#but recontextualizing it into new forms

[captainkingsley]

gay dads in dumb cosplay and their teenaged son who makes fun of them

[f1-unpopularopinions]

drop those papers on the ethics of rpf bestie

Thank you this is my favorite thing! Not nearly a comprehensive list but a decent starting point. Let me know if access is a problem

References:

The Intimate Fandoms of Men’s Hockey Real Person Fanfiction by Mari Elise Vist

The Affective Power of Intimacy: A Case Study of a Men’s Hockey Real Person Fan Fiction’s Literary and Social Contexts by Lina Vermeer

The Real K-pop idols of fanfiction: reclaiming "real person" fanfiction as K-pop industry practice by Sooyun Hong - a thesis

Real body, fake person: Recontextualizing celebrity bodies in fandom and film by Melanie Piper

How real are people? : sports-centric real person fiction between mainstream and fanfiction by Judith Louise Tuffentsammer

Reading real person fiction as digital fiction: An argument for new perspectives by Judith Fathallah

Finding the Path Through the Ethics of Fanfiction by Victoria Fidler

Chapter 8: ​​��In the End Its All Made Up The Ethics of Real Person Fanfiction” by Jennifer McGee in Communication Ethics, Media & Popular Culture (Vol. 9). Peter Lang

Fanfiction, not just RPF

“Write the story you want to read”: world-queering through slash fanfiction creation by Diana Floegel

The Alienation of Gaze — the Construction and Gender Practice in the Fanfiction by Xuan Yu & Yu Han

"Slight dub-con but they both wanted it hardcore": Erotic fanfiction as a form of cultural activism around sexual consent by Milena Popova

An Inexhaustible Source of Magic: How Fanfiction Turned One World Into A Thousand by Taylor Pernini

Culture and Community Online - How Fanfiction Creates a Sense of Social Identity by Reshaping Popular Media by Kellye Ann Guinan (this is a longer thesis but really interesting!)

Television and Fanfiction Online: Finding Identity, Meaning, and Community by Erin B. Waggoner

Loving Fanfiction: Exploring the Role of Emotion in Online Fandoms by Brit Kelley - this is a fascinating book, got access through the public library

The Erotics of Fanfiction: Queering Fans, Works, and Communities in Modern Internet Fandom by Alexandra Garner

Writing Oneself into Someone Else’s Story – Experiments With Identity And Speculative Life Writing in Twilight Fan Fiction by Sanna Lehtonen

[directdogman]

Dogman, how do you write SO WELL!?!? I love all your characters and I need to know what/where you find inspo from...

Ha. Every writer is just someone who apes the creative processes of their inspirations. For video game writing specifically, there's two answers for me.

Toby Fox is always gonna be a huge inspiration for me. I've written plots and characters before and had to abandon ideas after realizing I'd accidentally written part of UT again. Even some of the ideas I used were undeniably inspired by UT in a subconscious way and ofc, I included several explicit references to UT in my last series. Toby's a very clever guy who likely pays very close attention to the art he consumes and tries to figure out how to maximize how much his work connects with his audience. Whatever his process is, it works.

The other answer is a lil funnier: Scott Cawthon, but specifically the legend, not the man. For context: Back in the earlier days of the FNaF fandom, people had a hyper-inflated view of Scott Cawthon's writing skills that largely came from how little of a presence he had back in those days. In the vacuum of Scott actually explaining his own process in detail, people got caught up in his genuinely creative way of hiding exposition in his games using cryptid and (then) unexpected methods, and a narrative formed (one that he's since refuted.)

While he never implied it tmk, fans broadly believed that he constructed these sweeping and complex narratives with tons of cohesive moving parts, with the games essentially acting like the mere tip of his lore iceberg. People even thought he wrote so much that he had whole games worth of lore outlined from the beginning! In the first Dawko interview he gave, he clarified that this wasn't the case and explained roughly what his process was (basically just outlining rough theme ideas + aesthetics for future titles.)

However, that legend made younger-me's mind run wild and any time I wrote a story, it became very difficult for me to not keep writing down ideas while completing the grunt work that followed me finishing my scripts. When I finished DSaF 1, I already had DSaF 2's draft written and by the time 2 was done, I had enough lore for a 3rd game on paper (and a lot more stuff that I didn't use.) By the time three was out, I had pages upon pages of unused concepts/story ideas and more or less just had to decide to call it quits or else I'd be pumping out entries forever!

That's why if you go back to those older games, there's references that directly refer to future plot-points in pretty casual/easy to miss ways. (Like Henry's mention in DSaF 1, Dave being heartless in DSaF 2, Jack being soulless in 1, and even Blackjack being Jack's soul in 2. Most of 3's major plotpoints are implied somewhere in 2 and some of 2's in 1.)

DT is much the same. By the time I finished writing it, I had fairly detailed drafts for arcs for each of the characters, some early material ended up getting completely recontextualized (and even modified in small ways to not conflict with the wider ideas I came up with.)

I get really into writing my stories/characters and I always wonder exactly how things ended up where they are, what characters think about but don't say, etc etc. This is why I have an obscene amount of Crown lore that I have very little to do with rn (since he impacted the whole world so deeply.)

This extra stuff also includes plenty of sequel material ideas, though I didn't think I'd even get a chance to use them since DT performed pretty meagerly before the big release and I was expecting to have to move onto something new. Though it turned out that Scott didn't actually write his games this way (by his own admission), it's the correct answer for what my core writing inspiration for writing game narratives is.

Hope this helps!

[ifishouldvanish]

The idea of Olrox being from Cholula specifically makes me so insane. Like would he have identified more as Mexica? Or as Tlaxcaltec? Would he have been loyal to the Tlaxcaltec and allied with the Spanish only to get screwed over like his Mohican lover did in the colonies? Would he have done so thinking he could get the upper hand in the end just like Mizrak/Emmanuel thought the Order could with Erzsebet?

"He thinks the devils he manufactures will be enough to destroy her when the time comes. What do you think? Do you think he's right?" - S1E4

Even after the fall of Tenochtitlan, nobility from all over the region would have been sent to Cholula to get the blessing of Cholulan priests for their legitimacy. How might this have fueled his disdain for nobility?

Olrox: "I prefer my blood blue."

Drolta: "Maybe you do things differently in the new world, but over here we don't feed off the wealthy. The locals will start to grumble." - S1E5

As a Mexica citizen, this disdain could come from resentment toward sumptuary laws, the increasing lack of socioeconomic mobility during Moctezuma's rule, and frustration with how he handled the Spanish... But as a Cholulan sympathetic to Tlaxcala, there's so much more???

It could come from frustration with leadership that defected from the very people who helped them elude Mexica rule in the years before the Spanish conquest. Anger at a decision that economically obliterated the Tlaxcaltec, who became completely surrounded by Mexica member-states? Regret at how much it cost them to 'overthrow' the Mexica? Grief at how this kind of political/military opportunism helped lead the wider indigenous population to its demise?? Like the latter is so much more thematically ripe for a show tackling colonialism and imperialism imo???

"This one? He was just an opportunist, following the Messiah because she's powerful." - S1E4

I mean!!?? Think about how the implications of all of this... *gestures wildly* stuff would lead him to adopt such a cynical, morally ambiguous worldview? This sense that it's all doomed, that he's not strong enough to fight it? Resist and fall to your enemies, or work with them only to lose parts of your identity in the process? Think about how the brutality of the Cholula massacre recontextualizes eurocentric perceptions of the brutality of flower wars and ritual sacrifice??? How it would leave you with anger and pain and an unyielding need for justice?

"Little boy Belmont. I know that feeling. That pain, that hate, that burning, unendurable need for retribution." - S1E1

Think about how the Mexica Empire had adopted Huitzilopochtli (war, sacrifice) as their primary patron deity, and the Tlaxcaltec Mixcoatl/Camaxtli (the hunt, fire)... Yet Olrox's form seems to be based on Quetzalcoatl (wind, knowledge, rebirth, among other things)–the deity the great temple at Cholula was dedicated to.

