artemisiatodd

[artemisiatodd]

Happy Sinsmas and Merry Holidays @fankuni-nihon ! I'm your secret santa for the RadioApple gift exchange 2024 !

Have some classic mistletoe tradition for them! 💖Alastor just love to mess with Lucifer- unless..? 😳/EHEM

[artemisiatodd]

<< PREVIOUS ‘SEED WOLF’ - 30 / 30

This is the final chapter, final hurray, final EVERYTHING for Seed Wolf. Although this last chapter is included in the physical book, I wanted to include it in my Tumblr updates and on AO3.

Words truly can't express how I'm feeling. Really, truly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you! Every like, comment, interaction, chat, everything that has led me to have the courage to finish this mammoth project, I have treasured each one of them.

For a long time I didn't think I could finish this, but to know that, even after my failings and having to wait so many years, people were still supportive of me, still thinking about this silly little series... I cannot ever be grateful enough.

Once again, thank you. Thank you for believing in me, and loving these silly little guys. ❤

LINKS TO BUY THE SEED WOLF BOOKS (Via Lulu Bookstore)

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SEED WOLF MASTERPOST

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<< PREVIOUS ‘SEED WOLF’ - 28 / 30    NEXT >>

I'm sorry it's taken so many years to get to this, but here is the second-last chapter of Seed Wolf, and all the endings we're hoping for! Stay tuned for an update... almost immediately!

LINKS TO BUY THE SEED WOLF BOOKS (Via Lulu Bookstore)

Regular Quality High Quality

SEED WOLF MASTERPOST

[artemisiatodd]

i did a draw this in your style challenge originally made by the amazing artist Willy__Red(twitter)/debergerac(bluesky)! i really like how it came out

[artemisiatodd]

Alastor: Charlie, I think I'm bi.

Charlie: Oh! ...Which one?

Alastor: Wha-What do you mean?

Vaggie: Bi-romantic? Bilingual? Bipolar?

Lucifer: Oh, I know! A BItch!

[artemisiatodd]

I think the absolute worst crime committed by the original LOTR movie trilogy was only putting the scene where Eomer finds Eowyn after the Battle of Pelennor Fields in the extended editions. Karl Urban at his absolute fucking best

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From zayajima on Twitter. Pirate AU.

[artemisiatodd]

Rewatching Star Trek TOS after 20 years and I'm once again in my Spirk brainrot era. So good to be back, I missed these silly space guys.

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Legolas and Gimli at sea.

This illustration is my thanks to @sindar-princeling for putting together the Lord of the Rings Newsletter for us all. You've worked so hard, and it means so much to have finally been able to read the trilogy in a way I've never been able to before. Thank you for taking us on this journey!

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Happy Valentine's Day to everyone! 💗

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“A little heartthrob”  The Canadian Goose and Vermilion Flycatcher

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Two old men struggle with technology 👴💻

[artemisiatodd]

Writing Redemption Arcs

I am rambling a bit about writing this week. Specifically about writing concepts that irk me in the way they are often portrayed. And yes, I know, some eternity ago I wrote about Redemption Arcs before, but let me go into it again.

See, here is the thing: I love redemption arcs in concept, but I rarely like them in execution. And I think they leave a lot of open questions in many regards.

Here is the question: What is redemption?

Technically speaking redemption is a theological concept of course. Generally speaking it is acting in a way that makes God or a variety of gods forgive or erase a person's sin or guilt. Details depend a lot on the religion in question, but the concept shows up in several religions.

If I was petty, I would talk about how Christian redemption is the most losely defined, because the church used the promise of redemption as a way of manipulating people over the course of centuries. While other religions have been a lot more consistent about how their redemption works.

However, generally speaking redemption usually comes almost always in two parts:

Confession

Rependence

Basically, who ever wants to be redeemed needs to admit that whatever he has done was wrong from their perspective. And they need to act in a often self-sacrificial way to make up for it. In religion this often happens through community work and/or financial donations. But of course, this would not feel right within a story.

So, within a story, usually a character has to do acts of self-sacrificial heroism to be redeemed. And this gets me to the main issues I have with redemption arcs.

My main issue with a lot of redemption arcs is, that it never really considers many perspectives but that of the heroes in terms of what the redeemed villain has done. Sure, in some fandoms this works, as the redeemed villain has only done wrong by the main characters. This is often the case in Magical Girl anime for example. Sure, technically the villains here use souls or whatever of innocents to create their monsters, but usually those people rarely even remember it. Yet, we also have other franchises, like Avatar or Star Wars, where sure, whatever villain did annoy the main characters. But often their actual most notable crimes happened against unnamed background characters.

Like, Kallus in Star Wars Rebels has done a lot worse against unnamed characters, than he did against the crew of the Ghost. And Zuko as done a lot worse by some random citizens of the Earth Nation specifically, than he has done by any of the main characters. But this stuff rarely gets talked about, because the audience has no emotional connection to those random background characters, that died and got tortured, and hence narratively it does not feel as important.

I understand this on a cognitive level. Believe me, I do. However... It might be my autism talking or something, but to me it feels wrong, because... objectively it is from the in-universe perspective.

Now, it should be noted that a character can be redeemed within the perspective of the audience without anyone forgiving them. Forgiveness and redemption are two very different things, even though both things often get mixed up in a lot of stories.

Ironically for me this means that my favorite redemption arcs are those, that do not expect any character within the story to forgive the character who tries to redeem themselves. Meaning, yes, my two favorite redemption arcs are Furiosa in Mad Max Fury Road, and Isaac in Castlevania (the Netflix series, obviously). Furiosa is super interesting, because until last year we did not even know what she wanted to redemption for - and Isaac very much looks at redemption from a very religious perspective, rather than the usual narrative perspective.

My other main issue is, that often stories - due to limitations of their respective media - boil down redemption to one to three big gestures, rather than a slow and arguous process. To call to Star Wars again: Kylo Ren is a good example. He gets himself killed, instant redemption. And yes, the "character sacrifices themselves" is to me one of the most unsatisfying sorts of redemption, because it often happens very suddenly, and has no character resolution.

What I personally would just love to see more often is a character, who gets to redeem themselves in the eyes of the audience, but get told by other characters within their universe, that, no, they will not be forgiven. Because again: Redemption does not equal forgiveness. And too often characters are expected to forgive some former villain a lot of shit (slavery, genocide, or at least the murder of their family) just for it to serve the former villains redemption arc. And I just wished that more stories had the guts to challenge this sort of narrative.

And then there is the other thing that some stories fail - not all. This is something I think the Zuko arc excells at, but others defintiely don't: Often a villain gets their redemption arc, after for one reason or another being cast out by the other villains. So basically they do not have anywhere else to turn to but the heroes, and afterwards are also never tried to be recruited back by the villains. So... From a character perspective, their redemption is kinda their only choice - so not a choice at all. And in those cases... redemption feels hollow.

Again, I love redemption arcs as a concept. Literally one of my favorite tropes, so to speak. But I am often unhappy with how it gets executed.

I don't know. What are your favorite redemption arcs?

[artemisiatodd]

Dbda Promptober days 1-7 in no particular order

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HEARTSTOPPER (2022 - ) I 3.06 - Body

[artemisiatodd]

Page 19-20-21 of my Double Edged fancomic! Remember that despite everything, Luci is still the devil >:3

page 1-2-3 page 4-5-6 page 7-8-9 page 10-11-12 page 13-14-15 page 16-17-18 page 22-23-24 Feel free to tip a coffee! :)

I kindly ask you to not send me DMs about when the pages will come out, they are scheduled to come out every tuesday, thank you!