#super compelling very tragic

[pumpkinrootbeer]

"Mandy deserved better" "lip was so ungrateful" the rape scene guys. guys. the rape scene. she literally rapes him guys. he says no and stop repeatedly and he tries to push her off. and then hides in the bathroom for 45 minutes after. guys.

[baconcolacan]

YOU! 👉

I just relized you the one who wrote one of my fave fics on Ao3! I need to know if you don't mind, will there be and updates to regimen? It tickles my brain chemicals. No pressure btw <3

Ahahaha yes hello 👋 you found me, the writer of that horribly tragic fanfic

I get asked this a lot, but I dont mind answering it again for people who dont know but, yes I do plan to get back on the writing saddle for Regimen eventually, it’s just a matter of my motivation and willingness to get back into the headspace of that universe. I already have the ending planned.

I’ll be real for a sec: I’m a very empathetic writer, so it’s tough for me to have my thoughts be overwhelmingly negative as Regimen’s universe demands. It was easier when I was unmedicated.

[silverwhittlingknife]

comics are super-contradictory on what the pit does, but YEAH, i'm 100% with you, OP. it should have bad consequences!!

if you want some of the lazarus pit stories that skew more toward the ominous side, i think some good comics to check out are

batman 243 (first comic to introduce the lazarus pit)

lost days (backstory for jason's resurrection)

resurrection of ra's al-ghul (dick & tim fight over whether tim should experiment to see if he can use the lazarus pit to bring back his loved ones)

I do not care about what canon says, pit "madness" exists to me. Not because I need an excuse for Jason's violence and the murder attempts on his family, but because, from a storytelling point of view, you need your immortality bath water to have some consequences for your heroes to not use it every tuesday. You want death and injuries to still matter, it is silly for your characters to be worried about each others' health when they can just take a dip in the magic green goop and be back in one piece without side effects. Which is literally what is going on now in the comics, with the batkids dying and immediately being resurrected with a sip of the forbidden green smoothie. Like, what's the point than? You're going to tell me the tale of a man who created a symbol from his grief, only to give him some magic goop that can make him and his loved ones immortals without drawbacks, and I'm supposed to believe he would refuse that power? That he would not have dip Jason himself the moment the kid died if there was no consequences? Nuh uh. Like, I can understand a "immortality is against nature" as the simple reason why your heroes would be against using it, BUT when we are talking about a child that was murdered, it's not really immortality to bring him back to life, so it doesn't work.

Immortality must have some aftereffects so your heroes can understand the attraction to its use, but the cons are too much for them to actually do.

[firelxdykatara]

I think part of what frustrates me about age gap discourse with respect to BTVS specifically is that framing Buffy's relationship with Angel as 'grown man preys on teenage girl' requires that you ignore everything about the context of the show, the context that their relationship occurs within, and also what it means for both of them as characters and for the show as a whole.

It's also just like, really boring?

Like before you get to any of the story reasons why that's just a stupidly reductive analytical framework, you have to start with this: in a story aimed at teenagers, the fantasy is of being special and desired by a sexy immortal, and because the story is aimed at teenagers, the main characters are (or start as) teenagers, since the coming of age narrative that underpins everything else doesn't work without it. Hard to tackle that transition from adolescence to adulthood with a main character who begins the series as an adult!

(And it's not as if coming of age stories for adults don't exist. Phoebe Halliwell is a very good example--unlike her older sisters, she starts off unemployed and kind of adrift and desperate to find a purpose, which she ultimately does as a witch and a Charmed One, and all of this is done while she, as the youngest, is in her early twenties at the series start, because the show is primarily aimed at adults.)

And the thing is, Angel isn't just some adult man preying on a highschooler for kicks because he can't find women his own age. As Angelus, he spent well over a century enamored with Darla and committing wanton slaughter and destruction by her side. As Angel, with the exception of Buffy, all of his love interests are adults, and his love for Buffy is not tied to her youth, innocence, or naivete, considering that it links and binds them so completely that they keep crossing in and out of each other's lives through the end of Buffy's show, with the door explicitly open for a future relationship once Buffy's finished baking.

What draws Angel to Buffy--and what makes their relationship so dangerously compelling and also ultimately spells its downfall as, within the text of the show, it is explicitly a tragedy--is the fact that she's the Slayer.

That's the key point--her status as the Chosen One! He is drawn to her (as all vampires are, to a greater or lesser extent, but it's no accident that her only other truly earth shattering romantic relationship in the series is with another vampire) because she's the Slayer, and because of the soul he was cursed to bear and the guilt he feels for the evil he committed as a vampire, he wants to protect and save her as part of his atonement. He falls in love with her because she brings light back into the darkness he has been cast into since being forced to bear a soul even as a monster. And he would be 241 years old whether he was turned as a teenager and could pass as one of her peers or turned at 26 (the show is inconsistent on the age at which he was turned and it really doesn't matter, since the buffyverse never tries to pretend vampires are 'frozen' at the age they're turned anyway), and yes, part of what is darkly compelling about their relationship is that the age difference is obvious (Sarah Michelle Gellar was 20 and David Boreanaz was 28 during season 1), but the reason Angel being an 'older man' is never considered super relevant (aside from a few lampshades) is because... it really isn't.

The important thing, the critical thing, the thing that matters in the context of their relationship is that Angel is a vampire. That's why when Angel pulls out his 'I'm 241, you're 16' spiel it rings so hollow--because that doesn't really matter to either of them and he knows it. He's trying to push her away because it's the only way he can really protect her, and even then it doesn't work, and they all suffer for it horribly, Buffy most of all. (And even then she can't stop loving him, nor he her, and that makes it all the more tragic when he realizes the only thing he can do for her is leave.)