A handful of mesoamerican deities are associated with serpents/have names ending in '-coatl', but Olrox's serpent form clearly has a feathered crest—the 'quetzal-' in Quetzalcoatl.

But Olrox's abilities also seem to include lightning/thunder, which are associated with Tlaloc, who the Cholulans seemed to have adopted as their central deity some time before the Spanish conquest.

Quetzalcoatl is only associated with storms sort of tangentially, through his aspect as the wind god, Ehecatl. The Florentine Codex refers to Quetzalcoatl-Ehecatl as sweeping the roads to make way for the rain and the thunder.

Think about how in Tlaxcaltec accounts, Cholula–being a sacred city–had no real military to speak of and depended on their gods to protect them???

Mizrak: "There's only one God. Just one. That's the only thing I'm sure of. And I've spent my whole life serving him, fighting for him. That hasn't changed, and it never will." Olrox: "One god... And you think he can protect you?" - S1E4

Like... What does it all mean???? 🫠🫠🫠

Agshsjdkdkfll *screams into a pillow* I am so excited for season 2 but whatever happens Cholulan Olrox is canon in my heart y'all

[markrosewater]

Hi Mark! In the planeswalker's guide, there is a really cool description for the "Glitch Ghosts" that explains why they appear they way they do and it makes no mention of tech at all. In my opinion, that snippet of world-building is in-line with some of my favorites of other planes you've made. It gives a reason why the ghosts have the same aesthetic as modern horror tropes, but recontextualizes it as a form of magical phenomena. It's really really stellar. I love it. Please give a high five to whoever came up with that.

But, when I see that Duskmourn also contains random TVs and computer screens, it cheapens that explanation. Why come up with a magical explanation for the Glitch Ghosts at all, if you were then just going to include the other technology anyway? Why not just have the description of the Glitch Ghosts be something derivative like "these are ghosts made by corrupted/possessed tech"? It's way more boring, but now that's all I'm going to be able to associate with them.

I guess my complaint is that by including more mundane objects and technology in Duskmourn, it makes the actual magic and worldbuilding of the plane feel less magical to me.

Magic started square in the heart of high fantasy. Over the last thirty plus years, we've tested where we can extend the feeling of the game, and the feeling of worlds where magic plays a role. I don't think magic has to be tied to the past and there are a lot of cool properties that combine modern day elements with magic.

Any time we try something new, perhaps this is the change that's a bit too far (we do know we're pushing boundaries here), but what we've learned this many years in is that Magic is at its best when it embraces all different kinds of aesthetics. When it shows people that magic can encompass a whole slew of different types of worlds.

Yes, Duskmourn is different, but different is kind of where Magic excels.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Sorry if this seems confrontational, but for the life of me I can’t get into your “Chloe has no growth” point when the show itself retracts growth from everyone and is inconsistent with everyone. You saying “The show just lays down basic character traits in Chloe” doesn’t make sense when her basic character traits are supposed to be her being selfish and spoiled.

S2 built off of that and despite what you say, had Chloe doing things that in S1 she wouldn’t have done. She apologized multiple times to the people she wronged, she willingly put herself in harm’s way to help the people she cares about and she was openly vulnerable to Ladybug in “Malidiktaor”. Something S1 Chloe wouldn’t have done. If there’s a distinct difference between a Chloe back in S1 and a Chloe in S2, then growth HAS taken place. But it doesn’t stay because of the formula (and the writers just don’t want her to keep that growth)

So what I’m asking is���what do you mean “Chloe doesn’t have growth”?

I can understand the “No arc” argument because an unfinished arc feels like there’s no arc at all (even though they are fundamentally not the same)

I wouldn't say that the show retracts growth from everyone. It's more that no one is ever supposed to grow. Every episode resets the cast. That's just how pure formula shows work and Miraculous is being sold as a pure formula show. The characters are meant to be static (one of the writers literally compared Miraculous to Dora the Explorer).

That static nature is why pure formula shows normally avoid giving their good-guy characters major flaws. It's the wrong medium for that type of thing specifically because the characters cannot change in meaningful ways throughout the show. They can learn little lessons that don't really change them and maybe have big change between seasons via a special or movie, but that's about it. Thus things like the season four conflict working so poorly. It's just a terrible choice for a formula show! The conflict is literally not allowed to develop properly because of the chosen format.

But sure, let's talk about Chloe and why I will die on the hill that she never demonstrated meaningful improvement even with the issue of the inconstant writing. In fact, seasons-one-to-three Chloe is one of the most consistent characters in the show. For this discussion to work, we need to start off by discussing character development and the two main forms it can take: character establishment and character growth.

Character Establishment

When the audience meets a character, they know nothing about said character. It's up to the writer to guide the introduction process. To choose when to reveal already existing elements of the character's personality, skills, and backstory. This is called character establishment. It is the writing telling you who the character is on a baseline level. Those reveals don't need to happen at the start of the story, though. They can be - and often are - held back for when the time is right.

When these reveals are delayed, it's important to remember that these elements were always part of the character. The reveal isn't changing who the character actually is. It's just changing how the audience views the character.

For example, we spend a good chunk of season one uncertain why Gabriel is doing what he does. Then, in Origins, we learn that it's all for Emilie. This is new information that adds depth to Gabriel's character, but it doesn't change him in any way. This is who he always was. We just know him better now and can recontextualize past events with our new understanding of his motivation.

Character Growth

Character growth is when writers take a character's personality or world view or even just their skills from point A to point B, allowing the audience to watch the character change and become a new better - or lesser - version of themself. This is usually part of a larger character arc where all the moments of growth add up, but it can take the form of small moments of growth that don't fit into a bigger picture, too. I'd probably still call that an arc, but we'll use the word "growth" a lot in this post, so let's just call it growth to be consistent.

Miraculous doesn't really have either arcs or growth because - once again - formula shows don't allow characters to meaningfully change, so I'm going to have to make up an example here. I'll use one that illustrates how character establishment and character growth can and do intertwine as that's an important thing to acknowledge to help guide this discussion.

Let's say that we have a character who lost their family at a young age. We'll call this character Mary. Mary's loss guides her character throughout the entire story, but the other characters and the audience are never told that this is what's going on. We just know that Mary acts in seemingly illogical ways at times and that she trusts no one.

Throughout the story, Mary learns to trust her costars, leading to a big, dramatic scene where she finally tells them - and the audience - about her past. This big dramatic scene is both the culmination of a character arc and a piece of baseline character establishment that allows us to understand Mary's character better no matter what part of the story we're reading.

Because these combo growth and establishment moments are so common in stories, it can feel like character growth when we learn new things about a character in a dramatic moment, but that's not always what's happening. Sometimes dramatic moments are just there to reveal what was always there by forcing a character to act differently than they usually do through the power of extenuating circumstances. These extenuating-circumstances moments are not character growth because, once the moment is over, the character resets to their normal self. The moment wasn't there to let them grow. It was there for the sake of the plot.

This is actually a really important thing that writers need to know how to do. Figuring out what circumstances will make a character say or do a thing they generally wouldn't say or do is part of how stories work. I have started stories with characters acting wildly "out of character" because I put them in the a situation where the behavior suddenly was in character!

Oh, you don't want to talk to this total stranger because you're an introvert with social anxiety who has yet to learn how to love yourself and open up to others? That's nice. Your leg is broken now and you're stuck in the middle of nowhere. What you gonna do sucker? Lie there in the dirt or talk to the nice lady who wants to help you? Your choice! (Spoiler: he talked to the nice lady. He even let her physically support him when he'd usually never let a stranger touch him!)

