#i like villains in other media

[pareiwheeler]

im so sorry but the people who say henry didnt do shit wrong .... okay

[black-and-yellow]

Ingenue

Reel it in.

(NB even though this reads right to left, the pages are ordered so that they will be in order when scrolled through on full screen)

[shannonsketches]

[queenofthequillandink]

I think a massive facet of Tim's secret identity should be that everyone in Gotham knows that if Tim had Bat Skills, he would simply be a benevolent supervillain instead. A feral little gremlin who would take out the kneecaps of every boomer trying to embezzle charity funds. Like, this is the bitch that's constantly ready to fight God in a Denny's parking lot. He would be out there committing murder every time someone tried to rezone Gotham's voting districts again; he'd just show up in their dark living room with anime eyeshine like, "oh? And you thought you could get away with this? 🔪"

[cozymochi]

For the TWST ask meme (if you haven't answered these ones already and I missed it) Favorite NRC staff member? Is there any character who seems to follow you (i.e. they always seem to pop up when you're trying to summon someone else)?

13. Favorite NRC Staff Member

SAM!!! I tried practicing drawing him the other day because I never actually did. Mostly for like a really arbitrary reason regarding whether or not to follow his JP appearance. Elements were removed for a reason I’m sure, even if it was possibly a case of over-correcting (see use of the word “master” being danced around, but don’t quote me I am merely speculating, especially because there is no official explantation behind why and never will be- I can speculate all I wanna but I think I will just do my own digging on my own time), and on that end I kinda got left in an awkward position lol. A part of me was experimenting with a compromise of sorts, but we’ll see how that goes, assuming I do it at all.

Besides, there’s allure in having less to draw lmao

Don’t mind the terribly off model exercises, I was just getting a feel. BECAUSE I WANNA USE HIM he’s kind of a big obvious elephant in the room for anyone who like reaaally cares about my little MC (*cricket noises*) and I have answers, but I wanna go crazy properly. (Granted, I haven’t really drawn any of the staff rip. BUT UNLIKE SAM, I have no reasons. See? Im uncool.)

I still wanna know more about him. But I guess I’ll have to wait until mmmmmm around next year maybe for [JP SPOILERS REDACTED].

8. ANSWERED

[mathewton-cl]

As An IzuOcha Shipper…

…them not ending up together isn’t the problem.

Horikoshi taking the “leave it up to interpretation” approach and then proceeding to COMPLETELY AVOID ADDRESSING their relationship status is the problem.

Horikoshi failing to tie up that one last loose end for Uraraka’s character arc (not closing off her feelings) is the problem.

Again, I ship IzuOcha. Still do, because I’m stubborn. Would I have liked for them to end up together, even if it was only a somewhat blatant implication that could be handwaved? Obviously. But you know what? Maybe I would be upset if the story went out of its way to explicitly de-confirm any chance of Midoriya and Uraraka being a romantic pairing, but I’d at least respect it and understand it a lot more if the story let Midoriya and Uraraka actually talk about this, or at the very least SHOWED US them talking about this. I’d understand if Uraraka completed her character arc by having a heart to heart with Midoriya and telling him that her feelings have changed, her priorities have changed, and Midoriya understands and they remain good friends. Let’s be real, romance isn’t Horikoshi’s strong suit, despite his many attempts to leave romantic implications throughout the series. I’d completely understand if he just had Midoriya and Uraraka talk and they didn’t end up together, because at least then it still provides both of their characters with closure.

But no, that’s too simple. Let’s just “leave it up to interpretation,” because it clearly wasn’t that important, right?

Well, as many people on the internet have already brought up, if it wasn’t so important, why did you spend so much time putting emphasis on it? Why did you have Uraraka, up until the FINAL WAR, have her crush on Midoriya be a crucial part of her character (it wasn’t her only character trait, mind you, but it was still important)? Why did the penultimate chapter have the class come to comfort Uraraka and tell her that they can talk to her… and then come the next chapter, Uraraka apparently hasn’t done anything regarding her supposed crush on Midoriya? For literal YEARS!?

