#which FASCINATES ME bc when i was kid i don't think they did?? in character stuff on disney surfers

[the-force-awakens]

hello hi, very quick - did you know i love him

[thebestofoneshots]

This is so out of nowhere but do you think Sirius would want to get married and start a family? Like kids and stuff. Both as a character in canon and in GC. I’ve been thinking about it deep and hard lately. And i wanted to know what you think? cause i believe you have such good grasp on him (and other marauders era characters as well).

Oh, this is a brilliant question! At first, I wasn't sure, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense in my head, so hear me out:

I think Sirius was absolutly horrified by the idea of marriage in early teens. He was beyond scared since the marriages he was mostly exposed to when he was a child weren't born of love, but rather of political arrangements.

I think he sees marriage as an institution (he hates those) that his parents were ready to ascribe themselves –and him– to. A political ploy for power or blood purity or whatever it might be the Blacks had in their eyes at the time. Not something to aspire to, but something to repudiate (like he did with most Noble House of Black-related things).

In fact, I think part of Sirius' playboy persona was born from this, he thought relationships weren't all that, and was scared of commitment bc he thought he knew how they would end, which is why he dated around instead of devoting himself to a relationship. His behaviour was somewhat of a defence mechanism against his perceived inevitability of future failure (also it enraged Walburga and Sirius would have done anything to enrage her).

When Sirius got to live with the Potters, and the more time he spent with them (wasn't that much, unfortunately), he saw that things weren't always the same. That relationships didn't have to be toxic and they didn't have to end the way they did in the Black family.

He learned that not all relationships are about give and take, but some are just about giving and receiving, and he was fascinated by this. He finally understood why James wanted a relationship (and a marriage) with Lily.

And while this gave Sirius a new perspective on how things can be, it didn't erase the fact that he was scared of it. He was scared that he was too much of a Black and he wouldn't be able to have something like the Potters, but instead, he would inevitably end up like his parents –because it was in his blood.

I think the same applies to children, Sirius is too scared to be like his parents and fuck his children up, although I do think he likes kids since he always proved to be fond of Harry, Ron and Hermione after he met them. But especially Harry, he loved him like he had been his own kid, or I guess the same way he loved James, like family.

Having said that, and while I don't think Sirius would expect a grandiose wedding or anything of the sort, I do think, after some time and finding a partner that he loves and living with them for a while, and therefore knowing what it is to be in a relationship with them and having evidence that he wouldn't end like his parents, he could entertain the idea of marriage, and would eventually open to one (perhaps even to having children).

Same thing applies to GC Sirius, in fact, and you'll see this once the chapters have been posted, but Sirius is already entertaining an idea similar to this while watching the Potters during the Christmas break (Still a few chapters to go, though).

Read Gilded Constellations

Sidenote: This was really fun!! I love psychoanalysing characters.

[alpaca-clouds]

What's going on with Drolta?

Alright, I kinda promised @g-vlssz to also write down some historical context for this femme fatale. And admittedly she is the hardest character to figure out in this regard. Because we do not know a lot about her.

Don't get me wrong: We know two things about her. She is from Ancient Egypt and she was a priestess of Sekhmet. It stands to assume that she is also the reason, why Eszebet got to drink from Sekhmet.

Here is the issue: Ancient Egypt is a thing that was around for 3000 years. The oldest definite proof of worship of Sekhmet we have dates back to the 14th century BC. And as far as I know the last temple build for her was erected in the 1st century AD. So, we have a good 1500 years during which people definitely prayed to Sekhmet - and during which Drolta could theoretically have been created.

Given that we do not know how long vampires are around in the world of Castlevania, we also cannot use that information to somehow narrow it down. (I mean, according to Katie Silva Morana was from Ancient Sumer, which fell around 1750 BC.)

And once again, there is just the fact: Religions change over the centuries. The way we worship changes.

One way to go about is to look at her Blackness and make some interpretations about that, given that Egyptians usually are not Black but Arab. But... historically speaking this is a huge, huge controversy. Because whether or not Ancient Egyptians were Black is a big, big disccussion to this day. And to be honest: I am not gonna throw my hat into that ring.

There is one line, Drolta says, though, that makes me think that she might actually go back to about 1200 BC. Because she remembers her time as a priestess with the "smell of dead bodies". (I don't quite have the full quote there right now. But something along that lines.) And that one stood out to me, because the Egyptians were not that big on human sacrifice (outside from Retainer Sacrifices). Usually Sekhmet would get sacrificed either goats or bulls, but not humans. But... there is some kinda shacky evidence that while Egypt was having a war with the Hittites, which ended up very, very bloody, some prisoners of war got actually sacrificed to Sekhmet.

Going through all I have on Ancient Egypt and Sekhmet, this is the one instance I can find where there is (even though shacky) evidence of human sacrifice to Sekhmet.

But again, it is kinda hard to say.

Something that might play into her motivations, though, is the colonial history of Egypt. Which is a bit more complicated than a lot of white folks, who don't do history, give it credit for. Egyptian culture and mythology is fascinating. It is. Kid!me was not the first person who looked at that and was entranced. No, that goes back to even Ancient times when Greeks and Romans looked at Egypt and had the exact same reaction. Which makes it so complicated. Because, of course, colonialism of Egypt started a long, long time ago with the Greeks and Romans.

But... It was kinda different back then, mostly because Egyptian culture might have gotten mixed up with some of the Roman and Greek customs, but the Romans and Greeks never forbid or even much restricted Egyptian worship. Quite on the contrary, as they took up some of the gods, especially Isis, who became very popular both in Greece and Rome.

Now, if you are wondering: Why did worship of the Egyptian gods even end? You should know the answer: Christians.

See, the Romans were very okay with the worship of the Egyptian gods. Because they were polytheistic. But then along came Constantin, who not only moved the capital of Rome from, well, Rome, to Constantinople, but also made Christianity the main religion of the Byzantine Empire. Originally they kinda sorta still allowed other worship, but then along came Emperor Theodisius, who in line with his name was very much not okay with it. Not only did he had soldiers burn down temples throughout the Empire, he also forcefully converted people to Christianity. (As in: "Convert or die" forcefully.) Something people later would call the Heathen Hunts.

