#its been a year and a half still care her very much my favorite character I've ever played

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 4/2/2024

in which i try to clean two different boxes with varying success

new people: hello! the tuesdaypost is a weekly roundup of stuff i've been listening, reading, watching, playing, and making. it is NOT a recommendation series, although i sometimes dabble in critique. when im firing on all cylinders i ask "what is the core concept of this? does it succeed in what i think it's trying to do and what it says it's doing?is it well-made but i dislike it/beautiful but not for me? why? what parts Really Work?"

if you are into purity culture, yelling at other people about the problematic media they consume, or are under 18 i am going to have very little patience for you.

listening

now that i live in houston i am legally obliged to loop the new beyonce album 24/7. there is absolutely truly nobody fucking doing it like her. every song is a multimedia art piece. goddamn do i miss the album as a tool to convey a specific concept/listening order/flow. sometimes (chappell roan most recently comes to mind, although it does feel unfair to compare anyone to beyonce) every individual song is pretty good but the listening experience if you sit down and listen all the way through the album is unpleasant and choppy. not so here. NEVER here.

my favorite like Dance Number is YA YA (it samples nancy sinatra's boots! and the beach boys' good vibrations! wildly different tones despite coming out a year apart!)

the one that goes on four different character/tone playlists is BODYGUARD.

great early roundup of influences, samples, and collaborators. delighted to see five fingers for marseilles listed, a rocky but underrated south african neo-western free on tubi rn for americans

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reading

also very texas-relevant with the recent pornhub lawsuits! pornhub and sex tech (among other things) have been samantha cole's beat for almost ten years. i trust her to report sensitively and not for like. shock clicks

this site has a free paywall (sign up with your email for a link to the full article) so bots have a harder time scraping articles: this is a journalist-founded site with only the four founders running it and writing articles. while annoying i do think this is a reasonable measure

The platform still has problems, but after years of critical reporting and a litany of legal and reputational consequences, Pornhub is now more heavily moderated than any other porn platform, and most major social media platforms, for that matter. A growing list of age verification laws has put Pornhub in a position where it is compelled to block access to its site in seven states and counting. In theory, these laws are designed to prevent children from being able to access pornography online. In reality, what is going to happen is that children are going to end up on pornographic sites that don’t care what the law says, and where some of the most harmful content that exists online is actively promoted to them.

she's also got a new limited series podcast with CBC about the rise and fall of pornhub, which was fascinating and kept me company during an extremely early morning drive

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watching

i'm lukewarm about this one but i spend a lot of time getting there, much like this movie

ive been watching a lot of frankly dogshit thrillers, which has made me wonder: what's the deal with supervillans? where did they come from? and thence arrived at the prototypical film Dr Mabuse the Gambler (1922, dir. Lang). the four and a half hour cut on Kanopy is two normal-length movies superglued together, which makes sense as a streaming product but it is sort of a terrifying runtime and took me three days to get through.

sometimes, as we know, i get a real bee in my bonnet about visiting the early versions of things. dr mabuse is the blueprint for every james bond and mission impossible villain, or really any shadowy supervillain with power over [INDUSTRY] or [THE MARKET]. it is a four and a half hour long cat and mouse game through lavish, eccentric sets between mabuse and prosecutor wenk. it has some trouble sustaining itself bc it is four and a half hours long but does deliver on the cat and mouse aspects. this letterboxed review has interesting things to say about the political climate of 1922 germany and how lang subverts the formula of the pulp serial.

really the film opens with mabuse yelling at his cocaine-addicted assistant, but the film properly gets going with mabuse's henchmen stealing a trade agreement (nothing really carbon dates a movie more than a missing trade agreement. vanishingly few post-early-30s movies have missing trade agreements as plot points) and then he crashes the stock market. for fun and profit.

however. i think every time you see an evil man who is a banker or stockbroker or generally uses money as power you have to interrogate whether it's antisemitic. the answer here is "maybe" but i'm not sure if intent matters when contemporary nazi critics were eager to hold mabuse up as "this is the typical jewish criminal". (sorry about the link directly to wikipedia, it's been touch finding online sources for this section). mabuse is not specifically jewish, but there are certainly elements of stereotype. i am still not good at being presented with "this movie has a shadowy behind the scenes figure manipulating the government and all the money ever" and going "hey wait a minute".

after that tremendous glaring caveat, for which i read more contemporary reviews and reviews in general than i ever read for movies in these posts, is it good? eh. a contemporary VARIETY review remarked (and i largely agree)

The direction of Fritz Lang has moments – but Lang somewhat negates his good technical effects by twenty forty-word captions of a ludicrous unconciseness.

the night scenes are particularly well done, and imo are better than many modern night scenes--other contemporary reviews remarked

In this film the techniques of the film camera (Carl Hoffmann’s brilliant photography) are brought to perfection. The problem of how to film lit-up streets at night has been solved for the first time. It is unbelievably impressive to see the glaring lights of speeding cars flash through the night or the rapid passing of an elevated train of the initially blurred, then gradually focussed glimpse through a pair of opera glasses on to the variety stage, the nuances of light and shade—these things alone prove the value of film documentary.

look at this shit! filmed from within the cars! in 1922!!!

this film asks you to believe hypnotism is real and really effective, so i don't think it's that big of a leap when it asks you to believe in ghosts. i don't understand that quibble from contemporary viewers. there are several on screen suicides with like. specific methods. which is not currently regarded as good filmmaking practice. im curious to know what contemporary audiences thought but couldn't immediately turn anything up, and wading through masters’ theses on cinematic suicide is a little beyond my current mental health.

if i were a more content-minded woman this would turn into a clickbait video essay about the antisemitic origins of every supervillan. however i am unqualified and untalented at video editing and i'm sure there are forty theses on this already. this movie is a hard sell to anyone jewish or employed. it is also a stunning example of cutting-edge film technology and part of the genesis of the modern supervillan. Fritz Lang films tend to fall in the category of “movies i am happy to see once and feel no need to revisit”.

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playing

playing what is effectively the same game three times back to back (breath of the wild, tears of the kingdom, genshin impact) has sort of burned me out on open world games with a focus on battle skill progression and stumbling across little puzzles in the overworld. i have to get itch.io up and running on this pc and find the most linear jankiest possible one-sitting indie thing. or several of them. i might try the solo ttrpg Gentleman Bandit i seem to have acquired in one of the giant charity bundles

brief breath of the wild update bc i don't want to pull screenshots off my switch: i have gotten to the boss fight for the gerudo and goron regions, have not completed them bc my focus in this game is NOT hearts, and am in the middle of the zora temple. despite the quality of life improvements and new regions in totk i think i prefer botw: progression is a bit easier, there are fewer mmo-style hub quests and repeatable quests. things like the stable photos are cute but very repetitive, so are the sign bracing puzzles, and the sky crystal quests for sky shrines feel VERY samey. also dislike how the CLEAR OUT: [REGION] quests with the monster suppression squads reset at the blood moon.

anyway! to genshin! there was an exceptionally fun little event with a surprisingly involved management sim tacked onto the game??? you make and sell potions fulfilling different requirements, and can eventually stock travelling merchants all over the continent. the actual act of making the potions was this block-filling 1010! style thing (screenshot from polygon)

the new region, a port town and tea-growing area called Chenyu Vale, is maybe the prettiest one in the game so far? it's the one that feels the most picturesque and Designed, like this is one huge mansion garden studded with follies. they also added background chatter and noise in the cities and towns, which really startled me and makes them feels much more lived in! this is a fun trick to avoid putting in a thousand NPCs and making everyone's framerate crash. the less stuff in your game, the less shit can go wrong.

also pulled for and got chiyori, a geo-aligned seamstress (and sometime spy???) swordswoman who has what i can only call domme voice

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making

ok now we'll talk about boxes. i was rearranging my kitchen, as unemployed women are known to do, and noticed this recipe box i picked up back in mass was disgusting. the finish is starting to fail but it was genuinely grody and last summer i packed my kitchen in a blind panic inside an hour and did not have time to address it. i have never seen a recipe box at an estate sale before or since and it made me desperately sad.

it was full of a lot of stuff.

i went at it with a somewhat inadvisable combination of things: wood soap didn't budge it, so i dampened a paper towel in vinegar and wiped it down in the vain hope it would do something. the thing that worked, and would be inadvisable for anything veneered or less densely textured, was baking soda paste and the scrubby side of a sponge. it still smells Very musty even after 48h of loose baking soda inside with several changes, but that might be partly the recipe cards' fault. i would like to refinish this at some point but i don't have polyurethane on hand and the fun little project budget is empty until further notice/i get a job.

the hinge did rust a bit despite my best efforts but that has since been lightly steel wooled and oiled. a well loved object! it's possible the lady who died just fucking sucked and that's why literally her entire estate including many other things families usually keep was on sale, but i would like to think perhaps she simply had no other family? a well loved/used object even if all the recipes are for semi-horrifying fifties new england recipes.

the other box, pre-acids but post-washing: this topp trading card box with seven episode one packets of cards was intact with the original seal. i have verified it was not worth much more than the $5 i paid for it with the trading card obsessed man in my best friend's husband's friendgroup. i bought this three months ago but the man was unavailable to open it until uhhh last week. some sort of liquid got inside it at some point and it was super corroded. i was going to store embroidery floss in here but even with all my powers (barkeepers friend. brasso.) i cannot completely remove the corrosion. it's not corroded Through but it looks bad and feels rough. so it goes. it'll probably hold the tiedown straps in my car bc that plastic bucket is rapidly failing

[poochiray]

10 OffGun-ish fics you should read

So I’m coming up on my anniversary soon. This month it’s been a year since my first OffGun story I’ve published. Within this year, I’ve read and wrote a ton of OffGun. So I thought I’d celebrate the occasion by recognizing some of my favorites from the fandom. These are not really in any particular order, so please keep that in mind. I’m not ranking one over the other. And each story has its own special things I like about them. Some of my favorite tropes I tend to gravitate towards are slow burn, pining, angst, smut, humor, switching (be it sexual position or partner), happy endings, & getting together stories. Almost all of these stories have a couple of these things in them. So without further ado, the list~

1) Picking Flowers by allourheroes | 13.3k, Explicit, Pick/Rome

Ya’ll, it was so hard to pick a story by this author. I like a lot of their stories and honestly anything you read by them is going to slam. But there are two stories I think back on even months later. This is one of them. The synopsis of this story is that Pick (as a veterinarian) sometimes has to take care of supernatural creatures. And as such, he comes across a half-pixie named Rome. It’s just such a unique take on Pick/Rome and even though it’s a fantasy AU, their personalities still shine through. It’s cute, romantic, a little angsty, and honestly I remember it being a little slow burn too. Just a very very cute story and definitely worth the read.

