#and now she’s my absolute fave non-Link character
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heros-shade-fanclub · 10 months ago
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Going back in time to fistfight my 13 year old self who didn’t like Midna
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teememdee · 25 days ago
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15, 24, 33! if someone has already asked you one of these questions, jump to the next number on the list! <3
Hello sorry this took me a while to get to!!! Thank you for your ask and in my usual fashion I’ve answered with way more details than necessary.
(link to ask game!!)
15- What's your favourite League-related fanfiction? If you can't pick, feel free to answer with multiple!
Hmm tough esp as these days I really just re-read my own works or pure smut But I’m gonna go for fine & scandalous by robiland. This is THE Akalynn dynamic to me, the reason I’ve never written an Akalynn focused fic is because this gave me everything I wanted. As always I can never just give one answer I also have to give a shoutout to Keep the Leash Loose by UmbreonGurl that made me fall in love with Kahri as a ship and dynamic… 4 whole years ago. And I’m still here lol
24- What character has the most fitting voice/voice delivery for their character? Alternatively, for non-speaking characters, best sound design?
Evelynn absolutely. Mara Junot is such a fantastic voice actor, and she nails Eve’s character perfectly, the seductive and teasing tone is just spot on. I love her performance as Jenda’kaya in the Ruination audiobook as well. She’s fantastic.
I also really like Thresh’s voice and performance, Mark Oliver is fantastic and it’s funny he’s also the VA for Garmadon from Ninjago, which I was a massive fan of as a kid.
I really should have an answer on the sound design question as that’s literally the career I’m pursuing, but I don’t know off the top of my head. The speaking monstrous characters like Fiddlesticks and Naafiri sound great, and I think I’ve listened to Vel’Koz’s noises before but I don’t remember.
33- Any song(s) you associate with a particular character?
Oh I have whole playlists.
Jinx’s playlist is all pop punk / alternative, my fave song off of it is probably “weapon” by Against the Current. “I swear I didn’t mean to be a let-down” fits her too well.
For (K/DA) Kahri, the song that always makes me think of them if it comes up on shuffle is “Love Bites” by Wolftyla. The rest on the playlist fit them, but this one is literally sung by Kai’Sa, I think Ahri bites, and in my headcanon world they keep their relationship a secret from the public for a few years. It’s such a fun song. Only line that doesn’t fit is “it ain’t love but this is close enough” because it IS love for them but I can overlook that.
For Star Guardian Kahri, my playlist is half early 2010s pop edm with star/space related lyrics and half actually based on my fanfiction. The song that fits both these categories the most is “Stay the Night” by Zedd and Hayley Williams. What a banger, they don’t make songs like that anymore
For (K/DA) Akalynn… sorry for being a swiftie with that playlist lol. However the song that I associate with them the most is “honey” by Halsey. “she’s mean and she’s mine” like that’s THEM. I made a whole annotated lyrics thing making them fit. I’m so serious about this
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And then for Kassadin / Kassfam. I’ll admit a lot of this playlist is just vibes. “FIND YOUR WAY BACK” by Beyoncé and “Never Get Used To” by Seinabo Sey I took off someone else’s Kai’Sa playlist, but the rest are my own original picks. I know “Red Like Roses pt.II” is a RWBY song but it’s about them to me now. Kai’Sa gets first verse, Kassadin second. And I know what you’re thinking. Why is “All is Found” from Frozen 2 on here? And my answer is that I have my headcanons about Kai’Sa’s mother singing to her, and a “river full of memory” makes me think of the Void. It works, trust me.
Thank you so much for your ask!!
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dayseternal-blog · 2 years ago
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saw that you saw Hamilton for the first time and couldn't help but wonder what your favorite song/s were? or maybe some songs that you would like to learn all the lyrics to?
:DDDD They toured here, and I got to see them live last, last Friday!! It was wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Of course all the songs are great. Right now (subject to daily changes), my faves in order, and I'll link to yt in case you want to listen, too, right now haha:
"Dear Theodosia" - The way they are singing to their babies!!! AHHHHHHHHH. I could die. It's SO soft. and SO heartwarming. omg. I just. love love love this. the line: "You will come of age with our young nation." and "If we lay a strong enough foundation, we'll pass it on to you. We'll give the world to you, and you'll blow us all away." Seriously, is there anything more important than this 😭😭 And finding out that the original actor for Aaron Burr was praying for his yet unborn daughter when it wasn't his part to sing, and that by the end of the run, he had prayed around 500 times for her ugh 💓
"The Story of Tonight (Reprise)" - idk, no real explanation, it's just a funny, touching song. The line: "Raise a glass to freedom, something you will never see again." and John Lauren's "What are you trying to hide, Burr?" is so funny. Also, Alexander Hamilton's "Oh, shit" when he finds out that Aaron Burr is having an affair with a married woman. Just a feel-good song. Out of context, I now see that those lines don't sound funny or feel good.
"Guns and Ships" - My favorite character is the Marquis de Lafayette. I was so enthralled by the actor's charisma, I read the entire Wikipedia article on Lafayette and have been info-dumping this guy's whole life story on anyone who is a captive audience for me. Which has happened 4 times already. Did you know he was only 18-19 years old when he snuck away to America against King Louis XVI's orders because he was so sympathetic to the American cause and hungry for war glory? Did you know he was a war hero by the time he was 24? Did you know this? And Hamilton was like about the same age as him. Also did you know Lafayette picked up English fluently within a year of his travel to America? Shall I keep going? I can tell you more!
"It's Quiet Uptown" - This song gives me really emotions, I cry.
"Satisfied" - "From your sister who's always by your side." Anyone else has a loving eldest sister who's the wittiest, funniest, smartest, most charismatic in the family? 🙋🏻‍♀️ Honestly, Angelica Schuyler does NO wrong, and I am convinced based on the info in this musical that she did nothing wrong her entire life haha. Facts. Did you know she and her husband organized to help Lafayette escape from Austrian prison? (Which succeeded, except Lafayette got lost and recaptured).
"Helpless" - This song was my top fave after watching the musical. The actress sings so well. I love how absolutely gone she is in love with him, and that's basically how I aspire to write my NaruHina fics haha. This line: "I'm trying not to cry cuz there's nothing that your mind can't do." Just, the absolute faith she has in him!!! The admiration she has for his intelligence and the belief she has in his worth and capability!!! I love it.
"A Winter's Ball" - This song is very short. It also does the best job at showing that these guys were like. 19-20 years old. College age bros forreal.
"What'd I Miss" - Undeniably Thomas Jefferson has the most charisma of any character in the musical. I love the jazziness of this song, too.
"Non-Stop" - whoever said that this song is the entire musical crammed in 6 minutes is so right.
"Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story" - Since this idea is basically the theme/lesson of the musical, it left an impact on me at the live show. Also, yeah, I'm a sucker for recording generational history and making sure that the sacrifices of the past aren't forgotten.
"Cabinet Battle #1" - This rap song convinces me I would've learned better in AP Gov if this musical had been around 13 years ago.
"The Election of 1800" - Hamilton's drag of Aaron Burr is such a burn. Ouch.
"Cabinet Battle #2" - These lines: "We signed a treaty with a king whose head is now in a basket. Would you like to take it out and ask it? 'Should we honor our treaty, King Louis’ head?' 'Uh… do whatever you want, I’m super dead.'" lol, point made.
Oops, I spent like over an hour writing this post and listening to the songs. Please anon, come back and tell me your favorite songs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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justablah56 · 1 year ago
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I HAVE BEEN SUMMONED!!!!!!
life happened and i quit my job and almost lost my car so i took a break from online activities bUT I’M BACK BABY
also thinking of remaking my entire tumblr blog and system so. possibly coming off anon soon if i work up the nerve. big changes to come
anyways. the real reason we are all here. gothweebcleats.
i started season 2 again recently bc i got my partner into it (!!!!! its fave is taylor :3) and we got to the beginning of the fbi arc
beth rolling a natty 1 on the roll to have scary hold on to link is so </////////////3 even tho it gave us great great swiftli content
recently i have been thinking abt car rides and like. obviously taylor’s the first to get a car (rich mom life) but i think scary is the first to be seriously Attached to her car. it’s a home away from home yk? when she’s upset she can go to her car and either let it out or see her friends and i think that is so unbelievably important for a teenage girl. also just first space that is Her’s fully and truly (hc that she bought it herself) and she can decorate it however she wants. she keeps markers in the glove compartment so people can doodle on her ceiling and she lets taylor put his anime girl stickers on the dashboard and there’s a dent in the side of the rear passenger door from a rouge soccer ball and a little teen high bumper sticker next to a joker bumper sticker DO U SEE MY VISION. (she is just like me fr.)
linc never gets their license imo (passenger princess 4ever) and normal does not get a car until he Absolutely Has To (he’s like 32. darryl wilson energy)
back to taylor. taylor got his car detailed so it has anime girls on the sides and back. this is a non-negotiable headcanon. BUT outside of that i think his car is super clean and fairly organized, a couple stray monster cans maybe but he cleans his car on the weekends. can and will yell at people for putting their feet on the dash. always has a full tank and complete first aid kid kinda guy. i love him your honor
no one knows if hermie has a car. they kinda just appear
okay ta-ta for now see u later <3 peace and love
GOTHWEEBCLEATS ANON YOU ARE BACK !!! YIPPEE !!!!!!! actively celebrating your return I am so happy !! welcome back !!!!
anyways , hngnngng scary being attached to her car 🥺🥺 ough so important to me !! it's a space that is fully and 100% hers !!!! sobs !!!!! AND ALL THE LITTLE PERMANENT PARTS OF HER FRIENDS INCLUDED ON IT IS SO IMPORTANT EXPLODES EXPLODES EXPLODES it's her space to decorate how she wants and she wants to decorate it with the people she loves !!!!!!! literally everything to me !!!!!!!!!!!!
and ough yeah <3333 passenger princess Lincoln <33333 beloved <333333 so real and true <3 and normal <333 they are both just like me fr <3 scary is driving everyone everywhere <333333 and everything about Taylor's car is so !! him having the most absurd and extra car imaginable and then you go in and it is So Clean and he Will yell at you if you put your feet on the dash <3 beloved <3 and hermie sbdnwkkdksd that's so in character for them i love that
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fragileswift1313 · 1 year ago
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Fortnite characters!
Kia ora, folks.
I posted a note on Substack the other day and I have no idea if anyone saw it because I don’t understand how Substack notes work. So I thought I better reiterate what I said in my note here in case you all (maybe? probably?) didn’t see it. As is often the case, I have had some mental health stuff going on this week, and it has kind of prevented me from finishing my thoughts on The Marvellout Mrs Maisel final season, and that’s basically all I have that’s close to ready right now, so I thought I would do something a bit different this week that doesn’t take a lot of concentration or other brain energies.
I played a bunch of Fortnite this week and last week, and this Sunday just gone (the day I am writing this), I wrapped up some of the season stuff there so I didn’t miss the couple battle pass things I wanted to get before they’re gone - it ends in a few days, and I’m excited to see that apparently Optimus Prime is coming next season, and whatever else Transformers-y they put in!
With all that in mind, I thought an easy thing I could do this week that some of y’all might be interested in is share some of my favourite characters I have collected over the years playing this game. Sound good? Sounds good. Here we go!
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Spider-Gwen is one of my ultimate favourite characters in the game. Some friends and I played almost every day toward the end of this season to unlock all of the different customisations you could get for her. Admittedly, this version of her is just the standard colours because, even though I unlocked all the fancy holographic ones, I still think this one looks best.
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This li’l guy, who I have decided in my headcanon is non-binary, was a surprise drop during the christmas event last year. I love them and they look very silly doing all the different dances and other emotes you can do in Fortnite.
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Ariana Grande, Aloy and Padmé Amidala are three of my absolute favourites among the ones I had to individually spend money on to acquire. Padmé was available during some special Star Wars content that happened earlier in the season, while Aloy I picked up earlier this year I think. Ariana I fell in love with a couple years or so ago, and even though I really only like a handful of her real-life counterpart’s songs, as soon as I saw her I knew I had to have her - she has a normal mode, but this one is my favourite. Ariana also came with a glider that matches her dress which is also one of the coolest looking gliders in Fortnite, in my opinion.
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And then lastly, we have Lynx. Lynx is a character I picked up in I want to say 2019, when I was having an even rougher time with my mental health than I am now, completely untreated, and playing Fortnite at that time was one of the few things I could do to turn my brain off and just have fun. As such, she’s one of my very top favourites not necessarily aesthetically, I mean she does look great, but she helped me through some stuff and that earns her a place both in my regular rotation, and in my heart.
For more of my faves, check out the Substack version (for free) here!
Apologies again folks for the smaller, image-heavy post! Come hell or high water, I will have that Mrs Maisel post for you next week!! You can count on it. In the mean time, if you haven’t already, and you want to read more stuff written by me, you can check out my Letterboxd. I recently reviewed The Super Mario Bros Movie (2023), Hellraiser (1987), Scream VI (2023), and The Final Destination (2009). And a reminder too, that you can read my first ever short story for FREE on itchio.
Thanks so much for reading everyone, I hope you have a great week, and I’ll talk to you again soon. Ka kite anō au i a koe. 💚
- Rebecca
Links | Twitter | Mastodon | Cohost | Substack | itch.io | Letterboxd | Instagram | Carrd | Email
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nevermindirah · 3 years ago
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Do you have any thoughts on the use of AAVE for Nile (or lack thereof) in TOG fanfiction? I've been reading some Book of Nile fic and some writers seem to write her as a Millennial™ (using words like "fave" and "woke") but never acknowledge her Blackness in her patterns of speech. I know we don't see her use as much AAVE in the films, but I would argue she's in situations where code-switching would be valued (first in a "professional" environment in the army, then around a group of non-Black strangers).
Hi anon! I have many thoughts on this and I'm honored you asked me! But I should start by saying I'm white and any thoughts Black fans and especially Black American fans have on this that they want to share would be beyond lovely. (I'm not gonna tag anybody bc that feels rude but please add onto this post if any of y'all see this and want to!)
