#hoo boi it's been a while??

[zu-is-here]

Zu, I was thinking : we have seen Cat!Cross, Cat!Killer, Cat!Dream and Cat!Nightmare, (a another because why not •w•) but we never see Cat!Aim. How does he looks like (⌒▽⌒)

(Like a foundling :'D)

Cross & Dream's cat designs are based on the Lunnar's version <3

[moeblob]

A lil guy !

[sodamnbored]

PJO Cop AU

Cop Jason, during a serious interrogation: Enough messing around. Give me a name.

Criminal Percy, hesitantly: Aren’t your parents supposed to do that?

[doodleodds]

Happy Valentines, Akira. Happy Valentines, Asshole.

If you can’t read what Akechi’s secondary inner-dialogue says cause I obscured it too much behind his regular dialogue, here’s a transcription in panel order: Hello, you fucking- Ah- Hello, Akira! Fuck off, why should I tell you- Just a soda- there’s a new flavor.

I don’t want your shitty gift. Oh- haha! You’re so sweet.

I hope I choke. They’re lovely, thank you.

Like hell. Likewise. There’s no way it’s just a coincidence. Still though, it’s a funny coincidence.

[carchariascarcharodon]

thinking about . ellen the night after the three set out on the orca. the last time she's mentioned in the film is after quint brushes her off over the radio, when he says that brody's just caught some fish and that they'll "bring 'em around for dinner" (specifically that they "won't be long"). but then. evidently they don't go back for dinner - they just stay overnight on the boat. that's.. potentially hours and hours without knowing if her husband is ok or even alive. did brody call her that night to let her know. she's so, so scared when he leaves. she runs off in tears. did brody call her that night to let her know he was ok i need to know :(((

[veliseraptor]

I don't know what hopepunk is and at this point I'm too afraid to ask

well anon, part of your problem here is that hopepunk is in a lot of ways a meaningless descriptor that means whatever people want it to mean.

took a bit of digging but I found the post that broke down a lot of my issues with hopepunk as a concept/subgenre, here; to quote from that:

You may notice that the philosophy is incoherent, mainly boiling down to “the things I like are hopepunk and the things I don’t like aren’t.” It builds a philosophy out of opposition to a strawman of “grimdark” that doesn’t really exist. So hopepunk means you keep fighting for what you believe in regardless of what that is, and violence isn’t the answer, except when it is. Hopepunk is about being kind and soft but also about punching the bad guy with the gun. Hopepunk is a morass of FEELING REALLY STRONGLY ABOUT THINGS!!! without a fundamental core of… anything concrete.

[...]

Hopepunk in practice is unbearably twee.  The goal is to be to inspire a feeling of hope in the reader, which means that nothing bad is allowed to really happen, characters aren’t ever allowed to mess up or be mean or have flaws, and any mistake is well-intentioned and quickly & easily resolved by talking about your feelings.

and I could just leave it at that because, like I said, pretty good summation of my perspective, but sometimes an ask hits me at the exact right time for me to go off about something that consistently irritates me but I usually keep my mouth shut about for one reason or another.

and I feel like the first thing I want to say is. look. it's not like I'm out here going "hope is for losers and all I ever want is tragic stories where everything is awful forever." but the thing about hopepunk, at least in the ways I see it described, is that, in its dedication to be "the opposite of grimdark," shies away from representing darkness at all, except maybe in the most cursory, glancing ways. there's nothing to confront, nothing to push back against. villains are easily identified and unproblematically evil. protagonists are unimpeachably nice and good, and always have perfect politics. moral complexity is to be avoided, because raising too many questions might interrupt the positive feelings the author hopes to evoke.

not only does this create, in my opinion, really dull stories about very uninteresting characters, it also blunts anything the book is trying to say. if you don't want to confront any kind of conflict or struggle in depth then you've kneecapped your ability to talk about the full range of human experience. if the only antagonist you allow is a hollow caricature, then there's only so much room your protagonists have to express strength in opposing them.

the whole framework results in a kind of tepid, anodyne storytelling that expresses meaningless platitudes that the audience is presumed to agree with, often with a side helping of didacticism and "teachable moments." it's weak storytelling.

there's a world in which "hopepunk" is referring to a kind of story that I actually really like; for instance, there's a world in which one could call Malazan: Book of the Fallen "hopepunk." I am tempted to do that, just because I think it would drive people nuts. I think hopepunk wants to be doing something like the line from The Silmarillion that opens the tale of Beren and Luthien: "Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that come down to us from the darkness of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures."

but out of a fear of representing anything actually ugly, or possibly making people feel kinda bad about something, or challenging the reader in any way, everything that might have been interesting gets stripped out and what's left is literature that feels like cotton candy: maybe it's sweet, but there's nothing to bite into, and nothing that lingers.

