#new narrative

[vulpinesaint]

quiz enjoyers! i am now inviting you to come create something in my workshop❕

[jareckiworld]

Wiesław Szamborski — Meat (acrylic on canvas, 1980)

[archerdepartures116]

Ill post this au( inspired by tweet above) i started on my twt on Tumblr too

First part

more comic panels below

Second part

Third part

Fourth part

Shenanigans side extra

this is currently an ongoing series, if this does well here, I will continue posting these in bulk (～￣▽￣)～

feel free to ask me ab this au and give your suggestions!

[lotus-pear]

"stop making akechi pancake jokes its 2024" no fuck you

[f1andfooty]

[fatalism-and-villainy]

Something I love about DS9’s framing of Jake Sisko is how he’s consistently positioned as someone worthy of protection, whose survival and flourishing and emotional well-being are of tantamount importance, and whose innocence and vulnerability are precious.

It’s present from all directions in The Visitor. Everybody protectively closes ranks around Jake upon Ben’s disappearance, with those little moments of Dax and Kira and Bashir giving him physical affection and reassurance and Quark going out of his way to be nice to him. Jake’s older self’s protective impulses towards his younger self, as well as his desire to save his father, are the basis for the timeline reset. And then after the spacetime continuum gets wrenched back in line purely to save Jake from the emotional trauma of losing his father, the episode ends with Ben, who’s borne witness to everything and is the only one who remembers it all, continuing that work of shielding Jake from that knowledge.

And then Nor the Battle to the Strong carries on the thread of protectiveness towards Jake, in that case as part of the episode’s deconstruction of military heroism. As he’s marinating in shame over bailing on the mission to retrieve the generator, Bashir apologizes to him and says he was wrong to put Jake in harm’s way in the first place. And then at the end, he wakes up after sealing the cave entranceway and both Bashir and his father are tenderly looking after him, with similar imagery to The Visitor in terms of him being symbolically cradled by the other cast members’ concern for him. He never needs to toughen up or grow out of that need to be rescued - in fact, his fear and panic and feelings of being out of his depth prove to be immensely valuable, as his last conversation with his father emphasizes, because he’s able to bear witness to the experience of the soldiers through his writing.

That comes through in a really interesting way in Valiant as well, with Jake’s emphatic concern for his own survival in the midst of all the culty militaristic weirdness of the Valiant crew:

Nog: You don’t understand, because you’ve never put on one of these uniforms. You don’t know anything about sacrifice, or honor, or duty, or any other things that make up a soldier’s life. I’m part of something larger than myself. All you care about is you.

Jake: That’s right. All I care about is Jake Sisko and whether or not he’s going to be killed by a bunch of delusional fanatics looking for martyrdom.

And I love that exchange not only because it’s a rare articulation of how I would actually feel in a situation like that in a franchise full of characters who are all prepared to sacrifice themselves in the line of duty, but also because in the context of the episode, Jake’s position is actually the heroic one! It’s his sense of self-preservation, and the fact that he hasn’t romanticized the notion of heroic sacrifice, that enables him to see through the dogmatic ideology of the Valiant cadets and recognize how dangerously out of their depth they are. And it’s just a nice articulation of his own worth.

(And of course the Defiant rescues them at the end, because Jake’s grown up now, but he hasn’t outgrown needing his father to save him. And that’s never a shameful thing, but a really beautiful thing, and necessary to the fabric of the show.)

[sunderwight]

SV AU where Shen Yuan transmigrates into a kind of mimicry demon.

He still gets tasked by the System with replacing Shen Qingqiu, except this time he actually has to pull off an imposter role on multiple levels, while the real Shen Qingqiu is stuck in a coma due to his qi deviation. Initially he thinks the situation is going to be temporary -- just take over until he figure out how to get the original goods to wake up -- but Shen Jiu's condition proves to be more difficult to repair than just waiting. Shen Yuan buys special side missions from the System to find items and artifacts to keep Shen Jiu alive, mainly because he doesn't want to be stuck playing this part until Luo Binghe kills him, but also after the first couple of times Shen Jiu regains some consciousness (not enough to leave his bed), Shen Yuan starts to feel kind of... bad for him. Too. Despite everything.

