#whats your plot

[babybluebanshee]

Someone pointed out that a lot of recent films that previously focused on the importance of found family (Lilo and stitch is the most recent, but they also mentioned Frozen, Wreck It Ralph, and Toy Story, plus HTTYD in the tags) have had that messaging undone by their sequels and remakes. And if I were more conspiracy brained, I would point out how found family narratives are very important to queer people, who’re often rejected or mistreated by their biological families, because it reminds them that there is a place for them in the world. That even if some or all of their blood relatives won’t have them, someone out there will gladly welcome them into their family of choice. It’s been foundational to the queer experience for centuries and so much media that’s beloved by queer people (whether openly queer or merely coded) focuses on it. And how in a social and political time when backlash against queer people is reaching a fever pitch, the emphasis on “actually no, these people who were shunned, mistreated, and isolated for being different and came together to be happy anyway should split up without even a thought to the people who have loved and welcomed them and made them feel safe and accepted for the first time. They should all have normal dreams and want to live respectable, individualist lives and have socially acceptable careers and get married and have children, and the ones who want them all to stay together are explicitly shown to be wrong and holding the others back.” is actually kind of nefarious, especially with Disney’s current very, very, very bad erasure of queer themes and characters along with the revelation of their support of Florida’s don’t say gay bill. Given all that, this would all seem very concerning to me. Good thing I’m not conspiracy brained tho.

[fastepp]

Every time I see an author promoting their debut Greek mythology retelling on twitter I mourn the loss of like. To put in ineloquently. Just using these stories as inspiration for your own. Your story does not need to force itself to fit the shape of Orpheus and Eurydice it’s fine you can just allude to their story!! You can use their themes!! Nobody is going to arrest you for being allegorical instead of literal!! I might eat them alive at this point. It’s the only way.

[enchantingepics]

Story Prompt 40

In a dimly lit room with the soft hum of music in the background, she sat at her vanity, her mascara wand poised for action. The night had started with a blink, but it was the push she received earlier that fueled her fiery determination. Her eyeliner was a chaotic swirl, a reflection of her emotions.

As she whipped away the makeup mishap, her mind raced, concocting a revenge plan like a mad scientist brewing an elixir. She had to teach the pusher a lesson they wouldn't forget. A sly grin crept across her face as the perfect scheme unfolded in her thoughts.

The next day, she found herself at a local cafe, strategically seated near a bulletin board cluttered with event flyers. A devious sparkle in her eyes, she "accidentally" bumped into the unsuspecting pusher, sending them sprawling. Seizing the opportunity, she deftly slipped a fake event flyer into their bag.

A few days later, the pusher excitedly arrived at the address on the flyer, expecting to attend a grand masquerade ball. To their bewilderment, they found themselves in the middle of a quirky costume party for pets. Amidst dogs dressed as superheroes and cats in tutus, the pusher stood, a picture of confusion.

[idolomantises]

Okay so I’m not going to lie, part of why I haven’t been drawing Mara a lot is for three reasons:

1. She had an entire plotline planned that I ended up scrapping and redoing but that meant putting her in the backseat for a bit.

2. Im honestly afraid of drawing her 20 fallen angel partners I feel like I go a little insane even thinking about it. 20 characters with unique designs and outfits? No, I’m exploding in real life.

3. I’ve been slowly regretting making her a succubus. She was originally an Imp but I didn’t have a base idea for the imp design yet so I just went with a succubus but I’ve been wanting to add more demon characters that weren’t just succubi and hellhounds.

Unfortunately the way people treated the redesigns (specifically Domino’s where I had people messaging me for WEEKS to change it back), makes me kind of unsure if I wanna do a full species swap lmfao. Mara is very cute and I love her OG design, I just don’t want her to be another succubus, so it’s frustrating.

Damn. Remember when this webcomic was a hobby for me.

[spyderschaos]

Redraw of one of my fave drawings I’ve made of them

I’m glad I changed toothless’s pose cuz he looked really goofy before 😭😭

I the lighting feels more dramatic in the original but toothless looks better here soooo

Original v v

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

We all know the semi-canonical ‘all the Robins know to hide/duck inside of Batman’s cape, even as adults’ thing.

