#and thus being one dimentional and less interesting

[wayward-wren]

I'm hoping episode 3 let's Ruby see the dark side of the Doctor. I feel that adds a very important dynamic to a Doctor-companion relationship, when they see how dark he can be and still choose to travel with him early on.

Rose watching Nine drag Cassandra back to die. Eleven yelling at Amy "Nobody human has anything to say to me today!" Donna begging Ten to stop drowning the spider babies, and then again to go back and save someone in Pompeii.

Fifteen has been FUN and I know he can do emotional range, I've seen his fear and his tears already. But I want to see him dark, and I want to see Ruby respond to that. I think it would add a LOT of depth to their relationship and is something missing.

Plus showcasing the Doctor's flaws (selfishness) will make him a much more interesting character. I want to see some conflict between the Doctor and Ruby.

[transskywardsword]

i saw your tags about disliking flirty sleazy hw link, but what's your opinion on a more nuanced take on it? taking the flirtiness and 'prettyboy' characterisation and putting some depth to it. This is admittedly more about Warriors lu than hw Link (i'm very slow at getting through games unfortunately and thus have little info on the game itself), but i think that is where a lot of that characterisation started outside of him simply being pretty in the game? i've seen a lot of writing of him where people have really delved into WHY he's flirty and such, and i do have my own thoughts.

this might get uhh rambly hes my blorbo so i apologise if any of it is hard to understand lol

one aspect of it i think is the recognition and idea that beauty and attraction is something that can be weaponised and used to your advantage. obviously this is seen with: all of Cia and her obession with link (i do think his pretty looks is partly why she goes for him over others in these characterisations). so in turn Warriors knows it's a powerful tool and uses it to his advantage - presenting himself in a very specific way that makes him look the best, both for his men and as a barrier of sorts. if he's put together on the outside he's put together on the inside. it's also probably one of the few things he can control in war, making sure his scarf is perfectly positioned and his hair is neat and his sword is clean: the perfect image of the hero. I also think its a coping mechanism, this control.

another aspect i've seen is that his flirtiness and womanizer reputation is less sleeping around, and more not being able to handle romantic commitment, which is very interesting to look into, especially considering again, Cia's business. It makes sense that someone who has been told they're great and powerful (and had the rise and fall of that ego boost) has confidence, yet someone who has had that weaponised against them is wary of letting people in, especially in the context of relationships. that is often a vulnerable position, having someone know you, and with Cia's 'personal space issues' it makes sense he'd want to be in control of a sexual/flirty situation (by flirting and making the moves) yet not actually commit to any of it when the opportunity arises (touch averse, ptsd, etc).

a lot of it seems to be about a sense of control, and how quickly it feels you lose that once you feel you cannot control the surface level presentation you put forwad. he has a reputation of being a womanizer - a war started bec a girl liked him! - and thus he keeps it up to keep in control of the situation.

i also dislike the one dimentional playboy warriors/hw link characterisation, but this is what i usually do with it when writing and just rotating him in my head. if you have any info about hw link in particular that reinforces/contradicts any of this i'd be happy to hear it! and your general thoughts (dw too much about spoilers, my autism craves blorbo info over potential story spoilers and it'll be a while before i get to most of it anyway). i do also see Warriors lu and hw Link as two seperate characters, and am interested on where the deviation in characters they are, its always super intruiging to see where the differences are.

also, i hope you are having a good day/night! you got a cool blog :3

matching blorbo!! i am always down to talk abt hw link, i would die for that man.

now im gonna start w this disclaimer: im not the biggest fan of wars characterization in LU, mostly bc he's not that developed and the fandom took what little they had and ran with it in a direction i dont like. that's no hate to any fans or ppl who do like him, he just isnt my cuppa tea! i 100% see him and hw link as diffrent characters bc to me too much doesnt line up

so my dislike of the 'cocky overconfident sleazy flirty pretty boy' characterization comes to the oversimplification of the few traits we have (bc you're right, there isn't much to go on haha. hw is not known for its characterization), a lack of interest people seem to have in his and cia (and by extension lana)'s relationship and the trauma it causes, and people just relying on stereotypes instead of building character. we know a few things for sure from the game & out of game material: link has a strong sense of justice, he acts before he thinks to an extent, he is a tad overconfident (which bites him in the ass and he has to learn to grow from), he's kind, and can talk to fairies. it's not a lot to go off of, so i understand when people tend to grab onto a few stereotypes and not go anywhere from there but i think that does his character a disservice.

1)on the pretty boy thing: is link gorgeous? absolutely. he's the Prettiest Link by sure, just look at him. he's wearing fuckin eyeliner. but i think people look at that character design and turn it into meaning he obviously must be vain or self-centered. i'm fine with someone characterizing him as caring about his looks; i agree that he probably does to an extent-- no one runs around with something as much of a hazard as that scarf is (it's a wonder he wasn't strangled with it) in a warzone without being somewhat connected to your appearance-- but i feel like if you're going to write him as the 'pretty boy' it should be done like you idea was, with actual characterization in mind, and not like, okay his game model is hot so he must be obsessed with himself. i actually really, really like the ideas you gave abt stability and coping through self-expression btw, i think that's a great idea and i can completely see it. my problem with the 'vain pretty boy' characterization mostly comes from that i think of link as dealing with a lot of discomforts with his body over knowing that his looks are part of the reason why cia attacked; i figure that knowing that being attractive is part of the reason why people are dying (even tho it is 100% no his fault) would totally fuck up your relationship with yourself. i think that his appearance is something he takes care in as a coping mechanism while also being something he completely dissociates himself from. nothings gotta hurt like someone seeing you as purely the 'self-absorbed pretty soldier' when, in your opinion, you being the 'pretty boy' is costing people lives. i think his view of himself and his body is wrapped up in trauma so when people jump to 'oh he has eyeliner he must be completely obsessed with his appearance' instead of examining it further it makes me twitch.

