#their power post strike>

[jack-kellys]

central park doodle from last week

[the-most-humble-blog]

<div style="white-space:pre-wrap">

🧠 THE MANNEQUIN WITH POWERS — Why Character Comes Before Plot or Die in the Void A Blacksite Literature™ Transmission (If your protagonist couldn’t grip a reader’s soul in a blank room, you already failed.)

I. THE VOID YOU'RE WRITING INTO

Let’s get this out of the way first:

If your character can’t speak — not literally, but viscerally — to the reader’s insides without the crutch of explosions, lore dumps, or a “cool” outfit…

You are not writing a character. You’re dressing a mannequin. And no one gives a fuck what a mannequin does.

II. IF THEY FEEL NOTHING, YOU BUILT NOTHING

Who cares what city’s under attack? Who cares if they’re the Chosen One? Who cares about your twist, your map, your seven-act structure?

If the protagonist you’ve built:

Has no secret

Carries no weight

Evokes no response from a quiet, tired reader on a Tuesday night—

Then you wrote into the void.

Your reader wasn’t “dumb” or “impatient.” They felt nothing. And they left.

III. THE LIE OF “PLOT FIRST”

You’ve been sold a lie:

“Just make the story exciting and the characters will follow.”

No. Never. Backwards.

Character always precedes plot. Character is the plot.

Because if I don’t care who it’s happening to — Then nothing happening will ever matter.

A reader can forgive:

A slow start

A clunky scene

A cliché trope

But they will never forgive the crime of hollow company.

You gave them someone to follow —

And that someone had no soul.

IV. THE MANNEQUIN WITH POWERS

Let’s define the threat.

The Mannequin:

Has abilities

Has trauma

Has a goal

Has quips

Has a backstory

But no voice.

No contradiction. No shame. No private thing they would die to protect, not because it’s powerful — but because it’s theirs.

This mannequin does things. Big things. High stakes.

And no one cares. Because nothing human is bleeding through the plastic.

V. ESCAPISM ISN’T A LICENSE TO LIE

Yes, readers want to escape. But not from humanity.

They want to escape into:

A place where flawed people matter.

A place where pain has context, not just screen time.

A place where characters don’t just “get better” — they get known.

Escape into fantasy all you want. But if you’re escaping the imperfections of the human condition, then you’re not writing fantasy. You’re writing propaganda for emotional disconnection.

And your reader knows it. Even if they don’t say it. Even if they reblog it. Even if they finish it.

They know.

VI. THE SECRET THEY DON’T BRAG ABOUT

Let me give you the fix.

Give your character one thing:

A secret they don’t brag about.

Something they hide not because it’s cool — but because it’s raw, vulnerable, humiliating, or sacred.

Examples:

She used to believe in God, and now she can’t even say “grace” over her food.

He kept a voicemail from his brother the day before he overdosed.

She has two daughters, and hasn’t seen them since the custody ruling.

He talks shit to villains but goes home and reads old love letters he never responded to.

Do not announce it. Do not reward it. Do not let them monologue it.

Let it live. Quietly. And watch your readers form emotional attachments like animals recognizing kin.

VII. PLOT WILL NEVER SAVE YOU

You can worldbuild forever. You can twist the timelines, deepen the lore, expand the pantheon.

But if your central figure could be replaced by anyone and the story still works?

You didn’t build a character. You built scenery in a cape.

Plot is what happens.

Character is who we blame, who we mourn, who we root for in spite of ourselves.

And if you skip that? You skip the anchor. You leave your reader floating — no matter how pretty the setting is.

VIII. THE READER DOESN’T OWE YOU A DAMN THING

Let’s be brutally honest:

Your reader doesn’t care how much time you spent.

They don’t care how much of your soul you “poured in.” They don’t care how important your themes are.

If they can’t connect to a being — not a puppet — then they leave.

Because they’re not in your head. They’re alone. Reading. Tired. Wanting to feel something.

