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sunnywalnut · 5 months

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Finished watching Dead Boy Detectives. Here are my honest thoughts.

-If you're going into it expecting another Good Omens, stop. Our protagonists are all minors. Teenagers. They cuss, they have total dirty mouths and sexual humor, but they are not eternal beings pretending to be middle aged men. They're ghosts. Dead Boys, if you will. Also this might be a stretch, but I'm assuming from the slightly less good CGI that the budget for this series was a LOT less than what it was for GO

-Edwin is kind of a dick in the first episode. But it's okay. Because character growth is swag.

-REALISTIC CHARACTER GROWTH!!! I liked Edwin a LOT more during the second episode BECAUSE of the character growth. And honestly? It's completely natural that bro is more than a little prickly after only being able to trust one guy for an extremely long time. Fair enough my guy. Carry on.

- this show kinda has Nimona vibes. If that makes sense. Witty humor, somewhat sexual dialogue, funny moments during serious times, though geared towards a younger audience. If you like those kinds of things, you will like this, I'm sure of it.

- In the early episodes, the pacing/character relationships feel a little off??? I'm not sure if that was because I was expecting another Good Omens or what. But after 2-3 episodes, the dust quickly settled and we got into the actual storyline. Which was extremely appreciated✨

-these villains are FUCKED up. I'm telling you. They are HORRIFIC. Had me squirming and cringing through their intense scenes. And gosh. That was a TRIP.

-TY TENANT PLAYS THE MAIN GUY EDWIN!!!! And he plays him WELL. I did not realize this going in to the show and thought his face was VERY familiar. Only after I looked it up did I realize why. He's our sassy son of Job. (EDIT: turns out Ty plays the Doom Patrol version. Not the one on Netflix. My bad! They do look pretty similar though, so ykw. Great casting. Also my point still stands. This guy is a pretty fuckin awesome actor. 10/10)

-Cat King is such a wild card holy SHIT.

-Charles is cute as fuck. His backstory HURTS. But also. I love the way his ears look. Like in the pictures that I saw of him they were of when the Cat King impersonated him so I was like oh chill. So he's got pointed ears bc feline but NOPE. He's just like that!! And honestly? Slay. I fuckin love it.

-oh did I mention tragic backstories???? Yeah we got those :D for everyone :D

-Niko is the best and I love her. Also I love how the letters on her desk are written in Japanese. That is a VERY nice touch of character building.

-hot butcher lady with throat tattoo

All in all. A truly delightful series and I genuinely hope it gets another season because I NEED to know what happens next. My little sister LOVED it and the ending had us all staring open mouthed at the TV screen in shock.

This 15yo girl is literally ranting my ear off, having adventures with the Dead Boys in her dreams and chatting with me about it, searching up fanfics and drawing fanart, the whole shabang. And it is DIFFICULT for this girl to get into shows like this. So honestly? This is perfect. Thank you, Neil. For giving us a whole other banger.

That being said. If anybody else has some younger siblings that are around 15-17 and are looking for shows to binge watch together, this is the perfect one. I'm telling you, you will NOT regret it (except maybe emotionally)

Thoroughly recommend.

#dead boy detectives #dead boy detective agency #netflix series #neil gaiman #series recommendation #series review #dead boy detectives review

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cthulhu-with-a-fez · 7 months

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i started naruto a few years ago and made it to like the second arc in shippuden before stopping so i never made it to the kakashi backstory but....your notes compel me. tell me more.

okay so like take this with several grains of salt because the sum total of my sources here are "my understanding of the plot and characters as synthesized from the Abridged Revised Illustrated Edition my datemate's been writing me over the last two months", a handful of clips, and the only three (3) episodes of this 600+ episode show i've seen in my life, none of the three of which were relevant to the kakashi backstory

h o w e v e r

oh my god. my dude. my man. [holds him up like longcat] there is so much wrong with you and i'm enthralled.

so like here's the thing. here's the big takeaway that i'm understanding. this whole series is an ongoing exercise in generational trauma bullshit and everyone trying so hard to course-correct from their own tragic backstories that they accidentally set up their kids/students to have completely different but still somehow exactly the same tragic backstories, and naruto's chronic case of shounen anime power-of-friendship-itis is, i mean. yes it's him being the platonic ideal of Pure Of Heart And Dumb Of Ass but it's also a direct response to seeing ninja society's perpetual tragic backstory generator and going "this is bullshit, why are we even fighting? tell me what your side is, and i'll tell you what our side is, and then we can figure out how to make our sides the same side so none of us have to fight about it at all!" and honestly i love that but this ain't about him

so like. to explain kakashi we have to explain kakashi's father sakumo first. because sakumo was one of konoha's powerhouses, been on tons of successful missions, well-liked, well-respected, one of the earliest and loudest adopters of konoha's then-new and radical pivot towards a ninja being people first and disposable tools never ideology.

he really, genuinely believed in that.

except then he and his team went on a mission. and it went really, really badly. and he had to choose between completing the mission objective or saving his teammates' lives, and he chose their lives, because those who fail their missions may be scum, but those who abandon their teammates are worse, right?

... no, actually.

just because the ideology had been circulating and people were broadly toeing the party line didn't mean they actually believed in it, and sakumo's mission failure was already causing critical backlash.after sakumo made it back to konoha he was a fucking pariah for it. he was never officially reprimanded, but he didn't need to be if people went out of their way to personally spit at his feet, and... one day young kakashi comes home to find his father's body on the floor, wrists slit and suicide note devolving into begging apologies beside him.

this, as you may imagine, fucked him up, and didn't exactly predispose him towards believing the party line about the value of life.

he gets put on a genin team that was. basically the alpha build of the sasuke-sakura-naruto team dynamic. because it was him, and rin the healer girl with a massive crush on him who he never gave the time of day, and obito the Loudest High-Vis Uchiha Who Ever Lived who had a massive crush on her, and minato their teacher who was doing his absolute best to try and get them through to understanding each other, which is an Ordeal

because kakashi at this point has internalized that the party line is pretty lies for the gullible, that his teammates are only there to drag him down, and it drives obito nuts because that's the same exact bullshit that his family keeps spouting that he's rejected as thoroughly as a 12.9-year-old can, how does kakashi not see that it's bullshit? and there's rin who's looking at kakashi like i can fix him?? and getting upset when he doesn't let them in at all or even really visibly care that they're trying, and it's one hell of a dysfunction junction but minato is working on it.

... and then the worst happens. their team is caught out alone and everything goes wrong. rin is captured and obito's body is half-crushed under a rock and one of kakashi's eyes got slashed out and none of them are going to make it out of this, at this rate, until obito calls kakashi closer and tells him to take his eye. take the sharingan. he'd give him both but the other one got squished. kakashi will do more with it than obito ever did, so use it to save rin. please. and here's kakashi in the middle of field surgery on his dying teammate finally, horribly realizing that sometimes the win condition is, actually, protecting your friends, and he's already lost. but he can still try to save rin, it was obito's dying wish.

by the time he found her it was already too late.

the people who'd captured her had tried, poorly, hastily, messily, to seal one of the Tailed Beasts into her, and she was already dying. she had a demon thrashing in her soul that was tearing her to shreds around it and all kakashi could do was mercy kill her

and she thanked him for it.

and he goes back to konoha, sole survivor of his team, charred by the newfound comprehension of why you have to care and what it feels like to lose what you love and with obito's sharingan in his head and rin's blood on his hands and something in him that was already hanging on by a thread finally snapped.

and the only thing he could think to do, the only way he could even parse that grief through, is to just... make himself into a living memorial to them. he started trying to live as obito. adopt his mannerisms, his interests, craft his entire adult persona around his memories of his friend like a grave offering, and quarantine the bleakly mercenary anything-to-get-the-job-done ice in him off into the hound mask he wore as part of konoha's black ops division, which he joined at the ripe old age of way too fucking young.

he uses the sharingan to incredibly brutally efficient effect, copying enemy jutsus and bringing them back until the library's overflowing with them. but in the end, no matter how many he can technically use, they're still just cheap copies. and so is he.

and in the meantime the uchiha are collectively losing their shit about this random outside kid having one of their eyes in his head and getting all kinds of dubious 'glory' with it, and oh, wouldn't you look at that, they have a prodigy too!

... yeah.

itachi gets shoved through the rank advancements on a timeframe of "whatever he did you have to do it faster and better." and then the kyuubi broke free. and minato and kushina died, and a fuckton of the home guard uchiha died, and suddenly he's the most able-bodied fighter in their clan overnight at age 11 and the uchiha pull strings to get him into ANBU as well.

and kakashi is his teammate.

kakashi is his teammate and kakashi sees in itachi a whole awful lot of the edges of the way kakashi used to be, sees itachi trying to live up to and embody the absolutely impossible ideal of the perfect ninja, and he tries so god damn hard to nudge him gently towards something, anything, other than that.

but in the meantime, the uchiha have been... scheming. with danzo, Guy With The World's Biggest Chip On His Shoulder About Not Being Hokage, who's been marinating in a paranoia spiral for years. danzo had tried to set himself up as kakashi's palpatine, and tried to get him to assassinate hiruzen, and kakashi hears him out, and turns right around and goes to hiruzen with it instead, and danzo is pissed. the uchiha are pissed. danzo warns hiruzen that they're almost definitely going to try again and they're gonna make the uchihas' little prodigy do it this time, and kakashi silently braces to have to fight and maybe kill his teammate he was trying so hard for, and then...

and then itachi, who'd been watching his clan get. worse. for a long time. finds his cousin shisui, his best friend shishui, bleeding out in the dirt, who tells him everything, tells him danzo tried to have shisui killed for finding it out, and it worked, he's dying, but he's not dead yet, so please. make it count.

