#i love both these characters immensely
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The thing abt john winchester is that he is too complex for the majority of the spn fandom and for a good portion of the writers on the show too.
Because at his core john is about love over everything else. When he looks up at his sons (yes, up, the fact that they’re both taller than him>>>>>), there is love seeping achingly from every single pore of his being even as he abuses them, as he destroys their souls beyond belief. He does it all entirely out of love. And he is so, so wrong for it. A part of him knows it. But he wants to keep dean alive, and he wants to keep Sam pure. And he loves them so much. And he damages them so horribly. John Winchester is the foundation upon which they are both built, they only become more of what he made them as the series goes on. Sam stops fighting it, Dean continues to mold into his image no matter how hard he tries to fight it.
Hell puts them both on steroids, but their individual trauma responses that influence this are the foundations that John built into them. No wonder azazel wanted sam to win so badly. John Winchester crafted his sons into alastair and Lucifer’s ideal victims, respectively, and dean was a better (worse) john than John ever was. John held out in hell. Dean acquiesced to his abuser despite all of his efforts to fight him, and he’s never been the same since.
Sam fought like hell, and he fought destiny, but at his core, he did what John always wanted him to by doing what dean wanted him to do, and then he stops fighting at all, loses the fire he showed john in adolescence that john immediately notices when he returns in s14.
And the sad thing is. They filled their roles so well that John is saddened by what they’ve become. He didn’t want dean to break. He didn’t want Sam to be dimmed. He’s sad to see what Sam is like in s14. In the process of recovering his wife, he ensured he would mold his sons into what he wanted them to be, and when he got what he wanted, he was devastated.
John Winchester is so driven by love and grief and he’s so filled to the brim with both that it’s painful to watch him on screen because he destroyed his family because of it. And he wanted this all along but he didn’t realize what he’d have to give up to get it.
#supernatural#john winchester#sam winchester#dean winchester#my meta#honestly the thing is#if john had survived past s2#I don’t think he would get the hate he receives today#bc the thing is. jdms portrayal is ridiculously complex and beautiful#that when the majority of people write him they lose all his nuance#the fact that John was gone more than he was there immensely damaged his rep in the eyes of the fandom#I think if John were alive for longer he would get similar treatment to dean#both narratively and fandom perception wise#he already does to some extent amongst some people#he’s an excellent complex character#but people can’t handle complex#that man is an abuser#that man also loves more deeply than anyone#you know who also fits those descriptors?#dean#and look how fandom views him
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the more i dm vs play other ttrpgs the more frustrated i get with how npcs work in 5e. my game centers around a small town with a recurring cast of npcs, as well as newly introduced npcs each arc that my players frequently adopt, and every time i open my Documents (tone: weary) filled with npcs i just wish 5e npcs were Built Different(tm) to pcs. obviously theres statblocks and stuff you can use but if youre working under the assumption these npcs are Full People who are going to take up space in the pcs lives youre going to be building them like you would a pc and frankly it sucks for a couple reasons
one, if i want to introduce a new batch of npcs of a level that will prove imposing for my pcs to fight, it shouldnt take me 10 hours to make them. two, once the fight is happening it would be great if they didnt have so many abilities and spells that im just hoping and praying i can make them function even a little smartly without grinding the whole fight to a halt every time its a spellcasters turn
and third, which i think deserves its own paragraph(s), i wish npcs didnt have the same set of skills that pcs get
i like trying to give my guys, pcs or npcs alike, pretty high mods on things, bc, you know, good for the game and also big numbers fun. but some skills are either inherently useless for an npc to have, or imply a loss of player agency if i was rolling them
like, charisma skills. deception is really useful for an npc to have, because then pcs have to roll insight against it to learn information. persuasion, however, is not something an npc should really ever roll. if theyre rolling persuasion on a pc, that player is experiencing a loss of agency over how their pc reacts to a request. if theyre rolling it on another npc, youre now just playing dollies with yourself while the pcs watch. if im ever choosing between persuasion and deception for an npc, im always going to give them proficiency in deception even if that makes less sense for their character. same problem for intimidation. either youre telling the pcs how to feel or playing dollies with yourself
stealth and sleight of hand are overall way more helpful for npcs than for pcs who arent rogues. and perception is far more useful for an npc to have than like ... survival. when are your npcs going to be rolling survival? if you have a ranger or ranger-like character whos helping your pcs navigate wilderness then why does it make more sense for them to be rolling survival and potentially mess up something they are meant to be good at, causing potentially unfun complications for your party, than just ... knowing that character can help them navigate, so they do? especially if thats the reason that npc is there?
idk like my players respond very well to the npcs being Full People and i do think theres a level of enjoyment to like. comparing pc and npc stats or players learning what feats an npc took or lore around subclasses but also. also im so miserly and decrepit and my google doc of my four bad guys this arc and their spells is 59 pages long im Tired Save Me
#dnd#dnd 5e#i love playing dnd. and i love the game that i run. i dont love running dnd.#its simply not a good system to run for so many reasons#i feel like i run a good game from like. years of original storytelling and improv experience and a large amount of homebrew#and absolutely nothing about the system itself. very frequently fighting the system itself#(before anyone says just switch this game has been going for years and is very entrenched in the fact that its dnd)#(both in characters and also the world and lore)#(but good lord will i not be running dnd again when this game eventually ends)#(getting my grubby little hands on something pbta or fitd maybe)#if any of my players see this i am only filled with immense love for our game but i tried to look up something on cavs sheet earlier#and felt my old man soul withering a bit so#This Post.