And if your protagonist doesn’t show up with emotional currency in hand?

They’re gone.

IX. THE ONLY TEST THAT MATTERS

Write this down:

If your main character was in a blank white room for five pages — with no plot, no action, no powers — would I want to hear what they think?

If the answer is no?

Start over.

Not from page one. From soul one. You didn’t give them a person. You gave them a vessel to carry your story — and no one wants to be ferried by a stranger.

X. THE REALITY YOU’RE TOO SCARED TO ADMIT

You’re not scared of writing bad plots.

You’re scared of putting real, flawed, mirrored, shameful, holy you into your character — because if it fails, it’ll feel like you failed.

So you keep them clean. You keep them plastic. You keep them “relatable” in all the ways that mean nothing.

But the only thing that ever makes a reader stay?

Is the feeling that this character was carved from a place they weren’t supposed to see.

That’s what creates emotional loyalty. That’s what earns tears. That’s what builds cult followings, not just fandoms.

XI. SO FIX IT.

Kill the mannequin.

Bury the empty badass. Silence the sarcastic automaton. Throw the trauma plot in the fire.

Build a person. A person with shame. A person with weight. A person who reminds the reader of a truth they’ve never told anyone.

Then throw that person into your plot.

And watch the story ignite.

XII. CONCLUSION: YOU'RE NOT WRITING STORIES. YOU'RE WRITING PEOPLE.

You think you’re writing entertainment. You think you’re building scenes. You think you’re plotting arcs.

But you’re not.

You’re introducing human souls to strangers. And the ones who do it well? They become immortal.

Every good story is just a person you didn’t want to say goodbye to.

If you don’t have that?

Then what the fuck are we doing here. </div>

📌 If this made your spine straighten mid-sentence — reblog it. 🧠 If it exposed a hollow character you once thought was “done” — save it. ✍️ If it reminded you why we write at all — read it again.

And if it hurt? That means it’s time to start over.

Bonus:

🧠 FREE WRITING LESSON — THE MOST POWERFUL CHARACTER DEPTH TRICK YOU’LL EVER READ.

[coeur-de-fruk]

マジカル❤ストライク!

[messymoonmad]

I need to see poseidon adopt polites as his son

He be like "hm ur my child now" and just carry polites away

This but with Eurylochus and Perimedes

[sun-marie]

LRB but I'm replaying BG3 and Gale being on the knife's edge of Wholesome/"Dirty" is what makes him soo interesting to me. Like this is a man who, in two different versions of the same scene, can either sweetly and gently make love to your tav in a typical setting which transitions to a tasteful fade-to-black, or brings your tav's spirit along for a transcendent experience where he literally duplicates part of himself so he can have more parts to touch their parts in some crazy astral-soup sky world. And both are treated like valid expressions of his love!! Like the range they allowed him to express, he's not one or the other, he's both

[three-headed-monster]

back to camp!

[pepperpixel]

-DECEPTICON COMMUNICATIONS AND INTELLIGENCE OFFICER, SOUNDWAVE-

OMGGGGG IM ACTUALLY POSTING A PIECE OF ART THAT I DREW, it’s a November miracle…. I’m drawing. And I finished something. I’m always drawing honestly it’s the finishing that’s rlly surprising lol. But anyway! Yeah! Everybody drawing cool humanformers stuff on twitter cuz of the movie got me inspired to draw some of my human soundwave… looking extra sneaky and spy like…. Lurking in the shadows w his cat… wanted to practice big shapes and bold colors… and I like it! I think it turned out good!

[dandelion-blues]

#4 What if...

after the world forgot Peter Parker's existence, Peter moves to Hell's Kitchen, gets a symbiote, and is surrounded by parental vigilantes?

Ever since Peter Parker got bitten by that radioactive spider at 14, everything, from his senses, to his strength, to his durability, has been enhanced. What Peter didn’t know is that his enhanced healing also comes with increased longevity. His cells are aging much more slowly. Thus, a freshly turned 18 year old Peter barely looks 16. Of course, Peter just assumes he has an extreme baby face. Still, when you legally don’t exist, and everyone forgot you even existed, it’s hard to acquire a place of residence for a decent job when he looks nowhere near adulthood.

It turns out the only place even willing to give him a shot and will accept the meager money he has for an apartment is the corrupt Hell's Kitchen.

Sure it’s no Queens, but Peter will do his best to help people out.

All he has now is Spider-man. The world doesn’t need Peter Parker, after all.

So, when an isolated Peter comes across some sentient black goo who gives Peter company. He doesn’t really have it in him to complain. Plus, his new black suit is sick!

Now, if only Daredevil and even the Punisher (and about every other vigilante Peter sees) would just leave him to do his patroling alone and stop trying to be friends (it feels more like parenting, really) with him.

First - Previous - Next "What if..."

[ame-emberlea]

some odysseus & eurylochus thoughts. I love their dynamic but the fandom angers me sometimes.

(making it clear, I'm talking about some haters, not all, some of you actually make good points)

edit: it's 2am and i've had more thoughts so i word-vomited them all out in the tags

[horny-ex-catholic]

Truly the hottest part of kink play is the trust.

Like. Yeah, hearing my partner say they want me to make them my doll to use and play with however I want is hot as fuck, but the fact that they want to give up all their control to me because they have total unwavering trust in me to take care of them and not cross their boundaries makes me feral

[milkbreadtoast]

shoutout to twsb for having a motherly chara who survives despite donning the infamous "dead mom hairstyle"

...and for the actual angelic dead mom/deceased wife trope to instead go to Cedric's dilf dad cmsndmdbs <3

[thelaurenshippen]

open ai made a little post about how they chose their chatbot voices and two things stood out to me:

a) I am genuinely pleased and surprised that the voices come from specific real people that they hired and paid, rather than being built off of all of the data open ai has scraped. the voice for siri did one job for one company 20 years ago and now she is literally everywhere without ever being compensated by apple or even acknowledged as the voice. there's simply no way she was paid enough in that original job. whereas, open ai says "each actor receives compensation above top-of-market rates, and this will continue for as long as their voices are used in our products." this could mean literally anything (what market rate are we going above? does continue mean they get residuals or get paid for doing more sessions?) but, christ, at least the actors are doing it with full knowledge of what their voices are being used for and can decide for themselves if the compensation is enough

b) the post talks about working with "award-winning casting directors" to get the voices. first of all, yay for paying casting directors! we love to see it. but they also say the CDs received over 400 submissions in a week and they state that like a big number and it's just...not at all. and look, without knowing the intricacies of the casting process, it's hard to know what approach the CDs took - it's very possible they were selective from the jump and 400 is a lot from the pool they were tapping. 400 would be a lot if you were going to the agencies directly and asking for names, but there's just no way in hell open ai went after big stars for this. so it would've been a pool of unknowns. in which case, 400 is laughably small. even if you're not using the big casting sites like actorsaccess, I've worked on projects with CDs and their own internal systems where we've gotten over 100 submissions for a single role. I've posted roles on casting sites and received literally thousands of submissions in just a few days

look, I have a very limited perspective on this - I am not a casting director (imo, one of the most important and undervalued jobs in hollywood) and I, in fact, hate the process of casting with a passion. but 400 just seemed like such a tiny pool to pull from and, idk, it heartens me! it's heartening to think that there's very little interest from actors and agents to be doing this kind of stuff. and absolutely no shade to the actors who did--I want actors to get their bag however they want as long as it's, like, safe sane and consensual, you know? but there's something encouraging about thinking that open ai hired some big casting agency to get their foot into the voice acting door and people didn't come running

[purplecatghostposts]

Ladybug/Pegabug in Strike Back 🤝 Pegasus in Miracle Queen

Teleporting Sentis into the sun

[aquitainequeen]

David Slack breaking down the potential resuming of 'negotiations' between the Writers' Guild of America and the AMPTP.