…see, this isn’t even a shipping problem anymore. This is a character problem.

Horikoshi, for whatever reason, chose not to include a romance for the main character and his supposed love interest. And again, that’s fine, not every story needs to be a romance. Two problems with it here though (well, one problem and an observation):

1) Choosing to not at least address the romantic subplot with a “I think we’re better off as friends” encounter, thus actually concluding the subplot and providing a sense of closure, not only leaves the result feeling underwhelming and frustrating, but also actively damages Uraraka’s character arc. We can have her address the problem that caused people like Toga to exist, but heaven forbid she talks about romance with Midoriya.

2) Despite his supposed aversion to romance, Horikoshi still went out of his way to give Gentle and La Brava wedding rings… he’s willing to establish a side romantic pairing without bringing too much attention to it, but he can’t be bothered to do something similar for the arguable MAIN pairing? It’s the “Togata has special clothes so he doesn’t end up buck naked, but Hagakure’s still gotta go commando” debacle again…

I’ma go ahead and wrap this up ‘cause I don’t wanna keep y’all much longer, but like… being optimistic, this ending was… functional. I’ve got my problems with it, obviously, I don’t think it was BAD bad… but it certainly wasn’t good. It works. Barely. And it’s ‘cause of stuff like this.

Midoriya and Uraraka didn’t need to end up together, truly. All Horikoshi had to do was put the smallest amount of effort and give us something of substance, something with closure. Instead, we got what we got.

I get that he was exhausted and wanted the manga to be over… but that excuse only holds up for so long.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

favourite twdg villain?

I'm a fond enjoyer of the St. John's as villains. I don't know if they're my favorite just because they're only in one episode, but I love the concept of this family almost immediately jumping into cannibalism toward the start of the outbreak, dealing in human flesh to bandits, and casually feeding this group their friend's legs.

Like... what the hell was this family like before the outbreak that all three of them were like, "Hey now listen... nothing should go to waste, the dead are eating people so why shouldn't we? We gotta survive and in our defense, we only target those who were gonna die anyway... like y'all."

Dude, Mark was shot in this shoulder with an arrow. He wasn't going to die from that injury. It's so fucked that these seemingly friendly people took the group into their home and then fed them Mark's legs.

If we take the idea that everyone is infected and have the capacity within themselves to become walkers, to become monsters, then the St. John's were infected long before the outbreak, y'know? Not literally, but something was wrong with them and the outbreak just further spread that infection and changed them.

But again, are they my favorite? I dunno if I can say that since I have a lot more appreciation for Lily now. Yeah, some of her writing gets a little wonky in ep3 of TFS when she goes on her monologues and shit, but y'know what? I'm into it.

You have to remember who we're talking about and the fact that she's the antagonist; Lily isn't some anti-hero in TFS who secretly has a heart of gold that's brought to light because she reunited with Clementine... she's a fucked up woman who did fucked up things in the name of survival. She's full of rot now. She sees kidnapping children and turning them into soldiers to protect her home as a means to an end, but she doesn't actually give a shit about the people she's taking. They aren't people to her, they're as the episode title suggests, toys in her game. The only one she sees as a person is Clementine, and while that makes her hesitate at first, she sees Clementine's a prize to bring back.

She remembers what happened in S1; her father had a heart attack and as she tried to save him, Kenny smashed his face in with a saltlick and then expected Lily to just stand up and help him get back to his family because "he did what he had to, he made the hard choice." Yes, Larry was a piece of shit. No one liked him, and you can even question Lily on him and she'll tell you that he has a lot of pain. Yes, it makes him an asshole, but he's still her dad and he's all she has. I mean... the simplification is daddy issues, but in all seriousness, I don't doubt for a second that many of Lily's issues stem from Larry being a shitty father to her.

Then everyone thought she was losing it when she insisted there was a traitor in the group, which she was right about, but she was unstable. She was unwell, but how do you help someone like that when you don't have training to go about it? Then Lily ends up killing either Carley or Doug and the group turns on her, and either she's left behind or she steals the van and runs away.

