#i like to think mary has personal beef with all of them

[thermodynamic-comedian]

fuck. i might have to start writing those lighthearted fluffy slice of life fics people write about the archival staff. except it's the 1970's and it's gertrude and her archival staff + "james wright"

[vilebird]

BOTH TOO MUCH AND NOT ENOUGH

1) "I have been found wanting, Natalie thought; I have made myself unacceptable and am not worthy." - hangsaman, by shirley jackson

2) text: "meat must be beaten brutal into tenderness, that any body softens with violence, she grinds salt into the carcass, like a wound, a memory". image: a carcass of beef, cleaned, with the ribs on prominent display, painted in oils and rendered in thick strokes of red, orange, tan and white, on a plain dark red background. the text is cutouts on top, dark red text on light tan. - Family Portrait as Unfinished Meal, by Torrin A. Greathouse and Le Bœuf by Chaim Soutine. collage put together by @invisiblemonstrosity

3) a pale hand crushing ripe red strawberries, green leaves still attached, on a plain white background. - apparently by ouiloved on flickr, but they seem to have deleted.

4) bust photo of a tan person with a spotlight on them outside in the dark, head turned down, shoulder length messy wet black hair obscuring their face. their hand is raised to their chest and they are wearing a white tank top. fake blood is splattered and wiped around their chest and mouth. - i can't actually find this one all my attempts lead back to unsourced tumblr posts if you know where its from. help me

5: "You have no one who has any sort of consideration for you. You have had patience and endurance, and what have they done for you? Half-killed you." - carlyle’s house and other sketches, by virginia woolf

6: "try your whole life to be righteous and be good, wind up on your own floor, choking on blood" - sept 15th 1983, by the mountain goats

7: "such a waste of a girl, such rumination. i am obsessive. i contain nothing but the replay. i am blood and blood and replay. i am please don't go." - i put the coffin out to sea, by lisa marie basile

8: an image of a partially bald baby bird begging for food, drawn in the desaturated greens and black of a trailcam, on top, the text reads "i am asking you for something i need", on bottom, the text reads "why is it so hard to give it to me?" - trailcam baby, by @quezify

9: "was i raised without love? / or was i born unloveable?" - @psychwarded

10: "I, in my corner, with my monstrous needs." - As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh, susan sontag

11: "oh, i know that i'm not whole, and sometimes feel the flies swarming, like much of me is rotten." - roadkill ode, chad abushanab

12: a photo of a cut tree where much of the centre is rotted from fungus, accompanied by the text: "heart rot in pine. heart rot is the softening of a pine trees resinous heartwood, caused by an in-dwelling fungus. not all pines have it, but those that do make the excavation of a tree-hole next cavity easier for the red-cockaded woodpecker."

13: "rot made a home inside my body." - i know it's from "bloat" but cant find the authors name again. i think it starts with a c?

14: photo of an abandoned house in shades of brown and beige and orange, the walls are wet and scuffed and the drywall has been torn open in places, exposing the old lath. - abandoned, by @jaggedplains

15: photo of a mouldy strawberry, fading from bright red to grey-green fluff - Strawberry Gray Mold disease stock photo, by MediaProduction on gettyimages

16: "you ever feel like you were born with something rotten inside you and if people get close enough they're gonna find out" - tumblr post by @twoheadedfawnn

17: "we are meat, we are potential carcasses,' he once said. 'if i go into a butcher's shop i always think it is surprising that i wasn't there instead of the animal." - francis bacon

18: "you dangle on the leash of your own longing; your need grows teeth." - speeches for dr frankenstein, by margaret atwood

19: photo of a python hanging off a roof coiled around a black and white bird, poised to eat it - i heard some noise on the roof this morning, by candycane7 on reddit

20: "all that matters is that you want to hurt me. all that matters is that you want me." - when rome falls, by yves olade

21: "god told me i was forgiven and then he split me open" - god is made of hunger and i am made of dreams, by katie maria

22: "but this is not about love. once a pig is hung and cut straight, cut from rectum to neck, step inside her death like it is a room: that is how to touch her now. the lord said, you must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses. then came the end of the rib." - oh let's just be hogs, by gregory emilio

23: photo of a strawberry cut in half with its leaves attached. it is bright red, steel knife wet. the background is bright white and plain. - cut strawberry by liz west on flickr

24: photo of a handmade cloth sculpture of a dead autopsied pigeon, red zipper like an incision opening to its empty red interior, small cloth and thread organs arranged around it. - pandora: city pigeon, by jessica bartram

25: '"u need a therapist" actually i need to be euthanized' - tumblr post by deactivated user @122mg

[cryptidcr3ature]

Assigning rdr characters zodiacs since they didn’t give us birthdays to do it ourselves

Dutch- I know he’s a Leo, but I feel July Leo. Dramatic ass man.

Hosea- Libra. Theater kid, con man, self confident. I know what’s up.

Arthur- Taurus. He’s suchhhh a Taurus. Hard worker, stubborn, and typically a follower but will stand up for himself. I feel it. May Taurus

Abigail- ARIES WOMAN!!! I love Aries, my best friend is an Aries and they take no shit, especially from romantic partners. Driven, but so caring.

Micah-Sagittarius. I know I said Virgo in my initial post but that’s just my personal beef against Virgo men. He’s nearly as dramatic as Dutch but no where near as suave. He adds to Dutch’s flame till it’s out of control.

John-Cancer. “What choice did I have?” Never taking blame and takes a smack in the face to correct behavior. June cancer energy (I’m a cancer too so I’m calling myself out)

Sean-Scorpio, 100%. Sex driven, emotionally charged, quick to act out, cried after trying to kill Dutch and Hosea. Typical Scorpio energy.

Lenny-Capricorn. Lenny leads with his head over his heart. However, when he follows his heart, dear god get away.

Javier-Virgo. Virgos are always 5 steps ahead of you. I’ve also been burned by more Virgos than any other sign. Still if you got something you need done, a Virgo has a plan.

Bill- Sagittarius. The toxic masculinity and the bluntness of bill williamson makes me lean towards Sagittarius. I feel like maybe he’s a November Sagittarius though.

Trelawney- GEMINIIII!!! I personally love Gemini but everything is a performance with them. Different to the Leo main character syndrome, Gemini try to preform who they think you want them to be.

Charles-Scorpio. This one took a while and a lot of flip flopping but then I realized that Charles is an October Scorpio. Compared to the more open November Scorpio, Charles has a more introverted, bottled up personality. He’s emotionally reserved but once you get to know him, you can tell exactly how he’s feeling and what he’s up to.

Kieran- Pisces. Sweet boy, water sign energy. Slightly pathetic. Definitely March Pisces. 

Sadie- Pisces. February Pisces woman. She will stab you for someone she loves, and won’t hesitate to do it again.

Mary-Beth- Cancer. July in particular and demonstrates the more hopeless romantic and creative nature of Cancers. Also I know she’s got that intuition.

Tilly- Aquarius. She’s reserved but will kill you without warning. Don’t cross an Aquarius.

Karen-Capricorn. Capricorn burnout is so real and Karen is a prime example of what happens when you don’t keep your Capricorn on the straight and narrow.

Molly-Leo. Her last scene, that’s all.