(also, unimportant, but the reason i think cia chose him was because he resembles the first hero the most, and since the first hero is the ultimate form of the hero's spirit, link is the next best thing. she obv can't go after the first link, he's hylia's boyfriend, but this link is right there for the taking)

2) okay next point: playboy link. i also agree with your characterization! i just think that unfortunately, it isn't a very common one. so im like 97% sure that the flirty characterization came for LU, as there is like. no basis for it in game, and i think that a majority of people write it totally wrong. racist implications of a toxic dark-skinned woman chasing after a white man aside, link was stalked. he was sexually harassed and objectified. he had to go fight in a castle with his face fuckin plastered on it-- a war was started bc cia was obsessed and wouldn't respect consent, that's a big fucking deal, and i feel like people don't acknowledge that it is? that must mess with your sense of self, control, consent, agency, trust, etc so, so badly. i feel like sooo much of the flirty characterization 1) turns sleazy, which i see as wildly ooc, esp given his history with consent 2) glosses over the effects of trauma completely. any kind of relationship he's going to have for a long, long time during and post-war, friendship, sexual, or romantic, is going to be affected by cia. cia is likely something he's going to struggle to cope with his entire life. i see it as deeply warping his ideas of consent and causing a significant amount of self-worth problems. and so many people go 'okay he sleeps around' and stop there. it does a disservice to him. if you want him to be a flirt, you have to acknowledge his trauma, ya know?

3) completely cocky link. okay so we know that link is headstrong and acts before he thinks. we know this for a fact. as a private, he abandons his post at the castle to go and fight, and then in the same battle rushes off on his own to protect impa and takedown volga, an extremely stupid idea that would have gotten him killed if he didn't have the spirit of the hero. the fact that volga didn't roast him alive is a fucking miracle. @ link pls use your brain. we also know that he got overzealous when he drew the master sword. he saw his troops as invincible serving under the blade of evil's bane, which has slight validity tbh, it is the master sword after all, but then two things happen that i think really led to him changing himself as a person: dark link & the turn coats. so dark link is flat out a reflection of his negativities and having to fight it was a fuckin slap in the face that what he was doing was foolish and wrong. the turn coats also served to show him that he was very much not invincible. so between the two of those, i think he had a lot of growth. making him a cocky ass ignores that growth completely unless you acknowlage the world around him

also, on the fairies: fairies are good judges of character. i don't think he'd a bestie to the fairies who can talk to them in their own language and chills with the great fairy if he was a total ass

okay i think im finally done word dumping but uhhh i love this man so much. so so much. i adore him and i just want people to put thought into him when they write him bc there is SO much to explore if you just look

[im-totally-not-an-alien]

Final Fantasy 7 prompts # 73

1. Puppet! Cloud drops out from a random vortex after his master was defeated. Where did he land?

On Sephiroths office desk in Shinra tower of course. Sephiroth poked him with his pen a few times before Cloud woke up.

"Master!" The blond exclaimed as he wrapped the larger man in a hug. Of course. Of freaking course, thats when Genesis barged in with a stack of paperwork tucked under his arm, (not even bothering to knock mind you!) "Ugh, Seph, you are not going to believe-" the redclad figure stopped in his tracks.

"...this isn't what is looks like."

Genesis wiggled his eyebrows suggestivly, "Sure it isn't." And he was back out in the hall without another word. The soft click the door gave seemed much too loud in the silence and only seemed to add to Sephiroths humiliation.

Thus began Cloud following around his "Master" wherever he went while Sephiroth and the SOLDIERS/Turks did everything in their power to stop him, only to fail hilariously or get beaten up by the (comparatively) petite blond for thier efforts

2. The Holy Trinity encounter Winged! Cloud from the future or a parallel dimention or something and instead of viewing him as a monster they think he's an actual angel and treat him accordingly.

3. Cloud had just finished burying a dead chocobo (may she rest in peace) he had found when he heard a twig snap from behind him.

He reached for Tsurugis handle only to pause when he saw a bright yellow ball of plumage peek out from behind a tree. The blond let out a small laugh. That was by far the fluffiest chick he had ever seen, hells, it was a perfect circle/

Cloud reached down and picked up the baby, "Hello there, are you lost?"

"Kweh!" The little circle cried out and Cloud was quickly surrounded by three other chicks, all wild and overly fluffy. He absently wondered if this was a new breed while they preceeded to peck at him with little effect. He just scooped them up and drove them to Bills place after a ruddementry search of the nearby area.

That was the end of it.

Until he woke up the next morning with three of the chicks sleeping on top of him. The blond was baffled and got up to search for the fourth, only to find it perched on Denzels head, shifting its balance as to not fall whenever Denzel began nodding off, threatening to fall asleep and plant his face in his breakfast.

If Cloud took a picture-or a dozen-no one would have to know

4. A mysterious ailment has been effecting all the creatures Hojo created using Jenovas cells causing them to run amok. With Cloud missing and AVALANCHE busy dealing with rampaging monsters, Denzel and Marlene sneak off to search for the missing blond, but will they find him in time? Or will Cloud be in the same state as the others?

5. Reno found Cloud at a mall in some nowhere town dressed as a girl. He was originally planning to use this as blackmail material before Cloud came out to him as trans.

Now Reno goes out with him and helps him keep his cover...while disguised of course. Wouldn't want anyone to recognize him and- by extention- Cloud.

Besides, if anyone did recognize them, Cloud had full permission to blame Reno and let him take the fall for it.