Then we don't know what the hell happened to her until we see her again in TFS, but like... a lone woman with decay festering inside of her joining the delta? Exposing her to their methods? I mean, what else did she have to lose? She had nothing, she lost everything, and she has a lot of issues. Survival is easy when you're numb, when you don't care about the individual; they're all just cogs churning to make the system run, and if a piece doesn't cooperate, you get rid of it and find a new one.

Plus I think there's something to say about Lily not wanting to be perceived as weak again. That whole display she put on in the cells? Telling the story of what happened to Minerva and Sophie? I get the criticism that it feels like Lily did a 180 between episodes but like... yeah dude, because it's a performance. It's not just her and Clementine anymore. It's a display of power and authority. She's playing the part and thriving in it as she ensures everyone else is terrified of her.

But then when Clementine and AJ get the upper hand? Again, she's not afraid to play up the pleading to earn enough sympathy to spare her- hell, just to let their guard down enough to strike and get the upper hand again. I mean, she's got nothing else to lose, right? If she doesn't go for it, she'll be killed and sure, you can kill her anyway but at least she tried.

Honestly, I look at Lily in TFS and still see that scared little girl playing the tough bitch, just like Carley said in S1. It's just now escalated from "tough bitch" to a downright vile person. She's so... lost? I suppose? Lost within herself and the monstrous means she's taken to survive.

I get the criticisms of how she was used in TFS, but for me, it's like when people complain about Minerva not getting the redemption arc she supposedly should've gotten, y'know? There's no saving her. Lily was never on our side, and there was no getting her on our side. She wasn't ever going to redeem herself. Even if you spare her and she drifts away on her raft, can someone like her actually find redemption? Or will she just find another group that'll feed into her rot?

Truly, I say let her be horrid. Let her be the piece of shit villain with a few fleeting moments of humanity. Let her drown in the blood she's spilled.

[hollowsart]

..At this point in time. Joker isn't even interesting. he's just a really boring and really dumb character. there's hardly anything you can actually do to make him fun and interesting again. the most shocking thing DC could do with his character is literally go back to what he was before: a non crazy murdering lunatic without a moral code.

Make him some genuinely funny harmless nonsensical whimsical clownish goofball whom of which the entirety of Gotham is moderately annoyed by with his ridiculous shenanigans.

Heck. if they actually made him look like an actual clown, too, THAT would be surprising.

Harley, in a way, is also the same.

DC, when I was a teen, used to be really interesting when it came to Batman. There was some interesting designs, some fascinating potential to certain characters. but often.. they tend to go too far, too extreme with their stories and characters and portrayals. At this point, Gotham feels less like a city and more like an apocalyptic wasteland of daily death.

I could go on a rant, but I'll leave this thought here.

[enlichened]

The thing thats consistently bothered me the most in the fallout show is the racism. I would hesitate to recommend it because of that alone. And there was obvious love that the set and prop designers, actors, costume department, and even maybe the writers put into the show! There are themes and characters in fallout that i'm certain would resonate with fans of color!

It KILLS me that so many of the fallout entries are damn well unplayable/watchable in this regard because the writers simply Don't Care how the people in their work are presented. That this like hugely popular world with a lot of worldbuilding and thought behind it does such wrong to so many people, fans and otherwise, that you cannot find any game in the series that does it right or well. It alienates a lot of people who might've been fans just because the majority white creators and fanbase don't give a shit, and I'm sick of it.

it's not enough to say "in the fallout in my head that racism doesn't happen," you actually have to put some things into PRACTICE. Allow space in your head, your games/show, your fan spaces for people of color! notice and say something when you see racism coming from media, yourself, and others!

[aeroblossom]

narcissus without water; sou hiyori

i wasn't gonna post this here because i really reaaally hate it but ehhh fuck it we ball. 3-1 unused intro spoilers. does that even count. kanna route implied.