[inkmaze]

insidious how loneliness can get it's claws in ya

[autism-disco]

the most normal trinity of apocalypse stories: zombie saga, omniscient reader’s viewpoint and gakkou gurashi

[bo-bo-bean]

Happy Tree Friends CUTIFIED!!!! Part one!!!

[queenofbaws]

writing buds, i am begging you - begging you - to take/keep notes when you're plotting out longer projects!!!!!!!!!!!!!

not for organization, not for consistency, not to remember that super awesome line you thought of in the shower, but so future-you can find them later.

maybe someday soon.

maybe someday not so soon.

and future-you can look at those notes. and future-you can read those notes. and future-you can have a beautiful moment where they squint at them like edgar allan poe from that kate beaton comic and go, "the FUCK was i thinking???" and it will absolutely be a shining moment in future-you's day, this i solemnly promise.

[awkwardexxodus]

ahaha you guys ever think of how hazel and frank befriended and bonded with a version of percy that doesnt exist anymore. wym no

[plastic-raccoon]

i raise for your consideration: elenval

[rist-ix]

just wanted to drop by to say that I'm so in love with the latest tbhtbh!!!! I can't stop re-reading it, the last valtor x bloom scene with drunk, simp valtor was absolutely delicious. you both make me root for bloom to fail and stay with valtor, but also succeed - not only because my baby deserves to succeed as a treat, but also because i love seeing valtor suffer a bit (affectionate). this whole chapter also made me super curious and excited for the next chapter of tktw, and what is going on inside valtor's head during some of these moments and on his side of things.

Thank you!!! I feel like i dont let Valtor be a poor little meow meow enough, so this was my attempt at evening the score a little. I was actually kind of writing the corresponding tktw chapter in tandem with this one, just so that i would remember the good lines this time. the summary is blOOM!!1!! ^-^ <3 followed by an emphatic oh no

and god yes, i feel your struggle. Bloom desperately needs a win, and Valtor, for the sake of the dimension and also my sanity, needs to take some BIG fucking hits, but also he's just objectively at his best when he goes absolutely insane for a bit. and i just really want them in the same room all the time, so our girl will need to stay put for a while longer

[nebulaeyedfish]

The guardian of The Crab Bucket, Pirate Haven of the Jade Chain Reef.

Tags: @swanofstorie @flyingfish1234

[sporadic-doodles]

The Old One/The Ones From Above

I’ve kinda combo-ed these two because they tie into each other in my head! FYI I’ll be using @mystic-131’s name for the old being (I love your fic btw! Take as much time as you need w/ your writing, I know it’ll be great no matter what!) which is Eldin.

Anyways, from the lore tablets around the map, we know that The Ones From Above came to the realms in search of something, and this was the time period where the grey beings were the predominant species. However, whatever they were looking for could not be found and they mostly left, while the grey beings basically went extinct. Of the two species, we only see one individual from each that is still alive during the time period of the game.

What I find interesting is that, of the grey beings we see around, there’s only around 8 that could be considered an “adult” size; all the others are small and uniform. Considering that they used to be the most prevalent species, the small number still in existence means that the rest have either decomposed or been absorbed by other Starfolk. 

However, it is curious that Eldin is still alive after this time. While it could be assumed that they are simply the last survival, their existence in the Void and the apparent inability for anyone else to see or understand them implies something different. Personally, I think that they were being used as a gateway to whatever plane The Ones From Above are on. 

For context, in the game we see that The Ones From Above have basically infinite health and power, with a one-hit-kill that has supposedly helped to wipe out Eldin’s species. Despite this, however, they are not seen to act in any of the six realms until after the defeat of the three main fusion Starfolk. Because of the end of the game itself, I’m guessing that the reason for this is that they physically can’t; they are unaffected by Edda and Aven’s attacks, have a strange absorption meter, and magic that is seen no where else. Not to mention the merge with one of the two characters at the end- they probably have been looking for a physical body for the entire time. However, since the grey beings were stable and complete, they were not capable of merging. Starfolk, on the other hand, have been shown to have unstable natures, only halves to a whole. Even when merging, they are described as unstable and have cause to seek out more (hence, all the fighting). 