6. The SOLDIERS apparently had a "Chocobo protection squad" when Cloud was a trooper. He had no idea why Reeve had insisted he read this annoyingly thick file on it until he realized half way through the first page that it was about him

He was the "precious cutie chocobo that must be protected from the evils of the world"

Cloud wanted to burn it on principle...but was too curious to stop reading. Apparently most of the members were still alive and it seems he owes them a great deal, so maybe he should take Teef and the kids to visit some of them. Maybe bring gift baskets...

7. Cloud cursed as he stepped on the edge of his cloak, sending him tumbling down from the path and deeper into the cavern.

Cloud picked himself up from the ground, grateful his goggles kept any of the dirt and debris from entering his eyes.

He heard something from behind him and whirled around to slash at them with his dagger...except there was no one there.

Poink

Oh no. He looked down at the little creatures, wearing cloaks much like his own, only brown instead of the worn black fabric the professor gave them. The blond looked down sadly at the number tattooed on the back of his hand.

Guess I won't be going to the Reunion after all. Shame. Mother had said Zack would be there as a guest and he really wanted to see him again.

Poink!

One of the little creatures- Tonberry- mother supplied - was clutching the edge of his cloak and attempting to lead him somewhere.

Did...did this creature think himself one of them?!

Aka Numbered! Cloud! gets adopted by Tonberrys

8. Hojo waking up strapped to one of his own tables with Cloud and Sephiroth standing over him, grinning like mad men.

9. Au where Sephiroth escaped as a child and fled into the wild and was eventually taken in by the "dead" professor Gast and his wife Iflana

He was "never found" by the Turks and eventually grew up to be a bad ass vigilante.

Cloud shared a similar fate but kept running instead of being taken in, eventually becoming a vagabond until the fateful day when their paths crossed and the pull of Reunion drew them together

10. Enraged blue eyes locked on to the blond. It may have been nearly a thousand years since Shinra fell, but he would know that man anywhere.

Not just anyone could have destroyed a corporate entity as powerful as Shinra and in the span of a single month no less! But he didn't care much about that, oh no.

He cared about the fact that this lovely creature killed him and his fellow firsts and then had the audacity to just disappear into the sands of time, stripping materia of its power and somehow causing Gaias mako to sink deep beneath the soil, never to be seen by mere mortals again. After it did, monsters began appearing less and less frequently, until they stopped appearing at all.

With Shinra so thoroughly destroyed and no other sustainable power available, information and records deteriorated, leaving Shinras history spotty at best and non existent at worse (probably didn'thelp that records seemed to conveniently disappear). Now Shinra, monsters and magic are all considered fairytales from a bygone era.

He and the others occasionally visit the lake that was once the city of Midgar to light candles in honor of all they had lost. Like hell he was going to let the blond escape again. Genesis opened his phone and made a call, "Seph, I found him."

11. Cloud meeting Female Sephiroth. Shes rather impressed that he's completely unaffected by the boob window. It had been the death of many men before him, that was for certain.

Too bad he wants to kill her, she has a feeling she would have liked having him around. Maybe she'd introduce him to Angel's puppy? She had the peculiar ability to befriend everyone she met

12. Time traveler Sephiroth saves time traveler Cloud from the labs with Genesis and Angeal.

Cloud is wondering why Sephiroth saved him and what he's planning.

Meanwhile, Gen and Geal are freaking out and asking annoyingly sane questions, like "Who is this guy?", "Why do you seem to know him so well?", and my personal favorite "Why is there a man being held captive in the labs?!"

13. Lab Experiment Cloud au where teenager Cloud barrels into Sephiroth in the middle of escaping the tower and asks if Sephiroth is his dad.

Sephiroth stops functioning and he just stands there frozen in a full battle stance while Genesis fights and subsequently captures the teenager, who he then promptly kidnaps.

*later*

Sephiroth bursts into the labs and confronts Hojo, asking if he was a father.

Hojo laughs and says "Of course you are! Do you have any idea how many creatures I've spawned with your DNA?"

Cue Sephs mental breakdown and Genesis's rampage on behalf of his friend.

Angeal does his part by babysitting with some office secretaries

Aka: the trinity raising a broody teen

14. Post OG Nebilheim is super duper haunted and Yuffie is NOT okay with that.

Cloud is even less okay and they talk about it while sitting on the roof of Clouds abandoned house...well, the fake one anyway

15. Everyone gets therapy but its from the perspective of a therapist who is %1000 done with Hojo

Bonus: This is actually questions posed by a friend and it helped spawn number 10.

What would Shinra do if Mako where to suddenly disappear? How would that even happen?

Bonus Bonus: What would be the quickest/ most brutal way to take down Shinra and/or SOLDIER? How would the Firsts feel about being completely owned by a stranger who appeared out of nowhere? (This was also my thinking about 10)

Announcement: Due to lack of interest, list #75 will be the final one. Thank you for reading my ideas. It made me super happy!

[miccatepoztli]

XIMENA’S RP PLOTTING CHEAT-SHEET

Want new-and-exciting plots for your character? Long to reach out to more of your followers, but don’t know where to start? Fear not! Fill out this form and give your RP partners both present and future all the of juicy jumping off points they need to help you get your characters acquainted.

Be sure to tag the players whose characters YOU want more cues to interact with, and repost, don’t reblog! Feel free to add or remove sections as you see fit. Template here.

Mun name: mónika OOC Contact: DMs or discord (available upon request!)

who the heck is my muse anyway:

Ximena is a young brujeria practicing witch who was ~*mysteriously*~ spirited away from her home at age 5 with no memory of her past or self. Raised in the restricted environment of an abbey among sympathetic but uncaring sisters, she’s quite prim and proper to the public eye, but cares very little about the rules of society or her place in it.