2) our hands speak for us by Rioana | 12.1k, Explicit, Off/Gun

K this author has three works, and honestly you should read all of them. I’m not even kidding here. Rioana just gets Gun. Her first story is basically an extensive character study on Gun and as you read through it, you just accept it as reality. Her stories just make sense as plausible explanations, and the same can be said for our hands speak for us. The premise of this story is set during Puppy Honey era, and Gun casually decides to give Off a blowjob to get him to be more comfortable to work with. Then things go from there. I won’t spoil it too much, but be forewarned, Off is not painted in the best light here. This is during his earlier filming career with Gun. As such, there is real situations referenced and the whole thing feels like we’re just going back in time. It’s very real. But very good. 

3) A Savage Gang by piningbisexuals | 53.4k, Explicit, Khai/Third

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but this is my favorite Theory of Love story. It’s definitely a darker, more gritty tale. This was inspired by the Not Me trailer and what resulted was an amazing story where the Savage Gang are actually...well, a gang. There’s drugs, there’s sex, there’s the typical Third pining over Khai. It has everything I ever wanted in a story and the slow burn is just ughhh. So well done. This is a story that sticks around and stays in your head for weeks later. If you’re going to read any Theory of Love story, read this one.

4) make a wish by Feyrelynn | 7.7k, Explicit, Off/Gun

This was the very first OffGun story I bookmarked, so it kinda has a special place in my heart. I’d been dabbling in the fandom, going absolutely feral over edits of these two clingy men, and then I stumbled across this story and that was pretty much it for me. This is a birthday fic, with a very simple concept. Off places a wish on his birthday to see what life would be like if he was really with Gun. And then he gets his glimpse into that reality. Short, simple, and adorably sexy.

5) Provocation by hedgielettuce | 5k, Explicit, Third/Khai

Ok, if you are at all familiar with the things I write/read, this one won’t come as any shock to people on why it’s listed here. This is by far the sexiest Theory of Love story I’ve ever read. And why? Because this author embraces BOSSY THIRD. One of the reasons I love Third so much is because he calls the shots. He instills fear into his hot shot playboy boyfriend. He’s not playing.  And this story expands on it, going so far as to show a jealous dom side to Third that makes perfect sense and leaves Khai in shambles.    

6) love and eggs are best when they are fresh by pancakelady | 10.7k, Teen, Sean/White

Making this list made me realize I’m sorely lacking on Sean/White stories to recommend lmao. I think the reason being is that I just love their canon story so much. So, I don’t feel the need to read more about them? Does that make any sense? I dunno. But either way, this story stuck out more than any other for this particular pairing. It’s the classic high school AU where they are partnered to take care of a “child” for a school project. The “child” being an egg. This is just a very fucking cute story and pretty wholesome too. I think it’s the only story not rated E that I’ll be reccing, so there ya go haha. 

7) The Initiation Series by pallidvixen | 30k+, Explicit, Pick Your Not Me Pairing, it’s all there

Now for the complete opposite of wholesome because I’m fucked up like that lmao. Wow. What’s there to say about this one? Well, for one, it’s a series. You have to read each story because it gradually builds up and gets crazier as it goes. But the basic premise is that Gumpa has an initiation ceremony that all the members of the gang must undergo to prove their loyalty and devotion to the cause. The ceremony? Group sex. It’s everyone fucking everyone. Gumpa with big dom energy, Black just pissed off and not wanting to be there, Gram being an eager fluffer for Black, Sean the virgin, Yok the slut...it’s just. It’s so fucking amazing. And shocking. And I could write so much more but I’ll stop. I get it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but ya’ll. This is the story I think about more than any other, it’s so fucking messed up and perfect.

8) Meant to Be by lililyyli | 76k, Explicit, Maetee/T-Rex

Ya’ll. I have a specific need, and it’s more of this pairing. I started this story because on the word count alone, ngl. Finding longer OffGun stories in general is such a rare treat. But to have one for this pairing too? Sign me the fuck up. The plot on this one was super cute too. Maetee has magical powers and is an exorcist, meanwhile T-Rex is a demon. Together they run into each other as kids and grow up as friends. Things happen, they part ways. They come back as adults and slowly fall in love with each other. I just remember binge reading this entire story in a day, it was so interesting and cute and lovely. And I still think about Maetee getting to dress up as a princess.

9) How Old My Heart by Xagan | 44.3k, Mature, Khai/Third

Ok one of my favorite tropes to read is pining. The thing is with this story is that all the pining is off screen. It's in the background. And it's fucking brilliant. As the reader, you get to piece it all together. You get to watch Khai wait and wait, always playing off as this fuckboy friend. You get to watch Third fall in and out of love with someone else. You then finally get to watch them both come together and create something beautiful, only for one to think it's all casual, the other not. It's a slow burn story, but well worth the read, and the ending was just perfect.

10) there’s a word for it by smyx | 8.7k, Explicit, Yok/Everyone

Lol so this story isn't even technically OffGun focused. This author has written some spicy stories that do feature more OG pairings, but, y'all. This story has a special place in my heart and there's a reason I'm reccing it over the others. It has charm. It is hilarious. Yok is basically a flirty slut who works his way around the gang. Yet in the end, he ends up attempting a threesome with SeanWhite and lol. It's so bad. I just like how sometimes the sex isn't omg amazingly mind-blowing. There is a realness there that I appreciated reading. And Yok's casual approach was just adorable and had me roaring with laughter throughout.

💚 If you've gotten to the end, thanks for reading my list! I'll probably be creating a new list for next year. Drop your recs in the comments! I'm always looking forward to reading new content of OffGun and their associated ships. 💚

[jimmyandthegiraffes]

Fic Writing Review 2023 🌈

Thank you sm @itwoodbeprefect for the tag!!!

I hardly published anything this year so if u wanna skip to 'projects for 2024' that's gonna be the most interesting bit >.<

Words and Fics (on ao3) 📚

words posted: 714 💀 but many more words were written, just not posted lol fics posted: 1 first fic/last fic 😅: King of the Eyesores - Doctor Who (1963)

Ships and Fandoms ⚓

Doctor Who - no ships really but KotE is Mike Yates-centric.

Top 5 Fics by Kudos 🏆

It's KotE again lol which is at 6 kudos. Of all time, tho:

After the Hour(glass) - Night at the Museum (Jedtavius)

Less Than Ideal Circumstances - The Man from UNCLE (TV) (Napollya)

When They Sleep - The Man from UNCLE (TV)

Dismiss Your Fears - Back to the Future

After All, I'm Only Sleeping - Doctor Who (1963)

Top 5 Favorite Fics 💖

KotE......... I do actually rly enjoy KotE I think it has potential in terms of where it's going. But since I only posted one fic in 2023, I'll do my top 5 of fics I've ever posted. Apart from the first one this is in no particular order

tickertape - The A-Team (TV) it's my baby it's all I thought about for months of my life, it's like an iceberg (i.e. most of it is in my WIP doc, and only a tiny fraction is published so far), it got me thru a difficult time, it's an exploration of mental illness and complicated messy relationships expressed in epic format (i.e. it's probably gonna be novel length when it's done)

Bullet Number Six - Starsky & Hutch (TV) it received criticism for being obscure and hard to follow bc it switches pov briefly halfway thru but idc i love it anyway

I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues - The A-Team (TV) it was my first A-Team fic and I still think for a beginner it nailed some p realistic in-character dialogue and addressed an undertone I wished I'd seen addressed in the ep it's a coda to.

When They Sleep - The Man from UNCLE (TV) it's kind of riddled with certain mannerisms of my slightly older writing which I personally find a bit annoying and have worked to iron out for the sake of elegance over the years. but I still think it's a cool little exploration of all my sleep headcanons for the pair of them in one place

King of the Eyesores - Doctor Who (1963) see it made it to the list after all! I kinda like it more for its potential than for what it is right now butttttt who cares.

special mention to Unbereft (Starsky & Hutch) which I really really like but I wrote it in one frenzied sitting and only remembered after I'd posted it that it was very like someone else's fic I'd read several years previously. I don't think it's too much like to be taken down and I've since mentioned the writer of the other fic (it was dawnwind, hello!) in the notes. that's the only reason unbereft isn't in my top 5 because I'm otherwise really proud of how well it's written. Not to tootle on my own trumpet.

Fandom fic events

none RIP but maybe this year!!

Projects for 2024

Okay here we goooooooooooo

priority 1 is to finish the unfinished works that I've already half posted: King of the Eyesores, Every Line A Comedy, OUTATIME, The Windhover, tickertape, The Hanoi Bank Job and Other Misadventures, 38 Hours. Bolded are my top priorities.

other works that I'm writing but which haven't seen the light of day at all yet:

Dear Mike - an epistolary between Jo Grant and Mike Yates following her marriage to Cliff Jones.

The Lark/Behind That Locked Door (working titles) - a 30-chapter 2/Jamie fic about season 6B in which Jamie suffers permanent memory problems after the War Games. It explores grief, social ostracism, feeling abandoned, undirected anger, guilt, and acceptance that healing sometimes is a process that is never complete. I've been working on it since about 2016 lol but I'm lazy I just need to press on.

hell valley au - as yet untitled lol. In which the Hell Valley!Marty (who is never seen in BTTF2 as he is in Switzerland) and Hell Valley!Doc (who has been institutionalized) break out of their respective situations and go on the run together. But there's a problem - they had to leave Einstein behind, and when they get information that Einie is to be used for a dogfight, they make the risky decision to go back to Hill Valley to rescue him. However, going back to the place they just escaped by the skin of their teeth also brings them face to face with the last person they expect to meet.

a changed man (working title) - a Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) fic from Jeannie's pov. mostly it's about their picnic excursions but it's also about Jeannie wishing Marty wasn't such an elephant in the room

mfu/rahd xover (untitled) - the first chapter of this is almost ready to go tbh. it's what it says on the tin lol, Napoleon and Illya go to London and get help from a rather eccentric private detective who has uncanny powers of solving impossible cases but also they think is probably clinically insane

to see him happy - VERY weird rahd fic. it's smut but its also about grief. might never post it because several of my family members have access to my tumblr and therefore my ao3 lol they dont need to see that

the winter of '62 - a study of jeff and marty's life when they lived together in a grotty bedsit and couldnt afford to put the heating on

star wars (untitled) - set during ROTJ, han pov. han's lost a lot of time and now everyone is one step ahead of him which isn't a sensation he's used to

skyrissian - what it says on the tin lol

the older gen (untitled) - jeeves fic about bertie's aunts and uncles and parents as they were as they variously grew up, got married, had children, died (or didn't), fell prey to alcoholism or insanity or petty crime, went to war, prospered (or didn't)... This is pretty unlikely to be finished this year tbh as it's very detailed but I can dream

a couple of long form fics about starsky & hutch and mfu respectively (the s&h one is set post sweet revenge, the mfu one takes place at various moments throughout the show)

x-files series - canon compliant until paperclip and then gradually diverges into how i think the show should have gone lol. another biggie

and a handful of tintin fics that im protective of and might never post but we'll see - one where tintin and chang go on holiday in london after picaros, one where the gang encounters rajaijah one last time (featuring a letter from didi, chang making a very daring crossing at the songolese border, and tintin taking about ten years to chop up a clove of garlic), and one where tintin gets shitfaced at an embassy ball and accidentally starts an Incident. haddock looks on, appalled.

