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ellenent · 1 year

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Triangle Strategy spoilers!

Just finished playing the Golden route! Finally got my happy ending ;w;

If they showed us more about the wedding I would cry lol but yeah, I was so happy!! I know maybe this ending is too optimistic, but after seeing the other endings, I don't care lol

Also, I saw this and I'm like Anna is so short? kdjfkdj She looks like a child

Or Benedict is too tall? I wish we had the height chart for all of them, didn't know Serenoa is also higher than Frederica (in my head they had the same height)

I was wondering if they would reunite, I was happy that they did! Of course I would prefer like a scene where they meet again and talk "hey I'm your mother" (and I was expecting something like this in the battle with Lyla, but the dialog was kinda vague). And now I feel kinda bad for killing her in Frederica's route ops But Anna can still adopt Quahuag, she already got Decimal adopted lol I think I missed the final side story of him, but it's okay I think

I really liked the part that Serenoa finds another path option; I tried to think for myself what the solution would be, and I was pretty satisfied with the plan!

He looks so sad and small lol

The part where they divide the regiments caught me off guard; at first I was in panic, because I was so used to my favorite units, that I wasn't sure if I would succeed in the battles. Not knowing how they would go, which characters would fit the best the strategy and not being able to change them later got me nervous lol but I tried to balance all regiments (put at least one mage in each, one archer, etc) and leveled up the characters I didn't like to use that much (and later realize some were great actually!). The Frederica's regiment was the one without a unit, I never got to recruit Cordelia, so If I replayed the game again in the future, I would go for her! But the Benedict's battle was the hardest, at least I knew a strategy that would work best because of that one battle in the first chapters of the game.

And I really like how the battles went! I liked that even I couldn't edit the units, if you got a good strategy, you can work it out! I think I just didn't like that I couldn't edit the rings each character got (like Benedict had one that I wished to remove and give to a character in another regiment, so yeah makes sense we couldn't do this). Anyway I was happy to get out of my comfort zone for a bit!

The revelation of the hierophant was a little weird for me, because I already didn't expect it to be a person lol actually I didn't even think something was behind the curtain lmao to see it was a robot was the least of my problems. The battle against Idore was way harder on Frederica's route, this one was pretty okay after I killed all the automatons. I liked that all the characters had something to say to him lol

Overall, I really really enjoyed this game! I like tactics and political games like Fire Emblem, but I liked this even better; it feels more realistic, the gameplay is harder too (at least for me that likes to over level my units, TriStrat said I couldn't lol), the fact you have to make decisions all the time and they all have consequences is pretty nice and made my anxious lol convincing the others to vote for the path you wanted made me feel good lol I was a little afraid of playing this because I didn't like Octopath Traveler that much, so it was a great surprise for me! :D

I haven't done Benedict or Roland's route yet, but now I'm at 100 hours and I feel I must play another game right now lol and I don't know if I have the heart to do them actually lol I want to make some fanart aaaa I already read lots of fanfic, avoiding spoilers, but now I'm free lol

#triangle strategy #tristrat #just me rambling #it was the first game I finished this year and it might be one of my favorites!#long post #I have more Thoughts about this game but right now that's it lol #it's 1am time to sleep

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animeyanderelover · 3 years

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I also wanted to ask... I really liked the ‘other world reader’ head cannons that you did and I was hoping if you could do the same with the chimera ant (Meruem and his royal guards)

Again other world reader? Wow, this really is a trend.

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, obsessiveness, possessiveness, delusional thoughts, isolating, locking away, killing, threatening

Other world s/o

🐈🎻💥👑All of them actually sensed you even before you were really there, feeling suddenly this incredible explosion of mysterious power, the sky suddenly changing color. And the royal guards instantly were ready to protect their king. But as weird as it sounded, they also felt a bit scared. They had never felt such power before, not to mention that whatever this was, it definitely wasn’t Nen. What was this power?

🐈🎻💥👑But as fast as the sky had changed it’s color and had set this unknown force free, just as fast it all disappeared in the blink of an eye, everything suddenly turning back to normal. With one small thing, Pitou seeing and sensing it first. They had seen everything very clear, their senses being higher than Shaiapouf’s or Youpi’s. They had seen that the sky had spit something out, falling right into their En. Apparently a human, falling right to the face of the earth. And the royal guards just watched, on still high alert. But it didn’t look like the human was conscious, Pouf already considering the problem as solved. They would be dead meat the moment they would hit the ground. They would just bring the corpse to the king.

🐈🎻💥👑That’s what they had thought. But the human didn’t die. Because seconds before they could smash the ground, they suddenly slowed down a bit, still falling pretty hard, but not enough to die. Bringing the royal guards back to being on alarm. Was this a Nen ability? It wasn’t, Pitou obviously would have sensed it that this hadn’t been Nen. What was it then? Some sort of technology you had used? Humans couldn’t fly. But now that Pitou took a closer look they discovered something interesting. You somehow felt different. It was hard to describe, you didn’t have any Nen or something like this, but the feeling you gave off. It felt...different from other humans they had encountered so far.

🐈🎻💥👑Their king obviously wanted to know what was going on, being pretty impatient about what had just happened and what this energy had been all about, demanding an explanation. And the royal guards explained everything, including the human that had fallen from the sky and magically slowed down, Shaiapouf instantly telling his majesty that they would take care of the new threat, killing it as long as it remained unconscious. And that was where the king disagreed, having sensed that whatever this energy had been, it hadn’t been Nen. Not only that, but Pitou’s explanation that this human had felt somehow different had awakened his curiosity. He wanted it alive, at least until he had found out what he had wanted to know. Shaiapouf obviously disagreed with this, begging his king to just let him kill this human. Komogi was already a big obstacle for him. Another human was the last thing he wants his emperor to get in contact with. But Meruem’s word was final, ordering Neferpitou to bring him the human.

🐈🎻💥👑Meruem, Shaiapouf and Menthuthuyoupi returned to the throne room, waiting for Pitou’s arrival which didn’t take too long. Only minutes later Pitou returned, looking quite satisfied, the human being thrown over their shoulders. And without much care they threw you done, explaining that they had been so kind to wake you up and that you had rambled some weird stuff about why you had suddenly fallen into this “Anime”, also saying whilst looking with a spark of worry yet curiosity that you had apparently known all their names. And this wasn’t good, at least in Pouf’s opinion. You had known them without him even ever realizing this threat?! Shame on him!! What kind of royal guard was he?! Meruem on the other hand was more interested in how you knew him the names of his royal guards. He had never seen you, he was sure of that. And he was quick to confront you, asking you with his tail being dangerously close to you from where you knew his royal guards names and why you had called him Meruem. What were you? And from where had you come from?

🐈🎻💥👑It was for you a situation to cry about and you did cry a bit, knowing that he might not believe you and end up piercing your head. But lying wouldn’t be useful either, so you told him, or to be accurate stuttered, the truth out. And this caused different reactions. Shaiapouf was enraged, yelling at you that you shouldn’t lie to his king like this. Did you think that his king was dumb?! Meruem on the other hand just stared at you, judging whether you were lying or not. His intuition was very sharp, not getting the feeling that you were lying to him. And that definitely caused his interest to grow in you. He had never really thought about whether other worlds really existed or not. Sure, there were countless theories, but the possibility that you were from another world fascinated him, the thought that he would be the first and only one to explore such a secret to his world made him somewhat excited. Had you any proof that you were from another world?

🐈🎻💥👑You did, pulling with shaking hands your phone out and showing him different pictures, including him and his royal guards, some even showing him and Komogi playing Shogi. And Meruem was sure that some of the photos from him, most likely fanart or screenshots from mobage cards, were scenarios he had never done before. It was enough for him to believe you, Shaiapouf on the other hand searching desperately for an excuse to prove that you were just a liar. That you just wanted to trick the king. So when you suggested out of nowhere that he could use his Spiritual Message to convince himself that you weren’t lying, he was shocked?! How did a disgraceful creature like you knew his abilities?! Nevertheless, he had planned on doing it anyways, letting his scales scatter around you and allowing him to see your emotions. And he would have lied if he would have said he didn’t feel despair when seeing the emotion honesty. You weren’t lying, giving Meruem the final confirmation that you had spoken the truth.

🐈🎻💥👑It was Meruem who decided to keep you, feeling excited to have a universe traveler in his palms. He would be most likely the only one who would owe someone like you and a king should have after all very rare things under his possession. And you were one of a kind. Neferpitou approved, they themself being very curious about you. Menthuthuyoupi hadn’t really an opinion about you back then, just doing as the king acted. And Shaiapouf blamed himself. A catastrophe!! Two humans near his royalty!! How could he call himself a royal guard when he couldn’t even keep all the scum away from his king?!?!

🐈🎻💥👑At first life was pretty hard for you, Meruem expecting you to listen to him and follow his every wishes. When he asked you questions, mainly about your world and you, you had to answer them all, no matter how private they were. You had to be always with him, no matter what. And you had to treat him like a king and know your place. Or else he would punish you. Neferpitou was most likely the guard Meruem ordered to keep a eye on you. Not only so you wouldn’t try anything, but also because he knew that Pouf wasn’t the most fond of you. Youpi was the one who acted the most respectful to you, being very polite.

👑And Meruem was also the one who became obsessed with you at first. It was most likely due to the fact that he had considered himself as superior, believing that he knew about everything there was to know in this world. But there wasn’t. A simple weak human, not even requiring the cells needed to activate Nen, was the thing that held the key to one of the hugest secrets in his world. It was intriguing for him, knowing that he was the only one who owned someone like you. Whilst life with him was at first pretty hard, over time he became much more softer with you, mainly due to the fact that you teached him, next to Komogi, a lot more human traits. After some time he even wanted you to call him Meruem instead of king or majesty. He liked that name, especially when it came from your lips. He wanted you always near him and after some time even allowed you to spend some time with Komogi, letting you watch the matches and taking pleasure in teaching you how to play games like Shogi. It didn’t matter that much to him that you were bad at it, just encouraging you to keep trying.

🐈Neferpitou was the next one to become obsessed because their king had formed an obsession with you. But even before that they had displayed a huge interest for you, their cat-like curiosity getting the best of them. They felt more than just honored when their majesty chose them as your personal guardian, taking their role more than just serious. Most of the time you were with the king, but there were moments where Pitou got some time alone with you and these times were used to ask you some questions about your world. Pitou would be in this scenario a lot less cruel than as if their king would be already dead. Simply because the king ordered to not hurt you. And Pitou is undyingly loyal to their king, following his orders. They took over time a clear liking to the fact that you found their tail and ears so appealing, even allowing you to pet them and pull on their ears or tail. Since Neferpitou also possessed the most medic knowledge, they were the ones who always took care of you if you hurt yourself.

💥Youpi was the third one who fell for you. He had never really had an opinion about you before. He had followed orders from his king. His king had wanted you and he had accepted that. And as long as you didn’t possess a threat he had never had a problem with you. So his obsession would root from the adoration he often sees the king displaying with you. His majesty looks happy with you, making Youpi fond of you since you make his royalty happy. And this will lead to his obsession, the more he watches the more he would start feeling something for you. He has no human DNA in him, making him never really realize his feelings for you. He would just start protecting you from the distance, not really minding that Pitou spends the most time with you. As long as he knows that you make his king happy and you yourself are healthy and happy, he’s happy as well.

🎻Shaiapouf, the most extreme Yandere here, is the one who would fall the last for you. He saw you at first just as another thing that would make his king weak, even worse than Komogi. He would need a bit of time, where Meruem and Neferpitou will be very careful with him, until he would finally start accepting you and starting to view you as the only human worthy being with his king. And you can believe that when he found out about his feelings he threw a drama tantrum, crying and whining about how disgusting he was, daring to not only fall for a human, but for his king’s darling as well. How could he dare?! At the beginning he would be a bit of a stricter type, expecting you to be the most perfect you can be for his king, often lecturing you about your behavior. But overtime he would start getting more and more delusional and more and more into worshipper mode until he’s reached his full obsession. And from there he would start envying Pitou’s spot, wishing to be in their position. Would try about everything to gain your trust and proving to Meruem that he can take good care of you, preparing your food, making your bed, buying you clothes and being always there when you wish for something. Would be over the moon if you would compliment him or and feels also a certain pride, despite knowing he shouldn’t, that you like his wings so much. He isn’t worthy of such honor! Would be also the type to try to isolate you from everyone except his king of course.

🐈🎻💥👑Meruem would figure it out on his own, the interest his royal guards seemed to have formed with you. Let’s be honest, Shaiapouf probably even told him himself, sobbing for forgiveness for such a sin and earned most likely a slap from Meruem’s tail, crashing into the wall. Meruem isn’t someone to share and Shaiapouf was prepared to take his punishment. But then you interfered, begging for forgiveness and asking Meruem to not kill Pouf. And that led to Shaiapouf crying even harder, wailing that you from all people shouldn’t ask for forgiveness, especially not for such lowlife like him.

🐈🎻💥👑It will still just work out in Meruem’s favor here since all of the royal guards only listen to him and you, but he’ll always have the last and final word. The royal guards wouldn’t get much private time since you spend the biggest part of your time with Meruem. Menthuthuyoupi prefers anyways to adore you from a distance. Pitou as your personal guard gets some time alone, liking to play around with you like a cat with it’s owner. And Pouf, over time being able to rank as your personal servant, would be the one to wake you up in the morning, serve you breakfast, play the violin if you ask him too and take care of your wishes, also being ready to prepare everything if you should tell that you want to learn something new. Meruem would be actually really happy whenever you want to learn something new, liking it when he can teach you, or watching how you practice on your own. Would feel really mad whenever Pouf teaches you something, leading him to order Shaiapouf to leave you. Shaiapouf would be from all the royal guards the most eager to spend time with you.

🐈🎻💥👑But neither Menthuthuyoupi, Shaiapouf nor Neferpitou would ever dare to touch you or kiss you, that right only reserved for their king. Meruem would overtime force you into these kind of things, after he learned that people tend to do this. He would often demand you to sit on his lap whilst sitting on his throne or hold your hand. The only kind of affection the royal guards will get is when you touch them and all of them would absolutely love this.

🐈🎻💥👑No one is allowed to touch you, scratch you or make you cry. You’re kept away from all the other Chimera Ants, no one of those four wanting you near uncultivated foot soldiers. That does not mean that some might know about you, but they would just never see you. And they better do not talk bad about you because Meruem will find out about it, his royal guards reporting everything dutifully to him. And that person will get executed in a cruel way.

🐈🎻💥👑Komogi would be your only friend and only person allowed next to you. Meruem feels sympathy for Komogi and likes her, the only reason she’s allowed to be your friend. And judging by the way how she acts towards Meruem, she would be totally respectful and dorky around you, using honorifics since you’re the king’s partner. Not everyone is that appreciating of this though, Shaiapouf disliking Komogi and seeing her as a danger for you and the king.

#yandere hunter x hunter #yandere hxh #yandere meruem #yandere neferpitou #yandere shaiapouf #yandere menthuthuyoupi

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thetrashsean · 3 years

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“Why wasn’t Life is Strange 2 as popular as the first game?”

