#takes a lot of things abt his character that were most impactful in canon and just kinda throws them out

[goldenageofwireless]

thinking about . Soul again . i think our current interp of him is further from canon than we'd like but we love him soooo much . might just adopt him and make him an oc honestly

[gaymooshroom-archive]

I GOT SO MANY ok everything is under this read more please dont unfollow me for being a lorehead 🕺 also pls dont send me angry anons about these ESPECIALLY the cdreamers who are incapable of critical thought bc i know how u girls like to tussle 

🐺 - should wilbur get a redemption arc? ermm complicated question.. i think it’s clear he hasn’t shed his manipulative/selfish(?) side even if he’s definitely not vilbur anymore. i don’t think he should be like eternally tormented but i also think any characters who dont forgive him are probably justified in that. 

🙂 - should dream get a redemption arc? are u kidding me LOL no i think for the story to have any sort of satisfying ending he needs to either die or leave the server (cdream obvi not ccdream). NOT bc i dislike his character but i truly think that’s the only way he and cclingyduo can both have the ending they narratively deserve. i have my thoughts on the coolest most interesting ways for him to die but thats another question 

💏 - is tntduo /r? like.... okay. the personal canon that i work within to write fic has pogtopia-era /r ctntduo and current ctntduo being like homoerotic angsty exes who are also rivals and generally are just very complicated (these r the given circumstances of to the graveyard and likely any other canon setting ctntduo fic i write). i think in terms of actual established canon its ambiguous ❤️ i know wilbur “said” they arent but actions speak louder than words and ctntduo’s actions r lowkey gay 

hi julia 😐

👨‍❤️‍👨 - are beeduo a healthy relationship? i think cbeeduo grew out of a bit ccbeeduo wanted to do at the time and while im sure it made sense for the period when they were streaming dsmp together every day, it kind of falls apart in /srs canon. like ctubbo and cranboo hide so much from each other to the point where it seems like cranboo especially just doesn’t understand ctubbo as a person LMFAO. i think bc cbeeduo marriage exists purely bc ccbeeduo felt like doing it.. it it’s hard to parse this one out

already answered the first one !

🤩 - should karlnapity be endgame? umm im kind of ckarlnapity neutral so assuming ctntduo wont be endgame (which like... it wont be) i guess i dont care as long as my babygirl cquackity is happy ^___^ if i were writing the story i wouldnt make it endgame just bc i find it a bit boring and i think there’s more interesting things to do with those characters, but that’s just me, it wouldnt like upset me if they were endgame 

🧭 - was tubbo right to exile tommy? he wasnt RIGHT but he also was like. very obviously canonically manipulated into doing it so i dont think he’s to blame i guess. but like the logic behind ctommy’s exile was obviously bullshit because it was developed by cdream specifically to torture ctommy 💀

🧠 - is dream obsessed with tommy? yes and anyone who says otherwise is doing a disservice to cdream’s character and to ccprimeboys’s writing. cdream’s obsession with ctommy is like a primary motivation of his and that is saur interesting 

🥸 - did staged finale negatively impact punz/tommy's character arc? i have very complicated feelings on the staged disc finale... i think it’s uninteresting to have a story where the protagonists (ctommy and ctubbo) don’t get to have any wins and the disc finale was one of the first real wins they’d had in ages. however i think the real win wasn’t cdream in prison but the fact that virtually the entire server showed up in support of them, and none of that is negated by cpunz and cdream staging their interactions in particular. idk if that really answers the question but like i said i have a lot of thoughts abt the disc finale and most of them aren’t especially coherent lmfao

🦝 - do crimeboys have a toxic dynamic? yes ..i like ccrimeboys a lot but yes. there will always always always be a power dynamic bc ctommy loves being a right-hand-man and cwilbur understands and takes advantage of that -- not always in an explicitly negative way, but he definitely knows the extent of ctommy’s loyalty to him (and actively tests the loyalty of other characters in similar position to ctommy, like ctubbo and cranboo). the fact is ctommy will forgive cwilbur for almost all his faults because he’s his big brother, and cwilbur knows that. he can love and care deeply abt ctommy and still have an acute understanding of that power dynamic and make no attempts to undermine it.

🎉 - did tommy betray technoblade at the green festival? technically yes but i guess i’d say he betrayed him for all the right reasons.

ok ive done quite a few of these so let me fill in the ones i havent answered yet :))

⚔️ - are the syndicate doing the right thing? no LOL but i also dont think ur supposed to view the syndicate as being in the right, i think ppl deeply underestimate cctechno’s awareness of his character’s hypocrisy 

💚 - is dream morally gray? i think u could make that argument pre-exile but now he is just an evil little man. no moral grayness Just kind of fucked up 

🌟 - was technoblade justified in executing tubbo? absolutely not Like does anyone actually think this 😭😭 imo this was unequivocally a bad thing unless u were fsr rooting for the cschlatt administration???

[curiosity-killed]

Lang Qianqiu deserves more love goddammit: a post, unfortunately

This brought to you by the wonderful @veliseraptor & @/yuer on Twitter but also mostly out of spite and the fact that it’s preventing me from writing a very dumb poke-the-bear post abt the entire weird social media culture around The Minors

As always ✨SPOILERS!! SPOILERS EVERYWHERE✨

So first off: when I hit the scene where lqq confronts xl and screams “I will never be like you” I sat up in bed, did a little shimmy of delight, and hissed “fuck yes” at like 2 AM so. Now you have a preview of wtf this train wreck will be

1 ) lqq is a good character

We don’t get a ton of time with lqq because tgcf is 87 side characters running across stage with The Most Interesting Concept constantly one-upping each other before vanishing. But what we do get is, I think, enough to make a pretty compelling story: Lang Qianqiu is a kind and generous prince who is also the sole survivor of the bloody massacre of his entire family, committed by the people dearest to him (both in his belief that Gusohi Fangxin did it and in the reality of An Le’s involvement), who goes on to peacefully lead his fractious nation into a peaceful reign before he ascends as a powerful enough (aka beloved and worshipped enough) god to be ranked among the top heavenly generals. That’s like. Pretty fucking classic protagonist vibes right there.

And, as usual with mxtx’s characters, we get a lot more than this lovely little backstory. In his interactions in canon, lqq is capable of great grief and anger; he is willing to sacrifice himself if it means avenging his murdered family; and he simultaneously holds both great hatred and great respect for his old teacher. And, of course, he winds up raising and taking care of his enemy’s son which shows a remarkable depth of compassion and emotional messiness that I find terribly compelling. He struggles with a simplistic view of justice that is supported by lies told to “protect” him and that is uprooted by the truth and forces him to try to make sense of the world without the guardrails that others installed around him (looking at you mister fangxin sir).

Also I’m stealing my own tweets bc I’m Right but:

*pulls up single barstool to lqq is a good character table* I think it’s interesting & Says Things abt the continued relationship btwn lqq & xl that lqq *didn’t* recognize xl, implying that he left fangxin’s mask in place even when he went to kill him

Like here is the man who killed his family & best friend, who left him abandoned in bloodshed on his 17th bday—& here is also the man who saved his life, who taught him, who lqq looked up to & wanted to be like

Even when lqq *does* recognize xl, he still has so much respect for him paired with that hatred that it’s honestly rlly tragic? Like man. There’s so much grief in lqq’s repeated demands for a duel & insisting it’s fine if xl kills him as long as he doesn’t hold back

*pats lqq pompom* this bb is so sad. And so much more like his teacher than either of them seem to realize or necessarily want

Despite being a pretty minor character, lqq gets a lot of complexity and nuance! Look at this child trying to be grown up while desperately turning to his old master for guidance and “the truth”! Look at him! Be sad!!

2 ) lqq is an excellent parallel to xl

Okay stealing my own tweet again don’t look at me I yell the same shit everywhere

Xl didn’t want lqq to become like him (self-sacrificing, vengeful, alone) but lqq not only became alone, chasing vengeance, & willing to sacrifice himself for revenge—he also became kind, open-minded, & remorseful!! & he still clearly respects xl @ novel end 🙃🙃

We all know hc’s “they’re not very alike at all” and yeah sure baby go support your man but narratively, there’s a lot of importance given to cycles, parallels, and foils in mxtx’s writing and most explicitly (compared to mdzs, haven’t read svss) in tgcf. For example, *gestures at beefleaf, gestures at Xianle Trio vs Wuyogn Crew, gestures at Xie Lian & Jun Wu’s whole uh. Deal.* And while I’d argue xl and lqq are part of a triumvirate rather than a pair, we’re not including mister three-face in this conversation so just looking at xl and lqq:

Both adored and sheltered crown princes

Both taught by a guoshi who was seeking to prevent the repetition of their own tragedies and in their efforts, lied/omitted information and failed to protect their charge from tragedy

Both were betrayed* by their closest friends

Both are the last living members of their respective royal families

Both caught the interest of supernatural beings from a young age

Etc etc I’m getting v bored and distracted writing this so moving on

Most importantly to me, we have their betrayal by a very close and adored mentor and how they react. The confrontation I mention at the start of this shitshow is really imo one of the most important scenes in the novel because it a) illustrates the differences in xl and Jun Wu and b) sort of gives you a preview of how xl ultimately wins

So a) Jun Wu and Xie Lian both take a talented, marked-for ascension young prince under their wing. Jun Wu sees himself in the boy and obsesses over shaping him into Jun Wu’s own image in the belief that this will make him the perfect heir. Jun Wu pushes his chosen heir into situations where Xie Lian is repeatedly harmed in an effort to show that the common people are fickle and cruel and don’t deserve his compassion and care.

Meanwhile, Xie Lian is reluctantly roped into mentoring his prince due to his inability to stand aside when he feels he could do something to prevent hurt or injustice befalling another (simultaneously his great strength and great weakness! God I love him). Xie Lian tries to teach his student to believe in and care for the common people and not to sacrifice himself (see: flashback convo re:taking the force of the sword strike into his own body).

When Xie Lian refuses to bend in the shape Jun Wu demands, Jun Wu bashes his head into the wall. When Lang Qianqiu cries “I will never be like you!”, Xie Lian laughs and says “Good!”.

B) this of course feeds directly into foreshadowing! Like Lang Qianqiu’s bold words, xl ultimately refuses to become like his mentor and remains defiant even when it would stop him from being hurt. Xl beats lqq and says so what if I tricked you, so what if I lied, I still won. Naturally, xl beats Jun Wu not through standard swordplay but by using a trick he learned while forced to busk and wander the earth alone and unlucky for centuries.

…okay so I have fully forgotten what I was actually saying here! Anyway!

Like Xie Lian, Lang Qianqiu spends a time consumed with the need for vengeance, hunting his enemy and rejecting the heavens. And like Xie Lian, he winds up caring for his enemy’s “son” and trying to both comfort him and maintain what’s left of Qi Rong’s life force despite having previously been hellbent on destroying him—bc he sees the impact it has on another person. In the end, he even gives a gift to Xie Lian—his mentor, his role model, and the one who killed his father—that was once given to him as a symbol of unexpected kindness. Sound familiar?

But, importantly, and contradictory to what I have been yelling abt but whatever it’s 12:30 am, Lang Qianqiu is not a direct mirror of Xie Lian but a closing of a vital loop in the story. Lqq is very similar to xl (I will die on this hill!! Only I won’t bc I’m stronger than y’all and will keep swinging these pots and pans) but bc xl tries to do better and keep lqq from suffering the way xl has, lqq is able to have a gentler and more optimistic path forward. He’s proof that even a small act of kindness or even kindness to only one person still matters and has a ripple effect that can’t be seen when you’re in the middle of it—a thread started with xl giving the coral pearl to Lang Ying and closed with Lang Qianqiu returning the pearl to Xie Lian.

So I have no idea if any of this is coherent or compelling but I meant to be asleep two hours ago and the points are:

A) Lang Qianqiu is good actually

B) parallels!!!

