#i will make something of myself [ANSWERED]

[icewindandboringhorror]

(also feel free in the tags to clarify Why you made the choice you made!! :0c)

[thebibliosphere]

Not to be an unbearable plot tease, but I'm editing/rewriting a chapter from Hunger Pangs book 2, and while I adore all of my characters equally, Vlad and Ursula getting to know each other properly might actually be some of my favorite moments.

His realization that he can pester Ursula to tell him more about random historical events as they actually happened, not how they are portrayed in history books, is so, so sweet. He's like an excited labrador who just found a dinosaur bone.

Ursula's very much not used to this kind of attention.

She's used to people only being interested in her power. And here's a werewolf who couldn't give less of a fuck about exploiting her magic for his own gain, and a vampire who wants to ask her what textile production was like circa the fall of the Ecrecian Empire.

[squwhims]

It's gone...it's done!

I have spent the last three days creating this quiz and I would like to be done with it now. I would like to leave this in your hands because I put my whole quizussy into this and my quizussy is TIRED. It is so long for a Joker Out quiz so...please take it. Take it for me...

[canisalbus]

Is this a gorgeous and beautifully drawn webcomic or gorgeous and beautifully drawn art only?

Art only I'm afraid ´v`'

I love comics as an artform and I wish I could create one about these dogs, but making comics is hard work. It's extremely time consuming and artistically challenging and I just don't think I have what it takes to branch out into that right now.

[ganondoodle]

I fully understand the pain you feel with TLOZ now. I mean, I understood it before, but after Arcane becoming League's canon, after watching the second season, I feel so broken and conflicted and like I spent time loving something just for it to amount to nothing.

reliving my totk nightmares just a few months after finally being able to cope with that

[sweetgaleria]

Help a college student graduate by answering a survey!!

Hey!! Are you over 18 and in the miraculous fandom? Then this is for you!!

Hi everyone, this is my last semester of uni, and one of my final projects to be able to graduate is to write a scientific paper. I'm writing an article about adult fans of children's animation, specifically Miraculous Ladybug. My goal is to understand what makes adults (like us) want to join fandoms centered around shows aimed primarily at children, and to do that I'd love to hear directly from the source! The survey takes around 10 minutes to answer, it's 100% anonymous and it would help me immensely!

>>Click here for the survey<<

I need at least 30 people to answer, but honestly the more the merrier! I've also made a little thank you gif at the end, so if you see it let me know! If you have any questions feel free to send me an ask, as well!

Please reblog so it can reach more people! Thank you so much!

[sergle]

how come you don't draw the ppl / characters you have the hots for

there's a certain kind of artist that can do that... a better type of artist................. and an artist who can stand to look at the reference material for more than a few seconds at a time.

[nerdallwritey]

for the wip guessing game: lips? 👀

hope you’re having a lovely day!! 💕

Oh this is a GOOD ONE. Thanks Viv!!! (Prompt from this post)

“Unfortunately, Raphael comes and goes on his own schedule, so we’ll just have to look out for any sulfurous odors or the sound of questionable poetry.”  That got you to smile. He smiled back, and reached out to hold your elbows lightly. “You will help me, won’t you, darling?” “Of course I will,” you said, bending up to kiss his cheek. You felt him flinch beneath your lips. “Are you sure everything is alright? You seem awfully on edge.”  “Me? On edge? Of course not!” His voice pitched up uncharacteristically and broke at the end. “I don’t know why that came out all squeaky because really,” he cleared his throat and lowered his voice comically, “I’m fine.”

Awkward, avoidant Astarion is simply so much fun to write 🤩

Hope you're having a lovely day as well!!!

[ask-moonbig]

Moon, my treasure, would you want to do anything for valentines day?

- @ask-mother-spore

((Feel free to take your time to answer!! There's no pressure at all and this can be done after Valentines day idc))

I, uh, have never celebrated this holiday before. I've heard about it, of course, but...

What so you do on valentines day?