A lot of people like myself have wondered what exactly made Life is Strange 2 go so relatively unnoticed compared its predecessor, Life is Strange 1. And when you think about it, you may come up with the few obvious generic answers, such as the lack of Max and Chloe and just the original cast in general. However, I think there was a lot more at play here that prevented Life is Strange 2 from reaching the amount of success/popularity the first game had. So I want to take the time and break down what exactly happened to Life is Strange 2 and the things that hurt the game’s ability to really connect with the audience of LiS1.

Disclaimer: We do NOT know how well Life is Strange 2 was for Dontnod and if it was a success or not. No sales numbers have been given out to the public so there’s no way of knowing for sure how well the game did. What we do know is that LiS2 did not receive the same amount of attention/popularity as the first game. That can’t be denied, it simply didn’t. However, based on the fact that Dontnod have recently announced they are working on six new games at the moment and are now expanding their studio, even if LiS2 was a “flop” it doesn’t seem to have had much of an effect on them (most likely due to the success of Vampyr). Dontnod is going to be fine either way. Another thing I want to mention is that this is not a anti-LiS2 post and that I am a fan of the game. I’d consider myself a pretty big fan actually. I have my problems with the game of course and don’t agree with a lot of the writing decisions but I enjoyed the game very much overall. But for the sake of this post I will try to be as unbiased as possible, giving out only what I’ve observed when it comes to reactions from the fandom on different websites and forums. So with that all being said, let’s dive in to this.

Here I will be listing the many different reasons as to why Life is Strange 2 failed to reach the same amount of popularity as LiS1 or even BtS managed to achieve. This list isn’t in any particular order but some reasons are bigger/more important than others.

For some background, there was a lot of hype going into Life is Strange 2. The teaser trailer for it with the cop car trended at #2 on YouTube, a huge feat for the series. It generated immense amount of views and comments in a short period in time, completely surpassing Before the Storm’s announcement trailer in just a few weeks. So what exactly happened to all that hype? Where did everybody go? Well, let’s break everything down.

1. The lack of Max and Chloe: Yes I said that this list wouldn’t be in any particular order in terms of importance but I think it’s obvious this one is one of, if not the biggest reason as to why LiS2 failed to match LiS1’s popularity. When the protagonists Sean and Daniel were first revealed, the reception was pretty divisive. Specifically, a very vocal part of the community were baffled and disappointed at the lack of Max and Chloe present within the trailer and subsequently the game itself. This instantly turned off a lot of people from the game, as they couldn’t connect with the new characters or simply didn’t want to. At that point in the franchise Max and Chloe as well as the original cast from the first game had been the face of the series for almost three years. It’s understandable why it was hard for people to just…move on. To this day people are still asking for Max and Chloe to return. The Life is Strange subreddit is still dominated with Max and Chloe fanart. Whenever the social media accounts for Life is Strange post anything Max and Chloe related it gets way more attention compared to a post about Sean and Daniel. Whenever a post online goes viral about Life is Strange you can bet it’s most likely about Max and Chloe. Hell the only reason why episode 5 of Life is Strange 2 trended on Tumblr was because of the fucking picture of Max and Chloe. On the releas day of episode 5 of LiS2 the top post on the subreddit was the Max and Chloe picture. It was almost as if that one photo of them completely overshadowed the entire episode. Point is, Life is Strange 2 lost a lot of momentum the moment it was revealed Max and Chloe would not be present. Case closed, let’s move on.

2. The release schedule: Words cannot describe how frustrating the release schedule was for LiS2 when it came to it’s episodes. For those reading this who didn’t follow LiS2 until the game was finished, each episode took around 3-4 months to be released. This was because Dontnod bit off a bit more than they could chew with the road trip story in having to create new locations and character models from scratch. The reason why this wasn’t a problem for LiS1 was because Max was for the most part always in the same locations around the same characters (I’m pretty sure you roam around Chloe’s house like 4 times throughout the season), which made development a lot easier since the devs could just reuse a lot of the assets. Unfortunately, this wasn’t possible for LiS2 due to the nature of it’s story. The wait times between each episode made a lot of people leave the fandom due to loosing interest or simply forgetting about the game altogether. This also impacted youtubers/streamers as many of them either stopped coming back to play the new episodes or they’d not be as connected as they were in the previous episode due to the amount of time that had passed. One of the reasons why LiS1 gained so much popularity was because of youtubers/streamers and how they would bring in their audience and would pretty much make them fans of the series. With quite a handful of youtubers/streamers quitting LiS2, the game was not able to draw in as much of an audience as previous games did. This is how detreminetal the release schedule was for LiS2.

3. The marketing (or lack thereof): Square Enix really fucked up on this aspect. Due to the ridiculous wait times you would think Square Enix would try and advertise the game heavily when a new episode was about to be released, right? Well they didn’t. Not at all actually. Throughout the games release schedule from September 2018 up to December 2019, I had not seen a single ad for the game. Nothing on YouTube, nothing on reddit or any other websites, it was like Square Enix had completely forgotten about the game’s existence. Now don’t get me wrong, SE did do a few things with LiS2 like starting up the community series on their YouTube channel and also the dev updates that came after episode 1 (that stopped after episode 2 for some reason) but these went relatively unnoticed to people outside of the fandom and did pretty much nothing. I believe SE was trying to wait until the game was fully complete with all of it’s episodes released before actually marketing the game (and they DID start advertising the game after episode 5 came out) but that’s just WAAAY too long to go without any type of advertisement. I understand marketing teams have budgets and what not, but you’re telling me there was no way for SE to market each episode in anyway as they were about to be released? Seems a bit ridiculous, don’t you think?

4. The road trip story: I completely understand why Dontnod wanted to branch out and do something different with the story of Life is Strange 2 and I respect them for stepping out of their comfort zones. However, it can’t be denied that the road trip story where characters are cycled in and out as Sean and Daniel make their way to Mexico was a very…questionable decision. Seeing as how LiS1 was loved for it’s world filled with a reoccurring cast of characters that developed as the story went on, it’s really easy to understand why LiS2 was so off-putting for a lot of fans. It was off-putting for me, even. It just…wasn’t fun having to leave these truly interesting characters behind because the plot demanded it. This left a lot of characters feeling underdeveloped to many people and by the time you meet new characters you already know they’re most likely gonna be gone soon anyways, so it made it even harder to connect with them. Couple this with the fact that LiS2 lacked any type of mystery unlike LiS1, speculation and discussion fizzled out a few weeks after each episode was released. LiS1 kept people speculating and wondering about what would happen next, while LiS2 left a lot of people struggling to care.

5. Politics: Yeeeeaaaaah I think I had to put this somewhere on the list. While many of the people who tease and mock how LiS2 handled its political topics were most likely not fans of the series anyway (the type of people who called LiS1 “Life is Tumblr” and hate Chloe), I do think it’s important to realize that some people just don’t want politics in their games, period. I’ve seen people online come out and say that while they agreed with what the writers were saying when it came to the political topics, it overall still came off very forced and one-sided to them, lacking any type of nuance or subtlety. I could write an entire essay discussing if the politics in LiS2 were handled well and whatnot but this is not that post so I’ll just leave it at that.

6: Lack of a prominent female cast/wlw: This is a bit more tricky to talk about (for the record the person writing this is a black gay guy) but I will try and write about this the best way I can. For many women, specifically queer women, Life is Strange was a series they could expect representation from. Max, Chloe, Rachel, and Steph are all popular characters amongst the fandom and even other wlw ships such as Marshfield, Chasefield, Chaseprice, etc are popular. So when LiS2 was revealed to be about two (hispanic) males, the queer women within the community were understandably upset. It felt like DN were simply throwing away the community that for the most part made up the entire fandom. At the time I simply found the situation ridiculous and overblown as many people were dismissing Sean and Daniel as “generic straight males” (even though it turned out Sean was bisexual in the end) before really getting to know them. However, looking back I totally get why people were upset. A lot of the fanart/fanfiction that was made for the LiS series was mostly created by queer women, so when the franchise pretty much stopped giving them representation, they left in search of other media (like She-Ra, which honestly has better wlw rep anyway). LiS2 is also mostly male dominated in terms of its cast, and features no queer women as well, which is really disappointing in my opinion.

7. Price: This one is pretty simple. When Life is Strange 2 was first released the full season costed $40. This was a pretty big jump in comparison to LiS1’s $20 price tag (original price was $25 however) and BtS’s $16. Obviously people would be more skeptical about buying a sequel that is pretty much double the price of its predecessor and has completely new characters. With the pretty mixed reception from gaming communities I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people saw the price and decided to either watch a playthrough or simply not check out the game at all. With the first episode now free the base price has been lowered to around $30-32 I believe so yeah.

8. Daniel Diaz: Some people just don’t like kids, and I wouldn’t be surprised if people grew easily frustrated with Daniel early on and once he got more irrational and bratty as the story progressed they just stopped playing altogether. Even if you do like kids, or at least don’t mind them like myself, Daniel can still be quite a pain.

9. Not having control of the powers: This one is honestly really disappointing and I know it was to a lot of other people as well. In LiS1 Max had the ability to rewind time and do certain scenarios and conversations over and that basically acted as the more interesting gameplay segments. In LiS2 Sean doesn’t have the power, his brother Daniel does. This leads to the gameplay feeling much more boring and mundane. There are also no interesting puzzles this time around, most likely because Dontnod didn’t know how to implement them without the rewind power so they just…didn’t even attempt to add any. The power itself, telekinesis, is also much less interesting compared to rewinding time, according to a lot of people.

SO YEAH that’s basically it for me. I know this probably came off a bit rambly/incoherent but I tried my best to be as clear as I possibly could. I don’t doubt there are other reasons at play as to why LiS2 failed to meet LiS1’s success (such as liscensed music not being quite as good as LiS1) but I think I hit the main points I believe were key reasons. And the thing is, there isn’t just one main reason why LiS2 didn’t do as well as LiS1. It’s overall very unfortunate so many things went wrong with it that ended up making people lose interest in it. I think the lack of Max and Chloe hurt the game the most right off the bat, but the other reasons just led it to do even worse. Oh well.

I hope any of the people who read this enjoyed it (it was a BITCH to write). I’ve been wanting to get my thoughts down about this for SO long but just never had the motivation/time but I finally did it!

Again, thanks for reading! If you have any disagreements or just thoughts in general don’t be afraid to reply or dm me about it and I’ll be sure to reply! Now back to reblogging Marco posts….

#lis2 #lis #life is strange #life is strange 2 #max caulfield #chloe price #sean diaz #daniel diaz #lis2 spoilers #pricefield #amberprice

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sanchoyo · 3 years

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danny phantom, season 3 episodes 3-6 thoughts!

see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3

-johnny was actually pretty civil with danny and left when he asked! thats nice. also, SKULKER?? HAD A FRAMED PICTURE OF EMBER?? oooo fuck wait had they established they were a Thing Before?? I dont think so. thats weird. its like that country boy/goth girl meme lmfao. I think i am going to choose to ignore this new info and pretend I didnt hear it. 100% unrelated to the jazz/ember fanart I already drew and posted....😳

-LADIES NIGHT EPISODE THIS IS WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT. wish it didnt really center around the guys or them being pissed at them, but. willing to bet this was written by men lol

-THEY ERASED ALL THE MEN??? meanwhile, jack and danny are fishing at. silent hill or something. im glad jack is trying to read a parenting book and making an Attempt. (theyre at lake erie, but, they made it actually eerie...thats fun)

-the girls alt outfits...cute. EMBER MADE A NEW SONG TOO!!! kinda. jazz being one of the backup singers and being AWFUL. NOOOO

-'how are we going to get kitty to blow a kiss?' 'she'll have to think there are still some males in town!' ...i dont know how to break it to you, but I dont know that a 100% het girl would wish for all men to Begone. I think. I mean im not a het or a girl so I dont really know for sure. she Is probably Bi tho. esp having the other ladies in town chanting NO MEN!!! excitedly............(then again, the kiss is to get Rid of men, so, she probably would have blown it at the ladies only if they were actively trying to attack/stop them, so...I MEAN. THE DRESSING LIKE DANNY BIT WAS SO EXTRA)

-I feel like an all female cast ep couldve been way way way way cooler than that was. like. why was it still somehow all about Men. ...anyway. (where was valerie...)

-next ep opens with the observants, and, way way more of them than I expected...existed? I mean I guess them being a council/jury of some kind is what I expected from their first appearance (bc at that time they were basically TELLING clockwork to kill danny, not asking,, so I figured they had SOME kind of authority) but. there were so many. anyway, here goes vlad! letting his own hubris go brrrr. releasing a weather ghost for political gain! #justvladthings

-okay say what you will about him (he IS an asshole) but having an umbrella with his own face on it and more prepared to share is SUPER FUNNY. and him being fanned by huge wads of money by his bodyguards. SO ineffective but so Dramatic. He UNDERSTANDS that if youre rich you need to be. you know. obnoxious and kinda eccentric about it! fuckign hate when rich people are boring about it. I would trust vlad with nothing except to not be a boring rich asshole who wears...fucking khaki or some shit. man knows his Presentation Skills. and that 'V' chair in his mayoral office. is that fucking embroidered?

-maddie get your MAN PLEEEEASSSE. IM SO EMBARRASSED FOR HER. the way jack stays simping for this man. in FRONT OF HIS WIFE!!!! ...my god its like a love triangle. jack clearly loves vlad, who loves maddie, who loves jack. jack fenton is at the very least bi, right................. this is an OBSESSION . 'THE V MAN COMETH'???? i...my god. (also, on a serious note, to have a friend THIS SUPPORTIVE...and still be SUCH A DICK TO HIM (TRYING TO KILL HIM AND STEAL HIS WIFE??) NOT COOL VLAD. JACK IS YOUR 1 AND /ONLY/ HYPE MAN. if someone loved and supported me THIS HARD...LIKE. CMON DUDE.

-STOMP the fucking GAS, JACK

-this would make a great shirt design, looks like a metal band design! we love The Maelstrom

-oh, so vlad did in fact get a mansion in amity park. and its purple! good color choice! not as flashy as a CASTLE or MURDER CABIN, but still pretty eccentric, which I appreciate.

-...vlad knows the difference between picasso and da vinci? in the ep last post where we were watching him fail at conquering every historical time ever he didnt seem to know history well enough to like. be effective...was vlad taking art history at college?? (was he an art MAJOR??? we never DID KNOW WHAT HE WENT TO SCHOOL FOR. I kinda assumed business because in the masters of time ep he was still rich without ghost powers so he had to have..known something about business or something, right...but also, art and or theater FITS HIS PERSONALITY. possibly also something science-y, I guess, but I always felt like he got roped into that, esp how pessimistic he was about the ghost portal in the flashbacks to college, like, i felt like he was just there for maddie and was uninterested/un-invested at the time...)

-THIS GHOST JUST ELECTROCUTED MADDIE (THE CAT) BITCH!! THATS MY FAVORITE MADDIE!!! vlad going after vortex and being ~shocked~ .....WHEN. WHEN WILL YOU LEARN. THAT YOUR ACTIONS. HAVE CONSEQUENCES!!!

