#but he’s just turned on tbh
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frogaroundandfindout · 8 months ago
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Dead on main au where
1. Danny wears a 1/2 face mask as a ghost to make sure his parents don’t find out who he is
2. The decision to start wearing the mask was a spontaneous thing that happened at school and he stole the mask from his high school’s theater department
3. Danny moves to Gotham as soon as he turns 18 on a scholarship but it doesn’t include dorm fees.
4. Danny hides out in an abandoned theater (the attic is surprisingly well insulated!!!!) and spends most of his time there as a ghost because he can’t anywhere else in Gotham.
5. An injured Red hood limps his way into one of his favorite old hideouts (the theater obviously), and promptly passes out from blood loss with the hazy image of a masked glowing spector as the last thing he sees.
6. He wakes up enough to hear soft reassurances of safety and feel cool hands carry him with no noticeable strain.
7. Jason comes to in a giant nest of blankets with his wound neatly stitched up, a killer headache, and a sticky note wishing him well/ promising the writer didn’t leak under the helmet (a fact Jason is well aware of considering his head is very much unexploded)
8. Jason tries to leave but he passes out again and is honestly too tired to try again when he comes back around. So he just��falls asleep.
9. Jason wakes up again to warm food on an old silver tray and an empty room, not knowing Danny is watching him from the corner to make sure he doesn’t fall again. Not that Danny wouldn’t catch him again, but he’d prefer it didn’t happen at all.
In short, Danny plays elusive nurse to the dangerous red hood while Jason sees a literal ghost that lives in an abandoned theater wearing a phantom of the opera mask and decides he’s found a keeper. Clearly he appreciates the drama.
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baeshijima · 4 months ago
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thoughts on being engaged to duke!sunday, the head of the oak family, an incredibly influential figurehead within society, the close subordinate of emperor gopher wood who brought him and his sister in and raised him like his own, and the villain who faces a tragic ending in a novel you recently finished — the very same one you just so happen to find yourself transmigrated into. he is as cunning as he is blinded, a trait which brought ruin to many in the empire, and one which ultimately brought ruin to himself at the hands of the protagonists.
as luck would have it, you became a barely mentioned side character from a marquis family, whose role was to be the villain's wife stuck in a one-sided love who, too, would get caught up in the tragedy alongside him. however, now that it's you who is stuck in this position, you're determined to try any means necessary to deter him from going down that path, all in an effort to escape your predestined doomed fate!
of course, you didn't expect it to be easy. the day of your arrival in this world was already the night before your wedding, so you had little time to prepare yourself for the nonchalance of your supposed family, how they viewed you as but a means — a tool — to boost their influence and prosperity, the dismissive mannerisms of the household servants, and the absolute beauty of a man you will be married to.
(seriously. the novel descriptions did not do him justice. he was like... like... like he was handcrafted by god himself! and not to mention his sister, robin, was the very epitome of an angel! perhaps you're destined to perish by the god-tier visuals instead...)
to say the least, the wedding ceremony went by quickly. safe to say you didn't spend the night; he was cordial and gentlemanly upon letting you know that he won't do anything until you're ready, that you can take this relationship slow, but somehow you ended up feeling a tad insulted. like, who leaves their newly wedded alone in a big cold bed as they walk out on their own? a sick bastard that's who!
well, whatever. it's not like you need nor want to consummate with him! besides, you have bigger things to worry about — things such as your impending death. and, of course, the only way to stop sunday that you can imagine working is by chipping away at his resolve bit by bit, and opening his eyes to reality.
he is a tragic character, one who cares more about the well-being of penacony and its people than anyone else, but was manipulated into getting his hands dirty in the emperor's stead. you knew this. you sobbed over his story, cursed out the protagonists, and even fought internet randos on novel forums about sunday's motivation and how,
no, he is not just a stupid villain. he is a complex character with flaws and humanity and was cruelly taken advantage of by someone he considered family. he was deceived through the suffering the emperor wanted him to see to make him easily manipulated, creating a rift between him and robin to have that prominent separation. you know what? maybe you're just a !%#@ who can't even #@?"% read properly!
