#the stereotypical main character

[shimmeringweeds]

Pondering the thematic decision to rip the hope from our hands in the season one finale. The show begins soft and balanced. Then emotion comes crashing down hard before the expectation of hope rises again. Up and up and up and up......! just to be snatched away at the literal last minute.

Chasing elusive hope is a major theme of this story. So here I want to explore: how does hope relate to these character's fates?

To play with some thematic personification here, let’s reintroduce the Triple Star Warriors: Courage, obliterating fear (represented by Lu Guang); Justice, rekindling hope (represented by Cheng Xiaoshi); Wisdom, light the way (represented by Qiao Ling.) Do you remember what strongest attack of the Warrior of Justice is? "It's the heart of hope! Give me the power of Justice!"

Season two’s finale showed "Courage” desperately trying to defend "Justice," who is in danger of being lost. Meanwhile "Wisdom" is trapped in thought, keeping her light dim while desperately trying to find the justice, the truth, buried under hard facts.

Desperately. The word "desperation" comes from the Latin "de"-without, and "spes"- hope. 绝望 - the mandarin word for despair, also means “to give up hope.” Falling into despair means you have lost hope. To pick yourself back up out of that bleak darkness, that hole, takes courage. We say, "the only way out is up." But when you have the power to go back in time, accompanied by grief and regrets, how do you know what direction that is?

The hole of despair has multiple paths. Perhaps the only thing you can do by yourself is pick one direction and stubbornly stick to it. You're not wandering. You have a path, and with a little hope, you believe you've picked the right direction.

But actually, every path leads to an exit, good or bad, though all will be difficult to travel. Some are dark and ridden with traps and setbacks to prevent you from moving on. Many twist and turn, going up and down, connecting with other dangerous paths along the way. A few paths are safe but endless and steep. You pick one and you walk, you run, you fall, you get thrown back; but you've come so far you can't possibly start over. You're chasing this hope, specifically, and you want it. The thought of turning around and finding new hope is too much. So you persist. Is this persistence out of courage, or is it out of fear?

Which choice truly overcomes fear? Persisting desperately down a path of traps, facing regrets head on towards the hope and light you chose? or turning away, making peace, and beginning the steep, bittersweet climb towards a new life?

And how many carrots of hope will be dangled and snatched away in the process? How many times are you willing try? Won't giving up and turning around just drive you deeper and deeper into despair?

"The heart of hope. Give me the power of justice." If Cheng Xiaoshi is "Justice," then who is his heart of hope? and vice versa? You know, no one said you had to escape the hole of despair and regrets alone. Sometimes a friend or two jumps down after you.

To pursue justice takes courage. To side with justice takes more courage. In an unjust world, justice cannot exist without courage. Fear prevents justice from acting.

It's a good thing, then, that Courage is dead set on this path to protect Justice. Even better, Justice stands as a heart of hope on one side of Courage, while Wisdom lights the way on his other.

..... but, Justice will always follow the righteous path. Courage cannot determine what that is. Wisdom will always choose to shine her light on Justice and those who choose to follow him, wherever he may go. "Fear" can still guide Courage to look away from Wisdom's light, and betray what Justice stands for.

Justice rekindles hope. And Courage must face whatever hope Justice is want to bring.

[radioactive-earthshine]

NGL I have STRONG opinions about digital releases omitting the letters to the editor section of older comics. I feel like the letters are a part of comic history and should be aggressively preserved.

[ironmanwithaplan]

i’ve seen a lot of people say that for knives out 3, they’d want phillip to be included in whatever murder mystery it is. the idea of benoit and phillip being a crime solving duo is appealing, but in my mind phillip would be a hilarious damsel in distress sorta guy who is just constantly clinging onto benoit and yelling “WHAT IS GOING ON” every so often. but benoit never teases him and is always super proud and encouraging whenever phillip does anything coherent, and if anyone else there is like “wtf is he doing” benoit would be like “DON’T BE MEAN TO MUH HUSBAND HE’S DOIN HIS BEST”

[maggiecheungs]

“utena is a bit like a shoujo equivalent of evangelion” = a common and inevitable comparison that is admittedly not a bad elevator pitch, giving an idea of utena's symbolism and the genre tropes it engages without requiring an essay-length summary of its plot and themes

“utena is evangelion for the girlies” = SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UPPPP

[keikakudom]

"Did someone call for a doctor - of love?!"

