#time for round 2

[zutaramonth]

Zutara Month May 2024 Prompt Selection

It's time to select your top 31 prompts for Zutara Month!

This form will remain open until March 31st, 2024, 11:59 pm PST.

[browneyesandhair]

Bridgerton Drabble

"So, Eloise mentioned something interesting the other day," Penelope said as she and Colin were standing on the fringes of the dancefloor.

Colin hummed in answer, as his eyes scanned the room.

"She said you haven't dated anyone since Marina years ago. I thought she was exaggerating, but there really hasn't been anyone, has there?"

Colin's eyes immediately cut to hers and watched her face warily. "No."

"But, why? Hasn't anyone caught your eye?" Penelope asked, she nudged his arm with her elbow.

Colin's face didn't break into a smile and he didn't engage with her playfulness. "You told me not to come after you. So, I didn't. But I wasn't going to waste anyone else's time."

Penelope's nose scrunched. "That doesn't make any sense."

"It makes perfect sense." Colin countered.

"It's not like you're in love with me." Penelope scoffed.

"No, I'm not going to let you shrug this off," Colin stepped closer to her after a cursory look to see if anyone had noticed. "Why wouldn't I be in love with you, Penelope."

Penelope blinked in the face of ... was that anger?

[breezypunk]

Ending spoiler for PL:

Okay so I have some thoughts about the ending. This is just my own opinion and I won't go to in depth because I'm terrible at explaining my feelings, lol.

I didn't hate it. I didn't love it either. I get people's frustrations.

Personally for me sacrificing Johnny was a no brainer, and some may come for me for that lmao, I'm sorry. At least in my headcanon, Johnny and V were close but Johnny always made it very clear he'd never want V to die because of him. There was a brief moment where V would have given himself up for Johnny, until he found his family with the Aldecaldos. It gave him a reason to wanna keep going, and than falling in love with Goro kind of sealed the deal, he was going to find a way to survive, with or without Johnny. So back to this ending where it either wipe him or find another way, V chooses to wipe him and go for the surgery even though he isn't aware yet of what'll happen to him afterwards, because all he wanted to do was live.

Now what hurt me was seeing how fragile and frail he was, and this is where I didn't like it. The fact he can no longer have implants or it'll kill him. He has suffered enough in his life, in canon and in my own personal hc. What made him feel important was being a Merc, it was helping people. It was feeling like he meant something. He felt like a nobody his whole life, and in ways he truly was a nobody who wanted to be a somebody so fucking bad. He made a name for himself in NC and it got taken from him all because of a stupid mistake he made.

The price you pay for wanting to live but at what cost?

Now in my first playthrough of PL he didn't meet Kerry yet, and didn't romance Panam so it wasn't really sad. I hadn't even met up with River yet, so the only two people he had were Vik and Misty. And Misty was leaving too. V should have just run off with her to Poland. Seeing Vik as a corpo ripper rubbed me the wrong way but you gotta do what you gotta do and V wouldn't judge. He'd done questionable things in his life too.

For the holocalls.. I have to talk about it. Seeing Goro on the run was intense. The way he looked (which was so fucking good, his hair wjdbwjdje), but the fact that he's on the run for being accused of killing Hanako is insane. It still seems he's roaming around NC. I was thinking of some HC of meeting up with Goro and becoming fixers in the badlands. Give goro that nomad wish, they could be together and all that cute shit. I hate to see how all this ended for him. That "you are a very strong medicine" line struck me.. I'll take it as a compliment, lol.

Now I just need to figure out if I wanna change HC's or not. This ending is not a definitive canon ending for my kiddo. But it's a thought. This whole DLC was incredible and I'm ready for round 2. Not looking forward to Cerberus again though xD

[uncharted-constellations]

~What i couldve been~

I was just gonna do the adult timeline zelda but im so enchanted by the idea of these two versions of the same character. People always talk about how link would be changed but never zelda.

[hinamie]

corvidae

[time-woods]

that same old spark

[karoochui]

Future scenes for binary resurgence + a screenshot meme remake + dca moulin rouge au that @cacaocheri brought up to me last night and i said i would draw it today therefore i fully indulge and deliver bc moulin rouge is the movie ever

[the-crooked-library]

something something the symmetry of horror and seeing yourself in the abyss reflected

[gemsalive]

re: that HEFTY siffrin sweep on id5’s isat favourite blorbos poll — this might sound silly but i do actually think it’s kinda fascinating that isat, as a game so inseparably steeped in (for lack of a better way to describe it) queer fandom culture, managed to so completely sidestep the common Fandom Phenomenon that i suspect was behind the poll in the first place by creating a main character that is also overwhelmingly the fan favourite character for once.

obviously there are any number of factors we could point at to explain the extent to which siffrin nomiddlenames nolastnames manages to grab people and absolutely not let go, but personally i think one of the most interesting ones to consider is the one specific to the medium — that is, how siffrin subverts the “silent blank slate video game protagonist” archetype in such a way that happens to be primo brainrot breeding grounds.

like, when a video game dev makes a silent protagonist it’s usually a bid to maximize immersion by closing the aesthetic distance between player and character as much as possible, right? which is especially true of rpg video games — players find connection in the generic, as that is what gives you the freedom of motion to insert yourself into the story in whatever unique shape suits you best. you are your character and your character is you.