And with that... Well, with that the Egyptian gods became forbidden to pray to. Now, there were later again and again attempts to bring the worship back, but even after Egypt was no longer part of the Empire, it had Muslim rulers. And while Muslims at the time were mostly okay with Christians and Jews hanging around and doing their thing, they were often not as cool with the polytheistic worship of some other cultures.

And yeah, no matter what time Drolta comes from... She probably was there when they burned down the Sekhmet temples. And yes, she very much also was there when the Europeans came to Egypt and plundered the graves to then (ugh) fucking consume bits of mummy or use mummies in their paints.

So, like... If, after all of that, she decided "vampire messiah is gonna punish all the humans" sounded actually fairly good... I would not exactly hold it against her.

And that is all without going into the "she was probably Sekhmet's guardian the entire time or something" thing, that clearly is implied by the text.

[lizzyaka]

Man I love the secret history. But like... it's so strange that people can't love a book and also be horrified??? The characters make me sick to my stomach. I wish ppl would talk more about how Julian is perhaps the most dangerous out of all of them. They all already have issues, mostly from being insulated from real life bc of wealth + the aimlessness that comes from that, but they didn't HAVE to end up like that. Obviously they all played their parts and are Fucked Up.

At the same time Julian... scares me honestly. The others don't really scare me except maybe for Henry. He SEES how fucked up these kids are. And encourages them to be even worse. As their teacher, their only teacher. It's a cult!!! Ironically that French teacher at the beginning was completely right; it's chilling how much Julian isolates them, how deeply fucking elitist he is, how he molds and shapes all of them into his personal vision??? The almost god-like way they look at him?? His reaction to hunting for Bunny and comparing it to a Dostoyevsky novel. He doesn't care that they killed anyone! He just cares that he found them out, or that they didn't tell him. I can also never figure out if he slept with Henry or not. Idk there's just something about Julian that is deeply, deeply inhuman. While all the group is deeply fucked up, I think there's another level of evil to be an authority figure and to encourage that behavior. There is no way he didn't know they were all alcoholics or about Charles and Camilla. Interestingly, Richard observes him accurately before his judgment is clouded by endearment, that Julian seems nice but is incredibly manipulative, and that there is nothing behind his eyes. Bunny is easy to hate, he's a schoolyard bully. Julian is the type to encourage his student to stand up to him when he knows they'll lose, and gently persuade them that it's a lesson about the futility of fighting inevitable hierarchies. He makes my skin crawl. I love this fucking book.

I agree with everything you said and i think you worded it all so perfectly!

I dont like to blame everything on julian bc at the end of the day the class were grown adults and i cant standdd when people baby them but julian IS responsible for much of their behavior. The way i see it these were people who were always very isolated and as a defense mechanism they probably further alienated themselves by blaming it on their superiority (like, its not that i dont fit in bc im weird or different in a negative way but rather that im too intelligent and too special for everyone else) and julian only encouraged this mindset and not only endorsed their psychological estrangement from society but also PHYSICALLY isolated them. So this obviously is the main cause for them being so horrifyingly out of touch with reality which led them to commit murder so easily among other things (incest,suicide.....)

And about julian and henry having an affair IM SO GLAD YOU BROUGHT THAT UP BC IVE BEEN DYING TO TALK ABOUT THISSSS

I recently read this article called the secret oral history of Bennington which ill link (bennington is the college donna tartt went to that inspired hampden, as well as other authors such as bret easton ellis who btw is whom the secret history is dedicated to) and please i urge you to read it bc its fascinating. It doesnt focus solely on donna but it does talk a lot about her and gives so much insight into what inspired the secret history. did you know most characters are based on real people? This includes henry and julian. One of the things that stood out to me about the article was how common student-teacher relationships were in bennington and it reminded me of henry and julian and how i originally dismissed the idea of them being involved, but that it would make sense knowing that. AND IN FACTTT the man julian is based on WAS gay and notoriously pursued inappropriate relationships with a lot of his male students. So do with that information what you will but personally i do think they were sleeping together

[yellowocaballero]

SHAZAM SHAZAM SHAZAM pls tell us about billy batson. ive only ever seen the movies o great comic knower

Very very very VERY far from comic expert (that's brawltogethernow) but I have read a lot of Shazam. His history is actually really, really fascinating and involves more than one lawsuit that really defined very early comics. I'll focus on one thing, though.

There are two Captain Marvels: One from the 1940s to around 2013, and one from 2013 til now. The Captain Marvel you're familiar with (who is named Shazam) is from 2013. He's a more realistic, grounded character. He was created to be pretty much the polar opposite of his original version. The best summary is to say that the Wizard chose Billy Batman 1940 because he had the purest heart, and the Wizard chose Billy Batson ~2013 because he was there. My personal 'best' Shazam story is the "Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil" graphic novel by the guy who made Bone. It's good because it's for elementary schoolers yet acknowledges this small child as homeless. Which, don't get me wrong, you shouldn't always do. My personal favorite is the 1970s ones.

As some background: Otto Binder was the creator/main writer of the very early Captain Marvel comics. He was by far and away the best writer of the early Superman Silver Age comics, because all of his comics were batshit insane. Shazam has a complicated and legal history with Superman, so the 1970 run was a super fun high camp tongue in cheek reinvention of the best Silver Age stories.

So the 1970 Captain Marvel comics are insane.

I can't even summarize them without sounding crazy. Basically the conceit is that Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr, and Mary Marvel (Billy, Freddy, and Mary) are having 1940s Golden Age Adventures when they get somehow in suspended animation and are basically time travelled to the 1970s. This don't bother them too much. Why would it bother them. Nothing bothers these people. Nothing. I don't think anybody experiences a negative emotion in these comics. Not bc they were twee. Bc they were insane.

Many of the comics basically had three shorter comics inside it: one Billy story, one Mary story, one Freddy story. Interestingly, they all had different art styles, artists, types of story, genre, etc. Billy's stories had a cartoony art style with very over-the-top and silly plotlines that involved supervillain bad dudes. Freddy's art was slightly more realistic and was slighty more grounded, but still had some classic Marvel indescribable scifi that can best be summarized as that one meme panel people have seen where Sivana recites a science equation that lets him walk through walls. Mary's stories were much more realistically drawn and featured the most banal shit, like her starting a club with her friends. Somehow Mary Marvel gets involved in those.

