#how to write backstories

[leahkentwriter]

Backstories for girls and women in stories that *don't* involve sexual assault.

I beta read a lot, and am involved in writing communities of various kinds, and I briefly taught English way back in the day, and I consume storytelling media in general - and one of my biggest pet peeves is sexual assault backstories. While I think this is improving, it's still annoying to me that a lot of writers (of all genders, but particularly men) fall back on a sexual assault backstory whenever they need to make a girl or woman in a story complicated or haunted or fucked up in some way.

Unless your story is dealing with the topic of sexual assault in some way, please don't use it as a way to give a character depth or angst.

Here are some prompts, just to get you started with some ideas.

Why would a woman be trying to escape her past? Why would she be seeking a fresh start?

She hated her small town; the people there didn't understand her and she never felt like she fit in - she's queer, she has a weird birthmark, she's got unique interests, she has magical powers, etc.

She's a criminal - she robbed banks or stole cars and she wanted a fresh start

She was an addict and hurt people, and she wants a fresh start now that she's sober

Her parent is a criminal or an addict and she's trying to outrun the stigma of being related to them

She didn't get along with a stepparent and skipped town as soon as she turned 18

She had big dreams of being something else, and left to pursue them

Her childhood home was haunted, but no one believed her

She got married young then divorced, and wants to start over somewhere that no one knows her

Heartbreak of any variety - she's leaving a place that reminds her too much of someone she lost or couldn't have

She wants better; maybe more money, or a career, or simply a higher quality of life

Some other violent tragedy occurred - a school shooting, an explosion at the plant, police brutality, her best friend was killed, etc.

Her hometown no longer exists (climate change, the main factory shut down, it was overrun by rabid squirrels, etc.)

What would make a woman distrustful of others?

Heartbreak; being lied to, cheated on, left for her best friend, etc.

A big betrayal - her former best friend told everyone a secret about her, someone weaponized her trauma or her past or a major flaw she's sensitive about, etc.

She witnessed a traumatizing event as a child

Her mother was a grifter and used her as part of her scams

One parent cheated on the other and broke up the family

Her older brother isn't dead after all, he was disowned for being gay and now she's questioning everything her parents ever told her

She has problems with her memory, and is never quite sure what the truth is

She's bad at reading people and has been taken advantage of

She finds out a dark secret about someone she loves and is having trouble processing it

She gradually comes to see that someone she idealized as a child is not at all what they seem

Someone she thought was a good, kind, and genuine person is arrested for a terrible crime

Spiritual abuse - the worldview she was taught was right turns out to be exploitative, represses women, etc., so she leaves

What would cause a woman to have mental health issues?

Any form of abuse - doesn't have to be sexual

Her parents had really high expectations that she couldn't live up to

It simply runs in the family

Survivor's guilt - she survived something that someone else did not

She was bullied and no one protected her

Her parents were very controlling and destroyed her confidence

Her sibling was the golden child and she was the scapegoat

She's had issues since childhood but her parents refused to admit there was anything wrong with her, so she didn't get help

Being a part of any oppressed group of people who experience discrimination - she's a person of color, she's an immigrant, she's got a disability, she's queer, etc.

Any major trauma, either witnessed or being a part of - weather events and natural disasters, infrastructure collapse, crashes and accidents, fires, a shooting or a murder, etc.

You're a writer - get creative. There are lots of ways to traumatize and haunt a girl/woman character without having to resort to a sexual assault backstory. You can even make her the problem! Maybe she's the one who did something bad and is trying to outrun the guilt.

Let's also let go of the idea that it's meeting and falling in love with a man that saves her from her trauma. Let her have a healing arc that doesn't involve a man - a love story can still be there, but it can't be the magic healing balm that fixes her. Make her have to save herself. Give her autonomy to both make her own mistakes, and improve her own situation. Don't let your man go into savior mode - let him get frustrated with her. Let her push him away without him clinging to her in a desperate bid to show her what unconditional love is. Don't let him be a martyr to her trauma.

Women are complicated for many reasons. We have trauma for many reasons. We have mental health issues for many reasons. We may want to escape our past for many reasons. We're angsty and weird for many reasons.

