#could go on a tangent but basically:

[man-made-object]

my psychiatrist gives the worst head imaginable

[lovesickeros]

lord its so dark in here the sahara desert of tsaritsa content you are like a shining oasis. your characterisation of her compels me & mihoyo would be hard pressed to top it imo.!! caaaaan i humbly request yr thoughts on her first meeting w a reader of any kind, or maybe even multiple kinds (sagau, sagau god au, isekai, etc) if you so desire...

it really is like a desert here. being the fan of a character we aren't getting until the last damn nation is driving me up a wall but i will persevere bc if nothing else i support morally bankrupt women in media. we r in a severe drought over here but i do my best. unfortunately nothing i say is ever coherent so pull out your translation notes its abt 2 be messy

also this got out of hand but thats bc first meetings w the tsaritsa are tricky to write + a LOT of her characterization lies in deeper exploration then just surface level yknow...NOT A DIG AT YOU this is just my excuse for rambling. gently pats the tsaritsa she can hold so much complexity i do not have the word count to delve into it completely :]

gonna talk cult au for a bit here though because that's 99% of my content. and honestly? she thrives in sub au's of the cult au like villain au + imposter au. it's basically made for her. i mean, early days, the imposter au had been going around for a little while but one of the first few ideas was the Fatui taking reader in so like. it kinda technically actually was. pretty sure cult au Tsaritsa popped up because of the imposter au. a lot of it's writers kinda left though which. man am i getting old or.

anyway.

there isn't much of a chance her first impression is all that positive. at best it's usually neutral, imo, but rarely if ever positive. specifically because i view the Tsaritsa as someone who isn't as fanatical as most of the acolytes typically are towards the creator. she's not exactly going to worship the ground you walk on unlike a certain geo lizard. which is partially why i think she thrives in the sub au's i mentioned.

imposter au, for example. she meets you at your lowest. there's no gaudy extravagance or pampering from the acolytes waiting for you because your own acolytes have turned on you. for all intents and purposes you aren't a "god" at all. which is why i don't think she meshes well with normal cult au reader. the Fatui are made up of outcasts, basically, and imposter au slots right in just perfectly. you're weak, at your lowest, when you meet the Fatui in the imposter au. and the Fatui can help you, too.

a mutual exchange, really. the Tsaritsa sees a tool she can use to one up the rest of the nations and especially Archons, and she has no qualms about you using her and the Fatui in turn. you both want something out of it, after all. whether you just want to be safe from the rest of the acolytes, or you want revenge, or whatever else..she'll give you the power to fulfill it, and she gains the strongest piece on the chessboard when all is said and done.

the best way i can describe the first meeting is "practical", i suppose. she sees an opportunity in you. the ultimate gamble. because if she "saves" you, and you dont trust anyone else because they tried to kill you, well..she holds all the cards, doesn't she?

but the Tsaritsa, imo, is just as capable of being just as fanatical towards you as anyone else. she just won't worship you as the creator. but as yourself? clawing your way back to your divine power and taking back what belongs to you? the Tsaritsa is, to me, a character who's character flourishes in long-term fics more because she changes a LOT between "just met reader" and after having been with reader for some time. she's practically apathetic at the beginning but a lot of her character, in my characterization, shines through LONG after the first meeting.

[stygianheart]

ZoLuKo.

They’re both in love with Luffy and I can’t blame em.

[lynxgriffin]

Theres the theory that the events in the newgirl universe didnt happen in dr's current timeline. And that its events happen in another timeline all together. Which links up to the idea thaat the shadow crystals might show alternate timelines, original timeline or etc. Whats your opinion on that theory?

It took me a moment to figure out what you were talking about, and then I realized you meant Noelle's livejournal entries from the Spamton Sweepstakes. And sorry, but I find that whole thought pretty silly. It reads to me like people who aren't happy with Susie or Noelle's characterization in those journal entries, and are trying to cope by claiming it "doesn't count" by being in another universe or timeline or whatever. Which...no, sorry, there's really nothing to indicate that, and there's nothing wrong with their characterization in those entries in the first place.

And in general, while the shadow crystals are still a big mystery, I overall do not buy into the idea that they show a different timeline or universe.

