#take me: romance arc

[idleminds]

[clfixationstation]

one thing that I will criticize about Mikasa's character is that she doesn't understand Eren's (and Armin's) dream at all. The only insight we're offered into Mikasa's perspective of their dream is that she doesn't understand it and doesn't know what they're going on about. Like?? She doesn't get Eren's basic motivations?? Unless I completely missed something, Mikasa doesn't know that Eren wanted to explore an unoccupied world with Armin or that he desires 'freedom'. Which again, are Eren's base-level motivations. And she just. Isn't allowed to know??

[specialagentartemis]

something I see a lot, and feel like I have to remind myself regularly not to fall into the trap of:

It’s easy to relate to a character. It’s easy to see yourself in them, to see them as Like You. There’s power in that.

But I’ve met several people now who’ve gotten really angry and upset with me for not liking their fave, or for having a very different interpretation of the character than they do. People who relate so hard to a character, project so hard onto a character, that me not liking them, me acknowledging that the character is a villain, or me just having a different interpretation of that character’s relationships and motives, feels like an attack on them as a person—and they respond to me as such.

I’ve seen it happen enough that I try to consciously remind myself. Other’s people’s interpretations of a character are not an attack on me. I know who I am and that will not change if other people are wrong about have a different perspective on my favorite character.

[ottosbigtop]

Look at my pc boy. My funny Druid dwarf. Also shoutout to this game for letting me go by they/them every time i hear a character refer to me i turn into the wojack pointing image

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

If I could be arsed to learn how to edit videos and had some kind of mic, I would 110% make a two part video essay series on the politics of Jurassic World because MY GOD, there's so much to dissect.

The first part would be about how the park is the epitome of neoliberal futurism for techbros, including the way the park so easily falls apart though I doubt that aspect is purposeful. Everything is aesthetic first and function second, and we can't possibly use any of the reliable infrastructure we've already come up with because a train is not gonna get us to Mars, but a monorail might.

And the second would be about the buckwild terrible gender politics going on. The movie is deeply unsympathetic to Claire seemingly because she's a woman who prioritised her career as it's both centre to her character arc and also an inciting event of one of the plots. Not to mention the whole Zara thing or the Owen and Claire thing or the stupid "him, I meant him, line. The movie is rife with misogyny, but it feels like that specific misogyny was isekaied over from backlash to second wave feminism.

I could talk about it all for so long because in a way, it feels like a perfect time capsule for 2015. Back when people took Claire running in heels to be this feminist statement to be made fun of and not just a deeply misogynistic movie trying to sell you feminism. And back when Elon Musk managed to get away with his "I'm the real life Iron Man" shit, and people believed he was smart and all his plans would come to fruition. 2015 was a great time to be a tech bro in Silicon Valley with people just throwing money at all your fake promises.

Yeah. See. This is what I mean when I say I could talk about it forever.

[princehendir]

🔥gale

Threatening to off yourself is always bad and that whole "i will set off my bomb vest and kill us both" thing reflects very poorly on him in a way that some are too quick to dismiss, but also like tbh if you the player chose the specific dialogue options that lead to that I'm not really sure what you expected.

[oh-no-its-bird]

I think a 'surviving as a maid' oneshot where Ash and the queen run away together would cure my depression actually

Same for a fic just about Mio and archmage Ciel interacting in literally any way tbh bc what the fuck the author really thought they could pull a "and there was only one bed" and just have us (the readers) let that slide???? Bitch I see you and I'm so here for it— honestly both from the casual familialness of it and potential shipping. I adore both possible angles of this dynamic

Mio, Ash and archmage Ciel as a dysfunctional little family / maybe throuple (but also it's incredibly unclear what's even happening there) is so compelling to me I'm sorry I'm fully checked out of like all other ships bc that dynamic is so interesting in literally all directions

Rolling it back to Ash and the Queen too, they have such good chemistry and I adore every scene they share together. The Queen has such this like gentle, elegant, tragic air to her that you can just tangible feel. The way I lose my fucking mind whenever Ash gets any real emotion out of her, just, ag. I love them. Fuck.