Please pick literally anything other than sexual assault.

[pricetagged]

fool's gold (pyrite)

Got inspired by gougie's executioner asks and cloth's egging hehe 💖 have some pirate au simon breeding kink~

Content: 18+; breeding kink; dubious consent*; mean Simon; pirates; captured-by-the-crown reader; barest implication of potential soap/reader and future ghoap/reader; POV shift

*in a 'get out of jail' way, so take that how you will.

---------------------------------

It fluttered in your stomach. A nebulous, squirming little thing.

Not the baby, no. The lie.

You felt it, restless and hot. Kicking your ribs from the inside. It made you flushed, it made you sick-

It bought you at least another few weeks to slip the noose, to slide away in borrowed shoes meant to dance a gallows' jig. Maybe it would buy you more, if the stress held back your monthly the way it often did on the ship. Great, long stretches of time with too much work and not enough food.

You wore the lie like you wore your borrowed clothes, a too-tight bodice and heavy skirts. Impractical, sweet. Modest. A poor little dear caught up and brought low. Fallen woman, sunken to the depths before the law fished her out. 

Your thighs stuck together, warm and bare under the skirts. It was sweltering, damp. Clammy in the cell with its stagnant air and earthy, unfinished floors. The wood of your bench –and bedcot–was warped with age, woodlouse burrowed deep into the pulpy grooves. It was enough to make you shudder, sweat dripping down your spine until it soaked into the cotton of your shift.

It did little to cool you.

Nine months aboard The Watcher had spoiled you, coarse rope and sharp, sea air warping you into something new. Something wilder. It was hardtack and hard work, yes. But it was freedom. To toil under a flag of your choosing, to trust the waves and the Captain to take you to new ports and newer treasures–

You'd left your papa's place with little more than ill-fitting breeches and a pocketed purse. You'd passed the scars on your hands and the patches on your shirt as evidence of experience – hardy little stowaway, aren't ye–. The morals didn't bother you the way stolen scraps didn't bother a dog. Street rat or ship rat; at least this way you could put miles between you and your father. Nautical miles, bobbing away with the wood of the ship's log. You watched it often, knots of rope and grains of sand. Hourglass and paper in hand while you stood on the stern.

It was you who first spotted the English Man O'War, sluicing through waves with colours hoisted high. Three gun-decks, at least, and coming into port.

"–plead the belly–it'll spare ye the choppin' block. Might even get lucky and be sent t' the reformatory– ah heard they do that f'r expectant mothers–" you couldn't quite hear him over the ringing of the cannons and the ringing in your ears.  "–plead the belly, and I'll try tae come back for y–"

They echoed now in your sweltering cell, suspended in the humidity. The boatswain's last words before he was violently wrestled away.

You remembered him as you counted the bars of your cage. Iron-wrought and cruel. As cruel as the chain tethering you to the wall, cold metal biting into your bare ankle.

'–I've got the keys, girlie, if you want freein' from it. Don' have to sit against that wall, all shy. C'mere an' I'll make you a deal–'

You stayed silent, stone-faced. Weathered the taunts and jeers of your gaolers like a battered old rock. The guards took it as arrogance, the other prisoners took it as invite.

The priest took it as shame.

You let them all believe it, lips pressed tight lest you let loose sobs–giggles–something– as days passed and your sentencing drew closer.

You'd heard about him before you saw him. The Ghost. The last face you'd see before facing the faceless. The pitch-black eyes that would watch as you jigged to the jeers of the crowd.

It was the last face you'd see and it was only a mask. More macabre than the usual executioner's hood– a skull motif, bleach-white bones and empty sockets. A nasty minikin mockery of the reaper. It was gristly; it was sick.

But so was he.

A butcher, some said. Fingers caked in blood no matter to which job he attended. A pirate, according to others. One pressed into service, earning his freedom by sending others to the pits. 

And now you heard him for real.

The low, resonant whistle. The heavy tread of his boots.

It had you curling your fingers into your palms, nautical superstitions and fishwives' tales nipping at you like fleas.

