#yeah absolutely that needs to be explored

[lakesbian]

@girlstare-too-close-to-the-sun tagging you in a rb for typing space purposes. im in an essay mood today sorry if you didnt want an essay. the thing is that i do like evette, for a certain definition of like. devoid of context, evette's personality & the actions she takes are amusing. her social ineptitude, bluntness, bizarre incoherent schemes, and looney-tunes shenanigans are pretty fun to watch. i liked when she slid naked and covered in soap down several flights of stairs and threw crushed glass at people.

the thing about arc 14 is that, if you take it as a series of isolated scenes--wherein the quality of the overall arc is determined based on the pacing of those scenes, or if they have engaging dialogue, or if there's tension, or if they're written in a poignant tone--then yeah, arc 14 is overall pretty good. however: if you assess arc 14's quality based on its position in the larger story, with the expectation that each arc in the story should develop the ongoing narrative arcs, strengthen the intended character development, and support the story's themes...then arc 14 is where things start to go off the fucking rails in a way twig never recovers from.

especially if we add "has non-wince-worthy politics" to the list of traits we're expecting a good arc to have.

i'll start with the political criticism to get it out of the way before i get into the structural/narrative complaints. the first main issue w/ arc 14 is that it's kicked off by sy reacting to jessie's love confession with the exact same homophobic treatment he gave jamie, and this time, the narrative doesn't expect him to take any responsibility--he abandons jessie, and when she finds him at the end of the arc, she's the one to apologize to him for being upset that he mistreated her. (this problem will then go on to culminate in jessie transitioning pretty explicitly solely so that sylvester does not have to experience the discomfort of being around a boy he knows is attracted to him. this discomfort is portrayed as justified and completely unavoidable.)

secondly, sylvester is depicted as having what is essentially a badly written stereotype of DID/how DID is frequently misrepresented, and then the arc ends in sylvester realizing that he was just faking/pretending to be evette when jessie saves him w/ the power of friendship. i assume it's self-evident why this is not good.

this also neatly segues into my structural complaints. it is just not well composed with regards to the ongoing relationship drama and character arcs. frankly, twig is at its worst when it's slogging through overly-tedious descriptions of sy (or sy as evette) getting into generic action-y trouble--and that holds true even when i'm conceding that the evette scenes were on the better-written side of the action-y trouble scale. twig is at its best when the unique character dynamics of the lambs are explored. sylvester just fucked absolutely everything up with lillian and jessie, two of the most important & integral people to him, but instead of exploring the consequences of his actions, or how he's going to navigate those outcomes, he just....fucks off to do random things in the city for an arc. of course he doesn't have to reckon with it in an interesting way--it's completely valid for straight boys to be viscerally discomforted by a male friend's attraction to them, so jessie will apologize to him! all better! what about his break-up with lillian? uh, no need to worry about all that, he's busy doing Random Action Stuff.

and frankly? his reaction, and the arc as a whole, pretty clearly only exist to justify sy randomly being in the right place to meet mauer again & have mauer drop the Plot Reveal of the academy child-trafficking black market. it's just kinda. shoddy writing. obviously all story events exist to justify further story events, but this particular arc feels largely like something that's just happening to sy, very arbitrarily. there's no meaningful outside impetus driving it, so we need his internal impetus to carry the weight. but his internal impetus is kinda just...dumb, as far as character motivations go. the narrative feels hazy and nonsensical, even if the individual scenes might come off as coherent. it's a little dreamlike in a bad way. it's nowhere near as interesting as the preceding emotional drama between him, lillian, and jessie.

and this whole turn of events really shoots the ongoing syjessie romance slow-burn arc in the foot. the book has spent the past several arcs emphasizing the point that, despite the points of pain between them, sy and jessie are fundamentally intellectually compatible in a way sy struggles to be with the other lambs, and they have become incredibly close. they're more or less in their Old Married Couple Era before they ever actually date, and if i remember correctly, sy actually explicitly compares them to one in his head during one of their arguments. but instead of having any kind of interesting character interaction with her where all of this romantic tension finally culminates, he just runs away, and the arc is spent on those random action-y activities. it's a let-down! twig's biggest flaw is fixating on a disproportionate amount of random action scenes literally every time it should be fixating on long-awaited character interaction payoffs instead.