i knoooooooooooooooowww this is a lot but i'm not realistically hoping to finish it all this year but it's nice to have lots of things to play around with lol.

unfortunately i have the eternal problem of not ever knowing which of my mutuals write fic and which of those havent already been tagged but imma tag @theteaisaddictive and genuinely if u see this and u write fic ur tagged i want to knowwwwwwwwwwwww <333

[crazycartoonnerd123]

WILLOW'S ARC IN FOR THE FUTURE

MAJOR SPOILERS FROM FOR THE FUTURE

I want to start off by saying that this episode was absolutely fantastic. It was overall amazing and I have little to no criticism for this episode. But something I especially loved about this episode was that it had a specific focus on Willow, which honestly, I wasn’t expecting. I love Willow so much. She's probably my favorite character and I loved that they gave her this time to kinda rap up her arc. I loved that they took a dive into Willow's hidden anxiety for the situation and her trauma from years of bulling. It's discussed in this episode how Willow is considered the reliable friend. She makes sure that her loved ones and peers are protected and safe. That's how she was able to make a connection with her Palismen. She's considered the strong friend both physically and emotionally. She will do anything in her power to make sure that her friends are protected and emotionally okay (-ish none of them are 100% mentally okay). She does that even if the consequence is that she has to ignore her feelings. Plus, let's not forget in "Understanding Willow" that her motto was "out of sight, out of mind" which means she has a history of ignoring and bottling up her feelings. When Camilia asks Willow how she's handling everything, she simply replied with "I'm fine" which never means you are fine. Camilia continues by telling her its okay to be scared, but Willow is persistent and still continues to ignore her feelings. And to the audience, it is so obvious that she was not handling that well. It's obvious that she's upset and anxious because as she walks away, she leaves a trail of vines.

And then we start to get the true cracks in the glass. When the group is searching for Eda and King, Willow sees one of her dads in puppet form, and we get a really heartbreaking scene where Willow is trying to get her dad's attention and Hunter had to pull her away so she wouldn't get hurt. It probably broke her heart because that's the first time she's seen one of her dads in months, and she's not even able to talk to him or hug him because he's a puppet.

Then the next crack comes when their at Hexside and she sees the Christmas picture with her dads in it. She begins to cry but shakes it off.

She finds the picture of Hunter and Flapjack and gifts it to Hunter to attempt to cheer him up. Gus tells Hunter that they were all going to miss Flapjack but they knew Hunter loved him the most. Then Willow proceeds to tell Hunter that they didn't care who he was because he was one of them now and to never forget that. This causes Hunter to get very emotional and Luz asks if he's okay and Hunter replied with I don't know. This caused Willow to think that she made things worst, making her very upset. And she starts growing vines, which is foreshadowing a breakdown.

She excuses herself and runs into Bosha, which is probably the worst person she could have encountered at this point. Bosha calls her captain half a witch and talks about the pressures of being a leader, which does not help Willow in the slightest amount. She then says she wants to offer Willow some advice, and that is when Willow snaps. She tells Bosha that all she had only ever been petty and mean to her and that she couldn't give her good advice. Bosha said she was going to tell her to watch her back, and puts her to sleep with sleeping nettles.

When Hunter and Gus find Willow, she's completely broken, but she's still trying to act like she's okay. She keeps repeating to herself that she can do. She's so overwhelmed and stressed that she can't even control her own powers. She's trying so hard to keep her self calm and reassuring herself that she can do this, but it's to no avail.

She keeps repeating to herself that she can do it until she's so consumed in self dobt and blame that she just lets her vines consume her. Hunter, seeing just how much pain she has been hiding AND seeing that Willow could be in danger, is able to free himself to save Willow. When he does this, he reassures her that she did nothing wrong. He that she and the rest of their friends mean the world to him and to never belittle herself again and ends with saying that she's been holding in a lot. Gus also chimes in by saying that reliable people need people relie on too. After that, she finally allows herself to break down and admits that she misses her Dads.

They are able to escape and Willow is able to control her powers again. She's a lot happier for the rest of the episode except for a brief moment before she tells Hunter he means a lot to her.

She looks really sad here. And I think it's because she's finally okay with not being the "strong one" all the time. She knows it's okay to be vulnerable and open for support. And that makes me really happy for her and her character. This episode made me even more of a Willow kin. Her arc in this episode was just perfect and heartbreaking.

[sorcerous-caress]

I just wanna thank you so much for your completely earned deconstruction of the writer/reader relationship. I have 2 separate writing blogs, and one, my main in fact, I've all but completely given up on until I want to write again. The other is being transferred to be my new main, and I'm not sure if I'll take requests. I've been debating just taking commissions that I'm comfortable with, and posting my own writing when the mood strikes. You've really made me think, and I appreciate that so much! ❤️

I'm not sure if you've had a similar experience, but basically one of my works exploded somewhat and another did to a lesser extent. I was working on other things and all anyone cared about was those two fics.

When I tell you I pored hours upon hours into this super high fantasy rewrite crossover of my favorite game with the same characters, I mean it. My first chapter was over 8k and I made sure I did a bunch of research to nail both the combat, and dialouge.

I posted it, initially meant to be posted between that and one of the fics- only for it to be ignored and instead all I got was update asks. No-one cared when it was right in my rules that it gave me anxiety and made me not want to write.

It got so bad, I literally dropped the blog. I haven't updated my most popular work since 2019 and I've only the past 6 months got inspired for the secondary popular fic. I got so in my head- desperate to do what my readers wanted and not upset anyone. To this day the next chapter sits half written, with me still torn to rewrite it entirely, or just finish it the way I want to and go from there. Yet it's so soured for me. I still love my concept. I still kind of want to repurpose it and flesh it out but I just get such a bitter taste in my mouth and I freeze and get anxiety even now when I re-read it.

Ironically the lack of reception to my passion project was my wake up call. I was genuinely devastated. I had one thankfully amazing commenter(of course on Archive of Our Own), who didn't know my niche little fantasy video game save its very opening hours(It's Final Fantasy 4, in case you're curious), but clicked anyway and gushed about my execution. A whole 4-5 paragraphs. I cried when I read it, beaming ear to ear grin.

If it wasn't for her? I very well may have quit posting my writing altogether and you know what? I still post that fic. Slowly, granted. My 2nd chapter was 9k+ and the 3rd is looking to be over 10k and has taken over 2 years thanks to a lot going on. She posted again on that 2nd chapter though! And I go back and read it when I need inspiration. I'm basically solely posting it for her.

Just...thanks. For sharing how you feel on this. I've always really struggled with feeling selfish, or like I have no right to ask for a comment. I still can put myself down and feel incredibly guilty, especially about that constantly asked about fic. Feel like I should take the likes and update asks with a smile because "that means they like it, obviously, they're asking for more, right?" I don't think people not actively creating and posting get it, and you truly put it into words in a way I've struggled with for years.

I'm new here, and still playing through the game and all, but please know at least I see you. I appreciate all the hard work you do and put in. You don't owe any of anything, and I'm so grateful for anything you choose to share with us. I think a lot of people underestimate how intimate sharing our writing is.

Also appreciate you mentioning the difference in respect between fanartists and fanwriters. SO many people think "Anyone can write." and we get belittled so much faster for offering commissions too. It takes just as much skill, whether people believe that or not.

Just...thanks. For real. You've given me a lot to consider as I work on transferring my new blog over and I appreciate it more than you know. ❤️ -S

That genuinely means a lot, it's an honour to have even meant something to anyone at all.

Especially someone struggling with the same thing I am. Thank you for taking the time to write and tell me this, i never thought anyone would bother to read my rant or take it seriously.

I relate to a lot of the things you've just described, it's really horrible how the world can twist something we love and are passionate for into something that hurts us instead. I'm never forgiving anyone who made me feel anxious about writing a story I was excited about or for posting something knowing instead of feedback I'd be met with asks about updating the more popular story.

And I'm happy to hear that you take commissions, just to make it clear I'm totally against the whole "mixing money with art makes it lose meaning" fiasco. I think it's stupid and people who claim that they don't understand that you can never put art in a box or steal its meaning away, that artists are people who need to eat and pay their bills too.

Your writing more than deserves money, it's something intimate that we pour our heart into, that we take parts of our life experience and memories and put it in the story to give it its own life.

Fuck anyone who thinks writing is below art, just because it's written words. They never consider the planning, creativity, writing style and experience, the research, plot and energy it takes.

If anything at least you can draw and paint while listening to music or watching youtube, you can let your hand go on autopilot every now and then. With writing it's one of those jobs you can't distract your mind from, you have to be present and you have to focus on every word and line, consider every dialogue option and every descriptive word, it's draining mentally and takes so much focus.

Both art and writing are important, all artists deserve respect and compensation for their work. People are getting too comfortable demanding work that takes literal hours from your life for free or a low price, a work they'll consume so quickly and never give a second thought to.

I hope things get better for both you and me, I hope we find readers who appreciate us for who we are, who actually respect and value our work instead of consuming it mindlessly, who understand what it takes to create and the amount of time we're giving out for free.

Who realise that taking 10 or 5 minutes to write a comment under a fic and phrase it politely isn't that hard, how it's literally all we ask for because it means the world to see someone appreciate our effort.

Good luck on your new blog <3 Close the requests whenever you want and open them whenever you want. Write how you want to, and please don't let anyone steal the joy of writing away from you.

[thedawningofthehour]

Tbh I just love how Deep In The Shit Draxum and Galois are at this point with whatever the outcome of all of this is. I think, in a lot of stories where a main character is brainwashed and joins the bad guys, they always pull their punches in how long it lasts and what they do while they've switched sides. But here, not only has Draxum gotten Donnie/Galois to do some Heinous Shit (not only to his family once he figures all that shit out, but like. Yknow. War) but also??? The genuine emotional bond.