I’ve been working on this for 40 minutes now and the melatonin is kicking in. Enjoy.

[respectthepetty]

Who is Jo?

It's only the fifth episode of The Trainee but I feel confident about who is the Blue Boy since I learned more about him this episode.

Ryan is a chill Green Guy who helps everyone including Pie in the very beginning of the episode by changing the copy paper and helping her. This hasn't changed.

Pie is still being her red passionate self now that she is assistant director for the music video.

Pah is still the yellow and orange odd one out.

Judy is still a sophisticated Black Brooder, and Mee is an evolving Pink Person.

(who gives her crushes pink donuts, so can Judy get one already?)

But the focus of this episode and post is about Jane!

We got to know more about him, and my original theory about him seems to be correct because I believed Jane was the Blue Boy since he seems cold and distant but everyone overlooks how dependable and loyal he is.

And once Ryan steps into Jane's apartment, it becomes even more clear that nobody really knows (Blue Boy) Jane.

(Sidenote, to be honest, I'd be Purple Person Ja, and not just because of the hair. I have beef with authority figures for no good ass reason. I need no reasons to dislike management, supervisors, admin, or anyone with power, so I ain't mad at her for talking shit about Jane every chance she gets)

Not only are Jane's curtains that shut out the rest of the world in the apartment that he intentionally selected since it's so close to his job blue.

But Ryan learns that Jane doesn't eat spicy food after Jane makes Ryan dinner in his blue pot.

And much like Pie's red bag, Mee's pink purse, and Ryan's green tote, Jane's bag has blue on it.

But what makes me really believe Jane is a Blue Boy is his behavior.

It seems like Jane has a box of shooting schedules (or storyboards) right at his front door that Ryan has to push a bit to get through, which much like the location of his apartment reinforces that his job is his life. (unless those are bills, then those bills look odd, and boy is about to be evicted)

Jane's movies are in alphabetical order (however, he alphabetizes "The" which should not be done because article adjectives a, an, and the should be omitted in alphabetizing, but . . . it's his personal collection, so do you, boo boo)

His album collection seems to be displayed by color connection (black, white, red) since I spotted Kodaline's 2022 album Our Roots Run Deep, Coldplay's 2002 album A Rush of Blood to the Head, and the 1980s Japanese rock band, Southern All Stars' Tiny Bubbles.

And the real kicker is Jane's favorite movie seems to be Mary is Happy, Mary is Happy, which is a Thai film about a creative girl who has to go up against her power-driven headmaster to get the yearbook produced as she encounters all the chaos that comes along with being a teenager.

And even his coworker (boss?) stated that Jane has the director's eye but he had a bad experience as an intern. Jane is talented yet guarded, which is very Blue Boy of him! Also, this book is free in the Archive and amazing!

So even though Tae has a blue phone and his blue headphones with a blue emoji heart to match Mee's pink heart as a he thinks of her with a pink background,

My money is on Jane being the Blue Boy since taking care of a Green Guy comes natural to him.

But the real point of this post is to ask "Who is Jo?" Is he the boss? A helpful office worker? Both? Because he is the only one who interacts with all the staff and actually notices all of them. He knew Pah was Pah when he was pretending to be Tae. He realizes Judy is amazing. He knows where the number for the copier tech is. He takes care of the fish.

Is he the original Ryan?!

[nebbys-personal-nebula]

the biggest, most copium agent 4 theory from this clown of an agent four enjoyer

apologies for the wait on this! i wanted to unlock all of the dev diaries to make sure i could squeeze out every last bit of lore...

anyways SIDE ORDER SPOILERS INCLUDING POSTGAME

so let's start with the common knowledge. most people know by this point that agent 4 has a palette. it's one of the first you get in the game, after pearl and marina's. to the surprise of nobody, it is a splattershot...

according to what marina says about the memverse, palettes are a portion of a person's soul dragged into the memverse. so agent 4's soul got dragged in here somehow. how did this happen, and why? there are a few possibilities...

marina mentions in her eighth dev diary that she needs someone to handle system security. she writes: "maybe i can ask that person cuttlefish introduced me to for help there." this is still pretty vague, but we know from smollusk's note on agent 4's palette that it is definitely agent 4. quote:

"THIS is who mawina wanted in charge of memverse security? this unfwappable, free-spirited so-and-so? i would never abide it!"

the question is: if agent 4 was intended to be security for the memverse, then where are they? this leads us to the parallel canon boss!

note that figure in the center. even though all descriptions for this boss describe it as "a lot like eight", it is clearly an inkling with its pointed ears and hair.

the hairstyle is significant, too. all art of this boss, including its icon, display it with the "haircut" style. why does this matter? because official art of agent 4 also uses this style:

on top of that, people have reported that if you have splatoon 2 save data on your switch, the boss will use whatever hairstyle your inkling uses in that game (with that inkling, of course, being agent 4). unfortunately, i forgot to take a screenshot of my save, but maybe someone could reblog this and confirm?

another thing to note about that agent 4-looking robot in the center is that they're wielding the order shot, which is the same weapon you get from agent 4's palette.

so what exactly am i getting at with all this? let's read a little more of smollusk's notes on agent 4...

"buut...no weason such stwength shouldn't be used to pwotect a world of order. an order defense force is MUCH cooler than a new squidbeak splatoon anyway!"

this phrasing is particularly interesting to me because it implies smollusk wants to, or already has utilized agent 4's strength in some way. additionally, smollusk regards fans of chaos in a very similar way. for almost all of them, he argues they must be "punished". examples:

"she must be PUNISHED!" - callie's palette

"her chaotic lies must be PUNISHED!" - shiver's palette

"for the sake of order, they all must be PUNISHED!" - frye's palette

"it annoys me, so he must be PUNISHED!" - big man's palette

"he must be PUNISHED!" - sheldon's palette

"i sentence him to PUNISHMENT!" - dj octavio's palette

almost all of these characters are on the side of "chaos". callie and dj octavio were on the chaos side of the final fest, while shiver, frye, and big man rep the splatlands, basically the land of chaos. no idea what smollusk's beef is with sheldon though that guy was neutral LOL

on the other hand, smollusk is notably softer with characters on the side of "order", like marie, murch, and marina (obviously). he still critiques them, but he doesn't sentence them to "punishment".

agent 4 was on the side of chaos in the final fest. so why didn't smollusk sentence them to "punishment"?

perhaps it's because smollusk is already making use of them...by using their soul to control the parallel canon boss!

think about it! the bosses of the tower are basically security, right? they keep you from reaching the top! since smollusk knows from marina that agent 4 was meant to be security, it could have pulled in their soul to fulfill that job. that's why agent 4's palette is there, and that's why we don't physically see them in the dlc! because they're grayscaled in the outside world!