I can not find a single fic for this webtoon and this saddens me deeply. I think I need to fix this fact immediatley tbh

[sylphwing]

hm. i do not like chilshi 🤔

[bereft-of-frogs]

In my own self defense, it’s also not that I have any sort of blanket issue with romance as part of corruption arcs: because I truly cannot stop chewing on Marda Ro’s corruption. I genuinely love her character arc and there are TWO romances in it (plus all the real toxic shit in ‘A Closed Fist Has No Claws’)

I think the difference for me comes down to the love/loss between the two books feeding into Marda's preexisting convictions. She had such a strong belief system and clear motivations, which is why I think the Path of Deceit ending worked so well* to show how the romance subplot pushed her further into those beliefs, rather than upending them, and that was just super compelling to me

*(for me at least, I know some people didn't click with it, there have been a few Reddit threads about how it wasn’t clear why Marda flips on Kevmo so quickly, but it clicked with me really well)

anyway, Marda Ro's fall from naive girl who might have eventually chilled out a bit to leader of a violent death cult via a path littered with corpses is genuinely one of my favorite character arcs

[fastcardotmp3]

Re: the tags of that post you just reblogged from me - AU where Steve and Eddie swap roles for just the final fight (Eddie’s with the girls, Steve’s with Dustin) but with an added subplot where we meet Steve’s parents early in the season & maybe they’re trying to get him to grow up/move out/think about his future, or something else, but they’d have to feature somehow so we still get that ending scene except it’s Robin telling his parents he didn’t make it (im picturing a very tragic recontextualising around the phrase “you need to do something with your life” leading to Steve drawing the bats away from Dustin)

That’s just my quick thoughts though, I’d love to know how you’d do it!

oh I LOVE this you've got my brain spinning I have so many thoughts and it's all your fault!!!

(I am so sorry for how long this got)

I think there are for sure many versions of this plotline that could work BUT here goes nothing

I definitely agree that we'd need to introduce Steve's parents early on (in my ideal world we'd have met them sooner than s4 for this plotline but alas I'm not in charge I'm simply posthumously script doctoring) and I think one version of the conversation there could come from a place of wanting what's best for him, but centering itself around ambition and choice in a way that sticks with Steve.

"You had so much ambition when you were still in school, Steve-- all of your sports, how sociable you were-- what happened to that? Where did you lose that along the way?"

And Steve flounders a little bit, because he's gotten to the point after season 3 where he can see himself better from the outside, is just that touch more self aware and good at reading not just other people's feelings but his own.

So it takes him a beat to put it into words, but he's able to, is the thing--

"Maybe I don't need to go down the-- the usual path to end up where I want to end up."

"Is this where you want to end up?" his mother asks, "working at a video store for the rest of your life?"

"It's not about that," Steve shrugs, pouring two travel mugs of coffee all the while, one for him and one for Robin.

Because he knows it's not about that, he spent all of last summer learning it's not about that and the months since discovering that there's a certain amount of peace in knowing that things aren't perfect but that matters less when you have your people around.

"What's it about then? Steve, I just-- I don't want you to get stuck here, when I know you could do so much more with your life if you just chose to."

"I'm not doing nothing with my life, Mom!" he laughs, exasperated but certain for once in his goddamn life. "I'm-- I'm actually doing really well right now, I've got good friends and I've got the kind of job where I'm kept busy while I figure out what's next for me and I'm just... happy, I guess? Like, can't my ambition just be to keep doing stuff that makes me happy? Can't I choose that?"

And he has to go to work, has to walk out and promise her that they'll talk about it more later, talk about it with his dad too, but Steve knows what he cares about and this isn't going to shake his resolve.

What he cares about is this group of people who have changed his life even more than the monsters did, who brought enough good into it to at the very least match the bad, and in some cases (like the girl already monologuing as she climbs into the front seat of his car and accepts her coffee with a mocking kiss to his cheek) somehow usurp the bad.

