#because this concept is actually rly beautiful

[peppermint-whiskers]

Ok wait idea for God Possessed Pentious au that you can totally ignore/burn in a fire.

What if humans were,like, made of music. Screw dust and dirt, humanity was born from the notes and songs of the Heavens. Musical notes run through their veins. Their souls sing with an ancient melody. Music is an intrinsic part of humanity.

Idk. It’s dumb.

No wait that's actually really sweet 😭😭 Maybe their bodies are made of dust, but their souls are made of music. Each one sings its own special song and that's what creates personalities

The song develops over time from a simple melody to something complex and unique. Some people's songs are jagged and sharp, and others are very slow and languid. Some are cacophonous and others are harmonious. Raguel can see souls, but only El can hear them fully

[arolesbianism]

Sometimes I just look at Isabeau and just know that if isat came out and I got into it when I was like 16 he would be my favorite character and I would've gone absolutely buck wild over this man and feel like he was laser targeting me. But alas Odile has a grip of steel on me rn due to her virtue of being a middle aged woman

[hellspawnmotel]

Finished up my own rewatch of Madoka recently and am still reeling from your rewatch drawings from awhile back, you draw the girls so good

Because of you Sayaka is forever she/they to me now

yes...... my only thought with that was "I want to make this joke, who's the most likely to use they/them sometimes? well of course sayaka" but it rly works for her. she wants to be a beautiful bishounen prince-knight sooooooo bad. like she's always had the passing thought that she wishes she was a boy, but if actually given the chance to live as a boy she'd back off and downplay it. she doesn't REALLY, not all the time anyway. it's more like she wants to play the role of a boy, she wants to be seen as a boy while still being (partly) a girl at heart. she wants to be like lady oscar or princess sapphire. she wants to flirt with girls and rescue people..... also I think she reads yaoi and sees herself in it a bit. I do not think she really understands her own gender shit (she is 14 and repressed) but if she were to use english pronouns for whatever reason she would learn about the concept of using they/them and its context and she'd be like "heh.....cool" and she'd play it off like a trendy thing she was participating in for fun but inside it would make her really happy

[magicalgirlsirin]

it was rly funny when welt was trying to tell acheron how great kevin was and how it was thanks to him humanity survived. acheron responded no he died alone and it was other people who did that

Oh g-d actually I'm so esited because I get to powerlevel further

So like, the thing is that if you only have context with hi3 (summaries or otherwise), you're actually missing out on which version of Mei that Acheron is based on.

It's not hi3 Mei, it's ggz* Mei.

*Specifically before they rebooted ggz canon like 5 separate times to try and beat it into submission to align with hi3 canon more which I still don't agree with but that's not the point of this post.

And like, yes Acheron's trailer is functionally a hi3 recap, but in terms of emotion and meaning it's way closer to her ggz counterpart and what finality means there.

In hi3, the reveal is that finality is "time". In ggz, the reveal is that finality is the "end". In hi3, Kiana, Mei, and Bronya band together to overcome finality, which ultimately allows humanity more time to exist. In ggz, it's revealed that the future doesn't, will not, and has never once existed. Every action taken will always be preserved in the past, and the present is just a repeat of all those actions right back up to meeting finality.

In ggz, Kiana becomes finality, and kills Mei and Bronya.

In hi3, Kiana becomes finality, and overcomes the end with Mei and Bronya.

In hsr, Kevin becomes finality, but is defeated by Mei alone.

Because she hasn't actually overcome finality, Mei probably realized how futile her efforts were. Finality in hsr is Terminus, the aeon who is eternally moving backwards from the end that THEY have already witnessed... Similar to ggz's concepts about finality as the end.

(As a sidebar, Welt Yang didn't exist in ggz, it was just Welt Joyce who is wayyyy less noble as an AE leader.)

So like... neither Welt nor Acheron are wrong in their conversation. Kevin was a hero, but he was also the culmination of humanity's greatest threat. Acheron could not reach the other side, and she lost everything she cared about sacrificing her comforts to try and delay their ends just a little bit longer. She can't even doubt herself or even think to be stronger next time, because she knows she's the strongest (and loneliest) that she'll ever be. There is no next time, so there is no point in doing better.

That is the path of Nihility, succumbing to the pointlessness of existence. And there is no Kiana there to tell her to fight for all that's beautiful in the world, because she's forgotten how to see.

edit: to be clear, when I say that acheron is "based on" ggz mei, it's in regards to her relationship with finality, in case it wasn't clear enough from my post okay thanks bye

[meruz]

hi im putting all my asks in one post again. these are from like the past month and a half approx? some digimon thoughts some tmnt thoughts some art musings u know the usual

@waywardistics YAYY thank you so much for ordering! I'm glad it got to you & that you are enjoying it!

this is kind of a missive to everyone who ordered but: I am very nervous about pre-orders whenever I do them... nervous that not very many people will order, nervous that there will be supply chain or production dilemmas and I won't be able to get copies out to people in a timely fashion, nervous about having people's money but having an indeterminate amt of time where i have not yet "held up my part of the bargain" etc etc SO. THANK U GUYS...FOR ORDERING and being patient and im so glad it got to y'all

@seanonthemoon (idk why i cant tag u BUT) interesting... i gotta be honest I don't think abt the crests that much. i agree that they're very much like heres the "girl" crest heres the "nerd boy" crest etc to the point that it becomes almost meaningless. but i think what makes them even more meaningless to me, and is probably the reason they kind of designated girl/boy crests etc is that i think like the digivices they're toys and merchandise more than they are actual narrative tools LOL. I wouldve loved something with cody and mimi! theyre both so deeply empathetic and sensitive.. theres a lot they share but i think because they look so different on the surface it would make it difficult to market that merch...booo capitalism boooo toy marketing its all sexist bullshit at least here in the u.s. idk if japan is that different though.