The main reason I personally avoid AAVE for Nile in my own fics is because I'm not Black. But Nile-centric fics by Black writers tend to avoid using much of it too, at least from what I've noticed/understood, and my guess is it's largely for the reason you mention, that she's in situations that encourage code-switching.
In movie canon Nile is highly competent at tailoring her language to each situation she finds herself in. This fantastic linguistics analysis meta shows how skillfully Nile chooses her vocabulary and grammar to meet her goals with different conversation partners in different contexts. In comics canon Nile had a bunch of different civilian jobs before joining the Marines, so she would've had experience code-switching in the ways that made sense for all those different contexts as well as the Marines and her family and high school and wherever else she spent her time before we met her. And now she's spending her time with a handful of immortals none of whom are native English speakers and a fellow Black American but one with a Queen's English UK accent whose professional experience is in the CIA where high-status code-switching is often an absolute must for success or even survival.
Fics featuring Nile are charged with extrapolating from that to how it might show up in her use of language that she's coping with a traumatic separation from her family and her career and pretty much everything she's ever known and now she needs to be able to make herself understood to people who seem to care about her and each other but are super duper in crisis, three (soon to be four) of whom predate Modern English entirely and the only one who's anywhere near her contemporary she's not supposed to talk to for a century. All of these people are telling her that pretty much any contact with any mortals poses an existential threat to her and the rest of the group. How the FUCK is she supposed to cope with that, like, generally? And would it be a more effective way for her to cope if she talked to Andy Joe and Nicky using the speech patterns that she used to use with her mom and brother, to at least retain that part of her identity even if it means having to do a lot of explaining, or would it meet her needs better to prioritize Andy Joe and Nicky understanding what she means with her words over using the particular words and grammar forms she used with her family?
I've seen several fics, both Nile-centric / BoN and otherwise, explore this a little bit in how/whether Nile uses Millennial™ speak. It's often a theme in Nile texting Booker despite the exile because of the popular headcanon that he as The Tech Guy is the only other immortal who understands memes. But Nile's much-younger-than-Booker mom probably uses Boomer and/or Gen X memes and Andy has been adapting to new communication styles for forever as evidenced by her canon high level of fluency with standard-American-accented English.
Which brings us back to people avoiding AAVE because they're not Black and they don't want to make mistakes (or they're not Black and they don't want to get yelled at for making mistakes, though I think many people overestimate how much they'll get yelled at while underestimating how much these mistakes can hurt). I can imagine some Black fans hold back from using much AAVE in fic because they don't want to share in-group stuff with white people who are likely to then adopt and ruin it, as white people so often do with Black cultural stuff. Some links about this including a great Khadija Mbowe video. I'm saying this gently, anon, because you might not know: woke, an example you cited as Millennial™ speak, is AAVE, and that's gotten erased by so many white people appropriating it and using it incorrectly online.
And also there's the part where fandom is a hobby and you never know when you're reading a fic that's the very first thing someone's ever written outside of a school assignment. This cultural considerations of language shit takes a level of effort and skill that not everybody puts into every fic, or even could if they wanted to because they haven't had time to build their skills yet. It's definitely easier for non-Black fans to project our millennial feels onto Nile than to do the layers of research and self-reflection it requires to depict what Blackness might mean to Nile, and it's not surprising that often people sharing their hobby creations on the internet have gone the easier route. There's not even necessarily shame in doing what's easier. It's just frustrating and often hurtful when structural white supremacy means that 3-dimensional Black characters are rare in media and thoughtful explorations of them in fandom are seen by the majority of fans as not-easy to make and therefore Nile Freeman, the main character in The Old Guard (2020) dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood, has the least fic and meta and art made about her of our 5 main immortals.
I've been active in different fandoms off and on for twenty years and I barely managed to write 5,000 words about Sam Wilson across multiple different fics in the 7 years since I fell in love with him. There's an alchemy to which characters we connect with, and on top of that which characters we connect with in a way that causes us to create stuff about them. Something about Nile Freeman finally tipped me over the edge from a voracious reader to a voracious writer. It's not for me to judge which characters speak to other individuals to the level of creating content about them, but I do think it's important for us to notice, and then work to fight, the pattern where across this fandom as a whole Nile gets way less content, and way less depth in so much of the content that's in theory about her, than any of these other characters.
Anyway, back to language. My two long fics feature Nile with several Black friends — Copley and OCs and cameos from other media — but all of those characters except Alec Hardison from Leverage aren't American. It's very possible I'm guilty of stereotyping Black British speech patterns in I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore. I watched hours and hours of Black haircare YouTube videos in the research for that fic and I modeled my OCs' speech patterns on what I heard from some of those YouTubers as well as what I've heard people like John Boyega and Idris Elba saying in interviews, but the thing about doing your best is you still might fuck up.
I'm slowly making progress on my WIP where Nile and Sam Wilson are cousins, and what ways of talking with a family member might be authentic for Nile is a major question I need to figure out. For that, I'm largely modeling my writing choices on how I hear my Black friends and colleagues talking to each other. I haven't overheard colleagues talking in an office in a long-ass time, but back when that was a thing, I remember seeing a ton of nuance in the different ways many of my Black colleagues would talk to each other. Different people have different personalities! And backgrounds! And priorities! A few jobs ago my department was about 1/3 Black and we worked closely with Obama administration staff many of whom were Black and there was SO MUCH VARIETY in how Black people talked to each other, about work and workplace-appropriate personal stuff, where I and other white coworkers could hear. There are a few work friends in particular who I have in my head when I'm trying to imagine how Sam and Nile might talk to each other. From the outside looking in, God DAMN is shit complicated, intellectually and interpersonally and spiritually, for Black people who are devoting their professional lives to public service in the United States.
One more aspect of this that I have big thoughts on but I need to take extra care in talking about is the idea of acknowledging Nile's Blackness in her patterns of speech. There's no one right way to be Black, and Nile's a fictional character created by a white dude but there are plenty of real-life Black Americans who don't use much or even any AAVE, for reasons that are complicated because of white supremacy. (Highly highly recommend this video by Shanspeare on the harms of the Oreo stereotype.)
Something that's not the same but has enough similarity that I think it's worth talking about is my personal experience with authenticity and American Jewish speech patterns. My Jewish family members don't talk like they're in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and I've known lots of people who do talk that way (or the millennial version of it), some of whom have questioned my Jewishness because I don't talk that way. That hurts me. Sometimes when another Jew tells me some shit like "I've never heard a Jew say y'all'd've," I can respond with "well now you have asshole, bless your Yankee-ass heart," because the myth of Dixie is a racist lie but I will totally call white Northerners Yankees when they're being shitty to me for being Southern, and this particular Jew fucking revels in using "bless your heart" with maximum polite aggression, especially with said Yankees. But sometimes I don't have it in me to say anything and it just quietly hurts having an important part of me disbelieved by someone who shares that important part of me. The sting isn't quite the same when non-Jews disbelieve or discount my Jewishness, but that hurts too.
Who counts as authentically Jewish is a messy in-group conversation and it doesn't really make sense to explain it all here. Who counts as authentically Jewish is a matter of legal status for immigration, citizenship, and civil rights in Israel, and it's my number 2 reason after horrific treatment of Palestinians that I'm antizionist. But outside that extremely high-stakes legal situation, it can just feel really shitty to not be recognized as One Of Us, especially by your own people.
It can also feel really shitty to be The Only One of Your Kind in a group, even if that group is an immortal chosen family who all loves each other dearly. Sometimes especially in a situation like that where you know those people love you but there are certain things they don't get about you and will never quite be able to. I'm definitely projecting at least a little bit of my "lonely Jew who will be alone again for yet another Jewish holiday" stuff onto Nile when at the end of I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore she's thinking about being the only Black immortal and moving away from the community she'd built with a mostly-Black group of mortals in that fic. Maybe that tracks, or maybe that's fucked up of me.
Basically, this got very long but it's complicated, writing about experiences that aren't your own takes skill which in turn takes time and practice to build, writing about experiences not your own that our society maligns can cause a lot of harm if done badly, it can also cause a lot of harm when a large enough portion of a fandom just decides to nope out of something that's difficult and risky because then there's just not much content about a character who deserves just a shit ton of loving and nuanced content, people are individuals and two people who come from the exact same cultural context might show that influence in all kinds of different ways, identity is complicated, language is complicated, writing is hard, and empathy and humility and doing our best aren't a guarantee of avoiding harm but they do go a long way in helping people create thoughtful content about a character as awesome and powerful and kind and messy and scared and curious and WORTHY as Nile Freeman.
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randomnameless · 3 years ago
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I try not to be that guy who's like "fiction affects reality" "it has a bad influence on people" cause I don't think that's necessarily true. Just because people liked the Joker or the GTA franchise doesn't mean that there's going to be a rise in mass shootings or anything like that. But at the same time, with the rhetoric these Edelstans are throwing, they're making it hard to believe that day by day, isn't it?
Yep!
And then people will tell you playing video games makes children violent, because they can't make a difference between jumping on a mushroom in a fantasy life from jumping on a mushroom in real life.
I think it's just ultimately the nature of Discourse, people don't want to nerd about their VG characters, they try to write serious things about it, link it to serious themes and concepts
(basically me)
And there's nothing wrong with this!
But incorporating real-life smelly arguments to strengthen your fictional essay... especially since, in real life, those arguments are not acceptable ; you're not going to look smarter.
Still, what are we supposed to deduce from someone who honestly believes it's alright to kill every member of a minority who's been framed because my fave is charismatic - in a video game - ?
What are we supposed do take from someone who says it's alright to occupy other sovereign states because they used to be part of a bigger one actually led by a charismatic ruler who wants to go back to their land's glory days - in a video game - ?
Those are red flags, in the video game, where the player is supposed to nope out on this, and question the morality of the character. Like them, hate them, they are still this character, but with opinions.
However, nowadays, you cannot like a character who's not morally "acceptable" because it means you endorse what they say... so the character is perfectly good and alright.
Or should have, remember, early fandom pulled out the Teacher Theory because the alternative (canon) means a character might not be morally "clean".
But now that all of those are debunked, and the character starts to be accepted by fandom at large as a "morally not white" character, some try to use the "they're all war criminals" to diminish the impact, when some go further -
Ironically, the takes from those fans... endorse what the character says or was meant to represent, in a purely non filtered form. Because she said they are "cruel beasts", her word is absolute, so they believe and spread what she said, even when the game explains the contrary.
We're not on the "she's not an imperialist you're just a hater with ovaries" level anymore, we are crossing in the "she is an imperialist? Well those countries never existed to begin with so it's not really imperialism".
We're beyond the "she doesn't want to erase Nabateans, she just wants them gone from the world they can run away" to "maybe their genocide was deserved, because they ruled over humans and this race has always been oppressive and evil".
The first ones realise there are things you cannot justify so try to find roundabout ways to avoid them, maybe write Fics or something - but the new (at least on the dash?) ones fully embrace the fact that nothing will stop them from defending the fave, even justifying racism and imperialism.
Fiction doesn't affect reality, for a charismatic person has always been able to affect people around them - hopefully not anyone finds Edel charismatic enough to forget basic morals and rights.
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ohlookitstomorrowff · 3 years ago
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Hecate and Pippa for the Head-canon thing (and are you ever going to finish In These Lines You’ll Find Our Story because that’s my absolute favourite fanfic?)
💗🖤
Thank you for being so sweet:). Unfortunately, I’ve sort of lost my mojo for ITLYFOS - it’s been so long since I published any fanfic and I’ve ended up reverting back to my Wicked obsession, so all my writing focus is there right now. I’ll never say never, even if it’s not a continuation for ITLYFOS, I’d love to return to TWW at some point, but I don’t know if anyone would be interested in reading it now (let me know if you would, or leave prompts for one-shots though, I’ll leave a link to my ask box.)
I’m going to put the questions under a cut because there is some sexual references, so if that’s not for you, you don’t have to see it :)
Hecate:
1. Sexuality headcanon?
I think the majority of Worst Witch fans can agree that Hecate is a lesbian, yes?
2. Otp?
Hicsqueak. Even though they spend so many heartbreaking years apart, I love the fact that they are well into their late forties when they reconnect (and imo) express their feelings for one another. It’s such a breath of fresh air to have a popular wlw ship that’s not highlighted by the male gaze and celebrates the beauty that grows deeper as women age and mature.
3. Brotp?
I’m not sure about this one, perhaps Dimity if Hecate lets her in? I love the relationships she has with Miss Bat and Ada but that feels more motherly for me.
4. Notp?
100% anything that features Hecate with a student, but seen as that is non-consensual and I refuse to class it as a ship, I’ll go again. I’m so sorry about this (because I love the fact that the TWW fandom is one of the few that isn’t plagued by ship wars and that we all respect all consenting ships) but Hackle… As I said, I see them as more of a mother/daughter dynamic and I think both of them need that bond much more than any romantic entanglement.
5. First headcanon that pops into your mind?
That Hecate has a praise kink. I think this is one of the most widespread hc’s in the fandom that I just consider it as absolute fact now.
6. One way that I relate to this character?
Apart from the above… The fact that she tries to appear as cold and detached to hide her insecurities - also her proclivity for wearing black.
7. Moment that gives me secondhand embarrassment?
I’m not entirely sure tbf - I’m pretty sure there are some moments from season 3 & 4 because the writers lost their thread there and refused to allow Hecate to grow and change. Perhaps the scene where Mr Daisy’s machine covers her in a potion???
8. Cinnamon roll or problematic fave?
Season 1 & 2 Hecate, 100% cinnamon roll. Season 3 & 4 Hecate, I can’t even say she was a problematic fave - her characterisation for sure got problematic (the writers fault and no way the responsibility of the amazing Raquel Cassidy) but I stopped considering her a fave from then on tbf.
Pippa:
1. Sexuality headcanon?
Bi/pan - I don’t think Pippa cares for labels, she’s a free spirit that focuses on the nature of a person and not the physical. That’s not to say she doesn’t appreciate aesthetics, because she definitely does, but I don’t think she’d look twice at the most beautiful human in the world if their personality didn’t appeal to her. She’s definitely one of those people who believe beauty is subjective - Hecate was the ‘tall and gangly’ girl while they were at school and yet Pippa only ever had eyes for her.