In the aftermath is cold. Icy, chilling cold. The immense rush of the impact lasted but a moment. Time is a fleeting thing for all who live, whether the hearts beating in their chests are made of muscle, or of metal; whether the circuits powering them and every moment of madness, every second of passion, every victory and every mistake, are made of grey matter, or of a network of microscopic transistors.

The merciless weapon, which had moments ago pierced through his torso, now meets him eye to eye. As if a deeply loyal animal that was too loved to know when to retract its claws, destroying everything in its path to be close to the one it owes its devotion to. Through flickering sparks in one eye, and slowly blurring vision in the other, he stares. He smells blood. The sight of it would not bother him in the slightest had it been someone else it was coming out of. But when you've lived as he has, blood seeping from a wound feels unnatural. And he'd started to believe he was finally rid of the last vestiges of his humanity. Red drips down the side of his face, from the grey matter in his skull that still held proof of something human. The emotion centers of his brain were dysfunctional since he came into the world. So really, it matters little to him. He can barely even feel the pain.

The thing that upsets him more is the red on his chest. It doesn't trickle down from his crown, but spurts from the gaping wound in his center. Sparks fire in all directions, somewhere in his ears he hears a low ringing of both his organic bodily systems as well as mechanical ones. The gears cry emergency, the cells cry of death. A realization supplied by his mechanical logic center creeps slowly into the back of his head, surrounding him fully until he submerges in acceptance. He has little time left.

Eyes the color of sea glass stare at nothing in particular, yet keep darting about, aimless, anxious perhaps, but with unmistakable defeat in them. Little light penetrates the coffin, brought in only by the gaping hole created by the drill. It illuminates a straight stripe across his now ruined body, one bright seafoam gaze and tousled mess of green last in the light's path. Dust particles shimmer like gold specks, his contemplative eyes fixating on their fluttering dance.

He hears distant voices, he thinks, if his audio faculties are even functioning by now. Crying - pained voices, happy voices. Meister's scrawny tone, and determined words from the young girl with copper hair. They must be huddling together right now. Allies. Cooperates. A team spirit reignited.

Petty emotion lurches inside him, wanting to shatter that nonsensical resolve with his own hands. He knows how to. Even now, it would not take much -

No.

It's over.

Defeat weighs heavier than how it first felt to have your flesh replaced by porcelain. It's heavier than the volume of crimson flowing from the wound in his chest. Not that he has needed to breathe in a long time, but here, now, he suddenly feels breathless.

Silence is the mind's curtain call. Contemplation weaves its way through his thoughts, thoughts that will soon fade. Thoughts that are firing wildly due to the vast amount of information being processed in these final moments, alongside a slow system shutdown.

It's a bit like he's dreaming with his eyes open, if you think about it like that.

Ah. He's wasted so much energy in meaningless thoughts. Not that it truly mattered at this point. Right... where had he gone wrong?

Hiyori, Sou. Assumed age, twenty. An easily recognizable mop of green hair, tied down at the ends into a neat rattail that didn't match how the rest of his hair looked. The nickname they gave him was his namesake hair. Tall, fairly lithe. Eyes a deeper colour than the hair, like pure, vibrant jade. Plainly, more than half of him was doll, and the vestiges human. What were once the tender hands of a real human are now porcelain and alabaster. Gears tick inside the system, rhythmic, he was a mechanical harmony. Occasionally interrupted by remnant humanity.

Living, breathing red pumped from his heart, no matter how much he'd separated himself from flesh and blood. The proximity of that living heart to electrical equipment gave him a quicker heartbeat than most. The proof of this regnant humanness now bled and ripped itself apart. He thinks he feels a bit of pain. This is probably the only physical pain he's felt since the last time he had real hands.

But it's not what he'd thought it'd be like. It does hurt, it hurts so much. Yet something else hurts a little more, something that rises from a faulty limbic system and creeps down in physical form to become surging pain in his core.

He observes, silently, the ache surge in intensity as the voices continue to speak. Words, thoughts, emotion, memory rapid fires in his mind. He tries to recall the path he'd taken so far, wanting to make out what error he had made to make him up end like this. This would not do, after all.

