#esp if they got the trope where its like

[puppets-are-overreated]

everytime someone makes an au where bm gets a redemption arc I slowly get better

[icedmetaltea]

If only 12 yr old me knew there'd be a World of Goo 2

and that a motherfucking pixelated neo-noir detective subplot would be included in it

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

Theyre going to think I like canon and purely canon if I keep going on like this

[bamsara]

what are your most favorite tropes? :3c

IM SO GLAD YOU ASKED:

Near death experiences

Emotional revelations due to said near death experiences

Enemies to Friends to Lovers

Mutual Pining but they believe its unrequieted

"you're my worst enemy but you're so important to me"

Drunk chapter where at least One fist fight happens

Bridal carry after someone gets injured

Slow Burn...of course

"i got you this gift because it benefits me and im not telling you how" (the benefit is seeing the other person enjoy the gift)

Force Alliances or Temporary Truces

"I don't like killing but I'll do it for you"

"I prefer to kill my problems but I won't, for you."

Or: "This person has no idea how many people I've killed in order to protect or provide for them and I'm going to keep it that way."

Mean or Villian Character is actaully a really good Sibling/Parent/Child,ect and has someone they care about

Or better, Villian character adopts child AND is a good parent

Everyone knows the pairing likes each other except for the pairing

Temporary (or non-temp)Amnesia

"I learn your favorite things because I plan to use them against you one day" (proceeds to not do that) (proceeds to get them food or items that persons likes just because they like them)

Breaking and Entering. Literally.

Person A is in love, Person B says they're not but they're 10x times worse actaully

Slip-of-the-tongue/Accidental confessions. Doesn't have to be love confessions but just "whoops i was not supposed to say that"

Biting as a love language

One is feral and bloodthirsty but is put in the position of 'protecting an idiot' because the other is also feral and has no self-preservation. Both characters must be badass, just equally stupid

Kiss on the head/cheek while the other person is sleeping

Bloodstained kiss

Heat-of-battle confession about something

Protagonist refusing to become villian or repeat villian mistakes, not in a 'owo i cant do that its bad' and more like 'fuck you you dont get to see what you wanted to make of me'

Signifier of 'this is my friend/family/lover'. Could anything between a ring, a jacket over someone's shoudlers or scent marking, anything

"if im immortal, then you gotta be too or we both dyin"

Knight x Their Charge

Human x Non-Human

Sunshine x Grump

Character that looks sooooo cute. Oh he's a little fucked up actaully

"ahhaha he's such a freak haha. i need him carnally."

They are mortal enemies. They are also best friends.

Hostage / Rescued trope plus Hostage / Doesn't get to rescue because the hostage killed everyone already

Plot info that's missing that's vital to the story and it's revealed that One of the pairing or someone in the group knew the info the entire time

"I said mean things to you because I hate you, so why am I feeling guilty now"

There was only One Bed

Really competent and scary character is really GOOD at a harmless and charming small hobby completely uncharacteristic to their public persona

Nightmares. And then sleeping in the same bed because of nightmares

Cultural differences / Language Barrier

Character gets so surprised flustered they trip over something or break something and it topples and it starts a chain reaction like a cartoon

There are more but these are some of which I can remember off the top of my head. I've written many of these myself in several of my stories and will continue to do so until the end of time, esp my faves

[thvanatos]

arcane predictions!!! but mostly kaz's unintelligible rambles

no like now that we're done with act 1 i kinda wanted to get in on the fun of like guessing esp because i KNEW the enforcer act would backfire immediately spoilers duhhhhh

isha or maddie is gonna die bc like. the tropes are right there.

someone said that ambessa is gonna be the final boss villain and idk if thats league lore im missing out on, someone pls enlighten me

loving ambessa btw the reveal that she was behind the 'attack' during the memorial fucking GENIUS

bc it was kind of a breaking point of the dark caitlyn arc!!

vi pitfighting arc next which im sad about bc like wdym i gotta watch my girl going THRU it

i mean this is a stretch but heimerdinger,,, bro defo has a bigger part to play right

yk like all of this has got me thinking abt the ending bc it cant be something like and they band together and live happily ever after!!! its gotta have some major casualty

so im kinda expecting it ... either vi... or jinx...

i love the vi is caitlyns weakness trope - it happened in s1 and remember how ambessa exiled mel bc she weakened her think THAT and cait being ambessas target and cait cutting off vi... would love to see it more in play.

jinx doing smth sacrificial bc girl has zero self preservation skills

SPEAKING OF JINX

i love the shift in perspective bc s1 felt like we were watching it from jinx first person pov and rn it feels like jinx third person and also her saying 'its so quiet now'

her character arc seems to be taking the hero's path which is so cool!!!!!!!!!!

that guy... yk the enforcer guy who left when cait was declared leader... who tf is that guy

ALSO WHO IS WARWICK SORRY I DONT KNOW LEAGUE LORE SOMEONE EXPLAIN BC WHAT IM SEEING IS... WORRYING...

ekko badass moment

i have NO idea whats gonna happen w viktor but jayvik nation i extend my condolences

yk idk how theyre gonna add more lore - if theyre gonna add more lore bc act 1 lays down the foundation, sets the scene, everything else builds up from here na. just fascinated on where its going frfr.

okay yeah i know this is not very predictions but wtv wtv i just wanted to say ik people say the pacing felt off but it felt perfect to me tbh - keeping in mind i finished my s1 rewatch last night - it felt like elements sorta clicking into piece, yk? the cogs of a machine taking their places.

thats all i can think of for now, lmk ur thoughts!!!!!111

[notmoreflippingelves]

So in the middle of my rewatch, I suddenly got really distracted by Francisco's black-with-gold-accents "formal" court attire, specifically in regards to the leaf accents on the sleeves. And I could help but think of the *other* black-with-gold-leaf accents look that we see on a Flores family member--Esteban's in "Elena and the Secret of Avalor." Although the designs between the two suits are distinctly different, there is enough of a similarity to make me want to think about them as a set and how the differences actually reflect the differences in the characters/their roles as well.

Although the silhouettes are similar overall, I would go far as to say that Francisco's look creates more of the classic "storybook prince" vibe than his grandson's. His costume is ornate and grand without seeming ostentatious. Think of how Prince Charming is costumed in pretty much any Cinderella adaptation. He must look striking and appropriately heroic--but specifically in a way that enhances our heroine without overshadowing her. And in nearly every adaptation, Prince Charming is more than okay with this, and the same is true of Francisco. He is at some level aware that he is on a show called "Elena of Avalor"--not "Francisco Flores of Avalor" and has no desire to pull the spotlight away from where it rightfully must be. In fact, he is far prouder to be the grandfather of Elena (and of Esteban and Isabel as well) than he would hypothetically be as the protagonist of his own story.

(Esteban meanwhile exudes "main character energy" and I mean that in both the complimentary and derogatory sense. In his mind, he is on a show titled "Chancellor Esteban of Avalor and His 41-Year-Old Guilt Complex That Not Even Tres Leches Cake Can Heal." But like if I had four decades of trauma to process and no one else seemed to notice, I would probably feel uncomfortable when we are not about me as well. And fittingly, his black-and-gold outfit is much more attention-grabbing than Francisco's, but much more on that later).

Two big parts of what leads to the "fairy tale hero" look in Francisco's outfit (and also to his "default" blue version) are: 1) the two medals pinned to his chest and 2) the epaulettes at the shoulder (I believe this is still the correct term even if they lack the tassels we normally associate w/the term, but like fashion historians can feel free to correct me).