2. Otp?
Hicsqueak. Always Hicsqueak.
3. Brotp?
Julie and Pippa. Love the fanon idea that Pippa gets close to Julie after the Spelling Bee, and that they teach each other about their respective worlds.
4. Notp?
Anyone that’s not Hecate.
5. First headcanon that comes to mind?
That Pippa has really had to fight to be taken seriously and have her achievements recognised. She probably matched Hecate in academic skill in every subject (except potions - where Hecate was obviously a genius, and chanting - where Pippa channeled her innovative nature and shone) yet Hecate always got the accolades because people thought it was she who was responsible for Pippa’s success. And when it came to her wanting to open her school, most people just laughed at her - the Great Wizard and the magic council leave her to it because she’s a popular figure and a pretty face, but they never encouraged her or granted her funding. It’s why Pippa does her best to ingratiate herself with the magic council and allows the Great Wizard to think she’s in his pocket; she detests the fact that she’s had to make her school fee-paying, and therefore it’s not truly egalitarian, and is attempting to scheme her way into getting approval.
6. One way that I relate to this character?
Donuts??? Seriously, her steely determination, and the fact that she goes out of her way to fight for the underdog. Also her prideful tendency to self-sabotage - she’s absolutely devastated when Hecate stops talking to her, but she doesn’t run after her and pretends to hate her for 20+ years because she can’t let anyone think of her as weak.
7. Moment that gives me secondhand embarrassment?
Hecate not showing up to the broomstick display and Pippa forcing herself to perform alone (even though we don’t actually see the flashback, Pippa talks about it with Mildred). I don’t know whether this comes under sadness or embarrassment because it’s a mixture of both emotions, but I can just imagine little Pippa’s cheeks turning red as the crowd laughs when she comes in last place. I just want to give her a cuddle, but she doesn’t need it; she’s so strong, and just raises her chin and pretends not to care. I love her.
8. Cinnamon roll or problematic fave?
100% cinnamon roll. I absolutely love Pippa - even though she’s only in two episodes, she’s come to be my favourite TWW character.
(Sorry for the length of this… send mor characters to my ask box)
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puppy-phum · 4 years ago
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get to know me
am going to mix these two different tag games into one post so thank you a lot for tagging me @jazthespazz and @i-am-just-a-kiddo ♥
it’s somehow funny to do these same games again after a while so let’s see what I come up with:
Part I
name: real name petra but i prefer vish/vishie over here ^^ 
pronouns: she/her
star sign: aries ♈
height: 178cm (which am coming more and more proud of while i realize how damn tall every cdrama actor is lol)
time: 10:37pm as am answering this one
birthday: 10th april!
nationality: finnish 
fave bands/groups: ah well this is always a hard question but let’s go with these: BTS, DAY6, OneRepublic, Hurts, Oneus, Hoppipolla, TXT, Red, Mamamoo
fave solo artists: (forgive me if i’ve assumed any of these wrong) Novo Amor, Talos, Crywolf, Liu Yuning, SYML, EDEN, PVRIS, Joker Xue, NF, Halsey, Sleeping At Last, Nuz, HyunA, Sam Smith, Taemin
song stuck in your head: it’s OneRepublic’s Rescue Me bc of the song tag game i did earlier today :’D that one always gets stuck in my head whenever i as much as see the title lol 
last movie you watched: i think it’s The Yin-Yang Master (2021)? I haven’t watched any movies after that bc am so busy with all of my dramas haha
last show you binged: i think binged would be The Journey Across the Night! I watched that as a whole in 4 days
when you created your blog: in 2013 
the last thing you googled: ummm i think it was “what is a ball of wool called” bc of fic purposes haha as a non native speaker i always get a bit lost with words like this 
other blogs: none, i just dump everything here like the idiot i am 
why i chose my url: dates back to my intense summer of binge reading J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series. Vishous was my favorite of the brothers haha. i first used this username in some random game on my nintendo ds lol 
how many people are you following: 358 which somehow feels like a lot but also like way too few?? i should probably search for some new blogs with other topics than cql, bts and/or dmbj bc i do love a lot of things at once 
how many followers do you have: over 800 
average hours of sleep: i’d say around 7h
lucky numbers: i remember answering 5 previously? i don’t really have a lucky number but 5 pops into my head
instruments: nope, no. not touching those tyvm. i admire everyone who can play any instrument tho
what i’m currently wearing: black jeans, socks with foxes on them (plus my woolly socks), a gray cardigan (my fave thing ever!) and an orange/brown top
dream job: writer would be ideal but that is very faaaaar into the dream zone 
dream trip: around different parts of asia to taste all the amazing food ;; maybe a road trip of sorts through europe? or inter railing? another trip to london bc i miss that ;; a trip to the very northern part of lapland to see all the auroras etc! i’ve never been that far north :’D 
fave food: if i need to quickly name something then sushi. otherwise am pretty fine with anything spicy 
top three fictional universes you’d like to live in: i remember thinking about this a lot the last time i answered this but hmm. currently i’d say dmbj still bc that world is fascinating AND i would love to talk to the characters. mass effect would be the second one currently bc i miss those games and the space stuff is super cool! and the third one would be assassin’s creed rogue bc that is my fave ac game and i like the northern sea and the places in it AND i could probably be one of abstergo’s employees instead and just test/play those simulation games haha 
Part II
Last Song: am currently listening to my playlist with just everything so i have Andrew Belle’s The Enemy playing right now (also I only just now realized that Andrew Belle also sings Pieces which is one of my fave songs? my bff linked that to me after it played in some tv series she was watching)
Last Movie Last Stream: i didn’t want to mention the same movie again or skip this question and i’ve wanted to talk about this anyway so! i watched Liu Chang’s bday live last night :’D it was so much fun even if i couldn’t understand anything. it was just nice to watch him being himself and have fun and chill with his fans. also the songs were amazing ;; i cried with Liu Sang’s character song as well as the ending. and all the while i couldn’t turn my gaze away from his eyes! he has such pretty eyes and they were absolutely Sparkling throughout the whole stream, it was so nice :’)
Currently Reading: Devotions by Mary Oliver (i adore her poems! they’re a very nice change after Siken haha) and then some uni stuff for a course about culture and mental health plus my thesis
Currently Watching: Douluo Continent, Word of Honor, The Long Ballad 
all of these are amazing and make me feel different things! i started Douluo Continent just a while ago and am now on ep 16 i think? it’s been very pretty and very chill and i watch it during the weekend while i wait for new episodes to the other two :’D it’s nice to see Xiao Zhan again and i’ve enjoyed the rpg game type of feeling in it? the group of seven is doing amazing and it’s interesting to watch them craft their team work! Word of Honor again has reached the ending and i just hold my breath with it. am not too far gone with it so i am not getting as heavy feelings about it as i probably could but i enjoy it  alot still and i do cry at times ^^ and then The Long Ballad has just blown me away! i didn’t expect to love it this much and be this invested in it but everything about it has been such a positive surprise and it keeps making me super emotional! i love the characters and the story and the romances even! it’s a great accomplishment for me. also yes i cry on the daily bc of hao du and bc of ashile sun’s hair haha
(i am also rewatching Ultimate Note kind of and been thinking about getting into rewatching Reboot bc it has been on my list ever since i finished it)
What is antipoetry to you: okay hmm i had to google this too and have to agree with Kiddo here. i don’t have strong feelings about poetry tbh, i wasn’t into poetry that much before maybe a bit over year ago? Siken has really blown me away haha. but i have always loved song lyrics which i never thought as poetry but then Kiddo said to me that they consider them poetry and yeah ok. i agree? so idk poetry can be whatever i suppose. i’ve never seen any rules in it anyway. i know there are many rules for different types of poetry but then again. i feel like poetry has always been just words put together to feel things and i guess that is the core purpose of every written type of art in the end right? 
Currently craving: a drama as good and as personal as The Journey Across the Night. that show really just stole my heart and i want that feeling back. i think about that show every day. i miss Li Jia and his two partners. i miss the vibes. i miss sitting on my floor watching it and just sobbing my heart out haha. also! craving a properly subbed, whole version of Anti-Fraud League. only the first 12 eps are badly subbed out there. wetv has... blocked? deleted? the whole show??? i need it to my life, i wanna see Xiao Yuliang being cute as Mi Ruo and i wanna know where the story goes smh 
thank you so much for these both! i had fun ^^ also am sorry this is so long but haha if you’re asking me to talk about myself and my interests then this is what you get :) 
tagging (to do which ever part you want or both!): @cross-d-a @jockvillagersonly @humanlighthouse @kholran @xcziel @minmoyu and @leonzhng ♥
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angstbabyjae · 4 years ago
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DSMP Tier List
This tier list was shared in a discord server I’m in, so I thought I’d give it a go. Not entirely satisfied with the section titles, so I used them quite liberally. I will explain why I put people where I did. On the tier itself I didn’t order them by preference but in my explanation I will. Please not that they will be ranked from favorite to least favorite per category (for example: I put Sapnap technically above Niki despite liking her character more) and not by how much they deserve to be in each category (for example: I prefer Technoblade to Phil but I believe people excuse Technoblade’s actions more than Phil’s). I encourage healthy suggestion in the comments since I only joined the fandom around the Green Festival and haven’t seen the history/POV’s of every character, though I try. Enjoy.
Gonna slap on a big ol’ “/rp” here just to be safe.
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You've done nothing wrong come here (holds you gently)
So the thing about this section is that I don't believe any dream smp character is completely innocent, so I used this section more like a top of tier than as it's title implies.
1. TommyInnit
Ngl, Tommy is my favorite character in the Dream SMP. As a fellow Loud Person I relate to him a lot and his feelings that nobody really likes him. His mental health struggles are close to my heart and (SPOILERS) his death just made me so devastated. I really hope they don't end his arc like this. Not when he was just starting to heal, please. Tommy has certainly done a lot of things wrong. I'd highly recommend watching the exile decision from both Tubbo and Tommy's POV's because you can really get a grasp of their mindsets. Despite this, he is my fave.
2. Ranboo
Until recently I preferred Tubbo to Ranboo, but cc!Ranboo just totally outdid himself on lore and acting to the point where I couldn't deny it anymore. Ranboo did do *some* things wrong, but they are less extreme than many on this list (I don't count things he might have done under Dream's control since he wasn't conscious). Ranboo's character makes me go into protecc mode. So yeah, very good enderboi.
3. Tubbo_
Tubbo doesn't have much lore for his character, but like I do with many others on this list, I like to overanalyze and interpret certain characters to be deeper than they are. The Tubbo I have in my head is a lot more complex than what cc!Tubbo probably meant to portray. There is so much angst potential with his character, similar to many others, but what puts him top tier for me is the emotional connection I have to his character and how I relate to getting so much put on my shoulders and having to make tough decisions.
you're an amazing character
Okay so technically Schlatt should be on this list if we are speaking from a narrative standpoint, but seeing as the way OP labelled the other sections on this chart I'm guessing they meant morally as well.
4. Alex Quackity
Quackity is my favorite adult character. I don't even know why, I just love the idea of this comic relief character becoming such a catalyst for plot and more serious as time goes on. I love taking the dream smp characters and making them deeper than they probably are, as I do with Tubbo, but now it seems cc!Quackity is fully taking his character to the height of his potential and I can't wait to see what he does with him next.
5. AweSamDude
(SPOILERS) As such a big Tommy fan I must admit, my first thought when Tommy died was that Sam was partly responsible. If Dream told him what he did to Tommy in exile like he claims then he would have at least put up the obsidian barrier between them or something. After watching Ranboo's most recent stream (right now it's March 3rd) I understand why Sam did what he did more. My initial anger towards him has dissipated a bit. I still love his character so much. He really did care about Tommy and now... dang. I can't wait to see what happens with him next.
6. Captain Puffy
It was very close between ranking her or Sam higher, but given all the in depth character stuff we're getting from Sam right now, I'd have to rank him above. Despite this, Puffy is a character that I started out not knowing anything about and am now feeling her climb the ranks in my books. Sometimes I feel like she's the only adult who actually put Tommy's well-being above other things, despite them not interacting often. I wasn't around for the whole "duckling" thing with Dream and have yet to watch the VODs, but I just want her to visit him now and punish him for the Tommy stuff. (SPOILERS) I can feel Dream's next ploy being trying to convince someone to let him out in exchange for bringing back Tommy and if Sam doesn't cave then Puffy probably will. Also, I really hope that her and Niki's relationship isn't forgotten. There's so much angst potential there. Also, I need sapphics to survive.
7. Eret
So, I wasn't a fan of the SMP during season one. I hadn't even heard of it except for like my friend referencing Technoblade now and then. After watching some VODs of Eret's I am slowly starting to fall in love with her characterization. I am so soft for their redemption arc, for the regret he feels. Now that cc!Eret is back from their mental health break I am so ready for more.
8. Fundy
Fundy's a character that I will forget how much I love until he goes live again, or until I reread his old quotes. He has a lot of lore to him that surprises you every time you remember. Whether its his last speech to Schlatt to COCONUT 2020, Fundy always gives the audience something more to think about.
9. "Ghostbur"
Ghostbur is one of the few characters who genuinely make me want to cry. cc!Wilbur's performance was both hilarious and immaculate. I really want to find out more about his lore, though. Do all dead people with unfinished business get an alternate version of themselves to roam the Earth while you stay in the afterlife unable to make contact unless the veil is thin? Was Ghostbur just Wilbur pretending the whole time? (SPOILERS) Is Tommy going to get one? Is Glatt canon? Much to think about.
10. BadBoyHalo
While I despise egg-possessed BBH, normal BBH has my entire heart. The fact he gave up his mind for Skeppy is *chef's kiss*. I am very impressed with everything cc!BBH is writing right now.
11. Karl Jacobs
My second favorite polyamorous dimension hopper after Star Butterfly (let me have Startomco please)! TFTSMP just gets better and better each week. His time travel shenanigans are so fun and mysterious. Karlnapity is just a big ol' pot of angst just waiting to happen. WEDDING SOON PLEASE!
no intense opinion
While I do have opinions on some of these characters, they aren't intense enough to place them anywhere else.