Like. In terms of long term damage and pain, the genuine care and rapport Draxum and Galois have is probably my favorite* part of DOTH because how do you 1) resolve the idea of someone who you think loves and cares about you and you have more in common with than almost anybody doing THAT to you and 2) how do you process that part of your life where things were undeniably good (and in some ways better) with the fact that it only came from pain and led you to do horrible things?? Every single twist in this story has me on the edge of my emotional seat Donnie is going to have psychological issues beyond comprehension when this is all done

*this is technically a lie because my real favorite thing about DOTH is your fantastic hidden city worldbuilding. Its become canon to me and also I could hear about how yokai society works forever. You really make it feel real in a way that really makes the story click. I also lump Draxums family under here bc they are legit fantastic break Bella out of jail so i may propose marriage

I very much dislike it when authors so clearly try to keep their precious darlings from doing anything problematic. Especially when they're trying to portray them as being morally grey or in the wrong, or even just showing poor judgement.

Katniss kills a civilian woman without hesitation to protect her squad. Zuko burns down Kyoshi village searching for the Avatar. Daenerys throws an entire region into chaos in her noble but naïve attempt to wipe out slavery. These are all characters we're supposed to like, that we generally do still like in spite of their problematic actions. (unless you're a Dany hater, in which case get off my blog and learn some reading comprehension) Their misdeeds give them depth, places to improve themselves and mature. That's what characters should be doing. If your protagonist keeps their hands clean the entire time, not only do they end up passive observers in their own story but it gives them no opportunity for growth. Daenerys learning from her ignorance and sculpting herself into a better ruler is not only a major component of her own story, but it's what sets her apart from the five kings. Avatar wouldn't be half of what it is without Zuko's redemption arc. And Katniss had to be that merciless, fatalistic Mockingjay to kill Coin-and killing Coin changes the meaning of the entire story.

The fucking world-building. I just watched a video today on world-building tips, and the guy doing the video essay used a Rubic's Cube as a metaphor for putting together all the different parts that make up a living, interesting fictional world and making them work together, with the disclaimer of DO NOT BUILD YOUR ENTIRE GODDAMN WORLD IN FULL DETAIL FOR THE LOVE OF GOD THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE YOU WILL DIE. And I felt that on an emotional level. I've been re-reading ASOIAF lately, and I'm starting to develop more sympathy for Germ taking 'checks notes' twelve years so far to write the next book. I think he's legit weighed down by Worldbuilder's Disease and now the story is too big for him to hold up. I very much enjoy the world-building, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't. But oh my god it is a well with no bottom and I am pressing my feet and shoulders against the side trying not to fall.

[magnorious]

A Titan’s Curse Retrospective, 16 Years Later

Lightning Thief and Sea of Monsters **Spoiler Alert**

When I first got my hands on this book, I looked at how thin it was and worried that each consecutive book would be shorter than the last. Titan’s Curse is the off-beat middle episode of the five, occurring around the winter solstice instead of during summer break.

It was never my favorite, but I remembered liking it because it felt darker. I remembered that, for the first time, characters we were supposed to care about were dying on the page. The gods were up close and personal now, at the heart of the quest. There were guns in this book, destiny-challenging decisions to forestall the Great Prophecy for a little while longer.

And, of course, Blackjack, the Dam Snack Bar, Fred, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, and the arrival of the di Angelos.

Maybe that’s just nostalgia talking, ‘cause I’m pretty sure that when it came out, before HOO, Titan’s Curse was dead last on everyone’s tier list for one reason: Annabeth is absent for most of the plot, and Zoë is kind of irritating.

—

The Titan’s Curse

We open immediately to a much more serious tone than before, and a timeskip unlike before. The growth of Percy and Thalia’s relationship happens entirely offscreen between books, which is a bit disappointing. During the gap between TlT and SoM, the time in between books was filled with school, details unimportant to the plot. Here, though, we’ve missed some potentially juicy plot beats like Thalia’s reaction to the passage of time, her meeting Percy, another illegal demigod, her reunion with Annabeth and discovery that Luke turned traitor.

Maybe, if the Disney show makes it that far, we’ll get to see those missed opportunities on screen. But you do start the book feeling like there was a chapter left on the cutting room floor.

Doubly so, they spent at least a couple months together before chapter one, enough to build a rapport and make a confident team together, and yet Percy somehow has never seen Thalia manipulate the Mist before.

Sixteen years later and it is buckwild even seeing Nico’s name dropped for the first time nine pages in. He’s not even in the book for more than the first couple chapters and right at the end for the big reveal. He was nobody’s favorite leading all the way up to House of Hades four whole ass books from now, just an eager little kid, then a bratty little goth wannabe, then an angsty goth wannabe.

Getting flung back to lil’ wide-eyed and bushy tailed 10-year old Nico is sobering. He was such a little nerd with his Mythomagic figurines and cards and dumb, dorky 10-year-old questions.

**Side note - in my SoM I falsely recalled that the Grover empathy link never made a reappearance and I am pleasantly surprised that it does get mentions here, even if it doesn’t do much.**

—

The opening fight, while thrilling, is held back a little by Percy’s continued ignorance. He’s fourteen, he’s been at this for two years now, and he’s still the last to find things out (for the benefit of the audience). Before, it made sense, he was young and inexperienced, but if he’s out here leading raids and rescue parties, he’s got no excuses to not be doing his homework and I wish Riordan had come up with a different method of getting exposition to the audience this time around.

Immediately after, enter the Hunters’ blatant sexism and I’m left scratching my head on why I remember liking this book so much. It’s off to a rather rocky start.

It’s not so much that Artemis leads a club of eternal tweenage virgins. The Hunters are a sanctuary alternative to Camp Half-Blood and it has its pros and cons. My problem, especially as I’m older reading this, is that Artemis gets Bianca murdered promising her a break from her horrible, no good, very bad baby brother, and there’s no reckoning for that.

There’s no alternative to her statement of only being patron to girls “before they go astray” like the moment puberty hits Artemis kicks these hedonistic sinners to the curb. Thalia sure hates them and calls it stupid (before joining them in the end) and Percy makes his opinions on Bianca’s selfishness clear, but beyond a reluctant approval of Percy after he almost dies holding up the sky, there is no “yeah our club isn’t actually as awesome as us snooty girls think it is”. Artemis is still a good guy, so are the hunters, and their ideology is never challenged.

Bianca dies! She’d still be alive if Artemis hadn’t been a predatory patron, snatching her up in a moment of weakness and ripping her little brother’s only family away because, by nature of being a boy, he sucks.

In other words, she doesn’t get to be painted as a decent goddess when she’s no better than Hera and Zeus with her strawmanning. Especially when Apollo and, heck, Dionysus, show so much more humanity in this book.

Artemis is just so hard on the poor kid and thank the gods Percy didn’t die before he could save Nico from himself. Nico would have absolutely joined Luke and burned Olympus to the ground without Percy’s intervention, and it would have been Artemis’ fault. “Yes, boy. You see, Bianca di Angelo is not the only one with an annoying brother.” My good bitch, who do you think you are? He’s 10!

It is abundantly clear why the Nico di Angelo Protection Squad found such strong footing. The whole nexus of this series is the gods’ neglect and the first 70 pages of this book are a stellar example of what Luke’s been yammering about this whole time.

—

As always, the foreshadowing and subtle reminders are solid. Tyson’s throwaway line about the Princess Andromeda heading toward the Panama Canal so it can eventually reach the West Coast, the reminder of the dragon that scarred Luke’s face via souvenir claw in the Big House attic. The reminder that Percy’s sword Riptide has a tragic past and all the hints that Bianca and Nico are children out of time as they suddenly remember forgotten details from their past and Bianca’s lucky strike on the skeletons.

Oh, and this poignant little nugget from the souvenir pile in the attic, a tag attached to a broken sword hilt: “This broke and Leroy got killed, 1999.” I can picture Leroy’s surviving friends staring at that broken weapon and having nothing more to say than that, and abandoning it to collect dust in the attic.

Percy is still rife with realistic, humanizing flaws. He’s jealous of Thalia and suffering an inferiority complex, mucking up the di Angelo rescue mission thinking he can do it on his own, and then the capture the flag game, and then going off on his own during the second quest that’s not about him. His rivalry with Thalia, the only demigod that can go toe-to-toe with him in terms of abilities, is something fresh for this book. Thalia’s like a less obnoxious Annabeth because she doesn’t suffer that Athenian hubris making her a know-it-all.

—

Bianca fits right in with the Hunters, not missing her little brother one bit (stone cold, girl. Stone. Cold.) Acting like a sudden expert at the Ping Pong table counselor meeting. I know she’s been groomed by a selfish misandrist but she’s not long for this book and it has done nothing to endear audiences to her.

She gets worse when she has her first minute alone with Percy and he reassures her that abandoning her baby brother is perfectly fine so long as she’s happy when… no? Percy took like, two weeks to come to terms with being a demigod and an entire quest. Bianca takes two days and she’s rearing up to go on a quest to save her cult leader.

She explains that she’s raised Nico all her life and wanted to experience something outside of caring for him, even though she knows it’s selfish of her to just up and abandon him, his feelings be damned. Thing is, it is selfish. I feel zero sympathy for this girl and I doubt she fully understands what she signed up for. She will be twelve forever and Nico will, theoretically, grow up, grow old, and see her only a handful of times in their lives before he’s dead. All because he’s a bit irritating at his age and she wants a vacation.

When she dies not long after, the point of her character even existing beyond being Nico’s motivation gets a bit muddied. Artemis and the Hunters aren’t punished by the narrative for getting her killed, she doesn’t die doing anything spectacular and she wakes the very monster that kills her trying to get a trinket for Nico, then she’s dead.

Trying to be independent set her on the path to dying young, feeling guilty about abandoning the only family she had left is what sealed the deal.

—

The original cover art! The ‘07 American version with Percy and Blackjack in indigo. TLT’s art didn’t pull from any one specific scene and SoM was more inspired by the rope bridge with Polyphemus on the sheep island, but TTC’s art is ripped straight from the page and I love how it has both nothing to do with the title of the book and is totally out of left field concerning Dionysus (and I think the best moment of the book).

The scene in question is Dionysus interrupting Percy and Blackjack’s pursuit of the questers in Manhattan, showing more agency in that moment than he had in the past two books. He tells Percy about Ariadne and why he hates heroes (because they’re selfish) alluding to why Zoë hates heroes. Percy has been quite self-important in this book, but he's no Theseus, not even close.

The settings in this book aren’t nearly as colorful as the previous two, and the same goes for the monsters along the way. It’s winter and it feels like it, in more ways than one. There’s human mercenaries, the grey skeletal soldiers, the Nemean lion that doesn’t talk, Talos that doesn’t talk, and a few other oddballs.

The junkyard of the gods where they fight Talos has wonderfully creepy and foreboding vibes. Things that get thrown away there are abandoned for a reason.