-the way this random man with a camera sees the mayor laying in an alley covered in TRASH AND DECIDES TO TAKE A PICTURE HAHAH

*snap* this ones going in my cringe compilation!

-vlad 'if we're going to defeat vortex, we're going to have to do it together!' *immediately dips after dropping danny off in front of vortex* JKASDFHKJHJKN

-DANNY CAN DUPLICATE!!! ...he couldnt even attack with it, but he DID IT!!! INTO (4) OF HIMSELF!!! SO PROUD!!!!!!!!!!

-'THE ROLLER COASTER EMOTIONS OF A TEENAGER THREATEN MY PLANS!' ...0 self awareness of his own dramatic moodiness. incredible, how dumb this man is. its very close to circling around to endearing, if he was less of an asshole. at least its very very funny to see danny shooting him with tiny lightning bolts anytime he's even slightly irritated! vlad you should be nice to danny anyway. this is what you GET

-...making sandwiches and ice cream and playing video games with your nephew is a totally normal thing. WHY is vlad acting like this is the end of the world. if you were a GOOD UNCLE YOU WOULD ALREADY BE DOING THESE THINGS!!! bitch I make my nephew food all the time and dont forget what he does and doesnt like. if u didnt know danny didnt want tomatoes, thats on u. if u, a grown adult, are gonna piss of the 14 yr old by not letting him win, u deserve to have to pay for the arcade machines he ruins because he now has uncontrollable storm powers because YOU THREW HIM INTO A FIGHT WITH THE STORM GHOST. fuck u vlad. paypal me $400,000 while ur at it tho. (also, gamer vlad confirmed)

-VLAD CAN COOK THOUGH???! I assumed he had...people working for him that did that. I mean. billionaires usually dont do that. then again, we've only seen those vultures working for him (and I guess the dairy king was AT his old mansion, but it was never really clarified if he worked there...I think he probably just Hung Out and they Enjoyed Cheeses Together. thats what I think, I dont think a KING would be working for anyone and also the dairy king was nice <3) but then again he would be a private person and we cant have anyone accidentally finding Ghostly Things, so...still, that's hilarious. pour one out for that really cute banana split that got ruined 2 seconds later

-vlad just fucking picking danny up and THROWING HIM AT VORTEX TWICE WITHIN LIKE A MINUTE. JUST ABSOLUTELY LAUNCHING HIM. BITCH THATS MY SON BE CAREFUL!!! HES GOT ORGANS AND THINGS!!!!

-danny seeing those animal commercials and feeling sad is the biggest 2000s throwback so far. i legitimately had to change the channel or walk out of the room when those came on bc id CRY AND BE SAD ABOUT THEM FOR DAYS AFTER. fuck those commercials and fuck that IN THE ARMMMS OF AN ANGELLLL song 😭

-'vlads ego almost got the town destroyed!' yes danny thats the entire episode. the entire series anytime vlad shows up honestly. this episode was just him being really embarrassing the entire time, and, me laughing about it. 10/10 would laugh at him again

-NEXT EP WE HAVE A SHAPESHIFTING GHOST?? I've said it before but shapeshifting is the power I would want when asked those 'what superpower do you want' questions...its the Best power! this guy looks like a homestuck character. ive never read homestuck but thats the vibe

-I love every time we see tuckers family, they are by far the most functional family. and dash has a lil chihuahua!!! named pookie!!! i am crying (I've had 3 chihuahuas, so I am very biased, but...) AND HE WATCHES THE ROMANCE CHANNEL WITH POOKIE. POOKIE I WILL DIE FOR YOU YOU SWEET LITTLE BABY.

-danny can lift a bus! I shouldn't be surprised, but i am proud of my son. hes got lil kid fans. i am going to cry about this

-JAZZ KEEPS A SCRAPBOOK WITH DANNY'S LIL HEROICS AND NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS!!! we've actually seen it on her floor before, but I didnt realize it was a scrapbook!! thats sooo cute.

-...and danny has to stand there listening to his parents saying danny phantom sucks and is a 'filthy ghost' and calling him egotistical...i am once again stealing their kids!

-THIS GHOST RIPPING JAZZ'S SCRAPBOOK!!! ILL KILL YOU. SHE WORKED HARD ON THAT!!! BITCH

-yes, maddie, the one with red eyes is For Sure Actually Your Son. ignore the, red eyes... (CLEARLY she hasnt watched the other 2 eps where danny has been evil, she doesnt know red eyes= evil!!!)

-'billy fenton'.......................

-danny being stuck as phantom in his own house, no way out is a fucking NIGHTMARE. his parents pointing giant weapons against him and SHOOTING AT HIM. THIS IS A HORROR MOVIE.

-NINE INCH NAILS POSTER.

-this is the most screenshot of all time

-amorpho turning into mr. lancer because hes 'someone no one will want to be around' BUT HES WRONG, I WOULD BEFRIEND AND HANG OUT WITH MR LANCER SO FAST.

-tucker dressing as danny, now I have the full Tucker set of him being sam and also being danny. also saying 'the ghost...uh...RIPPED MY FACE OFF.' and then running. SMOOTH. NOT AT ALL CONCERNING TO ANY PARENTS.

-sam accepts the toast from jack. and then 2 seconds later is like 'why am i eating this.' THIS SHOWS HUMOR IS SO UNEXPECTED SOMETIMES ITS REALLY GOOD. and then the scene after, mr lancer running into his ghost doppelganger and being like 'YOURE GORGOUS' THEN FAINTING. I AM CRYING. AND DASH FAINTING TOO.

-sam disguising herself as danny again to help tucker run from the fentons. but leaving him shirtless in the streets. incredible. 'plEASE DOnt NOTice MY FACELessNESS I MUST LIVE IN EXILE' this episode is destroying me the humor in this show is exactly my brand of corny and cheesy

-the impromtu story made up by danny and amorpho to explain stuff to the fentons. my god they are both such bad liars. but amorpho is a good egg. wish danny wouldnt have said he didnt wanna see him in town again!! I want him to be reoccurring. not that thats gonna matter since I'm almost done with the series, but the idea of this being the Only Time We See him is :(

-NEXT EP SAYS STARRING MARK HAMILL??????!!! hello ! mr . joker....mr. star wars.... I feel like I should be. idk. taking off a hat im not wearing in respect. I shouldnt be surprised tho bc hes in a lot of cartoons as a very good voice actor, and dp has already had a lot of talented ones so I've been looking out for ones I might know, but....mr. hamill....

-sam has her own greenhouse, names all the plants, and says thank you to them (in the languages from where the plants are from) whenever she harvests from them. thats SO cute. and her lil gothy lunch box...

-and danny's lil red fuzzy lined jacket!!! ive said it before but every time the characters get alt outfits im like :D

-danny has ice powers now!!! THATS WHAT FROSTBITE MEANT. HE KNEW SOMEHOW WAY BACK THEN

-THIS SHOW NEVER LETS YOU FORGET VLAD IS A BILLIONAIRE, HUH.

-danny's lil 'holy hibiscus!' first off the 50s batman swearing is hilarious. 2nd. my username is from the flower sanchoyo hibiscus, so, shoutout to ME this ep. hi :)

-EURGH UNDERGROWTH MAKING EVERYONE PLANT ZOMBIES. HIVEMIND PLOTS SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF ME. and this dude made the city SO overtaken so quickly like how long was danny asleep?? oh god

-evil fucked up sam! now the whole trio has gone evil at some point! the voice actress did a really, really good job with making her sound like a zombie...

-frostbite's paws are so so so big compared to danny. oh my god. i want to hug the snow dog...

-the far frozen has an advanced medical stuff!!! very cool. very smart snow dogs

-im so glad danny has a friendly ghost snow dad to explain this new power and teach him!!! this is so sweet. DANNY'S GHOST SENSE WAS A PART OF HIS ICE POWER?? OOOH. COOL. we love a training montage!!!

-danny saying if he cant defeat overgrowth, that he'd want to stay with frostbite...oh my god...do you think this is the first real supportive adult figure in his life (I am NOT counting his parents because they threaten him on the daily even if they dont realize it.) I mean mr lancer is a Teacher, but he was also nice but this is different, but this is a GHOST WHO IS WILLING TO HELP HIM with his powers and also will help him when hes injured and is so so nice and comparatively so much more mature than 90% of the adults in this show!!!! god. dad frostbite is my everything.

-the framing and lighting this episode, and all the angles...they went all OUT and it looks really really good. this is my nightmare scenario, tho. like, FUCK zombies and dead city zones and hivemind shit. and using the humans as 'nutrients for the children' i am going to THROW UP.

-MALEFICENT VIBES WITH THE HORNS AND GREEN EYES! this costume kicks so much ass. sam is now mark hamills daughter, I guess.

-danny's ice powers making his eyes blue!!! thats neat. and him going for the roots underground was SO SMART. i will not stand for danny ever thinking hes stupid, hes SO smart.

almost done with the show... :"( thats a sad thought!!!

#sanchoyorambles #dp thoughts #danny phantom

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taglegend · 3 years

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Tag Fact #3 - I’ve come to realize I’ve always been a fan artist more than I thought. so here is a timeline of influences that shaped my childhood to now. from nostalgic times, to sad changes, to great loss, to strange rises to fame and phases, to stepping stones and finally a laughing place. all the things that make up your favorite fan artist Tag.

1. Rayman (bumped into this in the year of 1999) was actually the first fandom (with crossovers) I bumped into when I was 9. although the internet wasn’t available at the time it was still fun to dwell in home amusements. I remember the storylines and the OC’s I made but they’re kind of embarrassing and it’s probably a good thing there was no internet. I’ve done fanart and comic crossovers of Rayman with Calvin and Hobbs and Nights Into Dreams, spinoffs of Sonic the Hedgehog OC’s, Yoshi with Pikachu, and the Pokemon/Digimon craze with OC’s and other Nintendo comic shorts. but the drawings and comics are long gone and disappeared in the garage in a backpack due to suspecting my sister’s dad accidentally throwing them away. years later towards the year 2018 (now 28), we decided to move to North Carolina and it was my chance to find them again. unfortunately the backpack was gone just like I suspected (my main stuff), but for some reason I found my Pokemon/Digimon fanart, a good batch of Super Mario drawings (vaguely remember doing these), my sister’s drawings and some other neighborhood kids’ drawings in a dirty box. I was partially happy I found something at least but it was the backpack I wanted the most. sometimes I regret not looking for the backpack (’cause I was too busy being a kid) but it’s alright, noone needs to see that shit anyway, ha ha. anyways, I recall being a fan of Rayman from 1999 ‘til 2002.

2. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle (bumped into this in the year of 2003) my second fandom I bumped into when I was 12 going on 13. at the time, my sister and I both liked the Sonic The Hedgehog Franchise based on the Battle remake and ended up making our own secret fanart club that consisted of only us two members. she liked Sonic (and that was her boyfriend, ha ha) and I liked Knuckles (and he was my boyfriend, ha ha) and we were crazy in love about Shadow’s backstory. we listened to the game’s soundtracks as we drew fanart and comics after school and man, those were good times. however, as we grew older towards the year of 2005, we ended up having separate rooms and I believe it played a part in disconnecting on the same interest. then one day, I asked her why she wasn’t into Sonic anymore and she replied, “Because I grew up.” I was sad after that and slowly observed that she was influenced by the emo culture and the new friends she’s made. I was the only member of our little club for a little longer...but eventually I moved on too. I still have some surviving fanart we did together but it doesn’t mean shit anymore since she turned out to be an abusive mother from the last I’ve heard of her.

3. Gorillaz (bumped into this in the year of 2006). as the Sonic years were at its end, I first heard the song “Feel Good Inc” on Music Choice and seeing the first image of them as displayed on this post (except the fan-made background doesn’t count since I can’t find the original artwork). this was my third fandom and later had proper access to the internet to the website I still currently use called DeviantArt. at first I liked 2D but eventually fell for Murdoc and developed a spiritual connection towards the character as obviously seen in my old fanart and rare photos of my devotion shrines on Valentine’s Day and his birthday every year. for the longest time since being a permanent fan from 2006-2017 (11 1/2 years) I had no knowledge that it was a political propaganda band and other realizations I don’t want to talk about. I only followed them because it was a cartoon and not the bullshit behind the musical project. the world I’ve built and support for them for all those 11 1/2 years shattered the fuck out of me and I just wanted to be left alone to find myself again, somehow. activity stopped on all my profiles, the flow of fanart stopped since I now cringe from the fan service and felt I was used for my talent. I didn’t want to be reminded of it all so I took down all my Gorillaz fanart and archived them for old followers’ nostalgia but also in the hopes they’ll be forgotten in my timeline. I ceased to exist in the fandom for huge personal reasons but it’s best to not say why. I know for sure that the fandom wonders what happened but it’s none of their business. THE END.

4. Waluigi (although I knew he’s been around since 2000 during childhood, I took deep interest once I revisited the character again in the year of December 2013). as silly as this sounds, when I revisited him again, the character was so bizarre that I ended up staying up 3 nights and 3 days in a row just looking all over the internet on everything about him and the questionable “hush-hush” absence of a backstory. despite there being no backstory he slowly gained a cult following and in many ways it’s a good thing. however, since the early 2010′s tension has been building up between Nintendo and its fans about him starring in a main game but everyone hasn’t fully gotten it in their heads that it’s not gonna happen. as long as Nintendo is in control of that, the fandom will not win, I’m sorry to say. on the other hand, if it’s going to be this way, then that’s what fanart and comic projects are for. as for me, I am doing my very best to get my comic project “Waluigi Land” going. again, I apologize if it’s taking very long to get Chapter 2 going if you’ve been keeping track but aha moments need to develop before I start permanent drawing (since concepts, character design and storyline needed improvement badly). as of right now I am still a Waluigi fan and I will not quit on him.

5. Turbo from Wreck-It-Ralph (although it debuted in 2012, I watched the movie two years later into the year 2014). for some bizarro reason, I had an unhealthy obsession with this character to the point where I dressed up as him for Halloween 2014. only 2 fanarts of him and the Turbo Twins exist on my profiles, mainly because my mind was more focused on just ‘thinking about him’ or ‘being him’ rather than drawing physical drawings. luckily, this supposed alleged fandom didn’t last long a little after Halloween so I chalk it up as a very short phase. to this day I don’t know what has gotten over me about him. the only thing I can think of now is that I think it’s because the character had yellow eyes and teeth but I don’t know. now that I think of it, that little fucker was ugly as hell and I STILL don’t know what had gotten over me. one day, my brother mentioned what that was about, and I said to him, “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

6. Undertale (although it debuted in 2015, I later took interest in it in 2016). It was all about Sans and Papyrus. I couldn’t get enough of the skeleton bros. eventually Toriel and Mettaton EX became my favorites but it took a long time to draw more of all 4 of them because I had other important things to do in my life plus I was still waiting for the next Gorillaz album to revive my imaginative juices (or so I thought). I really want to have this as one of my frequent fandoms but I just don’t have time for it anymore. it’s still in the back of my head to want to draw them but at this point I still have other better interests to be in. and besides, I’m lazy just like Sans.

