#but I thought there were other female characters

[hellspawnmotel]

Question: I notice on your Deltarune posts you focus on a lot about relationships and gender roles and such. May I ask why exactly? Just curious as to why find this aspect of this game so particularly interesting? Is there anything else you find interesting about DR?

well. first of all yes I find many other aspects of DR to be interesting lmao. the discarded vessel, the conversations ralsei and kris have when the player isnt looking, the dreemurr-holiday family split, anything surrounding dess, the connections to undertale, what gaster's goals are, susie's potential, kris's whole everything.... but as I've said before, I don't really like making predictions outside of themes and character dynamics. and I feel that for most of these things, I don't have enough information yet to really dig my teeth in analysis-wise, or else I don't have anything interesting to say that hasn't been said already.

as for why I fixate on the theme of gender so much.......

it just happens to be a theme I'm extremely drawn to and interested in

idk if I've ever vibed with a single character as much as I do noelle. it's like she and all her aesthetics were made for me specifically to love. and noelle is..... at least given the context of the weird route, she's kind of a girl of all time? not just in terms of being a great character, but her position represents femininity in fiction to me in the same way as like, rei ayanami or anthy himemiya. she's very much herself but in the eyes of the narrative and the viewer she becomes every girl to ever live. she's turned into a symbol. all girls are like the rose bride. there's just already so many layers and so much to analyze about it- not just from the game itself but how the audience receives and reacts to the game.

I'm a woman

my absolute favorite genre of video games is JRPGs from the 90s and 00s and let me tell you something about that. I could name more games that I have stopped playing after getting hours in specifically because the way they handled their female characters pissed me off so much, than games that I've come out of feeling like the girls were written at all fairly. how women are written in this genre, and in fantasy at large, is something I already thought about all the time. and deltarune is very much based on games like that! it's not the only thing deltarune is based on but it's the thing I personally have the most experience with. and given what we've been presented with so far, I actually feel pretty confident, for the first time in my life, that deltarune is going to continue to do right by its female characters and have interesting things to say about women in JRPGs, video games, fantasy, and fiction in general, if only in the abstract. it's something I've been dying to see done well specifically in this setting, this genre, and this medium for years. and I'm gonna revel in that as much as I can.

......writing this I forgot that you also said "relationships" and not just gender roles lol but that answer's a lot simpler. I just love watching and writing character interaction. and again, it's something I can iterate on a lot despite not having the full picture yet. it's fun and cool.

[catsoupki]

A WARM SHOWER (1.5K)

pairing - katsuki bakugou x reader

synopsis - bakugou spends his off-day at the cemetery until the sky clears.

cw - pro-hero bakugou, side character death, reader has a quirk, female pronouns, hurt/comfort, reuniting

a/n - sorry for disappearing for so long ... :( school has just been an ass but enjoy this ! i'll try to do sth for 420 too !

taglist - @staraxiaa @hatsukeii @cashmoneyyysstuff i miss u guys sm i hope you're doing well

Bakugou’s feet are firmly planted on the moss-covered concrete, he stares at the tiles, worn down by the weather. When he returns to his upright position, there was a brief window of time when the umbrella on his shoulder couldn’t shield him from the rain. His hair whips like sand in the wind, back and forth with force. He looks at the bouquet of flowers he’s laid down, drenched down to the stem, leaves somehow still attached despite everything. Petals of white, pink and yellow stand out like a sore thumb on the muted grave. Sighing, he doesn’t hear his own voice. He lets his mind meander, and, he briefly wonders how sad you are. It’s been raining non-stop for the past three days, grey clouds never letting the sunshine through, not even for a moment. 

He looks back at the tombstone, your last name etched onto gravelly stone, an unexplained sense of heaviness seeps into his eyes. He entertains a guilty, fleeting thought— he’s glad your sister is dead. A child shouldn’t die, he knows that more than anyone else, but the selfish part of him, the unheroic side, is glad that you’re alive. It doesn’t matter, not as much, that you aren’t alive with him. But the fact that you’re existing, out there, outside of a coffin, above the ground, doing something mundane, like going to work and washing the dishes, it instils comfort into him like no other. 

Sure, he would have rathered that you went to work with him, or that you did the dishes with him, but the fact that you can keeps his feet on the mossy earth. 

He’s bowed thrice by now, and he should be lighting the candles in front of your sister’s tomb next, but the rain prevents him from doing so, let alone the howling wind, sending trees swaying, threatening to tumble down. 

He looks at the picture of your smiling sister, a person he’s met twice, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing here. It’s Wednesday, and it’s his off-day. Why is he spending the time he gets off the clock here servicing you and your sister? 

She was a really quiet child, she never screamed or cried, her voice was always soft. Social anxiety had its grip on her from a young age, almost rendering her unfit for public school, but she insisted on going to the same one that you went to. You’d always tell him about the story of her first day in middle school. He had heard that story many times, but he’d listen to you intently as if it were unheard of. 

“She gripped onto my dress until she tore a hole through the fabric, it was my favourite one! But she was so scared. I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t leave her behind but I was gonna be late to work. I didn’t want her to get bullied for needing her sister to walk her everywhere, so I settled with a deal. I told her that I’d be there first thing when school finished. And I was! I was the first person in line that day, packed like a damn sardine by the parents, I even had to take a half-day off ‘cause school ends so early apparently. But her toothy grin makes it worth it.” 

She never made it to her first day of high school, and you stopped talking about that story after she died. Bakugou wishes that he could’ve had more time to spend with your sister, he wishes that he could’ve been around her more, he wishes that he would’ve been known as her uncle. 

This longing for something that never was strangles his heart like Tomura had, regret, rue, wishful thinking. He knows that his next day isn’t guaranteed, not when he’s a hero. The people need Him, the nation needs Him, and they outweighed you. A stupid mistake on his part, and if he could rewind time so he’s standing in your studio apartment again, he would have caught your hand and never let go. His quirk isn’t about time, though, instead it’s about leaving destruction in his wake, reducing the things around him to ruins beyond recognition. 

He left because he feared for you whenever his name is scorched onto alleyways by villains out for blood, whenever his moniker is used in conjunction with a threat, an ultimatum that if he doesn’t surrender, they’ll find out where his secret lover is and dismember her limb by limb. 