FOP characters are a lil tricky to stylize, and im not quite sure if im satisfied with how i drew cupid yet, but ahah it's a work in progress

[dooodle-bug]

Bro had anyone noticed how tape (legion of stationery (paper mario origami king)) and ten (extension corps(mario and luigi brothership)) are so similar????

The the ourple.... the stylish pompadour.... THEY ARE LITERALLY THE SAME GUY

[gideonisms]

I become 300% more of both a lover and a hater when I'm on my period. just a time of the month when I have strong opinions I would say

[let-roman-bite-someone]

btw i really really hope that janus's current characterization, with the wine and sass, is just there for the more light-hearted episodes, and that thomas hasn't forgotten the nuance behind his character.

[piosplayhouse]

Rumors are going around on twitter and weibo that starember might have left the tgcf manhua team omg.. they're unfounded right now but can we get a prayer circle going for hoping that it's true!! 🙏🙏🙏I'm so tired of their consistent racism and orientalism being passed around in the manhua space, people have been raising the alarm on it for literal years now

[petite-phthora]

This yours?

[DP x DC fic]

[Love at first... murder? - part 12]

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Part 1

Ao3

---

Somewhere else, in a seemingly abandoned building on the outskirts of the city, a figure shrouded in darkness and wearing a dark cloak plots.

In front of them is a whiteboard. It’s covered in pictures, sticky notes, and illegible texts. Some of the notes thrown about that are legible are ‘fight…’, ‘draw blood.’, and ‘DEATH!!!’.

There’s a crude stick figure drawn in the corner of the board, it’s impaled. Other small doodles can also be found all around the board.

Most of the information and pictures are connected by red strings, like you see in movies.

In the middle is a picture of 2 people sitting on a motorcycle, the arms of the person sitting in the back are around the waist of the person sitting in the front. The picture has some arrows pointing towards it and the people in the picture are very obviously circled.

Though the face of the person driving the motorcycle is obscured by their helmet, the other person seems to be heavily blushing and grinning broadly.

“Yes… yes! That’s it! I know what to do…” They seem to be speaking to themselves.

Quickly, the person scribbles down a barely legible ‘sacrifice!!‘.

They start cackling.

“Mwuahaha!”

It’s an evil laugh they’ve been working on for quite a while now, and they’re pretty proud of it.

However, the effect is slightly ruined when a fly enters their mouth, cutting off their cackling with choking as they gasp for air, grasping at their throat.

A few good thumps against their chest, with some coughing out their lungs, helps them dislodge the fly from their throat and they spit it out on the ground. They take a few deep breaths before straightening up again.

“Curse you” the person exclaims, angrily waving their fist at the fly as it flies away.

---

Bruce’s face gives off nothing as he stares at the streets down below. He’s dressed as Batman, crouched at the edge of a building with Damian by his side as Robin. Spoiler, Black Bat, Nightwing, and Red Robin are further back on the rooftop.

They watch in silence as another group of the Joker’s goons passes by. They’ve been all over the city, wandering around, not doing anything obviously illegal.

They don’t stay in one place and they don’t seem to have much of a purpose. No attacks… No stealing… No smuggling or transport of goods… No, instead they’re inspecting every single inch of the city.

They don’t seem to have any weapons on them. All they’re carrying on them are some flashlights. While most don’t give anything away with their body language or expressions, some seem to give off a bit of anxious energy.