and yet you still find yourself at a loss when faced with the walls he has in place. your initial efforts went as well as it possibly could have; you trying to earnestly help him, while he "kindly" dismisses your offers! well, "kindly" being more condescending since you could read between the lines of his mannerisms and amiable demeanour, but that's fine! you expected this! that just means you have to double down on your sincerity, get through to his heart (somehow), and help him realise humanity isn't as weak as he's led to believe!
you have three years until the novel's plot officially starts, and another year after that until your demise. that's plenty of time to get him to warm up to you!
it was easier said than done, but after your valiant effort and abundance of time put into this relationship, which admittedly you could do with some of that lost time back, you could give yourself a pat on the back with the progress you made! while you definitely could have done without a lot of the headaches, it's safe to say sunday has significantly warmed up to you in comparison to your wedding day. he now willingly eats all his meals with you with some real conversation, takes garden strolls with you in the early evenings, invites you out for dinner at a restaurant at least four times a week, hell he's even joked and laughed with you more frequently! but most importantly, he has begun asking for your opinion before finalising any decisions he is required to make. and he actually listens and considers your side! now, that certainly is the best outcome you could hope for after all this time, and it most definitely will help in your endeavour to save you both from the protagonists!
however, you've noticed he's been more... affectionate? well, at the very least he now willingly holds your hand when in private (not just in moments when you're in the public eye and he has to make sure the family's reputation is spotless), sometimes he will hug you out of the blue ("i just need to... recharge. you have a way of calming me down. i hope you don't mind." ...how could you say no to his supreme god-tier face card? that's just a losing battle you won't even bother fighting against.), oftentimes he opts to just gaze wordlessly at you (robin had mentioned over one of your tea times how it almost appears as though there is no one but you in the world when sunday gazes at you with, in her words, "the eyes of a man so deeply in love!" ...whatever that's supposed to mean...), but a more recent development has been his sudden interest in kissing you; well, more specifically giving you a kiss to the back of your hand or on your forehead — certainly not anywhere near the lips! (besides, he's probably just gotten comfortable with you, enough where he can freely act without judgement. nothing more, nothing less.)
well, either way, development is development! soon enough, the time for the main plot to start has arrived. it of course follows what you remember, from the organised balls to the protagonists meeting to the political aspects of it all. the only difference is sunday's less active involvement in all the schemes and the emperor's ploy. rather, he seems more focused on you and the future of your marriage and even displayed a sudden interest in your practically non-existent relationship with one of the foreign diplomats, aventurine— wait...
"[name]," he calls your name out so sweetly you nearly disregarded it as someone else he was talking to. well, perhaps you would have done had he not suddenly appeared before you, a tight-lipped smile tugging the corners of his lips as he steadily approaches you.
oh. he doesn't seem very happy, if his tense figure is anything to go by. you wonder if one of the nobles grated his nerves a little too much this time?
sunday comes to a halt a step away from you. "i don't like that... gambler being so close to you. it... it brings me a rather unpleasant feeling." there's a slight, trembling pause. not a moment later does he close the gap between you, one knee on the ground as he matches your seated height on the fountain rim, your hands gently enclosed in both of his.
you idly wonder if this is what robin meant by the so-called "eyes of a man so deeply in love" she constantly gushed about, for the way in which he gazes up at you is enough to render you breathless.
"tell me, [name]," he begins once more. there is an underlying desperation woven within his tone, one which has your head spinning and heart thumping wildly as his trembling gaze holds you in place. "tell me, what am i to do with this fervent love and overwhelming adoration i hold for you?"
oh.
...oh.
perhaps your impending doom should be the least of your concerns when you now find yourself in the arms of a clingy husband...
(though, it's safe to say you did, in fact, manage to prevent him from succumbing to his tragic fate! you just gained a loving, yet slight slightly emotionally challenged husband along the way.
well, you can help him work through it; you have the rest of your lives now to figure it out, after all.)
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synthsays · 4 months ago
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Monster Falls girlies how we feeling about this one.