He never lets these scum get close to you, your name, or your family. But it was enough for something in him to awaken. Dynamight isn’t known for His trepidatious nature, He was known for always winning; He is victory reincarnated. But Katsuki was too late, the feelings had long been seeded (so the villain did win, after all), it sprouted, took form until the roots ran long and deep into his beliefs. Ugly, green vines wrapped around his spine until he suffocated, until he had to cede his love to you; unwillingly; involuntarily; 

In his head, he had begged you to shout at him angrily, to scratch at him with ferocity, and maybe then his own persuasion to leave you behind would have hurt less. It was morning in that studio apartment, a late one, you lounged in sleepwear as he prepared breakfast. You probably noticed his unease but decided he’d come to you eventually. You sat on the couch, crossed legged. Sunlight danced on your face, eyes bright, vehement, under the golden streaks of warmth. He, back then, had stood in the kitchenette, a space obviously not built for him, too large of a torso, too tall a frame. He didn’t care, before, he would’ve bent down until his back ached and soured if it meant cooking for you. He had stood in the shadows, shy of your light. 

This conversation never comes easy, but it’s one that is well rehearsed in the confines of your homes, his agency, and over the phone. He always loses, no matter what you say, objective points, arguments, frustration-fuelled statements, he never gets past you when it starts showing on your face. He tried to look away from you, but your stubbornness keeps him losing. He forfeits when your eyebrows begin to scrunch and your lips pout. He loses, every single time. 

You thought that this would be no different. Levity evident in your voice as you danced around the topic, but you hadn’t seen what he saw, you hadn’t heard what he heard. Echoes of that nobody’s warning haunt his everyday life, when he showers, when he eats, and when he sleeps. 

He won, but for the first time, he was upset. You fought back with all that you had, threw arguments at him that were impossible to dismantle, insistence bleeding through your hoarse voice, he was on the brink of defeat. But He wins, Dynamight wins. 

He leaves destruction in his wake. 

It’s been raining non-stop for the past three days, grey clouds never letting the sunshine through, not even for a moment. He’s dedicated enough of his time here, servicing a debt that’s unending, so he calls it a day. Sighing, he doesn’t hear his own apology in the rain. With an umbrella on his shoulder and regret at his throat, he’s going to walk away. 

“Katsu?” 

The black umbrella in his grip turns obsolete as sunlight filters through a cleared, blue sky. Warmth inundates him. 

He looks at the discarded bouquet of flowers on the moss-covered tiles, petals of white, pink and yellow standing out like a sore thumb in a sea of muted colours. 

He sees you, the edges of your body smudging in the sunlight, blurred floral patterns on your dress, is he crying? 

He doesn’t speak, suppressed by the fear that wraps around him like a noose, maybe his voice would scare the ghost of you away. 

Your shoes click against the slippery, moist floor. He wants to tell you be careful, don’t get hurt. Thuds ring in the cemetery, trees still dancing as a slight wind blows. You look bright, vehement, in the streaks of golden light. It took you ten seconds, longer than a century, to reach Bakugou. He closes his eyes. It hurts. It hurts. The world is cruel for playing this joke on him. Regret, rue, wishful thinking. With trembling hands, you reach for his skin, tickling the scars that tell a story bigger than you and him. The wrinkle between his brow settles, “you’re here.” 

He says, more so to convince himself, “you’re here.” to will itself into reality. The rain that had poured down on him like salvation is replaced by the intangible sunlight that washes over him like penance. He chases after atonement blindly, wildly, perhaps as a form of sisyphean punishment for the hurt he had dared slain on you.  It doesn’t matter, you’d say, because you’re here, now. You exist, beyond tree roots and above grass, in his arms. With your lips on his and your fingers on him, you're here now, bathing in sunlight, shy of rain. You’re vehement in his grasp.

thank you for reading ! i hope you enjoyed it, all interactions appreciated, have a wonderful day <3

[mcrdvcks]

— logan howlett masterlist

☾: series

i love you, in every time* - Logan Howlett x fem!reader

Logan has spent lifetimes haunted by a curse only he understands—meeting the same woman, you, in every era, only to lose you over and over again. Each time, you’re reborn without memories of your past lives, while Logan, who remembers everything, tries in vain to protect you from the tragedies that seem destined to follow.

Project Reverie - 3 Part Series:

Sweet Dreams* - Logan Howlett x Original Female Character (platonic relationship)

Alexandria Sokolova spent 15 years with HYDRA, ever since her parents and brother were killed in front of her when she was 3. She was raised to be a soldier; an assassin. But now, faced with coming to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, she has to come to terms that there are people around her who don't want to hurt her, people who actually care about her. But recognizing that is harder than it seems, especially with a teacher like Logan Howlett, who seems to care more about her than he lets on. Just because she's currently safe from HYDRA's grasp now, doesn't mean she's safe forever.

☾: oneshots

Oblivious, Baby, Oblivious - People would tell you that geniuses don't know everything, but you tell them that defeats the purpose of the word. Until one day you're proven wrong.

Sweet Nothing* - Mornings were Logan's favorite part of the day.

Until I Found You - Living in a small town had it's pluses and minuses. But when an older man and his daughter move in, things start to change, perhaps for the better.

Point of View* - You weren't skinny which led to a large amount of insecurities. But Logan doesn't understand them.

Dumb & Poetic - You like Logan, but he likes Jean. Right?

I Wanna Be Yours - You're a hacker for The Organization, a secret group that is currently working on dismantling a mutant trafficking ring. You've been working with Logan for months but neither of you have met each other in person and he doesn't even know your real name.

Call It What You Want - A single sneeze turns into something more, at least to your husband Logan.

love me do* - Logan likes to mark you.

things i wish you said - You and Logan get into a fight and Laura tries to get the two of you to see the errors in your ways.

what are hands for? - After an offhand comment from your father shakes your confidence, you find yourself spiraling into self-doubt.

fantasize - You have a crush on Logan, but you're not sure he likes you back. Why would he? You're not his type. At least that's what you thought.

please me* - After dating for a while, you want nothing more than for Logan to really please you. Or, you beg Logan to finally fuck you.

dress* - You and Logan take a tropical vacation for the new year.

7 minutes - You own a small bakery in Westchester. One day, Logan comes in for an order for the X-Mansion. After that he becomes a regular—something he persistently denies.

