#later in storyline of…

[uefb]

New fic (2 chapters up!): Hope is the thing with feathers x

Summary: The month before the invasion of Normandy (D-Day), Newt Scamander is spotted working suspicious magic near a meeting of Muggle and Wizarding political leaders in London. The problem, of course, is that Newt Scamander is nowhere near London but, instead, over 14,000 kilometers away in the middle of the Pacific. But "desperate times call for desperate measures" (and even Tina and Theseus aren't entirely above scrutiny this go round), so Newt finds himself rather unsurprisingly compromised. // As usual, everyone else is dismayed to find Dumbledore may or may not have a plan at all, while the clock on Newt's life—-and the joint Muggle-Wizard military action years in the making—-begins to quickly tick.

Chapter 1 opening scene:

Wednesday, May 3, 1944 / Seatown, Dorset, England, UK

Porpentina Goldstein Scamander prided herself on being somewhat unflappable, but her brother-in-law grabbing her by the arm as she emerged from St. Mungo’s with her daughter before spinning them off in a whirl of apparition was certainly not on the list of things she had been expecting to encounter on her day off... A vomiting child, a misbehaving diricawl—even an absent husband or Muggle airstrike—she’d prepared for, but this?

Well, suffice it to say, she definitely blamed nearly bursting into tears after smacking Theseus upside the head upon their rematerialization in Dorset on the exhaustion inherent to solo-parenting an ill toddler.

“What the hell, Theseus?!”

But Theseus only shushed her, dragged her and Leora—who was understandably wailing in displeasure at the surprise apparition—up the back-steps of the Scamander Goldstein farmhouse, before gingerly disentangling her arms from Leora while shouting for Queenie and Jacob. It was, however, a broadly grinning, 9-year-old Gideon who came pounding into the room, before he took one look at his uncle’s face and immediately ran out the front door to the beach, screaming for his parents.

“I swear to high heaven, Theseus Scamander—what is going on?!”

Theseus bounced Leora on his hip and wordlessly summoned a plush toy from her room to distract her (a niffler made by Queenie for her birthday) as he focused on Tina intently. “You remember how we made that little emergency plan last year? After Newt was bitten by that kelpie—”

“Moira,” Tina supplied absently.

“Yes, Moira — and then he was criminally charged with all sorts of made-up things by that rat in his own department, which put our entire task force’s security at risk?”

“Yes,” said Tina with a suspicious frown, and she reached out to take Leora back from her uncle, crossing to the kitchen for the small refrigerator, where she pulled out a pyrex container of fruit Newt had chopped and charmed for freshness before he’d left to travel.

Theseus stared at her as if waiting for the other shoe to drop and—after a moment—it abruptly did.

“Now, wait a second—”

She summoned the pair of child-sized earmuffs Lally had made to silence adult voices and shoved them onto Leora’s head before settling her in a high chair and dumping the fruit out on its tray. Leora began talking to herself as she played with the fruit, and when Tina looked back to him, Theseus was grimacing.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Unfortunately not, sister mine…” he answered grimly.

“Is this all because of the thing last year, then?”

“More like the thing next month, but seeing as that’s also related… Yes.”

Tina peered out the window to check if Queenie and Jacob were responding to their son’s summons yet, but the only thing in sight was one of Newt’s half-trained half-kneazles innocently gamboling through the grasses (though a mildly predatory look flitted across its face). X

[yujateaandpi]

Gobbled up the Dandadan anime and manga recently and absolutely adored it all. Not only does it feature the most likable and strongly written female characters I’ve ever seen in a shonen, it discusses extremely pertinent themes about consent and bodily autonomy from a lens of female solidarity while also elevating healthy relationships with kind communicative male characters who respect boundaries. It’s wacky, fun, gorgeous, and super refreshing. 