We also know that Danny ‘is LITERALLY a ghost’ Fenton sucks at remembering his own intangibility while ALSO forgetting to look ahead of him.

All I’m saying is, Danny Fenton (or Phantom, if you’d really like) would absolutely SLAM into Batman on accident while running on roof tops and Bruce ‘Brooding Instinct’ Wayne doesn’t even think twice about letting the kid hide and scanning around for danger before there’s a record scratch of ‘wait who tf is this?’ kicks in.

[egophiliac]

So.... what are your thoughts on Ace's UM, if you haven't been asked this already?

sneaky magic for the sneakiest boy

no but really, I think it fits him really well! I had thought his UM would probably involve something kinda sleight-of-handy or pickpockety! and I looooved that it made such a nice loop-around back to episode 1. ❤️ I was. kind of half-expecting him to just run out and punch Riddle in the nose again. but instead this time 'twas he who offed the queen's head! it was great! and he did it while stone-cold terrified out of his mind! because Ace is the only remotely normal or well-adjusted person at NRC and therefore the only one who is like "we're going to literally die, this is super effed up". but he did it anyway!!!! I AM SO PROUD

[collgeruledzebra]

the thing about trying to recommend fiction podcasts to someone who isn't familiar with them is that not only are so so many genres represented but also the level of production can fall anywhere from "basically an audiobook" to "major motion picture minus the pictures"

[enemywasp]

HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF A CHARACTER FLAW.

Last year everyone and their mother was complaining about all the Mary Sue ocs! Pick a lane!!

[hailsatanacab]

Family Dinners - dpxdc

"Holy shit, you're Bruce Wayne!" Danny gaped, jabbing a finger at the man sitting at the head of the table.

The bustling dining room goes silent as everyone turns to look at him.

"Danny, who did you think was going to be here?" Tim asks, disbelief plain in his voice and Danny feels his face flush red.

"Sorry, I, uh, I guess I just never put it together. Tim Drake-Wayne. Wayne Manor. It, uh, makes sense now." He laughs sheepishly and scrubs at his neck before slumping back down into his chair.

"Well," Tim says with an indulgent sigh, "at least I know you're not just friends with me for my connections."

"Yeah, I'm really sorry, I just never thought about it, I guess."

Danny sinks lower as everyone around him laughs. Come to dinner, he said, the food is the best, he said, ignore the family, he said. Danny really wishes he'd listened to Tim and just ignored them—almost as much as he's regretting accepting the offer in the first place—but... he's having dinner with Batman.

Ancients, that's so weird!

The last time he saw Batman was in the future and, suffice it to say, it was not going well. There hadn't really been time for family dinners there.

Wait. Family dinners?

He peers around the table, openly gawking at everyone as it all clicks into place.

"Everything alright, Danny? Now realising who everyone else is?" Tim asks with a roll of his eyes.

"Uh... something like that..." Danny mumbles as everyone laughs again.

From further down the table, the smallest Wayne scoffs and clicks his tongue.

"I thought you said he was smart, Drake?"

"So, you all do it, too, then?" he asks, ignoring the jibe. Danny's only a little bit jealous as he thinks of how much easier they must have it, how much easier it'd be if his family had been on his side, too. "You all work together?"

"Nah," Dick says from across the table with a brilliant grin. "Tim's the only one that works with Bruce, we all have different jobs. I'm a police officer in Bludhaven."

"Disgusting." Danny blurts out without thinking—because seriously, what kind of self-respecting vigilante would also be a police officer?—before clapping a hand over his mouth. "Sorry."

The whole table laughs again, the loudest being the blonde girl a few spaces down from Dick. Look, Danny wasn't really paying attention to names when they were all paraded in front of him. Dick only gets remembered because his name is a joke.

Come on, Danny, recover!

"That's, uh, not what I meant, though."

"Oh?" Dick asks, cocking his head slightly to the side. Is it Danny's imagination or does his smile tense slightly?

"Yeah, I mean like, you know, in costume. It must make it so much easier to have everyone together like this."