Sometimes they worked together and did superhero things and fought bad guys. The average fight looked like this:

Billy was a twelve year old who lived by himself, in his own apartment, had his own radio show, a full-ass job, a whole thing as Captain Marvel. He paid fucking taxes. Everybody knew this and nobody cared. He's the most affable, good natured kid on the face of the planet. Nothing bothers him. Nothing. Nothing bothers any of these people. Sivana shows up and he's BIG MAD so he's creating another death ray and Captain Marvel shows up like "Oh you rascal! Time to punch this and go back to helping my friend eat his infinite Jello."

He has a friend named Talky Tawny, who is a talking tiger wearing a suit. He also has a friend named Sunny Smiles, a person of indeterminate gender who everybody falls in love with, for unexplained and unknown reasons. Not to be confused with Freddy's friend Gregory Gosharootie, the "World's Dullest Mortal", who is so boring that nobody notices him and he keeps accidentally comitting crime. There is also an old guy named Uncle Marvel who pretends he has superpowers, which they all find funny so they just roll with it. Freddy is a disabled orphan who has to sell papers on the street corner to make a living. Mary lives in a middle class suburban home with loving foster parents. It never once seems to occur to Mary's parents to adopt Billy, for Freddy to live with Billy. Everybody is happiest this way.

I do think this is partly why a good Shazam comic has to be aimed at the 6-12yo demographics. They have to be for small children, because Billy is living a complete and utter power fantasy that only a ten year old would think is a good idea. He's a kid, and he doesn't have drag parents or a lame family, but he can turn into Superman, and he can also do magic, and everybody loves him and thinks he's the nicest person, and his supervillains are Dr. Doofenschmirtz and a worm, and his supporting cast is like okay my sister if she HAS to be involved, but also my best friend who is a paperboy! but cool because he's disabled, and….

Look, you could engage with that seriously. You could go "holy shit this is a homeless child". That's fine. That's what they do these days, and that's what they did in the movies. Nothing wrong with that. Take the story more seriously.

But also they don't give a worm the electric chair in those stories, so.

To actually give some commentary on these comics: these comics really love people. I've never seen comics that were so entrenched in their community. The kids just know everybody they meet on the street. Freddy delivers paper up and down every block, so an average story for him is just talking to a butcher or baker or old man or grumpy housewife and helping them out with some batshit problem. Mary's a sweet girl who's always starting clubs with her friends and taking on neighborhood projects. Many Billy stories involve one of his many friends falling into some trouble and Captain Marvel helping them out - or just exploring some fun with Billy hanging out with Sunny Smiles, who is a person of indeterminate gender who for some reason has magic love brainwashing powers -

This isn't the biggest #Shazam take, but I think a good Shazam story stays grounded in that. These are poor street kids who love Fawcett City so damn much. They love fighting their supervillains, but they love helping out the random guy off the street with their problems even more. Way more so than Spider-Man or a lot of other guys, I think of the Marvel family as the friendly neighborhood superheroes. They're both larger than life and street level. They're Superman level powers but they just use the powers for wrapping up their hijinks. Isn't that nice? Aren't you tired of going apeshit? Don't you just want to be nice?

[magentagalaxies]

making my own post bc i have thoughts and i don't want to keep having to go back and forth with tags and replies on someone else's post:

anyway original post i started this conversation on: @charlotterenaissance

my tag essay:

@liliana-von-k's reply:

(all this context is bc i have even more thoughts so i thought i should make my own post)

anyway to respond to that i 100% agree!! it also reminds me of something from my very first conversation with bruce (when we did a zoom interview before we knew each other) which idk if i've posted this aspect of before: i forget what my exact question was but i essentially brought up this kind of paradigm the KITH's female characters are often discussed in and how it's kind of strange comparing it to the actual representation of female characters in the show. like, sure dave "passes" the most as a conventionally-attractive female character, but also i'd honestly say any of the kids in the hall can pass as female, not even just from a genderqueer perspective but from a not all women are "conventionally attractive" perspective. like i know cis women who have a jawline like bruce's or a nose like scott's or any other feature that isn't seen as "feminine" from (often white-eurocentric) beauty standards and many of them are gorgeous.

and the fact that KITH's female characters are often discussed through a lens of "who plays the best woman" (meaning the one who "passes" according to beauty standards) is as frustrating as it is fascinating bc i really do think it points to the way the media tries to comprehend this gender nonconformity and shove it into a box they can understand. because the kids in the hall have already destroyed the most obvious box their female characters could be put in - yes, they are male comedians, but even though the most often way society rationalizes men dressing femininely is as a comedic act (whether as a man purposefully trying to elicit comedy via feminine actions and dress or via a man who genuinely enjoys feminine expression being made an object of ridicule via comedy), the kids in the hall break this framework (this "binary", if you will) by being comedians who are in control of the audience's laughter, but playing their femininity as genuine. you don't laugh with them at their femininity because they do not laugh at femininity, but you also can't make their femininity the subject of ridicule because their position as comedians means they are at once in on the joke and steering the joke in another direction. this technique is more subtextual (and likely subconscious) in the portrayal of female characters, but it's a tactic scott knowingly (and expertly) employs when playing buddy cole

so since the "men in dresses equals comedy" box is eliminated, cishet society feels the need to create another box for them to rationalize this gender nonconformity in, by attributing it to a spectacle other than humor. so they decide to instead view these gender transgressions through the lens of beauty and sexual attractiveness. this also helps rationalize any confusing attraction a cishet person has to one of the kids in the hall dressed as a woman - they pass too well, or at least whichever one you're attracted to (most often dave) does. making a spectacle of the kids in the hall playing women eliminates any confusion or implications that maybe gender and sexuality isn't as rigid as we think, by othering these performers as a special case and convincing yourself that there is no real woman who looks like dave foley in drag, and if there was she would be cis.