there's also a lot of relatively smaller incoherent things about this arc that kind of get lost in the haze, but they're there. there's the random forced conflict between mauer and sy, and we never have nor will ever receive a reasonable justification for why sy is still anti-mauer. there is also no reasonable explanation for what seems to me like a major shift in mauer's characterization in this arc. there's the fact that sy's identity is depicted as completely liquidated in a way that, according to both real-life common sense and (iirc) many of the story's statements, should be irrecoverable--but nah, it's all basically fine again at the end of the arc, because jessie reminded him that he was Faking It.

it just is not good as a piece of twig. essentially nothing about it passes muster when assessed in the context of twig as a story that should be coherent. i wish it was good, but it is not. it's quite offensive politically, and then on top of that, it's just Not Good as part of the overall story structure & narrative arcs.

something evil about twig is that one of sylvester's most endearing, redeeming traits is his complete and utter love for and obsession with his aborted twin evette, but the monkeys paw curls in on that and it becomes one of The Worst Bits Of The Book

[areyoufuckingcrazy]

hello! this is my first time sending any sort of request so i hope this is the right place! i absolutely love your writing and was wondering if you could write Hunter x a plus sized f reader (more specifically a reader struggling with loving her body). maybe sfw with a hint of suggestiveness? thank you!! <3

“All the parts of you”

Hunter x Plus-Sized Fem!Reader

⸻

You stared at your reflection in the mirror of the Marauder’s fresher, scowling as you tugged at your shirt. It clung to the softest parts of you. The waistband of your pants had folded over—again—and if you stood a certain way, your stomach looked—

“Like a whole moon orbiting around me,” you muttered under your breath, smirking bitterly. “Galactic gravitational pull and all.”

It was your thing, after all. Make the joke before anyone else could. Keep it light. Pretend you didn’t care. Pretend you didn’t hurt.

You didn’t hear Hunter step in.

“You always talk about yourself like that when you think no one’s listening?”

Your heart skipped, stomach sinking faster than gravity.

You turned. “Well, yeah. Someone’s gotta say it. Might as well be me before someone beats me to the punchline.”

He didn’t laugh. Not even a twitch of a smirk.

“Don’t do that,” he said, voice low and steady.

You raised an eyebrow, trying to brush past him. “It’s just a joke, Sarge.”

His hand came up, gentle but firm, stopping you before you could flee.

“It’s not funny,” he said. “Not to me.”

You tried to shrug it off, even as your throat tightened. “Relax. I’m not fishing for compliments. I’m just realistic, you know? Built like a bantha in body armor. It’s fine.”

He blinked slowly. Once.

Then, “Don’t say that about my girl.”

Your breath caught. “I’m not—”

“You are,” he interrupted. “I haven’t said it yet, but you are.”

Your protest fizzled somewhere in your chest.

He stepped closer, and now his hand was on your waist—your soft waist, the one you avoided letting anyone touch—like it belonged there.

“Do you know how hard it is for me to keep my hands off you when you wear that shirt?”

You blinked. “You mean the shirt that makes me look like a wrapped ration pack?”

“I mean the shirt that hugs you in all the right places,” he murmured, sliding his hand along the curve of your hip like it was art. “The one that reminds me exactly how good you’d feel in my arms. Or on my lap. Or under me.”

Your cheeks burned. “Hunter…”

“I love how you look,” he said. “But more than that, I love you. All the parts you try to cover. All the jokes you use to hide the things you’re still learning to live with.”

His tone was quiet. Serious.

“You don’t need to pretend with me.”

Your throat ached. Your hands twitched at your sides like they didn’t know whether to cover your face or grab his.

“I don’t know how to believe you,” you admitted softly.

“That’s okay,” he said. “Let me believe it for both of us until you can.”

You stared at him, all your words gone, and he kissed you—slow, reverent, grounding.

And for the first time in a long time, you didn’t feel like something to fix.

You felt like someone wanted.

⸻

Later that night, you made another joke about needing “extra rations to fuel all this real estate,” and he didn’t hesitate.

He pulled you flush against him, kissed your neck, and growled in your ear:

“I hope you’ve got extra, sweetheart. I plan to spend all night exploring every damn inch of you.”