7. Cuphead (June 28th, 2017 was the official day I called quits on the British-based band Gorillaz due to the bullshit behind it. since that date I was lost, had no inspiration to look forward to and no cartoon guy to make me smile...but lo and behold of the same year, I took an interest in playing the game Cuphead and man...that shit was a frightening exaggerated metaphor for being on that one drug (forgot the name though) and having sex at the same time but man that was the best fun I’ve had in years. I mean, it’s like, enemies are just so happy to murder you and that scared the shit outta me. and the facial exaggeration?....I think I should stop, ha ha. anyways, the Moldenhauers saved my ass from spiraling down, they have no clue. anyways, eventually I became a permanent fan of their work so to ease the hurt and erase my past from the G-fandom I had to re-wire my brain into a different cartoon category that’s a rather more American, so anything Toon related like Roger Rabbit, Felix the Cat or another favorite that’s a western-based cartoon makes me feel better, especially my new man .......King Dice <3 <3<3<3. however, there was something about this new fandom category I still didn’t quite understand until the date March 14th, 2020. I finally understood what it was but I feel I shouldn’t bring it up. anyways, Cuphead and anything western or rubber hose is my last stop in inspiration for the remaining years of my life. many say never say never but I believe I’ve found my laughing place and that’s all that matters.

#tag facts #influences from cartoons #likes and dislikes #thoughts i have about characters #toons #rayman #sonic the hedgehog #gorillaz #waluigi #turbo #wreck it ralph #undertale #cuphead

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jyndor · 3 years

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(Imperialism etc anon) Ok I get where you're coming from! Thank you for being understanding. While Zutara is obviously not inherently racist or anything there are zutara interpretations that *are* racist (example: fire lady katara which I can get into) and it does need to be acknowledged that Zuko's status as fire nation royalty does create a power imbalance between him and Katara. Now, this is a conversation that has a lot of nuance to it but it seems like the people harassing you are (1/2)

(2/2) just repeating some genuine critique they saw without understanding what it means just to say that they're right, harassing people in the process. I did not have that context when sending that first ask and I apologize, since anons harassing you and others are clearly doing it out of bad faith. I just didn't like the leveraging of concepts that really matter in real life (colonialism, etc), ykwim? But I get what you were trying to do.

hey anon I’m finally getting to you after 84 years XD

so first off, I want to be careful about how I approach this because I understand that as a white person (even if my ancestors experienced imperialism) in the US I absolutely benefit from imperialism and don’t want to like, idk, whitesplain XD so if anyone gets annoyed with any way I say anything, just lmk and I’ll rework it. and I also do understand that these are real world issues that are far more consequential than messaging in media (although I do think it’s very important that we challenge messages in media because of media’s influence on our thinking and politics).

but before I talk about zuko and his relationship to fire nation imperialism, and then later fire lady katara and why it isn’t INHERENTLY racist but definitely can be, I want to talk about the atla fandom and how we got here. like, why I assume that most anons who come at zutara shippers are asshats acting in bad faith. if you already know fandom history, skip this section.

1. atla and the fandom has always been kind of shitty and racist

so IDK if everyone is familiar with the history of the ship war in atla fandom, but it’s regarded as one of the nastiest ship wars in fandom history which I agree lol. atla’s creators were some of the first to interact with the fandom the way they did - back then it wasn’t all that common for creators to get into twitter feuds with fans and boundaries were respected more than they are now imo. but for better or worse, and it is a mixed bag, bryke interacted with fandom a lot. certainly at cons but also on social media.

but honestly things really got extra mean in fan spaces when bryke made a “joke” atla season 4 slideshow out of fan art (some of which was really sexual in nature and totally inappropriate) that mocked fans’ creations, but especially zutara fanart and zutara itself. it was pretty tasteless especially considering how most zutara fans were teen girls, and featured some art of sokka saying that if you think zuko and katara would be good together, you’re doomed to have failed relationships. that’s where the whole “dark and mysterious” bs came from, which does describe some zutara fic but not even most of it lol. I actually do respect bryke a lot despite my criticism of them, but I don’t think I’ll ever get over that shit. like even if you hate zutara, even if it’s a joke, we were kids. and they were adults, and the whole thing was nasty.

however, the ship war was chaotic and messy, but it does feel worse now. maybe it’s because back then the fandom was MOSTLY teens and kids, and I don’t think that’s true now. we were all trying to prove our ship was best with like, content from the show and theories and all that, and now it’s like... whose ship is ~problematic lol it’s a show by white us americans appropriating from various cultures impacted negatively by us/british imperialism that they then profited off of, of course it’s racist. that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about that, and in fact many poc have been saying this shit for years - that atla is racist and colorist at many times (guru pathik anyone?) and no one really listened.

if fans are complaining only about zutara, then I’m automatically writing them off as being insincere or ignorant. and since most of these people are anonymous, I have no idea if they are having substantive discourse about colorism in avatar or cultural appropriation (even if it is mostly appreciative). if you are on anon, I have no context about what you actually think except for what you give me. and that definitely is how I view anons in general but especially within the atla fandom because for all 13-ish years I’ve been in it, it’s been messy. that’s why zutara fans have isolated ourselves from the rest of fandom, because the rest of fandom has been really nasty to us. like did we give back some nastiness? absolutely.

but I would hazard a guess that most anti-zutara shippers don’t know about the conversations we have had in this community to make it safer for people of color, conversations that centered poc and woc especially. hey, that’s okay - not to compare zutara to r*ylo because eurgh but like, idk what discourse the r*ylos have about their community. no idea, I don’t go looking for it. and I don’t go to the tags and harass r*ylos - even though they harass the fuck out of everyone else.

2. so zuko and his privilege

undoubtedly zuko as fire lord is in a fairly privileged position LMFAO. but during the show zuko is very clearly exiled - he holds very little political power in the fire nation EXCEPT for during the first season when he is in command of a ship that ozai gave him on a punishment quest lol like yeah he does terrible things and he of all people would not excuse his actions even if he was a traumatized kid, that’s the point of his arc - that he got some exposure to the rest of the world and worked to be better. and the only reason he was exiled at all was because he cares about people - he didn’t question fire nation supremacy at 13, but he sure did question the morality of his people being lead to slaughter.

but after zuko and iroh defect from the fire nation and stop hunting aang, he has next to no power, in any kind of way. like the guy is a political refugee. and yes, he goes back to the fire nation for like five minutes before realizing that he hates everything about fire nation hegemony and that he wants to end his father’s reign of terror, like that isn’t exactly someone who is going to be well esteemed by the powerful elites when he returns and takes the throne.

and I disregard the comics because they suck lol but zuko does have power as the fire lord, but he limits his power. like compared to ozai, phoenix asshole? azula? for the rest of the world, zuko is kind of an ideal leader for a former colonizing/imperialistic nation to have - someone who worked to end that tyranny, who is anti-imperialist, who believes in justice and equality, who wants to make things right for the peoples who his family oppressed.

I do think it is important to talk about power dynamics and imbalances in relationships - for instance, one could argue that mai is at a significant disadvantage in her relationship with zuko. sure she is from a powerful family but not as powerful as zuko’s. sokka? hah forget it. he’s just as disadvantaged as katara is politically speaking. toph? well, she’s definitely not as powerful politically as zuko - her family tried to silence her for years because of her disability. and oh, she’s disabled so it might be ableist for zuko to strike up a relationship with her when they’re both adults. forgetting of course that toph and sokka and katara and suki and mai are not going to be shy about their wants and needs, that these relationships are not likely to be coercive by nature of the show they’re in and the characters they involve. this is not bill clinton with monica creepiness. like, you’d have to write the relationship that way.

the only person who arguably has more political power than zuko is aang. I guess zuko can’t ever be in a relationship with anyone other than aang. and zuko’s family massacred aang’s people so I guess we can’t ship zukaang. now I know you’re not saying that, context matters. power dynamics are important. but you can’t take away the agency of characters - katara, who is essentially a princess, has agency and can choose who she wants to be with. strictly speaking, aang is more powerful than anyone in terms of political power - he’s the avatar - and of course the dynamic is different by nature of aang not being from a line of oppressors, but there still is a power imbalance in their relationship. and I don’t know how many k/ataang shippers have discourse~ on that. not that I really feel like they NEED to, um idk what they talk about lol I’m not in those circles.

3. fire lady katara is in the eye of the beholder

so fire lady katara is not inherently bad or racist, it’s essentially like saying michelle obama shouldn’t have been first lady of the us (now I get that like the obamas being in power didn’t mean black people are not marginalized lol). you can have conversations about whether or not individual versions of fire lady katara are fucked up, and I’m superrrr open to that because I’ve seen it be kinda shitty before. i’m just gonna leave this link to @shewhotellsstories and her post on this.

but often times katara as fire lady is very dominant in global/fire nation/water tribe politics, she’s a game changer ambassador (that is probably the most popular headcanon I see), she holds on to her culture (and many fans have designed her being in her wt colors, zuko is respectful af to her, she and zuko spend extended periods in the swt, etc. like... it just depends on the way it’s written.

also leaving this response by @avatarnerdkiller to the idea of katara being a prize figurehead.

anyway, thanks for your patience anon and I am curious to see if you see this or even feel like responding after all this time XD

#atla #petty fandom drama #zutara fandom #zutara #fire lady katara #discourse sigh #racism #fandom racism #asks #anonymous

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noctisfishing · 4 years

Text

A Night at the Summer Festival

Day 2 - First Date

#noct writes taiora week 2020 [ 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 ]

@taioraweek for more Taiora love! @noctisfishing for Taiora/Digimon writings and more. :)

Setting: Digimon Adventure tri. timeframe / AU

Tags: Fluff, Romance

Minor pairings: Takari, Joumi, minor Kenyako

Notes: Their first date is at a summer festival because I was inspired by this beautiful fanart. There will be no goldfish or candy apple, but I promise it’ll be equally as sweet.

This may not show up in the tags because of the links but I’d like to add them for context. Here is more on the yukata (even the drawing in the link could be of Sora, lol!) and info on some of the mini-games and food stalls at a Japanese summer festival. More references at the end of the fic!

Also... Koushiro couldn’t make it to this event... (My deepest apologies to my Koushiro fans. I hope we can still be friends)

~*~*~*~*~

"So, you've finally asked her out, huh?"

“Let’s not talk about this, Hikari.”

Hikari grinned upon entering her and Taichi’s bedroom, catching sight of Taichi who was draped in blue. His brows were furrowed as he lifted his arms, looking down at the yukata he had focused on putting on properly.

“I think we should, given the occasion,” Hikari said, stopping in front of Taichi to help wrap the robe and obi around his waist. She had already put on her own lavender-colored yukata with the help of her mother, including the flower clips in her hair to match.

Taichi lowered his arms, entrusting his younger sister to help him look like less of a fool in his yukata. “You’d think that a first date would be small and simple, like catching a movie, or a walk in the park.”

“A summer festival is just as fun, Taichi. An amazing event with an amazing girl like her. Right?”

“R-right…” Taichi stared to the side, feeling the burn on his cheeks from Hikari’s widened grin. He knew that she was highly amused by his reaction. “I guess I’m lucky that Dad had his old yukata for me to borrow.”

“I’m sure Sora appreciates it! Wait until she sees you in this - Taichi, stop fidgeting.”

“Sorry,” he muttered.

He had only turned his head to try to look down at what the yukata looked like on him, but he lifted his head up and faced forward to let Hikari continue her magic.

“Okay! All done.” Hikari patted either of his shoulders. “It’ll be fine.”

“I hope so. Thanks, Hikari.”

After what seemed like forever while their mom convinced them to pose for pictures, Taichi walked with Hikari to the front of the shrine where they planned to meet Sora and Takeru. The two were already waiting in their own yukatas, with Takeru donned in green and staring in amazement as Sora did a casual turn with the geta on her feet to show off hers.

At the turn of her head, her eyes lit up when she realized that Taichi and Hikari had arrived.

Taichi was suddenly speechless.

“Hikari! Taichi!” Takeru called with a wave. He joined Sora walking over to them.

Hikari kept walking, but Taichi stopped, at a loss for words. Sora’s red hair was styled in a bun with a lock of her hair coiling down the frame of her face. Her yukata was patterned with florals in different shades of ruby, with a crimson obi tied in a tachiya-style knot at the back .

“Come on, you slowpoke!” Hikari yelled.

The other three laughed, but hearing that brought Taichi back down to Earth. As he caught up to them, he remembered that he didn’t want to embarrass himself or mess this up. He had even agreed with Sora beforehand that they didn’t have to treat this like a date to keep the pressure off between them.

“You look amazing, Sora,” Taichi blurted.

“Well, thank you,” Sora said, taking her hand to tuck her hair behind her ear. Her face began to match the color of her yukata. “You look nice, too.”

Taichi wondered if that was too cheesy to say. So much for embarrassing himself.

“Tell me I look amazing, too, Taichi,” added Takeru with a grin. Hikari giggled as she attached herself linking her arm through the hook of his elbow.

Taichi grinned. “You clean up nicely, Takeru,” he said, suddenly recognizing how close Takeru and Hikari were to each other.

“We’ll be heading off,” Hikari said with a wink. “We don’t want to intrude. Maybe we can meet up around here when the night is over?”

“Sounds good,” said Sora. “You two have fun!”

“Don’t worry,” Takeru added as he looked to Taichi. “I’ll keep an eye on Hikari.”

Takeru stole a kiss from Hikari before putting his arm around her waist as they walked away. Taichi couldn’t help but watch, and he wondered if it was actually Takeru that he needed to keep an eye on.

“Taichi.” Sora gently took hold of his forearm. “They’ll be fine. Don’t worry about them. We’re here to enjoy ourselves, right?”

Realizing this, Taichi let out a sigh and relaxed his shoulders. “You’re right.” he said, and his worries seemed to disappear when his eyes met hers and they exchanged a smile.

The two then entered the festival side-by-side observing the rows of stands on either side that sold food and various items, and some that hosted mini-games.

“Let’s get some takoyaki at the first stand we see,” Sora said as they walked through.

“Heck yeah!” Taichi replied just as his eyes landed on a mini-game stand a few yards in front of them. “...I have an idea.”

Sora stopped and looked at the stand he was looking toward, reading the sign, “Kingyo!” She looked to Taichi with a knowing stare. “Loser pays for the takoyaki?”

Taichi grinned. “Let’s do it.”

However, both of them ended up being the loser. They each made two attempts at scooping for a goldfish, all attempts which ended with broken pois and fish squiggling back into the mini pool. Taichi noticed a few other people playing, however, and noticed how easily the paper poi ripped no matter how delicate they tried to be.

“Hey-!” Taichi began with annoyance, but Sora immediately grabbed him and walked him away from the stand.

“It’s not worth it, Taichi,” she said with her expression just as irritated. “Either way, that was a waste of yen, wasn’t it?”

Taichi knew he didn’t want this to sour the rest of their night, so he figured he would try to lighten the mood.

“Yeah… and here I was thinking that you were a master of fishing, Sora.”

She smacked his shoulder as he laughed. “Meanie.”

“Anyway, where to next?”

Suddenly, a loud gasp was heard nearby, followed by a familiar voice.