it's a slightly better box to be in than having the femininity be the target of ridicule, but it still misses the point that the femininity explored in kids in the hall is not meant to be othered. it leaves out so many of the show's most iconic female characters - fran is not glamorous, but she is a realistic woman. chicken lady is more chicken than lady, but she is still a well-written female character - and reduces others to their attractiveness when the sketch itself is not about that at all. and when i brought this up to bruce he sounded as though he had been waiting for someone to make this analysis, because even though the guys joke about it themselves it is at times uncomfortable to be in an interview that focuses so much on how the interviewer finds dave in drag sexy, or picking apart which physical aspect of the guys passes best. i think i remember bruce saying something to the effect of "no one's asking which one of us is the most hot playing a business man, but that's just as different of a person from us as playing a woman"

and it's interesting to think about this in the context of how the media in general treats people who identify as women in this framework of focusing on physical attractiveness all the time. in recent years, this behavior is more widely known to be sexist af so the overtness has declined (tho is it absolutely still present to some degree), but since the kids in the hall are all male it's fair game to make these sorts of comments about their female characters to their face, because it's spectacle and separate from them. even the exact same people who would call out a comment being made about a cis female comedian are often oblivious of how it could potentially apply to these male comedians, or have other bizarre lines within their ability to rationalize this gender nonconformity for themselves.

take the "wedding dresses" sketch that was censored from the amazon revival for example (this sketch was showcased at sketchfest's "scenes they wouldn't let us do" and has appeared in kith live shows since 2015). this sketch was censored because even though amazon would let the guys play women (and even then it was often an uphill battle), they would not let the wedding dresses sketch air because it featured men wearing wedding dresses in a comedic setting. the rule of thumb seemingly is: men wearing dresses is always comedic (and therefore transphobic), unless he (typically dave foley) passes too well, in which case trans people have nothing to do with the conversation. but the fact that they were men dressed femininely was never the point of the joke, it was the idea of a wedding dress, a significant garment symbolizing an event meant to be only worn for one day, being these guys' everyday wear and all the conflicts and community that came from that. it was an ode to the outsiders, a celebration of those who live and present unconventionally. and the fact that it's never about gender is in itself the most upliftingly genderqueer thing of all.

[atopvisenyashill]

how do you think alysanne would feel about gay targcest? because while i can believe the conqueror trio and jaehaerys see their incestuous traditions as a means to establish dominance over non-valyrians and produce pure-blooded dragon riders, alysanne always came off like she bought into the "romance" of it all. like if baelon ever came to her and admitted that he loves aemon more than he ever could alyssa, would she internally accept that as real love (even if not a politically convenient love) or would she insist that real targcest makes inbred babies and two brothers fucking each other is just a step too far for some reason?

okay first of all. fuck george for never giving us explicit mm targcest. i love rhaena the lesbian i think she’s a fascinating insight in valyrian gender roles and also she’s just a wildly interesting character. but she’s not enough dammit we need more queers. george stop being such a jersey boy and write anal. stop being afraid of penises george you're a grown ass married man.

second of all and keeping in mind i don't have f&b in front of me bc it's always checked out on libby. okay see i need to caveat this bc obviously there are different reactions to gay women vs gay men. but our only frame of reference here is RHAENA. (and laenor but alysanne didn’t know he was gay bc he was only like 4 when she died, LAENOR probably didn’t even know he was gay yet) and the thing is. they all know she’s gay! and no one seems to…care? alysanne & jaehaerys are happy when rhaena married androw but that’s bc it means she gets to live with ELISSA forever now. j&a aren’t like androw stans they don’t give a shit about that dude. they all seem very aware of who rhaena’s various girlfriends are! there’s no report of alysanne ever having a problem with this! it’s not like she showed up after the poisoning and was like “well maybe if you bedded your husband more often this never would have happened” does she? her problems with rhaena are all rooted in their PERSONALITIES in their TRAUMA like she’s not even recorded to have made some sort of nasty comment about any of Rhaena's lovers. in fact, the people who had an issue with Rhaena's lovers were a) the fathers of her girlfriends or b) Rhaena's own husband. Alysanne (and, to be fair, Jaehaerys) seems to view this whole ting more as like. Well that's just Rhaena, she's a bit odd. I think it adds to the almost Inhuman Beauty of Rhaena in a way - she's so larger than life, even her love can't be confined to the simple dichotomy of husband-and-wife, no she prefers her ladies instead (I was thinking of like, Lady Hideko from The Handmaiden - how the con artist mentions that there's a coldness to her that she could never be seduced by a man. An almost ethereal beauty there that is tied to the fact that she is not attracted to men).

What I think is key here is that a) they're both Valyrians b) Rhaena is her sister and Alysanne loves her despite the issues they have c) Rhaena "does her duty" and has a child by her Valyrian brother. SO. In my opinion, I think the specific scenario of Baelon coming to her and saying he doesn't love Alyssa, he loves Aemon, I think she would buy into the romantic nature of it. I think she would absolutely insist that he marry Alyssa anyway, if only to protect him from rumors and keep it like, ~in the family~ the way Rhaena and Aegon did, but if they only ever had Viserys, I think she would be okay with that. I think she would paint Alyssa as his "protector" in her mind - that fondness she saw between them wasn't her and Jaehaerys reborn after all, but perhaps more of the dynamic Rhaena likely wanted with Aegon (but reversed). Which isn't to say this won't devolve into a weird dynamic - the thing about this is that Alysanne isn't just projecting her own relationship onto her kids, she's projecting Rhaena & herself as well (imo Viserra gets the brunt of this) and Alysanne wanting her kids to playact a scenario where Rhaena is happily brother-married and living her best lesbian life still has just, so many openings to get really deranged. I think Jocelyn would face a lot of issues here. I think Alyssa might be allowed a level of GNC-ness that she isn't allowed in the books, but there's a trade off here where Alyssa is essentially playing Aegon the Uncrowned's role - and if she isn't happy with that, Alysanne would get upset. I think it's not unlikely Baelon doesn't get that "the Brave" epithet because he gets very force-femmed as a way to protect Aemon's reputation.

If Baelon was in love with like, some random household knight, that imo would upset Alysanne. But in love with Aemon? I do think she could make herself happy projecting onto that one.