All the quirky sense of adventure that existed before is gone this time around and while I enjoy the tonal shift personally, I don’t know that it was the best choice to make for the series as a whole. The lack of “color” is made worse by all the other irritating and frustrating elements.

The best elements remain the most off-beat ones, like Apollo in incognito mode, the Dam snack bar, everything I remembered from reading this as a kid, along with Dionysus’ moments and Dr. Chase.

TTC’s prophecy is solid, and since we get it at the beginning this time, we get to wrack our brains trying to solve it along with the cast. It’s not as ambiguous as TLT’s prophecy, but I like the cadence, how long it is, and how ominous it is – right off the bat, you know two people are dead this book.

Five shall go west to the goddess in chains,

One shall be lost in the land without rain,

The bane of Olympus shows the trail,

Campers and Hunters combined prevail,

The Titan’s Curse must one withstand,

And one shall perish by a parent’s hand.

—

Zoë is… frustrating. I hate to go all “not all men” but jeez, girl, not all men. She even says those exact words herself as she’s dying. So much bitterness and resentment in her long life. Why couldn’t Artemis be a good patron of immortal tweenagers and find them a decent therapist? I’m lumping her in with Artemis for their antiquated and frankly ridiculous pontificating. I get that’s Artemis’ schtick; doesn’t make it fun or interesting to read.

Zoë is a victim of godly propaganda and her death is as tragic as Bianca’s, the fate of heroes little more than divine chess pieces tossed aside at a whim. Her memorial as the new constellation is poignant, it just unfortunately was given to a character more frustrating than endearing. Her whole arc in this book is appreciating that not all heroes are awful thanks to Percy, but she struts around like her sh*t doesn’t smell.

Zoë hates heroes because Hercules did her dirty, Thalia hinted that Annabeh considered joining the Hunters because of Percy, and Dionysus told Percy he’d never stop being selfish and self-centered and the thing is he’s… not?

Yes he messes up at the start of this book but they’re kind of strawmanning him, like by nature of being a boy and being a Greek demigod he’s doomed to be exactly like his predecessors when he’s shown no indication so far of using and abusing people. His fatal flaw is loyalty. Annabeth was never going to be his Ariadne.

—

The villains plan here is solid, Riordan has a good track record of walking the line between complex and contrived. They needed Artemis to hold the sky to get her away from the Solstice meeting so the gods wouldn’t be productive. To get Artemis, they made do with using Annabeth as bait. Then they needed Bessie and an illegal prophecy child (Thalia, the oldest) to trigger the prophecy two books early. It almost works, until Thalia dips out of turning 16 by becoming an immortal fifteen-year-old at the last possible second.

The villains also use mortals this time, and mortal weaponry – guns and helicopters and mortal mercenaries. They don’t do much, none of them even get named, but they exist and they help make this book a little grittier.

—

Despite all the above complaints, the book doesn’t fall to middle-chapter syndrome. The story is fast paced and gritter than the two before it, the battles are all well written and unique. It’s not a bad story by any means, it just has some frustrating elements that dampen the enjoyment. The slower beats aren’t between Percy and Annabeth this time and Grover spends a lot of the book mooney-eyed over the moon goddess so he and Percy don’t get a lot of solid moments either. Thalia is too prickly to let her guard down long enough for a deep conversation but she almost gets there.

Major characters die this time and the approaching war feels that much closer, delayed for now but still looming ever over our heroes. I do like the characterization of the gods this time around being much more involved in the story. When Percy and Annabeth do finally reunite, matching grey streaks in their hair, it's cute and fluffy and a great way to wrap up the story before the Nico reveal, and what a reveal it is. It's not Thalia, unambiguously older, it's Nico, definitively younger leaving you antsy that, still, Percy might not be the prophecy kid after all.

[chidoroki]

182 Days of TPN - Day 93

Chapter 93: “The End”

Happy! The word you’re looking for is HAPPY! His life may have been cursed but these two made his life worth living which is so very important to a boy who wanted to end it all! Aaahh, they’re literally so damn special to him and I’ll never get over how deeply he loves and cares for them both.

I would never wanna experience the wide range of emotions Ray must be feeling during this moment. How hard his heart must’ve dropped the moment he saw his best friend get brutally stabbed, the way he became speechless as her seemingly lifeless body falls to the ground and all the panic he feels at the sight of all the blood.. the mere thought of being in a similar situation makes me feel sick and lightheaded.

Of course he’s absolutely seething with rage as well. Emma was one of the friends he swore to protect from the very beginning and to witness her now bleeding out as she lays motionless on the ground with some despicable demon lingering over her as it taunts the rest of the kids.. oh yeah, Ray’s far beyond pissed off. The amount of anger Ray expresses reminds me very much of that one panel back during ch65 and I love when he becomes unhinged whenever one half of his living emotional crutches is taken from him and/or hurt.

I think one of the reasons why this moment causes such anxiety between its characters and us readers is how the humans are plain and ordinary in this world (excluding those experimented on at Lambda). They have no special powers, magic, etc to fall back on which makes every injury permanent and real, so in the midst of battle where one fearsome enemy remains standing and no medical assistance is nearby, we’re lead to believe that Emma is truly in danger. Doesn’t matter that she’s the main protagonist either because she has indeed been seriously hurt in the past, with Isabella breaking her leg and our girl chopping off her own ear.

Teeny-tiny GP trio is precious to me. I wanna hug them.

The panels of Emma struggling to keep herself afloat as she slowly starts to sink causes “Diver” (Shippuden OP8) to play in my head every. single. time. I revisit this chapter. without fail. And I read this chapter back a lot.

Of course it’s very sweet that she thinks of Norman again during all this and I also love how Emma’s shown to be reaching outside the panel. Really puts in perspective how desperate she is to hold on.

No surprise here, but the moment when Isabella offers her assistance and encouragement is my favorite helping hand of the bunch. Since everything happening here is all inside Emma’s head, it proves that she still thinks of/cares for Isabella despite everything said woman has done in the past. What I really love about all this though is with Isabella being the final person that pulls Emma back into reality, it’s almost as if Emma’s first big enemy is helping her now defeat her current enemy and I think that’s neat. (thankfully this ain’t gonna be the last time momma helps out our girl either).

Sweetie, where exactly on your person where you hiding the pistol this entire time? And poor Nigel is still in tears, but they’re happy ones this time. Ray probably forgot how to breathe again though.

I love this duo so much.. he doesn’t even question how the hell she’s standing again and reads her mind perfectly to relay the plan she has to everyone else so they all can continue fighting and win.

In the previous chapter, Leuvis said that he wouldn’t fall for the same flash bomb trick twice, but I guess third time is the charm. He could’ve very well closed his eyes, though it would’ve left him open to the barrage of other bullets regardless, and with the flash bomb already detonated, he really didn’t have enough time to decide on another solution. Seems like Palvus has taken cover because he knows they’re already screwed.

Even though Leuvis starts to regenerate from the onslaught, we get Yuugo successfully avenging his family from many years ago with a critical hit to the poacher’s core. (well, one of them).

Favorite panel/moment:

To see a normal 11-year old girl stand back up after getting stabbed by one of the most intelligent and strongest demons in the series is such a thrilling and badass moment that completely captivates me every time I see it. There’s no power system for her to tap into and get some last minute boost like your typical shonens usually have and hell, not even some convenient medical attention helped get her back on her feet. She got up with pure fury, hostility and determination! Yeah yeah, plot-armor is a huge help here and she passes out shortly after this.. but regardless! Not only is this absolutely my favorite panel of Emma, but my favorite panel out of the entire story as well. This is very moment I truly fell in love with this girl and when she actually replaced Ray as my #1 character for quite some time. There’s so much I love about this moment for her and everything and aaahhh.. would’ve loved if the “63194” theme played here too.

[coldflasher]

17, 18, and 29 for the ao3 asks, please! 🧡

17. Your favorite character to write this year?

You know, I think it might actually have been Joe? I've not written much Joe POV but it's always so fun to do, particularly in scenes with Len, cos Joe is always so done and ready to fight at all times lmao. I have a half-written one shot I really wanna finish where Joe finds out about coldwestallen and almost has a heart attack and it was SO fun to write, I'm cackling just thinking about it

18. The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year?

i feel like the obvious answer is len. i've seen a lot of people saying that and for good reason, he's so difficult to get right. particularly when it comes to dialogue. i loooove writing dialogue, it's my fave, but when i'm editing i find myself revisiting so much of his dialogue and deleting, tweaking, rewriting, SO much of it ends up on the proverbial cutting-room floor because when it comes to len, i take the old edict "he would not fucking say that" so seriously. it's always in my mind. but the problem with len is that there's so MUCH he would not fucking say. and it makes it very difficult when there are things i NEED him to say for the plot but it just doesn't ring as authentic.

there's this post that i saw once that talks about the ways people say things without saying them, specifically when it comes to expressing love. like they say "fasten your seatbelt" or "text me when you get home safe", but what they're actually saying is "i love you, i care about you", and that's the balance i'm basically always trying to strike with len. it's like, how can i have him say things without saying it. so i spend a LOT of time agonizing over that

that being said i think the character who's challenged me the most this year has actually been iris. because i've been reading and thinking a little more critically about like. fandom racism. and how characters of colour, but especially Black characters, are treated by fandoms and by the narrative, and so i've been trying to be a lot more intentional about how i write iris and particularly how i'm describing her, and not wanting to perpetuate harm in my portrayal and potentially create an unsafe space for Black folks in fandom, and also thinking about what candice patton herself has said about the fact that iris was never really written as Black, especially in the early seasons. like. this is a white character who they happened to cast a Black woman to play. so that's also something that's been going around in my head, like her race is important and would affect her whole perspective and worldview, and so i don't want to forget that, but then i don't want to overstep and write things that are outside my lane... there have been times where i've really got in my head about it, which is good, i think i'd rather be thinking too hard about it than being careless in my approach, but it's defo been at the forefront of my mind as she takes a bigger role in the fics i'm writing, especially as i have a few iris-centric longfic ideas that i'd LOVE to work on in future but that's defo something i'll have to be even more aware of if i do that, so yeah.

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

You know, frustratingly I think my fave thing I've written this year is something I can't share because it's a huuuuge DNDB spoiler 😭 so I'll settle for sharing a steamy lil snippet from the westallen "don't worry, darling" AU i mentioned because it's a super romantic scene and i loooove it

it hasn't been edited so still kinda rough around the edges but im obsessed with like. its general essence!