Steve doesn't have to be what this town expects of him, what most likely to end up rich superlative voters expect of him, what his parents expect of him, because his life isn't about being any particular something, it's in the doing.

It's in the swinging of a baseball bat, the swinging of his fists to keep the people he loves safe.

It's in the morning drives to get Robin to school on time and the late night ones to make sure Dustin meets curfew.

It's in the friendship he's managed to find with Nancy in the past year, the knowledge that this version of them is the best one by far.

It's in the days driving the kids to the trailer park to visit Max even if she ultimately ends up refusing to come out with them, because at least they're doing it, at least they're trying with her.

It's in this, too, when they drive out to Reefer Rick's place and some of the claims of happiness start slipping through Steve's fingers again with the proof that it isn't over, the fight.

But they've beat it before and they can beat it again. It's in the doing, and Steve has gotten knocked down many a time but the thing he always does is he always gets up on the other side.

He knows this. He trusts in this. He's built a fucking worldview around this because that's where his ambition went, Mom.

That's what happened to "Steve Harrington, actually a cool dude."

Steve's humble enough to thank Eddie for saving his ass, but he's done this enough times to still be able to reassure the guy who calls him badass that, "It always looks hopeless right before we win. Don't freak out too bad if it looks like the end of the world, huh?"

Eddie looks at him like he has two heads, says he's jealous of Steve's optimism.

Even Robin tells him that she thinks they might not win this time but all Steve knows is that they always have before. All Steve knows is that his instincts usually work out, let him protect the rest of them long enough to make the big and vital moves necessary to beat this thing.

All Steve knows is that he just, he's changed a lot but-- He's just the same kid who was cocky enough to run back into the Byers' house to fight a monster, stubborn enough to let the Russian's beat the hell out of him before he'd let them do the same to Robin and he--

"I don't know, I still have hope. Maybe this is the first time we actually win. Forever."

There's this sense of finality to it, hanging in the air, and she doesn't look convinced there in the same way she doesn't look convinced when he and Dustin are saying goodbye to the other three at Eddie's trailer, but Steve kisses her once on the forehead and says, "what are you waiting around for? Go kick some ass, your schmuck will be here when you're done."

His instincts have always protected them in the past.

It's his instincts that have him formulating a plan the second he realizes the bats are going to get inside the trailer, going to make a break for the gate and attack whole swaths of people unprepared for such a thing.

Dustin will be mad about being abandoned on the other side, but Steve's pissed him off before and he's always gotten over it.

It's in the doing, his ambition.

It's in the doing, the key to a well-spent life.

It's in the doing, the being of Steve Harrington, overconfident nature and all.

He always gets back up, every knock to the head and blow to the ego, Steve always gets back up, so he holds his ground and fights. Leads the bats away and keeps them there.

His mother wasn't wrong that he's changed, but she wasn't right when she claimed the thing he'd lost was his ambition. He'd found it, this force of nature in his chest that makes him willing to face down hell if it means the people he loves are safe.

He always gets back up, a tail around his throat.

He always gets back up, teeth in his flesh.

Steve Harrington is a pro at getting knocked down.

"I'll get up in a second, just-- just a second--"

"Steve there's-- there's so much blood-- Steve, you need to-- you have to get up now--"

"It's okay, it's okay, we won, just-- just another minute. Wanna see that-- Rob and the others made it back. Then we--can go--"

Dustin is crying. Dustin is holding him.

And Steve is bleeding out, he thinks somewhere indistinct and hazy at the back of his mind. He'll get up and fix that in a minute.

"You die, I die! Hey, hey motherfucker! Don't close your eyes-- you die, I die, you hear me?!"

It's in the doing, really, that Steve does as he's told just long enough to see the other three come stumbling out of the tree line towards them.

It's in the doing, in the choice of it, that he dies knowing they won.