Either epaulettes or medals of honor --or both-- are often seen on characters of his type. (Pick any Disney prince and you have a 50% chance of seeing one of these. Heck, King Roland's main outfit in SoA has both as well). A large part of what leads us to associate these particular sartorial touches as "hero-coded" are their association as part of typical military dress uniforms throughout history. (And yes, I recognize the problematic nature of such a trope, but just bear with me and accept it for now).

By including these as part of Francisco's costume (and its original blue equivalent), the animators are implying that he has a long, proud of history of serving his country and that at least some of this service came as a soldier and/or commander on the battlefield. And that he won honor--military and practical alike--in doing so.

Esteban's ensemble, obviously lacks the military touches (the epaulettes and medals) of his grandfather's. Because for all that he too served Avalor for decades, his service was of the bureaucratic rather than the military variety. (Shuriki obviously won't let Esteban wear a sword with his uniform--even he wanted to. Hardly surprising considering the whole "I killed your aunt and uncle. Doesn't that make you want to go apeshit?" thing they've got going.) But I digress.

The arms (esp the shoulders) and trousers of Esteban's ensemble are also much more form-fitted than Francisco's,as befitting a younger, more athletic man who wants to better show off his physique. (The real "secret of Avalor" is how Esteban singlehandedly managed a country for 41 years and somehow did so without skipping "Leg Day"--am I right, folks?")

Compared to Francisco's much plainer jacket, the design of Esteban's coat is also more ornate (the leaf accents are larger and more detailed) and colorful with the red collar, cuffs, and lining. This makes sense given that Esteban is established as much vainer and more flamboyant than his grandfather and that he has as mentioned, a much stronger need to grab attention.

However, the elaborateness of Esteban's jacket makes even more sense we consider it in the context of his role in Shuriki's court. He is a skilled diplomat, yes, and a capable administrator. But like every courtier, his primary function is to be ornamental first and everything else second. His looks, his charm, his attentions are expected to always be in service to the Queen first and foremost--not even in service to his duty or his country but specifically to the Queen herself. Certainly not (!) in service to his own will. (And damn, that must sting extra hard for someone who has only ever wanted to be seen and listened to and valued for himself.)

As such, Esteban is treated as an extension of the Queen--yet another pretty-if-powerful tool in her Almighty hands and fundamentally little different from her pretty crystal wand.

And yet, we see little tiny little hints in Esteban's SoA costume that he remains more than just Shuriki's shiny little Avaloran ornament. Let's go back to the red accents--shall we? Obviously, the show as a whole establishes red as Esteban's "signature color"--an honor he shares with Elena (and Mateo..but like he's less relevant tbh). Moreover, red, along with yellow/gold (and blue but again less relevant here), is one of the official colors of Avalor. Indeed the jaquins on the royal flag are red against a gold backdrop. So we can see an subtle wardrobe-related foreshadowing of where Esteban's loyalties truly lie and of the decision that he will make at the end of the episode.

And finally, as the artists among you will attest, red's complementary opposite on the color wheel is green. As in Shuriki's signature color, and this is reflected in nearly everything about her--from her eyes and eyeshadow to her dress and earrings to her green magical smoke, to her Emerald City-core dressing room to the teal background on her little silhouetted flag redesign. And complementary colors are often paired together so that the unique, striking shade of each is shown off to its full potential--and such is the case here. (Often, the effect is even achieved by using the "opposite" color as a key part of adding "shading" to the object).

A string of red lights wrapped around a Christmas tree may be overshadowed at first by the massive green boughs that it is entangled around. But nevertheless, it is because of the contrasting green that we are fully able to grasp just how bright and red those lights are able to glisten in the light. And so it is with Esteban's red collar shining forth like a beacon through Shuriki's haze of green smoke.

But when it comes down to it, red is still green's perfect, natural opposite. Red is a primary color, a true chromatic original unlike the artificially-created secondary shade of green. Moreover, red is Avalor, red is Esteban. The little dab of invading, interloping Shuriki green that has been added to the red paint only serves to heighten its fiery, crimson hue all the more.

[batsplat]

Batsplat, I am not into tennis exactly but this year I have been exposed to a lot of Tennis meta, per se. I love reading through your tennis posts they reveal such a rich human side to a sport, esp the agassi sampras post. Wanted to ask, if you have read Infinite Jest and what you think of it. Additionally, do you see any parallels between motorcycle racing and tennis? Fundamentally different sports, but still crazy in their unique ways. Keep posting, many hugs!!

hugs back to you anon, really am very pleased that post has struck a chord... going to put a pin in the infinite jest half of the ask because I recently got another ask about that book and want to organise my thoughts a bit more. tldr I have a lot of fondness for the thing. I actually reckon being invested in tennis is a bit of a cheat code where that book is concerned, like it kind of gives you something to immediately latch onto... dfw has a reputation for being the writer about tennis - and he does capture something of the soul of the sport, both in IJ and in his essays. in IJ, he makes it feel claustrophobic and inescapable, like a curse of the blood. as it should be. there are many descriptions of the sport itself I love, ways it is integrated into the narrative, the meanings that are extracted from it... I'm not sure there's a concise way to talk about IJ and if anything that feels like it'd be against the spirit of the book, so for now I'll leave you with this: dfw knew ball, but his taste in tennis left much to be desired. religious experience my ass

anyhow, let's transition to the other half of the ask with an IJ quote chosen completely at random

'We're all on each other's food chain. All of us. It's an individual sport. Welcome to the meaning of individual. We're each deeply alone here. It's what we all have in common, this aloneness.’

on tennis and motorcycle racing - I think I do have a bit of a problem in answering this question in that those disciplines are the only two individual sports I have followed closely for a long period. (I suppose f1 is edging itself into that conversation, but that at least is relatively closely related to motogp.) so there is a bit of a 'getting a lot of boss baby vibes' issue here in that... things I feel are similar between the two of them might be equally present in croquet or skimboarding. but, well, I can only talk about what I know. I think they can both be quite lonely sports, though tennis is lonelier. motogp can be circumstantially lonely, tennis is so in its soul. this is because competing in a tennis match is such a fundamentally lonely experience in a way I'm not sure any other sport replicates. motogp is loud - tennis is defined by its silences. motogp is defined by its action while tennis lives and breathes in the negative space. the connection between ball and racquet is infinitesimally brief... the time between points stretches out as a void. a tennis match is a thing of many rhythms, superficially reliable, yet the experience of living through a match eats away at your perception of time. the match is provided structures by its units, wherein each can feel like it lasts a split second or a decade. motogp is fierce and noisy and full of life. tennis is empty