Spoiler claimed she even saw some of them climb down into the sewers earlier and then climbing out again sometime later somewhere else, but this time ‘dejected and stinky’.

One thing seems clear to the Bats.

They’re searching for something… or someone.

“This basically confirms that not even the Joker’s henchmen know where he is. He’s missing.”

“I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing”

“Good… thing?”

“It’s… something. That’s for sure.”

“We don’t know if he’s really missing. For all we know it could be a trap. What if the Joker is hiding, pretending to be missing to have us bring our guard down? Besides, how could he be missing? He’s the Joker. No one’s just gonna kidnap him”

“For all we know he could be lying dead in a ditch somewhere”

“I highly doubt that”

“Everyone, focus” Bruce speaks up, having them draw their attention to him.

“It’s unclear whether the Joker is simply hiding away or missing. Instead of focusing on the why, we need to focus on the where. Missing or not, we need to find him and get him back to Arkham. Oracle, have you managed to find out anything from the footage yet?”

“Nope, still nothing. All the files from the moment he enters Crime Alley are wiped and any attempt at recovering them only brings back corrupted files.”

 “We need Red Hood. Where is he?” Bruce asks.

“He still has his phone on silent and he has removed the trackers and cams. We haven’t placed any new ones on him yet”

���Let’s visit him on his turf then. And keep an eye out for anything suspicious in the meantime. Oracle, try recovering the missing files. If that doesn’t work, go back to the breakout footage. Perhaps he left some kind of clues about his plans or whereabouts behind there.” Bruce states.

“Roger that.”

---

Red Hood has his arms by his sides as he gazes down upon the street below from the rooftop of a random apartment building in Crime Alley.

He’s lucky to have avoided the Bats so far. But he doubts his luck will last for long.

Red Hood stiffens as he suddenly feels something clamp down on his arm. As a reflex, his other hand has already drawn his gun.

He slowly raises the arm he felt something clamp down on and looks at it, only to make eye contact with a girl with black hair and blue eyes who has sunk her teeth into his arm and is now hanging off of it.

The teeth are sharp, as the girl seems to have some small fangs. They’ve gone through his jacket and sunken into his skin.

It doesn’t really hurt all that badly though, probably hasn’t even drawn much blood, and that’s one of the only reasons Jason hasn’t flung the kid off of him yet. Another reason is the fact that it’s a kid.

They both stare at each other for several seconds.

As Jason takes her appearance in, he notices that she seems rather familiar. In fact, she looks like a more feminine version of Danny, or if Danny had a twin.

The person hanging off of his arm looks younger than Danny though, probably a teenager around 13 or 14, if he had to make a guess.

Slowly, he puts his gun away and takes out his phone with his other hand, watching the random girl’s eyes follow his movements. He raises it level with her face and snaps a picture, quickly sending it to Danny and ignoring the girl’s curious gaze while she’s still hanging onto his arm by her fucking teeth.

---

Meanwhile, Danny checks his phone to see Red Hood sent him a message. He opens it and is greeted by a picture of Ellie in human form biting down on Red Hood’s arm with the caption ‘this yours???’

---

Taglist:

@i-always-say-yea   @uraniumwizard    @why-must-i-be-like-this   @griffinthing

[ridiasfangirlings]

In a 80 or 90s movie setting, what would Yata be considered as? Like the sporty type or a nerd or something?