Also, it really throws into sharp relief the fact that people care so much about Buffy being a teenage girl when it comes to her romantic relationships but not at all when it comes to her being fated to die. Something the show itself is also quite critical of, because that's part of the point--being the Slayer is an awful burden that none of them have ever had a choice but to bear, and Buffy was supposed to die at sixteen years old. The only reason she survives is because she broke the rules by trying to have a normal life in addition to being the Slayer, which is the only reason she has friends to help her and save her, and I'm supposed to look at all of that and care that her broody vampire bf was a 'grown man' when he was turned? Really?

I don't think so. You can't just be willing to take what the show says for itself at face value when it comes to all the fighting and killing and dying but then balk when it comes to sex. That just doesn't work for me. (I mean, you can, and a lot of people do, but it's frustrating, hence this post.)

[artist-issues]

that was real dumb. From a storytelling point of view, truthfully. Why would you take the only character who has some real-life characterization, some stuff that grounds the show and makes it's main element feel at least a little rooted in reality, and unravel all that characterization—and then kill him off?

Let me back it up.

It's a teen treasure-hunting show. Nobody wants to watch that unless all those individual words feel realistic enough to be relatable, and compelling. Teen. Treasure-Hunting. Emphasis on teen, otherwise I'd watch National Treasure.

you have the boy hero who's dad was a treasure-hunter and mysteriously disappeared. Thats not very realistic, its a little fantastical, but you can make it feel realistic if you work hard, and compelling if he's a good actor with chemistry.

you have the hot girl who's part rich-kid, chosen-poor-kid, who hangs out with the underdogs just...because. Okay, that's a little cliche, a little "my parents don't understand me, I'm a rebel without a cause" in the cheeseball way. Clearly gotta be the girl-in-the-group, gotta be eye-candy. But you can make it feel realistic if you work, and compelling if she's played by a good actress with good chemistry.

you have the boy who's a brainiac and he hangs out with the underdogs because they'll be nice to him even if he's a weird brainiac, just...because. He's like the good-boy in the bad-boy group. Another cliche, but that's fine. That won't take too much work to explain, and it's not super compelling, but it rounds out the crew, and again, it'll work if you have a good actor with good chemistry.

you have another hot girl who's basically perfect and joins the hero group later—she's rich but she's more compassionate to poor people than literally anyone around her for unexplained reasons, she can be inconsiderate but that compassion thing comes in clutch if consequences ever roll around to keep her likeable, she's funny, charming, strong when she needs to beat someone up for girl-power but damsel-in-distressy when her boyfriend needs to look heroic, willing to turn on her whole family for the love of our hero, whatevs. Cliche, but you can even make her feel real if you work. Points for an actress who's good and has chemistry.

and then you have loose-cannon, comic-relief boy who's like our hero but grungier and slightly less heroic so that he doesn't steal the spotlight. He can break up tension when you need a break from tension, OR he can bring it in when you need to start drama, because like we said, he's a loose-cannon. Fine. Cliche—

—oh but wait. His dad abuses him. Oh, that's some real stuff right there. Real-world stuff. Not "my daddy's a supervillain murderer," or "my daddy ran off and disappeared treasure-hunting," or even "my daddy doesn't like my friends." It's right in between the cliches and extremes. It's real-feeling in a way that everything else isn't.

But maybe they'll overdo it and make it super-tragic, super-dramatic, they'll shoot it in a way that's too gratuitous, he's got PTSD but it's way overdone, he's all weak and mumbly or he's got to be taken care of by the rest of our motley crew like a soft boy—

No? No, they're not doing any of that? No, they shot it in a realistic way that portrays the horrible tension of the relationship but doesn't linger too long, too melodramatically? No, the character isn't making this his whole thing—hems actually acting like this is just a part of life? A sucky part of life, but a normal part of normal life for him? Woah. Thats real stuff right there. And it causes the trauma and the rage and the heartbreak but...all that stuff just simmers...under the surface? Realistically under the surface? He brushes the abuse topic off with people who care about him, but he's perfectly willing to use the abuse topic to get out of trouble with adults who are on his case? Like a real teenager in real life who grows up around this and experiences it might?

Wow. That doesn't take much work to do, at all. It writes itself. It is real and true.

More than that—little things—when a character says a heroic line of drama-film dialogue about treasure hunting, this comic-relief boy always winds up saying something...random and sort of shallow? He says something about weed or repeats what the dramatic kid said in a funny accent? Like a real teenager would in real life? Like a real kid, who really responds to everything as if he doesn't think much about The Future or Epic Destinies?

He eats moldy bread when everybody else is poring over a treasure map? He flirts inappropriately when he should be dramatically waking up in his concerned lover's arms after getting hurt saving her? He makes really stupid decisions, not because they need to cover a plot hole or because he's "the dumb one" but because...he's a badly-raised teenager who genuinely has always had to look out for himself? He says something simple and real when any other character would've said something daring and poetic?

And put on top of all that that he's played by an actor who's really good at his job and has great chemistry with everything that breathes onscreen?

That's the character that puts the teen in "teenage treasure hunting show." The real, believable adolescent-who-doesn't-think-beyond-the-moment. The reason watching this team of cliche treasure-hunter stereotypical breakfast-club Romeo-&-Juliet cast is even interesting.

By having JJ be a trailer-trash punk who's dad beats him up, who loves to have a good time with his friends and takes his anger about his lot in life out on a silly us-versus-them rich kid group every chance he gets? By being the character with one foot in "reality" and the other in "adventure" out of sheer "I've had nothing my whole life so I don't know what Considering My Future is, and I might as well be cocky" attitude?