☾: connected oneshots

Shut Up - You and Logan are sent on a mission: go to the gala and find out information about a mutant trafficking ring. Nasty* - You and Logan deal with the aftermath of your mission.

Deck The Halls - You and Logan decorate for Christmas with your kids. i just need this love spiral - Logan just wants one night alone with you.

☾: drabbles

possessive!reader x Logan (X-Men)

possessive!reader pt. 2 x Logan (X-Men)

Old Man Logan (D&P) x reader

drunk!fem!reader x Logan (X-Men)

Patch/Logan (D&P) x reader

[chaifootsteps]

It frustrates me so much that Viv got the one in a billion opportunity to make her show a reality, and she chose to waste it on horrible jokes involving SA, calling a victim a loser and a whiny b****, ruining a character she's had since middle school by abandoning everything people liked about him, ignoring her female characters in favor of the men (again), and then having the gall to throw a tantrum when people just wanted to purchase merch of the characters they actually like instead of a rapist. It frustrates me because myself and so many other people will never get the opportunities that she's had. And not only did she throw her more talented writers and promoters off the ship the second she didn't need them anymore, she continues to spread horrible lies about them and downplaying the extent of their contributions. For me, the only parts of Hazbin I actually liked were the pilot (which we already know was largely carried by Dave and Ken), the comics, the Addict MV and the episodes of s1 mostly not written by Viv (eps 2, parts of 5 + 7). The rest? Rushed, poorly thought out, inconsistent, and at times genuinely upsetting content so bad I can't even recommend it to my friends who are into adult animation. I was rooting for this show to make it to series for years. Now, seeing the final product, I wish they had picked up someone else's pilot instead.

(Side note: it's such a breath of fresh air every time I watch a show that is better than Hazbin (which is a lot of shows) and see them actually take topics like SA seriously, give their characters good dialogue, and convey their message in a sophisticated way without rushing through it all. It reminds me of what this show could have been.)

People in the fandom are shocked every time Hazbin fails to win any awards. Personally? I'm shocked they even got nominated in the first place. There's really nothing particularly exceptional about the show, except for the fact it managed to garner a dedicated and talented fanbase, largely through the hard work and contributions of people other than Viv. Not getting into spoilers here, but I've seen where this show is headed, and it's in for a crash similar to that of Helluva season 2. It's only a matter of time.

- radio anon

Just think of how many beautiful stories could have took the world by storm, but instead they're languishing out there because their creators didn't have reasonably wealthy families and a rabid fanbase willing to cover up the death of a human being on their behalf.

[toastedclownery]

Kara as Itzpapalotl

Itzpapalotl, "Obsidian Butterfly", "Clawed Butterfly", or "Butterfly of Obsidian Knives" is the ruler of Tamoanchan and the leader of the Tzitzimimeh, murderous creatures associated with the stars that hunt down people during the night and solar eclipses.

Itzpapalotl, as the leader of the Tzitzimimeh, shares their physical features, and so does Kara in her character design! I will be using these illustrations of Itzpapalotl from different codices, and an illustration of a Tzitzimitl from Codex Magliabecchiano.

First I'll list the things Itzpapalotl and the Tzitzimimeh have in common, then I'll get more specific into Itzpapalotl's iconography.

—

First of all, the Tzitzimimeh have skeletal bodies, and their heads are just their skulls with eyes inside the eye sockets . Quoting Mexicolore again here, these eye sockets are particularly blue. Kara has a mask of a skull with bright blue eyes.

*Using this image again, I believe there was a reference to the Tzitzimimeh's paper banners in ep4 when Agent K gestures to her mask with his hands (also note that on her head are hearts AND HANDS!)

Itzpapalotl and the Tzitzimimeh have sharp claws for hands and feet (varying from jaguar claws to eagle talons), just like Kara

The Tzitzimimeh also have small faces on their joints, their hands and feet, each with blue eye sockets. Kara has these buttons on the back of her hands that turn into the same blue when they light up

Finally, these star creatures were generally female. The Aztecs believed that pregnant women could become Tzitzimimeh. Itzpapalotl alternates between having a skeletal and a flesh body. Kara is a feline based alien, but unlike the cat brothers, she's anthropomorphic, she has a female humanoid body.

—

Getting more specific with Itzpapalotl's iconography now, the goddess' name means "Obsidian Butterfly", and she's illustrated with butterfly wings, although sometimes she's given feathered wings as well

Kara might not have wings herself, but she has other possible butterfly elements. Itzpapalotl is based on a moth, the Orizaba silkmoth.

I thought the shape and color of her ears resembled the moth's antennae

Also, Kara has a song called "Killing Butterflies" in her official playlist

This song has the sound effect of a butterfly flapping its wings multiple times. You can hear a similar sound in ep1 whenever Kara dashes, but it's even more clear in this scene in ep4.

Edit: @hi-im-a-rat mentioned that her ship might be designed to look like a butterfly cocoon

Her name can also be translated to "Butterfly of Obsidian Knives", because she is depicted with flints (tecpatl) either in the tips of her wings or around her body

And we see Kara using similar shaped blades at the end of ep3

This could be also why she's paired with Agent K! Agent K is Itztlacoliuhqui. They're both obsidian related deities, and in some cases he's considered the male counterpart to Itzpapalotl. His name is commonly translated as "Curved Obsidian Knife" (although there are other translations of his name that I will mention in his post). In a way, he is part of Kara's Itzpapalotl iconography, being named "obsidian knife" himself

—

Itzpapalotl was believed to be the ruler of Tamoanchan. This is a paradisiacal realm where the first humans were created. This place is visually represented with a tree cut in half with blood sprouting off of it.

This symbol is very often close to Itzpapalotl. It reflects how the goddess broke the tree, and she was then banished from Tamoanchan because of it (Snippet from Gods Of Mexico by Lewis Spencer, page 225)

It's possible that Kara cutting the desk in half when intimidating Shrike was a reference to the tree?

There's also this moment here where it looks like she's copying the pose of a stone relief of Itzpapalotl in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City (image taken also from Gods of Mexico, page 223)

—

The Tzitzimimeh are murderous creatures that kill people in the dark. They'd come down to Earth during the night and solar eclipses. I mentioned them in Shrike's post, this current era was prophesized to end with earthquakes, and once the world was without a Sun, all the Tzitzimimeh would come down from the night sky and kill all of humanity.