(as ever, post ran long. yall know the drill. tossin in a quick header pic before thoughts on blank slates & blorboification continue under the cut)

and then you’ve got siffrin, who is expressly pointed out to be the taciturn type; who when initially giving the player exposition about their journey so far doesn’t seem to hint at a life or history or even really any motivations outside the journey; whose every thought and action is narrated in second person so as to keep tracing and re-tracing the connection between him and you.

even their design — all darkless and shapeless, bundled up in that big cloak, as if an invitation for you to fill it in with whatever lets you relate to them most! at this point they are their own character for sure, but they also have enough very clear parallels going on with the silent protagonist archetype to feel more than accidental.

of course, as you keep playing you start to recognize that his blankness is much, much more than just a grab at immersion; his apparent lack of backstory, itself a fundamental piece of backstory. this is where he flips dramatically in the player’s perception from “generic vessel for story delivery” to “thoroughly multidimensional character trapped within endless torment nexus custom-built to target and exacerbate all his very specific worst traits rooted in very specific traumas”.

yknow, the good stuff !

but by then you have also been playing enough to be feeling the effects of the thing isat’s design does best of all. i’m talkin bout that ludonarrative lockstep baby. every piece of isat’s gameplay is designed to make you feel what siffrin is feeling — you understand by now that he is not a stand-in for you, but all the same you share in his frustration, his grief, his rare moments of joy and the subsequent heart-in-your-shoes devastation when that joy is inevitably poisoned — and through it all, the desperate grasping for anything new — all as if they were every bit your own.

so in this way the connection is maintained, even if you were someone for whom siffrin’s particular traits & struggles might not otherwise cause you relate to them at all if you had encountered them elsewhere, in a setting where you weren’t actively controlling them as a player. siffrin still gets to carry all the “just like me fr” impact of the blank slate protagonist in the tropes he embodies and in the game mechanics’ design, while totally free to evolve completely into his own character and keep you relating to closely them all the same. now toss back in the fact that said traits & struggles very much ARE of a flavour that a great many people Would Tend To Relate To and just like that you’ve got a perfect storm cookin.

too individual and compellingly written to be an empty vessel for plot delivery. too closely connected with the player’s emotional state to be a story observed impassively from the outside. he has 92 mental illnesses and for the low low price of free u can give him yours to carry too. nobody is doin it like him. congratulations on your well-deserved nose sniffrin nomiddlenames nolastnames <3

[marf244]

All bundled up for the May snow

[gazpachoandbooks]

Currently imagining Arthur + Gwen + the knights asking someone (maybe druids?) who this famous "Emrys" is and they proceed to do a version of "We Don't Talk About Bruno" while Arthur, Gwen and the knights grow increasingly more distressed with each line and Merlin hyperventilates in the background

[pwippy]

anyways insert analysis on how vivinos typically portrays livelihood or humanity through the brightness of a characters eyes and how tills eyes were dull but the accessories and environment around him were artificially bright like they were trying to pull him into the system of performance

and how during the kiss a bright light was between ivan and till like how ivan was giving up his life for till and transferring his humanity to him

and how ivans eyes temporarily lost light but it returned after the last of his own life slipped away from him and how they shined knowing he succeeded at bringing back till from the "dead" at the expense of his own life (orpheus eurydice save me)

and how you *know* he succeeded because tills eyes shined looking at the person who broke him out of his trance. who didn't let him fall.

[yourlocalabomination]

SLEEZE SWEEP!!!

[tattoed-and-toothless]

This picture is so chaotic as a whole

But then you look closer:

/Record scratch/

"Hi. You might be wondering how I got here..."

[uncharted-constellations]

The Princess and Hero of the First Great Calamity

The orange snoot is very important to me….

[queer-book-character-tournament]

*it’s the finals for tournament 2 but don’t forget the winner has to face the tournament 1 winner

Character, book, and author names under the cut

Nathaniel J. Northland- Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites by Joy Demorra

Lady Ursula- Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites by Joy Demorra

Wei Wuxian- Mo Dao Zu Shi/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu