All this to say, we spend all of TRC believing that Declan is a bad brother and a bad person because Ronan keeps telling us he's a bad person and a bad brother, even though when you look at the material evidence it suggests the exact opposite. (Wanting your brother to not flunk out of school is not actually the crime Ronan makes it out to be) (especially when Declan's s proven right immediately in CDTH lmao)

What I'm trying to get at is this: Readers come into tdt primed to believe things from Ronan's pov, and why shouldn't we? Ronan was one of the main characters we spent four books following and growing an attachment to, while Declan was just the horrible older brother. So when Ronan spent four books saying how his brother was a liar and his dad was great actually, this is the information we go into tdt with, this is what we start out believing. But of course at the same time, lingering in our minds is Declan's disavowal of Niall's merits as a father. And the conflict between these two disparate views of the Lynch family is the central tension of The Dreamer Trilogy. Or at least it's supposed to be. The promised resolution, the reconciliation of these two worldviews and thus of the two brothers is what compels readers to actually pick up the books.

The books are marketed as being about the Lynch brothers. The first line of the series is "This is a story about the Lynch Brothers." What makes The Dreamer Trilogy interesting to readers is that for the first time we get to see Declan and Matthew, we get to see what they're thinking and feeling - about Ronan, about their parents, about the Barns, about everything.

We spend two books seeing the Lynch family through Declan's eyes, we see him grapple with his complicated relationship with his parents and his brothers' and his grief, we see him struggle and snap under the weight placed on him by by his parents' negligence and the immense responsibilities he's shouldering alone. And the implicit understanding here is that we're building towards an understanding between the brothers. For a series that is so powerfully about the joys of being known and the pain of being misunderstood, this is not a misbegotten expectation. Because if one thing is made clear by the first two books of tdt, it's that for all that Declan doesn't understand Ronan, Ronan doesn't understand Declan either.

To end the series on the emotional beat of Declan going 'Actually, my family was great and my childhood was amazing and I just gaslit myself for grief reasons' feels bizarre because we're...right back where we started? We're back to the zero point. Three books and a combined 1200 page count to reach the conclusion that... 'Ronan was right all along, Dad is great, and I'm just a liar, even to myself'??? Is like??? Why even bother writing these books then?? Why even bother reading them, if we're ending right back where we started?

An ending to this trilogy that doesn't have Ronan at least acknowledge that his parents were flawed people, that his childhood was radically different from that of his brother's, and that Declan has only ever been trying his best with his very limited resources feels hollow and lacklustre.

We end the series with Declan coming to terms with Ronan's powers and accepting that he can't keep him locked in a box just to keep him safe and Ronan being no closer to understanding Declan than he has ever been.

Everybody told me. Everybody told me that Greywaren would torpedo everything the last two books built. But like a naive fool, I thought how bad could it be? Welp, I fucked around and found out, I guess.

[detshin]

Hi fellow DC veteran! I normally only lurk on Tumblr and have never posted anything, but, I saw that you kept apologizing about complaining about the latest chapter and where the story is at right now (and has been for many years), and thought I should send this. There is absolutely no need to apologize, as I know so many fans feel EXACTLY the same way, and I actually appreciate you putting that perspective out there among all the chaos. I have also spent my whole life following this story, and it breaks my heart to see where it is at right now, and the complete disregard for our amazing main character. I have been a fan of DC for 23 years now, and Shinichi has always been my favourite character, and always will be. I don't care how many other "cool" characters get added to the series, because he will always be number 1 for me. There is no one else like him <3 I don't care about ANYTHING that has to do with Akai, Amuro or all the other stuff/characters they bring along with them. I didn't mind when Akai was more of an actual side character, but now I can't stand how these characters that mean nothing to me are front and centre. Btw, I love your undying love for Shinichi and ShinRan. Your old posts about them make my day and remind me why I am still here after all these years. I am only here because I love them, and honestly, DON'T THEY DESERVE TO BE HAPPY ALREADY??

So, I was not expecting Kaito Kid to be in chapter 1100 either, though I knew it would be something disappointing. I don't care that Amuro is there and that actually makes things worse for me. Also, and correct me if I'm wrong, I thought after we had the Mystery Train, Gosho said that he wouldn't involve Kid in the main plot anymore. I don't remember where I saw this, it was years ago.

It makes me sad when I go though old chapters and see the difference. I can't even get myself to read one full new chapter now. Anyway, I am so sorry about the long message and not really having a question. I just wanted you to know that it is comforting to still have fans who have been here so long, and feel exactly the same way. I cannot express how much I love your blog and your passion for Shinichi and ShinRan! Thank you for putting your thoughts out there.