Happy Fiddleford Friday Y'all
(Bonus art under cut)
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And one for the fiddauthor peeps
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gojoest · 22 days ago
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ex husband gojo satoru on the brain….you have two kids together and after the divorce you get shared custody but the whole family gathers together only on special occasions like your children’s birthdays or important school events etc etc.
of course, this doesn’t mean you don’t cross paths with satoru for the rest of the time. on ordinary days he comes up with all kinds of ways to force his presence back in your life (and yours in his).
at least three times a week he drops by your house with a lousy excuse that “the kids forgot this, the kids forgot that” back at his place. other times he pretends to have forgotten that it’s your turn to pick them up from school, so you accidentally run into each other and he shamelessly invites himself over for dinner which you can’t bring yourself to decline because the kids are already too excited about spending time together.
even if you’ve parted ways on paper, satoru is still not over you, at all. in fact, he thinks he can win you back because you never stopped being his, not even for a second. you’re just being too difficult right now. you must’ve forgotten that it’s not really marriage that made you his to begin with, so divorce doesn’t change a thing. it stings him though, really it does, that you took the ring off and abandoned his name.
but it’s okay. you belonged to him way before he gave you the ring and his last name. those are only some minor formalities. it’s just back to square one. everything will fall back into place again, he just needs to remind you of the basics. but the order in which things fall into place will be different this time around.
if it’s the kids that bring you together, all he needs to do is make you give him another one. if he plays his cards right he will get to fuck you soon, he is certain. your heart might be confused right now, but your body seems to remember him way too well. he can smell it, the scent of your arousal whenever he’s around.
it’s just a matter of time. he’ll make sure to blow his load only inside you. multiple times so it works.
once you get pregnant again, he’ll use his unborn as an excuse to be around you all the time — “the baby is still in your belly, this is the only way i can spend time with my child”
he’s got 9 months to make you fall for him again, and by the time the baby is born, he’ll make it so your last name is gojo again. he’s already picked a ring.
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side-of-honey · 6 days ago
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Hi my undertale yellow followers sorry for not posting in 5 years. Woe my dumb doodles be upon ye
Based mostly on uty ost comments I thought were funny + some ut red&yellow for fun :)
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bunnieswithknives · 4 months ago
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(nature au) you said that while dale dislikes dev using a cane in the house he doesn’t really care too much, but what if dev used a cane in public? i can’t imagine dale would be okay with that at all. he’d be pissed, like confiscate the cane kind of pissed
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Originally the gag here was just going to be Dev clinging onto his dads arm for dear life while he shivers like a chihuahua but he is just. So small.. I couldnt get it to look reasonable
Bonus:
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#The horror of putting Dev in a situation where he would 100% be wearing his sunglasses#Like NOOO the perfectly construction expression of horror I was going to give him#fop nature au#fop#fairly oddparents#fop a new wish#fairly oddparents a new wish#fop dev#dev dimmadome#dale dimmadome#fop dale#fop peri#art#digital art#fanart#I cant tell if I got the tone right with this one#Theres a very careful balance I try to strike with comedy vs horror and Im not sure if I got it#I also try to keep a sort of balance when depicting characters that are just straight up awful#I dont like depicting characters as cartoonishly evil but I also dont want to make him seem overly sympathetic#or like he's 'deep down a good person' because he's straight up not#He's awful and selfish. What he's done to his son makes him deeply uncomfortable with himself#but that discomfort means absolutely nothing when he refuses to change or become a better person#and he does refuse to change. changing is hard#he still keeps hurting Dev at every turn and maybe to tries to justify it to himself as being for Devs own good#but regardless he is still refusing to listen to him and hurting him even more in the process#idk im rambling#I like to keep the abuse balanced out with these nothing little concessions on Dales part#tbh even this concession didnt come from the good of his heart he just wanted to avoid making a scene#also because the visual of Dale deciding CARRYING him everywhere is better than just letting him have his cane is very funny to me
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befuddled-calico-whump · 7 months ago
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thinking about a whumpee on a forced march through rough terrain
hands tied in front of them, on foot while their captors are mounted, sleeping out in the open, forced to beg for adequate food and water
maybe they're barefoot, a captured royal in silken robes
maybe they're in a torn suit or soldier's uniform
maybe they were stripped at the start, increasing the exposure to the elements, the humiliation
are they a terrified mess from the beginning, or do they try to endure with dignity? how long before they're stumbling, barely putting one foot in front of the other? how long before they fall?