–quit yer whistlin', you'll anger the winds and summon a storm–

                                                 –it's good luck, don't worry. It'll make the winds blow strong and steady, you'll see–

–I wouldn't do that if I were you. Cap'n'll think it's code between mutineers–

                                                                                                                                    –taboo–

The whistling stopped, a cheery solitary note wavering in the air before silence. Even the gaoler's dog had scarpered off, keys jingling around its neck until you couldn't even hear the echo.

A gravel-rough voice cut through the swirling tempest of your mind.

"Was told 'got a pregnant little birdie caught in the cage."

That pulled you from your reverie, neck-stiff as you turned towards the voice. It was more of a twitch than a conscious motion, a sudden flaring of deadened synapses as his voice rasped over them. Still, you didn't speak. Didn't even look at him fully, the hulking thing in your peripheral.

It was silent, now. Eerily so, like all the air had been sucked from the prison. Sitting in the eye of the storm, too calm and too quiet. You could hear the drag of his boots as he shifted closer. The rolling clank of iron scraping against itself, your cage creaking open.

The shadow in your peripheral became mass, then man as he stepped closer.

You risked a glance up.

He'd still be large, sturdy, even without you curled up on your dank, spongy bedcot. Tall enough to duck as he sauntered into the cell. Broad enough to block out the flickering oil lamps by the warden's desk. In the lambent glow of dusk it was already dim, hazy with sea-spray and the oppressive heat of wet season. But with him in front of you it was pitch-dark. A pall cast by his sheer size, all light swallowed up until you could just about make out his blurry edges.

The ghostly white of the bones bleached onto his mask moved and his voice rumbled out.

"Well, g'nna show me?"

You stretched out weakened muscles, unfurling as slow as a wind-battered sail. Joints creaked alongside the iron of your shackle, tight from where you'd clenched hard. Dug your blunt little fingernails into the pulpy, malleable fibers of the aged ironwood below you.

Standing was like finding yourself unmoored, sliding off the buoyant driftwood keeping you afloat. Your legs got tangled up in your borrowed clothes, damp petticoats and overskirts clinging as your feet finally touched the straw-strewn earth of the cell floor. It was cumbersome, made more difficult by the sliding of the heavy chain against the bench. You felt the weight around your ankle, anchoring you down.

Though you could barely see it, you felt as he studied you from top-to-toe. Flat, dead eyes followed every curve and dip of your body as you stood before him, your traitorous chest rising and falling in a way that made you grit your teeth. You used that force to steel your jaw, to look straight ahead and keep your arms lax and loose by your side.

Let him look his fill. Let him– your judge, jury and executioner.

He hummed. Circled you like a shark in a balmy waters. It was funny– you'd never felt more exposed than now in all your layers. Not even under the punishing sun in your loose, men's clothes. No, his eyes stripped you bare. More than cotton and linens, he peeled the flesh from bone. Flayed you open, eyes slicing through your skittish guise. Through your rabbity gaze hopping around the walls, the way you tried to arch your back and poke out more of your soft belly.

"You a liar, then?" You could hear the low, mocking note in his voice. "Or got a case of wishful thinkin'?"

That had you looking up, meeting him dead in the eye. Your hands hovered above the slight swell of your stomach, fingers twitching in an abortive gesture–

–you wanted to cradle it, the fluttering in your empty belly. Push down the sick, swirling terror and face the ghost you'd summoned, because you had summoned it–

He grabbed by your wrist, meaty paw pulling you close enough to brush against his expansive chest.

–Hadn't you? Bad luck. Malefic omen, having you on the ship. No prophets, no redheads–

There, in the cradle of his arms, you were frozen. Your wrist felt fragile, bird-like under the firm grip of his thick-knuckled fingers. You weren't weak, you'd rigged topsails in tempest winds with those wrists. But that was then. That was weeks ago, when you were part of a crew on the open seas. Here, it was just you and the beast that had sent stronger than you to their graves. The warnings from persnickety old seadogs tolled death knolls in your mind–

–no women. And now the sea had swallowed you up. Sent you down to the belly of the beast. A Jonah, locked behind something stronger than whalebone. Trapped. Unless–

Wishful thinking.

