#i had a fantastic time writing them

[outer-edges]

JASKGKFKKSKS OH MY GOD UNCOVERED THE CURSED SPIDERSONA X TWILIGHT CROSSOVER I WROTE IN HIGH SCHOOL. LOSING MY MINDDDDD. BEING A TEENAGE GIRL DURING THE PANDEMIC WAS QUITE A TIME.

[ghostofsnails]

so did you guys know theres this character called tristan vik disventure camp and

[starry-bi-sky]

I had a thought, dear However scary About that night The bugs and the dirt Why were you digging? What did you bury Before those hands pulled me From the earth? I will not ask you where you came from I will not ask you, neither should you

-------- an extension of this excerpt because I've been thinking of Femme Danny and Jason all week. It's mildly suggestive, but that's really the only heads up needed. --------

Music blaring, bass heavy in her ears, Danny finds him in a ditch at the bottom of the bluff. She was leaving the observatory, and she nearly misses him as she turns out onto the last stretch of road leading back into the city.

She catches sight of him, just barely. A glimpse in the corner of her eye; something reflecting on the light. She thinks it's a deer at first, and instinctual terror that only the idiocy of a deer denting her car can give her, strikes her hard. There's no one behind her, so she slams the breaks.

Her car stops; there's no deer. She looks and looks, but there's no deer, no deer buddy — they always come in pairs. But something still catches her eye; light reflecting off leather, in the ditch below just a few feet in front of her.

"What the fuck is that?" Slips out of her mouth before she can really think it through, and she's pulling off to the shoulder, wheels crunching gravel, before she thinks that through either.

Danny's climbing out of her car within seconds, putting it in park and hitting her hazards as her door clicks open and she stands up on the ledge. The trees block the sky, and there is no moon beholden to brighten the land, only the dull light of the stars and the brights of her car.

There's a man in a ditch. And he's not moving. From the distance, Danny's not sure if he's breathing.

She breathes out for him; "Fuck." She's running around the front of her car, not thinking it through. Her feet crunch the gravel, bugs buzzing at her ears, and she's sliding down the small hill into the ditch to reach his side.

"Please don't be dead, please don't be dead." Repeats in mantra under her breath, she can smell blood; heavy and iron, mixing with the dirt and the grass. Her hands find his side, Danny rolls him over onto his back. Her fingers find his pulse, and she breathes relief. He's alive.

—---------

Danny finds no less than two — no, three guns, four knives, and an actual, goddamn shiv on the half-dead ditch man. But not a single ID or wallet.

The man reeks of danger, even in his unconscious state it lingers on him like a rich cologne. It's the human instinct to be curious, and maybe it's the blood and dirt that tells her he's bad news. Common sense, naturally.

She doesn't know what to do with him. Danny wants to help him, but the ghostly part of her, the one that seeks safety above all else — for herself, for her loved ones. Because growing up in a house of weapons on the tables for sticky, pudgy fingers to play with, and food that needs killing twice, and labs full of half-broken beakers and radioactive substances spilling onto the floor robbed her of it entirely, — tells her to leave him.

He's dangerous. Her core hums cold, freezing the tips of her fingers, making her ears ring. She forgets to breathe, her hands going numb. Leave him for the coyotes to find; for the bugs to feast on; for the mud to swallow whole. Leave him for the land. Nobody carries this many weapons on them unless—

He groans. In only the light from her high beams, his cracked lips split and makes a noise of pain. His chest rises, shuddery and slow, and he doesn't wake. The man slips back down into unconsciousness. But he's alive.

He's alive.

Danny exhales. It's springtime, wreathed in life. It's cold; he's cold. But alive. She shakes the chill from her fingers, resolution warms her lungs.

Carrying him up to her car isn't easy — dressed like fucking Dean Winchester and wearing half as many layers, the man is probably two hundred pounds. But she's been working out and taking boxing classes since sophomore year of high school. She throws him over her shoulder in a fireman's carry, and hikes them both up the hill.

