#normalize your villains!!!!

[miercolaes]

normalize your villains. writing wise. i think everyone knows villain behavior irl would get you a ticket straight to the highest security prison out there. but this is about building a fictional world. for context, i've recently been on a rewatch for the show once upon a time and this time, i've tried to stay impartial to the characters storylines. the villains seems irredemable in the first season and frankly, i'm disappointed that this changes. hear me out !!!!!

my version of wednesday addams is for the most part chaotic neutral. wherever the current sails, she'll follow. sure, wednesday has the potential to grow and have (somewhat) healthy relationships in her life, but at the end of the day, she's not a hero. she's not even the anti-hero. sometimes it plays out like that and she might look the part, but she's not good goddammit.

for the crimes that she've committed? guilty as charged. for all the people she had hurt? guilty as charged. for all the misery she'll cause others? you guessed it, guilty as fucking charged. i'm not going to water her down.

in my mind, the addamses were always the outliers, but with the bestest of intentions. morticia and gomez welcomed vile strangers into their homes and tried their very best to make them feel comfortable in their home. they have a skewed perception for the world, something that's unusual, morbid, downright grotesque. edgar allan poe, which netflix glorified and here i am doing a shoutout to train my beloved, would tremble had he known of the addamses. morticia and gomez are kind, in their way. but you know who never really was?

their kids. in the comics (both by the og author and some others icr the author, but more closer to our time), pugsley was the devil incarnate. he showed no remorse, he was clearly thrilled by the suffering he caused others. but i suppose the directors changed the storyline and made wednesday the brand new puglsey in the 90s movies. she showed no emotion, she was a okay with murdering her own, even if she knew as luck as it, their younger brother pubert would live. this time around, wednesday was the devil incarnate.

and i agree with the canon, she can be incredibly intelligent and even more ruthless than she is intelligent. but one thing i've noticed is that, she notices her parents being taken for granted. she is aware that others will use morticia and gomez's kindness against them. sure, they can take it, that's their thing after all. but wednesday noticed everything since she was a kid and she remembers.

and guess what?

just because someone went through hell and back (even if said hell is not the worst that could happen), that doesn't mean someone will come out kind and good. wednesday will forever doubt anyone in her life and she will push them away, just as she'll try to give them the world. but no matter the good she does, at the end of the day, she is the villain. it's not the addams family, it's just the kids and i say that because pugsley and pubert have the same rights as wednesday does.

at the end of the day, being evil after witnessing evil is okay. fiction wise, i feel like reminding. some characters are irredemable. just because they do good things sometimes that doesn't make them good. just like doing bad things sometimes doesn't make them bad. but here's the catch with the addamses. they always, always own up who they are. wednesday no exception to the rule.

wednesday, the villain, can do good things. she can save your muse, she can enjoy your muse's company, she can love your muse. but all of this, all the good things do come from a villain. did she deserve the awful treatment she and her family got in canon? of course not, that we can all agree on. but it doesn't matter what happened, what matters is what choices they make afterward. wednesday will always choose herself. wednesday doesn't pick good, she willingly chooses evil.

sure, a villain is capable of love. a villain is capable of both good and bad. but look at how it always ends. wednesday is a villain and she will suffer, your muse too if you dare to come too close. it's not fair, i know. but this is just my theory, vero's theory. and, you may expect it by now,

please, normalize your villains.

[captainkirkk]

Everytime Batman and Red Hood see each other they end up shouting across the streets of Gotham emotional shit like JUST COME HOME SON and YOU'RE NOT IN CHARGE OF ME ANYMORE OLD MAN and it's just Not Subtle in the slightest

No one knows that Jason is an ex Robin so everyone comes to the very logical conclusion that the Red Hood is Batman's rebellious blood son that ran away from home to pursue a life of crime and they're not even fucking wrong

[hussyknee]

I'm really not a villain enjoyer. I love anti-heroes and anti-villains. But I can't see fictional evil separate from real evil. As in not that enjoying dark fiction means you condone it, but that all fiction holds up some kind of mirror to the world as it is. Killing innocent people doesn't make you an iconic lesbian girlboss it just makes you part of the mundane and stultifying black rot of the universe.

"But characters struggling with honour and goodness and the egoism of being good are so boring." Cool well some of us actually struggle with that stuff on the daily because being a good person is complicated and harder than being an edgelord.