12. Ponk
I don't watch him all that often since he's live during my school time, but what I've seen I love. Him starting that whole side plot expanding on that one TFTSMP episode intrigues me and I can see it tying into the egg somehow. Him and Sam are really cute together (/rp) and I want him to become more plot relevant again.
13. Antfrost
GAY CAT GAY CAT GAY CAT! In all seriousness, I really want him to do stuff with his character to make him more than just BBH's second-in-command (I have similar feelings with Skeppy, but I know he isn't very big on lore). Side note, but I really love the hc that RedVelvetCake is inside the egg. I want him to join so bad.
14. Purpled
I've only just started watching the actual clips from pre-L'Manberg times and Purpled was once much more plot involved than I thought. Him planning on getting his revenge on Tommy at the same time as the "police" investigating the Camarvan back in early season one was comedy gold. Shout out to BlueberryTV on YouTube for making it so easy to watch. In conclusion, we stan an underage mercenary.
15. GeorgeNotFound
Idk if this is a hot take or not, but I feel a good portion of people who love George's character are just DNF shippers who want to turn his crumbs into an angst factory, but you know what? Valid. While I am not a DNF shipper, I have seen the angst y'all have brought to the table and very much appreciate it.
16. ConnorEatsPants
The most I think I've seen of Connor has been the hostage scene and the non-canon party scene from this season. I don't have much to say except that his small speech to Tommy after he was let go about him not being a bad person despite traumatizing him hit surprisingly hard in the feels.
17. Skeppy
cc!Skeppy is not a big roleplayer, and I get that, it's just sometimes his character feels a little like an accessory to Bad's character. Please link me some good Skeppy moments in the comments if you can, I want to try and learn more about his character. His angst with Bad right now is top tier, though, and I choose to believe that Big Daddy Island is canon and that Bad took him there to keep him free from the egg. I actually wrote a fic about this if you want to check it out! Mind the tags, though, I went a little macabre with it.
18. HBomb
When I first learned about the SMP it was two nights before the green festival and I was up until 3am at my aunt's house reading the plot summary. The first clip of the smp I saw was the election VOD, where HBomb joined for the first time. I don't know much about him other than the fact he was Fundy's maid for a time and it was absolutely hilarious. I saw the recent stuff with him leaving Greater SMP to start over and enjoyed it. Hope we get more stuff like that with him.
19. Callahan
Gets all the ladies. What else can I say?
you're trying your best and I respect that
20. Sapnap
I put Sapnap here because he's on his way to becoming an amazing character. The angst stuff with Dream is the stuff George fans can only dream of (pun unintended). I like how he went from the cop, the pet killer, Dream's right hand man, to mushroom cottegecore gay living his best life and dealing with the pain of losing his best friend. The whole "Dream's bitch" conversation with Tommy that I saw an animatic for some time ago made me hurt so good. Also #KarlnapityWedding2021.
you're redeemable, thin fucking ice though
These are characters who I somewhat dislike to a degree, but still have hope for. In my opinion this section should be switched with the one after it in terms of which is worse, but oh well.
21. Wilbur Soot
I know he's already dead but if he's brought back to life I want a redemption arc from him back. (SPOILERS) If neither him nor Tommy come back to life then dsmp has a horrible track record with killing off their mentally ill and (tw) suicidal characters. Wilbur has done some awful things, but if he's brought back I don't think he'd be beyond saving.
22. Jack Manifold
I need to say something about Jack. He is so very very close to being in the "you're trying your best" section right now after his most recent stream. His redemption arc is so close I can taste it and if he is redeemed right I can see him joining my faves. His most recent stream was just so well acted that my heart just wants to forgive him already... until my brain remembers he tried to nuke a child. Don’t know if this is also a hot take, but I think he had more of a right to be mad at Tommy than Niki did, but I know for Niki it's more complicated than that.
23. Niki Nihachu
There was a time that I adored Niki Nihachu and a part of me still does, but she has gone a little bit off the deep end. I do understand it's a trauma response, though. cc!Niki said that her villain arc is almost over, which disappointed me a bit because we kinda barely got to see it since it was so overshadowed, but I am also relieved. I just want my wlw baker back :(
people excuse your actions more than you deserve
I am just going to pretend that this section doesn't say "love". I still like these characters a lot even though they get away with a lot of shit.
24. Technoblade
I love Technoblade too much for him to be ranked this low, but like I said this ranking is based on fitting the section descriptions, not how much I love them. Technoblade's POV is understandable but also that doesn't excuse the pain he's caused so many people. L'Manberg was more than it's a government as much as Techno is more than a weapon.
25. Philza Minecraft
Philza deserves to be in this section a little less than Technoblade because I actually agree with a lot of what Philza fans say. Tommy is not Philza's kid. Phil has a lot of trauma around killing Wilbur, yes. I just don't see how you could watch Ghostbur's Friend speech during Doomsday and think he was in the right for doing it.
i don't like you
26. JSchlatt
JSchlatt is an amazing character in many ways. The acting? Glorious. The dialogue? Spot on. With that being said, YAYY HE'S DEAD!!! I really like leaning into the abusive relationship hc with him and his cabinet. He was probably the most fun villain we've ever had, though.
I WANT THIS MOTHER FUCKER DEAD
27. DreamWasTaken
Come on, do I even have to explain?
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gffa · 4 years ago
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I was talking with @himboskywalker​ about Tolkien and fandom and fic, because I’m always curious where people’s “area” of the wider Legendarium are at, whether they’re a fan of the Dwarves or the Humans or the Elves or the Valar or what!  (As a surprise to absolutely no one, the Elves are where my heart is at, where I very much love the Noldor, but if you give me a choice I’m going to run over to that Sindar-centric fic every time.) Which got us onto the topic of fic recs, where, yes, I’ve done a LOT of Tolkien fic recs but I tend to read something of a wide variety and this is a list specifically aimed at those who are familiar with the wider Tolkien world, but haven’t really read much fic and want to know where to start! Other Recs First: - If you haven’t gotten further into Tolkien’s work (like say beyond the movies), I’ve done something of a primer here, which includes fic recs and brief explanations and links to videos that help explain some things.  It’s not as hard as it seems to get involved, honest! - Some other fic recs here, as an addition to the above. - My Tolkien blog (which I haven’t been on in awhile, though, I haven’t let it go in my heart yet) has, I’m not kidding, A LOT of fic recs, I did recs regularly for about three years, so it’s almost as massive as my collection of SW recs. If I Could Only Pick Three To Start You With: ✦ And What Happened After by thearrogantemu - This is the fic that took me from enjoying the Silm characters to diving face-first into really loving them, because it wove such an engaging story about the characters sailing to Aman at the end of LOTR, where various characters you wouldn’t think interacting would be as meaningful as they are, but the fic absolutely sells them on it.  Frodo and Feanor having a conversation about language?  Sam and Maglor sharing a boat to the West?  These things are amazing, as this is a fic about healing and what it means to sail into the Undying Lands.  Also, it has a Feanor and Fingolfin reunion that literally put tears in my eyes. ✦ Interrupted Journeys by ellisk - I’m generally not someone who does a lot of rereading of fic just because I have so many new ones to get to, but I’ve read my favorites in this series (parts 3 to 5 are my sweet spot especially) probably four times through now because “Elfling Legolas growing up in Greenwod with a whole cast of characters around him, as the Shadow so very, very slowly creeps towards them” may sound somewhat simple, but the worldbuilding here is off the scale.  The weaving in of how much the First Age and various Elven politics influenced Thranduil’s ruling of a Silvan people is a major theme, but it’s also good parents raising that precious Elfling right and he and his cousins+friends getting into all sorts of mischief, so it’s balanced between humor and drama in the exact amounts I want.  You can skip the first two fics and jump into the third if you like, which is when Legolas is introduced, but I enjoy the whole thing. ✦ Return to Aman OR Quenta Narquelion by bunn - I can’t pick between these two, they’re both incredible.  Return to Aman is basically “Elrond grabs Maglor and drags him to Aman with them” and it breaths such incredible lift into all the characters of Aman, it doesn’t negate the terrible things the Feanorians did, but neither does it negate Elrond’s love for them and his biological family, too.  It’s another fic that’s about healing and forgiveness and it made me glow to read it.  Quenta Narquelion is basically “Feanor refused the call of Mandos after he died and everything started to snowball from there” and it’s an absolutely heartbreaking look at all our Problematic Fave Feanorians and how they were once good people trying to do the best they could, but bit by bit they slipped into the dark.  It’s especially amazing for capturing the complexities of Feanor, as he hovers over his children as a spirit and it really brought me around on his character. The Silmarillion and other First Age Batshit Faves: ✦ The Starlit Sky by Cirth is the fic that really made me get the potential of reading about Maedhros and Maglor raising Elrond and Elros, where it does such a fantastic job of showing that there was genuine affection there, even the midst of all the angst and trauma and pain.  You really get why Elrond could never give up on them, after reading this fic. ✦ In Courts of Living Stone by ncfan - “What if Maeglin never left Nan Elmoth and instead, several decades later, found himself on an errand to Menegroth and developed a relationship with Finduilas instead?” isn’t a fic I expected to capture my heart, but boy did it ever.  Beautiful characterization and beautiful writing, it really captured my imagination, but also gave me ALLLLLL the Maeglin feelings, as well as made me pine that this Finduilas couldn’t have been more common in fandom. ✦ naught but the shores and the sea by ncfan is more of Elrond and Maglor, where it’s an AU that has Elrond finding Maglor after the disastrous attempt to recover the Silmarils and I loved it a lot. ✦ The Crane Wife by Trebia is one that takes an underused character from Tolkien (Lalwen, in this case) and breathes this incredible life into her, gives her personality and joy and sorrow and meaning and, look, any fic that can convince me that Thranduil would marry a Noldo and utterly believe it, you know it’s well-written! The Second Age Is Kind of Quiet in Fandom But I Love It Regardless: ✦ The Art of Long-Distance Grandparenting by Kazaera is a lovely and bittersweet (but mostly lighter in tone) fic about the separation of the Sea between family members and does a wonderful job with Idril’s character, as she tries to stay connected to her grandchildren while being so distant from them and unable to see them, unless they choose to come to Aman.  There’s joy to be found here and it’s a lovely read. ✦ Relativity by French Pony is a lovely look at the final meeting between Elrond and Elros and strikes the right amount of bittersweetness, where it’s awkward and difficult and heartbreaking, but also feels natural and like this was how it was meant to be.  I had many, many Elven Twin feelings during the whole thing.  (I like all their fic, they’re worth checking out their other stuff for, too!) ✦ A Thing or Two About Elrond by Crookneck is a series of fics about Elrond and the various relationships he has--with Celebrian, with his children, with Gil-Galad, etc.--and I remember being really charmed by all of them and how much shit Elrond has seen over the course of his life. The Third Age, Lord of the Rings Version: ✦ Boromir's Return by Osheen Nevoy - This one is sort hard to summarize, but it’s basically “Boromir lives, makes a friend, and slowly changes everything about the LOTR plot”, but it’s so much more than that, where the worldbuilding is phenomenal, the pacing is incredible, it made me fall in love with Boromir as a character all over again, it contains probably the best portrayal of Denethor I’ve ever read in fandom, and I really loved the OC and so on.  It’s utterly engrossing and honestly I cannot recommend it highly enough, even if you’re not usually into this sort of thing. ✦ The River by Indigo Bunting is a fic where Legolas and Sam get separated from the others for a brief time and I love fics that take two characters who don’t interact much, throw them into an intense situation, and sees what happens.  It’s not precisely a light-hearted fic, it’s very intense, but it’ll make you fall in love with the sheer good in both characters and the friendship they develop.  It’s brilliantly written and I cannot recommend it enough. ✦ A Bit of Rope by Aiwendiel is a fic where Gandalf doesn’t fall at Moria and it changes everything--not necessarily for the better.  The slow, creeping sense of things changing, things going just a little bit worse here and there, until you realize how much darker the Fellowship’s journey could have been, was brilliantly done, and one I thought did justice to the idea, it’s not grimdark, there’s still light and hope here, but it makes you feel like, oh, maybe things happened as they did for a reason, even as hard as that seemed sometimes.  Gorgeously plotted and utterly engrossing. The Third Age, Mirkwood Version: ✦ daw the minstrel has an entire series of fics about Legolas growing up in Mirkwood and there’s absolutely a reason why she was one of the most well-known authors in that corner of fandom.  Her ability to create new characters (including two brothers for Legolas) was incredible, I cared so much about the family dynamics and got swept up in the drama (which was in a very loving family, but Legolas was definitely a mischief-seeker) and they’re fantastic.  If you find yourself in something of a stretch with too many OCs and your attention wavers, you can always skip around, they don’t have to be read in order and a lot of the non-canon characters can be skimmed over, imo. ✦ In a Field of Blood and Stone by ScribeofArda is so much better than what The Hobbit movies gave us of the Battle of Five Armies, it does such beautiful justice to the complicated character of Thranduil and Legolas, not sacrificing the warmth there for how difficult these times are and the war they find themselves in the middle of.  This Bard is also really engaging and fun to read--I read pretty much the entire novel’s worth in, like, a day or two because I could not put this one down. ✦ Swordplay and Swimming by cliodna_bright has an incredible meeting where Thranduil comes to visit Rivendell, runs into Elladan and Elrohir, who are young enough that they speak without thinking, and it’s not precisely a humor fic, but I was screaming the entire time because it’s so sharply written and so absolutely delightful, I LOVE IT. ✦ Deep and Crisp and Even by rivlee made me fall in love with how Elves and humans may look very similar, but there’s this sense of otherworldliness to the Elves, as shown through Bard’s eyes when he has a meeting with Thranduil.  Beautifully written and just the right amount of atmospheric. The Fourth Age Where Everything Actually Does Mostly Work Out: ✦ Far Horizons by Bodkin is the Fourth Age fic of my heart, where the various Elves that we came to know in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are all in Aman and decide to build their own realm there.  Which is difficult because Elven Politics even just amongst themselves, much less clashing with all the established politics of the other Elven realms in Aman!  But it’s a light-hearted fic (for the most part) that’s about healing and moving forward, balancing their ties to their history versus that Middle-Earth changed them, and I love it for soothing my soul.  (Thranduil sailed, you can’t tell me otherwise!!!)(Bonus moments of Glorfindel being pretty hilarious.)  I like all of bodkin’s work, but this one has a special place with me. ✦ Age of Healing by trollmela is one where Maedhros and Legolas have a conversation in Aman and it’s about the bittersweetness of healing and how difficult it is, taking two characters who would never have met in canon and weaving something entirely engaging and poignant out of it. Collections That Span The Ages: ✦ This Taste of Shadow by Mira_Jade - This is a collection of dozens of various shorter stories (or sometimes 10k “ficlets”) that you can largely skip around in if you have specific characters you like or you can just start at the beginning and read through.  It contains looks at pretty much everyone, from Maedhros to Galadriel to Thranduil to Elrond to Caranthir to Glorfindel to the Valar, etc.  I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything I’ve read in this collection! ✦ Fiondil's Tapestry and Tales from Vairë's Loom by Fiondil are in the same vein and I have really enjoyed everything I’ve read from both of them!  I especially remember that there was one chapter that had a scene between Thranduil and Cirdan and thinking, ahhhh, why has no one ever written that before!? as an example of the neat things it does.  But also lots about Elrond and Glorfindel and the Valar and so on! This probably doesn’t feel like a super extensive list, but those collection series will give you an excellent spanning of Elves, Humans, Dwarves, Hobbits, etc., not just the same central characters, but giving time to a lot of lesser focused ones as well.  Like, I feel I’ve read a fair chunk of Elwing fic, but I couldn’t point you to a specific one in my list of recs, which means I’m pretty sure it was in the collections ones or else she got some good scenes in one of the Aman-based fics, so I swear the above is at least a solid place to start for dipping one’s toe into Tolkien fic. AS ALWAYS, OTHER PEOPLE’S RECS ARE WELCOME, god knows I haven’t read anything in the last two years (and will have missed a lot even before that) and so I always need more recs, too!