She drives them home. Don't ask her why she didn't take them to the hospital; she can't give an answer. Not one that makes sense. She knows enough first aid to fix almost anything he might have.

Danny blasts the heat and turns the music on low; switches to something softer, more comforting, in case he wakes up. She kicks the passenger seat back far enough so that if he does, he's reclined comfortably.

He doesn't wake up, she can't keep her eyes off him anyways.

—---------

Danny lays him on the couch in her house. He gets blood and mud on the fabric, and she'll need to get a new one because of it. But she takes off his boots, strips him of his shirt and jackets, and flies to the bathroom to get her first aid kit.

He doesn't wake up the entire time she's putting stitches in his side. Nothing is broken, but he's bruised and cut. Some get band-aids, others get bandages.

The man has half as many scars as Danny does. Stabs, cuts, a few burns here and there. Danny has those too, but she doubts the man has been impaled before like she has. The luck of ghosts that they can't die by mortal means. Or curse, depending on how you look at it.

(There's a thin scar on his throat, like someone tried to slice it open. She sees it while she's stitching up a laceration near his collarbone, and Danny can't stop herself from huffing.)

("We match." She murmurs, joking dry and ingenuine. She doubts anyone's survived a botched decapitation like she has. At least his scar is thin and hard to see. That wasn't a good night for her; she had to sew it closed herself, alone out of refusal to let her friends help.)

When she's done, she collapses into the recliner beside him, and falls asleep. She slips in and out of dreams all night.

—---------

When she wakes up, the man is staring at her, sitting up on the couch like an animal listening for the predator nearby. It's a good thing she hid his weapons in the floorboards when they arrived. She stares back at him, eyes half-lidded with sleep.

He's handsome. She thinks, and wakes up fully.

—---------

His name is Jason Todd, he doesn't remember who he is.

That's... a problem.

—---------

She makes them both food, and she'll never stop appreciating the fact that she no longer needs to fight her fridge before the food inside lets her eat. She hasn't lived with her parents in years, and yet the awe still hits her some days.

"I thought I told you to stay seated." She frowns when Jason Todd enters her kitchen, a hand hovering over his bandaged side. They're both tense; awkward and wrong-footed. Off-kilter. It's not a surprise to her. He's amnesiac, she's a stranger.

Jason Todd blinks at her, leaning against the doorframe. From her periphery, he shrugs, only to suck in his teeth in pained regret moments later. "I got bored." He tells her.

"Well, I don't have painkillers," Danny retorts, cheek comes easy to her. Too easy, sometimes. "if you tear your stitches then I'm giving you a rag to bite into while I redo them."

Well, if anything, it gets a snort from him.

—---------

"So, do I have a shirt, or did you just find a half-naked, half-dead man in the woods and decide to take him home?" Jason Todd asks her from the table a few minutes later. She can see, even standing a few feet away, the gooseflesh rising bumps against his skin.

Her cheeks color pink, and she moves to the hallway. "You have a shirt," she says, "you have two actually, and a jacket. I threw the shirts in the wash because they were filthy."

The jacket was leather, so during the night, when she woke up from her many bouts of restless sleep, she got up and cleaned it by hand. "I would've done the same with your jeans, but I can take a half-dead man home," she opens the dryer and pulls out the shirts, "but I draw the line at taking off his pants when he's unconscious."

It gets a short laugh out of him; harsh and brief, and it makes her relax, just a little. Laughter meant just enough comfort to not be tense... most of the time. She returns to his side and drapes the still-warm clothes onto the table.

"What if my legs were hurt?" He asks her, raising an eyebrow even as he reached for the first shirt.

"Then that is called an exception to the rule, ditch man."

—---------

He stays with her. He has nowhere to go — and trust her, they looked. Or they tried to. But he has no social media that shows up under the name ‘Jason Todd’. Oh, there are Jason Todds, but none that match the way he looks — none of them his age, none of them with black hair and blue eyes, no white streak in the curls at the front.  