I think you can probably draw numerous fairly trite parallels between the two - the emphasis on one-vs-one duels, for instance, albeit a non-negotiable element of tennis in a way it isn't for motogp. different virtues and tropes represented by different athletes... offensive, defensive, the wild talent, the cunning mastermind, the tenacious and the feeble and the limited and the all-rounder - archetypes of a sort that recur even when the exact way they express their archetypal nature varies between sports. perhaps even a fanbase that neurotically oscillates between yearning for drama and hounding almost anyone who supplies it. there's some ways in which I have to follow the two sports completely differently... for instance, I am far more sensitive to injuries in tennis and tend to get peeved when anyone competes with injury - one of my least favourite things about federer (amongst some sturdy competition) was how big a virtue he made of never having retired from a match, and how it influenced the generations to come. I mostly stand by the same principle when it comes to motogp, but it does force you to readjust your idea of what kind of an injury is acceptable to compete with. (obviously to some extent this is just practicality - I'm sure plenty of tennis players would love to try and compete with broken ankles, but that sort of thing just physically isn't possible in tennis.) motogp is considerably less stressful to follow because of how concentrated it is. there's nothing quite like the death by a thousand cuts that experiencing a drawn-out defeat in tennis inflicts on you

but none of that is particularly interesting or insightful. I actually think following tennis has given me a pretty good grasp of sports psychology because, not to brag, tennis is kind of the sport for understanding derangement. I'm not talking in terms of pure drama - unfortunately, motogp is miles ahead of us on that front. but in terms of actually understanding the intricacies of how competition fucks with the brain... motogp is so macro, races are building blocks of entire seasons, your results in march help determine your standings in november. it's also a lot more mysterious - I can't read as much into motogp results as I can into tennis, not just because of my personal level of expertise but also for the simple fact that there are far more hidden performance variables in motogp, mainly related to machinery. when I talk about how 'clutch' a player is in tennis, I can show you actual numbers to describe what I'm talking about that I can pull up for any player (unlike for instance stats relating solely to title contenders) and have a pretty big sample size and can be used to meaningfully draw conclusions. a big reason why tennis is considered the mental torture sport is because of its unambiguously deeply fucked up scoring system, making use of the units of 'point' and 'game' and 'set' within a single match to ensure that all your effort can be repeatedly rendered meaningless in numerous ways. what this does help us with in analysis terms is that not every point is 'equal' - they might be in literal terms, but the stakes vary drastically. which affects the amount of pressure you are under and what type of pressure it is. to use a very basic example, one measure of 'clutch' performance might be how a player competes in tiebreaks, given that they are inherently higher pressure situations where you can compare those points to the baseline of all the other points. tennis and motogp (+ motorsports more broadly) are kind of on the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of how many raw numbers like that you will have at your disposal - with plenty of other ball sports like basketball or football or baseball slotting in somewhere in the middle

and what this DOES help you with is that if you are a proper student of tennis... y'know. you'll probably have a slightly more refined understanding of how mentality in sports works. more than just sorting every athlete into two categories of 'mentally strong' and 'choker', which is how a lot of discussion can read. even on platforms theoretically interested in serious sports analysis. how pressure affects competitors... so many motorsport discussions feel oddly naive to the basic concept that competitors may handle pressure completely differently if they are ahead or if they are behind. sometimes you hear motorsports reporting treat mentality as completely irrelevant, outright say that people should stop focusing on psychological factors... which is just not the kind of thinking you get away with in tennis

that being said, the real lesson tennis can teach you is if anything the very opposite: often, performing better under pressure is only very loosely correlated to mental strength. this is a bit of a bugbear of mine so if I've posted this before my apologies, I always have a version of this rant in my brain and genuinely cannot recall if I've put it on here before but... look. say you have two tennis players in a match. say each player is winning roughly 50% of the points, both players managing to drive up their side of the scoreboard. but say that one player, player A has to take a lot more risk to do so - and is aiming for about half a metre inside the baseline in every point. say the other one, player B, can aim for a way more comfortable metre inside the baseline. now say you get to a pressure situation, a tiebreak. tension rises, the muscles get tight, it's harder to swing through the ball... let's say that both of them are suddenly more likely to misfire - and that in every third shot, they will miss their target by over half a metre. even if the pressure has the exact same effect on both of them, player A will end up making more mistakes than player B - and they will be doing so disproportionately in the tiebreak, a high pressure situation. which means that on paper, they are less clutch than player B, even though in reality they have both been affected to the same extent by the pressure of the situation. one simply was always operating with a bigger margin of error, which suddenly became more noticeable in the pressure situation

this is obviously an extremely simplified understanding of tennis and it's never going to be as straightforward as that. the point however is that a lot of what people think is mentality ends up being down to technique. good technique isn't just effective - it's repeatable. it's all about optimisation, right... it's even the little things, like how much your technique asks you to use *force* - there are different muscle movements that are going to be affected in different ways by stress. if your motion always looks the same, then it's more likely you'll be able to repeat it under pressure - if you tend to hit the ball wildly differently each time, then however well you are doing it, quite likely that's going to be tougher to do under pressure. good technique is replicable even under pressure, but having good technique is obviously in itself not reflective of mental strength. in tennis, it is critical how much margin of error players have - both in terms of where they literally aim in shots, and in terms of how much a small deficit in absolute performance will spell relative catastrophe

and again. all of this is extremely basic. but it does feel like... how do I put this diplomatically. sometimes it doesn't feel like everyone's on the same page even with this basic stuff. because at the end of the day, it's going to roughly be the same situation in motogp, right? champions are seen as particularly clutch versus competitors who aren't champions... and sure, there probably is an element of mental strength to becoming a champion (though often that will also be in terms of macro career arcs, key choices and so on, not just performance in the moment) but it's not going to be that simple... because better riders are operating with a bigger margin of error. if you assume that every crash in every pressure situation is a uniform case of choking, then, y'know, this is bad analysis. fans are entitled to their bad analysis, but that doesn't make it any less bad. there is a tendency to just assume that the best athletes are the mentally strongest, rather than just blessed with a wider window of performance, and it can be. slightly galling. icl this a bit of a theme in a lot of the stuff I write, if you know to look for it lol (e.g. here)

reading the passage back it's... well. a bit funny. any tennis fan familiar with my history as a tennis fan will immediately recognise what match traumatised me so thoroughly I still see its shadow everywhere I look. sports, don't you love it

obviously there are more contemporary examples you could pick up on, but this is incidentally something that slightly ticks me off when people discuss valentino's rivals. like, with all love to casey, it is a lot easier to be 'mentally strong' and 'not broken' and bounce back from psychological torture when you have enough talent in your index finger to disrupt the orbit of a small moon. no shit he had better chances of rebuilding his confidence than some of his precursors. the game's rigged! always has been

none of this is to say that mentality doesn't matter in sports, which would be a bizarre stance for me to take. if player A and B had the exact same margin of error in their shots, one of them would still play that tiebreak better - and that's the clutch factor. it's just often harder to tease out than you might think, even in a sport with so many numbers at the tips of your fingers. sometimes you're just not going to be able to tell from the outside at all. that's the loneliness, right - constantly observed, but fundamentally unknowable. and of course, there's far more to get into here... given that tennis does demand more engagement from the outset in matters of psychology. it is a sport that is all about interaction, where every choice you make preempts the choices you believe your opponent is about to make - it's all psychology, all the time. motogp brings the macro dramatics in its rivalries (or, well, one guy did anyway), but tennis provides far more tools to understand said dramatics... it cannot help you understand motorcycle racing, but it can help you understand its psychology. but I think I'll leave it there lol. idk if these are really the parallels this ask was looking for, it's just really how I think about the two. obviously I'm biased in that I think tennis is the most important sport in existence, just like mr wallace. every bit of motogp analysis I write is inevitably shaped by my experiences with tennis, which probably also limits me in some ways. but, y'know. it is what it is. it should also be said that most tennis fans don't understand shit about sports psychology either. we persevere

anyway. yeah. for the parallels between the two. main takeaway - like I said, the game's rigged. always has been

incidentally, here's a passage of IJ I was thinking about recently

Bodies bodies everywhere. A tennis ball is the ultimate body, kid. We're coming to the crux of what I have to try to impart to you before we get out there and start actuating this fearsome potential of yours. Jim, a tennis ball is the ultimate body. Perfectly round. Even distribution of mass. But empty inside, utterly, a vacuum. Susceptible to whim, spin, to force — used well or poorly. It will reflect your own character. Characterless itself. Pure potential. Have a look at a ball. Get a ball from the cheap green plastic laundry basket of old used balls I keep there by the propane torches and use to practice the occasional serve, Jimbo. Attaboy. Now look at the ball. Heft it. Feel the weight. Here, I'll… tear the ball. . . open. Whew. See? Nothing in there but evacuated air that smells like a kind of rubber hell. Empty. Pure potential. Notice I tore it open along the seam. It's a body. You'll learn to treat it with consideration, son, some might say a kind of love, and it will open for you, do your bidding, be at your beck and soft lover's call. The thing truly great players with hale bodies who overshadow all others have is a way with the ball that's called, and keep in mind the garage door and broiler, touch. Touch the ball. Now that's … that's the touch of a player right there.