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gemsofgreece · 4 years ago
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Hello, may I request some comedy/light drama etc. recs from the golden age of Greek TV?
Okay, then *cracks knuckles*
(For anyone who didn’t read the first answered ask, the “golden age” of Greek TV is 1990 - 2010)
I don’t know if you are the Anon who had asked the 2010 onward shows because they didn’t mind the subtitles. If you definitely need subtitles, I am afraid there are only two shows you can watch right now:
Είσαι το Ταίρι Μου (You’re My Soulmate)
Romantic comedy / light drama (2001 - 2002). Vicky and Stella are two very different friends who are Greek immigrants in Australia. Vicky is stunning and men go crazy for her but she has many insecurities. Stella is not conventionally attractive but she allows nothing to bring her down. They both fall for the same handsome rich Greek, Nikos. It’s no brainer who wins - Nikos is a womanizer and falls immediately for Vicky. The interesting part is what happens next - when Vicky’s insecurities make her come up with a crazy plan / prank that will unleash hell over these three, Nikos’ entire family and a couple of friends living in Athens and change their lives forever...and everyone will then get what they deserve... or what they are brave enough to claim. Overall just a hilarious and clever comedy, with great acting and memorable characters you end up loving and an ending that isn’t a cliche. Here’s the link to watch with english subtitles.
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Στο Παρά Πέντ�� (In the Nick of Time)
Mystery / Crime Comedy / Light drama (2005 - 2007) One of the two most famous Greek comedies. Five totally different people happen to be witnesses to the murder of a politician. Before he dies, the politician asks them to find who did it and take revenge for this and other crimes they have committed.  These five unassuming people become friends and start solving the mystery together like hilariously amateur detectives. In time, they will find out that there’s something more that unites them besides their friendship...and maybe not everything happens accidentally. Here’s the link to watch with english subtitles. This one is being subtitled right now.
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So bad news: only two shows with English subtitles. Good news: They are the best of the best, so no problem.
But if subtitles are not necessary, let’s proceed with the rest I love in no particular order:
10 Λεπτά Κήρυγμα (10 Minutes of Scolding)
Comedy (2000 - 2003). The life of Leonidas Alivizatos, an untamed only child with divorced parents. The story is basically the endless ways Leonidas find to escape the limitations his parents put to him and the shenanigans he does with his best friend Telis and his girlfriend Marilena that drive his family crazy. Fun fact: My generation, we all had at some point a crush on Leonidas...right?
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Singles
Romantic Dramedy (2004 - 2008). The show has four seasons although it’s the first one that mostly had a lasting impression on me. The story revolves around the social, professional and romantic lives of six young single people: Maro, a sensitive hopeless romantic, Rania, an angry cynic who hates relationships, Lila, a sex crazed cheerful woman, Orestes, an average I’d say young man who has his eyes on Maro though, Arthuros, Orestes’ best friend and a socially awkward man with a dark family past and  Loukas, a divorced father who seems to be quite the catch. There’s something special about the first season, it had an atmosphere, a style that I loved. The music was great too. I still remember the episode with the Reaper nightmares and that green light. In the following seasons, half of the cast changed.  Y’all Greeks here do you remember the title song? I love it.
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Δεληγιάννειο Παρθεναγωγείο (Deligiannis School for Girls)
Comedy, Drama (2007 - 2008). Summer 1939. The events of the series evolve at the last period of the Greek Regime, the Greco-Italian War and the Nazi Invasion of Greece. Mimis Metaxas in the headmaster of the School and trapped in a miserable marriage. His father-in-law invites Agape, his niece, to teach at the school. Mimis falls desperately in love with Agape but of course he keeps it a secret. Agape is a free-spirited woman and it is soon clear that she is a Communist (or at least leaning toward left ideals) and Mimis tries to balance his job as the Headmaster of the school, his sad marriage, his love and the historical events happening in the country with his need to keep Agape protected at all costs and under full secrecy.
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Κωνσταντίνου και Ελένης (Constantine and Helen’s)
Comedy (1998 - 2000). Okay, this is officially the best Greek comedy to date. After it ended in 2000, it has been on TV repeatedly and continuously to this day. For twenty years non-stop. It still  has bigger viewership than new current shows. An old aristocratic childless man writes two wills right before his death in which he gives his big residence. The one will is for Constantine, his aloof and conservative nephew who is a professor of Byzantine History in the University. The other will is for Helen, the only daughter of his beloved poor gardener who is a potty mouthed waitress. Constantine and Helen arrive at the house the same day and they are both determined to inherit the house and they can’t wait until the court date. The story revolves around everything they do to get rid of each other and their friends who are just as crazy as they are. There’s an interesting story about this show: they had done some tests and pilots and they were convinced that nobody was going to watch their show so the show became low budget and the actors were free to go batshit crazy. This ended up creating this hilarious masterpiece that is being rewatched by million Greeks to this day.
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Οι Μεν και οι Δε (Them and the others)
Comedy (1993 - 1996). Dionysis Dagas, a famous lawyer who defends criminals lives with his wife Vana, an aristocratic lazy woman, in their apartment in Kolonaki. In the apartment right next to them Timos and Nana Stamatis come to live, unemployed and a jewelry artist respectively. Timos and Nana attempt numerous times to take money from frugal Dionysis and in general a big war starts between them as snobby Dagas are the exact opposite of the hippy Stamatis.
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Σαββατογεννημένες (Born on Saturday)
Comedy (2003 - 2004). A sexist and all around horrible man named Savvas wins 7 million Euros at the lottery and as he learns it he has a car crash and loses his memory. His three ex-wives, the Greek language teacher Keti, the actress Bia and the tourist shop owner Soula, all very different and hating the guts of each other and Savvas, team up to find the lottery ticket before Savvas' memory recovers. But in order to achieve that, they have to act a lot and they have to take care of incapacitated Savvas themselves.
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Το Καφέ της Χαράς (Chara's cafe)
Romantic comedy (2003 - 2006 and 2019 - now). Chara Chaska, an Athenian unmarried mother decides to start anew and takes her daughter with her to go live somewhere close to nature. They go to a village in Mountainous Arcadia, named Kolokotronitsi. What Chara doesn't know is that the village is extremely traditional and backwards and governed by the conservative and misogynist mayor Periandros Popotas. Popotas and the villagers will start a big war against the newcomer, especially when they find out she wants to open a modern lounge cafe and is not married. Chara has only few supporters there but soon she will also have the interest of her biggest enemy. The show has been revived since last year, as the continuation of what happens many years later but I haven't been watching.
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Dolce Vita
Romantic comedy (1995 - 1997). Christina Markatou is the mature rich widow of a tomato factory owner and now she runs it on her own. Christina visits her daughter Dorita in Italy where she studies and upon her return to Greece she unexpectedly has a one night stand with young Antonis Kaloudis. What they both don't know is that Antonis is Dorita's fiance and travels to Greece to meet her family. After the initial shock, Antonis realises he prefers the mother but Christina tries to resist. The love though is too strong. Christina begins seeing Antonis, full of regrets and self-loathing, and tries to hide the affair from her daughter, the nosy housemaid Aspasia and the absolute terror that her mother-in-law is, Olga Markatou. Is there any chance for happiness?
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Εγκλήματα (Crimes)
Black comedy (1998 - 2000). Alekos and Flora have always been in love but never got together and got married to evil Soso and kindly Achilles respectively instead. Alekos finds Flora and they start an affair. Soso finds out about the affair quickly and tries repeatedly to kill Alekos. All the crazy things that happen start from all of Soso's murderous attempts and affect the lives of the aforementioned as well as their close relatives who are as crazy as the main characters. Will Soso achieve her biggest ambition to become utterly evil and kill Alekos and whomever else stands in her way?
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Σ' αγαπώ, μ' αγαπάς (I love you, you love me)
Domestic comedy (2000 - 2002). The hilariously realistic life of a couple, Dimitra and Thodoris (the actors play with their real names). The actors had such great chemistry that they were chosen as the voice actors for Greek Marlin and Dory in Finding Nemo (also with great success).
So, these are my favourites but there are many others I like or that are very popular but not my cup of tea. Any other Greek is welcome to recommend their own faves.
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laughingpinecone · 3 years ago
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ToT letter 2021
I am laughingpineapple on AO3
Hello dear author! I hope you’ll have fun with our match. Feel free to draw from general or fandom-specific likes, past letters, and/or follow your heart.
Art likes: characters doing something, even something very simple, illustrating a moment rather than abstractly posing. I also enjoy seeing them wear different clothes, getting a feel of what their fashion sense is like beyond their canon outfit(s). Or dressing them up for some outlandish AU!
Likes: worldbuilding, slice of life (especially if the event the fic focuses on is made up but canon-specific), missing moments, 5+1 and similar formats, bonding and emotional support/intimacy, physical intimacy, lingering touches, loyalty, casefic, surrealism, magical realism, established relationships, future fic, hurt/comfort or just comfort from the ample canon hurt, throwing characters into non-canon environments, banter, functional relationships between dysfunctional individuals, unexplained mysteries, bittersweet moods, journal/epistolary fic, dreams and memories and identities, canon-adjacent tropey plots, outsider POV, UST, resolved UST, exploration of secondary bits of canon, leaning on the uniqueness of the canon setting/mood, found families, characters reuniting after a long and/or harrowing time, friends-to-lovers, road trips, maps, mutual pining, cuddling, wintry moods, the feeling of flannel and other fabrics, ridiculous concepts played straight, sensory details, sickfic, places being haunted, people being haunted, the mystery of the woods, small hopes in bleak worlds, electricity, places that don’t quite add up, mismatched memories, caves and deep places, distant city lights at night, emphasis on non-human traits of non-human characters (gen-wise, but also a hearty yes xeno for applicable ships), emphasis on inhuman traits of characters who were human once and have sort of shed it all behind
DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, focus on children, unrequested ships (background established canon couples are okay, mentions of parents are okay!), canon retellings
All requests are for both fic and art!
Death Crown: Death, trick
(I haven't played the DLC yet so, alas, no demons, or no spoilers for the demons, at least) I am absolutely charmed by the overall mood of this game and would like to see something more in that vein! Anything! Got more sacred (or unholy?) geometrical architecture for Death to interact with, maybe in greater detail than just wrecking it? What else feels like a contemporary take on a Bosch painting? Can Death get lost?
Ghost Trick: Jowd, Cabanela, trick, treat
Anything focused on Cabanela being an unstoppable force (confident, untiring, sparkling, stubborn, dexterous, loyal to the bitter end, legs) and/or Jowd being an immovable object (sarcastic, strong, depressed, self-deprecating but knowing he's hot stuff, also stubborn, clever but an emotional dumbass, round). Figuring out stuff? Something in the new timeline is linked to the old timeline? Coat? Dancing? Scarves? Halloween costumes?
I like Cabanela/Jowd and Cabanela/Alma/Jowd and Cabanela/Alma in scenarios where Jowd isn't around and Alma/Jowd in general (REALLY like all these, okay. like this is the one request where I'd love the most self-indulgent shippy takes as well), and dig Lynne/Memry. Yomiel/fianSissel and Emma/JM also cool!
Hylics: any, trick, treat
(I have only played the first game so far so please no overt spoilers for Hylics 2. Feel free to include stuff from it but... stealthily, I guess?) This is an "anything that feels somewhat like canon, please" sort of request! Love the mood, love the cast, love the little added details in their menu screen. Those can be prompts? Or the oddball stats? How do ToT's trick and treat freeforms apply to Hylics' overall... hylicsness, what would those guys think constitutes a "creepy" moment or a "fluffy" one?
Not into ships for this one, however I WILL say that Dedusmuln has all the proverbial curves in the right places. mostly their face.
Kentucky Route Zero: Weaver
Math, debt, the liminal state of almost being a ghost, seeing the world with a strange clarity... just anything Weaver, please! How'd she make her way to the town? What was it like for her to be working on Xanadu for a time? What about the community broadcast! Does she have an opinion on Carrington's oeuvre? You know... things... stuff. Weaver things. and stuff.
I love the whole cast and Weaver... wove... her story through most of them so feel free to bring in whomever. Not interested in ships here though.