He grounded the show. You can believe John B would drive his van into a moving plane, and Pope would be able to win in a fight against a grown-man drug-dealer, and buried treasure exists and can be found by kids—you can believe all of that because of JJ. Because one character feels real, your subconscious goes, "I know that the writers know what 'real' is because JJ stood up covered in bruises in that hot tub, so I trust them to bring 'real' back in somewhere down the line."

I'm not saying there's nothing else realistic in the show. I'm saying, he felt the most really real.

And they killed him.

I don't care how pretty and neat it is to see my hometown in their show, I'm not watching it anymore, it was already way not worth it, but that's just ridiculous.

Don't even get me started on the way they killed him, and by whom, and how it was shot, and at what point in his "character arc" it was done. Ridiculous.

[yamisnuffles]

DATV Spoiler Free Review

I beat Veilguard a couple days ago and have had some time to let it settle in my brain. So, without getting into the nitty gritty and more spoilery things, here are my overall feelings on the game.

The Great:

The world itself. The scenery. It was really gorgeous and felt fully alive in a way that none of the previous games have quite managed. Since it wasn't as open world as DAI nor as narrow in scope as DA2 (nor as old as DAO lol), it felt more vital. Definitely a place where the advances in graphics helped, I'm sure.

The Good:

The companions. I wouldn't say any of them blew me away but they all at least ranged from enjoyable to very good. I definitely had my quibbles here and there but I think they were all pretty solid. As such, though I've only done one romance, I'll suppose they're all good. A bit... sparse in my experience and from what I've been hearing, but nice enough.

Overall, I also think the story was pretty good. Like much in this game, nothing that blew me away, but solidly compelling.

Also, mechanically, the gameplay and the glamour system. It still doesn't feel like DA to me but it was enjoyable once I got used to it. It works well with how I play games. And it was nice to just set looks for myself and my companions and not worry about stats vs appearance.

Rook. I have some definite Complaints, and so this point is probably closer to the good to mid range, but they did a pretty good job with letting you pull in your faction stuff. I'm prevented from saying great because it feels like, even with what are supposed to be rougher dialogue choices, you're limited to being mildly pleasant.

The Mid:

The music. This is tragic to me because every previous game had some really standout songs and DAI especially was such a solid soundtrack. I love soundtrack music. Also because Hans Zimmer! I love Hans Zimmer. But the entire thing felt very generic epic fantasy to me. It wasn't bad but it didn't feel good. The only times I ended up moved by the music was when they lifted DAI songs.

The lack of imports. It wasn't the end of the world but did make some cameos feel really off. And for all the talk of making what few things were imported matter, that really didn't feel like the case at all (unless you were in a specific subset of players). I didn't care too much, but it was just enough to make things feel weird, especially with characters like Harding who are so attached to previous stuff.

The Bad:

The world felt so sanitized. I have no issue getting rid of real life bigotry that makes so sense in the context of the world. For example, the sexism in DAO especially made no sense. That said, there was a lot of in world nastiness that is just... gone. The game does a lot of telling us the elves have it bad but doesn't show it. No one bats an eye at a Tevinter mage running about outside of Tevinter. No one cares about a Qunari in occupied Treviso. I suppose it's not the worst thing in the world but it feels weird, especially when it's so central to Solas' motivations.

This sanitization carried on through pretty much everything. All of the factions are presented as good and heroic, even the ones that are historically pretty shady. Your companions are all pleasant and palatable. They have the occasional minor squabble but even when they almost have actual beef, it's solved super easily. You might get some disapproval for decisions but companions never seem to much care or hold it against you, even on really big things. I don't need DA2 levels of interparty drama but, boy did I want a bit more tooth sometimes.

The Awful:

I can't get into it without spoilers but it did a Thing that Bioware sometimes likes to do that I absolutely loathe. This is definitely personal but it ruined some of my desire to replay.

Overall:

I'd give the game a 7/10 or maybe 6/10, depending on how I'm feeling. It was enjoyable for the most part but it had so many things that felt like splinters. Lots of little things that stuck under my skin and bothered me. Would I recommend it? Genuinely depends on the person.

[marzipanandminutiae]

You talk a lot about the (tragic) lack of love for female characters we typically see in fandom spaces. Did it always come easily to you to prioritize/be super interested in female characters or did you have a journey to reach that at some point when you were younger?

When I was about 3 years old, my father took me to the book store (mostly to look at the pictures, of course) as was our usual habit. apparently, after wandering around a bit, I said to him very seriously, "Daddy. There's a problem."

"What is it?" he asked.

"Not enough books about girls."

He took me to look around the kids' section again and see. Afterwards, he turned to me and said, "Marzi, you know what? You're right. What are you going to do about that?"

To which I'm told I responded, "Write some."

So yeah, it goes back pretty far.

And to be clear, I don't think focusing on female characters is some kind of moral imperative or sign of superiority or anything else more than just...really liking female characters. Some people do, some people tend to have a more balanced array of faves gender-wise, and some seem to end up gravitating more toward male characters. Which I do get! For me, female characters just have this...undefinable Shine about them. They're almost always the most interesting and compelling to me. Maybe it's because I'm a woman; maybe it's because I'm a lesbian. I don't know. It's just always been like that, and no other gender of character can compare (though I can of course find them interesting to some degree as well).