.......................................... And Then The Uchiha Massacre.

and now itachi is one more person that kakashi tried to care about who got destroyed.

and then fast forward a little bit further, he's been retired from active-duty ANBU after a decade-plus of service because the sharingan is starting to burn him out, he's starting to lurch to a halt like unwound clockwork without something to Do, and... he gets given team seven. the worst of konoha's gremlin children.

a bitter, disillusioned loner with a chip on his shoulder and the skill to back it up, the healer girl with a crush on him that he never gives the time of day, and the Loudest High-Vis Pest In The Village.

you see where this is going.

kakashi who at this point has been coasting along by bouncing between mask-personae for years is now having to dynamically engage with life again because if he isn't present and actively responding to his team then there's a nonzero chance he'll turn around to find all three of them chewing on the drywall and he cannot default to scripted responses because they don't work on a pack of middle schoolers hellbent on squabbling til the cows come home. and it's kind of good for him?

but also, uh. [gestures broadly towards... Sasuke(TM) and the rest of the plot]

and yeah i'm not gonna get too much further into it because i'm not confident enough in my own comprehension of the timeline to do that XD but like.

hatake kakashi is a scarecrow of a man stitched together out of his dead best friend, a hunting hound, and his dead best friend again, who's spent his entire life behind one mask or another, who over the course of the series keeps surviving shit that by all odds he shouldn't have, or survives specifically because the people he cares about throw their plot armor around him before they die, and he has a personality mostly composed of the crumpled-up pages of the memetically worst-written trashy bodice-ripper novels ever published because obito used to love them and the inexplicable receipts of other people's love for him, and i want to put him in a gas station hot dog roller and perceive him.

thank you for coming to my ted talk XD

#answered asks by cwaf #snorlaxlovesme #kakashi hatake #naruto #yeah so like this very much is a thirdhand synthesis Take on it XD but oh my god. holy shit #this series is a masterclass in what is quite possibly the oldest story beat humanity has ever had #which is 'growing up realizing that your adult is fucked up because Their Adult was fucked up because THEIR ADULT was fucked up'#'and responding to it by either becoming them; becoming as different from them as possible; or a secret third thing'#anyway here i am showing up to the weeb-ubiquitous kakashi stan phase 20 years late with starbucks lmao #mr from-accounting you have so many things wrong with you and i love that for me

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abnerkrill · 9 months

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Nik! Did you watch Rebel Moon? How was it?

Yes hello this is my 4 star review of rebel moon on letterboxd.

But first: a professional, somewhat critical review of rebel moon that engages with the film well, especially regarding anti-colonial themes, and isn't just knee-jerk regurgitated Snyder haterism:

And now more of my thoughts: [edit: Oh No, He Went And Talked For 3 Hours About It, Thanks For Coming To My TedTalk:)

No one has a better knack at putting together a cast list SO ATTRACTIVE TO THE BISEXUALS. read it and weep, boys. (Jena Malone is there too but really just for 1 set piece)

...Jena Malone's one (1) scene set piece features her as an alien spider woman with legitimate grievances against the Empire who now wants to kill kids because all her kids were killed. Like, so valid, girl. Also, did I say Jena Malone as an alien spider-woman? And this is just one scene.

Look, if that pitch doesn't hook you, this film may not be for you, and that's okay, but by GOD my people are the people who hear "Jena Malone alien spider woman" and perk up. I love you, freaks.

The cinematography is ace and always will be under Snyder's direction. music by Tom Holkenborg SLAPS. Costuming and design overall is super super strong. (People on this hellsite are always complaining about inadequate, boring as hell sci-fi design and you get RM and you don't appreciate it for what it is. WAKE UP.)

Costume showcase! Second from the right in this photo showing off those sweet sweet sci-fi costume designs is my beloved non-binary they/them revolutionary Milius. CANONICALLY non-binary, let me add. Imagine SW doing that lmaoooooooooooo D*ve Filoni would fuckin keel over and die

Kora! Our tragic female protagonist of color who's over 40, with a dark edgy sexy background. [KIDNAPPED AS A CHILD!! DEAD FAMILY!!! DEAD LOVER!!!!!!! SHE FAILED TO PROTECT HER WARD FROM ASSASSINATION!!!!! SHE IS THE MOST WANTED WOMAN IN THE UNIVERSE!!]

Bitches on tumblr LOVE taking failmen with sad backstories from media and blorbifying them, but the second it's a woman? please. If this was a man people would be writing the filthiest x reader smut you've seen since Mandalorian S1 came out. If this was a man you'd already have seen 20,000 fan drawings of her with her muscles and tits OUT. God where's my Kora fanart.

I personally have no problems with the plot of this movie (part 1 of 2) being "we must collect warriors to fight the evil empire." That's kinda fantasy story 101 and I still love new, varied interpretations of that plot.

If there's not much interconnecting plot because Kora's just gathering fighters, it's kinda like... that's the point, babes, they'll actually get to it in part 2. We're just at the "forming the team" stage. I revel in that part of a fantasy film and I always want it to be longer, so this film is like catnip to me.

Uh, yeah, this is getting long. More under the cut.

Entertainment professional nitpick time! I've seen someone say RM would be better as a TV show to introduce a new character each episode. And I truly don't think that fixes any of the problems this person has with the film, while introducing way more problems. (Who the fuck would go in on an original concept TV show where each episode introduces a new hero. You could not sell that pitch to a studio, ever, and viewers would instantly check out if they didn't like the introduced character of the week, and the same complaints would be made: it’s just a new character intro blah blah blah. This wouldn’t fix anything! It would very much make it worse!)

Me, like every day, through gritted teeth: that's... not... how... tv... works...

Like be realistic for a hot second with me. Television is not "long movie"—it is a different medium with different rules. Yes, the past decade has blurred many lines between TV and film, but they're still different mediums, and when people blur them ("it's a 10-hour movie!") the results often suck ass, because you either lack episodic structure or you lack feature structure. Snyder is a feature filmmaker who has never worked in TV. Whenever features people jump into TV, it's a whole other learning curve! They're usually terrible at it! You want Snyder to have to learn a new medium? You want him to learn 5/6-act TV structure from scratch? You want him to (horrified gasp) lead a writers room? Those are not his strengths, baby. Let him play in his space opera sandbox.

And I'm not done! You want the casting team to have to deal with the headache of getting feature film actors to star in a TV show? (Pay cuts! Longer commitments! TV production timelines!) You want to do that to me, personally, and fuck up the TV landscape some more by going, "Oh, we can basically just make a Longer Feature Film in TV"? Fuck off with that. TV has different production realities and different basic story structures. A [long] film [with two parts] is still a film, in structure and production practicalities.

Truly, Tumblr media studies brains (derogatory) at it again.

To each their own, but again, I think RM's structure is fun because it gives me more of the goodies (badass, varied character intros) for the price of one (2-hour film.) Like... that's the good stuff, that's often the most exhilarating part of a film for me. And contrary to popular belief, it's not intro to intro without rising tension or stakes. It builds tension as it goes because new facets of resistance against the Motherworld are explored in each character's intro scene. New ways they fight back, new worlds on which they fight back. And a ticking time bomb of the King's Gaze (king's gays lol) catching up.

Here, have a trailer bc Tumblr's mad at me for too much text in one block.

youtube

...I like the RM characters. I want to spend time with them and see what other zany shenanigans Snyder will have them do. (Alien bar fights! Taming a space gryphon! Lightsaber battle!) I like the side-quest-y, exploratory, space opera sandbox playground nature. It's fun, and like, again, if you don't perk up at the concept of collecting cool characters like action figures, this film may just not be for you.

To me it's a polycule. Like, the most messed up polycule in the whole galaxy, but it's a polycule.

Speaking of: THE CHARACTERS ROCK. Yeah, we're missing some significant character development because Netflix truncated Snyder's 4-hr, R-rated film into a 2-hr PG-13 version (likely to be able to release the 4-hr cut later, drum up new press, and get more eyeballs on the movie in total in a few months.) That's... not really Snyder's fault [even though he claims he's in on the plan... some part of me thinks it was Netflix's idea and not his. Stinks of studio meddling.] And it's not indicative of the quality of the actual film, which I currently see as more of an abridged version of the R-rated film that's gonna come out and fill up some of these story holes.

If people are judging the film for not being the 4-hour version, and then decide not to see the 4-hour version, that's their call, but it's kinda shitty to act like the 2-hr version is all there is. Like it probably wasn't Snyder's call to do a 2-hr cut! He's said that the 4-hr one is a whole different movie. I betcha the common criticisms (not enough character development, just jumps from character intro to character intro without interconnection, lack of structure) will be helped, if not outright solved, by the longer cut.