Kara is an assassin, killing people is her job. And not only that, her job requires her to be stealthy. She tends to stay in the shadows before going in for the kill

When she's in public and she can't do that, she'll stay in a high place, then she comes down when it's the best moment to strike.

Like a Tzitzimitl would!

List

[dukeofdelirium]

the way that mileven shippers attack byler shippers for simply believing that it has a chance of becoming canon in the final season is crazy to me.

it is NOT delusional to believe that a gay ship could happen. we deserve to enjoy good gay romances in media just like anyone else. calling us names makes you a homophobe, sorry about it. if you think were weird or insane for rooting for a gay ship, you’re just a hateful person idc. and it is NOT crazy to think that a character that has two canonical love interests might end up with the second one as opposed to the one said character started out with.

so many stories have love triangles like this. Mike canonically has issues with his girlfriend and can’t voice that he loves her romantically without being essentially forced to do so. we don’t get to SEE why Mike can’t do this. but in this very same season, his best friend is canonically confirmed to be gay and in love with him (for the entire show)? and the entire season, Mike is then paired up with this second love interest as opposed to his girlfriend????

how does anyone view Byler as “shipper delusion” ?? It’s not delusional to think Mike and Will are going to end up together at all. they’ve had 4 seasons of build up, they have explicitly been shown to have a different bond compared to other male friends in the same show, there is so much gay coding and subtext, Mike has shown time and time again how much he genuinely cares for Will and it has ALWAYS been depicted in a drastically different way compared to how he treats his other male friends, Mike has never shown romantic interest in any female character aside from Eleven (who was literally said to look like a boy and more specifically like Will in season 1), etc.

the whole reason Mike and El still have a relationship at this moment canonically is because Will LIED and pretended his own feelings for Mike were El’s. he lied and then pressured Mike to tell El he loved her, thinking he was doing something good for a friend and because he is self sabotaging. if Will hadn’t done that, would Mike and El even be a thing at all post season 4? I highly doubt it.

and the second that Mike finds out that Will lied, and that his entire “I love you” to El was said on the grounds of a lie, that all of those feelings he thought were El’s are actually Will’s, I have to ask antis… WHAT do you think is actually going to happen? what do y’all genuinely think is going to happen the second Mike finds out about the lie?

because the thing is: he WILL find out. this has been narratively set up and it hasn’t been resolved. it literally has to be resolved to conclude the storyline. and no offense, but I have a very VERY hard time believing said storyline will be concluded with Mike finding out about the lie, and then rejecting Will.

you don’t write rejection storylines like this. you don’t write unrequited love like this.

[athenaluciscaelum]

I hate to tell you, but DMC has always had "red pilled" male fans. In fact they were the first fans. DMC, like all games of the time, were made with male fans and only male fans in mind. They don't need Netflix to tell them DMC exists and it's sad you think that's the case.

You're the noob here, not them. You only think your the majority or the only ones because you live in an echo chamber.

Also I thought gatekeeping was bad? But I guess if you didn't have double standards you wouldn't have any.

Grow up, people you don't like will enjoy the same things you do and there's nothing you can do to stop it

So let's contextualise this:

First, I can have an opinion and say it out loud. Those who feel the same can agree. And those who don't can disagree respectfully. So far I did not come across much red pilled content related to DMC, yeah, I have been intentionally keeping off community on Instagram and twitter (I'm rarely not on both social media because they are unproductive and I have a job) because that's where the toxic community mostly resides. On Tumblr, Pinterest, and YouTube it hasn't been the case for me. Maybe it is my algorithm but so far it's been more than a decade and no problem.

Second, ym in many places globally, gaming and video games have not much penetration. The place where I am is the capital and much hub of gaming in my country. But guess what, even within the gaming community only Tekken, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, or Mortal Kombat is majorly popular. Many people haven't played DMC or do not know of its existence. On the other hand, Netflix is well penetrated, many people haven't played Witcher or Castlevania, but knows of Witcher or Castlevania from Netflix. The same will happen to DMC, it will become mainstream, beyond just gaming. Because Netflix is much more accessible,it is just a subscription and screen. But gaming is not that accessible gaming PCs are expensive to say the least compared to Netflix. And not everybody plays video games, but everybody watches some sort of OTT or visual content.

Third, I am a noob? Well I'm 26 and have known and played DMC since I was 8, so ....and I never said I'm the majority, I just shared what has been my experience so far ...many agreed and you could disagree without sending hate like anonymous who is too scared to give an identity to your voice.

Fourth, DMC is for the public, I cannot possibly gate keep it. But I can express my sadness or fear...my whole take was Dante is a beautiful character who is known for his humanity and if the red pill tries to misinterpret him or other female characters from mysogynist lens, it will be upsetting and ugly to say the least.

Fifth, I am not stopping anyone... I'm not some multimillionaire who can just buy DMC and gatekeep it...but I can respectfully share my opinion online. And if my lil 6-7 lines post mentally hurt you so much to go out of your way, try to insult me and fail. Then, I don't know which of us needs growing us.

[rcgame-thoughts]

Thank you to Faye!

After my last post about whitewashing, I felt very thankful for Faye and her effort to show real representation.

In The Missing, we’ve got a beautiful, black Muslim woman, a super cute Middle-Eastern man, a tomboy female LI with a prosthetic arm, and a darker Asian MC sprite.

The “perpetual foreigner” stereotype is brought up and shortly discussed by Safaa and the POC MC — both have been treated like foreigners in Denmark due to their races. I love that Safaa isn’t just a token black character. She has a backstory and it was interesting to hear about Somali refugees in Denmark.

Faye also did a great job of handling culture in her previous book, The One Vol. 2. One of the LIs is Egyptian and she isn’t whitewashed. One side character mentions being from Indonesia.

What surprised me most was how culturally accurate the episodes in Hawaii were. The hula terminology (in Hawaiian!), the watershed, the local food (loco moco, malasadas), problems with the tourism economy and over-commercialization.

It was so accurate that I thought the author had to be from Hawaii. Because nobody knows those things except the locals.

Some creative licenses were taken, of course. The bungalows looked like something from Gilligan’s Island. Also, the water doesn’t glow at night. That would be really awesome, but I’m pretty sure you have to travel to the Maldives for that.