cutting it off there... obviously dfw being dfw, this paragraph continues another dozen odd pages. (I say this with fondness; unsurprisingly the parts of the book about jim and his father are some of my absolute favourite.) maybe you can guess why I was thinking about it... motogp worships its machinery - tennis has no such affection for the tools of its trade. even when we philosophise the body of the ball, all we can truly access is its emptiness. a ball is like a body because it is empty... that's the illness of a mind touched by tennis right there

[glitter-stained]

comments sections are bleh let me invade your inbox hello

ON HANAHAKI AU. and also in conjuction (is that the right word? i do not care about google i trust my brain!!) with the notif i got of you liking one of my art pieces. the original context of hanahaki has always felt Weird to me bcs its like ? giving people an obligation to reciprocatw your feelings. INSTEAD i subscribe to the idea of it being about extreme lack of communication and repression that results in a physical overflow—in this case still flowers suffocating u bcs cool aestheticw qnd also they carry this fucked up vibe to them idk man

ANYWAY i just think its SUPER fitting for jason in his familial relationships (ESP bruce) and i think each time he dies its just building more and more. like concealing this thing over and over again, not letting himself process what hes dealing with and express that hes desperate for validation and love + yk. all that trauma that people like to pretend has been resolved ...

not to mention. jason is a canonically suicidal character, at least passively, so the amount of value he puts on resolving the issue and curing himself is.. Lacking

i have no idea if any of that made sense i dont think my meds have kicked in yet and my brain is SCREAMING. Sorry for my godawful typing

Okay so

First of all I usually like Hanahaki BECAUSE you cannot make yourself love someone. So in general I like classic hanahaki because you get one of two situations:

1. Soft hurt/comfort where the person's self-esteem and past trauma stops them from realising the others actually love them back (I'm a soft bitch and will enjoy any variation of this trope)

OR

2. Tragedy when they try their best to make themselves love the sick person the way they need to, they love them but not in the way they need, and in the end it feels like their love is not enough no matter how much they love and they have to watch their loved one die because of it. Do you understand the tragedy it's so good!!!

So usually I like trad!hanahaki

However

I'm not kidding when I made the Jason hanahaki before seeing your ask i was already like wait but for jason what if it's not about feeling unloved. What if the very act of loving someone whose love will never satisfy you, not because of its nature but because you have such a different understanding of love and what it implies, is what hurts you. What if the reason you're sick is because you love someone who keeps hurting you, and you hate that you love them, and you can't help that you love them and you can't help that you hate that you love them, and this is what kills you.

And even death does not stop the love, just like the love can't stop itself from killing you.

So that's the OG thought for the AU

Honestly I really like your take on that, the relentlessness and desperation, and the suicidality -I can see him being so tired of the pain and at first wanting them to see and then realising they're not seeing it and getting used to it, getting comfortable in that cycle of pain and just waiting for the day it finally takes, until he has to actively conceal it because he's grown so used to his own personal garden of doom that someone finding out, and the emotional vulnerability that comes with it, is scarier than this.

Also loved your art because the version of Hanahaki death i like most is when the body horror is hardcore. Like, sure, die choking on flowers maybe but I need a whole rosier to sprout out of the ribcage, alien-style. And I think after Jason wakes up from his death, the plant is just there. I think he has a whole safehouse where he keeps his plants. He calls it the Greenhouse. It's beautiful, and the petals are bloodstained.

[wordsandrobots]

So today's random half-awake-on-a-Sunday-morning question is: is Allenby Beardsley the only cyber-newtype archetype in Gundam to be alive and thriving at the end of the series?

Sounds like it's time for another list!

By 'cyber-newtype', I mean a character who is the product of a deliberate attempt to create an augmented, ESP-equipped super-soldier, usually via highly unethical experiments, with the result displaying an unstable, often child-like personality. This archetype was established in Zeta Gundam (following the events of the original Gundam anime as the result of an attempt to mass produce psychic 'newtype' humans for military purposes) and has popped up in various guises across the franchise since. Just on the basis of the original iteration, I'm going to say that the mental instability is an important distinguishing feature of the trope, even if it does not automatically follow from the concept of an augmented human. I will however allow that that instability doesn't have to directly result from the augmentation itself to fulfil the archetype's parameters.

All right then, let's enumerate. Spoilers, of course, ahead.

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam

Four Murasame -- the original cyber-newtype. Killed in action (fuck you, Jerid)

Rosamia Badam -- Killed in action

Gates Capa -- oh yeah, this guy . . . exists. Probably dead

Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ

Chara Soon -- killed in action, went out like a boss

Mashymre Cello -- died as he lived: exploding for the sake of his queen, who did not bat an eyelid

[Gundam Wiki lists Elpeo Ple on their cyber-newtype page but isn't she meant to be a natural newtype? I'm not counting her here]

Ple Two -- expired making a last-ditch effort to locate and rescue the series protagonist in what feels like a very contrived reason to just have her drop dead for the sake of tying up loose ends no I'm not bitter at all why do you ask?

An uncomfortably large number of additional Ple clones -- killed in action (fuck you, Glemy)

Char's Counterattack

Gyunei Guss -- oh, so very dead. You would not believe. Seriously, nobody try to get in the middle of the Char/Amuro/Lallah tangle, it's just not safe

Mobile Suit Gundam F91

Iron Mask -- killed in action

I have not seen Victory Gundam

Mobile Fighter G Gundam

Allenby Beardsley -- alive and well, and free of the effects of the Berserker system

For the purposes of this list, we could theoretically count Schwarz Bruder (robot edition) since he's technically an augmented clone, of sorts, but he doesn't really display any mental confusion per se. Anyway, he's dead

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

Here's where things get interesting. Does Heero Yuy count as a cyber newtype? He is, after all, an augmented human being, the result of hideously unethical experiments, who is severely traumatised as a result. He's definitely not positioned the same as the previous cyber-newtypes (Wing doesn't really hit that beat in its plot), but . . . yeah, he does kind of fit the concept. The only major difference is the lack of ESP, which we might even argue the Zero System briefly provides (as it does to the rest of the main six pilots). Furthermore, his character arc is one of learning to regain his humanity and pull himself out of the destructive military scaffold that has consumed his life -- very much in keeping with themes that swirl around cyber-newtypes in general. So yeah. If we were to count him, he is also a case of such an archetype finding a happy ending (of sorts).