C) look ive already started another wip about Lang Qianqiu and Xie Lian and I didn’t want this but no one else wrote it so now I have to so pls just accept this as a warning

*sort of air quotes around this for Xie Lian bc frankly Mu Qing was right & Xie Lian kicked feng xin out BUT on the other hand, it was experienced as a betrayal and we also again have all of Jun Wu’s shit so it evens out

[hamphobicbasil]

Could u elaborate about the dsmp story being bad? Not a rabid/brain dead fan, just genuinely curious and I enjoy reading people's rants lolol

oh you dont know the floodgates you just opened

a few things:

1. despite not liking the creators of the dsmp anymore, I don't actually hate most of them. [the ones that are particularly unsavory fall outside of this of course] so all that I'm saying i truly mean in a critical sense towards the story, its also just all purely my opinion as someone who enjoys fictional and fantasy stories and who like criticizing works to see what it does well and what it doesn't do well

2. for clarification I'm going to use the c![name] to indicate when I'm talking about the characters. Don't get me wrong, I think its annoying too but its the only way I'm gonna be able to write this thing without getting something across the wrong way yknow?

3. I stopped watching the streams after November 16th, [save for one Techno one but I closed out after a particularly bad story beat lol] and so all information coming afterward is all second hand from either me seeing people on twt talk abt it or people dming me. All i really know is up to dream's imprisonment and some stuff past that.

4. This is mostly aimed towards the "main" story, so stuff abt the badlands, eggpire, and whatnot are briefly mentioned.

anyways uh, i'll try to be brief but also include enough information to get why i feel the way i do on some stuff across

A. Performances Alright obviously these people are all streamers, so obviously they might not be the best actors, and hell no one is even asking that of them. However, when you're telling a story that's based on the audio with the visuals kinda coming to a second, it's gotta be pretty strong. I will say, some of the best actors in my opinion are Wilbur, Tommy, and Tubbo. I would include Ranboo but I never watched any of his story bits or story streams so I can't say much. Wilbur and Tommy are excellent in selling their character's emotions and feelings, when I watch the stream I don't feel like I'm watching an rp but an actual thought-out story yknow? And one of my favorite Tubbo examples was in the Hog Hunt video whenever Techno attacked him, he sounded genuinely afraid and I believed everything his character was feeling.

However, unfortunately, not everyone is gonna be that good. And I'm gonna say it; Dream and Techno have to be the worst out of the entire cast. I understand Techno's whole character is this monotoned badass, however, when really emotional moments hit I feel like he never lets that fall, and a lot of intense moments just ring hollow. And I'm sorry but Dream's attempts at being intimidating leave me laughing whenever I watch them. It feels like he watched that one scene from The Marriage with Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson and said "Oh this is what good acting looks like! Just yelling." His whole "I don't give a FUCK about Spirit!" speech isn't as great as people keep making it out to be. And whenever he tries to act coy when being a villain it feels like a guy reading the script for the first time, a bit like he's trying too hard. I have more problems with his character but his portrayal certainly doesn't help.

Everyone else is fine, and I don't feel strongly either way about a lot of them.

B. The "Lore" Okay first off, I can't be the only one who thinks it's silly that people are calling the dsmp's story "lore" when it's not, it's the fucking story. Lore indicates backstory to either the world or the characters, which a lot of the streams don't really pertain to. This is a really petty section but god it's a weird pet peeve of mine.

Other than the misusage of "lore" vs "story", the actual lore and world-building of the world are so lackluster that new elements can be introduced whenever and it often feels cluttered or not well thought out at all. And here's the thing, I feel like if the writers sat down just for a few minutes to establish world rules and general history, a lot of this could be solved! but so much is made up on the spot that it starts to feel like they're grabbing at straws to keep people invested, trying to reach that next high and intense story beat without actually earning it.

C. The Egg / Eggpire This is a pretty minor note since I was only invested in the Egg storyline for a little bit, but god it's so underused that it's almost embarrassing. Bad has provided this super interesting antagonistic force that's infecting the SMP, can control people, and who one of our main character is immune to, and it's just never used or even talked about again? Now I understand if he wanted to keep it to a side storyline only, however, to introduce this borderline eldritch creature and force within the world and then never have it dealt with is so weird.

D. The Writing Oh boy this is. kinda a big one. Now I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty obvious I have a bias for the Wilbur writing over the current team [that consisting of Dream, Quackity, and Tommy mostly]. I don't this his writing is perfect by any means, the characters constantly bringing up traitors got obnoxious after a while, and writing Hamilton but in Minecraft really isn't the modern Shakespeare or anything. However, I think his exploration of characters and plot progression was a lot more thought out and well planned, like he actually had two brain cells behind the story yknow? The current team I think fails to be as emotional or even impactful, things happened too fast and my god was everything drowned in angst for so long.

Don't get me wrong, you gotta have your characters face hardships to make them reach their goal believable, but some of the shit they put the characters through just felt like too much. From c!Tubbo's constant comparison to c!Schlatt [who btw, fucking ordered his death and kept him from his friends in a nation he felt trapped in] and on a side note, i kinda really fucking dislike the "c!Schlatt dad!!" au's or the au's where c!Tubbo inherits some of Schlatt's features, it would be like c!Tommy getting a c!Dream mask after his exile, it's feels so weird yet people eat that shit up for some reason.

But god, did c!Tommy get the brunt of it all and in retrospect after his final death, it kinda feels really fucking gross. Now obviously, I'm not trusting any of these people to write decent mental health representation, but c!Tommy's PTSD and how it was explored was just degrading. [Specifically the scene in that one Techno stream where he saw the final control room from the first war, and had a flashback / panic attack where he started calling out for c!Dream. I understand this is an actual thing people with PTSD will experience, but it felt so fucking stereotypical it got on my nerves. I actually had to close out of the stream because it made me feel sick, fiction shouldn't leave you feeling that way.] And don't get me started on how they basically reused the formula from the previous arc. [Problem introduced -> Tensions rise as things start to fall apart -> Big confrontation -> Exile -> Return from Exile -> Blowing up L'Manberg, again.]

And speaking of characters-

E. Character Arcs, or the lack of them In my genuine opinion, some of these characters' arcs are so disappointing. Especially c!Tommy's. I'm not one to believe that he was a "selfish" character or anything, however, his goals were simply set on his discs and maybe c!Tubbo, he didn't have much outside that. However, L'Manberg gave him something to care about, he gave up his discs for it and he fought for it tooth and nail, I think it taught him to open up to others and trust more. It was a great character arc for him to have, seeing him still fight even after his first exile alongside c!Wilbur, to return safely to the nation that he and his found family had built.

But then his second exile happened, and I feel like all of that was undone.

c!Tommy's exile genuinely pisses me off for so many reasons. It's not that characters can't have their low points after reaching a major change or feeling like they've "completed" their arcs or anything, but it's more of the fact that it seems like he's never going to heal that feels like a spit in the face, especially to people who might have had setbacks like that before. Progress isn't linear, sometimes things happen and you get knocked back down, it can take a while to get back up, but I don't think c!Tommy's character is ever going to be allowed to get back up. From c!Dream, who pretty much was a constant abuser in his life, killing him then reviving him, and his still fractured relationship with c!Tubbo, which by the way I have a had time believing they would still be friends after all that happened, it feels like he can never get a win and it's generally kinda a shit way to treat your characters who have been abused. Of course, not all abused characters are going to get happy endings, I'm not trying to dictate that they all should, but c!Tommy deserves one and the fact that it's so obscure feels shitty.

Side note: we still don't have a canon reason to give a shit abt the discs. Like I'm sorry but without some sorta connection to the MacGuffin why should we give a shit about him getting them other than "he wants them lol". Like hell, I would even accept the classic "they were the last gifts from his parents" or something, but we still don't have a reason.

c!Tubbo also lacks a fulfilling arc as well, from someone who started out as a yes man, he has progressed a bit into having his own interests first, but besides that sometimes his character makes me so. depressed. He's easily one of the most pushed around and hated characters within the story, all for being a kid who didn't know what to do and he's in the same vein as c!Tommy; these kids can't get a break. Also, his anti-violence beliefs morphing into the "lets kill c!Techno lol!" bit was so out of place and without proper build-up it was like. what. And now he's building nukes?? god c!Tubbo makes me so sad because he's kicked around constantly and never given a chance to grow.

Another small note, I also don't really enjoy c!Techno at all. Besides the previously stated reasons of lack of emotions when they're really needed, I find his character to be weirdly pretentious. He talks as if he's constantly been betrayed and hurt but I personally, don't see it? Like, I think one of the main examples was the Pogtopia vs. Manberg war, yknow he wanted to end the government but they just reinstated it after they won = c!Techno upset. But this doesn't make sense to me because why did he think otherwise? The entire time c!Tommy had talked about taking back their nation and starting again, so the fact that c!Techno suddenly thought there would be a sudden change is, to put it bluntly, kinda fucking stupid. I don't want to say that he "plays the victim" or anything because that feels a bit harsh, but his character feels so far up his own ass that I can't enjoy him.

I have a major grip with c!Dream as well, but that's getting it's own fucking section.

F. L'Manberg This is a quick note before we get into the, forgive me for this, endgame, of this entire rant, since the next two sections are tied together. But god, L'Manberg makes me upset because it feels like they gave up on it.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that it is supposed to be c!Wilbur's "unfinished symphony", the thing that destroyed a once charismatic and widely loved man, his attempt at power that utterly ruined him. But the fact that it just got blown up in the end after everything and left to rot felt like such a waste of time. From the first war, to Pogtopia, to even c!Tommy's exile, it all felt fucking worthless in the end, and the story is actively closer to how it was when it started now more than ever. I wished it was actually allowed to exist and continue to be a peaceful place in what is a chaotic world, but no it was just snuffed out because why dedicate to this concept of finding others you can band together with and feel safe. fuck that noise apparently?

G. The Villains Now villain-wise, I'm only talking about c!Dream [during the first war], c!Schlatt, and c!Wilbur. And believe it or not, this is actually mostly positive.

Now I'm not gonna lie, c!Dream as a staring antagonist wasn't bad actually, he posed a genuine and threatening opposition to L'Manberg, even if we didn't know his real intentions or motivations as to why he was against it. He's lucky in this sense because he didn't have to be good, he had to be passable. If anything, he felt more like an anti-hero than a tyrant or traditional villain, and my god do I wish he kept this theme going forward.

Now quick disclaimer, I don't like JSchlatt as much as the next guy, he's an adult man who should know better than to joke about some sensitive topics and act the way that he does. But the one thing I'll ever give him is that damn, was he a good actor for his character.

Now here's the thing, c!Schlatt wasn't particularly deep at all. He had no real motivations behind his exile of c!Wilbur and c!Tommy other than getting competition out of the way, had no reason to act the way that he did and yknow? that's fine. The reason why he worked was from his performance alone, he was actually intimidating. When he came onto the stream and was doing his typical bad guy stuff, it was actually intense to see what he would do. Whenever he would almost catch c!Tommy back in Manberg, whenever he would begin to pressure c!Tubbo, it put you on the edge of your seat and it felt like everything would change at the drop of a pen. He's a villain to be a villain, and this works out because he's just charismatic and well put together enough to make it interesting, even without the backstory or motives.

c!Wilbur however, is much more tragic, and the best villain of the story. He essentially was the "mentor turned evil" trope and it felt terrible watching him descend into madness, unable to trust barely anyone except for c!Techno and c!Tommy. Hell, in the end I think he still cared about them both, despite losing everything. Sure, he blew up L'Manberg, but there was still a smidge of the old c!Wilbur in there made everything he did feel melancholic. His death at the hands of his father after achieving his final wish was chilling, and something I still think about.

Until yknow, Ghostbur came back way too soon to let people feel his loss as a character within that world. And then he got revived, pretty much-undoing everything that moment meant for his character lol.

And then there's the worst one:

H. Dream. I'm going to be completely honest, c!Dream is one of the main reasons why I dislike the current dsmp stuff so much. Outside of his actions as a person, the way Dream decided to write his character as this overpowered madman of the dsmp really just. destroyed any intrigue that he could've had. Perhaps this is from my growing dislike towards him, manifesting into a bias towards his character, but god I cannot fathom why people try to insist he's interesting when he has as much depth as a fucking puddle.

And here's the thing, I'm not even entirely against c!Dream being a villain, hell I think he would've been great as an anti-hero if anything. Make him sympathetic but not through c!George to get your precious "DNF" points or anything, but show him actually caring about the people within the dsmp, including c!Tommy and c!Tubbo. This would make his rival status with them just a bit more complicated, sure they're enemies, however, he doesn't want to hurt or kill them, and there's still a level of friendship there that keeps them bonded when things get super bad. This could've been super interesting to see, the first villain of the story receiving a sorta redemption arc then descending into madness as he started to fixate on being a god. This is all how I feel personally, but god do I feel like it would've been better than his current character, and hell would've worked with how he was during the Pogtopia arc, before the war that is. I'm not trying to tell Dream how to write his own character, but there are so many other ways he could've done the madman seeking to become god rather then. whatever the hell we got.