⸻

A/N - kind self inserted here, I’m a bigger girl and tend to make the jokes before anyone else can, not that most do

[tagarilaghost]

I SWEAR CELEBI'S THINGY IS COMING SOON BUT I REALLY WANTED TO POST THIS ALRIGHT

yeaah... future trio got me too...

and Darkrai is there too, because of course he is.

hey look i drew a cute Drifloon :D

...ignore the rest

whatever started at Darkrai doodles ended in brainrot of future trio + darkrai and I'm blaming @scribz-ag24 for this

[fiapple]

i'm getting towards the end of the skypeia arc, & i'd like to say just how much i adore the way the female strawhats have been treated.

just... every aspect of how the way their characters have been previously contextualized influences the story-line is treated with a masterful amount of consideration. we're given so many layers to both of them that enrich not only their characters specifically, but the arc, and the one piece world as a whole. without nami & robin having their specific skills, and their specific values, without those being built upon, the story would have come to a halt.

you could not have skypeia without nami & robin being who they are as individuals. not just because they never would've gotten there without nami, but also because the way these women think is itself foundational to the machinations of the arc as a whole.

to be totally upfront, if you think any other strawhats were more central to the skypeia arc than nami & robin were you are full-on fucking lying to yourself.

[spectraltenkai]

It seems as though you fainted in Dark Crater... what a pity.

Inspired by Dark Crater from PMD Time/Darkness/Sky

I'm return! Huzzah! This year, I plan on taking my time with pieces so I can add some detail I'm satisfied with. Either way, I'm very happy to have finished this one! I'm happy with how it came out :D

Special thanks to a friend of mine for some suggestions on colors with lighting and whatnot! :3

[akimojo]

people love to use ffxiii’s messy development as a reason to completely shit on the game but honestly the fact they managed to sneak in so many little details in the gameplay in a way that reflects the characters and story despite all the miscommunication between the dev sections is just impressive to me

[wildfairies]

i love reading all kinds of heinrix fic :D one thing that amuses me though is a lot of ppl have RTs who are super understanding of heinrix in a very tender way, they meet his spirals w a lot of empathy and patience. and zella is NOT like that lmao, i know they were having soap opera arguments during the phase where he keeps pulling away and bringing up the imperium 💀

[itspileofgoodthings]

.

[allamericanb-tch]

taylor swift wrote all the young dudes, no one believed it was really her, and then she wrote the great war to prove them wrong. 

[tagarilaghost]

It's so damn hard to NOT spoiler your friend that Darkrai is the evil twisted mastermind in PMD when he literally consumes your every thought.

Please help me, I have been suffering for months.

[divinekangaroo]

Based on your reading of the characters I have a few questions if you dont mind answering them

Will Tommy have a new love in the movie?

Did S6 make it clear that Lizzys trajectory and her relationship with Tommy has ended?

Sorry for taking so long to get to this!!

I hope not? In 3 hours max, there is so much else I would like to see than giving him a romantic arc. I also don't think erotic or romantic love is all that much of a driver for him, so to devote time to a new erotic or romantic arc would feel very strange - *familial* love is important to him. I hope the movie is about family, especially Charlie. And given the era of focus as just prior to WWII, I think there's opportunity for some very interesting setup that takes Tommy out of the claustrophobia/inner focus of the last few seasons and starts to more cleverly use the zoom in and zoom out of family and political context. I mean, I *do* think they'll probably throw Tommy into bed with someone because that, too, is a significant part of who Tommy Shelby is, but I just don't see all that much room for a "love" arc. (Also I hate the idea of "find the right woman = all his problems solved!" because of what it does to women as well as an outcome that just doesn't exist in the real world -> I think if they did throw in a new love arc in 3 hours it would be very difficult to avoid that shortcut of Fix the Broken Man with the Love of a Woman being made. That's such a crappy motif :/)

Hard to say. Structurally, Lizzie was in every season, and we know end of S6 still left her with significant power in the business as well as custodianship of Charlie, so I really hope she's still in the movie - except with a major power shift. CEO Lizzie is absolutely my bag and that's what I would totally want to see, and her moving up the social/economic ladder in every series would structurally support that kind of leap in the movie. That in itself necessitates a relationship between her and Tommy, but I'm kind of impartial as to whether it's sexual, whatever - what I'd like to see is a different relationship, because every season also showed a very, very different evolution of a Lizzie & Tommy relationship. To show a final evolution where she is the one with the power would be interesting. I think a 'marriage' arc for them is done, though. Personally I never like arcs that end in marriage as the 'goal' - I've been more interested in how S5 and S6 showed marriage as a daily thing not as a goal - so to move beyond that and show a very different relationship filter would make structural sense as well as be interesting to me. I think if Charlie comes into the movie, it'd be hard to cut Lizzie out, too, but I can also see a scenario where she doesn't come back, because within that time constraint of a movie they'd have to be really careful picking a focus.