“Hey! It’s Taichi!”

As both Taichi and Sora turned their heads, they saw Daisuke quickly approaching, with Miyako, Iori, and Ken following behind. Miyako gasped as well, and both Daisuke and Miyako walked around them, staring at their yukatas in adoration.

Taichi should’ve expected an interruption like this given the popularity of end-of-summer festivals like this one.

“Wow, Taichi!” Daisuke exclaimed. “You look really cool in that-”

“Sora!” Miyako chimed in. “You look like a goddess! Oh my gosh, I can’t believe-”

“Calm down, you two!” Sora said, laughing nervously and waving her hands in front of her. “There are other people wearing these, too!”

Miyako pouted. “I should’ve worn one! I would’ve looked way nicer on this date with Ken.”

“Speaking of,” Iori added with a tempered reaction. “I think we should leave these two alone. Pardon the intrusion, Sora, Taichi.”

“Wha-?”

Daisuke was cut off by Ken pushing him in the other direction as his cheeks flushed, most likely from hearing Miyako’s comment. His other hand grabbed hold of Miyako’s elbow, pulling her away with a look on her face that was as confused as Daisuke’s. Iori was the last to follow behind them, but not before bowing politely at Sora and Taichi.

“I’ve always liked Iori,” Taichi said with relief.

“It was nice to see them, though,” Sora replied. “Come on - let’s find another game I can beat you in.”

“You’re on, Takenouchi.”

They found a stand with a ring toss game which both of them were eager to play. Tossing a ring at the same time, Sora and Taichi watched their own rings land around its own toy, making their game a tie.

“I got you a present,” Sora said with a smile and holding up a mini cartoon-ish dinosaur, orange in color.

“No way. I got this for you!” Taichi raised his palm to show the toy of a bright pink bird sitting on top of it.

The two of them laughed as they swapped their presents to oogle at for a few moments; then, Sora put them in her small bag. Taichi was happy to see Sora smile. He knew that she was having a good time, and he hoped that it would continue as the night went on.

As they continued to walk, Taichi noticed more people walking alongside them. The festival was getting busier, and he sensed that even Sora knew it when he felt her hand touch his forearm once again.

“Don’t worry!” Taichi said with a smile. “I’ll make sure we don’t lose each other!”

“Maybe I’m more worried about you losing me,” she teased.

He laughed to himself, not mentioning his heart beating as she held onto him.

However, he nearly jumped in fright as he felt a hand touch his other forearm.

“Hey there, handsome!” Mimi said with a wink and a grin.

“Ah! Hey Mimi!” Sora said cheerfully.

“I wanted to see what you guys were up to, and I figured that Jou and I would join you!”

Oh no, Taichi thought.

“Well, Mimi…” Sora began. Taichi could tell that she didn’t have the heart to tell Mimi otherwise.

“It’ll only be for a little bit!” added Jou who peered over from Mimi’s side with a sheepish smile. “Right, Meems?”

Taichi’s eyes darted over to Jou who mouthed a ‘Sorry!’ to him.

“Well, we were thinking about getting takoyaki,” said Sora. “Why don’t we all get some together?”

“Let’s do that!” Jou chimed in “My treat?”

“Oh, isn’t Jou such a sweetheart?” Mimi said cheerfully.

“He’s quite the charmer!” said Taichi, knowing that Jou was doing this out of pity, especially after being on the receiving end of Taichi’s death stare.

But Mimi had already let go of Taichi’s arm and stopped walking, making the rest of them stop with her.

“I see cotton candy! I totally want some!”

“Then, I’ll go buy some for you,” Jou said, gently pulling Mimi towards the stall and away from Taichi and Sora.

Mimi cupped her hand on Jou’s cheek. “You’re such a sweetheart…”

“Wouldn’t you know it,” Sora said just as Jou and Mimi left. “A takoyaki stall.”

“Ah…” Taichi turned to look and saw that there was no line in front of it. He realized at that point that the competition between him and Sora was at a draw, so he decided to change the rule of the game. “How about some takoyaki on me?”

“But, Taichi, neither of us are winning,” Sora said, which Taichi knew that she would point out.

“Then, we’ll just say that you’re the winner here.”

“Aww…” Sora began in a playful tone, mimicking Mimi as she held her palm to Taichi’s cheek. “...you’re such a sweetheart…”

The amusement and laughter only lasted a few moments, as Sora’s face turned into a shade of pink; and she must have removed her hand when she felt Taichi’s face warming up in turn.

“I’ll- be right back!” Taichi said, knowing that him being flustered was obvious.

There had already been one person ahead of Taichi when he approached the food stall. Taichi stood behind him and noticed he was wearing a green yukata, although it might have fit loosely for someone his size. The guy’s hair was short, spiky and blond under the straw hat that he wore, and Taichi wondered why he looked so familiar.

“One takoyaki, please,” the guy said in an apparently hushed voice, but Taichi was able to recognize that voice from anywhere.

“Yamato?!” Taichi said, making the guy jump in his spot.

He turned to Taichi, staring daggers and holding a finger to his lips. “Not so loud!” he hissed.

“What’s the-?!” Taichi caught himself nearly yelling, then he lowered his voice. “What’s the deal?!”

“Next, please!” yelled the stall attendant, and Yamato stood to the side with Sora while Taichi put in two orders. When he met with the two of them, Yamato hunched over as though he was hiding himself with Taichi and Sora.

“I just wanted to check out the festival on my own without getting noticed, you know?” Yamato explained. “Some people have already been staring at me longer than they should but I don’t think they recognize me.”

“People are going to stare at you if you’re wearing that hat after the sun goes down, anyway,” Taichi said, feeling the need to point that out.

“Right now, I’d rather be the weird kid with the hat than be Yamato of ‘Knife of Day’.”

The takoyaki orders were called, and Yamato and Taichi got theirs, with Taichi handing one to Sora. But just as that happened, a loud scream nearby reached their ears.

“Aahh!! You were right! That is Yamato! The lead singer of ‘Knife of Day’!”

As more heads turned and the squeals of excitement grew louder, Taichi’s eyes widened and he turned his head to Yamato.

“You probably should not have said that so loud…” Sora added.

“Gotta run,” Yamato said, just as he darted in the direction in which the majority of the crowd was travelling.

It amazed Taichi how many people recognized Yamato. Many of the girls in yukatas began to run in Yamato’s direction, some of them running in their geta and tripping over themselves.

Sora gasped as a few girls ran past. As she turned to dodge out of their way, she had slipped on her own geta and started to tumble backward.

“Sora, look out-!”

Taichi caught Sora just before she toppled to the ground, his back against the crowd while he felt more people whiz by. The moment he felt it was safe, he helped Sora stand.

“You alright?” he asked, searching her face for any sign of trouble.

“Well, our friends didn’t make it…” Sora frowned at the dinosaur and bird toys that she took out of her bag; they were now in pieces of pink and orange. She also looked down at the ground where her takoyaki had fallen. “I really wanted that.”

Taichi held his up and smiled. “Here, we can share mine-”

Startled by the sudden push at his back as one more crazed fan zoomed past, his hand was forced open, letting his takoyaki drop right next to Sora’s.

“Oy.”

Turning to the stall, Taichi saw the attendant hold up a pair of takoyaki orders and gestured to him to take them.

“Oh, no, sir- that’s okay! You don’t have to do that-”

The attendant pointed into the crowd, where Taichi and Sora found Mimi happily strolling with her cotton candy, and Jou giving them a thumbs up, quickly followed by the gesture to zip their mouths shut.

“Good ol’ reliable Jou,” said Sora, who grabbed the orders and handed one to Taichi.

He couldn’t help but laugh along with her.

As the night went on, they continued their walk down the festival rows. But Taichi noticed that Sora declined to do anything else. She didn’t want to get any more food, nor did she want to play any game, or even to try their hand at another fish scooping game. He was wondering if she was no longer having fun, if she even had any from the start.

“Can we get out of this crowd?” she asked.

“Okay.” Taichi looked around, realizing that they were both in the middle of a sea of people going in every direction. Looking ahead, he found a clearing where they could make their escape. “Hold onto me.”

Taichi led the way, holding her hand tightly as they weaved through the crowd together. They passed by people cheering as a young boy caught three goldfish at one stall; a couple winning a ticket for two free bowls of ramen from pulling a string from a senbonhiki stall; and a group of friends decided to pop confetti into the crowd, showering bits of colorful paper all over.

Soon, the lively noises were far away, and Taichi and Sora found themselves on a grassy hillside where the moon slowly rose over a large lake. Right behind them was a bridge where people were already lining up against the guardrails.

“I guess we found a great spot,” Sora said. “Let’s find a place to sit.”

She chose the spot to lay her blanket for the two of them to sit, and she set her geta off to the side.

“Sorry about that back there. I just couldn’t hear myself think.”

“Oh, was that what it was?” Taichi asked. “I was wondering if you were getting bored.”

Sora giggled. “I’m having a lot of fun with you, Taichi. Despite all the mishaps.”

Taichi turned to her, watching her laugh as her eyes glistened under the glow of the festival lights. There was a pause in her laughter, which confused him, even as she took her hand to his hair.

“Looks like confetti is your consolation prize for the night, Yagami” she said, gently picking out the colorful pieces. “At least you got something.”

Taichi caught sight of a brightly colored piece in a lock of her hair.

“Hey, looks like you win, too,” he said, reaching for it.

Just then, the sky lit up with a flash and a pop. The fireworks show had begun, but neither of them took their eyes from one another.

“What did I win?” she asked.

“If I said it was a kiss from me… would you call that a consolation?”

It was a bold question that even he didn’t think he had the courage to say.

But in response, she brought his palm against her cheek. The flashes of light above them only made her eyes sparkle as she smiled with radiance.

“I’d say that it’s the best prize of all.”

With his heart pounding in his ears, Taichi leaned forward until his lips met hers. His emotions were as bright and colorful as the skies above when she kissed him back.

Taichi almost felt silly to worry about their first date, but even after things didn’t go as expected, he couldn’t think of anything better than experiencing it all with her.

~*~*~*~*~

Terms mentioned:

yukata (summer kimono); obi - sash that wraps around the yukata and can be tied in a knot, including tachiya-style; geta - traditional sandals worn with yukata... Poor Sora’s feet.

takoyaki - appetizer made with octopus. I really want some right now..

Kingyo [sukui] - fish-scooping game, using poi (a tool with thin washi paper) to catch the fish. There are other sukui-type games at festivals, too!

Senbonhiki - a lottery type game where you pull a string that guarantees you a prize (and the prizes vary)

#taioraweek #taioraweek2020 #taiora #digimon fanfiction #yagami taichi #takenouchi sora #tai kamiya #sora takenouchi #chosen children #digidestined #prompt fics #noctiswriting #noct writes taiora week 2020 #yagami siblings #kamiya siblings #taiora fanfiction

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laurianos · 4 years

Text

Kings Rising - Ch. 4 Summary

All quotes in regular text. My dumb comments / summarising in bold.

‘Laurent,’ he said, ‘what have you done?’

‘Does it bother you to think of him hurting your country?’

‘You know it does. Are we playing now with the fate of nations? It won’t bring your brother back.’

There was a violent silence.

‘You know, my uncle knew who you were,’ said Laurent. ‘He spent this whole time waiting for us to fuck. He wanted to tell me who you were himself, and watch it wreck me. Oh, had you guessed that? You just thought you’d fuck me anyway? Couldn’t help yourself?’

‘You ordered me to your rooms,’ said Damen, ‘and pushed me down on the bed. I said, “Don’t do this”.’

‘You said, “Kiss me”,’ said Laurent, each word enunciated clearly. ‘You said, “Laurent, I need to be inside you, you feel so good, Laurent,”’ He switched to Akielon, as Damen had at the climax, “it’s never felt like this, I can’t hold on, I’m going to -”

(Can I just say at this point I like to imagine the guards standing outside overhearing all of this like, ‘oohh... myy... goddd... 👀👀👀’ 🤣!!)

‘Stop,’ said Damen. He was breathing in quick, shallow breaths, as he might after heavy exertion. He stared at Laurent.

Laurent offers Damen troops and supplies in exchange for Delpha.

He felt the shock that made him remember that this was Laurent, and not any other young man of twenty. (I often have to remind myself he is only twenty!)

...

He said, ‘Did you plan this from the beginning?’

‘The hard part was getting Guion to let me into his fort.’ Laurent said it steadily, the private edge to his voice a little more private than usual. (Lies! Nooo don’t let the poor baby think you betrayed him. It’s all lies! You were kidnapped, goddammit!)

They argue back and forth. Move. Counter. Repeat. To paraphrase: ‘Give me one good reason.’ ‘Because I’m Laurent and I get what I want. Bitch you thought.’

Do you want to play this game against me? I will take you apart.’

‘You’re alone. You don’t have allies. You don’t have friends. You’ve proven true everything your uncle ever said about you. You made deals with Akielos. You even bedded an Akielon—and by now, everyone knows it. You’re clinging to independence with a single fort and the tatters of a reputation.’

...

‘Please,’ said Laurent, ‘insult me further. Tell me more about my tattered reputation. Tell me all the ways that bending over for you has damaged my position. As if being fucked into the mattress by the King of Akielos could be anything other than demeaning. I am dying to hear it.’

‘Laurent—’

‘Did you think,’ said Laurent, ‘that I would come here without the means to enforce my terms? I hold the only proof of Kastor’s treachery that extends beyond your word.’

...

Damen’s hands became fists. He felt fundamentally outmanoeuvred—even as he could see that Laurent was bargaining alone, with very little, for his political life. Laurent had to be desperate to propose fighting alongside Akielos; alongside Damianos of Akielos.

‘Are we going to play another kind of pretend?’ Damen said. ‘That it never happened?’

‘If you are concerned it will go unmentioned between us, never fear. Every man in my camp knows that you served me in bed.’

‘And that is how it is to be between us?’ said Damen. ‘Mercenary? Cold?’

‘How did you think it would be?’ said Laurent. ‘You’d take me to your bed for the public consummation?’ (Ooooh. Damn. Burnt.)

It hurt. Damen said, ‘I won’t do this without Nikandros, and he won’t give up Delpha.’

‘He will when you give him Ios.’

...

‘I see you’ve thought of everything,’ said Damen, bitterly. ‘It didn’t have to be—you could have come to me, and asked for my help, I would have—’

‘Killed the rest of my family?’ (Ouch)

...

He thought of all Laurent had done here, every piece of impersonal leverage, to control this meeting, to ensure it played out on his terms.

‘Congratulations,’ said Damen. ‘You’ve forced my hand. You have what you want. Delpha, in exchange for your aid in the south. Nothing given freely, nothing done out of feeling, everything coerced, with bloodless planning.’

‘Then I have your agreement? Say it.’

‘You have my agreement.’

‘Good,’ said Laurent. He took a step back. Then, as if a pillar of control had finally collapsed, Laurent surrendered his full weight to the table behind him, his face drained of all colour. He was trembling, his hairline pricked with the sweat of injury. He said: ‘Now get out.’ (Rest poor baby 😭 you have a serious wound. You need to look after yourself. Paschal's salves can only do so much!)