Because instead, we got this power-mad asshole who does things... because he can? And that's one of my major issues: he tries to surround his character in mystery to make him "intriguing" but it's kinda like c!Techno, it comes off as pretentious. Not only that, but you cannot keep waving around this mystery of a backstory without ever actually revealing it. I know the story isn't over, but c!Dream is effectively at his lowest point, now would be the time to reveal his backstory. But no just keep it in the dark and keep everyone guessing, that's totally fun and not at all tiring and annoying. (sarcasm, if anyone needs it)

And back to his performance, he doesn't sell this aloof, cynical and strategic warrior that has perfected the blade or some shit, he comes off as some angry guy yelling on reddit. which i don't need to tell you, isn't intimidating. It feels like he's trying to have c!Schlatt's intimidation combined with c!Wilbur's depth, but instead he's like a little brother who's trying to hard to mimic his older brother and is kinda embarrassing himself.

but other then that i dont feel too strongly abt the dsmp lol

but seriously, these are the main complaints I have abt the story tbh, I could probably talk about more but I wont because man. this is probably gonna get me in trouble if any of the hyper-dsmp fans actually read it.

[quidfree]

I agree with everything you said about the finale of Stranger Things 4. The ending is rushed and kinda lacks of emotional impact (really annoying bc it could have been so much better, like El and Hopper reuniting).

I kinda think the Duffers want to keep everything vague as much as possible for, like they said, "the big reveal in ss5", "everything comes full circle",... there's been discussions and analysises where ss5 will go down but it's just based on small hints and subtexts. It's like the main role of ss4 is a set-up for ss5, like an 'open-ending' where every scenario is possible, which is hella confusing tbh.

I have to admit that I was rooting for Will and Mike in vol1, but Vol2 makes me realise that Michael Wheeler is really in need of character development (pls give my boy Will the protangonist era back)

Sorry for my rambling, but i do want to know your take on the character dynamics and what are your most favorite scenes?

ah anon sorry for not answering for like a week, i conflated this w my other stranger things ask and deluded myself into thinking i had

i agree w your finale thoughts- i don’t follow the media circus around the show much but i do get the impression s4 is meant to be set-up for s5, which is very annoying to me because if you’re a good writer set-up should not negate storytelling… there are many shows which use a season to set something up but still tell a compelling standalone story in that season!

re mike and will, i’m fairly neutral abt it, the same way i feel abt all the canon ships in stranger things- the kid ships are all sweet enough, although this season mike and el have been kind of tiring for me (in part because mike did p much nothing this season except be el’s kind of dumbass boyfriend). in any event i think will and mike both could do w a return to early season protag focus and that will deserves an actual coming out and general arc in s5. also you can do better, will!

response to your qs on dynamics and scenes beneath the cut :)

looove steve and his kids obviously- steve and dustin are a no-brainer, but i do wish the others got a couple of real moments with him too (as may be obvious bc i literally wrote that).

steve and robin are very fun. the whole older teen group was great this season, since their personalities were a nice mix- i have to say eddie and steve were really enjoyable together. their dual older brother energy to dustin was very cute. as was eddie’s flirting. or whatever that was meant to be.

on siblings- wish we got some mike and nancy interaction ever. glad lucas and erica got brief moments this season. jonathan and will bonding was very good if brief and a missed opportunity to talk abt the rainbow elephant in the room.

families except the bylers continue to be hilariously absent in the show. when can CPS be called on these people. mikes mom hugging him dramatically will not make me forget how bad of a parent they all are lol.

always enjoy the friendships between the kids- liked will and el a lot this season even tho it was tragically understated, loved mike and will seeing lucas again in hospital, and max’s memories of the group in dear billy. mike and will’s conversations were also admittedly good, despite the unrequited love of it all- they had a relationship core to the show once, so it still holds some weight. i do like lucas and max a lot but i wish lucas wasnt spent so much on Being There For Max hes forever sidelined for no good reason.

underwhelmed by the russia storyline in general- hopper grated on me in s3 and im always team joyce so kind of tired w her having to put up w him and murrays “oh you” vibes but i do enjoy their battle-readiness as a couple. didnt care much abt yuri or the other russian guy (dmitri?) bc it all felt so overdone.

fav scenes: obviously max escaping vecna to kate bush (deserving of her renaissance). the others are going to be random excerpts bc my mind is blanking. eddie telling steve “harrington will drive wontcha big boy” + steve telling nancy he has 6 kids already. the part in the finale where everyone jumps through to the upside down and then throws their weapons through too bc the montage was fun. el throwing the helicopter and then telling papa to choke. will singing neverending story. the ep 7 monologue where 1 reveals the whole plot to nancy (jamie campbell bower fun). the finale segment where everyone is kicking ass and nancy has a shotgun. the way will is like “what friends??” and el goes “stfu” in ep whatever it is. el and max’s reunion. etc.

[nicollekidman]

Hi the same anon again. Sorry for the repeat messaging but I refuse to actively engage in this batshit fandom and you’re actually managing to be normal about stuff, and I’ve been thinking about contrasting interpretations of Alina. Because in my initial read through I accepted her ending, and felt that it fit her character. And I always see people say that it’d have fit her character to remain in power. And I honestly think that dissonance ultimately comes down to the weakness (or strengeth depending on how you want to look at it) of Alina as a defined character in the books. Like she definitely has some sort of personality but her motivations feel all over the place. Because if you go in with the understanding that the Darkling and Nikolai and the people of ravka were all putting pressure on her to be good and pure and saintly and a font of power and an equal in every measure except in will and a figurehead and so on and so forth and the belief that by crossing the line and perverting her power by using merzost, they became a burden, it makes Sense that she’d give up her powers and quietly run an orphanage with Mal because Mal was the only one to see her through all of it and stick around (even if he was a bit of an ass abt it sometimes) and that she’d leave behind her name because the people of Ravka Did need their sun saint and it’d be cruel to rip their faith from them like that. But if you go in with the understanding that wanted this power and that the Darkling was offering her a way (abort twisted way) to more and that she could’ve done it her own, much better way, it becomes a different story

i really should be working instead of answering this skdfjgh but i think it's kind of like...... are you looking at alina through the lens of what all these men are offering her/see her as, or are you more into her POV about these relationships. and really it's exactly what deah said, that you "ship" her with who would fit what you want alina to be, because so much of her is left unfulfilled in Possibilities. but i also think i felt like she was a pretty consistent and interesting character for me from the drop, the only complaint i had was how much she and mal mooned over each other but that made sense to me!

because personally for me as i was reading, her connection to mal feels very much like her connection to keramzin and childhood and simple times - she likes who she is around him (good, uncomplicated, half of a pair) but she also...... was starved and weak during her childhood and saw mal as shelter. PLUS what no one ever talks about (jk i only know three people who even blog about this) is that...... mal was an amplifier too!!!!! leigh brushes over that complication and what it means for their feelings/free will WAY too quick. i think mal sees in alina what he wants her to be and she thinks she should want that too. but if you see alina's journey as a girl who wants peace and belonging and stability, ending up powerless and married off in the forrest makes sense. but for me, mal feels like the past, and not the future.

i think the darkling sees more of alina's Self than he typically gets credit for, and that's where a lot of alina's fear comes from, PLUS i also do NOT buy the ending justification that the power was never hers to take and that giving it up for the good of the country was somehow not a complete devastating loss for her. for me, the darkling has a clear agenda in HOW she uses her power, but he does ultimately see alina in a way no one else is able or willing to do.... she is a grisha and her power makes her whole - she spends the whole trilogy pushing against the darkling as Villain while having a singular vision of exactly the same thing as he does (morozova, power, them together). neither of them have any use of the Sankta outside of how it helps their separate agendas, and both have valid reasons for staying away from each other, and neither can. i just think if you take an orphan who has been weak and appetiteless her whole life, then give her the power to summon the sun and a whole heap of desires she's never felt before, that's going to unleash a whole new path that deserves to be explored. and even if alina wanted to go back to her old life, the LOSS should've been felt.

once i finish soc i want to go into inej/the sol koroleva more because i think if the books had lingered past the final confrontation with the darkling, alina's position as saint would've been the number one most impactful element of her life, especially as she outlived everyone who knew her and thus became even more enshrined in mythos and belief.

ANYWAYS! i think i just view alina fundamentally as someone who willingly shut away a huge part of herself in the darkness for the majority of her life so she could be warm and protected and simple, and once she embraced the power, there was no going back for her. idk how you can look inside yourself and say "sorry i kept you waiting" and then give that all up and not feel the emptiness. i think canonically she would've been happiest dying with the darkling, but barring that, i think she'd always have a hunger and a desire for More, whether it be off on a ship exploring more of the maps she used to fill out, or ruling grisha and pushing her powers to see what could be done with small science (and merzost). i'm interested in the darkling as his own character and being outside of alina (which i can't say for any of the others) but if we're using different ships as a way to illustrate our ideal paths for alina.... i would just want her to look forward and not back, without having to burn part of herself away.

[rickriordanfandam]

opinions on riordanverse ; my edition

a lot of people have been doing this so i decided why not right. probably gna lose some followers or smth but anyways. pls respect my opinions! if u disagree, thats fine, but please be polite. unless any of my opinions strikes u as morally wrong then pls point it out to me respectfully. thanks!

- i actually liked drew. im so sorry to everyone who hates her but full offence, why. think about it this way ok, first of all drew became hc because silena died. silena was the traitor, the one who betrayed chb, yet after she died campers celebrated her as a hero? and then drew suddenly has to replace her and live up to idk that legacy she left behind,, when all of a sudden this girl named piper swoops in and takes her place. idk abt u but i wld be salty abt that too. not only that, but as an asian, the chances of drew having faced racism/bullying as a child is pretty high (she studies at brooklyn academy). which means that when she finds out shes a demigod, and arrives at chb where most of the campers are white (this is an assumption btw), she’d obviously be scared of being bullied for her skin color right?? so the first thing she wld do before the campers get to bully her is to bully them before they can do so. (sentence structure here is wack i apologize) ofc this might not even have happened, drew could have had a perfect childhood && was a b1tch for no reason, BUT EVEN THEN HER ROLE AS A BULLY WAS PRETTY VITAL BECAUSE THAT FURTHER SHOWED THE CONTRAST BETWEEN HER AND PIPER,, HIGHLIGHTING PIPER AS A HERO//GOOD CHARACTER,, AND THEREFORE MAKING READERS LIKE PIPER MORE. anyway stop hating on drew please. ALSO WHY IS THIS SO LONGA SDFJHG

- jason isnt bland, the fandom just kinda erased his backstory (thanks to @pjohoo-memes for the phrasing lol)

- reynabeth wouldnt have lasted/would have broken up several times. idk i just see them as two extremely powerful characters who have firm opinions and will definitely clash at some point. in a platonic relationship,, i can see them as really good friends but as lovers? idk i just think theyll break up

- PIPABETH

- i dont really like jercy,, i see them as better friends than lovers. also idt jason and percy were that close..?

- the dam and not my type jokes are srsly cringey and were never funny. ik that seems hypocritical since my username literally makes use of the dam joke but honestly i dont actually like the joke. its not funny to me and has never been funny

- the seven were not best friends. they definitely argued,, and honestly probably werent as close as the fandom makes them seem. like ure dumped with 6 other people, out of which u only know a few. my introverted ass would have jumped off the argo 2 quicker than leo valdez could bomb camp jupiter up. also leo was a dick to frank. so what if frank is bigger sized?? thats not a valid reason to tease him

- the fandom needs to stop hating on octavian while worshipping luke. if u hate luke and u say u hate octavian too, then okay. but if u tell me ure a luke stan but u despise octavian?? imma disagree w u. luke was worse than octavian im sorry. first of all, octavian being a dick was kinda justified. hes been after the praetor position for so long, and everyone keeps saying to “wait for jason” when suddenly this dude, whos a son of NEPTUNE (neptune wasnt liked much by romans), and the camp decides to make him praetor?? dude i would be pissed off big time. and then afterwards, he finds out that greek demigods are real and the dude they made praetor is greek. AND THEN GREEK DEMIGODS COME TO CJ AND ONE OF THEM BOMB IT UP?? octavian has been told all his life that greeks are scum and this dude called leo valdez attacks cj. sure it was an accident, but did octavian know that? no. so it was honestly justified that he was such a salty prick im just saying. also some of yall be hating on octavian for cutting a teddy bear open and thats the funniest shit ive ever heard i swear 

- luke didnt go to elysium

- travis and connor stoll r way too underrated. the two have been head counselors of the hermes cabin since luke was revealed as a traitor, can u imagine the stress? luke, the person they probably looked up to as a brother, betrayed them. and they didnt even have time to process this when they were  thrown the roles of being hcs. that would have been so stressful and i would probably have broken down if i were them. the stoll brothers taking turns to wake up at ungodly hours because a new camper is crying and homesick and terrified, the stoll brothers having to comfort and take care of new campers, having to deal with the amount of people in that cramped space because not enough campers are being claimed fast enough. having to resolve issues between campers in the hermes cabin all the time. the stolls arent just comedic relief, and we need to stop treating them as such

- tratie shldve been canon idc idc

- demigods of the demeter cabin arent talked about enough and i love the fact that meg was demeters kid. like she isnt the child of one of the big three yet shes so powerful.