I think people are also happy to take a Part 1 of a movie if it's, say, Dune, and the source material has another part, so Part 1 is allowed to be fucking boring, whereas people don't give that kind of allowance to original sci-fi movies, WHICH IS A REASON WE DON'T GET ORIGINAL SCI-FI. If you're painting with as huge and cosmic a palette as space opera Rebel Moon, the 4-8 hours total across the 2 four-hour parts is kinda bare minimum for an epic. So... patience is a virtue? Let part 1 have elements of IT'S KIND OF A PROLOGUE?

What's that saying? If you want the rewards of space opera worldbuilding with an ensemble cast, you must submit to the mortifying ordeal of 2 hours of setup. Geez. Enjoy the wacky exposition or get out of the space opera genre.

Yeah, that leads me to the point of people who don't enjoy space opera are getting mad at RM for fulfilling the promises of the genre. You might truly be happier elsewhere. The whole thing is over-the-top, huge-scale MELODRAMA and I thrive on melodrama. If it's too cheesy for you, don't come to space operas!!!!!!!

On that note, people have said RM is too tropey and too Star Wars-y. But like I said. If you don't love the tropes get out of the genre!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you aren't here for bloodier/hornier Star Wars get out of RM!!!!

Another big idea I would be remiss to skip over. RM is an explicitly, deliberately anti-colonial, anti-imperial text—far, far more so than any other mainstream sci-fi currently being released. Well-intentioned liberals love to tout Star Trek/Star Wars as progressive media but they really hedge and defang all their political commentary, especially in their 21st century franchise form—think the SW sequels/shows straight up woobifying K*lo Ren in realtime and the Trek shows that (while fun!) are really often just nostalgia bait.

RM is pretty fucking radical. Its theme basically is Kill Nazis—or in expanded form, something along the lines of "The empire will eat up everything of value in the universe unless it is met with unified armed resistance built on solidarity."

And just look at RM's casting. We're not colorblind here; we're very color-conscious. (That's a rant for another day, but I've really started to despise colorblind casting for its extremely well-intentioned-liberal "we're all the same" mentality. It just winds up erasing.) Anyway: RM features the explicitly American-English-Afrikaans empire vs. the Algerian Amazigh protagonist, Black freedom fighters, Japanese revolutionary... and like. Snyder's always gonna be into Vikings so obviously we have Space Vikings too, whatever. Look at me, I can criticize Snyder too! The Poor Sad Space Vikings are not the strongest part of the film!

...Anyway of course the empire vs. revolution is absolutely kind of Star Wars-y since RM is highkey Snyder's Star Wars, but it goes so much further than SW dreamed (or, perhaps, nightmared). SW's rebels/resistance continually get defanged because they're kind of foundationally space magic/singular hero's quest deals, and modern SW with the exception of Rogue One/Andor is just politically, socially stupid. In contrast, RM is about forming a coalition, without something like the Force to help you out. I could write an essay on the ways RM starts in the same place Star Wars starts but takes its politics so much more seriously, so much further.

While I'd argue "good politics" and "artistic quality" rarely correlate, RM is explicitly and doggedly a text about the colonial empire that exploits, enslaves, abuses, and seeks to utterly control marginalized people groups in its quest for domination—and god, I would LOVE to see a resurgence in very fanged, very angry political sci-fi.

One more aside. Snyder has been rightfully criticized for his earlier works basking in fascist-adjacent, hypermasculine aesthetics; 300 is notably super duper racist in how it depicts savage/monstrous Persians vs. Beautifully Good White Spartans Defending Their Culture. (more on "300 Bad" stored up in my brain if anyone wants THAT rant.) To Snyder's credit, none of his films since 300 have really done that—parts of Batman v Superman and his cut of Justice League purposefully poke fun at it. The hypermasculinity is kinda still there, but it's subsumed in the service of melodrama and mythic-flavored cinema, and it's kinda a staple of the action genre anyway, and if you're gonna criticize Snyder without criticizing EVERY ACTION MOVIE EVER, that's just more regurgitated Snyder haterism.

No one is doing mythic action like Snyder these days. No one has the balls and the command of melodrama & operatic visuals. And it comes clearly from Snyder's background in art & art history because all his shots are jam-packed with symbolism and meaning and allusion. So criticize the film for its weaknesses if you like but geez, if I see another post railing about the lack of CRAFT in RM, I will start biting. ALMOST NO BLOCKBUSTER HAS THIS LEVEL OF CRAFT. It's okay that you don't understand visual storytelling, babygirl, but please don't accuse Snyder of lacking craft.

Sorry, you've triggered Cinema Defense Mechanisms in me, I'm gonna have to sit down for a while after this.

I have more takes. Takes hot enough to fuel the King's Gaze (king's gays lol.) But I'll end with a funny observation: I transed my gender (cheers, shouts, hoorays) just about the time I was getting ready to watch Rebel Moon, and in one shocking, epiphanic moment I turned to my partner and went "Of COURSE I'm a man. I like Zack Snyder." So........... do with that what you will.

#rebel moon #dragoninthelibrary #rebel moon spoilers #long post

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osterby · 1 year

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Baldur's Gate 3, via Osmosis

So I think I played the first Baldur's Gate game for like an hour at a friend's house back in college, and all I remember about it was how delighted I was by the miniature giant hamster. I didn't even know there was a second game until I started hearing people get excited about the third one. That's about the sum of my knowledge of this franchise.

So without more ado, here's what my tumblr dash has taught me about these blorbos (I got @malaloba to huck the screenshots at me, so I didn't spoil myself on the names)

I want to say this one is Shadowheart, but that's too on the nose. She's probably .... Mythrin... Mithras... Mithotyn... Nope, I haven't got it.

She looks grouchy, and like she has a very good reason to be grouchy, and I would assume she's a combat class from her armour, but that's all I've got.

Gale (or Halsin) I know this one! He's the one who turns into a bear in The Cutscene that broke the internet for a few days. That means he'd be a Druid, right? I think he cross classes or something, though.

I hope the furries are having a great time drawing him as an anthro bear with a very large weenie.

Astarion! This vampire twink was all over my dash long before the game was released. Apparently he has a tragic backstory and is a jerk about it in a way that is either annoying or endearing, depending on the player's opinion of vampire twinks. His main role in the game, however, seems to be comically failing to pick locks. This means he's a Thief. Apparently the thing with the bear just had Astarion as the player character, and he isn't canonically dating the bear guy. Oh well.

Halsin (or Gale) The Other One who is Not a Bear. I would have said Bard for his class, but he's glowing a bit much for that here, so maybe a caster? I feel like he's more popular in areas of Tumblr that don't cross my dash.

Karlach or Karlak or something (not Karkat, that's a Homestuck thing).

Lesbians love her! She is large and angry and apparently really easy to romance just by approving of her chopping things with her axe. I think she was a child soldier? I see a lot of jokes about her crappy ex. I think her ex is actually her god and not her ex, though. Anyway, she seems like a prototypical Barbarian, good for her.

EDIT: I just remembered that she has PLAGUE, and is on a quest to Stop Having Plague. This is apparently her ex's fault

Laz'el. Lae'zel. La'zael. Something along those lines. I've seen treatises on her backstory and characterization, and she sounds like a really interesting character. Grew up in a cult of some kind, got dead or something, got abandoned by a crappy god (who might have also gotten dead or something), and is now wandering around trying to figure out how to exist in a world that isn't a cult. Apparently Other Players don't like her and dont't get what's up with her, which is a sore point for her fans (It's very possible that I'm mixing up portions of her backstory and fan reception with Karlach's) Her nose weirds me out (some uncanny valley thing between a skeleton lack-of-nose and a nose-nose), but I think she's pretty neat.

Ok, so if the blue lady at the top of this post isn't Shadowheart, then this one is Shadowheart. When I first saw the name Shadowheart, I thought it was someone's OC, and then I thought it was a generic name for the player character. From what I can gather, she's Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way with the stupid scraped off. She seems to be younger than most the other characters; she and the red tiefling are the kiddos of the group (Astarion doesn't count, because vampire). I think she grew up all sheltered in a weird little cult, too. Did ALL these characters grow up in weird cults? Is that a theme? Did I hear one backstory and apply it to a dozen different characters?

I happen to know for sure that this guy's name is Wyll. Good for me.

I don't know beans about him but I suspect he might be my favourite character when I do finally get around to playing, just from how his peronality is conveyed in fanart.

I get the impression he's the Only Sane Man to all these characters who grew up in cults and divorced dead gods and got vampire'd and whatnot, but he also has horns in like half the fanart and screenshots and is clearly Haunted (metaphorically, figuratively, literally, probably all of the above), so who knows.

As for the second figure here, I know the premise of the game is you've all got brainworms, who are in leage with a mindflayer con man who you can bone but who is also running some sleezy marketing scam, so maybe that's the brainworm made manifest?

I also see a lot of talk about character called Dark Urge, and the fan art doesn't look like that, but if Dark Urge is a manifested brainworm, then it could take various forms.

#Baldur's Gate 3 #BG3 #I would tag the characters but the whole point of this post is that I don't know most their names #so oh well

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marshallpupfan · 11 months

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We've glossed over this before but, Do you believe if they give Marshall one of their rubber stamped insanely tragic backstories it could damper his character & charm? By the route they're going they've been making it more & more tragic, from Chase being abandoned on the streets and nearly getting hit by a car, to Skye being practically abandoned in a barn during a blizzard

The truth is, I don't like the idea of them making his backstory super-duper tragic because of some horrors in his past or something. I'm sure he had to deal with some hardships because of his clumsiness, but I wouldn't think it'd be so horrible to depress/distract him in the present, just like Chase and Skye (?) in their respective movies.