…it is also definitely possible that the boss is just INSPIRED by agent 4, taken from marina's memories, or something like that. but i like this theory because it explains why agent 4's soul ended up in the memverse.

one other thing - i think the popular opinion is that the parallel canon boss are "robots", due to the way they move, their eyes glowing, the filter on their voice, etc...this is probably true, but have you ever wondered if the boss is actually a real inkling (a digital…real…inkling? you get the idea) if it was just a robot like the others, why would it specifically have ears and hair? not only that, but you can get the parallel mask from the priz shop:

which you wear on your face. what if this is the real agent four, wearing this parallel mask? their gray coloring could be because they're grayscaled! after all, we never actually see a representation of grayscaling in-game. the name implies that they'd actually turn gray in some way, maybe in the color of their tentacles. but this could be the most dramatic extent of it!

this is definitely a stretch, but you can consider it food for the die-hard agent 4 angsters out there. love you guys <3

feel free to reblog if you have thoughts, add-ons or even counterpoints! i find this all really interesting

[saintsenara]

As someone who isn't the biggest Hermione fan and keeps it quiet because greater fandom LOVES her, I'm honestly gagging for more of your Hermione takes. Especially your takes on fanon Hermione, who I can't STAND. Have a good one x

thank you very much, anon - there are dozens of us!

hermione is certainly the character i struggle to find common ground with the most - and this has been the case since i first read philosopher's stone as a child.

[which has actually been a really fascinating pop-culture experience - i think we tend to overlook, both because the media landscape and its representation of child and teen girls has changed since the 1990s and because of jkr's increasingly harmful views on gender, just how groundbreaking hermione was as a female protagonist in media which wasn't marketed primarily or exclusively towards girls. there is a reason why so many girls and women identified with her when the books were coming out - and it was very interesting for me growing up to not be one of them.]

the cause of my beef with hermione is for the incredibly petty reason that i find people who possess many of her more... striking traits quite difficult to deal with in real life, particularly if they don't acknowledge [which people in the hermione vein often don't...] that these traits are things it might benefit them to work on in their interpersonal relationships...

but this doesn't prevent me recognising that canon!hermione [and any real person like her] is interesting - and that her more annoying traits work well with her more straightforwardly admirable ones to create a fully-rounded character who, from a fanfiction perspective, is a great vehicle for all sorts of tropes, themes, and storylines.

which brings us - of course - to fanon!hermione...

fanon!hermione is, at her core, another brick in the wall of mary-sues. she's beautiful, and so clever she can solve millennia-old puzzles without batting an eyelid, and she's preternaturally emotionally intelligent, and she's morally spotless, and she's always right, and the story's preferred romantic partner worships the ground she walks on, and anyone who doesn't like her is punished.

i don't think - to be clear - that there is anything wrong, per se, with people wanting to write fanon!hermione [nor, to be frank, with other flawless fanon versions of female characters, oc mary-sues, or self-indulgent self-inserts - i'll defend the right to have fun with characters to the death]. this is a hobby, and people's way of engaging with that hobby doesn't have to appeal to me - it's fun escapism sometimes to write a character who is wonderful and perfect and beloved and has a sexy partner; and when it comes to accusations of writing someone "out-of-character", let she who is without sin cast the first stone...

but i also think - and [sigh] here comes some discourse - that fanon!hermione is part of a slight... girlbossification of female characters in the harry potter fandom [and presumably in others, i just don't follow closely enough to know] which i've always been a little uneasy about.

i understand why this happens - this fandom, like many, has an overwhelming preference for making blorbos of male characters and for imagining these characters in slash relationships. the treatment of female characters in slash subfandoms - i.e. tonks in wolfstar spaces; lily in jegulus spaces - is often straightforwardly misogynistic, and even in cases where it isn't, female characters are often shuffled quietly to the sidelines, except when they pop up - often suddenly in a queer pairing of their own - to benignly cheerlead the male couple.

and i think it's good that this is challenged - as i also think it's good that the heteronormative vibes of a lot of slash are challenged - and that we, as a fandom, are increasingly interested in female-centric works [whether focused on a romantic pairing or otherwise] and discussions. i hope these continue to take up fandom space.

but i have also noticed that the way female characters are written and talked about in these context is - as i've said - quite #girlboss in its approach. the focus is on women as clever and competent and feisty and unruffled and brave.

[including female villains, there are a lot of girlboss bellatrixes knocking around...]

and great! it should be! - but from what i've seen this also comes accompanied by a resistance to the idea that women can also be boring, unintelligent, self-infantilising, vain, arrogant, ignorant, talentless, meek, domestic, rude, dislikable, conservative, incurious, complicit in their own victimisation, plain wrong, and so on, and not only still be worthy of exploration, but be worthy of these characteristics not being automatically considered bad things for someone to possess and it not being seen as letting down the sisterhood to explore a woman who possesses them.

and, sure, hermione cannot be described as many of these things - but she is...

self-righteous; cruel; petty; from a privileged class background in the muggle world which blinkers her understanding of the class structure of the wizarding one; stubborn; terrible under pressure; shown by the text to be intelligent largely due to an ability to rote learn; a people-pleaser with a tendency towards a slightly hagrid-ish blind loyalty; extremely deferential to authority and willing to tolerate cruel treatment from authority figures [i.e. snape]; the most childlike of the trio [she takes her schoolbooks on the run and reads through them for comfort! she's an enormous animal lover!]; interested in one of form of stereotypical femininity [knitting! wearing pretty dresses!] even if she rejects the form of stereotypical femininity liked by e.g. parvati and lavender [and anyone who thinks she's not going to get along with her mother-in-law because molly's a housewife is dead wrong - she's having the time of her life helping put together a sunday lunch at the burrow]; possessed of a filthy sense of humour [i will never understand why emma watson said that the key to playing her was to be prim...]; someone who obviously wants to be liked and to be loved; and so on...

[and also, by the end of the pre-epilogue narrative, eighteen. she's often written in fics in a way which makes her sound like she's seen a lot of life - especially if the fic wants to claim she's "too mature" to bother with men her own age... but she hasn't - she's a teenager, and the reason she's so unpolished and abrasive is because literally all teenagers are unpolished and abrasive. it's just one of the mortifying agonies of growing up.]

we should love this. it makes her thorny and messy and mixed-up and human - and i am perfectly delighted by explorations of her character which delve into unravelling this tangle.

i just like her less as someone who is there to be right and beloved and uncriticised.

unless it's by ron. everyone should be uncomplicatedly adored by their wife guy.

[kipperlillyclerickiller]

Exploring Unconventional Bad Kid/Ratgrinder Parallels

Obviously, when Brennan introduced the Ratgrinders in FHJY, some clear parallels in class composition popped up. Every member of the Bad Kids has a corresponding Ratgrinder who shares their general build/role in the party and (presumably) some of their psychological issues as well. But when I was rotating the characters in my mind, as one does, I realized that there were some other interesting character foils to be pointed out. I've listed them below under the read more, along with more detailed thoughts on what aspects of the characters are highlighted with each comparison.

