#i just think it's pathetically ironic that they're my favorites/what I'm best at

[rocksanddeadflowers]

What's one hobby you have that you'd recommend other people try?

Oh I have so many this is hard to answer.... I think maybe just simple hand sewing skills? Just because a lot of it is really easy once you get the hang of it, and it's incredibly useful and multi purpose. You can make new stuff or save your old favorite things! I love mending my clothes a lot (saves money in the long run and saves me the heart ache), and there's plenty of different kinds of hand sewing skills you can learn depending on what you need them for. I recently even learned scotch darning to save my favorite sweater!

(Sewing is probably my oldest hobby too? I remember being very little and denied real sewing needles so I made my own out of Christmas ornament hooks and fixed my brother's stuffies with them and made my stuffies clothes. I got my needles not long afterwards.)

I prefer visible mending for most of my things, but I practice making it unnoticeable too. I've fixed bedspreads, clothes, bags, and all sorts of things! I've also made new clothes and other trinkets out of scrap material, and decorated things too! (<- personally obsessed with patch work things lmao.)

Admittedly if you get into sewing as a major hobby a sewing machine is very helpful, but I still prefer hand sewing where I can bc I find the machine to be a little stressful. I usually use mine on bigger projects to save time, but I mainly hand sew.

Also I know you quilt so I dunno if that was the answer you were looking for lol... I don't know much about quilting but it is still sewing, and really cool to me. (Long arms look terrifying to me however.) But yeah knowing how to sew by hand is really helpful and fun! It's relaxing for me when I have the energy to focus and feels fulfilling. Even if it's not a good hobby for everyone, if it's a skill you're capable of learning, it's very useful.

[prodigal-explorer]

roasting side kinnies except i'm actually really mean to all of them

if you get offended easily please leave i don't wanna actually hurt anyone's feelings /g

alright now on with the show! i'm warning y'all this is gonna be so mean cuz i hate when people are like "roasting side kinnies!!" and then are super nice to all of them except their least favorite like no i believe in equality, everyone gets roasted for real here.

roman kinnies: (i'm roasting myself here) not everything is about you. please put the hero complex away, nobody cares. you're selfish as fuck and you take without giving so much that you just expect everyone else to be okay with it. if anybody messes with your makeup routine, they're a dead bitch, and honestly, that's really pathetic. no matter how much makeup you wear, you're probably gonna look even uglier than when you had none on.

logan kinnies: literally stop talking about how underrated logan is, he's not underrated anymore! everyone likes logan! you constantly need to be right all the time and you pick fights for no reason just so you can win them. we get it! you're smart! but honestly you probably aren't as smart as you think you are. half the time you just sound like the human equivalent of the nerd emoji.

virgil kinnies: please for the love of god stop talking about how you're the therapist friend. you're not. you're literally the one who dumps all your problems onto people. no actual therapist friends constantly whine about how they're the therapist friend. also please stop infantilizing yourself it's really embarrassing to watch. you're not a "smol bean" or a "tuf lil guy". also stop with the whole "janus abused virgil and it's canon" thing like it's not canon. this is sanders sides not an anime.

janus kinnies: it's okay you can just say you have no personality. because literally what is this man's personality? nothing. you think your sarcastic lil jokes are funny and that they're roasting people but they honestly make me curdle up in secondhand embarrassment. you refuse to accept that janus was in the wrong for manipulating roman, and that he totally had the middle school librarian thing coming. you just kin virgil and want to be different, i know what you are. you're a fucking aquarius (i am too).

remus kinnies: okay half of y'all aren't even remus kinnies because you guys mischaracterize him so bad. get out of here with the "poor wittle remus just wants the same treatment roman gets" like no the fuck he doesn't and roman doesn't even have it that good. also please stop spamming song lyrics we are so tired of reading the lyrics to forbidden fruit. also forbidden fruit sucks ass, someone had to say it.

patton kinnies: ah yes i saved my least favorite for last. you guys have victim complexes bigger than the catholic church. literally all of y'all are annoying as fuck but not in the cute way. in the "jesus christ please stop pretending to be an innocent angel who has never done anything bad" way. i know defending patton is your full time job because he's done so much awful shit but y'all boutta be fired because "he's trying his best" is literally not a reason come on now. it's ironic that you guys are the least sympathetic tss fans i know but also not because patton is not that sympathetic either.

[maxwell-grant]

Nice to find another VentureBros fan ! Who are your favorite characters ?

I'm actually gonna rank this as something of a Top 8. Honorable mentions include: Rusty Venture, Dean Venture post Season 4, Shore Leave, The Blue Morpho/Vendata, Hunter Gathers and Professor von Helping.

8: Wide Wale

I think just conceptually the idea of Whale/Shark Kingpin as a major player in a superhero setting is just a very appealing combination to me personally. I'm a sucker for sealife-themed characters, especially if they are shark themed but whales are great too, and Wide Wale's a sealife-themed pastiche of one of my favorite superhero villains with this really great, really distinct voice, and like so many of Venture Bros' best characters, it really doesn't take long before you wind up forgetting what he's meant to be a caricature of and just fully buy the character just as much, if not more, as the thing they're supposed to be making fun of or referencing. I think Wide Wale, even while being a lot more straightforward and simple than so many other characters, is a great example of that. I think even at a really basic level, he's genuinely a cool character and an example of how the show’s approach to it’s characters had matured since the early seasons, and apparently so thought the creators, which is why they didn't kill him off in Season 7.

The episode was born from a single Jaws joke: Wide Wale dying in his pool just like Spielberg's shark. "But when we got around to writing it, we're like, 'Well, we don't want to kill Wide Wale, he's awesome," Hammer said. "But I got it stuck in my head that we had to do a Jaws joke. But instead of doing a Jaws joke, we created a longform love letter to deep-cut Jaws jokes. - Jackson Publick

I like that right from the start he's established as the leading supervillain in NYU, and because this is Venture Bros and there's a lot more supervillains running around than superheroes, to the point it mainly falls to the supervillains to kinda police each other so things don’t get too out of hand, Wide Wale is less the main villain and more this big presence that stuff tends to orbit around, much like The Ventures and The Monarch themselves. I love that he pointedly refuses the seat he’s offered at the highest echelon of villainy, because he’s got business to take care of and because he doesn’t vibe with the idea. I love “This? This isn’t me.” as an explanation for it. I love what it says about him compared to the other villains.

I really like his interactions with other characters like Sheila and his bodyguard Rocco and his daughter, and that he does have a family that ends up humanizing him a lot and even revealing that, keeping with the show's tradition, he is kind of a pathetic fuck-up. All he wanted was to make his brother proud, and despite being really dedicated to his family, he's too blinded and self-centered to notice the ways he ends up smothering them. 

Big shot mob boss as a doting yet corny dad to his daughter? Cliche, but cute. Big shot supervillain kingpin who happens to be the younger brother of a one-off gag character, who 100% adores and looks up to his scientist big brother even in their separate ways, to the point that said gag character can show up and pull his ear while he haphazardly tries to hide his gritty mob business from him? It’s pure Venture Bros. 

