#this concept is actually so interesting to me because I know only the bare basics of Christianity

[kermahillway]

I have two questions have you ever drawn young Balthazar Bratt?

What is your despicable me movie rankings? Favorite to least favorite.

I have! Once, on paper not too long ago, but that one looks bad because it was a sketch and rushed. So here's him digitally instead. Movie rankings and also a lot of ranting if you are at all interested in some guys opinion on the internet about a bunch of baby movies:

This became longer than I thought Jesus Christ. Also this is all writen out of order and not corrected for the most part. Also it's very unorganized because I only wanted to talk about things to note. I could write SO much more but I'd rather keep all that in the Discord server...

1st: Despicable Me 3 Where do I even begin with this movie? Obviously if your favorite movie is below this one you either don't want to hear it or you are sitting at the edge of your seat to hear why I honest to god like this movie more than the others. Well either way here it is. It's the villain. WHAT??? Yes. Who knew the villain in a Despicable Me movie would be the best part of the movie? No but in all seriousness this movie is super messy for me. Again adding a new family member to the roster, Dru is a introduced immediately and I am immediately more invested than I was in the second movie. I love when writers make a character purely to contrast the protagonist and Dru, if not a little too much sometimes, is just exactly what I want in that trope. Where the 4th movie fails the 3rd succeeds with having Gru somewhat go back to villainy for a valid reason. Being motivated by his brother to teach him villainy which is awesome. Because again this movie is called "despicable me" it's a movie about a despicable guy doing despicable things. I cannot stress this enough with how poorly the 4th movie was written… Yes, Gru is a family man at the end of the day in this movie, barely doing anything that could be remotely counted as "despicable" but if not him than his brother adorably tries to fill in that gap in the franchise. This movie actually giving us information about Gru's family whilst at the same time having it be useful for the plot is just perfect. You know, basic writing.

Shit I don't like about this movie is the side plot Margo and Lucy. I get what they were trying to do with Lucy but it just really hard to watch. The end of the plot ultimately ends very nicely but I feel like we could have gotten there without accidentally getting your 12 year old daughter engaged. The big argument Gru and Dru had before the climax that ends up solving itself 5 minutes later really wasn't great either, I would have preferred if it was done after the climax maybe? The minions in this movie serve no real purpose other than to split up the main plot better, which they do fine enough. Them taking over the prison is funny and I like that Mel has a bond with Gru but again, valid arguments are made and solved with no real conflict or explanation. The minions are supposed to serve a villain to be happy, all of a sudden Mel has a vision of Gru whilst in the shower and all is fine and dandy? They get to do villainy with Dru at the end of the movie but that gets forgotten about in the very next installment.

Now time for the glazing, yeah? Bratt. The 80s guy, the South Park Randy Marsh guy, the ultimate nostalgia freak. Can I just say, this villain is underrated as hell and you are lying if you tell me he wasn't done dirty. The concept of a villain whom is stuck in the 80s because of his childhood as an actor is just such a cool fucking idea for a character in general dude. On top of that somehow getting fucking Trey Parker to voice him is just the cherry on top. Main complaint I've seen about Bratt is that he spends most of his time moping around in his base watching his own show for monolog sake which I 100% agree with… But really can you blame the guy? How many times have you watched your favorite movie? He robs France of it's jewels then fucks off to do nothing for most of the movie before finishing it off with peak. The robot fight is just perfect, I'm sorry. It's my favorite scene in the whole franchise and yes it has a lot to say in where I place this movie. The soundtrack slaps mega hard for that scene especially and of course you can't beat an 80s obsessed super villain without dancing to Modanna.

2nd: Despicable me 1

A classic. It's not controversial for me to say it's the most solid movie to ever come out of this franchise. It tops Rise for me quality wise simply because the movie was actually trying here. This movie actually cared to write a story that grips you by your legs and pulls you in. It want's you to care for these girls and this grumpy villain guy who is miserable. This for me truly is the only movie in the franchise that earns the name "despicable me" as here Gru is actually a villain. Not a dad, not a dad part time villain. An old cold hearted man who cares only for himself and finds joy in watching others be miserable. The minions in this movie aren't purely there just to take up screentime and be funny but are actually involved with the plot in a way that moves the plot forward. Gru steals the shrink ray twice and both times the minions are involved. Love Doctor Nefario as a side character too. While the fart jokes aren't my thing, his relationship with Gru makes him entertaining to watch.

Vector is great. I mean come on. He's just fantastic. For how much I glaze the 4th and 3rd villain, Vector is a genuinely great one. He is an active threat to Gru and his mission. Hell the movie even has the balls to throw a curve ball at you halfway through the movie to reveal that the bank of evil CEO was Vector's father making him an even bigger threat to Gru as a villain. Oh and also he's just funny? Like am I allowed to say that the Wii sports nerdy glasses guy is funny? He's so unserious yet so easily becomes a massive thorn in Gru's side which makes for peak funny. Overall this movie is still great for me. Quality wise it's the best movie that has come out of illuminations in my humble opinion but it gets beat by 3 simply because I am a bias, BUT! If you heard it from anyone you heard it from me, Despicable Me 1 is a good movie and I will die on that hill.

3rd: Despicable Me 2

A movie that I honest to god cannot memorize even if I remotely cared about the villain and the purple minions. It is leagues better than the 4th movie but is so incredibly mid for me that it ends up becoming forgettable even after rewatches. The AVL was by far the best thing they added to this movie and I wish they fleshed it out a bit more than they did. The introduction of an Anti Villain League is arguably what makes this universe interesting in my opinion. Even though I struggle to believe that they'd let villains like Scarlet overkill just chill in a giant obvious castle untouched, it makes it hard to believe that they are even remotely capable of capturing and containing any villain.

Overall though Lucy and Gru just steals the show for me. I adore their dynamic and she was designed so incredibly to contrast Gru's design. I love every scene with them, an honest to god good relationship that doesn't feel forced. As much as I hate giving protagonists lovers in sequels for no reason, this is an acceptation for me because it was executed well. The girls are fit into the story perfectly if not a little lop sided. Agnes being adorably the main plot device for Gru and Lucy to start bonding. I also like that Lucy isn't a one note female love interest. She is actually badass as fuck and hands Gru his ass immediately upon greeting him which is just great. I also love that she is revealed to be new to her job as an agent but still excels at it. Margo again goes through the most trauma this movie which for some reason becomes a pattern in the next one.

El Macho is fine but his chicken being more memorable than him really just explains all my feelings about him. I think that despite him being a massive stereotype he's done well enough to be passable. Him being a washed up villain under cover makes sense for the movie but he doesn't hit as well as I want him to. He's not threatening unless he's backed up by his minions. The scene with him in his early days is the best scene of him imo since it gives you a better idea of what kind of wacky villains exist in this universe. It's so over the top and flashy I can't help but love it. Doctor Nefario leaving Gru for El Macho actually makes sense and is something I really wish they did for the minions in the third movie.

4th: Despicable Me 4 (Ironic I know) As much as I love the villain in the 4th one for all the wrong reasons, the writing in this movie especially is just abysmal… It feels extremely bloated, rushed, poorly put together and overall just a slog to get through. I dislike the trope so many writers feel they need to take with protagonists in sequels which is to give them a random new family member for the movie to focus on. Granted that's been in all the Despicable Me movies but at least those movies were consistent. The characters that were introduced in the movies prior had something to do in the new one. Despicable Me 4 on the other hand, introduces a new family member at the very start of the movie and leaves Dru at the very end with around 3 or 4 seconds of background screentime. In Despicable Me 4 Lucy and the girls have jack shit to do similarly to the fucking villain because we have to give the screentime to the Mega Minions and Poppy whom I'm sure will get a spin-off in the future. Don't even get me started on the Mega Minions… Good God I hate these guys so much. Illuminations wanted to show off their cool new line of merchandise pumping minions that were in the movie specifically to beat the villain but ending up getting sloppy seconds because of this odd cross way point in the climax where everything had to wrap up all at once. It feels like the writers forgot they even existed for half the fucking movie and I wouldn't be surprised if they were. After all they are minions, Illumination's sweet angels whom can't do no wrong when it comes to making successful merch. The minions in general are all just here to do their usual funny baby jokes even though it makes no logical sense for them to still hang with Gru now that he's a family man. This could have been soldved simply by giving Dru even a few minutes of screentime. I enjoyed the movie purely when the funny Will Ferrell cockbug was on screen, which feels like it's only four god blessed minutes of the movie by the way. The writers pushed him aside too for the 4 other plots the movie had to fill in. Maxime as a villain fails in every aspect of his character. If their aim was to make the villain of this movie pathetic and extremely one note, they succeeded. Exactly 7 minutes into the movie and Maxime gets contained by the AVL. He then spends the next 50 minutes crying and searching for Gru, only stopping once to pay for gas which he somehow also fails at. The one time he suceeds it's flat out handed to him on a silver platter. His misison was to aquire Jr and Jr just so happens to roll out the door unatended. Hell, he even fails to pick up the literal toddler. Needing to get his girlfriend to help him out which is just incredibly pathetic and I love it. On the topic of girlfriend, Valentina is for sure a character the writers surely didn't forget about whom you could completely remove from the movie and still have it be the exact same. The pieces were there but you can't do it all at once. I could rant about this movie forever because god knows I want to rewrite this movie with less plots. Also that fuckoff scene with all the characters dancing and singing at the end had me smiling from ear to ear for more than one reason. The fact that it say's "seriously high security prison on the wall" before the Mega Minions break in no sweat just to dance with everyone, they fucking rubber banded Jean Clawed's claw arm like you would with a lobster, the implication that Maxime and Gru make up on the spot after what is possibly 30+ years worth of rivalry between them just by singing a song together, the thought that MOST of these villains would beat the ever loving shit out of Gru in any other scenario. It's just such a dumb and amazing end to the movie that feels like it was made by fans. It's almost like they knew how bad the writing was and decided to give us fan service in the hopes that we'd forgive and forget.

-

And that's pretty much it. I have a big soft spot for the 3rd movie because it was the movie that got me into the franchise originally and you really just cannot beat Bratt as a villain for me. However I like all of the movies for what they offer. They never really miss with their villains even if some of them are underwhelming. Cheers if you for some reason stuck around to read all this. What are we doing with our lives, dawg? Oh and good luck closing this "read more" btw. You gotta scroll to the bottom for some reason.

