#or why it amuses me so much

[randomgodfatherthoughts]

Watching a deleted scene from The Godfather that I've seen a few times and I just noticed that while Connie and Carlo are fighting again in front of everyone, including Vito, that Tom is completely ignoring the chaos around him and continuing to eat his dinner just as he does in California when Jack Woltz starts ranting at him about Johnny Fontane. Also see the Chinese takeout scene before the meeting with Sollozzo, where Tom is visibly the most anxious of them all and deals with it by cramming his mouth full of food.

I feel like eating is Tom's first response to any form of stress.

[sunderwight]

Bingqiu AU where Luo Binghe's the chosen village sacrifice to the evil deity who lives up the mountain.

Normally the village sends maidens, but they've more or less run out of expendable girls of the right age and, ahem, "virtues". So of course Luo Binghe's early life bad luck kicks in. In the wake of his mother's death there's no one to really care about what happens to him, he's fairly pretty, and the village leaders decide that if they dress him up like a girl the teenaged homeless kid should pass well enough. And hey, y'know, he's probably got a hard life ahead for him anyway -- dying in a brothel of some venereal disease or on the streets of exposure or starvation. At least as a sacrifice, everyone else gets to benefit from his loss! And the kid will get added to a shrine and be remembered as a hero! If anything, he should be happy about this!

Binghe is not happy about this.

But he's also a skinny underfed nobody who is easily overpowered, dressed up like a bride, and tied to a post. So. Not much he can do but wait for the evil deity to come and do whatever horrible thing he's gonna do to him.

Meanwhile, Shen Yuan is pretty sure he's been isekai'd into the over-powered hero of some kind of supernatural adventure story? He's not totally sure because he doesn't recognize the setting, but the signs are there. He's got a shrine-like base of operations (though it seems to have become corrupted/ruined, probably he has to restore it somehow), he has a very resilient and handsome new body with spiritual energy of some kind flowing through him, and a very clearly magical sword. Plus lots of neat starter powers! Though it feels like he has other abilities that have been blocked somehow? Probably he has to level up in order to access them.

When he treks out of his "base" and finds what seems to be a distressed maiden, he takes it for his beginner hero mission. The girl claims that she's been doomed to be sacrificed to an evil god. That sounds a little above Shen Yuan's pay grade for dealing with, so he unties her and decides that they had better just get out of the whole region altogether. He already packed up anything useful from his base, anticipating he might get caught up in an adventure once he left, so they follow the river away from the settlement until they reach another one.

While they travel, Luo Binghe tells Shen Yuan about the cursed deity, Shen Qingqiu, who was cast out of the heavens for slaughtering one of his brethren and has apparently being do-who-knows what to maidens from the local village in exchange for his "protection" ever since. Sounds like a real asshole! And also mid-level boss type bad guy at least. Shen Yuan hopes he doesn't have to fight him, but he probably will.

Thank goodness he found Binghe, though! Clearly the helpful little sister type! He's definitely going to require her assistance if he's going to figure out how to navigate this world and level up his skills enough to take on a god.

[nukashine]

he's so fucking goofy

[moeblob]

What's an otome?

You read a picture book to romance fictional characters, anon.

(for reference: on page 2 the second panel characters are from Steam Prison. Vita touch mechanic mention is Bad Apple Wars and the sexism call outs is in Sweet Fuse.)

I struggle personally with the self-insert intended otome because I look at characters and go "that's my son now" and I can't romance my son! That's why I prefer games with a designated design and some bare-bones personality protags. THEY can romance my son.

[adobe-outdesign]

GO STUPID GO CRAZY

[muchmossymess]

okay but the unexplored potential of a revali and purah dynamic

revali is so keen to be the best of the best and push himself past all conceivable limits, and purah wants to find the limits of sheikah tech and magic only to barrel past them and nearly become god

so one day, purah comes to revali "how high can medoh fly?" and he pauses bc he hasnt thought about that much, which he realises is asinine how has he not thought of taking her higher "well her resting altitude is x but its possible to go higher, though i dont know her limits" and they just look at each other bc well now they have too know-

and it continues like that, purah coming to revali with questions about medoh or the rito or his wind magic or eventually just requests for assistance "i need you to fly this up there for me, clear out this monster camp, ect ect" and revali loving the attention and the chance to show off, and that hes able to prove himself as truly better (he often tries to rope in the other champions to compare) and purah is loving all the data and the chance to work so closely with a pilot and they both compliment each others personalities quite well, both sassy and intelligent and where purah is overbearing and bubbly revali is insecure and sulky

anyway this is all pre calamity stuff, i want them to be very good friends and cause chaos together and push each other to constantly better each other, and purah would scoff at revalis creative insults but internally laugh and file them away to use later, and revali may act uninterested when purah talks for hours about conclusions shes come to and different approaches they could take hes actually paying complete attention and thinking of ways to use this knowledge in piloting or training