And of course :) this includes trans female characters :) because those are also Women :) just in case anyone gets any ideas that they absolutely fucking should not :)

It's more the widespread attitudes and trends one sees writ large in fandom that can irritate me at times. there's a difference between "yeah a lot of my faves are male" and "I just think femslash is only good when it's a genderbend of two male characters" (which is a real hot take I've really seen) or all the shows I've seen clogging up my dash with GIFs of pretty male couples and learned exactly nothing about the female main characters in the process.

[hinamie]

My I ask why are you a gojohater? I am a gojolover and love your gojopieces and love your portrayal of Gojo and Megumi, and I've known you're a gojohater since before I hit follow, but I am honestly curious haha I am a gojolover, but I love criticism of Gojo (and anyone tbh but him in specific precisely because I like him a lot) both narratively and metanarratively, both his writing and his personality. So I am really curious, all the more because I always love your takes on him not just in image, but in concept. Many of my fave people to talk about my fave characters are haters of my characters, it's alright, truly. I really mean no harm. I'm just super curious because I think it could be very juicy and intricate analysis given your portrayals of Gojo xD

I am asking on anon because I'm shy and you're a big account, but I could ask off anon too if you're not comfortable with answering this question without putting a face on the sender, or in public as a whole. I am not shy enough that it would be a problem to me if you prefer it. Of course, please feel free to ignore my question too if you don't want to reply for whatever reason (even just not being in the mood, that's good enough reason in my books xD)

In any case, thanks for drawing and sharing your art with us!

Hi anon! i’m glad you like my art of him but if you’re expecting an intricate analysis on gojo you’ve come to the wrong blog :’> 

as fr my thoughts on him,,, listen. I hate on him as a meme gsdhjf it’s not that serious. i’ll come out and say it, I don’t /actually/ hate the guy, really the extent of it is just that I think he's annoying a lot of the time and not in a way that endears him to me. however when I started watching jjk I’ll admit I Was charmed by him! And even now I can recognize tht there’s undeniably a lot to his character that makes him super interesting, I think that his loneliness and burden of being the strongest hidden under a carefree mask r things that make him rly compelling. i like that he’s insane i like that he’s strong to the point of being unreachably Alone, i LOVE that despite that he cares so much about the kids and tries to connect with and protect them at every opportunity. he’s a tragic tragic character and annoying or not, I eat that up

my beef is with fanon gojo ghjgshd seeing the way that the audience treats him soured him for me Bad. It’s so hard to see a character for the tragedy of their desire for connection when the entirety of their personality and the significance of all their fascinating story beats are entirely drowned out by mischaracterization and audience horniness. he overshadows everything he’s in because That Type of gojo fan sees him and gets tunnel vision regarding everything else—see the people who were threatening gege's life over killing him and Hard banking on a gojo comeback until the very end despite th narrative uproot it would cause. someone could make the most emotionally poignant piece of gojo-centric content and you’d still have probably a majority of his fans doing nothing but barking because that’s their 6’4 dom top or whatever. 

atp i’m used to seeing it but it still makes me angry that such a deep character with so much story significance is completely objectified by ppl who claim to be his fans. that’s not my business tho, engage with media however u want, just know that i Am judging you

so long story short i hate on him out of principle. i saw the way fandom treats him and i simply decided that yeah i dont like this i will not contribute. i will not show him any love beyond the art i make of him. but I wouldn’t dedicate so much time and effort to making art of a character if I truly hated them lmao i’m not that dedicated to the bit

[fuedalreesespieces]

Inuyasha x Kikyo, Sesshomaru x Kagura

getting my rating out of the way: TWO OUT OF TEN BABYYYY!

here's the thing - i think inukik's dynamic is interesting because of the restraint. the distance between them despite their perceived kinship. souls brought together because, in kikyo's words, they both know loneliness.

but that isn't really true. inuyasha is alone, kikyo is lonely, and it's this disconnect that makes them incompatible. on the surface, they share many traits that stem from similar issues. both are distrustful, both have to hide their "true selves" under masks of either prickly disdain or stone-cold apathy. and the deal they make about the shikon jewel is really where it clicked for me how much they just don't work, because before kikyo can get to know the real inuyasha, beyond pre-conceived notions, he has to strip away a part of himself. he has to become human. and a huge, huge reason as to why inuyasha is the way he is is because he's a hanyou. who will he be after a transformation like that?

inukik shippers like to prattle on about how inuyasha and kikyo are super tragic and deserved better, but can we actually think about what that means? what would their relationship be like if things had gone according to plan? you have inuyasha, whose just given away a crucial part of himself, simultaneously tentatively happy to start a life with someone but also completely lost because he doesn't know how to be a lover, how to be a husband, hell, he barely knows how to be a friend - is that what they once were? friends? he doesn't know how to adjust to humans who would have once shouted and thrown things at him. he feels the fleshy things around his ears and wonders how he can still possibly feel deaf when he has them. he hates how he can't see his own hands in the dark. he hates the unspeakable and unexplainable human aches.

and kikyo is free. she still heals people, of course, but she no longer has to deal with the burden of the shikon jewel. and now she has a companion to share it all with. he's always so frustrated, and she can't understand why beyond the fact that he's a little weaker now. they're so careful with each other, too. they didn't know how to hug or hold hands or touch when they were meeting alone back then, so they don't know how to kiss, either, as husband and wife.

i can't see them fighting. i can't see them bickering or having a playful spat and that, to me, is a problem. one of the reasons why i love inukag so much is that we see them fight all the time, but they always come back stronger regardless. their feelings don't waver. and because of the honesty in their arguments, they learn each other's tells and ticks. the small details. they aren't afraid to get into a debate, because their love is strong enough to withstand it.

when i think of inukik, i think of walking on a wire.