 My first thought was sporty type, but if we’re talking like stereotypical 80s/90s high school movie that wouldn’t really work for Yata since he’s not a mean jock. Though since he’s into skateboards he could be more the ‘rebellious’ kind of character, he’s sporty but he doesn’t like snooty jocks and probably hangs out with the stoners at the skate park all the time. I feel like Yata wouldn’t work as the nerd because he isn’t that smart (Fushimi on the other hand is 100% the stereotypical nerd character who Yata would have to come save from being shoved in a locker) but he’s not a popular kid either, I feel like he’d be more a side character in that sort of movie. A tertiary character might have a crush on him but he doesn’t get a lot of screen time and most of what he has is either smiling nervously or doing skateboard tricks in the background. Also depending on what part of the 90s we’re talking about poor Yata would probably end up with the cringiest dialogue because he’s supposed to be using all the latest slang and makes his character immediately incredibly dated. He walks around in the baggiest clothes and probably takes his skateboard to class, everyone seems fairly friendly with him but at lunch he’s only eating with his nerdy best friend. He could probably be a support character for the lead, likes he’s at table with the main characters and gets to unknowingly dispense simple advice even though he’s not involved in the main plot (while Fushimi sits there glaring because the stupid main characters are ruining his alone time with Misaki).

[fubuwu]

Fuck it. I'm gonna bite the bait just to say that there were many instances where jc clearly trated wwx like a brother/friend in the BOOK, aka the canon text in case anyone was confused or have seemed to have selectively forgotten about.

From the part where jc scoffs at the prospect of wwx getting together with a servant. Laughing and proclaiming that he was treated better than he was (in reference to his own sister peeling his lotus seeds for him which she didn't do for jc).

Then there was him standing up for him on NUMEROUS occasions throughout the book. Such as before the LP Massacre. He could have let his mother beat wwx senseless, but he tried to stop her from doing so, begging and crying even for her to stop and take the punishment for him. Despite the risk it took to do so.

Not to mention the excuses he made to the rest of the cw after the war when he stood up for wwx and shrugged off his casual and overly familiar demeanour.

Then ofc there was the sacrifice he made for wwx (which he didn't have to do as the only male sect heir) whilst they were on the run from the Wens that ultimately led up to the events in the novel..

The Cloud Recesses era.. the part after jfm gave away his dogs and jc steadily welcomed wwx in his life, willing to scare away any dogs that threatened him..

These are all things a nasty, homophobic rich man would NEVER do for his servant if he only saw them as such.

If he was classist as you all seem to think he is, then he would never dream of doing all the above CANON EVENTS for wwx's sake. Js.

These were all in the book. To ignore them, that means you are ignoring mxtx's work and you clearly did not understand the complicated relationship wwx and jc had.

Because it was made clear throughout the text that jc never saw him as a servant. They shared a room, went to school together and made HUGE sacrifices for eachother. So much so, that their relationship pissed of jc's mother.

If you ignore that then you are ignoring a VERY IMPORTANT part of the text. And I have to wonder if y'all only came into the fandom for the mlm relationship between wwx and lwj and not the the story. Clearly, y'all are selectively ignoring some very IMPORTANT facts. Js. This book is MORE than just a bl........

And if that's the case, then you have no place arguing jc canon facts. Js.

[audiblehush]

If you are fine with the fact that the writers had Penelope doing a last minute, zero build-up, half-assed rebrand in order to remain Lady Whistledown (that can’t even logically function with her going public) i.e. her harmful coping mechanism instead of realizing she doesn’t need it anymore…

Sorry, but you don’t actually like Penelope. 🤷‍♀️

[mingot-studios]

I really don't get why people want Adam to have been black...

Do you not understand the implications of having the main antagonist who is a misogynist who likes killing a population for fun and who ultimately is killed by season's end by the heros, be the one explicitly black character in the show?

EDIT: Ok so I should've said Middle Eastern, but my point still stands

(Also I think having Adam be Middle Eastern might've been worse than him being black since ya know, the most prevalent depiction of Middle Eastern men/people in Western media is that they're violent, genocidal, and misogynistic so 😬)

[softichill]

Putting this here for archive purposes

[deusluxuria]

headcanon that since johnny grew up about 10 years in kentucky and 10 somewhere in rich person england, he has a mixed accent, and gyro one day was like "if it were anyone else, i wouldn't be able to understand half of what they were saying, but when i look at you it's somehow crystal clear" and johnny just kinda stared and said "that's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me, please don't ever say that again"