Also I spent way too much time working on this, so I'm including a DNI banner on here (made by @kipperlillyforpresident, who also graciously let me bounce ideas off in the DMs)

Kipperlilly Copperkettle/Gorgug Thistlespring: the first parallel that i came up with. they both have issues around rage that are belied by their physical appearance, with klck being a tiny halfling who experiences an excessive amount of rage that doesn't "benefit" her adventuring-wise as she's a rogue, while on the hand, gorgug is a half-orc who started out as a barbarian in part because it is what he's physically predisposed to be, despite actually having an extremely gentle personality, only transitioning to artificer in his junior year. both have relatively normal middle-class backgrounds but still have issues; klck's anger issues regarding not having a tragic backstory are well-documented, but gorgug also has baggage that made him minimize his presence at the beginning of his high school career, stemming from growing up in a household where rage wasn't really considered at all bc it's an emotion so antithetical to the thistlesprings' way of existence (to be clear, i think the thistlesprings are great parents; it's just that they didn't really know how to address this aspect of gorgug's development)

Ruben Hopclap/Fabian Seacaster: black boys showing off the sensitive side of masculinity. last episode established that the ratgrinders are living in ruben's mansion, which he presumably bought with his rockstar money and lives in without any parental figures, meaning that he and fabian have similar living situations and probably similar issues with trying to avoid loneliness that result in attention-seeking behavior (ruben's music career and fabian's max legend status). finally, the turncoat potential: fabian has admitted to listening to ruben's music and beefed with gertie bladeshield against the rest of the bad kids. meanwhile, ruben's experiencing some sort of guilt/reluctance with the ratgrinders' plan as expressed through his interactions w/ wanda childa. i believe they can bridge the bad kid/ratgrinder divide and i want them to be friends sooo bad

Ivy Embra/Fig Faeth: most straightforward similarity is their sylvan elf heritage, but i think that the similarity that matters the most would be their image/self-portrayal, with ivy being a sort of mean girl with an edge, similar to the type of person that fig wanted to portray herself as in freshman year (even though fig is actually much more soft-hearted/sentimental). this comparison is honestly more of a what-could-be scenario that sheds light on potential alternate facets of fig's story bc 1) ivy being an elven ranger is pretty similar to sandra lynn but has the edgy persona fig only took on after she found out about her tiefling heritage and 2) we have literally no idea what's going on with ivy's emotional landscape. still, this comparison compels me, especially in light of finding out how porter and jace groomed the ratgrinders, and the way that sandra lynn got used by bobby dawn when he was an adventurer. it's like a dark mirror of what could have happened to fig if the circumstances were worse (and the fact that bobby dawn is a teacher in aguefort rn and was also collaborating with porter to an extent.... the cycles are cycling!!)

Mary-Ann Skuttle/Riz Gukgak: just little guys. specifically smaller races often stereotyped as villainous and acting in the service of the party rather than for themselves, though while we see that riz acts for the party out of genuine passion, mary-ann seems to be more apathetic. both are disconnected from regular teenage social norms, generally unbothered/unaware of looking "uncool", and more focused on their personal interests, as mary-ann has her plushies and riz has his mysteries (and his business cards from freshman year lol). even when riz joined all the school clubs this year, he did it for the sake of kristen's campaign/getting scholarship money to help his mom more than for his own reputation. another prominent similarity is a heavy compartmentalization of emotion: we don't really know what's going on with mary-ann but she hasn't shown any emotion even when trying out for bloodrush and seems remarkably unbothered for someone who's been presumably been shatter-starred. riz, in contrast, has a lot of emotions/anxieties but channels them into mystery solving and other activities, an approach encapsulated by the baron quote from fhsy: "You love the truth. You seek it so much that you cut your hands upon the inside of crystals. But, you use deception to protect yourself from something you fear." riz also isn't very forthcoming with his emotional state, evading questions from his mom and Jawbone, as well as his friends. His initial drive to solve mysteries stemmed from the emotion from his father's death, but iirc he didn't even tell the bad kids about how pok died until sophomore. And now, he's grinding in school/extracurriculars for scholarships to avoid considering the possibility of the bad kids splitting up

Buddy Dawn/Adaine Abernant: catty and blonde. (jk) both of them feel anger prominently and express it in their spellcasting (versus a more martial class), but in very different ways. adaine's whole arc throughout freshman and sophomore year has been about accepting that she has the right to be angry about the way that her parents abused her, and that her anger can be a source of power in her spellcasting; contrast the way she brained doreen with the ladle in the first battle with the corn cutie bc she didn't know what to do versus later battles in sophomore and junior year when she's learned adaine's furious fist. on the other hand, buddy uses his cleric spellcasting as a healer in order to sublimate discomforting feelings and avoid dealing with the idea of agency and consequences of emotions like anger. his whole conversation with kristen is basically him going "i don't feel anger because i repress it so deeply and i don't engage in violence, just help other people kill because that is helio's will. my hands are clean tho :)" (he is so funny) additionally, adaine has found a support system in her adventuring party, as well as jawbone and ayda, while buddy is the odd one out in the ratgrinders as lucy's replacement, isolated from preexisting support systems as he has just moved from highcourt and subsequently becoming so very vulnerable to getting shatterstarred

Oisin Hakinvar/Kristen Applebees: idk these are the only guys i have left. ok my original idea was they both have plot-relevance related to adaine's summons, with oisin hijacking adaine's dust mephits to tamper with the cloud rider engine and whatever the fuck is gonna go on with K2 in the next episodes. also have a narrative presence defined in part by the women they're crushing on, with kristen dealing with her attraction to tracker/gertie/women in general throughout all the campaigns and oisin being introduced as seemingly flustered by adaine's attention. but honestly i think the strongest parallel is that they're both haters (kristen calling klck "4dogs" and oisin calling buddy dawn "hayseed", fight!)

and of course, how could I forget...

Lucy Frostblade/Gilear Faeth: the Chosen Ones. both have plot relevance and relation to Ankarna through their ancestry. both just have a melancholy vibe. ppl from mountainous cultures often live off dairy products... i'm gonna extrapolate and assume that lucy loved blueberry yogurt

[somewhereincairparavel]

okay. So I've finished book 1 of keeper of the lost cities for the first time. And I'm loving this keefe dude already?? Like I never thought I'd like a fictional character so quickly. All it took was like one page for me to fall for him, I am aware that keefe is one of the most loved characters in the fandom, and I can see why (correct me if I'm wrong).

Also the book is a solid 9.5/10, the only thing I was frustrated about was probably the slight info dumping about the whole blackswan thing towards the end? because it took me like 3 reads to understand the whole situation, of course, we could just narrow it down to me being slow too, lol. But I'm VERY excited to continue reading the rest. So while we're at it, I'll put in my first impressions of the characters, so I can look back on it after I've read all the books, to see how much my perception has changed of them.

Sophie- i like her, she's really mature for her age, I keep forgetting that she's like 12 lmao. But she's well written, her emotions seem very raw and natural. Of course, she may seem overpowered but, I think that's the whole point of the story, she is supposed to be overpowered, so I don't mind and i wouldn't call her a Mary sue. Overall great protagonist, my girlie deserves a break tho, she got dumped in the hospital atleast 6 times lol.

Fitz- i actually think he's cool. I liked him better in the beginning of the story tho, I feel like afterwards, the dude kinda just disappeared a little? Keefe and Sophie seemed to have more private interaction than those two, and keefe literally only came by in the middle. But yeah, I feel like he had more of a personality in the start. Keefe and Dex, in my opinion had more personality in 5 minutes than fitz did the whole book, but I wouldn't judge so quickly, it's only the first book after all, Hopefully he'd have more page time in the later books. I still like him tho, just not as much as keefe.