He chucked at your chin, calloused fingertips arching your head further back until your neck strained. Your heartbeat rushed past your ears, sending your head spinning. Dizzy, docile. An artificial calm; buoyant lifeline in the raging currents. He turned you slightly, left then right. Like he was measuring you up, the line of your throat. The fluttering of your pulse. That treacherous throbbing, sending oxygen to your brain that you were too erethic to feel.

He spoke again, rough and coruscating. You noticed that he didn't blink, just stared down at you. Dead-eyed as a fish, blond lashes spiked around dark irises. He kept you arched, unable to escape as every syllable struck you like a storm. You balanced on bare tip-toes, butterfly-soft fingers spread across his hairy forearm.

"The Beak's happy to let ya swing if it means 'e can catch the rest of y'r crewmates. And, 'round here, the only good pirate is a dead pirate," he must have felt how your fingers tightened, a futile brace against his butal strength and harsh words. "So, I tell him y'r a liar, get paid to do my job, and keep the governor happy."

He shrugged, bulky shoulders popping as he rolled them back. He shrugged like it meant nothing to him, just a matter of fact. The fisherman, fingers deep in guts and gristle. The butcher, hands stained copper and hardened on cannon bone. The executioner, calloused from rope neckties and the deadweight of the condemned–

But you catch the way his eyes follow your flinch. The way his lips move under his mask too as your mouth opens and closes. Hesitant. Dry.

You could only look up at him with wide, naïve eyes, dilating in the dark. The jejune jailbird. Doe-eyed. Caught.

The jig was up.

"Please," the words stuck in your throat, cracking and broken. "Please don't–"

He lets you go. Not a gentle action, no. No careful caress; he lowers you abruptly, chuckles as you scramble to face him. Stunned, you rub at your throat. Still there, still unadorned with the necklace of rope you swear he wants to place there. Coarse twine and hessian brown, constricting tighter until– no. You can't think on it, anathema to the lie you've worked hard to maintain. If he doesn't believe the plea of the belly, you'll– you'll–

You'll make it so.

As he settles his massive frame on the thin, wooden slat against the wall you wonder. Why did he come here in cover of night. Why did he need to see for himself what the priest confirmed as a priori truth? The seal of confession melts away, your moribund admittance flakes and crumbles under his heavy hand. He knows.

Solid legs spread wide, he makes himself comfortable. You follow the bulge of his thighs, easily as thick as your skull–more–, as the bench groans and creaks worse than the brig in a storm.

You worry that it can't handle the weight.

Even sitting, he dwarfs you. Stepping up between his thighs is like willingly stepping off the stern into still waters. It's terrifying, thrilling– your belly swoops and head feels light. You know there must be something lurking in the depths, some undulating hydra ready to slide its malignant limbs around your ankle and wrench you down–

He clamps a filthy boot down over the length of chain across the floor. Keeps you tethered to him, unable to pull back even if you wanted to.

"Clever enough t'come up with the scheme, clever enough t'get out of it." It's an offering, albeit a twisted one. Alms tainted by the greedy slap of his palms against his thighs. Rough, scarred hands frame the growing bulge between his legs.

Even in the dark, you see it. Heavy, perverse, Fattening enough to strain against the seam of his trousers. You can't look away, can't escape the muggy heat in the air and the scorching burn of his eyes on you. Incendiary, it sends heat pooling to your own belly. The damp, stickiness between your thighs seems cool now, sweat superseded by the slick gathering in your core. It's filthy, it's wrong–

It's blazing hot, shame seared away by a want that is not entirely born of desperation.

At first you think it's a tit-for-tat, your mouth stuffed full in exchange for his staying closed. Kneeling before him, you're suddenly grateful for your skirts. Matchsticks of dried straw and dusty smithereens dig into your knees, legs bent awkwardly as he keeps his boot on your chain. He's content to let you paw at him, to tug at the drawstrings and fumble with his waistband as he offers no help.

Eventually, he must grow bored.

"Don' need me to tell ya that's not how it works."

"What–?" He has you frozen, tableau vivant of a wanton grisette. Pupils-blown and lips-parted, you tremble up at him. Try to read the desire that he hides beneath harsh words and heavy breaths.

