#and subverting those tropes

[toyybox]

I love crying in whump stories because it's such a familiar human instinct, but it also carries a lot of meaning. Generally, people think crying is a sign of weakness. It's a perfectly natural and normal response to stress, but it's seen as something you should avoid, and oftentimes crying in front of someone you don't know well is uncomfortable for both parties. There’s a kind of stigma around showing this level of emotion. Being overly sensitive is usually viewed as a negative trait.

If someone cries, especially in front of other people, they are stressed enough that they can’t repress that feeling of being overwhelmed. It's a sign of vulnerability. Being pushed to tears can make a character feel completely powerless. It's degrading. It's also one of the few things that is hard to hide. Even if a character manages to keep a stoic front, a few tears and a trembling voice can make that all fall apart.

If a character feels comfortable enough to cry in front of someone, however, they're comfortable enough to be vulnerable with them. They can truly express what they're feeling. There's a strong level of trust involved. They don't feel like they have to pretend. They don't feel like they need to hide all the ugly parts of themselves, because they know they can always depend on that other person.

I just really love weepy characters in fiction ok :'''')

[stars-obsession-pit]

Sorry I’m magically married to your brother

Jason gets ritually “sacrificed” by a cult to the Ghost King, which it turns out ends up forcibly marrying him to Danny.

So now Danny is forced to interact with him and the rest of Gotham’s vigilantes while they work to break that.

During that process, Danny starts to fall for… Tim.

(or could be any of them really, just specifically not the one he’s bound to)

Which means Danny now has two goals: get a divorce from his magically-assigned spouse, and seduce that spouse’s sibling.

…he’s never gonna live this down.

[daylighteclipsed]

[mamawasatesttube]

another addition to the list of fics i would love to see but dont really want to write: timkon "one of them has a crush on the other's secret civilian id without knowing it's them" but it's tim hopelessly pining for conner kent. he has no idea the supers have secret identities at all, let alone who they might be. conner kent is just a normal farmboy (who he happened to meet via convenient circumstances). just a normal kid who lives on a farm with his sweet old country (grand)parents and his rambunctious dog. just a normal guy! ...right?

[jacarandaaaas]

Mirabel Madrigal & Creativity:

So something I’ve realized after watching the movie a couple of times now is how mirabels story can easily correlate with the experience of someone creative when you’re only considered of use if you’re academically smart.

Not only do they refer to the magic as “gifts” and “gifted” very common terms associated with people who are considered academically smart but also the fact mirabel is shown as an artist. Our first introduction to her you see her room is plastered in artwork as a 5 year old and even after the prologue you still see she’s kept her artistic side. the thing is mirabel is incredibly talented she draws, she sews, she embroiders, paints, plays the accordion too! These are all incredible talents to possess and yet do we ever see her getting praised for them in the movie? not really. because mirabel doesn’t have a “gift” a literal magic gift yes but also could be interpreted for a creative as academic smarts. Creative thinking is something mirabel possesses and its quite literally the answer in the end but because she’s not smart in the expected way i.e academics she feels she’s not worth as much as others in her family.

I like to think making her an artist was an intentional choice as I know a lot of fellow artists have had people tell us it’s not a “useful” skill to have in the real world. It’s not worth taking the time doing when you could be pursuing medicine or law or something that uses your brain. Even in the ending of the movie mirabel tells them they’re “more than just your gift” which I feel can relate a lot to people who heavily rely on their academic achievements they can forget it’s ok to not do 100% every time and these ridiculous standards are just wearing you down.