Dex- Yeah he is such a typical best friend, I love him. His beef w the vackers is so funny lol I was relieved when Sophie stuck with him even after she became popular tho, also, he seems to have a crush on sophie right? It's kinda obvious, but overall friendship goals 10/10. I vocally "AWW-ed" after he said "are you kidding, i can't wait to tell everyone that you're my first friend" like I need a guy bestie like him :(

Alden- honestly, my heart warmed so much with his father-like dynamic with sophie tbh. He seemed to genuinely care about her well being, but I don't want to get too attached to him tho, just in case becomes a traitor or some shit later on, you can literally never tell with the adults lol. I've read enough books to back that up. But yeah, i really like him and della, the amount of reassuring hugs he gives sophie really heals me :(, They're like sophies 2nd (well, in her case, 3rd) parents. The amount of effort and lengths Alden put to get her out of trouble is actually sweet.

Elwin- This guy is such a W. He is like an adult keefe tbh. He is probably my favorite adult so far lol.

Cassius- I'm sorry, but Mr jerk face over here reminds me SO much of Lucius Malfoy??? Like ?? I feel so bad for Keefe, like poor baby leave him alone smh. I really wanna deck his royal highness in the face tbh.

Biana- absolutely loathed her in the beginning, she gave off such bad snob vibes lol but I love her now. I like the trope of two people forced to be friends w eachother by someone actually end up becoming friends. It's rather uncommon as far as I've read, atleast.

Grady and Edaline- is it bad that i thought they were going to be evil? Yeah I have so much trust issues, it's concerning. But yeah, they're both big W's, their backstory, their temporary contemplation to reject sophies adoption, everything aligned well with their backstory. Greatly written characters.

And last but not least, the king himself, Keefe- okay, he's like added to my list of fictional crushes now lol (along with Percy Jackson, Jason grace, Steve Harrington, chat noir, Eugene fitzherbert, edmund pevensie and Ravi singh ofc). How does sophie not have a fat crush on him, like- ma'am if you don't want him, I'll take him. But jokes aside, he feels like the most authentic character out of them all, tbh. Epitome of great writing. He was inserted to the story as this random dude that sophie runs into, and becomes an og in like 5 minutes. He is like a mix of Eugene from tangled, Kristoff from Frozen and chat noir from mlb all at the same time?? I cannot wait to see more of him and his backstory, especially with his parents. I know alot of people dislike the humorous guy with depression trope since it's overused, but I like how it played out on keefe, he uses school as an escape, which is very relatable.

Also, bonus, i LOVE the world building, the light leaping and all, very creative. I cannot wait to get my hands on book 2

[chr0macide]

not my ass making a second oc for a dead fandom

Magdalena can have a boyfriend as a treat :)

Ok so I decided to name him Christopher Hawthorne, he’s employed at the police department as a detective (Bradley Beans is one of his coworkers) but he actually works for the purgers as an inside agent. When the purgers were arrested at the end of Break In 1 he was one of the people who helped them get out of jail, he released the ones who could be released and helped the rest of them break out in secret. I think Bradley would be suspicious that he might be a spy but he can’t find any dirt on him. I don’t think there would be workplace beef between them though, Bradley doesn’t seem like the type to beef with someone when he doesn’t actually know whether they’re an enemy asset or not. But anyway Christopher used to work for Larry before he was defeated in Break In 1, after that he was transferred to work directly under the Headmaster.

He really likes hunting and his house is in the same woods as the villain base. He hunts humans too sometimes, one of his jobs in the purgers’ organization is to hunt down and kill deserters and defectors. He doesn’t like nor dislike that part of his job, he feels that it is just something he has to do.

I headcanon a lot of purgers were born into the mob but Christopher was not, he didn’t go to Purge University either, but he’s the type of guy who joins whichever side he thinks is going to come out on top so he ended up here. In his opinion, the mob is so deeply rooted in the city that it would do more harm than good to try and take it down.

As for how he and Magdalena (my other oc) knew each other, she was arrested after the purge in Break In 1 and met him in the police station. She is a nonviolent offender so she was one of the people who he managed to release quickly, but she decided she liked him and kept hanging around him whenever she had the chance, which wasn’t that often because she was usually cooped up in the villain base tbh lol. So she wouldn’t leave him alone (cat distribution system real) but he didn’t realize she was into him at first, because Magdalena is so outwardly inexpressive. But he figured it out eventually

It would have thrown too much suspicion on Christopher if Magdalena kept showing up around him so he started visiting her in the villain base instead. Mary didn’t like him all up in her shit (I think she would tend not to like other people who answer to the Headmaster directly, besides the other Scaries maybe) but he has a high enough rank in the organization to show up whenever he wants anyway. At the end of Break In 2 when Magdalena fled the villain base, she went to his house. She told him the base got too dangerous after Mary’s defeat so she was just trying to get away for her own safety, but inwardly she was actually thinking about deserting. And he kinda knew she was lying, but he acted like he didn’t because he knew he might be ordered to kill her if/when it was found out that she abandoned the organization. This way he had some plausible deniability in case someone found out she was at his house and wondered why he didn’t kill her when he had that chance.

Ok I think that’s all the lore, ill put some things about his personality and other stuff

He almost never smiles. He’s not constantly blank faced the way Magdalena is, he just doesn’t smile. I’m sure he has a sense of humor of some kind but he doesn’t normally express it by laughing or anything like that

His default facial expression is annoyed/pissed

Despite his resting bitch face, he wouldn’t normally come off as an asshole when you talk to him, he would probably seem kind of aloof, but he wouldn’t be unpleasant to be around

He thought Magdalena was kinda creepy at first. When she is in love she gets a little bit weird about it, just a lil bit. One of the things she would sometimes do was stare at him vacantly for an uncomfortably long time and he didn’t get why at first, but it was because she just liked looking at him lol.

He’s ~6 ft tall maybe, built like a tank and he’s in his 30s, also he was born with poliosis that’s why he has the white forelock

He is nonconfrontational in a way. He works for the purge but he’s not a psycho (other than hunting deserters, his role in the mob is pretty nonviolent). He would try to resolve conflicts between the people around him. However, he tends to ignore it/brush it off when people try to start shit with him in particular, and he does in in a way that can make it seem like he thinks he’s above others. Plus, while he isn’t exactly a hermit, he can be picky about who he’s friends with and that also causes him to come off as a little conceited

This is not proofread we die like men (lmk if theres any spelling/grammar errors that make something completely unreadable tho lmao) here is another pic of Christopher I drew

[ratgrinders]

I can't get over how not a single person has voted for Ivy as their favorite rger; it's very funny, but also a LITTLE sad cause I personally would love to know more about her, as right now we have. Nothing. Her being Fabian's foil could imply that she has some kind of rich family, but absent parents, but she didn't seem to show any sign of being posh like Fabian is/was, she was just... mean. Same goes for Mary Ann in terms of knowing nothing about her, especially not how she contrasts to Gorgug. I really hope we get more information! Do you have any guesses?

Yes it's so funny 😭😭😭😭but also understandable unfortunately lmaooo. She's the Rat Grinder we objectively know the LEAST about, she's had maybe like what, one and a half scenes? We know she's besties with Oisin, and that type of dynamic within the larger group of the Rat Grinders is VERY interesting to me, but other than that??? Nothing. I DO hope we learn more though ghfsfks just because right now there's not a lot to dig into!