I'm actually a little frustrated with how often 02 and 02 related media squanders cody in general lol. he feels like a parallel of izzy, joe, and TK(season 1 tk) while also being kind of none of those and suffering through lackluster characterization as a result... and then once ken joins the team it feels a little redundant. there's a couple cody-centric eps of 02 I remember really liking but then i think abt how he's been used since in like post-series content and 02:the beginning where they made him type on the computer even though obviously that's yoleis thing but because he had nothing else to do and aghh... my blood boils. i feel like the youngest but most serious anime achetype even at its bare bones is actually rly interesting idk why they don't play it up. UM. Once again my opinion is that he should be taller LOL and maybe they should play up his kendo martial arts honorable training stuff more idk. tallest + youngest + most serious just seems like a recipe for success for me. well. theres still time. and theres always fanfic.

THIS IS SO NICE TO SAY and not the first time someone has said it but i appreciate it everytime because i really admire the mm art style so much. It's like part of why I got really into the movie because I really recognized my own artistic sensibilities and aspirations in the way they stylized everything.

UM And i feel like since watching the movie and looking at all the concept art and making my own art i do feel like its only become more obvious how much my own art is lacking LOL LIKE when you see something that feels so similar I think the differences only become more stark. those artists are definitely on a different level than me. But it's nice to hear people say it doesn't look so different from their pov. thank u ^^

thank u!!!!!!! i love mundanity and naturalism... there's something so beautiful abt it to me lol... I feel like my anatomy needs work actually but ive been feeling better abt it this year so it's good to hear! thank you!

DLKGDSGDLALSNDF WAS IT TOO FAR..?? firstly, yeah I was thinking late teen/young adult ages for both of them ie 18-19ish, definitely not the age the kids are in the movie lol.

but also they arent DOING anything in that pic it is literally just a confrontation + some innuendo... I think teens should be allowed some less than subtle innuendo.. its like one of the top 3 classically teen pastimes...

this is such a funny ask to get because i feel like i haven't been able to do thin lineart until like. this past year or two maybe LOL. UM having a line-centric art job helped I think. I started on craig of the creek back in 2022 and thats a show where we spend a lot of time inking so I had a job where I was constantly moderating my line weight 40 hours a week every week for over a year. disappointingly, much of improvement is simply horrendous amounts of practice.

Here's a tip though: I think a lot of thin lineart boils down to confidence. I think instinctively we read thick, bold, fast lines as confident but theres actually a lot of obscuring you can do with a thick line. if you're not sure whether the nose on the face or a browline should be a little more left or a little more down you can hide that with a thick line and pretend its a shadow. or hide it with a bunch of quick lines and the eye can kind of approximate where looks best among the mass.. whereas a thin line is rly singular and stark and hides nothing, it needs to be precise. so anytime i know i want thin lineart i spend a LOT of time sketching, making sure i know exactly where i want my lines to go. so im not second guessing by the time im inking...

ok thats kind of a broad tip lol... here's one thats more applicable: IF POSSIBLE, lower your pressure sensitivity on your device. most devices have some way to edit your pressure sensitivity curve. I use a surface pro at home and this is what my pressure curve looks like most of the time.

When I work on a wacom it looks even more like a reverse L shape LOL. I'm naturally a really heavy-handed artist and I use a "light" or "hard" pressure curve to compensate for how hard I'm always pressing on the pen lol. if you're like me and you struggle with going too hard with the ink too fast... this will probably help a lot!

SFHASLDFH I LOVE THIS ASK this is like the type of question a person gets asked when chalk drawing on the sidewalk at recess LOL. but i understand because I've been struggling also for like. months. I think I'm finally starting to nail it down though so here's some of my observations.

[feel free to save this img but **please do not re-post it or share broadly**. my biggest fear in the world is to spend 30 min on some notes and become a widely proliferated art tutorial im not even kidding. i made it low contrast and difficult to read on purpose.]

my other tip is to just look at and study a lot of reference because that's all ive been doing. the tmnt are really cartoony so its difficult to use like actual anatomical reference unless ur going for that look BUT theres been so many adaptions in so many different styles that there's a real treasure trove of stuff to look at for how to simplify, stylize, and dissect these characters while keeping the recognizable essence. so theres lots to pull from.

If you want to expand further, it's also good to have 5) something sci-fi 6)something fantasy 7)something mundane/slice of life. a bedroom is a really good go-to. And of course some bgs can be two or more of these things at once.

I've definitely answered asks abt bg tips before but here's one specifically for if you want to do bg design for a job:

Your portfolio should probably have at least one of each of the following 1) an interior 2) an exterior 3) a cityscape 4) a nature scene. Just to cover kind of the basics of what you'd be asked to draw on any given project.

I actually feel like I don't have that many cityscrapes in my portfolio... this is something I'm gonna try to work on in the coming year LOL. OH ALSO. This is a very basic tip and people will tell you it all the time but its worth repeating: look up portfolio websites of artists who have the job you want. An easy way to do this is to go onto imdb for any cartoon or movie you like and to find the names listed as "bg/background designer" or whatever then just google that name +"art" or "animation" most artists have some public facing internet presence so it's not hard. spend time studying their work and hold those images in your head! it's a good way to get a good idea of what "industry standard" looks like and comparing ur own art to it... I know people sometimes get bummed comparing their art to others but if you can keep your head up lol.. it'll help you figure out what you need to work on!

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ok thats all i have to say sorry for typing so much. happy new year everybody who read this far LMAO!!!!!