Well, there was one possible candidate. A Jason Todd-Wayne, infamous adoptive son of Bruce Wayne. But he died the same year Danny did, and unlike her, he didn’t come back. 

“Great.” Jason Todd sighs heavy, “I match with a dead kid.”

“I’m honestly kind of impressed.” Danny tells him, frowning despite her laughing disbelief. She scrolls through every social media she can find, and he just doesn’t show up. There are no warrants out for his arrests, no celebrity interviews with him in it, no missing news reports matching his description. Nothing. “How do you not have any socials? You’re like a ghost.” And she knows a thing or two about ghosts.

It’s equally as suspicious as it is impressive. Who are you, Jason Todd? She wonders, looking over to him.  

He merely shrugs, careful of his injuries, and slumps into his chair. “Don’t ask me, I don’t remember.” 

She gives him the guest room, and they go out and buy him clothes with what budget she can afford. She drags him to a thrift store first, to every thrift store in the city, and they come back with a decent enough haul that he has clothes for at least two weeks. 

—---------

“Danny, what is that?” 

She takes a long sip of her drink, Jason lingering at her side like a shadow. “A smoothie, Tucker.” She says, deadpan like it's the most obvious thing in the world as she slides into their favorite booth with practiced ease. “You know this, I always get one on Fridays.” 

Jason follows her easily, slow and careful, mindful of his sides. He’s back to awkward, tense, acting like an outside looking in. Like he’s not quite sure what to do in the face of her friends. They’ve been together for a week now, and she asked him if he wanted to meet Sam and Tucker with her. 

(“You’ve been cooped up here all week.” She says when he asks her why, her hands shifting the purse at her shoulder. In shorts and a tank-top her scars lay on display for the world to see, and while she's long since shed the worst of her self-consciousness, it still creeps up on her. She can feel his eyes on them, even after a week. “Some fresh air and a change of scenery might do you some good. Maybe even jog that noggin of yours.”) 

Sam and Tucker stare at her, expressions unreading on their faces. Their eyes flick to Jason at her side, and then back to her. Danny takes another longer sip of her drink, and when she lets go with an obnoxious smack, she jerks her head to Jason. “Oh,” she says like an afterthought, an impish smile shadowing over her lips. “This is Jason, I found him in a ditch on Sunday.” 

"You what!?"

—---------

She doesn’t know how it happens. It sneaks up on her like sunlight creeping across the grass, melting away the morning dew and warming the dirt. She loves him. She loves him, she loves him, she loves him. It’s a terrible, choking thing. Wonderfully beautiful, melting her from the inside out. 

She loves him, she loves him, she loves him.

It’s greater than anything she’s felt before. Different from when she nearly dated Valerie in high school — but so, so similar to it at the same time. Warm in its certainty, in its similarity, burning in its difference. 

Danny doesn’t even realize it until half a year living with him, maybe just a little bit longer. But she realizes when she comes downstairs in the early dredges of the morning, sleep clinging to her lashes and sunlight unfurling through the windows, and finds him in the kitchen making food already. 

It’s not the first time she’s woken up to him doing this. But it’s, for some reason, only now that it hits her how fucking domestic it is. With music playing soft through the speaker of his used phone, barefoot in nothing but sweatpants, and humming along under his breath. He’s gotten so comfortable here; he laughs easier now, smiles easier. It was like watching a flower bloom in real time. 

And the sunlight cards through his hair like fingers, caressing over his face in that loving way it does when it wants someone to see the breathless beauty of their eyes. 

Something constricts in Danny’s chest, tight, fond, wanting. Mine, her mind whispers, faint and distant, and knocking the air from her lungs like a fucking train. Her fingers curl tight around the stairway rails, she has half a mind to crack it in two. 

Then he turns and sees her, he always notices her quickly, and Jason smiles at her. 

Somehow, Danny manages to smile back smiling with the ease of breathing, even when her mouth runs dry.

