#thinking of more to write

[doodlesanime]

Park Ranger/Monster Hunter AU Note

Ranger Ty Lee works at Shenandoah National Park, not exactly the same park as I am adding more Pacific Northwest scenery with more pine trees. Suki is her friend/coworker, Katara and Aang work above them in the Park. Sokka is Suki’s boyfriend but works in town outside the Park. He thinks all the cryptids and cryptid searchers are incredibly hokey. Toph, another ranger, thinks its funny to annoy Sokka by believing in the stories and cryptid sightings. She brings up Bigfoot a lot. 

Working an early morning shift Ty Lee is doing rounds around the area in the park and spots a figure dart out of the woods and collapse in the middle of the road. The car’s headlights catch that the person has claws, fangs, patchy fur-- a half-turned werewolf. And she’s wounded in the side. Ty Lee stalks up to her slowly, not one keen on leaving her there in the middle of the road before the park opens. The werewolf is keeping her distance and telling the ranger to get lost or else. Not much else can happen before her vision fades to black and she passes out from the pain. Ty Lee takes the wounded werewolf, puts her in the back of the car, and rushes back to her place. Calling sick for the day, she bandages the werewolf up, and watches over Azula. On a random morning Ty Lee has found out werewolves are real. Monsters, cryptids, and mythical creatures are real and in the park. Even though she’s kind of freaking out Ty Lee wants to learn more about this hidden world. Azula, slowly regaining consciousness, realizes her wound isn’t healing like it should. On the condition that Ty Lee keep her secret she will let her in on monster hunting- and protecting in the park. 

[noperopesaredope]

I wish we had more female characters like Eleanor Shellstrop. One of the most unlikable people you've ever met. Read a Buzzfeed article on most rude things you can do on a daily basis and decided to use that as a list of goals. Makes everyone's day worse just by being there. Dropped a margarita mix on the ground and tried to pick it up, only to get hit by a row of shopping carts which pushed her into the road where she was hit by a boner pill delivery truck, killing her instantly. Cannot keep a romantic partner despite being bisexual. Had a terrible childhood but will die before she gets therapy. Best employee at a scam company. Just the worst but also can't help but root for her to improve.

Absolute loser. Girl-failure. Bad at almost everything. Literally perfect female character.

[timelesslords]

thinking about how the hunger games were designed to prove that without society, order, government, someone to rule, we devolve into little more than animals, and how the games themselves prove over and over again that this is not true. We see it in every single game we witness.

Katniss placing flowers around Rue's body in the arena. Thresh sparing Katniss because she was kind to Rue, even though he was making it that much harder for himself to win.

Haymitch going back for Maysilee after hearing her scream even though their alliance had been broken. Haymitch holding her as she dies the same way Katniss did Rue.

Coral's "I can't have killed them all for nothing" when she realizes she's not going home. Lamina cutting down Marcus at great personal risk. And, my favorite moment in tbosas, Reaper collecting the bodies of his fellow tributes, his peers, even the ones who tried to kill him, into a pile. Taking the weapons from their hands. Closing their eyes and crossing their arms in the best approximation of a proper burial he can manage, covering them with the Capitol flag as a makeshift shroud.

The Games bring out the worst in people, yes. But despite the extreme circumstances, despite the exterior pressure of the Capitol, despite the fact that it could mean pain and heartbreak and death, it also shows that people have an enormous capacity for goodness. That even in a situation purposefully designed to make empathy impossible, people can't help but have it anyway.

Snow looks at the Games and all he can see is what's inside himself-- this pure animalistic drive to conquer and defeat. He kills and it feels good and he thinks that everyone else must feel that way too. He doesn't realize (maybe can't realize) that he is the exception, not the rule. He cannot see outside himself, outside his own warped perspective, to realize that the fact that people do show humanity in the games proves his entire worldview wrong.