Sure you can use fiction to explore the darkness of human nature and learn empathy, but the world doesn't actually suffer from a deficit of empathy for powerful and privileged people who do heinous stuff. You could literally kill a thousand babies in broad daylight and they'll find a way to blame your childhood trauma for it as long as you're white, cisgender, abled and attractive, and you'll be their poor little meow meow by the end of the week. Don't act like you're advocating for Quasimodo when you're just making Elon Musk hot, smart and gay.

[glouris]

“they are very annoying and irritating” are you familiar with the concept of fun and being entertained by drama

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 132

So it turns out Danny and Billy share a realms guardian. Not like they knew that until they literally got scruffed and taken through a portal- apparently realms paperwork can take years or even centuries so they actually got really lucky with how much their guardian was pushing. 

Apparently the primordial being of Space and the primordial being of Storm is one and the same and has been… well not throwing a fit but also yes throwing a fit at the Observants and other paperwork beings of the Zone. 

So it’s not the worst kidnapping either of them have gone through, apparently they’re getting a checkup and a crash course in realms stuff?? Oh god what do you mean there’s the equivalent of galas in the Zone and they have to go to them??? Sam/Tim help them! 

On the bright sides, way less attacks on Amity now that a primordial being that literally shuffles around entire galaxies just because is hanging around to teach him how to do things. And when Billy gets found out to be ten he can cheerfully say he has permission from his guardian. The one literally letting them get through space so quickly just because they think the league is neat. In an idle wow yep kiddo that is a funky looking cat we aren’t taking home yep, way. 

[bixels]

All of your 20's MLP designs are incredible, but your take on Chrysalis in particular stands out to me. Are there plans for any of the other main antagonists besides her and Starlight/Stella? Nightmare Moon, Discord, Tirek or Cozy

Nightmare Moon is the first villain of the AU's story. Discord would be featured. Tirek's kinda boring but I get he's important so maybe he'll pop up somewhere. I'm having more fun with Sombra anyways. Cozy Glow is a mentally ill toddler. She didn't need life in prison, she needed child psychotherapy.

[galedekarios]

people need to start understanding that blocking someone is a way to curate your online experience in a mature and healthy way.

it's not a moral or a character failing to block someone.

it's not "aggressive", it's not "bizarre", it's not a "lack of respect", it's not "throwing a fit", it doesn't mean you can't respect different opinions and it doesn't mean you should get "off the internet" to "get some air".

it's simply a 'i don't vibe with your content and don't want to see more from you.'

[grumpepper]

just life lately

[phoenixcatch7]

Kintsukuroi

'What if I put a clock pendulum in my torso' was the sort of question Bruce had come to expect when visiting Oracle.

"Pendulums are dependant on a stable base," he replied, because the last time he'd assumed they were being unserious Tim had tried to fit a chemistry test lab in his mouth and accidentally leaked the fumes through his mask.

"It'd be so aesthetic though," said Barbara, not looking up from the dozen screens she was surrounded by. "Listen. It would look so cool - Spoiler, robbery on fifth and main - Especially if I put a clock face over my heart."

"I thought you were trying to fit a super computer in it?"

"I was, but progress is slow. It's hard to fit it and enough padding to protect it plus leave enough room for ventilation. If I add the pendulum I might at least get inspiration." She gave a heavy sigh and pushed away from the desk, gliding in her chair to where her doll body was resting on a table, the glue separating the two halves of the smashed torso still glistening. Bruce followed, peering over her at the many scanners and wires hooked into it, flashing and beeping.

"Any luck?" he asked, and they both knew he wasn't talking about the computer anymore.

"Nothing."

He squeezed her shoulder, and she leant into it. They stayed there for a long moment.

"I just don't understand!" Barbara finally burst out, hands clenching on her chair arms. "I glued nearly every single piece back together! I made sure every splinter I could find went exactly where it should! I know the contract is still there. She's worked with more missing pieces before. But she's just not responding!"

"It's not you," Bruce soothed. "You've more than enough determination and strength to puppet, and we know the human body's state doesn't affect performance."

"That's the thing!" Barbara threw her hands up angrily, nearly smacking Bruce in the face. There was a chatter over comms, and both reached for their own. "One second," she said tightly, and wheeled back into the glow of the monitors. "Copy. BW, you're nearest? Thanks. Try and avoid the sniper this time. Wing, backup is in five."