So in conclusion I believe mirabels story resonates a lot with the experience of being a creative person but your skills not being seen as valuable. I just love that they made mirabel an artist to show how talented she actually is! she shows that creatives are valued and appreciated and needed and deserve to be encouraged not shot down! so thank you mirabel valentina rojas madrigal for being my favorite artist <3

[vigilskeep]

i need to wynnepost. somebody has to

[calangkoh]

love finding ppl irl who prefer 2003 like my cousins bf and i got into a talk and one of his first points was “idk brotherhood seems so tone deaf with the subject matter in comparison” and i felt truly seen and heard in that moment

[rotisseries]

it's amazing how frequently on the internet you'll see people just. somehow completely unaware that cait is wasian😭😭😭

[seeking-elsewhither]

So I made my sister cry today

Because I insisted that I'm adopted

[gregoryeddiesgoldchain]

i think that if they do a whole “hurt the nice guy on the way to ur real love” thing with manny i’ll be a lil disappointed honestly. don’t get me wrong i still love gregory but i just feel like quinta and the team are more creative than that

[emeryleewho]

I think the worst statement any serious writer can make is "I hate tropes, and I never use them." People say this thinking it means they're so "unique" and "interesting" and "not mainstream", but all it tells me is that you know literally nothing about what tropes are or how fiction works or what other people are working on and you're so self-absorbed that you've never stopped to consider how your work exists in relation to other people's work. It's a deeply unserious take, and every time someone makes it and I look deeper into their work, I find that not only does their work deploy tons of tropes, but they're usually done in such a basic, bland, and downright juvenile way because the author doesn't even know how to engage with tropes subversively or with critical thought.

[andorerso]

ship-specific aus for rebelcaptain almost always make more sense with the genders flipped and that's one of the reasons why they're such a good m/f ship

[safflinas]

misc thoughts abt lies of p (⚠️spoilers)

pulling this outta my ass fr but i needed to get it out

Arlecchino and Pulcinella were a duo in the og Pinocchio so I kept thinking they’d know each other somehow in Lies of P, but their only connection is that they were both influential figures in Venigni’s life (for better or for worse) and both “awakened.” Given that Venigni is a reflection of Mangiafuoco, it’s funny how the two puppets who he held a menacing hand over in the original ended up being his guiding forces here🤧 they were the ones holding his strings, in a way.

I often think about the chapter where Mangiafuoco decides to use Arle as fire wood on a whim, only to be dissuaded by Pinocchio’s pleas. Similarly Venigni was once caught at the mercy of Arle’s violent whims in his childhood. His parents’ pleas put the idea to spare Venigni in Arle’s head but ultimately he didn’t make that choice out of compassion but out of sadistic curiosity (and to prove he acts on his own will). As we know, Arle considers Venigni his “masterpiece” for the traumatic impact he had on him, and you could argue that this experience is what made Venigni passionate about implanting the Grand Covenant in all puppets. A safety net for humanity, but consequently it tightens all the puppets’ strings. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the both of them are playing a game of power & control and it’s almost like they’re both trying to be the Mangiafuoco/puppet master over e/o

[chibishortdeath]

Some attempts at a design for Selena :3. The second image is inspired by the wedding in Haunted Castle, but I changed Simon’s outfit cause idk I just can’t picture him being comfortable in a suit.

The last two of these are way more headcanon-y lol. They’re under a cut mostly in case my headcanons and story ideas change d(^^ ). One of them was inspired by a Kikuo song I was listening to while drawing lol, the song “Let’s Go to Heaven”.

[bmpmp3]

lemme tell you im starting to get a little sick of when im complaining about when a show or movie is writing a major female character with not as much depth as her male cohorts or she's written oddly plot device-like for a main character and people always tell me "oh but it's intentional, we're seeing her through the eyes of the male main character and he has a crush on her so he doesnt see her flaws" because like

FIRST of all yeah i get it but its hard to write that trope interestingly to me at this point without a lot of work put into subversion so intentionality doesnt make it any less boring

SECONDLY half the time people say this about ensemble cast stuff and like why is the random dude suddenly designated as the most perspective of all perspective characters when it comes to this specific woman. why dont we get to see the other characters perspectives on her too?

AND THIRDLY do people view women they have crushes on as bland plot devices without lives of their own enough irl that this is so universal in writing? isnt the point of having a crush wanting to hang out and know more about your crush, know about their likes and dislikes and all that. am i missing something here

[ishomieokay]

People who think there's only one Right WayTM to write a character or a ship dynamic are so annoying and weird. Tell me you don't understand self-projection and how it shapes the way we understand fiction without telling me.