Unfortunately, I don't know if Brunker will try to mix things up for film 3 or not. So far, Chase was abandoned, found himself alone and scared, started running, nearly died, got saved by Ryder, and he was able to move on from his traumatic past and save the day... and from what I've heard, Skye was abandoned, found herself alone and scared, started running, nearly died, got saved by Ryder, and she was able to move on from her traumatic past and save the day, too.

If film 3 is about Marshall, I do NOT want to see him get the exact same backstory. He doesn't need to "almost die" like Chase and Skye, either. Personally, I'd rather see them focus on some hardships he encountered because of his clumsiness, how no one took him seriously until Chase and Ryder found him (or did he find them?), their faith in him helped Marshall grow and become an accomplished firefighter, and the three grew an inseparable bond that eventually lead to the creation of the PAW Patrol team, itself. Anything but "his life was horrible and almost died, now watch him be depressed for most of the movie until a pep talk magically helps him move on" again.

Sadly, most fans enjoyed Skye's backstory, despite its similarities to Chase's own, so I fear they'll be disappointed if it's too different and/or not even more tragic than the last. I don't envy Brunker's job here...

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EDIT - Oh yeah, I forgot I didn't even answer the original question. lol

Do I think they'll give him a tragic backstory? Sadly, yes, I think they will... but I really, really hope they don't.

#Geez why do I always type so much lol

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lady-gravity-129 · 2 months

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Various TDP Season 6 thoughts under the cut/things I believe will come back in Season 7

Be careful it's kinda a long one

First things first. RAYLLUM! WHEN I TELL YOU THAT I WAS DEFINITELY SHEDDING A FEW TEARS DURING EPISODES 3 AND 6. Like, I'm not too interested in ships and romance but Rayllum has me in a death grip I swear.

I just want to point out that a couple writers have stated that they know whether Rayla is able to kill Callum if the time comes. I would also like to note that there was not a moment where she had to consider that this season. She just said she would when he asked her in episode 3. Now that they're back together...something tells me she won't be able to do it. Either that or we're in for a very gut wrenching scene in season 7.

Speaking of that, I think Kosmo said to Callum that if he performs dark magic again, it'll definitely consume/corrupt him. Don't remember the exact sentence but I've seen people talking about it so I know I didn't make it up. Anyways, I genuinely feel like they wouldn't bring that up unless it's going to have some sort of payoff in season 7 (which I'm 90% sure is titled after dark magic? correct me if I'm wrong) coupled with the previous paragraph here. Oh god if we thought season 6 was gonna put these two through the wringer we haven't seen *anything* yet

Alright enough about Rayllum (even though I love it)

Kinda disappointed that the Janaya wedding happened at a point in the story where everyone in the cast conveniently wasn't all together to celebrate the occasion. But still, an LGBT wedding in a show rated TV-Y7 is absolutely HUGE in my opinion. Not really sure what other words I can say, it was great.

Next is how they handled Viren. Honestly, I'm kinda ok with it. I said on Twitter that a redemption arc could work with him if written correctly. How he was written was...well enough. While he didn't directly apologize to really anyone (aside from Claudia I think and then Soren on paper that he burned. I've watched this season twice now but I'm running on an hour of sleep so forgive me for not remembering everything lol), he still acknowledged that he doesn't even deserve to be forgiven and understands that everything he's done was nothing short of awful.

Holy fudge this season really convinced me how great of a character Claudia is. She's such a tragic character who's experienced loss and trauma and just needs the chance to acknowledge everything she's been through and properly heal from it. However, one thing I've noticed is that whenever Viren dies, Aaravos is right there guiding her away from the path of healing from her trauma. First is after Season 3 when he tells her there's a way to bring Viren back. Then, presumably I think, in between season 5 and 6 when he somehow tells her how to complete the resurrection spell. THEN there's the end of season 6 where she's realizing that her father is gone for good and what does he do?? He basically goes "lol yeah here's my backstory so you'll want to free me even more oh whats this i can even give you the spell needed to free me". Y'all someone please get her away from Aaravos so she can process everything.

OH YEAH! Fun fact, I'm pretty sure Rayla and Callum left the Starscraper thinking/assuming that the Pearl was safe with the Celestial Elves. They're gonna see giant Aaravos in Season 7 and just have fifty panic attacks at once.

Gonna edit this with more stuff later.

#tdp spoilers

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nobodysdaydreams · 2 years

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Mysterious Benedict Society Liveblog Season 2 Episode 2: A Bit of a Light Chop

And... we're back. Looks like no one has seen my liveblogs yet and my post still aren't appearing under tags, so for now I'll be blogging straight into the void.

Edit: wait hold up I think they might have fixed it in that case hello everyone!

0:57- Time for our fancy cruise! Yes Sticky, enjoy yourself. Nothing more despised then stowaways? I don't know about that. Oh it's Captain Noland! He was in the book. That I read. Several years ago... It's been awhile so at this point there's a lot I'm being reintroduced to. Oh my gosh I love Captain Noland. Anyone who monologues that dramatically is bound to be entertaining.

2:40- "always wanted to live through a mutiny" Constance girl, you'll be the one leading it.

3:25- so... that's not the tether ball team, it's a water pollo team. Is Martina on that team? Oh wait no it's those creepy women curse my face blindness but thank you to the camera man for zooming in on them dramatically.

4:30- ~STOWAWAYS~ I just- I love the drama of this. Oh my gosh I love Captain Noland. "I need them walking the plank" "That is no longer legal. Was it ever ethical" "metaphorically" - yes. This man has no idea who the stowaways are but is totally 100% drama ready. I love it. MAKE AN EXAMPLE OF THEM. Oh here we go!

6:30- OH HERE WE GO! (7:00) Oh my gosh his smile is so creepy. He's become so unhinged in such a short time. Poor SQ, now he's gone from having a distant cold angry dad to one who has purchased a first class ticket to crazy town.

7:30- why is he suddenly being nice to #2? Oh my gosh what silly manipulation is he trying now. That's right number 2. Don't take his stupid tea.

8:00- YES JILLSON and JACKSON! Not SQ or Martina, but I'll take it. PFT "we don't trust you" "well earn it- everyday day and everyway" oh Jackson never change. No why get the full picture, just run in any direction! Steal the golf cart! He's gonna hypnotize you into staying if you don't get out now.

9:30- oh I see. So Reynie is a bit clingy and Sticky is a bit distant.

9:40- YES CONSTANCE BACKSTORY. Not the polar bears and clowns RIP.

11:00- That's right, Rhonda, Milligan and Ms. Perumal, you deserve to fly in style.

11:30- Oh my gosh, Jackson looks like he's in tears, wait I treasure you? Hold up I always thought they were siblings, are they a couple? Are they ever gonna tell us?

12:00- Do the lemons ever mean anything? Oh my gosh this is the cultyest cult to ever cult. And seriously, "make each other"- is Jillson and Jackson's relationship just going on in the background? No number 2 don't eat the lemons! Skin and all too. What if they have some poison that affects the brain? Oh my gosh when life gives you lemons- is he gonna make them drink lemonade as part of his stupid pun game? Probably.

13:30- "are you talking about the bathroom" Number 2 is the best.

14:00- "their worry will soon lead to action" yes Mr. Benedict knows his kids.

16:00- Awkward. And yeah, I think them being ceiling fan haters was a long shot Reynie.

16:50- oh right no sugar because they dumped it out. oh my gosh Noland is being tortured by this situation. RUPTURED A SUPERTANK - What- Captain Noland is ready to drop his tragic backstory, finally someone who isn't gonna make me wait several seasons.

17:30- Perfect storm: some stowaways and no sugar. Oh my gosh Situation Alpha. This is phenomenal.

18:00- "no one thinks we're the stowaways" you're 4 kids unsupervised with only one change of clothes your the most stowaway-y stowaways to ever stowaway.

18:44- Oh great. The Sticky outgrowing his friends plot is growing, wait is he trying to impress his old friends. Honey, you are a genius you don't need to try this hard. NO KATE DON'T TALK TO THE SCARY WATER POLO LADIES. "That is why we play for a living" oh dear. Never mind, yes Kate get the info and call their bluff when you realize they are not legit.

21:00- He's been obsessed with being liked. Yeah no kidding. "Almost as sweet as your brother" oh shut up Sebastian. When did Curtain even have time to write a book? Was it the year in exile?

25:00- oh Milligan trauma dumping. No sadly it's not simple. Maybe Ms. Perumal can help him get his memory back.

26:00- Don't grab the fence, it will shock you. Trust me, I saw the trailer. And every other show with this plot. Also it's Curtain what else would he do.

26:33- CALL SQ BACK? CURTAIN WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THAT BOY? YOU BETTER NOT HURT HIM! Yes the Benedict busts in on Curtain scene we've all been waiting for. "Protecting the Vibe" Curtain's literally just messing with his brother at this point.

