#the story is interesting and the characters are so fun

[vanitythevantropist]

OOOOO I like this one :DDD

Imma go with this one👇 (His name is Quill btw)

1. Chris McLain (or howver tf you spell it) from Total Drama the original series :3

2. Canonically, he’s best friends with an alien cat named Spine who is a fire dancer! Working out the kinks on how they met so👉👈

3. Ermmmmmm… Immortals by Fall Out Boy

4. He does not have a love interest, he’s too swag for that

5. See above

6. He is a gunsmith canonically so prolly that👀

7. If he was in a fantasy setting, he’d be some guy who is WAAYY too confident in the world full of giants and dwarves n shit

8. His main hobbies - besides making guns cuz it’s his job - would be dress making, actually :3 He’s very into cross dressing and likes tailoring his own stuff, along with doing traditional at for the funsies and going scrapping (looking for scraps in the junk yard)

9. He takes very good care of himself as he wants to look pretty 24/7 and succeeds better than most people

10. He’s very very bad at it :) Just pretends everything’s fine and covers it all with humour because he has issues

11. He was originally a side character in a Mandelorian ripoff story I made when I was 14 but he overshadowed the mc of that story cuz he’s just like that lmao (Idk what directly inspired him tho)

12. Yesh, I have done sum roleplays with a friend! Their OC is named Junko and they get along well cuz they’re so similar

13. To be determined

14. See above (there are so few characters in this story cuz Quill is my world and my soul)

15. He’ll die before he ever retires (he refuses)

16. He was created in a test tube so that may be a little complicated :)

17. He would not have children as he ain’t that kinda guy but I imagine he would be the fun but kinda forgetful parents who lets their children wield guns (one’s average american, basically)

18. He goes by he/him :3

19. He is aro/ace! His main love language is physical touch (friendly hugs n kisses for the homies)

20. GUNS GUNS GUNS

21. To be determined (it might be Anything You Can Do with basically anyone tho)

22. In rough situations, FIGHT. Lover or a fighter? Imma go with ‘it’s conplicated’

23. Abso-fuckin-lutely! Feeling sad? This man will be there in under five minutes with snacks and a nice warm blankey for you in case you’re sad, as well as all the necessary tools to fix your tire!

24. He isn’t a musical guy

25. Yes absolutely he does it most of the time👀 Walkin down the street, running sum errands, in the middle of a battle, whatever, it’s singin time

26. Errmmmm… I have no idea, what do you think?

27. In spirit, a fox. In appearance, ehhh-

28. Oh my god I need to ask you if I should tag you in this cuz this is such a good idea (high school clique? He’d be the guy whose strangely popular with everyone despite hanging with the weird kids)

29. GUG, see question above !!

30. Quill is very glad that someone wants to be his friend :3 Most people do not

Anyways, ty forthis, it was fun <3 Now y’all have sum lore✨ Have fun~

Fuck it, OC brain rot won. Get ready for the Secret Ask List

1) Does your OC have a voice claim, if so who?

2) Who's your OCs best friend? How did they become best friends?

3) What song describes your OC?

4) What song describes your OC and their partner/love interest?

5) Do you ship your OC with a Canon character? If so who?

6) If your OC is in a fantasy setting, what profession would they be in the modern day?

7) Vice-Versa! If your OC is in the modern day, what fantasy class would they be? Would they be a different race?

8) What hobbies does your OC have? What do they do to unwind?

9) How does your OC handle their physical health? Do they take care of themselves?

10) How does your OC handle their mental health? Do they take care of themselves?

11) What was your inspiration for your OC?

12) Does your OC interact with other people's OC? If so, who's their best OC friend?

13) Does your OC have a rival? How did it start?

14) Who's a character your OC cannot stand! It's on sight when they see them!

15) Will your OC ever retire? Do you see them making it?

16) How's their relationship with their parents? Are they alive?

17) If your OC has kids, are they a good parent? Do they ever feel guilty if they have to leave them?

18) What are their pronouns? What would they like to be called?

19) What's their sexuality? What's their love language both giving and receiving?

20) If they fight, what's their weapon of choice?

21) What song best describes their relationship with their enemy?

22) Fight or Flight? Are they a lover or a fighter?

23) Is your OC reliable? Can I call them up at two in the morning if I have a flat tire?

24) Can they play any instruments? If so, what do they play?

25) Are they the kind of person who can't resist a good song? Can I catch your OC singing to themselves while they do the dishes?

26) What flower do you associate your OC with?

27) What's their spirit tamagotchi? Or an animal you associate them with?

28) What clique would they be in? (Draw them in the clothes of said group!)

29) Imagine a mood board for your OC! What's on it? (Make it if you want!)

30) My OC and your OC are friends. This isn't a question. I'm not asking. (How do they respond?)

[laurellala-comics]

I want so badly to live in blissful ignorance and imagine that an ace attorney world with Fem!Phoenix and Fem!Edgeworth would be totally the same except with cool women lawyers, but I fear the casual sexism of the early otts would heavily impact the plot :(

[miyuka1709]

Good afternoon!...

Anyway here's a cute little Cold, and some pen-tasting.

Pretty great stuff.

(There's a pretty long rant ahead about an STP swap AU!!!!!)

I think it's so interesting that there are 5 very different Princesses in the Stranger; I heard from somewhere that their names are The Hopeless, The Sinister, The Snide, The Kind, The Blank.

I imagine it'd be fun if a swap AU implemented those Princesses as "bases" based on the first thing the player says upon being told about the cabin and the Monster.

I mean Voice of the Sinister could be like Nightmare and Tower. She might appear when you first say the "Sweet I've always wanted to off a monarch!" Dialogue in the base game? It'd just be "I've always wanted to off someone!" Instead maybe cause TLQ isn't a monarch and it's definitely pretty sinister to just outright say that.

Voice of the Snide would be like Prisoner/Sharp Princess. Could be a "Why would I listen to you?" "Have you ever considered that I'd be okay with the world ending?" defiant type voice.

Voice of the Kind is obviously Damsel/Soft Princess. "What if he's going to end the world BECAUSE he's locked up?" Or smtg like that, morality talk and whatnot.

Voice of the Hopeless could just be.. Broken? But a girl, I guess? I'm not sure what she'd say but it's something that Broken would say - like "What's the point of doing this? The world will end one day anyway."

They sound so cool and I'm sure anyone can work with that, but Blank Princess? That could probably happen if we outright try to leave like in Stranger so the Monster can't perceive us.

But what would she say? Would she act or speak like Cold? She'd generally have minimal opinions, wouldn't she? Would having her even change anything? Would she be completely pliable or changeable? Would she be like Opportunist, but sincerely ever-changing and not just for self reason? Is she just a shell and says things just for the sake of it like Deconstructed Damsel? Would she just follow along the Princess as the main character and mirror her actions? Would she be as moldable as we (Princess) are to TLQ?