[sweet-strawberry-rain]

"i am the sun who rises again and again each morning."

hi!

my name is rosa, and i go by she/they/stars pronouns! this is my irl magical hero blog, astral and physical! i am also a agnostic pagan and i am interested in pcw!

my concept is a dual one, one is a majokko concept by day and a dmc-based concept at night! i dont wanna sound cringe but i am your angle and yuor devil /ref

i am the host of a system with 6 alters against the world, i am also open to any kind of system! (wont be sending my pk or sp unless i know u rly well!)

i am a HUGE fictionkin and i have lots and lots of kintypes! i am also taken by my absolutely beautiful wife i will refer to as "saki" because we share a kin life in pjsekai! (yall in mm already know hehehehe)

JOIN MAGI METRO RN (even tho i am not there rn i will be back eventually trust!)

dni: ppl who are willing to harrass over doubles, actually scratch that dni anyone who harrasses over anything that doesnt harm anyone

love all of yall unless there is reason for me to not do so /lh

[felassan]

if you missed the live N7 Day 2023 cast reunion panel, the rewatch link is here.

here are some notes on trivia and other bits of particular interest from the panel, under a cut due to length –

An audition D.C. Douglas did for Legion can be listened to here. he said it's quite different to what you may expect. He also mentioned an audition for Legion where he was given a eulogy to read and the voice direction from BioWare was that they were looking for something like HAL 9000 but with a little more emotion.

D.C. said on Legion's death scene[s], "it's the innocent emotion coming through" "but with the intellectual understanding of the macro".

Alix Wilton Regan originally auditioned for EDI, didn't get it and then was called back for Sam. BioWare were like "[Sam]'s really London"; AWR was like "I'm from London, I got this, I can do London". months later she was recording for Sam, saw lines for EDI coming up and wondered "who was the woman that got the role of EDI?" when she heard EDI's voice, she was like "omg, she's so hot, yeah I totally get it, I had a real life crush on her in the booth playing Sam, who had a crush on her in the game. I was like 'ohh.. now I get it, I hear it, I see what went on in casting'".

some of the earliest stuff Mark Meer did in ME was a lot of demo stuff, like figuring out how various alien species would sound. BioWare brought him in very early on, during the concept art stages. this is what he was working on for BioWare and then they 'basically upgraded him'. He did a presentation for BioWare demoing how a typical salarian could sound, how a typical krogan would sound, etc, and during this presentation BW had him do some scratch dialogue as a salarian bartender. there was a scene where the bartender was talking to Shepard, who Mark was also voicing during the scene, so he was basically talking to himself. during this process BioWare said that they would like him to audition for the role of m Shepard. "After call backs etc, the rest is history". when BW told Mark, oh btw, f Shepard is played by Jennifer Hale, Mark was super thrilled. "It was like being told the other person in the dual role was Meryl Streep or something".

when Ali Hillis got the role of Liara, at that time she was with her first voiceover agent. Liara's voice in the games is pretty similar to the voice Ali first came up with for her for the audition. they also gave Liara a bit of a mid-Atlantic accent in the first game.

Ash Sroka auditioned for the roles of Liara, Tali and one other character. for the Tali read, she was given a long monologue about Tali's Pilgrimage. she left the booth thinking that if she didn't get the part it was okay, because she'd gotten to read this beautiful monologue and really feel that character. she felt an instant alignment with Tali.

for Grunt's audition, Steve Blum pitched his voice as deep as he could. BioWare said to him that they were going to be pitching Grunt's voice down in post-processing, so he didn't have to do that, but he couldn't help himself and did it anyway. he said that Grunt is a "half-ton child" and self-described as a half-ton child, so things worked out really well. he also mentioned that "it helped me personally, because I'm emotionally under-developed and Grunt is a baby so it was some nice free paid therapy for me, and the fact that people actually responded to it was a bonus, it's kind of amazing".

William Salyers didn't realize he was being brought in to take over the role of Mordin in ME3. he'd been sent audio references and knew that this was a species found throughout the game, and thought that the character he'd be doing was going to be like an assistant or something. the first day in the booth, BW asked him "do you think you can do the match [match the ME2 voice]?" and he was like "I don't know what you're talking about but yes". William was in ME2 as 'Incidental voices' and felt rly fortunate to 'graduate' to Mordin in ME3. when recording Mordin's death-redemption scene in ME3, he & the voice director were both in tears.

for the voice direction in ME1, BW wanted it to feel like an episode of 24 - they didn't want dialogue lines being like screamed or yelled out like they were in a lot of games from around that time. it was supposed to be much more realistic and human in feel.

when developing Kaidan's voice, BW asked Raphael Sbarge to speak to a stickie note on the wall, because they wanted it to feel like there's a sort of sense of the military, that cadence that comes from really speaking to someone else in a directed way.

Shepard and ME have a very special place in Jennifer Hale's heart

a submitted question from the community asked Mark and Jennifer how their perception of Shepard evolved throughout the trilogy. Mark said that the way it was explained to him by BW was that, as they went, they had a little more leeway in Shepard in showing the toll the war was taking on them. "We also got to watch Shepard develop these relationships with the characters in the games. These were their closest friends, their true companions through all of this." this made it possible to sort of humanize Shepard more and more as the series progressed. Shep starts out very by the books regardless of paragon/renegade etc, they're very military, an officer, they're used to giving orders and used to being under pressure. and especially by the time they got to ME3, it was now like, "now you can show a little bit more vulnerability, now you can show a crack in the shell a little bit, especially after the events of ME2 where Shepard literally dies and was resurrected, what does that do to a person?" Mark mentioned that he thinks this is common to all versions of Shepard. by the time you get to ME3 there's a real sense of getting "past the armor, emotionally and spiritually". Jennifer agreed and added that the way voice acting was done in video games also developed over the years from ME1-ME3. by ME3 it was more done in the way like how you would shoot a film, that kind of acting.

Jennifer mentioned that both she and Shep are really freakin stubborn

on Next Mass Effect:

a submitted comment from the community said "Hopefully we get to see or hear you again taking part in the continuation of the Mass Effect story in any way." Jennifer replied "yes, I vote yes to all that".