As for the second part of your question, oh god WILD speculation time only tenuously based in canon under the cut lets gooooo:

I think the basis for the Rat Grinders status as the Bad Kids' foils is that they have what the Bad Kids want, but have superficial beef with the Bad Kids based on the version of them they have in their head. So you got Kipperlilly who wants Riz's tragic backstory despite her allegedly normal and whole family at home. Oisin is rich thanks to his family while Adaine struggles with money thanks to hers, and maybe seems to have beef with the Elven Oracle as that's what led to Kalvaxus' defeat. Ruben has the song of the summer just as Fig is in the middle of an artist's block. Etc, etc.

So going off of that, what does Fabian want more than anything else this season? To not be lonely. I think it'd make sense then if Ivy actually had a really present, loving(?) family who nonetheless still turned out kind of mean. I think she has no problem living up to her family's expectations, no matter what they are. As for the family itself, well the Gloom Stalker subclass is "at home in the darkest places i.e. in primeval forests". And what's the nearest dark forest with a population of wood elves? Sylvaire, formerly the Forest of the Nightmare King. Specifically Arborly, since that's the town near there that protects the entrance to the forest. I think Ivy is possibly how the Rat Grinders got the Nightmare King connection in the whole reviving a dead god thing. Of course, this is all WILD speculation.

As for Mary Ann, what does Gorgug want? This is a bit less clear as his arc developed over the course of the season, but I'd say he wants a stronger connection to his artificing (and by proxy, his gnomish parents), he wants a balance between that and barbarian and a healthy relationship to his rage, and I think part of what ticks him off so much about Mary Ann is just how uncaring she seems, that she can seem so unengaged about things and still be such a great barbarian while he has to CONSTANTLY balance and filter his emotions and focus to succeed in his two classes. So I think it's possible Mary Ann was also adopted by a different species, but this time by barbarians so there was never any struggle on her part to relate to the classes of her parents. Her parents just Got rage immediately, she grew up with an innate understanding of it and is able to perfectly modulate it despite seeming so monotone outside it. And I think it'd be very funny if specifically Mary Ann, and only Mary Ann, has no outward beef with the Bad Kids and is actually kind of ok with Gorgug lmao.

I can't WAIT for all of this to get Jossed by the end of the season lmaoooooooooooo.

[katakosmos]

i love your evan SO MUCH. in my mind he’s become his own fun little destructive entity and i need him. badly. i do fear he may be a gym bro…which brings me to my question. what are the gang doing at the olympics (basically, which of them is stephen and which of them is the muffin man. and why.) LOVE!

thank you 🥰 i love my evan too 🥰 probably cause i know he could destroy me 🥰

(yes he'd be a gym bro)

btw. there are too many sports in the olympics for me to even remotely know what they consist of, so i won't get into things that are too strange (and so i don't know if i'll be able to give all the characters a sport 😭)

james for me is a world pole vault champion. i think the reason he loves quidditch is because he loves flying, not kicking a ball into three circles. so no football for him. in a fic that i started writing (but, obviously, never finished) lily and james met on an athletics field cause lily practiced hammer throw. in a domestic context, james would reach high shelves while lily assembles furniture and lifts the sofa when james loses something underneath it. they go to the olympics together and kiss from the stands.

(honorable mention to that french guy who knocked over the pole with his dick. james coded.)

sirius fencing makes sense, and he's so good at it that you can't take your eyes off him. sirius' fencing is a declaration of love, it hypnotizes you, it moves you. it's not an equal fight: there's no chance, he has to win because he brings fencing to a poetic and emotional level. he plays a whole different sport

...but i think he'd hate sweating under his mask and getting his hair greasy. LMAO.

peter fits in rugby but personally i think he would slay in a gymnastics competition: he does perfect floor routines. before a competition he needs silence and concentration, so he side-eyes anyone who speaks to him. he's so scary that everyone's afraid of him.

dorcas practices martial arts, and i can see her doing kung fu, which is very choreographic and acrobatic. but unfortunately, kung fu is not in the olympics and therefore... she would probably do gymnastics too. but mhmmmmm, it's not really her vibe.

mary runs. no questions and no explanations. and she wins the gold medal with thick eyelashes and a 5cm long set of nails. she can also run on heels. this woman is not to be underestimated.

barty is a shooter. and he absolutely loves to terrify people by saying he has a gun. he's precise, he has a lot of fun and he thinks his professional glasses are very, very cool. buttt, when he doesn't have a clear advantage he gets angry and starts losing, so he never won a medal. he's famous for his little smirk every time he hits the bullseye, and people think he's very hot.

marlene would either do the best known sport in the world (football) or the most unknown one (underwater hockey). so let's put them together: water polo. if i'm honest though marlene doesn't have a personality in my head so i don't know 😭

pandora maybe diving? she's very good at it but she always comes second behind the chinese athlete, and this makes her furious. she smiles at her friendly when in reality she wants to drown her.

now remus, regulus and evan... but i think regulus would compete in figure ice skating (he is very graceful but also sharp and fast), and evan would be a hockey player (for obvious reasons), but these are winter olympics' sports.

remus on the other hand, i have no idea what sport he could do. i'd love to see him play tennis, but it's too tiring. he wants something messy, fast and where he doesn't have to move too much. if there was a sport like this he'd be world champion, but he's probably still looking for it. for now he has to settle for long jump (james forced him to try but he hates it).

now... i have a personal beef with tiktok because of that american guy like tell me if you hate me ok. but stephen is 100000% xenophilius like: he sleeps for all the competition, completely unaware of what anxiety is, then he wakes up to do just one thing and does it perfectly. this is xeno right here.

but i have no idea which of them could be the muffin man.

[princess-of-the-corner]

Was musing on how the identity reveals in Duchess and M-Trio would look from an outsider perspective.

Like with the latter, it may not be noticed too much. Some observers note the team seems a little awkward. Maybe they are seen bickering in an Akuma battle a bit more than usual. But mostly people just figure its some growing pains stuff and will pass.

My rationale here being that despite Nino's history with Chloe & deeming her a brat he did still have her as part of group stuff he was in charge of. Meanwhile Alya may dislike her but she lacks any significant history with her beyond "Is a dick to my friend."

So a lot of it is more like "OK fine, she's not a bad bee but why was she picked?" & generally trying to get used to the idea.

Duchess & Ladybug however, that is much more obvious.

Cos as @generalluxun said both Chloe & Marinette tend to yeet affection at their loved one's when they do get physical. & with less 'serious' flirting and both being girls I could easily see them being quite affectionate with each other.

Then it suddenly just stopping.

Suddenly they are always quite far apart Suddenly Duchess is a lot less cocky and chatty & Ladybug is even more all business. Suddenly Duchess is a lot ore risk tasking and self destructive in battles & even more inclined to fawn though be it at a distance on her partner & do as she's told. Possibly to the point where it risks getting her really hurt & leads to a sort of:

"Isn't this what you want?"

"Just because- Just... Stop getting yourself hurt over this!"

Most people think Duchess chose to shoot her shot and got rejected. Or that there was some big dramatic unseen confrontation with a villain and someone had to make a call and its damaged the partnership.