Again, I think the "Base Princesses" might work really funny if they were a byproduct of SOLELY your first ever choice in the narrative, and it sticks, and they act like Voice of the Hero who accompanies you throughout the entire run.

So instead of having different TLQs, you get different You's at the final Heart scene? That's a pretty funny concept to think about - but it sounds like it'd be painful to work with in a game because you'd have to make all the routes compatible with each of the 5 Base Princesses and make it not feel too clunky or too different.

I'd honestly want to write or plan a whole thing with this kind of story, the only problem is I don't know how to make the Narrator want to kill TLQ.

The Echo's literal purpose is to get rid of change and death with it while leaving a sliver of TSM in TLQ so the world could still move along and people could have lives that aren't completely stagnant and devoid of growth and change.

Would this swap-Echo's job be to protect TLQ and tell the Princess/Player to save him? Or would His view change entirely so He'd oppose TLQ by saying"The world will be doomed to eternal stagnancy"?, instead of death, would he be afraid of the constant and stillness? Why would he want to rid the world of it specifically? I'm really not sure.

Just a little idea I had, y'know!.. phew, I didn't mean to write a whole thing but yeahh..

[blackcrystalball]

I find this take really interesting, I also feel like a part of my doesn't fully understand what's off-putting about self-centred social media.

I was born in 2004, so when I was growing up, self-centred social media apps were on the rise and then at their peak. I didn't use any of it until I was like 14 because I didn't really care and I had books to read. I only really became earnest in my usage of Instagram during lockdown and I downloaded tiktok from the first time in 2022.

I started making tiktoks in 2023 because I was in university, away from home and finally in an institution that didn't have a uniform. So it was a lot of fashion and hair content. Near the end of last year and all of this year so far, it has been a lot of dancing and edits of celebrities and characters I like.

Overall my social media accounts are centred around myself and the things I like, 2 parts because I want to have a space to store those things that isn't just my phone in case something happens to it, and 1 part I just think I'm really pretty and I like looking at myself.

I find self-centred social media to be really fun because then you can easily find people you have things in common with and make friends, I live in a relatively small town and I was one of three alternative kids in my school. Since posting online I've made a bunch of alt friends in my area and the vibes are immaculate.

Self-centred social media kind of feels like having a communal diary with your mutuals and I love that about it. It's really fun to share the vibes.

But at the same time, I literally went through all my formative years with this type of media at its peak, it was literally every. Every piece of media tried to brute force social media into their stories and in general kind of normalised it to people my age. So my stance is coming from a person that literally knows no other way of life. I think my stance might have been different if I was born in the 90s instead because in general I'm a pretty private person. All my super personal information stays completely under wraps. The only things I put on social media are things I would comfortably talk to a stranger about irl.

Overall, I feel like it might be because of a bit of a generational gap and different influences.

I feel like I kind of meandered off topic a bit, but yeah, the idea of this type of social media being off-putting has never once crossed my mind, and maybe that's a bad thing. Being perceived on such a large scale really isn't a normal experience and it is probably doing some weird stuff to our brains.

social media has evolved into such a voyeuristic spectacle over the last five to ten years its truly shocking to me like excluding tumblr 90% of the explore pages on other apps is just videos of peoples faces set to music or people talking directly to the camera etc etc......by contrast on tumblr there is still a sort of sheen of anonymity based on how its formatted and usually when you interact with a post you read or watch the content first and then learn the users identity second by clicking on their profile ie the dash is not just a wall of people filming themselves unless its a repost......i remember even only a couple of years ago there was a distinction between people who were influencers and got paid to film themselves 24/7 for instagram but now its like every average person on reels/tiktok is performing the same kind of theater for free......i cant imagine what that would do to your psyche long term

[lu-is-not-ok]

Could you elaborate why you think Big and Might/Will be Bad Wolf is more fitting for Hong Lu than Heath? Cus it's story of being forced to only be the villain because of *what* it is is pretty much exactly Heathcliff's experience with WH mistreating him because of his Backstreet origin and his subsequent lashing out thats attriubted solely to his 'nature' (not to mention his canonical wolf Distortion, and being called the Wolf in the Wildhunt world, and dogs/wolves being a strong association to him in his source), so I'm very curious.

Heathcliff screams dogs/wolves to me more than any one else by a longshot, for the above reasons.

I am so glad you asked, because this is something I've been wanting an excuse to yap about ever since I posted that art!

Big and Will be Bad Wolf is an Abnormality which, while straightforward on the surface, has a lot of interesting nuanced subtleties to it that are the main reason why I assign it the way I do.

The gist of the Abnormality is that it's an initially cute and even kind wolf who is "destined" to become the Big Bad Wolf, becoming the villain of another story, simply because of the way it was born. It was fated to be hungry, unable to fill its stomach enough to feel sated. Fated to be alone, to be hurt as the one who becomes an example and gets punished.

If we were to stop here, then sure, Heathcliff could reasonably fit the themes here. He's forced into being a villain purely because of his birth, forced into a destiny that makes him unfulfilled, dehumanized, and unfairly punished.

However, it's when you get to the subtleties that Heathcliff begins to clash severely with what Big and Will be Bad Wolf is actually about.

First of all, and most notable when you look at the Wolf's flavor text in Ruina, is its complete resignation and acceptance of its role. The Wolf doesn't fight against its destiny, it doesn't try to change, but rather the opposite. It's fully resigned to the fact it will be hurt, be called by no name, and have to hurt others, to the point where it slowly stops caring about anything other than its own hunger.

This is, if you know anything about our Heathcliff, in complete contrast to everything his character stands for. Heathcliff's entire character arc is about him rejecting that very role being forced upon him. He has the resolve to prove that he's just as human and just as worthy of respect as everyone else. And he refuses to stop fighting for that right to be recognised as a person at all cost.

The second nuance I'd like to bring up is one that already has been mentioned here and there, that being the overwhelming hunger the Wolf feels which is what causes it to lash out. Just like the previous theme, it's primarily seen in Ruina, though in this case more so in the Floor Realization for the Floor of Language and how it relates to Roland. The Wolf, similarly to Roland, has a void within it that it cannot fill no matter how much meat it eats, how much violence it commits.

Again, despite all the memes the fandom might make about Heathcliff Black Silence, he's really nothing like Roland in this department at all. In a way, Heathcliff is almost too full, his being so focused on Catherine he has barely any space to be concerned with anything else. Even after her death, he refuses to give up on her, despite how impossible his chances at getting her back may be. There is no void to fill with meaningless violence, but rather a direct purpose to strive towards.

So, that's what I have on why Heathcliff, despite how he may seem fitting for it on the surface, is actually deeply opposed to everything Big and Will be Bad Wolf stands for on a thematic level.