She is also a ridiculously smart little girl. She will grow into a terrifyingly smart woman. With secrets sewn into her skin and a powerful network of magical creatures at her fingertips.

points of interest:

She’s very willing to learn and perform “dark” magicks, and can often be found reading questionable books and tomes of various subjects regarding the art. If you came at her with the offer to summon a demon together, she would be hooked almost immediately (though cautious, of course)

Near the middle of her adolescence, she begins to dabble in potioneering and finds herself very skilled at it. Through a questionable network of fellow witches, creatures, jealous ex-wives, and the like, she develops a steady stream of loyal customers and builds upon her craft.

Once reunited with her family, she is a part of a long reaching, long lasting network of witches and brujas that have lived in their forest for centuries. Perhaps millennia. The forest in which their home resides is an inter-dimentional one where time doesn’t always work properly (whatever ‘properly’ is).

Like her, her current living family is cursed with painful and involuntary immortality, alongside a few other choice effects. Ximena can die from just about anything, but she will always return after a brief visit with death: her body will take time to rebuild itself. She can stall her return to her living body if she wishes, but she can never permanently rest unless the curse is broken.

A by-product of her curse is her unending ache to know. To learn about everything she can possibly get her hands on: magic, languages, plants, mathematics, space, everything. Her hunger for knowledge cannot be satiated until she learns enough about a certain branch of magic...

Ximena literally does not care about the problem of people outside of herself and her loved ones. She’ll spare a moment of sympathy for the sake of her humanity, but she will not go out of her way to help unless she can get something out of it such as personal vindication or some rare item. Occasionally she will help others out of sheer curiosity, but it’s rare.

what they’ve been up to recently:

Making friends with demons of other cultures! From India @marakama​ to China @fwm-gsm​ to Korea @roanarch​ --She’s gatherin up them demonic business cards and seeing what she can trade for information or rare items.

Learning how to communicate with the dead successfully and without accidentally summoning a legion of the undead. Whoops! No necromancy here, she just wants to talk to her ancestors to see why the fuck she’s cursed and who she is!

Training her corvid friends to send messages and retrieve items using whistles and tongue clicks.

Forgetting her place around adults she doesn’t trust and asking suspicious questions about black magic that could set off some red flags--But her interest is purely academic! She swears! And lies.

where to find them:

Croydon - If in her early stages of life (5-13 ish), Ximena can be found wandering around the abbey where she grew up in, or around the streets of London. She has a reputation for being a wallflower and very meek and polite.

Mexico - At age 14, Ximena is unofficially adopted by local Vampire Dad, Salazar @deoscuridad​ and taken with the rest of his misfit family to Mexico, where her magic has never been stronger, and her search for her family has never been closer. Find her at the library, markets, docks, and museums taking in her culture.

Forests - The aforementioned inter-dimentional forest leads to every forest in the world (and in others). So if one is talking a walk or run among the woods, it’s entirely plausible to find Ximena (ages 14 and up) on your journey. She’ll be picking mushrooms, documenting flora, performing dangerous summoning seances, and taking naps.

Other Locations - Hogwarts is a plausible place to locate her (in the proper HP aus where she has British citizenship and is thus allowed to attend) from ages 12-16, as that is when she is withdrawn by her father. Bookshops of all sorts are another, as she quite enjoys traveling.

current plans:

Eat some fish

Find her family, if she has one

Learn about herself and her past

Become a fourth level mage (highest tier)

Collect information and knowledge from every possible source.

desired interactions:

Ximena asking [muse] to watch over her body as she performs some dark summoning shit, allowing a demon/spirit/etc. to possess her body

[Muse] accidentally witnesses or just straight up accidentally (or purposefully!) murders Ximena in a really stupid and/or violent way, freaks out, cleans up/hides the body or runs away. They, of course, find Ximena just fine the next day/week. [Muse] can publicly freak out or demand answers, and Ximena just “yeah man, that happens sometimes, no hard feelings, jaja” and tries to brush it off.

Ximena being in a stiff upper lip environment while at a big fancy party and trying desperately to both appear normal/well adapted and also not attract any attention–but of course she’s asked to dance or give a speech.

Her fully exploring why it is that dark magic resonates so nicely with her. is it her nature? heritage? genetics? idk, but let’s test it out by trying some old school hardcore black magicks. Preferably! With a mentor muse.

On a fluffier (or more dramatic, if you’re like me) note: Ximena teaching someone how to dance.

A Coraline AU

Any sort of AU taking place in a dystopia like The Giver or The Hunger Games.

Offered interactions:

Uhh, gestures above?

As stated in my rules, I do not ship unless I know you personally OCC because it just makes it easier to establish relationship dynamics, but that doesn’t mean nothing can naturally develop or a muse can’t develop feelings for Ximena. It just means I have trust issues with people fetishizing the color of my characters’ skin! And if I know you OOC, there’s less of a chance of that happening!!

Honestly, just kill her, it’s fine. If the thread is going that way, it’s ok. She’ll be back. Very angry or scared or frustrated, but she will be fine! Don’t be weird about it though.

She’s a good tutor in all verses, even the ones where she plays dumb! Have her help out one of your muses in any subject!

She’s a very naturally curious person who, if allowed, will plow someone with questions til exhaustion. Have her ask your muse some things to help sort something out!

On that same vein, they could be penpals! Ximena is always writing to other peoples across the globe for knowledge!

current open post/s:

Anything under the /prompt tag and /ic tag!

anything else?:

my discord is open to mutuals if you wanna talk about ideas/concerns/questions!! arróz con babe #8991

tagging: ...u

tagged by: lol i stole it from a random blog

[margarittet]

Scoobies and Djinns and Dean, oh my!