[sophsicle]

I just read what’s up of the girl who ate the gods and I need to ramble/ scream about it so I thought who better to say it to than the writer

First of OH MAY GOD I LOVE IZT SO MUCH the concept and the characters chosen for each role is *chefs kiss* and as someone who is doing a class in classics I’m absolutely feral about this

Okay, Pansy is giving me such strong Evelyn Hugo vibes that I’m dying,,, like the control she has of her entire world and of the people around her using their desire of her and the way she turns their wants into her own power is so Evelyn coded that I can’t even cope. Her saying that it wouldn’t be a chore to fuck Theo was so beautifully framed, like the fancy myth-y language being undercut by the (objectively) crude ‘fucking’ was genuine art. She literally orchestrates an entire war for motives unknown!!! And I feel pity for her even while feeling simultaneously that she could (and would) step on my face and I would thank her for it

Ariana really thinking that she was there to marry harry is actually breaking my heart :( the very first time Hermione questioned why she was there I thought ‘we’re missing an iphegeneia, aren’t we?’ But even then it still killed me that she died (AND that Albus killed her too like her own brother- which mirrors canon in such a beautiful and heartbreaking way oh my god) and she feels so young too. And also the parallels between her and pansy make me want to scream. Like pansy knows her own power/ use is a cruel one and uses it to benefit herself, but Ariana believes that her use is a soft one, then discovers that hers is a cruel one too but due to her naivety she dies and cannot use it. And the way that the only time we as readers actually hear her speak as as she unknowingly offers herself up for death is the most beautiful, saddest thing ever

Hermione!!! She already seems so clearly suited to Pansy in behaviour and attitude (girls in a mysogenistiv world who gain power despite it)(girlbosses) and yet also so different, and yet the same again. Like pansy uses other peoples physical desires to get what she wants,  but Hermione doesn’t. But then Hermione uses harry and the people she loves to keep Albus on her side and to keep her home safe and in the end she’s using what Albus wants to get what she wants, just like pansy.

And she’s so pragmatic too like she is fully embracing/coping with the brutality of her world to keep the power she needs. Also her and lily were so fascinating because they feel so similar to me even if Hermione can’t see it. Hermione, harry and Ron being friends too but with a shifted dynamic into this mythological setting where the stakes are shifted feels so perfect and I want to scream

I also love love love that this is pansmione centric bc the idea of a sapphic ship in a setting of mysogyny and warfare makes me so so happy

I have thoughts about Ron and harry too but I think I already commented them (? I have no memory of anything I say so maybe I did, maybe I didn’t)

(Also side note does the title mean we get to meet any gods bc I love the idea of gods interacting with mortals smmm)

ANYWAYS I loved this so so so much it was genuinely incredible, best thing ever, I want to eat it, etc. Thank you for writing it!!!!1 <333

eeeee!!!! yay i love this fic!

Pansy is my Helen redemption, I feel like she is always portrayed as being a pawn or being some lovesick, naive, little girl who is too beautiful for her own good, but her story is hardcore, like first of all, of all the famous warriors and heroes who go to Troy and die, she lives, and I feel like people don't give her enough credit for that, for the political maneuvering that goes into it, also the fact that she is raped by a god when she's just a kid, i think she is way more jaded than people usually write her, also if you read the iliad it is like 90% her and hector just shitting on Paris, I fully believe that she runs away with him because she thinks Troy is her best bet of defeating her piece of shit husband, so yeah, Pansy is very cut throat and very scheme-y and always has an ulterior motive, which is gonna make the relationship that will develop between her and Hermione super interesting

part of what made me want to write this au in the first place is how well i feel like Dumbledore, Aberforth, Harry and Hermione fit these roles, and all the parallels that you can make with canon and how much you can play around with the "chosen one" narrative that harry potter and the iliad are a part of.

i also love fitting female characters into this super masculine story and i also like just not explaining it, like obviously there are some gender politics going on with Pansy, but like, Hermione is a commander and a king and it's just like, yup, that is how it is.

I do want to throw some god stuff in there! (the founders will be stand ins for the gods)

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR MESSAGE IT MADE MY DAY

[bloody-wonder]

assuming you've read tsc, what are ur thoughts?

mixed feelings, anon!

on the one hand, tsc is just another confirmation that nora is a talented writer - i think the dialogue especially is where she really excels. the reading experience was overall very fun, i did enjoy seeing my faves again. neil is an icon, obviously. the culture clash between jean and the trojans was Comedy Gold. and it was interesting to see an exploration of a different trauma response than we've seen in aftg in jean.

on the other hand, i feel like jean's story in tsc mirrors neil's story in aftg - a troubled youth joins an exy team where he will make new friends and get better mentally - but is like. a simplified and less compelling version of that. it's good that jean is his own character, i don't need him to be a copy of neil, but i gotta say - neil's cameo appearances totally stole the show and made me wonder why i wasn't reading a book about him instead. however, it's all the other characters who were the real problem - it felt like i'm reading a version of aftg where a less fun iteration of neil joins an exy team consisting just of the upperclassmen and nicky hemmick which uhhh,, if you've read some of my old posts you know how i feel about him so there was no chance in hell i'd like cat alvarez and her whole shtick. the foxes felt good for the soul bc there was a balance between the upperclassmen's and the monsters' type of care for neil - and crucially neil chose the latter group to be his close circle, among other things, bc he felt they could understand him better. by constrast, jean is alone with the trojans who don't give any credibility to his claims that they just can't understand what he went through, don't respect his right to keep his trauma private and just keep trying to force his "recovery". aftg felt like a bunch of freaks with various but equally fascinating issues put in close quarters and you watch them sometimes butt heads, sometimes uplift each other in the most unexpected ways. tsc however felt like a bunch of normies bullying a traumatized kid - so basically one of those obnoxious fics where the upperclassmen are all in neil and andrew's business.

jean's bisexuality was a double-edged sword too: on the one hand, i felt very smug reading about how his attraction works bc 1) it's so obviously different from neil and 2) wow turns out years of psychological, physical and sexual abuse do not in fact take away your sexuality! le gasp! surprised fucking pikachu!! crazy how through all of this jean is still bi. the human spirit is unbreakable. (unless your mom hits you for kissing a girl, then it's breakable). so i did feel vindicated but at the same time this was not relatable to the point that i can't see myself getting invested in jean and jeremy's developing relationship. nothing is more of a turn off for me in fictional romances than when both of them are immediately attracted to each other and let the reader know in no uncertain terms. where are the mind games? where are the intricate rituals? it feels like a lazy shortcut. but good for them, i guess?

sooo idk. i didn't hate tsc by any means but i'm sad i didn't enjoy it as much as my mutuals😭

[brb-on-a-quest]

What's one of your favorite childhood memories?