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hi Silver! o/ because that fanart made me wonder - would you happen to know when/where Dick's stuffed elephant plush Zitka turns up in the comics?
GREETINGS CAM <3333 THAT ART WAS SO CUTE
Yeah, I think your instincts are right - it's a truly adorable bit of transformative fandom, but I'm 95% percent sure it's not comics canon. Barbara has canon plushies, but I don't think anyone else does.
I got kinda invested in the investigation (it's hard to prove a negative!) and I ended up typing out an entire History of Elinore/Zitka, so, uh, if you're curious, meet me below the cut for:
Where does Elinore / Zitka - the animal - appear in comics?
Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?
Where does Elinore / Zitka appear in comics?
We're gonna go in chronological order!
Dick's circus elephant friend was first created for practical reasons: in Batman 436, Marv Wolfman does a big expanded flashback to Dick's circus backstory as a way to subtly show us Tim before officially introducing him (so that we can have a technically-solvable mystery-of-Tim's-identity in LPoD). In this comic, there's an elephant named Elinore who loves Dick:
Aww. Such a cute elephant!
Batman 436 comes out in August 1989. New Titans 60 comes out a few months later, in November, and guess what? When Dick visits the circus, he is suddenly surprised by an unexpected blast from the past! It turns out that even though it's been years, Elinore still remembers him!
Here's the part where Elinore remembers Dick:
SUCH a cute elephant. I love her.
(Guess who else still remembers Dick even though it was so long ago. Guess which other character is about to be an unexpected blast from the past. Guess which character Elinore is directly paralleling guess guess guess sorry everything is about Dick and Tim in my mind but I can focus I swear)
Four years later, in 1993, Batman: The Animated Series retells Dick's origin story. They like and keep Wolfman's elephant, but they change her name to Zitka:
Wolfman doesn't return to the elephant beyond those two appearances, and a few years down the line, New Titans gets cancelled and Wolfman's not writing Dick anymore anyway. So the animal gets abandoned for a while, until Devin Grayson, a fan of both Wolfman and B:tAS, revives the Wolfman-era Titans team in JLA/Titans and then the ongoing series Titans 1999.
Grayson then brings back the elephant in a flashback to Dick's past in Titans 16 (Jun 2000), where she imports the B:tAS name. Sometimes I'm skeptical of TV-to-comics imports, but honestly, I endorse this one. You lose the alliteration, which is a shame, but IMO Zitka is a better elephant name than Elinore.
Here's Dick with the newly-christened Zitka in Titans 16:
Grayson also briefly references the elephant in Gotham Knights 20 and - in a final angsty callback - in Nightwing 88 (Feb 2004), where Zitka tries futilely to comfort Dick in the midst of his trauma conga line:
... And... honestly, I think that's it for comic appearances? The two Wolfman comics plus the three Grayson comics.
Both Wolfman and Grayson are writing multiple titles - Batman, New Titans, Titans, Gotham Knights, and Nightwing between the two of them, spanning a big chunk of Dick's post-Crisis canon - and both writers use the elephant for heartwarming moments of nostalgia, which means if you're doing a post-Crisis readthrough for Dick, Elinore/Zitka feels memorable. But I don't think she actually shows up that much.
For post-2011, I am not as well-informed - throwing this out to the dash? anyone know? - but I feel like Zitka the heartwarming symbol of Dick's heartwarming circus past is, uh, thematically very at odds with the Court of Owls evil!circus vibes, so my instinct is that this story element was almost certainly dropped in the reboot.
Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?
In WFA, yes; in main comics continuity, no. Technically, I have not read every comic ever published, so I could be wrong!! But I don't think so.
Below, find my rambling reasoning on the tonal vibes of pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, and post-2011, and why this particular story element doesn't seem right to me for the first two.
Pre-Crisis (...okay, mostly the Silver Age): stuffed animal, yes or no?
tl;dr no, requires too much background knowledge on the part of the reader, plus the elephant wasn't a thing until later
Elinore doesn't get created until post-Crisis, but also just generally, pre-Crisis callbacks are more along the lines of this reference in Batman 129 (published in 1960), where, wow, Batman and Robin are hunting jewel thieves - and it turns out Robin recognized this strongman! BUT HOW?!
The comic goes on to recap Dick's entire origin story in flashback, on the assumption that you may not know it.