7: Brock Samson

I think it’s kind of a given that, even if Brock isn’t among your favorite VB characters general, he’s definitely most people’s favorite when they start watching the show. Because while it takes for Doc and the boys to really come on their own as characters and The Monarch’s still being ironed out, Brock is a pretty complete character from the get-go. He’s the world’s biggest badass, stuck with the world’s lamest and most self-destructive explorers, a much more dynamic sort than the Ventures who also doesn’t have as much room to grow and change as they do at first. Despite seeming like it, he is not the protagonist, he’s the sidekick holding the whole thing together (a dynamic they would later repurpose for Henchman 21, who grows into a mini-Brock in his own right). By all means, he should be out there saving the world with supermodels hanging onto his biceps, but instead he’s busy slaughtering shmucks in butterfly costumes while babysitting a failed scientist and his idiot sons, and occasionally arguing about the merits of Led Zeppelin with their nanny robot, which goes a long way in helping ground Brock’s over-the-top badassery in just the right amount of indignity so he doesn’t feel out of place in the show and stays more than just a one-note caricature.

Brock carries the show a lot over the first two seasons, which makes his departure and eventual return that much more significant and ends up giving Brock and the show a lot of room to grow, solo and together. The cynical premise behind a lot of what makes Brock funny ends up becoming horrifying as we get more stories from the villain and henchmen point of view and also grows into a series of great dynamics, as Brock The Swedish Murder Machine gives more way to Brock The Murder Dad. A Brock who’s a part of the family, a Brock who Hank looks up to and imitates as an uncle and father and hero, a Brock who’s as great on the lead as he’s in a secondary role. A Brock who’s got friends and partners and enemies and whose interesting life outside of the Ventures actually does feel like a rich inner world for him, a Brock who doesn’t need to carry the show or the Ventures anymore, and ends up growing more as a comfortable presence to the audience, which is a funny word to use for a disemboweling enthusiast who’s single-handedly filled entire graveyards. I know some people miss twitchy-eyed Murder Machine Brock, but I wouldn’t trade Murder Dad Brock for anything, his dynamic with Hank is real special to me.

6: DOCTOR BYROON ORPHEUS *musical sting

The big problem I have with Dr Strange in general is that, despite really loving some of the comics I’ve read of him (particularly Into Shamballa and Triumph and Torment), despite him being conceptually a character I should deeply adore (Vincent Price as the world’s greatest wizard whose niche is combining weird and horrific pulp cosmology with psychedelic superhero visuals), most of the time, Strange as a character bores and annoys me way more often than I’d like him  to, especially starting with his 2010s appearences that have modeled him after his teeth-grindingly boring MCU portrayal and made him magic Tony Stark / BBC’s Sherlock. I get that’s like, his deal now, I just find it depressingly basic.

I bring this up because a lot of what I love about Dr Orpheus is that, while he doesn’t have the benefit of starring in his own stories, Orpheus takes everything great and endearing about Dr Strange and cranks it to eleven. His dialogue is completely unmistakable from everyone else’s, even without Stephen Rattazzi’s brilliant voice and that iconic music sting. Dr O gets really, really funny lines despite being ostensibly one of the more serious characters of the show (Do not be too hasty entering that room...I HAD TACO BEEELLLL FOR LUNCH!). Even in episodes where Orpheus only shows up to fix a problem or do a small cameo, he dines on the scenery in a way no other character does, and it’s no small feat in a show full of over-the-top personalities. 

I also really like that Orpheus is overall one of the nicest characters of the show. He’s still flawed, he can be pedantic and pathetic and irritable and petty and arrogant, his dedication to his work and know-it-all attitude soured his relationships with his ex-wife and daughter, and he gets dragged for his flaws quite a bit in-universe to the point everyone’s kinda annoyed at him much of the time, but he’s also one of the most unambiguously good characters in-universe, and in a show chock full of some of the worst parents imaginable, it’s definitely nice to have at least one dad who genuinely tries to be the best he can be, even if that involves wiping his daughter’s memories every now and then, and ultimately accepting that his efforts to protect her have only held her back and that she’s really better off doing exactly what he didn’t want for her.  I enjoy every scene he’s in and I really enjoy just listening to Orpheus’s dialogue and voice, he’s a very fun character and if nothing else Orpheus is why I wish that Order of the Triad spin-off took off. Even if it sucked, I would gladly watch and listen to Orpheus forever.

5: Dr Girlfriend / Dr Mrs The Monarch / Sheila / Dr Mrs-Whatever-Now

There’s been a lot said about how poorly a lot of jokes made in adult cartoons tend to age, especially those starting in the early 2000s, and likewise a lot of Venture Bros fans who’ve stuck with the show can’t help but admit that the first three seasons have a lot of jokes and moments that have aged poorly (Doc Hammer himself derides the episode “Love Bheits” as homophobic). And on the other hand, Venture Bros has also been praised for it’s willingness to experiment with gender-divergent characters and openly tackle questions about identity and sexuality long before other cartoons picked up the slack, and Dr Girlfriend is one example of that. On any other show, “hot woman with a deep masculine voice” would have been the source of one-off gags and transphobic jokes, jokes that make said woman the target of ridicule. But that’s not what Venture Bros does with Dr Girlfriend:

Dr. Mrs. The Monarch started as a parody of Jackie Kennedy, including her iconic deep, raspy voice that was then elevated (or, in this case, physically lowered) by Doc Hammer for the character. I’ve watched a lot of comedies where trans women or crossdressing cis men are the butt of the joke. It’s kind of my brand to subject myself to such things. So, I can recognize the comedic beats that lead to a punchline or “surprise” reveal of trans characters. In the first three or so seasons of The Venture Bros, it feels like the show is constantly leading up to a similar formula, but that punchline never happens. 

The joke of Dr. Mrs. The Monarch is as simple as her having a voice deeper than you’d expect, and you are an asshole for questioning it — just like the cast of jerks in this show’s universe.

Dr. Mrs. The Monarch is my favorite Venture Bros character, one of my favorite women in fiction, and she, no matter what theories people have, is not trans.  While the reality of this fictional character is that Dr. Mrs. The Monarch isn’t trans, however, if people think you are trans (or “a man” if you want to subscribe to that small brain energy), then in the court of public opinion…you are. Regardless of the actual circumstances surrounding your identity, you are guilty and it will be used against you.

Dr. Mrs. The Monarch is an example of someone who has risen above and succeeded in spite of that judgement both in The Venture Bros universe and in the evolution of how this show and comedy is written in general. Trans or not, I love that. As this show evolved, the running joke of her gender was phased out entirely and this “masculine” characteristic was just treated as matter of fact. It was just a small part of the most stable, capable, and well rounded character in the entire show.

