#execution is key

[kaylatoonz]

I pray that paramount doesn’t listen to fans that insist that they should make movie Amy like boom Amy.

It’s ok if people like boom Amy but it grinds my gears when fans say “I hope they don’t make her a stalker or obsessed with sonic so they should make her like boom Amy).

She was NEVER an obsessive stalker in the games. she has been mishandled in the past just like any other character. Even so I still wouldn’t say she a stalker.

In fact boom Amy ironically has shown more obsessed tendencies then game amy!🫠

Game Amy’s love for sonic (and her friends) is a core element of her character.

Why would anyone want to remove or down play a core factor of a character!?!

Fans keep acting like there’s nothing to her character but her love or in some fans eyes “her obsession” with sonic.

Just like almost every sonic character they have some core element that may be the main thing about them (in some cases) but it’s NOT the only thing to them.

Imagine if they removed tails admiration for sonic and their sibling like bond.

Or

if they removed knuckles or shadow rivalry with sonic or down play their roots, their background.

Sure they could still hold up without these elements but they wouldn’t be as iconic. It would just be something missing.

Note that I’m open to movie Amy and movie sonamy being different but not at the cost of the erasure of what makes Amy, Amy.😤

[bafflinghaze]

Story ideas from my backlog that will never be written 😭 #4

Transmigrating to the Ancient Times with Poison system to become the Noble Imperial Concubine!!–wait, no, sorry, no can do, I’m gay~

Summary:

Lou Lixuan dies saving a woman, only to be transmigrated to an unfamiliar ancient era into the body of a young girl named Li Xuan, who is about to be sold off after a series of unlucky engagements. An Administration System grandly announces to her: congratulations! If you do this, coincidentally meet the Emperor, enter the Imperial Harem, and use your Poison System, and scheme to become the most powerful Nobel Imperial Concubine! If you’re smart, you can even become the Empress!

Lou Lixuan: *gag* Sorry, no can do, I’m gay~.... and I’m a doctor! F*ck off!

After throwing the annoying Administration System into a black room, Lou Lixuan runs away, finds a candidate wife who is much better than the Emperor, and uses her new Medicine Refining system to help others! (And help herself.)

Thank goodness for the Medicine Refining System, since Lou Lixuan is a doctor, not a pharmacist!

Would contain if it existed:

GL

making money

being a doctor (?)

a strong (literally) female love interest

teaching and boosting other women

building her own town with her rules

Notes:

I have 13 page document with +5000 words outlining what would happen and other random notes. It was inspired by all the Ancient China BL stories that I've read. It's a shame when modern characters (men) in these stories transmigrate to the past and then continue to perpetuate the sexism of that era. Hence, why don't I write a GL??!!

However, I don't really read much GL so I have no idea if this kind of story already exists. I was also wary that I would get weary of writing so many sexist characters for the villains, and with other things I'm writing, this idea was eventually shelved 😔

[borngeniusworld]

The Unusual Billionaires

“The Unusual Billionaires�� by Saurabh Mukherjea explores seven successful companies in India that have achieved remarkable growth and resilience over time. Key Lessons: 1. Focus on Long-Term Growth, Not Short-Term Gains: Companies like Asian Paints and HDFC Bank focused on sustainable long-term growth by building strong systems, rather than chasing quick profits. Lesson: Consistency and…

[thebramblewood]

We knew vampires in our time, cutting in the bathroom line.

//

Meet me in the bathroom if you're bumpin' that.

[nameification]

do you like the box we made for you?

[hanakihan]

listen I’ve been plagued by idea of Apothecary Diaries AU and Rook is MaoMao you need to see my vision—

[bestworstcase]

Anything from Volumes 1-3 that is setup that you don't think is given enough attention or respect for good setup?

Sidenote to this:

Open seat with no person in it + Salem having someone looking for the Choice Relic was hinting at Summer Rose. Did we have anything hinting at her pre Beacon's Fall or just things that she fits given additional context?

regarding summer specifically, while i wouldn’t call them hints per se, there are a handful of beats in v1-3 that smell like foreshadowing to me:

the first is “she was right about you; such arrogance.” – cinder might well be referring to salem here, of course. however. what strikes me about this remark is that arrogance is not a characteristic that salem seems to perceive in ozma; rather she describes him, in her soliloquies and songs, as a self-destructive, deceitful, manipulative fool blinded and trapped by his faith in the old gods. cowardly. fallen from grace. think of what she says to oz in 8.9—look how you’ve diminished, how you’ve lessened yourself—she sees him groveling at the feet of tyrannical monsters and sees debasement.