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[so-you-read-the-usernames]

Female characters who are the sole voice of reason <<<<<<< Female characters who think of themselves as the sole voice of reason but who are actually just as insane as those around them

[lazylittledragon]

if i had a nickel for every au spawned from twitter that i SWORE i was going to be normal about

[codecicle]

Whar does rpf mean 💔💔💔

historians aren't quite sure. Albert Einstein's last words were "rpf is fine" and we've been searching ever since

[mischievous-thunder]

Just three freaky flatmates sharing their views on men. Two of them are having flashbacks too!

[bluegiragi]

learning moment (part 1)

early access + nsfw on patreon monster!AU masterpost

more explanation under the cut

I think that so far, Soap has clearly demonstrated himself to be the more emotionally intelligent one of the pair, but it doesn't mean he doesn't still get frustrated at times. He's also just an emotional guy, and is working himself up a bit. This is a difficult topic for him to want to remain calm over, and there's a lot of factors contributing to his reaction.

One big factor is that he is a werewolf and he sees things through the eyes of his human side and wolf side. The shades of grey that Ghost sees in the Mexico operation just isn't there for Soap - to him, Ghost's 'pack' was under attack and he successfully defended it (this 'pack instinct' is something he shares with Price). The fact that his wolf now considers Ghost his in some way also contributes to his upset over having to read about what happened to him in such a clinical way. Werewolves can be kind of irrationally territorial, and although Soap is used to reading reports just like this, the fact that it's concerning Ghost (in probably the most vulnerable state of his life) is raising his hackles.

It's not a fight, because at the end of the day, Soap isn't mad at Ghost, just at his circumstances. But he's basically just asserting some emotional boundaries here with Ghost (who is, for what it's worth, I'd say a bit surprised and mostly bemused here.)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

HOT, SINGLE, UNSTUDIED SPONGES. 3000 NAUTICAL MILES AWAY. Come sail the distance and read Tiger Tiger!

[corkinavoid]

DPxDC Summoning Failed Successfully

Imagine a warehouse. Imagine a bunch of cultists in dark robes with all the candles, daggers, ancient books, and chanting. Now add Danny.

Only not as the summoned being, no. As a sacrifice.

He is sitting down, tied to a chair, in the middle of the summoning circle, looking as bored and deadpan as he can possibly be. The cultists are chanting, and he frowns, listening to their chants for a moment.

"Hey, is that Latin?" He questions, but to no avail, "You know you're not actually using those words correctly, right?"

"Keep quiet, child!" One of the cultists snaps. Danny leans back in his chair and shrugs.

"I'm just saying, you ain't summoning shit with wrong grammar," he huffs, seemingly absolutely nonchalant about the whole thing. Oracle, who is watching the whole ordeal through the surveillance cameras, raises her eyebrows. Red Robin and Robin are already en route to the building the cultists chose for their extracurricular activities, but now she almost wants to watch this a bit longer.

Gothamites are pretty used to all kinds of shitshows, but this boy is from out of town. She checked him through facial recognition. Daniel Fenton, a transfer student from Amity Park, Illinois.

A few more cultists stop chanting and turn to Danny.

"Do you know Latin?" One of them asks, and the boy makes a half-nod, making a thoughtful face.

"Not fluently, but, like, it's a dead language, I felt kinda obligated to learn it. Just for the meme, you know?" He chuckles.

The cultists, judging by their confused silence, don't know. Barbara doesn't know what he's talking about, either. But she is almost curious now, so she taps Robin's and RR's comm lines:

"RR, Robin, when you arrive, don't jump into the scene," she asks.

"Understood," Tim answers immediately, but Damian, of course, demands explanations:

"Is there an obstacle?"

"Not really," Barbara humms, "The sacrifice is in the process of de-escalating the situation."

She can almost hear the questioning silence over the comm, but, thankfully, no one argues. Meanwhile, one of the cultists pipes up, voice full of doubt:

"So, you can... like, proofread our incantation?"

"Yeah, sure," Danny nods, apparently fine with being sacrificed, "Who you're trying to summon anyway?"

"Satan," that same cultist answers, and Danny laughs approvingly.