As soon as that scene was over, the character reverted because it wasn't growth. He didn't become a more open person. He just did something he normally wouldn't do because the situation demanded it. It was extenuating circumstances so that the freaking plot could start.

This is what happened with Chloe in season two. Everything that people call growth is really just extenuating circumstances that reset by the end of the episode or even by the end of the scene.

Let's Talk About Chloe

Chloe does not have a character arc, aborted or otherwise. She is never taken on a journey where we watch her change. All we get is delayed character establishment via extenuating circumstances, but it's given in ways that make some people feel like she was being given an arc. Let's talk about why that is.

Season one Chloe is a one dimensional mean girl. She has almost no depth. She's just here to be petty and cause akumas. She is not a fully realized character.

Season two takes those traits and keeps them, but also gives Chloe a lot more depth to round her out and make her feel like a real character. She's just as petty and mean as she always was, but we're finally allowed to see her in some moments that make her feel like a well of potential to become something more, which the writers basically had to do if they wanted to let her be a hero. The audience needed to feel like Chloe could be good in the right situation.

The feelings evoked by her newly discovered depth are why people go "oh, she had a character arc! My feelings about her changed in a big way!" But she didn't have an arc. You just got to know her better by seeing her in moments where she was forced to be vulnerable. That's not growth. Growth is meaningful, lasting change, not situational change. Everyone changes based on the situation! It's why the "True Selves" stuff is such nonsense. It implies that there's one set way that we're supposed to act in order to be authentic and anything else is some kind of lie which just isn't how the world works.

Let's look at some examples to drive home what I mean.

Season one established that Chloe idolized Ladybug. It's why we get things like this moment from Evil Illustrator:

Ladybug: Fine! You stay! Later! Cat Noir: What do you mean later? Ladybug: I mean, you're the one who wants to protect her, so you don't need me. So, later! (swings away) Chloé:(looks over balcony) Ahhh! Ladybug! Text me! OK!

And this confession from Antibug:

Ladybug: [Chloe] pretended she was me?! How often does that happen? Armand: She idolizes you.

So Chloe adores Ladybug and wants to impress her/be her best friend. Cool. Got it. That never goes anywhere in season one because season one doesn't see Chloe and Ladybug interact much. The most we get is Ladybug saving Chloe from akumas, which doesn't allow for deep conversations. I don't think that they're ever alone in a moment where they can actually talk.

That changes in season two. In season two, they get to interact a lot and it's often in moments where there's a big threat and no one else is around, letting us see a new side to Chloe. But that's not Chloe changing. It's just the writers revealing that Chloe has more to her than the mean girl stuff because of course she does! Pure mean girls don't exist. Everyone has depth. We simply never saw that depth before because Chloe was never put in a situation where she needed to be open. We can't say that season one Chloe wouldn't confess things to Ladybug or chose to sacrifice herself to let Ladybug win because she never had the chance to do those things!

In fact, I'd go so far as to argue that season one Chloe probably would have done the same things as season two Chloe because season two Chloe doesn't really contradict season one Chloe. Antibug showed us that Chloe was pretty desperate to be loved and welcomed the way that Ladybug is loved and welcomed:

Chloé: Jagged Stone! Jagged: (thinking she's the actual Ladybug) Ladybug! What are you doing here? Chloé: Um… when I find out you were here, I knew you'd wanna see me! I had to come say hello. (Sabrina waves at Jagged)

and Chloe has always been a stubborn girl who stands up for what she wants even if what she wants is something bad. Antibug also showed us that Chloe can be genuinely nice to the people she cares about. Her and Sabrina's relationship is shown to be complex with them often having a lot of fun together.

Similarly, Origins sees Chloe showing her father genuine affection after she's saved from Stoneheart:

[Image description: Chloe and Andre hugging and looking very happy to be together]

Origins is the baseline episode that tells us who the characters are on day one, so I never once doubted that Chloe loved Andre, but Andre didn't get akumatized because of Chloe's actions in season one. He didn't even get akumatized for something that Chloe had nothing to do with! His first akumatization is in season two, so it's not shocking that we don't get a Malidiktaor type scene until Malidiktaor.

Chloe was vulnerable with her personal hero when her beloved parent was in danger, but not before? Shocking! Who would have guessed?

Me. I would have guessed. I didn't even realize that people were reading it as some sort of character growth because it clearly wasn't. Malidiktaor didn't feel like something new for Chloe's character. It just felt like the writers were leaning into things that we'd always known about Chloe and using them to better establish her character as someone who genuinely cares about select people. She just doesn't show most of the time.

The same thing goes for Chloe's sacrifice and apology in Zombizou. Chloe only sacrifices herself when there's no one left but her and Ladybug. When the choice is to let the terrorist win or take the hit and let you personal hero save the day. Brave? Sure, but also not growth. Chloe is team Ladybug for all of seasons one, two, and three! She wants Ladybug to like her! Plus even a petty brat can have moments of goodness where they pick a hero over a literal terrorist.

This honestly would have been a damming moment if Chloe didn't sacrifice herself. She functionally had no other choice here. The entire episode builds itself to the self-sacrifice moment so that Chloe is forced to make that choice even though she's been her petty bratty self throughout the whole attack. It's genuinely solid writing.

Then, in the heightened emotions directly after the Zombizou win, we get this:

Miss Bustier: But I hurt a lot of people... Chloé: No... I did... I forgot your birthday, once again. And when I saw everyone had prepared a gift for you, I totally lost it. Because I, too, would've liked to offer you something. I'm sorry, Miss Bustier. Miss Bustier: Thank you, Chloé. Those words are the best possible gift you could ever give me. (hugs Chloé) (Chloé hugs her back, forgetting herself for a moment.) Chloé: Huh?... Uh, yeah. Okay then, we're all good.

A brief moment of vulnerability that quickly ends and does not stick around because Chloe's change was situational, not true growth. The next scene of that episode starts with Chloe being her usual self:

Chloé: Me? You want me to apologize to the entire class? Ridiculous! They should be thanking me for saving everybody.

And ends with the reveal of Chloe's gift to Miss Bustier, which was given in private via a note.

Once again, nothing new for Chloe's character. She acts as she always has, being mean to everyone while having moments of vulnerability when things get tense. Remember that hug between her and her father that we talked about earlier? Same concept. She had just almost died from an akuma attack and so she needed some emotional support, leading her to act more openly loving than she usually does when he's around. Once the moment is over, she reverts to the petty mean girl default.

Giving gifts to placate people is also something that we've seen before. A pretty similar thing happens at the end of Evil Illustrator, it's just played less sympathetic towards Chloe because the writers weren't giving her depth back then:

Sabrina: Too late. Chloé and I are doing the project together. Marinette: You mean, you're doing the project? Sabrina: Well, of course! After all she's been through... Marinette: Ughhh.... Nice new beret, by the way. Sabrina: I know, right! Chloé lent it to me. She really is my BFF! Chloé! Your geography homework's ready!

For any of this to be character growth, we need to see Chloe act differently over time. For her to be put in similar situations and get different outcomes, but we don't see that in part because Chloe didn't change and in part because season one didn't do much to develop Chloe's deeper side. We rarely see her alone or in moments of extreme vulnerability, but you need those moments to show her depth. That's why Despair Bear had Chloe crying alone after Adrien threatened to end her friendship and not before. Chloe is very reluctant to openly show depth. You have to force it out of her, which perfectly fits the character we met in season one.

