#best author imo

[roseworth]

i think theres this idea in the general public that the "best" fanfic gets turned into real books like 50 shades of grey. but the truth is that the best fanfic can never be published as an actual book because its intricately woven into the canon material so its inseparable even if you change the names

[melioristicbeast]

Was inspired by Puzzle pieces by @isthatbloodonhisshirt to draw a snowy landscape!

The Hales own and operate a ski resort, the Beacon Hills teens all go on a vacation there but since Stiles has a torn ACL he ends up spending more time with a certain grumpy employee while his friends go on the slopes ;)

Another huge recommendation - I'm a sucker for domestic scenes, 'you're intruiging in a way I can't put my finger on', and who doesn't love a lil' 'sharing body heat to stave off hypothermia'. The way this author writes dialogue and describes body language especially makes all their works a treat to read!

--

(Also - I have more free time on my hands than expected the next while which i intend to fill out with working out and drawing, so feel free to shoot me a request (: and thank you for all the love on my art so far!)

[breadedloafs]

EEEK IM SO EXCITEDDDDD🥳🥳🥳 finals are over and i’m finally free!! i’m heading back home tmr, not excited for the train but i get to play video games and i get to see my little puppy🥰

A Peppermint Tea update!

So. I just want to make it known that while I am slowly working on fixing my older chapters, I have started on the next one, finally! I went through and reread the last like 12 chapters and started to remember everything that I wanted to do to finish off Peppermint Tea. It may seem a little rushed, but I am going to try my best to finish this monster of a fic in the next week or two, so keep a look out for updates! Here is a little sneak peek of this coming chapter!

*note* I still have yet to properly meet Katakuri and the Big Mom pirates, so I apologize if they're out of character!*

He already knew that your lover was Red-Haired Shanks, one of the other four emperors of the sea. Katakuri had not thought it wise for his family to go steal you away from your home, but there was little he could do or say once his mother had an idea in her head. It is then that your words properly register in his mind, and he looks at you, tilting his head to the side.

“They?”

The temperature in the room drops several degrees, and he watches this tiny slip of a woman look at him in pity, but there is a mean grin that paints her lips.

“Yes, they,” you murmur, and Sukuna turns, glaring at Katakuri with oddly familiar golden eyes, “Red-Haired Shanks, and the warlord. Dracule Mihawk.”

Tag list! Hope you guys don't mind still!

Pep Tea Masterlist -> HERE

@writingmysanity @djbumblebee @goth-mami-writer @myradiaz @fluffybunnyu @bookandstar @foggyturtleknightangel @browneyedhufflepuff @anastasiyax @jaguarthecat @atricksterwithwings @black-swan-blog27 @breadedloafs @enpvrirnce @gottalovethefandom

[unordinary-diary]

Seraphina and Arlo: The Brainwashing of High Tiers

Exposition:

— Remi, Episode 50.

There is a heavy implication that Seraphina and Arlo were raised in much the same way. The pressure on Seraphina comes from her parents, so I’ll extrapolate that the same goes for Arlo. This raises the question: how do the authorities create such a strong societal pressure on such a small percentage of the population? Most high tiers will probably not know any other high tiers besides their parents. Take Wellston Private High School for example: it’s the most prestigious private school around, and canonically has the “highest concentration of high tiers in the region”. There are six high tiers in Wellston. Apply this to god tiers specifically, and there are only three. Not to mention that this current group of students is uniquely strong, even for Wellston. In Rei’s senior year, he was the strongest at 5.8 max.

So much of this brainwashing relies on the parents to do all of the work, and it only takes one or two people to break the cycle. So how are the authorities creating this immense pressure? One tactic could be by isolating high tiers. There is a very widespread concept that one shouldn’t associate with those outside their level range. A caste system like this that affects everyone is much easier to create and maintain than an expectation for a small group, and it also means that high tiers are only being influenced by those who are also high level. This creates an echo chamber. I’ve researched cults and how they brainwash victims, and the first step in the process is isolating them in exactly this way.