"Classic," he nods and smiles, "I'll give you this. The circle is mostly alright, so you don't need an incantation to summon the fucker, I have him on speed dial." And with that, he leans forward, screaming towards the floor: "Ey, Satan!"

Barbara must say the act was actually convincing, but he went a little overboard with it now. She reaches to tell both Robins to get in, but suddenly, a loud, booming voice reverberates through the building.

"The fuck do you want, kid?"

Cultists fall to their knees - it doesn't seem like an act of worship, more like their knees bucking. The whole circle dimly lights up in red, smoke raising from it.

"Do you see this shit, Oracle?" Red Robin questions, and she mhm's at him, not sure what else to say. If this is still an act or a trick, she must say it's a very good one. Although somehow she suspects it's not a trick. She's seen enough magic in her life to tell the difference.

"Do you want to come to Earth, be gay and do crimes?" Danny asks, almost mockingly.

"Fuck off."

The red light flickers and disappears, and Danny looks back up to cultists, grinning cheerfully.

"Welp, looks like he doesn't wanna," the kid concludes and stands up from his chair. Barbara hadn't seen when or how he got out of his bindings.

The cultists just watch him walk out of the circle in bewilderment.

"Pursue?" Robin's voice comes over the comms, and Barbara thinks for a moment.

"I get a feeling like that's a bad idea," Tim mutters over his line.

Barbara agrees.

[hinamie]

unconditionally

[magnusbae]

To illustrate this post by @mayahawkse I would like to visualize to you the difference:

A post in 2023:

A post in 2014:

A zoom out of the same post:

This is what a community looks like.

See how in 2023 almost all of the reblogs come from the OP, from their few hours/days in the tag search. Meanwhile in 2014 the % of reblogs from OP is insignificant, because most of the reblogs come from the reblogs within the fandom, within the micro-communities formed there. You didn't need to rely on tags, or search, or being featured. Because the community took care of you, made sure to pass the work between themselves and onto their blog and exposed their followers to it. It kept works alive for years.

It's not JUST the reblog/like ratio that causing this issue, it's the type of interaction people have. They're content with scrolling and liking the search engine, instead of actually having a reblogging relationship with other blogs in their community.

Anyways, if you want to see more content you like, the only true way to make it happen is to reblog it. Likes do not forward content in no way but making OP feel nice. Reblogs on the other hand make content eternal. They make it relevant, they make it exist outside of a fickle tumblr search that hardly works on the best of days.

If you want more of something, reblog it.

[frownyalfred]

want your favorite author to update but don’t want to be too pushy in their comment section?

here’s 5 things you can do to encourage them:

Reblog their fic link on tumblr (bonus if it’s with tags)

Bookmark the fic with a note about what you’re excited about/love in the fic

Recommend the fic to your friends or local discord channel

Draw art or create other media for the fic (as indicated by the author’s comfort level)

Leave them a comment when re-reading about the parts of the chapter/story that stood out to you the second time

[readypanda]

Being a fan of stories that revolve around robots or AI in the 21st century is so weird now. Like how do I tell people I'm the biggest fictional robot appreciator and the biggest real life robot hater

[lyralit]

things to think about for characters

do they have allergies?

what foods will they not touch?

what kinds of music do they like?

how are they around new people?

do they speak in an accent?

have they tried learning a new language?

how many languages do they know?

what is a song that will always make them cry?

how do they cry? heaving? silently? sobbing?

how do they dress? for practicality or fashion?

what is the first thing they notice about a stranger?

what is their humour like?

do they have scars? what caused them?

do they wear jewelry?

are they a frivolous spender or a miser?

do they prefer luxury or practicality?

who would they quote?

what could make them change their mind?

who is the first person they'd call?

how are they around animals? do they have pets?

what is their favourite childhood food?

what is something they've never told anyone?

childhood friends?

what are habits they've picked up from other people?

what are their guilty pleasures?

what is something they're staunchly against?

do they speak a certain way? do they use contractions? popular turns of phrase?

can they fall in love? what does it look like? does it differ between people -- friends vs family?

what would they rather die than do?

what is their biggest mistake? one that they look out to never do again.