"Tryin' t'make me a liar, too?" He grunts, brushing aside your confused, hurried protestations. "Gonna make me a liar when I go out'nd tell them there really is a pregnant little birdie caught in the cage?"

He pats at his lap, palming at himself and hissing through his teeth. Sound is muffled by that grotesque mask, but you catch it all the same. Every flash of the man beneath– of the desire wrought by your artless, ingenue fumblings– sends you reeling. You are not a creature of flesh and blood, not when both are fever-hot and itching. You can't breathe in your body under sweltering layers and sultry air. And he can sense it, too. The beast you let into your cage, bars bending as easily as your will to his.

And, through messily-tugged drawstrings, you see it. Tugged through the opening you'd hastily torn open. The thick, ruddy head of his cock is already leaking.

And as you slide into his lap, it all slides into place.

You think of– no, not now. You can't think of him now. When he comes back for you, if it takes, you could pass the baby off as his. He was sweet on you, you know it. A breezy, comfortable kind of affection. Small, just barely burgeoning but still there. He's a good man– You'll claim that you were telling the truth at your capture– that you and he already– He's a decent man– maybe you wouldn't even have to lie. He'd take you in, little stray and the seed that kept her off the scaffold–

Thoughts slip away, sea spray in the wind, as you work yourself open in his lap. You're drenched beneath your skirts, slick running down your thighs and into his. You're spread so wide across him that it burns, pinned open by his bulk. You can feel the power of his frame, coiled muscle holding you up from the worn wooden bench. The soft pudge of his belly presses into yours as you lean forward, shakily lining up with the swollen head of his cock.

It's already weeping, thick globs of his slick mingle with yours as he slides between your folds. Like he can't wait to be inside you, leaking his spend at the barest touch of your cunt. Like he can't wait to put it inside you, to make good on his word and yours and put a baby there.

You shiver, biting back a gasp as he nudges the aching pearl at the apex of your thighs. His chuckle rumbles through his hulking chest into yours. It jostles you, hitching you just right over his length until it notches against you. You press down, hole clenching against the initial pain, until you feel the throb of his slit inside. It's deep, sending your back arching as you grip his shoulders with white knuckles. And there's still more–

"Tha's it, tha's it, birdie," his voice is impossibly thicker, desire dragging it down until he growls at you. "Gonna have t'take more, gotta make it all fit if you want this baby–"

"Yes, yes, please," you babble at him. Voice high, whines catching on every breath you work yourself lower. You can feel him in your stomach, every inch sending sparks dancing along your spine until they're all you can see when you close your eyes. The sparks, and the spectral imprint of his ghostly mask.

He grunts below you, swallowing back groans behind a jaw that you know is clenched tight. Avaricious brute, he needs you closer. Hands that were meant to measure you for the drop dig into your hips, working you lower and lower. He forces you down to the root, bare thighs on hessian cloth, until you cry out. Shaking at the spread– the stretch– you pant in his ear. Hot little breaths, heady against the crook of his neck.

You can hear it, the obscene squelch of your greedy cunt. The creaking of the bench beneath you as you ride him with shaking legs, chasing pleasure that's already beginning to pool in your belly. You feel heavy with it, moaning behind your clenched fist. Through bleary eyes you catch his, cimmerian and heavy-lidded. His head is thrown back against the wall, guttural filth spilling as he waits for you to come undone.

"Want it, don't ya? Want my baby so fuckin' bad, just look at ya," he growls it, frothing with a hunger so biting it reads as rage. "I'll put one in ya, keep you stuffed full. Keep this chain around y'r ankle, too, keep you shackled to me–"

Eyes-watering as you lose yourself in it. In the sounds that that send blood rushing to your head, the deep ache in your core, the desperation– make him come, make him come, want to come, need to come–

---------

At first, he was happy to watch you. To sit back and watch you work yourself up, to perform for him until he sees you drop the mask. You wear the mantle of captive soubrette so well, sweat-damp petticoats clinging to curves that he wants to trace with his tongue. With his teeth. He saw the craft in your sweet, open face. You're a flighty thing, aren't you? Trying to slip the noose and slip past him. Luckily his grasp is strong.