There is a lot that can be written about gender without sticking to the stringent criteria of trans experiences, because expectations exist in all forms. I came to terms with my insecurities a long time ago and that included my deep voice. Hearing that brassy croon be treated as such a normal thing means more to me than most forms of direct representation ever has - Dr Mrs The Monarch and Being Trans In The Court of Public Opinion, by Harmony M.Colangelo

Even at her earliest appearences, when The Monarch was more of a caricature than ever and the show had yet to really start growing beyond the parody aspect, the consistent joke regarding Dr Girlfriend was that she is this enormously competent genius henchwoman working with pathetic cartoon villains who waste her talents on pointless bickers and capers, and if not that, then frequently ignored and belittled on the basis of her gender. And as the show grew, we got to learn more and more about her relationship with The Monarch and Sheila’s own journey, what is it that drives them to stay together, their separations, their arguments, their roles apart from each other. Dr Girlfriend outgrows her role as The Monarch’s partner and by Season 6, she’s openly acknowledged to be the biggest reason why The Guild’s still running, with all other supervillains in the Guild deferring to her. With the exception of mysteriously supernatural players like Dr Killing and The Master, one could argue that, by the end of the show, Dr Girlfriend is the most powerful character, having finally risen to the position where her skills and talents are not wasted and not without cost, of course, as it’s effectively deprived her of ever getting to meaningfully work with her husband, which was the only real passion she had for this enterprise. Nobody in Venture Bros ever fully gets what they want, after all.

I think there’s an argument to be made that Dr Girlfriend is the most “real” character on the show, in the sense that she lacks the extravagant personalities and gimmicks of the other characters or the life-shattering tragedies that guide much of their conflict, and this in itself makes her an outsider who has to juggle a lot of responsabilities and options to keep things running, who has to play a lot of roles and carry a lot on her back, who sometimes gets bent out of shape and frustrated at the mind-numbing amounts of idiocy she comes across, and who even demonstrates ways in which she herself is not quite above said idiocy. After all, she’s the one ruling said idiocy now.

4: Henchman 21 / Gary

Fucking Gary, man, what an excellent protagonist. There’s plenty of characters that people point to when stating Venture Bros has impressive character development, but one that always stands out is Gary.  From one-half of a sidelines comedy duo with Henchman 21, as a geek loser henchman to the geek loser villain, secure in his position as a funny but inconsequential element to this world, Gary gets that safety net brutally ripped away with 21′s explosive death, and instead terraforms himself into a muscular unhinged badass, the Brock Samson of the show’s villain side. And past that, he remains a big time protagonist (even hero) on his own right, concluding in once again becoming the one-half of a comedy duo, but this time one that involves his geek loser boss as the two become partners instead. Gary has been growing and changing with this show from day one, even serving as the show’s recap narrator, his cracked nerd voice never changing even as he becomes more and more impressive. He’s as close to an audience-insert character as it gets, of course he has to be a geek overdosed on pop culture references, but he is more than that. 

I love Gary because he’s one of the ONLY characters I’ve ever seen who has a physical and mental transformation whose end result isn’t him acquiring a completely different body type. He didn’t slim up, he didn’t get cut abs, he beefed up and got a weighlifter’s big gut, and the show doesn’t play it as a joke. He’s still pudgy, he’s still got a chubby face, he’s still geek-voiced Gary, and he’s a physical badass almost on par with superhuman demigod Brock Samson. He became this through sheer effort on his end and the help of his friends. He does backflips and spinkicks and fistfights bodybuilders and spits blood dramatically while looking cool and impressive and doing things that society thinks fat people shouldn’t be allowed to do without it being played for irony. I just, you pretty much never see superheroes or superhero-adjacent characters with Gary’s body type without some kind of caveat attached (villain, joke character, fat-based superpower, etc), seeing Gary in action, played like he was, genuinely did mean a lot to me.

He's observant and he's unlucky and he gets made fun of, but he's not cynical, and the show doesn't treat him cynically either, and that's important.

3: Red Death

I don’t think there’s any Venture Bros fan that doesn’t have Red Death on their top favorite characters list, holy shit did that dude arrived to steal the show. Top-notch design, killer concept, perfect voicework by Clancy Brown, most of the best scenes across Seasons 6 and 7 involve this guy in some form. Probably the clearest example you can point to in order to demonstrate how much Venture Bros’s outgrown the parody element of it’s earliest seasons. 

I like, everything about this guy. I love how they continuously make efforts to undercut his “retired old champ and nice family man here to help the new kids get their footing” thing by constantly reminding us that he is a bloodthirsty murderer who actively enjoys killing and looks forward to any chances for it, but he’s so damn likeable and charming and cool that we all still default to him first and foremost as the dad in the park who talks Monarch down by showing genuine appreciation for him. I love that this is also followed up on his remarks towards Vendata, how he’s the only character on-screen who ever extended any kind of respect towards him, and how dark this gets later when he brutally murders Blind Rage for being a disrespectful punk. He’s brutally efficient at everything, including compartmentalizing his life and personality to an extent that it doesn’t ring as hypocritical to us when he sits down to give helpful advice to Monarch, and said advice includes him mentioning how he was able to turn his life for the better after slaughtering his arch-nemesis’s entire family with his bare hands. He’s a horrible, horrible villain, and a wonderful dad and mentor and, honestly? Talk about a character who plays perfectly, perfectly into his voice actor’s strengths. Clancy Brown as Red Death is nothing short of magic. 

He’s interesting as a Venture Bros character because, as far as we know, he’s completely bereft of the usual petty shortcomings or tragic flaws or pathetic obsessions that define most of them. He is, for all intents and purposes, a genuinely good husband and father devoted to his family, an utmost professional dedicated to the art of villainy and those he respects, and a brutal serial killer with virtually zero hesitations or doubts whatsoever about what he does and likes doing, with a hideous past we know only the barest glimpses of. He coins the term Gentleman Villain because he too, is as perfect an embodiment of those terms as it gets in this world, and he’s fascinating because of it. He works brilliantly at surface-level and whatever little we know about his connection to the historical underbelly of this world is all the more fascinating. He is a wonderful take on a modern version of a Gentleman Villain and everything noble and horrible that this implies. I resent not getting another season or several with this guy.

2: Hank Venture

Probably the character I’ve always found most relatable in the show even before I discovered that, oh yeah, I do have ADHD too, it was a given I was gonna relate to the hyperactive Venture kid known for jumping off the roof in a Batman costume (I mean, my window had bars, and I still swear that I wasn‘t actually gonna jump and my family totally misread what was really just me trying to get on the gargoyle brooding action). As much as I like Gary, Hank is the one that comes to mind when I think of impressive character development in Venture Bros. Hank is interesting because in many ways he just doesn’t change, nowhere near as much as Dean does, Dean’s the one who's matured and is trying to leave all this nonsense behind while Hank’s still actively pursuing the dream of being a boy adventurer. Hank still talks in weird stilted speech, he’s deeply ignorant of a lot of basic things, he still almost gets himself killed pursuing flights of fancy. To say that he has a hard time telling fantasy from reality implies that this is something Hank struggles with, when it’s more accurate to say he just doesn’t care that much about said distinction, and the consequences of his abysmal upbringing, reckless antics, and undiagnosed ADHD as of Season 7, do catch up to him.  