Also the WGA's breakdown of the meeting, after the AMPTP seemingly broke the media blackout:

[the-red-thread-that-strangles]

Alright. Let's talk about Akai's and Furuya's fighting styles, control, and the ferris wheel fight, featuring some tangents on professionalism.

The second reason is the implied: Akai is (in general, probably not in this situation, because he is going along with the fight Rei wants) a professional, and professionals do not fight. A professional will either ambush or assassinate (you know, like the sniping Akai is so well-known for), and generally do everything in his power to avoid a fight. It's about gaining the advantage, pressing and keeping it, to maintain control over the situation. For comparison, fights are between people of roughly equal footing, and fighting follows rules. As a person who lives in the world of actual violence, Akai does not need the fancy dances of a fighting sport, he needs his rifles, guns, and a self-defense technique for when things go really bad and personal. (Incidentally, a professional will also plan, won't let his emotions get in the way, stay calm, and keep working in bad conditions - we also see these traits in Akai.) I can remember two instances of Akai fighting (there might be more)- the ferris wheel fight, and the one time he knocked out the people after Yumi (and arguably, they didn't really have a chance and it wasn't really a fight). Other than that, he's just coordinating and providing tactical support.

Akai using Jeet Kune Do for fighting is an interesting choice. It's not as well-known as many other fighting styles (hell, it's not even a fighting style, it's a self defense technique and really more of a philosophy or a principle), but it has a couple of key values that characterize him well. First off, it's hugely individualistic. Practitioner's are encouraged to find their own way, to find what works for them, which really is Akai in a nutshell, doing what he wants. Secondly, it is described as a highly efficient way to fight. There are few, if any, rules to Jeet Kune Do, you're expected to use whatever technique will help you the most in the moment. For this reason, it is also highly adaptable, and requires an appropriate mindset to use. This latter point, I think, really mirrors the approach the FBI has in the series - do what you need to in order to get the results we want, at whatever the cost.

The fact that it's a self defense technique is important for two reasons: one is the immediate one for our context - Akai's defending himself from an angry Rei on the ferris wheel.

With all that out of the way, let's get into the ferris wheel fight, and what we learn about them there.

For contrast, let's look at Rei. It's almost funny how little professionalism Rei has compared to Akai, when it comes to the world they're living in. Rei's choice of fighting style is boxing, and he's practicing a rather straightforward, aggresive version, with barely any defense, at great personal risk. That point about professionals not letting their emotions get in their way? Well, either Rei has never heard it, or he's deliberately ignoring it. Either way, it really holds him back from gaining and maintaing control.

(I would be remiss not to point out that boxing is also done for show, fitting for this show-off.)

Boxing might honestly be good for Rei in order get out his anger and to up his pain tolerance, but for the purpose of keeping him alive, it sucks. It's up close, it's personal, and it's dirty (that tagline might as well describe Furuya himself). A threat who's gotten into that range is already a problem. Sure, usually - though not in this instance - he's also got his handgun, with its limited reach, limited firepower. For his purposes, it might suffice - he's not supposed to be a fighter, and the advantage of his gun is in its concealability. I suppose he gets a couple points in professionalism for that choice, and for often bringing back-up, whether he's working for the PSB or the BO. For what it's worth, he's also likely trained in Kendo or something similar, as we see in Wild Police Story, but he doesn't really use it. We see Rei fighting rarely, but it happens; with Matsuda at the beginning of WPS, casually inflicting violence on a kidnapper, and now here on the ferris wheel.

It's so interesting to me how they interact here.