(If she kisses him, will she taste sugar? She hopes not — white sugar is unfilling, sweet but with nothing else to it. If she tastes Jason Todd, she hopes she tastes caramel.) 

—---------

“Want to go throw axes with me?” Danny asks, draping over the back of the couch and hanging her arms off Jason’s shoulders. Her hand finds his hair, and her fingers tangle with the dark curls. She can smell his shampoo when she hooks her chin on the top of his head.

Jason stills, a book in hand — he’s always got a book, and Danny’s never had much artistic talent but she always want s to find a pencil, maybe some charcoals, and sketch the sight down on paper. Memory isn’t enough, she needs it burned into something tangible. She wants to burn everything he does onto paper, wants to remember every little thing about him.

Then he hums, questioning and low, and Danny tries not to shiver with greed to hear it again. She hums back, her next inhale clearing her head. “Well, it’s not just me, but Sam and Tucker too. A new bar opened up downtown and we were gonna check it out, and we have enough time to add another person to the reservation.” 

A silence, thick and thoughtful. Jason tilts his head back to look up at her, and she removes her chin and hand to look down at him. Her hair curtains over them both, locking her into his eyes — impossibly blue, and beautifully so, with teal lining the iris. 

He wears his thoughts on his sleeve, his brows furrowed and mouth puckered in lighthearted thoughtfulness. Quit making me want to kiss you, Danny thinks, and forces her eyes to remain on his face. Idly, her hands trace over his shirt, rising slowly to drag the back of her nail over his collarbone. 

Jason shudders, sighs out slow, and smiles easily. “Sure, what time are we leaving?”   

—---------

Danny sighs as if she aches; she does. Her fingers find Jason Todd’s hair, soft and slipping between her fingers like silk. He’s so close to her face she can feel his breath on her lips, it’s driving her crazy with it. 

“My god.” She murmurs, her voice slipping out without her consent as her fingers drop from his hair to trace featherlight touches down his temples, down his jaw. His eyes haven’t left hers, half-lidded they are, and heavy, staring at her like he might just swallow her whole. 

Please do, she thinks, tilting her head to the side to slot their noses next to each other. His hands tighten at her waist, fingers digging through her hoodie into her skin. He hums, questioningly, low and rumbling like a thunderstorm on the horizon. As if he can’t trust his voice to say something instead. 

Danny chokes on nothing’s heat and runs her thumb over his bottom lip, the flesh catching briefly on her nail. She can’t think straight with him so close to her. Not when he’s so close she can smell his cologne, not when he’s so close she can lean down and sink her teeth into his throat and leave a bruise. She should, it might clear her head. 

Instead, she sighs again, her mouth so close to his that she brushes over his lips when she says; “You’re divine.” 

In the end, she doesn’t need to think about leaving bruises on his throat, because Jason closes that centimeters’ worth of distance between each other and kisses her like he needs air. 

—---------

“Do you have to go, love?” Arms snake around her waist, slipping easily over her dress, and Danny laughs, soft and easy, as Jason pulls her flush against his chest and drops his head into the crook over her shoulder. He dwarfs her in the mirror, capable of curling around her entirely, and she raises a gloved hand to rake her fingers through his soft hair.

Danny hums deeply, tilting to bare her throat as Jason starts pressing kisses to the skin. “Vlad will be upset if I don’t show up.” She wasn’t sure of the importance of this party, but Vlad had promised her a hefty bribe to show up, and call her greedy but damn if she wasn’t going to turn it down.  

Teeth bite gentle at the underside of her jaw, and Danny laughs out of surprise. Jason smiles, indenting it into her skin, and his hand finds the slit of her dress and covers the burn scar on the outside of her thigh. “What about running late?” He asks, something impish in his tone. “I’ve never seen you wear this one; you look good in red.” 

Danny laughs again, turns her head to catch his lips against hers, and kisses him long and sweet. “Yes, he’ll be mad if I’m late.” She says when she pulls back. 