If Faye hasn’t spent some time in Hawaii, then she really REALLY did her homework! For a place constantly used as a backdrop for other people’s stories, and considering the complaints the Kali books have gotten, it’s wonderful to see Hawaii treated with respect and some authenticity.

So thank you, Faye, for treating other people’s cultures with respect! Your hard work is appreciated. 🤙🏽

[jade-green-butterfly]

A new Unicorn Troll and star is born!🌟Meet Francine Autumnsong, a fabulously stylish high class female in her early 20's, with a passion for singing~🎤🎶 She performs in a popular cafe in the village of Mist Valley and is also a private teacher in certain subjects as a side job. Her magic is telepathy, where she can speak and communicate with others through thoughts. And that was were @x-elyssa-x's sweet character, Snowflake comes in, for whilst exploring town by herself one day, she came across Francine performing and a bond gradually sparked between them, thanks to communicating through Francine's magic~✨ Despite Snowflake's older brother, Zircon's protective instincts, Francine is a passionate and caring soul, and loves to spend time with Snowy whenever she can - helping her to come out of her shell more while experiencing more of the world around them. And becoming closer...~💕

I am really pleased of how Francine turned out, I had so much fun creating her~😍Ely told me she looks like a beautiful hot latina, and that's exactly the look I was going for!💖So glad I nailed it, hehe~😇 Hope you all like too, dears!🫶🏻🥰xoxo.

*~Reblogs are also deeply appreciated as well, so please do reblog as well as like! Thank-you kindly!~*

Francine Autumnsong (c) @jade-green-butterfly (Me~!)

Unicorn Trolls (c) @x-elyssa-x🫂 DreamWorks Trolls (c) DreamWorks Animation

[cosmicjoke]

This anon is so dumb, they really didn't deserve this level of breakdown, but I wanted to thank you for contributing and adding it anyway, @mlelmsworld Because it's so on point and demonstrates perfectly what you and @levi-ackerman-ds were saying about how Eren's entire character revolves around the concept of bucking authority and doing whatever the fuck he wants, no matter the consequences. The way he's disappointed in and loses his respect for Levi because Levi actually follows orders and the chain of command says it all. It sets up how and why he ends up doing the exact opposite of what Levi advises him to do. This clown of an anon says Levi was a terrible mentor, but what it actually is is that Eren was a terrible student. He refused to listen because he was hellbent on never listening to anybody, never being told what to do, never, as LADS said, adhering to any rules or laws, because he wanted "absolute freedom", which can't exist if you care at all about others. You can't just do whatever you want if you care about the impact of those choices in the world. Eren cared, but he cared more about experiencing his idea of true freedom, and as he's always done, he ultimately chose to fulfill his own, selfish desire over his love and concern for his comrades and friends.

As you pointed out, he's been doing that since he was a child, getting himself into trouble because he never thought about the grief he was causing his mother, or Mikasa or Armin, by getting into fights and then having to get his ass rescued. And he does this throughout the story. Like when he engages with Reiner in that stupid MMA style fight and ends up getting kidnapped as a result. The entire scouting legion has to go after his ass to rescue him, including Erwin, who loses his fucking arm as a result. Or during the Female Titan arc, when he goes back to fight Annie, and ends up needing to get rescued by Levi and Mikasa. Of course there's him making himself into a hostage of Marley and forcing the entire scouting legion to, again, come to his rescue. All of this, over and over, forces his friends and comrades into actions they didn't choose for themselves and which they never would have chosen for themselves if he hadn't forced it on them. It ultimately culminates in him enacting the Rumbling and forcing what's left of them to go after his ass to stop him, once more. He gets Sasha killed. He gets Hange killed. He nearly gets Levi killed. He wipes out 80% of humanity. All because he's a selfish little bastard who prioritized his own desires over everyone and everything else. I don't understand how people can see that, see how he gets his own comrades killed because he's forcing them into dangerous situations against their own will, and still claim that he "did it to save his friends". No he didn't, bitch. The fact so many of his friends die and end up permanently injured as a result of his actions should in and of itself be enough to clarify that Eren was always acting for selfish gain.

One last point that you made, about how Eren never had any intention of living with his decision. Exactly. Eren knew he deserved to die, and further, he wanted to die, because he knew, in complete contrast to what Levi advised him, he'd made a choice that he couldn't live with. Eren's entire monologue to the alliance about not being willing to impede on their agency, and that being why he doesn't stop them from coming after him, is also nothing but a giant cope on his part, just like the bullshit he peddles to Armin at first about doing it to make them look like heroes. It's a lie he tells to both himself and others in order to hide from the horrible truth, which is that he's just a massive piece of shit who wants to wipe humanity off the face of the planet and willingly acts to do so. Eren did nothing but impede on the agency of his friends and comrades up to that point. The hypocrisy of his claims can't be overstated. He's totally full of it and he knows it.

What's more, he still got to experience "freedom", the sight of freedom he glimpsed in his visions of the future. All it took was 80% success for him to have that moment, where we see him transformed back into a child with his arms spread wide and above the clouds. But until that moment in the Paths, when Ymir lends him her full power, Eren fully believed he would succeed in wiping out 100% of humanity, and that was fully his intention. He never had some plan to only wipe out a certain percentage to "even the playing field" between Paradis and the rest of the world, or make his friends look like heroes. He was going to wipe out every, single person on the planet, like he stated over and over in the lead-up to that moment. When he touches Ymir and gains her power, he sees he's going to fail to do that, but it doesn't undo the vision he had before of his own experience of "freedom". He knows he's still going to get to experience that moment if he continues with his plan. And low and behold, he does, despite knowing that being stopped at 80% is actually going to worsen things for Paradis, only going to exacerbate the hostility and mistrust between the island and the rest of the world, which is why Armin is so horrified and angry near the end, during their conversation, because Eren admits it to him. He's admitting to Armin, after peddling his bullshit about making them into heroes, that he continue to pursue his goal despite knowing it would make everything worse, not better.

If Eren's true motivation was the well-being of his friends and of Paradis, he would have stopped acting the moment he saw he failed to wipe out 100% of humanity. The moment he saw his friends would risk their lives to stop him. But he didn't. He just... kept... going.

He put himself over all of them, like he always did.

The alliance betrayed Eren. The whole world wanted Paradis killed and all Eren did was fight back. What else should he have done? It was genocide vs genocide. His friends are hypocrites and horrible characters that wanted to play moral police. Hanji and Levi were horrible mentors. Open your eyes.