He saw the scheme slip away as he got you speared open on his length. He can see it in your eyes, feels the way you suck him in–. You're dripping down into his breeches, sloppy and squeezing him so tight. Desperate, wanton little naiad. Riding hard like your life depends on it. He huffs out a laugh as he squeezes you tight, rough fingers digging into peach-soft flesh.

He doesn't tell you that you're already free, that the Royal Navy is already in hot pursuit of The Watcher and the pregnant, little skivvy is of as much importance to them as the ship's rats. No, you're a nuisance they're willing to hand off to him. Too big, too blunt, too bloody to find a respectable wife.

(There was a time, once, when he had no need of such comforts. Lieutenant aboard The Larimar's Revenge, he'd docked in many-a-port. But he'd always come back to those blue eyes. The haircut that had even the natives of Port Royal looking twice– Cheeky, cocksure pirate.

He'd thought about him, sometimes. On that godforsaken island with just a pistol and one shot for company. 'Mutineer', he was branded. Traitor to King and Crown. Lower than scum, not worth even a keelhaul. But not even grapeshot can kill a ghost–) 

He feels you reaching your end, thighs trembling from more than just exertion. His mask is damp, sultry air mixing with your musk into something that scatters his desultory thoughts. His belly tightens as he feels you clamping down, whining behind the knuckles you’ve got stuffed between your teeth.

When you're home, together in his bed, he'll bite down on those knuckles. Show you what real toothprints look like. Or maybe he'll let you slip his hand into your mouth instead. Let you whet your blunt little teeth on something with more gristle. His appetite for you cannot be satiated on mere flesh. He's got to pierce you, taste you, feel you from the inside and leave a part of himself there–

For now, he holds you down. Forces you to ride out the wave of pleasure-pain as he sets his own pace. Your thighs tremble, whole body seizing around him. He can feel the fluttering in your cunt, the way you shudder and drip until his cock is soaked and his coarse hair turns sticky with your release.

He ignores your whisper of another man's name– John, or Johnny, it's hard to catch with the way you swallow your whimper–it doesn’t matter. Not when he's the one pumping you full of his spend. His belly clenches hard, balls tight and heavy with the come he's going to give you. Going to force it in, plant his baby in you and still leave thick, white, globs leaking out of your poor, abused hole.

He's filled you up, is going to fill you up again. He'll take you back to his house and do it as many times as he wants. Make you grateful for it, for saving your life and giving you the baby you’ve been begging for. Keep you stuffed so full of him that the only name he'll hear from you is 'Simon'.

(And if you help lure Johnny back, well. It's been a long time, but good dogs come home when called.)

---------------

Well, there is it. Shoutout to my beloved stelle and woolie for listening to me whine about pirate ship names 💖💖💖

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girl found dead in a hidden room.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[oleafia-art]

some golden guards + caleb

i wanted to take a break and do some character design of a few golden guards based off of some of the ones seen briefly in canon. i also drew hunter and caleb as references for faces and stuff. i tried to make them as similar as possible, but also looking very individual to one another. since belos claimed that hunter looks the most like caleb, i tried to stay true to that while keeping the other three looking similar but not quite as identical. anyways i love them <3 they’re like the most mentally ill family ever to me

these weren’t supposed to be real ocs or anything but then i ended up giving them names and backstories and so i wrote a little about them aaaand now im obsessed. i will try to make a full body ref for them, especially alistair and/or constance, if i have time

i apologize for my godawful handwriting 💔

[shywhumpauthor]

A Whumper with fire powers branding their Whumpee not just with their name or initials, but their handprints.

Two palms scarred against either side of Whumpee’s neck, fingers wrapping around their throat in a collar that can never be removed. Hands on their sides, just below their broken ribs, a touch that will never relent. Fingers wrapped around their wrists in shackles that won’t be unlocked. A handprint against their face, cupping their cheek that had already suffered so many punches. The small of their back. A single hand just between their shoulder blades. Dragging down their thighs.

Just. Branded handprints.