Hello, friend, good to see you, even if you do hide in the shadows. Hope you are well. <3

Let me tell you about a time I fell in love with storytelling all over again. I grew up on stories; I loved having my dad read to me when I was little (we read Narnia books, the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, Robin Hood, etc. I loved *all* of it). I loved the stories of found families and tight friendships like it was my bread and butter because I hadn't made any friends I could get closed to bc family moved around a lot (a decision I don't resent my family for now, but despised as a kid), and I wasn't really *that* close to my family either due to probably a variety of factors, not excluding mental health issues. I won't delve for the sake of length, you get the point. I was a sad and lonely child and my closest friends were imaginary. Anyway back to more concrete events:

We had just moved from Florida to Virginia, which is about 1000 miles away and over 13 hour drive (for context), and we had just started a new co-op (think like homeschool school, but it only met like once a week, it was one of the ways we'd start building up a new social circle or something). And one of the classes I took in was something music (more likely theater? related but that might have a different semester) and the first week of this co-op I remember they gave us a bingo card with a bunch of famous movie soundtracks and they told us we were going to identify the movie based on the song alone.

I got 2/20 or something bc I hadn't even heard of most of these movies bc i just hadn't been exposed to it. It was things like Batman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, maybe spongebob- pop culture stuff that I just hadn't seen. So everyone else was getting excited and I was feeling more and more out of the loop and alone.

I swear this turns happy at the end, bear with me, anon. They play the final music track and I don't recognize it at all but it fills me with such great joy and a call for a new adventure that I hadn't even realized music could do that before (we didn't listen to a lot of our own music growing up, it was mainly whatever my parents found appropriate or what my dad liked).

It was How To Train Your Dragon. Test Drive. John Powell. And then like the musical scores, they showed the scene it was from. A boy and his dragon racing, flying through the air. And I fell in love With the characters arcs per se, but I could tell there was a deep lore there and a story of friendship that I craved so much. It was also right up my alley with stories my Dad had read me so there was also that. But like the music was fantastic, I really liked the visuals at the time (i usually hate most 3D animation films, HTTYD is the exception), and I craved the story behind it.

I saved up money from Birthday and Christmas and ended up buying it. And I watched it. And I fell in love even harder. Cause, in some sense, I related to hiccup too much. I was a creative person, like he was, I had very little friends like he did at the beginning, we had similar senses of humor at some points, and he was fascinated with knowing and learning things. And he had a big dragon friend and i again craved that friendship deeply. So he added to the crew of imaginary friends and I went on many imaginary adventures with Hiccup and Toothless and told myself so many stories that I wish I could remember now for writing inspo.

I ended up moving from Virginia to middle of nowhere Midwest US (not saying where in case the Fey Find Out), and I did end up meeting my IRL Toothless. A little bit scary on the outside at firsts, but with an actual heart of a silly, goofy, dragon. (brb, im getting emotional just thinking about it. It'd be about 7 years now? Coming up? I may be bad at math. I feel old and happy and content.)

So yeh, in short it was a very much right place, right time kind of story and film. I still watch it a lot whenever I need a comfort film that's not as long as LOTR or something. I love the soundtrack and all of the things about it. Sorry, this was probably way longer than it should've been but IDK how to describe my love for this story without giving you some context.

[loregoddess]

For three houses, 5 and 30!

Hmm....I'm gonna do all three methinks.

5. Which route did you play through last? I saved Silver Snow for last, which worked out since the final map was the most difficult map for me to complete, even with my superstar New Game+ team of MVPs from previous runs. But it was also my favorite final boss theme from the ost, so...

8. What storyline threads should have had more development / been further explored? Hm, well every route has its strengths and weaknesses in the writing department. I think either Silver Snow or Crimson Flower could have used the most development.

SS feels like a rough draft, which meant that Verdant Wind, in following all the major story beats of SS but just like, better, felt like the finished draft, so if I had been in charge of writing I would have gone back and overhauled SS entirely, and made it completely unique (they could have made VW unique, but I feel it's strong as is, so SS needs to change).

I feel like the writers could have really leaned into the tragedy of Edelgard and Byleth falling out of trust, instead of the short and weird little scene we get at the start of the second arc after the timeskip, although this would require a lot more writing going into Edelgard for the first arc to make the player really care about her and feel the sting of betrayal more (for me, she came off as very cold in the first arc, which fits the general gist of her characterization, but when I'm losing approval points with her left and right I felt like, "girl what do you want from me" slight frustration rather than like, wondering about her mysterious secret bc even going in blind with my first run being Azure Moon, I figured out her role as Flame Emperor super quickly, so she wasn't mysterious so much as. Cold, and deeply untrusting--which is interesting characterization, but doesn't set up a betrayal plot twist very well).

Aside from really pushing for a more tragic overtone though, how I imagine potential rewrites varies bc there's a lot of room to do all sorts of things that I think could be interesting. What I personally think would be interesting and what like, a larger development team would think was feasible or interesting might be different. I would want to put more focus on Rhea and the history of Fodlan, maybe bring Sothis back into the picture and really dive into the world she knew before she had to heal it. I'd also want an entire arc talking about the demonic beasts and their history and the lore behind them, I am so curious about the monsters in 3H.

Alternatively if the writing didn't focus on the Nabatean characters, I think the writing should have really leaned in more to focus on the BE cast, since I feel like this is the most interesting potential arc for most of their character arcs, but they don't get to shine as much in SS due to having to share the narrative with the CoS characters.

As for Crimson Flower, I felt like the writers chickened out by trying to backpedal and make Edelgard morally grey instead of really leaning into her motives and ideologies that make her an interesting antagonist in all the other routes. Honestly aside from seeing all non-central characters undergo negative growth character arcs (watching the BL kids suffer in CF was SO fascinating for a lot of their characterizations), overall CF was the most boring route to me, ending with me wishing I could have defected to Rhea's side bc her spiral into madness seemed a hell of a lot more interesting than whatever Edelgard was doing.

I think the writers should have leaned in to making CF the "bad end" route, with lots of emphasis on all the bad things Edelgard was doing. I was prepared to play as a villain. Other games have made villain routes a thing, the fandom still would have been a toxic wasteland I'm sure, but at least the route would have been interesting. FE in general has a really hard time letting female villains be villains though, so I wasn't entirely surprised. Would love to see a FE female villain who's ruthless and unapologetically evil with no tragic backstory or mind control or justification, like how we see with Scarlet in FF7, but I know what FE is about so my hopes aren't high.