does it follow for salem to characterize ozpin to cinder as, primarily, arrogant? i’m not convinced it does. but summer rose? well… hm. consider, also, that the full line is “this whole time, right beneath our feet… she was right about you; such arrogance…” <- i think it is more likely than not that “she” is someone inside the brackets of “our,” and in context “our” is either [cinder + ozpin] or [cinder + her associates physically present at beacon].

in the event that “she” is not part of “our” the more naturalistic phrasing is “beneath our feet… salem was right about you” – because “she” otherwise has no antecedent. of course, some allowance here for this to be a narrative choice not to name salem yet, but we’re one (1) episode off from revealing her face and by this point we’ve known for a while that cinder works for someone else, so the choice to drop the name here or in the volume credits is of fairly trivial importance. unless of course cinder isn’t talking about salem.

second: “Oh! We've also stopped some bad guys, too! I guess it's like they say: "like mother, like daughter"! I still wonder why Ozpin let me into the school early…” [laugh track] – obv this part of ruby’s address to summer’s memorial headstone foreshadows ozpin’s conspiracy and team strq’s involvement therein. but it also foreshadows this exchange:

RUBY: We don’t have to kill you to stop you, and we will stop you. SALEM: Your mother said those words to me… she was wrong, too.

and i think it bears pointing out that ruby is wrong here, and later in the volume qrow specifically calls attention to this and lays out why she’s wrong. team rwby didn’t stop the bad guys; they cut off one avenue of attack and cinder circled around from a new direction that took advantage of torchwick’s imprisonment, and this also resulted in the public break between ozpin and ironwood which eroded the cohesion of the inner circle. ergo, ruby thinks she stopped the bad guys but in the long run the consequences of the breach all benefited salem.

looks into the camera like im on the office.

like mother, like daughter!!!

further, that sequence of events ultimately leads to the final confrontation between her and torchwick – wherein he declares “if you can’t beat them, join ’em,” and shortly gets eaten by a grimm right after making it clear that he intends to kill her. torchwick’s death is thematically motivated – a narrative rejection of his cynical every-man-for-himself, dog-eats-dog outlook – but consider that:

summer rose, if she is indeed salem’s willing agent, is certainly at beacon tonight – because she’d be the one who stayed behind to hold the fort.

summer is thus the one salem instructs to “reinforce our numbers at beacon,” meaning the grimm; that instruction only makes sense if the person receiving it can communicate with or command grimm. ergo, summer must have some degree of control over grimm.

ruby is disarmed and on the ground getting beaten by a man who fully intends to kill her, and a grimm swoops down out of nowhere to eliminate him faster than he can blinks. and then… the grimm rears up, roaring at her, and comes down with a sweep of its wings that creates a blast of air that pushes her away. that isn’t aggression!! that’s a defensive threat display!! (the feilong in v4 does the exact same thing – trying to push the boat away). it’s ruby who charges the gryphon, and while it lunges forward in reaction to her charge, all that happens is she gets her feet on its head and pushes off to leap over it, and the grimm goes fucking flying so hard it crashes into the ship’s interior and never emerges. the point being,

math.

it’s plausible that the grimm was drawn to torchwick’s murderous rage. but the way it behaves immediately after it swallows him – that very clear “get away from me please” body language, and ruby -apparently- kicking a grimm the size of a goddamned clydesdale dozens of feet and then through the hull of a literal warship? ruby is strong, but she’s not… that strong. but if the grimm didn’t want to engage her and propelled itself under and past her at the same time as she vaulted off its head? that would explain what happens perfectly – ruby’s kick altered its launch trajectory just enough that it crashed.

minutes later, someone loyal to salem scraped a very badly injured cinder off the top of beacon tower and left ruby alive where qrow would find her. salem’s vested interest in keeping ruby alive is VISIBLE throughout the battle for beacon, and notably include a perfect opportunity to capture her while she’s in a coma atop beacon tower that isn’t taken – suggesting that salem makes her singular attempt to capture ruby solely to reassure cinder that Something is being Done.

and if summer rose has command over grimm and was at beacon that night… the gryphon’s behavior is exactly what i’d expect if all the grimm had marching orders to insure this one girl in particular – the spitting image of their commander – doesn’t come to serious harm. there’s a nonzero chance that gryphon did in fact save ruby On Purpose!