[firenati0n]

several sentence sunday <3 :)

hello friends :) thank you to @welcometololaland @anincompletelist @suseagull04 @bigassbowlingballhead @indestructibleheart

@thedramasummer @onthewaytosomewhere @cricketnationrise @ninzied @sophie1973

@cha-melodius @orchidscript @sparklepocalypse @kiwiana-writes @tailsbeth-writes

@theprinceandagcd @hgejfmw-hgejhsf for the tags :) :) i finally have some sentences. i have been struggling a lot with reading and writing recently. so, I'm writing something that makes me happy to bring the juice back.

here is a peep at angel!henry sequel. because honestly, writing him experiencing joy at small human things is helping me recalibrate myself and find my own tiny joys. i am doing this for me. it is a love letter to humanity from me to you, but also a reminder to myself

The Victoria & Albert museum is lively today. Henry hasn’t been back to the Cast Courts since he last visited in his time of need, the heaviest he had ever felt, his whole being sagging under the weight of the world’s pain he elected to shoulder. If he stares hard enough, he can almost see a shadow of his former self staring up at Trajan’s Column, can almost run his fingers across the desperation written all over his face as he seeks comfort in Civitali’s angels; his hands clasped and cold and pleading.   Now, his hands are warm, nestled in Alex’s palms, calloused fingertips absentmindedly running over Henry’s knuckles. It makes Henry feel grounded, tethered to a reality he never thought he deserved, but has manifested nonetheless.  He takes in the statues with a new perspective, a newfound respect. Yes, they endured. Yes, they were seen, and they were loved.  But now, Henry is too. Seen and loved, in the way that matters, with an end in sight. Henry’s never been happier to reject eternity. 

xoxo roop

+ tags under the cut and open tag as always <3

@priincebutt @rmd-writes @leaves-of-laurelin @eusuntgratie @blueeyedgrlwrites

@getmehighonmagic @violetbaudelaire-quagmire @captainjunglegym @duchessdepolignaca03 @porcelainmortal

@orchidscript @myheartalivewrites @dumbpeachjuice @anchoredarchangel @nocoastposts

@wordsofhoneydew @tintagel-or-cockleshells @sherryvalli @lizzie-bennetdarcy @heysweetheart-writes

@onward--upward @celeritas2997 @inexplicablymine @affectionatelyrs @happiness-of-the-pursuit

@14carrotghoul @cultofsappho @alasse9 @nontoxic-writes @piratefalls

@ships-to-sail @itsmaybitheway @adreamareads

[asgardian--angels]

things I wish I could relive for the first time again:

that magical window where you finish a new piece of media, having watched/read it all by yourself with no fandom contact whatsoever, and you are just so happy about it, and full of interesting theories and takeaways, and just in love with it as a gorgeous piece of art.

because I swear to god as soon as you join the fandom for anything, you're bombarded with how you're supposed to view characters and their arcs, how you're supposed to morally and ethically judge the plot and the ways it apparently failed to present the right message, and if you don't you'll either be shunned for not sharing the popular headcanons or you'll be harassed for not criticizing the source material enough.

like how is it that the fans of a piece of media are also the ones being the most negative about it? If I like a show or a movie or a book, well, I liked it. That's kind of the point. I'm actually not here to tear it apart and talk about how it didn't live up to standards other people had! I enjoyed it for what it was, and forcing myself to find negative things to say about it doesn't actually bring me more enjoyment of it or reap any benefit to me. Fandom's a double-edged sword; you want to join a community to share your love for a piece of art, and the price you pay for a modicum of joy is a mountain of negativity. that's one main reason that I never engage with fandom until I'm completely done with a show, because if I was plugged into all of that commentary and discourse during the process, I'd be completely colored by how I'm expected to interpret everything this piece of art is presenting to me without being able to even form my own opinions.

[soggy-fishsticks]

guys ive been drawing so much lately I've been starting to actually hate it 🙁

[necrotic-nephilim]

Hello! New to comics and I don't really feel like the New-52 comics are for me and would really like to read and understand Pre-flashpoint and all the dark and good stuff there. Is there an order or starting point you would recommend? Thanks for your time, and I hope you have a great day!

hi! i'm so glad you want to get into comics! i'd love to help with some recs! since you're here, i'm going to assume you're a Batfamily fan and most of my recs will cater to that, but i will try to encompass a bit of everything to help you just understand some big moments and all this mess that is DC canon. adding a cut bc jesus this got long.

