#the grudge story

[eccedente]

Tina, Xav, Dante & a vengeful bitch.

[cubbihue]

“He knows Timmy will come around eventually. It's only a matter of waiting for his clock to run out. And HP is very patient.” Hey uh.. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN HIS CLOCK TO RUN OUT is he waiting for Timmy to become a full fairy (Pixie?) and when that happens Timmy forgets about being a human entirely?

Sometimes Timmy wonders why he has grudges against certain fairies. Some of them, he can understand- like his dislike of Dr. Rip Studwell. But other ones, like with Cupid, it's a bit of a blur.

He must've been a very very vindictive 10 year old! Ah, well! Timmy's learned that he has to pick and choose his own battles wisely.

And uh. Fighting with the man who decides his paycheck and vacation days is not a battle worth choosing. Talk about a hostile work environment!!

Bitties Series: [Start] > [Previous] > [Next]

[theweeklydiscourse]

God forbid you ever criticize the lack of consequences Bakugou experiences in MHA, or suddenly you’ll find dozens of Bakugou stans pouring into your mentions to make a speech about how cruel you are for forcing him to eat cement. They’ll act as though “consequences” inherently involves throwing him into the dungeon or putting him in detention for 100 years and then moan about how him facing consequences would only perpetuate a cycle of abuse/discrimination.

Listen, it’s not really that much of a consequence if the “consequence” in question isn’t directly connected to his current or past bad behaviour. “Oh but his scars!” “When he died that one time!” “His guilt for getting kidnapped” None of those are related to his bullying, and in my opinion, that makes them insufficient as consequences in an arc about changing for the better.

The consequences I would actually like to see could be as simple as: Izuku feels sad/mad because of what he went through, or certain characters reflect on how Bakugou’s past impacts their perception of him. More introspection on the victim’s end is needed, Bakugou doesn’t necessarily need to be pilloried for the arc to be satisfying.

[jontheredrc]

the world of Kirby is hilarious to me because Dream Land is the happiest gumdrop rainbow world you'll ever see, and its king and all his friends like to beat the crap out of each other for fun

and then you have Meta Knight, who has such a lust for violence that he must play Fight Club with Kirby every so often, or else he goes crazy and starts blasting cities with his battleship

(and even when he is so satiated, that need to fight is what things like the Jamba Heart and ID-F86 have preyed on when they tried to brainwash him into evil)

[horygory]

Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre (2023)

[poomphuripan]

POOM PHURIPAN as JOE and PORSCHE TANATHORN as SOL

MY STAND-IN (2024) | 1.02

[rystiel]

would things have been different if stan told ford? will things be different since mabel told dipper?

[rebouks]

Previous // Next

Levi: What do you want? [Robin shrugged, peering around Levi’s head] Robin: Nothing in particular-.. who’s that, your sister? Levi: Yeah. Robin: Wanna ditch her n’ hang out? Levi: With you? Robin: Uh-huh-.. Jacob and Jude too, his dad’s looking at a house for sale over there. [Levi glanced over his shoulder, grimacing at the prospect of being stuck with Tiffany and her annoying friends] Levi: Fine, whatever. Levi: You know you forgot your shoes, right? Robin: Shoes are overrated-.. I like to feel stuff on my feet. Levi: [scoffs] Weirdo. … Levi: It’s tiny. Jacob: Houses are expensive though, right? Robin: Uh-huh, everything is. Levi: How much do you think this one’s worth? Jacob: Uh-.. ten thousand? Robin: [laughs] Try that times twenty. Jude: Woah. Jacob: How big is your house if this one’s so small then? Bigger than Robin’s? Levi: How should I know?! Robin: It’s kinda big. Levi: If you say so-.. our last house was massive, but we had to move. Jude: Why? Levi: None of your business! Jude: Alright, geez. [Jacob rolled his eyes, wondering why Robin had even gone to the trouble of bringing Levi over] … Jude: Did you get it?! Ivan: It ain’t that quick, bud! We’ll see. Oscar: How you doing, Levi? Levi: Uh, yeah.. I’m great! Robin: Can he come over? Levi: Wai-… Oscar: Sure. Robin: You wouldn’t rather be stuck with your sister all day, would you? [Levi squinted at Robin and his irksome brazenness, but he merely gazed back at him calmly-.. he knew he wasn’t wrong] Jacob: He better not make a habit of inviting Levi to hang out with us all summer. Jude: Maybe he just feels bad for him. He did almost die. Jacob: Only almost.