(His mother wails when Robin approaches her at the shelter two days later with sunken eyes and unwashed hair. His father sinks into the closest chair and takes the offered keys to a maroon BMW with trembling hands.)

(It's in the doing that this time, in order to really win, they have to cling a little bit to his hope.)

[pixiesnooze]

When it comes to complex characters there needs to be more than just justification for their actions. There needs to be character arcs and developments and improvement or even a downgrade there needs to be something otherwise it’s stagnant and boring. There also needs to be acknowledgement that, yes they had undergone traumatic situations and experiences and that makes us as reader understand the THOUGHT PROCESS behind the characters actions, HOWEVER that does not mean that those action are inconsequential. For every action made by the character and every decision taken by the character there is an outcome and whether it benefits that character and imposes a (say) traumatic experience on a different character, then that is a completely separate discussion from understanding why the character had done what they had done. I can understand why they did that, in the face of their past experiences but that does not mean that it was right. Whether it was to protect themselves from hurt or having to undergo similar situations (especially trauma inducing ones), that action or decision caused another (innocent bystander) person hurt too. Does it make them a bad person? It depends. Because that is when the character arcs, the character developments the MORE to the thought process comes in. How did they, once they realised the hurt they have cause/continue to cause, undo or reflect or atone for that hurt? Just because we can understand why someone does something they do does not mean they are exempt from hurting people, and making amends, atoning. And no amount of “well they went through this” and “they went through that” and “they didn’t want to get hurt again” takes away from my previous statement.

[rotisseries]

i havent seen mha since i was like 13, is uraraka and blood girl yuri canon?

technically no but to me yeah it very much is but tragically

[bagelwizard]

new oc time!!! woah!!

So, me and the bestie @pinkhankie were chatting over Discord and decided to make a couple of silly ocs for fun, and I happened to be creator of this little Biospark loser: Beo. The other two are simply Waddle Doo and Armoria, by the previously mentioned person. Check him out!!!!!!!

Anyways, these three are a bunch of teenage besties who decided to form a rag-tag hero group consisting of a hyper orb, an exceedingly clumsy ninja in training, and a gullible robot who can't read. Surely nothing can go wrong?

[bombshellsandbluebells]

I genuinely mean this in the nicest way possible and not trying to vague blog

but I think sometimes people get a little too convinced by their own theories or the theories floating around fandom that when something doesn’t work out that way, it doesn’t just feel like a let down because what they wanted didn’t happen, it feels like things were set up and then left unresolved when I don’t think that’s always the case

[moonilit]

i have been aware of fandom ships and now because of DC i have became aware of something i will call Writers Ships, and they are much worst.

[pencilofawesomeness]

Hi! Such a big fan of your htryds series!! I absolutely love your take on shadow gear and gajeel (since most fics I read either leave jet and droy out or they kind of just ‘exist’) Will pantherlily or juvia make an appearance? Do you have a partner in mind for levy when she goes through the s-class trials herself?

Aw, thank you! And yes! Shadow Gear + Gajeel deserve some fair and equal treatment. Honestly, there's a lot of characters that get shoe-horned into this "romance-driven rival" box in FT, where they're the butt of a lot of jokes, and Droy and Jet unfortunately got this treatment. But! It's okay. I got them in my little hands and I am making them person-shaped characters because I love them and I love the idea of them. They deserve to maintain their friendship position and get more friends.

Yes! Juvia and Pantherlily are both coming eventually. If it wasn't obvious, Juvia will get her debut next arc in Runaways, lol. Juvia, like Jet and Droy, definitely deserves some extra character love and you better be believing I am prepared to give it to her. (I miss debut/ToH/BattleofFT Juvia so much.)

I will say with Juvia and Pantherlily both, the AU dictates some changes to the impending dynamics, but I'm still all for that friendship with Gajeel, plus more people, because honestly half of these AU is me looking at characters and thinking "what if they talked to more than two other people" and then running with it.

On that note, yes, I do absolutely know who Levy's partner is going to be for the S-Class trials. :D