"Costume? What do you mean?"

Yeah, Danny's not imagining it, everyone tenses up at that. It's really only now that he's realising that this probably isn't how he should bring up that he knows about their... night time activities. In fact, he probably shouldn't be bringing it up at all.

"Uuhhh..." Danny looks wildly around the table as he continues making his stupid noise. Think, think, think! There must be a way out of this!

"Danny?" Tim asks, looking concerned.

"Oh, Ancients, this isn't how I wanted it to go at all," he mutters, slipping even further into his chair. He's almost on the floor now and he so, so wishes it could just swallow him up.

His real first meeting with Batman was meant to be cool! He had planned to be Phantom, maybe save them from a tight spot, prove his worth as a mysterious and powerful ally as thanks for the help Batman gave him in the future.

"Danny, what are you talking about?" Tim starts tugging on his sleeve in an attempt to pull him back up from his pit of despair.

Eventually, Danny relents and sits up straighter, hiding his face in his hands and whining all the while.

"I'm sorry, I just didn't expect him to be here and it threw me off so now I look stupid and it's so embarrassing!" he wails, flailing his arms wide. "Why wouldn't you warn me that Batman was your adopted dad, Tim? Couldn't you have let me know?"

"I'm sorry, what? Danny are you alright? There's no way Bruce can be Batman, look at him!"

"Yeah," the blonde girl laughs from the bottom of the table, "look at him! That's a wet noodle of a man! Batman can actually do things, B is incapable of pretty much everything."

"Thank you, Stephanie," Bruce sighs, massaging his forehead.

It's... Those are the first words Danny's heard Batman say since everything went down and it's enough to knock him out of his embarrassment.

It's really good to hear his voice again. Especially now, when it's strong and healthy and full of personality—even if that personality is little more than a tired father right now—far better than how it had been, at the end.

Danny sits up, back straight, and grins. He's got this. He remembers it perfectly. Some people count sheep to fall asleep, Danny repeats his mantra to be certain that he'll never forget it.

"Gamma alpha upsilon tau iota mu epsilon, 42, 63, 28, 1 colon 65 dash 9."

Once again, the whole table falls into silence.

"Holy shit..." breathes the other D name (Duke? Danny's pretty sure he's Signal) from opposite Stephanie. "Isn't that...?"

"The time travelling code." The littlest Wayne says stiffly. "We have met in the future?"

"That's not just the time travelling code, Dami." Dick says, looking between Danny and Bruce. "That's the family time travelling code."

Danny's grin freezes in place.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"1 colon 65 dash 9." Dick explains, still flicking between him and Bruce. "It means you've been adopted into the family and we should all treat you as such, no questions asked."

"Tell you what, I'm about to ask a question." Danny says, dumbstruck. "You just told me it was a code to identify time travellers, not anything about being adopted! What the hell, B?"

Bruce looks about as shellshocked as Danny feels.

"We must have been close," he says finally, after opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water a few times.

"No! Not that close!" Danny reels back, taking a deep breath ready to refute it all, but... "Well, I mean, you found me when I first got stuck, and you helped me get better despite being... And then we fought together against the, uh, bad guy, before he, um, he... before you couldn't."

An uncomfortable beat passes while they all pick up on what Danny tried so hard not to say.

"So, you're not from the future, then, you travelled there and came back?" Tim asks, breaking the tension and leaning forward with a glint in his eye.

"Yeah, it was a whole end of the world thing, but don't worry about it," Danny says with a hand wave, "It's all kosher now, won't ever happen."

"What did happen?"

"Seriously, don't worry about it, we cool."

"How long in the future was it?"

"About ten years? You were pretty spry for an old man, B," Danny laughs, wishing they'd get off the topic of what happened and get back to the adoption bit.

Everyone shares degrees of a cautious smile as they relax out of the shock, and Dick—whose grin is the biggest—says, "No wonder you got the family code, you're already riffing on him like one of us. How long were you there for?"

"A week, before I managed to get back to my present and stop him then."

"A week? Jeez, B, that has to set some kind of record, seriously."

