#sorry i wrote a novel for all of these

[silverwhittlingknife]

So you're a go to source for all things Dick&Tim bros and you tend to write primarily from Dick's POV. So, odd question, but if you were to summarize their relationship from his POV in FIVE panels which panels would you pick? Keeping in mind that one specific aspect of their relationship that you love needs to be clearly represented by each panel (loyalty, trust etc). I hope this is a fun challenge and not an annoying question so if you don't want to answer that's cool! Have a wonderful day!

No more talk. The same thoughts run through two minds... (SotB 29) / You're my equal. My closest ally. (RR 1) / I can't stop thinking how much I rely on him. (GoG 3)

25 Feelings Dick Has About Tim

This was such a kind ask & a cool challenge which I totally failed; here are TWENTY-five panels of Dick's POV on Tim sdfdsfds Look, I got carried away! Marcia and Cindy! The boys!!

OKAY SO BEFORE I GET TO THE PANELS A FEW NOTES:

WARNING THAT THERE ARE SOME NEGATIVE EMOTIONS IN HERE because I love conflict but but but you gotta remember those are not the final word!! They are complicated people and sometimes they get mad at each other BUT ultimately their relationship is so hugely important in both their lives & they love each other and rely on each other so much -!!! <3

Also I have CONCLUDING THOUGHTS at the end about what Dick's POV leaves out (mostly: a lot of Dick defending & protecting & supporting Tim, which Dick does instinctively but isn't very self-aware about most of the time)

I have loosely organized my list into 5^5 format (5 categories with 5 examples each!), so if you want to skip to a relevant one, here are the categories!!

Below the cut:

I hate him and find him infuriating (#1-5)

On second thought, he's endearing & fun (#6-10)

Grief is complicated & he's all tangled up in mine (#11-15)

I love him & think highly of him (#16-20)

I rely on him & though it's hard for me, I trust him (#21-25)

I hate him and find him infuriating (#1 - 5)

1) He thinks he’s so smart and can psychoanalyze me and Bruce, but he doesn’t know me at all, he should get lost (New Titans 61)

2) He thinks he’s so smart and can psychoanalyze Bruce but he doesn’t know Bruce at all, he should get lost (Gotham Knights 26)

3) He is so nosy about stuff that is MY business (Robin 0)

4) He sounds like an insincere suck-up half the time... but okay, fine, if you push him he's got a sense of humor about it (New Titans 65)

5) I'm sure he's a better vigilante than me. It's my fault for being a failure, but I resent him anyway. (Nightwing 9 - Dick's having a nightmare)

On second thought, he's kinda endearing (#6-10)

6) He worries too much and gets anxious so easily, but it makes him fun to tease (Robin 67)

7) I'm not that competitive - okay, so maybe I'm a little competitive, I gotta make sure he doesn't get a swelled head (Prodigal)

8) I'm supposed to be his favorite! It is not cool for him to be fanboying over my not-girlfriend's not-boyfriend!! (Birds of Prey 19)

9) We have fun together. I can kick back and relax when it's just the two of us. Plus I get to boss him around a bit. (Prodigal)

10) He’s always trying to reassure me, and I guess it's a little comforting, but also he doesn’t really get it. Or me. He makes excuses that he shouldn't, because he doesn't understand that I suck. (Nightwing 64)

Grief is complicated and he's all tangled up in mine (#11 - 15)

11) He reminds me of everything I try not to think about. Sometimes the memories are so strong it hurts to look at him. (Batman 441)

12) WHY IS HE BEING IMPOSSIBLE ALL OF A SUDDEN??? THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING (Nightwing 139)

13) We're the same. He says all the things I don't let myself think about. It's like arguing with myself. (Nightwing 139)

14) He thinks he gets to tell me what to do but he doesn’t, fuck him (Battle for the Cowl)

15) Life sucks, so what. I sucked it up so he should too (RR 1)

I love him and think highly of him (#16 - 20)

16) He’s the closest thing to a brother I’ll ever have.  If someone hurts him I will hurt them harder. (Nightwing 6)

17) I can't handle the idea of losing him. (Nightwing 97)

17) He’s so good and I’m not. I'm afraid I’m bad for him. (Nightwing 110)

18) He’s better than me, and it’s kind of a relief because I know no matter what he’ll be okay. (Gates of Gotham 3)

19) In my head he’s the responsible one.  (Gotham Knights 10)

I rely on him, and though it's hard for me, I trust him (#20-25)

20) I know I have to trust him but I'm afraid he'll make the wrong choices and get hurt (Nightwing 139)

21) I'm sure I know what he should do because I see myself in him - not that I can take my own advice, but he should (Blackest Night 3)

22) I trust him.  When I’m losing my grip on things, he pulls me back. (Gotham Knights 10)

23) I want him to trust me (Red Robin 12)

24) He can tell when I'm lying. Sometimes he sees my weaknesses better than I wish he did. (Detective Comics 874)

25) He’s always there when I need him. (Teen Titans / Outsiders Secret Files)

Final rambling thoughts:

TIM: Uhh, okay, so I'm just skimming this list - do you really trust me? you're not just saying that? - but anyway, I'm confused because you left some stuff out? Like some stuff that's kinda important? DICK: No? I think I got everything? TIM (starts counting on his fingers): The time I was having a bad day but then I called you. The time I got captured by Two-Face but then you saved me. The time I fell off a train but then you saved me. The time I fell off a building but then you saved me. The time I fell off a different building - DICK: I feel like you're trying to make some kind of point but I'm not sure what it could be.

SO THE THING IS, I put 25 panels in here and not a single one has Dick catching Tim when he’s falling!!! But I think that's a central motif of their relationship from Tim’s POV, not Dick’s. I love Dick, but in some ways I think he is spectacularly un-self-aware.

And I think he especially has a lot of blind spots about Tim. He kinda intermittently gets that Tim admires him, and he enjoys it in a playful I-get-to-boss-you-around way. But Dick tends to consistently underestimate all of his own good qualities & skills, and he meets Tim at a point in his life when he's especially down on himself & his abilities. And so he's unable to see his own influence on Tim, & therefore unable to fully understand a lot of Tim's priorities and loyalties and motivations, because you can't actually understand Tim without understanding Dick's impact on him. There's a fascinating moment in Bruce Wayne: Murderer when Dick's completely blindsided & upset to discover that Tim doesn't entirely trust Bruce, even though this has been a definitive fact of Tim's whole thing ever since he showed up with his Batman needs Robin theory, and Barbara has to actively remind Dick of the obvious-to-everyone-except-Dick fact that a lot of Tim's loyalty is to Dick, and Tim loves Bruce but feels free to be more wary of him. (And to give Bruce credit: this is not something he ever begrudges.) But anyway Babs points this out, and Dick manages to sorta process it for about five seconds, but he cannot actually accept it into his worldview so instead he discards it at the speed of light and goes off and has an argument with Tim instead sdfsfdsf

All of Dick's virtues - Dick's kindness at the circus and Dick's determination to fight through grief and Dick's rigid sense of morals and Dick's vigilante skills and every time Dick has ever backed Tim up or listened to him or protected him or saved him from something or just been casually kind to a stranger in Tim's presence etc etc etc - all these things loom really large in Tim's mental story of Who Dick Is, and What Dick And Tim's Relationship Is. Tim meets Dick before he meets Bruce, trusts Dick more than Bruce, aspires to be Robin instead of Batman. And so in Tim's default version of the story, Dick is the super-special and admirable hero and Tim is... nobody in particular, a tagalong outsider who's barely managing to be a hero, not part of Dick and Bruce's family and not part of their story, who, if he's VERY LUCKY and tries REALLY HARD, might be able to fight his way to proving himself and offering something to Dick that Dick will value, if Dick doesn't get fed up with him first.