Oh yeah no like

In M-Trio, there's a combination of like. Nino doesn't particularly /like/ Chloé, but they've rarely had direct beef and he's more chill and (unlike Mari) he is very aware that parents can be shitty and kids will act out because of it. So his reaction to Chloé being Queen Bee is pretty easy for him to roll with.

Alya has a slightly trickier time with it because she's very ride or die with Mari and was already projecting her own experiences with other bully types on Chloé. But she's also equally ride or die with Queen Bee and while it takes her a minute to really connect the two and connect like. She'll look at something 'Chloé' says that usually would be taken as insult because oh she's just a mean bully but actively shift her perspective to think of 'Queen Bee' saying it and realizing that a solid chunk of Chloé's words are just her being bad with people and not really knowing how things should work(granted she's also often trying to be mean, but there's plenty where she's just. Stating something. Or trying to express her dislike/displeasure. And it comes out so wrong that people get offended.) So yeah it trips her up but it takes a minute.

Meanwhile in Duchess Noire:

Mari's whole black and white mentality gets absolutely shattered with a fucking cannon. Because 'Chloé' is 'bad' but 'Duchess' is 'good' and she surely can't be both 'good' and 'bad'...... right?

And it takes. It takes a lot of unpacking. And for her hearing C/DN say something she's always imagining the other and how she'd interpret them saying it and it's driving her goddamn nuts because no that's that's not right something has to be going on here one of these has to be fake.

On the flipside, Chloé completely click that Mari and LB are the same person. But now she's just like 'god you're so fucking perfect and I'm afraid of rejection let's do whatever to please you and make you like me!'

[night-lakmen]

The art of writing 'confident' fictional women

Making female characters who're supposed to be 'queen bees' and/or popular comes with a great amount of misogyny and internalised competition amongst women.

• The Mary sue.

She's perfect, she's everything. While partying everyday and not studying once in the entire book, she's able to be both the magnet and the nerd who knows everything being taught in the class. All men turn to look at her, all women are envious of her beauty.

Most of such characters are described as having certain particular beauty standards. Beauty is different for different people,and attraction isn't warranted by looks. There's a stark difference between being easy on the eye and attractive.

Such characters are also shown to be either incredibly revealing in clothing in places where they shouldn't be, and are described using adjectives that make you more uncomfortable than enamoured. Most of the time they're said to be 'inspired off IT GIRLS', when being an IT girl says nothing about bringing other women down by saying how they surpass everyone around them.

• The Edgy Bombshell.

The og y/n.

Hair up in a messy bun, wearing the first thing she finds in her room she's still the most beautiful girl in school/class/the entire world. Things that are symptoms of depression become aesthetic for her, the just out of bed look being one of 'not like other girls' and not 'im suffering. Help.'

Such characters are often uplifted by adding bimbo, cheerleader chars who wear clothes/are portrayed to be more extroverted, glittery and cheery than the said character. Un necessary bullying from the girly chars and constant threats of 'you're stealing my boyfriend' ruin her day.

The only thing she needs to steal is a time table.

• The Pseudo bully.

She's not mean, she's just the girl who's honest with everyone.

Even though she's the worst person to walk on earth with the way she talks to people,somehow everyone bows to her word. Similar to the first one, she's somehow liked by everyone. Never a pore, never any body type other than hourglass, she brings her friends down by making weird jokes and putting them out as 'savage' when they're not comebacks, just actual insults.

But she's not a bully! Her behavior is entitled, she thinks she has earned the entire world because of the way she is raised or looks, but she is not a bully!

• The gangster

[I love biker women<3]

She's not like the other basic girls. She knows bikes, she knows cars. Everyone comes to her to get their stuff fixed and she has beef with every other woman in school. It isn't her fault she's one of the boys and was raised with 69 boys!

Most of the time such characters lean heavily towards type 2, having either an excess amount of terrible hygiene, humor, or towards 1.

The only time this is acceptable is when she's lesbian. I love biker women<333!!!

The art of writing fictional women has been around for ages, yet it is one people still haven't figured out yet. Much like in real life, the objectification of women and their bodies to appease the readers is prevalent among writers both male and sadly female. One woman can't be both popular and nice, for that's a sin. Kindness doesn't warrant popularity, for women are always fighting amongst each other in their mind.

Popularity is gained because of a lot of things, and most of them aren't positive things. The only time people end up liking you is if you're aware of other people: and don't put other people down to raise others. Women are much more than their bodies, their beauty, their sexuality. They can have off days, they can have many different kinds of personalities and moods depending on the situation.

The art of writing women is almost like the art of loving women, and it's safe to say that we're failing in both.

[crabbytime]

So it's occurring to me that I should probably be posting my OCs here but my braincells are low so we're starting off with the one I made most recently

Meet Ultrawoman Cancer! She's the HR woman who hates everyone and nobody can do anything about it because she's the only person in the HR department and its founder.

She initially started as a meme-sona because my friend @futariwadorkycure and I do watch parties for Ultraman series' and I could not stop making "These people would not survive HR" jokes, but then she became her own thing, and thus Cancer was born.

Her lore is a heavy mix of things we thought would be funny and my angst-heavy ass sprinkling in a few bricks of depression. Her being Belial's estranged wife was funnily enough a meme addition and we ran with it. Mainly cause she married him post-Reiblood.

If tumblr didn't kill me then a summary of her lore can be read under the cut.

[Image refs are slightly outdated but it's mainly details I forgot and changed lore]

She hails from O-50 and is half-human on her mother's side and grew up there before a kaiju killed her mom and her dad moved her to the Land of Light. She's around Ken and Marie's age, so 160,000~. She's also got a massive obsession with strength because of her trauma, but she's also smart enough to not just rush into any false promises of power. Occasionally she has impulsive moments when she thinks it'd be for the greater good or if she panics, but generally she's pretty composed aside from being a massive bitch. Her current form was obtained after completing the climb up Crusader's Peak in stilettos and the Ring of Light was intimidated by it.

She doesn't like any Ultras outside of her dad and her best friend who doesn't have a design yet because she blames them for not helping her mom. She also just thinks all of them are weak and selfish and don't earn or work for their strength because she thinks powerups and fusions are cheap methods of gaining power. The biggest part of her job as the HR woman is crossing dimensions to write their performance reports and none of them are nice in any way. She will write them up for the most petty of reasons.

She will actively just sit around while a battle happens because she feels like it's not her problem and that if the Ultras can't stop it, then they're just weak. To be fair she is quite strong, and could easily go toe-to-toe with plenty of Ultras or kaiju, so she has bite to her bark. The only time she'll participate in fights is to help with evacuation or if her help is actually needed.

Her main gimmick outside of being the HR woman is the heels. The heels are a big reason she even exists. The clacking of her heels terrifies everyone in its vicinity. Her fighting style is primarily kicking and jumping, outside of when she goes feral and all bets are off. Her melee weapon is a clipboard she doesn't use often because it's basically a deus ex machina that could kill anything and she thinks it's cheap to win that way.

She can switch between human and Ultra form and can also take on human hosts if she so wishes. Her transformation item is literally just her heels and her Rise is activated by clacking her heels together 3 times like in the Wizard of Oz. Her color timer also lasts longer because of her human heritage, making her better equipped to Earth atmospheres. Because she's a dimension-hopper, I like to shove her into various Ultra shows just to be funny.