27:20- Yeah his movements and voice cadence are extremely unsettling. Sure call it neuroscience if you want, or deplorable, I call it being a punchable creep. Heartbroken? Oh poor benedict. He needs to run into SQ, they both need some love right now. Also, I wonder which brother is really jealous of who here? Benedict jealous of Curtain for having everything when he made unethical choices, or Curtain jealous of Benedict because he has a stable group of friends and family that love him without him needing to control them? Much to think about.

29:15- um hi Sebastian. You're looking creepy this evening. Nothing behind those eyes.

29:48- Oh good maybe Captain Noland and Cannonball can ham things up for us. NOT THE SILLY CARTOON PICTURE- I- I love these two. I don't know if this is what they were like in the books, but I might have to do a reread.

30:50- oh no not the fake water polo team. This poor newly wed couple is gonna come back to their room destroyed if those kids don't get under the bed quick. What that's it? We didn't even get to see if they entered the right room or not? Ugh this is frustrating, but ultimately good that I can't binge all at once because I would.

I love it. Wish that we got Garrison, Martina, and SQ back, but I love it. I need Garrison to get her revenge (unless she's been pulling the strings that whole time of course), and I need to know where SQ is right now. Curtain you monster, your son is a talent and will not be happy drawing yellow squares for the rest of his life.

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pepperf · 2 years

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I posted 1,294 times in 2022

That's 325 more posts than 2021!

192 posts created (15%)

1,102 posts reblogged (85%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@lochrannn

@bending-sickle

@ponyregrets

@bethanyactually

@wheresmytowel

I tagged 1,172 of my posts in 2022

Only 9% of my posts had no tags

#the umbrella academy - 262 posts

#tua - 259 posts

#diego hargreeves - 225 posts

#lila pitts - 162 posts

#dielila - 140 posts

#diego/lila - 138 posts

#david castañeda - 71 posts

#tua s3 - 59 posts

#tua s3 spoilers - 48 posts

#tua fanfic - 48 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#''and i listen to the sound / of the trucks as they move down / out on 95 / and pretend that it's the ocean / comin' down to wash me clean''

My Top Posts in 2022:

No.

283 notes - Posted May 25, 2022

Hey, parts of North London I know well! So the places they visited in today’s Dracula Daily entry are all still there, and relatively unchanged since Victorian times I think, aside from the first:

Jack Straw’s Castle:

This is a massive white-painted pub at the top of Hampstead hill, now closed. In Stoker’s time, the building looked like this:

It was badly damaged during the Blitz, and rebuilt in the 60s. The current building looks like this:

See the full post

385 notes - Posted September 26, 2022

My dearest darlingest TUA fic writers and fan artists: let me start off by saying that I love you all, I do, without bias or judgement, and I appreciate all the hard work that you put into whatever it is that makes your little hearts go pitty-pat.

That said, I have noticed an alarming trend recently: Diego is shrinking! He is getting smaller and smaller, in every lineup and fic description, inch by inch he is getting more and more petite, and I begin to fear that, at this rate, by this time next year he will have vanished entirely.

So, for your edification, I have put together this handy-dandy height reference chart for the Hargreeves siblings:

See how Diego (all 5′11¼ delicious inches of him) stands, taller than his sister Allison (5′8′‘), just slightly shorter than his sibling Klaus (an even 6′), and on a par with his brother Ben (5′11′‘)? See how he towers above his littlest siblings, Viktor (5′1′’) and Five (5′7′’ but still growing if he’ll only cut back on the caffeine)! See how he’s only a few inches shorter than his tallest brother, Luther (6′4′’)! Let us celebrate him, tall, proud, and erect (no, wait, wrong kind of fic...), and lofty!

I thank you for your consideration.

697 notes - Posted April 19, 2022

See the full post

1,272 notes - Posted June 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

A love letter to the co-conspiritors

They have many names—beta reader, friend, Oh Fuck You—but you know who they are: they're the person who is as rabid as you about a ship or a character, the one you DM with your most twisted headcanons, the one who agrees that YES, he SHOULD be tied to a chair and slapped in the face—that she SHOULD be allowed a little tragic backstory, as a treat—that they SHOULD be roommates who are secretly pining for one another...the one who hashes out with you, at past midnight, how soon is reasonable for people with superpowers to have sex after one of them has been shot in the leg.

They’re the person who reads your fic before you send it to anyone else, and raves with you about that plot point that you COULDN’T WAIT for them to reach, or points out where you’ve forgotten that they were at the bar, not the library, so you need to remove the reference to book stacks, or pokes you to finish the goddamn next chapter because they want to read it, okay?

Fandom would not exist without them. They enable and encourage. Some of them are also fic writers, and you get to enable them right back. Some of them create fan art, or meta, or text post edits, or run prompt fests, or edit wikis...some of them are simply just as in love with the same thing that you are and want to feed the squee.

If you’re lucky enough to have someone like this in your life, you’ll know how much impact they have. It’s different to getting comments and kudos (wonderful though those are!), because they come in before the fic is finished, sometimes even before it’s started, and say ‘yes, do it!’. The fact that I've written so much for Community and The Umbrella Academy is completely down to @bethanyactually and @wheresmytowel respectively, and I count myself incredibly lucky to have them both in my life (and not just for all this, but also because they’re both incredibly lovely and smart and fun).

It was Fanfic Writer Appreciation Day yesterday (Aug 21st), and it made me think that we should also give a shoutout to the co-conspiritors, because without them, an awful lot more fic writers would be stress-scrolling through tumblr instead of working on their WIP, and there’d be so much less fic in the world.

1,945 notes - Posted August 22, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review

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monstrouslyobsessed · 2 years

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just answering some asks real quick, no writing today but i am working on some n'sfw art of my fave lesbian beastfolk characters. hoping to finish and share that one (but sadly censored) tonight!

cw: mentions of a certain horror hentai, beastfolks

thank you for the quick reply! I am super psyched about the possibility of a book of beast au, like holy moly I'd read it/buy it! And no worries on me selling the fan idea or claiming your idea, its more like me doing fanfiction of my fav author work as fan love ;3 —anonymous

dawwwwwww thank you!! <3 you're a sweetheart!!! do whatever you want! i'm super down to see your (and literally anyone else's) takes on my au~ we need more furry beastman x human tbh.

still a slim possibility tho! it'd be more of a compilation book more than anything as it'd be easier for me to do than to do chapter by chapter thing (and honestly, i wouldn't know who to focus on! i accidentally made the au too vast, rip). the only thing that would kinda suck is having to come up with the identity of mc's in each story, since it's super nice not having to think too much about who the mc is when i write reader x monster. i don't think reader x stories would sell well, though, and especially not the dead dove kind.

but that's alright, it just means i can write the mc's being in the minority if and when i wanted to c: disabled mc's are not something you'd see represented often being one myself and i'd so much love to contribute somehow.

Have you seen puss in boots? —anonymous

i dont...watch many movies lmao but im guessing this is about death the wolf? my friends were all over him! even the ones who aren't into yandere/dd stuffs.

i'll have to see if i can find that film on netflix or prime then and make some time for it

Omg, I didn’t listen to you and I read that hentai fully out of curiosity and wow that’s fucked (and scary) —anonymous

oh nonnie NOOOOOOO-

you poor soul D: it IS a horror hentai though, i should've specified in the initial post (sorry!), but fuck some of them are...

yeah, half of it is extremely fucked indeed. ymmv, but outside the ones involving...minors (shudders), the cow head and the monkey on train are just...no, with the former especially being the worst one and probably the most fucked up of them all. the tall lady and the scarecrows/women in the field would've been...passable to good if they hadn't involved minors, simply because i liked the initial premises. :\ the snake-god would've been a 10/10 for me if the mc is older and less...bratty, but as it is, 8/10 and all of the points i gave were because of the monster's gorgeous unique take on lamia/naga design (that monster lady is a chef's kiss and makes my gay ass heart happy) and her tragic backstory.

idk about the 6-armed snake-god one specifically, but i've heard/read that all the others were based on the Japanese lores. the cow one was supposedly already super gross in the first place though the artist could've just...not do that one and the rest, yeah.

i was able to deal with the statue ones and the worm god fine because...at least they all looked like adults who fell into bad situations they couldn't get out of. the monster on the road is...well, it'd be better if it didn't look like an old man :\ rest i just straight up skimmed through with my eyes half shut and completely skipping the cow head one first few pages in.

…sufficient to say, i only read monster / horror hentai's based on friends' recs than looking for them myself these days. way too many involving minors, which is…unfortunate. yucks.

i'm very, very sorry i led you down there and endured all of that, nonnie dear. D:> i'll go back and edit that post to warn others.

#ghosts are curious.👻#☠️not writing...#anonymous #asked #answered #☠️monster is whispering...

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appleciders · 1 year

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for the writer ask meme 👀 2, 3, 5, & 25 please!

its been a bajillion years but tysm for the ask!! i love the 2+3 = 5, 5x5 = 25 of it all.

2. Do you read/reread your own fics?

absolutely 100% for sure. i wrote them for me first and foremost! i don't reread all of them with the same frequency - some i like better than others, some are shorter and easier to reread, etc. after i post something, i'll generally go through a period of rereading it a lot, then i'll taper off and probably come back to it once in a blue moon, often if some beloved stranger leaves a comment or a kudos.

i don't always enjoy doing it - if the fic's a problem child, it can frustrate me - but i do think i learn stuff from what parts of it i don't think worked. and then if i do still love parts of it, i get to hear my past self tell me a story, which i always love. for example, i just reread let the heavens falter, where i'm like...okay, i rushed the last couple chapters and the editing, so if i were changing things about it now i would probably cut a bunch of stuff to make the pacing tighter, and let certain sections breathe and develop a bit more. and the fic is a deep dive into some messy stuff, and i don't know if i handled it all in a way i'm satisfied with, but i have a really good time seeing how i tried?

either way, i'm very pro-rereading ur own fic!