So all that talk about djinns and Cas made me think about the other times we had djinn on the show, especially 2x20 “What is and What Should Never Be” and 8x20, “Pac-Man Fever”. These two times we see the fake realities the djinn creates to trap Dean and Charlie respectively, and on the meta level these realities showed us (and the characters) a glimpse under the surface of what was going on inside their minds - mainly Dean. The first dream was Dean centered, and the other one was Dean centered by proxy. Both times Dean is faced with realization: to keep moving on with his life, he needs to let go of something (in 2x20 he needs to let go of his idea of the perfect family life where everyone is normal, happy and successful - everyone but him; in 9x20 he needs to let go of his need to protect Sam). 

Both times he decides to let it go, and by doing that he manages to break out of the dream, and get back to the reality. 

 Dude, I hear you. And yet...

Well, it is, isn’t it? It is not exactly a djinn dream, but it seems like all of the situations have A LOT in common.

This Scooby Doo episode is a CONSTRUCT, and it is tailor-made for Dean.

Why do I think so? First of all, the shoutouts to djinns and Gabriel (and a callback to the “bigger mouth” joke from “Changing Channels”), both of whom created their fake realities in ways that fit the boys personally. Gabriel adjusted the real-life television programs so that they go smoothly with the boys’ story and the djinn dream in “What Is and What Should Never Be” is made based on Dean’s dreams and insecurities. For me, the whole Scooby Doo story inside the story is more a thing shaped by Dean’s subconsciousness (or at least we should see it like that) that Sam and Cas got sucked into as guest visitors. It’s almost like being dragged into somebody else’s dream.

Do you remember when Dean hitched a ride into Charlie’s subconsciousness in “Pac-Man Fever”? He woke up in the computer game she often dreamt about, dressed as an army doctor, in full hospital uniform and heavily decorated. Why? Because that’s how Charlie saw him - as a skilled, dependable fighter, but also a guy who’s main job in life was to help people in need. Dean was still himself inside, as his whole consciousness was put into that dream, but his outside look and the role he played in her dream was dictated by her subconsciousness. In both cases, both in 2x20 and in 8x20, everyone else besides the self-aware people, were just pawns, fake background characters put there by the subconsciousness of the dreamer (or dreamers, as Charlie asks Dean in 8x20: “Is this my nightmare or yours?”) to make a point. In 2x20 Dean was still Dean, but his role in the dream (a guy with a low-level job, stealing, gambling, having a girlfriend having “low standards” for dating him), and every other person there, was dictated by his subconsciousness.

“Scoobynatural” is not a djinn dream, but the djinn dream rules seem to apply here.

So, why would the ghost kid decide to put an adult man of 39 into a tailor-made cartoon, you ask? Well, because the said man has only been mentioning kid’s stuff every five seconds since he stepped on screen in this episode: Moosylvania (the fictional country from “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle“, the original moose and squirrel show), Barney, Bat Cave/Fortress of Solitude (comic book/superhero references) , and “Frozen”. Except the moment he enthusiastically starts humming “Sunrise” from Richard Strauss’ “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, these are Dean’s only cultural references in the episode before the boys get sucked into the 2D-land.  

So, if this assumption is right, what does Dean’s subconsciousness tell us here? Let’s look how his psyche shaped the characters’ and their roles in the Scoobyland.

First of all, it puts them in “A Night of Fright is No Delight”, the episode that includes a character of Colonel Sanders (Asmodeus, anyone?).

Daphne is hotter and sexier than we remembered, which is completely understandable since Dean was watching Scooby Doo as a kid, and even the regular Daphne was probably considered crazy hot by the tween Dean. It’s understandable that his subconsciousness would make her much more adult-looking than she actually was on screen, in the same way our older siblings always seemed taller and more mature than they really were at the time.

Fred - the one guy who is everything Dean had always so desperately wanted to be. Cool, good-looking, optimistic, well-dressed, STRAIGHT, with groovy tunes and a fast car. Big, beautiful and dumb, the one who always runs head-first into the dangerous situation, no matter the consequence. His elaborate plans never work, but he still succeeds. In Dean’s mind Fred wins at life - he wins the car race, he gets the girl, he is the self-assured leader of the group. Dean wants to be him, but Dean also wants to be WITH him (but that’s a topic for another time).

Velma, Scooby and Shaggy are pretty regular, but the costruct has special roles for them - to be paired with just the right people.

Velma is infatuated with Sam from the very beginning, and Cas (the talking dog) is paired with Shaggy and Scooby right away - and please notice how it’s Scooby characters who approach them when the group splits, not the other way round; Sam doesn’t choose Velma - Velma just slides to Sam’s side, and in the same way Scooby and Shaggy are the only ones who even acknowledge that Cas exists). (Similarly, please notice how Daphne doesn’t seem to approach anyone from the TFW herself, and Fred magnetically approaches Dean every single time Daphne doesn’t seem to have any interest in him).

The Scooby characters are painfully two dimentional (no pun intended), and only seem to play their expected parts in this weird fanfiction (except for the moment when they get their nervous breakdown due the the fact that Dean stops performing, and starts being real about ghosts - and that’s also the time where the characters fall out of their expected roles). 

Three other elements get sucked into the Scoobyland alongside Dean - Sam, Cas and Baby. The three most important things in Dean’s life. The Impala looks sexy. Cas looks REALLY sexy. Cartoon Sam has a permanent bitchface looking at Dean. (This also calls back to 2x20, where Sam didn’t actually like Dean in his dream construct. Like, AT ALL.) As I said, some people in the construct are themselves and self-aware, but their outside visuals seem to be dictated by the dreamer/central person. 

You are telling me it’s not Dean’s subconsciousness speaking to us here?

