bastienbun

[bastienbun]

Quick tips for writing Villains

✧ Your villain doesn’t have to be the foil of the hero. Sometimes the villain is the exaggeration of the hero. Same dream, just more murdery. More dramatic monologues. Less therapy.

✧ “Oh no, he’s hot” is valid. But why is he hot? Is it the danger? The voice? The haunted eyes? The “I will burn down heaven to see you smile” energy? Dig deeper than vibes. (But don’t forget the vibes.)

✧ If their evil plan could be solved by Google Maps and common sense, I’m deleting your book. No “I will destroy the world to get revenge on my high school crush.” Think bigger. Or weirder. Or petty but well-planned.

✧ If your villain is in the book for 12 seconds and dies offscreen, I will mail you a passive-aggressive letter. Let them be a presence. A shadow. A curse in the dialogue. A name no one wants to say out loud.

✧ They don’t have to be evil. They just have to be opposed. That mentor who believes the hero should sacrifice everything for the greater good? That’s a villain. That parent who loves their child but keeps hurting them “for their own safety”? That’s a villain. Welcome to nuance.

✧ If your villain is funny, I’m already 20% in love. Quips? Sass? Petty villain monologues? Excellent. Bonus points if they’re self-aware about how dramatic they’re being. “You didn’t think I’d actually fall into that lava pit, did you?” Icon.

[bastienbun]

helloooo this is a MASTER POST of my Sherlock Holmes annotations, aka shitpost doodles of my favorite parts with occasional headcanons. I will pin this so it's available and update it as I go because this feels like it's becoming a full series, god help me.

I'm reading the stories in the order they occurred (according to Baring-Gould, who I am currently arm wrestling in the astral plane over how many wives Watson had) so that's how I will present them!

EDIT: decided to draw them in the order that makes sense to me, Baring-Gould you’re too silly

EDIT 2: this is basically a webcomic at this point, with ongoing continuity and a romantic storyline that can be enjoyed if you read in order. I did not intend this, but I have Sherlock Holmes disease and there's only one cure (doing this)

EDIT 3: content warning/advertisement depending on your temperament: this series gets into one of my big interests, historical queerness, period accurate homophobia, and how laws around queerness affected lived experience. it also has things that you can expect from a Sherlock Holmes story like: drug use involving needles, violence, flagrant use of old timey guns, and people dying in shocking and mysterious ways!

Copies of Volume 1 can be ordered here!

A Study in Scarlet 🩸

The Speckled Band 🐍

The Resident Patient 🩺

The Noble Bachelor 👰

The Second Stain 📮

The Reigate Squires 📝

The Dancing Men 👯‍♂️

Silver Blaze 🏇🏻

The Six Napoleons ⚫️

The Red Circle 🕯️🪟

The Greek Interpreter 🩹

Mycroft Interlude 🎩

The Beryl Coronet 🥪

The Yellow Face 🙂

The Hound of the Baskervilles 🐺

-Part One

-Part Two

-Part Three

-Part Four

-Part Five

-Part Six

-Part Seven

The Gloria Scott ⚓️

The Valley of Fear 🏰

-Part One

-Part Two

Shoscombe Old Place 🎣

Charles Augustus Milverton 💌

-Part One

-Part Two

-Part Three

-Part Four

-Part Five

The Copper Beeches ✂️

-Part One

-Part Two

The Sign of the Four 💉

-Part One

-Part Two

-Part Three

-Part Four

-Part Five

-Illustration

-Part Six

-Part Seven

The Cardboard Box 📦👂🏻

Second Interlude 💒

A Scandal In Bohemia 💃

-Part One

-Part Two

-Part Three

The Stockbrokers Clerk 🦷

The Engineer’s Thumb 👍🏻

The Crooked Man 🦝

The Naval Treaty 🌹

The Five Orange Pips 🍊

The Man With The Twisted Lip 🧽

-Part One

-Part Two

The Boscombe Valley Mystery 🪨

-Part One

-Part Two

-Part Three

The Dying Detective 🦪

-Part One

-Part Two

-Part Three

Christmas Eve, 1890 🎄

-Part One

-Part Two

-Part Three

The Blue Carbuncle 🪿💎

-Part One

-Part Two

-Part Three

-Part Four

The Blanched Soldier 🪖

The Final Problem 🏔️

-Part One

-Part Two

-Part Three

-Part Four

-Part Five

-Part Six

-Part Seven

-Part Eight

-Part Nine

-Part Ten

-Part Eleven

The Empty House 👤

-Part One

-Part Two

-Part Three

-Part Four

-Part Five

-Part Six

A Case of Identity 💍

-Part One

-Part Two

The Red Headed League 👨‍🦰

-Part One

-Part Two

The Illustrious Client 🧪

-Part One

-Part Two

[bastienbun]