"Oh!" Danny says, sitting bolt upright and blinking in surprise before pointing at Dick and bouncing in his seat. "You're Nightwing!"

"What?"

"That's exactly what Nightwing said when Batman told me the code! Makes so much more sense now."

Dick laughs and claps his hands, delighted.

"You were not formally adopted?" The grumpy small one—Dami?—asks, his face pinched.

"I didn't even know I was informally adopted."

"And your parents? Are they alive or dead?"

"Damian, stop—"

"They were dead in the future, but they're alive now." Danny says, looking down. He fiddles with the tablecloth, twisting the fabric around his fingers as he fights down the pang of sadness that he always feels when he thinks of them now. He forces a bright smile on his face and hopes it doesn’t look too strained. "I just, uh, can't talk to them much, anymore."

"Damian," Dick warns, "1 colon 65 dash 9. Treat them as family, no questions asked."

"This is Damian treating him as family, the little turd has no manners." Tim scoffs, rolling his eyes, but he gently bumps shoulders with Danny to knock him out of his funk. Danny can't help but send him a watery smile.

"I have the most exemplary manners, Drake, unlike some people." Damian spits, crossing his arms with a pout. "I was merely ascertaining his status to see how he could possibly fit into the family."

"I know this is all a bit sudden, Danny," Bruce smiles, ignoring Damian and reaching out to lay a warm hand on his arm, "for all of us. But if I felt strongly enough to give you that code after spending a week with you in the future, then you are more than welcome in this family, if you so choose it. I think I can speak for all of us when I say we'd like to get to know you a bit more."

"I know a threat when I hear it, Bruce." Danny snorts. "But, yeah, I get it. I'm sorry this is all so weird, it really wasn't how I wanted to find you again, but... I'm glad I did."

"So are we, Danny." Dick says, with a warm smile. "And formally or not, 1 colon 65 dash 9 means you're family. Welcome to the fun house! No take backs or refunds, sorry. You're stuck with us."

[vapolis]

saw some posts about how IF writers need to free themselves of the shackles of long word counts and honestly, I agree. some of my most favorite published IFs are 180k words long without code. that's an average chapter for some on here which is impressive and amazing for readers but telling a story in less and having it make an impact still is also incredibly impressive to me

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I'm not going back to Gusu with you.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[enchantingepics]

Story Prompt 24

In the dimly lit college apartment, the thumping bass from the party echoed through the walls, setting the rhythm for the night. Laughter and chatter filled the air as a group of friends gathered in the living room, swaying to the music. Amidst the chaos, two curious souls exchanged mischievous glances and decided to embark on an adventure.

Slipping away from the lively crowd, they tiptoed down the narrow hallway, shrouded in shadows. The door at the end seemed to beckon them, promising secrets waiting to be uncovered. With every step, the muffled music faded, replaced by silence that fueled their excitement.

As they reached the closed door, one of them pressed an ear against it, listening for any signs of life within. Satisfied that the coast was clear, they shared a smile and gently turned the doorknob. The door creaked open, revealing a room bathed in soft candlelight, adorned with decorations that hinted at the occupant's taste.

The duo exchanged amused glances and stepped into the unknown territory. Their hushed whispers reverberated as they marveled at the artwork hanging on the walls and the trinkets scattered across the room.

"Check out this funky painting. Wonder who the artist is," one of them remarked, gesturing to an abstract masterpiece that seemed to dance with colors.

The other chuckled, "And what's the deal with this collection of antique teacups? Someone's got a thing for old-school charm."

Their exploration continued, uncovering the occupant's quirks and interests. A bookshelf caught their attention, filled with novels that ranged from timeless classics to obscure titles. Picking up a book, one of them read a passage aloud.

[vantablackdraws]

Oh that's probably not good...

[screwpinecaprice]

Fine. You wanna take care of me? Make sure I'm being taken care of really good, Mister.

[reality-detective]

The World Economic Forum has stated that an incoming ‘Water Crisis’ will succeed because their ‘Climate Change’ narrative has failed… Adding it’s too ‘complex’ as she openly admits they were unable to ‘vaccinate’ everyone in the World. 🤔