Here's where the fun part begins though. Because if not Heathcliff, then why Hong Lu, right?

See, we already know from the fact that Hong Lu has Rose Hunter E.G.O that he too has a certain role he's destined to fulfill, one that he finds undesireable but also one that he can't truly escape from.

I believe that in the case of Hong Lu, the role of the Wolf would be representing his birth status as a Jia. Think about it. Everything we've seen of the Jias show them as hostile at best and extremely violent and downright villainous at worst. If Hong Lu has any similarities in status to Baoyu, that being that he's a sort of "chosen" Heir to the Family, then that means his role as yet another perpetrator of the Jias' violent ways is all but predestined.

You can even say that Hong Lu has a notable parallel to how Big and Will be Bad Wolf presents itself, that of course being kind and cute on the surface, but repressing a deeply unfulfilled and violent side with what little resolve it may have left.

And speaking of resolve, this is where Hong Lu matches the Wolf much closely than Heathcliff. There is a constant thematic thread of hopelessness and meaninglessness in Hong Lu's character. Even if he might have run away for now, the way he speaks about meeting his Family again makes it clear he doesn't believe it will last. There's a notable resignation and acceptance of the fact that no matter what he does, he will be dragged back to his Family and stripped of the name he gave himself. Born a Jia, always a Jia, you could even say.

Unlike Heathcliff, who constantly fights back to assert his existence as a person who deserves equal respect, Hong Lu simply lies down and takes everything thrown his way. The Wolf is an inherently Slothful figure, a trait which matches Hong Lu far better than Heathcliff.

Hell, Hong Lu even shares a specific sentiment about that with the Wolf. In Ruina, one of the Wolf's possible flavor text quotes is "There’s no need to be nice to me… I’m destined to be a big bad wolf…" Doesn't that sound familiar? Doesn't that seem so similar to how Hong Lu expressed that he understood why his Family members wanted to kill him, and thus didn't bother to fight back?

Then, of course, we come back to hunger. And here I have to get a little bit more speculative, but not as much as you would think. See, I believe Hong Lu is much more similar to Roland in this case than Heathcliff. Everything points to the fact that Daiyu is not only dead, but left behind a void in Baoyu/Hong Lu, one that he tries to ignore but one which clearly taunts him into snapping and falling into that "meaningless wrath".

If you're wondering what exactly I mean, I go way more in depth about Hong Lu's repressed anger and how Daiyu's death appears to be what causes it to leak out in this post. However, to summarize how it ties back to Roland and the Wolf, I believe that just like for Roland, the void left behind Daiyu's death is what ends up causing Hong Lu to lash out and will eventually drive him to outright meaningless violence. An attempt to fill one's life with anything after their meaning was taken away from them. Which is exactly what the Wolf reflects through its endless hunger, unable to be satisfied no matter how much it eats and kills.

Honestly, Hong Lu is kind of a sleeper pick for Cobalt Scar with just how much he fits it. I'd almost say it's shocking that I've only seen like one other person similarly assign it to him, but it's really not. Hong Lu is one of those characters that repeatedly gets sanded down due to how he presents himself, with his more worrying and violent tendencies being ignored in favor of falling for his facade. After all, one has to first accept the fact that Hong Lu not only has a capacity for violence, but even the potential to outright enjoy it, to be able to see the reasoning for Cobalt Scar as an E.G.O for him.

[mo-ok]

WOOO rapid fire lets go! would I recommend this Sentai and what caveats would I apply?????

Jakq - No :) *if you enjoy sentai there is definitly something for you here, and it mercifully gets put down after 35 episodes, but i cannot in good faith recommend this one unless you are that special kind of brain rotted*

Battle Fever J - i mean it when i say yes. Theres a lot of good stuff here especially for people that are familiar with/appreciate the sentai formula

Denziman - eeeeeeh i am VERY soft on this show but it DOES struggle through the middle and that hurdle may be a little too big for some

Sun Vulcan - if you enjoy tokusatsu FOR the tokusatsu then yeah watch this one. The robots are beautiful and the fights are brilliant. However if you want literally anything else on your burger then this one is not for you lmao

Goggle V - if you're interested in watching an older sentai this is definitly one i would recommend. If you enjoy it you would probably also dig sun vulcan

Dynaman - this one is fun and easy from start to finish but if you are like my mother and need to audibly eyeroll every time there is ass then tread lightly i genuinly cannot tell if there actually was a heap of ass or if i'm telling on myself because all i remember is the ass LMAO

Bioman - yes watch this one. Watch bioman. You know you want to watch bioman. Be ready for period typical panty shots ig

Changeman - YES. WATCH THIS ONE. PLEASE. PLEASE WATCH CHANGEMAN.

Flashman - once again yes, this one is 100% worth your time. If you liked ToQger you'll dig this one. Inoue's first ever sentai ep is in this season if that means anything to you

Liveman - eeh, if you want that more """mature""" story telling there are others i'd recommend first, but the suits are good and the bad guys sure are a hoot so

Fiveman - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ its good and its enjoyable but imma be honest there isnt much here that you wont also find somewhere else

Dairanger - yeah watch this one, the characters are good the suits are pretty the music slaps, but be ready for it to kinda trip and fall at the end

Kakuranger - very good more comically focused season that according to that one poll is criminally under watched everyone go watch kakuranger right now thank you. For the sake of every friday in california.

Ohranger - watch this one if you like robots. Be prepared for it to be all over the place

Carranger - 100%, beautifully done parody from a place of love and appreciation. Zonette is here

Megaranger - sentai highschool au. If you watched power rangers as a kid this is probably my go to recommendation

Gingaman - yes watch gingaman but also be ready for a slower, generally more "quiet" story, if that makes sense

GoGoV - you gotta watch gogov. You gotta watch gogov. I'm assembling a team to go kill Mondo Tatsumi and i need you to join my cause

Gaoranger - should you watch it?? Yeah. Would i recommend it??? Fuck i dont know man every time i think about gao i take psychic damage

Hurricaneger - 2025 YEAR OF HURRICANEGER WE CAN MAKE THIS HAPPEN. WATCH HURRICANEGER its a bl but with ninjas and robots

Magiranger - very easy to recommend, lots to love and enjoy here, you should watch magiranger

Boukenger - please watch boukenger. For Chief. For Sakura. For Daibouken.