that’s a good one

[bastienbun]

okay so I finished Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) by Harriet Jacobs, and here are my takeaways, because it was AMAZING and I can't believe all US students aren't required to read it in school:

shows how slavery actually worked in nuanced ways i'd never thought much about

example: Jacobs's grandmother would work making goods like crackers and preserves after she was done with her work day (so imagine boiling jars at like 3 a.m.) so that she could sell them in the local market

through this her grandmother actually earned enough money, over many years, to buy herself and earn her freedom

BUT her "mistress" needed to borrow money from her. :)))) Yeah. Seriously. And never paid her back, and there was obviously no legal recourse for your "owner" stealing your life's savings, so all those years of laboring to buy her freedom were just ****ing wasted. like.

But also! Her grandmother met a lot of white women by selling them her homemade goods, and she cultivated so much good will in the community that she was able to essentially peer pressure the family that "owned" her into freeing her when she was elderly (because otherwise her so-called owners' white neighbors would have judged them for being total assholes, which they were)

She was free and lived in her own home, but she had to watch her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren all continue to be enslaved. She tried to buy her family but their "owners" wouldn't allow it.

Enslaved people celebrated Christmas. they feasted, and men went around caroling as a way to ask white people in the community for money.

But Christmas made enslaved people incredibly anxious because New Years was a common time for them to be sold, so mothers giving their children homemade dolls on Christmas might, in just a few days' time, be separated from their children forever

over and over again, families were deliberately ripped apart in just the one community that Harriet Jacobs lived in. so many parents kept from their children. just insane to think of that happening everywhere across the slave states for almost 200 years

Harriet Jacobs was kept from marrying a free Black man she loved because her "owner" wouldn't let her

Jacobs also shows numerous ways slavery made white people powerless

for example: a white politician had some kind of relationship with her outside of marriage, obviously very questionably consensual (she didn't hate him but couldn't have safely said no), and she had 2 children by him--but he wasn't her "master," so her "master" was allowed to legally "own" his children, even though he was an influential and wealthy man and tried for years to buy his children's freedom

she also gives examples of white men raping Black women and, when the Black women gave birth to children who resembled their "masters," the wives of those "masters" would be devastated--like, their husbands were (from their POV) cheating on them, committing violent sexual acts in their own house, and the wives couldn't do anything about it (except take out their anger on the enslaved women who were already rape victims)

just to emphasize: rape was LEGALLY INCENTIVIZED BY US LAW LESS THAN 200 YEARS AGO. It was a legal decision that made children slaves like their mothers were, meaning that a slaveowner who was a serial rapist would "own" more "property" and be better off financially than a man who would not commit rape.

also so many examples of white people promising to free the enslaved but then dying too soon, or marrying a spouse who wouldn't allow it, or going bankrupt and deciding to sell the enslaved person as a last resort instead

A lot of white people who seemed to feel that they would make morally better decisions if not for the fact that they were suffering financially and needed the enslaved to give them some kind of net worth; reminds me of people who buy Shein and other slave-made products because they just "can"t" afford fairly traded stuff

but also there were white people who helped Harriet Jacobs, including a ship captain whose brother was a slavetrader, but he himself felt slavery was wrong, so he agreed to sail Harriet to a free state; later, her white employer did everything she could to help Harriet when Harriet was being hunted by her "owner"

^so clearly the excuse that "people were just racist back then" doesn't hold any water; there were plenty of folks who found it just as insane and wrongminded as we do now

Harriet Jacobs making it to the "free" north and being surprised that she wasn't legally entitled to sit first-class on the train. Again: segregation wasn't this natural thing that seemed normal to people in the 1800s. it was weird and fucked up and it felt weird and fucked up!