But that's not Dick's version of the story!!!

Dick's version of the story is almost the exact opposite, a story where Dick's an outcast failure black sheep who's screwing up everything he tries, and meanwhile Tim is The Sudden New Perfect Robin Who's Better Than Me And Probably Bruce Loves Him More And Probably They Gossip About What A Loser I Am, mixed with a complicated edge of Tim Thinks He's So Smart But He Doesn't Know Me/Us At All. Dick gets much more attached to Tim over time, and Tim gets unnervingly better at the know-it-all psychoanalysis so then Dick gets to have complicated feelings about him being right instead of just annoyance at him for being wrong, plus Dick's relationship with Bruce improves a lot, so Tim stops feeling so threatening. But Dick never fundamentally changes his basic theory of their relationship in which Tim is highly impressive and capable, and Dick is not so much.

And so asking Dick about Tim is kinda like if you asked George Bailey to tell you about Harry Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life; like, you'll be there for five hours while he tells you how great Harry is, and how accomplished Harry is, and how he doesn't really get how or why Harry does the things he does, and maybe George does feel a little resentful or jealous sometimes, but that pales in comparison to all his admiration and trust for Harry who he loves so much, who's better than him in so many ways, and he's not gonna openly gripe but secretly he can't help but feel sometimes like he's such a failure in comparison to Harry, a perfect person who emerged fully formed from Zeus's head with all the virtues and also all the accomplishments, etc. etc. etc. --

-- and he will not actually remember the part where he changed and saved Harry's whole entire life unless you literally send him to an alternate timeline in order to force him to remember it. <3

[kenzan-brainrot-mp4]

talk more about the white whale/whale symbolism in general whatever thoughts you have on the whale stuff i want to hear it 👂

GRAHHHHH YEAH (This one got. Long (again lol) So be prepared (series-wide spoilers but I feel like that's a given atp))

First of all I just wanna say that I love how rgg drags the player along around the final chapter title. With how upfront the other chapter titles are in what they're referring to, you might end up wondering why they chose White Whale for the final chapter title once you see the title card (or at least I did). Of course, this could just be referring to the treasure that everyone's been looking for, but with how nonchalantly they react to the fact that the treasure isn't actually there, it doesn't seem to completely fit the bill.

But then you beat the game (and by this I mean beat the final boss) and lo and behold, there's an Actual white whale, and so you think "Oh! Duh, the chapter's called White Whale because there's a literal white whale and it pretty much just finished off the final boss!" But that still doesn't make that much sense. Why name the final chapter (arguably the most important one) after some whale that appears in the last like 15 minutes of the game? Like, take the final chapter name of (Kiryu) Gaiden, it's literally the name of the game (The Man Who Erased His Name) so it's gotta be something more significant than that, right? (But then of course take into the account that by this point the player is still convinced that nothing really in pyih is too deep/serious, so maybe it could just be something as simple as that).

Then you get to the credits, and they reveal that the "elixir"/the ambergris is found in the stomachs of whales. Damn, that's pretty crazy/cool, but once again, nobody that was actively seeking the treasure (Rodriguez, Jason/Noah, Spade Tucker, etc you know the drill) seems to hung up on the fact that they didn't find it, and they didn't even encounter the whale, so they wouldn't get that same sense that they just missed it either, again, it's not a big deal really, so why make that the final chapter title?

Of course, we all know what this builds up to: the big reveal, the fact that Majima, who we've been following along with this entire game, was looking for that elixir this entire time, was the only one to actually encounter a whale in the game, and then there's the insane line drop from Saejima.

"Kiryu Kazuma. You never could give up on that one."

Ironically, the final chapter title has nothing to do with that whale you saw earlier at all, rather it's a summary of what Majima's motivations/actions for this game, and the past. Almost every game, has meant for him. It's what Saejima spells out for us at the end of the game, but said in even fewer words.

An all-consuming obsession that only leads to your destruction. An impossibility, something that you can destroy yourself over but never achieve/obtain. This is what the white whale means, metaphorically. And it is this, exactly, that Kiryu is to Majima.

Kiryu is larger than life itself, to just about everyone. He's a legend, he's the one Majima has had his sights on since the very beginning, the legend he chases after game after game and also what he destroys himself over game after game.

(see:

Yakuza 1 -> Majima just straight up taking a full-on stab wound for Kiryu. Like, buddy, I literally saw one of my favorite characters die that way in another game, there was No guarantee you were surviving that.

Yakuza 2 -> Majima fights off an army of yakuza for Kiryu. That man was beat to total Shit (which is Not something that happens often) and we all saw it

Yakuza 3 -> Majima re-enters the Tojo Clan for Kiryu even though he is (extremely likely) aware that it is already entering its steady decline that we see throughout the rest of the series up until its dissolution. And while he's willing to do it for Kiryu, we can't exactly say that he's happy about the situation as a whole.

Yakuza 5 -> Majima's willingness to die for Haruka, specifically stated because "She means more to Kiryu-chan than life itself." Like, of course he wouldn't just let Haruka get killed, but to choose to mention Kiryu as part of his reasoning in that moment? Christ

While I (surprisingly) can't say anything particularly self-destructive happened in (Kiryu) Gaiden and Infinite Wealth, you could argue that Majima trying to more and more directly tell Kiryu not to leave ("No need to rush outta here yet... Alright?" -> "Don't leave! Don't you dare leave, Kiryu-chan!"), knowing that it's likely pointless, knowing Kiryu, is not doing himself any favors.

Pirate Yakuza -> *gestures at the entire game*

Also his reaction to encountering that giant squid ("Sure is a helluva way to die. I think I'm into it!"). Like, okay. I don't want to try and read too much into it because it was very likely just a one off line. But I'm still gonna side-eye it.

Honestly now that I think about it, if Majima Had died fighting that giant squid (that is such a way to begin a sentence thank you rgg), you could argue that that would've been his nail in the coffin for the white whale metaphor. If he had, it would've meant that his obsession for Kiryu is what got him dragged down into the literal depths of the ocean, and even if it wouldn't be Kiryu physically dragging Majima down like the white whale to Ahab, this is a situation that is completely, entirely, fueled by Majima's obsession towards him (Majima had no real interest in the nuclear waste cleanup project, after all, Kiryu was his one motivation this entire time), and it would've drowned him.

Guess that means he got real lucky with the last part, but we all know he sure as hell isn't beating the allegations.)

All this and yet Majima seems to fail to reaching Kiryu time and time again.

Majima does not obtain the Heart of the Dragon, found in the intestines of the literal whale. He does not obtain eternal life for Kiryu. And he (arguably, though the final scene of him walking to Kiryu's hospital room could oppose this) does not resolve the indefinite limbo that has been sitting between them throughout the entire series. What he gets at the end of the game is the acknowledgement (through Saejima, everybody thank him) that he has been obsessing over this, and perhaps the realization that Kiryu was, in fact, this white whale that he would never truly reach ("Well, still just a dream in the end.") Of course this is something he already knows/has acknowledged deep down, and it's a feeling that is hinted at in some of his dialogue in scattered moments, but this is the first time he ever says it in such an outright manner.