But the thing is, all of this is also part of what makes Hank the only character in the show who occasionally gets to thrive. As the seasons passed, he came to display a lot of genuinely inspired moments of competence and skill, not to mention bravery. Hank perseveres so strongly in his stupidity and headstrongness that he’s the only one who’s able to meet the dumb, violent and deluded world of Venture Bros on it’s own terms and come out on top. He’s unique in that he doesn’t outsmart the madness, he out-dumbs the madness. His victories and adventures tend to be more enjoyable to watch than Dean’s or Doc’s or the others as a result (I suspect the creators agree, given Hank is the kind of character that lets them get away with whatever dumb ideas they feel like experimenting with). He’s got a real Lupin III charm to him mixed with a carefree hyperimagination that calls to mind much of what I enjoy about Calvin and Hobbes. He’s a perfect protagonist.

In a world so fraught with failures and miseries and bitterness, and coming off a background just as deeply unfortunate as everyone else’s, Hank perseveres, growing into a genuinely cool kid. He’s made for this life in a way that Doc and Dean never were, and in the absence of a father who cared for him, Hank found role models in Brock and Batman and others, and emulated those until he could be himself the kind of person he’d always wanted to be, an insane hero for an insane world to such an extent that they kind of end up canceling each other out.

I just, I just hope he’s okay, please, please give us the movie already goddamnit

1: THE MONARCH

The perfect Never-Was to Rusty Venture’s Has-Been, pretty much the main reason I stuck with the show for so long even before it got really good, I think The Monarch is just an idea I always, always wanted to see explored in fiction, which is that deeper exploration of a Dick Dastardly-esque type of villain, what does their life look like and so forth. You might be able to tell, given also that my most popular post in this site is about them (and the protagonist of my current project is meant to be that kind of character), that this is an archetype very close to my heart. In truth, Monarch had me won pretty instantly when I first got into Venture Bros as a kid (...in hindsight a pretty terrible era to get into Venture Bros), given all the similarities between him and Waluigi (at the time my favorite character in general). Here’s a character functionally identical to Waluigi, except allowed to actually play a big role in his franchise and have stories told about him and his funny antics and his petty, dastardly dreams and his ridiculous grudge against a nobody hero who couldn’t care less about him. It was like catnip to me at the time.

Monarch carried the show pretty hard in the early seasons along with Brock, as a perfect foil to the hapless and pathetic ventures: An even more hapless and pathetic villain, a dumb goober plucked straight out of a shoddily-made 60s superhero cartoon, all sneers and cackles and nasally-voiced threats of conquest. The kind of parody villain that’s dated even by their time, let alone the modern times the story takes place, the kind of guy that only really gets brought up to get his ass kicked and pushed aside by the real villains (the inclusion of Baron Underbheit in the S1 intro even helps cement the idea that Monarch’s not supposed to be the real villain). A failure in a show about failures, right?

But, see, the thing about Venture Bros is that it isn’t really a show about failure, or at least, just about failure. Even the creators pushed back against this notion back in 2013

Publick: I think you and I are both sick of every interview mentioning the “It’s a show about failure” from five years ago. I don’t think we made a conscious effort to fight that or anything, but every year, we push what we do as writers a little more. An area we hadn’t gone into very much was positivity. I mean, all our victories are still satiric, but there are definitely places where we said, “I want to see these guys do something. I don’t want to just have everything fall on its face all the time.

I don’t think Venture Bros is about failure, as much as it is about “what comes next”, following either failure or victory. It’s a show that’s big on exploring consequences and fallout, part of why every season took so long to air, a show that doesn’t just have the characters fail and that’s that, or has the characters exist in a fixed state as winners or losers, but instead as people who have to carry on living with the accumulating shit that gets thrown at them. What does it take, for these people to carry on, or even succeed. And this is where I think The Monarch’s continued role as protagonist comes into play, because everything about him is in service of that next step, from day one he’s been the character who’s pushed this show forward into the future, opposite the Ventures and Brock who are either trapped in the past or complacent in the present. He’s introduced to us in a mold we all understand from childhood: he’s a dastardly supervillain with a dumb gimmick and enough resources to pester the heroes on a weekly basis, but never enough competence to actually win over them. Okay, and then what? Well, that’s where the ensuing 7 seasons come in.

What happens when he gets what he wants? Does he even know what do with it? What is the source of his immortal hatred? Is there even one? If there isn’t, what else do we know that motivates him? What’s his relation with his henchmen? His partner in crime? His wife? His wife turned partner in crime? What do his enemies look like? What does the rest of the supervillain community think of him? Does he have beef with other heroes? Does he even want to fight other heroes? Just how competent is he outside of that saturday morning cartoon mold where he’s perpetually doomed to fail? If he is, what’s stopping him? How low is he willing to go morally? What disgusts him? What happens when he has to play the hero? And from The Monarch all these rich worldbuilding questions expanded that soon blossomed into many if not most of the best parts of Venture Bros’s worldbuilding. 

The show’s not preocuppied with explaining “why” there is a Monarch in practical or psychological real-world terms, so much as it’s interested in the “how” does a character like Monarch function, what does it take for The Monarch to be, and it’s through taking this archetype seriously and exploring him and the world around him that the character grows into a complex and interesting protagonist while remaining, fundamentally, the same saturday-morning-cartoon villain with an inexplicable grudge that he always was. The Monarch was gonna be my favorite from the start anyway but it was his continued presence that really impressed me for the long haul. Not even the only character to experience this, but my favorite to do so.

[yelenaisace]

MCU/Marvel Characters Tag Game

thankyou for the tag <33 @meidui

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most):

Tony duhhh. I'm not even kidding when I say i can legitimately write an essay on how much I love him <3 + he's the one that got me into MCU/Marvel in general. He's such a complex character and the things that really made me admire him the most are when he conquers his personal demons. One of the things that I love about him the most is that he just tries to be good, and there's just something so inherently human about it that you don't really see in other popular superheroes. And while his actions/decisions may sometimes be vilified by people, I've always empathised with what he does because I (and Steve LOL, see that Captain America/Iron Man Annual (2021) Issue #2) feel that his heart has always been in the right place. I can go on and on about him, but I once saw someone say this about Tony (especially 616!Tony i.e.) is that while all superheroes are willing to risk their lives for a noble purpose, Tony's willing to sell his soul.

(I don't want to flood people's dashboard so)

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped):

Yelena <33 honestly I started liking her before Black Widow came out just on the basis that she's canonically asexual in 616 + I saw that Florence Pugh was gonna play her in MCU. And hello??? A badass Russian assassin who can kill people with her bare hands and has the same sexuality as me?? Listen, there's not a lot of asexual characters out there okay, and when they are, they're not exactly in a media that I would want to watch (I literally cannot force myself to watch something just on that basis alone so). While watching Black Widow, I was just so smitten by her!! Look at her, she's so cute!! A squishy lil baby that i wanna cuddle with and give kisses all over her face <33

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave):

Kate!! Idk, is she underrated? I don't venture out much bc I like being in this stevetony fandom bubble so idk if she is or not <3 but cmon, look at her and how can you not ADORE her?? she has a good sense of humour, she just wants to do her best in helping the people around her and she's so relatable LOLOLOL bc if I were to ever meet Tony (yes ik he's not real, im not actl insane guys even though I've said I am 100000 times), I would NOT be cool also and would just follow him around the same way she did with Clint

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week) :

DUM-E LOLOLOLOL!! BRUH I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO SCREAMED WHEN I SAW HIM IN SPIDER-MAN NO WAY HOME OKAY?? You guys can all judge me if you want but I do not care! I have never, ever been happier!!!