Also I feel like the Agarthans should have either been fully developed as villains, or cut entirely so Edelgard could have shone more brightly in her antagonist role. Especially since, as we see in Hopes, the writers really wanted to lean in more to making Edelgard morally grey, the Agarthans would have had to have so, so, so much more development to be the proper, potentially terrifying and horrific, villains they could have been.

30. What characters should have more support options and who should have been their support options? For Houses, I was actually pretty satisfied with the supports. Every character (sans Byleth) has about the same number of characters they can support with, give or take a few, so supports felt fairly balanced overall. I might have changed some of the supports to focus on different topics bc I feel there are some missed opportunities or vagueness that could have been written more precisely, but overall I'm happy w/ Houses.

Although if Rhea could've played a larger role, I think she should have had supports with various characters. Supports are where a lot of the characterization is stored, and we miss out on so much potential characterization for her as a result. I specifically think she would have gotten along famously with Mercedes and Annette, and I would pay money to see supports between her and Cyril.

Hopes on the other hand is another story, and this is mostly due to uh, many characters not being added into the playable roster (MY SON CYRIL I MISS YOU). If I had the full cast of characters I hoped would be playable (no pun intended), I would have wanted to see supports between Hanneman and Sylvain, since they took Sylvain's character in an interesting direction in Hopes, and I think the dynamic between the two would have also been fascinating. (Also imagine how chaotic supports between Hanneman and Monica could have been; guy who's been studying all his life, and girl with a genius memory).

Nadir and Judith should have been playable, and they should have gotten supports with each other too.

I also think Ignatz and Hubert should have had supports in the Scarlet Blaze route. Hubert compliments Ignatz's strategy the battle where you can recruit Ignatz, and that is just so rare for Hubert, that I was like huh, wonder what supports between these two would even look like. They also both want to ride pegasi so...yeah I've been thinking about the potential dynamics between those two ever since. They haunt me.

I also really, really wished Miklan lived through the events of Azure Gleam, bc his writing was so much more interesting in Hopes than in Houses, and I want to pull out a lawn chair and get a nice cup of tea so I can watch the Gautier skeleton closet get cleaned out in his hypothetical supports.

[narcissusbrokenmirror]

i need to talk about Alex, Luke and Reggie and their families' dynamics.

We don't get a lot from the show apart from Luke and it's not that much either, when we think about it. But from Reggie and Alex? Crumbs of backstory. the references we got to their past from the show is that Reggie's parent were in a bad relationship and Alex's parent were homophobic. god bless the guy who decided to write books abt it bc i can't stress enough over not knowing abt their past.

So starting with Reggie, my favorite backstory, is that he had parents who were always fighting amd he also had a little brother, age not specified but i guess between 8-11, Steve admired Reggie and his band and Reggie kinda regretted not spending enough time w him bc of the band. idk thinking of Reggie as an older brother opens lot of possibilities for what his character would've become. also brings more of a reason why he's so goofy and lightheaded, it can be either a way to separate from, maybe, a figure of power for his brother, being held to a responsibility or something alike, i mean, none really knows how stuff were inside Reggie's house so there's no way to tell if they had been heavily neglected at some point. or maybe being optimistic and joyful was just the way he tried to find to make things lighter for his brother when he was around, maybe to his whole family when trying to keep them from starting a fight (we also dont know for how long reggie's parents have been fighting). either way, fascinates me.

Alex also intrigued me a little bit, but i liked to figure him out. I personally enjoy when fanfic writers make his parents religious or give him fear of coming out to his friends, but, just ain't real. From what I've read on the book, Alex's parents used to be supportive of the band and welcoming to his friends, they'd have sleepovers w the whole band, and be warm and welcoming. When Alex mentions being gay, he says he wouldn't sneak a guy he actually liked out of his window and wanted to bring this hypothetical guy through the front door like his older sister did w her boyfriends, this being the 90's its a pretty prideful statement for a gay teenager. But Kenny mentioned Alex is pride of himself and wouldn't hide it. So i don't think Alex got christian fever over his sexuality, neither did his parents. What i guess, is that Alex was the kid with "Cool Parents" that would let him be and do what he wanted, be supportive of him, Alex pretty much mentioned on the show he was always trustworthy (in rhetoric to Reggie never being believed as a kid). What also would explain how Alex can grow so confident of himself and expect to receive the same treatment his sister does. So the moment Alex came out, something he never took back, even when his parents didn't approved, it shifted the whole "modern cool parents" thing bc yeah, Alex can have a band, be a drummer (which is not everyone's favorite instrument to have at home), let his sister bring multiple boyfriends to their house, but if Alex wants to bring guys, he better do it far from their eyes. "do what you want, but not under my roof". Clearly, it affected him to have a family who was loving and supportive, just to find out that being gay was going to twist the way his parents saw and treated him like, and ofc that's not what Alex wanted, he wanted the warmth and the love he'd always received before. also, Alex being a young brother makes sense to why he's a little shit on the show.

Luke also has interesting background. Different from Alex, who had a family who supported his band (til they didn't anymore) and Reggie, who had a family who probably didn't cared, Luke had a family very much disapproving of his life dream, so much that i doubt they've met the boys personally, aside from Bobby bc he was Luke's oldest friend, since there's a moment on the book Alex asks where they are and its Luke's house, and they have been friends for years so its interesting Alex not knowing where Luke lives. i think Sunset Curve was just a part of his life that Luke didn't shared with his parents bc he knew it wouldn't be worth it. What doesn't mean Luke didn't wanted to share, he was trying to make it without his parents' support, getting a job to buy instruments and other stuff for example. And if Alex is not the religious link of the group, Luke definitely is, not only he makes mentions of Hell and Heaven, but his house has a huge cross on it, visible on the clip of Unsaid Emily, and i think that's why Luke, at the same time he doesn't want to talk of the past, is the one who feels more guilty about the way he left things with his mom. Boy got hard catholic guilt on his head even if Luke himself isn't really into religion.