[magentasnail]

one thing you should know about me is that I'm a little insane

all of the new bill cipher stuff and euclydia had sparked a lot of discussions about the nature of a 2D dimension, so now I have a very strong one sided beef with anyone trying to claim that "we, as 3D beings, can only see/perceive in 2D" and as a 3D being myself I have to disagree and if I don't voice my opinions in public I will lose my mind

so welcome to "magenta's trying to explain physics without actually knowing physics to anyone who's willing to listen"

so first of all, one major key of this debate is the difference between "see" and "perceive", because that can lead to some confusion

in my opinion there are basically 3 stages to "sight" (and any other senses): 1. the information the eyes gets (our retinas?) 2. the image our brains create from interpreting that information 3. us comprehending what we see

I personally think of "seeing" as at least level 2, but for the sake of this argument let's refer to seeing as level 1 and perception as 2 and 3 (separating them to perception and comprehension doesn't add much to the discussion) however I still think vision encapsulate the entire thing, so keep that in mind

if that's the case, I do understand why people claim that we can only "see" in 2D, because in a technical sense: one eye can only see a flat image

for example, if we have these 2 balls in front of us in a 3D space, we wont really be able to tell anything about their distance and size with just one eye

HOWEVER, and that's the thing I'm mainly getting at: we do have the ability to tell size and distance in real life! by this great thing calls "depth perception"

now this is not really a concept I can explain with images since they are inherently flat, but you probably know it already just think 3D glasses, VR, or even just look around in your room! our two eyes + our brain gives us the ability to tell the distance of things from us! you can theoretically map the objects around you on a 3D grid just from looking at them, and if that's not 3D vision and perception idk what is

well, actually, I did see a thing being argued that "3D vision means seeing all sides of an object + inside of it, which is what 4D creatures will see" so lets think about that for a second

this argument stems from the way we interact with the 2nd dimension

as all the flatlands lovers here know, when we look at a world of 2D creatures, we are able to see all of their sides, and their inside, so supposedly a 4D creature would be able to do the same for us

but that's where things gets interesting, so let's go deeper!

this usually comes up in order to say "this ability to see around and inside of an object defines what 2D vision is, and thus only 3D being can see 2D, while 2D beings can only see 1D" however, I don't think it has to do with sight at all! but rather with point of view and existing in a higher dimensional plane !

the special thing about us really is our ability to move on the Z axis and separate ourselves from the 2D plane, and thus get a fuller view! so this doesn't have anything to do with us "being limited to 2D" but rather with us being 3D creatures in a 3D world and 3D perception!!! so supposedly, a 4D creature would be in the same situation, having 3D retinas and an overall 4D vision and perception!

if we were to be on the flat plain along the other shapes, our vision isn't going to serve us much better than it does for the 2D creatures, the only additional thing we will be able to see is the Z axis, which isn't really relevant to 2D beings

so now raises the question: can 2D creatures see in 2D? don't they only see 1D? ( - a line ?)

I'm going to jump through some loops here so I need you to hold my hand and bare with me

lets say we have this triangular fella with one eye, the light information they are getting is linear, so basically a line (which is represented on the right)

now this is where I'm making a bit of a leap: will their vision have 2D depth? like we have?

think for a second of the way we see, technically, even the flat image our retinas see is based in some 3D: specifically, objects appear smaller as they are far away, lines wrap into a vanishing point in the horizon, stuff like that!

the 3D world around us is getting compressed into a flat image with perspective, which we can later decipher back into 3D using both our eyes !

and as you might have noticed, a similar thing is happening in our triangle friend's vision! even though both circles are the same size, the light blue circle is closer, and thus takes a much larger portion of their field of view!

unfortunately, as we have established before, while this is a result of depth, this isn't equivalent to depth perception, as our poor triangle cant tell anything about the distance of the circles! is that circle close to him? is that a giant far circle? who knows!

this is where having 2 eyes might help!

our other friend, the 2 eyed triangle, should in theory be able to have depth perception similarly to us, and thus perceive 2D visually!!

how specifically their brain interprets that information is beyond me, the changes in distance, size and angles/curves might be visible as color changes or even width

it's important to remember that since there's no defined "width" to the "line" of their vision, it's actually filling their entire field of view and perception of sight, so it's not like it's a line within a black void but more of the definition of everything, so when compared to our perception of sight it's something more like this:

and if you want to incorporate the idea of closer objects appearing larger in their perception, it might be something like this (for a bunch of random circles in different distances):

the main thing is, when we are trying to say 2D creatures can only see 1D, it's usually just because we think of "2D vision" as a matter of height and width, when it can actually just be depth and width, both of these are valid ways of representing 2 dimensions! because there are 2 dimensions represented ! it's just a matter of point of view!!

I don't think our ability to see 2D objects from all their sides at once is defining what counts as 2D vision, it's just a way to see it from further away, and without relaying on perspective I guess?

so I guess that's the thing really, the core of this discussion: does perspective count? I mean perspective is what makes the axis that's "forwards" accessible, distorting the size to substitute distance. supposedly, when we step back to look to look at a 2D world, we don't need any of that distortion, and we can easily see both the accurate size and the distance of objects, so does that mean our vision is superior? that it's actually true 2D?

in my opinion, the distortion of perspective doesn't take away from our vision, it's just a way to represent the forward axis! no matter how many dimensions you have, forwards is always the first dimension to exist, and while you are looking straight ahead at one dimension lower than you are, your over all vision consists of a stack of "straight ahead views" along the additional axis, which I consider as giving it it's missing dimension!!

trying to argue we can't perceive the world in the dimension we exist in doesn't make sense to me, we are 3D beings in a 3D world which we intuitively interact with! just like we can move around the 3D space and hear the direction sounds are coming from, I don't understand why vision should be limited to any less, and definitely not perception!

well that was fun! this is basically just a matter of semantics, but thinking and trying to analyze vision and different dimensions was just really interesting! and I hope it was interesting to read for you dear one person who read this! have a candy! 🍬 hopefully now that I release these thoughts into the world they won't hurt me as much !! time to dissolve i guess !

[elbiotipo]

Do you ever think about how everyone keeps on thinking of assimov law of robotics as a good idea and something that we should actually program into robotics, meanwhile every asimov story about them was him thinking of interesting ways for a robot to bend or break them? Like the way people treat what was meant to be a plot device to facilitate interesting stories as a fundamental of robotics i just find funny

I haven't seen many serious takes on it (though maybe I should start checking out more sci-fi lately) but yes, that's my impression, that it was a plot device that even Asimov knew was flawed and impossible to enforce in real life, but it made for really great stories. One could see the laws of robotics as a fictional religion of sorts

The interesting thing about Asimov's robots (and other robots inspired by him) is that they are a fictional "people" much as Tolkien's Elves or Star Trek's Vulcans. Asimov's Robots are able to be sentient because of the "Positronic Brain", quite literally a plot device that allows them to be sentient. Their main feature isn't that they are robots and the mechanics of it because Asimov never really gets into that (mostly), it's mostly that they're artificial people, and the plot conflicts that arise from that.

This is why it's so obvious that the Three Laws are basically impossible to program or execute with our current knowledge of programming, it's because they aren't thought for real robots, but Asimov's Robots, with positronic brains able to understand them.

It's still really interesting to me because it reflects how the idea of AIs have changed through time. In the 50s and for most of the XXth century, the idea of artificial intelligence was basically that of artificial humans; a robot with a human-like body (or not, but an individual body) and an artificial brain. It was believed generally, or at least that what it seems to me, that the "body" part was easy, that soon, you could have robots in your home doing chores... but the brain part was the hardest one, if not impossible. An AI creating pictures or having a realistic conversation with a human was considered one of those feats that would take centuries of research if not impossible.

Look at how things turned out in real life, however. There are no real domestic robots outside factories, and nobody has yet managed to create mass-produced human-like androids. It turns out that the human form is very, very hard to replicate. And yet, I can now jump into a lot of websites and have a chat with a convincingly human-like *AI*, not only that, I can ask it to impersonate characters or people, create pictures for me, and create text that is nearly indistinguishable from human writing (as well as other feats like image, audio, text recognition, etc.) I need to stress that all that, which is now just arguments on the internet, was considered pure science fiction barely 10 years ago, an impossible feat for many. And yet, here it is. These "AI" or whatever you might want to call them or analyse them, are very different from the Asimovian (and popular) concept of AI as discrete individuals with a "body" and a "person". Where is the AI's "body"? Which one of its endless iterations is its real "self"? Okay, I'm digressing but I hope the contrast is made clear because it's interesting to me.

Soon enough, however, I think not more than ten or twenty years away, someone will finally create mass-produced human-like robots, and now that these AI tools exist, they will be equipped with them. And we will get bona-fide Asimovian Robots that can talk and interact with us, virtually the thing that science fiction has been telling us for decades will someday come. And given the world's reaction to "AIs" right now, I'm not sure I want to know how we will react to them.

[ghoulishautism]

I think the reason people thought sam x danny felt "Forced" wasn't because it "came out of nowhere", but more that the show talked about it so much throughout all three seasons that it was basically shoving your nose into the mess you made on the floor every chance it got.

It wouldn't be as bad if, say, Danny and Sam has more genuine moments together. To their credit, there are a few- but when you're writing romance (esp if he was a boy, she was a girl- can I make it anymore obvious?) people WILL tell if you're only forcing them together because a show needs a romance subplot, and not because they actually complete each other.

What makes ships like GrayGhost (Valerie x Danny) interesting is that these two characters have a very complex and layered relationship with one another. Val starts off a bit standoffish to the trio when she was still a popular girl, but starts warming up to Danny after she's let go. THEN you have the whole other layer of huntress!Val vs Danny Phantom that makes it extra sticky.

Its GREAT because we as the audience were able to see their dynamic constantly growing and changing before the prospects of romance was even brought up a few episodes later.

With Sam and Danny, it was always "Ha ha these two like each other!!"

...Why? Why do they like each other? Because they're hormonal teenagers and Sam is the only girl Danny knows besides his own sister? Because when you put it like THAT, it doesn't sound as good now does it? Making two characters blush randomly isn't enough. We need to actually KNOW what qualities they value in one another.