…and that happens in the context of a fight between ruby and the bad guy she thought she stopped (but she was wrong), who joined salem because “if you can’t beat em, join em.” (salem voice) she was wrong, too…

also

<- like mother like daughter. summer had a nevermore’s eye view of the battle for beacon, in this essay i will –

third: this one is something i didn’t really Think About until v9 and specifically the v9 ost dropping, but some of the things cinder says in v2-3 strike me as like – she got that from summer im sure of it. for example, in midnight, cinder’s view of huntsmen is that they’re free, they have power, they can go anywhere and do whatever they want, and rhodes never contradicts this. where did she get “huntsmen and huntresses should conduct themselves with honor and mercy”? who taught her the aspirational moral ideal?

summer rose, maybe.

but in the deeper sense,

where did cinder get the ‘destiny’ conceit? her underlying beliefs about how the world is are a product of her childhood, but the overt framing of fate/destiny isn’t present in midnight; nor has salem ever spoken of destiny and her philosophical views are in many ways a rejection of destiny – salem does not believe in fate, she is the woman who dedicated her life to toppling the gods.

and on close examination this looks like yet another suspiciously summer rose shaped hole!! “you’re special, ruby […] special the way your mom was special […] it was said that those born with silver eyes were destined to lead the life of a warrior.” – in after the fall, ozpin gives coco an entire pep talk whose central conceit is embracing and submitting to the turns of fate – sacrifice “show them gods and deities/blind and keep the people on their knees” & guide my way “you were born to hypnotize them all/they all said their prayers/can you hear me up there?”

cinder, of pyrrha: “people assume she’s fated for victory, when she's really taking fate into her own hands. interesting. add her to the list.” & “it’s not about overpowering the enemy; it’s about taking away what power they have.”

<- that second statement is salem’s strategic doctrine, through and through. but the ‘power’ cinder is talking about here is derived through manipulating the perception of destiny; the self-fulfilling prophecy. the invincible girl cannot be touched because she makes subtle adjustments to insure that no one is able to try. it is pyrrha’s belief in destiny that destroys her, as it destroys ozma. ozpin invokes fate to justify and explain his choices. those born with silver eyes are destined to lead the lives of warriors.

summer rose was destined to live and die fighting the grimm – so the world promised her. maybe she believed, maybe she felt like she had no choice but to accept her prescribed fate. until she met salem, and took fate into her own hands. made a choice. broke the chains. it’s about taking away what power they have, like salem did when she tore the scales from summer’s eyes, like summer did when she refused her destiny and joined hands with the grimm instead.

what does summer rose look like through cinder’s eyes? she was a huntress. she was literally destined to be one of the greatest huntresses in history, a hero, the shining pillar upholding the world order that chose the enslavement of children as a fair price for peace. fate dictated that she be the icon, the idol, the embodiment of the system that brutalized and subjugated cinder – she had every privilege cinder could ever dream of, freedom and security and a home, a loving family – and she chose to walk away.

and if they talked about that like, ever, and specifically if summer talked about that warrior’s destiny as a cage, a curse she had to escape – is it any wonder that cinder would adopt that framing to make sense of what happened to her? if summer rose was fated to stand at the pinnacle, then does it not follow that cinder fall was fated to be ground into the foundations? and likewise, if summer rose can shatter her pedestal and fall from grace, then cinder fall can shatter her chains and rise. summer proves that the idea of destiny is powerful but not inviolate. and it is hollow, it is a lie, a fiction, and that means it can be taken away. revealed as a deception. destroyed.

anyway

to the broader question

i think people really, really do not give the jaundice arc enough credit for the long-term set up it’s doing.

(or the very overt textual statement from THE HISTORY PROFESSOR! placing the blame for the violent radicalization of the white fang squarely on human bigotry and persecution of faunus in general; the white fang arc is clunky and hamstrung by the inadequacy of its vocabulary, but the fandom talking point that the narrative perspective on this subject has “evolved” or “improved” is just. not true. v1 is very emphatically clear that 1. terroristic violence is not activism, 2. ascribing the terroristic violence of a few to an entire minority group to rationalize bigotry is bigoted in and of itself and completely unacceptable, and 3. violent radicalization is created through relentless discrimination and hate, which creates a self-reinforcing circle wherein the justifiable outrage of the persecuted outgroup and the extreme violent reactions provoked by the persecution are distorted into a justification for further persecution by those of the in-group who materially benefit from perpetuating this cycle!!! all of this is explained in an almost afterschool special manner by the main character faunus rights activist and the history professor!!! in volume one!!! what changed is that the writers developed the skill and vocabulary necessary to weave these ideas into their storytelling in a more effective and more cogent way!!! literally begging the rwby fandom to start listening to the actual words the characters say)

ahem. the jaundice arc lays so much of the groundwork for jaune’s and ruby’s character arcs reaching all the way to v9 and undoubtedly beyond; it sets up the first pieces of the ozlem fractal; it foreshadows the white fang arc and sets up blake’s character arc of self-reclamation and figuring out how she wants to use her voice as an activist; it draws attention to the misogynistic cultural norms that define and are defined by the history between ozma and salem; it lays the foundation for the scene in v2 where ozpin questions blake, which hits the way it does because we have the context of anti-faunus harassment occurring openly at ozpin’s school and nobody doing anything about it, and by extension is the first stroke of the salem-faunus connection that is almost certainly the keystone holding the entire narrative together because it is her relation to the faunus that provides the key to decipher the lost fable.