[shanastoryteller]

i know the real answer is that dean was never supposed to go to hell, so getting someone out of hell wasn't supposed to be possible beyond a demon deal. that was sort of the whole point

but since they abandoned the sam descending into using his powers to save dean storyline (cowards) that makes the whole john selling his soul for dean and the angst surrounding it significantly funnier

like dean is literally tearing himself apart with guilt over his father selling his soul for him, to the point that that he considers taking the crossroads deal to bring him back and sam is fucking pissed at just the mention of it

but they do not go to any effort to get him out lol

sam is absolutely tortured by dean being in hell, he spirals, doing anything and everything he possibly can to get him out no matter what it does to him

when sam's in the cage, dean just straight up becomes a depressed alcoholic playing the family man with lisa because that's what sam told him to do and even though he knows it's impossible - again, sort of the whole point of the cage - he still looks for a way to save sam and then rejects the hunting life as a whole when he can't because the reminders are just too painful

when john sells his soul and goes to hell though?

*crickets*

oh no don't burn in hell aha you're so sexy

[pocketramblr]

Trying to imagine, like, being the artist the us government commissions to make a statue in memorial of Superman's death, like. You're probably from Metropolis. A ton of your city was destroyed by Doomsday and you just watched Superman die live on TV. And now you have to sculpt Superman's six pack while crying out of grief and working as fast as you can because you have to get this thing done on short notice for his funeral because apparently they're going to put his literal actual body under your art. The government says you have to put an eagle on it. Superman is dead, so many other people are too ,and you have to sculpt his six pack and a bald eagle.

[amuelia]

small drawing as im looking forward to watching tales of the empire tomorrow

[fiona-fififi]

Call me homophobic, but I don't actually think it's great representation to stick a complex, dynamic, newly-realized bisexual character permanently with a flat, boring, underdeveloped love interest just because that was the first guy who showed interest.

[aroaceleovaldez]

tbh my latest biggest theory for why HoO and onwards is such a dramatic drop in quality and consistency is just. Rick stopped making teaching guides.

Like, the Lightning Thief teacher's guide is SUPER in-depth with even stuff like sources about middle grade child psychology and exact specifications of where he's applying that, explaining what different character's goals/motivations are, their dynamics with each other and their environments, etc etc. Even specifying which specific myths certain plot elements are supposed to reference or be about.

That stuff just doesn't exist for later books. There's activity guides and smaller, significantly more simple teacher guides for later books but they don't go into anywhere NEAR the same level of depth. The TLT one is a full lesson plan that breaks down the book at every level and explains what's going on and more or less why Rick did that. The others are all basically just glossaries of terminology and some simple question guides.

And they didn't even use the TLT teacher's guide for the Disney+ show because they clearly aren't adhering to any of what's discussed in that breakdown of the book.

By creating a teaching guide alongside writing the actual book, that's forcing you to document what you're doing, why, your sources, and information about your characters and the story they're in. It's like an even more in-depth version of a series bible. But that's lacking for later books (and etc) and it shows because that level of thought and depth and attention just isn't there anymore.

[butchvamp]

i already said it but it does really frustrate me how little agency Taash has and the more i think about it the more insidious it gets. again their entire story revolves around Rook making choices for them, and they're also consistently talked down to by other characters, even if those characters are depicted as being friendly or nice. Isabela treats them like a child despite Taash being a very accomplished dragon hunter with the lords (which we see, repeatedly, when fighting the blighted dragons! Taash is not a child), and of course there's their mother (at least this is intentional) and both her and Isabela go behind Taash's back to throw them in with Rook, without asking for their input. Isabela just assumes without even trying to discuss it with Taash separate from their mother, despite seemingly being aware of the two's strained relationship... and from there Isabela continues to make unnecessary comments to Taash whenever you visit the hall of valor with them.

even Flynn, the nonbinary grey warden you meet in the wetlands, condescends to them about the Qun when discussing their gender, and Taash isn't allowed to disagree with them (apparently they give Flynn a Look but ultimately don't press the issue) and Flynn is depicted as being helpful in this discussion. Rook lectures them about gender and their own culture; their entire narrative revolves around Other People telling them what to do and how to feel-- it's obviously meant to be Bad when Taash's mother does it, because she (the Qun) is oppressive, but otherwise the game seems to be fine when it's Rook or literally anyone else doing it, because we're the enlightened Good Guys, and Taash is just helpless and confused and so oppressed. of course, i don't think it's bad for Rook to discuss these things with Taash or give them gentle suggestions, and i don't even hate the potential gender discussion you can have with a trans Rook; and for the record, their mother does treat them poorly. but we can't ignore the way Taash's repeated infantilization culminates in the player being the one to choose their culture for them in the end, because..?