As I said, Sam looks pretty much like regular Sam, but he is the only one who gets the attention of the girl who Dean most probably thinks the best suited for him: the smart, bookish one. Because that’s how Dean sees Sam: as the one who deserves attention, who is the smart one, the brains of the operation, who should get the kiss and the happy ending. In season 8, Dean says it in text (in a Dabb episode, no less, “Trial and Error”), that Sam should survive, should get a normal life, a wife and a way out. And where Dean failed to get interest of either Fred or Daphne - because even when he lets himself admit he actually does like Fred as well, his subconsciousness blocks his chances with either of them because he still doesn’t think he is good enough to be wanted by anyone (oh, Dean). (In the same way he questions why a cute, smart, and mature girl is dating him in the dream in 2x20, hearing that she she only does it because has low standards.) Daphne ignores him. Fred compliments him, but in the end leaves him as well, and goes off together with Daphne. 

Cas, as mentioned, looks devastatingly handsome (much more than usually, great job there Dean’s subconsciousness), and Dean can’t stop smiling when he shows up in the Scoobyland. 

It was the last missing piece of his perfect dream adventure. In Dean’s mind Cas is the talking dog of their group, and sure enough, from the moment he arrives he gets automatically approached and claimed by Scooby and Shaggy, bonding with them and showing his Superman side before the end of the case. Cas is not happy to be in the cartoon though, and here comes the ironic part of episode, and he whole season as well: by performing violently while chasing his unattainable goal of seducing Daphne, and at the same time seaching for approval from Fred, Dean alienated the one person who actually matters, who doesn’t care about the performance at all, who thinks the ghost’s costume is ridiculous. Not unlike in 13x06, Cas sees Dean really happy for reasons he is not a part of (or thinks he is not a part of because Dean is a coward), and fails to understand that in the end nothing else matters to Dean beside Cas (and his and only his attention and approval)(also, Dean ends the episode with losing exactly this).

Dean enjoys the Scoobyland, but he quickly learns that a) it’s not real life (obviously), and b) it doesn’t serve as his safe haven anymore.

Whatever makes Dean happy in the Scoobyland is just a childhood fantasy that he tries desperately to hold on to because otherwise he’d have to face the reality of who he really is, and the life he leads. In the end though he understands letting go (like Elsa, like the djinn dreams) is the way to go - he admits that ghosts are real, shattering the naivity and the innocence of the Scooby gang in the process, and he admits that Fred is not so bad after all, that he is not an enemy but an ally (or maybe even something more - the yang to Daphne’s yin, the metaphor for uniting the feminine and the masculine aspects in his life and his sexuality). And even though eventually TFW helps Velma and the gang to bounce back to their regular, pure selves, Dean is not backtracking after this - no, he comes back to the real world and follows through with the promise of liberating the ghost boy aka his own spirit of childhood while literally hammering the point home by smashing the tv and the Scoobyland to pieces.

This is only possible because Dean was ready to let it all go already. This was his last hurrah, his last bucket of cold water that he needed to realize that he has moved on from that childhood ideal of masculine men and hot girls, that he can admit he likes the stuff (and people) he likes without feeling ashamed, and that Fred actually is a kind of a douche and nothing much to aspire to (but he still likes him). That if he wants to like Elsa and wear ascots, he will just like Elsa and wear ascots. That being smart pays off because you find secret passages, that Freds plans never work while his own do, that being honest and sincere is always the right way to go.

In the end he admits it would never have worked out with Daphne anyway (don’t we all know it!)

Even during the story, everytime he turns away from chasing after Daphne, he turns back to Dean we know and love: the hug monster in his purple nightgown; the smart guy finding clues in the library; an excellent pep-talker; the competent hunter; the person who helps the ghost of the young boy find his peace.

Source

[vinku-iikku]

Yay I finally finished 2018 inktober! If you want to just scroll through them all please go here, and if you want to see some comments on each please look under the cut.

Day 01 Flowey and Overgrown Ruins This prompt I picked as is because as far as I remember Flowey stayed behind when the monsters left. If you can’t find him, he’s near the big root on the left. All other days the second prompt got randomised by a die (except when I reached the last two).

Day 02 Grillby and Exotic Flora Grillby’s on a journey to look at all the flowers that aren’t living in a wet environment. Maybe he’ll make some wine from the non-poisonous ones.

Day 03 Chara and Cave Entrance They are still curious about morbid things and places that could be portentially dangerous, practically running at danger.

Day 04 Undyne and Astral Plains/Dreamland Welp I’d rather have had her with some other prompt, but now she has an anime showdown/faceoff with a mean monster that harasses a moldsmal.

Day 05 Asgore and Rocky Ruins Asgore had a trip down memory lane and visited the place where their castle used to be, before the war. Not much is left any more.

Day 06 Frisk and Ancient Tree They are still precariously looking for adventure. I saw this article about a 800 year-old Finnish tree, as soon as I saw that top I wanted to climb that, looks like a perfect spot to see everything around you and chill for a bit.

Day 07 Temmie and Nature Untouched I did some research in a nearby forest for this one, the sales-Temmie has made a nest in a tree that has fallen down in a storm. The soil is shallow before solid rock so trees have their roots mostly close to the surface, when they fall the roots go up as well. Temmie on the left is sitting on an ant nest lol. There are seven Temmies in total.

Day 08 Muffet and Crystal Coves Crystal Coves is either a place where crystal business is the main employer, a cove that has crystals, or a cove with crystal clear water, I think. I tried to implement them all just to make sure. Muffet has now made a business in making spider-products with glass expertise.

Day 09 Fuku Fire and Freezing Fjord Finally back to the ‘monsters travelling’ theme, Fuku is taking a longer trip and is currently on a boat by Norway.

Day 10 Gaster Blasters and Townsquare The blasters are on their own for whatever convenient reason, Pap’s one is figuring how things work by destroying them, Sans’ is... playing with local children. :D The fountain is loosely based on Havis Amanda.