Turning towards him, she stood on her toes to reach more easily and Barry tightened his arm around her waist, grabbed her thigh with the other and hoisted her up onto the chest of drawers in front of the window, knocking over a lamp which thunked to the floor and sent all the light in the room crazy, filling it with weird shadows and changing the angles of their faces. Barry pressed her against the window pane and Iris jumped, making a startled little sound at the coldness of the glass that caused her to arch into him even more, wrapping her legs around his waist for leverage. He leaned hungrily into her, bracing one palm against the window, and before long the glass had fogged around his palm and haloed around her like a pale aura, the moonlight outside smudging her edges while they kissed and kissed like they’d never stop.

Thank you!

[spacedlexi]

i always wondered if you ever read any violentine/twg fanfiction and if you have could you tell us your favorites? Or what tropes would you like to read? Idk I just really like this ship and since there was so little content I could find so i read a lot of shit 💀 but I hold a special care for it since it was one of the first fandoms I entered and finding out Clem was bi meant a lot to me cause you don't see a lot of bi representation that isn't like "I like fucking anything that moves🤩(Yea Im looking at you Elite)”.

So yeah I'd like to hear you thought of fanfiction and stuff.

i tried once or twice but didnt get farther than the first chapter or so on the few i tried 😔 i kinda for the most part stopped reading fic after high school to be fair, so im very particular about what i Do read when it comes to fic now. and on ao3 at least since im afraid of wattpad there really hasnt been anything that held my attention (at least in the past. like i said i havent tried looking in a couple years so who knows). i need plot/character development heavy stuff that i can really sink my teeth into and i didnt really find much of that... and the "tropes" i like are more determined by which characters im applying them to so i dont always like the same ones across the board

someone asked me this question a while ago and i asked for any fic recs at the time but i only got like.. one? im really not sure what the state of twdg fic is like honestly

DESPITE all that tho im still slowly slowly SLOWLY meticulously steadily working on my own oneshot that i WILL FINISH I SWEAR its over 20 pages currently and only like 2/3? done?? and half edited BUT it IS outlined so..... i just have to.. you know..... actually Finish it....

i posted some snippets from it a while ago (HERE) but here's a couple longer ones since ive written about 10 more pages (plus like 5 in outlines) since then. im Really particular about the flow of my writing which is like.. the main reason why i take so long to write.. gotta fix it until it Feels Right

A comfortable silence seemed to settle over them then. The wind outside the shack still blew harshly, whistling against the broken windows. But as the girls sat by the warm glow of the fire, and listened to the crackling of the burning logs, it was enough to melt their tension. At least a bit.

The silence continued until the fire began to dwindle with the last of the logs. "We're going to have to start burning those..." Clementine said as she looked at the loose boards they had kicked aside earlier.

"I got it," Violet said as she stood, not even giving Clementine a chance to move. As she grabbed a board and kicked hard at its center, trying to break it in two, Clementine twisted her mouth. Not at the other girl, but at herself. She was still getting used to her new limitations, and it frustrated her knowing there were just certain things that she couldn't or struggled to do now.

The boards had been sturdy once, but due to age and exposure, they had eroded enough that Violet was able to break them with relative ease. She threw a couple of the pieces on the fire and set the rest by the hearth as she returned to where she had been at Clementine's side. She gave her a soft, reassuring smile as the fire came back to life, and Clementine gave a soft smile in return, breaking her from her thoughts, if only momentarily.

She heaved a sigh as her eyes were drawn back to the missing portion of her left leg. She thought about the trek awaiting them in the morning, and her mouth twisted again. "Ugh, walking through all of that snow is gonna fuck up my leg..."

The soft smile on Violet's face became mischievous. "Don't worry, I can just carry you instead." She said it nonchalantly, but the fluttering in her chest betrayed her.

Clementine quirked her eyebrow in response to the bold statement, smiling skeptically as she laughed "Uh, aha, yeah right."

"What, don't think I can?" Violet responded, the look on her face unbothered by the other girls reaction. "Brody was the one who carried you to the school after you crashed and I'm, like, at least as strong as Brody was."

Clementine's face dropped at the revelation. "Wait-... Brody brought us back?"

"Uh..." Violet hesitated at the change in Clementine's voice. "Yeah... Her and Marlon. She was the only one he would ever take outside the safe zone." She explained, and as an aside to herself said "Huh, guess it makes sense now..."

The playful atmosphere had now quickly disappeared, only to be replaced with a quiet, somber one. In the short time Clementine had to get to know Brody, she felt they had started to become friends. However, there weren’t many good memories made between them, and so Clementine more easily remembered the bad ones.

She could still remember that stormy night in the cellar clearly, could remember the sounds of Brody's inhuman screeching. The hot blood on her hands as she fought against the turned girl for her life. The guilt sinking in her chest like a black hole as she looked over what she had done. What she had to do. Clementine mourned her in the way she mourned everyone else she had lost. And it never got any easier.

Violet watched Clementine as she internally fought through her feelings, and once again regretted her words. She didn't want to think about Brody, either. And felt guilty over unintentionally bringing those awful memories to the surface. Clementine told them what Marlon had done that night, yet never talked about what happened after. But Violet had helped the others with the bodies, had seen what Clementine was forced to do. She remembered the sight clearly, as clearly as she remembered feeling that Marlon got what he deserved.

--

"Maybe we should try to get some sleep before it gets cold in here..." Clementine suggested tentatively.

Violet shifted, stretching her arms out in front of her, catching the last of the heat from the hearth on her fingers. "We should use the bed, then. It'll at least be better than the floor. Plus, there's a blanket."

Violet stood up then, stretching her legs as Clementine looked up at her. "Are you sure that thing isn't completely rotted?"

"It should be okay. We only brought it in here a little over a year ago."

"'We'? Why?"

"Uh-" Violet started at that, averting her eyes. "Um... Minnie and I... we kinda... used to hang out here..."

"Oh..." Clementine wasn't sure what to say to that, but it did confirm her suspicions. So instead, she relented. "Okay."

But she hesitated, looking between her leg and her prosthetic where it still sat propped against the side of the fireplace. "Hmm..." Should she put it back on? The bed wasn't far...

"Here," Violet reached her hand out, noticing the hesitation, "let me help you."

Clementine eyed the outstretched hand, considering her options, and once again twisted her mouth at her new limitations. She kind of hated this. She had done everything on her own for so long, and now...

"C'mon, it's okay."

She looked back and forth between Violet's face and outstretched hand a few times before finally relenting. "...Fine." She really didn't want to lace up her prosthetic just to immediately take it off again.

Clementine took her hand, and Violet helped pull her up to stand. They leaned close as she found her balance, gripping tightly at Violet's shoulder with her free hand. It only took a short moment, and once Clementine stabled herself, her eyes locked with Violet's. They both started a bit when they noticed how close they had become, face to face.

"Aha. Um, you good?" Violet asked, slightly flushed.

"Yeah," Clementine said, hiding her blush better than the other girl. "Thanks."

[otaku-tactician]

My Sleep Paralysis Demon: An In-Depth Study

A few years ago, I posted an image of the goddess I saw in a dream. But actually, I have experienced a much deadlier presence during my sleep paralysis and dream episodes...a dude who has been consistently by my side for years (and has me convinced that I may actually be fucking insane seeing as he's still here). Say hello to the epitome of inner turmoil, my sleep paralysis demon!

This character has been haunting me for almost 8 years of sleep paralysis HELL!! He shape-shifts a heck of a lot into a shitload of different forms that he abandons on a whim, and recently adapted to look like another anime character but luckily he dropped that form XD However, he seems to like taking the form of one particularly popular character the most. That is also his default appearance- it's basically the knock-off version of a certain fate character (it will become pretty apparent who he's picked once you see some of his forms).

But anyway, this guy appears in a lot of my nightmares etc. Worst is when I'm in half asleep sleep paralysis mode, he becomes like a full presence that can talk and everything. Also, his presence feels like thorns that bite into the skin (pretty creepy).

First up is his first form. This form comes out whenever his favorite popular anime man disguise falls off, and it looks like a vampire cosplay.

Form One- Duke Megalovania Grimhield VI

Bro, even his name is fake.

This form is the one he takes whenever he wishes to sneer in my face in my dreams- like a 'haha KONO DUKE MEGALOVANIA DA!!' moment. This guy is smug and annoying, but that's actually just a way to cover up his hidden insecurities. He says he wants to be adored, dominant and loved by everyone.

Form Two- War Maiden

I don't know much about this form, other than the fact that she tried to give me psychological damage in a nightmare about my past that was completely inaccurate to my past (she made it all up?!) In fact, I did not even draw her properly (I forgot her hairstyle). This form loves warfare and battle, a complete military maniac. However this form was abandoned after only ONE DREAM. He only adopted this form to play havoc, but as it didn't work out; he abandoned her like a moldy slice of toast.

Form Three- Thirsty Angel

If he was on Instagram, he would be the KING of Thirst Traps. This form only appeared twice, mainly to inflict sleep paralysis trauma :(

He reminds me of Matou Shinji, which is definitely not a good thing. However, unlike Matou Shinji he does not have much of a personality. To him, his appearance and seductiveness is what reigns supreme to him. -.- I think he chose this form to try and deceive me, and it worked very well. He is a MASSIVE SADIST, he derives great pleasure from mind-breakingly skillful betrayal.

Form THREE POINT FIVE- Thirsty Angel is Actually a DEMON

This is another one of his 'fake true forms'- basically he reveals an alleged true form which ends up not being true at all. He is like a Matryoshka Doll. In this form, he grew a pair of black horns, and the scar on the right side of his face feels like sandpaper to the touch (it is very scratchy so be careful!)

This form of his is very insecure, like a 'little meow meow'. He mainly spends his time lamenting over his need to be loved and valued in this form- its a very melancholy side to him. He feels very self-conscious about his appearence in this form, and is worried that he looks ugly (if only he knew about monster fuckers). In addition to this, I would state that this form looks incredibly similar to a truly demonic terrifying beast form of his that is over 10 ft tall and has ridiculously long black nails (worst sleep paralysis nightmare ive ever had btw).

Form Four- 'I'M SLEEPY GTFO'

This is the form that he takes whenever he haphazardly pulls an appearance together. As he tends to focus on having his pussy pop as much as possible, this form is as rare a sighting as a blizzard in the midst of summer- blink twice and its gone!

In nightmares with this form, he is super grumpy and doesn't resort to his usual charm tactics at all; which gives the impression that this is what my sleep paralysis demon is like when he's sleepy and has no energy. This form is also extremely desperate, willing to go to any lengths to achieve his dreams and exert his innermost desires.

Form Five- Inner World Form

Whenever I do visual meditation, I see this guy. I cannot explore my inner world without seeing him nearby. On default, he takes the appearance of a certain anime guy, but oftentimes his demonic nature takes hold and manipulates his appearance into this slightly more malevolent exterior.