Ali talked about the moment she discovered Liara was going to be in the next ME. "I have a couple of friends who are close friends and really big ME fans. Usually they're the first ones to alert me of anything ME before I ever see it in the trades, online, on socials etc". she clicked on the link to the trailer she was sent "and I was like.. wait.. what? I think I was just looking at the link and then had to play it again, and then probably like a lot of you I tried to zoom in on it and look at it, like is that...?"

here D.C. said "Um, asking as the voice of an entire species [the geth], do you, you didn't know anything?" Ali said "No, I had no idea, do we ever? I think as we all know, seeing something like that is no guarantee of anything. I was like, is that Liara? Liara's daughter? Liara's mother? is that back in time, is that forward in time? I know as much as anyone, but it was really shocking. like when you were a kid on your birthday and there's a big wrapped present from your parents and you don't know what it is. I know as much as you guys, your guess is as good as mine."

Mark: "As far as what I'm looking forward to, there are endless possibilities. Again as Ali said we, we know about as much as you know, so it could go anywhere. past, future, who can say? Are we gonna see, is this gonna be the First Contact War? is this gonna be far in the far future? where could we go? The Codex is very big as those who have spent ingame time reading it know and that's a very well thought out and fleshed out universe, so the possibilities are endless".

Jennifer: "Just to add to that, what I always tell everybody in the community is email [BioWare] and tell them what you want. they don't know if you don't tell them. telling us doesn't, we appreciate it so much but it actually won't get anything done."

Raphael: "If you feel strongly, we would encourage you to speak up [on that]".

a submitted question from the community asked the cast what they're most excited to see in the next game. AWR: "We're most excited to to see us in the next game, right [winking theatrically]". the cast were all like 'yeah' and nodding and AWR said "emails, emails, emails".

D.C: "The poster, the teaser poster that they put out for Mass Effect 5 shows what looks to be a crater and the outline of Legion and it looks like there's a little dead geth in that poster, so all I know is, and I am the voice of all geth, so."

[source]

[ceilidho]

Okay so I may or may not have stalked your page for knight!ghost buuutttt I have another idea. How about viking!ghost? He found you hiding after he and his men destroyed your entire town. He thought you were just so beautiful, and you were just a scared frail little thing so it won't be right not taking you with him as his personal raid prize.

mmhhhmmmmmmmmm yes. indubitably.

i wrote a sort of warrior ghost prompt, but not really a viking prompt per se (my actual fave viking one-shot is a reylo fic, but god it's so good).

In my knight Ghost idea, you were an actual princess, but I would love if in a viking au, you were a servant or something or you'd been kidnapped by people from that village that Ghost just razed to the ground. Because it would elevate Ghost to like, part-saviour, part-still a murderer. Fun little concept :))

it's been a long time since i read the poetic and prose eddas, but i'd rly wanna reread those for smt like this

[themightymoose]

Unexpected Vinnie fluff mood took over me so have some happy, possibly tooth-rotting fluff headcanon for the little guy

he loves, loooves oversized clothes, and he especially loves wearing the clothes that belong to his partners/friends/or literally anyone else besides himself. Given how small he is, no matter who he's stealing borrowing from their clothes will be probaby oversized on him but even if they won't he's haooy too. Anyway, yes, clothes belonging to someone else, no matter who that is, is a great perk for him. He's just a little thief. Dw, he usually returns them

he's really, really ticklish everywhere and if he's getting tickled then not only is he really squirmy but his laughter is full of snorts, snickers, squeals, and everything in between. He also secretely really likes being tickled. Not that he'd admit that

he needs to really trust you to let you touch his hair. Look, this is the one part of his body he really, really cares about and makes sure it's in immaculate state, so he's not letting just anyone touch it. However, once he is comfortable with you he is more than happy to let you play with it, he loves it so much and will melt. And again, I hc him with rly long hair, so there's a lot to play with

not only does he not mind "rough treatment" when it comes to touching let's call it, but he absolutely loves it. He loves being manhandled, surprisingly picked up in any way, like you can literally lift him by his leg and throw him (I mean, onto something not too hard) and he's fine with it; pushed against the wall roughly for kisses or any other reason really, being tackled to the ground etc etc. In other words, no need to be gentle with him, like the first day you're lovers with him for example you can already make out with him just fine. I think the term for this is roughhousing but I'm not sure

he loves being squeezed, just in general. Preferably by other people so like in a hug, or just sitting between two people (like they don't need to fight over not wanting to sit in the middle seat in the car cause Vinnie's perfectly happy sitting there), or anything else like that. But things like weighted blankets are really good too. You know how Minka is afraid of compact spaces? Well, Vinnie is the opposite, he loves those cause he feels so safe in them. And squeezed :p

One problem though, it's not like he's open about any of those things really. Most of them are based on touch and well, he does not want to admit just how much touch he craves. He doesn't need anyone else. Not like that...

yesyesyes scrumptious headcanons just for me :D now please allow me to go over all of them individually

:)) I live for the trope of the clothes thief, it's quite frankly, a beautiful concept. I actually had this headcanon that Sunil would steal his friends' clothes, but I like the thought of Vinnie doing it better! Who knows? Maybe they team up to see who can steal the most clothes without getting caught. I just like the thought of Vinnie drowning in one of Russell's hoodies or Pepper's flannel wrapping over him like a burrito. I think the only reason Vinnie would return any of the clothes is because it doesn't smell like his friends anymore >:(

Ohhhh I like this one! I honestly have the same headcanon for Pepper (shocker I know) and I like to think the others team up against them when they're being little shits (which is literally all the time) like Sunil and Penny are holding them in place while Russell, Minka, and Zoe are tickling the ever living shit about them. They're both kicking their legs and squirming. And they're snorting and giggling. And the others just take a moment to admire them because holy shit how are they this fucking cute it's not fair-

Hell yeah with the hair touching. Vinnie literally spends about two hours every morning getting it just right, of course he won't let just anyone touch it, it doesn't look this perfect naturally dammit >:( it took his friends about two years after meeting him to finally get that privilege, his friends knew you would have to reach level 10 friendship with Vinnie before getting anywhere near his hair. But the first time Vinnie legitimately let them play with his hair they felt so honored

Yeah it's called roughhousing :) and yessss he just loves being tossed and pinned. Any touch is good touch in his eyes (whether good or bad) just imagining someone tossing him onto the bed and jumping on top of him. And then they make out :)