(BTW, if you'd like to know more about Haly's Circus throughout the years, nightwingology has a great post here summarizing a lot of fun plotlines and characters!)
Basically: Silver Age comics are very self-consciously episodic and kid-friendly; they're not generally gonna do overly-elaborate callbacks because they don't know what comics their kid readers may have randomly picked up or remember.
By the time of post-Crisis, comic books were being written for an adult audience buying from the direct market, i.e. readers who are collecting whole runs & don't need or want Dick's origin story to be recapped to us in full every time it's referenced. That's why in post-Crisis, we get stuff like "hey, neat, this particular soda brand is getting mentioned in several different books!!" or "in order to understand this story arc, buy SIXTEEN DIFFERENT COMICS in FIVE DIFFERENT RUNS and read them ALL ACCORDING TO A NUMBERED ORDER and also you better be following the individual plotlines and recognize these five minor characters who we don't bother to introduce!! Good luck!!" But the elaborate post-Crisis plotlines - and subtler worldbuilding like a stuffed animal callback to Dick's backstory - don't make a lot of story sense UNLESS you're imagining your readers as completionist adult fans.
So IMO a stuffed animal wouldn't be a pre-Crisis thing unless it was The Episodic Story Of the Week, and I don't think a stuffed animal is action-adventure-y enough for the fast-paced storytelling of the Silver Age. (Unless it, like, came to life and tried to eat you or something.)
Post-Crisis: stuffed animals, yes or no?
tl;dr: no, Dick's a manly tough guy, he's not gonna have a stuffed animal, that'd be lame, like something Tim might do
Part of the edgy grimdark adult vibes in 80s/90s comics is that some characters who used to be kinda silly & goofy & lighthearted - like Batman and Robin - get reimagined as Serious and Angsty and Edgy in a Tough Cool Manly Brooding Way. This massively affects characterization for Bruce, Dick, and Bruce and Dick's relationship.
(I obviously love this change & love the tense Bruce-and-Dick interactions, but plenty of fans of the earlier fluffy comics really disliked the edgy retcons of Miller / Wolfman / Starlin / et al.)
The upshot is that post-Crisis is a period when you could have a recurring reference like a stuffed elephant, but you wouldn't have a stuffed elephant, not for Dick. I think a toy like that would be too cutesy / childish / effeminate to give a male character in post-Crisis, unless you were poking fun at him.
Now, you could probably let Tim have a stuffed animal, because Tim is sometimes cool but also sometimes a tryhard loser who is faking being cool and not entirely pulling it off (see e.g. the Robin comic where he practices tough-guy faces in the mirror, or the Teen Titans comic where Conner discovers his cringy Enya CD, or when he's fanboying over Connor and it's awkward, etc etc.). A stuffed animal would be deeply embarrassing, and you'd have to be careful to compensate by having Tim do something cool afterward - but Tim's character concept allows for "he's kind of a loser sometimes."
But Dick isn't!! In post-Crisis, Dick's a tough / impressive / "cool guy" character, the kind of guy anyone would want to be, even in the flashbacks where he's Robin, and even in the stories where he's more lighthearted than angsty. It'd be kinda lame for Dick to have a stuffed elephant, so he wouldn't. I feel like Dick would be more likely to poke fun at it if someone had one, like when he's making fun of Wally for liking the Hardy Boys. Dick could have a Batman action figure, at most, and if he had one he would have it ironically.
Basically: in post-Crisis, a male character hugging a stuffed elephant feels more likely to be a punchline to me, not something poignant. (Even with Tim, Tim could have an embarrassing stuffed animal, but he couldn't hug it when sad - that's too far. Maybe Booster Gold might do this. Probably he wouldn't, but spiritually, he would. Sorry Booster ilu! <3)
Instead, Dick instinctively deals with his inner turmoil like the TORTURED ACTION HERO he is: by punching things and brooding and yelling and joining the mob and sleeping on rooftops and going on obsessive secret missions and acquiring Angsty Stubble!! Just like Batman!
(Technically I don't know if Bruce ever joined the mob but you know he would.)
Anyway as you know this is my favorite continuity and I am poking fun affectionately, but uh, yeah sdfsfdsfs. No stuffed animals.
Post-2011 / Infinite Frontier / Wayne Family Adventures: stuffed animals, yes or no?
tl;dr it's in WFA! Probably not anywhere else, but it could be.
Post-2011 stuff tends to be cutesier overall, most of all in the current Infinite Frontier era. So I don't feel like this would be tonally out-of-line with IF comics. Taylor tends to go for more meme-y references rather than fanfic references, though.
So the obvious best fit is WFA, which is aiming for a rough approximation of Silver Age family-friendly vibes - wholesome, episodic plots, Teaching Good Moral Lessons For The Youth, etc. - plus lots of Easter eggs for fanfic readers and some comic references.
And look, here we are:
Aww.
Whew - that's everything I could find!