Day 11 Nice Cream Guy & Shanty Town He’s travelling the world and selling nice cream! Definitely inspired by Beadle in BotW.

Day 12 Mettaton EX & Cemetery This combination took me a moment, Mettaton is a bit loud and showy for a cemetery. Then I remembered that Napstablook said they’re already dead when you try to kill them, so here Mettaton’s visiting haunted places and telling everyone about this wonderful body he got and where to get one if you’re interested in becoming physical again. I worked in a cemetery for one summer years ago, felt weird pulling those visual memories to this...

Day 13 Toriel & Hall of Deities In order to become a teacher I’d imagine she’d have to brush up her knowledge on lots of things that’ve happened on the surface, and here she’s in a secret underground place with some sacred scriptures or something, she reads them and writes down notes and then returns the scrolls.

Day 14 Annoying Dog & Volcanic Terrain Another weird combination, but eh, it’s the dog. It’s feeding bones to the vulkins and admiring danger up close.

Day 15 Monster Kid & Path Along the Water I made a huge area with different textures so I could try learn something new by scribbling around, and I’m really happy how the boulders on top of the waterfall and the water itself look like.

Day 16 Doggo & Ancient Altar Room Took a moment to come up with an idea, then I read Doggo likes squirrels. So now he’s travelling the world too, and he always has time and seeds for any squirrel population he discovers.

Day 17 Alphys & Summoning Altar I thought I’d not be drawing Mew Mew, but here was a perfect opportunity for that! Alphys isn’t travelling, but discovering new things in her home, humans have such interesting books! All of the Japanese text mean something; the bowl has the kanji for ’love’, books under it are Mew Mew manga, there’s two yury books, a reference to Free!, Digimon, Pokémon, Rose of Versailles, Natsume Book of Friends... and it’s fine if you don’t get the one that says ‘corn’.

Day 18 Photoshop Flowey & Windmills and Grasslands I think the modern wind generators look super cool. I tried to make Flowey as cute as possible so he’d be more fun to draw there, this is some dream stuff or alternate universe since Flowey did stay behind.

Day 19 Papyrus & Desserted Drylands I’m pretty sure that’s an accidental typo, but since it was Papyrus I wanted to roll with the new pun meaning. First thought was Papyrus somehow being in the drylands and dropping a huge cake, thus ’desserting’ it, but that would’ve been a bit mean. This cake is made with 100% organic sand (some of which he ground himself when grooming Rocky), the tiny cow ornaments are modified mouse skeletons. :) The chef hat would be straight but there wasn’t enough room on the page of the notebook I draw these on... I remembered he had a triangle on the battle armor, but didn’t remember what way it points so avoided it by replacing it with a heart. :D

Day 20 Sans & By the Beach Sans is getting some more sand for Papyrus with his shortcut, then he took a nap unfortunately close to the tide..? The shore felt a bit bare so I added some animals to keep him company. I h/c that animals don’t mind having monsters around unlike how they usually try to run away when a human is near.

Day 21 Shyren & Buried Statue(s) She’s doing that Disney princess thing where you sit down and start singing and all small animals within hearing range come to listen.

Day 22 Asriel & Underwater Temple Another dream thing since Flowey stayed behind, this is how he imagines the oceans look like outside.

Day 23 Lesser Dog & Market Place Some people have to learn the hard way to not trust a dog that has opposable thumbs.

Day 24 Box Mettaton & Merchant’s Store Any website run by a popular monster must get an insane amount of curious folk, which leads to ad revenue being a good way to fund the next tour. There’s some.. insider jokes there if you’re in any kind of website business.

Day 25 Rocky the pet rock & Eldritch Forest I don’t actually know what the latter means, looking at Google images it’s probably just a forest that’s very dark or something. Wanted to try a different perspective for a change. Rocky has a bowl of food there but I can’t really think of any non-sad reason for why it’s in this forest.

Day 26 Froggit & Inn in th Middle of Nowhere Had to take a break for one day, regardless I’m proud of myself on being consistent this far despite everything going on. I first only had the top Froggit and the bg in the sketch, and didn’t like how it looked. Somehow adding more Froggits made it look a lot better to me...

Day 27 Burgerpants & By the Docs Birsd with human arms and birds sitting like humans will never not be hilarious to me.

Day 28 Bratty and Catty & Deep in the Woods Tried to play with perspective with this one, it’s kind of the opposite of the Rocky drawing.

Day 29 God of Hyperdeath & Idle Portal I had a hard time coming up with anything for this, so now poor goat is somewhere in a completely white dimention and the only way out is not active, though he’s quite chill about it.

Day 30 Amalgamate & Abnormal Formations This and last one’s world I didn’t leave for the die to decide, I really wanted to do Tetris with Napstablook and out of the two still left this prompt suits Endogeny more anyway. There’s a forest in Poland where several of the trees bend to north like this.

Day 31 Napstablook & Puzzling Platforms Only one I did during morning, my hands shake more then so all the lines are more or less wobbly. Every Tetris piece has it’s own signature design except the L-shape which is just blank to keep it interesting. Napstablook is enjoying game music while inside the game, maybe ghosts can possess videogames..? This also shows the notebook I drew all of these in and the tools I used most of the time.

It’s hard to tell if I’ve improved at all when comparing these to 2017 inktober, I haven’t draw regularly through the year and the main focus point this time was on backgrounds and not so much on lines and characters. I did learn new things and that’s always exiting, I think my trees, glass and rocks look way better than before I started, and I did some progress in shading metal too. All of these took 3 hours or less to finish, some only took an hour. I didn’t need to erase pencils like last year because I used a trick where I placed the sketch under the notebook page and my tablet with 100% brightness and a white bg under them, and traced that with ink. The notebook paper is pretty thin, you can see the Amalgamate drawing’s clouds showing through in the Napstablook photo. Anyway, this was fun, and I think I’ll try do it next year too!