If you genuinely believe any of the garbage that you just spewed, then you need mental help.

I shouldn't even take the time to point out to you what's wrong with your "argument", because honestly, anyone this stupid and lacking in self-awareness isn't worth mine or anybody's time.

But I'll just lay out a few, basic facts for your edification.

Eren betrayed his comrades, over and over, starting with his literal incitement of war in Liberio, through his purposeful elimination of any other course of action that Paradis could have taken to secure their future. War only came to Paradis in the first place, you total clown, because Eren and Zeke orchestrated it themselves. I don't know how many times this has to be pointed out to people like you before it gets through that sediment-thick rock you call a skull and into the mush you call a brain. Go read the manga again, or watch the anime, and maybe try paying attention this time past the masturbation session you engage in every time Eren comes on screen.

The Survey Corps' entire mission statement was to dedicate themselves to the salvation of humanity. Not "Paradis", humanity. And Eren betrayed that mission in the most fundamental way possible by committing mass genocide on a global scale. He literally spit on the legacy and sacrifices of every single one of his comrades, including those who had given their lives to protect his, because they believed he was essential to humanity's survival. Instead of honoring that sacrifice by doing everything in his power to save humanity, he did the exact opposite by deciding to wipe humanity out of existence because he was disappointed the world didn't look like the pictures in Armin's books. That's how shallow, pathetic, selfish and childish Eren is.

You call Levi and Hange "terrible mentors", when Eren literally did exactly the opposite of what they both tried to teach him. Levi specifically told Eren to make the choice he could live with, the one he wouldn't regret, and yet, in the end, we see Eren filled with nothing but regret, drowning in self-loathing, because he knows he made the choice which went against what he knew in his heart was right. He spurned Levi's guidance entirely. Eren knew what he did was wrong and not justifiable on any level. What Eren did didn't sit right in any way, shape or form with his own, moral understanding of the world. Nobody made Eren into what he was. Nobody made Eren do what he did. It was a situation entirely of his own making and choosing.

You call the other members of the alliance "horrible characters" because they couldn't and wouldn't stand by and allow literally billions of innocent people to be murdered in cold blood. Remind me to pray to God that no important decisions are ever left to you. The lack of self-awareness in your statement is shocking in its depth. You don't see how, if this is what you truly believe and support, that it's you who's the truly terrible and horrible person here. Frankly, you're a disgusting example of a human being.

By stopping Eren, Levi, Hange and the rest of the alliance were upholding everything the Survey Corps originally stood and fought for. You calling them traitors and hypocrites is repulsive in its stupidity.

And that's all I'll say on the matter. You can now go back to waiting in line with Floch to swallow Eren's cock, since that's clearly what you really want to spend your time doing. Try not to choke.

[sing-me-under]

Women of the DSMP (casual, late era)

I was also working on a sketch for Alyssa, but I think I want to work on her design more before doing anything. She’s more relevant in my HJSMP AU than the canon dsmp, so I do want to work on her. Once that’s done, I think I’ll post her with Sally and Girl Dream.

Btw, Niki does still have an argyle pattern on her sweater, but I didn’t feel like drawing it. A similar sentiment can be had about Puffy’s rainbow scarves and gold accessories.

[roseworth]

i bring a sort of “you only hate this character because she’s a woman” vibe that misogynists really don’t like

[bvckbiter]

fandom talks too little about hylla and reyna. reyna killed her father when she thought he'd killed hylla. hylla dragged them out of puerto rico and found them sanctuary and employment on circe's island AND became one of circe's favorites. then when they got captured by blackbeard hylla also got them out of that situation by out-pirating literal immortal pirates. then in a span of three years, they split up, found their own ways to the amazons and cj, and became the leaders of their respective factions. when hylla's queenship was being threatened by otrera in son, she plotted a counter-coup and defeated an amazon queen who couldn't die two nights in a row in one-on-one combat, THEN led her cavalry to camp jupiter. (ik this woman slept like a corpse for a week afterwards). hylla used reyna as an absolutely ruthless bait-and-switch to capture orion, and all reyna said in response to that was, "bet." reyna carries insurmountable amounts of both guilt and gratitude towards her sister. even though they havent seen each other in a while, hylla still drops everything and does everything in her power to save her baby sister when she knows reyna needs her.

[tossawary]

I was thinking about Fandom's Darlings recently because I encountered another case of "Yes, Your Ship Has Become Canon But At What Cost???" in the wild. Which is a mouthful, but I don't have a snappier name for these events in fandom yet.

It's when two characters get together in a story, but... their characterizations get destroyed in the process because the writers apparently 1) can't write solid romance (it's a specific skill!) and 2) also can't fit that romance into the broader story. Often, all of the supporting characters surrounding this shiny couple will ALSO suffer severe characterization damage to make this romance happen. And sometimes the larger plot and even the worldbuilding will also take hard structural hits so the story can focus on this GREAT PASSION that frankly just isn't... executed well.

Like, if a ship I dislike becomes canon, that's one thing, but if the writing for it isn't even semi-competent, that's worse!!! And the really insufferable part is actually the shippers who are not only popping bottles because their ship went canon, but will mock everyone who complains about the bad writing (or tries to earnestly analyze why exactly this conclusion sucks) as "bitter sore losers". I mean, the characters you profess to love have been turned into empty shells of themselves, the canonical partnership here is about as shallow as a puddle, and the integrity of this entire fictional world is on fire, but sure, you "won" this ship war. Congrats.

There is nothing else to do but move on, it's definitely not worth getting into it with anyone. But it REALLY sucks if you actually liked either of the characters involved or maybe even liked the ship itself, because then it's like... "I have been given an enormous cake, but it has been Poisoned. I cannot eat this, for I would choke on it. I have been Betrayed In A Fashion Most Vile." But everyone still sitting at the table tells you that you ought to be happy! At least you got some cake!