Anyway as you can probably tell, I LOVE the elephant, so this was a very entertaining rabbit hole to go down, thank you <3
#dick grayson#anyone with more info feel free to chime in & we can crowdsource <3#i do think the toy elephant is awfully cute though <3#total digression but i was thinking about it as i was writing:#i'm fascinated by the ways that the post-crisis batboys & their stories can intersect with 90s masculinity and all its issues with stoicism#and i'm pro-queering and gender-bending - 90s comics were a total boys' club so i think it's neat that transformative fandom isn't#but i do love 90s masculinity and All Its Issues too & one of the things i find compelling about the dick-tim-bruce trio#& especially dick's place in it - is the unspoken hierarchy whereby bruce is manlier than dick & dick is manlier than tim#and so dick's in the middle as this somewhat softer-character who aspires to be a harsher & more stoic & ultimate manly-man character#caught in the middle between robin & batman & what each role represents#and like. batman is both manhood & the only desirable thing to be AND ALSO it represents this immense narrowing of possibility#because so much of stereotypical masculinity is about reducing the range of emotions you're allowed to have or express#and dick is both incredibly conflicted about bruce AND wants to be just like him & by extension is conflicted about masculinity writ large#so a lot of dick's interactions with tim veer between trying on a frat-boy-ish 'I'm The Manly Guy' persona vs. giving up on it#or trying on imitations of Bruce's Batman persona but also trying to backtrack out of it bc he doesn't like how it feels etc etc#ANYWAY i think what i am trying to say is that if tim had a stuffed animal dick would be entertained & poke mild fun at him#and call him 'teddy' for the next hour or something while tim got increasingly defensive about how the teddy bear was steph's#and/or about how the teddy bear was OLD and tim doesn't even care about it and also WHATEVEr i'm above this#and to an uninformed observer this might look like bullying BUT ACTUALLY#this ritual would IN FACT be very reassuring to both of them + tim would feel WAY better afterward than if dick had ignored it#because by poking fun at him dick shows he still respects tim enough to tease him thus subtextually exorcising the threat of wimpiness#plus allowing tim to defend himself & demonstrate that he can take a joke so they've both reaffirmed their masculinity to each other#& they don't have to be scared of the teddy bear and all it represents anymore#however also afterward dick would have a brief nostalgic flashback to when he was a kid & had a teddy bear & feel weird about the memory#because he would be unable to articulate to himself that what he misses is a past when he allowed himself to be vulnerable#anyway this wouldn't actually happen in comics but it's what would happen in my soul. you know.#ask tag#zitka
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just two little guys burdened with the weight of an impossible task borne by their paternal figure's deepest fears, eventually leading to them being corrupted by the pressure of those expectations ❤️
#cave scribbles#ffxiv#dunmeshi#thistle dungeon meshi#thistle dunmeshi#dungeon meshi#delicious in dungeon#final fantasy xiv#meteion#endwalker#the more i think about it#the more similar they are#god. God#both of their characters revolve around life and death#thistle reacts to the inevitability of death by defying it#using any means necessary#literally dragging the entire kingdom into the ground for a tjousand years.#meanwhile meteion reacts by embracing despair and nihilism#and figures that since everything will die anyway#she may as well choose the kinder option and kill everyone now#to spare them from further suffering#its the feeling of needing to protect their loved ones#and shield them from the reality of living#but it backfires because. theyre only kids#they arent meant to shoulder such immense burdens by themselves#GAH. im normal about them
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STAR TREK REWATCH ☆ “The Enemy Within” (1x05)
Don’t be afraid. Here’s my hand. Hold on. You don’t have to be afraid. I won’t let go.
#star trek#trekedit#tosedit#star trek tos#trekdaily#scifiedit#tvedit#star trek the original series#james t kirk#retrotv#60s#treksource#richard matheson#scifidaily#*tosrewatch#boldly go#kirk in eyeliner yes pls#wishy washy nice guy kirk was boring; would-be rapist kirk made me immensely uncomfortable for obvious reasons#so good job ig kirk does in fact need both sides to be the character we love#i lowkey hate this edit but oh well...on to harry mudd!
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I love ganqing bc it's just two normal, mature women. Even if Ganyu is more withdrawn, Keqing wouldn't be able to stand the hesitation and inaction for too long, so if she wants to confess she's just gonna do it. No stupid, endless, mind games and bullshit <3
Dense Keqing is also good i think, bc Ganyu wouldn't be that smug annoying asshole who berates the other for "being dense and not asking them out" while putting no effort into it themselves, she'd just find it endearing and try to communicate better until it works. She's patient. And it's also interesting to think abt Ganyu taking a leaf out of Keqing's book, and finding the boldness to just confess herself despite her quiet, withdrawn nature. If clear and straightforward is what Keqing likes best, then Ganyu could perhaps do it like that for her
#ganqing#ganyu#keqing#genshin impact#gq thoughts on the brain bc they're the best and i love them immensely and they're so interesting to me and aaaaughghghh [affectionate]#the ''dense character'' in ships can be such a hit or miss trope. u can prolly tell what i consider a big miss after this post lol#i like when it's abt them both orbiting each other while having feelings and not knowing how to meet in the middle just yet lol#dense character often isn't stupid. they just care abt the other person and their boundaries. and they need clearer communication#which i think would fit keqing rlly well considering her personality#i could talk more abt this and how tired i am of ppl's perception and treatment of such characters but maybe another time lol
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ON VIKTOR AND MORALITY IN SUBJECT TO SACRIFICE FOR KNOWLEDGE ( ... ) IN COMPARISON TO SEPARATE MEDIA, SPECIFICALLY HICCUP HADDOCK AND FORBIDDEN FRIENDSHIP.