He pouts, and really, how else is Danny supposed to react other than kiss him again? So she does, happily. “Wake me up when you get back,” Jason murmurs against her mouth, chasing after her, “I want to help you undress.” 

—---------

Some days, death creeps up on her, and the phantom pains of it render her coiled into a ball in her bed. She wakes up at three am burning, her starburst scars rooting down to her bones to remind her of the feeling of being torn apart by the atoms and stitched back together again. 

Danny can feel her heart beating in her ears, fast and panicked like she ran a marathon, filling her mouth with iron and the urge to cough out her lungs. There’s a scream stuck in the back of her throat like a spider sac, and she writhes with her head in her arms for what feels like an hour before she forces herself out of bed, mind half-muddled like a zombie. 

Jason is still asleep, Danny doesn’t have half the mind to be grateful, she shuffles herself down into the garage and grabs a compressed canister from the fridge, hidden in a false shelf. She might not keep ectoplasm in the kitchen, but she does in the garage. 

She returns on second nature to the bathroom. She locks the door, shuts the drain, and runs the water to boiling, and doesn’t stop the faucet until the water reaches the little drain in the wall beneath that prevents overflow. The compressed canister cracks open with a hiss, and Danny dumps what’s probably an ounce of ectoplasm into the steaming water.

The effect is instantaneous, the water swirling and turning bright with ectoplasm all the way down. It’s diluted, and Danny only remembers to take off her sleep shirt before she slips into the water. 

Relief sinks into her, and chases away the worst of the pain. She sighs, she can breathe again, and dunks her head beneath the water. 

Then doesn’t get out until she’s freezing again and nearly peeling with wrinkles. 

(She goes downstairs when she’s changed into dry clothes and her hair is damp, and then collapses into Jason’s lap. Her face finds the crook of his neck, and Danny slumps, arms wrapping around his neck.)

(Jason’s hands find her waist, and his thumbs rub circles into her side, slipping under her shirt to run over the raised skin of the burn there. “What’s wrong?” He asks, murmuring low and close to her ear.)

(“Phantom pains.” Danny mumbles.)

(“Where?”)

(“Everywhere.”) 

—---------

When Danny returns home after finding Jason again, she feels numb, she feels cold. Her engagement ring is heavy on her finger and she feels like an outsider looking in when she looks down at it. 

She can’t get the way he looked at her out of her mind. It’s seared into her brain. 

Her back hits the door, and slowly she slides down it, a sob building in her throat. Her lip curling, her heart aching, her heart breaking. Too many questions inside her head for her to try and sort through them, but one is prevalent; Jason Todd is a liar.  

Danny shrieks his name so loud that she breaks her ceiling lights, and takes out the power throughout the entire block. There are dogs howling, cars wailing outside. There’s broken glass beneath her, scattered across the ground, cutting into her palms, and she hurts so much she wants to take the biggest shard and shred herself into ribbons. 

—---------

The memory fades away back into its small star-shape, and floats back up to the ceiling of her lair’s observatory. Danny watches it go, something small and aching still in her chest. Two weeks since she moved into the Zone, and she hates that she still loves him. She loves that she still loves him. 

She hates that she still misses him. She still visits Sam and Tucker, but Amity Park is tainted with the memory of Jason Todd; she needs away from it for a little while. Maybe a long while. She’s not too sure right now, she just needs to stay away. Somewhere where she can’t run into him. 

Danny pulls down another star to watch another memory again. One where they're dancing.

[airenyah]

Hey so do you know where I could find this acting manifesto of yours?

I usually try and avoid publicly expressing my opinion on things like this but I recently saw some people commenting negatively on his acting again and I’m starting to doubt my own judgement.

I’ve truly never had a huge problem with his acting but I keep seeing people using really harsh words to describe his prior and current work. I genuinely think he’s doing a good job in THK but these comments sometimes make me think I’m missing something.