[welcometogrouchland]

Babygirl I can concieve of stephcass dynamics you couldn't even imagine (arospec Cass not understanding why "probably bi but has a job so she doesn't have time to think about that" Steph apparently needs a man (she doesn't, it would just be nice) and doesn't want to platonically settle down with cass in their old age)

[rxttenfish]

Asking because I’m extremely curious about this, how did MonProm’s writing get different over time? I remember you saying that the lore and characters feel different, and that it's missing sincere character interactions, too. I know almost nothing about the lore and I’ve only seen a few people mention the characters, so I’d be interested in a rundown of what aspects you think got worse in the series

I wouldn’t mind a very long response since I’m not that active in the fandom, I need to catch up on what happened

sorry for taking so long to answer this! i kinda waffled on it for a long bit, mainly because i started doubting myself again, and whether or not this was me simply overreacting or being tinted by nostalgia or simply being extremely picky and choosy in what i like (the last of which is true, i seldom get into fandoms at all for this reason and stay away from most popular media, but i wasn't sure if it applied here). i've posted about it already, but i'm in the middle of a psychotic episode where i can't feel a lot of pleasure to begin with + most things i do experience ending up solidly in the "very bad" category, so as you can imagine, i really didn't want to mislead and check that i was actually in objective reality.

as it is, this is also when a lot more screenshots started to be posted in the monster prom tag, and that helped me bridge the gap back into returning to the games themselves and feel like i was making a more accurate judgement. if you're one of those people who have been posting screenshots, i sincerely thank you, and i appreciated seeing you in the tag greatly.

for those not in the know — i've been in the monster prom fandom since it first released, prior to even the first additional ending to be added (the "Punch the sun" ending, and i recall the minor fandom drama that happened at that time due to it). my impression of monster prom is very much influenced by this, as what got me into the first game was the fact that the characters genuinely seemed to care for each other and were friends with each other (not merely tolerating each other's presences nor dressing it up, they sincerely thought of each other as friends and were open about that fact), on top of the wide variety of small details and statements that, if taken at face value, could create compounding complexity in the lives of each and every character and had wider implications for their lives.

no, they were not necessarily explored nor even necessarily "real", with so many conflicting events and statements, but i liked this too, because it meant a wider flexibility in what you could imagine, helping to create a more tailored experience for everyone who thought about these characters. this was what i liked about the early fandom too. what was baseline "canon" was so vague and minimal that you could have wildly different interpretations of the same characters' histories and relationships with each other. you would have radically different perspectives on what the world itself looked like, what it was like, that there wasn't really any wrong answers so long as their personalities remained the same. this is where you got the old headcanon of polly and liam being childhood friends who knew each other as humans, or that the world of monster prom was post-apocalypse where humanity itself had gone extinct or only existed in tiny pockets, or my personal headcanon that both monster and human society existed right next to each other and had minimal crossover for petty cultural reasons. this was also prior zoe-as-ro, and there were wildly different interpretations of zoe's personality, with most going for a far more disquieting creepy-cute than the deep nerd we got.

this is why you get stuff like the timeloop theory, where everyone is repeating the same weeks leading up to prom over and over, and are perhaps vaguely aware of it but broadly unconcerned. this is also why it felt like the joke that, the characters were still in high school but were all fully legal adults with most in their 20's, best landed, because it was absurd and strange and didn't quite make sense, but the world itself was inherently absurd and semi-malleable to begin with. realistically, i felt like everyone understood it was making fun of the trope of having adults play teenagers in american sitcoms and wildly casting outside the age range, but for more in-universe explanations it wasn't any different from the way that you would have a large, dramatic ending in which everything changed, but then you'd restart and everyone would be right back at the beginning with nothing different, or even having conflicting events in the same run. it was a dream-logic that fit with the tropes and, thus, diagetically made sense.

to be clear, i don't mind canon having a set, well, canon on which it refers back to itself. i don't mind expanding that or including more things which are set in stone. but there was a perceivable shift in how the games handled this over time, becoming a lot more... bitter, it felt, towards all of these different branching ideas and concepts that, yeah, the people making them knew wouldn't necessarily be "canon" because "canon" already liked to contradict itself so much. most people weren't even sold on any one idea, and there was a much greater sense of enjoying and appreciating all the varying ideas people would come up with even if you personally didn't share them. making the characters be out of character was the real crime, because then it didn't diagetically make sense in the same way, didn't wholly fit.

(again, this is not to say fanon didn't happen and characters weren't smoothed down into a simplified personality that fit these varying fan-interpretations instead of the game itself. certainly damien love/lust was just as bad as it had ever been, and everyone loved to mangle his character into a more stereotypical "bad boy with a heart of hold" all the time. but it certainly felt less set-in-stone about it than it does now, with any deviation from the norm being considered strange and odd and even broadly shunned from the wider fandom.)

all of this is setup for establishing what the writing, lore, and characters felt like in the earlier days. the characters were the strongest part, with their relationships to each other being equally as important. the lore played it fast and loose and was far less interested in setting anything in concrete because that wasn't the important part. the lore wasn't the important part, which was what made it all the more intoxicating to think about, all the more fun to play with.

montrip is easily the biggest offender when it comes to setting everything in all-or-nothing terms and demanding absolutism from the world. broadly i blame the hitchhiker conversations for the worst of it, but i think ultimately the way they handled the entire premise of the game is where this problem stems from. it's not really an exploration in the same sense that you might explore the first game, discovering different perspectives and different people with different relationships to each other. it's an exploration in the sense of a sequel that over-explains the monster, that takes the most boring option out of all those that were possible and floating around and settles on something that was blatant, obvious, typically rejected not because of how novel it is but how trite and par for the course it is in the rest of the genre.

yeah, okay. humans know nothing about monsters and there's a "monster dimension" that exists separately from the human dimension. there's no crossover between the two of them. of course there's a big grand-scale fight between the eldritch powers that zoe used to be a part of, from which not only are slayers the main organization against them, but also the merkingdom has some horse in this race too. it's an urge to make things so universal in explaining them, in revealing connecting threads which unite everything that's ever happened in here, that makes the worldbuilding and lore immediately much more boring than it ever was before.

and it didn't have to be this way! nothing in the first game contradicts any of this too explicitly (see the above, the first game loves to contradict itself), and i would even be happy if this was basically canon but never stated or confirmed to be the big overarching everything going on underneath it all. i believe you should probably know these things about any world that you create and have them in the back of your mind. the difference is that you can know these things and keep them in mind, even focusing on things where its very relevant, and still not reveal them. this is why you have lore bibles, after all. every horror writer knows exactly how their monster works and the full underlying reason for everything that happens, but that doesn't mean the audience will see it or possess this same information too, and leaving it intentionally obscure will make far better stories.