Haha yes squeeze the man >:) you know how in those headcanon posts I made and I said that you don't want to be trapped in a hug between Minka and Penny? Well that applies to everyone except Vinnie, he loves being hugged by those two at the same time. I'm imagining a scenario now where Minka and Vinnie get trapped somewhere like a closet or something and Minka is freaking the fuck out probably on the verge of tears (for traumatic reasons because of course) and Vinnie is just standing there like 🧍‍♂️ and Minka just goes "HOW ARE YOU NOT FREAKING OUT RIGHT NOW???" And Vinnie just shrugs. (He helps her calm down though like a good friend)

Might be off topic but I imagine the first genuine hug that Vinnie and Pepper shared was probably the most awkward experience of both of their lives and they chose to forget it completely

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire - chapter 3

Chapter 2: Varney cannot get over a wall.

Chapter 3: Originally posted on Livejournal, December 7, 2010, in the same post as chapters 1-2. The recap was short, so I've expanded it. Content note: blood.

CHAPTER III.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE BODY. -- FLORA'S RECOVERY AND MADNESS. -- THE OFFER OF ASSISTANCE FROM SIR FRANCIS VARNEY.

Given that this serial is titled, you know, Varney the Vampire, I got to this header back in 2010 and blurted out, "O rly?," because that's how we talked back then. No, I did.

(There is no actual offer of assistance from Sir Francis Varney in this chapter. Ya rly.)

Previously on:

Henry had the weapon, and he pointed it full at the tall form with steady aim. He pulled the trigger -- the explosion followed, and that the bullet did its office there could be no manner of doubt, for the figure gave a howling shriek, and fell headlong from the wall on the outside.

Currently: GET HIS ASS

This was at once agreed to, and the whole three of them made what expedition they could towards a gate which let into a paddock, across which they hurried, and soon found themselves clear of the garden wall, so that they could make way towards where they fully expected to find the body of him who had worn so unearthly an aspect, but who it would be an excessive relief to find was human.

sloooow cab, meter runnin' 

Three hundred words later, the men go around the wall, examine the heathy (yes, heathy) vegetation and find... no vampyre. Three hundred and fifty words after that, it finally occurs to them to go back and see if Flora is, you know, dead or whatever.

"My senses," said Henry, "were all so much absorbed in gazing at that horrible form, that I never once looked towards her further than to see that she was, to appearance, dead. God help her! poor -- poor, beautiful Flora. This is, indeed, a sad, sad fate for you to come to. Flora -- Flora -- "

I am pretty sure that if the printer had let James Malcolm Rymer just have a ten-page lightswitch rave—doop doop doop. Flora. Flora. The Flora. Is down—he would have done it.

I summarized the family for you earlier, but I think this is actually the first time we hear that Marchdale is "Robert Marchdale, you whom I [Flora's mother] have known even from my childhood," and who will surely not deceive her. I don't think they've told us... why, exactly... he's living here, in 1840s terms of respectability. (I think I was more suspicious of this back in 2010 than I actually am now. Sometimes a family is a mother, her children, a man, and his crowbar.) Anyway, everyone is just letting Flora bleed out at their leisure (content note: here comes the blood):

The mother approached the bed-side of the insensible, perhaps murdered girl; she saw her, to all appearance, weltering in blood, and, overcome by her emotions, she fainted on the floor of the room. [...] She was quite insensible, and her face was fearfully pale; while that she breathed at all could be but very faintly seen. On some of her clothing, about the neck, were spots of blood, and she looked more like one who had suffered some long and grievous illness, than a young girl in the prime of life and in the most robust health, as she had been on the day previous to the strange scene we have recorded. [...] “A wound!" said the mother, and she brought a light close to the bed, where all saw on the side of Flora's neck a small punctured wound; or, rather two, for there was one a little distance from the other. "How came these wounds?" said Henry. "I do not know," [Flora] replied. "I feel very faint and weak, as if I had almost bled to death."

Please notice all the blood, and also the puncture wounds, from which the blood endeavors to pour, and which are consistent with those made by vampire fangs (a concept that this serial, after all, introduced). This is going to be important later, if you want to understand why I got halfway through Volume Two and suddenly melted down in unbelieving rage that this godforsaken book would try to fucking gaslight me as to whether any of this happened or not.

The Bannerworth family revives Flora with wine, because, when in doubt: booze. And then, while Flora is wailing and trembling and fainting, the family all looks over at the spooky portrait in her room (whose idea was that, anyway?) and realizes that... it looks just like the vampyre. Of course it does. But it's the ancestral portrait of Sir Runnagate (oh, why not) Bannerworth, "who first, by his vices, gave the great blow to the family prosperity."

(You know, I said "why not" when I wrote that years ago, but no, I want to know why! Why the fuck is a 1700s dude named RUNNAGATE? So I go google it, and I get this:

Corruption of renegade, influenced by run + agate (“on the way, agoing”).

1. A deserter, renegade or apostate. 2. A fugitive; a runaway.

I'm gonna hope this was a sobriquet their ancestor picked up from some salty descendants after he blew the family fortune, because otherwise, this is a real "dead dove: I don't know what I expected" situation.)

Henry then tells us that the spooky portrait is ninety years old, which I thought was Rymer trying to tell us that Sir Runnagate is actually Varney, and that's (at least) how long he's been around. Hell, maybe that's what he is trying to tell us right now; the storylines of serials tend to drift all over the place, and writers either forget what they started out saying, or they decide to contradict themselves and hope no one notices. But I get ahead of myself.

To finish the chapter: Henry, having promised Flora that he won't leave, camps out at her bedside with Marchdale's crowbar reloaded pistols—which I mention because it reminds me a lot of the men watching over Lucy in Dracula. Or reverse-reminds me, since Varney predates Dracula by fifty years. My point is, here's another Literary Vampire Tradition Moment: the maiden abed, and her protectors' vigil. Which is worth noting, because there are a number of moments that feel like something you've seen a hundred times, and then there are vast, oceanic swathes of wackery. As I said back in 2010, I had read half the entire serial by that point, and the opening chapter was the first and only episode of vampiring I had seen in some 300,000 words. BE STRONG, WE CAN DO THIS.