so your starting point for pre-Flashpoint is going to be Crisis on Infinite Earths. the TLDR of this event is: DC had a big multiverse in the 70s and early 80s that wasn't friendly to new readers. to try to push their titles more and become a proper competitor to Marvel, they created an in-universe storyline that nuked the multiverse and gave a solid entry point for new fans going forward. this is why you hear terms like Pre-Crisis and Post-Crisis. it refers to the comics canon before and after this event, in 1985. some characters had some big changes (for example: pre-Crisis Jason Todd was a circus kid whose parents were killed by Killer Croc) but most remained largely the same, just simplified. you don't *have* to start with Crisis on Infinite Earths if you don't want to. it's a *good* storyline, but it's a big one and a lot of big multiverse-scale stuff happens. so as long as you understand it as "big event that nuked DC's multiverse and gave the world a clean slate in 1985", then you've basically got the gist. also Barry Allen dies during it, but he comes back so don't worry about it.

in general, if DC has some big timeline/canon-altering event, they're going to call it a Crisis Event. the only Crisis Events that will matter to you, trying to get into pre-Flashpoint are

Crisis On Infinite Earths - the above, starts the Post-Crisis/pre-Flashpoint timeline

Zero Hour: Crisis In Time - an event in the 90s that sought to fix some of the kinks that the above Crisis caused, like fixing the origins of the Legion of Superheroes and other Golden/Silver Age characters, not *super* important tbh

Infinite Crisis - this was a big event that brought back some characters who got nuked by Crisis on Infinite Earths, unfucked Power Girl's backstory, and set the groundwork to bring back the multiverse. if you've heard "Superboy Prime punched a hole in reality and it brought back Jason Todd" yeah, this is the story where it happened

Final Crisis - a big event that was partly meta commentary but heroes fought Darkseid, Batman died for a hot second, it was all a big deal about evil winning and all that

Flashpoint - the event that nuked this timeline, a big storyline to do with Flash and the timeline that would result in the New-52 in 2011

are you confused yet? good embrace the confusion it's going to become second nature of a comic fan. you don't need to read these events as a beginner. you really don't i promise. they'll sound big and important, but besides Crisis On Infinite Earths and Flashpoint, the start and end of this era, the rest you can just kind of breeze by so long as you understand the big plot points like Batman dying or Superboy Prime punching reality. unless you really care about a character central to these stories, skip 'em for now.

now for any character, if they have a Year One comic? that is a very safe bet as a place to start. it is what it sounds like. Batman: Year One is going to be Bruce's first year as Batman. same as Green Arrow: Year One, Batgirl: Year One, etc. when in doubt, if there's a Year One, start with Year One. (note: for Superman, his "year one" type story is called Superman: Birthright and it is worth reading if you like Superman)

for Batman, i am holding you by the shoulders when i say this: people will tell you to read The Killing Joke. they're liars. do not listen to them. it's a bad story. you don't need it. do not let the Joker fanboys lie to you. people will also say Dark Knight Returns. don't listen to *them* either. i *like* DKR, i talk about it a lot here. it's not a good intro to Batman. it's an AU story, it's not canon, ignore it for now.

now where you *should* start with Batman, imo, is as followed

Batman: Year One - as said above, Year Ones are good, this is solid to start with

Batman: The Long Halloween - this is an iconic story and it's a followup to year One

Batman: Dark Legacy - the followup to Long Halloween, also a very good story

Batman: Hush - this story is a solid starter if you want to understand the general vibe of Gotham, the typical characters you see in the Batfamily, and a good Batman villain

once you've got the basics down, you *can* get into the big boy storylines like Batman: Knightfall and Batman: No Man's Land, but don't worry about those right now. they're long and complicated and shouldn't really be your starting point no matter how good they are.

other very good pre-Flashpoint comics that are easy to pick up and iconic storylines

Death of Superman - this is a long arc in the Superman run that if you collect in trades, goes Death of Superman, Funeral For A Friend, Reign of the Supermen, Return of Superman, Doomsday. it's long, but a very iconic storyline

Wonder Woman by George Perez - this the run that helped define modern Wonder Woman within the pre-Flashpoint era

JLA: Year One - if you want a good Justice League story where you get characters besides Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman taking the shine, this is a great place to start

Green Arrow by Mike Grell - start with Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters and then go into Green Arrow (1988). this has the darker, very 80s vibes that gets a bit gritty and very realistic with the issues it faces bc Green Arrow comics tend to be more rooted

The New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman - this technically starts before pre-Flashpoint, don't worry about it it's fine. a good run for all of these characters, can get a little confusing, it is okay to be confused do not be afraid to google shit

so, some big stories out of the way i'm just. honestly going to run down the line of the major pre-Flashpoint Batfamily members and give you comic recs for them that you can start with. (besides Bruce obviously, bc well. see above)