[ranchstoryblog]

February Community Poll: Headcanons of the World Wide Web

The year is 1999, and a sleepy little farming village just got their first (and so far, only canonical) computer with internet access set up at their local library.

So, in all of the fandom's infinite wisdom, I ask you:

[freddyloyd]

sorry but this irritates me so bad. I know Legends of the DC universe was written like 14 years after COIE but can we at least try to keep the characterization consistent especially if you are writing a story thats supposed to be set during a specific time. This is suppose to be set sometime around COIE #5 which had this panel:

Batman has NO trouble comforting Jason. He wasn't an asshole, he didn't not have any friends or anyone to care about. He doesn't need to learn this lesson. The moment in the first screenshot is supposed to be cathartic or something but it just comes across super hollow because it doesn't make sense in the context of the story its set during.

[tonguetiedraven]

Your thoughts on the dynamic between Amaimon and Rin? Do you think it's "valid" for Amaimon to hold a grudge against Rin? Or logical, at the very least?

My thoughts on Amaimon are probably unpopular and at odds with a larger part of the fan community. I don't particularly like him. I can see his motivations and how he's been manipulated, but understanding a character and jiving with them don't always go hand in hand. ┐(´-｀;)┌

To answer your question of if I think Amaimon is valid or logical for holding a grudge against Rin: not in the least. Rin is not the source of any of Amaimon's problems or issues, and Amaimon has been a source for several of Rin's.

I'm normally the first on the 'Rin makes mistakes and please don't erase them' train, but here's one situation where I see very few if any real mistakes.

Rin was unaware of Amaimon's existence before the Amusement Park incident, even if he should have been aware of him as a general demon king. (If there's one thing Rin does not thrive in, it's school and knowing things he should already have learned in said school. We love the ignorant guy for who he is. Umaimon and all.)

He was not aware that Amaimon had essentially been stalking him for a while and waiting. Amaimon gets to know a lot about Rin and Rin knows nothing about him.

Until later on in the manga, Rin remains ignorant of most everything about Amaimon outside of the fact that Amaimon is strong and dangerous. Honestly, god love him, I'm not sure Rin still gets that Amaimon is a Demon King half bound by Shemihaza. He knows he came into his current body during the Blue Night, but I don't know if the whole Shemihaza thing has come up.

Rin fought him in the park after his sword was stolen. Amaimon instigated that situation. He was ordered to, but we the readers are the only ones that really know that. Rin fought him in the forest after Shiemi was stolen and he got backed into a corner. Rin forgot about him until Rin had to fight him in Gehenna at Mephisto's beckoning. Rin then forgot him again until he showed up in school and then he intervened when Amaimon started to harass Shiemi.

When you look at the events from Rin's pov, he's basically just getting pulled into these fights and not initiating them. He hasn't sought out interactions or fights, but he hasn't backed down from them. He might be overly aggressive, but I don't think so. No, in my opinion, if Amaimon is holding a grudge then it's because Amaimon is being illogical about this for a lot of reasons.

There is a BIG power difference between these two for most of the manga. Rin is half sealed and unaware of how to fight or use his flames efficiently. Amaimon has been using his body and fighting with his powers --full and restricted -- for a long time. He knows how to do it and doesn't have the same moral code Rin does to hold him back.

Amaimon is ANCIENT. There's some disagreement on his actual age, but there is a manga volume extra where Amaimon states he's been in his current body for a 1000 years. That's questionable since we know he received his current body in the last 40 years, but who knows what time shenanigans Mephisto has pulled on him. So 40 or a 1000 years old, he's already older than Rin. However, we also know that Amaimon had been in his previous body for at least 400 years. (Shemihaza tells us this when she's pleading for Lucifer to just let the body go and come back later when they've fixed the clone nonsense.) Point being that Amaimon is sooooooo much older than Rin. He should, by all accounts, be more mature than the 15 year old he's been ordered to harass.

Rin is not the source of any of Amaimon's problems. Amaimon, Mephisto, Shemihaza, and Lucifer are the source of Amaimon's problems. Not Rin or Shiemi. They were not around for most of the bad deals he got himself tangled in. He accepted deals from the devil that is Mephisto and got himself endlessly tied up in favors and demands, and he lost a fight after destroying the earth so Shemihaza sealed him to save the earth and cost herself her own form to do it.

Amaimon is a victim in some ways. He is manipulated by Mephisto and often abused quite brutally by him. All because of a body he got from Section Thirteen that put him in Mephisto's debt. (Though there might be another deal in there. If there's one thing Mephisto loves, it's deals.)