[torosiken]

What's your opinion on Sanji and Pudding?

hello anon i really appreciate you sending me an ask!! I don’t know if you meant my opinion on Sanji and Pudding or Sanji AND Pudding. But either way here is my thought on all of them:

Thoughts Regarding Sanji

*cough* all of you probably know that he is my *cough* favourite *cough* character in One Piece. There are sooo many stuffs I like and wanted to talk about about him.

First of all, what made me really interested in Sanji is because how he is written. He is portrayed as a ladiesman, but in same time he is just a huge ass dork who is so soft inside. Yet having anger issue, and many problematic traits like his sexism and all. It makes Sanji really a complex character and a 3 Dimentional one at that.

I have so many things to say about him and I am just trying so hard to cut it short in this talk because… God. I know it’s going to be so hard for me to do that. And in same time my mind went blank on what to really type here lmao

I liked him so much especially during the pre-TS. He show so much love to people and he is trying so hard to protect everyone he loves, even if he likes to deny that he only cares for the ladies. There are a lot of foreshadowing regarding his past, but I have to really say to be honest I didn’t enjoy writing of WCI as much as I thought I would have. However, I did get the satisfication of how Sanji is portrayed during the arc.

The writing was sloppy and all, but he react just like how a human would have in that situation.

I actually dislike how Oda piled too much things on him. It’s kind of weird how he has an “extra backstory” while the other Mugiwara doesn’t. But the writing on Sanji as a character is not disappointing me at all. He sounds human. It’s the writing of the story that disappoint me than the character itself.

I kind of wish his pervertness doesn’t go off as a simple “joke” that everyone in OP let it slide off. It’s fine Sanji is a pervert and problematic bc that’s just how human works in real life. However I really want him to not be treated “fine” for that in OP itself. That’s why I quite enjoyed when everyone called out my sanji in ask-sanji for being a pervert or homophobic. I want him to embarrass himself.

I see Sanji as a relatable character and I just hope future arcs doesn’t disappoint me as much as WCI does. At least the core of his nature stays on the line.

Thoughts on Pudding

Let me tell you just HOW WEAK I am around cute girls with cute actions and when she appeared for the first time… fuck. I am hella weak. Take me pls //shot

It kinda fade as soon as Oda pulled plot twist within plot twists. Pudding is just a mess of a writing. I know he probably planned her to be something else. But, God. This writing is just too sloppy. I get the idea and I liked the idea of it. And “Evil” Pudding looks cool, but it’s just… too off for me. Starting from cute into evil into the dokidoki? It’s just too much. It felt enfoced. And I have to say my interest into Pudding actually dropped really fast because the messy writing.

I don’t know how to really put it in words. One part of me actually is fucking Gay^TM for her because GOD she is cute and she is amazing, and the other part of me is just too disappointed with her rushed writing along with the rest of WCI arc. Like Vinsmokes… god. I have the same mixed feeling about Vinsmokes.

I kind of feel Oda is kind of focusing more on Sanji’s character writing in this arc so he pretty much went too sloppy on everything else. I actually liked how Sanji “ignored” her after the whole ordeal. The only Pudding writing I could actually enjoy is probably the last part when she wiped Sanji’s memories on the last request(presumably a kiss) and she ran away, thus cried aftermath. It felt more human than the rest of the arc writing for Pudding.

A part of me actually liked the idea if Pudding’s first persona was the real one than we go back and forth on stuffs. Maybe the “evil” part could be pulled out a little bit better if it has more build up. I like how Pudding still point the gun and shot on Sanji after she calmed down from crying, even if the whole incident still kind of stupid :/

But my biggest disappointment actually on how she barely use her power in the end of the arc. There was actually more chances than that. But oh well, in the end I couldn’t really hate her as much because I am weak for her cuteness even if her swooning-then-switching-to-tsun!evil-jokes are really forced. I guess that’s that? At least the characters in the manga itself already got tired from her switching personalities joke that everyone including Sanji ignored it in the end.

Thoughts on Sanji and Pudding

Relationship wise, I have to say… they are very cute! And I wouldn’t lie that I do ship them. Even if I don’t ship them as strong, I do ship them. (Note that I use the word “ship” to describe any kind of interaction i like to imagine that could work between two characters)

Sanji is always been swooning on ladies, and I have my own extra headcanon why he often turn himself into a Love-Cook mode. Just as you can see when he was in stress, he told himself to be the love-cook he is to drown himself out of the bad thoughts. It’s actually a quite effective method to focus on one thing you like and ignore the others, even if that technique is actually still bad on your mentality. Sanji does tend to “run” from his problems into the “joy” he can find in something else he likes: the beauty of ladies.

It’s just cute to see finally a girl actually swoon backs at him, and then what? He actually “ignored” her.

Sanji is the person who likes to appreciate a woman’s beauty- but he mostly does it for himself to be “happy”. He likes seeing the response to that, but mostly he is doing it for himself- focusing on what is good and ignoring what is bad, so he could be less stressed- when he could care less about the person he is facing all in same time, yet caring about them because the person is another human being. -at least that’s my headcanon for him.

Pudding, on the other hand- experienced issue that no one actually ever opened up that they liked her and fell hard into Sanji for that. While I dislike the buildup, the result is actually really cute?

The writing for their interaction aftermath is kinda forced, especially that whole interaction double with urgency to bake a cake and the whole stuffs. But at least I love the closure to that.

Being pirates, they would separate ways and go on their own path. It’s not a happy end, but it’s not a bad end. Maybe they would meet again, and maybe they would not. But their interaction is a whole unique one I couldn’t help myself from shipping them.