Then you have the whole aspect of "Sam is more attracted to Danny PHANTOM than Danny FENTON contextually" -- which COULD have been interesting if they actually approached the idealization Sam had towards Phantom while completely disregarding Danny as a whole person. Like if thats the path they took with the ship, I'd be totally into it. But no, with them getting canned when they did, they kinda just brushed that aspect under the rug, never to be seen again.

This isn't me bashing Sam x Danny as a concept, I think it had a LOT of potential that was fumbled by the fact that Sam herself was barely allowed to even act like a real person. Butch wanted her to be goth Louis Lane and thats all he wrote!!

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

My view on the dreams is that they are a twisted image of a desire that the boys have. They are simplistic in nature though, and that is reflected in what desire they portray. Deuce cares more about making his mom proud than going the easy way, but as shown in book 3 he does sometimes take the easy way out. He misses when this were simple and he could solve problems by just throwing punches. If I had to guess, in Deuces dream his mom supported him being a delinquent so he could solve problems with his fists and make his mom proud. For Cater, I think it has more to do with wanting to been seen. When Cater arrives at the courtroom everyone cheers for him. With how he is with magicam, I think he wants to been seen but is scared to show his true self. I think that Malleus' magic took his desire to be seen as a desire for attention--Which Cater typically portrays it as too--and put him in a position where he would be admired and praised. I also think it is interesting how Trey and Riddle are kinder(?) to him then canon. We see Trey complain in canon about Cater not opening up to him, so maybe this shows that Cater wants to open up to Trey but he doesn't know how. It is midnight for me and I can feel my sleep meds getting annoyed that I am fighting them to write this, so if you want me to elaborate on anything lmk and I will do so when I am not mostly asleep.

I understand what you’re trying to say about the nature of the dreams; that’s my basic understanding too 💦 The bare bones of how they work is… fine, in isolation. I just wish the main story didn’t try to be super ambitious with the concept because the more they try to explain it, the less sense it makes and the less it sounds like the writers themselves seem to understand what they’re saying 😔

I think there’s a difference between acquiring someone else’s study guide to guarantee a passing grade versus dropping all efforts to excel academically in favor of trading fists instead, but I think I still understand the general idea. This ends up rounding back to the question of how much do the dreams pull from conscious desires versus unconscious ones, because there’s a clash between the desire for simpler ways to resolve issues and Deuce actively wanting to turn over a new leaf.

I think this could lead into other issues as well. For example, if Deuce’s mom (Dylla) theoretically supports him being a delinquent, would that not trigger an emotional response in him and cause Deuce to wake??? I’d imagine that this would conflict with his reality in which he overheard his mom’s emotionally distressing phone call, which was his motivation to abandon his days as a delinquent. Lilia woke when the dream!senators praised him for hatching Malleus rather than berate him for it; his brain registered the discrepancy and reacted accordingly. In Cater’s dream, the dream!Riddle trying to collar everyone ended up waking him—so isn’t this proof that the darkness trying to keep them asleep can fuck up and accidentally be the trigger that causes them to wake up too?? Would this not become a concern for Deuce as well if his dream begins to struggle to maintain the logic of his delinquent school?

Cater’s dream provides a similarly confusing scenario. If his desire is just to be seen, there were several much easier situations he could have gotten. Why would his dream actively hand him a position, power, and responsibilities he doesn’t want instead of… I don’t know, simply making him a popular, admired, and well-liked upperclassman??? You don’t need him to be a dorm leader in order to accomplish this. You could literally only change it so that Trey is HIS childhood friend instead or Riddle’s. Wouldn’t that be the easier solution????

It continues to feel like the writers are picking fanservice scenarios rather than what actually makes the most sense in-universe. Again, it’s a big inconsistency with the writing of the dreams and as a result it has been a major point of my criticism for the writing of book 7 as a whole.

I do think it was interesting that both dream!Trey and Riddle were more lenient with Cater than they are irl, though Trey is generally lenient with everyone. Maybe more indulgent is the right word?? This behavior change is much more noticeable with Riddle, whose attitude most likely had to be adjusted to avoid any “party poopers” in Cater’s dream. Can’t say I really see why dream!Trey and Riddle being this way with Cater would imply him wanting to open up to Trey…? They didn’t really seem to demonstrate any more intimacy or familiarity with one another than they do irl. Dream!Trey isn’t all that different, and any changes we do observe are not exclusive to him and are, in fact, more notable in dream!Riddle than in Trey.

And that speaks to another recurring issue I have with book 7’s dreams… They don’t make a ton of sense on their own and have to rely on fan interpretations, most of which will be imperfect or flawed somehow because the game failed to explain the parameters beforehand. If the game wanted us to come to a certain conclusion, they should have granted us the clues and the tools to do so. The way it is now, it’s like a mystery that’s full of red herrings (but hey, at least they’re “fun” red herrings) and everyone is looking at different clues and coming to radically different answers because of that. As I suggested in this post, maybe this was intentional because dreams irl are vague. If could have been done this way to promote character analysis and theory crafting in the fandom… but since no one has found a “perfect” explanation and no general consensus has been reached—on top of the many, MANY plot holes—I doubt it 😅 It feels like you’re trying to repair a dam by slapping a band-aid on a leak, only for two more leaks for spring up with every corrective attempt.

Those are my thoughts!! (And remember to stock up on sleep!)

[dramaticallycryingblood]

Things I don’t get about the marauders fandom as someone who’s been obsessed with them for literal years

1. How we let so many characters be only children?? like I get that people don’t necessarily want to make OCs but HOW did it get to this? James, Marlene, Peter, Remus, Mary, Barty, Dorcas, Alice, Frank and so many others! Idk maybe it’s just where I’m from but look me in the eyes and tell me you know that many people who don’t have siblings ALSO the ratio is so off and barely any of them have only child energy. It’s just not right.

2. How sooo many of you aren’t multi shippers. Like what do you MEAN you can only see James with Regulus and Regulus with James?? What about bartylus? what about sunrose? what about draksun/sunkiller? what about moonwater? what about jily? what about prongstail? WHAT do you read?? Aren’t you bored??? WHAT DO YOU MEAN you only have ONE ship for each character???? As a multi shipper, I can be convinced of any ship with anything ranging from a real good fic or a pretty edit to an enthusiastic rant from a random person on TikTok and it just makes things interesting. Maybe my adhd brain just needs more ships to focus on or maybe some of you just lack flexibility ( or imagination), but we need to fix this cause there aren’t enough fics with the ships I like 😭😭

3. THE SHIP NAMES. I can’t be the only one who thinks some of these suck right? Like why are we saying jegulus when starchaser and sunseeker are RIGHT THERE?? Same with jily and flowerpot, and bartylus and starkiller. ALSO some names make me wonder if some of you just haven’t grasped the concept of ship names or if I just got it all wrong cause marylily and jegulily are just annoying, why are we keeping the L in Lily? The point is to merge the names together not stick them one beside the other, I just say marily and jeguily because it rolls off the tongue so much more easily

4. The Peter erasure. I just don’t get it, it’s so easy to include him in things, you don’t have to make him a main character, but just mention him every once in awhile. Sometimes I’m reading an important scene in a fic and everyone is mentioned EXCEPT for Peter! It’s so easy, just make him roll his eyes at his friends being idiots or something. And it’s not like you’ll get his personality wrong, ALL THESE CHARACTERS PERSONALITIES WERE MADE UP BY FANS but I understand that some people lack imagination so here’s some things about Peter I like to imagine: he’s a HUGE gossip, like my man sees and hears everything and he takes notes!! He likes to randomly turn into a rat and take a nap in one of the other marauders’ pocket, he does it so much that they had to tell the girls that they had a pet rat cause they were asking too many questions. He’s really perceptive and his friends are all oblivious so it leads to funny scenarios like:

Remus & Sirius after YEARS of pining: we’re dating

Peter: I thought you guys had been together since third year?

Sirius: I’ve literally introduced you to people I was dating?!

Peter, shrugging: look mate I don’t question you lot anymore, you do whatever you want, I don’t care what you’re into, I just don’t wanna know about it

He also pulls people, like he’s really nice and will gossip to anyone who’s in his vicinity so he’s friends with basically everyone and he’s funny and pretty and he’s got charisma so he just charms everyone and when I say everyone, I mean everyone, even the slytherins have a soft spot for him (that’s how he gets accepted among the death eaters during the war actually). In pranks he’s the lookout so he often has to distract the teachers so he asks them random things and spits out half-made up facts about anything so he’s besties with most of the teachers which means he doesn’t get many detentions.

5. The Black brothers, more specifically the way the speak to each other in most fics, like they call each other “brother” so often and as someone who has a brother I’ve never called him that. Is it an anglophone thing? Like do people who speak English at home all do that or are fic writers only children?? (That would explain my first point actually) Or is it more a rich people thin?? Cause I know it’s not a francophone thing that’s for sure (also special mention to people who don’t know anything about French writing Sirius and Regulus as French speakers, I can tell you don’t know what you’re writing about but I eat it up everytime anyway)

6. This is actually just about ao3 but I WANNA BE ABLE TO LEAVE MORE KUDOS!!! I just loooooove fics but I can’t leave kudos at every single chapter and I’m bad at writing comments so I can’t show the author how much I love their work, I hate itttt 😭

7. Why there aren’t more fics about the Black family, and not just Sirius and Regulus, but Andromeda, Bellatrix and Narcissa as well like that would be so interesting and maybe like a deep dive into the Black family ideals and all that (if you have fic recs I’m all ears!!)

8. How jegulily is a pretty popular ship (which I LOVE) yet SO FEW people ship Regulus and Lily outside of it! They are a power couple and I love them and they don’t need James to work!!!

9. Why there isn’t more background Minnie x Poppy cause they are my mothers and I wanna see them moooooreeee

If you read all of this I love you 🥰 have an amazing day/night

[zelda-cooper]

Talking about my OCs (Today's topic: Loonatics OC — Deadly Artist)

Yeah, I know... It's a completely random topic, but I just wanted to get one or two things off my chest... And talk about the thousand ideas (or less, it depends) that I have for this OC of mine. I don't know, talking about her representation and stuff... I'm going to divide this blog into a few topics to make it easier to follow. If you want to read it, great! If not, that's fine too. Honestly, I don't even expect anyone to take this blog seriously... It's just me talking about my own hyperfocus...-3-

Oh, and... Another warning I want to emphasize... This blog will deal with heavy topics such as... Murder, a little racism, a little cannibalism and torture. That's it...