This is his most nonchalant form, most likely as a means of respecting my inner space. This form enjoys taking casual strolls by the beach, talking about life and sharing hugs. However, he almost trapped me within an abyss in one meditation episode, so he can't be trusted either (you'd never guess with how affectionate he can be in this form). dude i sound completely bonkers writing this

However, thanks to him...meditation is pretty hard to do sometimes.

Form Six- Deity Form

This form is really surreal. His main symbol is that of the grape (and its for reasons that are too absurd for me to disclose). Despite being a shining deity, he is incredibly mysterious and evasive, so it's hard to get to understand him. He also roasts like hell in this form, and can be pretty cruel (well he is the same existence as the others, after all). ALSO THAT OUTFIT!!! HE IS BASICALLY COSPLAYING AGAIN!!!

TRUE FORM- ULTIMATE DEMON

This form makes it pretty clear what Fate character he was inspired by...it is the greatest shame of my life to know that my sleep paralysis demon has exactly the same favorite character as me XD

This form is the ultimate cumulation of all of his other forms. In this form, he is dominant. He doesn't worry about being unloved or neglected. He turns on the charm to a bedazzling degree. However, actually that is not true. He is every bit as insecure, possessive and controlling in this form as he is in all of his other forms. This grand appearance is nothing but a filter for him to cover up the pain that he goes to such great lengths to avoid. This guy works really hard to control how he is viewed- to even the most minute details.

Basically, in this form; he DOES NOT WANT TO BE PERCIEVED AT ALL. Just to be admired and desired, to rule over others. That is the true function of his ultimate sadistic form.

Also wow his hair is super long! And his horns are massive! And his high heels are actually made up of three massive spikes. YES, HE WALKS ON METAL SPIKES.

In order to make sense of his two main appearances, I made a guide to showcase his deity side and demonic side. Those are the sides he likes to swap between whenever his main disguise as a certain anime character fails him. However, sometimes he can appear as just light and a shadow as well.

And then finally, here are some forms that he used only a few times for the sole purpose of being the worst sleep paralysis demon to strike my nightmares :(

Form on the left- some guy with white hair that pretended to be an angel soulmate

Dude in the middle- used for a nightmare

Dude on the right- WHO IS HE!

I hope you enjoyed my sleep paralysis demon showcase as much as I did ^^

UPDATE: NEW FORM UNLOCKED YEA BABEY

OK

[james-silenthill]

for the questions: 1,7,9 and 19 (also sorry if it got sent twice yknow how it is with tumblr)

Omg thank you so much!!

Who was your first ever OC? Do you still “use” them? How have they evolved over time?

My first OC was a sonic oc, her name was Gothia the Dark, and she was created in either 2008 or 2009- def before the release of pokemon b&w!

My only sonic game was sonic 06, and I was a bit obsessed with mephiles- edgy characters make elementary schoolers insane, dontcha know. My concept was that if mephiles was the shadow, and iblis the source of light, there could be a third party. With hindsight, I can say she was intended to be the penumbra. I think I left her back in elementary school, but I kept the concepts of sentient shadows as characters for some of my stories

What are your favourite relationships between your OCs? (romantic or platonic!)

They have a very 'basic' dynamic, but the character dynamic I've worked on the most have been between my Sun and Moon OCs. They're two celestial gods from a pantheon based in all the planets and moons of our solar system; its a Heliocentric pantheon, so the Sun is the most important, while the Moon acts as an advisor of sorts to Gaia/Mother Earth

The basis of their story is that, despite everything, the Sun does Not want power, or reverence, or responsibility, so she does what any self respecting monarch does and fucks off to the planet earth to become a cowboy, living a free life without any worries or responsibilities. Since she is not within the pantheon anymore, the power structure is out of wack, and the physicial planets have no more sunlight- the physical sun has Disappeared, leaving everyone in darkness.

The Moon is Gaia's only advisor, a trusted and beloved friend. Despite this, she is something of a wallflower in the greater schema of the pantheon; endlessly useful and loyal to Gaia, but not very significant beyond that. She's a pragmatic and cynical woman, and is sent to earth to find the Sun, as every planets moons are sent to their respective planets. Throughout the course of the story, both the sun and the moon are pulling eachother out of their comfort zones, learning about eachother and their personal struggles and helping eachother go. They're on such different playing fields in the heliocentric pantheon, but they're on more equal grounds down on earth. Again, I'd be the first to say it's a basic dynamic structure, but I've had them for years and enjoy their situation:]

Favorite oc?

My favorite OC is currently tied betweeb my characters Rile and Wildfire right now

Rile is generally in her early 30s when I write her, and if I were to describe her without bringing in any backstory or personality, if I were to slot her into a pure character archetype, she would be the Nathan Drake; an average person that comes from small beginnings that finds herself in situations far greater than she initially imagined. An every day sort of protagonist with ridiculous amounts of luck

If I Were to bring backstory into this, I'd say that she's a pacific islander and hispanic and was born and raised in Los Angeles. Her real name is Leilana Rial, and the Rile nickname cropped up due to a consistent mispronounciation error in her youth, and just stuck. Her parents were out of the picture when she was still young, and she was given into the foster care system when her grandparents were unable to take care of her. The foster care system sucked, child protective services didn't do anything for her, and she learned to manage for herself and was able to escape the system while still in her teens, and the rest is history. She was a teenager in the 90s and she's a bit of a fail loser, but in a fun way

Wildfire was originally a DnD oc turned generalized, but now he's my own guy since the campaign he's from has been on hiatus. In DnD, he's a classical hero archetype, practically going through each stage of Campbell's heroes journey, you know?

Outside of a DnD universe, he is half demon, and part Cuban. He's from Florida, and comes from a heavily Catholic background. Naturally, that didn't mesh well with being demonic in nature, so he took off the first chance he could with a boyfriend that was too old for him. It didn't work out with the boyfriend, they had a bit of a fight and cut ties, but Wildfire was Not going back home, so he's figuring shit out, he's working on himself, yknow? My current comic wips that I've been posting- the Road Kill comic- have been about Wildfire, it's about a hitchhiking incident gone wrong, Santa will be there, it's gonna be fun:3

What are some things that inspired your stories? Real events? Maybe a dream?

I try to read and consume a lot of stories/different types of stories as a general baseline of inspo! On top of that, real life situations have an inherent influence on everything I write and create, and also just, general reading + witnessing the world around me has a tendency to help me create the stories I want to create. I think having multiple avenues of thought and ideas is a great thing to have, no matter what level of notoriety you want with your creations, yknow?

[qualityrain]

ive heard of honkai impact but i never really got a look at the actual game itself whats your favorite guy like??? how do they work with the plot?? love you bye<3

there is sO much to say and absolutely nothing at the same time

this isnt going to be coherent at all

whats your favorite guy like???

this is going to be very inaccurate because at this point i cant tell what is canon or not + rlly disorganised

tbh. like a generic emo guy. a family guy. ride or die. his love language is dying for you. actually really chill??? and like kind of straightforward (at least to one of the main characters in the game. whether it is for plot or an actual character trait nobody knows) shows no emotion whatsoever(never explained). will kind of crack jokes. highly efficient, won’t do more things than necessary(this is definitely canon). hasnt slept well in like 10 years (vibe). takes promises really seriously. the i owe you and i WILL pay you back guy. he’s an older brother. has STRONG annoying little brother energy with another character that is literally my favourite dynamic in this entire game with 5mins of screentime together. a piece of shit. will talk stupid shit to lighten up the situation. he will do anything for his goals(probably). this guy definitely has trauma and mhy wont ever address it and he’s repressing it like crazy. like has this dude ever processed the whole i almost fucking died and everybody i love is dead thing properly yet. i could tell you his height but not his birthday. its 173cm. i refuse to believe he’s taller than 170cm. there’s probably more but i don’t know what else to say. this guy’s barely a character in the game, there’s absolutely no depth at all. all i have are vibes and my brain ran with it and now this guy has been in my head for 2 years now.

how do they work with the plot??

short answer: they don’t.

long answer: his role in the plot is to parallel another main character(mei) and it is done so so so soooooooo poorly. he appears in one (1) arc in the game and appears in 2 chapters and its imo the worst arc in the entire game and its almost irrelevant and every new chapter that gets added makes me wish more and more that this arc doesn’t exist. I genuinely do not know why this parallel needed to exist like. why? why do we need this parallel to see the main characters with an outside perspective?? there’s probably a reason its just this arc is terrible. they couldnt even get meis arc right in this arc like its sO BAD.

mei has this whole ass scene where she just accepts having to kill this guy!! my fave!! the blorbo!! shes like oh i cant hesitate anymore i have to do this for my girlfriend(basically)!!! AND THEN SHE HESITATES AGAIN AND DOESNT KILL HIM AND IM SO SO UPSET AND ANGRY BECAUSE WHATS THE POINT. she has this whole moral dilemma of ohh noo if i kill this guy its like im a hypocrite or smth cos im doing the same as this guy but i gotta to protect somebody i care about!! for this arc and then SHE DOESNT KILL HIM. he dies another way!!! resolving to kill somebody is not the same as actually doing it!! im so upset abt this because its so. whats the point of the whole scene where mei literally collects herself to strengthen her resolve to not hesitate and kill this guy and shes like oop i guess i wont!

im going to be real i try to forget as much as i can from this arc because i hate it and its probably all wrong and inaccurate but i still hate it to bits and i wish mhy wasnt scared to make mei commit murder

this isnt proof read at all this is a word vomit ive spent over half an hour on this and 3 days thinking abt this. there are definitely things i wanted to add and forgot almost immediately.

thanks for the ask!! 🫶🫶🫶

[fading-mentally]

for the oc ask: 11, 12, and/or 14

Referenced OC Ask post

I'm using a lot of drawn examples, but most of them are over a year old at this point, so I'll try to create some more updated character references soon-ish.

Which character has been through the most design changes?

That’s a tough one. A majority of my characters were created when I was anywhere from 8-11 years old since most of them started out as toys or as me messing around on Doll Divine, so there have been some pretty major changes to almost all of them over the years. If I had to pick anyone though, it’d probably be Robin who’s gone through the most drastic changes over the years, starting with me using a lion stuffed animal to represent the character of Robin (as in, Batman and Robin), then deciding that he’s just a lion named Robin, and then pretty much staying on that track, but still updating his design (full lion, half lion/half humanoid, mostly human with lion traits, can transform between these variations, etc).

He used to be this sort of “chosen one” in my little world, and while a lot of those adventures and pressure are still a major part of his character, all of that happened when Robin (and myself) were relatively young. He has since moved to be more of a background character to other OCs, enjoying a more peaceful life in communion with nature. 

