#yes this is as creative as it gets

[cynicid]

for: @amarcnthined. date: late january, 2040. location: in a run down bar somewhere in kronos.

kami is caught between openly scowling at her surroundings or suppressing her dismay in order to put the bar’s clientele at ease; hers isn’t a face so easily forgotten considering how often it’s been plastered all over the town in the past but it’s in moments like these where she misses the anonymity that comes with being a normal citizen. giving suzu a once-over before the corner of her lips tug into a slight smile, she raises her glass of wine in greeting. “long time no see, stranger.” and then, with her voice lowered and eyes shifting to the side, she adds, “how have you been?”

[mumblesplash]

i’ve started getting so unreasonably cranky at those posts that are like ‘i’m sick of [aspect of popular media] someone should make [opposite thing]!!!’ by people who don’t seem invested in the idea they’re pitching as anything beyond a subversion of the norm. like ok. i see where you’re coming from but where are you actually going. look me in the eyes and give me one good reason you think that story concept is possible to pull off

[pen-of-roses]

Do y'all ever think about how cool it is that art inspires other art inspires other art inspires other art in an endless cycle

[composeregg]

edit (10/23/2024) now that the poll is over: Original version, with 10 questions, from April 2023 here

And, given that the original is from April 2023, that means I can very easily say:

No, this was not an ISAT reference!

Just because I use parentheses and 2nd person pov and love the same concepts of what a time loop can do to a person doesn't mean it's ISAT

(Yes, I like ISAT, the original poll is why I was recommended the game! But if you look at the original, you can see all the origins of the options to choose from, including what spurred me on with the moss option from the replies)

If I were going to make something for ISAT, I would never be so vague, you can simply look at my ao3 for proof of that

[welcometogrouchland]

[ID in ALT] I've made posts before about Talia/Dick co-parenting Damian moments (will never happen but let me dream) and this came to me in a vision. Took me ages to finish for some reason 😭 and then even longer to post

[cosmicdreamgrl]

hyung line x lys solos for @rjshope [ cr : namuspromised ]

[mblue-art]

BAD SANSUARY // [14] tears for owl-bones's event !

"...Killer, it just looks like I have running mascara."

"it's such a look though."

messy kisses and post-nuzzles

[bayetea]

jason and hazel's beef in hoo was always way more interesting than whatever percy and jason had going on sorry. the differences in gravity and intrigue in the jason/hazel relationship vs jason/percy are only further compounded by the ways they're connected and the ways that their stories are similar

because 1. they have a HISTORY they knew each other before he went missing!!!!! they were in the fifth cohort together!!!! hazel is the ONLY person on that ship that was in jason's life before he disappeared and had his memories stolen. yes they didn't know each other well but I really think that was a bad writing choice rick made. can you imagine if they used to be friends/if jason had been a big brother figure to hazel only to go missing for months and then they have a very awkward reunion on the argo because he barely remembers her and then she's even more betrayed because he doesn't wanna save nico initially. the drama. we could have had it all man

2. beef between a son of poseidon and a child of zeus/jupiter from the grace family? yeah been there done that why are we doing this again. god I wish we had gotten a big fight between a child of jupiter and a child of pluto instead

3. their beef regarding nico was way more high stakes than the silly alpha male posturing rick was trying to force between jason and percy especially considering how mega nerfed jason is written in hoo because no one's allowed to be on equal footing with percy

4. the tacit layer of betrayal in jason being hazel's ex-centurion/praetor only to end up choosing chb (to be clear this particular conflict belongs to jason and reyna and is more impactful between them - but since hazel is actually on the argo and reyna isn't she can still be an opportunity for this camp jupiter/camp half-blood conflict to be explored with jason)

5. I'm just gonna say it - I think hazel ought to have complicated feelings about white authority figures in a military camp as a black girl from the freaking jim crow era (not that this would have ever been explored satisfactorily in the books because as far as rick is concerned hazel is colorblind and hardly ever thinks about race despite growing up segregated. which is crazy unrealistic but whatever)

6. something something about the parallels that jason and hazel have about making hard choices about their pasts in order to have a more fulfilling future

7. this isn't necessarily interesting in and of itself but I just think it's neat that they're both big three roman kids with greek siblings that they didn't grow up with. what could have been interesting is jason seeing how close hazel and nico are and feeling some type of way about everything he never got to have with thalia and some exploration into how that impacts his feelings about the rescue mission

8. they both have really awkward romantic conflicts in their pasts that intrude upon the present (whether he and reyna were ever even slightly romantically involved or not) because the jason/reyna thing is written as a initial source of conflict/uncertainty for jiper in the same way that hazel/leo (sammy) was a conflict for frazel to grapple with. this is interesting to me because hazel is connected to reyna and jason is connected to leo. like there could have been a moment of connection over letting go of pasts loves to wholeheartedly pursue new ones in the way that both of them are (were) with piper and frank

(unrelated but having no frank or hazel pov in mark of athena sucks So Bad and I hate it. it was the first time they ever have relationship problems and we only see it through someone else's pov. I am going to bring this up forever because I'm still mad about it)

9. they both died. this bullet is a joke but I just thought I should put it here

10. percy is a well-established character and hazel and jason are new in hoo. percy has 50 povs in hoo and hazel has 28. economically speaking it would just be a more effective use of your limited pages to spend more time developing important interactions and conflicts between two new characters (esp new big three kids) who already have a more interesting foundation than the one involving our previous protagonist of 5 entire books

11. beryl grace and marie levesque. that's all

imo hazel and jason are the most weirdly written new additions to the main cast but I strongly feel that rick severely underutilized the way that characters like those two could play off of each other. hazel isn't just a sweet little cinnamon roll she is passionate and contemplative and morose and guilt-ridden and jason isn't just a bland rule-follower he is kind and committed and loyal and conflicted and they're both painfully self-sacrificing and I just think it's such a shame that these two characters with great concepts on paper and so many obvious threads to connect them didn't get as much as attention as.... whatever happened in kansas did

and I mean if you like the jason/percy conflict that's fine, but I think it's worthwhile to compare the merit of them because rick chose to centralize and build up to one more than the other when he had such perfect material to expand on the other instead and I think that says something about his biases. and I think part of the issue is that rick struggles with strengthening tension and applying complexity to conflicts between male/female characters that aren't romantic or onesidedly antagonistic like clarisse/percy. we have several noteworthy conflicts between male characters but when women are involved it's like rick doesn't know how to put them on equal footing and apply platonic depth. imo this is just another reason why big three girls (hazel/thalia/bianca) don't get to be as powerful and transformative in the overall narrative as big three guys (percy/jason/nico). all this world-changing narrative weight is afforded to big three kids but hazel in particular is weirdly excluded from all of that and doesn't get to have much impactful interconnectedness with the prophecy or with other big three kids. what happened to big three kids being super dangerous when put together or when they're on opposing sides of conflicts!!!!!!!! we had impactful percy/thalia and percy/nico and jason/percy and jason/nico conflict where is the fleshed out jason/hazel beef!!!!!!

anyways tldr all I'm saying is that jason and hazel complement each other well and rick was too hung up on the Colliding Of Alpha Male Strong Dudes (that he didn't even write well) to see everything that hazel and jason could have had instead

[northstarscowboyhat]

Cool down doodle from last night. I think the greatest tragedy with older!Clover is they probably grow to about 6'1. But because their family is mostly giant monsters, they assume they're short.

[anonymous-ampersand]

Isn't this what you wantеd? Time sure feels like it's running out Just finish what you startеd Queen of nothing Wearing such a heavy crown

PLEASE listen to Queen of Nothing by The Crane Wives !

[texasflowers]

Someones probably done this before. Oh well

[ghostly-cabbage]

We need to talk about the worst thing about making AUs....

The fact that then when you inevitably think about crossovers you don't want the crossover with the canon you want it with your specific AU. Your brain worms, your circus, but THEN WHAT?