Also how valued literacy skills were for the enslaved! Just one example: Harriet Jacobs at one point needed to trick the "slaveowner" who was hunting her into thinking she was in New York, and she used an NYC newspaper to research the names of streets and avenues so that she could send him a letter from a fake New York address

I don't wanna give away the book, because even though it's an autobiography, it has a strangely thrilling plot. But these were some of the points that made a big impression on me.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl also inspired the first novel written by a Black American woman, Frances Harper, who penned Iola Leroy. And Iola Leroy, in turn, helped inspire books by writers like Nella Larsen and Zora Neale Hurston. Harriet Jacob is also credited in Colson Whitehead's acknowledgments page for informing the plot of The Underground Railroad. so this book is a pivotal work in the US literary canon and, again, it's weird that we don't all read it as a matter of course.

(also P.S. it's free on project gutenberg and i personally read it [also free] on the app Serial Reader)

[bastienbun]

kicking off the "do non-queer allies belong at pride" discourse with a resounding YES

[bastienbun]

We all know about most of these by now, but I thought it'd be fun to make a comprehensive list of all the things of varying degrees of insanity both Jayce and Viktor have done in the series to, for and because of each other: 1. Viktor looking at Jayce in the most intense but also thoroughly enchanted way in the council room scene

2. Viktor stealing Jayces notebook from Heimerdinger after Jayces research was officially deemed "dangerous" by the council

3. Saving Jayce from suicide and instilling new hope, along with a sense of adventure in him manic-pixie-dream-girl-style.

4. Jayce asking for Viktors name in the most romantic way possible and Viktor answering him with 2 syllables and bedroom eyes

5. Jayce-I-egotistically-sign-all-my-notes-with-my-name-Talis going instant commie mode by calling his life long dream "our" dream after Viktor scribbled something on a blackboard and cracked a silly little joke once.

6. Casually snacking on pickles, bread, wine and coffee as if they weren't committing crimes and there wasn't a huge hole in the wall while nerding out about magic

7. Breaking into Heimerdingers lab together

8. Viktor using taking Jayce to his bedroom as an excuse when getting caught, and Jayce being too stressed out to notice

9. Viktor then having the audacity to look disappointed in the background when Mr. Oblivious reacts to Mel the way every single person with functioning eyes would react to that goddess of a woman

10. Both trusting each other enough to risk exile after knowing each other for like a day.

11. Jayce, although having just experienced the same crystals blowing up a building, going through with the dangerous experiment simply because Viktor says "trust me".

12. Viktor sacrificing his cane, which is basically an extension of his body, to keep the door shut 13. Jaye carrying him bridal style because of that afterwards.

13. Experiencing what they'd both probably rank among their top 3 moments in life when floating in the magic they just created together

14. Viktor smiling the only full on smile we see him do in the show because of that.

15. Jayce drawing a portrait of Viktor in his notebook, next to a little doodle of two brains with lightning between them and a reminder to ask him for his last name.

16. Working alongside each other as best friends for 7 years and creating world altering technology

17. Viktor yearning for Jayce each day, for each of those 7 years ("Viktor wanted things Jayce couldn't give him at the time")

18. Whatever the fuck happened at the distinguished innovators competition that was probably also among their top 3 moments because of the way Viktor looked when Jayce brought it up and the fact Jayce used it to remind Viktor of things that make life worth living

19. Jayce constantly touching Viktor. In almost every scene. Whenever he can.

20. Them giving each other the same dumb heart eyes but always when the other is not looking 21. Viktor looking at Jayces lips in the scene before he gives his speech

22. The way they say each others name. It gets progressively more breathy as the show goes on.

23. The way their pupils dilate in several scenes when looking at each other

24. The butterfly symbolism connecting them throughout both Seasons

25. (Debatable, but I will include it) Jayce having a bi-crisis when Ambessas twink reminds him of a certain someone

26. Jayce asking "You had a vision?" as if it is the most normal thing ever. (Thank you Jayce. We love a husband, who unabashedly supports his witchy partner, plagued by visions and omens.)

