#i usually never complain but...

[cognitiveleague]

Easily one of my favorite things about Zoro and Luffy (not necessarily in a shipping context, though *I* enjoy them in a shipping context) is the way they seem so different on a surface level - this whimsical sunshine boy captain and his big, stoic, serious right hand man - but when you actually get to know them, they’re pretty much two halves of the same weird goddamn idiot

Specifically, I love that whenever Luffy is doing / saying something totally absurd, there’s a not insignificant chance that we’re about to cut to Zoro, whether he’s two steps away or halfway across the island, doing the exact same unhinged shit, and it’s so goddamn funny every time???

[kingleedo]

Hongjoong || Work [240531]

[nellasbookplanet]

I recently started reading (and ended up dropping partway through) an m/m retelling of an old legend, and it made me think of this reoccurring thing I've come across a handful of times now in m/m fiction and how they approach women, equality, and world-building.

Let's call it the omegaverse problem, because that's where it seems the most blatant (I've only come across it twice outside of fandom spaces that I can remember). Basically, it's when the writer looks at the unequal and sometimes oppressive roles women serve in society (today and historically), and goes 'this is a good basis for dark romance but there are too many women here' and then just. plops men into the roles traditionally served by women and recreates heteronormative tropes but They're All Men Now, none of those icky women.

Now, completely removing any and all gender based inequality isn't a bad basis for a queer-inclusive fantasy! But thing is, this type of narrative isn't interested in women, so they often read as if women have mysteriously disappeared from society (except for the occassional mom or sister). They don’t bother to include women in traditionally male areas (the book I dropped had plenty of male courtesans, with diplomats and bodyguards and advisors also being male) nor to create new roles for them.

They also generally don’t bother to look critically at the systemic and societal inequalities they're mimicking. The concept 'typically sexist society but they're all men (or all women)' could be used to alienate and deconstruct our ideas of what’s 'normal' and what’s oppressive, a way to compare the intersections of class and gender. Instead, this kind of story is only interested in using inequality as inter-character conflict and set-up for romance. And it sucks.

[harbingersecho]

WODtober 6 > Underground

[icharchivist]

I think one thing i really hate about Veilguard is that in this attempt to make Solas less sympathetic they do simplify his motivations and end up doing things specifically for people to dislike him (re: the whole Varric storyline),

but they also just make everyone around him paragons of virtues so it becomes clearer, so it does end up being too black and white.

Like Solas has flaws! he's ruthless! he would kill his friends if they got in the way of his goals! A lot of people died because of the calls he made! he's pragmatic! he copes by not seeing people as "real"! He manipulates other people! those sucks, right?

But in DAI he's balanced with Bull who also says that he has to deshumanize the people in front of him to just be okay with killing them. or Vivienne who casually mentions that killing the servants is a normal way to play The Game. Or Dorian who argues in favor of slavery in the main game and then approves of Fen'Harel's methods in Trespasser after he starts to realize radical action is necessary. Or Blackwall who made a terrible call too as a general once and still is paying the consequences of it. Or Leliana who is also someone who was made into a weapon to support someone she loved "her call, but my conscience to bear the consequences". Also just Leliana or Vivienne or Josephine being quite manipulative themselves.

Or even Felassan in The Masked Empire letting Imshael kill innocent elves, being ready to kill Briala once she starts to see through his plan.

Or Solas' arrogance over everything he knows about the past that clashes with Morrigan's own arrogance about it when they talk in the Temple of Mythal.

Veilguard meanwhile both have the most inoffensive companions of the whole franchise (none of them deal with guilt for something they actually did, at worse they have misplaced guilt (Bellara), else don't worry even the assassin knows he only ever kills bad people. (compared to Zevran who knows he had been sent to kill people who perhaps didn't deserve it).), and when it can bring back a character from before, it's by stripping them of anything that would make them sympathize with Solas.