Gekiranger - YES watch gekiranger but be ready for the WORST knuckle cracking sounds you've ever heard

Go-Onger - this is literally the best sentai ever please watch it

Goseiger - you should watch this one. Its very good. Very easy to watch. If you enjoy this one you should also watch gingaman. PL EAS E

Kyoryuger - its not very high up for me but theres definitly stuff here to enjoy - personally i'd recommend dino charge instead but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ToQger - PLEASE WATCH TOQGER PLEASE WATCH TOQGER PLEASE WATCH TOQGER

Zyuohger - i enjoyed it but like, you dont have to watch zyuohger if you dont wanna

Kyuranger - very easy to recommend. The suits are beautiful i love the robots i love the music. The fact that there are 5 non-human suit characters in the main cast is 🤌🤌 be prepared for a few of the characters to get left behind tho

Kiramager - personally i think this one would be a great launching point if you're new to the franchise. You should watch kiramager. 🖊🍍🍎🖊

King Ohger - eeeh. Its VERY unique and hard to compare to other sentai. If you can get past the green screen then yeah give it a watch. It suffers a little from the stakes getting a bit too high for their own good but its largely enjoyable

Boonboomger - 100% you should watch boonboom. It was an absolute delight to watch. Pure sentai bliss.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading update: january 2025

I'm a bit behind on getting this posted, so I'm gonna do it quick and dirty. this is not the most elaborate reading round-up I'm ever going to do, and that's okay!!! january has gotten off to a weird, uneven start in terms of reading, and that is what it is!

The Extinction of Irena Rey (Jennifer Croft, 2024) - this book is great for anyone who likes dark academia but wants to see what those students will be like when they’re adults who have to get by outside of college. in this case, they become translators for an enigmatic woman who makes them gather in a remote Polish forest and then disappears. pure vibes all the way down; truly things just happen in this book. the gimmick of the novel itself being a work by one of the characters, told from her perspective, and then translated by another character that the narrator despises, is soooo rich and interesting, and I deeply wish it had been used much more extensively.

Darknesses (Lachelle Seville, 2022) - is this book good? I couldn’t possibly say. it was very fun to read on vacation with like 12% of my brain operating. the best way I can possible explain it is that by the time the book is over it feels like Seville is running one of those old ask blogs where artists would have their blorbos and their OCs answer questions and hang out and stuff. do you know the kind I’m talking about? it’s like that, it’s dissociative identity disorder Dracula and the descendants of the human Dracula characters and Norse mythology werewolves and a vampire bunny and a dragon and Satan who’s a teenage girl with pink hair and they’re all hanging out in New York City. don’t think too hard about it. 

Become Your Own Matchmaker: 8 Easy Steps to Attracting Your Perfect Mate (Patti Stanger with Lisa Johnson Mandell, 2009) - I’m not proud of this and I can’t really justify it except that my housemates and I have gotten really into watching old episodes of Patti Stanger’s terrible TV show, Millionaire Matchmaker. the show is atrocious and so is the book but in my defense it’s extremely funny.

Queen Takes Rose (Katee Robert, 2020) - guys I can’t stand Katee Robert. I really can’t. I thought it was going to be fun but god this just sucked.

Adam & Evie's Matchmaking Tour (Nora Nguyen, 2024) - after that last one I really needed a good, normal romance novel to get me back on track, and this delivered! I don’t think it’s going to be one of my all-time faves, but the characters are lovably realistic losers and I was really rooting for them—especially Evie, who feels like a messy bitch I would love to hang out with. plus the setting, a romping tour across the sights of Vietnam, was so fun and I’m always willing to award points to a romance novel that supports telling your awful to fuck off right to hell!

Mystery Lights (Lena Valencia, 2024) - here’s the thing. every short story in this collection is a well written, coherent short story. thematically there are really clear throughlines; you’ll get a lot of mileage out of this if you like middle aged women who have complicated relationships with their daughters between the ages of 13 and 23. I really wanted to like this! and yet, I feel like this collection just isn’t going to stick with me very well. there are some cool concepts and ideas (there’s a creepy story involving a little girl who disappears into some underground caves and comes back Weird that actually spooked me pretty good) but overall I feel like it’s just not going to stick with me :/

Is Love the Answer? (Uta Isaki, 2021; trans. Sawa Matsueda Savage, 2023) - huge thanks to the person who sent me an ask to recommend this manga! it’s a very quick, sweet read about a university student coming into her aroace identity with the help of a circle of newfound friends supporting her along the way. I really liked the way it delves into the way anxiety can have you second-guessing and overthinking your sense of self even after embracing an identity. this was my Heartstopper (I say, without having ever read Heartstopper).

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse (Louise Erdrich, 2001) - I picked this up at Erdrich’s bookstore, Birchbark Books & Native Arts, last summer while I was briefly in Minneapolis, on recommendation by an employee at the store. I was initially hesitant about the novel’s focus on spirituality and religion, given that it follows a Catholic priest working on an Ojibwe reservation throughout the 20th century, but man, this was an incredible introduction to Erdrich’s work. Father Damian Modeste is an incredible character and one of my favorite depictions I’ve ever seen of a woman living long-term in disguise as a man, and how the line between those identities blurred. there’s a scene I don’t think I’ll ever forget, in which Modeste is asked, essentially, “Are you a man or a woman?” and answers firmly “I’m a priest.” and all the while, despite the fact that he’s supposed to be an agent of colonization and the destruction of indigenous culture, more than anything he is changed by the Ojibwe people he works with. it’s a surprising, elegant book, and I was shaken to find myself crying at the end. 

A Magical Girl Retires (Park Seolyeon, 2022; trans. Anton Hur 2024) - this book is a short, rapid-fire read that’s a dry, funny take on the magical girl genre. our protagonist starts the book so mired in credit card debt that she’s considering jumping off a bridge when she’s summoned to be a magical girl, and things will only get weirder for her from there as Korea’s magical girl union recruits her to help them combat climate change. a fun read, easy to polish off in a single sitting at less than 200 pages.

salt slow (Julia Armfield, 2019) -now THIS was the short story collection I was waiting for! it reminded me so much of why I loved Armfield’s novel Our Wives Under the Sea. she has another new novel out this year and I’m really looking forward to reading that as well! she has an incredible way with love and melancholy.

[barbwritesstuff]

Not and ask but I do have to say I love how you’ve played with the lore of these mythical creatures. A lot of media definitely leans more towards romanticizing being one of these creatures but you’ve given them this doomed lore. If you’re a werewolf, you will go mad. If you’re a vampire you’ll likely die early or live long enough to see yourself lose touch with the world and become a blood crazed maniac. Upon dying, you can’t ever find peace in death. Becoming a monster comes with a few shiny perks and the heaviest debt you will ever take on. It’s so tragic and I love it.

I have a name for this! I'm sure people in the literacy analysis sphere have a smarter, swankier name, but I call it:

✨The Spooky vs. Superhero Slider✨

On one hand, you have the spooky stuff. Characters who are written to have genuine curses. You've been bitten by a zombie. You will die in seven days. etc That means the slider is set 100% to the spooky side.