Despite both of them bleeding, it starts to feel like Akai is in control, or at least not dated by the fighting - he gets Rei good with Jeet Kune Do's signature One Inch Punch, but has enough presence of mind to casually grabs him so he doesn't fall to his death (which gets him shoved off with a foot. Give Furuya an inch, and he'll try to take your head). Furuya's meanwhile clearly enjoying himself, might have even entered the zone, a sort of battlejoy/trance, asking for a second round (here we go again, this is a fight, with certain rules, like rounds), and Akai, well, he's beaten up, but it doesn't look like he'd surrender to get Furuya off his back - despite it being an option that would end the fight early. We see both of them smiling at points in this exchange, and I think it speaks to both of them, inherently, being thrillseekers. Putting all they are into the outcome of this fight against a dangerous enemy is a thrilling brush with mortality.

Them fighting at all, on top of the ferris wheel, is stupid, plain and simple. They expect the BO to show up any minute, and they'd better be in peak condition - instead they indulge in this fight. Really, it's Rei launching himself at Akai, who's mostly dodging and defending where necessary (I say indulge, because he is armed, and could probably escalate/end the fight early). Fights happen for a variety of reasons, usually social (because otherwise we'd be talking about violence, not a fight), and this implies Rei sees Akai as roughly equal/wants him to have a fair fighting chance, following the social contract of announcing his presence. He launches the attack, takes the initiative but the distance is so large, and he telegraphs his intentions clearly enough that his advantage is minimal.

Akai has the distinct disadvantage of carrying his rifle case, protecting its contents, because he'll need them later. He is, as the series lets us know, a capable fighter (described stronger as Masumi, who can deal with Ran, an established capable martial artist), and we can see it in this fight. He's reading Rei's movements and blocking most of the hits - for what it's worth, Rei's style seems more focused on quantity of attacks over quality. He does get Akai with some unconventional angles of attack (like swinging up into a kick from falling), and mostly this initial struggle is about them fighting for control.

When we cut back to the fight, they're still at it. I find it interesting that Akai tries to talk Rei down throughout the fight. Because the presence of mind necessary to form coherent sentences in a fight is not nothing, and the fact that he at least tries to go for a different solution is noteworthy, even if it is ultimately useless.

Then Conan calls Akai. This is in a small pause to the fight, because, surprise surprise, fighting takes effort (another reason professionals avoid it). It is really funny to me how Rei respects the rules of a fight, but he also sees an opportunity in his opponent's distraction, and seizes it (at the cost of also throwing himself down into a chasm, the self-sacrificial bastard).

Only at this point does it feel like Akai is taking the fight more seriously. I'd wager this is a) because Rei has displayed the willingness to destroy himself to take Akai with him, b) due to the enclosed space - less space to dodge and c) because at least he is aware time is ticking. They're both injured, and the enemy is coming soon. This fight better be over quick.

They only don't fight each other to the death because of Conan's timely intervention. He calls to Akai for help, and just like that, the conflict is resolved, for now. Akai wordlessly rejects Rei's request for a second round, which Rei just...accepts. Allows Akai that level of control, and the control of the flow of information (namely, they don't tell Conan they've been at it). It baffles me, but then again, I suppose it is a fight, the fight has rules, and, clearly, something more important takes precedence. Then again, this whole damn exchange makes no logical sense. Rei has sworn bloody revenge on Akai, who just saved his life today, and instead of doing something about the BO they're fighting a little. Logic is nowhere to be seen, all of this is emotional. On both sides.

I guess bonus points in professionalism for working together for the rest of the rest of the movie, even if they're sharing intel with/depending on a literal child for the solutions to their problem. It's a very unusual set of circumstances indubitably not covered by their training, granted, so what can you do (I'd still love for the adults in this universe to do their job, sue me).

Last point of note for the movie, in my opinion, is Akai waiting after all the chaos is over for Rei to spot him. Is this a case of checking in and simultaneously showing that he, too, made it out alive? He is clearly noticed by Rei, and only then walks away. And Rei just lets him. Akai is in control, in the end.

[celebrimbor-apologist]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63711028/chapters/163331074

Sunflowers 🌻

Or: Glorfindel’s very bad, no good, awful awful arrival in Imladris, featuring one snarky librarian and one spooked mapmaker