3. What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

oh, shit. i would say some sun has got to rise probably still takes the cake, even though it's from five years ago, now. it took me a year to write and i'm really proud of my teenage self for pouring so much of what i was feeling into it. it was really important to me then and it's still important to me today, especially knowing that it reached some other people and helped them through a hard time, too.

5. What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?

fuck, you picked good questions!! i have a bajillion, just because my follow through is not great and my attention span for a hyperfixation where i'll actually have the ability to make something for it is tragically limited at the moment. i would say i'm probably never going to write the lupe aloto backstory that exists in my mind (and in pieces on the aloto discord server) for a few reasons, though i do care deeply about it (and her) and if i ever finish my other lupe fics it'll be strongly informing them

25. Have you ever upset yourself with your own writing?

yeah, for sure. in different ways, too lmao - sometimes i make myself sad just because it's a sad scene, or i'm digging into grief or something. sometimes i upset myself because i don't like how it's turning out or turned out! writing is definitely a Hobby

#thank uuu for all these qs they were really cool to think through

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cranesofibycus · 2 years

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Edit: Please don’t send me spoilers for later episodes. This includes “you are right/wrong about xyz interpretation”. Thank you!

Episode 17 has so many incredible, heartbreaking, heartwarming, hilarious and frustrating moments; it’s one of my favorite episodes thus far for sure. A friend of mine told me that he fell in love with the Bells Hells in this episode and I’m inclined to agree.

Between episode 14 and 17 I feel like the rest of them have really come together and have had the opportunity to show some of their softer, less silly sides. I love the silly, but sometimes it can get in the way of genuine character moments and those episodes are full of both, which is great.

Here’s a little roundup of my impressions of the characters so far:

Ashton: This guy is so dumb. Like, can’t get any dumber. They are so preoccupied with being the unattached one, that every of their actions just screams “I don’t deserve to be loved and I will show you why!” - I love his short temper, I love his reluctant admiration of the others and I particularly love that Taliesin gets to play someone who is queer as fuck, yet determined to be disagreeable. That is just peak Taliesin PC design and I think he is having a blast with Ashton so far.

Fearne: This fawn is so smart. And I mean that genuinely. Fearne knows exactly how she can utilize her charm and her assumed innocence to get away with the most outrageous lies and actions. I’m sort of glad that Little Mister has faded into the background a little. I feel like Fearne needs nobody to help her shine. And it’s fascinating to me that it had never before occurred to me that Ashley would be perfect at playing a fey, since Ashley exudes heaps of fey energy even when she is just being herself. I’m curious how she will handle more dramatic scenes in the future. Fearne has shown that she can genuinely care about others, but there is a clear sense that she - as any fey creature - struggles with the dark grey morals of her heritage.

F.C.G.: Sam is a menace. It is known. But I wonder how much of a menace he is being with F.C.G. I think there is a very good chance that Sam knows very little of their backstory, or how much of it is true. The memories Imogen saw in him could’ve been placed there or altered. I adore that Sam chose a race/class/subclass combination that doesn’t cater to his usual dry sarcasm as Nott’s and Scanlan’s builds did. Instead he gets to experiment with humor that stems from F.C.G.’s genuine concern and their unawareness of certain social cues. I’m sure the other Riegel shoe will drop soon enough, but until then I’m just happy to receive puzzle piece after puzzle piece of this robit’s tragic past.

Imogen: Until recently I really thought Laura had built a sweet, soft horse-girl sorceress. Oh what a fool I was! Not that she isn’t all of those things, but Imogen is so much more multi-facetted than I had originally understood. She is driven and curious. She is intrigued by power and convinced of her own abilities. She apologizes to people for invading their minds, but she also enjoys learning other people’s secrets. She is confident! She knows her worth! She understands how to get people to do what you want (not in a strictly manipulative way, but she has definitely learned that showing compassion is a way to get people to talk). I’m super intrigued by her and thus afraid to delve too deep into fandom interpretations of Imogen, because Laura’s track record is 1. build intricate, layered character, 2. fandom builds one-dimensional fanon version of said character, 3. fandom gets mad when Laura dares to stick to her original design for said character (one of the reasons why I’m not massively into glasses!Imogen - it just triggers a fight or flight response in my brain).

Laudna: What a ballsy character design! What a choice of a backstory and a patron! I love that she came up with this and Matt said “yes, and” to all of it. I agree with Orym that Laudna is fascinating not because of her backstory, but rather because she is who she is despite of her backstory. I’m a big believer that great tragedy functions like a fork in the road of your capacity for compassion. Either you become the least or the most compassionate version of yourself, and I adore that Marisha went with the latter. And for some reason I keep thinking of Laudna’s connection to Vox Machina and that she feels like the rebirth of Kerrek’s line in his letter to Keyleth: “Did you know that there are some seeds that cannot sprout unless they are first burned?“ I wish Laudna could’ve had the life she deserved, but I think her capacity to love and feel deeply is informed by the tragedy of her past.

Chetney: Detective!Travis and comic-relief!Travis are two of my favorite Travises, so of course I adore Chetney. I’m so glad he finally gets to live his lycanthropy dreams! I’m curious about Chetney’s backstory and how much of it will activate the other kind of Travis I love, which is the what-makes-a-good-man!Travis. I love when he gets to explore the themes of masculinity, bravery and worthiness and I feel like Chetney might give him the opportunity to examine them from a very different perspective. Or maybe the wolf will die in three sessions, which is also entirely possible. Travis doesn’t trust Sam and I don’t trust Travis. C’est la vie!

Orym: This little guy! What a wee man! In ExU I was not super into Orym because I felt like he faded into the background next to so much color and character, but it is always the quiet ones who worm their way into my heart in the end. In one way or another Liam’s characters always carry an unspeakable amount of grief with them and that grief usually is for a future that was stolen from them. Vax, Caleb and Orym all had to come to terms with the loss of a version of themselves/their lives that they didn’t get to see or live. But with Orym there is a new kind of twist to this baseline of grief: There seems to be an immense amount of hope stored in this tiny dude; a hope for a life that’s worth living or a future that’s worth fighting for or a revenge that is worth pursuing. There is not a lot of Orym (physically), but every inch of this small man is full of love and hope and a deep sense that there are things worth fighting for.

I thought about listing my favorite relationship dynamics so far, but the truth is that it is... all of them. I genuinely enjoy all of their interactions and how the characters mesh with each other. Eleven more episodes until I’m caught up and can laugh about my naïve impressions of them as of episode 17.

#cranes catches up #critical role #long post

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aurumacadicus · 2 years

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Featheruary Part 10 (Edited)

Don’t forget to black list ‘long post’ if you don’t want to see my long posts! This is short enough I’m not putting it under a cut. You can find part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, part 6 here, part 7 here, part 8 here, and part 9 here.

I have seen the mistake of posting this in parts. I can’t tell if my pacing is working. Anyway, Thor has decided to put everyone out of their misery and use his many centuries of being alive to cajole some sense out of Tony, because every time he talks to Bucky, Bucky ignores him in favor of baking Tony cakes. Bucky (and I) firmly believe that love is stored in the calorie.

Tony hadn’t given Bucky an answer, and he knew he’d have to give him one eventually. He just needed to figure out how he felt.

He knew he had a crush on Bucky. He had crushes on a lot of people. It wasn’t unusual. What had Bucky said? Starved of affection? Tony supposed it was the same for him. He was so lonely growing up, always wondering if he was being used (or being so expertly used he didn’t know until it was over). He could count on one hand the number of true-blue friends he’d had until he was forty. He’d always had a crush on his friends, simply because they were the only people consistently nice to him. He grew out of them, mostly.

But he thought maybe, he didn’t want to grow out of this one.

Bucky had given him time. He’d let him lick his wounds and heal. But he also hadn’t let him stew too long, either. Tony found that he liked that. A lot. Most times, he found his partners wanting him to change his schedule for them, push for too much, too soon. Even with Pepper, in what felt like it could have been an organic way, had been too fast, looking back at it. They’d thought because of their friendship, they could skip steps. Maybe that was why they hadn’t worked out in the long run.

Bucky had let him think, though, really consider how he wanted things to go. He’d also made it very clear that he wanted an answer eventually, though. The ‘take as long as you need, but be aware of my needs as well’ had been… nice. And he found himself wanting to take as little time as possible, so Bucky wouldn’t have to suffer in the interim, wondering what he was thinking.

“Is this what mutual respect is supposed to be like?” Tony wondered, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

Thor turned from where he was making scrambled eggs, face stony. “Did I hear that question correctly?”

“You know my tragic backstory already,” Tony answered defensively.

“I am standing here, minding my own business, and you are suddenly struck with what mutual respect is supposed to be at forty—”

“—Ish,” Tony cut in.