[v-poreons]

OCposting..... This is Coven :3 she's a witch who specializes in luck magic! I need to post her so I can yap about her more, she's rotating in my brain at top speed

(Also her bf belongs to @oodliedoodlies hiiii hiiiiiiii hi hi hi)

[necrotic-nephilim]

i personally have very complicated feelings on the Gotham Knights video game and the routes it takes with characterization. i think it has a charm to it and it goes in an interesting direction with everyone (especially within the confides of the plot of the game) but it does have certain moments that veer painfully fanon for me. (such as: the dialogue where Tim drinks too much coffee) it's an interesting story for what it is but i don't view it comics-based for characterization and therefore don't care to interact with it much for like. fanfic purposes.

that *said* though. i do have to give the game some kind of credit for giving one of the top five JayTim moments that lives rent free in my mind. every since i played the game, the cutscene lives in my mind daily. it's the specific cutscene where Jason and Tim are arguing about whether or not Jason's non-lethal bullets are too dangerous for the field, and the argument leads to TIm *standing in front of the target* Jason is shooting and telling Jason to shoot him. it lives rent free for me. i never stop thinking about this.

the absolute certainty Tim has that he is in no danger standing in front of Jason, who has a loaded gun pointed at his face. the way Jason *hesitates* for just a moment before lowering the gun. he thinks about it for just a second. Gotham Knights JayTim seem to get along very well and can rely on each other, but Jason still clearly holds a bitterness about his death and Tim that flickers through in some lines of dialogue under the guise of jokes. especially since this game deals *heavily* with concepts of Pit Madness causing an altered state of consciousness, i think it's believable that occasionally, Jason fights the urge to fight and hurt Tim for the feeling of being replaced.

i like their tension so much in this canon. they get along but you can *tell* Tim is afraid of addressing Jason's trauma or even addressing Jason head-on, and Jason leans into spooking Tim about it. which isn't very comics feeling in their dynamic, but it is an interesting way to place their dynamic if you're playing with a more timid Tim who's newer to the role of Robin. (which he seems to be in-game) he really doesn't want to offend Jason, or worse, piss him off. but he'll still face Jason head on for things like this, while completely aware of what Jason could be capable of.

and Jason seems very protective of Tim and respecting Tim as a Robin in typical Jason fashion. if Tim pushes, Jason *will* relent. he knows this is a kid who's proved himself and should be treated with equal respect, sometimes even more than Dick and Babs do in-game.

so for all that to culminate in Tim stepping in front of Jason's loaded gun that he *knows* is on the edge of being too dangerous, just to force Jason to listen? it's the most unhinged way Tim could've gotten his point across in this scene. he was literally daring Jason to hurt him and playing with a very dangerous fire. but he did it anyway bc he believed he could make Jason heel just at the thought of hurting Tim. and he was *right*. they're gay and i'm feral ty.

[reds-skull]

Been thinking about Farah a lot lately...

[beanghostprincess]

A bit tired of people complaining about Sanji's principle of "not hitting women" being misogynistic when it has been clearly stated multiple times that he does not choose it and it's heavily tied to his trauma and admiration for his dad and respect for women and definitely not from seeing women as somehow weaker than him

[thingsmaygetalittlecrazy]

Sweet n spicy Eloise Babbit x Sebastian Sallow doodle 🤤💖

Between rereading Clumsy, starting to reread Before It Felt Like A Sin, and feeling generally feral when I saw this base pose on pinterest a month or two ago, I immediately ran to my drawing app to turn it into Eloise and Seb 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️ but I changed pretty much NOTHING from the base pose so I felt guilty for posting it, BUT I think the world (and especially Maddy) deserve more Eloise content....so here is my very humble doodle ❤️❤️❤️❤️🫶🫶🫶🫶

@myokk not only are you an awesome, passionate, talented artist but SUCH bright light and kind soul in this space, it's been such a pleasure interacting and yapping and I hope you know how appreciated your loving, kind presence is on here!!!!!!!! 🥰🥰🥰

[couch-house]

Okay I finally figured out Comet's origin story. Long version under the cut but short version is: knuckles finally got to reunite with the surviving echidnas but they didnt want to leave their homes to live on the floating island, so an alien felt bad for him and gave him a fankid <3