besides all this conceptual stuff, we do get inukik in the show, after her forced resurrection. and this is where you totally lose me. any potential interest i could have had (and there was none to begin with) goes down the drain with lines like, "your life is mine." no. NO.

genuinely she made his survivor's guilt so much worse by reinforcing his negative line of thinking. and then at the end when he's holding her dying body, lamenting that he couldn't do more for her, she's like, "it's okay. you came." THATS WHAT HES BEEN DOING THIS WHOLE TIME??? no. no. this is too irritating lmao

i don't hate kikyo (most of the time) i just think a) inuyasha deserves better b) they are nooot compatible. also, most inukik shippers i've met turned me off from the ship even more.

anyway inukag and kagkik are a thousand times more compelling >>>

rating: 10/10 no notes

okay, but genuinely, i love sesskagu. i don't talk about them a lot, but they really are one of the more interesting pairings imo. opposites in many ways, but also very similar. sesshomaru, so certain of whom he is, and kagura, still trying to recover her body and identity for herself. sesshomaru, who travels the lands at his own pace, and kagura, who wishes to be free as the wind. sesshomaru and rin, kagura and kohaku. both haughty and powerful, but with contrasting personalities. wouldn't hurt to give sesshomaru someone (who would bully him) to banter with either.

also, i have a super specific headcanon of kagura teaching rin wind magic....i just need more rin and kagura interactions please im begging.

anyway 10/10. sesskagu sepremacy.

[dickgraysonsptsd]

okay and what about YOUR dickie suit opinions? im curious

OKAY YAYYYYY this is very long so do not click the expand button unless you want this thing unleashed on your dash!!

mulletwing + gliderwing. absolutely radiant. stunning. masculine in a deliriously gay manner. the gold feathers/plating look SOOOO good. the wing-like cape is elegant and cheesy in equal measure. he looks COOL and BEAUTIFUL and DISTINCTIVE and ICONIC and OF THE TIMES and LIKE MEN LUST FOR HIM

2. every robin suit with his legs fully out.

3. nightwing 1996 suit. my favorite post-disco suit! the V chevron looks so much sleeker and more beautiful without the bird head imo and it comes with the beloved fingerstripes <3 if i'm just rotating dickie in my mind it's nearly always in this suit <333

4. classic discowing. you look BEAUTIFUL babygirl!!!! special mention to the front of the suit being zippable.... why do you have a zipper there if not for men to use it to expose your chest mid-combat ?

5. riddle of the beast elseworlds corpse fit. this is such a great fantasy reimagining of mulletwing and also bruce keeps dick's corpse in it next to his throne after dick dies which rockets it up the list by sheer brudickosity. (his actual riddle of the beast outfit is so-so, i'd put it in the bottom quarter of his suits total)

6. agent 37. that chest harness is clearly designed for men to grab onto to yank him closer to them. and such a brave choice deserves respect.

7. white knight. for a comic that made me viscerally disgusted with its spineless centrism and sheer fumbling incompetence, dick looks good here! i love his jacket, and although the suit is a fairly generic variation on the rebirth suit as far as i can tell, it still looks sleek and stylish!

8. renegade. as an evil variant on his nw '96 suit, GREAT!!!!! i love that the renegade logo still looks vaguely birdlike but looks MORE like some kind of military plane or drone... very fitting :)

9. redondo suit. i don't care for redondo's art but this suit really has that "mecha pilot's suit getting shredded apart moments before sex" energy and that compels me

10. btas comic sugar glider. look at him. i want to snap him out of the air like a dog biting a floating soap bubble.

11. hipstripes suits. very kind of the artists to mark exactly where men are supposed to grab him

12. n52 suit. i like the chest logo design on this suit A LOT but it's ruined by not being blue T_T and also T_T by being n52 T_T

13. teen titans cartoon time travel episode. the bird logo is far too chunky. points deducted. i also don't care for the silver/metal belt and gauntlets, but they're appropriate for the overall design choices in tt cartoon so they can be forgiven...... THIS time.

14. young justice cartoon. you are nothing to me.

15. titans tv. i love this version of dick as a character (he's sooo pathetic he has such big wet brown eyes he's so pretty he is SO tormented) but the armor on this suit makes it look terrible imo. leaning into a more masculine armored Cool Super Hero vibe for dick is just not the play

16. gotham knights video game suit. the same "you tried too hard to make him masc" issue as above but without brenton thwaite's air of tragic bisexual melancholy

17. all robin costumes with pants. get his thighs out. what's wrong with you. are you jacking off to him with pants ON? what kind of freak pervert are you

18. batman. it makes me so unbelievably sad LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!

and a link to strawbearri-frog's which is good and funny

[blissfullyunawares]

Hi friends! I’m a writer and I want to share some of my best templates with you!

My favorite pages in my writing composition notebook:

Character Development Worksheet

Name / Nickname

Age / Gender

Heritage / Family

Motives

Strengths

Weaknesses

Backstory

Setting / Time Period

Other Details / Notes

Dialogue Prompts

Essentially: Someone says something to your character, how do they respond?

Purpose: Character Development

Writing Prompts

Essentially: Something happens, an action or event, and your fictional world or characters respond or adapt

Purpose: World Building & Writing Practice

7 Act Structure

The structure gives me a way to plot the story, insert the characters, and build a compelling narrative that moves toward a set arc. This allows each character to find motive to move forward.

This is what I’m referring to:

🫶🏻 Tag for Credit OP: @thewritingumbrellas

I renamed them or gave them a short list of alternate names for each act to allow for my own interpretation.

The Realization (Act7) for example, in my mind is the Resolution, Acceptance, or Rejection and the perfect place for a good ending, tragic outcome, or cliff hanger.