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave):

Wanda. She IS controversial (in MCU) and I get it because of reasons that I wouldn't be able to explain as clearly as someone else (im incoherent 99% of the time). I'd love to be able to say that I have a strong moral compass that points North all the time to be able to not like her, but I can't help but do. I didn't like her before WandaVision, however, I do blame the writers for that and wished they didn't write her MCU origins the way they did!!! UGH!!! But yeah, the part that made me start liking her in Wandavision was that last episode where the townspeople were confronting her for her actions and she was just crying because she finally realised that her actions are hurting people. And I guess im just excited to see where her character arc is going to go, and I'm fine if MCU wants to make it a redemption arc or a corruption arc because (to me) she's complex and interesting enough for it.

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason):

Tony, of course, horse plinko should always be your blorbo <333 i just love seeing my favourite characters (in whatever fandom) be tormented <333 you think Marvel has tortured him enough? Yeah, well I like to see fic writers hurt him 10x worse bc he suffers beautifully okay? Have u seen those panels of 616!Tony just full-on crying/bleeding/bruised (with a full-on existential crisis to boot) and mcu!tony with the bruises on his face and tears in his eyes??

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell):

Howard Stark (616!Howard Stark especially), must i elaborate?? lol.

tagging: @thahiree @avengersprotectionsquad @alwaysash13 @dodqerevans and anyone who wants to do it (you can choose the fandom u want to talk about, it doesn't have to be mcu/marvel!)

It's fun reading people's thoughts on characters LOLOL

[blindingdutchy]

lamentation | FIVE

{peter parker x fem!reader AU}

based on All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

SERIES MASTERLIST

word count: 4,111

warnings: mostly fluff, some angst toward the end, mentions of injury

18+!!! minors stay away!

You didn't get much work done with Peter during the weekend. Following your emotional outburst over the argument between the pair of you, Peter stayed at your house surprisingly late into the night. You both seemed to agree the project could wait for a different day, and instead of working you spent the evening talking. While you didn't have much to talk about, Peter had a seemingly endless supply of subject matter to keep you both entertained.

Already you could tell that you were growing attached to him, probably far too much and far too soon, but there was no stopping it any longer. He made you feel good things and gave you a sense of normalcy you'd been craving for so long; there was no way you were giving that up any time soon. If he hurt you in the end, you'd deal with the pain because at least you got a bit of relief in the present.

That Friday evening had been one of the best nights of your life, regardless of how mundane or even boring it probably would have seemed to your younger self. You learned a lot about Peter, more than he'd already forced you to know in the weeks leading up to that night, and you answered all his random and silly questions about yourself. You learned that his favorite colors were red and blue, totally un-ironically, and that he'd gotten his abilities the summer between the eighth and ninth grades.

You also learned that Peter was just as stubborn and competitive as you used to be, and something about that knowledge sparked some of the old flame back into you. So, chasing after the fire that used to warm you, you made a deal with him. If he could prove to you that the Avengers were not as bad as you thought they were, then you would willingly do your speech in favor of the superheroes.

"You--you what?" Peter sputtered, laughing so hard he had to clutch his stomach with both hands and gasp for air, "You really cut the hair off of all of your sister's dolls because she beat you at checkers?"

You snorted, a harsh sound that made your nose ache as you laughed along with him, "Yes! She knew how competitive I was, and she took that risk by challenging me. I never lost a game of checkers again after that."

He slipped into another torrent of giggles much to your amusement, his eyes crinkling at the corners with a beautiful smile that made your own chuckling soften as you found yourself mesmerized by the sight of it. Peter Parker was certainly a very breathtaking spectacle to behold, and you had to wonder why he wasn't so much more popular in school. You knew why, everyone could see the relentless torment that Flash Thompson unleashed on him, but it still made no sense to you.

What was there to dislike about Peter? Just days ago you'd been beyond annoyed by him, and weeks before that you'd been entirely uncaring of his existence, but already that all seemed completely nonsensical to you. Now that you'd let him in, given him a chance, it seemed impossible to ever not like him again.

Wheezing breathlessly, Peter chortled, "I can't even judge you. One time, when Ned and I were thirteen, he bet that he could finish a LEGO set before me. He was going to beat me, and I may have accidentally knocked it off the table so he had to start over."

"So," you finally gasped as you stopped laughing, "so, what you're saying is, you're just as stubborn as I am and we're definitely never going to agree on this project?"

His chuckles slowly died out as he nodded, "I guess so."

You knew what he meant to say, and that was the fact that he didn't feel he was being needlessly stubborn in this situation. This wasn't about competition to him. No, this was about him not seeing himself or his colleagues in a negative light; he couldn't fathom the distaste you had for them.

As much as you disagreed, you could understand that. You could understand how he would see the people he worked alongside as good people. It made sense that he would have a different perspective when he was the one out saving civilians from big and small horrors alike, rather than being the one to suffer the consequences of the destruction that happened as a result.

Along with your understanding, you also didn't think that Peter was a bad person. You couldn't possibly imagine him causing harm, intentionally or not, and maybe that was why you said what you did next. Maybe that was why you proposed, "I'll make you a deal. If you can prove to me that the Avengers are not who I think they are, then I'll take your stance for the speech. Give me a reason to speak positively of them, and I will."

Even now, as you made your way toward your locker at school on Monday, you weren't entirely sure what had made you decide to propose such a thing. You were pretty certain that you were setting Peter up for failure. In your eyes, there wasn't much of anything that Peter could say, do, or show you that would change your mind. Nothing would make what had happened to your sister okay or forgivable.

Yet, he clearly did not feel the same way. Peter looked as if he was walking on sunshine that morning as he pranced along beside you, a triumphant grin on his face as he whispered, "I have a plan."

"A plan?"

He grinned wider as you looked at him curiously, "Yes, a plan. To change your mind."

Quirking an eyebrow expectantly, you waited for him to elaborate as you gathered your things from your locker for class. He never did, only continuing to practically vibrate with excitement beside you in silence. "Are you going to tell me what this plan of yours is?" you prodded.

"No." When you looked at him in confusion he continued, "If I tell you what it is, you're not going to have an open mind. You're going to think of all the reasons it won't change your mind, and then it won't."

Suddenly, you were the one chasing after Peter instead of the other way around. All day you found yourself glancing to him suspiciously and following him around much like he had you in all the weeks leading up to your budding friendship, and it was a big change of pace for you. You felt a little pathetic following him like a lost puppy, but you were nosy and wanted to know what his plan was.

No matter how much you pried, though, he didn't budge. In Calculus he ignored your staring and whispers with a far too smug smirk on his face, though you secretly liked the way it looked on him. Who would have guessed that Peter Parker could be arrogant?

In Gym class he teasingly ran faster than you could keep up the moment you asked again, only slowing down once you begrudgingly promised to leave the subject alone. Though he did tell you he wouldn't run faster than you anyways because people would probably get suspicious if he suddenly turned into a track star. He had to play the roll of the un-athletic nerd regardless.