Even her standing up to Hawkmoth and rejecting the akuma isn't character growth in my opinion. Chloe has always stood up to authority and demanded whatever she wants. She has wanted to be Ladybug's friend and be seen as a hero since season one, so it's not shocking that her extremely strong will would allow her to defy a terrorist. If there is anyone in this show who can stand up to a terrorist on shear "no!" power alone, it's little miss I-always-get-what-I-want. I could see a variation of this happening at any point in the show, just change Chloe's reason for defying Gabriel to match the situation. Rework these lines to be about a party that she wanted to go to and I'd still totally buy it:

Chloé: No, Hawk Moth! I am a superheroine! I am Queen Bee! Ladybug will come and get me when she needs me! I WILL NEVER JOIN YOU! (throws her photo onto the ground as the akuma exits it... and pants)

Chloe acted like a hero here because she wants all the perks of being a hero and can't believe that Ladybug would actually bench her. That's impossible! Ladybug wouldn't do that!

As soon as Chloe accepts that she won't be a hero again, Chloe stops acting heroic because acting heroic wasn't growth. It was her playing a part the same way she played a part in Despair Bear. She was doing what she needed to do to be Queen Bee again and not because it's the right thing to do. This would only be real growth if she rejected the akuma after accepting that she wouldn't be Queen Bee again, but that's not what happens. As soon as she accepts that she's out, she no longer has any reason to play nice. She never grew into a character who did what's right for the sake of doing the right thing. It's always been about getting what she wants or being seen how she wants to be seen. Until that changes, she hasn't changed.

So no, Chloe didn't have an aborted arc. They didn't start to redeem her and then change their minds. All they did was make Chloe one of the most complex characters in the show only to then not do anything with the character they wasted our time establishing, ignoring the complexity they gave her while also cranking her mean dial up to the point of absurdity where she's not even fun in her original role anymore.

I get why it feels like she had an aborted arc. The fact that the character establishment was delayed makes it feel like something shiny and new about Chloe. There's also the fact that the character establishment we get in season two is the kind of character establishment that you'd do if you were setting up for a redemption arc, but that doesn't change the fact that it was all establishment work. None of it was a true arc where we watched Chloe grow. We just saw her put in situations that revealed hidden depths.

Her showing depth is not her growing because when in the world does she show off this supposed growth? She only acts differently in the type of scenes that we've never seen her in before or around characters that we've never seen her truly interact with before. When she's around the established teen characters or in her usual scenes, then she acts the same way that she always has. We never see her be genuinely nice to Marinette or something like that. She's only nice to Ladybug and she's still rude to Chat Noir. That's not character growth! That's character establishment that can then be used to guide character growth!

Same thing goes for the stuff in Despair Bear. We learn that Adrien can push Chloe to be better, but he never does it again and she reverts as soon as he lets her off the hook, so it wasn't character growth! It was just Chloe establishing that she can play nice when she needs to. This means that she could grow if the story chose to take her down that path because we've established that she knows what being nice looks like. Fake it til you make it plot go, go, go! But the plot never went, went, went so meh?

Add in the fact that season one was a bit of a test season with lots of elements that got dropped and the fact that characterization in this show has always been wildly inconsistent from episode to episode and I'm really not seeing a strong argument for Chloe having an intentional arc that somehow got aborted. People just saw the potential for her to have one and argue that potential is the same as an aborted arc when it really, really isn't.

To give an analogy, Chloe's story is like walking into the kitchen and seeing grandma laying out the ingredients for her famous chocolate chip cookies. We get excited because, hey, cookies! Then we come back an hour later and there are no cookies. Nor is there some other sweet that uses the same ingredients. There's just ingredients, sitting unused in their original packaging, making us wonder what the heck grandma was up to. At the same time, she never really started making cookies. She just set out ingredients. They're still there, totally unused, waiting to be made into something, so we can't call them a failed cookie attempt. That implies a level of commitment that was never there. She didn't even say that she was making cookies! We just assumed she was because we, understandably, wanted cookies and wanted to believe that grandma had a purpose to her actions.

[tannnnblogs]

Your New Vegas comics are peak! Seeing the game being played out/recontextualized in comic form is just crazy good!

Thank you! Im excited to share more :DD

[lordkingsmith]

Still working on the fan power rangers show lol. It’s in its like. Seventh rewrite.

Max, the nonbinary hybrid orange ranger is, lovingly, my problem baby and I can’t decide what species mix they are. To be honest there’s too many gorgeous costume monster species designs and just one Max.

I have come up with a plausible reason for why rangers are letting the monster kids do the current rangerdom, and also have more fleshed out line up for the baddies.

The Z-Wave didn’t happen until Rito showed up again, so a lot of deaths and general plot has been a bit recontextualized and remixed. Rita decided she’d had enough of the villainy life and left siblings Thrax and Selena with Rito without a word-faked her own death. At the time she did this, Thrax was seven and Selena was three. Rito wants revenge but he’s mainly letting Selena and Thrax handle it while he does what he wants. Turn the moon into an amusement park. Because it’s fun and hey everyone loves fun right? And take care of the rangers he’s mind controlling because after the z-wave he’s more motivated by protecting “his kids” than actual revenge. Will throw down with Rita if needed, however.

Thrax has skin and so does Selena. Nobody looks flayed alive. Both of them greatly resemble Rita. Thrax is the one responsible for the giant version of their monsters, and as Val’s the one that often volunteers, this has led to teasing by Selena. Selena’s a lot like a spunky, smarter version of Rito. Thrax is more serious. Selena being the one who likes looking human most is often the one going down to earth to spy and cause trouble. Sometimes with Rito. Thrax prefers endless sulking and staying in more monstrous form, which is similar to Rito’s form. Keeps his opinions to himself, but is generally disgusted he got left behind while both parents decided to abandon him and Selena. Selena is also pissed but she holds out hope there’s a reason their mother abandoned them. Also more protective of her older brother. And her uncle. Is not afraid to kill. Nobody’s finding the bodies of those who hurt her family.

JJ when he was undercover had a fling with a woman in Skorpina’s gang, had a baby with her and they were briefly married and divorced…who came back as Quaxo. Think of this as the messiest custody battle in history. JJ, when he finds out, is…Not Pleased. Rito, Thrax and Selena don’t know who Quaxo really is and she’d rather keep it that way. Her son, however, does and has not been happy with the situation since. Flirts with Rito, though Rito has enough sense to recognize this is wholly because he’s the most powerful member of the group and generally acts extra ditzy to get her to leave him alone. As hyper as ever, as bone headed as ever, but this time he’s also a bit angry and the anger acts as just enough of a grounder to keep him somewhat dangerous. He does genuinely like the rangers, all of them, and much of his tension with his team and the human rangers is mutual misunderstanding based. Quaxo hasn’t quite understood this yet, and thinks it’s a game he’s playing. It’s not. Rito’s just Like That.

Billy’s Clone was located and brought back to life, and is making this everyone’s problem. He’s the one who made Rito’s Rangers their new morphers and he’s the one lowkey trying to get the other four killed by “accident” so he can take their power for himself. Guy goes by William. He’s responsible for Tommy, Jason, Trini and Udonna’s deaths but passed it off to everyone as accidents. Only person onto him is the new recruit, Valentine

Valentine “Val” Draven was directly affected by Z-Wave, losing his parents and aunt and uncle to it. He and his cousin Iva were spared by being in another dimension for a birthday party and while Iva’s fairly certain they wouldn’t have been destroyed or turned human anyway…Val’s less certain. He’s angry but he doesn’t know at who. He wants revenge but Zordon’s dead and Rito’s not a bad guy. Val’s also got the fact the color Fuchsia chose Iva, who happened to be in the room at the time, over him, who’d been asked to do this. He joins Rito because Rito makes sense. And the second he heard about Quaxo and William….well. He’s not a bad person. Not really. Someone’s got to make sure Rito’s Rangers are protected, and he’s not sure if Rito Thrax or Selena really understand how to keep the superpowered group safe. Plus, he might be a vampire but he’s got a sweet tooth. And he was promised unlimited cotton candy. Also a little bit sweet on Thrax but..who’s counting, really?