(Chapter 4, sparkle willing, will go up on Tuesday, March 21.)

[bowserssupermariopartylaugh]

rambles about my messy af bowuigi yoshi's island au thing, at the "behest" of @maxium-defense-luigi i have more bits and bobs but tried to "summarize" the vague major points and failed 😭

Basically, it's yoshi's island's premise where kamek kidnaps baby luigi, but ends up taking him in as his ward. So now bowser and luigi grow up together and become each other's best friend.

But remember, kid mario and the yoshies are still looking for luigi. When they finally manage to defeat kamek, they take luigi with them, to "rescue" him. But, for the most part, what they've done is tear luigi away from the only family he's ever known.

And taken away Bowser's only friend.

From here, the story can somewhat fall in line with the movie premise. In that, the yoshies hide the human children away, sending them to a world where they better blend in. A world no one else seems to know of.

But kamek doesn't know that. He wages a war against the yoshies, razing their island in search of luigi. To no avail. He extends his search to other kingdoms, and Bowser grows up knowing only that luigi was taken from him—

—and that he /despises/ the boy in the red cap.

Moving forward in time to when bowser ascends to the throne, you can only imagine how someone like bowser only doubles the search efforts. He tears through kingdom to kingdom in search of luigi, and leaves destruction in his wake. He gains a reputation as a war monger, the world fears him, and he intends to keep it that way.

Until the day bowser's troops capture a human fumbling through the kingdom. Because bowser's hopes and dreams of a happy reunion with his invaluable friend are instantly dashed when luigi /doesn't remember him./ All Luigi seems to do is cower from bowser as if he were a dangerous beast, who won't let luigi go back home, and luigi /doesn't want to stay./

But bowser has gone his whole life looking for luigi, to have him by his side /always,/ and he won't let go without a fight.

Luigi seems real preoccupied with running back to some "Mario" guy, and lo and behold, bowser's scouts discover that the stubborn mushroom kingdom has also received a visitor.

A man in a /red cap./

The main timeline difference here is that in yoshis island, you rescue luigi relatively quickly. But in order for the au to work, the yoshies cant find and rescue luigi until he's been missing for like a few years. Oof.

Theres so many tropes i wanna cram into this thing likeee. I love to imagine that bowser has basically gastby'd luigi, ykno? Where luigi, like daisy, has almost become more of a concept than an actual person in bowser's head. And that luigi would just conveniently not care about bowser having terrorized numerous kingdoms for "luigi's" sake, and that he'd just /agree/ to stay with bowser forever and ever etc. even tho its completely unrealistic and frankly ridiculous

Ive made a short post about this before, where i wanted to explain that i would want to do these different phases of their lives as separate parts, so that I could focus on the different stages and their different tones without it seeming too disjointed for one story. Like i rly wanna dedicate a whole story just to kid bowuigi bc guh theyre so precious 😭

And clearly i want to cram beauty and the beast in there. I love the idea of bowser instantly crushing on now-adult luigi, but he can't make any progress bc bowser has also let himself degrade into the monster the world views him as.

Its also fun to consider this like, thing of how /kamek/ was the one who started this thing of marking the yoshies as mortal enemies of the koopas, moreso than any other kingdom or race. And so bowser grows up in a kingdom at war, and just kinda absorbs that mentality and those practices. It's kinda all he knows.

(It also just doesn't help that kid bowser was HELLA traumatized by having luigi kidnapped from his own home /right in front of him,/ as kamek hid them both together in a saferoom. Likewise, luigi is def fucked up from being kidnapped but whereas bowser explodes from all of his issues, luigi is a perfect embodiment of repressed/suppressed trauma. 🥲)

And remember, mario was basically raised a la tarzan by the yoshies (hell yeah feral jungle boy mario), and luigi is mario's brother. So now there's these two heavily feuding groups, and bowser goes and falls for someone he shouldn't associate with. Yes, it's romeo and juliet, dammit.

I have yet to watch howl's moving castle but (excuse me if im butchering your special interest 😭), i feel like this plot is also vaguely similar to that movie.

Its just fun. Like. Luigi's kidnapped as a baby by the bad guys, the good guys rescue him after like five years but it's basically kidnapping at this point, so whos in the right and whos in the wrong, etc

Ugh this is why i dont write this story lmao, im trying too hard 💀💀💀 this idea has clearly been rotting in my head too long and getting out of hand 😵‍💫

[lyco-riis]

i rly cant stand the mha fandom on twt sometimes. it just sucks so much, you know? after a decade, hori finishes this series with such a heartwarming message and people take it apart to make fun of it, because it's not what they wanted. half of them probably wished deku never moved on from his vigilante era or sth bc god forbid, he doesn't have the strongest power ever.

i'm not saying it's wrong to not agree with the chapter. for example, i do wish deku was an underground hero or sth at the end, because honestly? it would have fit him and i feel like aizawa is the best example that it could have worked. i feel like him not being a hero at all for the time kinda just drives across that quirkless people can't be heroes, which is a load of bs imo. but. but i don't think the ending is bad. i think him being a teacher makes sense too. he'd be a great one.

i also don't like how people take the little things and read into them the wrong way. his classmates obvs didn't forget about him, they probably still kept in contact. like, hori has always been good at depicting a realistic lifestyle despite quirks being a fantasy concept. the school experiences of the kids, the dorms, even the feelings and interactions of the people around all them—they are very much rooted in realism. it makes so much sense, that he would keep that sort of realism in their adulthood too. when you work a full-time job, you don't have as much as time. it sucks but that's how it is. and it's even more difficult to meet up than some people might think. i love my friends, but we go months without seeing eo in person bc we either a) are all super busy with our jobs and can't take off at the same time or b) don't live near enough to constantly afford meeting up. we still communicate online tho, and i'm sure the same goes for deku and the class. i also think sometimes, man, i'm a bit lonely, but not bc i'm truly alone but bc it's been a few weeks since i could afford to meet up with someone. those kind of thoughts and feelings are normal and it's sad that people take deku's so much out of context.