"What can I say? My art is not for everyone..." - Deadly Artist

First Character Concepts

Deadly Artist (also known as Jane Doe which is not her real name) has an interesting creation, to say the least. Back when I first joined the Loonatics Unleashed fandom on Amino (yeah, I'm not proud of that time...), I wasn't that active, however, I always had a lot of ideas that I kept to myself. One of them was to create more characters that were based on characters from Looney Tunes itself and one of the pairings I wanted to use was Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf. Now you're asking yourself "Why this barely known duo?" and the answer I give is... Actually two... The first was the fact that I found it interesting that there were two Looney Tunes characters who were basically identical (Wile E. Coyote and Ralph Wolf) and I always liked that kind of visual gag. Especially when the characters met, which made for some good jokes.The second factor was, simply, the Looney Tunes World of Mayhem mobile game, more specifically one of the versions of the Ralph character: Wildcard Wolf.

This simple image of Ralph as a gambler who uses CARDS as a weapon has already made me think of MANY POSSIBILITIES of how to use it as inspiration for an OC. First of all, there's the fact that Tech in Loonatics is a character very connected to TECHNOLOGY, so I thought "Hmm, what if I make Ralph's descendant a magician or with powers related to magic?". Second, I LOVE the concept of playing in the superhero universe, mixing magic with technology or the simple idea of having the doubt "is it magic or is it just a scam?". And, thirdly... I feel like there's a lack of more anthropomorphs, more specifically PREDATORS, because at most there was only Tech and Slam and, if you push it too far, there was Sylter Vester.

With this concept in mind, I started thinking about the possibilities... But never exactly putting it on paper. I thought about making a hero who, like Tech, had regeneration powers, but here it would be much more of a "rising from the dead" (taking inspiration from a character from Young Justice). This character would have magical powers and would be part of another team of heroes parallel to the Loonatics that would be led by Danger Duck (yeah, I know... This story is strange, but that's because you don't know half of it... -w-'). But then again, I never took it forward... Until I started my Loonatics Unleashed AU and started being more active in the fandom here.

Building the Character

Having started creating this... "Project"... Of rewriting Loonatics Unleashed, basically creating a complete AU, I decided to review some concepts I had back in the Amino days. Some of them included the seventh member of the team (who later returned as Allia, who I may also talk about one day), some villain concepts and, the focus of this blog, the OC inspired by Ralph and Sam. At first, I was going to follow the same idea of him being a hero or, perhaps, an Anti-Hero who would be a contrast to Tech. A wolf with a similar appearance to him, but that was more focused on the mystical/magical side and would have a slightly different regeneration power. However, I soon noticed a few things... First, that the idea of a parallel team wouldn't work so well in the context of my story (at least, not with the concept at the time). And that, perhaps, I could explore my creativity more... I've analyzed some OCs from the Loonatics community here on Tumblr and... Honestly, I haven't seen many inspired by Sam and Ralph (unfortunately). There were some cool ones, like one where "Ralph" was a clone of Tech and "Sam" was kind of his helper, but it wasn't that elaborate. I even thought about the concept of my OC being Tech's brother (in other words, Tech would be half wolf and half coyote), but... No... -3-

Until I started focusing on the villains and then I realized that, besides the "main" ones being, for the most part, human (only in the second season that there were anthropomorphic ones), the majority were very "bad guys". It was kind of pretty standard... We have the poor girl (Weathervane), the idiot jerk (Cypher), the bank robber (Massive) and the vengeful one (Mastermind). Mastermind is the only one who saves herself, because she at least has personality and charisma. Then I started to remodel the team until I saw a blog from someone in the community who reformulated the villains and made them have parallels with the protagonists. Like Weathervane with Lexi, Duck with Pinkster, Ace with Deuce, etc... Then I ended up having a slight click in my head... In my revamped villain team, we had five members (Cypher, Weathervane, Massive, Mastermind, and Deuce) to form the Chaotic Orchestra. But... The Loonatics are six... And then I realized that "Wait... Rev doesn't exactly have anyone who provides a counterpoint or a rivalry for him."... And, well... Then, combining this trigger with the fact that I had an OC concept in my head made me have the idea "I'm going to create a villain OC to rival Rev!".

"I will immortalize you forever... In blood!" - Deadly Artist

"No thanks... I'd rather keep having feathers on my body!" - Rev Runner/Red Lightning

Having already had the idea of making a villainous OC who would rival Rev, I started to design his concept and how he would work in the narrative. Early on, I decided to make him a woman. Why a woman? Just because- I didn't have a specific reason... But I was still very unsure of what exactly to do... I thought about making her just an agent of chaos. Not exactly on anyone's side, just using her magic (or illusions) to wreak havoc on the city. I didn't exactly want her to be a speedster, but I wanted her to be able to keep up with Rev when they were fighting. So I took the concept of Jinx, specifically her from Arcane... Yes, when I don't know what to do, I immediately turn to her - You can judge me all you want!

But again, I felt like it wasn't enough... And her powers were inconsistent too. It used to be magic, but then I changed my mind because I wanted to focus more on the sci-fi elements. Then I thought about making her powers based on bets, using playing cards as a "catalyst", but then I changed my mind because it would be too complicated to write. Until I watched some videos on YouTube, I saw an interesting power... In this case, the ability to manipulate a person's fears (I don't know if it has a specific name, but whatever). It was an interesting concept and I kind of ended up taking that power to be hers, also combining it with Jinx's "powers" of enhanced agility. The concept of magic was still there, but now it was the theme of the character. A wolf who dressed and used "weapons" with a "street magician"/"circus magician" theme. But I still felt like something was missing... Until I had the last idea... "What if I make her a serial killer?".

How I Made a Serial Killer

The idea of making a female serial killer was basically already in my head when I made her inspired by Jinx. For those who saw Arcane or know the character, you know that she is quite... Aggressive... Especially in the game, where she is the Joker himself! Then I started talking about this villain OC idea with my friend, exchanging ideas on how I could build her, until she gave me some suggestions. The first one was Starlight from MLP... It's kind of like the villain does everything she does because of CONTROL, because she wants to have control over everything. I found this interesting, but I thought... But what would control mean to her? Then, while I was researching, I ended up remembering another character from the LOL universe... Kada Jhin.

This is a character who is a serial killer in the context of the universe and who has the theme of arts and theater and, when I looked at him, I immediately thought "Oh, my God... I found what I was missing!". That was the last thing I needed for me to finally get the idea of making my OC a serial killer character! And, yes... I know what you're thinking..."Ah, but Loonatics Unleashed is a children's series! You can't put that kind of theme!". Okay, here we go... First of all, I want to make something clear...

MY AU IS NOT FOR CHILDREN, THE INDICATED AGE IS FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE AT LEAST 14 YEARS OLD

If you saw HALF of the topics I THINK about addressing, you would be in complete shock and would probably want to lynch me or send me nasty messages (depending on what it is). Secondly... We're talking about a story that takes place in a fictional world, but that doesn't mean it won't have real-life themes. Especially in the United States of America, the country with the MOST SERIAL KILLERS!!! Not wanting to offend anyone from the US, but you only need to do a quick search to know that it's true. I say this because I am a person who watches a lot of True Crime (something I am not proud of and my mental health must definitely be affected-) and a good part of what I watch is Serial killers from this country.

Okay, with that out of the way... Where was I? Oh yeah... Deadly Artist being a serial killer... Well, for the people who ask me if I'm going to describe heavy scenes... No! I don't have the capacity and much less the stomach to do violent things. Yes, I can, but it will depend A LOT on the context. When I post a scene or something from the EP in which Deadly Artist appears, you'll see.

Okay, having finally talked about that part... Let's move on to the design part!

The Design of a Killer

I had some design ideas for the character, but I had to keep it on a specific theme: something theatrical or reminiscent of circus magicians.The first concept I made without having a reference was this one:

Right off the bat you can see some things I kept and some things I discarded. The ones I kept were the red hair (not exactly the hairstyle, but her hair actually being red). The second was her fur, with it having "lighter" tones in contrast to the stronger brown tones of the Tech from my AU. And third is her hat, which I kept the same model, just changing one color. Other than that, I basically changed everything... But that wasn't the only concept, I had made another one that was even more different from the current one, which is this one here:

Again, you can see that the concept is completely different, but here, at least, I managed to have a hair shape that I liked, however, it still didn't seem like one of the best designs. So I ask help to the public! Using the tactic of "at least make four concepts to decide which one you think is best" a vote. I used the first two designs, but I created two completely new ones to test my creativity. And here they are:

Yeah, the last two were definitely the most eye-catching, especially the fourth one, which not only did I change the theme to something that looked like it came out of a mental hospital, but it also stood out from the rest. But honestly, it was NO surprise to see that people preferred the third concept more. After all... I loved it too. :'3

Latest Preparations and Facts of the "Deadly Artist"

With the design and concept already in hand, the last things left was to fit her into the story and how to work her dynamics with Rev Runner. Well, as you already know from the blogs I made about Rev and Tech, there is indeed some inspiration from Zootopia in the issue of their conflict.Rev, at first, was afraid of Tech because he was a predator and this, at times, really harmed their relationship. However, let's just say that... It's because of Deadly Artist that they started to understand each other. Just like the case that brought Judy and Nick together in Zootopia, Rev and Tech ended up teaming up to solve this case of a serial killer that was terrorizing Acmetropolis. Especially the anthropomorphic prey... People killed in the most horrible way possible, traces of cannibalism from a predator and a "suspect" who was just the wrong person, at the wrong time and with the wrong contacts... Basically, the introductory episode of Deadly Artist is like an investigation, suspense and horror film, with two characters coming together to solve this case.

"How did she join the Chaotic Orchestra?" you ask... Let's just say Deuce took an interest in the Deadly Artist's abilities... Someone who, despite appearing impulsive and bloodthirsty... She was agile and could perform kill or infiltration tasks, with one or two setbacks that might be passable. And her being caught so easily? No, no... She was too good not to recruit. So, she ended up being recruited (against the will of most of the team) by Deuce and then ended up becoming part of the Chaotic Orchestra. Who is she really? Will she be a problem for the team? Will Rev make it out alive? Well... Who knows? The only certainty is... Be careful when walking around Acmetropolis now... Maybe, luck won't be on your side this time...