But, if there are so few high tiers, how the hell are they supposed be isolated from other groups? The answer is that high tiers are just isolated in general. Take a look at Arlo: his only friend is Remi, and even her, he keeps at an arm’s length. Arlo is only close with Remi in the first place because he was close with Rei, who, at the time of meeting Arlo, was presumably close in level with him. [EDIT: I forgot about Holden, which I think says a lot about his relevance. He is kept at more than an arm’s length and doesn’t seem to have any actual influence on Arlo, let alone a deep relationship. He is also not presented as an equal.] Take a look at Seraphina: before meeting John, she didn’t seem to have any friends other than possibly Arlo. Seraphina and Arlo pre-John seemed to have had more of a professional relationship, and while they were not close in level, Arlo did fit the bill of being a fellow god tier, and strong enough to also be brainwashed.

Now let’s look at Remi. In episode 60, Cecile says to Remi: “And yet here you are... Always hanging around those two monkeys, Blyke and Isen. Letting them treat you as an equal even though you’re in a completely different league.” This struck me as odd because, aside from Cecile herself, the Wellston students closest in level to Remi were Arlo, Blyke, and Isen. And who is she friends with? She actually was doing a pretty good job at following that social convention, unless Cecile wanted to be friends with Remi, which she clearly didn’t. But... her friends were still not close enough to her level. Was she supposed to just not have friends at all? The answer seems to be a resounding yes. Can you think of any genuine friends that Cecile has either?

Friendship simply isn’t considered a necessity for high tiers.

But... why is it that Arlo and Seraphina were brainwashed differently? Creating a societal norm for an isolated group of people is one thing, because those people’s mindsets feed into each other. Putting pressure on individual families to keep them in line, but doing it all in different ways? That would be near impossible. My theory is that Seraphina recieved the typical high tier brainwashing, and that Arlo was raised differently because he was being groomed to work for the authorities. Seraphina didn’t have a set career path planned out for her, but if she’s trying to be “perfect” by the standards of those controlling her, she’s bound to end up going in a direction that pleases them. Arlo on the other hand was specifically planned to become an authority figure. That’s why his brainwashing is so centered on leadership. Also, growing up with direct contact to the authorities makes it more possible for them to customize his brainwashing in this way.

But does all of this apply to high tiers in general, or is it specific to god tiers? Let’s take a look at the high tiers in Wellston. We have Seraphina, John, Arlo, Terrence, Remi, Cecile, and Blyke. John is a unique circumstance because he wasn’t raised by high tiers, so we’ll cross him off the list. Terrence was also unique, so we can cross him off as well. Remi was different from the norm as well. Why is that? Well, Remi actually wasn’t raised by high tiers either. Rei said on screen that both of his parents were elites. We can cross Remi off. Blyke doesn’t fit the bill either, but that’s easy to explain. He was an elite for a large part of the story, and he shot up rather quickly. We don’t know much of his family, but he probably wasn’t expected to be a high tier at all, and was raised as an elite. (All of this also serves to emphasize how much of this brainwashing comes from a person’s parents.) That leaves only Seraphina, Arlo, and Cecile to look at.

Cecile does seem to have high tier brainwashing, but it’s not nearly as intense as with Seraphina and Arlo. She doesn’t seem “obsessive”, and she wasn’t one of the examples Remi mentioned in chapter 50. It’s clear that high tiers are brainwashed in general, but god tiers are kept on a much shorter leash. This makes sense, obviously, because keeping a population in control like that is less necessary the lower the level. However, it’s also a chicken an egg situation: god tiers are both more important to keep in control, and also easier to keep in control. It’s important to note just how many exceptions we had to cross off. People like Remi and Blyke aren’t actually that unusual— a lower leveled high tier is much more likely to have non-high tier parents, or to have not always been a high tier themselves, or just in general, to have way more day-to-day interaction with non-high tiers. The brainwashing gets more and more diffused the lower down the ladder you go.