I guess in a way, you could say that Pirate Yakuza is a story about the newfound success of all the people Majima helped and supported in achieving their dreams, and the continued failure of Majima in pursuing his own (Kiryu), and him needing to acknowledge/accept that. And the post-credits begs the question of what he decides to do with the aftermath and what he has left. (An oversimplification definitely but still. augh. Augh)

Naming the final chapter White Whale was yet another crazy move on rgg's part. Its so unassuming, seemingly straightforward yet also seemingly insignificant, but once the realization dawns on you it slaps you right in the face, just like everything else about this game does. It's yet another instance of how rgg managed to pull its big reveal so well, with all the small details, all the reframing, all pointing back to the same topic that it had spent the entire rest of the game dancing around.

Majima recounting his story of how he went to Hawaii -> Majima recounts his story to Kiryu in the exact same way at the very end

The treasure everyone's been looking for/known about + Majima, the one guy who didn't have knowledge about any of this legend stuff prior? -> Wrong, he was after the treasure from the very start (before the amnesia at least). For Kiryu

Majima originally being on course for Hawaii so he could help with the nuclear waste cleanup even though he'd be bored as hell? -> Nah. For Kiryu (Ohhhhh you know what this is reminding me of some screenshots I took from near the beginning of the game)

(I'm sure this meant nothing of course. Lol. Lmao)

Majima's dream during pirate yakuza being to fulfill Other People's dreams -> Haha. Well, I think you get the point by now

Kiryu, Kiryu, Kiryu. It all goes back to Kiryu, every single time, without fail, in an obsessive loop that Majima has been dragging himself around over for Years. He is the white whale, seemingly untouchable, the constant object of Majima's attention and devotion in so many forms, his consistent weak point, that only seems to dig at him deeper as the games go on.

Like I said before, while the white whale metaphor is undeniable, and essentially spells doom for Majima, it's not over for him yet. Because, hey, he didn't drown at sea, or die on the beach. He was saved, and he's survived enough to retell that tale and reflect on it all with Saejima in the post-credits, brief as that reflection was. I mentioned before how he really only said one line of any actual substance during that specific part of the exchange, but the significance of it says so much.

"Well, still just a dream in the end"

As much as it hurts to here Majima address the hopelessness of it all, to hear him say something like that after Saejima basically just laid out his sheer devotion and refusal to give up on his dream for everyone to see, I think the bittersweetness is. Good, actually. Captain Ahab never gave up on that pursuit on the white whale, and it destroyed him; that whale dragged him down until he finally drowned, and it feels like all Majima has been doing over Kiryu since Yakuza 3 is drowning himself in him.

Don't get me wrong, I (for now at least) do not take that line as a complete admittance of defeat, or Majima finally giving up on Kiryu, on that dream he could never let go of. (Like I've been saying, it's an acknowledgement, not exactly a declaration.) I do not think it means he is just letting go, full-stop.

But I do hope it means he can stop himself from self-destructing completely. I hope it means that he can slow down with the wild chase, (and that he and Kiryu can just. Sit down and talk like fucking normal people. Which i guess they are doing in the post-credits, supposedly) and I hope it means that he won't drown completely, especially in the case of the worst possible scenario.

[spitblaze]

Anyway I didn’t say anything at the time bc I was stressed out but I will now. I changed my pronouns to they/them publicly, no he/they unless we're good enough friends. He/him in the way I like (as opposed to 'this stranger cannot possibly know at a glance what my pronouns are and it's still more correct than the alternative, so') is reserved for closer friends, who I know for a fact understand that I am not a man and do not identify in the vicinity of the gender binary. It's a bit of a 'don't bro me if you don't know me' situation. I feel like there have been a lot more instances in the last year where he/him was used to either malgender or degender me by people less close than a certain degree so. He/him privileges revoked. I'm they/them only and please do not call me a man, because I am not one. I'm nonbinary and genderfluid but none of the fluid genders are binary either. Thanks 👍

[1-800-i-ship-it]

omg i just finished orv im going insane im im i can finally look at that doc of things i saved for after i finished orv and can look at spoilers...i can finally unblock that orv spoiler tag...im so normal about orv

[kacievvbbbb]

Idk why I find the fact Mihawk writes Y/N Reader inserts so funny but so true and I have reader inserts blocked on here like I hate them but oh my god so in character for him.

And he does not give a shit. Absolutely go king and getting fantasy dicked down by all the hot guys in one piece world I support! Also him being a sengoku shipper iconic. I was say maybe he thinks about Kuzan but I think he’s out off by his general laziness and apathy and not in a fun apathetic way like Barsolino in a depression way. ( he’s looking in a mirror and does not like it.) but if he learns Dragon used to be a marine and friends with Akainu he’s making the most toxic relationship of them friends to enemies to nemesis type shit.

He’ll write a new book and it will be a sensation and no matter the fact he changed the names everyone with a brain cell will be able to figure out who it’s about.

Sorry this took so long to reply! but

YES YES YES!!! I don't really like self insert stuff either but it's so in-character for him I'm so obsessed.

And yeah it really is just the adventures of reader as they travel across the grand line getting dicked down is definitely one of his most beloved and acclaimed series. Shanks goes hot and cold on that series a lot because while the idea of watching mihawk getting dicked down by another man is very hot Shanks is also a jealous man and he is very jealous of these "fictional" men. He tries to find out if mihawk has ever fucked any of them in real life and maybe 👀.

Also yeah I just threw in the marine thing because I thought it was funny but I'm glad it stuck out! 😂. I don't think he self ships with any of the marines (maybe in his GILF era sengoku or fujitoro) I think because none of the really strong marines appeal to him but he would fuck smoker if he was stronger. and just because I remembered dude and I think it would be so funny imagine if his only self x marine ship is with Ryokugyu (the tree admiral) I think he'd hate him in life but he's not blind. I think this realllllly pisses shanks off because he does not like him and honestly its a bit of a snake eating his own tail because a lot of the reason he doesn't like him is because of Mihawk's fanfiction of him.

I think Mihawk's natural reaction (mostly because it's mine) is to ship Sengoku with Garp but he hates Garp and even the thought of picturing him in that way is enough to make him want to pour his ears to bleach his brain. I think it be funny if during one of his lackadaisical checking out marine headquarters rooms (because realistically who is going to stop him) he stumbles upon and old picture of Garp Sengoku and Tsuru when they were young and he is very intrigued by thetwo hot young men then he notices that one of them is Garp and he almost throws up, the thought wont leave him alone tho.

Also yes i don't think Mihawk actually knows dragon but he has definitely heard of him and being Garps son is enough cause for pettitness in his eyes. Dragon's identity is a little harder to parse out I the books but Akainu's is so fucking obvious. And it is a loved and well-cherished series. Anytime that Mihawk attends a warlord meeting or just genuinely has an unpleasant interaction with akainu (which is every interaction) he puts pen to paper. It'd be funny if this was the most "tame" series though more focused on the fictional romace which confuses dragon and pisses akainu off even more because what? do they think he can't take it? and mihawk is very pleased with himself. he drops a new edition right before he goes to any warlord meeting so he can watch akainu seethe in real time as the new talk of the town takes root (this series specifically is very popular in marine towns)

as for the real life identities. I think he definitely makes it a bit hard not to protect anyone. Still, because he thinks it's fun to make people guess and adds to the mystery so there is definitely a fan club (which Shanks leads) dedicated to putting the clues together on just who all the different men are (shanks needs this for....research purposes 👀) some of them are obvious if you're in the know like the Benn ones or Crocodile while others are just plain obvious because the Red Haired Emperor is definitely shanks like if you know shanks you know its him there is only two people with hair that red. It's not kidd( it does give both kidd and shanks a bit of a reputation of some islands because his book counterpart is infinitely more dashing and "masculine" that shanks' bum and kid's manica energies) and I think he makes the Akianu ones very obvious to anybody that literally even if you've just ever heard of him you know its him just to fuck with him.