which, this is bad enough, but it wouldn't be the breaking point for me if this was all there was.

but the worst thing of all has to be the slow decay of the very same characters that sold me on this world, this lore, this game in the first place. monster prom is nothing without the characters in it. it's a dating sim, it has nothing but characters to get you to play, and liking these characters are the entire reason anyone would pick up monster prom in the first place.

and the first game pulls this off extremely well. it's all in the tagline: be your worst self. they are, indeed, all terrible people. yes, even that character that you just thought of right now. they all have points in the game where they commit atrocities, where they kill or hurt people, where they do inexcusable things that could not be ignored in a more serious setting.

but that's the point. i think there's something very powerful in creating a character who not only do you love and love their personality and the way they interact with the world, but who also are inapologetically terrible, and to have the humor and the charisma be so good that you don't get bogged down in the "this is awful". likewise, it never feels the urge to really go out of its way to justify what's going on. this is not to say theres no discussion of if someone "deserved it", but usually there's still the sense that the joke is on them, that this is still an extreme reaction specifically for comedy and not necessarily something that can be justified. you can have damien set leonard on fire and have it feel earned, without prompting the needed reaction of what it's actually like to watch someone burn to death.

this is what sets the prank masterz ending apart from the rest of the game, and really establishes it as the first real "bad ending". because nothing that you do or happens in the prank masterz ending is any different from anything else that happens in any other run. you summon evil beings from other dimensions as a throwaway gag on how visiting one location raises your stats. you kill other people and damn them to terrible fates. you watch as body horror happens. the only difference is that, in the prank masterz ending, the laugh track doesn't play.

the rest of the game and the writing echoes this philosophy, this careful interplay of tropes that keeps everything tongue in cheek and yet sincere enough to make sure emotional beats still land when they're needed. the characters feel true to themselves and their own emotions, even when the world is extreme and excessive, when everything else runs on comedy logic.

this is also what i noticed failing first as time went on.

like i said, fanon has always existed and there's always been very specific ideas as to what characters are like in the same way fanon always flattens down characters into the same tropes over and over. scott is stupid and innocent and doesn't know what sex is. damien is violent and hot and too cool for anyone else. miranda is the idiot girl character. repeat over and over and over until you get sick of it.

but it's been an issue as time has crept on that canon has started to approach fanon and began to merge with it. now, scott is so innocent that he can't even curse. polly starts being mean to her friends and saying things that would be very hurtful to hear. the merkingdom isn't really super evil and fucked up, it's just miranda that's like that. they become simpler, easier to digest, streamlined for social media posts and mass-sharing. they become less and less subversions of existing tropes and moreso just another example of them, something else to add to the collection, not their own individual stories.

even further from this, what more complex traits they had are now stated and not shown. polly is stated to be smart and clever in a way that her party girl persona doesn't imply and to be sincerely rather down to earth with the people she cares about, but we seldom ever see this anymore unless its the game specifically trying to make a point about it, in which case it won't let her do anything that implies cleverness and moreso will just outline it in the narration. vera is stated to care for people in a very genuine and heartfelt way, but seldom will get a chance to do so, and every opportunity for her to do so to their faces is missed while she will just outright state it later. it does not feel consistent, it does not feel like any of these are intended reads of their actions. it feels like the devs have something they want to do but no idea on how to actually do so. and forget it if you want these traits to manifest in small ways that show up in unrelated moments and scenes.

the dialogue becomes harder and harder to tell between each speaker, if you are just looking at what's said and not at the pictures attached to it. the characters' distinct voices have been eroded away, so that they speak more and more like each other, relaying the same terms and ideas in the same words. perspective becomes a suggestion, instead of a must.

this is something that started back in monster camp too, as all of the endings in that game felt ultimately the same as every other ending. it's very hard to place or define the full reason why, why there feels like there's no emotional stakes nor investment, why everything feels moreso like selecting different coats of paint and trying to find all the different ending pictures rather than being interested in exploring the characters as characters.

stranger yet, the series that started with the tagline of "be your worst self" has experienced a kind of... softening, for lack of a better word? what i mentioned about being able to handle the balance between terrible people who do terrible things and the light tone of the game starts to change, as abruptly the same characters who were down with violent murder in the first game start to lose their nerve, acting more and more on more typical morality. it's one of those things that feels like it's starting to damage the tone, as abruptly it's not as absurd as it used to be, demands less suspension of disbelief which could buffer and support the rest of the setting on it. there's even a part in one of the endings in montrip which involves current-polly and current-scott looking back on their monprom selves and reacting in horror at how violent and careless their pranks are, in a way that fundamentally felt like it was undercutting and disparaging all the things that felt fun and made monprom what it was.

which is odd, really, because more and more i feel like the characters in these games like each other less and less. the friendships and genuine enjoyment of each others company that brought me to this game in the first place has gone. now they don't mention each other as much, don't care for each other's feelings and reactions as much, aren't as willing to support each other. they are more and more found on their own, relied on their own, seem to seek out contact and interaction with their own friends less and less. it feels like they're all separating out into their own worlds, but also feels like they wouldn't willingly want to interact with each other if they weren't already forced together by some other outside contrivance.

if anything, i'd compare it to every other dating sim out there, where you, the player, are the most important person in these characters' lives, and they only feel ambivalent or antagonistic towards every other character. which, again, is not why i picked up monster prom or why i liked it so much in the first place.

and it's because of this that it feels like the current state of the series has to focus on its increasingly weak worldbuilding and lore, trying to form a more serious foundation without character relationships being so tightly bound together, without the characters themselves being more developed and rich, without an aspect of absurd humor to rely on.

more and more i've noticed monprom has to rely on referencing other series to make itself funny and create humor, which, again, it's always done. it was just easier to ignore back then, if you didn't know what was being referenced, because there was always more going on in the exact same scene to bolster it and give context clues as to the setup and punchline at play. it feels like the current games are much more dependent on you knowing pop culture references in order to have any fun with it, and i'm someone who, again, is very picky in what i like or what i'll seek out. i'm not interested in a stream of references about other things that i would much rather be doing than playing through a game that feels like it hates that i like it at all, when i could, again, just be engaging with the thing that takes itself seriously and knows what it wants.