- we need to hype clarisse up more her character arc was phucking amazing 

- rachel is overhated. sis found out greek gods exist and regularly come down to earth to fuck around and went “ok cool”. queen shit behavior methinks

- the floor 19 crew of mcga is srsly underrated. like do u even remember halfborn gunderson, mallory keen, tj, etc??? bc i feel like we only remember samirah, magnus, alex, and sometimes blitz and hearthstone

- sadie (tkc) was kinda annoying at first. i like her more now tho but i rmb not liking her for a phat while

- tkc and mcga need more love

- carter kane and jason grace arent boring. theyre just really sweet boys who are too good for this world and yes yes yes 

- hazel and frank (especially frank) need to be hyped up more. i hardly ever see anything about them. also yall seem to forget that frank was literally made praetor and that even hecate admired hazel and was willing to fight beside her because of how powerful she was

- frazels age gap is kinda sketch but i still think theyre really cute

- nico definitely had trauma from going to tartarus on his own

- GROVER IS PERCYS BEST FRIEND

- annabeth isnt smarter than leo but neither is leo smarter than annabeth. ive seen a lot of discussions about who is smarter and heres my hot take on it: neither. theyre equally smart, just in different ways. leos a genius mathematically speaking. he has no issues solving math problems meant for people much, much older than him. annabeth on the otherhand, is great at strategies etc. she can make an army of 1000 more powerful than the enemy, even if theyre outnumbered. so in my opinion, both are equally as smart//u cant compare their intelligence, because their talents lie in two different areas.

- while i do agree rick riordan isnt a god and that hes bound to make mistakes,, AND that hes given us a lot of representation,, if the representation offends the people its sposed to represent, then theres a problem. im talking about piper as a poc and wearing feathers in her hair. im not a poc, so i cant speak for them on whether or not its wrong, because i dont know either. HOWEVER, i have seen multiple posts BY pocs talking about how they didnt really like rick’s representation of piper, and thats an issue. pocs have been and are still oppressed and discriminated against by many. as a white cis man, we cant really blame him for not knowing (tho he could have done a research,, asked some pocs,, idk), but by representing pocs in that manner, hes influencing impressionable kids/teens into thinking “oh pocs wear feathers in their hair all the time” etc, which isnt true. the pjo/hoo series is extremely successful, and kids who read the books will probably start forming inaccurate opinions on pocs. the amount of fan art that depicts piper with feathers in her hair dont help either. “but rick said so in the books, so its canon” yeah well rick isnt a god and he can get some things wrong at times. im not saying we should cancel him, im saying we should start educating ourselves and not spread false info like pocs wearing feathers in their hair all the time. also that snake song shit where she sang Summertime was just- yeah. bc heres the thing you can be racist, and still include minorities, but portray them in a racist way. And even then, ignorance isn't a thing to admire. Getting those facts wrong still has a major impact. It continues to perpetuate racist stereotypes.

“ With the feather thing, I looked it up myself; it takes less than five minutes to figure out that Cherokees don't braid feathers into their hair. I didn't grow up in the country where my parents are from. I have many other first/second generation American friends who have also been through that, with a bit of a disconnect from their culture. But something that most of us have in common is that when we didn't know something, and when our parents weren't that big of a help, we looked it up. We sought out resources online and through other people from our culture to be able to connect more with where we came from. Some of that took a Google search. So I find it hard to believe that Piper, a girl who Rick's trying to portray as someone who is attempting to connect with her culture and is totally against racist stereotypes, wouldn't know that eagle feathers aren't supposed to be braided into your hair casually. She may be disconnected from her culture, but she's also shown to want to connect back to it. Piper wouldn't be casually braiding feathers into her hair while also telling off people for being racist. It makes no sense.” - reddit thread (down below) 

for those of yall who wanna know more please please read this, it has a lot of things i wanna add in here : https://www.reddit.com/r/camphalfblood/comments/gy3gl2/piper_mcleans_portrayal_is_innacurate/ 

as well as https://finding-my-culture.tumblr.com/post/189422373260/maxie-ratties-and-cattie-finding-my-culture 

i will be posting screenshots of these in future posts so if ure viewing this on ig and u dont have tumblr,, dont worry 

- the fact that most of the strong female characters in the series refuse to be “girly”, and ngl i dont really like that. just because ure girly doesnt mean u cant be strong. 

- piper would have been a great way for him to start making the strong characters act girlier, but instead he went with the “I’m not like other girls” trope which is quite obnoxious to hear constantly, and I don’t think it’s necessarily great for younger girls to read that idea growing up.  the closest we've ever had to a strong female character who was also into "girly" things was Silena. when I was younger I admired Piper's "I'm not like other girls" thing, but then I got older and realized that the whole mentality of "not like other girls" is super obnoxious, and a little bit toxic

i have a heck load more that i cant rmb rn but yeah feel free to add more 

[kae-karo]

For the character ask, Kazu (or Thoma just in case someone already asked for Kazu) ❤️

hello epi!!!!! 💜 i actually have not had anyone ask for kazoo yet!!

How I feel about this character:

from a gameplay perspective, he is honestly kinda op lmao i'm so glad i decided to pull for him. he's my main travel character like when i'm walking around, mostly cause his E is so good for...literally every kind of travel? like i used to have kaeya or childe even out most of the time but kazoo is just perfect for the first attack like gathering all the enemies together n stuff??? he's super great paired with bennett since his primary elemental absorption is pyro, but since benny doesn't have huge pyro application most of the time, i can steal kazoo's burst or E to get some solid pyro application. once i got that down from a mechanics perspective, it's like. supremely badass. kazoo also pairs well with childe since i can drag all the enemies together and then bap them with childe's Q?

from a design perspective, he is babie. i adore his hair and the maple leaf theme, he's very flowy and fits well with the anemo vibe even if he isn't blue/green (understandably lmao). i actually like the red tho it's a nice color scheme for him

from a character perspective, i adore him. i wish we'd gotten a proper story quest for him instead of just the pre-inazuma thing? he's such a fun balance between peaceful and lowkey a little unhinged lmao like YES give me haikus and then threaten to burn someone's face off or whatever u did ily bb. i also find his backstory super interesting with lots of places to expand on it either in canon or just in fanon lmao

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

TOMO 🥺🥺 that's definitely my primary (only?) kazoo ship

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

i realize now that this says 'otp' but i will continue to ignore it in favor of listing off all the chars i want to see them be friends with lmao. i think i said on the kaeya one that he and kaeya would be a fun friendship lmao. i also do adore kazoo beidou friendship!! i also think canon gorou's lil 'KAZUHA!' when he saw kazoo again was cute i'm here for their friendship for sure. i think he could get along well with xiao since they both sort of do the silent anemo wanderer thing lmao. good travel companions i think, if kazoo ever stayed in liyue. oh! i think he xingqiu and hu tao could be a riot in terms of their poetry too lmao

My unpopular opinion about this character:

hmm...again, i feel like i have very little in the way of unpopular opinions. maybe this is a stretch but i think (?) it's popular to view kazoo as the subby, delicate wifey type? and i really don't vibe writing him that way at least. don't mind reading it, but not really my thing to write it?

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

TOMO INTERACTIONS i would've loved/would love a story quest that further explores what happened to tomo, where he came from, etc in the sense of like. maybe kazoo grieving? or smth? if i were writing it personally, i'm not sure how i'd go about it, but 1. i simply can't imagine kazoo really just. setting that vision there and leaving it (knowing that ppl want to steal it?) and 2. just fully letting tomo go (and the CAT the cAT) idk it feels like there could've been a bigger emotional impact if we'd had some more backround beyond just 'they were friends and then he DIED' like a full story quest centered around kazoo coming to terms with him truly being gone? idk that whole bit felt insufficient to me lmao. i would also like to see him...do some more wandering? like...not just on inazuma and in the crux fleet? he makes a big deal out of being a wanderer, i feel like it'd be fun to have him show up in other countries and stuff

my OTP:

tomo, without question lmao

my cross over ship:

hmm. is it cheating if i say todoroki again? (not as a romantic ship) lmao i think their senses of humor would align surprisingly well. plus red/white matchy matchy lmao. and a burn? it's all coming together....does this make dabi = tomo? i'll take a 'tomo didn't actually die but got kidnapped by the fatui on the brink of death and they turned him into a harbinger' 👀👀

a headcanon fact:

hmm....i mean aside from his past which is purportedly rather straightforward, i really don't know if i have much in the way of creative thoughts here lmao. is it a hc to say he and tomo were more than just besties?

send me genshin ships/chars to talk abt or rank!

[cherubchoirs]

tell us more abt the bad end akira and goro relationship after it all........

(this is a bit of newer ask but since i posted reformed bad end art tonight, i uhhh...figured i should answer!!)

SO the reformed path of my bad end au is...honestly...VERY self-indulgent and just out of my own curiosity. initially i thought it up because i don’t like character death and akira dying in my bad end au, while i considered it “canon”, bummed me out and i wanted to think about what his recovery would be like instead should the thieves be able to save him. HOWEVER...the events of the third semester in p5r along with the shuake dynamics it presents made me think a lot more on the idea and i wanted to pursue it more concretely in that context!! so!! 

MAJOR P5R SPOILERS UNDER THE READ MORE!!

things between akira and goro in this path of the au are...tense, strained, and generally complicated given their positions. akira has had his heart partially restored by the bonds he created with the thieves and by reuniting with arsene, but he isn’t who he once was. his memories are fractured, hazy, and still mostly absent, and while some of his mannerisms have returned, he’s still overly rigid and operates most comfortably in very defined parameters. he is, essentially, a being that is fused with the metaverse, with yaldabaoth, and so he still remains inhuman without hope of salvage, still impacted by cognitions and unable to survive in reality for any long period of time (he has taken up residence in the velvet room). he does experience an implicit trust of the thieves and his confidants and he is endlessly fascinated by humans and his own previous life as one, but stress can cause him to lapse into his ideals under yaldabaoth to almost totally forget himself until he can snap to again (and he’s always embarrassed by his behavior). 

this limbo state, a nonhuman that was once human and only really emotionally remembers his friends and loved ones, causes both akira and goro to feel oddly split from each other. goro is left with the burden of every memory, the rivalry that turned into something neither of them expected nor perhaps even wanted but ran to without reservation, how they fell in love when they were meant to destroy each other. akira has a sense of something special with goro, different than his other friends, but only goro remembers them competing at darts, only he remembers sharing a coffee or cake with him, only he remembers the promise they made to see who could be the very best between them. goro can recall every word, touch, and kiss exchanged between them after their games and their fights, but it’s all reduced to a curiosity to akira: human competition, human romance, it’s things he’s forgotten and looks at like an academic almost, sterile and without attachment. and yet...when goro speaks with him and closes his eyes to that blinding white that coats him now, he hears akira, the akira he knew and fell in love with. he’s surprising him again with his observations and witticisms, his whip-smart intelligence is back, his bizarre and off the wall sense of humor is even returning in shades. he plays with him, he says things he knows will push goro’s buttons or fire him up and he knows it full-well, but most importantly, his ideals are there again, flickering and faltering sometimes, but he corrects himself of his own accord when they do. he doesn’t remember so much, their history, he isn’t even human and there’s so much he can’t understand that goro knows was once instinct, and yet akira is there. 