But no matter how he tries to focus on this endeavor, a recurring feeling scratches inside him. A sharp pain, tearing him into two. He feels he recognizes it as something from impossibly long ago. Suddenly, he realizes, in that silent grave of his, that he was entirely alone in this death. His heartbeat begins to ring into his ears alongside the periodic beeping of his system going into overdrive.

System warnings, words ringing in his head, and the wildly pounding heart, all converge like oil and paint into a wretched musica humana.

It's really stupid. Hilarious, in fact.

He wasn't human. He hadn't been so for a considerably long time, as far as himself was concerned. Death... to him, wasn't it trivial? An infinite amount of copies of himself can be made. It's meaningless, however many times he dies.

...And yet, here he was.

Does Hiyori Sou feel? Does he regret? Does he hurt?

Does this largely doll, barely human, ever find himself lonely?

In the moments that follow, the emotion that grips him next is sheer horror. At not just these intrusive questions, but his body's physical reaction to it.

Something clouds his vision much more heavily than before. What little he could see before him twists into an oil painting, unrecognizable, an intense pain radiates inside his neck, like strangulation. And then he heaves a sigh as a singular, pearlescent tear streams down his face.

He can hear Meister's scratchy voice from a while ago, before any of this. Before all of this.

So you can cry too.

He had said, as Hiyori leaned against his screen and shed tears at the sight before him. Him, of all people, mourning - it was, of course, an unbelievable sight. At the time, he had found it jestly insulting that Meister would imply he couldn't cry or feel such emotion. So what makes this different? Why does it feel so different?

Ah, it really does feel like the entire world is making a mockery out of him. But perhaps this is a fitting end for himself. Villain he was born, villain he will die.

Death holds little meaning to someone like him.

It's almost time. His thoughts begin to slow down to a grinding halt.

He faintly registers some shifting sounds. The coffin he resided in is being laid flat on the ground. Will it be opened next? Will they see him like this?

A light slam signals to him that the coffin has been taken down. The drill carefully withdraws, now leaving only his mauled body behind. The sound of dust and rocks crumbling, and then light filters into the depths. Though it gets brighter and brighter, he finds his world only becoming darker.

Meister is the one lifting the lid. He has it propped up with one hand, the other on his knee as he knelt down, chewing on a cigarette, inspecting what he was seeing with a careful, suspicious, and yet rather surprised expression. Tia Safalin stands beside him, one hand on her chest and the other seemingly reaching out to touch him in the coffin. He knows hearing is beyond him when he sees the anxious woman mouth his name, when he watches them talk amongst themselves, and can't make out any of it. It's probably too late to worry about what it could be.

The crying doll leans down, placing one hand to his face. As if the plaster skin wasn't stiff enough, he finds himself turning into what may as well be stone. She inspects his head wound. He can't move his eyes anymore to follow her actions, but he can still vaguely feel them. The small hand moves down slowly, tracing a line across his face and down his chest, analytic. She shakes her head with a sigh upon the damage to his torso.

It's really over for him, isn't it?

Her finger ghosts its way back up, this time lingering on his face. He notices the slight dumbfoundedness in her expression, pressing slightly to make sure she was seeing right - the tear stains on his cheek. He wants to smile, all of a sudden, but he no longer can.

As she concludes her inspection and stands up, hiding her expression with that stupendous hat, he faintly wonders if she's crying too. Is she crying for him? No... that would be ridiculous. There wasn't anyone left who could cry for him. In death as he was in life, alone.

Mere moments remain for him, and he wonders, for the final time - should he have led a different life, would there be comrades by his side? Does there exist a world in which Hiyori Sou, too, has allies?

Vibrant seafoam eyes darken like a wilting flower, unable to make out anything clearly, shedding one final tear.