[acediaedeus]

I just know coming off of the battle high after a spar with Ichigo makes Grimmjow a little bit dumb, and he’s suddenly all loose, and relaxed. a cat readying for a nap after eating a mouse it caught for lunch.

so obviously this state of his leads to some interesting revelations. because the first time Ichigo witnesses this abrupt relaxation he immediately goes into panic mode, and hurries over to check on Grimmjow. but all Ichigo gets when he grasps his forearm to pull the fucker up and get him into the healing spring, is a half-lidded look full of reverence and satisfaction, which hits him like a freight train, and makes him go dumb too. because, sure, he’s witnessed his fair share of Grimmjow’s satisfied looks. but all of them were marred by blood splattered across Grimmjow’s everything, coating his sword, his hands, a lot of the times his teeth (asshole loves taking a bite out of him), they were pure battle and blood thirstiness. this? this is wholly uncharted territory. it’s soft, and contented, and all around nothing like what Grimmjow is. and then it hits Ichigo that maybe he doesn’t know what Grimmjow is like at all. and then, for the first time in his life, he finds himself jealous, of all things. because there definitely someone that does know this side of his favourite Arrancar (there isn’t).

also, let it not be forgotten, that Ichigo’s kind of an idiot, at least when it comes to things that aren’t beating up thugs and gods, or Shakespearean tragedies and dramas. so it should be no surprise that this also happens to him. that just like Grimmjow, he too, becomes just a tiny but dumber. but instead of a cat that got the mouse, he’s more akin to a lizard basking on a sun-warmed rock.

revelations come from this too. and although at the start of their arrangement Grimmjow isn’t even close to being so nice as to help the asshole up, and make sure he’s fine, that doesn’t stop Ichigo from propping himself up on his elbows and beaming an absolutely blinding smile at Grimmjow, before passing the fuck out. and because Grimmjow is still unsure of what’s to happen now, and also not at all accustomed or prepared for human interaction, he thinks the bastard’s good will ran out already, and this is some pathetic last resort attack on his senses. but Kurosaki’s not moving, very obviously sleeping (and isn’t that an insane power move? “hey look, I’m so sure you’re not anywhere near my level, that I’m going to sleep right in front of you, my enemy.” downright mocking, how dare he). he opens a Garganta, and ditches as fast as his sonído will allow, before his brain even starts trying to find any other explanations as to what THAT was. he tries not to think about it, and swears to, from now on, leave before Kurosaki attempts any bullshit.

but the next time it happens some stupid curiosity wins out, and he stays, and he watches as the Shinigami does the whole routine all over again, and… Grimmjow suddenly can’t breathe, can’t take his wide (surely from fear) eyes off of Kurosaki’s prone figure, his face bursts into flames, his mouth runs dry, and that useless dead heart in his chest beats out of rhythm. whatever he’s doing, whatever that attack is, it’s working, and Grimmjow better get away fast.

later, much later, Grimmjow will realise that the reaction he, at first, classified as a symptom of poisoning, was him falling in love with the way Kurosaki’s permanently scowling face stretches out in an expression of pure joy just for him to see.

[chronicowboy]

buck and eddie's conversation on the fountain in merry ex-mas gets infinitely funnier to me every time it's like: your estranged wife who you're sleeping with on the DL comes to your place of work and announces to your nosiest co-worker and best friend that you can't talk without fucking, your platonic male bestie ✨ is absurdly quiet about the whole situation which is very uncharacteristic of him so you invite him to bring your son to a mall santa whilst wondering if you can ever trust your wife with your son again, once said child is out of hearing distance you bring up your bestie's silence, bestie replies that it's none of his business and you agree in a way that sounds like you're begging him to question every life decision you've ever made before immediately launching into a full explanation of the situation despite no homo bro sitting there awkwardly listening after doing the absolute Most to avoid this conversation because he's been talking about the situation with his future brother-in-law whilst christmas tree shopping, then he commiserates with you about the never-ending complications of sex with women, both of you are exactly three seconds away from wondering aloud whether sex with men is simpler, but then your son returns from santa's village with an elf who will tell your work husband that the two of you have an adorable son and he will skip away without denying this. just normal best friend things <3

[the-modern-typewriter]

Just a brief anecdote based on your most recent posted anon that I thought you might find amusing- one time I was talking with someone about protag/antag dynamics and how they're some of my favorites in media. They mentioned that they hadn't seen that dynamic very often and I was like "huh, weird! I've read so many, I see it all the time!" And then when I was thinking of examples I realized that. I was just remembering your whole catalog of work which I love dearly and have read all of (I'm a long time subscriber to your patreon as well). A slight spiders georg moment

oh my god

am I villain spiders georg

not exactly the same, but here are four books with good protag/antag vibes:

Summer sons by Lee Mandelo

Dark Rise/Dark Heir by C.S Pascat

The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue by V.E Schwab

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi

[petricorah]

😭😭he sit

[loopyarts]

Day 4 SuperheroxVillain IchiLaw

Law: Uh… Stealth black is that you?