-

@augment-techs @skyland2703 @pinkrangerv

Just because I think you’d be interested lol, but yea it’s coming. Slowly. Working on first episode’s script, I shall keep you updated if you’d like :)

[capsizedskeleton]

epic the musical live review over a few days ft. getting high during storm saga

TROY SAGA thunder bringer was one of the first songs i heard so going to the horse and the infant and hearing don't make me do this please don't make me do this!!! i didn't know that was a callback reminds me of pathologic is great and here's why, where hbomberguy points out child murder is such a taboo and it's that game's opener (depending on the character) here it's the musical's opener fffuck okay ruthlessness was also one of the first songs i heard so "600 men under my command" after i know it will become at least 43 then 0 is hghhhhh. esp when they're similar melodies, the first time the number is mentioned in full speed ahead

CYCLOPS SAGA so i watched a few animatics of these as well before troy saga just bc mmm animatics and oh recontextualized w the last two songs of the saga thats. hm. IIIIII AM YOUR DARKEST MOMENT all the uses of die with the last sound stretched out emphasizing the eye sound oough remember them. remember us. remember me OOHHH ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT THAT. ARE YOU SURE

STORM got up to the first few animatics i ended up watching. by now i might be able to categorize the animators? gigi as Action, Cinema, wolfy as a few lines seeming delicate and shape so solidly, nealillustrator as the GOAT (ok im biased they've only got thunder bringer but it's really good and i know them from bnha animatics ok), ximena as line. color. solid expression fav things from various ruthlessness animatics: poseidon being a shadow horse with front-facing eyes, a spiky merman but tentacles on bottom, literally water that could form into different things, only his hair being water, a horse, a guy, the stageplay version, everyone having different amounts of frames and different styles, like every!! time i watch an animatic i spot a new good take, beauty in everryy style, all the goregous water animation, capturing odysseus, submerging him, putting him in a whirlpool. that man is now a truly soggy cat am i insane or is there wind blowing in the last verse of that. after what have you done. maybe ive just had shit earbuds before. brutal

i got caught up in listening to done for even though that was skipping ahead. i am going to eat gigi's animatic whole. the corresponding basslines for each character how ody's replaces circe's?? now watching there are other ways. the two together as a beautiful story in 6 minutes is amazing

CIRCE normal now i like done for and there are other ways a lot more than puppeteer. this seems to be a pattern in which songs i like in each saga eury's bit leading up to "a woman" reallyyyyy sounds like hamilton wouldn't you like beat drop??? done for and there are other ways are fucking brilliant they're a whole story like i said before. ill say it again. absolutely entrancing. love the take that circe's about to kill ody before he rejects her and starts going on about his wife. also the transition after "that prophet is dead" bungggg and then the backing track hghh i am going to eat the melodic motifs i am going to swallow the chords whole AAAAGHHH

underworld again. weaker start, but oooh full speed ahead a bit of a reprise moment there and ody's mom i did not expect that. left for too long wandered too far gods REPRISE OF I SEE A SONG OF PAST ROMANCE HELLOOOO halfway into no longer you and OOOOOHHHH FUCK this shit HITS despite everything it's NOT you

NO MONSTER THE SLIP INTO CORRUPTION gigi i would die for you and this sequence. you know the one

THUNDER suffering is so good (normal sentence) i love the back and forth the you know im too shy the tone change at the lair of scylla listened to different beast on the train (first time listening to a song w/o animatic at first) and oooh the switch up!!!! we're in it now! DIFFERENT BEAST NOW HE'S A DIFFERENT BEAAST NOWWWWWW scylla.... oho the harmony. mutiny ok the opening i fw but why tf is eurylochus upset about the six men sacrifice when he was the one who suggested with circe that they just leave the men behind. also luck runs out callback i love my reprises why is helios lowk brushed over like i wouldve expected odysseus or eurylochus to talk about heyyy dont anger the gods like we did before thunder bringer slay. we already know. the bumping beat from the horse and the infant we knowwww. it's a little funny mutiny is RIGHT before thunder bringer like. hey crew you just stabbed him you should be a little less surprised he chooses to sacrifice yall. not even chosen. not even zeus was surprised by odysseus' immediate reaction

MISC. THOUGHTS

talked to a few friends while making this, wrote the sentence "i can feel the old greek mythology elementary/middle school neurons firing up again" because i CAN feel them god and it's also like watching musical animatics after school except im not 13 and deeply lonely this time. decided to write a fic of what happens between each saga and in a bit of wondering for that decided to look up the actual story of the odyssey (shmoop is not perfect but it is decent) and wow that's a lot of changes made from the original that contribute to a well-characterized musical! god it's such a good time. is this what dracula daily people felt like, reliving an old (relative to present) story and relishing in the Themes?

FAV SONG(S) FROM EACH SAGA

the horse and the infant

survive, remember them

ruthlessness

done for

no longer you (the OPPOSITE of that undertale quote)

different beast, thunder bringer

TLDR

excited for wisdom saga !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[inusmasha]

InuKag's contrasting backgrounds and the challenges they face in their respective worlds create a fascinating duality.

Kagome is a teenager who's juggling 2 equally important forces; Her life in the modern era and her life in the feudal era.

It's like she's in a constant transitioning state. She has to stay adapting and recontextualizing her sense of identity bc it's different day to day. She's the master archer with sacred arrows that need to shoot the bad guys... But she's also that constantly absent student taking the make up test in the back, don't bother her right now. In the past she's often mistaken for "Kikyo" if it serves the plot. What's a Kagome anyway? Tiktok audio She's just a girl in the world.

In contrast, Inuyasha grapples with his half-demon, half-human heritage, representing a different form of duality, albeit in a more physical sense.

This is why I adore the opening of the series! There's nothing quite like witnessing the initial setup. You're paired with someone, and you have to rely on each other in order to navigate this unfamiliar terrain (and like..not die lol). Each brings unique skills and perspectives to the table, necessitating observation and learning. In the process, they grow and evolve together.

Inuyasha observes Kagome as she forges connections wherever she goes, allowing them to form a powerful team capable of confronting their adversaries and establishing a new home. Simultaneously, Inuyasha offers protection and combat prowess honed during his solitary childhood survival. It's the perfect partnership between the most unlikely pair.

I just love a mirror.

[sleep-deprived-person]

An very brief explanation of the Titanfall subreddit right now:

An Ultrakill fan roleplaying Viper declares war on horny posts, sending many local celebrities to 'jail.' More roleplayers show up, it escalates, and now there's a four-sided war on people who looked at a two story mech, and decided they want to fuck it. Titanfall 2's campaign has been recontextualized in the last day, so now the IMC was trying to blow up a planet for Viper's Anti-Horny Alliance.

Edit 12/17/23: There were also two news factions, and a faction dedicated to wiping us all out. The horny guys have decided to stop due to it getting boring, which sucks. I'll link the timeline post the dude who started this all when I can.

Edit 19/12/23-2: timeline, stolen from Reddit user CackJooper, goes as follows: lt began with someone called Edith the Lesbian making sexual comments about Northstar. This resorted in Viper putting them in horny jail, several people including myself proceeded to guard this jail, this would go on to become the Anti-Horny Association (A.H.A).

Viper kept imprisoning people guilty of horny crimes until Pink Scorch Prime (one of the local celebrities I mentioned) was imprisoned. This then United a lot of the hornies into forming a centralised group known as the Pro Horny Coalition (P.H.C) it was at this stage that the A.H.A became the official name of Viper's group as well. These two groups then began the Horny War.

This then sparked the creation of several smaller factions, including the Titanfall Free Press (TFP) who acted as a journalist group reporting on the war, the PM which simply wanted to build a garden as well as a Monarch group and The Three Protocols who both essentially wanted peace.