[3416]

hi emma! i miss the boys but willy the most atm, do you have any favorite game or interview moments of his?

hiiiiii there... can't believe how long this summer is going to feel without them tbh. BUT MISSING WILLIAM NYLANDER HOURS? okay, i got you.

one of my favorite willy vids is his leaf to leaf with jt from last year. he's just so.. chill and open and happy there idk. his laugh gets me, and it's the same in his older leaf to leaf with auston. i also love the one with zach hyman from covid times and getting to see him laidback in his own space. and then... more recently.. i have revisited the bunting and willy tim hortons drive through content 489324923 times to cheer me up. also for more serious but interesting conversation, i've loved what the leafs have done with their 3 course conversations and willy's swedish menu one was interesting!!

if you want some older days stuff, there's his 20 questions with kasperi kapanen from when they were on the marlies... that was my intro to their dynamic and i love it. (and the 20 questions from the year before that is good too.. he's just a young baby giggly cherub imo) (also peep this willy + pasta interview from back in the day... it's fascinating to dig into the old connections imo) and here's an old compilation of him laughing :') i'm sure there are fancams and vids on twitter of him, but i'm TERRIBLE at keepign track of and sorting media on twitter, my bad.

and then maybe my favorite willy video of all time bc i'm not immune to cute happy children is that iconic interview with his dad where he's in the bg squirming around and knocking shit over and laughing... cutest thing i've seen in my entire life EVER.

if you're looking for more hockey stuff, here's a fun fanvid abt his career highlights up until last year (and how bitchy ppl have been abt his career only for him to prove his worth over n over), and then here's a recent compilation of all his highlights from this year... get to relive his hockey skill and pretend like we're still watching him play. it's a crime that we're not.

anyway, hope any of that helped or cheered you up. i hate how every leaf goes dark during the off season, but i totally don't blame them. if worst comes to worst, i also scroll through their igs/twitters and just google search them or look through blogs who have them as favorites. it's rough out here missing hockey players.

[icewindandboringhorror]

Everytime I face a new character limit on a website that didn't have them before/used to have really long ones... AUGHHhhh the modern social media world was not made for people like me (lovers of details, rambling, elaboration, thorough explanation, and nuance)

[waywardsalt]

i made this a few months ago for a discord and i figured i might as well share it here too

[baekuras]

Finished the Hell's Paradise anime and really REALLY you're gonna end it there? I want my closure in anime format as well right now pls and thank you this is just mean

[danielnelsen]

sometimes i’ll randomly remember someone from primary school and go and see what they’re up to and today’s guy is now working as a child & adolescent psychologist with explicit mention of working with trans kids

[lisbonsteresa]

he's HORRIBLE

[note-boom]

I think the ability I'm the most jealous of in the bsd universe is Louisa May Alcott's. I mean, I'm already a big fan of time powers but the fact that she can make 3 minutes last for 2 weeks (by the way, I created an equation for this, and yeah that's about right)?

Do you know how much I would misuse this ability to procrastinate on projects and life in general? How I'd just spend the entire time reading or just doing. Absolutely nothing?

I know she has to be in an empty room to activate it and I see no downsides to this...

[sassmar]

just thinking abt how niall was so madly in love w mor o corra who was probably a sociopath and afraid that eldritch terror baby ronan was gonna kill them all one day (fair) but then when mor leaves he dreams aurora but even tho they look identical aurora’s not an exact copy at all bc mor couldn’t feel love while aurora was infinitely loving that was her whole POINT and niall just fucking DID that just cared about his sons so much that he let his real beloved mor walk away and dreamed his sons a mother who would never never leave who existed solely and purely to love them, to love even eldritch terror baby ronan

and i

um

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

ike, in his dumbfuckest moment ever:

soren to ike literally one chapter prior:

ike, realizing that was just his dumbfuckest moment ever and backtracking as quick as possible and realizing he just screwed up his first meeting with the cute cat boy:

[springcatalyst]

🖊 for any milo and/or reiji details they fascinate me ^-^

YES thank u they live in my brain

Let me go on a tangent before I even get to what this ask actually is cause why wouldn’t I- Milo and Reiji are interesting characters to compare to each other, because despite their entwined storylines, I don’t draw a lot of connections between them as they were designed.  Characters that never interact are fun to draw conclusions with because it’s more obscure out-of-universe things:  Julian and Milo are so different but they follow very similar paths and come from very similar places.  Milo and Brooke (actually they do interact but only like, once) both deal with the results of a corrupted worldview that once questioned, can’t be ignored once again.  Reiji and Diana share an inherently wary, bleak outlook on how the world functions as a result of their own experiences.  And characters that do interact but were designed that way are... designed that way.  Julian and Liliana are the same stuff poured into different molds, impossibly similar and impossibly different, and that drives everything about their relationship- they’re foils.  Diana and Julian start at the same place in the same situation, (for different reasons), and end up wildly different people in opposite directions- they are diverging paths evidenced by truth or lies. 