* * *

Laurent had known who he was, and had still made love to him. He wondered what mix of yearning and self delusion had allowed Laurent to do that.

...

The ache of loss didn’t make sense, because Laurent had never been his. He had known that. The delicate thing that had grown between them had never had a right to exist. It had always had an end date, the moment that Damen reassumed his mantle.

* * *

Damen goes to break the news to Nikandros.

He waited, not turning away from what it meant, now, to be King. If he could give Laurent up, he could do this.

Nikandros came into the tent.

It wasn’t pleasant, the offer or the price. Nikandros couldn’t completely hide the hurt as he searched for understanding that he didn’t find. Damen gazed back at him, unbending and unflinching. They had played together as boys, but now Nikandros faced his King.

...

Damen remembered hoping for a homecoming where it could be between them as it was in the old days. As if friendship of that kind could survive statesmanship.

‘He’s playing us against each other,’ said Nikandros. ‘This is calculated. He is trying to weaken you.’

Damen said, ‘I know. It’s like him.’

...

Silence, while Nikandros kept his words in check.

...

‘The men will talk,’ said Nikandros. He was pushing the words out with distaste, he did not want to say, ‘About—’

Damen said, ‘No.’

And then, as though Nikandros couldn’t help the words that came out next, ‘If you would at least take off the cuff—’

‘No. It stays.’ He refused to lower his eyes. (Out and proud Nik. Out & Proud! *insert xyai fanart* XD)

...

Into the painful silence, Damen said, ‘And you? Will I lose you?’ (Cryy 😭)

It was all he allowed himself. It came out in a steady enough voice, and he made himself wait, and say nothing more.

As though the words were coming up from the depths of him, against his will, Nikandros said, ‘I want Ios.’

Damen let out a breath. Laurent, he realised suddenly, wasn’t playing them against one another. He was playing to Nikandros. There was a dangerous expertise in all of this; in knowing how far Nikandros’s loyalty might be stretched, and what would keep it from snapping. Laurent’s presence the room was almost tangible.

...

‘If someone kills your family you don’t rest until they are dead.’

The words dropped between them. He remembered Laurent’s eyes in the tent as he had procured this alliance for himself.

Nikandros was shaking his head. ‘Or do you really think he’s forgiven you for killing his brother?’

‘No. He hates me for it.’ He said it steadily, without flinching. ‘But he hates his uncle more. He needs us. And we need him.’

‘You need him enough that you would strip me of my home, because he asked you to?’

‘Yes,’ said Damen.

He watched Nikandros struggle with that.

‘I’m doing this for Akielos,’ said Damen. (... and for a certain blonde-haired someone 😉)

Nikandros said, ‘If you’re wrong there is no Akielos.’

* * *

Damen enters his tent

The privacy was like a blessing. He didn’t have to hold himself up, he could let the weight of exhaustion bear him down to rest. His body ached for it. He wanted only to prise his armour from himself and close his eyes. Alone, he didn’t have to be King.

Damen realises he is not alone. One of Nikandros’ slaves was there for him.

Damen is acting awkwardly. In the past he wouldn’t have found there to be an issue. He notices the cuff on her wrist.

He let out a strange, unsteady breath. He realised that his breathing had been unsteady for some time, that his flesh was unsteady. That the silence had been stretching out between them too long.

Damen says he will not use slaves anymore. He unpins his own cloak and drapes it round the slave’s shoulders. Damen is relieved to be alone.

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toooldforfandom-liveblogs · 4 years

Text

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power S01E08 - Princess Prom

After that mid-season plot reminder we seem to be going back to the princesses! Is this one going to introduce the ice princess or is it going to be about the princesses meeting each other? Maybe both! Let's do this!

It definitely sounds like it'll be both!

Can't believe that She-Ra has been living for weeks there and no one has thought about giving her a change of clothes. I imagine her going "Sorry guys, can't go meet a princess today, I need to do my laundry AND I HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO WEAR" and they just ignore her subtle hints. Nothing like the horde symbol waving like a flag in a clothesline.

Hm. Did Glimmer miss the last one?

FROSTA, OF COURSE. I forgot "Frost” even existed as a possibility.

Someone needs to make an "inhuman adora sounds" twitter acount, like https://twitter.com/animegirlnoises?lang=en

ooh, problems in paradise

Sorry, it needs to be "inhuman princesses sounds." What a shame I can't embed uploaded videos in a text post.

Wow, these subtitles are really missing a lot.

I can't imagine a better (and more frustrating) counterpart to Catra than Scorpia.

I kinda doubt she'll be able to capture Adora so that's one objective down, but I'm intrigued by the way Catra mentions Shadow Weaver. Is it a title instead of a name? I thought SW had changed her name from Light Spinner (since they kinda mean the same)

I can't believe how much this explains Scorpia's personality.

I think Catra is not really talking about Scorpia anymore but it still fits. It's nice that she has someone who feels like her though.

Scorpia is the best. The princesses suck if they discriminated her because of her claws.

How can anyone mistreat her

OH MY GOD

I thought she had sent her a message or something, not that she had asked him during the battle! It completely fits her personality though

Aw, poor Glimmer. The b-side of growing up, everyone else is growing up too. It probably doesn't help that Bow is her only friend besides Adora, and Adora is new.

This is 100% going to lead to Adora revealing she doesn't know how to dance, right?

Wait, NEUTRAL? They can afford to be NEUTRAL?

can't believe Adora is making a ship chart

Is that wing, Glimmer?

I mean... she does, yeah.

I feel blessed by this glimmer

I hadn't realized that maybe _Adora_ is the one who doesn't want new clothes. Now I can't stop imagining everyone in Bright Moon subtly suggesting her to change clothes and Adora completely ignoring everyone.

That’s a great look for Catra.

Aw, Scorpia seemed kinda unsure and only laughed after Catra started laughing. That's sad.

For some reason I feel this has a lot of Sea Hawk energy.

This is incredibly cute for an episode 8 of a first season. It's a testament to the show's characterization that something like this can work so early. You need to know the characters to make a party episode work since they all need to interact together.

I have to admit that dress _does_ fit her better than the fluffy one.

Awww.

...what's up with those two in the lower left being pulled by another woman?

These people seem better defined, future characters maybe?

Hey, that's Spinerella and Netossa!

A lot of these characters look like they came out of the game Monster Prom.

oh that's going to be fun

This show is pretty good at showing perfect examples of "a mood"

I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Someone in the discord told me that Entrapta is supposed to be in her late 20s and I still can't believe it. I thought everyone was in their late teens at most. Entrapta in particular feels like a feral kid.

Entrapta should be a liveblogger.

I'm not sure _that's_ what's going on but sure.

I love everything about this, _especially_ Adora's smugness.

oh no, the cringe has begun

That explains why we haven't seen that sociopath horse lately.

yup, fits standard "don't know what to do during a party" behavior

Glimmer is being a bit dumb but everyone's been that type of dumb at least once.

I don't like seeing her sad though, I hope it all blows over soon.

She also looks sad. Saddest prom ever.

I'm wondering if her parents are alive, it's weird that they aren't around considering she's eleven (and three quarters.)

I feel like Bow when he introduced Spinerella and Netossa: "we're not really sure what they do" but they are definitely here.

Well, the child has a strong personality. I expected her to say something like this but I thought she'd be more childish about it. Is her personality because of the weight of her crown or because of a tragic past (or both)?

The slow music that just started is so on the nose that I'm not minding this weird jealousy plot.

Aww, poor marshmallow. This show continues to impress me by the way it develops its characters.

That line about Bow being introduced to Castaspella last episode was setup for this, it wasn't needed since this scene would have worked anyway but tiny touches like that help a lot in making these characters feel real, with a life before the show.

That was amazing.

My respect for Princess Frosta has increased a thousand percent.

Adora is the embodiment of the "if you know how I am, why did you invite me?" meme

ooh, first contact with the horde

Oh Princess Frosta, you were so right: "Teenagers"

Even angry he's still a good boy. He's 100% in the right in this situation, he'd have a free pass if he wanted to get angry but he's just clearly stating what's up.

Nooo, no one is allowed to make this marshmallow cry. Even if they are right and she's wrong.

I hope this doesn't feed "no one is going to want me now that I failed the one thing my one remaining friend told me to do"

Catra is being such a troll and I love it. I probably shouldn't like it so much considering Adora just went through some bad gaslighting and this feels like the continuation of that but Catra's personality softens the impact a lot. Which probably makes it worse, huh.

That face screams "What is the Horde?"

I _did_ say that she was probably pretty good at being bad when she was introduced, even if her personality is awesome.

Oh, didn't expect this. Is that Scorpia's power? Mind control? It'd fit with the poison theme without being literally poison.

When I started watching She-Ra someone tweeted me an screenshot of this with the caption "not as gay as advertised" and I thought "hey, that's neat fanart" but nope, literally an screenshot from the show.

Not sure what that guy was talking about because this is pretty gay.

And this is how they both get kicked out for breaking the no conflict rule. Which probably fits Catra's plan since it gives her a way to escape.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooh

To think I believed these guys were going to be credible threats after Lonnie threatened Catra.

Does every castle have a gem like this? Scorpia mentioned something about a Black Garnet...

Okay, I checked back and she says "rune stone" (that doesn't appear in the subtitles * shakes fist *) I'm guessing that's how the princesses recharge their powers?

What a great way to differentiate her from other "child" characters. In other shows she'd need help from the heroes after being taken down a peg but not Frosta, she's saving everyone and is probably going to be _pissed_ at the Horde, angry enough to join the rebellion.

still pretty gay

Wow. This is _not_ what I expected to happen from an episode named "Princess Prom."

The somewhat episodic nature of the show so far completely fooled me, I thought Catra would maaaybe escape with the sword and leave Bow and Glimmer behind but nope, a literal cliffhanger ending, with Adora powerless, alone and crying.

Catra wasn't just talking when she said that the way to get to Adora, was to go for the heart. It's impressive how successful she was at doing _everything_ she planned to do. The one thing I could maybe fault her is that she attacked Frosta instead of just leaving, I'm not sure the distraction was _that_ needed, and it won her an enemy if Adora manages to convince Frosta next episode about how everything was the Horde's fault. It should be easier with all the exploding proof around.

I'm not the biggest fan of jealousy plots but this one was handled very well, it made me cringe only once and that's more than I can usually ask for. Glimmer being rescued by Adora and the other princesses next episode(?) is going to be so good for her. It'll show her that she's not alone and that a lot of people have her back now.

There was some interesting worldbuilding, with Scorpia being a princess, the mentions of Star Sisters, Sweet Bee and Peekablue, the existence of Rune Stones which I don't remember from before, etc.

I love how deceiving this show can be, in a good way. It _looks_ soft and cute, and it usually is but there's an undercurrent of complexity that shines. There are alliances, politics, neutral parties, everyone has their own motivations. Most characters _feel_ real, in a way that most cartoons don't.

Can't wait to find out what happens next episode, until next time!

#shera #shera liveblog #shera s01e08 #spop

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wainwrightjakobshammerlock · 4 years

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finally. i decided to do this. anyways hello there, i am jake and today i want to talk about something; you see, if you are in the tf2 fandom, you probably know about heavymedic. Wherther you are a hardcore gamer who resents f2p’s or a person that never played the game but has trillions of notes on their art- you know heavymedic exists and most of all you probably ship it.

And I find that weird. In the few fandoms in my life I have been in I had never seen a single ship be so widely if not shipped, then accepted. Sure, maybe everyone in the GF fandom knows what Billdip is - for better or for worse. Sure, maybe the HS fandom is 70% shipping.

But I have never ever seen such a phenomenon in a prominent multiplayer game fandom. A fandom, sadly, oftentimes filled with toxicity. Overwatch is very similar here - yet ships are either a hot topic of discussion or straight up ignored. But TF2? In here for whatever reason we ship these two mercenaries. And in this essay I will try and find a reason or two why is that.

Apologies for any mistakes or incoherency. English is not my first language, I need to ramble, and my vocabulary is all over the place.

Content warning: mentions of homophobia, blood, death, mentions of WLW fetishization, nsfw mention. Also MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE TF2 COMICS.

Part 1: Canonical Evidence and Interactions

Let’s be honest: I could ramble about this one for days on end. But I’ll try and keep it short.

First and foremost we have the official videos. And of course the first thing that comes to mind is Meet the Medic.

At the very start of the part where Medic himself appears, we see him telling a joke about a particularly gruesome situation to Heavy.

He laughs along with him, visibly enjoying his company. He even smiles as he waits for another joke. Heavy only shows genuine fear a lot later.

And of course this damn scene always cracks me up. Medic slightly pinches Heavy’s cheek and strokes his lip gently (the other part is almost not noticeable unless you play the video at slow speed).

Of course we all know about the Hand Hold that happens somewhere halfway in the vid. I don’t think I have to explain the gayness in that. The fact their hands stay interlocked even after Medic helps Heavy up. The deep breath Medic takes because even he cannot handle the emotions. That few seconds is unresolved sexual tension manifest.

Overall the short shows a strong feeling of trust between these two. Medic confides in Heavy and reverse. Yeah he puts a baboon heart into his friend’s chest cavity but the fact (as proven at the end of the video) that Heavy was the first one to have an Ubercharge implanted into him shows that Medic at the very least considers him a lab rat.

I treat End of the Line as non-canonical, as do many others, and as such won’t discuss it here. But it will forever crack me up that Valve endorsed such levels of homoerotic subtext.

These two have some short moments in other videos, like for example in Invasion Heavy helps Medic up (CINEMATIC PARALLELS) but it’s nothing major so I guess I’ll skip forward.

Second is their interactions ingame. You might call me a weirdo for trying to find stuff in there but holy shit I have things to say and I’m going to say them.

You thought I was going to fanboy over the “i love this doktor” voiceline huh? Well not really. I wish these two had unique lines if they assist one another.

Heavy is literally listed on the official wiki as the “ideal medic buddy” and multiple pages on that exact wiki say some pretty interesting things.

I have to say something about the Gentleman’s Ushanka and/or Pocket Medic. They are both community cosmetics - but the fact they both got accepted by Valve says a lot. Above is text snipped from the actual wiki.

Last but not least: The Comics. Darned comics. The pair of mercenaries has basically no interaction - unless you count issue 6.

Heavy getting absolutely PISSED when Medic is killed by Ch*avy. Their reunion. Medic referring to Heavy by “my friend” in a totally straight way. Kind of sad Valve wasted an opportunity for them to hug. Maybe they knew their comic artist ships them and wanted to avoid having to answer the Question™.

Part 2: Dynamics

This part’s a bit trickier, mostly due to the reason that I’m new to this whole dynamic analysis thing. Yeah I’m good at spotting canonical evidence but very specific shipping dynamics often escape my gaze.

The most obvious one is Big Guy, Little Guy. Quoting the TVTROPES page:

[…] This trope describes a pair of guys who always fight together, are best friends forever, and quite often have a very obvious hierarchy: The little guy is often in charge […] The little guy is usually listed first, since he’s the leader, and they are always listed together, as if they are one entity. In fact, some episodes may center on the fact that they can’t live without each other. […] If this is a case of Brains and Brawn, the Big Guy is usually the Brawn, and the Little Guy the Brains. It’s almost never the other way around, but in some cases the Big Guy can be rather smart too. […]

A sub-type of this, a common favorite here on Tumblr is known as “small chaotic big calm” and hoo boy if that isn’t these two. I don’t really have much to say here - again I am not an expert.