The first of these smaller groups to from was the R.E who wanted to end the civil war by means of destroying both sides using WMDs. So they captured the Ark (for my followers who don't know what a Titanfall is, that's a power source for a planet killer that fucks with the space-time continuum) in attempt to destroy the subreddit, the A.H.A and the P.H.C made a temporary alliance in order to assault and destroy the Ark weapon. Presumably, a second Ark was then recovered but was intercepted by Viper. The war continued with the other smaller groups vying for power and trying to achieve their own goals.

Then the P.H.C surrendered and was dissolved (the leader was bored) leading to A.H.A victory and the end of the horny war.

[umbrvx]

i like ur art. its great and interesting!! i really like your artstyle and i really like the way u draw hsy, yjh, and kdj. you captured them so well in terms of vibes/character. also i was wondering do u have any advice to improve on drawing anatomy/poses/faces?

wahh thank you so much...!! i feel like im still trying to figure them out in a lot of ways but i do really like ironing out my visual interpretations of them so im really happy to hear if people like what im coming up with

also anon you super activated the part of my brain that cant help but yap about art theory... i spent some time writing as many tips as i could think of. unfortunately i dont think i have the time currently to do a fully illustrated guide, but ill still try to include some visual examples:

[incoming wall of text lol]

ANATOMY:

to preface i think that like 100% of the time you should reference a real life photo for anatomy rather than other artwork or drawn references. the best way to learn the body is by… well, actually looking at the body! but also artwork is informed by a person's own artistic ability/stylization choices/sense of idealism, so while looking at art can help give you an idea on how to break down forms, i think you would be best served observing real life references. i labor on this point because i do think that having over relied on drawn reference material and avoiding photographic references on the basis of not being interested on realism hindered me as a largely self-taught artist as a kid, so i want to encourage live or photographic reference since anatomy is one of the foundations from which everything else is built on. that being the case, all of my doodles i'm doing for this are going to be for the sake of example rather than to strictly say how you should or should not be drawing something

-> when you are doing a study of a photo, just try copying it as best as you can. pay close attention to the natural lines and shapes of the body -- the S-curve shape of the leg, the triangular shape of the forearm, the trapezoid shape of hips/thighs when they sit, and so on. note where the body folds or squishes or pulls; how mass will shift to accommodate a certain position. if a form is hard to visualize, focus on the negative space and carve that out, rather than strictly drawing the positive space.

don't expect to get it perfect the first time. in fact, iterate on it multiple times to build understanding. try doing it to a timer of 15, then 10, then 5 minutes. doing this will force you to have to prioritize the most important shapes. you can help reinforce this by using a thicker brush or a brush with no pen pressure (no joke ms paint works great for this) to force you to be loose and not become preoccupied with details.

-> pinterest is a great resource for finding and compiling photo reference material

-> organic shapes are curved, so embracing/emphasizing that (particularly for the extremities) can help make your drawings look more natural or fluid

POSES: -> it all begins & ends with contrapposto… you've probably heard of the line of action, which is related. if you're offsetting the shoulders & hips, it: makes poses more natural, more dynamic, and helps the pose sort of "draw itself" -- the legs will follow the direction of the hips, and you can use the arms to reinforce the angles

-> context is key. don't ask: what pose should i draw? instead ask: what do i want this character to convey? what does happiness, anger, sadness, and so forth look on this particular character? how do they express that? consider these drawings: these are both ostensibly the same pose, but look at how changing just the shape of the spine recontextualizes it.

for more on pose design i recommend watching Tracer & Pose Design 101 - The Animation of Overwatch by New Frame Plus (i promise this is a genuinely super informative video).

to expand on this, in general, all of the components of a piece (background, composition, pose, etc.) are best considered in conjunction rather than separately. it is difficult to choose a pose and then choose a background because they are missing the context that would make a piece cohesive. when you are planning a drawing, try to begin with your general concept/idea/prompt and then do several thumbnails -- small and quick doodles that should take no longer than 5 minutes each -- developing it: you may find that the pose and bg will naturally fall into place.

-> silhouette: the degree to which you need to push this varies by style but generally speaking the pose needs to be readable; i.e. instantly recognizable. try to keep important elements of the gesture outside of the silhouette. for example, if the character is pointing, keep that arm out of the interior of the body. the same pose can be more or less readable or dynamic depending on where the character is pointed in relation to the viewer

-> exaggeration!! goes along with the previous point. push the pose as much as you can (and what makes sense for your style) to communicate your pose as clearly and as intensely as possible.

FACES: -> i highly recommend the app Handy Art Reference Tool by Belief Engine for all things related to drawing hands/heads/feet. its on both android and ios. it isn't free -- it costs around $3 -- but that is seriously such a small price to pay for the amount of utility you get out of it: the hands models are fully poseable (there's also pose presets), you can rotate the head models however you want, and there is 3-point customizable lighting. it is really helpful for getting those super tricky and hyperspecific head angles that you just can't find a real life reference for. that being said given that there's only a few different head model variants, bear in mind how differences in features can affect what exactly a face will look like in those angles.

-> i still recommend doing studies of real people. as with anything else, learning generalized proportions is important, even if you are going to later on bend or break this depending on style

-> as for my own approach... it kind of depends on the style i'm doing at that particular time. for my paintings (what id consider my main style) i approach a character with a few real-world features in mind and then apply them to the best of my ability. it usually will take a few iterations to land on an interpretation i really like as i try out different things. a lot of the face also gets developed during rendering rather than through my initial sketch too, as i adjust for lighting and correct proportions on the fly

(look how much this image changes between sketch and render lol)

if i were to recommend anything, i think it would be to nail down your most distinct features first -- the ones that will make your character's face recognizable, and could apply regardless of art style. in my case with kim dokja, i knew when i first started drawing him that i wanted to give him a longer face and down-turned eyes. when i decided to do the disco elysium inspired set, in which i was breaking out of my comfort zone by letting go of any idealizations focusing on conveying characterization/making them feel "real", i landed on some more specific traits (defined lower lids/perpetually tired eyes/eyebags(?) the crease there idk how to describe it) which i continue to try to evoke even if im drawing something much more cartoony

(pictured are my first kdj -> disco elysium style -> my post de-style kdj)

as a side note, this very same process changed yjh much more dramatically

(^ that first guy is mad someone else)

those handful of key features will be the thing that you can then take into a simpler style and simplify or exaggerate to whatever degree suits you. you can also play with shape theory (square = sturdy/solid, circle = natural/smooth/welcoming, triangle = energetic/dangerous). shape theory doesn't necessarily need to be so rigid -- you can combine shapes as you please to convey whatever vibe you're going for -- so please think of it as a tool that may help rather than a rigid law you must abide by.

-> expressions: exaggerate them. thats kind of it!! make it big!!! you wanna be able to really feel those emotions. the principles of squash & stretch help here: think of how the muscles move when you, say, open the eyes or mouth really big. as one side of the face stretches open, the other side squashes to accommodate it

even without changing the position of the jaw here, moving the nose and scrunching the eyes will sell the expression

you can also play with squash/stretch to break proportions to sell a feeling more

since expressions are just, well, poses for the face, everything else for poses applies here (and facial expressions & pose should also be considered in tandem). while the term contrapposto itself just refers to the offset of the shoulders & hips, the similar principle of asymmetry also carries here as that will help make the expression a bit more dynamic.

and i think... that's it!! all i can think of at least. i hope it helps anon!!!

[sillybub]

My disorganized two cents about PAC NYC Cats being humans:

I think the more divorced from the original cat context the nonrep is the funnier it is that they talk about everything from an explicitly cat perspective. Like "yeah that extremely debaucherous sexy human person rum tum tugger gets stuck in drawers and chases rats and mice. And we all want him carnally for it"

It's different and that's good!!!!!!!! If you're gonna deviate from the og production I love to see folks doing something VASTLY different and transformative. Like 90% of nonreps still play them as cats. It's fun to see them as not-cats imo.

