#that isn't jade lol

[shiftythrifting]

How do you even get something like this

[kobanzme]

🐬🐙 a silent admiration,

A mini comic that I illustrated for Jeiazu June, featuring middle school Jade and Azul!

Jade loves Azul's tenacity. Azul's always accomplishes anything he sets his mind upon; it's what makes him fascinating. To stay at the side of someone with such resolve, surely there isn't anything in the world that they couldn't conquer together.

[skrunksthatwunk]

ding ding ding

of all the things ash gets compared to (lynxes, beasts, demons, wives), colonel fox is the only one to call him a leopard, the thing ash views himself as, at least within the context of the snows of kilimanjaro visual. also note that eiji is the only one to respond directly to that visual, insisting that a) humans have wisdom leopards don't (don't die on me for nothing) and b) ash is not a leopard, anyway (seriously ash don't die on me for nothing)

to fox and to ash, ash is someone whose life of violence (+ inability to leave it, stubbornness, whatever he's searching for that keeps him going down this path, etc) will inevitably lead to his death. eiji's an optimist (perhaps more accurately, he believes in ash) and tries to steer ash from this, but he's more resigned to it than he's willing to tell eiji. and the fact that fox understands that about ash immediately is just. ough. and of course in the end, ash is the one who seals his own fate. it wasn't inevitable, to eiji, to the audience, maybe to the world. but it was inevitable to ash, and he finally surrendered to it. he couldn't believe in his ability to escape like eiji could (or, imo for a slew of reasons i'm not getting into, he chose to die in a comfortable place and time, surrounded by hope and love. before things got bad again. etc)

edit: i forgot to say this in the original post but part of the reason why foxx feels like a final boss is because of that immediate understanding, that psychological violation. and because it lets him reinforce ash's hopelessness that leads to his final decision

[nihilismtrcit]

they met at the skate park when they were teens

[myplaylists-angeli]

nightmare before college - twstween playlist

ft. Happy 200th Angeli's Playlist

[mare-bare]

French - Lonely & Horny - 01x05

for @gulliesforever since they just made fanart for these guys!

[rosewilsonravager]

I find it really hard to get back into comics these days, DC specifically. I've tried, but there doesn't seem to be any internal consistency with stories and characters. It all seems to operate on a specific writer's whim to determine what in a character's history is canon/relevant at any given time, and character development or important events may be dropped without a word. Characters go through so many different writers that they may end up completely different than they were 5 years ago, or become flanderized version of themselves. Their histories might get erased, some parts of their histories might randomly come back, relationships they have with other characters might be forgotten about, etc.

DC seems to want to operate on the idea of "everything is canon", but that doesn't… really work, when there are direct contradictions to what's come before—things that couldn't be canon if other things are. And honestly, I don't enjoy that. I don't like the idea of all these stories happening in a vacuum, aand having to decide for myself what stories have or have not happened for each specific character I like (at least in official media, because that's what fan fic is for). I will always prefer fully developed narratives, and characters who are allowed to grow and evolve, and maintain internal consistency to their stories. I like beginnings, middles, and ends, not the constant state of stagnation these characters always seem to be in, because god forbid the status quo ever change.

As an example, my favorite DC character is/was Rose Wilson—but specifically from before Flashpoint and the New 52. Nowadays, even after Rebirth, she's just a different character to me. Most of what I loved about her has been written out or forgotten about, and I have tried to enjoy her for what she is now, but I haven't been as engaged by her stories or how she's been written. In my own opinion, most of what made her so compelling for me is gone, and with the exception of a couple standout moments here and there, she's been mostly a nerfed caricature of herself. Her backstory has been changed, her ethnicity was changed (from Khmer to Hmong), her dynamic with her family has changed, she no longer has the same relationships with so many characters, and even if you want to say "everything in her past and all her stories still happened", there are direct contradictions now that prevent that from making sense.

I have had to come to accept that, while I find the present-day Rose "okay"—not great, not bad, just okay—the character I fell in love with and who became my favorite of all time ended in 2011 when DC decided to reboot things. And that makes me a little sad.

This is, of course, only my own opinion. I will never knock on others for enjoying these comics or these characters how they are, and if you do I'm happy for you! I wish I could too, but unfortunately it's just not for me anymore. I have since taken solace in fan works and my own writing, where I can get that kind of concrete development and narrative consistency, and that's okay with me.