[your--isgayrights]

hm have i ever considered that people thinking my fic is abandoned is actually part of the metanarrative about the theme of the fic that includes "not forgetting about or valuing less something that is unpolished or 'half-finished' because it still can communicate full moments of genuine human existence and understanding between reader and writer" so actually I should stop being irked by 'is it unfinished' comments and just appreciate the way they nicely add onto this fully constructed and definitely deliberate quality of of metanarrative? no i have not but i am thinking that now and it is funny.

[girltigerclaw]

breaking into ur house rn

top ten characters and bottom ten. reasons are optional

I just finished this chart thing i think i actually stole from your blog a few months ago <3 Slightly edited to my own prefs.

If anyone wants the template check the reblogs, and feel free to add you own. I'd love to see. I'm just rambling under here:

Leafpool: She is more special and sacred than the virgin mary. She has everything. Daughter of the first protagonist, ex boyfriend for me to hate, TONS of wlw situationships<3, a lifetime of tragedy, and some of the most gorgeous canon art to exist.

Crookedstar: Crookedstar is a trans woman to me. Her life is genuinely just so tragic and fucked, I love it. The erins asked: “How much truama, death and misfortune can you fit into a single cat?” and then they wrote Crookedstar’s promise.

Tawnypelt: GIRLS WHO HATE THEIR FATHERS. The erins dont love her like I do.

Tallstar: I love old men… I fucking love seeing older characters and how much they’ve changed from their younger selves. Tallstar is considered one of, if not the most peaceful leader in the clans. But also when he was like 19 he went on a quest to fucking murder a guy :3

Cloudstar: I rlly do not care abt anyone in Skyclan(I like Leafstar but she's not a fav yknow?) Cloudstar... he was based as fuck. Why did Starclan get away with this shit for real??

Scourge: It’s fucking Scourge. He’s awesome

Briarlight: I’m disabled and I love her. She has such a consistent fun, sweet personality and she makes me happy!!<3

RavenBarley: It deserves all the attention and hype it gets. Though I wish mlm ships didn’t overshadow wlw ones in this fandom, RavenBarley is genuinely well written and makes me very emotional even if the publisher didnt allow it to be explicitly canon.

CrookedBlue: TRANS WOMEN CROOKEDSTAR YURI. Two leaders having a forbidden relationship and kits is way more interesting than Oakheart. The angst of Crooked and Blue sitting next to eachother every gathering while the entire forest has their eyes on them. Don’t look for too long, don’t let the mourning slip into your voice. You have to pretend your lover is a stranger. You… have become strangers. You can never be together again. You're enemies now. This is what we wanted, isn’t it? …We’ll never be happy again.

Mothwing: Her novella delving into her relationship with Hawkfrost was so good and heartbreaking.

Heathertail: Daughter of leader, sister of a major villian, and former love interest of a protagonist! Why did she fall off the second po3 ended. She’s shown to be very compassionate and willing to put her own feelings aside for the sake of others. Would’ve honestly prefered her as a mate to Lionblaze or get a pov herself over the nothing we got.

Blackstar: *Murders an elderly woman trying to stop me from kidnapping children. Supports a dictator openly abusing/neglecting children and the elderly. Murders a man for refusing to kill mixed raced children- then tells said man’s sister that she will never be safe.* Man…. i sure do feel bad for abusing and killing all of those people…. Good thing I will face no consequences and proceed to be made leader, where I will have even more power over the wellbeing of others.

I hate. This guy.

The New Prophecy: A classic. My first series was actually tnp! i feel more attached to first arc cats tho, if you couldn't already tell by my list lmao

Johanna Map- Best Tawnypelt content out there

BlueQuince: My personal handcrafted, homemade Yuri. Bluefur feels terrible about Tiny going missing and promises Quince she’ll help her find him. They never did, but they had a very… fleeting but intimate relationship. Quince is grieving and Bluefur feels so overwhelmed by the duties in her clan. They’ve always thought of eachother since but never met again.

Tigerclaw: My name sake<3 The angst of his earlier life is so, so facinating to me. Starclan being straight fucked up and decided killing him is their only option? He was a kid and they saw him as a lost cause from the start. They never tried any other methods, never tried to steer him in the right direction or… even just take it into their own hands and kill him themself, which they have SHOWN they’re capable of.

They watched all the the horrific crimes he commited, entirely aware they were going to happen. Thats. Fucking. Horrifying. Starclan is scary as shit… and his death? FANTASTIC. I only wish he’d gotten lives from cats he killed so that him coming back to life to suffer over and over was an actual curse from Starclan and not blessings. They knew how he would die and they gave him the lives to torture him for his sins…

Flywhisker: Adhd girlies. Painfully relate to that feeling of the constant scolding for never being “good enough” because I prefer to do things a certain way or struggle to focus. So, SO happy for her when she left the clans! You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone! Hope she’s happy and warm indoors with her brother💕

(P.S. I was very suprised to find she actually had an official art piece!)

Bluestar: Get behind me women with mental disorders. I will defend you. Beautifully complex and tragic character, my favorite written in the series. Literally can't think of a single other female character in handled as seriously and with the complexity of Bluestar. (Although her super edition was a bit of an L with how others treated her, it ultimately makes her breakdown even more painful.)

Exile from Shaodwclan: Nightstar my beloved! He's such a great guy. The rightful leader of Shadowclan, always and forever.

Ravenpaw's Farewell: HE DIED IN BARLEY'S ARMS, TELLING HIM HE WILL FIND HIM, NO MATTER WHERE HE IS. FUCK.

Crookedstar art: So beautiful. I genuinely think she's one of the prettiest cats in the series. This along with her official art by Wayne Mcloughlin.

Leopardstar: As a kid I hated her and loved Blackfoot, now I hate Blackfoot and love her. #feminism. But seriously I think she has way more going for her than he ever has. Her father is a medicine cat who hates violence, the DRASTIC change in Riverclan's view of outsiders upon Crookedstar's death and her leadership. Her already having a position of power before proving she's unworthy of it. (Unlike Blackstar who gets rewarded for his racism and violence by being made leader afterwards) and the fact she has to interact with her victims on a daily basis after what she did.

The writings attempts to redeem her are really lame and dismissive of the actually damage she did, but at the very least they TRIED to do something else with her. Personally, I would have loved to see her assassinated by Mistyfoot. Just like her mother Bluestar was almost killed all those moons ago by Tigerclaw... The parallels of violence for power and violence for peace. A victim repeating the actions of the very man who killed her brother to put an end to what he started in Riverclan.... A shadow in Riverclan, if you will. (<-Pretending erin hunter has hired me to rewrite their series)

Windclan: Tunneling as a concept and inviting outsiders into their clan so friendly and casual makes the clan seems so much more diverse than the others. It always stuck out to me!

Andddd there are my current warrior cat options as of 2023! If someone actually read this whole ramble ily<3

[idealization-vn]

Wake up y'all new character sheet just dropped for Felix heheheheheh

As I promised, the new and improved character sheet for Felix Henbane. See? I can be consistent.

The choker is canon now btw y'all thought I was kidding in the last posts, huh?