Oh, yeah, to understand this crossover you need to go read this entirely different fic/series? Girl help 😭 you can't do that

[feroluce]

So I spoke somewhat about my thoughts on Emanator Sampo here, but I never really thought of it from a design point of view or what kind of powers he would have until just recently. But I actually kind of love leaning into it from a "stage hand" perspective?

Because like. Aha's body in THEIR official art is completely black, giving attention to all the fun brightly colored things around THEM. And that's so fitting for Sampo! He usually prefers to be a side character. He likes to act from the shadows. His is a much more subtle hand.

So I wonder if as an Emanator, a lot of his clothes are actually very dark? Not necessarily plain, still extravagant and needlessly detailed in things like cut and quality with lots of different fabrics and textures and ornamentation, but dark. Or maybe even his skin itself becomes blackened further down his body; his hands in particular are dark, as a sort of sleight of hand reference.

The motif of a lot of straps wrapped around him like in his canon design is still present, but they're all loose and flowing off of him like paper streamers now instead of restraining him or holding him together. He is no longer contained! Or maybe they're still a bit more rigid/heavy, but just draped more like red stage curtains!

And this is like. Fully self-indulgent, but I love inhuman designs, and there's nothing in canon to say I can't do this, so screw it! Go for broke!! Maybe it's not visible to normal people, but Sampo having a second set of arms would be really cool, as further sleight of hand reference. One set is almost normal looking, but his hands are a bright, attention-drawing white, and the other is dark, set almost in the shadows of the first arms, to act less noticeably.

He also has something of a broken heart design to him in canon (the front of his black shirt with its jagged shape down the middle; his coat looks like a full heart shape in the back), and I actually like him keeping that element as an Emanator, because I think it suits him. Sampo says his taste in aesthetics and views on Elation involve human dignity,

and the story he helps create in Belobog involves the long and winding road of resistance and survival and eventual triumph in the face of some very adverse, oppressing odds. (I'm pretty sure I heard he once called Wildfire "artless" though, plus the man acts like he thinks Shame is some kind of dessert, so like ndkdjzjskkd) But the point being!!

I think Sampo is someone who can appreciate heartbreak and angst and tragedy in a story, because it makes the victory at the end all the sweeter. And this would be another thing he shares with Aha, because I think THEY did bless the Mourning Actors partly just to be a little shit, but also because Aha does recognize tragedy as part of THEIR Path, too, and you can see it in some of the game. So a broken heart motif can still suit him, and I like him having elements of both comedy and tragedy. Like his clothing having a happy sun/sad moon (like the moon in Aha's art) or him having both of the traditional comedy/tragedy masks in his design.

And as Emanator, Sampo can maybe play with the stage settings environment, too. Like lights sometimes behave strangely around him, appearing blindingly bright to someone or dramatically dark. Sampo wills it and suddenly there seems to be a metaphorical spotlight right where he wants everyone to look. And when he doesn't want to be noticed, his face seems to be cast in shadow, he seemingly just fades into the background, no one notices or recognizes him and he sneaks away easily. He can create smoke or fog literally out of thin air without his bombs now, too, the air will just suddenly thicken until his stage is obscured, and Sampo can set the scene as he pleases or disappear without a trace.

And in line with being a stage hand, Sampo can direct attention like no other. He was already extremely good at this as a normal mortal, and becoming an Emanator only took it up to 11, past human limits. Sampo points, and all present feel compelled to follow his fingertip. He looks away, and they all follow his gaze. He can even affect the mood of an audience; he can influence everyone to be calm and placid or he can whip them into a feverish frenzy. Sometimes a crowd will start to become unsettled, agitation stirring until it boils over, until it incites a full on violent mob.

And in the middle of all that chaos will stand one perfectly calm figure, face cast in shadow, until they quietly slip away out of sight.