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willowser · 11 months ago
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shouto accidentally gets drunk while out with you and some other friends and he's sitting there in the heat of the bar, watching you smile bright and laugh wholeheartedly with your hair a little messy and your eyeliner smudged a bit—and he gets suddenly and completely overwhelmed with the desire to kiss you.
which is exactly what he does when you manage to get him home. it's kind of awkward because he doesn't kiss many people and he's also drunk and gangly and looming over you, but you let him crowd you against his front door until the both of you nearly run out of breath.
and you push him away gently with a quiet laugh, telling him, "okay, slow your roll, loverboy. how about we do this when you're sober, huh?" because you're not sure if he means it and you don't want to get your hopes up for something he won't even remember tomorrow.
but he absolutely does remember it, and now he can't look at you without feeling that unfamiliar white-hot strike of desire lighting up his body.
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radiance1 · 1 year ago
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Alfred Pennyworth has in fact, perhaps, in the slightest of chances.
Picked up his Master's habit of collecting children as if they were on sale.
He was spending his time on one of those rare vacations he decided to take, it was nice, to relax with only the vague overhanging worry of something going wrong back at the manor that he's gotten very good at ignoring.
Only to come across a child bleeding out in an alley, heavily injured.
He would not be able to live with himself if he didn't at least try to help them however he could.
Such is how he acquired a child he later found to be a meta who whished to learn the ways of a butler.
---
Danny had escaped from a GIW compound, after having been handed over by his family a while after his reveal. He felt, completely and utterly betrayed, when it happened. His parents, while hurt, he was at least capable of actually seeing them do it, but never would he have thought Jazz would do so as well.
They did it so happily, that he wondered if letting him go really was the greatest thing to happen to this family.
He chained, muzzled, all the ways to bind him they pulled all the stops too, knowing how dangerous he was. He wouldn't have even done anything then, too stunned by his families apart willingness at handing him over to the government.
He hated them.
He hated them so much.
The GIW facility was a terrible, cold, unfeeling place. One where they drilled thoughts into his head again and again until he found himself unconsciously repeating them when his head felt empty, one where his body gained a new mark day by day and pushed through tests, he had no clue of even hoping to comprehend what they would gain out of it.
It was a cold, unfeeling place. Placed in a cell of white and nothing else, with low walls and chains binding his body in place until the time came for another experiment.
It was a room he grew used to. One he even held some kind of strange, twisted affection for.
It was a room that held a tiny piece of safety, of rest. It was a room that taught him to hate.
A deep, powerful, disgusting, twisting hatred that crawled from the depths of his cells, corrupting his blood and carving itself deep into his bones. Forcing it's out of his pores until it practically oozed from his flesh.
It drowned his mind, tainting each and every thought, every memory, every dream, every waking moment until he could feel nothing but hatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehate.
When he was taken out of that he could feel nothing, with the drugs swimming their way through his blood that snapped the thin string keeping him between a person and an emotionless puppet.
He thinks that's what the GIW thinks he is.
And when he was placed back in that room, he could only hate.
It was a cycle. Stuck between feeling either nothing or hatred.
He hated feeling nothing, it made him feel like he wasn't real. Like it snapped the thread that held him between what a real person was and a dream.
So, he allowed himself to drown deep into his hatred. Until the white walls of his far to small room seemed to fade, until whatever sound he could have heard became nothing but dull noise.
Until the passage of time seemed to become just a blink.
He didn't know what day it was, when he saw it. Saw them. He didn't know the time, the date, the day, the hours. He knew nothing.