[sceebybeeby]

Love your art dude! Was wondering what program you used? (and also how you get that painted look in your art? Some of your digital pieces look like paintings to me sometimes and it’s so cool, but I totally get if explaining it would take too long or if it’s complicated to explain 😅)

THANK YOU !!!!

i use procreate for the ipad for my drawings (it's an apple exclusive and it costs money though 👎) i will always reccomend ibis as an alternative

short answer for the painting question; it's mostly just a mix of brushes and never soft shading

long answer; Procreate's brush software is different than most art programs. instead of blending their colors together, the colors layer on top, unless you want to use the smudge tool. base program brushes from procreate, medibang, and ibis for example

[ID: A showcase of blending brushes from the art programs Procreate, Medibang, and Ibis paint. Under Procreate it's showing off acrylic, wet acrylic, hard blend, and larapuna. Under Medibang it's showing off watercolor, watercolor wet, and acrylic. There's a bullet point under acrylic that says "important to note, acrylic isn't set as a blending brush. it's a texture brush. Under Ibis it's showing off watercolor (wet), fade watercolor (wet), and oil pen (soft.) Procreate is shown again with smudge tool added to their brushes. End ID.]

the thing is, i hate procreate's smudge tool and for some reason their actual blending brushes blend with the background, even if it's on a separate layer (you can see that in hard blend). it's ugly and i hate it. so, i never use their blending brushes or smudge tool

I only use 2 brushes when shading. flat brush and tinderbox. if you look closely at some of my pieces you can see that most of my shading edges are hard and kinda messy. that's those 2 brushes

[ID: Four close-ups of digital illustrations. One a face. The other a chest. The third of hair. and the final of a hand. End ID.]

this technique is common in both traditional and digital paintings. it makes things be less muddy for me and i mostly was inspired by artists that use acrylic. sometimes instead of battling time and blending with paints that are actively drying, they'll wait and just block in colors instead, leaving hard edges. (thats what i did before a switched to gouache LMAOO) i really like that look so i used it for my digital paintings. along with some hatching, it creates the illusion of softness when you look from afar.

it's all mostly just experimentation. but i'll bring out ol reliable for how my process usually goes

[ID: A step by step guide on my shading process using a pink circle. The text says "Step one 1: Get your base. Step 2: Find your light source and block in colors (I use flat brush.) Step 3: Darken edges and add some desaturation in the dark (mimics color reflection.) Step 4: Refine and add texture and fun bits (I use tinderbox.) Step 5: Color balance and TADAA you have a 3D object. kinda." End ID.]

although this is the technique i do, i recommend using references and better drawing tutorials that explain things in much more detail than this one photo. (and references don't just have to be lighting references, you can look at other painters and try to mimic that digitally.) there's so much nuance with lighting that this one picture is barely scratching the surface. i've been doing this for a decade and i'm still learning and deciding what i want to "do." maybe next year i'll only be into cell shading with purple multiply. play around with brushes and layer modes to see what sticks. that's the fun part of experimentation.

if you made it this far, thank you for listening to my ramblings and mini procreate brush software rant. happy drawing !!!!

[candycryptids]

😇- What's their best trait?

👿- What's their worst trait?

for Tuesday and Chuu

“Miss Chuu’s best trait? Mmm… You said this is an interview for your retelling of the Warriors of Light and their journey, right? I’d say it’s her unshakeable resolve. She decides she’s going to do something, and she doesn’t give up until it’s done. Ah… I’m not allowed to speak more on Miss Chuu without her presence, my apologies, mister Levraut.”

“You broke into my house,”

“Your lovely wife let me in actually,”

“To wake me up from my nap and interrogate me on my assistant,”

“Interview, Mademoiselle, not interrogate. Though I am sorry for waking you, your eyes were open so I assumed-”

“Ah-ta-ta. You wanted to know Two’s best trait right? Adaptability. Any environment, any obstacle… he’s got brains enough to figure the way through most anything. And failing that? He knows a top notch engineer in Magitek to kit him with the right tools to overcome his few shortcomings. Hey wait did you fucking call me a mad gazelle, you lop-eared scab?!”

“Thank you for your time, both of you. I have just one more question before I consider this interview complete and I let you both go back to your.. erm, busy schedules. What would you say is each others weakest trait?”

“I knew it! This IS an interrogation! Two, don’t-”

“Ah, that would be Miss Chuu’s paranoia, mister Levraut. Most of her other traits net positive gain,”

“Watch your mouth, Two.”

“That is.. ah, her paranoid trait has served to pull her out of many situations she would have landed in had they not afforded her foresight and caution to approach most situations.”

“Two’s worst trait is how I just can’t seem to keep mad at him when he finds and exploits loopholes in whatever rules I’ve set for him. And last week I asked him to bring me lunch, and he was nowhere to be seen for nearly six bells.”

“… Miss Chuu, if I may, you were in Azys La, and you called me via Linkpearl to bring you specifically egg sandwiches from the Bismark, even utilizing the Aethernet it takes time… and when I arrived at your last marked location you were nowhere to be found.”

[Duo Oc Ask Meme !]

[actuallyitsstar]

headcanon asks for Maverick: 4, 9, 13, and 20 + Goose?

✨ send me a blorbo + a number for a headcanon! ✨

⇢ 4. driving headcanon

i remember reading a fic once quite some time ago (for the life of me i cannot find it or remember what it was called or who it was by) where post-reconciliation mav and bradley need to go somewhere in kind of an emergency and mav gets into the drivers' seat of the bronco. and bradley is like woah. hold on. i thought mom always said you couldn't drive??? and mav is like, no, she said i shouldn't drive, which is Different (tm). and then proceeds to give bradley the most harrowing ten minutes of his life. and boy if that doesnt summarize my thoughts on mav's ability to drive, then tbh, what does 😅

no but seriously. he does probably drive kind of terrible. not like, unsafely, or in a way that is like. Actively Harming people or something, but if you are a passenger in a car maverick is driving then you are aware of the 'oh shit' handles and you are using them. he's always liked to go fast and he's always felt Pretty Confident in his own reaction times and ability to maneuver and he is not going to prioritize a few minor traffic laws over Doing What He Wants.

also, he taught himself how to drive when he was a teenager because no one else was doing it, probably in a vehicle owned by a foster parent whose car he was not authorized to be driving and he definitely got into trouble for this and paid for it later. due to this, he didn't actually get his license until much later than that- after meeting goose, in fact. my personal favorite take is that goose had to help mav with actually getting his license (stuff like when to signal and when to check your mirrors for merging and what types of turns/parking/etc the instructor was going to ask him to perform during the driver's test), though mav new how to drive physically just from getting into a car and figuring that shit out. i like to headcanon that mav had a permit for his motorcycle before this, though i'm not sure that it makes much sense realistically, because i know that most states these days require you to have a driver's license before you can even consider having a motorcycle permit (let ALONE a motorcycle license), but hey, i don't really know how to find out about the motorcycle permit laws in the late 70's in california or wherever they were at the time, so. i have taken creative liberty, lol

⇢ 9. general physical contact headcanon

hands down, in my opinion, mav is a physical person. he spent the majority of his childhood without it, and he gained somewhat of an aversion to it when he was young. outside of the context of the occasional romantic escapade, he did not experience any physical contact after his mother passed that wasn't negative, except for a few nice foster families that he didn't have the blessing of staying with, and even then, those are bittersweet memories, because they were brief and padded by worse things, and it's a little melancholy to think of what ~could have been~. so, admittedly, he's relatively opposed to the idea of physical affection of any sort by the time he meets goose. in fact, he's pretty much opposed to all affection by the time he meets goose. it's what defines their initial meeting and their first few flights together. mav is determined to shake goose off of his tail, to fly so fast that he loses him somehow, even though they're strapped into the same aircraft. he's cynical and certain that the entire world is out to get him, and goose is just the opposite.