Paradise Killer: Lady Love Dies, trick
A post-canon glimpse of life on '''''perfect''''' 25? That's not QUITE enough class consciousness to make the whole thing work, you guys. What does 'normal' life feel like to LD now? After following Henry's case and talking to Shinji so much, can she see that it's doomed to fail again, and then what? What IS Island 25 like, anyway? (what comes after Island 25, even?)
I liked the choice of canon romances - if it has to be just one I'd prefer it to be Crimson, but I'd also be interested in seeing what a V or triad with Doom Jazz would look like. They're all so chill about stuff
Pyre: Volfred, trick, treat
Pragmatic idealist, charismatic and bad at people, pacifist, activist, physiologically incapable of shutting up for a hot second, what's there not to love... I am very into either of the following: C. Volfred Sandalwood has a fantastic day; C. Volfred Sandalwood has a terrible no good day. Everything is great! Pre-exile antiestablishmentarian antics, maybe with Bertrude? Political gambits? The very physical dangers of the Downside which may or may not catch a scholar by surprise (who saves him?)? Tree problems? Meeting Oralech for the first time and Volfred thinks he himself is hot stuff but out of the two, Oralech is clearly the VIP? Feeling like he should live up to Lu Sclorian's legacy but he feels much closer to other Scribes (and what does Lu have to say about it, one way or another?)? The thrilling intimacy of Reading? The thrilling intimacy of lowercase reading also, maybe reading old manuscripts found in the Downside?
I very much ship him with Tariq and/or Oralech. The only canon ship I like is Hedwyn/Fikani. I also like Soliam/Gol, Bertrude/Pamitha and Celeste/Jodariel. Love all the Nightwings + Dalbert (+Deluge...?); love to dunk on Manley, Brighton and Lendel (I don't enjoy flat-out bashing, more like... I enjoy the way they are portrayed as horrible gremlins in canon and if they turn up in fic I'm not interested in more positive portrayals)
Signs of the Sojourner: Rhea, Elias, trick, treat
Once again pretty much an "anything in the style of canon" request. I love this setting, its themes and all the little lives that fill it. I am interested in a wide range of postcanon scenarios and love the whole cast - does Rhea come back to $town any number of years down the line and find $character? How'd their storyline end up in the medium-long term? What the hell is up with the Stranger (seriously, three runs and I never managed to speak with them, I have no idea)? What's life like for Elias back home, or in a new home if they can't keep the store, or if Rhea landed the Oscar ending or whatever (just, please, not dead Rhea. I love that ending but can't stand to consider what it'd do to Elias)? Or does he join the caravan just once? Who did Rhea grow to really like and can't wait to see every time? Any ghost stories or creepy encounters on the caravan's route? Does Thunder help?
I'm neutral on ships here - good with Rhea&Elias, good with background Rhea/Elias but I wouldn't like a romantic focus.
Totally Normal Wizard Apprentice: apprentice, wizard, master, trick, treat
(conflict of interest disclaimer, I illustrated this but didn't write nor nominate it) What awaits the apprentice outside the wizard's tower? It sounds like a pretty wild moon out there, I loved all the worldbuilding hints of the bigger setting. Does the wizard keep track of the apprentice, with her telescope or otherwise, and how does she take care of her ruined parlor? Was this all some sort of 5d chess on the master's part, and if so to what end? And what kind of otherworldly patience does this man possess, anyway, to handle the apprentice on a daily basis?
Twin Peaks: Margaret, Diane, Lucy, Tammy, trick, treat
(bass-boosted ethereal whooshing) For tricks, I would like to see any of these characters face the woods, the mystery of the woods, and/or a new symbol of your liking. Or: Margaret in the city, Diane and the moon, Lucy and the color blue, Tammy incognito.
For treats, a happy meeting. I love the whole cast and I'm always thrilled by gonzo "&" pairings, bring in whomever! Coffee and pie? The Bookhouse Boys? A kinder aspect of the woods?
Fandom-specific notes: love s3, love the books too. I like Lucy/Andy, Margaret/Sam fwiw, and rarepairs Tammy/Cynthia and Diane/Constance. Please no Fireman's-house-is-the-white-lodge, no Twin Perfect, no Judy-was-destroyed (nor is destroyable).
Arcade Spirits: Percy, Teo, treat
More than anything, I love the sense of group and camaraderie among the arcade's staff and regulars, and I'd love to see some more of it. I picked Percy and Teo 'cause they're my faves but anyone you may want to add, up to and including Sue, is very very welcome. Is there any aspect of gaming that feels like it could be adapted to this strange world of contemporary arcades? Cosplay shenanigans for everyone courtesy of Ashley? Any other activity that could show how Percy and/or Teo get along with the others, like they were all forming little groups during the beach chapter? It's such a feel-good canon, any feel-good situation would be great!
My Ari is with Percy but I'm not really interested in shipping here. All sorts of friendships though!
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dannyphannypack · 5 years ago
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Crossover Fic Recs
Hey, saw your post for some fic recs! Unfortunately I can't continue the wonderful thread of reblogs because I wish to remain anonymous, but here have some cool crossovers that I didn't see get rec'd yet :D (you can either post this or add it to the reblogs, I don't mind either way)
Just Another Meteor Freak [500k words, complete] (and it's sequel, which is unfortunately incomplete) is a Smallville/DP crossover that's absolutely a fantastic read and I cannot recommend it enough, it's one of my faves! Brief synopsis: Danny goes to live with his aunt Martha Kent after his family dies (and for once Danny's family dying in a crossover fic doesn't have anything to do with TUE!), and misunderstandings of the good kind and mishaps ensue because of course Danny and Clark's hero complexes come into play. It's got hurt/comfort, fluff, angst, sibling-esque-bonding, and all sorts of cool stuff, including ghost king headcannons and new powers for Danny. It takes place mostly from a Smallville perspective, but Danny's woven in so seamlessly that you won't believe he wasn't in the original show to begin with. I read it for the first time after having not watched Smallville in years and I could still understand it though, so I think that if you haven't watched Smallville before you could still enjoy the fic a lot!
And like, honestly, I totally recommend other stuff by this author (jadedbluerose) too. She's got a Merlin/DP crossover that's pretty fantastic, but unfortunately she hasn't updated anything since 2014 :( still worth the read though!!
Spirited Away [70k, complete] is a Harry Potter/DP crossover, it's honestly THE MOST hilarious fic I've ever read. Synopsis: Danny is an unwilling student at Hogwarts, and the most chaotic Hufflepuff the world has ever seen. He claims he's been kidnapped but when no one listens to him, he raises all kinds of hell to try and get kicked out. And if that doesn't work, well, he can always sue them. 100% worth the read, it will definitely make you laugh.
Various Superphantom (Supernatural/DP) crossovers by sapphireswimming. Literally anything Superphantom found here? Totally the best. You can also check out Superphantom fics by surelysilly (whose fics are more on the darker end of the spectrum, and their prose style is kinda abstract rather than your traditional linear narrative) Vitaliciouscreations (they've got a oneshot collection that's pretty fun, as well as a oneshot that I wish they'd continue and a complete cute 13k-word penpal fic.)
How to befriend a ghost [80k, incomplete] is a HTTYD/DP crossover in which Danny gets stuck in the Viking era, and I originally started reading this for the Danny & Hiccup friendship because it's adorable and both of them see how similar they are to each other and find kinship in that. The dragon Danny gets (because this is a HTTYD crossover, this is inevitable!) really sneaks into your heart though, and I ABSOLUTELY adore Sparky as much as I adore Toothless. He's very lovable and complements Danny super well! Of course, it's not all friendship bonding and training dragons, the archipelago is Danny's home now (until he can find his way back to Amity Park/his own century) and he's going to protect it too when trouble arises, just like the dragons do. He even gets new powers along the way. This fic is pretty fun, there's a lot of switching perspectives and you really see the characters' voices come through in it, and you even get to see the dragons' POV, which is really interesting since you get to learn Sparky's backstory!
Den Mother [8k, ongoing] is a Young Justice/DP crossover that acknowledges the fact that Danny is by all rights a first-generation hero, and he's treated with the respect as such and gets to join the Justice League rather than the YJ team. Of course, he doesn't WANT to join the league at first, which is a different take than you'd expect, but he reluctantly agrees and is then given the same responsibilities as a Justice League member--that is, to teach the YJ something about teamwork or whatever. It's not very long right now, but the premise is so good! It has a lot of potential.
A Foreign Perspective [200k words, complete] is a DNAngel/DP crossover that I saw @scrollingdown call a fandom classic once and honestly agree, even though I don't think many people know/have read it. It's a cute friendship fic that focuses on Phantom (not Danny, but Phantom specifically) making his first friend, an older boy named Daisuke, who seems normal at first, but is slowly revealed to be a little more understanding of Danny's situation than he appears. Some comfort involved too since Danny deals with a little more with the idea of mourning/loss than in canon, seeing as Daisuke thinks he's a full ghost and therefore a teenager that died, and Danny learns to be a different kind of hero because of it. Really cool fic too since you don't need to know DNAngel at all to understand the fic, since it's told from DP's perspective, and you get to learn about Daisuke as Danny does. It's just super sweet and it's got some action here and there that makes it exciting, and it's really a fun read.
Other stuff by this author is worth the read too! They've got oneshots of a HP crossover and Ghost Whisperer crossover, and a sadly incomplete HTTYD crossover [100k words] that is still super super good and also deals with ideas about mourning and loss. Their non-crossover stuff is also pretty interesting (there's a Mute!Danny AU and Dash kinda-redemption oneshot I really liked).
Diversity [150k, ongoing] is another Ghost Whisperer/DP crossover, it's a found-family fic where Danny runs away from home after his family dies in the events post TUE. He ends up running into Melinda and she goes out of her way to help him. There's a couple underlying mysteries surrounding the ghosts that haunt this fic, and Melinda tries to understand Danny's past and ends up tangled in a conspiracy because Danny's hiding his ghostly alter-ego and also the GIW are involved at some point (and they are much more menacing here than in canon). It's totally a page-turner, and you can get as invested as Melinda in hoping Danny heals from his loss. Spellbound [150k, ongoing] is a HP/DP crossover by the same author! Danny accidentally gets trapped by Magical Britain and is bitter about it, but he's trying to make the best of it. The Wizards have no idea what to make of him, but he just wants to go home, and he makes a couple friends while he plots his escape. (It's actually been a while since I read that one, so I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, but I do remember feeling bad for Danny in this fic, poor boy's lonely and can't even interact with kids his own age because he's an unknown creature to the wizards. Good thing Danny's never been one to follow authority.)
A Visit to Paris [10k, complete] is a Miraculous Ladybug/DP crossover in which Danny is Akumatized... sort of. The results are hilarious: Danny's a troll, Hawkmoth is frustrated, the heroes aren't really sure what to make of it, and Danny and Adrien make a lot of puns. Oh, and Danny is the only one smart enough to fix Paris' villain problem (okay, so it might be slightly cracky). It reminds me very much of Spirited Away, which I mentioned earlier. It's got the same level of chaos that's for sure. All in all, it's a very, very fun read.
A Different Sort of House Call [50k, incomplete] is a House MD/DP crossover, it's been years since I read it but I've always considered it one of the fandom classics too? It was definitely one of the first things to pop to mind when I was trying to recall all the cool memorable crossovers to rec you, so this goes on the list too. It's Danny at the hospital with House, and the doctors are trying to diagnose him without knowing about his ghost half (and Danny's not exactly willing to tell them either). There's angst (especially since the author wrote this to follow Lab Rat by AnneriaWings), Vlad trying to be an ally (sorta?), and House being clever as usual. Sadly it's incomplete but it's still super good!!
Running Blind [20k, complete] is a CSI/DP crossover (it took me forever to find the link again since it wasn't listed as a crossover). It's super good, Danny runs away for reasons unknown (at the beginning of course) and gets caught up in a murder investigation and he suspects the culprit is supernatural so obviously he helps out. The CSI guys are both trying to protect him (thinking he was a target for the murderer) but also trying to uncover his past and the reasons he ran away. When you find out why he ran away, you might be awed like I was (especially when you realize how long it had been since he ran) or you might be unimpressed, but the aftermath and his family/friends finally catching up to him might make up for that. I kinda liked how Vlad was written here too.
Ghost Crimes and its sequels is a Criminal Minds/DP crossover. It's the first in a very long series (currently 500k+ words in total) that expands on the DP world and lore, and also involves a lot more murder, death, blood (and the other related gore-ish stuff), and overall realism. Like, Danny fights what is basically Jack the Ripper and its terrifying. It's kind of like a "dark and gritty" DP (but like, not unbearably or overwhelmingly dark and gritty), angst sprinkled here and there, along with darker themes and less light-hearted issues (mental health/trauma/depression/etc. and neglect/abuse and like, actual competent adults like social workers and stuff are a real thing in this fic). There's a lot going on but it's got its lighter nice moments too (Dani is there and gets to be a part of Danny's family, Val's in on the secret, among other things). Also some of the chapters are illustrated, it's great. Definitely check it out!
Okay that's a lot of fics so I'm gonna stop now. Have fun reading!!
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xxx-cat-xxx · 5 years ago
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absolute top favourite tony h/c fic recs?
Thank you for the ask and sorry for taking so long to answer! I have a recommendation section here on my blog, but I extended it a bit and posted it below:
Cat’s Tony hurt/comfort fic recs
Long works
If you’re up for a dark, violent, and incredibly touching and well written novel in which Tony and Peter are broken and put back together countless times, go for How to repair a broken heart by InfluentialPineapple. In my opinion, it’s one of the best pieces of literature ever written anywhere, even outside of the fanfic-realm. It describes a journey on which Tony and Peter slowly grow together, and although it´s terribly sad and extremely whumpy, you can see the love the author has for their characters in every single line. Injury, illness, violence, torture, anxiety, PTSD, this one´s got everything, so please heed the TWs.
Dark Memories by @trammelsb: This story is centered around child (sexual) abuse. But it is so much more than Tony suffering through flashbacks and panic attacks (although there is a great deal of that) and being comforted by his team members, especially Bruce, his partner. It is about Tony going through a great deal of character development, learning that he is not to blame for what has happened. The author doesn´t shy away from all the heavy topics, but she also never ceases to treat the characters with respect, In the end, it seems to be a story about not giving up, and despite all the pain it causes when you read it, the feeling that stays is that it´s worth to keep fighting.