But he could recognize his family. Recognize one of the objects of his intense hatred that he forced his thoughts too. The people who willingly gave him up just like that and one of the causes for his current life.
He didn't know why they showed him them, he felt it some sick, utterly cruel joke. A joke he didn't know the punchline for, a joke the universe sent his way to make his life all the more miserable.
There were multiple of them. Multiple clones of his family. Som within test tubes, some being pulled out from the tubes, some walking around in lab coats. A waste of talent, they called it in his dad's case, a waste of intelligence in his mother's, and a waste of intellect in his sister's case.
His original family was already dead, he was told. Replaced by clones, clones that took over the legal decision to change his guardianship. Clones walking around twisting and desecrating his family.
'At least it was painless.' One of the clones said, talking with his mother's face. 'Far more than they deserved for having keeping a thing like him' spoken by his father's imposter.
The drugs pumping through his system to keep him calm, to keep him feeling nothing was suddenly pierced through by an intense feeling of horror, hate and self-loathing.
He should've known it wasn't his family. He should've done more! More to protect them! To keep them safe! The could've still been alive if he just knew.
In that moment, watching imposters speaking, walking, talking, breathing, with his families faces. He exploded. Exploded with a power fueled by nothing but his intense hatred for every. Single. Living being in this goddamn facility.
He killed whoever stood in his way. Managing to get his hands on relatively newly designed weapon, an ectoplasmic scythe (that also apparently could revert into an everyday item). Which he used to rip and tear throughout the entirety of the facility. He got injured, of course, he couldn't dodge everything, but he didn't care.
A body stuck between life and death, incapable of fully going one way or the other no matter what happened. Gifted supernatural powers fueled by wrath and twisting hatred and a weapon made by man yet in the range of the supernatural.
They didn't stand a change. He killed them all. No matter who it was, man, woman, clone. He didn't, couldn't care. He could only kill, only maim, only hurt.
And that's what he did.
It was then, when the facility was blanketed with silence tainted by despair, death and hysteria. When previously white walls were covered by blood, and the halls turned into rivers of blood and corpses. That he broke down, the overwhelming hatred he felt replaced by relief then sadness then self-loathing.
His family didn't give him up! But they were killed. Kill because of him. He couldn't stand being in this place, anymore. His body felt as if it were moving on unseen strings as it walked through the halls, the scythe shrinking back what it was when out of combat, his mind too occupied by thoughts and feelings.
It walked through a portal, one to the ghost zone, and then promptly into another portal and spat him out into an alleyway. Which he then promptly collapsed and curled into a ball, curing the shrunken scythe in his palm and he was out like a light.
A few days after he woke up, he found himself growing attached to the human that found him in that alleyway. An old man, maybe, but a nice one. He didn't want to meet anyone, besides that man, so he turned invisible when anyone else come into contact with him.
Alfred Pennyworth.
It was a name he clung onto mentally and a man he clung onto physically as well. He wanted to be like that man, someone so nice and caring, someone who didn't mind that he turned invisible at the sing of another person, who let him cling onto him both invisible and not whenever he wanted to.
He did panic when he heard Alred saying his vacation was over, and such that he had to leave. He didn't want to be left alone again, he didn't know what he would do if he was left alone again.
Until Afred said we were going home.
We. As in, him plus another. Alfred plus Danny.
Home.
Heat blossomed in his chest, seeming to replace the constant, low hum of hate sitting beneath him skin.
Home.
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7cfc00 · 1 year ago
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Cast: Hermie the Unworthy as Theatre Kid with Identity Issues!
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Halloween prompts year 2 day 28
Thomas stared down at Bruce-no- Danny as he led him by the hand toward what he had dubbed as his "Secret Lair" which was just an old fall out shelter in the woods that had been well hidden and forgotten about. The door to it was old and still buried under years of dirt and plant growth, requiring Danny to phase them into it which made Thomas wonder how his grandson had found it in the first place.
Inside was surprisingly high tech. "You have a secret lair filled with all this equipment but don't have any weapons or armor?" Thomas asked, making mental preparations to fix that.