and it hurts him so much that akira had so failed him, that he even let himself become this, that he was so weak he let himself become a puppet...but didn’t goro once do the same? it’s so painful to know akira could be as weak as him, the boy he so admired for being so free, so unfettered and so sure of himself, that even he could fall the same and let himself be tricked with such obvious manipulation. it shatters that perfect illusion, leaving akira more vulnerable than goro wanted to admit, and it both strengthens and softens that “hate” he had for him. he hates seeing him be so stupid and so pitiful, but it makes him less ideal, so much more like goro in so many ways. coupled with his lost memories, this is what drives goro’s complex feelings toward him now: he isn’t akira, not who he once was in reality and not who he once was in goro’s mind, but he is so unabashedly akira too, raw and real and not whole but flawed and carving his path forward again. goro sees him struggle, watches him suffer under this curse of his lost humanity, the loss of his memories and his own hatred for his choices...but he never excuses them. he owns what he did and presses forward in whatever he can achieve now, wanting to be human again even if he never can be, wanting to use his new position in whatever way he can to strive for better. his fire, his strength of character, and his resolve are all there, tempered by terrible mistakes to do better next time.

and for akira’s part, he recognizes he and goro had something different together, his trust of him is different. he’s still working on processing emotions and he doesn’t understand what he feels for goro, no memories to guide him and so used to feeling nothing but righteousness and occasional hysteria. but as a being of cognition, he knows goro feels erratic near him, toward him, emotions volatile and oscillating in a way that troubles akira to the point of feeling unstable himself. it makes him keep his distance for both of their sakes, still operating based more on logic than human emotion as yaldabaoth had instilled in him: if his presence causes distress, it is best they not meet as it will, without doubt, cause suffering for goro. but being apart from goro seems to cause suffering on his end...an emptiness that he struggles to define and one that goro feels as well despite his frustration at being in love with a ghost.

all of this hesitation is put to the side, however, when something goes wrong with reality - akira begins getting nagging headaches that come with the distinct feeling of the metaverse returning. he’s rattled enough that the metaverse has survived yaldabaoth’s defeat, but possibly more worrying, to him, is the fact that he feels a sense of disconnect from mementos. he is fused with the metaverse and so should never feel as much, yet he feels severed from the cognitions of others and the very scenery of mementos which once existed as an extension of himself. he attempts to reach out to the thieves about it in their dreams via the velvet room, but none of them share his concern and even brush it off...without prompting, however, goro comes to him with similar concerns, the metanav back on his phone and demanding answers from akira. but when he sees akira is clearly shaken too, when akira claims without a single doubt this has nothing to do with himself or yaldabaoth, goro takes him along with him back to reality as a test based on his own suspicions. they find akira can exist just fine there, no exhaustion gripping him as it should when he tries to venture into reality, so goro already knows the metaverse must have fused with reality before akira can even confirm it. AND SO the last piece i drew of them was actually them on the train to odaiba, where akira’s headaches get increasingly worse until they reach the palace there. it’s appears very similar to a safe room to akira, where the palace and the stadium are vying for the same place in space while goro and sumi see the palace’s hazy form. they know they have to investigate, and it’s there that they meet with maruki, of course, who akira feels immediate pity for given how similar his position seems to be to what akira’s own once was. however, maruki says they only reject his reality because he’s still working on their dreams...they’re just a little more difficult to manage, but don’t worry - they’ll be saved too

[loverfighter]

well. i think i’ve finally pinpointed the Thing abt chapter 2 that really digs under my skin / makes me uncomfortable to look at too closely (not the character execution of half the losers which is major and probably reason numero uno why chapter 2 does not live up to the book nor first movie and i Will go on abt later but i’m waiting to finish my reread to do so) and it’s essentially that eddie and richie are almost.... forced apart for a lot of it. in chapter 1 we have so many moments, countless looks and gestures and dialogue to point at and say look! there! that’s why they’re in love! where the impact these characters have on each other holds weight and they’re so deeply intertwined to the degree of siamese twins, one never without the other, never farther than a thought or heartbeat away (physically touching in one way or another anytime they can, a beacon through the walks of hell). it’s clear, on both ends, that whatever love they hold for each other is profound and heavy and embedded six feet deep into each other’s souls, transversing across memory, distance, time. even in the background of a scene in which the main focus is ten feet away, highlighted in red and grasping at your attention, you can spot eddieandrichie⏤together, inseparable, linked. 

with chapter 2, this dynamic is hinted upon, and given to us through flashes, but never through scenes alone (prior to neibolt) or actual context. in fact, the scenes we Do have in which their magnetic pull towards each other is allowed narrative (hammock, eddie taking off the shower cap, eddie looking away smiling after richie’s “what the fuck does that mean”, going into the photo booth separated from the rest + eddie pulling richie in, eduardo! andale, them expressing constant agreement w each other through gestures, all of the jade of the orient stuff, etc) was courtesy of the actors and not the script or (likely) direction. bill even said that He was the one who had to push the clarity of richie’s sexuality, to clearly express that he’s gay (“““movie canon”””), while andy and the rest thought vague would be the best route to go in fear of audience reaction. and even then! it’s not as forward as it should’ve or could’ve been (considering they pulled eddie’s canon death scene w the love confession + more emotional moments between them in that setting + the supposed kiss), and oh! not to mention stripping eddie of his own homosexuality and giving richie the bowers storyline, which was the scene that cemented his sexuality in the movie, making it clear that the crew knew the dynamic and context of the interactions between eddie and bowers. 

the point remains that all of the “official” reddie scenes are... kinda out of nowhere? we are given spare information, but lacking any context, leaving the general audience with no way to complete the puzzle with a dozen missing pieces. during the flashback, we see richie carving r+e on the kissing bridge, set after the events of the arcade, and obviously the e stands for eddie, but that’s it! nothing before or during that flashback gives the average watcher any information besides that, and the ones of us who are invested have little satisfaction from that moment alone, when we’ve been building it up and expecting an actual storyline, rather than 5 secs in a minute long flashback clip (that is to say, the r+e is one of my fav reddie scenes, but maybe they shouldn’t have teased it in the trailers if that was all it was gonna be?). 

richie is the one to calm eddie down, snatch away his inhaler bc it’s meaningless physically and damaging psychologically, and tell him “you’re braver than you think.” but why is it that richie is able to get through to him when no one else can or bothers to, why richie, why does he understand what eddie needs to hear, why does eddie listen and take it to heart, especially when richie is the one emphasized to have a crush on eddie and not vice versa? they’re important to each other (on a deeper level than they individually are with the rest of the losers), it’s clear based on that scene, but that’s what it’s left at, with no scenes or dialogue previous to that moment propping it up, other than the r+e, which doesn’t account for eddie’s reaction. and then, they’re together when they face the doors, parallel to benverly who are shouting their love at each other. again, this is telling us something, which is less surprising based off of the inhaler scene 5 mins prior, but then it swiftly plummets to eddie essentially sacrificing himself / saving richie. again: why? 

to me, it’s obvious. to y’all, it’s obvious. we all know well enough, right. but susan in the seat next to me doesn’t, nor do her two friends, or even my friends (getting new ones) or the majority of people who came out of that theatre. they walked out of there and didn’t understand the relationship as requited bc they weren’t given the context and love and soul of reddie. and i think what upsets me most about that is that i can’t just brush it off as them not understanding the nuance or depth of a stupid clown film (if it was the stupid clown book, sure, or even the first stupid clown film but) bc it was done on purpose. they were afraid of negative responses to the lgbt storyline (and god forbid there’d be two of them in their precious big studio film), and so they strangled the heart out of reddie. and because reddie became canon (or richie’s crush became canon), they had to tone down the “gayness” of their relationship, because now the audience would have a new perception of what they were to one another, and no longer have the cushion to brush it off as a “brotherly relationship” (sorry finn). take bill and mike for example! objectively, they were probably “gayer” than reddie, because they were allowed to touch, to show affection, to say i love you. but of course they can’t be gay, bc bill has a wife and they don’t see mike as enough of a person to give him anything good. 

it’s like. what they (production) Have given us is flashes of moments that they are barely responsible for and bury ur gays (fantastic rep), wherein the sexuality of the character that actually dies is kept vague so that the record breaking number of people that went to see their film (who frankly don’t even care) won’t think the film is too gay. like. LMFAO it’s so dumb and frustrating bc on one hand we’re valid for clocking reddie but on the other we’re Too Wild for thinking that it’s a requited love story. like yes, i’m grateful that richie’s sexuality (re his attraction to men; i think he’s bi, movie canon leans toward gay but whatever) is canon, that the wretched grief he felt at losing the love of his life was Shown if only to paint how deep the emotion he felt went, that r+e is forever carved into history. but that’s hand in hand w me being upset over eddie’s character and sexuality being sidelined, at the graphic depiction of gay men being murdered with no full circle moment as it Should Have Been, at having to defend reddie as canon bc some cowards in the editing room couldn’t handle the negative reviews of a few bigots at the expense of their invested and loyal and passionate audience who care abt this story and the characters within it. 

idk. anyway. this is the result of me going crazy so don’t pay it much mind but. imagine how fucking tired i am

[bi-dazai]

ok my bsd predictions for major plot points in the future

1.

If dazai were to be killed off in bsd, chuuya would probably be killed with him in a final act of coded symbiosis.

Tbh tho that's such a major thing that it probably wouldn't happen until when the manga is finishing up so

2.

Chuuya will either become the PM Boss or he'll join the ADA.

So chuuya is strongly suggested in two ways for his future which is HM INTERESTING. So the way that Mori clearly recruits him not just for his ability but for his leadership skills, plus the how chuuya has been developing those skills, is something I was thinking about a lot in S3. Mori is very clearly not happy with Dazai being the heir, even though he was the best choice. Dazai would have probably killed Mori and taken his place by the time he was 20 if odasaku hadn't died. Chuuya has loyalty to the mafia plus the fighting and leadership abilities. He's also got a certain obedience and controllability that if Mori was to step aside and not die he would like. Also something ppl forget is that chuuya is actually good at negotiation and staying calm under pressure, it's suggested that dazai particularly triggers his anger because dazai is an annoying shit who seems to be in canon attached to him whenever they're in the same room.

HOWEVER. Now I don't think I've ever said this on this blog despite me constantly thinking about it but Fukuzawa's ability is the perfect thing for Chuuya, as it has the possibility of actually reigning in corruption. If chuuya joined the ADA he would actually be able to use corruption's ability of throwing black holes without losing control of himself. Arguably that would also get rid of the need for dazai's intervention although it's been established that skk were thought of as a perfect fighting duo for a year before corruption even first manifested in a fight, so I don't think this would kill skk. And chuuya joining the ADA would mean that he and dazai have to interact on the daily. It also means that the mafia is left without any clear heir. People have vouched for kouyou in this situation but I think it's clear that kouyou is being forced to be in the mafia, she's given up on leaving and doesn't want to be there actively.

I don't think the second outcome is very possible plotwise for a few reasons. These are all totally writer's arguments so appeals to logic and plot aren't exactly going to work here, but as a writer myself these are the planning issues that stick out extremely badly if we get chuuya to defect:

- it would have to take something extremely major to get chuuya to leave the loyalty of the mafia

- chuuya becomes even more OP. asagiri kafka has said that though he really likes chuuya (as evidenced by the amount of goddamn times chuuya comes up in the novels), he avoids putting him in the manga because chuuya is extremely overpowered. If he and dazai were logically paired together for each issue every arc would be solved far too quickly for things like character development, or like...story...to take place. This is why chuuya is constantly sidelined. You have to actively make it so that chuuya isn't on people's minds constantly, or get him out of the picture immediately, so that your narrative can actually develop. Chuuya is honestly a mistake in a writing sense. But he's a strong character and he and dazai were written in tandem to each other so he's absolutely unremovable. A character like chuuya NEEDS to exist. So the way chuuya has been toned down is Corruption. Chuuya's ability by itself is just...incredibly powerful. He's virtually indestructible. However Corruption, the ultimate form, is shown to actively kill chuuya. The only times we've seen corruption used is cthulu, shibusawa, and shibusawa big dragon, all extreme threats. So chuuya's life when he's pulled out as the deus ex machina is tied to dazai. This makes chuuya's unchecked OP a little less unchecked and a little less OP. Chuuya is actually a fantastic example of why you CAN have OP characters, you just have to write them a certain way.

However in writing them a certain way, the most stupid thing you could do for your narratives would be to bring corruption under control, and to bring chuuya into the group of protagonists. you have to find excuses in every problem to why chuuya can't just come out and handle this himself, like you were before but now dazai's absence isn't an issue PLUS your readers are paying more attention to chuuya because he's around all the time.