and i guess, it's sad that people can't appreciate how his current situation is cool as well. i think someone who's good at analyzing quirks, planning and strategizing, and has a good set of morals makes a great teacher for heroes as well. plus he's co-workers with his old teacher, don't you think that's kind of funny too?

and like said, the end is beautiful in a sense too, bc we get direct confirmation that all these yrs his class has been trying to get him back to where they thought he'd fit best, to where he wanted to be, a hero. bakugou having such a large involvement in that is also really heartwarming if you consider their relationship at the start.

maybe it's not the best ending for a manga, but it's definitely not the worst. that title will always go to demon sl— (sry, it's not that bad either actually sdfds)

[knifearo]

in regard to the "this romantic relationship is actually just a QPR" -> "well actually QPRs are a lot more complex than that and most people don't know that" post... PREACH. I hate the notion that QPRs are just romance lite™. I ended a friendship w my best friend because they thought "what we had" was "at least a QPR" and "you just need to accept that I am your gf." I was out as aro to them and never felt romantic feelings for their gender anyway (not that that rly matters tho, bc I never felt that way for them) but despite that, they felt like they could try to make a "romantic" relationship with me with the QPR "loophole." it's the way that even queer allo people use our own terminology against us and can also be incredibly arophobic/just plain disrespectful to our identities. it doesn't go friendship -> QPR -> romantic relationship. they're all just....... relationships!!!!

!!!!!!! first of all i am so sorry that you had to deal with that. that sucks. second of all you're so correct... something i think is so important to identify is that it's NOT the people in qprs who are pushing what we might nonaffectionately call the "romance lite" narrative. i think all of us can agree that we VERY much dislike when qprs are invoked that way, and it's important to take a step back and separate that rhetoric from the concept of qprs themselves. the "romance lite" narrative is something that people SAY about qprs. but it is not what qprs are! and if we simply start eating the allo people who say that then i think we can live in a much more peaceful world haha. just because they are trying to use our own terminology to fit us in their boxes does not mean that our terminology fits the mold ‼️ bitches will take things out of context all the time (it's the same thing with the "aces can have sex/aros can date" discussions; it's allo people who are leveraging that against sex/romance repulsed aspecs, not other aspecs!!! that conversation was meant to be empowering to sex/romance favorable aspecs because allos took "aces/aros never have to have sex/date" out of context to invalidate people!!) and it is up to us to tell them to shut the fuck up and move on with our beautiful aromantic lives <2

[foulbearobservation]

hello i have not been in ur ask box in. a hot minute. but! pls consider: selkie!camilith. lilith gets to be a beautiful and mysterious seal lady (tm) and camila is the fisherman (i don't think there's a gender neutral of that. if there is, whoops) that she is like. kinda obsessed with because camila's always very nice to the seals in general and never tries to pull That Shit (trying to steal a selkie's seal skin for marriage) i don't actually have any more thoughts but. wouldn't it be neat -🦭 (forgot i was seal anon lmao! at least it ties into this ask ghdjhskgj)

Welcome back mx seal

Very very obsessed with this concept like you can have all the Adriel Trauma that Lilith has never rly processed,,, Lilith still gets to be a little bit monstrous as a treat,,, Camila gets to be the wife guy of all time without actually being married,,,, love it love it love it

[bimboficationblues]

whats the good comics to read? ive read & liked hellboy & flex mentallo, watchmen was pretty good. did not rly enjoy punisher that much tho i read a lot of it like 15 years ago. ive read a couple of batman runs as well tho aside from killing joke idr which ones.

caveat that I've been mostly reading Marvel stuff of late and I kinda dropped off comics like...a month and a half ago or so cause of work and pivoting to interest in film, though I'm hoping to get back into it. But here are some things I've enjoyed!

The original Stan Lee and Gerry Conway Amazing Spider-Man runs are great if you want old-school character drama and have the patience for excessive exposition. The same caveats go for Chris Claremont's tenure on Uncanny X-Men which are some of my favorite cape comics ever. This run is really long, so if you want a condensed idea of what it's like, "God Loves, Man Kills" is a great graphic novel that kinda captures the spirit of that era and its core characters, and I also adore the Starjammers/Brood Saga. The New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman, which @radiofreederry is chronicling as she reads it, works for similar reasons as Claremont's X-Men, which it was emulating and in some ways surpasses.

J. Michael Straczynski's Amazing Spider-Man run...there are two options here: 1) Just read the period where John Romita Jr. is the artist, which ends with "The Book of Ezekiel" arc. This is the strongest and most consistent section of the story. It actually made me cry at least once or twice. 2) Read the whole run, but recognize that it *will* shit the bed at least three times, two of which are mostly pointless and skippable ("Sins Past" and "The Other"), one of which is both one of the worst stories ever told and fundamentally damaged the character to this day, *and* the unfortunate, editorially imposed conclusion to the whole creative run ("One More Day"). However this section also includes two of my favorite Spider-Man stories ("Mr. Parker Goes to Washington/The War at Home," imo the only part of Civil War that actually proved the value of the event, and "Back in Black") so it depends on your patience and willingness to deal with wack stuff in order to get to good parts.

Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo's Fantastic Four run is like, really charming and beautiful and silly but moving. Honestly a perfect run imo.

My favorite Batman story is unquestionably The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, which was a big influence on the Matt Reeves Batman movie (which is also my favorite Batman film). Really embraces the character's detective qualities, which is when I think he's most interesting - I don't need him to be doing a lot emotionally or be the most unconquerable creature with tons of prep time, I need him to be Hercule Poirot in a silly suit. But if you want a great detective story without Batman's baggage, Denny O'Neill's The Question is so so good. Funny, dark, politically charged, philosophically poignant. Kind of ends unsatisfactorily but the ride there is really good detective drama.