“—ish years old,” Thor finished agreeably. Tony pointed at the pan, and he stirred his eggs without looking back at them, frowning at Tony in concern. “Have we not treated you with respect, Tony? Did we do something wrong?”

“Oh, I, uh,” Tony stuttered. He fidgeted with his mug. Took a nervous sip. “I meant… like, in a romantic relationship.”

Somehow, Thor’s frown went sadder. “Tony.”

“Listen, I don’t—want to talk about my past? Right now?” Tony said, slowly sidling away from him. Maybe, if he was careful about it, he could hide from him before he could finish cooking and eating his eggs. “I’m just saying. I like how Bucky treated me. That’s all.” Thor reached out to clamp a hand on his shoulder and force him to sit on one of the stools at the island. Tony sighed, defeated, and sagged onto it, turning to put his mug on the counter. “Are you going to get on my ass about him, too?”

“No. Sit there for a moment,” Thor said shortly. He turned back to his eggs.

Tony perked up when he saw Thor grabbing down two plates, and smiled when Thor set one of them in front of him. “For me?”

“You’re less likely to run if you’ve got food that doesn’t travel well in front of you,” Thor deadpanned.

Tony considered dumping the eggs in his mug of coffee and running just to spite, except it looked like Thor had stirred ham and cheese into them while cooking, and he thought it might be nice to sit and enjoy them. “Okay,” he admitted, reaching for the fork Thor handed him.

Thor waited for him to take a bite before he turned to his own plate. “So you like the way Bucky treated you?”

Tony narrowed his eyes at him, slowing down his chewing. Still, he couldn’t really see where Thor was going with the question, so he swallowed and reluctantly answered, “Yeah. He’s not pushy or greedy at all. He lets me think things through instead of getting impatient and demanding answers. He did mention capitalism to me though,” he added petulantly to himself. “I hate when Steve does that. Now there are two of them.”

“I’ll throw them both into the ceiling at training next time,” Thor offered.

Tony fist pumped. He wondered if that should be his first reaction, except Steve had squawked helplessly until he’d gotten down, and he’d gotten plenty of good video and pictures. He probably should not be excited. But that had never stopped him before, he decided.

“So?” Thor asked, leaning his elbow on the counter and placing his head on his fist. He poked at his eggs idly. “Aside from the capitalism stuff? Is that enough to deter you?”

Tony thought about it. Honestly, it seemed like it was something that Bucky wouldn’t harp on. If it came up, he could just do what he did with Steve, which was tune him out and think about other things. Besides, that hadn’t really been the problem at all. “I… want to get to know him better,” he finally said. “But Bucky… what if I don’t live up to his expectations?”

“Do you think his expectations of you are too high?” Thor asked patiently, taking a bite of his eggs.

Tony frowned down at his plate, remembering what Bucky had said. “I just… he said he liked me because he knew I wouldn’t treat him like glass on his bad days. He knew that after I bodychecked him in the middle of a panic attack.”

Thor said nothing for a few minutes, but Tony couldn’t tell if that was because he was focusing on eating or because he was thinking. Finally, though, Thor said, “Is he expecting you to continue to bodycheck him?”

“No,” Tony answered immediately, and then squinted in thought, because Bucky had never actually said that. “No? I honestly hope not.”

“Do you suppose he’s expecting you to continue not to treat him like glass?” Thor asked. “Could you do that?”

Tony opened his mouth, then closed it again, really giving it some thought. Could he do that? He was a fixer. It was what he liked to do. But he was also vaguely allergic to emotions. He thought about what he would do if Bucky was there, now, curling up against the counter, gripping his hands into fists and relaxing over and over, breath coming in sharp hisses between his teeth.

He imagined he’d… wait. Until Bucky told him what he wanted him to do. He wouldn’t want to touch him when he was possibly dangerous—Bucky had felt so guilty the first time he realized he had struck Steve so hard after a panic attack that he’d fractured Steve’s arm and his own hand, and Tony was a lot more fragile. And he knew that Bucky had been working with a therapist on coping mechanisms, counting or breathing or something like that. So. He didn’t really worry about him like that. Didn’t really feel he had to.

“I… suppose I could,” Tony finally said.

Thor smiled a little. “Do you want to?”

“I… yes,” Tony said. He shrugged uncomfortably. “I… want to learn more about him. He’s patient with me, even when I’m… being especially me some days.”

“I think you secretly like when he just lies on the floor and sighs,” Thor said, but the accusation in his voice sounded amused rather than angry.

Tony spread his hands. “I mean, I lived through those things, right?! I wouldn’t be me without them.”

“You’ve been through a lot,” Thor allowed. “And it has made you who you are. It’s just the coping mechanisms we worry about, personally.”

“That’s fair,” Tony muttered, wilting in defeat.

“Good morning,” Bucky said as he came into the kitchen. He stopped. Stared. Turned a disgruntled look on Thor. “You made Tony breakfast.”

Thor didn’t look perturbed in the slightest. “I haven’t had a good talk with Tony in a while.”

“I was going to make Tony breakfast,” Bucky muttered mulishly, finally coming further into the room. “I’ve been making him meals for weeks now. It’s my job.”

“Uh huh,” Thor replied, amused.

Bucky came over to look at their plates, giving Thor a scowl. “I would have made him something fancier than this. He deserves fancy fruit salads and pancakes. Stuffed French toast. A caramel latte.”

“Tony is a simple man,” Thor said.

Tony looked back and forth between them, confused. “You could… top off my coffee?” he offered hesitantly.

“You’ve relegated me to diner waitress,” Bucky told Thor, glaring at him, before snatching the mug when Tony frowned and reached out to pull it back in apology. He pointed into Tony’s face sternly. “No, I’m doing it. Back off.” He glared at Thor again. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you?”

“Did you seriously tell Tony that his heart was as big as his ass?” Thor asked, raising an eyebrow, and watched, unrepentant, as Bucky crumpled to the ground with a shout. He leaned over to look at him, frowning. “Well. I can’t say you don’t deserve to feel a little ashamed of it. Some things are inside thoughts.”

“Do you have inside thoughts about me?” Tony asked, looking up at Thor as he stood from the stool.

Thor sighed, half put-upon, half amused. “Everyone has inside thoughts about other people, Tony.” When Tony only frowned at him, brows furrowed together, he sighed again and added, “Yes. I have inside thoughts about you.”

“I don’t have inside thoughts,” Tony said after a moment, a tinge of suspicion in his voice.

“We are aware, Tony. We wish you would sometimes,” Thor told him patiently as he went to go put his plate in the sink.

Tony narrowed his eyes at him, nose wrinkling a bit, before he shrugged it off. “I don’t know how.”

“We are aware of that too,” Thor replied. He walked over to gently clasp his shoulder. “I’m going to leave now, mostly because I think Bucky might try and stab me. He’s not as durable as my brother and I forget not to throw him as hard as I would Loki.” He waved over his shoulder as he walked out. “Give my regards to Bucky when he gets off the floor.”

“Siblings are weird!” Tony called after him. “And thanks for the talk, I guess! Does this mean Clint or Bruce are next?”

“I doubt it. They’re both just as allergic to feelings as you are.”

Tony shrugged with a vague little ‘eh’ and turned to look down at Bucky, who was still on the floor. He had rolled onto his back, though, covered in coffee and clutching Tony’s empty mug to his chest. “You okay? If you want to make me something to eat, that’s fine, I guess. I’d really just like my cup of coffee though.”

“Do you think it’s possible that I can ever live this down?” Bucky asked, not moving from the floor.

“I have full faith in you that you’ll say something else that’s even more embarrassing,” Tony told him sympathetically.

“God,” Bucky groaned, finally moving to cover his face. “Please, no. I couldn’t stand it.”

Tony reached for his mug. Bucky dropped one hand to clamp around the ceramic, glaring at him out of his uncovered eye. Tony reluctantly pulled his hand back.

“…Anyway,” Tony said, picking up his fork to fiddle with. He looked down at his empty plate, pushing a tiny sliver of ham around. “I, um. I was thinking.”

Bucky sat up immediately. “Yeah?”

“You said that… you’d like the opportunity to fall in love with me,” Tony said slowly, setting his fork down so that he didn’t accidentally drop it and ruin his train of thought.

“Basically, yeah,” Bucky replied, shrugging a little.

Tony chewed on the inside of his cheek anxiously, hoping he didn’t look as nervous as he felt. “Maybe… Maybe I’d like the opportunity to fall in love with you, too.” He glanced at Bucky out of the corner of his eye nervously.

Just in time to watch Bucky’s lips spreading into a wide, goofy smile.

“Are you saying I can take you out?” Bucky asked, breathless with excitement.

Tony turned to blink at him, frowning in confusion. “You could have always taken me out. In any sense of the word.”

“Stop making death jokes,” Bucky ordered, more on instinct than actual distress. “But I mean—if we were out, and people asked, I could say you were my fella?”

Tony sucked in a breath and ignored the fact that it was a little shaky. He wasn’t scared. Except that he kind of was. “If you want.”

Bucky paused, then carefully stood up, reaching out to put his hand on top of one of Tony’s. “What’s causin’ you pause, doll?”