Arc Tremors by @rose-on-the-mountain: 44 epic chapters of Whump and the kind of fluff that is not fluffy at all, rather makes your heart overflow with emotions. It´s Avenger-family centric, including Pepper and Rhodey and wonderful robot characters, themed around an illness that forces Tony to go through a difficult heart procedure. Everyone’s shadows and traumas get their due, and it balances darkness and light admirably well.
One Hell of a Show by MillyVeil: Clint and Tony get kidnapped and tortured. Heavily. This is one of the physically most brutal whump-fics I know - Milly is like the Tarantino of fan-fiction - but god, it´s well done. TWs for detailed descriptions of rape and violence.
Resistance by thegraytigress: Tony and Steve are captured by the Kree and held in a concentration camp-like environment for months. This is a slow-built, well thought-through love story with a lot of pain and a deep exploration of Tony´s and Steve´s characters as well as their emerging relationship. It has one of the best and most realistic aftermaths to traumatic experiences that I´ve ever read. It’s basically a book worth of heavy, heavy, heavy physical and emotional whump. Please mind the TWs.
She’s my Ride Home by OfMonstersAndMe: The most beautiful recount of how Nebula’s and Tony’s friendship develops in the 23 days they spent in space. Lots of great hurt/comfort scenes and spot-on characterisation.
450 Feet Under by Veldeia: Tony is trapped in a cave with no way out. The Avengers are on the way to get him, but when he gets seriously injured, the rescue mission becomes a race against time. 15 chapters of absolutely satisfying whump, snark, and feels. Background Stony. Simply brilliant!
Short(er) Works
Basically all Tony fics by @builder051​. I especially like this Pepperony Christmas fic and this Nat & Tony cave anxiety fic.
Strong Enough by Ranni: Steve, Tony, and Clint are held prisoner, but the real danger begins when their captors abandon the prison to let them die in their cells. Injuries, torture, pneunomia, great dialogues. Platonic relationships between the three men, really touching, but not cheesy. Ranni is one of my favourite writers, and all her other stories are equally intruiging. Monsters and Beloved Companion also have a lot of Tony Whump.
Five Times Bruce is Not That Kind of Doctor™ + One Time He’s Perfect For the Job by @whumphoarder and @awesomesockes. The most amazing mix of humour and whump you’ll ever find. I love all their fics, so some more of my Tony Whump faves are The After Party and Desperate Times.
@taylortut writes beautiful and touching fics in which Tony gets whumped around other Avengers. Mostly h/c with illness or injury (and some adorable daily-life drabbles).The stories are generally light-hearted, but not at all superficial. I still can´t decide which one is my favorite because I love all of them, so I´m putting up the general link to Taylor´s Blog. Find her here on A03.
The Minor Fall, the Major Lift by sahiya: This one is about Bruce coming back to the compound after Civil War, trying to pick up Tony´s broken pieces. It has the best characterization of Tony, Bruce and Rhodes I´ve seen in a while now. Everything about this fic seems fragile, the characters, the conversations, the shaky comfort they manage to build. It´s slow-paced, and it´s not a fix-it-all, and this is what makes it so good. Sahiya is one of the best writers out there and her series “Me through Him to You” is printworthy.
Bruce and Goose´s Truce by @twentyghosts​: After Infinity War, Tony is saved from space. Bruce medically examines him while being heavily flirted at, then they bathe together, and Tony cries, and Bruce holds him tight. Everyone is more than a little broken, but it´s okay, because they have each other back. More Tony Whump in Cold, Comfort and Unmasked.
nimentia by TinyFuryCloud: Tony and Steve have been married for more than 20 years when Tony is diagnosed with Alzheimer´s disease. This story is so terribly well done. The whole process of Tony slowly disintegrating, slowly getting lost, but somehow, somewhere, still being Tony, is recounted in precise detail with just the right mixture of matter-of-fact descriptions and emotions. Also, A+ characterisation of everyone who is and was part of Tony´s life, including Peter and Jarvis.
Hubris by @writingromanoff​: Tony gets kidnapped and tortured by Justin Hammer. Tortured, as in forced to walk for days and days in the desert without a drop of water, and that´s just the beginning. When Steve finally shows up, Tony doesn´t even know whether he´s real anymore. I still can´t decide whether the whump or the whump´s aftermath is better in this one, both are very well described. Heed the TWs (torture and humiliation, obviously, as well as ED behaviour and others). By the same author: somno, the best concussion fic in the universe, and Blue Lips, Blue Veins, which is on some other level of genius alltogether.
Just a rather very intelligent system by @darkestsight​: Seven instances of Jarvis taking control over the suit and saving Tony´s ass without anyone noticing. Not all of them are sickfics. Chapter 3 is my personal favorite and contains a physically and emotionally beaten-down and extremely tired Tony; chapter 5 has him dealing with PTSD and chapters 6 and 7 involve him getting injured. I liked the idea of it and enjoyed the interactions between Tony and Jarvis.
Pressure Point by ratherastory: Another migraine fic, with a very precise description of the pain Tony´s in and a nice amount of Starkasm. Steve as caretaker. Can be read as Stony, but doesn’ t have to. Pain and vomiting.
Home by @saber-wing​: All Tony wanted was a cup of coffee. But then Thor’s Asgardian monster pet decides to try and eat Tony’s leg for breakfast. Excellent whump, Avengers family feels and a lot of humour. The author has many more amazing whump fics!
I Can´t Exactly Hold Your Hair Back by SirSapling: This is based on the comics and not the movies. It features Tony with cancer and Steve taking care of him on one of his bad days. I like this one for its slow whump build-up. Stony. Tags for migraine, vomiting, mentions of cancer.
Bust a gut, Tones by @whimsicalethnographies: Tony has appendicitis and Peter is the only one who realises it. Perfectly balances between humour and seriousness.
Fool’s Luck by @msermesth: Steve arrives on his doorstep exactly three hours and twenty-seven minutes after Tony finishes the last word of his eulogy. LOTS of pain. TW alcohol abuse, angst and suicidal thoughts. This is short, but extremely well done.
don’t let the blue skies fade by @blancheludis: This starts as a mission-gone-wrong fic with a perfect whump setting (of course Tony has to hide his injuries from everyone) and character depth that focuses on team dynamics and the evolving relationship between Tony and Steve.
Side Effects by discipulapauper: Steve and Tony are stuck in the desert, and Tony discovers that the serum causes unexpected complications when Steve doesn´t get food and water for a long time…Nice whump scenes, good characterization and mostly non-cheesy, non-stony dialogue. Featuring heat stroke symptoms and hallucinations.
Presenteeism by Veldeia: Tony thinks it is a good idea to send an empty suit along with the team on a mission while riding out his hangover alone somewhere in the middle of Russian nowhere. Too bad his hangover turns out to be something worse…
Mohini´s prompt fill for Nov(emeto)ber 5 by @mohini-musing​: Tony is sick and Bucky doesn´t really know how to handle it. A short but greatly written fic with emeto and fever, no WinterIron.
My own fics : 40+ stories of physically and/or emotionally hurt or sick Tony
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thecorteztwins · 4 years ago
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I love how you care so much about obscure characters. Who is your favorite underrated female X-men character
Awww thank you! I love bringing them love, so it makes me really happy for you to say that! My absolute fave is Haven, but I read “faves” as plural so I wrote down a bunch...my faves can bounce around a bit but here’s a list of some of them! It’s under a cut because it’s long, I really like to explain who these gals are and why I like them so much! Warning, there is some description of pretty horrendous sexism and racism for some of these, since nothing makes me latch on to a woman harder than wanting to defend her from the SHITTY THINGS WRITERS DID TO HER! I kinda wrote novels for Haven and Madelyne, then I did links to previous things I’ve written about others. This is a LOT, I’m so sorry, I just love sharing!! Thank you for asking!!
THE BIG ONES Basically my consistent mega-faves I’m always ready to talk about! RADHA “HAVEN” DASTOOR - This lady has been at the top of my list for over five years and counting! She just really resonated with me on a deep level. She’s this mysterious woman who turns up in X-Factor for seven issues, and though she’s very benevolent towards them (even when they attack her) she is technically a villain, as she’s trying to destroy 3/4 of the world to bring about the Mahapralaya, a sort of Hindu apocalypse that will bring about an age of peace and end to suffering. So, her motives are very compassionate, and as it turns out, the horrible things she’s trying to do aren’t actually her fault. She’s being posessed by the Adversary, a demon of the highest order and an entity of cosmic evil. Or more specifically, her unborn child is. See, Haven was a really, really good woman. She was not a mutant, but she was sensitive to the pain and suffering of others from an early age, and she devoted her life to helping the poor and needy. She’s incredibly rich, so she could have helped just from afar, but instead she not only used her wealth to help others, she herself went out in the streets to attend to the poor and sick with her own hands. She bathed lepers, cradled dying babies, everything. She actually GOT the name “Haven” from a children’s hospital that she renovated, the kids started calling HER that instead. What a villain, huh? It all goes super wrong when she fell in love with a guy. After he took her virginity, he took off, leaving her pregnant. This was in 1970s India, and she was a very a religious woman, she felt INTENSE shame and horrible guilt and sunk into a deep depression, now living on the streets herself she was so broken. And then...then her fetus started talking to her. Yeah, see, technically she wasn’t posessed by the Adversary, her unborn child was. It incubated in her for twenty years, corrupting her mind, making her its pawn, all basically for its own amusement til it could be reborn into the world, killing her. And the guy who knocked her up? Got off scott-free. Basically she had sex ONE time and she had to be punished for it by being stripped of her agency, forced to betray everything she loved and believed, and then finally killed in the mud while a Marvel deity stood over and told her how she brought this on herself. It’s a slut-shaming Victorian morality tale of how no matter how good a person you are, you’re tainted forever if you violate purity culture just once, and we’re expected to AGREE with this narrative as readers. It’s sick. It gets even worse in how X-Factor treats her. She first appears RESCUING Polaris from government agents who are trying to kill her, because despite WORKING for the government at this time (X-Factor was a government team during this period) Polaris’s energy signature matched Magneto’s. Haven is the one who saved Polaris by teleporting her away. Polaris was distrustful and threatened Haven. Haven tried to talk her down, but also opened her arms and said that if Polaris truly did not believe her, then she would not resist. Polaris decided to “give trust a try” but I also truly believe that if Lorna had attacked her, Haven indeed would have let her. Haven is a human but the Adversary gave her INCREDIBLE power, she could WIPE PEOPLE FROM EXISTENCE by THINKING ABOUT IT, but she was a pacifist every step of the way, even as a villain. X-Factor would REPEATEDLY attack her later...she NEVER retaliated. The worst thing she did was, once they kept on attacking her, she just kinda put them in her pocket dimension as a time-out, but didn’t hurt them any. I really don’t think she COULD, possessed or not. Anyway, after meeting Lorna, she ‘ports Lorna back to safety and leaves her be. She is interested in recruiting Lorna and the rest of X-Factor to her cause, but she’s very moral about it, and never uses situations like these as leverage; for instance, when she heals Rahne of the Genoshan bonding process and gives her back her free will and her ability to resume her fully human form, Rahne is ECSTATIC and ready to do ANYTHING for her. And rather than exploit this, Haven just hugs her and tells her that her joy is thanks enough. Again, what a villain! Anyway, it turns out this Haven lady is also an activist! She’s big on promoting peace between warring groups (which I think makes it very significant that she’s an Indian character from Mumbai, then Bombay, who was created in 1992, the same year when Hindu/Muslim tensions in India resulted in the Bombay Bombings and subsequent riots, and she indeed mentions Hindu/Muslim tensions in her pro-peace speeches) and she emphasizes accepting MUTANTS in particular. It is very rare we see humans who are pro-mutant, though they had happened before, but this is the first time we see a human who is pro-mutant WITHOUT any affiliation or friendship with the X-men, and who is a public figure who seems to have some real social power---she’s a best-selling author, lecturer, and apparently her being a very wealthy woman has made some very wealthy people listen to her. She is basically the perfect ally for mutants if you take out the demon-possessed part, and I always found this super interesting and wish more had been done with it. So, she’s speaking at Brahma Hall (Brahma, notably, is the Hindu creator god) and...THIS happens. It’s...it’s really distressing. I’m sure it’s bad enough in its own time, but reading it NOW, in a post-9/11 world, a world where POC are routinely slaughtered by law enforcement (they always were but social media has made us more aware) it’s chilling. And we, the reader, are supposed to see X-Factor as JUSTIFIED in how they treat this unarmed, non-threatening, apparently-human-for-all-they-know woman who is promoting peace. Because no matter how nice she is, the US government says she’s an evil terrorist, and the US government turns out to be right! Yay, America! This might be a good time to mention Haven was the first Hindu character in X-Men comics, and the philosophy that the Adversary is manipulating her with comes directly from Hindu cosmology, and that is WAY IFFY to say THE LEAST. Holy xenophobia, Batman! And in an X-MEN comic of ALL PLACES! Oh yeah, and our good guys also describe her beliefs as “New Age psychobabble” and make fun of her temple decor as "very 60s" when BOTH ARE FROM HINDUISM, WHITE USA HIPPIES DID NOT INVENT IT, YOU IGNORANT SHITS So anyway, Haven’s very interesting to me as someone who is so deeply pacifistic and compassionate, that even when she’s being steered by a literal demon that has been talking in her womb for 20 years, she’s still someone who is perpetually polite, who won’t hurt the HEROES even when they want to hurt her, who SURRENDERS during a FIGHT in order to HEAL ONE OF THEM, and...who ends up with an abruptly aborted arc where she’s killed by her own “child” and victim-blamed in her last moments by Roma, the Omniversal Guardian Goddess and foe/counterpart of the Adversary. It’s made all the more tragic by the fact that Haven’s last pleas to Roma weren’t for herself, but for Roma to stop the Adversary, as she had realized now what her “child” really was. Even in her final moments, Haven was thinking of others, of the world. It’s just....awful to me that a character as interesting and unique as she was was thrown away like that, and that she was treated in such a sexist, racist, xenophobic way by both the HEROES and the story itself. I stan Haven 4 life. MADELYNE