  The addition of his sister and a more fleshed-out background helped me to actually solidify his personality as a very calm, regal presence as a foil to his sister, Obayana, who has matured a bit over the years but is ultimately still a very hot-headed and brash individual (I also gave Robin some more earth-based themes and magic to contrast with Obayana’s fiery magic).

Which OC is most likely to kill somebody?

I’ve always been a fan of epic people with epic powers doing epic (although not necessarily good) shit, so pair my childhood (and current) love of mythology, monster movies, and action heroes and you’ve got some walking (probably overpowered) natural disasters for characters who can and will break skulls like it’s nobody's business.

With that said, I imagine most of my favorite OCs in epic battles of some kind, destroying enemies and whatnot, but those enemies were usually faceless shadowy minions or something like that. There’s only a few OCs with whom I’ve sat down and gone “this person has actively killed living beings.” When I was younger I would’ve definitely labeled Aqua as the most deadly, who at the time was young, confused, and angry at so many things all at once that she was constantly on the verge of exploding, causing fatal natural disasters in her rage and violently lashing out at the closest target. At this point, however, as Aqua has matured and been thrust unwillingly into positions of leadership, she’s mellowed out significantly. (She still can and will cut a bitch though).

So, while Aqua is still pretty high up there on “most likely to kill someone,” I think her spot at #1 has been taken by Mio as I’ve thought deeper about Mio’s character. Mio was abused, raised as a child soldier and living weapon, and kept getting dragged into other people’s wars even after escaping her previous situation. She’s spent a long time trying to find somewhere to just exist, and she’s done a lot of work to present herself as a relaxed, charismatic person. Having never had any proper care for the trauma she’s experienced has definitely left its mark though, and she’s always calculating and looking for danger, trying desperately to protect the attachments she’s made, and she’s willing to ruthlessly kill to do it.

There’s a lot more to Mio’s background than that, but if I tried to cover all of the things that might relate to how she became the way she is, or how deadly she can be, this would quickly turn into an extremely long post, even compared to where it is already.

Which OC/s do you relate to the most?

That’s a tough one. Most of my more used OCs have naturally taken on certain traits from me. Mio technically used to be my self-insert character when I would play with toys/roleplay, but she grew into a representation of the things I wanted to be, and a very different person from me, so I revamped her into her own character.

Poppy might be the most similar/relatable to me at this point. Part of that is because I subconsciously made her reflect my neurodivergent characteristics before I even realized I was neurodivergent. She’s definitely still very much her own character that has skills and interests beyond my own, but she gets really into the types of little details in things that I would care about and ramble about if given half a chance that most people don’t notice or think about. She’s extremely physically affectionate, to the point of having to be reminded about personal space, she’s a huge nerd (of the D&D and Sci-Fi variety) and has low volume control. Once she’s done with a social interaction she unintentionally tunes out/loses energy. I give her a lot of room to fidget and tinker so that she can do and make things that I don’t have the time or understanding to explore in my life, which also gives me an excuse to do heavy research and deep dives into certain subjects so that I can understand what she’s doing better, even if the science and mechanics are beyond me (ex. How prosthetics function, incorporating real tech with fantasy elements, the possible future of science/tech, etc.). All of these are characteristics that I still have, but Poppy reflects a younger version of myself with a bit less self-control and a lot more room to do her own thing (in the sense that I don’t think too hard about the funding that would be required for her hobbies), becoming a bit of a wild child/unintentional menace at times.

[rise-my-angel]

The funniest thing about hating Rhaegar is his stans assuming we love Robert and then they begin arguing how he was an abuser and a pos as if we don't know lol. Hating Rhaegar and Robert is not mutually exclusive. It reminds me of takes like if you love Jon, how can you love Catelyn? 🤦🤦 People need to stop living through characters I beg. Liking/disliking certain characters based on who your favorite character likes/dislikes is NOT normal behaviour.

The amount of Rhaegar stans who jump on you like OH YOU LOVE ROBERT HUH like okay lets take it back friends and show me where we said that.

Now, I am a bit biased because I do rather like the Baratheons in general but I am the first to pick those grown ass men up by the scruff of their necks and hold them up over a cliffs edge telling them that they're asses are gonna get dropped into the sea unless they smarten up.

Like yes Rhaegar stans, Robert is a piece of shit. But the reasons Lyanna did not want to marry him was because he was a womanizer whom already had bastards and she knew he was not a man who would be faithful or respectful to her. (My personal headcanon is that Lyanna was not interested in marriage at all but thats only my personal speculation).

Robert didn't even mistreat her, because he did not know her. She didn't want to marry him because she knew, she as a wife, was in for a life of a husband prone to massive infidelity, something any reasonable 14-15 year old girl would object to. And we have no way of knowing if he would have mistreated her the way he does Cersei. How he treats Cersei is absoutely horrible and abusive, but the circumstances of their marriage DO play a part in the manner which they mutually mistreat each other in different ways. Theres no real evidence that Robert would treat Lyanna as horribly, we can only say for sure, he would have been insultingly unfaithful and Lyanna would have at the least still been miserable.

So their assumption that Lyannas life with Robert would've looked just like Cersei's is wrong. Cersei's life also is played due in part that most of her family do not care about her well being. She was mistreated and miserable and no one cared. Lyannas family all cared about her deeply. The Starks are all very close and protective, so the idea that Ned would stand by and allow Robert to treat his SISTER that way is to say Ned views Cersei exactly in the same level of respect he does his little sister, which is wrong.

In Lyanna vs Robert in Neds eyes, Lyanna wins. We know this. He keeps Lyannas secret from Robert half their lives which could be a secret considered treason. Ned chooses Lyanna, and would not actualy let her be treated by Robert the way he sees Robert treat Cersei. Also by the time Ned sees the extent of his marriage to Cersei it is far too late to intervene meaningfully and thus he does nothing because by this point there is nothing he can do.

In fact, Ned while still going to tell Robert the truth, extends mercy to Cersei and all but begs her to take her children and run as far away from Robert as they can. Ned defies Robert by telling Cersei to spare her and her childrens lives by running before it's too late. Something which again, could be considered treason once Robert knows the truth.

Robert has MANY problems, and ironically, the show is actually the version of the story that handles this better. Robert in the show is still not a good person, but he has so much more layers and nuance to make him less black and white unlikable. This version of Robert you can actually understand what about him does Ned like and why other people still care about him. Its a rare example of an adaptation improving something from the books.

But Book Robert just sucks. We all know that. He sucks. No one likes Book Robert not even Baratheon fans like me.

But because Rhaegar stans depend on Rhaeyla for their characterization of Lyanna, they can ONLY imagine an opposite where it is Robert and Lyanna because their views of her depend on her in a romance. They don't see her as an individual character who probably wanted nothing to do with either Robert or Rhaegar.

In my personal opinion, Lyanna did not want to marry any man, and probably hadn't even considered if she wanted children. Since the earliest we know anything substantial of her is the Knight of the Laughing Tree, which is a story that tells me shes still just an adventurous girl who wants to see what the more exciting parts of life can offer her. And while dreading one marriage, she was kidnapped and forced into an even worse scenario with an even worse man and died because of it.

Like, at the very least, Roberts side of the war was partially fighting to save her life. Rhaegar fought the side of the war that led her trapped on the other side of the country, almost dying alone in a bed of her own blood.

There no nuance here with these people. They don't see Lyanna outside of Rhaelya and thus they are obsessed with proving that Robert was worse then him even though most discussions about Lyanna have nothing to do with Robert in the first place.

But to be clear, Rhaegar is worse then Robert. They both suck, but Rhaegar is still worse because at least Robert never kidnapped and raped a 15 year old girl which started a war and ended in her death.

The only reason its easier to dunk on Robert is because he was still alive when we met him at the start of the series. A lot easier to shit on a character when we directly followed their actions before they died.

[riddlerosehearts]

seeing your pfp + url combination under a twst post gave me such a jolt omg... i've been out of the pjo fandom for a very long time but it's so cool seeing another twst & pjo liker! I still dip my toes back into the fandom from time to time like via searching the tags of my favourite characters, but i love seeing people like you still passionately into it around to talk about the series and its characters. now my question is... which of the cabins do you think your fav twst characters would belong in, or vice versa - which pjo favs in which twst dorms? for me, i think leo might work in ignihyde which i do kinda want to draw some time!

oh hey anon!! haha, i've been into twst for almost exactly a year now (literally started playing the prologue on february 18th 2023) but i've loved pretty much the whole PJO universe since i was a kid, and the TV show coming out recently got me thinking about it again and made me wanna switch to a nico icon for a bit. this is such a fun question! i'll start this by warning you that i tend to ramble and give overly lengthy answers to things.

hmm, i'll do twst characters in camp half-blood cabins first--my top faves are riddle and idia, so i'll sort them and also silver because i thought of an idea i like for him.

riddle: i definitely get the vibe that he's a son of athena, and maybe he could also be a legacy of themis, the titan goddess of law and order! also definitely becomes head counselor, probably at a fairly young age similarly to annabeth.

idia: i know this is an extremely obvious answer, but of course he and ortho are hades kids. though if idia would ever leave his cabin, he might find that he could get along well with some of the quieter hephaestus kids. also...

^ not my meme, found it on reddit a while back lol. ALSO like... he and nico both love nerdy things, used to be a lot more upbeat, and admired heroic figures until they were traumatized by the deaths of their siblings. and then for both of them their parentage and family history also plays a part in their isolation and jaded outlook on life. i guess this isn't really relevant to the question but i just wanted to say that it's crazy how similar their stories are.

silver: stays unclaimed in the hermes cabin for a while, and everyone thinks he must be a son of hypnos due to his tendency to fall asleep at random. it's very surprising when he gets claimed by morpheus, the god of dreams, instead.

and for pjo characters in NRC dorms... i wish we had a bit more canon info on what gets a person sorted into a particular dorm haha! let's see, though. my favorite characters in the original PJO books are nico and annabeth and my favorite of those introduced in HOO is leo, so i'll sort them! i know annabeth couldn't go there in canon but let's ignore that.

nico: obvious answer is that he'd end up in ignihyde, but another idea i had is what if he moved into ramshackle? i can see him feeling like he doesn't really fit in at ignihyde because of its focus on technology, and promising to keep the ramshackle ghosts in line if he's allowed to transfer.

annabeth: i think she'd be in scarabia! scarabia students are all about careful planning and strategy and are noted to generally be very resourceful and cunning, and all of that just fits her perfectly. i think it also fits because percy would definitely get put in octavinelle, and iirc scarabia and octavinelle are supposed to have a bit of a rivalry.

leo: i agree with you about ignihyde for him!! leo is someone who seems super energetic and outgoing but who actively seeks out quiet and personal space and literally gets along better with machines than with people, so i think he'd fit right in. if you do draw that then i'd absolutely love to see it.