That conflicts with the fact I know at least three people he worked with on THK specifically had positive things to say about his acting too and I trust people who do this for a living to know what they’re talking about for the most part.

I guess I’m just looking for your post to have a more detailed perspective of the opposite viewpoint to “he’s a terrible actor” to help affirm some of my thinking so I’m more confident in my positive opinion of his acting.

Overall though I’m enjoying everyone in this show but for me I’m specifically enjoying the four mains the most. Kudos to them honestly.

(Disclaimer: Obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion but the harshness of some of the opinions took me off guard a little.)

fuck these people. they don't know shit.

(mind you. this manifesto was written based on his performance in just star in my mind and hidden agenda. his 2024 shows weren't even out at that point. in fact, thk hadn't even been publicly announced yet. you can see from the start there is talent in this boy if you actually know what to look out for)

bonus: i rant some more in the last reblog

[javierduffy]

Same anon from earlier who sent that ask about how Dutch would react to javieran. I finished the fic but uh it's porn lol. If you're still interested it's "steady beat" on ao3

anon i would like you to know that i spent the first 20 minutes of my shift sitting in the bathroom reading this and i do not regret a single moment

THAT WAS SOOOO GOOD ARE UOU INSANE !-?/!?:3! JAVIERAN CONTENT WAS EXCITING ENOUGH ALREADY BUT PORN ??? AND SOFT, FLUFFY, HEAD-OVER-HEELS IN LOVE PORN ???????? you wrote this for ME !!!!!!! and i am SO GRATEFUL !-!2!2!3 OMG !!!!!!!!!! it was sooo good i was literally giggling and kicking my feet the whole time, you nailed their dynamic sooo so perfectly imo 😭💔 reading that was such a pleasure thank you for the food !!!!!

[lmaster37]

if you can, i highly encourage you to interact with fan artists of all formats, including fic authors, because even apart from that being really really nice for the artists, it's also good for you on a personal/selfish level !! it's a win-win situation !!

because let me tell you, there's a rush like no other when you finally get your shit together and comment on a fic that you've been rereading for years and the author responds (!) and tells you "That is an incredibly high compliment" (!!) and gives you a bit of insight into how they conceptualise the character (!!!) . like. oh my god i'm doing it i'm getting a good grade in Fandom

(engaging with fan art of all formats will also greatly increase fan artists' energy + desire to continue doing fan art, which, again, win-win situation !!)

[godblooded]

honestly, after watching the bg3 rpc collapse totally because of shitloads of elitist entitlement (yes i am ever and always the person who doesn’t give a fuck, i’ll say what i want) it’s really been half a sociology study and i cannot believe how insane it was.

[spacerangersam]

tis almost the season.

got the last two guys at a Christmas market held at St Fagans from Tamlyn Ceramics and Damc Fabrications, both of whom are on etsy I believe

[beepborpdoodledorp]

I’m conflicted because I tend to see a lot of people (both non-Wildchip fans and even some casual fans of the ship) complain about the only content of WB and Chip being content shipping the two of them together, and while objectively I absolutely do agree there’s been a persistent problem with boiling down WB and Chip to just their relationship w/ each other (and honestly that’s just a problem with the CRK shipping community as a whole and honestly I’d wager to guess that’s a large reason as to why so many people look at it with disdain), there’s always the monkey brain side of me that whenever I see these complaints my tunnel vision brought on by constantly scouring the Wildchip tags and being in a constant state of being starved for content kicks in and it just goes ‘:(’ 

[mariyekos]

Future FFVII Rebirth Essays

Okay now that I've finally finished FFVII Rebirth, here's a list of some essays about the game I've either partially written, or want to write in the future!

Titles are absolutely subject to change, they're just what come to mind right now. Each bullet point has the title of an essay and a little bit of elaboration into what they'd be about. Most essays will cover far more than what is in the bullet blurb, but for now I wanted to jot down some of my ideas before I forgot them, so details are relatively sparse and lean towards the nonspecific. This also doesn't even cover all of the essay ideas I've had while playing through the game! But it's long as it is, so I figured I'd cut it off at what I have here and include the rest in a reblog or separate post.