[c0rpsedemon]

the thing about the queer media tournament that really gets me is that last i checked there wasn't a single mxtx work on it. like not even the untamed made it in and don't get me wrong the og mo dao zu shi books are huge but cql is def more popular among tumblr circles. idk it just really rubs me the wrong way how every single piece of western media that ppl have ever gotten a lil bit aggressive abt shipping with is there and then for east asian media there's utena and madoka magica and the handmaiden and last i checked that was pretty much it. and then for the rest of the world there's next to/nothing but idk enough to really make judgements there.

[charmwasjess]

Thanks so much to those who have tagged me in the "pick four fav characters and you'll tell me which one I am most like" challenge thing going around - I've loved voting in yours!

.....however, I will not be playing, as I do not want to inevitably find out that I bear any similarity to Cunt Dooku :'D

[sonknuxadow]

seeing that new post from the official sonic account like Oh new espio art how ni AHHHHHHHH TAYLOR SWIFT JUMPSCARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[anxiously-sidequesting]

So I don't know if it was ever revealed how Duncan felt when we killed Malistaire all three times but I'm wondering if maybe some part of him could hate us for that too. Like you hear that and you go "but why. Malistaire was terrible and even Duncan knew that(?). Why would he hate you for getting rid of him."

But like I think it's so....... interesting in a very, very, very sad way how Duncan so easily latches onto anyone who directly feeds into his delusions of grandeur. And that's no fault of his own that he was manipulated by the nasty Schism but when you think about how desperately clung to the idea that Malistaire, easily one of the greatest necromancers any of us had ever heard of (at that time), somehow actually recognized Duncan's talents (even when canon supports that Duncan wasn't all that talented, at least no more than the next necromancer) and then praised him for it so often that Duncan believed that he would be the next Death Professor is. I mean ☹️

So like with that mindset I unfortunately feel like it would be quite easy to twist even Malistaire's death as something that's horrible and awful and all our fault. ESPECIALLY if the Schism was feeding into Duncan's already broken mind and shattered ego and was constantly telling him that everything bad that ever happened to him ever in his life was Our Fault. That's like a realistic conclusion that someone like Duncan could come to

And like, at this point in time, are Malistaire's crimes even a factor in how he thinks????? Was Duncan ever able to separate Malistaire's talent and skills and prowess from the terrible and awful things he did? If Duncan wasn't able to consciously tell that distinction in the first place I can't imagine it would be any better during the years he was being manipulated and isolated and lied to

Like in Duncan's mind it probably isn't, "maybe I shouldn't idolize a national criminal, or idolize anyone at all for that matter, and aspire to be like someone so harmful when I can recognize my own talent and build from there" it's probably more like, "you (the wizard) permanently got rid of a brilliant mind, an innocent person who just made a few mistakes, and someone who believed in me no matter what just so that you could be the better than me and loved by everyone else" and that's! very sad actually!

[somer-writes]

What's your favorite trope? Like ever. If every story you read/wrote for the rest of your life had to contain this one trope, what would it be?

oh man oh man oh man

i almost said enemies to lovers but really, it has to be crisis of faith

nothing tickles me more than a character having their entire reasoning for doing anything or moral compass laid at their feet. maybe their deity doesnt exist, maybe it does. maybe there is no reason for mercy and cruelty, maybe those things are entirely out of their control. and what becomes the point of anything if they start to believe that their life was never theirs to command??

i love this trope bc it breaks down what makes someone them. like at the end of the line, on deaths doorstep, if they leave anything behind what would it be?

it gives characters a new motivation. sometimes it makes them better, sometimes it makes them worse. i love when no matter good or evil it causes some kind of ascension in them.

even more when it effects a greater world! dead gods are still gods. why are they still being worshipped if theyre gone? why not worship them if theyre alive? how does an atheist align their viewpoint with a world that hinges on deities like a lot of fantasy worlds or how does a theist grapple with this being all there is?

sweet sweet angst in a good old fashioned existential crisis but so much oomph in a character finding out theres no point and making their own instead or perhaps a character choosing their own path to a predetermined destination

[dimensionhoppr]

One day I will be able to properly break down the themes of authoritarianism, bioessentialism, and the VERY flawed "hero and villain" dynamic in MHA and then it'll be ALL over for you...