List: Possible Character Names

One of the biggest roadblocks I found as a writer is the Internet (I know, I know!) and my solution for this was writing the old school way (pen and paper, baby!).

In the back of my notebook, I’ve written down possible names I would use in future stories. No need to generate names, no need to get distracted.

There’s a list for first names, and a list of last names, so there’s no need to sorry about looking it up.

List: Public Places

World building is fun, and I want mine to be immersive, so I’ve included a list of public places that range from ancient civilizations, to Victorian era Canada, to the Wild West.

A quick run through my list of places and I’ll have an idea of where my characters are off to on their next adventure!

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[oh-no-its-bird]

Favorite Naruto Character?

Impossible question!!! It changes by the day depending on what fic I'm reading tbh

I feel like if I'm asked this on the street on a time limit, my default answer would probably be Tobirama? But like in part just bc hes what I'm known for/started out writing, so

But like, in the running for favorite uhh

Kakashi is amazing, forever and always. Specifically team Ro era him, I have a mild obsession w his younger iterations bc of the edge factor and also just how fun it is how he fucking shapeshifts into a new guy depending on his stage of life. U can get functionally, like, 4 or 5 completely different characters out of him purely based on how old he is, it's fascinating

Orochimaru. My beloved. He fascinates me. His gender. His crimes. His snakes. I love snakes. I love him. The unbeatable comedy of him being a fucking housewife in Boruto never ceases to amaze me. On me and my girlfriends first date I spent an entire 20 minutes talking about Orochimaru. She did not and does not know anything ab Naruto. This is a true fact you can ask her. I do not regret a single minute of it.

Tobirama, ofc, I fucking love mad scientists and maybe he isn't Orochimaru crazy but by god is he some brand of lunacy. His morally grey (arguably, at times, black) ways and rizless autism has enchanted me...I can not let him go

Izuna is way up there too, fanfiction has convinced me to love him and he remains one of the characters I find easiest to write. Somehow he worms his way into my fics and aus without even meaning for it to happen. The Izuna Sickness(tm)

Ok now imagine a little space here as I mention my runner ups / secondary favorites

Gaara. I love Gaara. I need more Gaara centric fics. I have very little to say or write about him myself and I never talk ab him on here but I love him. He is The Character Most Ever in my heart. Every day I scream and cry over the fact I've probably read all the Gaara centric time travel and crossover fics out there. So fucked up. I don't trust my own skill to write him. My hands are not shaped for it. I read a Gaara/Izuna/Tobirama time travel fic once and it changed my life.

HIKAKU. HIKAKU IS ALSO ON THE LIST. NOT REALLY BUT LIKE. HES UP THERE. FUCK. I LOVE HIM. He is a blank slate and it's arguable if he even fr fr exists but I don't care he means the world to me. The strong Hikaku warriors of ao3 (mostly Domoz) showed me the true beauty that is Hikaku. I fell in love with him. He exists in the back of my mind constantly.

Obito is not The Favorite but he's also up there. Specifically like. The deranged takes of him. Obito being a freak is my bread and butter, but this may also be linked to the fact that Kakashi is in the running for The Favorite(tm) so like. Maybe I'm just projecting my own love for Kakashi onto Obito then having way too much fun making him comedicallt weird ab it

The list goes on tbh, there are SO many naruto characters out there it's kind of insane. I became a little bit infatuated w Utakata at one point but the tragically little content for him lead to me getting distracted by characters with characters w more content for them. Sasuke and Neji I also find super compelling and occasionally have fits of tearing ao3 apart in search of content for them.

Ik u didn't ask and this is a ship and not a person but like. Also Kiba/Kankuro. Honey Honey Honey by @late-cambrian changed my brain chemistry forever and made me spiral for a little bit as it convinced me to love Kiba and Kankuro as a ship and as characters. I think I've talked about the fic before actually, it remains a favorite. I need more Kiba content, I fucking love dog boys (as I'm sure u can tell)

I'm sorry u asked me a simple question and I went on a rant, oops. In my defense it really is impossible to choose— ask me again in a month and I might give u a different answer, who knows

[maladaptivewriting]

marauders era characters and their favorite movies

if they lived in the muggle world circa 2024

remus: little miss sunshine brutal and disturbingly human, but intertwined with themes of love, family, support, and healing

james: talladega nights the theme of this movie is that friendship is magic. you know james was saying "if you're not first, you're last" for years after seeing this movie. also he tried to create a shake-and-bake thing with sirius

sirius: howl's moving castle "that howl is so fucking hot" "he literally just looks like you" "exactly" sirius sees himself as this main love interest (howl) and he sees remus as sophie, especially when she's an old woman that howl has to take care of. all he wants to do is take care of remus

peter: bridge to terabithia peter seems like the kind of person to find stories of tragical childhood friendships really compelling. he also loves josh hutcherson (who doesn't)

regulus: the secret life of walter mitty he relates to the main character - a man who is controlled and meticulous but longs to go on an adventure. he also wishes that sirius would pull him out of his monotonous life and into the unknowable but with complete acceptance of who he is.

lily: little women in the way that i feel like i've been shot every time i watch a movie involving complicated mother/daughter relationships, lily would be deeply compelled by stories about sisterhood. especially jo and amy who always feel second to each other

mary: princess mononoke she would relate to the main character and be very enthralled by ashitaka. definitely a comfort watch for her.

marlene: raising arizona or zoolander she loves absurdist comedies with lovable and endearing characters. she is also low-key attracted to nick cage when he was young, but don't tell anyone, it's a secret.