27. Jayce having his sex scene with Mel be intercut with scenes of Viktor (not something they actively did, but still has to be mentioned)

28. Jayce leaving Mel to be by Viktors bedside when he wakes up in the hospital

29. Viktor being the only one shown to notice how stressed Jayce is about getting pushed into being a councilor via the deep exhale he does in that scene

30. Jayce not letting Heimerdinger interfere with the experiments that might save Viktors life, no matter how dangerous

31. Jayce removing Heimerdinger from the council because of it

32. Viktor immediately thinking of Jayce when Singed mentions the word "love"

33. Viktor instinctively knowing Jayce will reach out his hand to help him up without having to look during the bridge scene

34. Viktor slapping his hand away, but then accepting when Jayce puts it on his lower back a second later

35. Jayce stopping Viktor from taking his own life

36. Jayce granting Zaun independence because he doesn't know how to save Viktors life but he has to do something to honor their shared dream

37. Jayce seeing the council room completely destroyed, with several people hurt and dead, but only tearing up when he sees Viktor

38. Jayce running several blocks while carrying Viktor to their lab

39. Breaking his promise to Viktor (and probably several laws) by performing necromancy on him

40. Jayce saying "fuck the council" and everything he has worked for, when he realizes none of that matters without Viktor

41. Jayce staying holed up in the lab for god knows how long to watch over Viktor

42. Jayce immediately waking up after Viktor quietly says his name, whereas we saw him sleeping through an air alarm before that.

43. Viktor looking...very different, but all Jayce cares about is that he is alive. 44. Jayce, glancing between Viktor’s legs in his changed form an ungodly number of times.

45. Them embracing very closely while Viktor is nude, ending with Jayce looking slightly embarrassed when the emotions are threatening to overwhelm him

46. Jayce covering Viktor in the blanket from his childhood bedroom which Viktor will keep even after reaching godhood.

47. "My place was always here with you."

48. "It was affection that held us together"

49. Jayce getting glassy eyed when Viktor tells him he is leaving and holding out his hand as if he is expecting him to come back and grab it.

50. Jayce looking heartbroken at Heimerdingers reminder of him having broken into the lab before

51. Jayce generally giving off freshly divorced vibes in that whole scene

52. Jayce longingly looking at the remains of two male figures embracing in the AU while sitting in the rain

53. Jayce hallucinating Mel turning into Viktor in the fire at the bottom of the ravine.

54. Jayce basically walking a mile in Viktors shoes, fighting his way from the depths of the Undercity to the top of piltover with a broken leg. 55. Matching leg braces on opposite legs.

56. Viktor walking a mile in Jayces shoes by becoming a leader in S2 and his body finally being strong, while Jayces gets broken in the Au.

57. Viktor designing the sphere in the commune similar to the top of the Hexgates he built with Jayce

58. Viktor finally realizing through Singeds memories, that he wasn't kept alive by Jayce as an experiment, but out of love

59. Jayce tenderly stroking the hexcrystal on his bracelet

60. Viktor tenderly stroking the gear that reminds him of the night him and Jayce became partners.

61. Jayce looking at mage!Viktor in the exact same awestruck way he did when he was a child - even after about 6 months of pain and suffering

62. Jayce being ready to sacrifice himself after mage!Viktor reveals the truth to him

63. AU Jayces corpse responding to Viktors touch 64. The fact that the only "beautiful" place left in Piltover was where Jayces corpse was

65. Jayce dramatically adding "...and with me" after saying to Viktor how he thought he was done with hextech, like the bitter divorced husband he is.

66. Viktor excitedly inviting Jayce to the commune, believing he finally knows how Jayce really feels about him

67. Viktor waiting for Jayce floating in the air like a venus fly trap, with his upper body bare, while holding the gear in his hands

68. Viktors eyes changing color when he sees Jayce.

69. Jayce visually having to fight himself to be able to shoot Viktor and not being able to look while doing it

70. Viktor never taking his eyes off of Jayce after being shot by him

71. Jayce leaving without as much as a glance back while looking absolutely destroyed

72. Jayce now dressing in dark colors - both Zaunite and mourning coded

73. Jayces clothes being asymmetrical in the final scene - Zaun style

74. The most homoerotic fight in history.

75. Viktor giving bedroom eyes #2

76. Viktor choking Jayce (twice)

77. "Let's do this once again as partners." (Viktor didn't speak when he said this. He purred.)

78. Jayce lovingly caressing the gold poured into the broken council room table as if it was the golden lines in Viktors new skin.

79. Jayce having a dead-wife-flashback when Cait says "Viktor is at the center of all this, isn't he?", remembering him smiling, with a strand of hair prettily falling in front of his face, when that isn't what Viktor really looked like in that moment.

80. "I've been confused about a lot lately."