He wants to be free but he's bound partially by Shemihaza to stop him from destroying the earth like he wants to. He is also an emotional and impulsive and often childish Demon King who has gotten himself into several of those situations, and to treat him like he's a hapless baby who is being abused by everyone takes away his own hand in his fate.

What Amaimon is, is emotional more than he is logical. He is more aware of the way Gehenna and Assiah work than Rin is, or indeed a fair chunk of our exwire cast is, but that doesn't mean he's more logical than them. Amaimon wants to have fun and he wants to fight and he gets mad if he's stopped in doing that. He's easily insulted and hates not having attention on himself. He's petty. He wants to tear Rin a new one and feels like he's always being stopped and leashed from his goal.

But Rin is not at fault for that. Amaimon can blame him and harass him and hate him for being free in a way Amaimon doesn't think Amaimon can be, but that doesn't validate his actions. Especially since Amaimon's perception of Rin isn't entirely accurate. No more accurate than Rin's always is of Umaimon.

I think their dynamic is fun, and a great change from his relationships with the other Demon Kings, and an interesting way of showing the other ways the kings are immature or not emotionally developed in the same way the humans tend to be than Mephisto and Lucifer. I think he can't quite be trusted yet, and honestly shouldn't be until he makes a choice of his own instead of one he's manipulated or forced into. I don't think we've seen the last of him or the real heart of him quite yet, but I think he's got something coming. Something that will determine more of where he really ends up in this endless war between Mephisto and Lucifer.

But no, I don't think he's valid or logical for holding a grudge against Rin if he is holding one. He's kicked Rin's ass two of the three times they've fought and he's the older and more powerful party for most of that. Rin has friends and allies where Amaimon doesn't seem to, and he's got a cause where Amaimon doesn't seem to.

I think he shows some of what Rin could be if he was to give in fully to his demon side, but I don't know that Amaimon, at least currently, could ever be Rin. I don't think he's there emotionally and I don't think he's able to swallow his pride enough to apologize and reach out and make all this about someone other than himself. At least not yet, and Rin is.

[thylionheart]

If i can give anyone advice for writing an insanely large cast of minor characters who don’t necessarily need to be fully fleshed out, but have to feel real, is you give each of them 1. a temperment and 2. a hobby.

The hobby gives them something to focus on/a goal to follow that is just running in the background, as well as giving each character something unique to associate them with so the reader doesn’t feel like all theses same-face guys run together. A hobby could be as simple as luxury items and gold baubles to something deeper like trying to become the best athlete to impress their father.

their temperament informs how they approach their hobby, with zeal or reluctance, or whatever. Which translates to how they react to the world and actions around them.

The vengeful athlete character resents the main character brother who will always be the better athlete than him. And the easy-going bauble-collecting brother encourages his athlete brother’s mischief because it’s funny. Neither of them can capture their father’s attention.

Neither of their stories are necessarily interesting or relevant to the story we’re currently writing, but y’all are going to be so sad when i kill both of them off

[krems-chair]

Did Someone Say Running Back to Fiction to Cope??

It's probably safe to call this Me Losing My Mind over Veilguard 5/??

One of the things upsetting me the absolute most is no mention from the Inquisitor about Varric's death. Perhaps the most integral storytelling mechanism and all around champion of reluctant heroes has been taken away from us, and one of the people he was closest to doesn't feel even a little compelled to discuss him with his apprentice?

I'm still a little dumbfounded, clearly.

Even if we as fans didn't deserve better, Varric deserved better. I've always believed that the better the character, the better a death they deserve when it's their time to go.

So anyways. In my smooth pea brain, I can't reconcile a world in which Lavellan shows up with her unconditional love blazing without first confronting and resolving the fact that her love has led to the death of one of her closest friends. So it's back to the drawing (writing?) board to soothe my disappointed soul.

I saw a version of Varric's letter to a Solas-mancing Lavellan that was datamined and ran with it.

One: All the Words Unwritten

Charter,

Yes, the trail went cold, but we haven’t entirely lost it. Solas left us a little farewell note. So I’m not giving up just yet. Maybe it’s gullible of me, but I know the Inquisitor feels the same: Solas isn’t too far gone to save. And she’d never forgive me if I didn’t try. But I don’t think I’m wrong here. Solas didn’t have to warn me and Harding off the chase when he could’ve killed us like the others who came after him. I don’t think he wants to do this. So, I’m taking the chance. Tell the Inquisitor…tell her I’ll bring him back.