Shen Jiu, of course, is deeply suspicious of this doppelganger that has obviously taken advantage of his weakness to infiltrate the sect and steal his identity. He initially theorizes that the creature must be keeping him alive because it needs some aspect of his vitality in order to keep posing as him, but as they share more encounters is forced to concede that the thing might just be insane? And weirdly softhearted. Over time and by feigning sleep to listen in on Shen Yuan's muttering, he figures out that this all has something to do with Luo Binghe, which he's not pleased about. But he can't deduce what. (Luo Binghe doesn't get to move into the side room in this version of the story, because Shen Yuan has the house on lockdown for obvious reasons, but he does still get to make Shizun's meals!)

Anyway, Shen Jiu doesn't manage to conveniently wake up before the Immortal Alliance Conference. Shen Yuan has to throw Luo Binghe in, which he hates, but along the way he manages to recover that magical flower macguffin that won't work on Without-a-Cure (which he doesn't have in this AU because his species is immune to it), brews a tea that finally fixes Shen Jiu, and then fucks off to go mope about Binghe being in the Abyss.

Shen Jiu doesn't tell anyone about his demonic replacement, for a variety of reasons. One, he's punishing the other peak lords for not figuring it out themselves. Two, he's punishing himself for the fact that a literal demon replaced him for like 3 years and everyone considered it an improvement. Because it was. Three, he has mixed feelings that might potentially amount to not wanting to hunt down and kill Shen Yuan, but he's not admitting that even to himself.

Everyone thinks that Shen Qingqiu's return to asshole form is a result of Luo Binghe dying, and that his sudden new research projects are part of him like, trying to make sense of a senseless tragedy, and coping. But no, he's still trying to figure out why the fuck Luo Binghe was important and why Shen Yuan inserted himself into their lives only to basically just do Shen Qingqiu's job while he was indisposed, and then fuck off the moment Luo Binghe left the picture again.

After... healing Shen Jiu. Also. For some unfathomable reason.

But this version of the System's just happy that the plot is back on track! And surely it will stay back on track. Yes? Problem solved, right? Shen Yuan? Definitely nothing is going to mess with the rest of the story, cough cough, wait why are you visiting User 01, and what would you, a demon shapeshifter, need with a Sun & Dew seed...?

[squidwithelbows]

we're so back, aftg nation, let's gooo

[edwardsdeathcabcd]

i've said it before but it will forever and always make me insane that jacob's ending is to join the cullens for the sake of bella not having to give anything up. they find out jake will be immortal & tied to renesmee forever, so bella gets to smile & say "my family is finally complete! ^-^" but jake already HAS a family. he has a father and 2 sisters. quil, embry, seth and sam are like his brothers. jacob and leah were planning to run away together. he's always been welcome in emily's home, sue has been a family friend since before his birth. bella abandons her mortality by choice because she feels no connection to the people around her, but jacob has really strong bonds. it's clear that every character we meet in la push is like family to him, he's an active member of the community. jake would've graduated high school and been a mechanic, would've grown into a young man. a good friend, a fun uncle, a present son. he's set up to have such a rich life. and he's just magically compelled to give that up. beyond his control, he loses sight of everything, because his high school crush's baby is now the singular most important thing to him. he's perpetually 18 with his perpetually 18 year old girlfriend, running around vancouver or alaska or wherever with the girl who friendzoned him at 16 & her in-laws (who were antagonistic to him for months). and i'm just supposed to say omg yay now he doesn't have to let go of bella! everyone is happy! it's complete madness

[sforzesco]

something. about. the horror of being sent on an impossible (death) quest and obligations and hospitality politics. the trauma of not having a home, and then the trauma of being in a house that becomes actively hostile to you, one that would swallow you whole and spit out your bones if you step out of line. all of this is conditional, your existence continues to be something men want gone.

it's about going back as far as I can with the perseus narrative because there's always a version of a myth that exists behind the one that survives. the missing pieces are clearly defined, but the oldest recorded version of it isn't there! and there's probably something older before that!! but it's doomed to forever be an unfilled space, clearly defined by an outline of something that was there and continues to be there in it's absence.

and love. it's also about love. even when you had nothing, you had love.

on the opposite side of the spectrum, this is Not About Ovid Or Roman-Renaissance Reception, Depictions And Discourses On The Perseus Narrative.

edit: to add to the above, while it's not about Ovid, because I'm specifically trying to peel things back to the oldest version of this story, Ovid is fine. alterations on the Perseus myth that give more attention Medusa predate Ovid by several centuries. this comic is also not about those, either! there are many versions of this story from the ancient world. there is not one singular True or Better version, they're all saying something.