81. Viktors Mask as the herald resembling the Talis Symbol

82. Another homoerotic fight

83. Jayce never looking at Viktor in any of his forms with disgust, not even as he becomes some sort of eldritch being, but like this instead:

84. Jayce kneeling down calmly infront of Viktor, accepting his fate

85. Jayces whole speech on the astral plane. Calling Viktors imperfections beautiful. Basically revealing how his plan was to deter Viktor from destroying the world by confessing his love to him.

86. IN ALL TIMELINES, IN ALL POSSIBILITES. SOULBONDED ACROSS INFINITY. INEXTRICABLY BOUND. ONLY YOU CAN SHOW ME THIS. NO MATTER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, IT'S ALWAYS GOING TO BE YOU.

87. Viktors eyes practically glowing in Jayces memory of him.

88. The "you have no idea how beautiful it is"-magic Jayce had been chasing since he was a child turning out to be Viktor all along.

89. Viktor bending the laws of the universe because he cannot let Jayce die

90. Jayce dooming the world over and over again because he cannot let Viktor die

91. "Because I promised you."

92. Jayce embracing Viktor again and Viktor, starting to glow gold where Jayces hands touch him.

93. Viktor telling Jayce to go, giving him the choice to live on without him

94. Jayce looking at him so tenderly yet sadly, because Viktor STILL doesn't realize he will never go. Ever.

95. Jayce passing the rune embedded in his wrist back to Viktor as if handing him his heart.

96. "We finish this. Together."

97. Them fighting to hold on to each other even though the force of the Arcane is pulling them apart

98. It finally giving up underneath the touch of both their hands

99. That one shot directly after where Viktor looks up from where their hands are touching and he has this expression on his face as if FINALLY realizing that he is no longer alone because of how Jayce truly feels about him.

100. Their final embrace: Touching foreheads. Jayces hand on Viktors neck. Viktor gently stroking his arm as if to soothe his partner.

Ps: If I have missed anything, let me know! I want to add it to the list :D

[bastienbun]

[bastienbun]

she’s definitely a demon..!

[bastienbun]

John Martin (1789–1854)

The Great Day of His Wrath, 1851

[bastienbun]

Villain-Angry Lines

⤳ “You thought I wouldn’t notice? I let you think that.”

⤳ “I gave you mercy once. Look how well that turned out.”

⤳ “You want forgiveness? Die, and maybe I’ll consider it.”

⤳ “I didn’t lose control. I chose violence, don’t get it twisted.”

⤳ “I warned you not to test me. And here we are.”

⤳ “You were a mistake I plan to erase, thoroughly.”

⤳ “You think this is anger? No, this is fucking clarity.”

⤳ “If you hated what I did before, you’re going to love what’s next.”

⤳ “You made me into a monster, and now you’re shocked I bite?”

⤳ “You should’ve killed me when you had the chance.”

⤳ “I don’t need revenge, I need results.”

⤳ “The difference between us? I finish what I start.”

⤳ “Cry if you want, it won’t stop what’s coming.”

⤳ “You broke something in me. Now I’ll break everything in you.”

⤳ “Your screams won’t mean anything when no one’s left to hear them.”

⤳ “You don’t get to play the victim. Not when I’m still standing.”

[bastienbun]

"The bird keeps taking it" Sussy baby fanart~

[bastienbun]

HUNTR/X 💥

[bastienbun]

Just Gale, rolling both a nat 1 and a nat 20 on “Impressing his crush” 🤣

Want more? Support me on Patreon!

[bastienbun]

It just felt so real.

[bastienbun]

spent the past week watching and re-watching a life-changing cartoon several times 😳

[image description] a full-color digital illustration of Lake, Alan Dracula, and Jake Cosay from Infinity Train season 2 sitting on the floor of a dark room and reading together, surrounded by stacks of books. In a detail crop/close-up of Jesse from the above illustration, Jesse has his right hand on Alan Dracula’s back and is absentmindedly petting him while flipping through a journal with a puzzled expression. In the other detail excerpt from the above illustration, Lake is reading a book with their full attention and a neutral facial expression, scratching the underside of Alan Dracula’s chin. Alan Dracula appears to be smiling subtly and is glowing, his body patterned with a soft rainbow gradient [end of description]

[bastienbun]

'The Companions of Ulysses' by Gustave Dore, (1832 - 1883)

[bastienbun]

every time i go to a post/video talking abt misogyny in fandom spaces trans men are always either seen as an enemy or completely forgotten abt in the discussion and i am so fucking tired man