Dick Grayson

NIghtwing: Year One

Robin: Year One

Nightwing (1995)

Tim Drake

Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying

Robin (1990)

Robin II: Joker's Wild

Robin III: Cry of the Huntress

Robin (1993)

Barbara Gordon

Batgirl: Year One

Birds of Prey (1999)

Jason Todd

Batman: The Cult (as Robin)

Batman: Death in the Family (as Robin)

Batman: Under The Red Hood

Red Hood: Lost Days

Cassandra Cain

Batgirl (2000)

Batman: No Man's Land

Jean-Paul Valley

Batman: Sword of Azrael

Batman: Knightfall

Stephanie Brown

Huntress/Spoiler: Blunt Trauma

Batgirl (2009)

Selina Kyle

Catwoman by Ed Brubaker

Helena Bertinelli

Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood

Huntress: Year One

Birds of Prey: Manhunt

Damian Wayne

Batman & Robin (2009)

there are other very important pre-Flashpoint stories for all of these characters, but these are starting points more than anything. figure out what characters you're interested and go from there. understanding the universe at large helps, do not get me wrong. but at the end of the day, comics are a choose your own adventure of who you want to give a shit about. you're *never* going to read everything "important" and you're probably not going to understand everything. that's okay. don't treat it like a media you need to "complete" like a tv show or a movie, but more like an open world game where you decide what characters/teams/stories you like the most.

pre-Flashpoint covers a lot of ground. some stuff will be darker and grittier, some stuff will be more light-hearted. it will all be about what titles you pick up and what characters you decide you want to read about. you're obviously going to get a much more grounded storyline out of Green Arrow than you are say, a JLA comic. i prefer the more grounded, "street level" sorts of characters. (if you like gritty detective stories, i will be biased and highly recommend the Question (1987) just because. i love him okay.) but you might find you like sometimes more worldly and big scale. at the end of the day: don't force yourself to love a comic you're not enjoying, even if you like that character. you can put that shit down. sometimes, "important stories" are by shitty writers that you won't enjoy reading and you shouldn't make this hobby a chore. i don't care how "critically acclaimed" it is, you don't have to like it if it doesn't click for you. and on the flipside, a comic might be considered "bad" but you may enjoy it (a personal example: Robin III: Cry of the Huntress is considered a very weak comic. don't care. i love it anyway.) accept the cringe, have fun, and enjoy yourself at the end of the day. none of it will make sense anyway so just read what sounds cool to you.

this was all over the place and rambly, but i hope it helps at least a little! welcome to comics anon! if you or anyone else would like more character-specific recs, feel free to ask! if i don't know, i can at the very least hopefully point you in the right direction <3

[applestorms]

i think cottagecore is like the ultimate anti-rape culture white woman fantasy. it's a vision of reality where Girls* go to picnics and feed each other strawberries and kiss behind the willow trees, where nothing is ever bad or hurtful in a truly meaningful way, where love and safety is the unifying factor of reality. i'm frankly more surprised that some people ever thought this had anything to do with actual rural country life or farming-- at it's center, cottagecore is not just interested in getting away from the city to get away from capitalism or the other struggles of modern life. it's also, fundamentally, about getting away from Men, to a utopian garden of eden on the outskirts where Men simply do not exist, and therefore cannot harm or rape you.

*white, cis, skinny, traditionally attractive, etc.

so many of the Comforting aesthetics and purity politics that we have come to cultivate online in recent years come down to this idea, in my opinion-- a desire to find a Safe Space, to fade away into the fantasy of your Comfort Characters, to find the one singular location of true Stability in a world where everything else is fated to be horrible and terrible forever. it's the negative space of doomer culture, the pessimism that blew up after trump's first election, after the color-blind ignorance of the obama era was sufficiently destroyed by a horror so visible and blatant you simply cannot look away from it. it's no wonder so many of these aesthetics and ideas blew up to the degree that they did during 2020, in the midst of so much global instability and hopelessness. people wanted, and still want, something Pure and Good to take shelter within in the face of all this Evil-- a shell you can hide inside where everything will be perfect forever even as the storm rages on outside, beyond your control and beyond what you want to think about.

it's a flawed way of thinking, of course. black and white to an extreme. you can never find a place that is truly Pure and Good to the intense standards that you set, simply by nature of how those standards themselves are made and enforced-- not only are people simply too complex and nuanced, but the desire for something Freed From Evil itself inherently creates a more and more impossible standard, that is either overly-regulatory of anything that could be even a speck of Problematic™, or is necessarily blind to its own faults and biases (e.g. cottagecore as white lesbian tradwives). and, on the other side, the world outside is not Pure Evil either-- there is still hope to be found, ways in which we can make our systems work For Us, and ways in which we can change them (though those approaches may be difficult or require collaborative effort we, at the moment, simply have not coordinated).