After War Gundam X

Carris Nautilus -- alive and well! Well . . . possibly. He's presented as being perfectly content but I don't think we ever got a cure for his Synapse Syndrome. Hopefully not having to pilot any more will help reduce the bouts of agonising pain

Turn A Gundam

Corin Nander -- is I think the closest we get in Turn A to a cyber-newtype of any description? He's definitely got the instability down, being one of the more extreme examples. Killed in action

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED

Technically, we could count all the Coordinators as being a form of cyber-newtype, since they are quite literally an engineered super-race. However, they largely don't posses the ESP factor for this setting and are treated more or less as just normal people most of the time. This said . . .

Oh boy. Yeah, I think I can say for certain that Kira Yamato counts. Our boy is super-duper augmented as all heck (even by the standards of the Coordinators) and has the emotional stability of an extremely not very emotionally stable person. I haven't seen Gundam SEED Freedom yet, but I assume he's still alive and kicking? Probably going to need more rounds of therapy though.

Conversely, Rau Le Creuset does not count. He's a clone and, politely, batshit, but he's not augmented. He comes by being that much of a problem honestly!

Orga Sabnak, Shani Andras and Clotho Buer -- your actual augmented soldiers. Dead as doornails, in another example of SEED speed-running Universal Century tropes

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny

Stella Loussier -- THE example of the cyber-newtype archetype being reiterated in a non-UC timeline, in that she is basically Four, again, but even more mentally unstable. Killed in action, tragically, because of course

Auel Neider -- killed in action

Sting Oakley -- killed in action, and may I just say that GundamWiki phrasing these as 'killed by such and such's Gundam' is some masterful passive voice

Again, Rey Za Burrel does not count, for the exact same reasons as Rau (duh)

Mobile Suit Gundam 00

Where the heck do we even start with this one? OK, so if Innovades are artificial versions of the 'true' next-stage-of-evolution people, the Innovators, and we factor in that 'mentally unstable' can cover a remarkably wide variety of states and the Innovades are a roulette wheel of such conditions, then:

Tieria Erde -- digitised but otherwise fine

Ribbons Almark -- killed in action (satisfyingly)

Bring Stabity -- killed in action

Devine Nova -- killed in action

Hiling Care -- killed in action

Revive Revival -- killed in action

Anew Returner -- killed in action (tragically; fuck you, Ribbons)

Regene Regetta -- digitised but otherwise fine

Sky Eclipse -- wait, he's not just a Ribbons iteration? Huh. Anyway, murdered, recreated as a walking statue, destroyed

AND THEN we have the non-innovade cyber-newtype analogues, the super-soldiers and otherwise modified human beings:

Allelujah Haptism -- alive and well

Marie Parfacy -- alive and well

Johann Trinity -- killed in action/murdered

Michael Trinity -- murdered

Nena Trinity -- killed in action

Louise Halevy -- alive and well

Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn

Marida Cruz -- killed in action; Ple clones cannot catch a break

Full Frontal -- transubstantiated, and good riddance

Mobile Suit Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans

By a strict technological definition, a solid fifty percent of the cast are essentially cyber-newtypes. However, I think only Ein Dalton actually fits the archetype; killed in action

Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative

Zoltan Akkanen -- killed in apotheosis

Mobile Suit Gundam The Witch From Mercury

I think we have to count Suletta Mercury herself for this. She really does hit a lot of the cyber-newtype personality traits, in that there is a line to be drawn from Four and the Ples to how she is characterised. Alive and well, albeit with reduced mobility

Sophie Pulone -- killed in action

Norea Du Noc -- killed in action/death by cop

Elan Ceres (Enhanced Person Number 4) -- digitised, but in a way that means he's functionally dead

Elan Ceres (Enhanced Person Number 5) -- alive, begrudgingly

Right. Stopping there because while I know there are a bunch of other cyber-newtypes in various non-mainline spin-offs, cataloguing the 00 manga alone would take more effort than I'm inclined to put into this. Anything not covered here doesn't have an equivalent to a cyber-newtype that I recall (Raraiya Akuparl from Regonuista in G fulfils some of the tropes, for a while, but is not augmented; the non-Unicorn UC OVAs don't feature cyber-newtypes [Dayrl is augmented with cybernetics but his newtype abilities are natural], etc), or doesn't meet the criteria for my purposes (Eri in G-Witch, for example, seems perfectly well-adjusted for a girl who lives entirely in cyberspace).

Counting the Ple clones in ZZ as a single instance and discounting Schwartz as a borderline case, that gives us 45 cyber-newtype archetype examples across the main franchise, 11 of whom are alive and nominally well at the end of their respective series. So a 24% survival rate, which is honestly a lot higher than I would have expected. How about that?

(Glancing across the wiki, I see SEED Freedom gives us one more alive and well augmented person and seven dead augmented people, but having not see it yet, I can't judge if they fall into the archetype I'm describing. I would assume, given who the survivor is, the answer is that they do not qualify for the 'unstable' criteria.)

[bunnysnared]

i need to know what kind of people your oc likes/dislikes/is intimidated or scared by

how would he react to gruesome scars or prosthetics? is he the type to cringe? stare? make an active effort not to look? brush it off?

what are his hobbies/interests?

how is he with people who are blunt to the point of appearing rude? is he the type to get ofended?

how is he with being picked up? is he the type to flail around or hang limp?

how is he with people who are just a little too passionate about what they do?

sorry for all the questions he's just so cute i want to put him in a box with blankets and plushies

[omg im SO sorry for the late reply to this! forgive meeee! ( ꩜ ᯅ ꩜;) AND FOR THE LONG REPLY! ]

+fledge is weary of authority and is often bratty or grumpy in the face of his commanding officers, yet also secretly he craves validation from the people in positions of power above him. [see also: he has daddy issues a lil lol] so i would say he is not easily intimidated by or scared of people. he is rather apathetic. and he doesnt speak unless spoken to often esp while working. +likes: assholes and jerks, or people w cold affects who are mean to him HAHAH. dislikes: loud people, funny-guy comedian types, really intensely friendly/fast to warm. he gets spooked by ppl trying to get too close too fast.

imma stick the rest under hereeee (人❛ᴗ❛)♡

+he is really the type to keep people at arms length. he's covered head to toe really often, most people have never even seen his hair bare outside of his taskforce who is around him the most/sees him change and stuff most often. he almost has this identity-porn trope where he could walk around bare faced and people would not recognize him as "fledge" LOL

+he would not react at all to gruesome scars. i think he would just take it at face value. with visible prosthetics he may stare a bit in interest but never judgement. once he's figured it out/satisfied w seeing he would not stare much ever again

+his main hobby is playing video games. he was pressured [ie forced] to join the army by his colonel father. if he had his way he would be a twitch streamer who streams fps games lol but besides gaming [as he doesnt get the chance to do it much] he draws in a journal and bird watches. he has an extensive knowledge of bird and draws the ones he sees when he can, and annotates about them.. its how he got his callsign, actually. his lt observed him doing this and called him a little fledgeling :,]

+he likes rude people and gets on well w them bc hes a lil rude and mouthy himself HAHA he's impossible to offend as well bc he has no self esteem. if u insult him hes just like nae yer right

+being picked up it depends on how close you are with him. a stranger he would absolutely freak out [he does not like being touched by people he doesnt like, but once he knows you he doesnt mind as much]. i think either way hes the type to flail and smack his fist on ur back and squirm, but in the first scenario its in an earnest effort to be unhanded. in the second, half-hearted/playful

+i think he'd be annoyed, but it depends on what the person is passionate about. he's pretty disaffected with the military so he rolls his eyes about things like that. but he may be privately silently endeared to someone who was passionate abt smth harmless/niche. and in the scenario the passion is being good at shooting people/hurting people [lol, special ops after all] he would look up to them privately

thank u so much for asking! i love any excuse to blab about my son!!!!!! if you read all that, bless your heart. youre a real FledgeHead ♡

[messrsrarchives]

Thoughts on jily?

okay i spoke about this a bit on tt today, below the cut (tw: opinions)

i,,, i'm not a fan.