Hi there! ✨ First things first, thank you soooo much for the kind message. This was lovely to read and it actually made me feel better lmao

I know that I shouldn't keep apologizing for complaining as you say, but you know... There's always people out there who could read what I say and get mad at me or something because of it, so I like to kind of get it out there that I don't like the fact that I myself am being so negative about this manga that I supposedly love so much.

Because I do! I love this manga, it has brought me so much joy and even if I move on to other things (which I am) I can't help but come back and have it in the back of my mind at all times. And that's what kinda makes it worse for me I guess? That's what makes me even more angry and feel like I need to say something.

I've talked about this with other people too. Like @letitrainasunnyday, who has the patience of basically hearing me complain every time a new file comes out. It makes me feel better that there's other people out there who also feel the same way than I do about the show, and who aren't being charmed by the spin offs and the senseless fanservice and plotless storylines. Don't get me wrong, if you enjoy the content we're getting recently then good for you. Great! But I feel like the ones who have always been here and are used to another type of content, the original type of story... All feel a little weird about it now. I just feel like I only come here to complain because the main characters don't feel like the main characters anymore, because the animation style of the anime is so awkward and weird looking, because the story doesn't progress at all, because they focus on things that I don't care about... It's a lot right?

And so some might say: hey! So why don't you stop watching? Just quit reading the manga!

And my answer is: for the most part I have. Like I have said plenty of times before... I don't remember the last manga file I've read completely. Now I only see what it is about on the spoilers we get and give up because I just- don't want to read. I am only in search for things that I'm interested in (the main plot, the main characters, period). Still, I mostly am just enjoying the fanon content (even if a small amount is of my taste now) and waiting for... Something. I don't know. But the point is that I can't give up the manga completely lmao I have invested too much time of my life to give it up (at least for now, we'll see in the future) and to not see where my favorite characters go from now on and what happens to them. I need to see what's of Shinichi. Of Ran. Everyone, you know?

So am I ever going to read the spin offs? No. Am I ever going to go to the cinema and pay money to watch one of the movies? Absolutely not.

But!

That won't stop me from complaining and memeing about it! I guess it's how I deal with it hahaha Sorry but it is what it is 🤷‍♀️

Anyway I don't even know where I was going with this but thanks a lot for the message again. Keep on supporting our main guy and let's hope for something good and interesting soon, yeah?

[verfound]

What do you think of Adrien redemption fics, and would you ever write one?

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and believe you're not asking this to stir up trouble, but I will admit I am deeply cynical and untrusting and knowing Quick just got this same question on anon has me suspicious. (She also answered it wonderfully, by the way, and I agree with her 100%.)

That being said, I do not like Adrien. I do not like what the show has done with him, he has So Many Red Flags I find lowkey triggering, and while I don't necessarily think that he's beyond redemption I don't see him having the agency for redemption (because of his character and the show's writing/agency in general - what is motivating him to change/grow if he doesn't see a problem with his behavior?), so what's the point? Ultimately, though, I do not like Adrien and therefore don't want to invest the time in writing him.

It has nothing to do with redeeming the character (which isn't my job, the character should speak for itself, Adrien shouldn't need the fanbase to redeem him do you see the problem there) and everything to do with me, personally, and the types of stories I like to tell. I'd rather finish up some of my House Band WIPs than write a fic where Adrien sits through a sexual harassment seminar and learns no means no and that's ok. 🙄 Mellie giving Luka headaches is more fun for me than "redeeming" Adrien.

I'm also a big believer in cultivating your own online experience, so if I don't like something, I'm not going to intentionally seek it out. Life is crazy and distressing enough without intentionally seeking out things that will piss me off. I'm in fandom to have a good time, and in my experience mentioning Adrien (especially when you have admitted to not liking him) is like poking a beehive with a stick (note: I am deathly allergic to bees). I don't follow blogs that stan him and I block his tags. I don't actively seek out Adrien fans to stir up trouble (why do that, what's the point, why). Adrien is rarely if ever a major focus of my fics, and yet attacks from his fans are the main reason I stopped posting on FF.net. I'm not saying all Adrien fans are bad, but the ones that seem to be the most vocal are also the most...aggressive, we'll say. Mean. And I have better things to do than pander to strangers on the internet who never learned basic fandom etiquette, you know?

Anyway. Sorry. 😂

TL;DR: Adrien's not my cup of tea, so no.