She muted again and spun around, pinning Bruce with a heavy stare. "Is there anything, anything you can think of? We've - nothing I've tried has worked."

"Well...." He trailed off, one hand coming up to rub at the chin of his mask - a quiet night meant the opportunity to forgo the practical but muffling gas mask for his favoured plain black.

It was far from the first time a doll had been horrifically damaged. The incident with Bane came to mind - Batman had been in a very similar condition, body shorn clean in two and tossed to opposite corners. It was an awful memory, but the expression on Bane and the audience's faces as his bloodless body fell apart like a rotting tree trunk and then kept moving was a silver lining he'd always treasure.

But he'd been repaired and back on his feet in weeks, if bearing the incandescent fury of the doll for several more. It had been months for Barbara, and still nothing was happening.

"There's something we're missing, and I doubt it's on your side."

"I know THAT-"

"Listen," he demanded, and her jaw clicked shut mutinously. "There's something we're not seeing. Batgirl is in no shape to demand it herself, it seems. So its inaction is something we can't fully rely on."

"You've got the most experience with the dolls of all of us. Can you.. I don't know, sense anything?"

"Nothing more than the usual, with the Patriarch Doll, but we might get more if we return to the doll house -"

"No." Barbara interrupted again, but Bruce did not take offence. "She's not going anywhere. She doesn't want to head back to the cave."

Oh?

"She doesn't want to, or she doesn't care to?"

"I say she doesn't."

Interesting. This was likely a case of the doll exerting its will. The bats were well versed in avoiding the few lines their wooden bodies drew in the sand, treating them with the wary respect one would give a favorite blade or a highly trained attack dog. They could work together, share the highs and lows of life with them, but never get complacent. The dolls were forever a foreign, inhuman presence, and as with all wild creatures they would never be so arrogant as to assume full understanding. For Barbara to so strongly decide for the doll meant she was most likely not the only one deciding.

Which meant the solution would not be found in the cave.

"Perhaps there are upgrades she wishes to have?"

Oracle paused.

"Maybe," she conceded. "But there's practically a limitless amount of things I could do, and I wouldn't know where to start. And I could more easily do them when she's up and walking."

Not that then. If the doll wanted something to change but not receive upgrades or heal, than what?

... Not heal.

Batman hurried to the table. Oracle watched him with hawk eyes, but another call on the comms turned her away with a final warning glance.

Recovering every single splinter from a damaged wooden object and perfectly reattaching it was nigh impossible on a good day, never mind in the dead of night with a moving target. The dolls always returned to the cave to regenerate scratches and nicks they couldn't buff out, or accepted plaster to transmute with whatever supernatural power guided them.

The batgirl on the table, divested of all covering and armour, was still as chipped and scuffed as the day nightwing recovered last splinter.

The pieces fell into place.

"She doesn't want to be perfectly rebuilt," he realised. "She doesn't want the damage to disappear as it normally does... She wants it to remain visible. A different type of repair, then."

Oracle spun in her wheelchair to face him.

"Why?" she asked, something sharp in her eyes. Bruce chose his next words carefully.

"Perhaps she thinks such damage doesn't need to be hidden away," he said, slowly, and didn't comment when she turned away. Though she put on a strong face, and the doctors had recently released her full time, it would be a long time until the young hero was able to truly heal her mind.

"She doesn't need to do that for me. She's just causing me trouble."

"I don't think she is," he tried. "Dolls tend to reflect their puppeteer even after they accept us. You can't deny your trajectory has been changed."

They both sent a significant look to the enormous super computer taking up the wall.

"You've said you almost feel better able to protect Gotham now, with your reach and skills. Do you really feel that way?"

"I - I don't -" her mouth worked silently, and Bruce waited. "I mean I guess... But a part of me always assumed it'd be temporary, you know? Once I fixed batgirl.. It'd all return to normal." Her voice wobbled, and Bruce didn't hesitate to crouch before her, wrapping her in a long armed hug. She buried herself in his chest, regardless of the chilled metal.

"It's okay if you don't," he whispered into her hair, and held her as she shook. "I'm just throwing ideas around."

"I do though," she rasped. "I think I do feel that way. There's so much that can't be solved by violence, and it feels good to be out there but... I think I can help even more people, this way."