"See you soon... My dear prey..." — Deadly Artist

[coffeegnomee]

gnome ive been thinking a lot abt spoke lately. abt zam saying theres no freewill w spoke, only to later that very same day be convinced to continue being strong, to continue to be strong by spoke. how spoke, w what little time he had w his messy ideas weaved to be something else, gave so many people an ending that'd leave them satisfied. whether he intended to or not.

he gave zam the chance to build peacefully at spawn js like they always wanted bc they never Wanted peace— they wanted to build. he gave mapicc an actual chance to feel like he'd won and like he was able to come out on top still w his mace in hand, spoke defeated, and zam giving him a final duel that was fought nd won fairly. he gave hannah the opportunity to use him to achieve her own goal to reach 20 by farming him even though she gave up on that video already.

and,, of course. there's minute. the hero, minutetech. minutetech who couldn't bare to stand by spoke's side as he destroyed the world, minutetech who's heart faltered when he thought nobody cared abt saving the server or even protecting spawn. minutetech who tried desperately to end the server in peace only one season ago, and got brutally cut down and betrayed for it, which is why he struggled so heavily w his morals in s6. minutetech who got his peaceful ending, who spoke bared his neck to like a lamb to the slaughter so minute could be the one to kill him and be the hero. who spoke gave a satisfying ending to his video by seeking minute out and following him willingly into a place he knew his exploits wouldn't work in.

he could've saved himself, he could've stomped everyone down ruthlessly, but instead he offered hope after a season of despair and endless losses. he made himself enough of a threat for his defeat to matter, but he also tried So so hard to make sure nobody felt like it was hopeless or he wasnt even worth even trying to oppose.

okay sorry ramble over LOL am i glazing,,,, im js very ufuduejeiidid 🥹 over spoke bc of that finale LOL

-mcytegg ^-^

im cryyying veni. yes. basically all that. Zam's comment about free will is so fascinating to me bc, like you said, spoke made the story have a satisfying ending for each player in the game.

it's an interesting concept; if someone else does something major that affects your lore in ways you didn't necessarily imagine it going, is it them removing free will or is it just good rp? At all turns you ARE allowed to play into it or not, and yet when it comes to spoke, especially to zam, it feels like he has no other option but to play into it? That his free will is taken? and yet in a way zam does a similar thing with each of his own arcs, putting his will forward and pushing his enemy into a direction they feel they are being forced into. (which, ok, just realized how that plays into what i was saying about him not remembering the meta of the joker arc; he's focusing on how it hurt the free will of pb&j over it being a good story arc. huh. interesting.)

and then there's minutetech who DID decide to not play into the story Spoke was spinning and killed Spoke instead, in the initial convo. I wonder if he thought he had free will there or not, because he could have chosen either, but did *had* to chose the one that aligned with his morals. Similar to how zam felt about being pushed into the direction spoke wanted.

But it gave minute an interesting story to have to deal with, and it did the same with mapicc who suddenly had to face a broken team. Spoke provided the conflict that then drove the story forward. And he didn't want that to happen and yet you and me both know everything that went into that convo lol. either option was good. and either option drive the story in a different direction that spoke himself got to play with.

it's such a layered and fascinating thing, this relationship with free will and other's content on this server.

I've written myself into a corner about 4 times writing a post about how when someone is a DM, that's when lifesteal has the most dramatic story arcs. and like, the place i always get stuck in is how unlike dnd, the players of lifesteal don't WANT there to be a DM. They hate it actually. There is no universal acceptance that this member of the group is going to orchestrate a plot that we as the party explore. They have no belief that the twists and turns that are presented by the DM come with the desire that you as the player have the agency to do whatever you want to do. And that the DM in turn with improv based on whatever you chose.

And then there's the other corner I write myself into; i dont know if I want spoke to be the DM, so there's no point in writing the post. I love love love the way that this particular flavor of unscripted mcrp + lifesteal plugin makes stories, and a large part of that is that nobody has too much power in controlling the story.

but also i love what spoke does and is.

So spoke operates on thin thin ice, and he's damn good at it, but man is the ice thin. And it is so beautiful to watch him worry less about his own story and put his all into giving lifesteal a beautiful story.

It's similar to what bacon did with the abyss and wardens and how he turned his whole fiber of his being into thinking up something to happen so that zam wouldn't have to be sad frolicking in the flower field earlier this season. or when zam decides to never give up despite everything that is thrown at him.

I'm so absolutely normal about the three of them and the way that they sacrifice themselves for the good of lifesteal as a story. and then i love the players that are selfish for their own story like minute and mapicc. it's such a necessary balance that works so well.

[sillygoofyqueer]

OKAY OKAY, SO SO SO. A HUGE HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO @lyngracetalksnwritesnstuff, WHO IS SUCH A SWEETIE AND MUST BE GIVEN MANY CLAPS ON THIS HAPPY DAY. As like a 'birthday present' type thing, I asked them for an AU prompt, and they gave ME a "time travel AU". So, me being me, I thought about this a lot last night, and you know, I've got a concept idea, because I always do.

So, I've got two basic ideas. Going into the PAST, and going into the FUTURE. I'm going to elaborate on the latter here, because that was most interesting to me, but if Lyn wants me to yap about the former as well, it's their birthday present! They can do what they want, I am merely a humble human who bends to their whims upon this gracious day (and probably tomorrow as well so I can actually write about the former idea if they wish it).

To clarify, Lan Huan had never expected to stumble across a body lying face down in the dirt. He can quite honestly state that he would never want to come across such a thing in his daily runs. However, coming to a slow halt beside what appeared to be a cosplayer of sorts, he has the sinking feeling that this may be like all of the horror stories he has heard about of innocent joggers and dog-walkers finding corpses upon their travels. Before he jumps to a conclusion so drastic, however, he reminds himself that he is in fact a doctor, one that has dealt with patients of various states (including dead) before, so he steels himself and walks over to where this white robed individual seems to be splayed out on the floor just a few feet away from the main walking path of the forest. Why would a cosplayer come this far out? Must be rather dedicated to getting the best shot if they're alone.

He first kneels down to check the pulse of his impromptu patient, breathing out a sigh of utter relief to find that this individual is not dead. At least, not yet. (That was a less relieving thought). He then sets about turning the person over onto their back, scanning to make sure there are no injuries that demand immediate attention - the good thing about the (impossibly clean) white fabric is that if there were any blood, then it would be noticeable almost right away. Now that he is certain that the patient is not dead or otherwise grievously injured, he considers how to wake the individual up, noting that there is something covered in a white cloth nearby that likely belongs to this person. There is a pouch of sorts hanging from their belt as well as an empty sheath, but all of that is thrown out of his mind when he gets a look at the stranger's face.

Lan Huan is aware that many Lans are said to have many similar features, which is why it's startling to see this random person sporting many of the same features he himself has, as well as the white forehead ribbon exclusive to the Lan. Clouds and all. He pauses, trying to rationalise this in his head - the Lan have a rich history, he's certain that there are many fictional characters based on their family, so it could just be that this individual has familiar features and decided to cosplay one of these characters! This makes sense to him, so he reaches out to gently shake the shoulder with a gentle "excuse me?" The words are barely out of his mouth before this stranger's eyes shoot open and he only just avoids getting headbutted by the person (presumably a man, and a young one at that) as he sits upright. He appears to be confused if the furrow in his brows marring his otherwise stoic expression is anything to go by, and he turns to him with a rather scrutinising gaze.

When the man doesn't say anything, he takes initiative to start the conversation with a "my name is Lan Huan. Are you alright? Do you remember how you got here?" The stranger only seems to be more confused, the furrow in his brow deepening as he looks around once more before turning back to him. The stranger opens his mouth to speak, and Lan Huan is ashamed to admit that he has no clue what he's saying. He seems to be talking some variant of Chinese, but not one that he himself has heard before, which means that this has just become a lot more of a challenge for him. He frowns, finding the same expression mirrored (to a lesser extent) on the other individual's face, and then pulls out his phone (missing the confusion and then shock flitting through the person's eyes) and goes to his map app.

He holds his phone out to the stranger, gesturing for him to point out where he was from. It's rather complicated, with him pointing to himself and then to Gusu, which is where they are, and then pointing to the stranger and gesturing to the screen. The stranger looks between him and the phone as though he has grown at least two more heads, before reaching into the pouch hanging at his side and pulling out a folded piece of paper, which he opens up to reveal a map! Although this map seems distinctly...different to what he is used to seeing when looking at a map of China, and leaning in reveals that everything on the map is written in a variant of Chinese that he has only ever seen on the original Lan precepts displayed in the Cloud Recesses - the university funded by the Lan. Either this individual is incredibly committed to his cosplay or there is something far stranger going on.

He hands Lan Huan the map, instead focusing on unwrapping the clothed object nearby to reveal a guqin and checking it over before wrapping it back up and then just casually hoisting it up onto his back?? Lan Huan isn't even looking at the map anymore, just watching while he reaches down and notices his sheath is empty - panic flits through his eyes for less than a second, hand reaching out into the direction of the forest. This is all very confusing until a sword comes flying out of the forest into the stranger's awaiting hand. Like. What. What the fuck? He's feeling rather shellshocked, and likely looks it when the man turns to look back at him expectantly, but this man is still his patient and the Lan are very known for being calm in the wildest situation. He is a doctor, damn it! Think about this logically!! Even if there is no logic to this situation, he has to help.

He shoves aside all of his confusion, grabbing a stick and using his foot to clear a space on the forest floor before kneeling down and utilising the stick to carefully draw out the few characters his shufu had drilled into his head when trying to get him to remember at least a little of the language used to write the original precepts. "Gusu Lan". The stranger, who has been watching him work with cautious curiosity, suddenly lights up (the furrow in his brow smooths out) and nods his head once as he looks back at Lan Huan. So. This man understands the language that has not been used in centuries. That's...confusing. But, this man is evidently a member of the Lan clan based on looks and context clues (the time era he's from is...less obvious), and Lan Huan has always been taught to help out family. He squares his shoulders and looks back at the man watching him with a raised brow. Didn't Shufu say something about one of his students had taken up the strange hobby of trying to learn the old language used to write the precepts?