But Edda and Aven are outliers. They are separate but the same, they continue to absorb but are unchanged, but most importantly: they have access to the Void.

I don’t think it was on accident that Eldin got stuck in the Void. They were probably stuck there on purpose, a survivor of the massacre that the field of spears probably was. As Edda and Aven defeat and absorb each and every fusion enemy, Eldin gains more and more fractures along their entire being, mimicking the shattering of the sky. And after all of this, once the eye falls out of the sky, Eldin is frozen, likely dead in the hub area, which is, again, located in the Void. As far as we know, Edda and Aven are the only Starfolk capable of traversing the Void and, who would’ve guessed, they are the focus of The Ones From Above. By sequestering Eldin away in the void, as long as only the individuals The Ones From Above are watching have access, they guarantee that random Starfolk don’t end up wandering to the Higher Plane on accident. Also, since they traverse through the hub many times over, it would only be a matter of time before Edda or Aven accidentally went through Eldin’s passage.

As per usual, please feel free to correct me on any of this, or just lmk if you want to talk! I find this particular link really interesting! :D

[marypsue]

Ahh also as an addendum to my previous ask about the age swap (which I might’ve accidentally labeled as the body swap fic due to the foibles of being awake unexpectedly early ), I was curious what your criticisms are regarding Robin and Will’s treatments by the Duffers? I know you’ve alluded to being bothered by both but I’d be curious to hear more ( if you have the time/hankering!)

Hooboy. Okay. Buckle in. 

Obviously this is going to be a combination of actual literary analysis and Big Feelings That I Have, so like, please don’t take this as any kind of moral dictum on what to or not to watch, or how to or how not to interpret what you watch. Also, a lot of what makes me uneasy and unhappy about how canon deliberately handles queerness (as opposed to when it does queer things apparently by accident, which as you may have noticed, I have considerable amounts of fun with) has to do with behind-the-scenes context I’ve read about, so there’s a certain degree of Telephone involved. And I’m still only halfway through season four. There’s just so fucking much of it. 

With all that said. 

The behind-the-scenes context I’m most specifically concerned with are the season-one pitch bible(? I think that’s what it’s called) (which, it should be noted, ended up diverging in some quite significant ways from what ended up in the show) where the Duffers first raised the possibility that Will might be gay, and the anecdote that Joe Keery and Maya Hawke were the ones who decided Robin should be queer and had to really push for it and wrote and choreographed that scene in the bathroom. Put the two together, and it tells you that the Duffers planned that there would be One (potentially) Gay Character in their show. 

And that character was the one they spent an entire season directing violent, vicious, eventually outright murderous homophobic hatred at through the mouthpiece of a couple of bullies. You can say what you want about revenge narratives and those characters ultimately getting their comeuppance, but for Me Personally, it sucks all the fun and escapism out of season one to watch it thinking that those bullies only got punished when they aimed that vitriol at someone to whom it didn’t literally apply. Also I still have to sit through however many episodes of that vicious homophobia onscreen regardless, so, like, that’s a walk in the park anyway. /sarcasm 

And then there’s that whole bad business in season three, where it’s never been quite clear to me if we’re supposed to see Mike as having been in any way in the wrong. Kind of scuppers the argument, to me, that we’re supposed to be on Will’s side. And season four, which so far has had Will tagging along after people who are supposed to be his best friends but mostly don’t seem to give a single damn about him, doing absolutely nothing but looking morose and sullen and tragic and *coughcough* Artistic, and causing Problems for the nice straight couple. 

(Tangential to the point I’m coming to, but also, my son deserves better than to be reduced to a soggy cardboard standee with ‘GAY’ scrawled across it in magic marker the way season four seems to be angling toward. All the Byers, but especially the Byers boys, deserve better than season four seems interested in giving them. But I digress.) 

Also. I love Robin. If you follow me, you probably know that. I’m a hardcore, ride-or-die Robin girl. But. With Robin, from what I’ve heard of the context, the Duffers never intended for her to be queer. They wrote a girl who was smart and funny and sharp and talented and a little bit mean and a little bit insecure and a little bit weird but in an interesting, endearing way - as a love interest for Steve. 

And then, as soon as season four rolled around, once they’d been pushed into making her canonically, on-screen queer (in a beautiful, tender, heartfelt, true-feeling scene that they didn’t fucking write), suddenly she’s had a complete personality transplant. Suddenly, she’s an awkward, bumbling, annoying loser who’s only funny when she’s the butt of the joke, who’s no good at anything and who nobody really likes except maybe for Steve, an outcast even amongst the freaks. When she does do something smart or competent, everyone around her reacts with shock, like it’s wildly out of character instead of how her character was originally written. One of these versions of Robin was written with ‘gay person’ in mind, and it unfortunately wasn’t the one we were obviously supposed to like. 