Like I'm not gonna go to a nonrep wanting to see the normal dynamics and characterization. If I wanted them to be the same I'd watch 1998 again, give me all the recharacterizarions and reimaginings. Scrap Munk as a character and invent a new one that has a different deal.

Excited to see how certain characters are re-characterized or scrapped or invented?? Like strictly the only characters they gotta to keep are the ones that have their own songs for the most part. And those song characters may be interpreted VASTLY different as to how they're usually portrayed and I for one am pumped to see new shit

I get the thought of like "if you're gonna make it so different then why even do cats at all" but like. I think given the fact that Cats the Musical took the very basic and simple collection of Old Possum's poems and radically recontextualized them into the musical we all know and love, I think its actually very much in the spirit of Cats to take something's base form and give it a complete makeover

Like "ALW if you wanted to do a hypersexual dance show then why did you base it on children's poems?" well because wouldn't that be just a fun thing to pull off?

[power-chords]

Malcolm’s epiphany constructs a narrative frame—an explanation of the condition or source of the narrative. But this is a frame or condition we only learn about at film’s end, and is thus a terminal frame, or a buried frame, a late embedding of one narrative level by another, or a narrative that takes the “form of a vision” from which the reader or viewer is “rudely ejected” at narrative’s end (Fludernik 29). In American Psycho, A Beautiful Mind, Cypher, eXistenZ, Fight Club, Hide and Seek, Identity, The Jacket, The Machinist, Mulholland Drive, The Number 23, The Others, Premonition, The Prestige, Secret Window, Shutter Island, The Spanish Prisoner, Third Person, Unknown, The Usual Suspects, Vanilla Sky, and so on, the central character at film’s end is revealed to be spectral, virtual, imagined, traumatized, conned, delusional, or in some other way compromised as a credible witness to, or participant in, the narrative’s events. In most of these films, what we thought to be objective narration turns out to have been thoroughly subjective, as a “deeper diegetic ground is inserted below the level we took for the baseline of reality” (Stewart 143). In several of these films we encounter the millennial trope I label retrospective revision: a montage sequence near the end of the movie in which we review earlier scenes, now recognizing the blind-spots, freshly cognizant of how we were deceived and how completely we should revise our understanding of the entire film. Like a transmedial franchise in which the narrative is just so much data to be used, reformatted, and reused, the ending of The Sixth Sense goes about repurposing the film itself, remixing and recontextualizing earlier scenes, a narrative parallel to the new fluidity of the moving image; it can go back and remix itself, even as it directs us forward to acquire and re-watch the movie in its post-theatrical life. This is a new formal logic within popular cinematic narrative: reconfiguration, revision, and remixing.

Audiences today have come to expect final plot twists to be thoroughly integrated into the structure of the film: “The ending can’t seem arbitrary, non sequitur, or tacked on; it should flow naturally and organically (if only in retrospect) from the rest of the story” (Susman). Twist movies today are often made to repay multiple viewings, to enter into a “culture of replay,” in which “the already seen and heard” becomes an “emblematic feature of the media business” (Klinger, “Becoming Cult” 4). This is a type of movie that viewers are encouraged to analyze, reflect back on, likely re-view, and perhaps even read about online in order to fully appreciate the intricacies of the story’s narration. This marks a stark departure from traditional expectations—as Charles Ramírez Berg writes, “For nearly a century now, the poetics of film narration was based on the need to be completely legible to one-time viewers” (31). Writers and producers of these films, in a “cognitive arms race” (Max) with audiences, begin to void long-held narrative contracts. They draft new arrangements with new rules that take into account the attainability and interactivity of contemporary cinema, or all of the digital means that encourage deep immersion in story worlds and negate the primacy of the theater. These movies are internet- and “DVD-enabled,” Thomas Elsaesser writes, their narrative structures determined in part by the technologies audiences use to consume them (“Mind-Game” 38).

—J Lavender-Smith, The New Reflexivity: Puzzle Films, Found Footage, and Cinematic Narration in the Digital Age, 2016. Emphasis mine.

[mazzystar24]

i have so many mixed emotions, like i am fucking ECSTATIC over bi buck being canon but at the same time im feeling kinda deflated that they tried to shoehorn bucktommy in

like i genuinely think buck deserves so much better than tommy, and im not saying he needs to end up with eddie next episode, like it needs to be realistic

im just afraid they are going to go “oh buck is with tommy now and we are just gonna solidify eddie as his supportive bestie”

which feels so just wrong to me because of everything that has been built up over the years because this recontextualizes EVERYTHING that buck and eddie have. but im afraid they will just retcon all of that as a way to force bucktommy onto us because it’s easier than making buddie canon

idk this episode simultaneously made me so happy from a representation standpoint but it makes me so upset as someone who has shipped buddie for years because i have so much anxiety that this won’t lead to buddie like people are hoping

(anyway i love oliver stark with my whole heart and i am so happy that buck is finally getting his canon bisexual storyline, im just kinda disappointed that its with tommy of all people)

My personal opinion on it is that they’ve more or less established that the bucktommy thing is a brief little think on bucks journey as a bi man

You are absolutely valid in being happy to get bi buck and a little deflated to get bucktommy those things aren’t mutually exclusive!!

I’m with you there with being a little disheartened that we didn’t get the same impact if they’d had buddie canon without the inbetween man so to speak but I can see why they did it this way

Just like you can be happy to see the buck Tommy kiss and still ship buddie!!! (Which is kinda unrelated but I’ve seen some TAKES and I wholeheartedly disagree with because I’m feeling ALL those at once)

Overall tho I think that I’ve said this before the ep aired and I’m even more assured now that bi buck no matter what form it’s in IS GOOD NEWS for us on the buddie front

Because if they have the willingness to do that and also if they see how well responses are and how good ratings stay from bi buck then buddie is just around the corner and I wholeheartedly believe that

Like it makes no sense to make either buck or Eddie’s queer without setting the path for buddie canon I also said this before but it’s the same as the if one of them were a woman argument like idk if I’m making sense but I’m feeling VERY optimistic from this episode even if it isn’t perfect and we do get more messing around and tiptoeing and confusion🫡

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Remember, Remember

I was just rereading "Care and Keeping of Idiots" (amazing btw) and in the beginning Patton has a notebook that Janus takes from him? Patton protests that it helps him "remember stuff" and Janus counters that it actually helps him to feel guilty. Uh, this really piqued my interest so maybe could you write a fic about Patton and this notebook, what exactly it is? (and the sides helping him with realizing he doesn't have to use it <3) – anon

Read on Ao3

Warnings: light guilt tripping of self

Pairings: dlampr, can be platonic or romantic i don't care

Word Count: 2061

Listen, Patton doesn't understand what the big deal is. This is what notebooks are for, after all. Notebooks are for taking notes! They are for helping you remember things! They are for whatever words or feelings make their way from your brain down your arm, through a pen or pencil—or marker—and onto the paper. That's their purpose! It would be silly to not use a notebook if you have things you want to remember and you need some place to write it down.

As would anyone who cares deeply about anything, Patton has a lot of things he wants to write down. Recipes that he wants to try out, shows he needs to catch up on, books he wants to read…books he has read and wants to talk about, things he has to do, there's a lot. And, also, because sometimes talking about feelings is really hard, he writes about them instead. Listen, they've all be working on being more open with each other, but the truth of the matter is that some of them are more easily able to tap into that vulnerability and be able to share it than others. That's a true fact about the world, whether Patton likes it or not, and he's not totally unaware here. He knows that he's contributed to that in his own way, and it's not his place to demand the others be open about things with him if they're not comfy with it yet.

So, because notebooks can be very useful things, he writes about it.