the jaundice arc is a crucial load-bearing pillar that supports the entire narrative and people revile it because nobody in this fandom can be fucking normal about jaune. lmao

[silviakundera]

one trope I am SO INTO in romantic ships is Person A confesses feelings or hits on Person B and they are turned down. and then Person A moves on, but once they've put it behind them ... DOT DOT DOT now Person B is interested.

I don't mean fake 'doesn't remember the kiss'/'didn't recognize an obvious confession' nonsense bullshit, I mean they really were rejected: maybe Person B was having a terrible week, maybe Person B had personal problems & didn't have a thought to romance, maybe Person B was committed to someone else, maybe Person B has a negative impression that needs to be corrected...

It's so good y'all. I love that shit.

[good-beansdraws]

In the second chorus of Undercover, what do you think Fuuta's uniform looks like from the back?

Well. In my professional opinion. It would look something like this 😌👍

[bafflinghaze]

Story ideas from my backlog that will never be written 😭 #1

CEO Draco Malfoy and Farmer Harry Potter and that time they were reborn back into their 4th year at Hogwarts

Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter’s history was tumultuous, to say the least. Yet, somehow, after many years, the two of them fell in love, got married, and enjoyed domestic bliss.

They didn’t expect to suddenly get reborn together 5 minutes before the 3rd task of the Triwizard Tournament in their 4th Year.

Couldn’t the great unknown forces at least give them a few more days before the 3rd task? Or maybe take them back to the start of the 4th year? Or the start of their 1st year? Was that too much to ask?

Forget it, this was a one-in-a-lifetime chance. So, after dealing with annoying matters, Draco and Harry immediately pick up their professions again. Draco was going to become one of the richest men in the world and Harry was going to become an Auror-retiree looking for new meaning in life.

Everyone else: Wait, what?

Would contain if it existed:

more crack!

less death!

dramatics!

bad homework ethics!

Notes:

This story idea was strongly inspired by Reborn with an Old Enemy on the Day of our Marriage 和宿敌结婚当天一起重生了, after which I went into a rabbit hole of reading regression drarry fics on AO3. However, after reading reading those fics on AO3, none of them had the same kind of ~dramatics~ and overpoweredness that Reborn with an Old Enemy had, hence the birth of this story idea.

It would have been full of crack (treated seriously), full of Draco acting like a domineering CEO who treats money as dirt, full of Harry being a hero but also making his little farming plot on Hogwarts grounds...

Unfortunately, I barely remember what happened in the later HP books, and add in my lack of time to write a 100+ chapter fic, this story idea was shelved 😭

[thevalleyisjolly]

I've been thinking about the fundamental challenge of originally planning 5 seasons and then having to condense 4 seasons down into one, and I think that paradoxically, one potential solution to the issue of pacing could have been to zoom out and have each story arc cover a longer period of time.  As it is, each arc covers the events of a few days, with a whole year between them.  Consequentially, it doesn't give us much opportunity to understand character evolutions and motivations across that year.  My proposal is to slow down and to allow the arcs to take place over a longer period of time.

Arc 1, in my opinion, is actually largely fine in terms of pacing and positioning. We get the resolution of Leida's wedding as suggested at the end of Season 1, there's the introduction of Krennic and the Ghorman plot, and we see what's happening with the Ferrix crew and the fledgling Rebellion. The only big change I'd make is spending less time on Yavin IV; let Cassian escape from the Maya Pei brigade sooner and show him on his way to deliver the TIE fighter himself when he hears about what's happening on the agricultural planet, with the extra travel time accounting for why he didn't arrive sooner.

Arc 2 is where I would first start to slow down.  Start with Syril established on Ghorman, yes, introduce the Ghorman Front and have Cassian contact them on Luthen's behalf, but then delay the weapons heist.  Schedule the shipment to arrive a few weeks later, maybe even a month, and have Cassian leave Ghorman earlier in Episode 5 but tagging in Vel and Cinta.  This slight extended period of time taking place over the end of Episode 5 and into Episode 6 gives the characters and the plot more in-universe time to simmer. 