WE FIRST MEET RIO AFTER VIKTOR, [ A FRAIL AND CRIPPLED BOY FROM THE UNDERCITY ] FOLLOWS A TOY OF HIS OWN INVENTION INTO THE UNDERBELLY OF SINGED'S LAIR. WHILE AT FIRST AFRAID OF THIS UNKNOWN CREATURE, VIKTOR IS ABLE TO APPROACH WITH HER THROUGH CURIOSITY AND EMPATHY, MIRRORING HICCUP AS AN OUTCAST COME TO FIND SOMETHING INHUMAN AN EASIER BOND ; A MUTUATION UNNATURAL TO THIS WORLD, BUILT FROM VEINS AND TENDONS UP, THE BOY STILL WORRIES WHEN INFORMED SHE IS IN THE PROCESS OF DYING, NEAR IMMEDIATELY OFFERING HIS HELP IN PREVENTING HER DEATH.
THIS THEN BEGS THE QUESTIONS ; HOW FAR WILL ONE GO TO SAVE A DYING LIFE ? WHEN DOES THAT LIFE BECOME NOTHING BUT A HUSK OF WHAT IT ONCE WAS ? WHEN IS SAVING SOMETHING ACTUALLY A CRUELTY ?
FOR MONTHS VIKTOR HAD VISITED SINGED AND RIO JUST AS HICCUP DID FOR TOOTHLESS IN THE GROVE, BRINGING SUPPLIES AND KNOWLEDGE AS A YOUNG SCHOLAR STILL IN TOUCH WITH MORALITY ( ... ) BUT UPON SEEING THE INTENSE AND BRUTAL TREATMENT THAT KEEPING HER ALIVE REQUIRED, HE IS QUICK TO LEAVE AND REFUSE FURTHER INVOLVEMENT.
SHE GROWS FRAIL AND HER EYES GLOSS OVER, COLORS DARKENING INTO A SICKLY WHITE AND DARK PURPLE. WHERE SINGED HAS STABBED TUBES INTO HER TORSO, THE SKIN IS BLACK AND CLEARLY BEGINNING TO DECAY. AT THIS YOUNG AGE, VIKTOR HAS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THIS IS AT ALL FOR A BIGGER CAUSE ; HE SEES THIS CRUELTY AND DENIES HAVING ANY PART OF IT FOR LIFE IN PAIN AND SUFFERING IS NOT TRUE LIFE.
IN CONTRAST, HICCUP DENIES HIS VIKING UPBRINGING BY REFUSING TO KILL THE NIGHTFURY HE'D DOWNED, SEEING THE CRUELTY IN HOW THIS TREATMENT IS UNFAIR AND WITHOUT BIGGER PURPOSE. LIFE IN DEFENSE AND PURE SURVIVAL DOES NOT DESERVE TO BE SNUFFED OUT FOR SIMPLY BEING.
" I THOUGHT YOU UNDERSTOOD. THE MUTATION MUST SURVIVE. "
BUT AFTER HIS BODY FAILS HIM IN ADULTHOOD, COUGHING BLOOD INTO HIS PALMS AND HALLUCINATING THE DIVINE THROUGH HIS RESEARCH INTO THE ARCANE, VIKTOR RETURNS TO SINGED.
" I UNDERSTAND NOW. "
NOW STEEPED IN RIO'S EXPERIENCE WITH MORTALITY, [ OR WHAT VIKTOR PERCEIVES AS HER EXPERIENCE ; SHE HAS NO WAY OF COMMUNICATING HER THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS ABOUT DEATH EXCEPT THROUGH HER ACTIONS. ] VIKTOR BELIEVES HE IS WILLING TO EXPERIENCE THIS SAME SUFFERING SHOULD IT MEAN HE WILL NOT HAVE TO FACE DEATH. EVEN AFTER FINDING HER, MANY YEARS LATER, NOTHING BUT A TEST SUBJECT VOID OF COLOR IN A TUBE.
HICCUP IS WILLING TO SACRIFICE HIS HOME AND LIVELIHOOD FOR THE SAKE OF THIS CREATURE ( ... ) VIKTOR IS WILLING TO SACRIFICE THE CREATURE FOR THE SAKE OF HIS HOME AND LIVELIHOOD.