goose is a sling-an-arm-around-your-shoulder, sit-on-the-couch-leg-to-leg-close with your friends, ruffle your hair in a slightly-annoying-but-also-endearing way as a greeting, hug-you-tight-before-you-say-goodbye-even-if-we're-both-men-and-it's-the-80s kind of guy. it's just another thing that initially makes mav raise his hackles and lash out. it's not because mav is diametrically opposed to this kind of affection. in fact, arguably, he craves it, and he's never had it, and physical touch is one of his primary love languages (platonically and otherwise). but goose is persistent and kind and fierce, and he's the kind of guy to find a lost kitten on the side of the road and decide right then that he's keeping that cat forever, no matter how much work it is, without even considering what it's like to raise a cat- only in the context of goose's life, the cat is Maverick and the rest is history. goose breaks down maverick's trust issues and fear and loneliness slowly and determinedly by just being himself and treating mav how he would want to be treated because that is his nature, and because he doesn't give up. mav learns to be a good friend and a dedicated member of a ~family~ from goose, and it's because mav already is a good person who has love to give, and goose is the first person to encourage and not punish him for it.

in the context of life, even after everything- after goose dies, through bradley's childhood and teenage years, through his developing friendship with the flyboys and being woven continuously into the family by carole and later the others as well, even after losing bradley, after meeting hondo- mav remains a tactile person. it's one of his primary ways of showing affection. you can see this in the movies- how often he and goose sling an arm around each other, grab each other's shoulders or arms, the way he sits with his arm around carole in the diner, the hug to ice at the end. and in tgm, too; in the hug for sarah and for ice, the hand on ice's leg and the laying with penny and talking and the (of course!!) multiple hugs to bradley at the end. it goes both ways, too; it's one of the more important things that the others can do for mav, that he'll process and understand.

plus, mav can find a way to misinterpret or talk himself out of even the most direct affection/compliment/etc, but he will understand a hug, or a hand on his shoulder. it's the primary thing that used to calm him down in the midst of a panic attack or after a nightmare, the first thing he'd reach for in greeting getting home off a deployment, the primary language that he speaks in relationships. in a way, he passed this along to bradley, too, by participating in making the bradshaw-and-company family so tactile, though perhaps it's a little less natural for bradley due to his own years of self isolation. but he was always sure to make certain bradley knew he was loved, in words and in actions. he never wanted bradley to grow up unsure of such affection, like he himself did.

there's a long span of time when mav is alone, for the most part. after bradley leaves, before the mission. he has the flyboys, but they are all scattered and confined to just letters and phone calls most of the time. more consistently, he has ice, but there is the distance and the lack of postings nearby and the increasing business of his wingman's life as he is moving upward through the ranks and meeting and marrying sarah and having kids. there is hondo, with whom he becomes very close, but hondo is not the most physically affectionate person, and mav knows how to respect others' boundaries in that regard. it's not until post-mission and post-reconciliation that he is fully able to unpack his ways of thinking and loving, to begin living a life where he gets to love and be loved consistently again.

with bradley, with the daggers, in his rekindled friendship/brotherhood with the other flyboys, many of whom are retired or moved on to other careers but who are happy to catch back up with the little found family they'd built over the years. maverick is a hang-off-your-shoulder-why-he-tells-you-a-story, hugs-in-greeting-and-goodbyes, rest-a-hand-on-your-arm-or-at-your-back, squeeze-your-hand kind of person, because he always has been, and also because it's the love language that makes sense to him, that he's always known how to speak and understand, that he learned from the other half of the single most influential relationship of any context (other than being a parental figure to bradley but that is Different) he's ever experienced, the one that still defines so much of his adult life even three plus decades later. it works out very well for bradley, who is desperately touch starved after fifteen years of self-isolation, and who is still reveling in the concept that it turns out mav loved him the entire time and the whole mess was of his own creation, and lives in disbelief of that love and affection all the time. he can overthink and twist-into-anxiety anything that mav says, just about, but there's only one way to interpret a hug. he and mav have that in common- as it turns out, much to his chagrin and also his comfort, they have a lot of these things in common, after all.

⇢ 13. nickname headcanon

mav is not necessarily the type to give new nicknames to people he knows, but he is absolutely the type to use people's nicknames. always ice, never iceman and almost never tom, usually sli instead of slider and never ron, care instead of carole. he's full of even more nicknames for bradley, though, and that came from goose, actually- goose was absolutely the originator of all the nicknames and terms of endearment. it was honey and hotshot and kaz (a nickname for ice that ice "hates" but does in fact allow with minimal glaring). goose is the creator of half the names that bradley gets- baby goose and brads and gosling. mav just keeps using them, and more of them, of his own creation, eventually sneak into his vocabulary, because he learned how to love and be loved via goose, initially, at one of the lowest points in his life, during the time that he was still formatively figuring out how to transition from a child to an adult, and their friendship shaped him forever. inadvertently, it means goose helped to shape bradley, too- since mav was there, and goose didn't get to be.

as far being called nicknames, he's alright with that. as long as he knows that it doesn't come from a place of making fun of him, or of distaste. if he senses that its in good fun or as an expression of friendship/good faith/etc, he'll lean into it. slider has long since bullied him with things like shortstack and trouble, for example, and he's allowed it. if it were a stranger and the tone were just a little different, well, he's started fights over much less. besides, mav is a nicknames sort of person, when it comes to his identity. he's never felt much like peter. "pete" was a scared, skinny kid with no designs on his own future, shuffled around with little to no positive experiences, defined by negative experiences and being duke mitchell's kid, the one who got thrown out of the academy and beat up in school and locked in the closet at the boys' home and chased out the front door of a foster home or two. he never did like pete very much.

maverick, though it started as an insult-turned-callsign-that-stuck, is dangerous and confident and sure of himself, capable and strong and cool. maverick is something that he became on purpose, that gave him agency. he pushed himself to become maverick and make the insult something of his own, to finally take control of his own narrative, because he couldn't control what people said but he could control what it meant- and that's been the name he prefers for a very long time now. very few people in the movies- even of the people who are civilians and not fellow officers- refer to him as pete. he is almost exclusively maverick or mav, and that is 100% by his preference.

⇢ 20. relationship with/thoughts on: goose

goose is and always will be mav's brother.

i read a post recently about how we as readers/writers/etc can do a disservice to the different kinds of platonic love and relationships that exist by trying to shoehorn all platonic relationships into a "they're siblings!!" archetype when there are so many other options out there, and i 100% agree with that- so i want to make it clear that when i say mav and goose were brothers, i mean that intentionally. mav and ice were best friends, ride-or-die, dedicated and as close to each other as anything, but goose was mav's brother in all but blood, maybe even moreso than if they had shared dna. goose was genuinely the first person in the context of mav's adult life (and by that i mean after he finally got into the navy, which to him is the defining line between his ~childhood~ and adulthood) to treat him with respect and love and kindness. mav learned much of what he knew about life and relationships and how to express and understand himself through goose, his older brother, the one who swooped in to protect him and teach him and stick by him, and he didn't even have the privilege of knowing goose that long- as we know. they met and they fell into their relationship fast. it took a while for mav to warm up to goose, of course- but setting even that aside.

and, well, we all know how mav feels about goose, these days. i know someone, in real life, who did lose a sibling when they were both young, and it really is much the same thing. goose still defines a lot of the things about mav, and the memories of him and their time together are still some of maverick's favorite. he still looks at something and thinks "goose would love that", he still has an experience and wishes he could tell nick about it, he still lives his life with the concept of goose right there by his side, even though the man has been gone for thirty some odd years. of course everyone handles grief and loss differently, but it makes me think of the experiences and people i have seen and encountered/read about who have lost siblings, too- the permanence of brotherhood, even in the wake of the impermanence of life.