At lunch he didn't sit with you for the first time since he'd started joining you. He'd waved at you from where he sat with his friends, Ned and MJ, but you found yourself leaving the cafeteria rather than joining him. You weren't ready to take that next step yet; being open with Peter was hard enough, and you weren't ready to have to talk to two more people. Still, you tried to pretend it didn't bother you despite the little sinking feeling you felt in your stomach.

He still sat with you in Speech class, which you were relieved by. Ms. Lovell left everyone to work with their partners on their project, warning the class sternly, "You may have until the end of the semester, but don't slack off now. I'm only giving you two other class periods after now to work on this."

Peter quietly joked, "I bet she just forgot to grade our homework from last week."

When the woman sat down at her desk and pulled over a stack of papers, uncapping her favorite red-glitter pen that she always graded with, you both fell into a fit of giggles that you had to work very hard to keep quiet. It only took one glare from the teacher to have you ducking behind your book to hide how red your face turned, both from embarrassment and repressed laughter. You did, however, notice to fleeting expression of shock on her face to see it was you giggling in her class.

Not much work was done during that class, though for you and Peter the work couldn't be started yet. You still hadn't decided on a stance, and until Peter either succeeded with his plan or failed as you expected, a decision wouldn't be made. Instead, you both whispered to each other about whatever random thoughts seemed to pop into your heads in the moment.

"People are staring at me," you acknowledged, glancing around the class timidly at the sight of many students giving you curious stares, "is there something on my face?"

Peter laughed, though he quickly disguised it as a cough, and responded, "No, they're just confused."

Confused, you furrowed your eyebrows and looked at the boy with the warm brown eyes who was grinning at you proudly. "Why?" you asked, shifting uncomfortably. You were used to people giving you strange looks, but these were different. They weren't looking at you as if they were pitying you, or as if they were waiting for you to finally break down and go crazy. No, now they were looking to you with wonder and interest.

He bit the inside of his cheek, a pensive expression blossoming over his face as he thought of how to say whatever he planned to tell you. For a moment you admired the way his ruffled eyebrows furrowed, his lips pouting slightly as he pursed them in concentration. Only when the strange, old fluttering in your heart and your stomach started to erupt did you look away and wrinkle your nose.

You didn't want to admit it, but you knew exactly what that feeling was. It was a feeling you hadn't encountered since before the incident, and it was a feeling you didn't want to experience now. So, you told yourself it was just nerves over having a friend again, and squashed the stupid butterflies down as hard and as fast as you could.

"Well," Peter finally started, eyes wide and a little nervous as if he expected you to potentially be offended by his words, "you haven't exactly... talked to anyone in awhile."

Suddenly, it clicked. People were staring because you weren't the reclusive, closed-off, depressed girl you had been for the past thirteen months. They were staring because you seemed... happy. "Oh." you nodded, the sound feeble and slightly broken, "I guess that makes sense."

People were staring at you because you were the girl with the dead sister who they'd been waiting to witness implode, and suddenly you were talking, and laughing, and smiling. You were talking, laughing, and smiling with Peter Parker, no less. They were looking at you because you seemed fine.

Were you fine? Peter shot you a few concerned glances as you seemed to slip back into the repression you'd been living in for so long, but you gave him a small smile as if to say, "I'm okay." You were okay.

For the first time since she died, now that you really thought about it, you truly felt okay. You felt good. You felt happy. Sure, you were terrified of the little flutters you felt whenever you stared a little too long at Peter's face, and you still felt all the bad things you'd been feeling, but now you had good things to balance them out.

It would have been so easy to slip back into that cycle of beating yourself up again. That little voice in the back of your head was still there, the one that sounded like your sister but so different at the same time, that told you that you didn't deserve to have friends. You didn't deserve to make new friends, or feel those butterflies that meant something more, not when she couldn't do those things ever again.

It would have been easy, but you didn't want that for yourself anymore. If you did that, if you pushed Peter away because of her, then you would be left with all the bad feelings and more of them. You didn't deserve that. So, you took a deep breath, and gave a more genuine smile, and met the stares head on. She would have wanted you to be happy, and you deserved to be happy.

After school, Peter left you with a swimming mind and a million thoughts of what his plan could be. He didn't mention anything, and you wondered how long you would have to wait for whatever it was to come to fruition. What could it be?

You spent the afternoon in the family room, an action that seemed to startle and befuddle your parents who watched you like hawks. Though they didn't say anything, only greeting you casually as if everything were totally normal, you could practically hear the gears turning in their heads. You could imagine their thoughts of, "Who is this alien that looks like our child?"

As confused as they were, eventually the decided to just go with it. Your mom curled up on the sofa with you, and your father fell into his recliner just like old times, and the three of you watched a movie in a comfortable silence. Well, mostly comfortable. Nobody dared to look at or acknowledge the empty middle cushion on the sofa where she'd always sat, or your mother's empty lap that she mindlessly kept brushing her hands over as if waiting for your sister's head to be laying there waiting for her hair to be played with.

Nobody dared, until you did. You weren't entirely sure what compelled you to do it. It seemed as if you were urged to do lots of things you thought you never would these days. But, after half an hour of watching your mother's twitching hands, you laid your head on her lap and closed your eyes to avoid seeing her face.

After a moment, her fingers brushed through your wind-tangled hair and you felt peace. She had always been the one to do this. She had always been the one to burrow her way into your mother's lap, begging to have her scalp massaged or her back traced delicately, and now you understood why. It was comforting for more than one reason.

On one hand, it was just physically relaxing. But, on a more complex level, it gave you a sense of closeness you hadn't realized you'd been longing for. You felt closer with your mother who worked through the tangles in your hair with her fingers, gently scratching your scalp with her manicured fingernails. You felt closer with your sister, too. It felt as if you had a small piece of her to hold onto in that moment, and it was comforting.

By the time the movie ended, you were nearly asleep and the sun had set some time ago. Your mother was the first to break the silence, softly rousing you, "(Y/N), honey, do you want dinner?"

You did, but before you could answer, your phone rang loudly. Glancing at the screen and seeing it was Peter, you nibbled your lip to hide a smile and stated, "Yeah, I'll be down in a minute." They didn't protest as you raced up to your bedroom to answer the call.

"Hello?"

"(Y/N)! Hey!" Peter practically shouted, though his voice cut out with what sounded like a windstorm. "Can you hear me?"

For a moment the audio cut out and you wondered if the call dropped, but then the crackling wind returned and you questioned, "What are you doing?"

Abruptly the sound ended, and he was breathing a little heavily as he responded, "Sorry, I was swinging--"

"Peter! Are you really on your phone while doing that?"

He laughed, "Calm down! My suit, well, Karen, the AI in my suit, is connected to my phone. Completely hands free--I promise."

Your mind flashed back to that night on the roof, the night he'd stopped you, and you remembered how he'd asked a woman named Karen what he was supposed to do. Now it all made sense. You'd been a little curious about who Karen was ever since that night, and now that you knew it was some sort of artificial intelligence that Peter had given such a human name to, you had to laugh.

"Why are you calling me, Spiderman?" you joked.