"That's good," he praised, "that's good. You can do whatever you set your mind to."

"You stole that from a parenting book verbatim."

"It's applicable to the current situation."

"Fine," she sighed, and pushed him away to roughly scrub at her eyes. "I'll give the doll another chance. Find some glitter glue or something, I don't know."

"Any materials you need will be provided," he promised. "I wouldn't recommend glitter glue or our usual tar."

He moved to pat her on the hair as the emotions of the moment faded, making sure to keep his unsheathed claws out of her hair.

"Once you fix her, though, I would recommend you puppet the doll during night hours still," he told her. "It wouldn't be good to put your body through twenty hour days."

"I've got a good system set up for now, but thank, B-man."

The computer dinged with another alert, and oracle spun to squint at it with a muffled curse, typing furiously. Batman escaped to the other side of the room, where the folders he'd originally come looking for lay. She waved, distracted, as he left, and although the doll could not smile, he could feel it on his face all the same.

@puppetmaster13u I summon thee dear mutual ^^

[kaleidoscopedrawsjpg]

Sometimes, I just think about how Shang Qinghua made Mobei Jun after his ideal man. He really just made a big stupid idiot demon lord with communication and anger issues and went, yep, perfect.

Then, he acted surprised when he was all of that and still had the audacity to not understand his idiot King when he was courted.

These two are absolute idiots and I love them so much. I'm definitely completely normal about them.

But seriously, what the fuck.

[fromtheseventhhell]

"It's normal for siblings to fight" Okay well it's not normal to be extremely classist and look down on your sister for being non-conforming. Or to go to the woman who ordered the death of your pet to tell her about your father's plans, when he specifically warned you against doing so, because you want to marry the boy you saw attack your sister and her friend (contributing partially to said father's death and your sister being unable to escape on the ship he chartered). Or to think of your sibling as unsatisfactory in comparison to another when you believe her to be dead. I notice that none of the "Sansa and Arya are going to reunite and instantly have no issues" crowd ever acknowledge any of this, which makes it seem like they don't actually believe what they say about their relationship being normal and easily reconciled. People wanting them to have no issues simply because they're siblings is another example of how fandom likes to flatten complex characters and relationships. They get reduced to being bickering siblings when their conflict runs deeper than that. If the author is telling you that they have "deep issues" to work out [X], I don't understand being so adamant about ignoring said issues. I also get the sense it's about ignoring the capacity for a certain character to be flawed, but that isn't going to change the fact that her "slip of the tongue" is very likely to be revealed and a source of further conflict 🤷🏾‍♀️

[comraderosalie]

It’s maddening to me the way you all write about trans women as though we are fantasizing about and sexualizing some hypothetical female sexual violence. There’s no consideration for the fact that we are just talking about our own experiences. Not everything is performative or a fetish - the pain of trans people is not a public performance, it is our fucking lives. We experience sexual violence, sexual abuse, exploitation, sexualization both because we are women and because we are trans. I am not fetishizing female tragedy when I talk about the man who raped me or the men who have abused me, I’m attempting to communicate my pain and the fact that you cannot interpret that in any way that is other than nefarious or disingenuous or some sort of perversion, I feel like that says much more about how much you have dehumanized trans people in your head more than it says anything about us.

[piosplayhouse]

Day 10000 of asking mxtx to write an svsss extra exploring how tlj's parents raised not just one but TWO freaky ass kids with tragic interspecies kinks

[0vergrowngraveyard]

very casually glossing over the “fox kit he found on some rich folk’s porch” part…

[sincerely-sofie]

Cave-in: A comic starring Darkrai, Dusknoir, and an unconscious Twig on an expedition gone wrong.

(Note that this takes place after the ending of the fanfic, and people have settled into having Darkrai in their lives... for the most part. Dusknoir still hates his guts and doesn't trust him whatsoever.)

[atzidraws]

"I AM THE RIGHTFUL RULER OF EQUESTRIA!"

PLEASE RAINBOTT'S BABY BOY SONDER HAS ME ON A CHOKEHOLD I LOVE HIM SO MUCH I LOVE HIS LORE AND JUST WJSVOWMWLWM

I HAD TO MAKE FANART OF HIM-

Y'all please check out Eclipse of Harmony over at Rainbott's channel, it's a pretty good story

💜🙏✨