[sydmarch]

I enjoyed watching a playthrough of life is strange, but never got into the rest of the series cause of mixed reviews. Which games do you think are worth playing, or is it worth going through all of them?

it's so difficult to recommend for or against any of these games bcus opinions among fans of the original lis are so varied it's impossible to guess how someone else might feel about them so instead of recommendations on which to play vs skip I'll just write a (spoiler free) bit about my thoughts on each & hopefully that's enough info to see which are up your alley!

lis 2: the only lis game after the original that was also developed by dontnod (not counting captain spirit which is such a short lis 2 spinoff/intro id hardly consider it a separate game). lots of people hated this when it was released largely bcus they didn't like the idea of the lis franchise as an anthology & just wanted more of the characters from the first game, which is an opinion I fully disagree with so all my opinions moving forward are heavily biased by this. I personally loved lis 2 despite agreeing that a lot of the political stuff felt very heavy handed. I always liked the idea of similar types of stories w new characters rather than potentially fucking up a good thing with direct sequels. imo the mechanic of not directly playing as the character with powers & instead being his older brother and influencing both his general development & use of powers was fun and creative but a lot of people didn't like it. 4 completely different endings depending on your choices & within those endings there were also a fair amount of minor differences so I felt very satisfied on the choices front. each of these games is marketed as "choices matter" & I have very strong opinions with each game on how well I felt like that was followed through on, in some of cases I enjoyed a game well enough on the first playthrough only to do a second one, realize nothing was impactful as it seemed towards the ending, & have my opinion completely change, but lis2 definitely wasn't one of those.

I also enjoyed how you move through lots of locations & meet a large cast of characters throughout the game but a lot of people who basically just wanted to play something like the original lis all over again were annoyed about this aspect lol. whether or not you'll like this one really depends on what expectations you have going into it & what you're looking to get out of it. it's very in line with the original lis in terms of being about a complicated relationship between main characters, difficult but very real circumstances that have a supernatural twist, & choices that feel meaningful, but it's super different in a lot of other aspects

before the storm: first lis game developed by decknine who my opinion of got lower with each release so that bias will definitely be present in my thoughts moving forward lmao. this one was beloved by a lot of fans of the original but personally I never cared for it. I'm not much for prequels in general but I especially didn't think it made sense for a lis game like.. ok what meaningful choices am I going to be making here when what happens next is already fixed? it cheapened a lot of narrative elements like aw chloe and her stepdad can build a better relationship... that I guess goes back to being shitty by the time everything in the original game takes place?

I love chloe but I felt no need for a game where you just play through events that you for the most part already know about. rachel's entire purpose in the original game is haunting the narrative, everything is BUILT around her absence, i get why some people were excited to get to see her as an actual character who you get to interact with but to me it felt like she was so heavily mythologized narratively that there was no way they could just successfully make her a character without tainting that to some extent. to me this one left no impression other than feeling pointless & like an attempt to cash in on existing characters rather than a story that really needed to be told, but for someone who really enjoys the idea of a deep dive into chloe's past, isn't put off by prequels in general, & isn't bothered by the fact that they try to sell you on choices in a fixed story, I can see why it would have appeal.

true colors: this one I have VERY mixed feelings about & I think anyone's enjoyment of this is heavily dependent on what you're looking to get out of it & how much your choices feeling meaningful matters to you. follows the blueprint of the original lis but with different characters so closely that it feels borderline cowardly to me but in spite of that I thoroughly enjoyed my first playthrough & wasn't put off by that. the characters & main mystery were compelling enough that I was only minorly put off by some of the problems I noticed on first playing (how much time is wasted on an in game larp, how little time & gameplay is actually devoted to investigating the main mystery) but this one for me completely fell apart on a second playthrough.

there's a scene near the end that's set up where you think "ok so the relationships I've built with this group of characters is going to influence how the main plot (investigating the death of alex's brother) resolves, cool!" but on a replay it turns out that the main plot resolves itself the same way regardless of any of that, & what you actually influence is basically an epilogue scene based around the secondary plot. for me personally this just ruined the game for me and made everything feel really pointless when the relationships you built with characters & how they went mattered SO little. & the love interests felt more flat the more I dug into that element of the story. neither one ends up feeling like they have any real agency - both supposedly have really strong feelings about what they want to do with their futures but will completely drop that & do whatever is asked of them by.. a brand new girlfriend who they met a couple months ago?? it would've made more narrative sense for them to have written it like ok, dating steph goes with x choice in the epilogue & dating ryan goes with y choice, but they leaned too hard into letting the player have their cake and eat it too that it makes them feel extremely unrealistic. the romance in this game really felt like "ok it's a lis game so we have to have a guy and girl love interest option for the player". despite my haterism again I liked my first playthrough so I think for someone who is ok with taking this game more casually & having the correct expectation set that this isn't one where your choices make a huge impact but where you follow this one story with minor deviations depending on what you do there's a lot to be enjoyed about this game in spite of some of the writing that I've complained about on here before.

double exposure: ok so as soon as this was announced i was like I think making a direct sequel was a mistake there's no way they can resolve the bae vs bay endings issue in a satisfactory way without either doing some detroit become human level of narrative branching (which they obviously didn't do) or going for a nihilistic "see how things turn out pretty much the same regardless of what you do" type of thing (maybe they were trying for it idk but I don't think it felt successful if so) but I still felt compelled to give it a shot. & for the first maybe 2/3 of the game I WAS having a lot of fun with the mystery & I was reasonably satisfied with how they handled continuing on from the ending of the original (until I replayed it & saw how extremely few differences there were then I changed my tune) but towards the end the writing went completely off the rails.

this one felt more like a cash grab & setup for a sequel than anything else. absolutely nothing felt resolved in the end & there were so many weird writing choices. it did not feel like ANY choices mattered because literally nothing resolved itself. the first love interest that's introduced is introduced SO early on & is basically forced on you unlike in other lis games where you can choose to be into someone or not, even if you choose the less interested options it's still extremely forced, & the secondary love interest literally just feels like "it's life is strange we need a bisexual second choice!" again but even worse than in true colors. this is the only one I'll flatly say I don't recommend actually playing, if it sounds interesting watch a let's play. it's overpriced & had a ton of performance issues when I played it on the non-gaming laptop I had at the time of release. the early parts were fun & I appreciated that max still really felt like max & some of the characters were really interesting early on but I just cannot recommend this one unless you're someone who really isn't bothered by a marvel-esque "to be continued" ass ending

I'm also including my thoughts on some dontnod games that aren't actually related to the lis franchise bcus most of them feel more like spiritual successors than some of the actual lis games decknine put out

tell me why: fantastic game that I'm going to just flatly recommend. when it first released I was like ok & this isn't lis 3 because..??? most of your choices have smaller impacts & the only thing really majorly impacted is the relationship between the twins but it's a very zoomed in story thats entirely ABOUT that so it feels very satisfactory. just one love interest you can either date or become good friends with and both feel totally natural. all the relationships feel very fleshed out, the environments are so gorgeous it made me want to go to alaska lol, & I really enjoyed the power in this one & the way the story dealt with memory

twin mirror: I thought this one was good but definitely the one I was the least compelled by. a fair amount of things thematically similar to lis (awkward protagonist returning home after a long time, dead best friend, mystery) & a lot of things different (extremely gritty in comparison, very cishet, writing around the mystery was much more eh imo bcus the answer was EXTREMELY standard, no supernatural element with the mc's 'powers' being more sherlock type mental stuff).