On the other, you have literal superheroes. They're gods, they fly around and save the day, it's awesome. You want to be on this end of the slider.

Most characters who aren't just regular humans (be they vampires, werewolves, or alien gods) are somewhere along the slider. Depending on the author, depending on the story, even depending on the character, it can fluctuate a lot.

Take Lestat and Louis from Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire for example. Both are vampires, but Lestat doesn't hate being a vampire quite as much, in fact he often has a wee bit of fun with it. Plus, he can fly. Stories from his POV are a few points more superhero than anything told from Louis' POV.

Another example, Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. They're mostly superheroes with the one big downside being their bloodlust. So, when Bella could instantly control her bloodlust, that series tipped hard into superhero. There was nothing horrific about being a vampire. It was fun. It was cool. It was... super.

It's always a sliding scale.

Personally, I prefer for that slider to remain closer to the spooky side than the superhero side. That doesn't mean I don't love superheroes. I am a massive Superman fan and wrote a whole wee story about it. But I want superheroes to be done with intentionality and I want my curses to feel like curses.

The genre of Blood Moon and Thicker Than is urban fantasy/horror.

They're not meant to be goth superheroes. They're meant to be cursed.

And that sucks for them... but it's a huge amount of fun for me, as the writer. I think it makes them much more interesting characters and makes the world way more fun to play in.

I think my werewolves have it just a tiny bit easier. They're 70% spooky and 30% superhero. The downsides are downsiding but the powers are still cool. My vampires I gave a bit of a rawer deal. They're 80%, maybe even 85% spooky. They get powers, sure, but the cost is steep.

Sorry for the long rambling response. This is just something I've thought about probably too much before.

[zenkindoflove]

So for the last two weeks I've been really contemplating my writing goals for the year. Reevaluating what makes me happy and what is intrinsically motivating. Gonna ramble a bit under the read more. But the jist is I'll be taking a fanfiction hiatus.

After I finished Let the Light Linger - I sort of had a bit of a crisis and needed to have a come to Jesus moment.

I started writing fanfiction again in October of 2023 because I was really pulled into Elucien and missed writing. Needless to say, the last year and a half I went hard. Harder than I ever have before. I wrote almost 500k words of fanfic and it was all really fun and exhilarating.

About 6 months ago though, I think a shift happened.

My desire to write canon compliant Elucien has been waning. I've done a lot of it, and told their story multiple times. And what I've realized is that ultimately I'm a lot more motivated to write Eris and Alexius or explore little weird AUs for Elucien instead like I did with Carrion Flowers.

And what that made me realize is that I'm not really interested so much in writing fanfic anymore. But rather - I'm more interested in writing original fiction (or Amanda universe fic lol). I think I keep setting up these new ideas and new WIPs distracting me because I've been nervous about going in that direction.

The fact that I want to live in my own world more - with my own OCs or my own heavily altered versions of minor characters like Eris - is really evidence that what I'm doing is not really writing fanfic anymore. But instead trying to fit my own original ideas into the fanfic medium because it's where I'm comfortable.

I think the biggest evidence was toggling between Let the Light Linger and Shackled. Shackled is doing really well in terms of popularity. Which I'm very grateful for. But I kept finding myself wanting to rush through writing chapters so I can write Let the Light Linger instead - which comparatively speaking is not popular at all. It's on par for how my Erixius fics tend to do but the audience for Eris x Male OC is small. And part of me was becoming a little resentful because I wanted my Eris x OC stuff to be as loved because I know it's excellent work.

And then I realized - you dummy. Of course people want to read your Elucien fic more. That is what an ACOTAR fanbase wants. It's what we are all here for. To explore the possibilities of the canon characters we already like. Which is something I had always known and rationalized and made peace with. But suddenly my emotions weren't fitting what I already knew. And I think that was the final push I needed to know that I am ready to write original work now.

It's time to follow what really is driving me instead of what I assume is expected of me. So, for now, my fanfic Shackled will be on hiatus. I might update it now and again if I'm feeling particularly motivated, but I really want to focus more of my time working on an original book. And probably what I'll do is take a lot of the hard work creating OCs that I've done in my Erixius fics and adapt them to this new world. Alexius especially deserves to live in his own space now. And my Eris is really an amalgamation of other characters that I've loved before that are like him. So needless to say, who I create for Alexius is going to be very similar 😂. Alexius needs a grumpy guy to his sunshine.

I certainly won't be leaving the fandom because I need this ding dong Elucien book. And I'll still be reading fanfic and replying to anyone who does go and read my works and leaves comments. And you might get surprise chapter updates or oneshots from me if I'm feeling any of that motivation. But regular updates won't be happening anymore.

[literary-illuminati]

2025 Book Review #5 Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This was a book recommended by a friend an absolute eternity ago which I finally got around to reading, having long since forgotten any of its selling points or interesting qualities which might have accompanied the recommendation. Going in blind, I quite enjoyed the book as I read it, finished it feeling it had ended somewhat anticlimactically, and have grown a bit more sour on it as I thought about it to write this review. It’s not a bad book – still a fun, easy read! - but I’m not sure it’s really much more than that.

The book is structured as an oral history – or maybe the transcript of a documentary – about the titular band, a musical phenomenon that set the world on fire for a moment in the late ‘70s before dramatically breaking up halfway through the tour after releasing one of the best albums of the decade. Aside from bits of narration and scene-setting at the start of each chapter (and one conversation in the climax) the documentarian is invisible, and the story is entirely told through quotes from members of the band, associates and hangers-on, or just critics and writers on the period, as they’re interviewed thirty years and change later in the 2010s.

In the abstract, I adore this. I love unreliable narration, and Rashmoon-esque scenes where we get mutually exclusive versions of the same conflict from different perspective. Properly packaged, I am an incredibly easy mark for messy self-destructive codependency and melodrama. Thanks to some peculiar media taste on my parent’s part, I even have enduring fondness for the whole, I don’t know, heroic age of rock&roll? And the whole mass of accompanying narratives and tropes that you get buried in talking about music in the 60s-through-early-80s. And it’s not that the book doesn’t deliver on any of that, exactly – it’s not at all poorly executed, it knows what it’s trying to do. It’s just-

It feels like this is a book about a fictional band because it would be impossible to make such a morally simple, happy and redemptive story about any of the actual bands that clearly inspired it without seeming like Jenkins was getting paid to whitewash someone. It’s not that there isn’t mess, exactly, but it comes across like a born again Christian giving lurid descriptions of their debauched and sinful former life. There’s sex and drugs galore, but the worst person in the entire book is just a shitty deadbeat boyfriend. The entire main thrust of the book is building up an unacknowledged love triangle between Daisy, Billie and Camilla – actually quite compelling! And then it finally reaches a head, is cleanly and simply resolved in the most boringly conventional way, and the story jumps thirty years ahead to a ‘where are they now’. Where is the toxicity, the mess, the unforgivable betrayals everyone has to ignore so they can get on stage together, the fortune-destroying legal battles over the rights to the band’s legacy once it all falls apart? You finish the book feeling like Charlie Brown trying to kick a football.