You could lay the grounds for Syril starting to get suspicious of Dedra, or show Cinta and Vel struggling to reconnect and balance their relationship with the Rebellion.  You could even have Cassian and Bix go on a mission together (as per Bix' wishes) where Cassian endangers the outcome believing that Bix is at risk.  Perhaps give them the Senate ball assignment, removing the bug from Sculdun's gallery, and Cassian almost blows their cover as reporters when he sees Bix talking to an ISB officer (it's Lonni Jung but they don't know he's on their side).  Maybe it's this averted disaster that causes Luthen to doubt Cassian's commitment, and he sends him to the fledgling base on Yavin IV ostensibly to keep his head down after the ball but really to keep him at a distance from Luthen's centre of operations on Coruscant.

(The other big change here, entirely separate from pacing, is that Cinta doesn't die.  I like the idea of the Front's inexperience costing them an important ally though, so I'd set up another resistance faction on Ghorman who are in-fighting with the Front; they tenuously agree to a joint mission but shit goes down and the leader of the other faction is accidentally killed, permanently dividing resistance efforts on Ghorman)

The actual massacre is paced pretty well in Arc 3 over Episodes 7-8, but again zooming out, I would start the arc earlier in the year.  An opening scene showing Cassian coming back to Yavin IV severely injured with Wilmon -extracting him from a particularly brutal mission with the Partisans?- and Bix starting to question the value of their current life on Yavin.  The fight's out there and the Alliance is still a ways from fully operational.  You could also have a bit of connective exposition -Vel or Cinta debriefing Wilmon, mentioning the situation on Ghorman or hinting that Luthen is growing in paranoia- to catch the audience up on what's been happening and start positioning the characters for the upcoming events. 

Fade to black, leap ahead several months, to where Arc 3 actually picked up in canon. The events of the massacre are themselves largely the same, but instead of rushing Cassian to Coruscant to get Mon out, Cassian returns to Yavin and Vel goes instead.  While Vel helps Mon escape the Senate, Cassian is entirely burnt out back on Yavin which is juxtaposed with Bix ready to act, committed to winning, and knowing that Dedra is still out there somewhere.  Instead of one goodbye message, their increasing differences in purpose can play out over the course of Episode 9 in several conversations and arguments, with Cassian looking for a way to stop and Bix not wanting either of them to stop.  This culminates in Bix making the decision for both of them and deciding to leave to take a more active role in the Rebellion - possibly even suggesting she's returning to Luthen and Coruscant to go after Dedra.  Meanwhile it serves as the reminder Cassian needs to be lifted up out of his despair; Bix prioritizing the Rebellion above their relationship inspires him to do the same.

Arc 4 has not aired yet so these suggestions come with the caveat that they may affect characters' positioning for events in the final chapter of the story.  However, I believe that a condensed season with yearly timeskips could have worked with more or less the same plot beats if they're really attached to keeping them.  More connective tissue (don't be afraid of a little exposition, especially with time jumps!), a greater sense of in-universe time (let characters acknowledge and be impacted by the passage of time!), and allowing character relationships to guide decisions rather than set plot events, would have greatly helped the season feel more cohesive and less jarring.

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

Do you ever see a character and think that if people didn't get horny over them, they would realize how lame they actually are as a character?

[elfhunk]

i think i am also in love with oraxia because there is zero way a warframe focused on crowd control and isolating targets will be good.

like that's the definition of what people consider underwhelming and bad in this game. i am so excited.

[gluemuncher69]

I just did my pre-shower makeup as one would, then I sent a picture to my mom and she said “what a horror” except in Russian 🥀🥀🥀🥀 She just doesn’t get it🥀🪫💔

[youcantmisstheabyss]

full under the cut ↓ warning for drawn s/h

✿

✿

✿

i didn't feel like mallory today, i felt completely different so i drew a random character

ignore the problems → indulge in imagination → wallow in pity

[sonic-adventure-3]

i made perfect note waffles, vector’s matcha waffles with matcha lime curd from the sonic cookbook! this is waffles with lime curd and it’s probably exactly as good as that sounds to you. it’s fine, it’s the sum of it’s parts at best. i’m not a fan of matcha in the first place so i’m not the best judge, but idk that matcha lime is a particularly good combo here nor that the matcha really adds much at all. 5.5/10. worth noting that as a modification i used boxed buttermilk waffle mix i already had (+ matcha powder) because i know i like it and i need to use it anyway, so it’s possible that this is a revolutionary waffle recipe that meshes far better than what i made and i simply don’t know it. i really doubt it though