Re: Felassan losing his edge completely just to be shocked about Solas' actions, or Morrigan joking about how she humansplained him elven history and "resolving" her conflict with Mythal offscreen to better lecture Solas' about his own later. (which i'm so angry at, Morrigan's "arc" this game made me so angry, my god.)

So instead of Solas being flawed, the way Any Dragon Age Character is flawed, he's demonized to the extreme while also refusing to have any characters match his freak.

And it's not even mentioning how Rook fails at also having any chances of relating to Solas, in a way the Inquisitor could (if only because as a leader sometimes you make calls that will get people killed. Re, all the people who died in Adamant or in the Grey Wardens' War Table missions, and it's not even mentioning the one War Table mission about whether to sacrifice innocents to find Red Templars or give up on a promising lead.)

And it's why lots of Solas' fans will end up being much more defensive about him because the gap created in Veilguard is just... deeply out of synch with the way the franchise had dealed with controversial characters yet.

That makes Veilguard a lot more frustrating than it even is to start with.

[cordycepsbian]

team snakemouth gijinka but more of a Fantasy™️ au than just regular humans. featuring our spin on the concepts of halflings and dwarves where they are creature animal. and leif is uh ??? the horrors

bonus doodle

[gingermintpepper]

"Man Ginger, why don't you like doing lineart for things?"

BECAUSE IT TAKES TOO LONG AAA

Art for me is usually more about getting the broad strokes of an idea out so I can more easily visualise it when writing/planning. This, unfortunately, does tend to clash with my innate need to be good at the things that are important to me but I think I've gotten better about embracing the 'messiness' of my style over the years.

That said, LOOK AT THIS HYAPOLLO WIP I'M WORKING ON?? POLLIE'S COMING OUT SO GOOD LIKE??

I usually describe Apollo-as-Agreus (Agreus is the name he takes on while he's mingling with the mortalfolk) as having gold-brown hair both because he born a brunet in my story and because the word 'xanthos' in and of itself implies something that encompasses an entire spectrum from true-blond to auburn? My visual shorthand for this has been to just have Agreus' hair be a duller blond than the sunstreaked cloud colour of Apollo's more divine hair but MAN I was NOT expecting to love properly attempting to represent Agreus' hair this much! Ugh, I'm so excited to finish colouring this set of images!!!

[cnl0400]

Idk I feel like I live in another dimension than most of the OBM fandom on twt. There has never been free pulls on half anniversary besides the permanent gachas, like my god we know Solmare Is greedy but you're inventing stuff to get mad to

[cloudcountry]

thinking about all those times ive seen people be like "if i was bullied as a young child i would just punch them" and thinking Wow they actually have no idea what it's like to be picked on.

[idontmindifuforgetme]

I bitch a lot about being put in high stress situations on here while full knowing im addicted to the pressure and the challenge tbh like id literally be so bored if it came by easy

[alchemicon]

I can't describe how important capturing akutagawa's expression in that moment was to me, like that's such a pivotal character moment, a revelation of his feelings for atsushi and it deserved to be done justice, sskk nation I'm so sorry.

[shitpostingkats]

Something that really bothers me is people being mostly sub watchers and then seeing a dub episode and complaining that the characters are "totally butchered". That's because there's a whole show of building that character in a slightly different flavor, y'all.

Actually, correction, something that really bothers me is people complaining about the yugioh dubs.

[gifti3]

it feels like the quality in time princess has just been going down and down

[spinecurlingmice]

magma needs a symmetry tool really bad

[scarameownya]

sometimes i wonder if my neurodivergent traits (stimming, overstimulation, ect...) might be too annoying for the genshin world

but then i remember alhaitham exist and ppl love him (and want to fuck him) and feel better

[headfullof-ideas]

With most of my side characters in my crossover, I try to nail them to at least one clothing design. However. I’ve just drafted a character who is GOING to have multiple outfits, which means finding the ‘generic’ outfit is HARD