Warning, this includes spoilers for both the OG FFVII and events/changes in the FFVII Remake Continuity (Remake/Rebirth)!

A (Not Really) Dying World: The impact of the removal of the Midgar Black Pit and the introduction of other greenery in FFVII Remake and Rebirth (basically, Remake/Rebirth Gaia does not appear to be in such dire straights until sky stuff happens, which changes how the planetary threat appears, being moved from a dying planet which is on the edge of destruction even without Sephiroth's involvement to a planet that's mostly at risk because of Sephiroth, with the slow death of the Planet being a far lesser/evident threat.)

Shinra: A threat to the Planet, or a threat to humanity? (Heavily connected to the essay above and the Dyne essay below. Revolves around how much of the weight of Shinra's threat is shifted to them causing human strife and suffering, rather than the way they are killing the Planet and the impact of Mako Reactors)

Changes to Corel Prison (potentially combined with a larger essay on tone in FFVII, see below. I still can't believe Corel Prison isn't a prison anymore. Also the town of Corel is now separate from what became the prison which is. A choice! Changes the narrative.)

On Dyne and Marlene in the OG vs Rebirth (why the change in Dyne's motivations matters on a larger scale, potential reasons for the removal of the threats to Marlene, and how this impacts Barret's character)

It's Okay for the Protagonists to Sometimes be Bad People: how imperfections and weaknesses can strengthen a character arc, and the Remake continuity's avoidance of painting party members as 'the bad guy'. (Basically the Remake/Rebirth introduce several new scenes solely there to remind you the protagonists are good people, change some scenes to remove a character being acknowledged as having made a mistake/potentially being a bad person, and remove ambiguity present in the OG in order to make Shinra explicitly (and sometimes more) to blame.)

Apathy and Action in FFVII: The tonal shift between the OG and Remake Continuity (the characters in the OG FFVII are WAY more apathetic, complacent, or depressed. Remake and especially Rebirth make far more of them angry and active against Shinra, which dramatically changes the tone for better or for (imo often) worse.)

Bombastic is Not Always Better: The importance of quiet moments in the narrative, and how low points can serve to drive highs even higher. (FFVII Rebirth removes several moments in the OG where the characters stop to discuss what's going on, where to go next, or how they're doing, and while it means the ending is high energy for a very long time which can be exciting, it loses out on some of the intimacy of the OG. Different people like different things, but I've always been someone who relishes the quiet moments and find they make me like the big ones more, because we have a chane to process what's at stake.)

For the Love of God Minerva Someone Please Talk to Cloud: Cloud's mental state in the Remake Continuity vs the OG (Cloud has SO MANY MORE breakdown moments in the Remake Continuity, and most of them are far more obvious/severe than the OG. This both changes the mystery of the breakdowns (which is fair to do bc most players know about Sephiroth), and also makes the fact that Rebirth removed many of the 'Cloud are you okay' scenes WAY WORSE. Cloud is not okay and it makes way more sense for them to ignore it in the OG where it's small and infrequent than it does in Rebirth where he's having major problems very frequently which hurt the main cast (except where it matters in the OG!))

Preserving Mystery in a Remake: Is there any point when the players know what's coming next? (Yes. Yes there is. You don't need to get rid of all the mysteries present in the OG just because some players might already know the story (this is not about stuff they're changing, but things they're keeping the same but exposing early). Also the other option for this title is "A Game for Newcomers and Veterans Alike: No it's not, if it was you would've bothered to keep some things mysterious and clearly you were too giggly to do that to the detriment of several story events and even plot points.")

FFVII Rebirth and Gameplay at the Cost of Atmosphere (part one of this is already written, but this is about how sometimes minigames or new mechanics introduced to spice up gameplay can disrupt or even completely upend the atmosphere of a scene, much to its detriment.)