This might be a problem of me setting my expectations too high, but up until the halfway point it does feel like it was building up to something appropriately nuclear. Instead, it peaked with Billie (and, despite the book’s name and cover art, in a narrative sense he really is the main character of the book) hits rock bottom and goes to rehab so he can be a good father for his daughters and husband to his wife. A truly mind-numbing fraction of the book from there is dedicated to singing the praises of the redemptive power of the reproductive nuclear family and an advertisement for going to rehab and learning self-control before drugs ruin your life. I spent two hundred pages waiting for it all to be groundwork for juicy, bitter dramatic irony, but no – just sincere, straightforward themes of the work. Hideous.

There is one rather hostile reading of the book that works? It’s revealed at the book’s climax that the diegetic framer and compiler of this oral history is Julia, Billie and Camilla’s daughter, and she is creating this project when her mother rather abruptly dies. And you know? This story is exactly what you might expect from an entertainment industry nepo baby asking her parents and a bunch of family friends (including who everyone assumed to be The Other Woman) about her parent’s romance and relationship and putting it all together into a deeply mediocre documentary that will kickstart her career entirely thanks to all the juicy stories from last generation’s superstars. But I am on the one hand really pretty sure this is not even close to the intended read of the story, and on the other still leaves you only reading the deeply mediocre documentary with no access whatsoever to the more interesting story underneath it. Decent conceit for fanfiction, I guess?

The identity of the diegetic narrator is also the justification for how shamelessly the story plays favourites with which band members to focus on – of course her parents and their relationship will be the central focus of the whole piece, of course her uncle and his girlfriend will get second-string status, of course the rest of the band will basically exist to provide colour commentary and throw peanuts (if that). A disparity the story itself draws enough attention to it, honestly, goes from charming to eyeroll inducing when it never actually does anything with it.

The story very much wants to be About gender and feminism, and (going by the discussion questions I glanced at while skimming through the reader’s guide section at the back of the book) is proud of it. Which isn’t really unjustified – it really does have a decent number of different female characters with their own developed personalities and prominent roles in the narrative. It does the thing I kind of hate where by happy coincidence all of them (even the ones on opposite ends of a romantic triangle) end up liking each other whenever they interact, but that’s just kind of a piece with the book not really letting anyone be a proper piece of shit. It is however very funny that the only black-coded character in the entire story is literally in the narrative to be Daisy’s longsuffering and supportive best friend there to provide a bit of maternal influence and talk sense into her when she really needs it.

But yes, decent airport read I suppose? Fun for a lazy day if you enjoy the premise, but not really worth seeking out otherwise.

[cute-little-fly]

The series has more chance to succeed how it is right now, they saw it and they know it. If the series had more chance to succeed as a client of the week thing the series would have ended up being that. More development of the characters, more interesting dynamics create more engagement.

The most watched during the first week and rewatched episodes are the ones that have more drama, interpersonal development and social class themes… Is honestly when this series is at its best, so yeah, I also don’t see the appeal of a comedy of an imp business at all.

For me the imp murder episodes are something to have fun with sometimes, that can be also mixed with the more drama kind parts; but is not enough to sustain it. Remember that this is an indie show that highly depends on engagement. It would also be fun, of course, but it wouldn’t be deep or interesting and people won’t wait one moth or three month or a year month gap to watch funny episodes about people getting murdered by demons. That wouldn’t happen.

With the new 15 episode seasons I think the series has the chance to improve the pacing in the next seasons and the execution. I agree that sometimes some details are not shown, but it is not as bad as people say it is. For me what it has is enough to create a compelling narrative and story.

Lastly, the series that are like those people want exist in tons. Just pick another one, really.

Can someone tell me in the helluva boss fandom how this series should be just being about the imps killing fuck ass humans is somehow more interesting than what’s happening right now.

Because as someone who grew up and still watches monster/situation of the week stories (power rangers, TMNT, kamen Rider) I don’t see the appeal like at all.

[vivziepoparchives]

Is there anything more about that blue fox from the Die Young amv that became the furry awakening for so many?

I should still have lots of JayJay art to post, but you can check her tag for what I already have if you're interested! If you're looking for more of a basic info overview, keep reading.

JayJay was originally named JiJi and she was a source of controversy for Viv because Viv didn't actually create JayJay. JayJay was a sparkle dog adopt that DollCreep purchased then redesigned. (I can't recall the original artist off the top of my head, unfortunately, and, if I'm remembering right, JiJi was purchased from someone who purchased her from the original artist before she even reached DollCreep.)

DollCreep, a friend of Viv's at the time, then sold JiJi to Viv who went on to use her in the infamous Die Young video. But there were disputes between the two about characters given or sold to Viv and where ownership laid. I'm not gonna get too into it, but in my personal opinion, this was just a case of not communicating the terms of sale well between friends. In the end, Viv renamed JiJi to JayJay and altered her design very slightly.

In terms of her purpose in Viv's Zoophbobia, she was supposed to show up in Book Two of the webcomic. Zoophobia didn't make it that far, though, so what we do know of her is mostly gleaned from Viv's art and posts about her.

She was part of a group of werewolf and canine characters Viv dubbed Party Dawgz in some posts and was close to the Queen of Werewolves. She's known for being a party animal, obviously, but cares about her packmates and friends deeply and just wants to have fun.

DollCreep also portrayed her as a party animal, but leaned into a more comedic and sexualized depiction of her. Viv tried to tone that part of her personality down a lot which was something she stated directly once.

I believe some more specific details of JayJay's story (such as her being a farm girl who got stuck as a werewolf) were changed along the way. But, in general, being a party animal is what has stuck with her the longest as her primary trait.

Fitting for a sparkle dog adopt.

Queen Bee from Helluva Boss is a big blaring neon throw back to JayJay and is probably near-identical in personality if you strip away the world-building specific aspects of both. Viv even referenced JayJay's original colors during Cotton Candy and obtained Kesha as her voice actress. So, in the end, this is where JayJay ended up in spirit.

Disclaimer: I was not around to witness the controversy of her ownership of JayJay in real time, but I have researched it for myself to reach my own conclusions about the situation. For me, it comes across as a messy falling out between friends, and I have sympathy for both sides.

As an archivist, I never want to shy away from the more controversial things that happened in Viv's history. But I also don't want a lot of discourse on this post about it, so I may block if I feel people are veering into overly aggressive and nonconstructive anti territory. Just try to be civil with any discussion if you want to avoid being blocked.