[galehearted]

Henry, for better and for worse, will always rush forward to be the hero. It's a need, a nasty itch beneath his skin. To be frank, to deny it or ignore it is to reject himself entirely. Still, having lost everything he had, the young man is more than familiar with the agony of helplessness. Already, he's tasted the whirlwind of war, had watched his parents die before him and saw his village burn to ash, and the impression that's left bitter in his marrow? It's profound. Knowing the plight of the commonfolk, Henry just cannot sit idle. In part, he's always been one for action, never hesitant to speak his mind even to a noble, but knowing the despair and ache that losing everything has, as you can imagine, has only steeled his resolve. In the end, Henry will sympathize with the people and see to their grief where the men on top don't. He doesn't run from disaster, and he isn't like to sit and wait for a knight to come by. As it were, he's something of a knight already, trained in bow and sword and even awarded a horse. Hell, even if it risks his own damned hide and that of his lord's? Even if hurt, he can bleed out knowing at least he tried.

[ranger-kellyn]

it's like i want to get started on the next season of korra bc i'm excited since this is the season korra and asami start Noticeably Hanging Out A Lot More, but i think i have to just. go listen to music and think about asami instead dklsfhj

[gravehags]

tonight’s shadow of the tomb raider screenshots

[orcelito]

Oh a reassurance I can give to itnl readers tho. I don't think I'm gonna catch writing bug for bg3. Like it may be everything I want to do right now, but that's more due to my wish to explore every nook and cranny I can even Possibly find in the game. Also the gameplay is Fun. But while I love the characters, they're not Grabbing me in the way they'd need to for me to write them. That could change I guess, but I kinda don't see it happening.

So. I won't do to itnl what I've done to discacc (accidentally put it on indefinite hiatus while I write in a whole different fandom). I just need to finish exploring every map in this game, and then I think I'll be free.

[lover-of-mine]

i know eddie has been through some shit in terms of his military trauma, but i would love it if season 7 remembered he actually has medical/combat experience that the others don’t. i recently watched season 2 again and omg there are so many times when he gives advice or takes control of something bc of his experience. the only time i can remember off the top of my head since then is season 5 when he gives the advice about the bomb when he’s at dispatch. i need them to have a call where there’s something really awful happening, mass chaos, mass injury etc etc, and there are multiple ladder teams there and another captain asks if there’s anyone with expertise in something like this and bobby just goes ‘i know a guy 🙂’ and then hard cut to eddie storming around giving people orders and telling them what to do and where and when! he gets to have a bamf moment where he remembers that his military experience can also be an asset rather than just a burden (and bonus points if it affeCTS buck, i you know what i mean lol)

OH MY GOD I WAS THINKING ABOUT THIS LITERALLY LAST NIGHT BEFORE I WENT TO BED. I was thinking about when Taylor (derogatory) is introduced and he just starts talking physics and deals with the whole helicopter. And obviously there's the bomb, the grenade, and the few times he says I've seen a few of these in combat, but like, it's an expertise they never talked about again. Besides the medical training, the academy training, he also has around 5 (?) years of army experience and it would be great to see him use that knowledge and I think it would be good for him to also see that he can use that in a way, and somewhere he would have people around to support him if it triggered him (ideally it wouldn't but they could use that to go all recovery isn't linear). They could've gone in such fun ways with his knowledge outside the academy, and they just never used again. And I guess sure, if you're in Los Angeles the expectation would be for him to not encounter that type of situation but it would interesting to see him bend what he knows to apply there. He clearly dealt with bombs in the past, some improvisation skills, even the random tipbits about why rushing into a specific situation would be bad like he does with the helicopter and the dynamic rollovet, and I'm pretty sure there's another call he starts talking physics I don't remember what now, that could add a whole layer as to why he is so good at the job, because, yes, it traumatized him, but I think it would be good for him to realize that he got something useful from all that too.

Also yes please, call where Eddie is taking over and Buck is just "this is definitely working for me, yes sir"