SELFISH, CRUEL, SEEMINGLY WITHOUT BOUNDARY FOR WHAT MUST BE DONE FOR PROGRESS. VIKTOR IS BLINDED BY HIS COWARDACE WHILE HICCUP IS LIBERATED BY IT ; " I LOOKED AT HIM, AND I SAW MYSELF. " VS " LOVE AND LEGACY IS WHAT WE SACRIFICE FOR PROGRESS. "
#꒰ ⠀. . 𐑺ִ ✶⠀𝟎𝟕.⠀꒱⠀⠀ --- ⠀⠀study.⠀*#꣑ꦌ ⁺⠀ viktor.⠀⠀* ❪ ♡ ❫⠀⠀ --- ⠀⠀THE MACHINE HERALD.#anyway.#i love both these characters immensely#i might make a part 2 on my multi fandom mumu#where i focus more on hiccup's side in this comparison#but yes morality and mortality#how fun is that#// animal cruelty#// ask to tag
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I know there’s probably not a SINGLE person on this whole website that is hyperfixated on both black widow 2021 and security breach but I NEED to rant to someone about the parallels between Yelena Belova and Vanessa fnaf
#hear me out#we have two blondes with green eyes#both canonically in their 20s#Vanessa being 23#yelena being 27#they both have troubled pasts with childhood abuse and trauma#they are coerced and manipulated by someone that is a sickly disgusting father figure#tortured and abused into compliance#and even canonically are both MINDHACKED#into becoming mind controlled killing machines#and forced to torture and kill outside their own volition#but then once they are freed#find solace in their found family#also also they are both canonical dorks that love dogs and are short tempered#they’re also both immense smart asses#and are prone to emotional breakdowns#I could also talk about the similarities between black widow sisters and doublestar duo but#I’ll save that for later#bc THOSE parallels make me damn near feral#black widow 2021#security breach#marvel#five nights at freddy's#yelena belova#Vanessa fnaf#starr speaks#random rambles#I know I’m probably speaking into the ether but ughhhh they make me feralllll#there’s a reason I’ve attached myself to both characters#and no I don’t ’have a type!’ (clearly has a type 💀)
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My FL main went through some really weird, organic development over the...oh god, I think it's been five years since I started playing now.
So my main is named Skadi Larkin. They are a little bastard. They started out extremely 2D; I named them after my favorite Norse goddess and the protagonist of the book I was reading at the time. I originally wanted to make them female like both of their namesakes, but the second I saw the third-gender option, I thought it was too good to pass up. This is where they got their primary base characterization as a mad scientist who wanted to Cause Problems.
Then I started the Nemesis ambition and forgot which option I'd chosen for who I was trying to avenge, so they lost both their lover and their older brother under tragic circumstances (only the lover was killed by Nemesis's antagonist, though).
Then I got an Exceptional Friendship and had to give my tragic backstory in order to gain entry to the House of Chimes. Skadi pulled said tragic backstory (orphaned in a hansom accident) more or less out of their ass, but it did establish that their parents are dead.
Somewhere down the line, I realized that technically Skadi is a linguist, since the Correspondence is a language, and I made that their profession on the Surface as well.
Around this time, I started working on character designs for my fan comic. I got really into messing around with skin tone, and somewhere along the line thought it would be fun to draw Skadi (who was originally white) with darker skin, and it stuck.
Then I abruptly realized I was taking a lot of options that increased my Melancholy, and almost all of them were based on the Surface. So now Skadi has a longing for the Surface.
I left the game for a few years, but somewhere during this stretch of time, and I don't know how this happened, but I decided Skadi was now Native American; specifically, Metis. I changed their design to incorporate a sash woven in a style characteristic of the Metis, which also added a bit of color to their design (which was mostly black or grey at this point).
During this time, I started incorporating Skadi into my fan comic. This would eventually lead me to actually flesh out their backstory in greater detail. When I started playing the game again, I also created my first alt by total accident (long story), and I decided to weave her backstory with Skadi's.
So Skadi is in the interesting position of being an Indigenous person who is what we'd probably consider Two-Spirit today but they'd just call "Bollocks to that gender crap". They never belonged on the Surface, since the Metis are in a bit of a liminal space compared to other tribes due to their interesting background (the Metis are the descendants of French settlers and Indigenous inhabitants, mostly Cree), and Skadi exists in a liminal space within that liminal space due to only being half-Metis and raised primarily in white culture, although they still maintained a connection to it through their late mother. They also never belonged because no one else on the Surface outside of the communities they already felt isolated from would ever accept them for their gender. London gave them a chance to express one of those, but not both, and despite knowing that the Surface hates them just for existing, they still long to return.
#fallen london#fallen london oc#mild fallen london spoilers ig#there's a really interesting dichotomy with all of my fl characters honestly#skadi's is just probably the most blatant#umbra belacqua (my shadowy alt) is someone who both loves very fiercely and is capable of immense cruelty at the same time#in her backstory she had the husband of her ex-fiancee (who left her at the altar) murdered because she couldn't let go of her ex's betraya#said ex is my persuasive alt and is both very socially gregarious and extremely withdrawn#he probably won't ever get a spouse just because he can't bring himself to love someone else after what happened the last time#and he had very good reason for leaving umbra because he could never love her the way she wanted#and he felt that the sympathy she would receive from his family would more than make up for the heartbreak#since umbra is obsessed with gaining power and prestige and he came from an influential family#and knew that running away with the person he really loved would get him disowned#(he doesn't know umbra killed his husband btw)#my dangerous alt is my persuasive alt's sister#she's trans and badly overcompensating for it by refusing to wear anything except feminine clothing#because it hasn't quite gotten through to her yet that no one in Fallen London particularly cares about her gender expression#and she feels like the only way she can be seriously considered a woman is if she does everything she can to look like one#which causes her a good few problems because her one true passion is violence and that's not usually considered a very feminine hobby#then their younger brother (my watchful alt) is someone ironically very disinclined to violence who resorts to it anyways#the only people he's actually going to try to kill are the ones he has to kill for his ambition#and he's not very happy about it but he doesn't have much of a choice#because while he might not like bloodshed his murdered spouse was an anarchist who definitely did#and he's determined to do right by his memory by...killing a lot of people apparently#he is not a terribly mentally stable man and when i finally get around to making his account#he's going to have a massive nightmares problem that he refuses to deal with and keeps ending up in the royal beth for it#tl;dr all my fallen london characters are going through it and have overly long and complicated backstories#my main just happens to have the most overly long and complicated of them all
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i Do have the ability to be normal abt sports anime i really do i promise... just not oofuri
#like oofuri is the One (1) sports anime where the plot has so very little to do with the sport and everything to do with the main couple#pitcher/cather jokes aside- look me in the face and tell me this series Isnt abt them and thier admittedly odd relationship#you cant. bc canon.#literally abes whole character arc revolves around his relationship with mihashi.... (which is Also my fav troupe and i know this but idc)#also just... love the two of them as characters my sweet boys with disorders#(doesnt help that i looooove both their va's....)#anyway.. the love i have for this indefinitively hiatus-d series is..... immense#ookiku furikabutte
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on this late night i am thinking incredibly hard about how, when faced with a choice between preventing a new friend from harm + clearing up a misunderstanding and choosing the path that would potentially find him a cure for his catatonic friend, zack recalled marlene's words of saying that aerith liked cloud, and of course she did, because he (zack) wasn't there. hadn't been there for a long time
and after recalling these words and grasping at the ribbon tied around his hand, zack ultimately decides that by taking the right-hand path he can, with some luck, fulfill two of his own desires - 1) potentially seeing his friend cloud healed and healthily awake again, and 2) making sure that aerith will be able to be happy when she wakes if he succeeds the first part. he has not and will not let go of his adoration and love for her, but if cloud is seemingly what makes her happy in this bizarre world he's found himself in, he'll choose that option in a heartbeat, because her happiness means the world to him even if it means accepting that he's not the focus of it anymore. he just loves her so much . oh i'm in pain. zack fair the man that you are
#shout out 2 younger me who stayed up late on a school night finishing crisis core and then sobbed all over my psp#zerith is my favourite ship for both those characters and the doomed aspect is part of the delicious spice. it does cause immense pain#but its worth it#anyway people who try to shove zack aside or trivialise his impact for the sake of their ship can catch these mf hands#the most painful part of the stuff pre-remake trilogy had to be that both of them died before aerith had a chance to learn the truth#but in AC they're there... together..... i hope part 3 can give us even just one scene where they meet . and talk. and clear things up#they're both gold hearted sweethearts they deserve that much#i guess what i mean is. i want the 'deleted scene' from the lifestream that happens between forgotten capital and AC#the start of the gongaga section in rebirth + the entire ending battle gauntlet gives me hope#ff7 rebirth spoilers#ff7 rebirth#the amount of love i have in my heart for zack fair and his pure heart literally bursting with love for everyone and everything#O U G H#editing the tags to add: this is not a clerith post. this is a Zack Fair Most Perfect Man On Gaia post
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sorry i like this man because he said one word… it’s a disease. 😔😔
#tbf it’s because of the immense amount of respect it showed for another character not bc of the word itself but#it’s still very funny to me#i thought he was a fine enough character with good dramatic potential#but i didn’t LIKE him until he did That#and i’ve loved him ever since and he hasn’t let me down#so i feel justified#i think it was just especially bc i realized what was happening as i was watching and was mentally BEGGING for him to use a different word#than she did with him since she unintentionally manipulated him by saying it like that#and he literally fucking DID!!!!!!!!#he used a different word with a vaguer connotation out of respect for her#and it hit me SO hard#if he had used the other word i would probably never have forgiven him#but he did right by her just like she did her best to do right by him#and it just Gets Me#they may both be dead (at least for now) but they are still life partners forever in my heart
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![Tumblr media](https://64.media.tumblr.com/1ef0c12c4641d5e49de6273321ab3506/f0ca4a21dc981f24-8f/s540x810/5a0e56df648998e01897142876161ea3585f097c.jpg)
Drew this a few days ago and like it so I thought id post :D
#My ocs#original character#ain't fucking with the past#afwtp#afwtp derek#My art#digital art#i should draw him and sophia hanging out more they are best friends and i love them both immensely#Also hes nathans little brother and is 17 during the events of afwtp (he barely made the cutoff for birthdat to be a senior that year)#Anyways#I love him immensely
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everyones always talking about the bates motel tv series and not the 1987 bates motel movie that was a failed pilot for a tv series that never happened. which sucks bc i just watched the 1987 bates motel movie and now i cant stop thinking about it
#its so bizarre#in the last half hour it goes off on a tangent where a bunch of ghosts of ppl that killed themselves convince a woman not to kill herself#they take her to a sock hop and she dances with jason bateman and then they all say “killing yourself is bad”#and then she doesnt kill herself and it goes back to the actual plot of the movie#also the two main characters have immense queer energy and i love them both
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Ohhhh I just know friday's pokemon episode will be a life-changing event for me.
#vi rambling#im.... always fascinated by characters driven by legacy#so seeing said legacy is going to change me fundamentally i think. they look like such a sweet trio#all the parallels to the current day rvt.... just seeing how much gibeon has changed after what happened. im so intrigued and immersed#something about how lucius and gibeon had a lot of respect for each other only to later fall out (?) or get seperated#paralleling liko and amethio who start on opposing ends and do not view each other as anything bus obstacles#and slowly gain mutual respect for one another with little moments that#disclose both of their traits that the other values and initially overlooked#as amethio's compassion and selflessness which liko values so much vs liko's determination and vigor which amethio values immensely#i just. opposite interactions that go back and have been set up by destiny a century prior. im so. inconsolable right now#as someone who is usually put off by narratives introducing familial ties as something so significant#this series reminded me that when it's done right it is absolutely delightfully cathartic and beautiful#because it utilizes it to tell a story about legacy and memory and motivation and dreams.#its . so beautiful#pokemon#one day ill write a proper love post about horizons as it deserves
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brb, i have to go and. make strangled noises at nothing real quick; it just hit me over the head how Wyll's use of the metaphor of dancing as a stand-in for romance and intimacy really just. accompanies him all throughout his story, and how perfect it is
I guess I should have expected a character like him, that's both deeply poetic in his speech and courtly in his upbringing, would come to idealize a chivalric romance a bit, and translate his feelings on/of love to an element of courting that's as ritualistic and processional as ballroom dancing, but sometimes just realizing the obvious can really knock you off your feet for a second
like. just like how there is almost a blueprint to a perfect storybook romance in both stories and -consequently- in his head (I think romance might even be one of the literary genres with the highest number of unwritten rules that need to be fulfilled for a work to count as a romance), there is also a fairly strict method to a court dance. There is a series of well-known and practiced steps that was laid out in advance, and one is to perform them in succession, and in sync with one's partner. If one of the parties doesn't know or doesn't want to follow the rules/steps, it gets... tangled, messy, and you both stumble. The dance and the relationship both fall apart. The happy ending of a tale is not reached without all the steps in-between being followed, and he so dearly wants his fairytale ending, his happy, fulfilled love, I just---
it's such a perfect metaphor, and what makes it even more perfect is that Wyll is ostensibly aware of it, and he chose it, purposefully, and i don't want to watch the Act 3 commitment scene because I've not yet done it myself and don't want to spoil it, but I would be so surprised if he a.) made no mention of storybook romances, or b.) didn't just straight up propose y'know
i'm (metaphorically) crying, if it were possible to play this game on six different characters simultaneously without getting bored or confused I fucking would
#squirrel plays bg3#yet another way my Trevelyan works very well in this situation for me#oc: raymond trevelyan#back in the day i made him... actually very similar to what Wyll is now#he was a young man of noble birth who grew up idealizing the storybook heroes of legends and romances#and while he wasn't really that stuck on the 'perfect romance' bits; being not interested in the ladies at all...#the Noble Hero On A White Steed image and the Charming Knight Saving the Realms images did appeal to him immensely#he was gregarious and brave and chivalrous and overall just... trying his absolute best to be good#he wanted to be the a gallant hero and to experience a sweeping passionate love- both wooing and being wooed#which he did get! and he did eventually find his happy ending!#only... the stories rarely mention that heroes don't often live this far past the end of their own tales#when the evil is slain and the damsel is saved; the story simply... ends#the characters; they live on frozen in the perfect moment of true love's first kiss#and nobody really talks about what happens after- not until you must experience it for yourself#so now he's... a burnt-out ex-knight#a has-been hero whose usefulness ceased and his happy ending was torn from him by pointless intrigue#and I just LOVE the thought of him finding a new happy ending; of starting over with someone who'll rekindle his passions#and dance the night away with him#YAY FOR TAG NOVELS
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