[queer-ragnelle]

hello! hope you're having a good day :)

I'm slowly introducing my girlfriend to arthurian legend and I was wondering what films you would recommend for a complete beginner (her). I will be next to her explaining things but I also wanted to start off with something more digestible. We've already watched the green knight (2021) (I know) and excalibur (1981) together. thank you for all you do!

Hello, I am and I hope you are too!

Oh yayyy this is so awesome. I'm going to suggest things that I personally feel really give a newbie a grasp of the characters in such a way that if they were to watch something else afterward, it would actually aid them in understanding. There are some films that are so experimental they're unrecognizable (like Knightriders (1981) or Shadow of the Raven (1988)). Those are amazing, visionary films. But they're entrenched in their respective cultures (American and Icelandic respectively) so they don't really help someone new grasp the foundational lore like the things I'll be suggesting will. This list offers self-contained stories with solid writing, great acting, and entertainment enough to keep one engaged, without any requirement for prior knowledge to appreciate.

Here are the beginner friendly options listed in order of release:

Knights of the Round Table (1953)

Details the rise & fall of Camelot from Arthur pulling the sword from the stone to his & Mordred's deaths. It has everything, the A/G/L of all time, adorable Percival & Elaine as siblings, Orkney bros Gawain, Agravaine, Gareth, & Mordred (who is not a product of incest), sassy clever Morgan beefing with fatherly sweet Merlin, gorgeous costuming, moving script.

BBC The Legend of King Arthur (1979)

This is technically a show but hear me out. It's only 8 episodes, half hour each, & covers the full Arthurian story from Uther's battle with Gorlois to take Igraine all the way to Arthur's passing. Morgan is a central character & fascinating. Arthur raised by Ector alongside Kay. Goes to battle against Lot & Accolon & the other rebellious lords. Great Lancelot & Bors. Guinevere is strong & interesting & sympathetic. Orkney bros Gawain, Agravain, Gareth, & Mordred (who is not a product of incest). Elaine of Corbenic & Elaine of Astolat both present as separate women. Grail quest led by Galahad (no Percival unfortunately). Mador’s brother Guido poisoned “by Guinevere” like in Le Morte d’Arthur & a trial by combat ensues. It’s a really compelling version of events that can give a beginner a great overview of the legends.

Sword of Lancelot (1963)

Opens with an older Arthur looking to marry. Lancelot is his bestie & champion. Other knights include Gawain, Mordred (who is not a product of incest), Bedivere, Dagonet the jester, Lamorak, Kay the seneschal, & eventually Tor. Lancelot/Guinevere have great chemistry they were married irl.

Gawain and the Green Knight (1991)

Faithful adaptation of SGATGK complete with three days of kissing! Unique by having Gawain recount the reason for his journey as he’s already on it. Flashbacks show Gawain at the high table with Arthur & Guinevere, sitting next to his brother Agravaine, when the Green Knight comes in, & is beheaded. The events at Bertilak’s castle play out just like the poem with the lady coming to tempt Gawain & then he forwards those kisses to Bertilak in exchange for the animal of the hunt. Colorful & fun!

Tristan & Isolde (2006)

One of my favorites. I think the leads have great chemistry & gives a decent overview of the Medieval story without too much access. Mark here is morally way better than in Medlit but it does make the live triangle more juicy. Brangain is really funny here too. There is no magic in this version, so no love potion. Just pure unaided adultery.

Sir Lanval (2011)

Short & sweet indie movie adapting Marie of France’s lay of the same name. Great casting, beautiful costuming, pretty sets. Lanval’s rags to riches story thanks to his fairy lady Tryamour. Sport but well-meaning Arthur not doing his marital duties gives Guinevere sufficient motivation to try & seduce Lanval. Kay is here as Arthur’s foster brother & seneschal but sort of acts like an attorney? Lol? Great movie.

Sire Gauvain et le Chevalier Vert (2014)

Another SGATGK poem adaptation, this time in French (with English subtitles) & condensed to a mere 28 minutes run time. Visually stunning & beautifully acted. A little more mature than the 1991 version, bc of course the French have to get freaky with it sexual style (this is a good thing). Another awesome adaptation worth checking out.

Okay I think those are all my suggestions! Hope that gives you and your girlfriend a solid watch list and you both enjoy them. Take care!

[stevecore]

random shit keeping me up at night:

steve has no plans other than working at family video for the rest of his life until he randomly goes with eddie, jeff and garet to la to check out some shady record deal they've been offered, because being a formerly wanted criminal and survivors of the infamous hawkins town disaster doesn't hurt your cred as a metal band. all ozzy did was bite the head off one little bat.

they've sent out a handful of tapes and some actually get picked up, even though everyone wants money just to take a meeting. steve is planning to plant his pretty ass down on venice beach for a week and do fuck all when he's approached by an excited looking punk girl asking if he's ever acted, modelled, anything? he has a look. he has the look for a project she's working on, she's co-director, would he be interested?

which is how steve harrington end up playing one of the lead roles as an undead jock in the worst b-rate horror flick you've ever seen. the kind that gets passed around at parties as joke. robin makes fun of it for the rest of his life, but he's the best thing in it and it puts him on the map. he's got natural charm and comedic timing, and the fact that he's basically playing himself and everyone adores working with him keeps landing him bigger roles.

meanwhile eddie cannot believe his awesome scream king boyfriend and the fact that he's casually hanging out with some of eddie's heroes. he's filming with john landis. cronenberg wants him for project. barbara crampton gushes about working with him. steve didn't even know who half these people were, is an unrepentant romcom fanboy. when asked by fangoria who he'd like to work with in the future he says john hughes, and everyone thinks its a really funny joke. only eddie knows how much of a dweeb steve really is.

corroded's kind of dead in the water at this point, but they've got a solid first album and steve is pretty close with the director he's working with at the moment, and the film is in development mainly off of steve's typecasting anyway. so steve is like "sammy, what about a psychadelic metal concept album running through the entire film?" and eddie's like "did you just call sam fucking raimi 'sammy'?" and sam is like "sure, set something up" *shrugs and goes back to writing about a demonic witch cult that steve's unassuming quarterback has to fight off with a cursed bible and a nail bat in a small town in iowa (some of which is steve's idea, thank you very much, its a collab for the ages)*

corroded coffin's soundtrack ends up a success, and much later a lauded cult classic. they get signed by someone who doesn't work out of a basement. steve is a hit, and its the first time he sees this many people dressed as a character he played for halloween, which is a trip. dustin sends him a pic from a party at his college wearing his now iconic letterman jacket and the bat and steve has genuinely never been as proud of anything he's worked on.