He's penned long pages about how much he adores Roman's passion and drive, but sometimes he worries that when it doesn't come as easily, Roman will get upset with himself. How it's okay if he just needs to make stuff for Roman, not the rest of them, not even for Thomas. How much he's sorry that he's contributed in any way, shape, or form to the insecurity that his kiddo tries so hard to cover up, but he knows is there. Sometimes he makes himself cry as he's writing those, not just because he knows Roman's particularly upset right now, but he's dredged up all the emotion in himself and, well, it has to go somewhere.

He keeps little short lists of how much he appreciates Logan's efforts—he does his best to say them out loud too, but sometimes Logan's not in the place where he wants to hear that, so he writes them down to save them for later. He's been trying to be better about asking Logan when he doesn't understand things, but sometimes the conversation moves too fast and he doesn't want to be a bother and slow everyone way down just so Logan can explain the thing he mentioned, like, five minutes ago. So, in the name of efficiency, he writes them down and looks them up later and does his best to recontextualize the conversation with his new knowledge. He's pretty sure Janus has a notebook that automatically transcribes conversations for him for when hearing is hard and lip-reading is harder, maybe he'll ask if he can learn a bit of that too.

Speaking of Janus…oh, he's written way too much and not enough at all about Janus. He's still not entirely sure what his own personal feelings are about the whole…Dark Sides/Light Sides thing, especially because it sort of feels like they're trying to do away with it entirely now that they've just found out the lines exist. Which isn't really fair, he knows, since he's the one who pushed them away to begin with, but they haven't—it's not—this is the first time he's really interacted with them in a long time, and so it's impossible to slide back into what it once was, and they're not quite at the place where they can start forging something new. Not yet. So, because he needs somewhere to put them, he writes.

Virgil, as will come as a surprise to no one, does not like being confronted with sentiment. (He actually wrote that one word for word and tried not to giggle at how much it reminded him of the look Virgil had when Roman tried to rope him into singing Disney songs together.) And so, because he's not above making his kiddos admit how great they are but he doesn't want to make them uncomfortable, he writes them all down instead. About how he's so proud at how much Virgil is trying to come out of his shell, how much he loves hearing about what Virgil's interested in now, or how much he secretly agrees that yeah, that story really was kind of edgy and not in a good way.

With Remus, who he doesn't know that well, he mostly writes down questions. Some of them are…in better faith than others, he'll admit. Why did he put his bear trap in the fridge? Why is there a water balloon filled with hot sauce in the sink? Where did his deodorant go? How did he come up with the idea of making every single doorknob make a different sound? What's his Kraken's name? That sort of thing. And maybe, sometimes he wants to ask things about him and Roman. How it feels being two parts of Creativity, or sharing the Imagination, or why, in the middle of the night, if he's very quiet, the walls sort of feel like they're shaking.

But! Maybe that's none of his business. That's why it's better to write it down, see? That way he can work out all his thoughts on paper and not have to bother anyone with them. Also, that means that if he needs to remember something, but he doesn't necessarily want them to know he's having trouble remembering it, he can write it down! Like how Roman doesn't like it when you ask about projects he hasn't talked about in a while, or how Logan doesn't like be disturbed unless the sign on his door says he's disturbable, or how he needs to ask Janus first if he's being serious or not about doing something, or about how Virgil needs time to himself away from everyone, or how he needs to leave Remus alone, that sort of thing. He should just know those, so he writes them down so he remembers them, but that's all.

That's what notebooks are for, isn't it?

Well, from the way everyone's staring at him with a mix of frustration, pity, and confusion, maybe he doesn't know what notebooks are for after all.

"That's not—you are not incorrect in your assessment of what a notebook is used for," Logan says slowly, "but the way in which you are choosing to use it…"

"Yeesh, Pop Star," Virgil mumbles, toying with the strings of his hoodie, "you're…damn, you're kinda giving me a run for my money."

"What? What do you mean, kiddo?"

"Having lists of things you need to do to monitor your own behavior?" He jerks his thumb at Roman. "That's both a him thing and a me thing."

"And it doesn't sound like it's particularly healthy either."

Patton laughs—surely, they can't be serious—but then everyone else is still looking at him like that and he tugs on the hem of his shirt. "I think you're overreacting a bit, kiddos, it's not that bad."

"You're keeping lists of ways in which you should behave in order not to upset us," Logan summarizes, "is that right?"

"Well, yeah, I don't want to upset you! And you have boundaries, those are important—"

"Boundaries like 'leave Remus alone?'" Remus looks up from his little huddle on the couch. Patton's heart sinks.

"N-not as in leave you alone alone, just that—I know you don't like being bothered by me, so—"

"How do you know that?"

"W-well, it's just that every time I try and come and talk to you, you're always—it feels like you don't want me there."

"Yeah, because the last three times you came, it was when I was handling the newborns from my side of the Imagination or working with the corrosive chemicals that Ro said aren't allowed in the Imagination anymore. You could've been hurt." Remus frowns. "Your sense of timing is shitty but it's not like I don't want to spend time with you."

"O-oh. Um, I'm…sorry?"

"Shit, no, I didn't mean it like that, I just—" Remus sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face— "I'm not going to try and blame you for your brain being spicy, but I am going to point out that you jumped straight to 'don't interact' as opposed to asking me why I wanted you to leave in those instances."

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Logan lean over to Janus to ask what 'brain spiciness' is, but he's too distracted by how Virgil's frowning at him. "What?"

"Are you—do the things in your notebook also consist of you reminding yourself of mistakes you've made in the past?"

"…yes? If I write the mistake down, I'm not likely to forget it and make it again, right?"

"How often do you reread them?"

"Every day, why?" The collective wince that happens is enough to let him know that was the wrong answer. "O-or! I mean, it's not everyday, every day, but—"

There's a low hiss from Janus and he shuts up.

A pause.

Then Logan takes a deep breath, adjusting his glasses.

"I will admit, when you first started talking about this, I was…not so much intrigued as I was curious as to why you'd never brought it up on your own before, considering how much we've all been talking about getting better at communicating. And if it were truly just an outlet for your emotions, I don't believe anyone would be reacting as strongly as they are, myself included."

"But that is what it is."

"But you're using it to amplify your own guilt and shame," Roman breaks in softly, "and that's not good, Padre."

"What? That's not what I'm doing at all! I'm just—"

"Then why were you so hesitant to tell us?"

Well.

He's sure there's a good answer for that.

Somewhere.

He just needs to think of it!

Yeah.

Yeah…

…yeah.

…

…oh.

Oh.

Oh, no.

Distantly, he registers the soft noises of concern and the gentle touch to his face. His head moves. There's someone standing in front of him. The thing on his cheek strokes the skin gently again. He blinks. Oh. His vision is all blurry. There's a lot of movement happening. There's someone calling his name.

"Patton? Sweetie, can you hear me?"

He thinks he nods. The thing on his face cups his jaw and then slides around to the back of his head—oh, that feels nice. He likes that feeling. He tries to lean into it. There's another quiet noise and then there's another touch on his shoulder.

"Sweetie, come sit, please, come sit with us. Let's give you a cuddle, okay? Look, the twins are right here—"

He's passed to another set of hands and then his hands are trying to wipe his face because he's crying, that's why his vision is so blurry, and then Roman—it has to be Roman, it's all red—is pulling him close and it's really warm, and soft, and quiet, and—

"Shh, there you go," Roman murmurs, "just take a moment, okay?"

"Remus, budge over a bit."

"L, can you get the—"

"Yes, I've got it."

"Shh," Roman says again when Patton hiccups with the force of the sobs, "here, cry this out for me, okay? Just get it all out, that's it, you're okay…"

He doesn't have the words, not really, to figure out how to remember this, but as the feelings wash over him and the world becomes a little smaller, just for a moment, he thinks he might not need to write anything down to remember what this feels like.

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