[ducksido]

I absolutely LOVE you twst with different cultures!yuu, and I saw your Australian!yuu, and I haven't stopped thinking of an Aboriginal!yuu because I think they'd fit in really well.

You can just ignore this request if you want. I know Aboriginal culture is very difficult to remember(ゝω・´★)

(I'll try my best! ㄟ(≧◇≦)ㄏ) (A little bit about me is that where i went for primary school, we barely got taught anything about the aboriginal, we basically only learnt about some dreamtime stories, the first fleet and later on had one dot paint mural. ಥ_ಥ I had only learnt about the stolen generation in year 8 [aged 13])

Grim:

"So you’re telling me you have Dreamtime stories about creatures like me? I KNEW I was legendary!"

Super interested in Aboriginal myths, especially ones about trickster spirits.

Gets scared when Yuu tells him about the Bunyip.

Crowley:

"Ah, Dreamtime stories? How fascinating! Perhaps I should collect some for academic purposes—"

Immediately shut down by Yuu. "Dreamtime is sacred, Crowley."

Tries to make Yuu teach a lecture on Aboriginal astronomy.

Crewel:

"Traditional body paint and dot painting? Such precision and detail!"

Thinks Aboriginal fashion and textiles are stunning.

Asks if Yuu can teach him how to extract natural dyes.

Trein:

"So, your people have passed down knowledge through storytelling for thousands of years?"

Immediately respects the oral traditions.

Asks Yuu to share stories with Lucius (Lucius approves).

Vargas:

"You mean to tell me your people have some of the oldest physical endurance practices?"

Tries to make Yuu throw a boomerang for PE class.

Wants to learn Aboriginal hunting techniques.

Sam:

"Bush tucker? I like the sound of that!"

Already stocks wattle seeds, finger limes, and macadamia nuts.

Tries selling a “magic didgeridoo.” Yuu side-eyes him.

Heartslabyul

Riddle Rosehearts:

"Your people have strict rules about respect and tradition… I understand that."

Actually really impressed by Aboriginal law and how communities pass down responsibility.

Shocked when Yuu tells him about Tiddalik the Frog. "A single frog drank ALL the water?!"

Ace Trappola:

"So your people survived in the desert for thousands of years? That’s hardcore."

Wants to learn how to find water like an Aboriginal tracker.

Tries to play the didgeridoo—fails spectacularly.

Deuce Spade:

"Wait, so you guys navigate the land without maps? That’s amazing!"

Thinks Songlines (paths through the land remembered through song) are one of the coolest things ever.

Wants to learn how to track animals.

Trey Clover:

"Your people use lemon myrtle in cooking? I need to try that."

Impressed by the use of native plants in food.

Asks Yuu to help him make a bush tucker-inspired tart.

Cater Diamond:

"Aesthetic alert! Dot paintings are so cool!"

Obsessed with the colors and patterns of Aboriginal art.

Tries to take Magicam selfies with Yuu’s art.

Savanaclaw

Leona Kingscholar:

"Your people tamed fire? Smart."

Respects the Aboriginal practice of cultural burning (using fire to care for the land).

Actually listens when Yuu talks about Dreamtime animal stories.

Ruggie Bucchi:

"So you guys eat witchetty grubs? That’s wild."

Loves the concept of not wasting food.

Tries bush bread (damper) and loves it.

Jack Howl:

"Your ancestors lived alongside dingoes? That’s awesome."

Super interested in how Aboriginal people worked with nature instead of against it.

Lowkey wants to be adopted into Yuu’s family.

Octavinelle

Azul Ashengrotto:

"So… you’re saying your people have stories about great floods?"

Fascinated by Aboriginal stories of rising sea levels (one of the oldest oral histories of climate change).

Wants to strike a deal for Aboriginal fishing techniques.

Jade Leech:

"Bush medicine, you say? I’d love to learn more."

Immediately interested in Aboriginal knowledge of native plants.

Would definitely go on a walkabout (traditional spiritual journey) if given the chance.

Floyd Leech:

"You guys have stories about giant sea serpents? Nice!"

Obsessed with the Rainbow Serpent.

Calls himself "Floyd the Great Water Spirit" for a week.

Scarabia

Kalim Al-Asim:

"You guys have so many festivals and ceremonies! I love that!"

Wants to experience a Corroboree (traditional dance gathering).

Blown away by how important music is to Aboriginal culture.

Jamil Viper:

"Your storytelling traditions are that ancient? That’s incredible."

Impressed by the depth of Aboriginal knowledge.

Respects that Aboriginal people value patience and wisdom over impulsiveness.

Pomefiore

Vil Schoenheit:

"Ochre body paint? Stunning. Naturally sourced pigments? Even better."

Thinks Aboriginal clothing designs are gorgeous.

Wants to learn about Aboriginal skincare remedies.

Rook Hunt:

"Tracking animals with just footprints? You must teach me!"

Obsessed with Aboriginal survival skills.

Thinks Yuu is a true hunter.

Epel Felmier:

"Your people use plants for medicine? That’s so cool!"

Wants to try wild bush apples.

Thinks Aboriginal warriors sound badass.

Ignihyde

Idia:

"You’re telling me your people created astronomical maps thousands of years ago? Nerd respect."

Thinks it’s insane that Aboriginal astronomy predates Greek and Roman astronomy.

Loves the idea of star maps being passed down through song.

Ortho:

"Aboriginal technology is so innovative!"

Wants to document all of Yuu’s cultural knowledge for preservation.

Thinks boomerangs are the coolest invention ever.

Diasomnia

Malleus:

"Your people have stories about ancestral spirits who shaped the land? Intriguing…"

Deeply respects the Dreamtime concept of creation.

Would love to visit Aboriginal sacred sites.

Lilia:

"I’ve met warriors who could track an animal for days. They reminded me of your people."

Claims he once attended a Corroboree.

Wants to try making damper bread but burns it.

Silver:

"Your people believe in deep connections to the land… I understand that."

Feels peaceful listening to Dreamtime stories.

Wants to learn Aboriginal survival techniques.

Sebek Zigvolt:

"Your culture values elders above all? That is proper respect!"

Admires how elders pass down knowledge.

Tries to memorize Aboriginal laws.

RSA & Noble Bell

Neige:

"Your music is made with clapping sticks and didgeridoos? That’s so unique!"

Wants to hear traditional Aboriginal songs.

Chenya:

"So your people have stories about cunning animals? Sounds like my kind of tales!"

Loves trickster spirit stories.

Rollo Flamme:

"Your festivals… seem excessive."

Secretly amazed by how fire is used as a tool, not just destruction.

[1eos]

I got the purple reader too! I hadn't thought about my taste like that honestly. Though I think the book recs didn't seem to interest me necessarily. (Or well, I just donnnt like Murakami :/ ) Do you have any book recs that you think would also suit this kinda style?

i thought i was being snooty when i wasn't vibing with any of the book recs but everyone else was like 'damn these recs are ASS'. like i saw ishiguro's never let me go on there and honest to god scrolled back up thinking the quiz was for summer reading 😭 and GOD i hateeeee murakami. ppl keep toting him as some kind of revolutionary but every time i try to read his shit its deadass just man making his objectification of women verbose and 'deep' but if only if you're like 17 and have no life experience idk.

but YES i do have some purple reader recs! the description focused on books being dream-like, innovative, pushing the envelope or being experimental so i'd say:

in the dream house by carmen maria machado - a memoir but packaged in a way that's more like a domestic horror short story anthology about how abuse escalates in a relationship is akin to a haunting in a way. not easy to explain but it's SO good and carmen maria machado just has a very dream-like way of writing

ring shout by p djeli clark - one of the most unique books ive read concept wise. its an alternate historical supernatural novel where in the mid 1900s the kkk is actually like a demonic clan and these black hunters are tasked with taking them out. and omg the main character has this recurring nightmare and there's a major reveal abt that and it's stayed with me FOREVER

a tale for the time being by ruth ozeki - the book that got me back into writing. ruth's a writer and lives on an island and finds a lunchbox on the beach that has the journal of a japanese girl named nao who is being bullied in school and wants to chronicle why she's gonna kill herself. and it's such a long lasting story abt not hope per se but the infinite amount of growth and resilience of the human spirit and how buddhism is the wave basically lol

the nine lives of rose napolitano by donna frietas - i've never encountered a book that focused on alternate timelines without being heavy into scifi like this one. the book starts with rose on the fritz with her husband bc she's never wanted a baby but he's now pressuring her to have one and from this one confrontation it explores all the different ways her life can splinter and it's so interesting bc it doesn't go the cliche 'this is the life where im happy with a baby and here's a life where i'm miserable without one' it truly explores the deeper aspects of her marriage and how rose can find contentment no matter what. i really liked it at the end

jungian symbolism in astrology by alice o howell - i never know if ppl ever check out my astro book recs BUT this one is SO purple book coded. its abt astrology but you don;t need to know much because she doesn't talk abt methods but rather breaking down the meaning of astrology symbols. and it's not in a classic format its written like letters from the author to a dear friend. AND it goes beyond the basic astrology shit and really breaks down the importance of symbols and connects astrology to carl jung's ideas and it was such an interesting read that changed how i look at a lot of things

the night guest by hildur knutsdottir - a short but bold psychological horror. idunn realizes she's been sleepwalking and things happen. this is very dream like and very cold. very sparse. in a good way. a lot of american horror writers overwrite so this one was interesting in that it was more bare bones. the ending and the the reality of the horror is left really open ended and on goodreads a lot of ppl didnt like that but i fawking loved it

there's no such thing as an easy job by kikuko tsumura - follows the main character as she goes thru 5 different jobs after getting burnt out and the pitfalls of each job as means of 'escaping' the jobs that cause burn out if that makes sense. all of the 5 jobs are pretty unconventional and the main character accepts that even tho these jobs are 'easier' than her old job there's always just something that makes even an easy job complicated.

the secret lives of color by kassia st. clair - this is a nonfiction book about colors! like literally how we got the names for colors how we got them etc etc. i read it a long time ago but i remember that it was formatted really uniquely and written well

room by emma donoghue - read this for my humanities lit class in college a while ago but i never forgot it because i don't think i've ever read a book from the pov of a child in this kind of situation. basically jack's 5 and he's lived in a single room his entire life with his mom bc theyve been held captive by this weird ass old man. and the whole book you're like okay the mom's actions are kinda weird what's going on and then the reality of the situation sinks in and it's like...oh! all from the pov of a child that literally has only ever existed in a single room

[iamespecter]

Oh ziku, I'm going to open Pandora's box with this question I'm going to ask (sorry if I made you uncomfortable)

I wanted to ask you personally what your eternal eclipse au is about. I saw that you mentioned it on tadc-harlequin a few times, so it generated interest in me. 🤔

As I said, I don't want to make you uncomfortable or anything. I fully understand your love-stress relationship with the fnaf fandom.