PRYOR- She’s maybe not “obscure” per se, I think most X-Men readers have a basic understanding of who she is, but the problem is that “basic” is not enough. What most people know is ”she’s Jean Grey’s evil clone” and some might know that “she was married to Scott Summers and went evil when he ditched her for Jean”. But that’s so far from the whole story, and it really does Madelyne a disservice, and canon has done her ENOUGH disservice already. Madelyne was originally created by Chris Claremont to truly be just a human woman who looked just like the dead Jean, with whom Scott would settle down and have a kid, and leave the X-Men. It’s a pretty nonsensical notion, the idea that this woman just happens to look exactly like Jean and meet Scott and fall in love, but this was his plan, he has confirmed it. And like...that’s pretty sexist from the start, in that she’s very literally created as a replacement for Jean on a narrative level, there’s NO REASON that she should have to look exactly like Scott’s dead ex besides as a way for Scott to still “get” Jean in a way. But Maddie rises above that swiftly by being a super strong, super cool character in her own right. She’s a pilot, she’s fearless, she’s adventurous, she’s got a mean right hook, and she’s got a tragic backstory when she crashed her plane and cost the lives of over three hundred passengers. She gets involved with Scott and by extension the X-Men, and she holds her own despite having no powers. Weird fact, this means that some of the X-Men, like Rogue, met Madelyne before they ever met Jean. She also gets a cool story where she gained healing powers, and the reason her powers specifically took the form of healing is because they were what she wanted them to be. She’s a good person, and also a total badass. Then, Jean came back, and the Powers That Be wanted her back together with Scott. But Scott was married to Madelyne. Rather than have them get a divorce or something, it was decided Madelyne had to be very literally demonized and then murdered, because we can’t just have two women co-exist, no, they must be divided into a “good” woman and a “bad” woman and fight over a man. Actual quote from Chris Claremont: “ Then, unfortunately, Jean was resurrected, Scott dumps his wife and kid and goes back to the old girlfriend. So it not only destroys Scott's character as a hero and as a decent human being it creates an untenable structural situation: what do we do with Madelyne and the kid? ... So ultimately the resolution was: turn her into the Goblin Queen and kill her off.” So, after something like EIGHT YEARS of being a character unto herself, Madelyne gets retconned as actually having been Jean’s clone all along! Which, okay, does make sense, certainly more sense than ‘this woman just happens to look EXACTLY like Jean and hook up with Jean’s ex” but then the REASON that Sinister cloned her...is nothing to do with Maddie or Jean themselves. Madelyne’s creation isn’t ABOUT her the way so many other clone/created-in-a-lab type stories are, like Laura Kinney. She wasn’t important. She was made literally just to have a baby with Scott, the BABY is what’s important. She is REPEATEDLY called a “brood mare” in fact (a female horse used specifically for breeding) So basically, her only value, her only REASON for existing, is her reproductive capacity. A lot of people think that Madelyne either found out she was a clone and went crazy-evil, or she went crazy-evil when Scott went back to Jean. That’s not what happened. Madelyne goes through a long, long series of arduous tragedies that piece by piece dehumanize and violate and traumatize her, and even then she doesn’t become evil until she’s TRICKED into being infected with demonic energy. Being “evil” was NEVER her choice, and everyone forgets that. See, first Scott walked out on her and the baby. Then, the Marauders attacked her, nearly killed her, and stole her baby and left her for dead in a coma for months. When she woke up, her baby was still missing, and she rejoined the X-Men to help them while they also helped search for her son. She sacrificed her LIFE alongside them to defeat the Adversary (yes, the same one Haven was pregnant with!) and then was resurrected with them too by Roma (yes, same Roma). She continued to work with the X-Men, despite the fact Scott had left her, and used her tech expertise to be the X-Men’s computer gal in Australia. When she saw X-Factor on one of the news monitors, including Scott with Jean, she realized why he’d abandoned her. She punched the screen and the explosion knocked her unconscious. While she was knocked out and dreaming, the demon Sym invaded her mind showed her a few different reflections of things she could be, one of which was a demonic reflection of herself. She chose that one, saying “What the heck, it’s only a dream.” And then Sym infected her with demonic energy. So she literally JUST found out her husband left her and their now-missing son for another woman, and she thinks she’s dreaming so yeah she picks the idea of being a demon IN THE CONTEXT OF A DREAM, A FUCKING FANTASY, WHEN SHE’S GOT EVERY RIGHT TO BE PISSED and oh well now you’re gonna be evil for real honey you don’t get a choice. Serves you right for being angry even for a moment, woman! But even then, she didn’t instantly turn evil. Horrible shit had already happened to her, but she still held out…so of course, more shit happened to her. While she and the X-Men were trying to help an escapee from Genosha (which was still enslaving mutants at that point) she ended up captured herself, and since their readings indicated she was not quite human (though what exactly she was, they didn’t know) they tried to put her through the “mutate bonding process” that would enslave her too. As a result, her latent psychic powers finally manifest, and she telekinetically explodes the place. From there, we start seeing big hints that something is going really wrong with Maddie, she seduces Havok and she’s entered into a secret bargain with the demon N’astrih, who promised to help her find her still-missing son (whom she still wanted to find and save at that point because she was still mostly herself) and of course, that bargain transformed her into the Goblyn Queen. After this transformation, though, she STILL had not gone past the point of no return. That didn’t happen until she met Sinister and she found out the truth of her origins—-not only was she a clone of Jean Grey physically, the few memories that she had also came from Jean, and her emotions from Scott had been PROGRAMMED into her (meaning she never had a choice at all in the man she loved) and it was all to be a brood mare, to produce a child with him. Only then did she go off the deep end completely, and agreed to N’astrih’s plan to sacrifice her own son (who he now found and gave to her, as this was his plan all along) because it was the absolute BIGGEST fuck you she could give to Sinister and to Cyclops. And like, yes, that’s evil, but given at that point she was not only magically infected/corrupted with demon energy AND insane with trauma that had been building up for months if not YEARS of development…she basically had a better excuse than ANYONE in all this who was also corrupted by Inferno. Yet she’s the one who doesn’t get a break. The unfairness is just…staggering, really. Even her death isn’t without indignity, violation, and depersonalization---she tries to commit a murder suicide, linking her mind with Jean’s and killing herself so that Jean will be dragged down into death with her. Jean, who really is the kindest to Maddie, urges Maddie to live instead, but Maddie’s last words are “not in the same world as you”. Jean survives. Maddie does not. And then...Jean takes Maddie’s memories and psyche into herself. It’s meant as beautiful, but to me it’s a heinous violation. Maddie wanted nothing more than be APART from Jean, so much so she KILLED HERSELF, and now Jean has made her a part of her forever, and we’re meant to applaud this? It’s DISGUSTING. Madelyne gets resurrected in the 1990s by Nate Grey, but it turns out that was an accident on his part, his mind was subconsciously seeking...Jean Grey, of course. And we he finds out he’s the one who brought her back to life, HE TRIES TO KILL HER. Jean stops him, but it’s no wonder to me that poor Maddie runs to the arms of Sebastian Shaw...who, of all people, actually treats her as an individual from the get-go and ends up being a pretty good boyfriend to her. Never even tries to use her in any evil schemes, it’s crazy. Madelyne has come back and died again and come back a few times since then, but she’s never really been “Maddie” again, whether it was brave adventurous Badass Normal pilot Maddie who just wanted to help people, or the bitter, conflicted, morally grey Maddie of the 90s. No, she’s just....she’s not even Goblyn Queen anymore, she lacks the pathos, she’s just this sexy evil misogynist caricature of herself and I hate it. I really love Madelyne Pryor. She came into this crazy world as a normal human, and when she got pulled into superhero shenanigans she held her own. She was a badass, she was a spitfire, she had a huge heart. She deserves a lot better than just being a gross Sexy Evil Lady with no personality, especially since she no longer has the whole “demonically possessed” issue going on. It’s just stupid and sexist at this point. I personally love original 80s Maddie, and also 90s Maddie where like...this shit has happened to her and she’s darker for it now, and understandably so, but she’s also still HER. Like, she leaves Sebastian Shaw not because he ever treated her badly, which he did not, but because he was doing things that could hurt OTHER PEOPLE, and that was where she drew the line. She was an enemy to the X-Men now or at least really hated them, she killed Threnody for bringing up her past as being “bred to breed”, but she also wasn’t about to be with a man who would risk the lives of millions of innocent people with his schemes, no matter how well he treated her, no matter if he was the one man who ever saw her for HER. Real Maddie is INTERESTING and Real Maddie is GOOD and I want Real Maddie back so she can call everyone on their shit and then go off and live her best life instead of being eternally dragged back into pointless villainy by authors who can’t think of anything better! MEGGAN PUCEANU - As with Madelyne, she’s maybe not UNKNOWN per se, I mean she’s one of the lead characters of Excalibur, but I also don’t think she’s an A-lister at all either. I’ve written about her HERE and HERE and her relationship dynamics with Brian Braddock/Captain Britain HERE so I feel like those links will probably be better than another novel like I did for Haven and Maddie! CATSEYE AKA SHARON SMITH - The deaths of all the Hellions were a tragedy, but Catseye is the one I found most interesting and with the most potential! I’ve written about her HERE and the Hellions in general HERE with a segment on her. She’s just so cute and innocent and INTERESTING, I want to know so much more about how she behaves, how she perceives the world and interact with others, how she gets on with her teammates, how she reacts this and that, I just love her! MINDMELD - Appears for only one issue, is arguably the first transgender mutant in Marvel, and also a total badass who I think is really sexy. I write more about her HERE and HERE. HONORABLE MENTIONS I’m not freaking out over these girls AS MUCH or AS CONSISTENTLY but they all have a place in my heart!! Really all it takes is someone MENTIONING them to get me revved up all over again!
THRENODY AKA MELODY JACOBS- Another Marvel gal who can’t catch a break, when she’s remembered by anyone at all. I wrote about her HERE prior to her most recent return in Deadpool, then HERE about said return. I just really, really want Threnody to be happy. She’s suffered enough. Admittedly, that could be said for most women on this list, maybe all of them. GOSAMYR- Wrote about her HERE! Most people who know of her at all typically hate her but I find her extremely interesting. She’s like everything people HATE about women, every stereotype of “toxic femininity”, but then this is explained as part of her culture and biology, and this is, to her, what is normal, and how is she to KNOW that everyone acts nuts around her when she has no basis for knowing how they act when she’s NOT around? She interests me in the questions and dilemmas she raises, and I just kinda have a thing for women we’re supposed to hate because of their feminine traits. KWANNON- The Japanese woman whose body Betsy Braddock had for years. I was very excited when she was brought back to life and given her own series, I wanted for her at last to be a CHARACTER with her own PERSONALITY and LIFE that wasn’t just an excuse to give a white woman a ninja makeover, and then I got...Fallen Angels. And she’s just...she’s literally just 90s Psylocke. I was very disappointed. But I still like Kwannon HERSELF in terms of potential, and now that she’s back maybe she’ll become a real person sooner or later. SATURNYNE AND SAT-YR-9: Wrote about them HERE! I really like Sat-Yr-9 as a villain (I especially enjoyed her short stint in the Hellfire Club as White Queen with Viper as her lieutenant and not-so-subtle girlfriend) and I like Saturnyne as a sort of celestial bureaucrat, someone who isn’t a force of good or evil but a force of ORDER, like the opposite of “embodiment of chaos” type characters. MURMUR AKA ARLETTE TRUFFEAU: I have not written about her before but HERE IS HER WIKI ARTICLE. As with Gossamyr, she seems like the “sexy shallow slut we’re supposed to dislike” type, so of course I like her. BIANCA LANEIGE- A Generation X villain who bore a grudge against Emma Frost from her days in the Hellfire Club, I wrote about her HERE. She’s pretty comedic as a bad guy, but that’s not a bad thing! I’d like to see her around again one day, either as silly as ever or made more serious. LIFEGUARD: Wrote about here HERE. She was in the first X-Men graphic novel that I bought and I’ve always had a soft spot for her since. I really liked that she didn’t give a shit when she found out who her bio-father was, it’s such a refreshing reaction compared to the usual “what if I’m just like my father/I can’t believe I’m adopted/etc” angst. Comparatively, she’s super upset about her Shi’ar lineage, because that actually altered her INTERNAL self when it manifested, she started seeing everyone around her as PREY and I reckon that’s pretty distressing for someone like her. Always wanted to see her come back; she’s in the background at a Krakoa party! SILHOUETTE CHORD: Wrote about her HERE and HERE. I just like her I guess! She’s maybe not obscure per se since she’s a main cast member of The New Warriors, but I’ve never really seen her get any attention. BLACK MAMBA AKA TANYA SEALY: Wrote about her HERE! THE ASP AKA CLEOPATRA NEFERTITI: Wrote about her HERE! SKEIN AKA SYBIL DVORAK: Wrote about her HERE and HERE! She was on the “Woman Warriors” team with Black Mamba and Asp, and I like the idea they just hang out as friends a lot!! ANACONDA AKA BLANCHE “BLONDIE” SITZINSKI: Wrote about her HERE! I just want her to hug me...really, really hard :) SHARADA DARTHRI: A minor villain that shows up during the “all female X-Men” team era in...2013, I think? Wrote about her HERE. DRAGONFLY AKA VERONICA DULTRY: Wrote about her HERE MANTIS : Despite the fact that she’s very well-known for her film version in Guardians of the Galaxy, most people don’t seem to know much at all about her comics version even though she’s been an Avengers member since the 70s. Wrote about her HERE and HERE and HERE, someone else writes about her HERE PENDING These are characters that I have not had the chance to personally read up on myself yet, but I want to! Their names link to their Marvel wiki articles! TOPAZ FIREBIRD SNOWBIRD SILVERCLAW There are honestly countless others I’m probably not remembering but this is a good handful I think! Oh, yeah, and also...COOTER. Because her name is COOTER oh my god.
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