There was some quiet rustling, as if he were moving around, and he spoke quieter, "I'm on patrol. I just--maybe this is stupid, but I just thought if maybe I could show you the good things I do you'd see that we don't just destroy stuff."

It went silent for a moment before he continued, "I can't exactly take you with me, because that would be stupid, but you could listen."

You hesitated in responding. A part of you wanted to tell him that it was a stupid idea, for multiple reasons, but you decided against it. How would he ever prove anything to you if you didn't give him the chance?

So, you swallowed your protests, and said, "Okay."

"I'll warn you now it's usually pretty boring. A lot of nights I just swing around for awhile and go home without seeing anyone or anything."

That was strangely relieving. You hoped that tonight would be one of those nights; not because you didn't want him to have the chance to really enact his plan, but because you worried for him. What if having you metaphorically there with him distracted him? What if you distracted him and caused him to get hurt?

For awhile, it was a boring night. You and Peter went back and forth, taking turns telling stupid jokes to see who would crack and laugh first, and inevitably he won. He had an endless supply of disgustingly cheesy science puns that left you in stitches every time, even if you'd already seen the joke before on one of his many t-shirts.

You got him to laugh too, though, with all of the dead-pan anti-jokes you may have been secretly googling as you told them. Sometimes the wind would return, alerting you that he was swinging around the city, and every now and then he'd almost forget you were listening as he gave little exclamations of exhilaration in the moment. It was cute, even if the shouts nearly blew out your ear drum every time.

It was a boring night, until it wasn't. One moment the wind was making your phone speaker cut out, and the next it was eerily quiet and you had to pull your phone away to see if the call had dropped. Putting the device on speaker phone, you questioned quietly, "Peter?"

"I'm still here," he whispered, "I see something. Be quiet for a minute."

You listened and waited with baited breathe, probably panicking more than enough for the both of you, as Peter started speaking to Karen. He asked her to start something he called enhanced reconnaissance mode, and you were bursting with suspense and curiosity. What did he see? What was happening?

It felt like an eternity before he acknowledged you again, "Okay, I see a woman cornered by some guys. I think they're trying to... to attack her."

He didn't have to say the word for you to know what he meant, and you felt your stomach explode with anxiety and fear for a woman you couldn't even see. "What are you going to do?" you asked.

"I'm gonna web 'em up, and wait for the police with her." he stated, "I won't be able to talk for a bit, okay?"

And then, everything changed. One moment the wind was back as he swung down to the scene, and suddenly Peter was in full Spiderman mode and almost unrecognizable to you. He was sassier, playful even, despite how serious you knew he really was as he antagonized the bad guys.

The banter didn't last long. You heard the woman scream in terror as a loud ruckus rang through your phone, and Peter groaned. Was he hurt? Did he get hit? There were more thuds and dull smacking sounds, Peter and the men alike grunting and shouting out loudly as she continued to break the atmosphere with her screaming.

You wanted to call out for him, to make sure he was okay, but you were paralyzed in fear. What if you called his name and it distracted him, causing him to really get hurt? But, what if he already was hurt and forgot you were there to potentially call for help?

The fight lasted awhile, before finally the woman's screaming ceased as Peter told her, "Hey, hey! I got them, I got you. It's okay. Everything's okay."

"Peter?" you whispered.

"Everything's okay. It's going to be alright."

He was speaking to you, though he had to phrase it in a way that it sounded as if he were just speaking to her. You didn't believe him that everything was fine, though. It was easy to hear just how winded he was in the way his voice was strained, weaker than before.

Peter was hurt, and you were terrified. His plan was just as stupid as you'd thought it to be. Not because he didn't prove anything to you, because you were happy he'd saved the woman and he had shown you a good thing he did, but because he'd forced you to witness his pain and suffering yet again. You'd had to witness him actually get hurt this time, and the woman's screams still echoed in your ears.

It brought you back to that day. Her screams reminded you of the chaos following the building's collapse, reminded you of how hoarse and sore your throat had been from screaming just like that. Screams of pure horror and panic.

Only after the police finally left, thanking Spiderman for his help, did Peter drop the faux strength and softly whimper, "Shit, that really hurt."

"My window is open."

With that, you hung up and left him to decide what to do by himself.

Your mother quietly knocked at your door, opening it slowly as she poked her head into your room, "Dinner is done if you still want to eat."

Forcing the best smile you could manage, you muttered, "I'm actually not feeling very good. I think I'll just go to bed." You wished you could say you hadn't seen the disappointment written all over her face, clearly let down by you pulling away again, but she nodded nonetheless and shut the door as she trudged away again.

You laid in bed for hours unable to fall asleep, listening to every noise outside with hitched breathe. Was that little knock Peter? Was he at your window? By the time your phone told you it was nearing sunrise, you gave up. He wasn't coming, and you tried to ignore all the horrible thoughts that consumed you.

What if he was so injured he couldn't make it to you? What if he was out on the street somewhere, hurt badly and in need of help? You cursed yourself for hanging up, but you couldn't bring yourself to call him back. It was a strange battle of worry and anger, with anger winning out in the end and stopping you from reaching out.

You were angry at Peter for his stupid plan, causing you to think of all the awful things he seemed to keep at bay during the daytime. You were angry at those men for hurting him. Mostly, you were angry at yourself for being so stubborn. Why were you being prideful and letting the anger stop you from making sure he was alright?

You: are you alive

Peter Parker: yes

Peter Parker: go to sleep

Peter Parker: see you tomorrow?

You: yes. good night.

SERIES TAGLIST {ask to be added}:

@msmimimerton @zendayasfwb @sweet-symphony

[piosplayhouse]

Yeah, I can see your perspective for sure!

Putting some thoughts under the readmore so this isn't too long:

I think the most common valid complaint I see from even SV mains is that bingqiu isn't really a developed relationship by the end of the main story, and I would definitely agree! But I do think there is some merit in considering that a. The story ends with the note "their story has just begun", so I guess you could argue that the point is that it's sort of open-ended of how you think their relationship continues (in the spirit of svsss's main themes centering around the beauty of fan creation) and b. the svsss extras are a lot more bulky than the other novels' and contain a great deal more development/content for post-canon bingqiu that isn't even awarded to the other couples, like their canon wedding ceremony and complete outsider povs to their relationship in the form of the airplane extra.

I didn't personally think that bingqiu getting together was forced, but that's mostly to do with how I read sqq's character development as having nothing to do with developing new feelings and everything to do with growing into his feelings and being able to accept and see people for what they are (he's always loved binghe, he just wasn't comfortable acknowledging it because he was essentially living on a limited thought fear survival mode for 10 years). I know their actual "getting together" scene is very divisive within the fandom, but I find it really fitting in that it ties a lot of the meta themes regarding the stallion genre together-- sqq foreshadowed it from the very beginning: sex solves everything in stallion novels. And in a surface-level way, this is true. Sex saves the world of svsss, but rather than being romanticized, it's unglamorous, disgusting, uncomfortable. It's forced by a hand of god working much in the same way as airplane and other webnovelists like him-- physicality is the ultimate goal because it gets the most approval from horny readers. But scum villain subverts this because in reality, nearly nothing is solved by the sex. It's only when bingqiu talk about their feelings that they feel secure and begin to heal. (Also I'm not sure if you read the extras but I do have to say that binghe isn't actually that clingy by nature it's all sqh's fault because he directly told binghe that the best way to flirt is to act pathetic and clingy LMFAO . And it worked! SQQ actually talks a lot in the extras about how he likes when binghe pushes him and how sometimes he wished he would push more so he could pretend to "give in"). SQQ is such a good unreliable narrator because he continuously fools himself into thinking ways opposite to how he's feeling, and his relationship with binghe is entirely an example of that.