In both cases, I get the feeling that the storytelling issues stem from this like...assumption that queerness equals isolation and misery and tragedy, and that there’s nothing to queerness outside of that. That there’s something inherent to queerness, something pitiable but repulsive, that causes the isolation and misery and tragedy (not that those things are imposed from outside, by, say, violent homophobia). That it would be absurd to imagine that queerness could ever be joyful, or playful, or that someone might ever, given the chance to choose, not choose to be straight instead. Or that there could be enormous friendship and community and heart and pride in queerness, or even that queer people might find friendship and community and strength in each other. Or even fucking talk to each other, ever. 

Which is especially infuriating, because the whole central theme of season one (besides surface appearances being deceiving) is that community and care between people who are very different but discover they have more in common than there is that separates them is what saves the day! That love comes in all kinds of forms, and they’re all important, and that love can be stronger than fear! 

But apparently, according to the Duffers, queer love doesn’t count and queer community doesn’t exist. It’s just isolation, misery, and tragedy, and I guess we the watchers are supposed to sit outside of it and pity Them for it (and be quietly, sneakily, a little bit nastily grateful that it’s not happening to Us). Because of course nobody watching the show is queer. Of course. This show is made for normal people. 

It’s part of the same attitude I’ve also seen play out with the Duffers’ inability to just let a white dude be bad. Oh, they want to talk a big game about how they’re on the side of the freaks, and bullies are bad, and everybody should be respected and appreciated for who they are. But when it cuts down to the bone, when applying that precept to a girl or a person of colour or a queer person makes a straight white guy come off as a monster, they keep trying to dodge it. 

The more antagonists they try desperately to rehab without ever acknowledging why they were antagonists in the first place, the more it starts to look like they simply don’t really believe that the people those antagonists hurt really matter. That, somewhere deep down where the assumptions that are so baked in you don’t even realise they’re assumptions live, they don’t really believe that girls, or Black kids, or queer people are as fundamentally human and deserving of respect and compassion as their beloved awful straight white men are. That what they really think about bullies is that bullies are bad because the bullies picked on them, instead of the kinds of people who deserved it.

(See also: that time a twelve- or thirteen-year-old Sadie Sink didn’t want to have to do a kiss in the Snow Ball scene, so the Duffers, who had just been joking about having her do it, actually made her do it. For multiple takes. Specifically because she didn’t want to. And then later related that anecdote to the press. Because they thought it was funny.)

Anyway. Personally, I’d prefer canon just never say anything definitive on the matter of Will’s sexuality and stop trying to push the narrative in that direction, so I don’t have to watch the Duffers spectacularly fumble yet another attempt at Writing About Marginalised Groups. 

(Also, this is absolutely not me saying Watch A Different Show - I’m here writing fanfic for this stupid show, it’d be pretty fucking rich of me to try to tell people to stop watching it. But I’d really love for many of its fans to get some more exposure to less-mainstream, more deliberately queer literature and film, so y’all can see what it really feels like to be seen and acknowledged and loved by a story, on purpose. I get it! I do! I too have wanted very badly to feel like something I loved, loved me back. 

But you don’t have to content yourselves with scraps. And you definitely don’t have to be so concerned with those scraps that you blame your friends, cousins, siblings, brothers in arms for ‘stealing’ some kind of ‘representation’ from you by asking to be seen and acknowledged and loved as well. The bastards who’ve been withholding that recognition from all of us would love nothing more than to watch with amusement, gorging themselves on a banquet, while we tear each other apart over a couple of discarded bones. Don’t give them the satisfaction. We don’t have to be isolated, pitiable, pathetic, miserable tragedies. Put the hollow promises of exclusionism and respectability down. There is queer art and literature and film and community and joy and love in abundance that you don’t have to beg anyone for, and you are invited to participate. This is me inviting you to participate. 

And cordially inviting the Duffers to meet me in the woods behind the 7-Eleven.)

...

tl;dr the way the Duffers treat queerness when they do it on purpose feels like a combination of othering, contempt, and misery porn, and I hate it. And that, in a nutshell, is the rant I’ve been sitting on for the last two-and-a-bit years. I’m getting down off the cafeteria table now.