—Varric

Her first tear spatters onto the parchment. The final sentence becomes an ink-stained massacre, and she throws it far away before she can lose any more of the handwriting she’ll never again see waiting for her above the seal representing his best friend’s house. Her palms bite into the unsanded wood, welcoming the bite of pain as she shoves back from the recovered tree stump she’s been using as a desk.

“Inquisitor.”

Morrigan’s voice doesn’t register, hardly rises over the sound of blood rushing through her ears like an open wound. Gods, wrong comparison . But there it is, playing out against the darkness of her eyelids every time she blinks to try and stem the flow of more tears. The wound in Varric’s chest, gushing with no one to hold pressure over it, to ensure the rise and fall of his sternum until help could arrive, no one to watch his back because the woman who did it best is no longer able to. This too, is her fault, and there has hardly been a conversation in the years that followed where she hasn’t looked into Varric’s quieter, sadder eyes and wanted to beg him for a forgiveness she knows he’d have frowned at her for needing. 

It had been her job to keep him safe now, her promise to Hawke that the choice to become another martyred hero in Ferelden’s bloody history wasn’t in vain. And here was the proof at last that she was every inch the fantasy-addled fool bards wrote about when inspiration ran dry. Here was the proof that her hope was a mantle, weighing down everyone around her until there was nothing left but blurred ink and bloodstained pages in the famed Inquisitor Lavellan’s wake. 

[yuseirra]

If Kamiki's inspired by this particular god, you can see how Fatal's lyrics are like, "I would sacrifice anything for you" because that's him, he gave up a lot to be with his wife(depending on how you interpret the myths, to the extent of it being his own life too)

Amenouzume has the title: "The Great Persuader". If she was there, he'd have definitely listened to her because that's the lore of those two gods, her husband relents only after she comes and speaks to him so it should have worked out

[momosandlemonsoda]

okay, please tell me something about rock star au! nothing too spoilery, of course, just something about either future events or maybe a background detail you have on your mind but that hasn't come up yet.

Hmmm... I've been going back and forth on this for a bit, because I tend to hold everything close to the vest and that is probably a little ridiculous. So, a thing I'm going to have to deal with at some point is how this fic has gotten a bit away from what I originally planned. Originally, LLH/FDB were more of a solid couple and Li Lianhua was enticing Di Feisheng to join them... obviously Di Feisheng was still around and very interested, but the relationships were different. So now I'm trying to balance the three of them, and particularly at the moment I'm trying to get Fang Duobing and Li Lianhua onto solid ground.

What's been fun, though, is working on the relationship between Fang Duobing and Di Feisheng. Obviously, Fang Duobing is spending quite a bit of time thinking about A'Fei--both because he's attracted to and intimidated by him, and he wants to understand Li Lianhua's relationship with this guy. Di Feisheng's attitude has been a lot more guardedly neutral, but that's going to change in... another couple of chapters, I think. (It was supposed to be in the next chapter, but these characters never do what I want and Li Lianhua and Fang Duobing are still working on their relationship.) So I've been thinking a lot about what Di Feisheng's attitude toward Fang Duobing is, and what would lead him to let his guard down.

[divergent-paths]

So how does Alex know this new person? I might be a little dumb, but I am not following this new development.

You are not dumb for asking-- it’s a valid question! This turned into a long post however, so it's all below the cut~

I’ve been trying to make sure that both game plot/mechanics and personal story elements have been explained in the comicking, so that people who haven’t played the games or are new to my writing and ocs can still understand what’s going on, but not everything can flow well if it’s explained right away. 'Show, don't tell' is a difficult balance to maintain!

A lot of the adult interactions surrounding Max and Alex are set to be explained in the Winter Break arc of the story (which is yet another reason I’m so eager to get to it -- there's just SO much I want to get through!). But seeing as the adult ocs and art on them is already out in the wider internet though, it’s not a spoiler for me to list out how they’re connected, so here's a brief chart with how the main adults in my story are connected:

Those who were friends with Ty and Daven (such as Dia) have often touched base with Blanca since the pair's deaths, usually to check in on how Alex is doing. Most of those people also tend to avoid Franz, retired ex-villain, grumpy old man, grudge-holder, etc etc (allegedly).

The boys themselves aren’t fully aware of the longstanding drama between the adults, but Franz has had the strongest influence on their opinions and demeanour towards others, which was definitely seen in how Alex's body language and attitude was closed off to Dia.

All that said, probably the easiest thing to say is that I'm including the family element to give Alex & Max more backstory/development than just being blank-slate player inserts and I'm working hard with my art-assisting friendos to get everything out and explained, so I appreciate both your patience, and your enthusiasm in reading my story <3