LIKE I AM !!! i like jily i just,,, i'm too picky and i dislike a lot of it. like canonically he showed off in front of lily yeah, but i HATE the general consensus of him asking her out SO much for YEARS until she says yes. i just hate that trope. i don't find it cute i find it creepy.

i need them to be more complex !!! because they have complexity !!!

i need lily to have complex morals - i need it to be in depth about the fact that, yes, she ends up on the light side and she is fundamentally a good person, but she was friends with snape even when he started going down the wrong path, because she loved him. because he was her first friend. very much a "he hasn't done anything to me" mentality (esp considered she drops him after the slur is said).

i need her complex home life !!! i need to see how difficult it is growing up with people who dont understand you and are scared of the fact they dont. i need her and petunia. i need the angst that comes with being a freak to your family and the ONE person you've met who gets it, who lives in your town and teaches you about your world, joins a CULT AGAINST YOU!?

i need more than "but hes a popular jock and i'm a nerd". i need more than "huh maybe he isn't so bad" - i need them to have tough conversations !!! i need lily to call james out for how he treated her best friend (because yes hes a shithead but SHE didnt think so for so long, and we know how powerful lilys love is, it ended the war) and i need james to call her out for it !! (it's either choices or just lovers, i'm 99% sure its JL, that has a scene where james calls her out and is like "he might not have done anything to you but hes still awful" and i was like YES!!! THIS IS WHAT I WANT!!!)

and so much more but these are the main things.

i tend to read background jily because it's less developed and im okay with that!!! they're meant to be because it's background, but i rarely read jily centric because i just dislike how it's portrayed

although tbf, i don't often go looking for jily fics that that reason and i got some recs in the comments of that tiktok so i'll be reading some of those this month !!!

TO SUMMARISE: i love their potential and i think they could be so cute. i love them in theory but in practice i'm still very hesitant and prefer the complexity that i see in other ships

ask game

[sepublic]

The Grapple Beam's in-universe chronology is interesting to me; It was first introduced in Super Metroid as the precursor to the Space Jump. Then we got Metroid Prime, which is modeled after Super, and has the Grapple Beam. Prime takes place before Super, hence Space Pirates having Metroids in their possession; And that's worth noting is that the Grapple Beam isn't something Samus first finds on Tallon IV. No, it's something she already has when she begins the game, and then regains while exploring the planet.

Meaning before Prime, she must've gotten the Grapple Beam; But the only game before that is Zero Mission, where it's completely absent. And that raises an interesting question, a story possibility regarding the circumstances in which Samus acquired the Grapple Beam before responding to the Frigate Orpheon's distress call. In a Metroid show, this would have to be explored/acknowledged.

In particular, I have to consider how Samus gains abilities within this hypothetical Metroid pitch; My idea is to avoid the 'Samus loses all her abilities and has to regain them' bit as much as I can. It makes sense from a gameplay perspective, but from a storytelling one, we can afford to play fast and loose here.

With Fusion, it makes perfect sense to retain the loss of her abilities; The story itself, the tone, is centered around Samus being set back to square one, being outpaced by the SA-X which still has her abilities, all that stuff. So for the Fusion arc it's mandatory, and makes sense with Samus having chunks of her Power Suit containing those upgrades removed, before they're mutated into the aforementioned SA-X.

Samus Returns won't have this; It's not relevant, it's not needed, it's never even addressed or explained. She's just at square one from the start. Other M, for its infamy, DID at least try to address the repetition with the 'authorization' bit, which was its way of approaching that gameplay trope from a different angle; A horrible angle, but I think that Doylist consideration is definitely necessary. Not that it justifies certain scenes revolving around the authorization issue, but alas...

Prime is an interesting case, since it marks the first moment in the timeline where Samus loses her abilities, and it's a hilariously mundane moment too; She hits a wall because of an explosion and it just resets her entire Power Suit. For a show, that won't happen... Losing her abilities, at least.

I do want to pay homage to that trope by trying to mix things up a bit, esp since we're approaching this from a storytelling and not a gameplay perspective now. So instead of losing her abilities, Samus' suit retains every feature but has difficulty trying to select the correct upgrade. So for example, Samus might try to use the Ice Beam, only to hit something with the Grapple Beam instead; Similarly, she might go for a Morph Ball bomb, only to use a Power Bomb instead.

There's opportunity for humor, and it's like Samus losing her abilities, but still different; This is resolved when on Tallon IV, Samus finds some leftover Chozo tech she uses to repair her Power Suit's nervous system, meaning when she means to use X upgrade, she uses X upgrade. But there's a good chance I'll just leave this bit out, or save it for another arc.

Likewise, I'm taking into account the abilities' chronology here; With Fusion being the exception, the first time Samus encounters an ability within the games' chronology is the first time she encounters it within the show. So Samus gets the Speed Booster during the Zero Mission arc, even if it technically debuted in Super Metroid. She doesn't get another Speed Booster until Fusion, where she defeats Serris-X and absorbs its Core-X. Samus doesn't get the X-ray visor in Zero Mission, because its first chronological appearance is in Prime.

I think there's storytelling potential to seeing Samus discover and use each upgrade; It could be a way to mix up her adventures within an arc by seeing how Samus adjusts to and makes use of this ability in creative ways. So when she gets her first upgrade, the Morph Ball, we see how Samus exploits it a lot. Individual upgrades for Samus act like story beats, and introduce new action sequences with them; Individual episodes can partially revolve around Samus acquiring a certain upgrade.

Of course, this means that when Samus starts off in the first season of the show, all she has is the power beam and that's it. That is... until we remember the Prime games, as well as Mercury Steam's own addition.

Things like the Scan Visor and Melee Counter are always with Samus, no matter what; They're as integral to her as the power beam, and are never shown being acquired. And a Metroid show, I feel, should smooth the differences between the 2D and Prime games, and make both worlds and their aesthetics and mechanics feel fully-integrated from the start.

So consider, the Mimicuria from the manga; It attacks Chairman Keaton prior to Samus' Zero Mission, but she defeats it anyway. Keep in mind she's already a famous bounty hunter, despite not having access to any of her upgrades... But at the same time, Samus is still a skilled warrior, she wears a durable Power Suit with Energy Tanks to protect her; Her arm cannon has infinite ammo, and as mentioned before, she has the Scan Visor.

The Mimicuria is a dangerous bioweapon, but Samus uses her Scan Visor to lay out its anatomy to the audience; The Scan Visor has storytelling potential to highlight the monster of the week, kind of like how in Pokemon or other shows, there's cutaways providing lore on certain tidbits. When Samus scans a creature, things stop to show a diagram as the suit explains to Samus/the audience everything to know.

It singles in on the Mimicuria's weak points, guiding Samus on attacking them. So in addition to her skills and the base Power Suit still being pretty advanced by Federation standards, the Scan Visor is a powerful asset as well; The suit has an extensive database, and they say knowing is half the battle. It helps Samus immediately dissect enemies and figure out solutions, and analyze the environment around her in order to use it.