[lambda-core]

I am way too tired/jetlagged to make this post right now, but the reason Armada Starscream is so specifically well done to me actually isn't just the way he's got more depth than just wanting to take over Megatron. It's the way he falls back on this image he has of himself as someone who is solely focused on Megatron. And he is obsessed with Megatron, but the disconnect between Starscream and his image of himself is what gives him actual depth.

The reason this is so cool to me is like, that self-image--that he is single-mindedly obsessed with Megatron and will sacrifice everything else for that goal, no matter who gets hurt--is pretty close to what every other Starscream is. (The selfishness you associate with Starscream is a little more subtle, but it's there in the "no matter who gets hurt" clause imo.)

So if you go into this as a Transformers fan, you're already expecting Starscream to betray Megatron and try to best him and rule the Decepticons. But so does Starscream, even when he's demonstrably proven to both his peers and the audience that he's more than that. It's almost like his past incarnations--or the audience's expectation of him--haunt him. It turns his own internal man-versus-self conflict into this really cool man-versus-narrative conflict.

And what's crazy about this is, through the last moments of this arc, Starscream does grow beyond the narrative we'd expect from other Starscreams! But he never admits that to himself, because it's easier for him to cling to the idea that he's laser-focused on his hatred of Megatron. Every time he helps the minicons--every time he helps the humans--even in his last words, he LIES to himself and everyone around him that everything he did was always about Megatron. Because it's easier to simplify himself than to grasp that he might be a complex character. Because he's a person and he has all the messy conflicts that come with that. He falls back on the same ideas every single other Starscream did, and THAT is his undoing. Not that he is self-centered because he's Starscream. Not that he is obsessed with Megatron because he's Starscream. That he THINKS he is all of those things and he will not LET himself be anything else.

I would argue that that's a bigger theme in Armada, as well. Optimus and Megatron more or less spend their final fight coming to terms with their story roles in Transformers. I really feel like if you sneezed on them, they would realize they do this in every universe and in every timeline. Starscream's is the most interesting example to me, though, because he's such a departure from other versions of Starscream; hell, he acts (and looks, lol) a lot more like some incarnations of Thundercracker. But he's still got classic Starscream in him in this roundabout meta reference. He's like an homage to his namesake. It's so cool! And it works perfectly with the story he's a part of.

[juliet25blog]

I finished another masterpiece of a fanfic that has been left unfinished since 2022. What type of divine punishment is this? Seriously I'm learning to write fanfics just so I can give them a proper ending

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

i was reading a gallavich fic and i wasnt really loving it but i was still reading it and then… BAM! debbie slander, just like that. and of course, it had to come from mickey, who is of course, a known debbie hater.

(below are screenshots of mickey looking at the girl he despises so much)

[heinen]

i reread one of my own fics and ngl it made me miss the late 2010s bruins so so badly 🥲

[fideidefenswhore]

@bunniesandbeheadings I might misunderstand the text you linked. How could Mary call Edward a bastard? KoA was dead by then, and of course widowers can remarry. Calling Jane a legitimate Queen in no way would take away KoA’s status as Queen?

all of hviii's marriages after catherine of aragon were not recognised by the catholic church/pope. when he needed dispensations for these marriages, like for affinity (his marriage to jane was one of them), they were granted by the anglican church, whose authority the pope and other catholic monarchies of christendom did not recognise (the last real 'papal' henrician appointment, irony of ironies, was thomas cranmer's). there was also the matter of all marriages taking place when the realm was in schism, thus "all other women of henry concubines and not wives". prince edward was (legitimate) heir as reified by parliament; both retroactively from the succession act of 1536 and in name by the one of 1543.

foreign dignitaries of course, when they visited, would honour whoever henry's wife was as queen to maintain good relations and as matter of diplomacy (this wasn't, of course, done by the imperial until the last weeks of AB's time as queen, but otherwise, she was, even if 'frostily' by the french as in 1534). but they were often under instruction to treat this status as transient, as lauren mackay has summarized in her biography of chapuys, for example, charles v was rather mercenary in his attitude towards jane seymour, continually referring to her as henry's 'mistress' well into their marriage in his own instructions to chapuys:

"It appears Charles [V] was at times rather ruthless in regards to Jane, despite the fact that her being in power benefitted Mary. Charles referred to her in several dispatches as Henry's mistress rather than queen [...]" Inside the Tudor Court, Lauren Mackay

[bidokja]

genius archer's streaming is actually a much more fun read than i was expecting and handles the disability aspect better than i thought it would

[swdgf]

《我的一个朋友》 by 孔恰

[slipperyslideyday]

I'm really realizing that my biggest ick in books is when man / woman / any gendered term is replaced with "male" and "female". Typically I see it used in romances with non human characters but like. Are you really dedicating yourself to "yes these angels/vampires/fairies/were-whatevers have a sexual binary that humans TOTALLY have but dont call them man or woman! bc they're not human!"

[jasontoddenthusiastt]

no because i read the first like, four chapters of the outlaws webtoon and was immediately like "haha, no?? why is jay acting like bruce never thought of him as his son? why does this author have it out for b so bad?". i'm glad to know i made the right choice if it just got worse

I could understand the ‘wow, I guess I never really found a family with Bruce if this is just always how it’s going to be with him’ mindset, especially if Bruce was being particularly cruel with him.

[ Batman and Robin #20 (2011) ]

He can be cruel. Exploring Jason’s thought process, how he resolves this in his mind and comes to forgive Bruce again and again is something they could have at least touched on. Instead, they not only did nothing new to move the disagreement forward, but they also muddied it further, in a bad way. If they want to complicate (or worse, attempt to resolve) Jason and Bruce’s decades long conflict, that should be a separate comic entirely.

They could have just had Jason cut Bruce off completely (even if temporarily) with the set-up they had, but they did nothing with it (even though they could have avoided the mess they made if they took this route).

Bruce again does something unforgivable to Jason (but now his friends get fucked over too), only for there to be a half-assed make-up conversation that didn’t really address the real issue, and then there’s no further mention of it. Bruce put the outlaws in a simulation for months without their knowledge, and the conversation Bruce had with Jason later wasn’t even about this. Screw Artemis and Bizarro, I guess. They’re expendable because the core conflict is actually about Jason and Bruce.

I wouldn’t say the bad Brucie moments are too ooc based on how he is in canon. The abuse, and him being big on mass surveillance/never trusting anyone while being the one to repeatedly betray other people’s trust. It’s just all the other characters being so tolerant/accepting of his actions is kinda funny, it’s almost like they’re NPCs lol. But also again why are Bruce’s trust issues which cause a strain on his relationship with Jason a main theme in the outlaws book lmao

Ultimately what this webtoon did was take every irritating plot from Jason’s canon appearances, amplified them tenfold, and mixed in even more unresolved plotholes and horrible mis characterizations.

[sendmyresignation]

finally reading jessica hoppers book of muisc criticism because the idea of being locked in some sort of personal sense of disagreement which inspires thousands of words on my end without reading more than one piece of her writing is so deeply embarrassing to me. anyway i love music so much.

[wooahaes]

god i rarely write chubby!reader fics because my fics by default dont include any (intentional) descriptors to paint reader as thin or fat or any race so that they're accessible for everyone. but i saw some absolutely rancid takes and i lowkey wanna write another multi-part chubby reader fic. i should finish some plans tbh

[partlysmith]

leftist media discussion: "While this show said "trans rights" directly without any ambiguity, one plot element of this children's show could be considered morally questionable after 25 degrees of separation, so the author must be a heckin fascist"

right wing media discussion: "Well it happened. The reboot of Female Protagonist Fights Unsubtle Allegory for Capitalism That I Was Too Young to Notice as a Kid -our last bastion of apolitical entertainment- has gone woke because they made a supporting character black"

centrist media discussion: "did you see the latest episode of Sword Hero Cleanses the Undesirables on crunchyroll? best show of the year imo"