So yeah, chuuya being in the ADA would be a bad choice narrative wise unless it was for like...one arc or smth. Chuuya becoming the next boss of the port mafia is wayyyyy more likely to me. I don't think chuuya would like it but he's really the most obvious choice

3.

Dostoyevsky/rat arc is going to be mega arc/s.

one of the exciting things abt this series is that I have no idea how long this conflict with the rats will go on for. At first I thought it would be an occasional and ongoing plotline that is explored not as one big set arc but interspersed with other non-rat arcs. However by the way it's going it looks like we have two options, either 1) the rat issue is being dealt with across one mega-arc or 2) rat issues will still be dealt with like I thought, interspersed, but each time they pop up it will be a mega-arc like it has been so far. I genuinely don't know how this will be resolved, and I'm actually kind of wondering if the characters will finally leave kanagawa prefecture and maybe head to Russia to defeat the rats. I think this could be a good start to travelling the characters to settings outside yokohama.

4.

Agatha Christie is going to be matched up to Ranpo.

Like Dostoyevsky is dazai's foil because their works IRL were similar in tone, Agatha Christie and Ranpo match up in that way perfectly. We've already met the trick foil (we thought he would be, but he wasn't) for Ranpo in Poe (IRL Poe actually did write mystery at times, and his works do contain elements of suspense and unknown). Ranpo is clearly going through hell in this arc which makes me feel like he's going to start being a much more major character in the future.

Agatha Christie and Edogawa Ranpo's works both fit in the mystery genre and were both alive irl around the same time. They both played historic roles in developing the mystery genre of their language's literature and are pretty well-known in non-literature circles because mystery often has a pulp, mass-consumable aspect to it. It was actually surprising to me that they were made into characters considering the other characters are named after authors of much "higher grade" Literature, as in Literature capital L. Mystery authors especially like Agatha Christie don't fit that bill, but they've played a central role in developing the fiction industry so I don't find it odd. Plus there's a bit of a debate what counts as Literature and every person has different opinions. Mine differs to asagiri kafka's which evidently seems to be that if the author has had a significant impact on the literary field then their works become Literature, thus they become 文豪 (Literary masters), thus they become a bsd character. I think that's fair, even if it isn't what I would personally say Literature is. This is par for the course tho lol, p sure any person who is into Literature will have a different thing to say about what gets that capital L.

But yeah, I think Ranpo and Christie are clearly going to be each others foils.

5.

Christie is going to be cold. Like. COLD.

Dostoyevsky is more obvious evil, it shows on the surface. But Christie will have a polite veneer, a charm to her. We've seen her in a shot, and she sits tall, she enjoys tea, she dresses expensively and lives in colourful rooms. But she had no hesitation to destroy Yokohama if a situation wasn't dealt with within half an hour in the cruelest way possible. Christie was actively ready to incinerate Yokohama alive, that was her first instinct when contacted for help. Christie very clearly has a lack of care for the lives of others, OR she wants to destroy Yokohama in particular. However considering this is the goal of Dostoyevsky and Christie will probably be the next major villain after Dostoyevsky, repeating that goal and motivation is pretty boring and not very bungou stray dogs.

6.

The order of the clock tower will not come to yokohama first.

The Guild were the ones to come to yokohama and threaten it up close. The order of the clock tower was a major threat to yokohama from across the continent. That's terrifying. The ADA/Mafia will have to work proactively

7.

The end of the clock tower will have major repercussions.

The order of the clock tower seems to have its claws in everything and has a tight maintenance of leadership and control over almost every gifted organisation we've met. The Order seems to literally keep order. But they've clearly got a goal with sending the guild and the rats after the book. If the order is destroyed then certain aspects of gifted society slip loose and create new problems. This will probably be the creator of an arc or two after the order arc is over.

8.

Chuuya's backstory is linked to Dazai's.

Chuuya was used by the military and experimented on until he could contain a god of destruction, after which he went haywire, blasted a huge crater in yokohama, and became a feral child.

Dazai was...we don't know. The furthest back we can tell is that some time in his early teens he was taken in by Mori. Before that he was apparently wandering around trying to find some kind of emotion, something to make him feel. He eventually found that with the violence and adrenaline rush of the mafia.

Now I don't think that dazai is a psychopath. It's easy to say he is with the way he seems to talk about the hole in his heart and the absence and emptiness. However dazai very very clearly cares. He cares about odasaku, he cares about atsushi, he cares about the ADA, and he even cares about chuuya (this is not my shipper brain talking, I am literally talking about canon). Dazai very clearly CARES. He isn't a psychopath.

My belief is that dazai is the most clear argument for my case that the series is about mental illness and self worth. Dazai very clearly has a major depressive disorder.

I also think that dazai is extremely traumatised. Obviously he's traumatised by being in the mafia at 15 and by odasaku's death, but I also think dazai may have been traumatised even before then.

Atsushi is dazai's mentee, the half of shin soukoku. He's shown to have childhood trauma. Akutagawa also has childhood trauma. Chuuya has childhood trauma. This may be a coincidence but almost every main character in this series has some form of early trauma.

Dazai IRL was not called Dazai Osamu. Dazai Osamu is actually a very sad name but Dazai's birth name is Tsushima Shuuji. IRL dazai/Tsushima was the son of a rich family that lived in Aomori prefecture (which is very rural lol). Dazai had an absent father and a sick mother and wasnt raised by his parents but rather by servants and his aunt. His father died when he was young (not that he got very old) and his life was plagued by constantly running off with girls, getting his allowance cut for being a marxist, and, yes, suicide attempts.

So my ideas for how this may translate into bsd dazai is this:

- dazai ran away from home when he was young

- dazai never had a good parental figure

- dazai is from a rich family in a rural area very far away. Like for those who don't know Aomori is at the northern tip of Honshū, just below Hokkaido. Yokohama is just south of Tokyo. The region in between is mostly forest and smaller cities. Most of Japan's (major) cities are cloistered around Tokyo and Kyoto and Fukuoka which are towards the south. So dazai is a country boy who has wandered japan after running away from home.

- dazai's real name is Tsushima Shuuji and there's a personal reason he's distanced himself from that. This one im not sure about but yeah

- thus follows that why would dazai be so fucked up if he isn't a psychopath and he did come from a rich family? Dazai to me reads that something major happened. In shin skk it's clear that atsushi and alutagawa share a past of abuse at the hands of parental figures and loneliness. With all the similarities and parallels drawn between the characters in skk and shin skk it seems logical to me that chuuya's past of torture may be similar to Dazai's in a way. It would be disappointing to me if dazai's past was covered and it didn't in some way affect him. The clearest parallel between skk is that they both lacked parental figures most if not their entire lives.

There's also this comment that dazai makes when the head of atsushi's orphanage dies. It's that relationships with fathers are messy and even if they were terrible it's natural to cry. This seems like bsd dazai may share irl dazai's father's death early in his life. It's hinted therefore that dazai's father was either abusive or neglectful and died when dazai was younger.

Anyway this went longer than I thought it would but I invest far too much brain time into bsd so it's gotta seep out at some point lol

[tossertozier]

you mentioned possibly doing a ben or mike writing guide.. would you.. be willing to post a mike one. i'm plotting a fic and im struggling to get my mans down?? also i think abt ur fics weekly bare minimum.

hi there!!! i did my best. i tried to not sound preachy or like a know it all bc y’all know i can barely write. i hope this is helpful in some way!! disclaimer of of course this is all just my opinion & there’s no wrong way to write, you’re the only person who can tell your story!!

[[MORE]]

i think the first really important decision you have to make as Person Writing Mike is his

family & background

-are both of his parents alive?

-if yes, what’s their relationship like?

-if no, who’s his primary caretaker? what’s their relationship like?

-if no, when did they die? did he cope well with it? what’s his relationship with their memory like?

these are really really where you gotta start to write mike imo. or any character! i think one thing stephen king is to be admired for is he doesn’t neglect the parent-child relationship as so many people who write youth do. your parents are the most important people in your life for a long time. i don’t think there’s a wrong or ooc way to answer the above questions tbh. canon has really left a wide open field for you to run amuck in.

(example: i’ve mentioned in the past that my & tfat mike being a small adult is no mistake and intentional. it’s a bit of a throwaway scene, but i mention in on pointe that mike’s parents are coming. it’s intentionally done there too. mike is goofier, more outgoing, more immature in general in that fic in the small bits he’s in & that’s all a response to his familial life. )

culture + friendships

after you answer those questions, important follow up questions are:

-are the losers his first set of friends?

-how much social exposure has he had?

-has he dated? who is he attracted to?

-who influences him? (celebrities, family, culturally)

-what are his cultural interests? what does he do in his free time? how would that impact how he interacts with the rest of the world?

again, no wrong way to answer these. i’ve seen a super broad spectrum of indirect answers to these questions. even thinking about where he might pick up patterns of speech can make him feel much more like a realized character. i’ve noticed some people dip fully into aave to an extent that doesn’t even seem logical in their character’s current situation & it can really seem like a caricature, but i think to write mike without any sense of aave at all is a little ?? too. just be cognizant of it is my only real advice here. it doesn’t so much matter as long as you don’t forget who mike is which next point

humor & personality

-what do you think he would find (shows, comedians, youtube videos) really funny?

-does he have something he quotes often? something he started saying ironically but never stopped?

man i know i’m all there’s no wrong way to write mike !! in this post but i will say real quick that i think mike is funny and i don’t really respect depictions of him where he’s not. i think this is where the movies really just fucked up. book mike drops some of the funniest lines of the book. and honest to god tip is to write out a scene as you feel the urge too, look away for five minutes, look back and give half of richie’s lines away. (or... dialogue.) this sounds like a joke but it was what i did when i first started writing & tfat

i’d always be like “n the funny part goes... to richie.” and thats a fandom inclination too. nooooo. avoid this trap. it doesn’t even make sense. have u ever been in a friend group where only one person... makes jokes? that’d be genuinely so weird. especially bc if you give the joke away to someone else, you can also build on it. amazing things start happening when u start thinking of the characters in flexible patterns. like for example, i almost always give absurdist humor to stan now. wholesome to ben.

mike’s humor is largely situational to me. solid comedic timing & he’s an observant person. sometimes i read back my own writing & have to change the pov bc richies making jokes about things he would never ever notice to make fun of. mike would. mike genuinely sees all. i think he’s just got one of the most analytical brain of the losers. & i think intelligence is subjective and people are smart in different ways but i think it’s foolish to write him as anything other than incredibly intelligent both academically and emotionally. he’s just a natural observer and pattern notice-er. which brings me to my next mike thing:

love & selflessness

i think the biggest part of mike being harder to flesh into a fully realized person is the fandom tendency to make him kind and nothing else. here’s mike. he’s nice. next. bc the book kind of points out his selflessness in his decisions and it makes itself one of his strongest character traits.

especially bc nice seems to trump him having any other emotions. ...no?

i believe in general, but ESPECIALLY in the case of mike, that kindness is a choice. it’s one i genuinely believe he’d make, over & over again. but a choice he makes. he gets annoyed with his friends being annoying like anyone else would. he gets hurt when he feels left out. he feels tired & anxious & hungry and all those other human things. sometimes he might not let it show outwardly, but there’s a difference between that and not giving him feelings at all.

people are selfish. it’s a defense mechanism. it’s to protect us. it’s not a bad thing. we think of how the world impacts ourselves first. we don’t always act upon those thoughts or voice them, but don’t forget to let mike have them. he doesn’t need to be happy for his friends all the time, or rooting for them or supportive. he should have his own things going on.

also. mike’s not a doormat. yes, he stays in derry. but those were life-death consequences for generations of children. it’s really not comparable to almost any decision mike would make in a pennywise free universe. yes, he made a sacrifice in the book but i don’t think he’d just lay himself down in any given universe to whatever fate wants to hand him. but this is where i end this topic bc i’m actually only barely beginning to get to this topic in my own fic!

it’s hard writing the losers young sometimes bc i do feel relationships are naturally a little unbalanced based on basic maturity levels as young people. sometimes friendships just are unbalanced bc of who people are at that time. everyone involved can still be good people in these relationships. it’s about growing together and learning how to be good friends to each other.

for example, in &tfat: certain losers are always checking in with others. others are really wrapped up in their own shit and don’t really notice what bothers the others. it would probably take a chart the size of a textbook to explain how i think this dynamic wholly pans out in full. and yeah, i think it grates on mike a little bit that he is always the checker and never the checkee.

but even when mike snaps, even when he gets upset, i always write it coming out of him with a lot of love. i genuinely think mike, regardless of experience in that fic, has the deepest understanding of love as its own concept and an understand of how exactly it rules his life and and his relationships. mike knows to feel strongly about something he has to care about it. there are lots of things he just doesn’t care about. in the book it’s stated he’s difficult to connect with as an adult. he’s distant. he’s focused on what he wants to focus on. i think mike is actually the most interesting when he becomes a little bit of a disaster man with very little time for what doesn’t interest him.

which last thing, dislikes & disinterests

-what annoys him?