[zippycarlos24]

there they are! a different version of my favorite crumbling family with a little berry twist :)

[waitineedaname]

the dashboard osmosis has zapped your blorbos into my subconscious bc despite not having read a word of svsss last night I dreamed about a musical adaptation of it. thought you should know. (the dream musical kind of slapped btw)

OH MY GOD??? that sounds incredible holy shit now all I can think about is which scenes would make good songs. this is amazing omg I'm so glad my dashboard osmosis powers were strong enough to do this to you

[enby-catgirl]

it's for your own good; it's for the neighborhood

[notascreepyasyouthink]

this playlist is really bad in case you were wondering how it's going

[batsplat]

Do you have any thoughts on the people saying that Marc is interfering with the championship. Like what do they want he’s doing his job. Also where has this thing come from where people are saying it’s an unspoken rule to not get involved in the championship fight like if you can’t beat someone without team orders then idk maybe you shouldn’t have the title. Cause when Ducati tried team orders at 2017 Valencia all the journalists where like this is a bad look for our sport we don’t do team orders. But know because Marc isn’t backing off he’s interfering and I think that’s such a stupid take to have because by that logic every single person entering a race is interfering because any of them could pass Jorge or Pecco in fact a lot of the academy riders tried to at Philip island but I haven’t seen anything about them interfering.

idk man, this isn't a serious argument being had by serious people. obviously marc isn't interfering with the title fight. there will be fans who genuinely believe this, but the journalists asking about it are generally just fishing for some drama to write about. which, like, to some extent I get, but I sort of feel like maybe we could invent some new drama unrelated to the same old stuff. as a treat. it's been long enough for someone to come up with something fun... this is just dumb. sometimes discourse is so stupid that it's simply not worth engaging with. but, sure, lemme have a crack at it

I will say 'not getting involved in a title fight' is something different from 'team orders'. sometimes riders are a little more... restrained in racing title contenders in the latter stage of the season, which often isn't as much about like. respect for the title contenders or anything as it is self-preservation instinct - as we've already seen this season, tipping off a title contender can just be a lot of bother. the archetypal example of this is obviously estoril 2006, which was a horrendous experience for dani and very nearly made him some lifelong enemies... and even though hayden won the title, there were still plenty of american fans who continued to vocally despise him years and years later. also, the vibes in honda for the next two seasons were infamously not great, which wasn't primarily about estoril 2006 but it was not not about that either. just makes things awkward! and when it comes down to it, nobody wants something like this to be the first line of their legacy... some riders are warier of this than others - with some you feel like (if anything) they're even more aggressive because they know the other party has more to lose lol. that's really a risk/reward decision each rider has to make for themselves. I've already made my feelings clear about how much fans scrutinise every word by every rider and look for the worst faith interpretation. it makes the sport worse and it's also kinda annoying. basically my take on sports is that athletes should have insane opinions but fans need to not be so irritating about them that the athletes stop voicing those opinions. like I just sort of think fans suck idk

and on the team orders thing - there were definitely people, including journalists, who thought it was sensible in 2017!! I mean mostly I think the journalists were on the same page as I was back then, aka 'massively enjoying how messy it got'. but if anything, as I remember it there were also people who felt ducati should've been firmer with jorge! they looked like idiots because it didn't WORK, not necessarily because they tried it. I mean,,, look, it was a controversial thing, but there certainly wasn't a consensus anti-team orders stance within the commentariat. likewise, the commentariat is decidedly NOT pro team orders in 2024 - as a whole they were probably more pro the concept in 2017 because it at least theoretically made sense in that situation. a lot of discourse that goes 'why does everybody hate x when they loved y' doesn't account for how it's often not the same people holding those two opinions. being virulently anti-team orders in 2017 but pro in 2024 is... well. I mean I'm sure a person exists who simultaneously holds those opinions, but it's not exactly a majority take. it's not even a sensibly partisan anti-marquez take, because otherwise you would've been pro-ducati team orders in 2017 to try and deny him the title