dorcas: arrival or parasite dorcas has unequivocally good movie tastes. she likes high concept stories with heavy thematic writing and devastating plots. she talks about them in detail for weeks afterward

pandora: midsommar and pan's labyrinth she loves movies with comically intense violence. she finds high control groups fascinating. she definitely loves pan's labyrinth because of the freaky monsters and the fact that it sounds like it could belong to her

xenophilius: the twilight saga he knows every detail and loves to examine the story from all sides. he and pandora bond over the fact that carlisle is a joseph smith archetype.

evan: deadpool evan sees deadpool as barty and loves the character because of it. he is also envious of the characters freedom to be himself

barty: the mummy he just thinks that everyone in this movie is really fucking hot

snape: pride and prejudice (2005) finds it super romantic and loves the way characters talk and deliver lines. he listens to the soundtrack as background music while he works.

frank longbottom: spiderman (no way home) no one was more excited than he was when the three spiderman characters interacted. he cried a lot when watching this movie

alice: narnia it was her sexual awakening ;)

narcissa: glass onion she loves a who-done-it story, she reads mystery novels all the time and she thought this one was the most exciting

bellatrix: barbarian or bones and all she watches bones and all like "when is it my turn to be happy?" and she watches barbarian like "what is it like to have a mother who loves you?" everyone thinks she's crazy

lucius: dune or the king he sees himself as the king. that scene where robert pattinson's character is slipping around in the mud and timmy's character is standing there unbothered - that's how lucius pictures himself and arthur weasley. he also thinks of his own family when he watches dune

also this came from a question that @wolfpadx asked in the discord and i just had to elaborate on my thoughts.

[instantpansies]

sfth abigail is very tricky for me to headcanon bc i can't decide which is better: "tragically heterosexual" trans woman profoundly isolated in suburbia trapped in the only relationship she thinks she can have, or extremely in-denial seemingly cishet housewife caught up in traditional gender roles after a failed career in a male-dominated field and reminded of it every day.

both are so good and so full of potential and i can do both but it does have a bearing on how i approach a specific timeline/storyline i'm working on. idk, trans!abigail is so compelling bc she's in this very normative, very not-queer space and marriage, and i can imagine her experience as being just. so lonely. and she feels stuck there, in such a precarious position where there's nothing quite wrong but nothing at all right. and the trappings of suburbia are very restrictive of how she can even talk about herself or her marriage or her life. i also just get a very queer vibe from most of tom's women characters and abigail is no exception.

cis!abigail is super compelling too!!! mainly bc i think she is deeply closeted about something and i want to give her a horrible lesbian crisis in the middle of her decaying marriage. and i think that a trans woman who has been queer for a long time having a sexuality crisis is a very different situation from a middle-aged straight woman who has never even considered it and barely knows queer people exist. additionally, a cis woman marrying someone she met during her career, with the constant reminder of her failure and the weight of living up to her new role as a wife, has a ton of potential.

either way, gender is really important to (my interpretation of) abigail's character, and i want to find a way to depict her relationship with her gender and gender roles and her place in the society in which she finds herself, in a way that is interesting and compelling and does her justice. both are good, i just can't decide what to do for this storyline (that will end up determining how i think about and synthesize her story in general).

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

2024 Fic Roundup

Thank you to @hobbitwrangler for the tag!

Total Words Published at End of Year: 75,841

Fandoms: LOTR for writing, all Tolkien for reading

Highest Everything (raw kudos, hits, comments): I’m a firm believer that stats just make people miserable, so I don’t want to put too much focus on them (also, my own favorites and the stat favorites do not always overlap much!). But these are my top performers of the year:

Hits: The Guardian

Kudos: The Guardian

Comments: Where Now the Horse and the Rider

New Things I Tried: A bunch of things! Multi-chapter fics. Delving into some darker material. Embracing my inner weirdo who really just wants to write about the most obscure lil’ guys (gn) who are in the books for half a second. 

Fic I Spent the Most Time On: Where Now the Horse, though that’s just because it was 8 chapters. On a chapter for chapter basis, it was probably Unwary, not for the writing but for the constant tweaking.

Fic I Spent the Least Time On: What Do We Say, written in its entirety during one boring meeting. 

Favorite Thing I Wrote: Hmm. Hard. I am emotionally invested in the relationship I built for Guthláf and Wídfara in Where Now the Horse and, of course, I’m deeply committed to my boy Háma in Hewn and Sewn. But I think I can recognize that Unwary is probably the best thing I wrote, and I am really proud of it. 

Favorite Thing(s) I Read: This is even harder! I could go on *forever* and I’m certain even then I’d be forgetting things. A non-exhaustive list:

the plain sight of our destiny is the cruelest fate of all by @hobbitwrangler . Stunningly compelling and gorgeously creepy and utterly fascinating look at things going very wrong in Umbar.

Cultivation by @dilettantefeminist . An elf healer apprentice of Elrond’s who is now living among the Men of Dale, this has one of my favorite OCs ever, immersive worldbuilding and is by turns witty, fun, dramatic and emotional!

An Anchor Incarnate by @eilinelsghost . A series of shorts featuring my Silm fave Gwindor that is both lovely and my absolute *ideal* balance of happy and sad, tragic and affirming.

Hemlock and Niphredil by @thescrapwitch . Elrond and Thingol in Valinor bonding over the shared grief of losing a daughter who loves a mortal man. I cried. A beautiful heartbreaker.

PHORSEsuasion by @celeluwhenfics . I love Jane Austen and I love Tolkien and I love Rohan and  I love interesting and active women characters and this has ALL of those things rolled into one!