Perseus, Daniel Ogden

Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation, edited & translated by Stephen M Trzaskoma, R. Scott Smith, Stephen Brunet

[dreamingpartone]

some asny commissions I did for @marshmali late last year!

if you're interested in the story behind them, these are based on scenes from their fic Warm, Like Sunshine on Skin ₊⊹

[demigods-posts]

i am not understanding rick's thought process behind the characters consistent mockery of percy's intelligence. especially in light of knowing that the characters do value percy as a friend and demigod. he was the child of the prophecy. he jumped into the river styx to better prepare for defending olympus. he used his gods-given wish to build a better future for demigods. he plays an active role as camp counselor at chb and is a respected confidant at cj. he is evidently held in high regard in his absense. but the surrounding characters seem to treat his presence like a hinderance to their peace. it's rather disappointing to read.

[cubbyhole-for-flea-bee]

Once the theatre monkey discovers angsty broadway musicals its all over y'all

or: I got a new personal project I'm workin' on! I'm at the first pass on the animatic rn! I forgot that 'generate matte' is a thing you can do in SB Pro for a whole hour!! I'm suffering!!!

[little-pondhead]

DP x DC Prompt

…

There are no more heroes.

Well, okay. Rewind a bit.

Danny has been doing the hero thing for a while now. He’s had a big reveal; everyone has accepted him (including his parents), the GIW disbanded, the Anti-Ecto acts repealed, and generally, everything is going great. Some of the A-Listers are even training as junior ghost hunters to help give him a break from his rogues! (Being Ghost King makes things hectic sometimes, and he just needs the extra help. Sue him!)

The point is, literally nothing is wrong with Danny Phantom’s afterlife.

And then Valerie Gray, the Red Huntress, disappears in front of his eyes.

Danny is baffled! She’s just…gone! Valerie just popped out of existence, like she was never there. But no matter how hard he searches in the Ghost Zone, he can’t find her soul anywhere. His core isn't broken in grief. So she’s not dead. Which is good. So then, where is she?

Some of the others come forward with ideas on how to find her. A few ghosts volunteer to go out into the mortal realm, an area Danny had declared off-limits, to see if she was out there. Danny approves it. He rounds up some of the friendlier (i.e., discreet) ghosts and Amity Parkers and demolishes the outside travel ban.

So everyone spreads out, looking for their dear frenemy and teammate. But it becomes apparent very quickly that something is wrong with the rest of the world.

There are no more heroes.

Every single living superhero on the face of the Earth has just…vanished. Villains are running amok; the countries are in chaos! Some aliens are invading Earth, mythical deities are trying to take over, and society is crumbling to the ground. Everything is on the brink of collapse.

Well, Danny was still there. And so were his people. They were pretty spread out, so could they just…take up the mantles? He also knew where to find the souls of dead heroes in the Zone; surely they wouldn't mind coming out of retirement for a little bit, especially if they couldn't die again. Oh! And that skeleton army leftover from Pariah Dark's reign might be useful in repelling those invading forces.

Honestly, there were more than enough hands to go around! And with the heroes gone, Danny didn't mind letting everyone out for a little break, as long as they followed his rules. They wouldn't stop the search for the other heroes, but hopefully, when they found them, the heroes wouldn't mind Danny's intervention too much. :)

In other words:

Someone fucks up, and all of Earth's living heroes are either wished out of existence or are whisked away to some far-off realm where Danny hasn't checked yet. In the attempt to figure out what's going on, Danny lets the dead run amok over the Earth as they search for clues. The skeleton army repels the invading armies, the souls of dead heroes deal with the world leaders, and his rogues and other Amity Parkers set up shop in place of famous heroes, trying to get the cities under control again.

Basically, they just do their best to keep everything from imploding until the Justice League and others are back.

(And why is it that Danny hasn't disappeared? Well, whatever caused everyone to go poof! only affected living heroes. Anyone heroes that were dead in the first place, or even just half-dead, stayed behind.)

[grimfolks]

new house pt. I (some sort of floor plan under the cut)

[jellyskink]

New York Isn't Weird Enough (PG3)

Ford DESPERATELY needs to be re-socialized. Even before canon divergence, he was around, at most, one other human for years. It’s only gotten worse since