Okay so to recap stc canon: Knuckles has spent his entire time on the floating island believing he is protecting it until his people return. he doesnt remember, but he used to live in the ancient echidna city with Tikal and Pachacamac, but somehow was transported 8000 years into the future (present day). This happens after Tikal briefly brings Sonic back in time to help the echidnas fight off the Drakon empire--fish-shaped aliens that discovered chaos energy (the emeralds were made by the Drakons with the echidnas' sacred emeralds, then the echidnas "stole" them back and the drakons declared war). They succeed in beating them back for this battle, but my headcanon (which ended up being p close to what Kitching supposedly planned out) is that after this battle, the drakons come back and end up wiping the echidnas out--those that arent killed are taken off mobius as prisoners/slaves. At some point, some of them are able to escape and form a sanctuary away from the drakons.

Okay now we gotta talk about the Kaamdaarns. The Kaamdaarns are alternate dimension aliens that appear in 113, 119, and 120. They are peaceful aliens with "highly advanced science" indistinguishable from magic, which they use to disable any weapons on their planet and then also to free Shorty from his cybernik suit.

so the STORY WITH COMET GOES... Kintobor helps Knuckles to identify some kind of beacon signal that appears to be coming from other echidnas. Knuckles and Sonic hop into a spaceship (tekno and porker collab) and through a dimensional portal (tekno and kintobor collab) to find the source. they find a colony of echidnas long-established on a sanctuary planet under the protection of the kaamdaarns. the reunion is pretty bittersweet for knuckles bc like. these are people 8000 years removed from his culture. there are maybe some things still in common but otherwise their lives are completely distinct from how he grew up. and after 8000 years, very few if any of them consider the floating island home more than the place they are now. even those that might be interested in going back with knuckles are wary of the risk of leaving the safety of the kaamdaarn planet and being captured by drakons. and for a bunch of ruins... it's not really worth it

so knuckles has once again lost the whole Purpose of Everything He's Done and ummm well it goes about as well as the first time that happened

so he's hanging on by a Thread but the kaamdaarn that brought him and sonic to the village--her name's haven here she is--

says "you know what will fix that? a child." and see above: her making comet. GREAT idea, i agree. i mean the thought was more like "surely there is a way for you to both stay with your friends AND with other echidnas." but same difference. anyway sonic doesnt know what kind of egg that is.

thanks for listening. here's porker lewis as a reward :)

[cloudinal]

HBD to Rhyme!

Code taken from @/learnerd1150 on YouTube :)

Non-crunchified image of the final frame

[a2zillustration]

I've been waiting for an excuse to tell you why Croissant is called Croissant for SO LONG

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[nenoname]

stan twins the canon cptsd brothers i will always think about all your unaddressed issues that would make perfect plot fuel for your spinoff

and also the whole 'stan getting that poem by bill via a website which contrasts with bill getting one from the axolotl via a website' foreshadowing thing

like idk i would love something like su future but like more optimistic, aka not an accumulated breakdown that has to be mostly resolved off screen at the end :/// but something thats being kinda addressed throughout? (although would love to see one of them turn into a monster thats always fun lol)

stan having severe issues from his dad and those years of being homeless that we keep on getting more info on but never really getting confronted on (the drifter catalogue and tijuana incident...), him being completely alone for like twenty years when running the shack before soos comes along to the point that 1998 is noted as his low point, and him not really learning about bill+what he did to ford until ages after he killed him if he ever did get the full context

while i think amnesia and everyone seeing him as a hero actually helped with stan's 'i'm a worse version of my brother' thing its still a lingering issue too and we now got him being insecure over his own hands

ford being immediately thrown from 'being tortured by bill' to 'being stuck in the multiverse and being chased by bounty hunters constantly', him fully expecting himself to die when destroying bill, and him only now being safe for the first time in 30 years ....relatively safe, he's still in constant danger because of course he is

idk in the end the series wants them to be happy and they deserve it, its why i wasn't too worried about the book being like 'ooh bill is back!! and the book is haunting ford' thing cos i knew they'll be ok

[isthatacalzone]

me: *seeing people yell about how they did Glintshore & Percy's death in the show*

also me: ..................anyway

[sappho-rose]

"The world doesn't know me yet."