(you can tell that team orders just won't ever meaningfully be a thing in motogp by how, in 2017, you might have thought both jorge and valentino would be motivated to stop marc's title count from ticking up... but they were both spectacularly disinclined to actually do much to prevent it. jorge rather infamously so, but shout out to valentino for mathematically eliminating any remaining hope for his teammate vinales to be champion by finishing in pee two behind marc and ahead of vinales by .027s at phillip island. what a real one)

since 2017, there haven't really been any team orders (which made the diggia qatar thing last year so funny of course). pecco's never publicly asked for them - yeah, he got snippy about bastianini in that one clip from 2022... but again, see above, call me crazy but I think it's okay and indeed Good for athletes to occasionally get snippy about their competitors. nobody serious has asked for team orders this year, it's just not been a thing. I suppose ducati might have a chat with bastianini before the last couple of races, but generally this stuff doesn't go beyond 'please don't knock your teammate off', which oddly enough is something teams like to avoid even outside of title battles. also don't think it's a clear cut thing to say the academy riders have raced pecco all that much more kindly than they would anyone else - at the very least they've repeatedly held him up in the last few races. and if fans feel like the academy riders have just been ushering pecco through... well, everyone's entitled to their opinions. I suppose. you tell your occipital lobe what's what! ends up just being a bunch of different fanbases being conspiratorial in each other's directions, and it's not even the riders themselves saying weird shit so it's just fucking boring. but also... who cares. it's some random fans doing discourse and then some journalists asking about it to feebly try to find some actual drama to write about, but it's not going to materially change how anyone races or how anyone thinks about any of the riders involved. it's the definition of a non-issue. nobody's opinion on marc marquez was changed at the 2024 race at phillip island. he's rich and famous and has a gp25 next year, he'll be fine I reckon

and, y'know, obviously ducati would prefer for bagnaia to retain the title, though it's now too late to meaningfully interfere. that being said, if team orders get you a title, then to me this is just part of the game in motorsports and doesn't make said title any less deserved. it's basically part of the team package, right - like the bike or the mechanics or the guys crunching your data, maybe you have a teammate who can provide meaningful assistance or (as is far more likely) you don't. but at the end of the day, team orders is one of those things that gets discussed exponentially more than their actual impact on title fights ever seems to be. they just don't even really work in motogp, like ultimately even 2017 was much ado about nothing - fun in the moment, but the only way jorge could've won dovi that title was by catalunya 2019'ing the field. at least that one was less about 'should there be team orders' (boring, idc) and more about 'will the teammate LISTEN to team orders' (camp, funny, allows you to show off your knowledge about ten year old beef). and if they actually listen and it makes a difference, great - you do what you can do win... I've never understood the hand wringing about this. if you want to get rid of outside influence, scrap the bikes and just have them run around the circuit a few times

[rascheln]

character dynamics where one character just dislikes the other solely based on vibes, but the vibes of the disliked person are wholesome and sweet. and everyone else doesn't really get it, some even get exasperated by the character's complete lack of interest in having any form of relationship with this perfectly sweet person. there's no hidden agenda either, it's just they're so fundamentally different in temperament that all of their interactions are either incredibly awkward or straight up communicating at cross purposes.

[kris-mage-fics]

*cat lays on my lap*

me: this is it. this is my fate now, to be a cat bed. but what a blessed fate it is!

[stillthewc]

YEAR OF THE FANGAN - APRIL EDITION

ꕥ DANGANRONPA: DECEPTION EXAMINATION ꕥ

Ah, Instaronpas. Despite Instagram not being very conducive to hosting fangans imo (unless I'm doing things wrong, navigating to older posts is generally a pain / it's very easy to spoil plot points by doing so), the slideshow formatting makes for a very unique type of experience, and the fandom-centric stories I've read on there (aka Total Ronpa Island and Penguinronpa, two fangans I look back on in high reverence despite never fully reading) invoke a special kind of nostalgia to me. So, upon seeing a ton of people on my feed talk about Deception Examination, I was bound to read it eventually. And, despite my admittingly-rocky reception to the prologue, what I discovered when I kept reading was a really fun story.

To start off, we have the cast. While I admit I wasn't the most receptive to them at first (I'm so sorry for judging you, Naga and Frankie), almost every cast member grew on me. While this mostly comes from their respective quirks being presented in super likable ways, I also think the deeper delves into the lives of the characters / perspectives really helps. Both the second and third killer are given insight into their home lives / how that affected their desire to go through with the murder, the Dream Theatre sections (Chester's in particular) give an internal dive of their desires and insecurities, and Edric Pluto's positing about survivalism and morality make him easily the best-written character in the story to me.