Ichiji: ?!. In his mind, he can’t decide if he should be offended by this or be just outright confused and baffled at this point.

[multbasa]

I didn't know about this until recently, but Mipha says that she and Link fought the Lynel on Ploymus Mountain together, and this was the point where Mipha fell in love with him.

"Link. Do you recall the time we went off to defeat that monster together? The Lynel of Ploymus Mountain was terrorizing us all. But then you came along. You and I fought as one and... Does any of that sound familiar?"

–Mipha

This is one of the dialogue responses from the DLC after challenging Waterblight Ganon again but with Mipha's equipment. Reading her diary, it seemed like it was only Link who fought the Lynel and defeated it very quickly:

"When we were almost there, he told me to turn back. He insisted he would be fine on his own. I stubbornly stayed. While I argued, the Lynel attacked us from behind! I was sure we had met our end. How silly of me to doubt. With a sure hand and a fierce gleam in his eye, Link unsheathed the sword that seals the darkness and defeated our foe."

–Mipha's Diary

I suppose it makes sense that she would engage in battle as well, but this got me thinking while considering other bits of information in the game...

In the text on one of the stone monuments scattered around the Zora's Domain, Mipha's birth and early life was described:

"History of the Zora, Part Four

The Lightscale Trident

As told by King Dorephan

To celebrate her birth, the smithy Dento presented Mipha with a gift: a mighty spear called the Lightscale Trident. Mipha grew into a bright girl and soon reached the age of receiving lessons from the royal family's order of knights."

Mipha was gifted her trident at her birth and trained with it as soon as she was of age.

Mipha's diary entry about the incident on Ploymus Mountain also details the qualities that she loves about Link:

"His swordsmanship was swift and graceful. I was fascinated by the beauty of his movements. Though I should have been terrified, I could not help but feel safe in the presence of my dear friend. His kindness and determination to help those in need... His strength and skill... My heart is drawn to his. I am doomed... The last beautiful move Link performed on the mountain is called a Spin Attack. Perhaps I will attempt it with my spear."

–Mipha's Diary

She really focuses on his skills.

When asked about Mipha's diary, King Dorephan mentions that Mipha thought of Link like more of a brother when he first came to Zora's Domain but due to their different speeds of growth, he surpassed her and, as she mentions in her diary, "no longer resembles" the child she first met.

Her first diary entry described Link as cute when he was a child much like how she described Vah Ruta as cute, but when she fell in love with Link, she says he performed a "beautiful move"—the Spin Attack. When he was a child, he was reckless and cute, but years later when they worked together to fell a Lynel, it was his beautiful swordsmanship that caught her eye.

What I'm getting at here is...

Despite her shy personality, this girl grew up with a trident as a pacifier in her mouth and her heart throbs over a glint of a blade in combat.

She probably realized pretty quick that a spin attack is quite useless with a trident though...

[bigtiddygandalf]

how did i forget that in the book, aziraphale gets clocked and hate crimed by a little girl

[uncanny-tranny]

I often see this impulse from other trans men* that involves hypervigilance of being one of the "good men" who set ourselves apart from the men who hurt others, and I wonder if this ultra-policing actually prevents us from being "bad"

I wonder if agonizing about doing everything "right" is only contributing to poor mental health of trans men* because you are seeing a distorted, monstrous version of yourself, somebody with whom you have to kill off. It forces you into this space of having to be perfect, to beat yourself up over any perceived infraction.

And I just don't think it's an effective measure to ensure we are "one of the good ones." Constantly treating yourself as the beast, treating yourself like a leper who has no place in the civilized world? How does that ensure that you both treat others well but also ensure that you aren't fucking miserable every single moment you're not alone?

[sigery]

Someone: *asks about Lord Bloodmoon's attachment to Sun*

Lord Bloodmoon: He may look soft but he is a predator on the inside. A bright star that can blind and stun his prey. A golden idol rarely splashed with red as few as worthy of his true rage. What you may call a "Femme fatale"

Sun: *face in his hands, muffled* that's not what a femme fatale is

Lord Bloodmoon: ... a femboy fatale

Sun: No!

[melverie]

I took his hair dye away