Ironically, hualian is my least favorite main couple because their feelings really also don't seem to develop but in a totally opposite way. From the very beginning they're sort of "happy ever after" coded and really don't go through any patches where you could doubt that they'll end up happily married. Which is good for some people! But tgcf is, I believe, really the only book of the three that's marketed mostly as a romance novel (as opposed to SV being first and foremost a satirical parody and mdzs being more of an action/mystery novel), so the fact that Hualian are basically married from the very beginning and this never changes is just kind of .. boring to me sahksn

But that's just my opinion! Again I'm not sure if you've read all the extras but if you have I'm curious on how you feel about moshang (who are a canon mxtx couple! A lot of people don't know this but they are confirmed) because they're a Can Of Worms for sure.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts!! It was really fun to read and I'm glad we could have a nice discussion about this, it's interesting to get other perspectives! ^^

(putting on my conspiracy theory hat) yunno a lot of people make the argument that TGCF is the best mxtx novel just because it's the last one and she's "learned from her mistakes" but you know... I don't actually agree.

Sorry I have to drag scum villain into everything I post but I do think that there's something to say that mxtx's first book, before she became really popular, was about how popularity can pollute a writer's intentions and prevent them from pursuing what they actually want to write. I do think this applies to tgcf, which does, in my opinion, show a sort of stress that comes with being in the limelight that sv didn't have. I've seen a lot of people comment things like "SV is good but it needs a LOT of editing" and it's perfectly fine to think that way, but I do think you have to take into account that ultimately... SV was not the story that mxtx chose to heavily edit, it was tgcf.

I don't really like to make assumptions about the writing process because you truly don't know what's happening but in my personal opinion SV has a spark that the others don't have quite as much of, the spark that's just "oh, the author had a LOT of fun writing this". And I think that's, though not as quantifiable as some other measures of books, is a very important part of making a piece of writing good!

[buttercream-imagines]

I saw you giving advice and thought I'd ask you, I'm really sorry if this seems weird. Lately, I just feel pathetic, and just really sad. I have no idea why. I've always struggled with the way I feel about my thighs (they're bigger than usual). And i just feel really crappy. I'm sorry for dumping this on you. The only thing that's been keeping me smiling is my idol, Robert Downey Jr. (Iron man) so any advice on what to do?. PS love your writing ❤️

No need to apologize my dear! I’m happy to be here for all of you. And thank you! I’m glad you like what I write ❤️

This is kind of hard to give advice on because I’m on the same boat. For my whole life I’ve struggled with my weight. I’ve been trying (and failing) to go on diets for as long as I can remember and I’m always left feeling even more miserable in the end. So it’s hard for me to give you solid advice without feeling like a hypocrite. Nevertheless, I’ll do my best (and hopefully take some of this to my own heart as well).

Wear clothes you like. If you like dressing up, do it for no reason. If you like sweatpants, wear them whenever you can. Make yourself feel good. On days when I wake up and think “Today is going to be shitty,” I counteract that feeling by putting on a bomb ass outfit and doing my make up and hair. It really puts a positive spin on your life. When you feel like you look good on the outside, you’ll feel good on the inside.

You have to fake it til you make it. Even if you don’t really feel confident, hold your head high and play pretend. Eventually, with time, you won’t need to fake it anymore. I know that sounds far-fetched but believe me. It’s like, you get into this pattern of loving yourself and it starts to feel natural.

I’m sitting in bed right now trying to think of what to say to you to make you feel better and I’m coming up short. It’s so hard to tell someone to love their body and themselves when you struggle to do so yourself. The truth is, everyone has issues with their body. Literally everyone. I have a friend who is barely 100 pounds, is perfectly healthy, but hates her body because she is too skinny. We think we want this body or that body but once you have it, you’re only going to find something new to hate. It’s how we’re programmed. We watch people on TV and online and we’re always striving to look how they look but I don’t think we’ll actually be happy once we’re there. We’re given one life and one body and it’s our job to love it no matter what. Sure we can work to lose a couple pounds, but we can never forget to continue loving ourselves throughout the whole process.

I said earlier that I’ve always struggled with my weight and self-worth. The one time I remember truly being content with how I looked was in my senior year of high school when I had a boyfriend. Looking back I realize how unhealthy that is. I only felt beautiful because he made me feel that way. No one should need another person to make themselves feel beautiful. We need to find the beauty within ourselves, not in a picture online or in the words coming out of someone else’s mouth.

Learning to love your body is not going to be an easy process. You’re going to cry when the dress you bought five months before an event doesn’t fit when the day comes around and you’re going to stare at your reflection in the mirror and cry in frustration. It will happen. But some day, you’re going to buy a kick ass pair of booty shorts that show off those thighs of yours and you’re going to say, “I love my body.” When I wore my first crop top in public, I was so nervous. Your girl is 215 pounds with a belly to show for it. The thing was, I really liked the top. I felt good in it. I knew my belly was showing but I was comfortable and I felt good. I looked my insecurity in the mirror and said, “You’re alright.” Now I wear bikinis and crop tops and I flaunt the body God gave me. And yes, I still look in the mirror and cry. I still google diets with plans to pursue them only to abandon them the next day. I will never 100% love my body, but that’s because I’m human.

Life is hard and sadness is inevitable. Don’t be afraid to talk to people about how you’re feeling, even if it is just to vent. It feels good to get your emotions off your chest. If you’re feeling particularly down one day, don’t lock yourself in your room with your blinds shut and your lights off. Go outside. Climb a tree and see the world in a new way. Go to a coffee shop and people watch. Order a new drink from the cute barista and give him/her a bright smile. Compliment a stranger. Wave at the person in the car next to you. Sit in your favorite spot in the house with a good book or your favorite Iron Man movie (might I suggest Civil War? I know it’s Captain America technically but damn if that isn’t my favorite Marvel movie). Write how you’re feeling. Keep a journal to look back on to remember how you once felt. On days when you feel good the journal can sit on a shelf as a reminder that things always get better. Because they do always get better.

I don’t know if this helps. Like I said, this is so hard. I’m getting a little choked up writing this because I relate so hard to what you’re saying. But someday, someone will love your thick thighs as much as someone will love my pudgy belly. And someday that someone will be you, and that’s what matters most.

I’ll paraphrase from something I once read to end this post:

Maybe you have thick thighs or wide ribcages. It’s easy to hate these non-zero size body parts. Don’t. With your legs you can run a marathon if you want to, and your ribcage is nothing but a carrying case for strong lungs. You can scream and you can sing and you can lift up the world, if you want. The best thing you can do with your body is use it to mobilize your beautiful soul.

xx