I also have to say this is the funniest fangan I've come across thus far. Vanity getting plastered before the Chapter 2 trial, Chester's Big Reveal™️ over his talent, and especially the non-canon April Fools post are some of the hardest I've laughed at a fangan's jokes before, and that's not even mentioning small, one-off jokes the characters make due to their bantering.

But all of that pales in comparison to my favorite part of the story: the cast interactions. Seriously, the prologue does a major disservice by solely focusing on Faith because damn, does this group of characters mesh with one another amazingly. Small, petty rivalries like Naga's and Arthur's, grounded and earnest relationships like Chester's and Milo's, and even small one-off interactions leap off the pages, as do large group events.

In fact, I'd say this one of the sole fangans I prefer the daily life to deadly life over: while the trials and investigations are certainly fun, losing cast members also loses their unique way of interacting with others, making it feel like there's a hole in the story now that they're gone. Because of this, every death has some sort of impact to me which, while definitely a positive, always makes me sad whenever deadly life inevitably has to show up.

Lastly, it's just such a cool novelty to have a fangan with ARG elements? As much as I enjoy the main story, there's something so neat about additional plotlines and characters being introduced in the super-spoilery side blog that should only be read once you're all caught up and (apparently) the Discord server. There feels like there's a whole other story brewing outside the one we're aware of, something I stumbled upon in happenstance after just wanting to collect some fanart references. And, while I'll warn you some of the mystery of the main story's spoiled knowing the ARG info, it's super duper fun if you want to create an even-more developed story experience for yourself.

And that's all I have to say this time around! Please check this story out if you get the chance, and I'll see you in the next YOTF report!

FORMAT: "Instaronpa" (written, but told through images that look like stills from a game/web video fangan)

WHERE TO FIND IT: Instagram (SUPER BIG PRO-TIP: For the love of all things holy, please navigate posts using the Google Doc sheet detailing all the story posts if you want to avoid spoilers! Almost every death was discovered by me due to having to scroll down manually, so don't make the same mistake!)

FAVORITE CHAPTER: Chapter 3. The daily life follows main character Faith's attempts at being a leader, while the deadly life serves as one massive teardown of her efforts. Mix that with one death that's super flashy and another narratively poignant, really good characterization for a lot of characters, and some super-emotional writing across the board, and you're in for a wild ride.

FAVORITE CHARACTER: Surprisingly, Christopher Polo. While he's a shy, quiet fellow who feels more comfortable exploring than socializing, his keen observational skills and general helpfulness also make him one of the few reliable braincell havers in the cast.

OTHER STANDOUT CHARACTERS: Frankie Instein, who quickly went from "character I wasn't a fan of" to "a goofy breath of fresh air with some of the tightest character writing / compelling character motivations in the story", and Arthur The LXIXth, whose noble-heartedness mixed with his overconfidence and casanova wannabe personality made me want to keep reading the story, prologue be damned (Plus his name translates to Arthur the 69th, for crying out loud! What's not to love?)

[stinkrascal]

YEAH i saw a tiktok about a teen that asked to stay on a hotel for their 15th birthday, it made me so mad!! And the mom was saying stuff like “its normal to want to stay somewhere else for your birthday” while the comments were tearing her apart. That poor teen must be stressed and unhappy, they practically live in a cupboard

I SAW THAT TOO! ugh it made me infuriated honestly, like you can just tell that those parents only see their kids as accessories for their fucking tiktok stardom, not actual living breathing growing human beings with their own needs separate from their parents. i saw the tour that parent did of their house, and their 15 yr old child's bedroom is so fucking tiny they have to crouch over and crawl around just to fit in it :( i can't imagine how many problems, both physically and mentally, living in a space like that would inflict onto a child. and it's totally not normal for kids to want to spend their birthdays at a HOTEL just so they can stretch their limbs and maybe have more privacy than they would at home. it's just so gross how those parents want to pretend like the very obviously bad thing we're seeing isn't actually that bad, it's like they're literally trying to gaslight their audience lmfao like girl i can use my eyes and judge the situation for what it is... it's just so gross. i hope that kid gets to live in a better environment soon :(