Danny sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck and explained his only allies were two other 14 year olds who were also untrained, unarmed, unarmored, and unsuper-powered which would explain why Danny was so excited to be working with an adult vigilante who at least knew what they were doing.
The kid didn't even mind when some of his more evil or harmful rogues "stopped showing up" thankfully no one would really question the reclusive Vlad Masters "going back to Wisconsin" only to never be seen again. No one saw much of him before coming to Amity Park, it made since he would become a hermit again once he had his fill of human interaction.
And if hes later found dead in his cheese castle? Well, the body had decomposed too much to really say what killed him. His will left everything to a Daniel James Fenton/Daniel James Masters which visibly infuriated Danny. Thomas mentally patted himself on the back. It was a good call to get rid of that one. The will was a surprise, though one that can only benefit Thomas in his crusade of protecting his grandson. Its not like he can return to a timeline that no longer exists anyway.
Unfortunately this doesn't stop the bats from hearing about "Batman" operating in a city in Illinois for the past few months...
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professorjirt · 3 months ago
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I’ve discovered my favorite genre of Bagginshield art is where Thorin is a lovesick idiot who is Losing It and Bilbo is unbothered or oblivious to Thorin’s suffering LMAO
#thorin oakenshield#bilbo baggins#bagginshield#if anyone has more please send it to me I have like four rn#I know I made a post a while back talking about how I wish there were more posts that focused on each of their lives outside of each other#and I still stand by that but I also can’t deny the fun in a Important Dwarf like Thorin turning into an idiot around Bilbo#tbh this works even platonically. this guy has friends bc he’s lucky not bc he’s actually friendly#so I can imagine becoming friends with Bilbo is like ‘fuck now I have to be nice bc he WILL actually leave. uh. oh god’#love men who are grouchy and offputting <3#and Bilbo is oblivious not as a flaw but bc he’s just not wired that way and he’s just accepting that Thorin is weird#bc he has no basis of which to assume he isn’t just Like That sometimes same way the dwarves don’t know shit abt hobbits#and it’s not as like. Bilbo being extremely innocent either he’s just not thinking about it LMAO#and Bilbo Also doesn’t have a ton of friends (different reasons but he IS also grouchy and petty) and he’s just ‘?? ok’#they’re both fucking stupid and everyone around them is dying and in anguish#I particularly enjoy when a character who is emotionally constipated and stoic and whatever just starts losing it#not even necessarily in a sappy or angsty way just. those emotions gotta come out eventually#so for a guy like Thorin who takes himself seriously and is very closed off emotionally it’s fun to just imagine that facade cracking#meanwhile Bilbo is just like ‘you ok??’#Bilbo himself has some emotional issues so it’s double the entertainment
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krysmcscience · 2 months ago
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BILLDUMP TIME (with transparency, because I can). Don't mind me, I'm just yeeting my goofy art at some way more talented individuals out of nowhere and then hauling ass back to the security of being a weird silent lurker ahaha
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@tesscourtes and @beccadrawsstuff, respectively! These two Bills make a little prism of sorts together because of their recent crossovers on Patreon~ :3c Speaking of which, I highly recommend supporting both these artists! They do fantastic work! (TessCourtes and Beccup)
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@qoolk on the left, and @monobmp on the right! I am such a sucker for these outfits~ OuO Go and check these two out, their art is phenomenal!!! >u<
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@1spooky2me The most difficult Bill of the lot for me to draw, ahaha... Their art is so incredibly consistent and dynamic, I am, a little envious <:,) A little envious, but mostly impressed, so go look at their amazing art, what are you waiting for
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And finally, @ckret2, whose writing is sublimely in-character and just a delight to read - they're a great artist, as well! I simply Could Not resist drawing their Bill in this ridiculous incredible and very fashionable pink feather dress, even though he only briefly wears it in their fic, so I also did a little bonus doodle of him in his standard hoodie to make up for it. XD (Also, as far as I'm concerned, Bill and Mabel were both correct in that lime green accessories make the dress Much Better.)