[sovamurka]

let's be honest, for very ironic reasons, official writers were not really responsible for timebomb being so good, fortiche carried most of the timebomb writing

yes, even in s1 since this is really where writers (*VERY LOUD COUGH* amanda) picked up on very delicate and deliberate details that fortiche put in s1e7, details which could be potentially explored later (as a side plot, of course *sarcasm*, we don't want to overshadow other dynamics of the show, do we?)

but especially in s2 since it's basically confirmed by pascal charrue, fortiche's co-founder, that the episode fortiche studio were most emotionally and creatively involved with in matters of writing is episode 7

which is even further confirmed by linke in the artbook where he states that episode 7 is basically a literal love letter to french culture and that he hopes fortiche is really proud of it

like... wow, the "nobody loves timebomb more than french people do" joke is actually not a joke at all

[onethousxndvoices]

took a break from my main projects to do some visdev practice. have a line up for a layton fic that'll probably never see the light of day

[horrorshow]

Can you talk about why you think blocking and moving on is a bad thing? I thought it was a way to curate your space and avoid drama

idk maybe i'm too idealistic but fandom is a much more friendlier, welcoming, supportive, creative, engaging, active, diverse and interesting space when it's treated like a community where people are encouraged to participate and talk about their interests and where there's space for niche or more unpopular opinions without these people having to worry about being blocked and feel unwelcome by the majority of the fandom they are in. i can't stand how blocking everyone you disagree with has become the first thing to do.

you say its 'to curate your experience'. but blocking people does not only curate YOUR experience. you're also forcefully curating other users' experiences. and not for the better.

people say 'i will block you for literally anything' and then those same people wonder why engagement is down, why no one sends asks, why no one reblogs, why rarely anyone talks in the tags anymore and why this place feels so dead and boring and quiet. i wonder why!!!!

people treat real people as annoying ads they can dispose of at their whim. but that's not how a fandom or a site like tumblr works. (besides, if you really care about people curating their own experience you wouldn't block people. you can filter and blacklist and never see them again while still granting them the same freedom instead of actively making their experience worse.)

you say its to avoid drama. but seeing a post you dont agree with is not 'drama'. and blocking is not solving anything except for you personally. fandom was more fun when we remembered that every user is a real person you share a space with, and probably some mutuals as well, so you find a way to live with each other. starting with a restraining order seems a bit excessive and is not contributing to anything. it's not that hard to be respectful and tolerate others and acknowledge people have different opinions and interests and still co-exist in peace. its not that hard to be nice to people and try to find common ground with them and interact with the stuff you DO like. you do this in every aspect of your real life, so why not online?

i hear you say: 'but that requires WORK and i don't NEED to do any of that bc i can just block them'.

yeah, you can try to create your own bubble and only hang out with like minded people but you wont EVER fully achieve that (no matter how much you block, social media WILL keep feeding you posts you disagree with bc it makes them money). social media WILL pressure you into an 'us vs. them' mentality where you constantly feel like everything online is a threat or an argument you have to win and where being mean and unnuanced gives you the most notes and where you don't even see, let alone be able to treat, other users as people anymore bc you don't interact with them anymore other than to block or fight them. that's not how i want it to be online. it's not fun to me. and maybe i'm a pessimist but i think it will eventually be the death of online fandom and sites like tumblr. look at the state of twitter right now. DOES blocking give you a better experience in the long run? i doubt that it does. overall, i think it makes people even less tolerable and more vulnerable to hate and fear mongering, and social media an even more hostile place.

it's everything i hate about social media and everything i want to fight against and WILL fight against. i won't pretend my meager contribution will change anything, but i LIKE to just scroll past posts i don't vibe with and not see every argument online as a personal offense. it keeps me curious. most posts aren't that bad when you know the person behind it. i mean, you do you, i'm not gonna say what you should or shouldn't do bc that's up to you, but i recommend it: free yourself of the block button and bring back supportive user communities based on a shared love for the same thing and focus on what you have in common with people, just like you would do in real life. save the block button for the rotten apples who DO keep trying to pick fights and exclude others.

(which is, now that i think about it, probably the main difference: most people see the block button as a neutral way to prevent worse. but. that's only the case on an individual level. and treating everything online as an individual choice to which there are no further consequences, especially if they happen on a larger scale, is already a loss.)