Pyonchi might raise suspicions towards the disguised Mimicuria, but Samus' Scan Visor could be used to confirm Pyonchi's bad vibes; It being Chozo tech might make it a lot more efficient than most scanners within the setting. Again, this adds to the important distinction that Samus isn't just a badass because of her tools, but because she's smart and knowledgable and creative, making good use of everything; Someone else in her place would easily blunder.

When the Mimicuria lunges, Samus' shots not only injure it, but divert its attacking limbs, the force halting jabs in place. And here we see the physicality to Samus, emphasized by Mercury Steam; She's able to wrangle the monster, and on its last legs, it gets frustrated and reckless, leaving itself wide open as Samus baits it, grounding her feet. It lunges, making a clicking noise identical to the melee counter cues in the Mercury Steam games; Otherwise, such a sound effect is going to be absent for the rest of the show's enemies, because it makes little sense from an in-universe perspective.

Samus melee counters the Mimicuria, which just like in the games, leads to a cinematic, and creates an opening for Samus to shoot the Mimicuria in a vulnerable spot, finishing the creature off. But per her professionalism, she still keeps shooting at it, charring its body to a crisp, just to be safe; It's a bioweapon, it was engineered to carry out a mission. Who knows just how much damage this thing could be programmed to survive? The Federation does not want a horror movie moment where the villain gets up anyway after 'dying'.

As I discuss the Mimicuria scene, a part of me wonders if I should just include the Grapple Beam as part of Samus' arsenal from the very start, to compliment her physicality; The Grapple Beam is one of my favorite upgrades, at least from a fight scene perspective; It has a lot of potential for versatility in how it lets Samus interact with the environment in a more hands-on way, incorporating melee combat and the like to bring things to her, or herself to things, grapple (haha) enemies' limbs and the like, etc.

I think it could make sense, since at the beginning, Samus doesn't have much in terms of technology, so her emphasis would be on her physical combat skills, which the Grapple Beam would compliment. It's much more effective in the show, being able to grapple any object, whereas this is nerfed for obviously gameplay purposes within the games themselves.

I should also address Dread; I definitely want to show off all three phases of the Dread suit in the show, but that can only happen if Samus loses her Varia upgrade. Now it's possible I could just do things differently, have her start off with the standard blue Dread suit... But that does go at odds with the Fusion suit ending with the orange Varia coloration, which then transitions to the orange Dread Varia suit. The explanation could be that the musculature that grows over is blue, before becoming orange...

But there's also the 'Physical Amnesia' thing that Raven Beak makes up. For the Zero Mission arc, Samus knows about her various Chozo upgrades before returning to Zebes; The idea is that in their warrior days, the Chozo had a rite of passage where upgrades would be hidden throughout a natural environment, for a young warrior to find and complete their arsenal with; The challenge is in finding these upgrades, while surviving all the hazards of this environment. Like the game designers, the Chozo in charge of this ritual might intend for certain upgrades to only be accessible once another upgrade is acquired; They liked puzzles, even as violent conquerors.

This is what was planned for Samus when she returned from her time with the Federation, but then Mother Brain ruined those plans; But Samus knew what to expect beforehand, she had what was essentially her To-Do list, and was especially banking on the Missiles and Ice Beam to help against the Metroids when she returned. Samus returning to Zebes was her finally getting to complete that coming-of-age she was made to put off for so long.

ZDR is a Chozo planet, and the Mawkin would've still been practicing rituals like this because they were still warriors. So given Dread's plot of Raven Beak attempting to mold Samus into his heir and apprentice, and awaken her Metroid DNA... I can see him removing her upgrades within the show, in order to force Samus to redo that trial all over again, for symbolic and practical purposes; Because she did her Thoha trial, now it's time for Samus to do her Mawkin trial and embrace that aspect of her heritage too.

The Dread arc is about Samus coming to terms with the Chozo's violent past, seeing a different side of them than before; So it makes sense it would also reflect, in a darker way, the scavenger hunt she did in Zero Mission. And while I can't remember if it was explicitly stated, I think there is an implication that the EMMIs' abilities weren't programmed by Exelion; They had Chozo abilities because Raven Beak transferred Samus' upgrades to them, which is why she gets them back after defeating an EMMI.

In other words, it's like how Samus loses her abilities to the Ing, and then has to regain each one individually from a corresponding thief that has made use of it. The difference being that in the Echoes arc, the Ing don't remove Samus' abilities, they just copy them, because I want to avoid doing the lost upgrades bit as much as I can. But as I've said, with Dread there could be thematic relevance to Samus' original rite of passage, and with the EMMI adding to that justification, it might be that Samus loses and recovers her abilities only twice in the show. Although, Fusion and Dread are back-to-back, which means so are these losses; Dread's incident might come across as repetitive regardless.

[nanathott]

im back!!!!

1. mafia

2. sometimes pregnancy

3. corruption

4. love triangle but only when its too obvious (like the mc has to choose between some shitty love interest who treats them bad and a nice love interest)

5. BAD BOYS W TRAGIC PAST, ur bad person bc ur bad person not bc ur mom died when u were 5

6. “everything was a dream” i did not cry my eyes out just to be a fucking dream

7. lowk A/B/O

8. mary sue

9. stalking/yandere shit

10. bad boy/good girl (i can make some exceptions)

11. miscommunication (JUST FUCKING TALK STOP STRESSING ME)

12. pick me girls/boys protagonist (cant stand u)

13. anything dub-con/non-con or incest

14. bully/victim stuff, thats not romantic

almost sure im forgetting something but idk, this is pretty much everything

1) i agree, for the most part this trope is so overdone and exaggerated, i have yet to read a book with the mafia troupe that i love (not ruling it out tho, if i find a book that does it well then W!!

2) anything that ha to do with pregnancy i hate, esp if it’s when the fmc just got to her full potential and has a kid and now she doesn’t do anything but stay at home (absolutly nothing against stay at home mothers, it’s just like… if ur gonna do that troupe with a badass character why not keep her a badass?? why change her character completely??)

3) i sometimes agree, ive read a few good “religious corruption” books where the mc deconstructs her spirituality and it’s usually super heartbreaking and angsty, i like

4) i hate love triangles period

5) REAL ur trauma does not excuse the horrible shit u do to people *cough* any “dark romance” love interest ever *cough*

6) HAHAHAHAHHAHA FUCKING FR

7) yeah, i’m not a huge fan of this either

8) no idea what this is💪

9) YOU GET ME!!! getting stalked is one of my biggest fears, idgaf if the dude wants to burn down the earth for me, he can burn it down with himself on it!!

10) i kinda like this troupe… but sapphics do it better

11) YES. FUCK.

12) like ur insufferable. someone needs to humble u and quick

13) 100%

14) i also agree 100%

[hyukassubi]

Subi's Astoundingly Elaborate Review for 'Yuck!'

Let me tell you right now, it feels so good to be on 2024 moablr after witnessing the literal creation of God. The following is a very extravagant and super long review on the 10-part smau series 'Yuck!' by @https-yeonjun which is primarily meant for the eyes of the author (of course) and other fans of this series (@itzzz-yerin I see you👀).

Notice how I did not mention anything about new readers... BECAUSE THIS POST IS FULL OF SPOILERS, SO SHOO! GET AWAY FROM HERE and read the series here before coming back to this 🫶🫶

Kai and reader's dynamic

The reader is an avoidant girlie, Kai is fully committed gentleman.

You can totally see where this goes (and it is the exact reason why I love it so much). On one hand you have this guy who's... Not really desperate if you think about it. He just genuinely loves this girl but this girlie in question is an ✨avoidant✨ which causes her to sort of feel a little yucky (hehe, see what I did there-) at the thought of love but like this trope was done so well and so realistically in this series, it genuinely hit something inside of me (in the best ways, ofc!! I totally did a bit of self reflection after reading the fic 💀💀💀)

Kai is an absolute sweetheart, hands down. Such a cute texter too like- those selfies??? UGH THEY'RE TO DIE FORRRRR. (you'll never catch me sending selfies to other people but kai's texting style here kinda made me think about how absolutely adorable and fun it would be texting using selfies (esp the ones you feel most confident in 🫶🫶))

And the reader is. Tbh, I relate to her alot HAHAHAHA ��🤡🤡 BUT LIKE IN A GOOD WAY??? like... She's avoidant in such a way that it doesn't feel pushy for the plot and it actually feels realistic if anything. I got a little pissed that she ignored Kai later on but at the same time it's like ... 'ah girlie I see where this is coming from' YKYK???

Groupchat dynamics

On one hand, you have the slay kings and one queen group chat, and then the other one is just the himbo trio. And then you get to see Kai's and the reader's perspectives while they each individually simp for each other in their respective group chats and it's just... UGHHHHHH END ME NOW THE TENSION BUILT UP??? ITS IMPECCABLE HONESTLY, I CANT BELIEVE A SMAU CAN BEWITCH ME LIKE THIS AND LIKE HYPE ME UP SO MUCH TO READ CHAPTER AFTER CHAPTER AFTER CHAPTER.

My brain turned into mush

Dear author, remember how I said I had no words for your fic at the moment?

Yeah well, I made this instead:

I WASN'T JOKING WHEN I SAID I HAD NO WORDS, I WAS GENUINELY JUST ALL OVER THE PLACE DHKAGSKAGAKAJA

(p.s. notice how in the video compilation I did not add anything after chapter 8 because we don't talk about those tragedies 🫶🫶🫶🫶)

(p.p.s YES I AM TOTALLY GONNA READ 'GROSS!', I WAS PLANNING TO RIGHT AFTER I PROCESS THIS ENCHANTING ALLURING SHOWSTOPPING MASTERPIECE BEFORE I CAN OFFICIALLY MOVE ON)

(p.p.p.s, READ YUCK 🫶🫶🫶🫶)

[lesbianspeedy]

Ideally, who would you want Mia and Dinah's relationship to be like if it was properly developed?

this is a really tough question for me, it has a lot of things to consider. in terms of both dinah's writing in relation to mia in the past, and how i personally feel each character views that sort of relationship.

i've said it before i'll say it again, my achilles heel is that i DO get the warm fuzzies from that one winick panel of dinah saying she considers mia her daughter. HOWEVER i also see like. how fucking wild that was to throw in. like, textually speaking, dinah met mia once, said she thought ollie was sleeping with her (insane writing there mr smith) then when connor is recovering mia makes a joke about dinah being a bitch. thats like the extent of their interactions before winick takes over.

then it gets weirder, cause winick takes over and has ollie "cheat" and for some reason mia is like REALLY fucking overprotective of dinah, telling ollie to call dinah just because he's talking to joanna. (this is just winick not knowing what the fuck he's writing). then they "break up" etc, dinah isnt seen with the fam for like 2 years in the in-universe timeline. there is one part in hit issue bop #88 where she asks after mia but thats it.

dinah comes back near the end, they still dont really interact, end of vol 3/start of ga/bc happens, suddenly dinah sees her as a daughter. its just. so fucking randomly jammed in there.

now i have my own personal HC explanation for the mia side of this, let me quote myself from the arrowfam server:

"ik mia's like weird attachment to dinah in winick's run, esp the first arc, is like just bad writing. but ive decided that the author is dead and i killed him. its actually because the last time she felt safe with someone was with her mother and her brain hasnt caught up to her heart yet and allowed her to feel that kind of safety with ollie, so she attaches to the closest mother figure she can find at that point, before ultimately realising that the unconditional love and support she has now is thanks to ollie. thank you for your time."

now to actually fucking answer your question (jesus christ i got carried away i am sorry). PERSONALLY i'd like their relationship to just be "youre my dad's girlfriend" "you're my boyfriend's kid" like mia isnt a child she is a teenager who knows exactly how stuff like this works. i think mia absolutely does look up to dinah, as both a hero and a strong female role model (which i think mia sorely needs), but they dont need to be like. mother/daughter extreme. they can love each other and be family without being put into nuclear family tropes.

[beauzos]

7, 16, 21, 25 :3 for aa lol

🔥 choose violence ask game 🔥

7. What character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

I think this is Klavier for me. To be clear I already didn't really like him in the base canon, but I think this is also because I expected far more of him because of fanon lol. He really ain't shit and it does kind of boggle me that he's SO fucking popular when he's like. this cardboard man.

Now I'm all about adding way more meaning to characters who I think can have way more depth than they do in canon, and Klavier is ripe for the picking there because he IS an interesting guy conceptually, but I don't... like what people do with his character. I kinda just don't get it. Like when I see fanart of him, esp. Kla-pollo art, it doesn't seem like him. It's like he's a different guy. I do not know this man. He's not cringefail and dry enough LOL. And I'm tired of seeing him shoehorned in everywhere.

16. You can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

I don't want to complain about Klavier again, so... well with canon I really don't get why people like AA4 so much but I know that's not what the question is asking LMAO. It's more about the fandom than anything.

Here's one. I don't get how a lot of the fandom characterizes Nahyuta. And it's because he's very unpopular and people hate on him, so they make him out to be way worse than he is. Like, he is NOT a very good person but I feel like it gets to a point where people make shit up about him to get mad about, or read everything he does in the most bad faith way possible. Like saying he was intentionally trying to trigger Athena, or that he's horrible to Ema because he expects her to follow his own (insane and unhealthy, admittedly) work pace.

That's not him. I know him and he's not doing it out of malice. He's just a freak LOL. People love mischaracterizing him because they do not like him.

21. Part of canon you think is overhyped

Bearing in mind I love the original trilogy, I do think it's a little overhyped compared to the AJ trilogy. People act like DD and SOJ are monstrous compared to the original trilogy and I'm like... nottt really? The scale is bigger but I don't feel like they're meaningfully all that much different compared to the original trilogy.

I also think TGAA 1 is overhyped only if you view it and 2 as separate games. If you recognize they're a single game split in two (ala LOTR being split into three but is a single book) it explains a lot of the issues. I love TGAA 1 but its cases are a little all over the place or too slow for me. Great game though.

25. Common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

I think this is an obvious answer knowing me but I'm sick to bastard death of listening to people talk shit on SOJ. I fucking love SOJ, it's still my top AA game that isn't TGAA. Like it has some major writing issues but what's there is legitimately so great. The most stacked cast in any AA game. Not a single bad character, not a SINGLE bad case (though the fourth one is getting there plot-wise, but the character interactions are terrific), super fun worldbuilding even if some of it is goofy. Like AJ's backstory is goofy but I LIKE it. It's the most cohesive backstory he has so far and I love his connection to Nahyuta.

Khura'in is such a special place and the Khura'inese cast is spectacular, truly spectacular. They're all my top favorite characters in the entire series.

More specifically, I'm sick to death of people bitching about Nahyuta. He's definitely underwritten and he needed to be more present in the trials because I actually DO feel like his voice is missing a little from these cases, but he's a fucking shining star. My favorite character in the series. I think his concept is brilliant and he's got a terrific design, too. I find him infinitely compelling and so fun to explore in writing.