he lands a tiny part with about two lines as 'guy who gets face eaten' in a john carpenter film and john falls in love and makes him kurt russel's younger brother in a lovecraftian story about a a mysterious extraterrestrial force unleashed during a solar eclipse. eddie munson shakes kurt russels hand for about ten of the wildest seconds of his life at the premiere party. he'll score a song for john years later, and john will remember how much of a hyper fanboy he'd been that night and enough time will have passed thats it funny.

steve takes him to dinner with bruce campbell, who likes to call him kid apparently while steve tells him to fuck off, hes 8 years older and a dick, and apparently this is some injoke between them. eddie is dating a dude that has injokes with bruce campbell. eddie barely eats the entire time, just keeps about half a billion questions about every minute detail of evil dead to a minimum and lets the guy breathe. he's pretty sure bruce knows they're together, even though they dont go around announcing it, and he seems cool. he signs an autograph that eddie only feels a little mortified about asking for while steve rolls his eyes.

and steve is like i dont understand why me being a kickass point guard for three years didnt do shit for you but getting sprayed by a fuckton of fake blood in this terrible stephen king adaptation impresses you but ill take it.

eventually eddie composes a couple of songs solo for a scifi that does reasonably well and just leans fulltime into scoring. as a personal favor, john and him chainsmoke their way through a few collaborations on eddie's first and final solo record in the late 90's. it's indisputably his best work, and he tells steve he can die happy now.

they're just an adorable little horror power couple and i live for it

[galaxymagitech]

This is interesting!

I think the 8 comes from Batman #10, which…actually seems to have Dick turn 8 at the beginning. So…he was initially seven?!? Or maybe eight, but definitely younger than nine. (I will not be including screenshots as proof because the first few panels of that comic sound incredibly unhinged, to put it lightly.)

But also…these are early comics that were not meant to be taken seriously. They were amusements for children and generally considered “low brow”, and continuity wasn’t particularly important. So it’s quite possible that they intended Dick to be more like 12 in many stories, and the “he turns eight” could easily be a one-off thing not meant to affect main continuity.

I have no idea how 8-year-olds acted in 1942, so I can’t make any comment on what age he actually seems to be. Likewise, the comics aren’t meant to be taken too seriously—Dick driving the Batmobile isn’t really proof he’s anywhere near old enough to drive imo. In PJ Masks, the kindergarteners drive cars and no one bats an eye, because the premise is that these little kids are superheroes and it’s fun!

But it is interesting, I think, to consider the fact that these comics were set in a time with a wildly different understanding of childhood, young adulthood, etc. Dick Grayson’s Robin is very much a product of that age, and removing him from that time period requires either significantly modifying his character and Robin’s relationship with Batman or an extreme amount of suspension of disbelief.

Wait why do you say "reject modernity (dick under 10)" when he was 8 in his first appearance? Dick was meant to be a child at first. He gave younger comic book fans a character to see themselves in. Older dick is the more modern idea

Dick was not 8 in his first appearance. This is a very common fandom misconception.

Dick was not given a numerical age for YEARS. DC did not want to give him a concrete age because if years passed, why wouldn’t Robin be growing up? No, it’s better to leave it ambiguous, and that’s what they did for a long time.

What we knew for sure was that Dick was a Youth. He was a boy as opposed to a man, he was a student, he was a minor in the eyes of the state, he still needed a legal guardian, and he was depicted as being “compact” in size.

Dick Grayson, the character, is actually older than the term “teenager”.

So they described him with words like juvenile, boy, junior partner, adolescent, etc. It was left up to interpretation and speculation. Given that Bruce trusted Dick to drive the batmobile, pilot the batplane, perform surgery on him, etc, we can assume he’s older than an elementary school student. This makes Dick capable, reliable, a competent partner to Batman, without needing to be coddled. Easy to self-insert for a young boy reading these comics!

Modern retellings of Dick’s origin story, of which there are plenty, insist on giving him concrete ages, some saying 8, some saying 9, some saying 12, etc. The thing you have to remember is that no age can be the end all be all “correct” age. Batman media constantly contradicts and reboots itself. But the modern TREND is to skew extremely young.

I believe they do it to subtly enforce a father-son reading between Bruce and Dick and dissuade any kind of romantic reading between them that was popular through the 20th century. They also remove Dick’s competence, his maturity, and his status of being Bruce’s most intimate domestic relationship, and give all of that to Alfred instead.

Personally I don’t think Dick Grayson was supposed to depict a child under the age of 10 originally. He was way too competent. I also don’t think Bruce would let anyone under the age of like 13 actually go out and fight crime with him. There has to be SOME level of believability. But that’s just my own thoughts.

TL;DR: Dick being explicitly 8 years old when meeting Bruce is a modern story element. Traditional Batman did not give him an exact age (but tended to depict him as if he were a young teenager)

[turtledork02]

oh ... the angst of ratchet ... horrific (beautiful)

i really love learning about your au! it's really good! and your art style is so yummyy!! like fresh crepes

will your au be told through art and story? or just art? or just story?

and what does team prime do on a daily basis? like looking at energon mines and sniping any decepticons that get too close, i understand that, but anything other than that?

oh! and are there going to be any different kind of bots beside autobots and decepticons? any predacons or insecticons?

also, thank you for all the art with some of the asks! i think it's so cool when creators make art for asks, even tho they don't have to. it's super sweet. you're a pretty rad guy!

I unfortunately have a habit of torturing my favorite characters lol-

Also thank you for the compliment on my art!! Have a Miko sketch!! *kiss kiss platonically*

I plan on telling the AU through both art and story!! Although I probably will not write the start of canon plot until I get all the character sheets out, just so that I have time to flesh out the characters and ideas more fully.

As for what Team Prime does on a daily basis! Before they met the humans, they were pretty bored actually lol. They took a lot of time to learn earth culture since they had little else to do. Ratchet and First Aid learned human medicine, and are very skilled at it now! Bumblebee learned about street racing and does that for fun. Sometimes he brings Arcee and/or Wheeljack! Optimus and the others know about it but let him do it so he can have some fun. Wheeljack makes new bombs, inventions, and such on when he’s bored and not working on his studies. Arcee has a training room with holograms that she uses a LOT. She punches things a lot. Optimus does a lot of reading. Like a lot. He has read so much earth literature now and he loves it. His favorites are Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and several of Stephen King’s works.

By the time Jack, Miko, and Sari join the Autobots, the plot starts picking up speed. From there they will be interacting with Decepticons a lot more and trying to protect earth.

And yes, Insecticons and other Cybertronian species will exist! I’m still figuring out who and where. Predacons will probably remain a memory from the past. They are not really that relative to my AU plot, as much as I love predacons. As for Dinobots, though.👀

Thank you so much for all the asks!! I’m so glad you’re enjoying these!! They have been giving me a lot of motivation to draw, which helps me flesh out my characters more! I really appreciate everyone taking interest.