Taken c. 3 by @sotwk . When you want an angsty romance with a bold and strong woman and a super hot, noble guy (in the form of Éomer!), you can’t find better than this.

I was also lucky enough this year to have two things that were written for me or with me partly in mind, and I *deeply* treasure them both: Moon River by @frodothefair and Sweets in a Time of War by dilettantefeminist. Both beautifully written, dealing with weighty and thought provoking ideas in unusual ways and tailored perfectly to my own most specific interests! I’m so grateful for them!❤️

Writing Goals for 2025: I’m not great at setting specific goals (see, for instance, my haphazard professional career). I mostly just want to keep doing what I want to do with my little niche interests and keepnmyself motivated by exploring new/different characters and ways of approaching them. Look for (hopefully) more stuff about Vidumavi, Dúnhere and his wife, something set in a border community between Rohan and Dunland, and more Elfhelm.

*****

I’m afraid that I’ve seen a bunch of these year-end reviews and now I can’t remember who has been tagged yet and who hasn’t. So if you haven’t and you’d like to do a review, please consider this your tag!

[lurkinginnernarrator]

Hello, it's MXTX Ask Game :

1.) From the 3 works by MXTX, who is your favorite (canon) couple? Why?

2.) From the 3 works by MXTX, do you have any non canon fav ships?

(FYI, I have at least 10 non canon ships from those 3 series, sorry)

3.) From the 3 works by MXTX, do you have any favorite quotes (from each series)?

4.) Who is your favorite love interest in MXTX three novels (luo binghe, lan wangji, mobei jun or hua cheng)? Why?

5.) Who is your favorite mc in MXTX three novels (shen qingqiu, wei wuxian, shang qinghua or xie lian)? Why?

6 a.) Which do you think is more tragic : Yi City arc or BeefLeaf arc or the Fallout between Shen Jiu - Yue Qi? Why?

b.) Can I ask your opinion on the comparison between bingqiu, wangxian, moshang, and hualian (their plus and minus sides)?

1:

I love all the main couples, but just based on the pairing alone I'd say Hualian, from aesthetics to the journey they went through, it's all very pleasing to look at. As some say, Hualian invented love

2. All of the ships of SVSSS, a rarer favourite of mine being Zhushen. But I enjoy all of them, and I enjoy the character dynamics in any flavour of romantic, platonic or something more unique.

3. That one passage in SVSSS where it talks about Qing Jing being a daycare for ADHD children kills me every time, Xie Lian's iconic "I cannot get erect" and Wen Qing's and Wei Wuxian's whole "Thank you, and I'm sorry."

4. They're all super entertaining! No shade to Bingmei, Wangji-xiong and Mobei-jun but I'd have to say Hua Cheng, reason one being: He's the cuntiest. His jangly boots? Cunty. His monologues? Yes. (When his little monologue to Qi Rong was animated in the donghua I was OBSESSED. I need to be him.) Also I love what he's done with ghost city specifically.

5.Shen Qingqiu, AKA Shen Yuan.

The narrative style immediately hooked me due to its humor, and the special way he looks at the world in part due to transmigration and in whole due to his own mindset and character made it so much sweeter. His journey from beginning to end, especially when we get to the extras makes it so impactful when you return to the beginning and see such a stark difference. His little quirks, and how he's practically unarmed against politeness is hilarious.

Watching him struggle and come to terms with the personhood of the people around him was gratifying, and unfortunately for me, slightly relatable.

He's just so supremely enjoyable.

(Honorable mention here for Wei Wuxian, I adore the sibling dynamics in MDZS so much, especially Yunmeng Trio. I will be forever thankful to the untamed for it.)

6.a)Oh this is HARD.

I am only on Volume Six of TGCF, but from what I've seen of beefleaf so far... It wins. Qijiu devastates me continually, but He Xuan offing Shi Wudu in front of Shi Qingxuan? The tragedy is incomprehensible. The connection between beeflead is worse than dead, it's tainted irrevocably. And the worst part is I can't bring myself to blame just one person. Shi Wudu's motivations compel me, and He Xuan's are completely justified.

And Shi Qingxuan is caught in the middle. Losing a brother to a dear friend. He's the nexus of tragedy in this case.

6.b)

Devotion is the characteristic that strikes me as a throughline of all the pairings, Bingqiu, Moshang, Wangxian, Hualian.

(I'm going to try and keep this short lol)

Shen Qingqiu's devotion is fully demonstrated in the Holy Mausoleum arc, and Luo Binghe's is clear to anyone besides Shen Yuan.

Shang Qinghua's devotion is demonstrated during Maigu Ridge, and when Mobei-jun is left vulnerable during his subsuming of the ancestral Mobei martial aspect. And Mobei-jun's devotion is so beautifully and gently demonstrated through the pulled noodles.

Wei Wuxian's devotion isn't given as much of a spotlight due to the circumstances and time it takes him to get to the point of realization and acceptance, but his continual attentiveness and inherent trust in Lan Wangji, are clear even in his first life. The confession is a clear moment of devotion to me.

Lan Wangji's devotion is well chronicled. His very life is built around devotion. His musical compositions reflect it, his ideals are inspired by it, his family is grown by it. In Wei Wuxian's second life there isn't a moment where Lan Wangji isn't in a mindset of devotion. I think his greatest act of devotion, (though I think there was more than simple devotion at play) was his decision to take in Wen Yuan.

I cannot speak as well for Hualian, as I don't have the full context yet, but what is the bond between God and believer if not devotion? A beautiful form of devotion is worship, and Hua Cheng is a skilled master at all forms of it.

Thank you for the ask, and I hope I answered it adequately!