I send you strength to improve your current situation.

lmfao I honestly don't mind, the Eternal Eclipse au brainrot still goes on despite the lack of interest amongst the general audience

But basically, it's an AU where God of War meets Security Breach, but if 80's synthwave were written all over it

The AU formed because I was watching Jacksepticeye's God of War Raganarok playthrough, while having Dance with the Dead songs playing in the background. I then thought to myself, " hm... what if.... God of War x Security Breach.... with lots of Dance with the Dead vibes....."

Summary:

The world is dying. The sun has lost it's warmth ever since the moon shattered. The Skies remain dark as the void vast of space, no longer in it's place. The Oceans, lakes and rivers have become frozen. The Weather has become volatile and constant sandstorms plague the wastelands. The Forests no longer lush, but ashen and volcanic.

An Eternal Eclipse sits lone beyond the horizon. A grim reminder, and a ticking time bomb for the eventual collapse of everything we know.

Freddy is a wandering bear who simply wants to find a safe place for his small companion, Gregory, a young human boy left to die all alone when he was an infant, until saved by Freddy. But the wastelands are brutal, and unforgiving. He's spent years running away from his demons, but now he's decided he must make things right.

Not just for Gregory, but for them, too.

I don't have a lot of art (especially since I'm currently on my phone rn), but I have Freddy's old design and yes I gave him Kratos' black bear fur coat it looks so fucking badass

Some spoiler for the story up ahead:

Each of the Glamrocks for this AU actually represent an important aspect of the world;

Chica being the sigil of water, the seas, rivers and lakes. Her being gone from her place means that all bodies of water have dried up and turned into a desert wasteland.

Where's all the water? She IS the water. And she's frozen entirely because of the great collapse, now being the reason why the entire lands are freezing cold. She is being held in the farthest corner of the world, where her influence had created a massive corrupted ice wall spanning the entire world.

(old concept art for Chica's corrupted primal form, may update this soon with a better one)

To free Chica from this feral form, a ritual must be commenced; Freddy has to play a song from her own guitar (that Bonnie kept) that reawakens her true spirit. Said theme is "Venom".

Roxanne is the sigil of weather, but due to her misplacement, she has crashed down to the earths and has become a mountain that only awakens to wreak havoc, seemingly trying to find something. Her breathing when she sleeps is the reason why there are constant sandstorms, and earthquakes.

(old concept for how her primal form looks, if she's not sleeping, may update this soon)

Roxanne's theme is "Andromeda".

Montgomery is the embodiment of fauna, being the forests and swamps. The rivers drying up has turned him and his territory into a volcanic creature, constantly spewing corrupted ashes into the air.

Monty's lava, smoke, ashes and withered fauna is one of the major reasons why the world, as well as it's occupants are slowly dying, as they can barely grow new crops.

Montgomery's theme is "War".

(Yes, this is another "boss rush" AU. lmao)

Now, what about Bonnie? Well, he's a zesty ahh vendor. lmfao

When the moon was shattered, the skies disappeared. Without the skies to keep the weather up, the weather crashed to the ground. When the weather came too close, the seas froze and the lands dried up. Without the sea's flow, the fauna withered and became hateful.

A domino effect that resulted into the Great Collapse of the world.

I don't have the updated designs for everyone yet, so hopefully I could get started on those sometime even if the AU is not my main concern atm

[witchywithwhiskey]

okay but will we be getting some fem gloryhole action in the trucker!jake jensen series? 👀 like you know the one where a girl is lying down and just her butt and stuff pokes out of a hole (that was a weird way of describing it lol)

it's so fucking hot. like imagine her just lying there and anyone could walk up and do anything they'd like...

hi nonny i'm glad you're enjoying my trucker jake jensen series!!

i haven't decided yet if we're going to see the reader in that series back in the glory holes. if she does go back, i'd probably write it in a way where it's still mostly about Jake since their relationship is why i like writing that series. (but actually you have given me an idea......gonna keep that one secret for now 🙊)

that said, this is a whole AU with as many chris evans, sebastian stan and henry cavill characters as i want to add and i definitely plan to revisit the glory hole concept, i just haven't figured out how yet. the whole concept is hot but i need characters and a relationship dynamic to interest me in writing something—i think that's why all my fics end up so long 🫣

although now that i'm thinking about it, i have been curious about what kind of reader would work for Ransom, and i maybe have an idea. (18+ content below!!!)

what if you're the daughter of one of Ransom's business associates? what if he has a whole host of clubs—night clubs, whiskey lounges, etc. and Diesel Dolls is his secret pet project that he keeps because he's, of course, a perv.

but you don't know about that side of him. you're a spoiled heiress, with a rich father who's invested in Ransom's night clubs, which means you're an adult who basically parties for a living. and you're a regular at Ransom's night clubs, always getting the vip treatment because of your father, and he's always been so nice to you, just like all your father's business partners.

but one day you learn about Diesel Dolls and you're so curious, you ditch your normal crowd and driver and take a cab to the strip club just off the highway outside of the city.

you're immediately enraptured by the sensual dancers and the low lighting of the club. you've paid for a lap dance and are chatting with the dancer while she straddles you and grinds on you, when Ransom discovers you.

he's furious—he doesn't want your father to find out about his little business, let alone the definitely illegal glory holes in the back room, but you reveal that the dancer told you about the glory holes and you want to see them. or else you'll tell your father.

so Ransom takes you into his office, where there's a bank of monitors on his desk that show a live feed of everything going on in the back room of Diesel Dolls. you're overcome with arousal as you watch one girl with her lower half hanging through a hole in the plywood wall be pounded by a big, filthy trucker.

Ransom presses close to your back, and you're so transfixed by the different views of all kinds of truckers being serviced by the glory hole girls, that you barely notice his fingers toying with the hem of your tight dress until his touch against your thigh makes you shiver.

Ransom mocks you for getting so turned on by the sight of his girls getting railed in his glory holes. he calls you dirty, he calls you filthy, he calls you a slutty little whore who pretends to be a sweet little daddy's girl.

But his words only make you hotter and you lean back against the broad chest of your father's business partner and tell him you know he's jealous, because he wishes you were his daddy's girl.

Ransom chuckles, pretends you're wrong, pretends he could never want a spoiled heiress like you. you're too much of a princess. and you rise to the challenge, telling him you're not too much of a princess to balk at the prospect of getting into one of his glory holes.

Ransom grins, because you've fallen right into his trap. he puts you into a special glory hole—one that isn't open to the public. then Ransom calls all of your father's other business associates and together they ruin you while you're none the wiser about who exactly is fucking you.

but it's a special glory hole for another reason too. he tells you it's because there aren't any cameras, so you can enjoy yourself guilt-free. but really it's because there are tons of cameras, and on the men's side of the wall is a screen with a live feed from a camera placed directly above you. so Ransom and all your father's business parters watch you while they ruin you.

and at the end of the night, Ransom not only reveals all the men who used you—all the men you've known for years and never realized lusted after you—he also reveals the cameras and that they recorded every second of your defilement.

Ransom will use that footage to blackmail you into coming to Diesel Dolls every weekend and repeating the fun they had. and you'll pretend to be furious and betrayed, but a not-so-small part of you is excited about being turned into a free use fuck doll for your father's business partners.

but now i have a question: who are your father's other business partners?

🤭 i'm thinking one might be August Walker. and maybe Steve Kemp and Pete Brenner? 🤔 it can't be anyone i've already introduced into this universe unfortunately 🫤 that would be too hard to keep track of

[elainsgirl]

so basically a gwynriel wrote a fic about azriel pretty much abusing Elain, with no content warnings at all, put it in the elriel tag and then complained and cried victim when elriels were upset about it? it's such disgusting behaviour. it makes me so sick and tired of this fandom. That fic was just vile. Stuff like that NEEDS to be tagged. Had it been tagged properly and put not in the elriel tag but in the anti elriel tag, it would have been one thing, because writers should have the freedom to explore stuff. But this was not that, AT ALL. What she did was simply vile, disrespectful and very likely done to intentionally upset, and potentially trigger elriels who might have trauma tied to that specific content. It's so vile I have no words. i don't write, but if i did, there's no way on earth i'd write a fic of Azriel abusing gwyn, put no tags or warnings on it and then put it in the gwynriel tag, knowing I could have been the reason for triggering someones trauma. its not just basic etiquette, it's basic decency between human beings. But only elriels are held to that standard. I was sick to my stomach by that behavior.

Im not going to say I’m an aspiring writer cause quite frankly - i cannot string two coherent sentences together with the correct grammar but as someone who likes to dabble in writing, the only thing I disagree with is publically calling the writing bad, say it privately. I know how I would feel if I posted a fic and someone told me it was terribly written…I would not be writing ever again and thats the only part I feel bad about when it comes to the critique the author is receiving. I understand how disheartening it is to have something you wrote talked about badly in terms of writing style/spelling/grammar especially if it’s something you struggled with. So Yh, I just don’t agree with that aspect of this whole thing.

Now wtf were they thinking…idk. You’ve publically hated on elriel, said they had 0 chemistry as characters, then proceeded to make fun of elriels - and now want to write an elriel fic…for the same demographic you’ve basically antagonised? Its an interesting choice. If you’re claiming to be a multishipper, you ship multiple couples within the fandom…yet that person does not ship elriel. “Oh but I like the idea of them, just not in canon!” Okay but you’d still have to like elriel together which again, the author does not like them together and has said so. Im sorry, but you cannot write a fics of couples you hate. You just can’t. It will always lack passion which is noticeable to readers.