Part 3: Fandom Impact

So you don’t think Red Oktoberfest (as Heavymedic is sometimes called) is super popular on anywhere else than Tumblr? Wrong.

It’s hard to find TF2 fics on Archive of Our Own not tagged with Heavy/Medic. Of course most of them only contain hints to their relationship but go in the main tf2 tag and I can guarantee you, you’ll gonna see “implied heavy/medic” all the time.

But these two go further than AO3 or Tumblr or Instagram or whatever. They are recognized even within the wider circle of the fanbase. Take this SFM, for example. (I am using the Saxxy Awards version of Secret Lives here mostly due to the fact that the Heavymedic moment is much gayer. In the normal version, the dialogue isn’t changed, but they simply hold hands.)

youtube

But it gets deeper. (WARNING: THE GAY MOMENT IN THIS ONE IS NSFW. NOT EXPLICITLY SO BUT JUST A HEADS UP TUMBLR PLEASE DO NOT FLAG ME)

youtube

And the best part? The comments are extremely positive. You’d expect hoards upon hoards of homophobes screeching but no, the comments are supportive. Even on places such as Reddit or Youtube, comments like “yeah they’re gay and in love” do not get downvoted/disliked to hell; in fact the opposite.

Part 4: Canon Status

Let’s be real. Most ships are shipped because people want to explore the dynamics in fanfic, fanart or something else. But Heavymedic is shipped because… well, I have no idea.

Actually, I kind of do - but only theories. You see, while the canonical evidence is here, the creators have never said anything about them. No confirmation, no disproval, no hinting, nothing.

But the ship is so prominent! There has to be something causing this!- you say. And to that I present you 2 theories on why Heavy/Medic is so popular.

Theory number 1 states that we simply all choose to interpret their interactions as homoerotic. And this is very easy to disprove - there’s simply no way we just collectively agreed on these matters out of nothing. There has to be something bigger.

And theory 2 states that, well, our interpretation is the desired interpretation. But this is even more ridiculous than theory 1 for a number of reasons. If they are in fact gay, why hasn’t Valve made them canon yet?

A Theoretical Scenario

I am going to ramble big time on this one, so buckle up lads. I’ll discuss a theoretical scenario in which, well, if that was not obvious, Valve confirms Heavymedic as canon. Maybe then we will see why they will probably never do so.

TF2 is considered by typical capital G, alt-right Gamers as a “non-political” game. This means no women (in the game itself, at least, and if even, sexy women only), no queer folk and no minorities (for some reason they accept Demoman but throw a fit if someone draws any other merc as not being pearl white). Team Fortress 2 was around before Gamergate and other things like Gamers Rise Up. It’s a classic and Valve is regarded as the good guy to Epic Game’s bad guy. If Valve did anything to confirm doubts, wherther it be clearing up popular fanon or confirming ships, these people would throw hands. (Although they seemed to ignore when one of the writers confirmed Miss Pauling is a lesbian. Huh.) Even those that don’t play TF2 would come to the aid of their bros.

Let me illustrate with two very similar examples. In both cases these confirmations were the first made by the company as a whole, both are fairly recent and both confirm a character as gay.

First we have the confirmation of Tracer from Overwatch as a lesbian. It was done in one of OVW’s comics. Tracer is the FACE of Overwatch as a whole and while most of the fanbase accepted it (thankfully the Gamers are reluctant to infest ow), some people threw what I can only describe as a hissy fit. At least her girlfriend’s a background character.

Second is Neeko from League of Legends. Unlike Tracer she was added a while before it was confirmed she was gay. LOL is much more toxic and filled with Gamers than OW and holy shit people smeared LOL so much.

Of course these are not accurate to Heavy/Medic. In both of the cases I listed it was girls being wlw and we all know how much cisgender heterosexual gamers LOVE yuri porn. Apparently only girls can be gay because they can jack off to it - if it’s two guys then it’s disgusting. Nevertheless I think these are good approximations - in every case the company gets “shat on” on social media and other sites. With the community that Valve has, I think even if they wanted them to be gay, they would never ever confirm it.

Conclusion

I’m sorry for that ending. I had to theorize a bit. Regardless I’d love if you shared this on other sites, reblogged or whatever - I wasted at least 1 and a half hours of my life on it. Feel free to cite this as a source if someone asks you why you ship the big heavy weapons expert and the feral battle medic.

#my post #text post #tf2 #medic #heavy #heavymedic #long post

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malignedaffairs · 4 years

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Artist Interview

Some time ago I was asked to answer some questions for a Russian community that collects interviews from various fanartists - what a lovely idea! Here’s the Russian translation along with lots of other interesting interviews. Under the cut is the English version.

On the artist

Nickname: Fifi

Date of birth: December 11th

What city are you from? Berlin

What genre in music do you prefer? Are there any favorite bands/singers? Dark electro, industrial, gothic, EBM, new wave, with a little side of metal and rock’n’roll. My favourite band is Rammstein.

The book that made the most impression and why? There’s nothing life-changing, but I have a ritual of reading before bedtime and some books have been great companions, mostly because they are gripping as hell or because they build up a huge world to blissfully get lost in. I really enjoyed In Cold Blood, The Swarm, Out, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Fifth Woman, Into Thin Air, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the Harry Potter series, Lord of the Rings and ASOIAF.

What are your hobbies besides artistic creativity? Video games, reading up/watching documentaries on things like history, nature, the psychology connected to criminal cases or the obscure niche interest du jour, tasting and trying to cook food from around the world, spending time with close friends and family, planning trips and travelling, board games, being outside in nature, doting on my cat.

What movies (TV series) do you like to watch? Is there something you revise (recommend)? I prefer short thriller/mystery/horror series like Zone Blanche, The Sinner, La Forêt, Penny Dreadful, period dramas like Moon Lovers or The Tudors, movies/series that are funny and thoughtful like Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Intouchables and Better Call Saul, Tarantino movies, oh and movies/series about food!

Favorite anime? Mushishi, Hellsing Ultimate, Samurai Champloo, Kuroko no Basuke, Dragonball Z

Favorite manga? Vagabond, Blade of the Immortal, Naruto, Dragonball, Rookies, Shokugeki no Soma

Favorite pictures, installations? Romanticism paintings, they’re so atmospheric. And traditional artwork from indigenous cultures.

Is there something that you would have trouble parting with? (Some thing, for example) There are things like my old diaries or my hard drive full of photos and drawings, but in general I’m more attached to places than to things.

What are your future plans? Getting better at my job, falling in love, lots of drawings.

On the art

What was the beginning of your passion? Discovering how crayons work as a toddler, I guess.

Do you think the academic base is obligatory and should everyone go through universities to be good masters? I think a profound education can totally polish your technical skills, so the benefits can be great. But art is very individual, and you don’t need university for expressing yourself creatively. When I graduated from high school I thought about studying to become a professional artist, but decided on keeping it a leisure activity for me to unwind and express myself without any pressure.

How long have you been drawing? I’ve been drawing from early childhood.

Tell us about the process of drawing. Where do you start, how do you finish? How much time is spent on drawing? When I’m super lazy, I just use one layer. I start with a rough sketch and refine it by just adding cleaner lines on top and erasing the messy parts. When I’m less lazy I do a rough sketch and a second layer of clean lines on top. During the process I often adjust proportions by cutting, warping and relocating parts of the content. For a comic I first think of a rough plot and draft the dialogue, then make a rough storyboard with page thumbnails. I usually only plan around three pages at a time, never the whole thing in one go. Colouring is another beast entirely. No system there whatsoever, I just put colours on there and hope for the best. Usually a drawing takes me at least two hours, comic pages take up to eight hours. I mostly use the same three brushes all the time.

How did your nickname appear? Fifi-la-fumeuse is a random thing I found in a book about curiosities I bought in Paris a long time ago. It’s basically a vintage doll that was used for educating students about the dangers of smoking during pregnancy. I liked how creepy it looked and the name sounds nice and a little similar to my real name, so I’ve kept it ever since. Malignedaffairs is an allusion to the “forbidden” nature of Itasasu, which was my OTP when I started my blog back in 2012/13. Nowadays I’m finding the name rather corny, but it’s what most people associate with my art, so I’m just keeping it.

What inspires you? Everyday life, my feelings, media, exchanging ideas with people within the fandom.

How do you feel about criticism? Do you criticize other artists? I’m not here for the criticism. My first and foremost goals in posting art on the internet are expressing my feelings, getting in touch with like-minded people and having fun, not necessarily improving my artwork or meeting any achievement goals. I’m grateful for constructive criticism if I respect and trust the person who gives it. I only give criticism if invited to do so.

Do you have your own characters? Or maybe the whole universe? Tell a little about it. No, I don’t have any OCs at all.

How did you come to the Naruto fandom? What kind of heroes do you draw and why them? My ex bf was a big fan of Naruto and always tried to get me into it, but I found it boring and childish. After we broke up though, I felt really lost and started to watch Naruto as a way to feel a little closer to him, and before I knew it I was super into the plot and the characters and then Itachi appeared and the story of the Uchiha brothers struck a very deep chord with me. I’m very much into beautiful, tragic, brilliant but troubled characters who are sweet cinnamon rolls inside, and Itachi and Shisui are like the posterboys for this concept. I feel like they’re the perfect muses for me to give some kind of shape to my ideals of love and mutual respect.

Do you agree with the opinion that national self-perception, as an intellectual factor, is present in the creative process? You’re always influenced by the social environment, the battles and the values you grew up with, and some of that can be determined by your nationality. Themes like identity, society, communication, politics and ideologies are often expressed in art, and if that’s the case you can’t and probably don’t even aim to separate it from national self-perception. I think it’s more present in original art than in fanart though.

What topics worry you and most often are reflected in your work? Belonging, mutual love, loss, sex.

Do you consider drawing to be your recognition in life? Do you plan to continue to devote yourself to this business? It’s an important part of my life and I’m going to do it as long as it feels right, but I won’t pressure myself.

What advice do you have for novice artists? Expect your drawings to look ugly in the beginning and draw all the ugly pictures anyway. Draw whatever attracts you, however silly it may seem. “Art block” means you should lower the pressure on yourself and allow yourself to draw something ugly, silly or uncreative, or even take a break from drawing. Art is not about achievement but about expression. Don’t take it personally when no one seems to appreciate your art right away. Instead actively seek out like-minded people in online communities or in real life, get engaged and show your art to them. Also: flip that canvas!

#text #too bad i can't read russian #i'd love to read all those interviews without the awkward translation google translate spits out

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squidmangoes · 5 years

Text

Royai Fic Rec

Sooo I compiled a small list of some of my favorite Roy/Riza fics both for my own reference and for anyone else looking for some good fic to read?

Just a point of reference, I have a BIG OL’ Riza Hawkeye bias so I tend to gravitate towards fics that are more Riza-centric? Also I have a preference for AU’s so there’s going to be a disproportionate amount of those in this list lol.

If you like any of the fics listed PLEASE make sure to leave the writers some comments and give them lots of love!!

[ ❤️ = links to gratuitous fanart ]

❤️ Our embalmed hearts, our desolate kingdoms by spooky_bee (T, Multi-Chapter, Complete) Summary: "He leans back, palms connecting with the concrete, and looks up over their city, their desolate kingdom. In the rain, Central City might as well be the ruins of Xerxes, empty and grey, and he and she may as well be the last two people on earth." Or, Love in the Time of Giant Robots.

Possibly my favorite Royai fic? It’s a Eva AU with a really well executed but SLOW build. I’m going to try not to ramble too much about this fic but uhhhhh it’s one of the main reasons why I even started making this list to begin with, just so I had an excuse to shamelessly suggest people to read it. There’s a lot of love put into the writing, world building and character development and it has one of the most extensive Riza characterizations I’ve ever read? It’s just a beautifully introspective piece of work and the way Roy and Riza’s relationship is written is so sincere and earnest that it KILLS me that this fic isn’t more popular than it is.

You definitely get your action fix but the character interactions and relationships are really the star here and it’s done PAINFULLY well. (Also spoiler warning for major character death but it’s left kind of ambiguous tbh so it didn’t bother me too much)

❤️ Well-Behaved Women by ehmazing (T, Multi-Chapter, Complete) Summary: If she'd known she'd be entangled in so much politics, dog hair, and personal business, maybe Sheska would not have become the First Lady's personal assistant.

Recently came across this fic and it’s also become one of my top favorites! Really good character writing and third person perspective done so well you wish it wasn’t because you want! to know! more! Though I have mixed feelings about whether or not Roy and Riza should/would get married in canon, if it were to happen, this is probably the only way I could see it working.

Basically: good writing and gREAT re-readability factor for those little understated and subtle character interactions. Also Sheska/Maria as a pairing has a lot of untapped potential that the writer takes advantage of lol. They’re!! really!! cute!!

❤️ A GOOD ASS FMA UNI FIC!!

Another!! top fave fic

OKAY so this one does get pretty steamy at some parts and I know minors follow me, which is why I’m choosing not to include a direct link to this fic. BUT if you’re 18+ and want a link feel free to drop me an ask (off anon pls) and I can send it your way! The modern characterizations of the fma cast are fantastic and everyone vibes really well together! I have a super soft spot for this fic bc i’m sentimental about my uni days and it made me hardcore miss my friends lol so uh kristine if you ever read this just know you’re vry talented bravo you got me good

无用 / you might get what you're after by roxast (T, Multi-Chapter, Ongoing) Summary: “Is Mustang being bossy again?”“It’s called 'delegating'.”[Or, Roy spends his senior year of college wrapped up in more ways than one.]

Hehehe another uni fic that I really like! ....I feel like I’m exposing myself lmao it’s very obvious what au I’m most partial to but ANYWAYS super fun concept with two other great follow-along stories in this series (The first being scar-centric and the other through riza’s perspective). All the character interactions are super sweet and I’m looking forward to where it’s going next!

Lucidity by orphan_account (T, Multi-Chapter, Incomplete) Summary: Inception AU. Roy Mustang was one of the finest Extractors in the business until he broke ranks and left his old job behind. Now he and his trusted Architect, Riza Hawkeye, are risking their lives to undo their former employers.

A short and unfortunately abandoned fic but I still really like it! There’s a good sense of atmosphere and I think the writer did a good job of maintaining a level of intrigue in Roy/Riza’s relationship. Definitely worth checking out for the little soft moments of interaction they have.

❤️ Infernia by mitsys (T, oneshot) Summary: Some stories aren't told in headlines or newspapers, but in the touch of hands and minds. A Pacific Rim AU following Riza Hawkeye and her partner, Roy Mustang.

So...listen. I have low standards when it comes Pacific Rim AU’s…because they already automatically meet my one standard. But!! This fic is short, sweet, and really well written. The writer really captures what I think makes the Roy/Riza dynamic so interesting to me in the first place: unspoken understanding and subtlety!! Their interactions with each other definitely has a subtle established relationship feel without being too over the top or out of character. Overall just a really solid oneshot. I love it.