I wish the main plot elements were more compelling to me because this one was REALLY good in terms of your choices mattering. multiple ways things can go with major differences within the 'main' ending, an important character can die or not depending on what you do, & all the characters feel really fleshed out and you have compelling relationships with them all. but that being said I only managed 2 playthroughs because the main story wasn't interesting enough to go through again despite all the things I liked about it. I'd lean towards recommending this one but it depends how much the journalist returning to his hometown and investigating his best friend's death & shady things happening in the town plot is to you, bcus despite not being a cop game it felt to me a bit like a standard cop game in a way that didn't fully grab me.

lost records bloom and rage: an absolute must play especially for anyone who liked the original lis. characters, plot, general vibe, mystery, romance, impact of your choices, all perfectly well crafted. up there with disco elysium lis1 & undertale as a top game of all time

[kxllerblond]

Clark && Time Travel

A few things to note beforehand:

➨ Clark by default is not aware he has this capability and power. He merely has a nagging suspicion and at best has made an educated guess considering he already possesses powers like his teleportation. We as the audience know it is a part of his undiscovered set of reality warping abilities, but he himself has no idea.

➨ This is likely an 'end game' esque ability in the sense it would only develop in a late version of Clark I don't see myself RPing here without plotting or reason to write this version of him. That is to say, this is a 'request only' type of plot device or one I might use to explain his presence in certain universes (his St*r Wars au is a result of accidental universe hopping for example).

➨ Clark by default does not like messing with time or space and even if he were to become aware of such abilities, he would deliberately avoid honing them. He is a very cautious individual and is not above stunting his own abilities to remain so.

Clark and time traveling is a rather simple concept once he becomes aware of the ability and gains some semblance of control over it. For the most part, he is oddly a constant. There are some variables in the different versions of himself but it really is sort of a 'same song, different tune' type situation.

On top of that, he is just apparently naturally inclined to keep the balance. When one Clark jumps from his home universe, another will have entered the universe at the same time to replace him. It's a constant game of musical chairs. He's very unlikely to blip into a universe he has died in (or at the very least he is not likely to stay for long) and he will never encounter an alternate version of himself in the flesh.

There ARE universes in which Clark never existed and he does run the risk of getting stuck in those if he blips to them. Imagine all the universes he exists in being a circle of chairs (going back to the musical chairs analogy). The universes he never existed in are like outlier chairs off by themselves. They're removed from the main game and thus it is incredibly unlikely for that Clark to ever be able to leave that chair.

[dawnbreakersgaze]

But what if I /do/ want to get you started on your fanon expansion of Greyson? >:3c

NONIE???

Who are you and why have you come to steal my heart this evening!? (I love you, marry me?)

HNNGGGGH OKAY

It's hard to narrow it down to a digestible size, but in my little HC expansion on Grey, I really love how he makes and maintains his relationships with others.

From my own interpretation of his canon content I get the feeling he's just someone who tries to find moments of relatablility with those around him, especially those he cares about. In my own writing, that's looked like bonding over a shared hobby, teaching someone a skill (or sharing knowledge of said skill), encouraging via shared past experiences, or looking for new opportunities to gain said shared experiences together.

For someone seemingly very busy, it's really important imo that he makes those connections with the people around him in whatever ways he can. It's not like the poor man has all the hang out time in the world, and we know they don't get weekends and holidays guaranteed like a regular job- so fighting for those moments of relatablility to connect with others (in sometimes rather esoteric and unique ways) is definitely one of my favorite parts of HC lore-expanded Greyson.

Even more so when thinking about him romantically and how he flirts??? Like normal men would just tell you they think you're cute and maybe they want to take you out sometime. But Grey? No no.

Grey found out your grandmother used to make these particular cookies growing up and you no longer have the recipe. All you remember is they tasted like shortbread, looked pinkish, and had raspberries in the dough. Cue this man spending 4 of his non-consecutive days off scouring the internet baking forums for ideas, trying out recipes, and finally getting something he THINKS is close, just so he can go "oh hey, so I made these yesterday when I was thinking about those cookies you were talking about." Like he just ~happened upon them~ all so he can watch your face light up when you say "oh my gosh these are PERFECT!"

I also adore the teasing. I admit that one is sooooo self fulfillment because anyone who can go tit-for-tat with me on the daily is just my kind of person, and way he just "You know nothing John" at the intern made me laaaaaugh. He probably didn't even mean it to be funny, but the later follow-up of him laughing so hard he almost got carted off to psych? Like, please, his sense of humor is so ridiculous I neeeeed him. I can't imagine him without the teasing and banter anymore if I'm being honest 😅 just lighthearted, friendly ribbing- nothing mean or harsh.

Couples that can joke around with each other in the most loving and wholesome ways are just UGHHHH I LOVE THEM 😩🥺 and I just see Grey being the perfect half to a couple like that.

[adreamoverlife]

also re the tags u left on my post yesterday: that qantoine fic sounds AWESOME im sooo in love with the concept of him controlling/indoctrinating/etc people in the name of protecting them….. especially when it’s by some freaky Elder God who genuinely has a warped perspective of the limit between protecting those he cares about and possessing them instead . that’s some really good shit

omg thank uuuu!!! Ive really been trying to get the first chapter posted before Christmas since it'll most likely be a 10 chapter fic and I wanna already get it on its way. The issue is chapter planning and getting everything written out fully since I never really done a long planned out fic like this. It's been really interesting writing q!Antoine since for most of the fic he's essentially setting up the french against each other so he can step in and "fix" it like a good friend cult leader and it's incredibly hard to reason with him since the other french seem to have more visible issues with them. As white lies and outright betrayal starts to all stack up against each other who else can they trust? Pommes gonna need therapy in this fic lol

Btw I do already have a fic that goes a little into q!Antoines god perspective making him unsettling to Pomme this here, probably same universe as the fic I'm currently writing.

[persephoneprice]

omg I came across your persephone price moodboard on my feed!! please tell me your thoughts and hcs b/c she's genuinely so so precious to me 😔

oh my gosh i cannot thank you enough for sending this!!! Persephone is one of my absolute favorites and i just adore her so so much <3

her nickname is Pippa- i think percy and all those variations are cute but i just think Pippa fits the idea i have of her better.

she’s aware of what her father fed her as a child and while she doesn’t necessarily resent him for it, she is deeply ashamed of it.

she is a very genuinely kind person, as much as you can expect a capitol citizen to be. because of this, and how pretty she is, she’s a very popular girl- but the type of popular girl that’s friendly with everyone.

she struggles with issues related to her self-esteem. i think being pretty is something she’s sort of ‘known for’ and it affects her pretty deeply. she never quite feels pretty enough or smart enough or good enough in comparison to everyone else.

she does get to know mizzen and tries to treat him as well as she can. when he dies, she’s devastated and it’s something that sticks with her for the rest of her life.

despite witnessing the horrors of the games up close, she does still marry festus creed and become the capitol socialite that her family expects her to be.

it’s not until her own son turns 13 that she fully realizes how deeply horrifying those games are. on every one of her sons birthdays after that- she can’t help but think of mizzen and how he would never be allowed to reach those ages.