-what makes him genuinely angry?

-what bores him to tears?

i always make jokes that i bring up the nastier parts of the losers bc i love nasty boys but thinking of things people don’t like is as much a part of them as the things they do.

for example, in &tfat, i write richie as making fun of “nerdy” things like anything you could find at comic con. i write bev as not giving a fuck about sports. bill doesn’t care about richie’s music tastes. eddie hates getting condescended to.

bc of the ... kind thing, mike’s one of the harder losers to do this with. i genuinely think mike would listen to any of his friends tell him about anything. & he knows, in return, they can’t say shit when he wants to ramble about history. but dislikes can also be super situational.

again, for example in & tfat: mike doesn’t like when his friends talk about college right now. no one is really being sensitive to him at all. he hates getting blamed for stuff that isn’t his fault, mostly bc it keeps happening.

anyway. i based a lot of my mike (mostly sense of humor and personality) off of a mix of real life friends of mine. it’s a luxury. i know. i’ve been blessed to have friends from literally all walks of life & for me borrowing little habits & quirks & sayings & jokes to slip into my fics and characters is my way of writing one massive love letter to those ive known. i hope i’ve helped you in some way anon. n if not.... don’t be sad i’m hardly one to take writing advice from anyway jandjxjx

overall, as i used to do often, i’d genuinely stop myself and say: is this a person, or a convenience for the plot? and if it was the latter, sigh, and get my backspace key ready.

[standardlovers]

ok here’s another ask skwnskwn uhhh unpopular stranger things 3 opinions?

idk most opinions of st3 are so idk which are unpopular but i can give it a shot with just random opinions i have and it will loop over into what i think should/shouldnt happen in st4

it was really uncomfy and weird watching mike and el kiss at all, they're like 5 they're children it's just, it's uncomfy to be looking at

billy was not Redeemed in st3, we see depth in his character, we see a slight explanation for some behaviours and we see he's different but he's not technically Redeemed

Robin is the best character on the show, smart as fuck but terrible taste in women. my kinda girl

Steve not getting a love interest is better than the alternative, even if they make steve bi in canon i seriously need a season of steve being Alone romantically, so far he's gone from years with Nancy, trying to get Nancy back, trying to pick up girls and having a crush on Robin so he's always looking for Something romantic and im glad he isn't getting it, Steve needs to get some grasp on himself without the need for a romantic partner and allow himself to be without one and without need to get one before he does get with someone knew

erica and lucas are the best possible examples of siblings, then nancy and mike THEN jonathan and will, even if they're better at being close and stuff they aren't 1000% realistic for most sibling relationships

jim was quite harsh a lot this season and i know it was him being overprotective of el but sometimes it was a fine line between him being a steady and protective dad and him being pushed and losing it cause he didn't talk it out sooner

mike was a little shit and annoying as fuck this season. also a bad friend and a bad boyfriend. i know he's just a kid so im not gonna grasp the situation the same way he does cause im looking at it as someone older than him but he's sucked and did we see him actually apologise to will and say he's sorry? at all?

will and dustin were treated badly by people who are established to be their best friends and shouldve said smth sooner

nobody fessed up and took responsibility that they had such low expectations of dustin they not only accused him of lying abt having a girlfriend but didn't seem to show any sadness at not trusting their friend when he did reveal that it was true

joyce deserves that move away, even if hop had lived Joyce and the kids had been so beyond hurt and traumatised in Hawkins they deserved to be away from it all, especially el and will

billys mum is alive, it's clear she left and billy spoke to her on the phone in the memories so she's Alive and back in cali

speaking of, it doesn't in any way shape or form justify his actions and im not at all trying to but i do think a part of the change in billys attitudes between S2 and S3 could have been impacted by the fact in S2 he was JUST up and moved to a new town away from where he lived his whole life and probably the last connection or hope he had of being with his mother again so his being more calmed or tame in S3 could be him getting used to Hawkins and accepting he has to stay for X amount of time until he can move back alone if he wants to

suzie and dustin singing was sweet as hell

if Mike had done that whisper in the ear shit with me, id have thrown his ass out too

el and max are bi and also have crushes on each other just a lil bit

el's new fashion is cute and im not just saying that cause she dresses like i do sometimes

joyce should have said sorry sincerely for standing hop up at the restaurant, even if she was doing research and learning and stuff she should have apologised for leaving him hanging like that

it was fucked up and cruel and unnecessary to kill billy in front of max, for emotion i get it but for me, she didn't need to see that, she's a kid that's gonna stick with her forever and as far as i can think it's the only death she's actually seen happen in canon

max shouldn't be left with neil, i don't trust him not to turn on her now that billy isn't there taking hits, i just don't trust him not to snap at her now billy isn't around to deal with all the shit

i Knew before the show was released and i said it to someone i'll look for the chat, but i KNEW the audio that was used would be a flashback for Billy's life in cali and i was right and im fuckin stoked abt that

killing hop was shit, he just got the chance of a new daughter and a better life and was working on it to be there for her and more supportive and stuff and trying to work around her being in his life and having her own life outside of that

release tammy thompsons music! i need new muppets hits!!!! make her sing life's a happy song!!!!

heather was cute, wish she wasn't possessed 😔

idk anything else but im in love with steve harrington

[ASK ME ABOUT ANYTHING PLEASE]

[webswng]

                    (  kim   taehyung .   twenty - one .   cismale .  )   ——   i   just   saw   PETER  PARKER   in   town ,   from   SPIDER - MAN :   THE   ANIMATED   SERIES ,   right  ?  HE   has   been   in   town   for   NINE   MONTHS   and   has  gotten   a   job   at   MAD  SCIENCE  OF  TOONSVILLE .   they   were   born   on   AUGUST  TENTH ,   which   makes   them   a   LEO .   i   can   see   it ,   considering   they're   SHREWD  &  DELICATE .   they've   got   SOME   of   their   memory ,   though ,   so   let's   see   how   they   do .

so to peter’s knowledge, his backstory remains the same as his canon one--- ie, was taken in by his uncle and aunt at a young age after his parents passed away

his uncle ben DID still die about three years ago--- but ofc in his mind the whole spider thing didn’t happen so he didn’t technically become spider boi 

instead this was a turning point for him but in a bAD direction

he lost sight of his goals and was really impacted by his uncle’s death , and without an escape (being spider-man) it was a lot harder to get out of the rut : / 

only did so when his aunt got sick and he realized he um had to snap out of it and get back to living his life

currently, he’s taking care of his aunt may and is interning at mad science of toonsville--- he gets most of his income by doing freelance photography for weddings and events and has gathered up a decent clientele 

he obviously isn’t rolling in dough but it’s enough to get by for now until he can finish school (also goes to the city college) and hopefully get a permanent job @ mad science of toonsville

will occasionally have deju-vu like moments when things spider-man related come up, ie if he’s wearing red, on building rooftops, sees a spider, etc etc he feels weirdly.... nostalgic ?? but of what ?? he doesn’t know

occasionally has dreams abt being spider-man too and they feel v much real but he doesn’t even have tiME to worry about something so (seemingly) trivial

personality wise, still ur average peter parker-- clumsy, bad at time management, barely sleeps, procrastinates, a little awkward, etc etc, tho his character will be more influenced by the animated series than mcu / sony’s versions of him !

[gocatboygo]

1-50 for Rosa

I’m Love You.

1) What is your OC’s favorite color?

maybe red? could also be brown, but like probably red

2) Does your OC collect anything? What do they collect?

bad christian romance novels from pre-war. cass gives her most of them. twilight is included in this but its by no means her favorite like she thought it was just ok

3) What kind of things is your OC allergic to?

nothing comes to mind

4) What kind of clothing does your OC wear?

in public she almost always wears a mask, usually either the legion recruit mask or the ncr ranger mask. also construction gloves. spends most of the beginning of the game in a sherrif’s duster & then from there she just wears whatever covers most of her and supports her gear, if it’s really hot out she’ll wear the wasteland surgeon armor

5) What is your OC’s first memory?

she still has her memories from before the bullet so probably something from her childhood

6) What’s your OC’s favorite animal? Least favorite?

she really fucking loves horses. like she’s a Horse Girl TM. least favorite is like,, djfdsfjs cazadores idfk

7) What element would your OC be?

definitely earth!

8) What is your OC’s theme song? 

probably a mitski song lmfao. either that or everybody wants to rule the world by tears for fears

8) Do you have a faceclaim/voiceclaim for your OC?

bold of you to assume i have anything for this oc / i just realized i fucked up the numbering here so enjoy that sdkfjdsk

9) What deadly sin would best represent your OC?

after she gets pretty deep into the game, maybe after the sierra madre? greed. i can see her going a little out of control after she has to give all that gold up (even though she could bring 1 bar back bc She Big) and just kind of. taking everything

10) What are your OC’s hobbies?

she’s a courier at heart so delivering packages dsjkflsjdw. farming, solitaire, reading those bad novels i previously mentioned, knitting, gecko hunting… watching holotape movies on her pipboy… getting terminally bored and taking med-x ksdjfkds

11) How patient is your OC? How hot-headed are they?

she’s fairly patient, the only time she really gets hot-headed is at fortification hill when she goes to meet with lanius (caesar dies of his cancer p early in her canon). also probably at the tops, she doesnt like bein in there

12) What is your OC’s gender / sexuality / race / species / etc.?

cis woman / bi / mexican / human / etc.

13) What foods does your OC like to eat? What are their least favorite foods?

uhh she learned how to cook from home-grown ingredients and in lasting bulk so she mostly eats stew and potatoes. every time she goes to freeside she gets that “mystery meat” from the stand in front of the gate despite the fact that its transparently radroach meat. she doesnt like the meat from the ultraluxe (even before she finds out it might be people, its fancy and garnished and she dont trust like that) but she loves their brahmin cheesecakes so she like, settles kdsjfksd

14) If your OC could have any pet, what would they choose? Why?

rex. rex. rex. rex. r (she also has like 2 brahmin at some point ksdjfksdf)

15) What does your OC smell like? 

that’s ! a wildin question huh! probably gunpowder and old leather 

16) How do they make a living? What kind of job do they want / not want? What is their dream job? What do they think of their current job?

she works for house, owns a small farm (after a while, in spring of 2282), and does various quests around the mojave for money. she was a courier for 8-9 years and she loved it, so id say thats her ideal job, but she’s past it. she’s very happy with where she is in all 3 of those jobs !

17) What are your OC’s greatest fears? Weaknesses? Strengths?

her biggest fears would probably be claustrophobia and getting buried alive (because benny). she has nightmares abt it, like 2 the point where every so often she wakes up and just Has A Good Sob. she has very low charisma (1) and very high endurance (9), her strength is also pretty good

18) What kind of music do they listen to? Do they have a favorite song?

she thinks truly madly deeply by cascada is the best love song ever written. she also listens to radio new vegas & a holotape cass gave her that’s mostly feminist anthems from the 20th century and 2 instances of mad about the boy

19) If they came from their world to ours (if not already in our’s) how would they react? What would they do?

oh god she would fucking hate the pre-war world. she would probably just go find a horse tbh sdfjsdkf what else is there to do! 