If you like Hellboy, it's worth checking out a lot of the late 80s DC/Vertigo lineup which aimed for weirdness and high concepts. This includes Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, Gaiman's The Sandman, Hellblazer, Animal Man, and Doom Patrol. Double-recommendation for Doom Patrol and Animal Man, because both were written by Flex Mentallo author Grant Morrison.

Let's see...George Perez's Wonder Woman is a cool mix of grounded drama and high-fantasy. I like it best when Perez is on pencils and writing, not just the latter. Hawkworld is the only good Hawkman story. Morrison's All-Star Superman is great but requires a lot of Superman familiarity to really appreciate imo. Warren Ellis's time on Thunderbolts is a fun little action/psychological thriller comic. Brian Michael Bendis' Dardevil is actually really good, it's the only thing he's written that I think is great without any qualifications. Gail Simone's Secret Six is a fun variant on the Suicide Squad concept. I like 2000s She-Hulk, Ghost Rider...the first forty-two issues of Ed Brubaker's Captain America is honestly a pretty sick spy thriller.

if I didn't' mention something well-regarded or contemporary here (e.g. Mark Waid's The Flash) assume I just haven't read it yet, I have an extremely long spreadsheet of things to read. This got pretty long but yeah, that's a bunch of stuff I've read and enjoyed!

[celestie0]

IT’S CELESTIEFAN3000 i have to say i like tumblr way more than ao3 so i’ll be using this to comment from now on 😋 But i would like to personally thank you for writing chapter 9, your author voice is genuinely so appealing and HONESTLY you could pass off as a literal professional author if I didn’t know this was fanfiction!

Now for the uglier feelings: (please ignore typos or other mistakes i wrote a lot. I am very normal about kickoff, obviously)

I SOBBED LIKE A BABY MIDWAY AND BECAME A CRYING SOUND EFFECT AT THE END OK OK OKAYYYYYYY 😭😭💫💫 I’m still dizzy and lightheaded from the effect ur writing gives me (THIS IS A GOOD THING) it’s so addicting i need more😭‼️ UGHHHH the way you build that exact RIGHT amount of comfort to compensate for the suffering you’ve but us through but still managed to EDGE US AT THE END . I WISH YOU WEREN’T SO GOOD AT THIS FANFICTION THING, BECAUSE DAMN! 😭😭😭😭

The scenes were so fucking beautiful, I love the peaceful atmosphere that rain gives and how you were able to contrast that as an escape from that horrible loud and noisy bar to just a horrible man!!!!! You really know how to direct scenes and i can not express in words how much they mean to me 🥹🥹😭😭😭

I feel like I’ve overused the crying face emoji too much in my ask BUT I ACTUALLY MEAN IT HERE EVERY TIME I can fill an entire glass up of my tears that kickoff caused me to shed alone 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Everything was just great vegetables, this chapter will definitely be haunting me while I sleep but it ended with an amazing scenario to build off of and dream about RIGHT?☺️ Anyway, my last words here are that I admire how you’ve been working on this project for around a couple months now nonstop, but the quality has not dropped and has instead improved despite it getting really tiring the more you carry on with it! Maybe that’s just how I feel about finishing what I’ve started LMAO but it’s so impressive every time I see someone able to pull that off, I’ve seen some fics succumb to the tragedy of “i-just-want-to-get-this-over-with-because-the-concept-no-longer-interests-me-anymore”-ness 😔 BUT WITH KICKOFF! I’m so happy that the author is as passionate about the characters and plot in their fanfiction as I am, and hard work really does pay off! (for the reader, hard work is waiting 3 weeks for a new fic— but the read’s always better the longer you wait 😉)

My ADHD really came out here I deeply apologize but my ACTUAL final words are: I wish I had a bf like gojo, Oh My God You Are A Legend Ellie, You are most deserving person of meeting Gojo Satoru FIRST if he ever comes to life, it is 1am haha so i’m sleeping now ☺️🤍 Celestiefan300 out!

MY SWEET ANGEL BB CELESTIEFAN3000 😭🫶🏼💕💕 HI DEAR

UMM CAN I JUST SAY IM AB TO SOB ALR JUST FROM HOW LONG THIS ASK IS ??? PLS FORGIVE MY URGE TO RESPOND TO EVERY ASPECT OF IT

thank you sm for the compliments on the writinf omg i rly feel comin into my own now n finding my voice as i continue to write more so seeing u say that esp as a long term reader is just ssooo dhddldfk 🥺💕 brb gonna cry

PLS IM SO SORRY FOR THE SAD EMOTIONSS aaa yes the baby steps to build their relationship has been……baby stepping indeed LOL but it was so nice to write the scene at rhe end where gojo comforts her 😭💕 so excited to write lovey dovey gojo now

OMG STOPPP w the nice words i will literally eat u for breakfast🧍🏻‍♀️the contrast w the soothing rain & hectic bar scene 😭 u pointing that out just made me soooo freaking happyy and wahh im so glad the scenes resonate w you :””) <33

ME TOO I FEEL IM HOLDING BACK ALL THE 😭😭😭 WMOJIS I COULD USE READING THIS ASK

awhh thanks darling im so happy kickoff has ur continued interest and AW to hear its improving means sm to me 🥺💕 im so passionate ab it, it has been so cathartic to write, and although its also hard to write sometimes bc of the personal aspects, it’s so joyous to me and i look forward to seeing it thru to the end w the same amt of passion. HAHAHA its hard work to read tho damn 😮‍💨 ur not wrong!! and also yes i too will be daydreaming of what happens next 🤣

my final words: i love u sm, YOU deserve a satoru (but i will gladly have him too if u say so🙈), so blessed to have u as a reader, and please get some good sleep my love <33

eeeeeee 🫶🏼💕