Where is Our Gravity? by the_musical_alchemist (T, Multi-Chapter, Incomplete) Summary: Ed remembers the hopelessness of the arena and how it sunk under his skin like poison. It’s a curse that never leaves you, just something else you resign yourself to in order to keep on living.

Hunger Games AU: Roy/Riza in roles of Finnick/Annie and Ed/Winry in roles of Katniss/Peeta. Not really spoilers if you’ve read the book series but warning for major character deaths. However the events aren’t ordered chronologically so you can...technically...trick your mind into thinking it didn’t happen and you’re still in the past lol. Writer does a good job of both keeping the tone of Roy/Riza as adults and also maintaining the right amount of intrigue in their relationship in a way that implies a lot of weight and shared history. Which I dig! A lot!!

Larded All with Sweet Flowers by FullmetalArchivist (1stTimeCaller) (T, oneshot)

Summary: There's enough on Riza's plate as it is; closing night of one of the most famous plays in the world, press conferences and trying to herd actors to their places. She really doesn't need the extra headache of having to navigate her feelings for the star of the show.

Short, fun and sweet theatre AU! I love when modern AUs give Riza positions of power; in this case she owns the theatre, so...BIG OL’ thumbs up here. Make sure to check out their other works too! All good stuff.

And the Band Plays On by sceptik (G, oneshot) Summary: Roy ran a hand through his hair, and, as he did about twice a day, wished he’d never been hired by Bradley and Son, all those years ago.

Lawyer AU. Subtlety. Intrigue. Themes of corruption. Also uhhh what’s that trope called, where there’s slow dancing but also tension from the subtext of “we must keep up this façade that we’re not close,” I love that shit!! This has it.

Another Military Party by ryfkah (T, oneshot) Summary: Shockingly, certain traitorous conspirators are finding this year's Central Officer's Ball a little tense.

Again, dancing + tension + good writing, I love it.

Take Aim and On the Line, or Five Times Roy Mustang Drunk Dialed Riza Hawkeye by glamophonic (T, oneshot)

I won’t go too in depth with these fics since you’ll most likely see these two on a lot of peoples’ fic recs and yeah it’s well deserved. Basically if you love Riza Hawkeye, you’ll probably like these! Solid characterization, good chemistry, and sweet character interactions.

You’ve Got Mail! by tootooroo (T, Multi-Chapter, Complete) Summary: Just like high school students who like to text during lessons, the teachers are pretty much the same—except that they do it by e-mail, using their PC, so that their supervisors think they are doing work errands. A little bit of Royai.

I’m usually not a fan of texting/email formats in fic but it works well here! The writer does a good job writing comedic character interactions in a really charming way and for the most part it feels very in character (or as much as it can be when transferring canon personalities to modern AUs). In short: fun universe, good writing!

***So there’s definitely a lot of other good fics out there that I haven’t gotten around to reading but that’s all I’ve got for now! aaaand again If you like any of the fics listed PLEASE make sure to leave the writers some comments and give them lots of love!!

#royai #riza hawkeye #roy mustang #fic rec #it's been a while since I've read straight fics tbh lol #bc women can sometimes be written very.....👀#if ya know what I mean #but these writers do a great job so pls give em some love!!#also still planning on doing some fanart for a couple more fics but i'm slow so #we'll see

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guidingthulite · 5 years

Text

Top 11 InaEle charas

So like, an Ultimate 11 for each user? That’s cool :0

Tagged by @jenanimus, thanks darling!

Alright, let’s get this one over with:

The big three!

Hamano Kaiji

He was like the first big fave! It wasn’t instant but it also wasn’t like... Late... I love this boy! He’s so gentle and nice and just a happy bab overall! He’s just the most precious thing

(My love for him is so simple I swear this is the shortest one I’ve written even though he’s my overall fave berhj rip me. Well what can I add... His hair used to be really hard to draw for me but now it is really easy! Character development)

Hayami Tsurumasa

Ok so my brother mixes up how come I started liking Hayami with how come I started liking Kurama. But it was really weird. Like, I saw him around in fanart with Hamano a lot, and Hamano was the Great Big Fave, and I liked Hayami’s little moments enough so I just started putting him as a big fave until I played the games and that became just The Most Genuine Feeling. He’s just a big cutie (seriously, how tall is he?) and I want to see him grow up healthy and happy

(As a compensation for not putting gifs, have this random pic I found on my computer)

(don’t ask, it was on the ‘My brother and I rewatch Go’ foulder and it is just. A mess)

Kurama Norihito

Yes, at first I didn’t like him, but as the series proggressed I just thought he was...

Fine. Not to bad. Not like he was cute or anything! But then again once I played the videogame I just??? Loved him??? A lot??? Like yes you go baby you can score ignore the anime it did you dirty but I’m giving you a keshin and an armour and cool hissatsus yes no need to thank you i love you you snake child.

Was it because I just needed to re-check his arc? Was it because of that one scene with Fubuki?

No, screw it, that scene with Fubuki can do miracles. I swear it was so precious

Tachimukai Yuuki

AH YES. THE BIG FAVE. EVEN SINCE ALMA WAS A SMALL SMOLIE. Well, him and Tsunami. Will I put Tsunami? Maybe. I chose him to go to space with me but he sat in the bench the whole game sob rip Tsunami-

Anyways- I don’t remember what got to love this boy when I was little, I guess he was kinda like Hayami, as in, he was with my fave a lot, therefore, a good boy! Oh yeah I also really really really disliked when somebody called him just an Endou copycat like no he is a really strong and powerful boy!!! Also he was voiced by Diana Torres and I love her okay

But now! I saw Tachi in a gif when I rejoined the fandom and went ‘!!!!!!!!!!!!’ like wow I love this boy??? He’s my main goalkeeper in the games and he is doing such a good job! I’m so proud of him!

Minaho Kazuto

Alright, this one just isn’t fair, he’s an instant fave, it really shouldn’t count but Galaxy proved that it can live up to... Uhhh... Whatever feeling I had towards Minaho, really.

He’s just a huge dork and he is so smart and so good at analyzing but he’s A DORK and he wants to be a detective? Sure buddy I support you! Also owls are my fav birds so!!! I love this boy sob? And he is really fun to draw to! (I mean, who would’ve guessed right? After all, I got most stuff asked to him, at least it was that way at first. Speaking of the blog, not dead! I just lost motivation for a bit :’>)

Kageyama Hikaru

Another instant fave! I am bound to love every penguin baby in existence but Hikaru’s design just is so... Soft? And his voice both Spanish and Japanese is so cute (A reminder that I first watched Go dubbed with my brother, until he decided he didn’t want to watch Galaxy and sometimes I thank him for that because if i had to hear ‘Zippy Lerner’ as often I would... You know... C E A S E)

But he is so polite? And he had such a good potential! You know what we, as a fandom, deserved? A penguin Keshin/Soul! And you know what Hikaru deserved? A keshin! Or a soul! Can you imagine? Him going to space and finally have something done witht he fact that he’s Kageyama’s nephew? A PENGUIN SOUL?

Manabe Jinichirou

I had a weird vibe about him, to be honest. It was like, I liked him, but I also was suspicious of him for some reason...? But I somehow got the feeling that I wanted to give him a hug! When I actually watched Galaxy, I got like, really attached to him! I love his character, he’s a cutie!

Kino Aki

I LOVE HER? MY GIRL, MY PRINCESS, my first favorite overall! She is so hardworking and nice and cute! I love her so much! Everytime I see her I just get all smiley! And! Mel made me love her even more! Which I didn’t think was possible! Aaa!

Tsunami Jousuke

Ah yes I ended up adding Tsunami. My heart couldn’t resist putting him on this. After all, he was my favorite for a really long time! I don’t... Remember much about him? But he has this really good really gentle vibe? I just can’t describe it... I should rewatch OG... When I finish CS!

Hiyori Masakatsu (Really? I thought it was Mansakatsu... Don’t know why)

I was convinced I wouldn’t like, LOVE anybody from Ares, but he became quickly a favorite of mine! It was because of his amazing charms and his shark backpack. I love sharks. Sob. I also thought he was a girl. Would’ve been nice to have more girl players. Really admired Rika and Touko when I was little. I like how he is supposed to be the straight man (in inaele? sure bud) but he is goofy as well! I really wanted him to be on Orion, but oh, well.

I really have no idea who I should put now so I’ll just say a bunch of charas I like as well but didn’t make the list cause I’m lazy:

Akane, Tobitaka, Tenma, Handa, Fubuki, Midorikawa, Someoka, Fubuki, Hiroto, Jeanne (why won’t no one give love to CS’s history charas? sob), Toramaru, Taiyou, Fei, Haruna, Yuuichi, Aoi, Midori, Nishiki

Annnndddd tagging!

@mellenabrave @hamakura-hamakura-yas-qween (best username ever wow it is almost like i suggested it) @jounetsulovers

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acatbyanyothername9 · 5 years

Note

Every even number :)

2. What is your favorite movie?

AOTC : we got introduced to so much greatcharacters : Dex, Dooku, Jango Fett… We got to see Obi Wan drink and play detectiveand going with the flaw in some of the most ridiculous situation ever shown onscreen, we got to meet the GAR for the first time too! I also loved Kamino aesthetic.

4. Do you ship Anidala?

This is a complicated question. I don’t, notreally because I don’t think theirs is a healthy relationship. They jump into amarriage after having lost contact for ten years, Padme just brushes under thecarpet the fact that Anakin committed genocide, they don’t seem to agree onsome of the fundamental things such as democracy. I mean Padme fought untildeath to preserve the Republic and the Democracy, while Anakin was on board fora dictatorship and then brought on the Fall of the Republic. And some of therecent comics have shown that Padme does not trust Anakin (even if it’s only onpolitical matters because of his relationship with Palpatine). Also Anakin doesnot do healthy relationship and that is reason enough to not ship Anidala. On theother hand, I find Anidala fascinating because of all this: it’s a deeplyflawed relationship, yet they did it anyway and tried to make things work.

6. Luke or Leia?

Definitly Luke. Leia is way to belligerent forme.

8. Did you like Lando?

As a matter of fact I did! I liked his slyhumour, his friendship, the hinted background with Han, everything. I think heis one of the characters of the Original Trilogy that stuck with me the most.

10. Did you like the sequels?

Nope not at all. TFA is nothing more than aremake of ANH with characters with a different name/colour/gender (it was likewatching the Beauty and the Beast live action remake), as for TLJ, I still don’tknow what they were trying to do. At least I had some things to say afterleaving the theatre, even though none of them were nice. It’s a Star Wars travestythinking it’s a clever film. And I’m still mad that we saw Yoda and not Obi Wanhaving a talk with Luke. I mean who better to talk about what happened but ObiWan? Especially since the same catastrophe affected the characters in such adifferent way. But no, it would have required the movie to have some substancethat was very sadly lacking.

12. Snoke or Palpatine?

Palpatine. I mean have you SEEN what he did tothe Galaxy? He played the game from the inside, become Supreme Chancellor then Emperorand he had corrupted the Republic so much that SENATORS applauded him when he proclaimedthe Empire!!!

14. Thoughts on General Hux?

He spends most of his time on screen screaming?I’m not into the sequel fandom so I don’t have to say much about him. One thingfanart made clear however is that he seems to be a cat lover, so he scorespoints.

16. Least favorite ships?

Ooh boy, here comes I fear some unpopular opinions:Obikin first and foremost, just NO. Obitine just doesn’t work for me, nor ObiWan/Siri Tachi, despite Ruth Baulding excellent Lineage and Legacy series. Rex/ObiI just don’t get it (not that I mind it’s just I don’t understand why Rex/Obi).

18. What is your favourite quote?

« Hello there! » or alternatively ObiWan and Dex : “Cloners? Are they friendly?” “Depends how good your manners are andhow big your pocket money is” It’s just so reminiscent of Obi Wan attachment tothings that are “civilised” (and Dooku attachment too), like Ok, we know moneyis what makes the world go round, but I like this idea that manners and respectare really important too. Thank the Force it’s Obi Wan who went to Kamino. Can’timagine their reactions if it had been Anakin….

20. Sith Code or Jedi Code?

Jedi Code, wether you agree with it or not, it’sa quality food for thought and meditation.

22. What is the saddest Star Wars scene?

DO YOU EVEN HAVE TO ASK????? Qui Gon’s death akathe scene that didn’t happen

24. Han or Luke?

Again Luke.

26. Favorite villain?

It’s a tie between Dooku and Palpatine. Palpatinebecause a villain of such scale and cunning is an extinct specie in blockbusterstoday and Dooku because he’s fascinating, and it gives me so much Lineage feels!AND he’s played by Christopher Lee.

28. Do you want Rey to have a love interest?

Noper. Being asexual and seeing how the romanticrelationships are handled by Hollywood (romanticizing predatory behaviour in men,thinking that snide remarks are belligerent sexual tension, pushing characterstogether that have NO chemistry) I would prefer for Rey to be single and allowher character to have some growth on her own before being saddled in arelationship.

30. Thoughts on Solo?

I haven’t seen it. But from the clips I’ve seen,I LOVED Lando.

32. What is your favorite Star Wars pun?

I had to look them up, because I don’t think I’ve ever heard/seen one. The one I found genuimly funny was this one : “What did Cody say to his fellow clone when Count Dooku spotted them? “Tyranus saw us, Rex!”

34. What is your favorite battle?

I haven’t seen TCW so I can’t say much about it (onlythe two first seasons were available on Netflix and since it isn’t in chronologicalorder, I find it very confusing and sort of gave up). So I’m gonna go with themovies. For the lightsabre battle, it’s Obi Wan vs Darth Maul in TPM.

36. If you could be trained by Qui-Gon Jinn or Obi-Wan,who would you choose?

Obi Wan. Qui Gon would have infuriated me.

38. Anidala or Scoundress?

Scoundress because I said earlier Anidala is notan healthy relationship.

40. Leia’s hair or Lando’s fashion?

Lando’s fashion. I would never wear anything asflashy as he does, but I wish I could rock the capes as he does!

42. If you could have any creature as a pet, what wouldyou choose?

A Loth-cat.

44. Yousa like Jar Jar?

I never really disliked him in the first place.Anakin annoyed me more than him^^.

46. Finn or Poe?

Finn became a joke in the TLJ and seeing whatwas done to his character, I much prefer Poe, who was at least a bit morefleshed out. But I admit I don’t really care about either of them, the sequeltrilogy did nothing to make the character other things than walking/talkingtropes. And as such, I was never emotionally invested in any of them.

48. What are your top five ships?

My OTP is QuiObi, after that, well Obidala isthe only het ship I like when it comes to Obi Wan. Then there’s Quinlan/Obi Wanbecause these two were totally in a relationship at some point or another. Finally,Han/Lando. Yes it’s only four ships but that’s it.

50. Who is your favourite character?

Obi Wan. Hands down. Nobody comes close.

#sw #asks #I talked a lot #I'm sorry #but there's so much to say #I love star wars #such an interresting universe #obaewankenope #long post

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