If you need to take elriel out of canon context, add “banter” to make them more enjoyable etc, you’re be better off writing for a ship you actually like such as Gwynriel which is full of banter as their stans claim or do it as your own characters. Create your own story which you can tailor to your preferences. Im also going to say this/ When writing for a couple thats within a book series, even if your fic is in another AU - the concept of the couple should remain the same. Every elriel fanfic has the same core elriel dynamic whilst being able to simultaneously explore them in different contexts. If I’m reading an elriel hogwarts inspired fic, Im not going into the story expecting a different elriel dynamic. Im expecting them to be the same elriel I know and love but in a different context. That fic wasn’t elriel, and if you’ve made the decision to write about elriel the least is understanding the beauty of the couple. What the ship is at its core. aka do some research. I understand wanting to explore characters but that just wasn’t azriel or elain. And the thing is - I understand the concept and where the author was coming from - elriel just did not suit that concept.

To the contents of the ship - Yes anon. You are right, with such a detailed snipped there should have been a warning. What its about, what to expect etc - thats the bare minimum. And what was written in that fic - I understand 100% that it came off as triggering bcs it did not seem consensual. I cannot agree more anon; authors NEEDS TO TAG when including or writing about very heavy topics straight away. Im not going to say the author had the intention to hurt or purposely trigger anyone, but yes. The fic came across as disrespectful and just bait even if that was not the intention. I don’t even know what would make anyone think that the same people you’ve trashed on would happily read your work on the topic you trashed them for 😭 The fic shouldn’t have been tagged elriel. No tags or just the general az/elain tags could’ve been used - alomg w the content tags

I agree anon. If an elriel had done that to gwynriel, they would’ve received the same horrified treatment and we would not have heard the end of it. If you’re writing DR and heavy topics for the love of basic decency- INCLUDE CONTENT TAGS, that should be common sense for anyone.

[cripplecharacters]

I don’t really know if the is the best place to ask, so if you have suggestions for other places to ask please tell me. But I’m trying to figure out if it would be ok to give a character vitiligo. She is the god of the sky who has been cast out and forced to live in a human body as punishment for something (im still figuring out the lore, but whatever she did probably has to do with the fact the world has no more light when the story begins) but basically I’m thinking well she was a god she had clouds and stars on her skin, and it kinda feels like vitiligo might just kinda fit? I’m not super good at explaining things I’m sorry. but I’m really weary of accidentally like making disability and magic feel too intertwined kinda? Sorry I’m bad at phrasing things

One of the things I’ve thought to kinda help with any of the potential problems include making sure to include regular characters with vitiligo as well, so it’s just part of the world (I’d probably do this regardless, I’m determined to just have a lot of disability representation throughout the world, mobility aids, facial differences, dwarfism, etc just throughout the world)

I’m also a bit worried because I know in the research I’ve done two of the biggest ways I’ve seen people talking about it effecting them is bullying and ablism something I just don’t want in my fantasy world as a disabled person and also just like who in their right mind would be mean to a god over how her skin looks. And light sensitivity a thing that seems like it might be odd for the goddess of the sky to have

this is getting long and so I think I’ll leave it here

Hey!

Suggestion on other places to ask : @/vitiligo-is-not-a-trend, since we don't have any mods with vitiligo.

The concept of the character having a visual representation of her celestial body on her human one is pretty cool, but you are probably right in worrying about the aestheticization (is that a word?) of her condition. Especially if you want it to be in shapes that vitiligo doesn't really happen in, like well, stars. It's a visual trope at this point, just like hearts or whatever else.

The thing is, there's a ton of various skin conditions and very little of them have this as a potential issue. I know that there's barely any skin conditions that are considered pretty or cool in any way whatsoever, but you can choose from the ones that aren't that too. Hell, you could give them acne to represent stars. It would be interesting to have it shown as a thing that a god character could have and not something that only comes with ugly teenage boy characters or offensive caricatures of fat people. If my outbreaks happened in star shapes it'd be pretty cool. Or unique at least. If you want something that comes with patches, psoriasis is also right there. A lot of people have it, and I've never seen it depicted as a neutral (let alone positive) thing that people have. It doesn't have the "aestheticization" problem that vitiligo rep does, even though it can literally come with white patches on the skin as well.

Regardless of this specific character, it's always good to have regular characters with vitiligo and other visible conditions. But if you want this character to have it, especially in shapes that it doesn't actually come in, with magic symbolism, I'd advise rethinking this idea and/or asking someone who actually has vitiligo.

mod Sasza

[coraniaid]

Buffy/Kendra

As with so much else relating to Kendra, it's basically entirely fanon -- specifically, taking what we know about Slayers from later seasons (especially the Slayer Pride Parade stuff from the first third of Season 3) and projecting it backwards -- and in canon they only get a handful of scenes scenes together, but yeah, I ship it ("it" being the relationship that exists almost solely in my mind).

1) What made you ship it?

So first of all, on an abstract level, I think the concept of Buffy/Kendra as at least a possibility is implied pretty heavily by Buffy/Faith once you start taking that latter ship seriously.

When Faith appears in Season 3, she exists in the shadow of two very different people who are treated very differently by the post-Becoming narrative: Angel (somebody from outside her ordinary life who hangs around in the shadows and who Buffy is immediately attracted to and fights monsters with but, when everything changes after one fateful night together, somebody who ends up becoming an enemy Buffy is forced to try to kill) and Kendra (another Chosen One with her own ideas about Slaying who Buffy bonds with even though they fight over methods and the relationship between Slayer and Watcher, somebody who Buffy is desperate to save from her fate but cannot).

And in the same way that all of the parallels between Angel and Faith help to imply something about Buffy and Faith that at least some of the writers definitely weren't intending, I think that -- once you start thinking about what Buffy/Faith as a ship means for "being a Slayer" as a wider metaphor -- the parallels between Faith and Kendra start retroactively suggesting at least the possibility of Buffy/Kendra, even though that was even less intentional.

Not as something that necessarily ever exists on screen -- Buffy and Kendra do have chemistry, I think, but they only have ... what, half a dozen scenes together before Kendra dies? But certainly as something that could have existed, if the writers hadn't almost immediately gotten bored of Kendra with minutes of introducing her. (There's not a huge gulf between Joyce talking about "marching in the Slayer Pride Parade" and Kendra consoling Buffy with the thought that she's "not the only freak", really.)

Concretely, I guess I started actively shipping it when I started trying to write Kendra-focused fics. Because, well, Kendra barely interacts with Buffy in the show, but she doesn't really interact with anybody else at all. So it feels pretty natural that any attempt to flesh out Kendra beyond canon is going to focus on that connection to Buffy, and to wonder what it must have been like for Kendra to -- against all the odds -- be called as a Slayer and months later get to meet the girl she thought was replacing. Not just meet her, but find out that she's so different from the Slayer ideal that Kendra has been brought up to believe in.

One of the reasons Buffy/Faith works as a ship is that Faith is deliberately written to be a source of temptation to Buffy -- even if that's just the temptation to ignore authority figures and do things she's not supposed to do. And Buffy herself falls into a very similar role for Kendra. Or, well, she would if the writing of Season 2 actually took Kendra seriously as a character for as long as five minutes. And I just think that's something interesting to try to explore further.

2) What are your favorite things about the ship?

I think the big difference between Buffy/Faith and Buffy/Kendra is that the latter is more unavoidably a tragedy? I mean, Buffy and Faith is angsty and (in Season 3 at least) has the structure of a tragedy too, sure. But you can write canon compliant fics in which Buffy and Faith do manage to work things out eventually, which obviously isn't possible for Buffy and Kendra.

For me, a lot of the emotional appeal from Buffy/Kendra as a ship is that sense of missed possibilities. What if you were the Chosen One, destined to be the only girl in the world, and you were struggling to come to terms with the knowledge you were never going to be 'normal', and then one day you met somebody who -- despite everything you'd been told implying it was impossible -- was just like you? What if that felt a little weird, at first -- maybe a part of you liked being special, even if you didn't want to admit it -- and so you squabbled and argued about which of you was being the Chosen One in the right way, but maybe you gradually came to find comfort in the idea you weren't alone after all? And maybe you were still young enough that nothing really irreversibly bad had happened to you yet -- you died but you got better, after all -- so you assumed this new girl would be around forever and you put her out of your mind for a bit because it was too much to think about right now. And then maybe she died trying to help you, and it was your fault, and now you're never going to get to really know her or talk to her about experiences nobody else will ever understand or maybe make out a little bit.

Obviously you can write Buffy/Kendra fic in which Kendra doesn't die at all, but to me that's not the appeal. I think taking Kendra seriously as a character means taking seriously the impact her death (should have) had on Buffy. As if it really was the "big moment" that changed Buffy's life forever that Becoming briefly teases it as. The various Buffy/Kendra fics I've most enjoyed, and the ones I've tried writing myself, all take Kendra's death very seriously (even if the show never did). Whether that's Kendra coming back as a vampire (assuming Drusilla turned her rather than merely killing her), which I've seen in a couple of fics, or coming back as some kind of ghost (as in my current Kendra-heavy fic Take Me Somewhere Nice ... well, Buffy hasn't shown up yet in the published chapters but I promise she will) or a resurrected-by-mad-science Kendra somehow taking the place of Adam in Season 4 as Professor's Walsh big project or (in a one-shot I keep tying and failing to write) Buffy meeting a possible Wishverse Kendra (a Kendra who's alive and thriving but who never got to meet her) and both of them wondering what they missed out on.

It's all about getting Buffy and someone who isn't quite Kendra anymore face to face and making Buffy think about what could have been, really. That's the heart of it.

3) Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I don't think this is a popular enough ship for anybody to have unpopular opinions on it.

Obviously the show's handing of Kendra is pretty suboptimal in a lot of ways and it's hard not to notice that, although we meet as many as six different Slayers before the Potentials arrive in Season 7, the only two to survive to the end of the show or have any real character arcs are also the only two white girls. And -- while I generally like the fact that, as with Faith, Buffy is initially rather petty and territorial when she realizes that there's a second Slayer in town -- some of the things she says to Kendra cross the line from fun bickering to something else (that brief accent imitation, for one). But I don't think it's exactly an unpopular take to point out that Buffy as a show is often pretty thoughtlessly racist, or that that sometimes leads to Buffy herself saying something pretty gross things.