I can go into her relationships in another post but tl;dr she has hardcore beef with Zero and Seven for mainly petty reasons and her stepson by technicality, Riku/Geed, is like the cat who follows her around and she keeps running from it. Belial is there too ig.

[m0e-ru]

i know your blog mainly focuses on more of the “side characters” (?) from p4 but i was curious if you had a favorite member of the investigation team? :3

side characters AHAHAUAHAA i like that theyre to the side because it makes it less pressuring to think about them compared to like an izanagillion piranhas infesting a lake about a more popular character. maybe that's why I'm repellant to them <- ??????

anyway I love risegirl from the bottom of my heart I want to brush her bangs and kiss her exposed forehead and tell her she's doing amazing and we hold hands and run around in a circle lalalalala. I don't have any pictures but shes just so sweet to me.

her idol life and masking 24/7 absolutely crushing her I'm glad she made the decision to bail and actually chill for a while a be herself with people that love her, instead of trucking on and breaking herself like other poor child idols. she has the strength to let people into her life and know that they'll accept her back. it's absolutely astounding to me that she can be so cheerful and hype up others to be their best even after everything she's been through, or maybe that's where she got her willpower in the first place. her ambitions for being an entertainer are genuine as she just wants to make little girls like she once was, and still is, be the best that they can be.

the competition and drama in the entertainment industry is predatory, but I'm also so happy she can bond and be friends with kanami and the rest of the kitchen girls, despite the rivalry being forced on poor middle school scouted idol kids.

it's so fascinating to me how she has a navigator persona, a support persona. along with her endearing and cute nature, she's keen on reading people and reacting accordingly. of course, you can't blame her for her shit reactions, with naoto most notably, because she's literally going through puberty I mean she just turned 16 cmon guys cut her some slack. she can raise people's spirit whether or not she's in her idol persona because that's her power as Rise Kujikawa, that's just the kind of person she is.

she's free to express her feelings, whether her excitement, her playful infatuation with bancho, push her boundaries when shes unsettled and needs space, being angry or annoyed or stressed, and even crying tears nowhere near crocodile tears. she's a very genuine girl and a very genuine teenager of her age. she regulates her emotions accordingly, whether or not she actually does, but it makes her feel real in that regard. there are things she'll regret once she's older but I'm glad she's living and thriving the way she's supposed to: freely—despite her working as an idol.

speaking of genuine, I love her quirks. her laugh is so cute and the way she squeals is adorable, in the english or jp dub, so props to both voice actors. she's pretty athletic, being a great dancer with enough stamina to sing along. but she's kind of shit at songwriting, with that one flavor text I thought was funny. she spends her free time outside her classroom looking at the fire alarm, tempted to ring it. she knows so much about tofu and walks around the shopping district in her apron when business is slow. she goes to remedial with kanji during the summer because their autism lies in doing vocal exercises and crocheting NAWT the pythagorean theorem.

don't get me started with her beef with marie because I think it's the cutest and most hilarious thing ever. imagine you're the labeled tsundere of the cast but your category 9 autism transfers all your tsundereism to the girl behind you. marie is hot and cold about her feelings, just being embarrassed when she puts her guard down in front of bancho usually. but she's a curious and impressionable girl, so when margaret insults the girl on TV, Marie's just going to parrot that and rise starts pouting about it "that's not how the slogan goes!!" But when bancho's out of the picture, they can be normal girl friends, eating desserts and styling outfits for each other and singing duets. hell, in pq, theodore makes a lame haiku and marie and rise giggle in unison. well, maybe rise isn't a tsundere in these cases, but her seiyuu Rie Kugimiya is known for voicing tsundere roles, some I'm already familiar with, so it's funny hearing her in her element.

I could keep going on how I love risegirl but I'm going to sleeo goodnight I love girls

[marichild]

heyheyhey 3 and 4 for the fic ask game ?

*slides in* *puts on peace sign* HELLO TO THE BEST AKU STAN EVER <3

3. Do you have any upcoming WIPs? How fat along are you with them?

QUITE A FEW ACTUALLY! since you're my bsd moot I shall give you a small list of the ones I'm focused on posting at least by January <3

ALREADY BASKING IN THE SUN — kunikidazai canon, slice of life vibes, pining & fluff. teen and up. currently the first scene is written and I hope to have it out next week!

IF WE MUST BECOME SOMETHING — soukoku, dazai & atsushi, festivals, based on that absolutely lethal wan! panel. yk the one. with the fireworks. teen and up. it's half written!! I just need to write out the final scenes and post next week hopefully

WHERE MY PULSE BEATS — soukoku college/high school au, band member!chuuya, soloist!dazai, whatever you can use to describe pre-dark era soukoku to lovers, explicit, I am still plotting this out very randomly

UNTITLED — soukoku canon relationship fix-it, missing scenes vibes, post-dead apple & post-cannibalism arc, explicit. still writing out random scenes to see how well it all fits together

UNTITLED — fyozai, vague college au, straight up just discussions of suicide. ghost!fyodor. mature. making notes for it and reading fyozai fic (giggles my fav bsd ship ever) to properly cement characterization!!

4. Tell me about one of your abandoned WIPs. Why did you abandon it?

AHDHHSHD I'LL COPY PASTE MY REPLY TO THE OTHER ASK!!

hoo boy. so, there was a sort of ambitious au I tried to write once—have you heard of twin star exorcists? I'm an anime enthusiast of it since I got pretty frustrated with where the manga was going what with the constant delays and derailing from the main point and the author not staying consistent with details, etc. that being said the anime doesn't fill a lot of gaps that should have been filled.

so while I was still pretty active in the kpop circles—which I probably will go back to soon lol when I feel less icky about the people I was beefing with—I tried to write a TSE au. while it wasn't my brightest idea to transpose a bunch of Koreans onto a Japanese setting, I also underestimated how difficult it'd be to handle all those canon details.

plus, exorcism is very heavily based on Buddhism, specifically in Japan, so I was just like. well am I prepared to potentially insult an entire faith. (research goes a long way kids! don't listen to younger mari) and I just sort of...let it falter and it doesn't even exist in my wip folder anymore </3

(it also involves a forced arranged marriage and the topic of being forced to have a kid, essentially, and I didn't want to genderbend anyone for it, so my solution was a trans man who was at least somewhat interested in having kids biologically one day, like me. once again, I didn't feel I did a very good job of it, and it was a little daunting to write it knowing that i did want at least a semi explicit scene that, once again, reflected me as a person. being a minor at the time, I let the idea go. and I was also much less confrontational at the time so I didn't think I could handle it if anyone was being weird about it lmao—which I fully can and will at this point.

that being said, I did write a fic about a trans man having a kid for a different fandom earlier this year, so I'm linking it if you're interested! very fluffy and family fun. and not explicit. though be warned, it is rpf lol)

HOWEVER!! I've actually considered picking it up again and rebranding as a soukoku au? once again, enemies to lovers, my transchuu agenda, my dazai can be any gender agenda, EXORCIST PRODIGIES, one of the characters has no idea where they came from and has a whole Bit about questioning their humanity. i.e. arahabaki parallels. there are a few gaps I'm trying to work out but it's definitely an idea haha)

fic ask game