This is just a small selection of the human Bill designs I enjoy. I may draw and post more later on, who knows! Feel free to reblog with some neat Bill designs, either your own or by other folks - if any of the designs particularly call to me, I'll add them to the little list I've got going~ :D (Alternatively, if you really like my stuff and want me to draw something specific, you could...mmm...perhaps, commission me...? OuO)
Also I'm tagging Billford because uhhhh yeah, sorry not sorry, every single one of these Bills is getting shipped with Ford by the artists in some way or another, lmao
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qiu-yan · 5 months ago
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MDZS and asshole victims: thoughts on the second siege of the burial mounds scene
this post is not about morality judgments. this post is about reader sympathies only.
one rather clever rhetorical trick MDZS employs is putting all the more background "surviving victims of wei wuxian's actions" into one big angry mob at the second siege of the burial mounds, instead of letting them crop up anywhere else in the story. it's easy for a first-time reader to write off the guy who lost a leg at nightless city, or the guy whose parents died at nightless city, because both of those guys are being dicks. they're part of an angry mob baying for wei wuxian's blood--unfairly baying for wei wuxian's blood, because this time he didn't even do the thing they're saying he did. by putting these two victims into a mob of not just fellow victims but also unaffected individuals (ie. sect leader yao, who just showed up for kicks), the story can effectively equate these victims' grievances (ie. "you killed my parents") with unreasonable mob rule--even if these two things might not actually be equivalent.
the effect of this rhetorical trick, then, is that the reader can at once perceive the themes about mob mentality MXTX wishes to convey, and also effectively write off the victims' complaints. "yes, i did that to you, but i literally died already, what more do you want me to do? shall i walk on my knees repenting?" becomes easier for the reader to accept. and more importantly--wei wuxian's likability as a moral and just protagonist is not impacted.
ngl tho. it would be a bit more difficult for the reader to write off these victims' complaints if, instead of meeting said victims in an angry mob, the reader instead met these victims almost anywhere else. imagine if, instead of meeting mr. "you killed my parents" at the second siege of the burial mounds, we instead met him getting smashed at the local bar and crying about how his parents are dead. imagine if, instead of meeting mr. "you chopped off my leg" as a member of an angry mob, we instead met him begging for alms on the side of the road because his disability rendered him unable to work in a wuxia-esque setting. or imagine--if either of these background characters, overcome with survivor's guilt and trauma from nightless city, hung himself in his bedroom, and the next day his body was discovered by his 15-year-old daughter.
all of these scenarios are entirely plausible. you could easily include any of them into the story without changing the main plot at all. but suddenly shit just got a lot more depressing.
however, no such scene would ever be included in MDZS. the reason is that, as a work of fiction, MDZS's single most ardent goal is for us the readers to conclude not just that "we like wei wuxian as a character," but also that "wei wuxian is ultimately a morally righteous person." when the narrative focus shifts onto the people who were actually helped by wei wuxian's actions (mianmian and her family, lan sizhui, the few months of dignity the wen remnants were afforded) this becomes much easier for us to conclude; wei wuxian does indeed look like a hero. but the more narrative focus is given to the negative impacts of wei wuxian's actions--the more the "victims of wei wuxian" (whether actual victims or not) are given a face, instead of abstracted away by broad summaries--the more the reader might side-eye wei wuxian instead. every new victim given a name, given narrative attention that isn't just focused on making them look like an asshole, arouses the reader's sympathies in the opposite direction--and thus increases the risk that the reader might ultimately disagree with the novel's conclusion of "wei wuxian is a righteous person."
tbh, this does not seem like a risk MXTX particularly wants to take. instead, she's mastered the art of writing Asshole Victims.
which is an entirely valid writing decision, because imo basically every work of genre fiction out there does this to some extent.
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mrmeepsmadmind · 2 months ago
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i told you to kys, why are you fujoshing out rn
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peppermint-whiskers · 1 month ago
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After he replaced the automata with eggs, he stopped unintentionally feeding his delusions
They drove him a different kind of mad, but hey, at least he's not hallucinating his sister anymore XD
Spawned from conversation with @emositecc uwu
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