20) What personal problems/issues do they have? Pet peeves?

she has brain damage from the bullet. it didnt affect her intelligence or (for the most part) her memory, but she does have, like. chronic headaches, brain fog, dizzy spells, things like that. like i said before, she also has nightmares & claustrophobia from the same incident. as for pet peeves, she hates people who talk a lot without saying anything or try to sound smart for no reason. she has no problem with talkers as long as they like,, Say Something dsfdksfj

21) What kind of student were they/would they be in high school?

she grew up in a very small (very catholic) village, so im not sure if she exactly went to high school?? but she did attend school. she was sort of a loner, she had a single mother w no siblings & shes like 6 feet tall so both of those things made her a little bit outcast ksdjfksd. i mean she. She Was A Horse Girl what else do i have to say

22) What is a random fact about your OC? 

god i dont know!! uh… oh omg she thinks astrology is something vulpes made up and when she hears arcade talking about it she out of bodies

23) What is their outlook on life? What is their philosophy / what do they think in general about living?

rosa’s a very simple person, she mostly just wants a good life for herself. stable work and a stable life make her happy. a lot of her philosophy throughout the game is based on the fact that she’ll do (almost) whatever her employer asks her to, thus her being a house courier. most of her relationships are based almost entirely on trust, which is another major philosophy of hers 

24) What inspired you to create them / how did you create them? Were they originally a fancharacter? What was their personality / design like when you first made them?

honestly??? i read so many fics (especially f!courier/vulpes) where the courier was a Relateable Pretty Girl TM that i probably just wanted to make a female courier who had actual substance and weight. rosa is married to (ex-legion) vulpes so she rlly does largely serve to subvert the genre in fnv fic

25) Who is the most important person in their life? Why? Who is the least important to them (that still has an impact and why?

i mean. her husband probably skdfjkdfs. she’s been travelling with vulpes for a long time and she’s had to put her life in his hands a lot of times because of that, so he’s grown to be very important to her. mr house is a close runner up. i hate to say this but arcade is probably her least Impactful TM companion skjfdkds she barely travels w him 

26) What kind of childhood did your character have?

i say some of this in the other questions but like heres all of her backstory in one i guess kdsjfsd. rosa was raised in small catholic village somewhere outside nevada, i havent decided on what state its in bc im fucking dumb as hell. her family (like great grandmother type shit not her personally) & a few others came up from mexico years ago to get away from raiders, made a village and Kabaam. her mother had her, and then a second baby who was stillborn, and her father disappeared a few months after this happened. her mother raised her there until she was 20 and she signed on with the mojave express as a courier in an attempt to get out of her village and find Something To Do With Herself TM. she was a little outcast growing up, not totally isolated but certainly not very popular, and it caused her to be a very independent person later in life.

27) What kind of nervous habits do they have? Do they stim? Do they have any kinds of addictions?

she fidgets sometimes but i wouldn’t say she stims. clenches her fists when she’s nervous. she likes to smoke and chew tobacco (especially when she’s stressed out) but it’s only a minor addiction

28) If they could choose their epitaph for their grave, what would they choose?

honestly?? “Forgive Me Mama” bc that’s what it says on her helmet sfjdsfhd

29) Do they want to get married? Why or why not? Would they ever want kids? Do they have kids? Why?

apparently bc she fuckin did! she wants stability and someone to take care of her, and she likes the idea of being a unit with someone a lot more than she likes the idea of just dating them, so i guess thats how vulpes Happened ™. she actually can’t have kids bc she got irradiated pretty bad while she was looting searchlight :/ but she doesn’t want kids because 1) she’s travelling a lot for her work and 2) she doesn’t want to have to shape her life around a child. god knows vulpes cant interact w children, but he still wants them in theory because he wants a legacy

30) What is their most traumatic memory/experience? What is their favorite memory?

ring-a-ding-ding! it’s getting shot. her favorite memory is probably either like, easter when she was a child, or some time she swam in a river with vulpes, she’s fuckin basic

31) If they could have one thing in the world, what would it be?

a horse. i wanted to answer this differently but it really is just a horse

32) Would they ever kill someone? What would someone have to do to push them to kill someone? If they would kill someone, why? 

she’s killed! if she’s provoked or if her employer asks her to, she will absolutely kill someone. destroying the bos bunker was hard for her though :/ i like to pretend she didnt do it even though shes house ksdjfklsdhg

33) What social groups and activities does your character attend? What role do they like to play? What role do they actually play, usually?

maybe its just the fact that its 2am and i have poor reading comprehension but i have no fucking clue what this means

34) How is your character’s imagination? Daydreaming a lot? Worried most of the time? Living in memories?

her imagination is pretty good! i wouldnt call it excellent but it’s pretty good. she usually only daydreams before she falls asleep or gets up in the morning (or if she’s just like rlly chilled out skdfjds). she doesn’t worry much.

35) What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain?

i have no idea how to answer this one, which is a tragedy. maybe ill come back and answer it someday lmao

36) What’s something that your character does, that other people don’t normally do?

The House Always Wins I-VIII

37) What would your character do with a million dollars? 

in all seriousness she’d probably just stop having any financial restraint and start buying whatever she wants whenever it comes to mind. also she’d buy vulpes like 100,000 gambling chips from gomorrah and tell him to lose his mind skdfhjldksg

38) What is in your characters refrigerator right now? On their bedroom floor? Nightstand? Garbage can?

fridge at her farmhouse: vegetables, gecko meat, some seasonings, leftovers, beans, cram / fridge at the 38: An Entire Pot Of Stew ™, leftover tops restaurant takeout, a cheesecake, crispy squirrel bits, a post-it note from veronica saying they’re out of shampoo / bedroom floor: ;) / garbage can: empty cans, vulpes, plastic wrappers

39) Your character is getting ready for a night out. Where are they going? What do they wear? Who will they be with?

first thing that came to mind was to gomorrah, in her Fancy Riot Gear and ranger’s helmet, with raul. no idea why but like have a fun night bb sdkfjdslkf

40) What does your character do when they’re angry? Why?

depends on why she’s angry, but usually she’ll either start ranting at whoever she’s mad at (which never lasts long) or just go silent and tense up. she’ll also grumble. i mentioned this before but fortification hill was probably the only time she was so mad she was just yelling at everyone skfjkdsf

41) Does your character have any scars? Where did they get them from? 

she has a lot of scars! the most visible one is a cobweb-shaped scar on her forehead from when benny shot her. she also has another less prominent scar on the side of her face from Some Shit. various scars on her torso and arms from various sources, another bullet scar on her arm from raiders, maybe more. there’s a particularly bad scar across her ribs from being slashed w a knife (raiders again)

42) What was the most offensive thing your character had ever said?

she hates the irish

43) How does your character react/ accept criticism?

i dont know if she really cares? shes still a little bitter abt some insults she took as a kid but like arent we all. it makes her more angry than insecure

44) If your character was given a slice of pineapple pizza and they HAD to eat it (or something bad would happen), how would they react? Do they even LIKE pineapple pizza?

under normal circumstances, she’d throw it in the fucking trash. if she HAD to eat it she’d be fine skjfsd she just wouldnt like it

45) Your character is given a voodoo doll of themself. What do they do with it? Do they see if it actually works?

yeah, she probably puts a needle in its shoulder or something to see if it works. shes so used to being end 9 she doesnt consider the fact that She Will Lose Her Shoulder

46) Can your character draw? What do they like to draw? Do they doodle?

she can’t draw slkdfjsd. she probably has like… some warrior cats type drawings from when she was a kid and thats it

47) What were their parents like? How has that affected how they are as an adult?

her father dipped when she was maybe 1-2 years old, a few months after her brother was stillborn.

48) Does your character like candy? Do they get sugar rushes? What are they like when they get a rush?

she likes a little bit of candy, mostly lollipops. i cant see her getting a sugar rush

(i know i fucked up the numbering) 50) If your character was presented with imminent and unavoidable death/fatality, how would they react? Would they try to avoid death anyways? Would they try to make their last days count?

this,, could actually very easily happen because of her brain damage, ive explored that concept before. she would probably spend a lot of time alone or with the people she’s closest to reflecting on her life and trying to die in peace. if she had enough time she’d go see her mother again, but it’s still unlikely

————

jesus fucking christ thats long, rip mobile users. tysm for sending me this!! i didnt realize how much 50 questions was dksjfkds. yall can keep sending me these (like 1-10 at a time skdfjdg) for other couriers if you want but like i understand if ur tired of hearing me Fucking Talk after this

[mabufu]

me: can i get uhhhhhhhhhhhh some sweet thots on yusorey,

yes omg you can get endless thots on yusorey at all times……. i’m gonna go with p5 verse for this so it’s a bit more #specific and also bc i love your p5 verse! :D

first & foremost: yusuke and sorey are both very passionate people. they’ve been called ‘weird’ for their enthusiasm in the past and are prone to doing eccentric things in the name of their interests. in sorey’s case, it’s history, and in yusuke’s case, it’s art. they’re also interested in certain elements of each other’s ‘main focus’ - yusuke enjoys researching historical events, and, in sorey’s case, you can’t really study history without acknowledging the cultural context of art during that time period. related to that, their interests 100% overlap in the form of art history in general, lmao. so the bottom line here is that they learn from each other a lot… which is important for characters like them, i think. they get excited abt documentaries and marathon them and Nerd Out and stuff. and tbh, this what made me fall for yusorey initially. yusuke is 100% attracted to sorey’s passion; to him, it’s just… so incredibly beautiful? sorey’s interests are fascinating and inspiring to yusuke and they really help each other out when it comes to fully exploring what they love. yusuke wouldn’t be afraid to text sorey paragraphs of information about an art piece. he’d trust sorey to actually read it and enjoy it and not brush him aside as weird. imo establishing that trust is a super strong foundation for their relationship. it’s part of why yusuke was so determined to get involved with sorey’s problems in the first place.

in p5, yusuke’s major fear is becoming tainted; in toz, sorey is associated with purifying taint. need i say more?!

dlgkld;fkd but in all seriousness: yusuke is really preoccupied with the figurative concept of one’s heart, and he becomes fascinated with sorey’s ‘heart’ from their very first meeting due to his… unwavering kindness?! yusuke isn’t used to that at all. he’s used to being kept at a distance. sorey was the first person outside of the phantom thieves (prior to his joining) who treated yusuke like his opinion mattered, u know?!!! that goes a long way. their first meeting w the crepe means so much to me now bc while we were being silly back then, it absolutely showed that sorey accepted yusuke’s thought process from their very first encounter. he had the option of mocking him or calling him strange or, hell, even correcting him, but, instead, he went with it. it became a fun friend/couple joke as time went on, too. it genuinely set the tone for their relationship. 

they can definitely relate to each other in terms of their past experiences. their circumstances are different, of course - but they have that key similarity in that they both know what it’s like to be a victim of some corrupt adult’s cruelty. they both end up confronting extremely uncomfortable truths and have to work through all that leftover trauma, now. in doing so, they form a powerful support system with each other bc they can really empathize with each other. there isn’t any pity or anything, you know? it’s like a mutual understanding. both of them lost their mothers due to the actions of evil father-like figures (well, in sorey’s case, he wasn’t even a figure - he was flat-out his biological father… but u know what i mean). both of them know how it feels to kind of… be alone. separate from the world while also harboring curiosity. they can absolutely recover together, and are secure enough in their relationship to outlast even the rough patches.

this isn’t rly a meta point but like… when pre-pt sorey confided in yusuke re: his connection with heldalf, and yusuke decided he’d also confide in sorey w/o even consulting the other phantom thieves bc he trusted sorey just that much and was also willing to help sorey alone if he had to… that was gay culture in action right there.

we haven’t written out sorey’s journey into heldalf’s palace yet, but from what we’ve discussed… i just wanna say how amazing it’ll be. yusuke going into a palace that is based so firmly in fire elemental stuff - fire being one of his fears; not to mention his major canonical weakness - because he flat-out refuses to sit this one out. sorey learning a bunch of truths that will clearly have quite the impact on him, and yusuke being able to relate strongly to everything and being gripped by this determination to keep sorey safe; to protect his beautiful heart, to keep it free of the taint that afflicted his own heart after the madarame stuff… my god. it’ll be good. i could prob write a full meta piece based on that alone.

this is pretty unrelated and i can’t really take it somewhere deep just yet, but i’m also still rly (eyes emoji) over their phantom thief names. shepherd and fox. kind of cool in a weird way?! kind of fiesty?! a shepherd working alongside a fox has some kinda rad symbolism to me. yusorey is pastoral, now, apparently.

ok anyways: this is totally restating my first point but i want to drive HOME that they can genuinely be themselves around each other. given yusuke’s personality, that’s the most important, special thing possible lmao. they have such incredible compatibility and became friends so… quickly?! and their progression into romance was so fluid and natural, it’s just… iconic. i love yusorey so much and i’m so glad sorey babyboy was patched into p5 to be a member of the phantom thieves! thanks, atlus!