FFVII Rebirth and Story Padding at the Cost of Atmosphere (this would be part two to this series, covering some new scenes which were added to Rebirth that did not match the tone of the rest of the scene and sometimes completely pulled me out of the emotional impact that existed in the original. At times I think the writers wanted to have a different emotional impact/tone than the original, while other times it seemed like completely tone deaf padding where the writers wanted something to happen so they shoved it into a place where it sort of fit in theory but did not fit in practice.)

Trope-Heavy Characters in the PS1 Era vs PS5 Era: How adding in new character scenes without adding new character traits can make a character seem bland (tl;dr I feel like Rebirth did a disservice to Yuffie's character, and Cait Sith is on thin ice. When a character only has 15 lines and 13 of them are about how they want materia, I think it's fair to assume that while liking materia is their main character trait, they probably care about other things too, but just didn't have the time/space to say it. But when a character has 150 lines and 130 are about materia, they seem bland/like materia is basically their only character trait, because they did have the time to talk about so many things but didn't. If you want to flesh out a character by giving them more lines, you should make sure to give them something substantial. Don't be afraid to go more into their (in this case Yuffie's) life, fears, and desires! The bits we got were good but they were to few in comparison to materia and motion sickness scenes)

[crossbackpoke-check]

wait you got me so invested in the stammer & heddy tailor au....

this is my standard disclaimer that i have never posted a fic on ao3* and for however much i say “au” i truly mean that it’s a universe that lives in my head & i am absolutely delighted to tell you all about, all the time <3 if it helps i ALSO got me so invested in the heddy & stammer tailor au

ok now that the author’s note is out of the way here’s some notes about the not!fic heddy & stammer tailor au:

stammer as the tailor from gent’s playbook, very reserved, quiet, with an excellent eye for details (honestly the evidence i have for his style sense is just that he’s best friends with pk subban so it has to be there somewhere if only by proxy irl) is hired by victor hedman, star of the tampa bay lightning who is every other tailor’s nightmare to dress (huge, opinionated, fashionable)

heddy is decently well-known throughout the league for being very well-dressed & becomes quietly well known for also being one of his new tailor’s favorite loyal customers [heddy has the nicest fabrics. he has his suits the first day a new collection drops & e v e r y o n e is jealous]

stammer’s business booms after heddy takes a chance on him as his first big client & promotes him, heddy sees him grow in popularity & get more clients

heddy also moonlights as a model for stammer’s suits on instagram, initially to help him grow his business because then he won’t have to pay for a model and then because he’s over there all the time anyway because they’re dating (that’s why the model’s face is never in the pictures)

there’s not really a plot to this besides the vague idea of a plot where stammer makes heddy his lucky suit that he wins the cup in & sews a special little tag into the lining of his jacket that says i love you

because love sometimes is picking out the perfect right color pocket square to match your husband’s beautiful suit that you fitted like a kiss to the curves of his huge body

& also sometimes love is making your beautiful husband who makes you beautiful clothing enjoy nice things for himself once in a while, like the fancy watch you bought him or the nice suit you custom-ordered for him (from him) just so you could take it off of him

[wetchickenbreast]

failed my algebra final so spectacularly but i kinda feel like touched by the hands of God right now? so i don’t even care

[ghosts-and-blue-sweaters]

Dang.

Resurrection day and cc!Tommy’s birthday and a good writing day and getting to spend time with baby cousins?? All on the same day???

[leniisreallycool]

"His brown is short and but wavey and pretty and he has eyes." I'm such a good writer

[racke7]

Purchases that I (as an adult) am very happy with

Title says it all, let's go:

A silent vacuum-cleaner

An extra-thick exercise-mat

A big table-fan

A shower-brush

A computer-mouse with two extra-buttons

Ball-point pen

Needle-and-thread

An external harddrive

A dedicated mp3-player

An electric shaver

Gameboy Color

Bicycle-oil

[heartsdefine]

scapedgrace was such a good hawke url. i mourn it every day.