“I…” Tony began weakly. He stared at Bucky’s hand on top of his. He wasn’t gripping. Tony could pull his hand away, if he really wanted to (but he didn’t really want to). It just felt… nice. He looked back up at Bucky, shrugging uncomfortably. “I just… don’t have a great track record for this type of thing, I guess. I… I’m just worried… you’ll realize you don’t like me, once you get to know me more.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Bucky told him firmly. “I don’t do anything by halves, including falling head over heels. Nothing you’ve done has scared me off yet. Even that time that you bodychecked me while I was having a panic attack.” He smiled a little. “I feel like that’s something that woulda scared off the average guy.”

“Probably,” Tony answered, shrugging bashfully.

Bucky smirked. “Luckily, I’m not the average guy. And you know? I think you aren’t either, so I don’t have to worry about you bein’ freaked out by shit I do, too.” He carefully reached out to flip Tony’s hand over, so he could lace their fingers together. “Can I take you out to breakfast?”

Tony glanced down at his plate, then looked up at Bucky again, raising his eyebrows. “Maybe we could do lunch instead? It would give you time to shower,” he added, staring at the coffee stains on his clothes.

Bucky looked down at himself. His shirt had large brown stains on it. His pants had a few spots on them, but ultimately looked like they’d been spared most of the coffee. He’d stepped one foot into a puddle of coffee that hadn’t been sopped up by Bucky’s shirt, and that sock was drenched in brown. He looked back up at Tony. “Fine, but I get to pick the place.”

“I literally do not care what kind of food it is as long as calories are going into my face hole,” Tony said. “I have a favorite food in most restaurants.”

“Please do not call it your face hole ever again,” Bucky replied in the kindest way possible.

“Fine, but only because your face was very unattractive in response,” Tony answered.

Bucky opened his mouth, then closed it again with a fond sigh, shaking his head a little. “I’ll get you a new cup of coffee,” he said, instead of whatever he’d been about to. “Then go get cleaned up. Wanna look my best for my best fella.”

Tony looked down at his feet and smiled a little, trying not to show how pleased it made him. He peeked back up as Bucky came back, carefully balancing a new mug full of coffee between both hands, watching his feathers ruffle along his wings with pleasure—whether from being able to do something for him, or because he was still happy about him being willing to try, he couldn’t tell.

Maybe he didn’t need to, Tony thought, reaching out to carefully set his cup on the counter. He turned and took Bucky’s hands in his and, when Bucky only tipped his head in confusion, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Then he lifted his own wings, stretching them up, up, up, high enough that his primaries brushed the light fixtures over the island. His feathers spread, trembling, inviting.

“Tony,” Bucky whispered, and then there was the sound of glass breaking, and Tony opened his eyes to find that Bucky had swung his wings up as well, heedless of whatever would be in their way, and had knocked one of the pendant lights down. He didn’t look like he cared, wings spreading wide and high, eyes only on Tony’s face.

“I’m gonna be fucking insufferable about this. You thought it was bad when I punched Steve in the throat? I’m gonna be crowing about this so much that everyone on this team wants to strangle me,” Bucky said, voice thick, and Tony threw his head back and laughed in delight.

#aurumacadicus writes #winteriron #featheruary #wing fic #long post

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spaceyflowers · 2 years

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Thoughts about Johan?

OH SHIT MY FAVORITE PLATONIC CHARACTER I FORGOT TO MENTION HIM IN MY LAST ASK 😭😭 hes one of my faves too i was. just listening to a romantic song earlier when i answered the ask so i was only thinking about charas i have a crush on 😭😭😭

....anyways <3 i love johan with all my heart !!!! 💖💘 he's a very interesting character !! here's how i feel about him in nutshell (something i wrote on discord like back in april and a pin from pinterest ^_^)!

oops i got carried away a little u_u if u want to see etc thoughts its below !! 💖

personally, like i said, he's a poor little meow meow to me but also my best friend :] and weirdly enough also kind of my son ?? idk i just feel a lot of platonic love for him hgjsjdjkf

also he's a comfort character even tho he makes me feel emo a lot.. i just want the best for him 💔💔 seeing his tragic backstory and the hardships he's gone thru, the decisions he's made, it's like... man... if there's anyone who deserves a happy ending, it's him T_T

also bonus stuff bc um... its late at night and the brainrot is real:

2 songs i associate with johan are "myself" by neffex (shoutout to this edit) and "gottasadae" by bewhy !! (courtesy of clownie's post)

i think the lyrics and vibes of both songs match him ^_^ they also make me emo about him.

#answers #thank u to this anon and prev anon for asking questions i love answering them <3 #also [totally discreetly adds johan to my list in my prev ask]#johan seong

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nikkywrites · 2 years

Text

WIP Title Tag

Rules: post the names of all the files in your wip folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have wips.

Oh boy.

Thanks for the tag @pluttskutt. I have way way way too many things. Most of these are just a few paragraphs/basically abandoned though. And have been accumulated over roughly 2-3 years. So it’s not as bad as it may look. But a good few of the google docs actually have multiple stories in it (like 3+ on at least 2).

People please actually stop by to ask about things. Ask about multiple things if you want. This took more effort and time than it should have.

GOOGLE DOCS:

Calypso ???

Calypso/Davy Jones Mess

Calypso/Davy Jones Redo

Calypso/Davy Jones Reverse POV

Forest Fantasy Prompt RD

CUT FOREST

Forest Fantasy Prompt RRD

Persephone Mess

Knighting Honor

Both for the night nehru

Betrayal Thingy

Spring and Winter and Love

Iris centric stories

Brother RD

Brother RD 2

Lost Gods

The Garden

Tavern’s Deal

Cemetery of Power || Caffeine Challenge 30

Garden of Souls RD

Fictober 2021

Emere Backstory (Note: title at top of the actual doc is “Tragic Hero Backstory Conception Agency || Temporary Title || Emere Backstory” I’ve just been too lazy to rename the actual doc lol)

Cinder Retelling Outline

NOTEPAD:

(laptop and phone. note that for phone notes (the later ones) a single dash is what’s in the second line as you can see both without opening the note and I refuse to start a story there. did omit a couple of those, though)

she’s dead

forest Fantasy Prompt Scene Outlines

forest Fantasy Prompt Scene Outline New

Demeter-Persephone-Hades idea outline

[redacted] (note: this one is a spoiler for TDWAD world, so.)

fuck. why am I doing this

Hades Persephone no D lipogram

Echo thingy idk

cliff or maw

broken hero, broken king, empty princess

broken hero take 2

broken hero take three

3 Prompts - The Lost One / Stay With Me / You Don’t Know Anything

TDWAD MAGIC WORLD BRAINSTORMING

Leucothea - Ino into Goddess

Cells - Seven Years

Ahhh - pain

Greek Myth - Prometheus POV [redacted] alive?

Greek World Ideas

More Greek Stuff: Cronus Edition - because yay

Jen - Note

Idea - Mayhaps

Bapapapapababa - Oh whoops

Random - idk

Hephaestus

TUMBLR DRAFTS:

(note: some of these are untitled so I put the first line/prompt instead also mostly from the old side blog drafts that I haven’t shifted elsewhere)

Dragon Rot

No one means to become a Necromancer

“What did I do to deserve this?”

Evil Under the Skin / So Much Love to Give / Brother vs Brother

Bambi Retelling

“I’ve seen a lot. I’ve done a lot too. I never thought I would end up here.”

Divine Water / The Last Heir / A Cursed Sword

Sleeping Beauty Retelling

[woods of doubt?]

To Bully A Curse

The Dark Majesty’s Nine Sons

Subjective Evil

the third part of Jo’s story

Jo 3/4?

“You poisoned me.”

“I thought you loved me.”

Thunderstruck

City of Creation (the beginning of one of her stories)

Salt of Consequence (how it all ended)

You won’t remember any of this when you’re older

“I don’t want to hear a word from you.”

Death’s Cloak

Super Rehabilitation & Therapy

The Superhero Next Door // Part Two

Jackson was burning.

“I’ll cut out your heart and eat it.”

——

It ends! This took too long.

Tagging (and you can feel to ignore if you’re anything like me, or you can only put the serious things instead of literally everything that’s more than two lines): @ashen-crest @ettawritesnstudies @drippingmoon @dragon-with-a-pen @pertinax--loculos @magic-is-something-we-create @notwritinganyflufftoday @blind-the-winds @vylequinne @vivian-is-writing @akindofmagictoo @sleepyowlwrites @dycefic @dontcrywrite @fayoftheforest @adventuresinanarchy @dismalzelenka @leafkisser @solarnexas @unlimited-poetential @actualanxiousswampwitch @mistosworld @ashadowfaerie @thunderstomm @prinzesswache @absolutely-feral-moth @sandalaris @darkmasterofcupcakes @mirakae @life-in-the-dreamhouse @obeekris @haha-they-wont-find-me-now @chiefest-and-greatest-calamity @neologyro @cherryonigiri @mirakeul @zoppzoop @dumboosaurus @humanitittysswaggiest @wolf-of-the-glade @forlornmelody @skiitter @sigh-the-kraken @toomanyassassins @meanderer125 @moonyjulian @darksidechick823 @natdrinkstea @bluestockingbaby

That’s only 50 people but that’s the max apparently so I’ll leave the other 25 or so spots as do it if you want! Say I tagged you!

#wip title tag #tag game #tag game answered #my wips #god so many #please send asks #as you can tell though I am a very organized person #shoutout to the babapapapa keysmash one #truly a wonderful title

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