But Milo and Reiji aren’t connected by anything inherent or anything unchangeable.  Their meeting in the first place is mostly chance and a little bit of give and take of compassion.  They stick together because the alternative is being alone in a world that’s so much bigger than both of them, so much older, and just a little bit more broken.  Their relationship is a choice in a way that really isn’t the case for a lot of other characters. 

And I mean, they do have parallels, but they seem different somehow, because they actually apply in-universe.  They reflect off each other.  They both leave something behind that they wish they could get back: but while Reiji’s was taken from him by circumstance and chance, Milo’s was a culmination of something grown that eventually he had to choose to abandon, though if there was any other way, he would have taken it.  (He tried, before.  It didn’t work.) 

But now they’re both missing something, and with it, their place.  Reiji doesn’t know where he belongs and the truth is that he doesn’t belong anywhere.  He can’t return to the one place he did- (it wasn’t a place, but a people.  They’re long gone, even as they live) -and now he searches aimlessly for someplace he can return to.  He doesn’t find one.  Milo loses everything he’s ever known when he walks away, and even as he makes the decision to, it feels like the admission of some crime (it looks that way to them, and he knows it).  He longs for the community he lost, but even if he gets something close to it, it’s wrong, because it isn’t them, and because the reason he left still follows him. 

They’re both ghosts wandering a vast expanse of unknown.  There is exploration in it- Milo especially does genuinely love the places he passes through, the people he meets briefly, the idiosyncrasies of each town, city, village.  Reiji less so- he’s only ever known the wandering, so it isn’t as special to him.  He’s always looking for something that will change, but even so, traveling with Milo forces him to see things he wouldn’t otherwise. 

The difference between them is that Milo stops being a ghost.  As time goes on, less and less is searching and more and more is exploring.  More is fixed than is broken.  But the opposite is true for Reiji.  As he finds nothing it feels more and more like he is one of very, very few.  That he has found no place to exist because there is no place for him, for those like him.  Reiji is looking for answers in an environment that buried most of them, in a world that hunts the rest.  And it becomes this obsession- a thousand whys. 

Why didn’t his flock look for him?  Why did he even survive?  Why is he hunted?  Why did it start and why won’t it change?  Why is the world sitting on the ashes of an older one?  Why are people broken by something they don’t remember?  Why does every place he goes scream that there used to be more?  Why are his people a part of it?  Why are they here?  Why do they occupy a world that is so clearly not made for them?  Why does he not know where they are made for? 

Reiji asks a thousand whys and they can all be summarized by one what: What happened?

Milo and Reiji cross incomprehensible distances and in the time that takes, a lot changes.  Milo goes from being a ghost of who he was and who he should be to being alive in a way he wasn’t before, genuine in a way he didn’t allow.  Milo looks for an answer in a different way than Reiji, because he is looking for certainty.  He wants someone to tell him, with no room for error, what is true and what is corrupt.  He wants surety and permanence in a way that just doesn’t exist, and so instead must choose which side he’s on- he must decide what to believe, because nobody can tell him black and white.  With that choice becomes an acknowledgement that the world isn’t as simple as good and evil, and the two can very much coexist, that perfect and unredeemable don’t really exist, not here, anyway.  He’s allowed to just be.  Reiji, though, doesn’t get the opportunity to make that choice, to take that answer.  He isn’t looking for the answer to a moral question or a cosmic should.  He is looking for a reason, which is an order of magnitude more impossible to find.  He looks to the past for why and the nature of time is that he keeps getting further and further from it.  He finds very little, which only makes him look harder, which makes it worse when he finds even less.  He starts down an impossible spiral that he can’t get out of until he finds what he wants, but what he wants just doesn’t exist in the way he needs. 

[smartichokes]

!

[threadmonster]

Okay, you know what though? My college experience may have sucked ass and I have too much debt not enough pay, but I can pull credentials in three different areas.

Shut up, I was an art student.

Shut up, listen to the fashion major.

Look here pal, I have a business and management degree.

The average joe just looks silly to argue (⁠◡⁠ ⁠ω⁠ ⁠◡⁠)