[danieyells]

I have a memory span of a goldfish so I probably forget if someone has written about something related to this topic or not... but excluding Taiga who directly mentioned the topic to us, why does it seem that only Tohma and Alan are the only ones shown so far to know/talk about the existence of the spy and actively searching for them? I can only theorize that they were only being made aware of the spy's existence because something happened in Vagastrom that was caused by an unknown party and it probably directly/indirectly worsen the situation during The Clash... but it still made me curious why they were never seen communicating with ghouls from other houses about the spy even in subtle/discreet manner (either because they don't want to alert the spy or still aren't sure where the spy came from...?) and why none of the other ghouls seem to notice the oddity/draw their own conclusion and do their own investigation? (unless it is just... never being shown yet to us on-screen so we're left to believe that only Tohma and Alan and Taiga are the ones who know about the spy hjhdjdjdjdjdjfkl)

There's also this question about what makes Tohma and Alan trust each other/believe that neither of them are the spy himself... but I'm not ready to (over)think about this question so I will just believe that being a Vagastrom and (probably) forging their friendship through fistfights has created unbreakable bonds between them that can't easily be destroyed by mere existence of an unknown enemy 💪

So far we haven't seen anybody else talking about the spy, no! To be fair we haven't really found out who they would be spying for. . .they're trying to defame the ghouls as a whole but they're one of the ghouls themselves. . .to be fair we've only seen so many conversations between the ghouls without the PC present--and most of them seem concerned about their personal lives and missions more than any sort of greater plans.

It makes sense for Tohma--he has big plans that involve changing the Institute. Of course he's aware of the spy. And Alan is someone he probably trusts more than anyone. Alan is blunt and honest and straightforward--he couldn't run an operation intended to damage the reputations of the ghouls or be a spy or anything, he's just not built for it as a person--which also means he's vulnerable, I think. So he needs him to be aware for his own safety. And like you said, for characters like them I think a bond forged with bare fists is a bond that can't be broken lmao. He can trust Alan not to talk, even if he can't trust him not to let on that he knows something. But also Alan's reputation is already a mess. The likelihood that the spy would get too close to him feels slim to none to me. Just. Too big and obvious of a guy overall.

Taiga has his possibly stigma related Awareness--so if he just. . .knows, that also makes sense. He even says "do you wanna know who it is or keep letting them fool you" which tells me that he already knows and he's just not telling. He doesn't have to look for the spy, he's waiting to see what happens. He's looking out for himself and Romeo. Maybe the pc and Ritsu now too.

Also I feel like Tohma's interactions with Haku and Rui are supposed to be implicit of the spy situation, especially when Leo says someone(most likely Alan and Tohma?) are meeting near the "gross forest"(Obscuary, probably.) and there's Rui who can obscure himself in the shadows and admits to keeping an eye on people. . . .

But I assume that Tohma doesn't trust others with it at the moment, not until he knows for sure who the spy is. And everyone else is far too busy running their houses and living their lives to notice whatever Tohma and Alan noticed(or they simply don't question it or they accept it because 'whatever, our reputations sre bad anyway, how much more damage could someone else do?' or 'we're graduating soon anyway' for the third years, and they're probably not nearly as reliable in Tohma's eyes? I mean think about who all the other second and third years and captains and vice captains are. Not really the most trustworthy bunch with a delicate situation, especially if it's possible that they could be connected to the spy.

I imagine we'll learn more whenever we get back to Vagastrom or Frostheim!! But I think the spy situation is gonna have to be addressed closer to learning about the Clash. And I feel like we haven't quite gotten there with everyone yet, so we're a ways off.

On the other hand, Ed has a home screen line to the effect of "the ghouls are rioting again? They're so energetic. Anyway i was watching a youtube video." and next chapter is Obscuary so. . . . . . . . . . .

[simplydnp]

not to be cringe but iceland proposal?

the only thing cringe about suggesting an iceland proposal is me flying multiple hours in order to be there on the off-chance it happens