well, the game clearly doesn't think Taash is capable of doing it themselves. at one point Taash links the ropes they wear for the Qun to the ones the antaam used to tie down a dragon and "blight" them. even if i'm feeling gracious and say that Weekes really meant that womanhood & their mother's expectations are restricting, they actively chose to use the ropes of the Qun to make this comparison, and so are also implying here that their mother teaching them the Qun has tied them down and "blighted" them-- that the Qun has "infected" their thinking and is as bad as the blight (this is also implied in the previous discussion with Flynn). this is.... really racist. it takes Rook and their, again, "enlightened" (white) ideas about gender to get through to Taash, nevermind that the Qun has its own ideas around gender that just get shouted down or completely ignored. the racism here results in the narrative contradicting itself, considering one of the first things Taash says is "you don't get to tell me who i am" but... Rook does, in the end, because intentional or not the game is clearly convinced that a person like Taash needs someone from outside of their and their mother's culture (aka free of "blight") to come tell them what's best for them.... 🤔 hm! and while it's true you can choose for them to align with the qunari in the end, that doesn't mitigate all of the heinous and racist writing that leads up to that choice (and that the choice itself is racist. and you have to make it twice!)

of course we can say that Rook makes choices for all of the companions, this is true, but it's obvious that none of the other companions' choices are in the same ballpark, we aren't directly deciding something about their identity, and none of them lack agency to the same extent as Taash. we can even argue that they need Rook to explain gender to them, no one else ever has-- well, sure. the thing with Taash is that some parts of their story, when removed from context, are perfectly fine. i'm not criticizing the way Taash talks or acts or "does gender," all of which are things some people may connect to for various reasons (all of our experiences are different) but unfortunately we cannot discuss any of this without addressing the racism that is so thoroughly baked into every aspect of their character.

i criticized Taash for being "childlike" previously and that really wasn't the right phrasing-- i don't think that Taash themselves is childlike, it has nothing to do with them-- it's the way the narrative treats them, the way other characters talk down to them, how it takes away their autonomy & forces us to go along with it, and ultimately educate them and "save" them, and i think it's worth interrogating why Taash, of all the companions, is specifically depicted this way (it's racism).

[notfeelingthyaster]

asking in a very neutral, gen way: what talia ever did in the comics to manage to gain fans/defenders? because everything i read just paints her as a villain and a bad mother, so...

[critter-of-habit]

Just remembered this dumb comic I did like 3 years ago as part of the 'space road-trip' au art I did - ie. Hera, Sabine, Ahsoka, Enfys and Barriss are all on the Ghost together and Hera is already exhausted by everyone's nonsense

(bonus Ahsoka ending up bunking with Hera and not shutting up about Barriss)

[nattikay]

uvanä rel lehawng: srey pa'liyä asevin screenshot spam: pretty horse edition

[sunshades]

k corp. and u corp. kitty from the canto vi ending cgs :)

[starflungwaddledee]

Oooo starstruck dee has little stars at the bottom of her feet! Are they just aesthetic or would they make imprints into the ground? (like pawprints)

exactly like that! though she's not the only one...

edit: might need to add some additional dialogue to this to make it more clear, but a clarification in the interim; he knows about his own footprints. he's just surprised to see something similar already there when he knows he's only just landed. he lifts his own shoe to confirm that they're not identical (and also to reveal this to the viewer). seems his stoicism beat off the clarity in this one, sorry 😭

[cyrafoam]

character designs!!! for the past life au im working on :DD

[mmhberry]

society if the new medieval camp had pvp jousting where you actually have to defend your house as knight and a medieval-themed questline that’s expanded on

[gideonisms]

eowyn should have been a lesbian. Eowyn/faramir is like, fine, but it misses the point of eowyn for all baby dyke eowyn stans which is not that she longs for glory in battle and doesn't realize war is ugly and brutal, but that she's caught between two awful options and she doesn't want to be given one based on her gender. She's not in love with aragorn, she envies him because she finds the tasks he has in life more preferable and she hero worships him. Is this the point Tolkien was trying to make? Well, no,