I'm not gonna make myself long with Bobby, bc if Alex and Reggie left crumbs of backstory, Bobby left drops in the sun. but the book had some pretty cool details, he got three older brothers who are sport trifecta, and Bobby is the kid who only got to play in a band, he doesn't get a lot of attention from his parents and even Luke is his friend since they were kids and they started playing together, he also feels apart from the band, he also seems to care a lot about Luke since he wanted Luke to make up with his mom on the day of their show at the orpheum. So it does adds dimension to the character we see on the show.

[riddlerosehearts]

🐍 same, there were many things i did not enjoy about HoO but leo is one of the highlights i will always treasure from it. in fact I made my OC just so I could make them be friends with him bc it's like an old childhood dream of mine 😭 it's several years late but i will do it anyway. have u ever made any pjo ocs?

I read your post and i agree with you so much!! EN did jamil so dirty and just the few changes they made to his lines flipped the entire dynamic between him and kalim and basically completely erased how tragic and difficult their situation is, and portrayed jamil as basically just someone throwing a fit over something easily changeable when it isn't. I play on JP so I was so surprised to see the changes EN made, it sucked seeing so many ppl hate my fav

oh nooo yeah if both riddle and jamil are in the athena cabin i have no clue who'd become the head counselor... this is so hard, if only we could have more than one :(. Kalim'd def be in a different cabin at least, but just him being around camp would make it so much harder for jamil to be himself, it hurts my heart. there are so many ways you can write this and it all has so much angst potential. on the other hand you're so right abt the missed leo nico friendship bc i always intuitively felt they could've be good friends without knowing why, but your analysis puts everything into words and makes me even sadder we had such a missed opportunity... like cmon rick....

idia labwear groovy but nico is actually so funny - nico ominously approaching cats with his hands out like the grabbing emoji when nobody is looking and completely unaware how scared the cats feel, meanwhile all he wants is to spend some time with kitty before the chain sneezing sets in

I love your ideas abt the outfits I think they fit super well!! if i get around to doodling the characters in a twst au i'd like to reference your ideas if that's okay with you! They'd both probably attempt to wear the uniforms as a full set in the beginning then decide it's way too much of a hassle/feels too stiff (totally not an excuse to want to draw them in the full outfit), then begin modifying things so it felt more like themselves, though at least I think they both would like the ignihyde uniforms better than the other dorms, igni's seems more casual and practical than the other ones imo. for some reason i feel like the savanaclaw colours would look good on leo, i just picture yellow being a nice colour on him - but leo in savanaclaw would just be like him stuck with a ton of jocks feeling confused why he's even there lool

also imagine leo meeting ortho, he'd be so fascinated that something like ortho was possible and be inspired to make a robot of his own (twst festus origin story?) idk if there's a robotics club but i could see that being leo's club of choice, nico maybe board games... which means he'd meet idia and azul omg, what do you think?

sorry it took me a bit a longer to answer this time. i haven't!! i don't make OCs super often in general, i don't even really have one for twst haha, but i love seeing all the creativity other people put into their OCs.

yeah exactly!! i do keep up with the JP main story updates and have read most of the JP events through fan translations, but i started by playing on EN. and i feel really lucky that i recognized the words for master and servant and could tell they were mistranslating some things, because i can imagine that otherwise i would've come out of it hating jamil for "betraying" kalim too. instead i loved him and was a little annoyed with kalim until book 5 showed more of his growth. i don't ship jamil and kalim but i do love both of them and it's sad that the complexity of their dynamic got watered down so much... i will note, though, that the app is rated E10+ on the google play store and 4+ on the iOS app store, so my guess is that higher-ups at disney thought the actual story wasn't kid-friendly enough.

something else to keep in mind with athena kids that i actually sort of forgot about until recently, is that they're all claimed from birth and therefore are pursued by monsters from birth :( and then also the fact that athena is a virgin goddess who just sort of gives babies to people who might not have been prepared to have one... i bet that would make things so much rougher for riddle and jamil. some other ideas i had are that if jamil's parent was a minor god, it could be nemesis (goddess of revenge) or terpsichore (muse of dance). and for kalim, if his parent was an olympian it would be either dionysus or apollo and if it was a minor god it'd be tyche (goddess of luck and fortune). like you said, there's so many different ways i could see their story going in an AU like this and they'd all be so angsty.

if you wanna see more analysis on how nico and leo fit together there's some stuff i've reblogged from others in my valdangelo tag! not all of it is necessarily romantic, i just basically use that for anything about the two of them--and a lot of the reasons why people like the ship are reasons why they'd work platonically as well. but yeah one of my biggest criticisms of HoO is how even though i like all the new characters for the most part, i feel like their relationships to each other were largely defined by romance (and i don't just mean the actual couples, but also the frank-hazel-leo love triangle for example) and a lot of potential was missed because of that!

oh yeah go for it!! feel free to use pretty much any of these ideas we've been brainstorming as basis for your own headcanons and stuff, i don't mind at all. and like i've been saying, if you did draw anything for this AU i'd love to see it. i can definitely see that about leo and nico both trying on the full uniform and then quickly deciding not to bother with it anymore lol. i imagined them both not wearing the tie because i just think nico wouldn't really want to and that leo might not even know how to tie one AFSKJGHDF. do you think leo would add any other accessories or personalization to his school uniform? also, i was thinking, i totally agree that they'd both like the ignihyde uniform, especially nico because it resembles the bulky jackets he normally likes to wear! but i wonder what nico would wear for a dorm uniform if he transferred to ramshackle... according to one of silver's voice lines at least, they canonically don't have one, so maybe he'd just wear, like, a my chemical romance shirt and call that a uniform lol. or keep his ignihyde uniform and confuse everyone.

omg, i love the thought of leo meeting ortho and being inspired to make festus because of him. he'd definitely be so fascinated by everything ortho could do. as for the clubs, i saved this excellent post about NRC's clubs for reference a while back, and since no other existing clubs were mentioned in either of the camp vargas events, i assume that that's all of them. but afaik there's nothing that says leo couldn't start a robotics club, and i'm sure there'd be people willing to join! out of the existing clubs i can totally see nico being in the board game club, i think that'd be a lot of fun for him.

[cherrystainedknuckles]

3, 14, 31, 39 for the ask game!

3. Who's your favorite comics hero/sidekick duo?

I think dick and damian genuinely have the funniest batman/robin dynamic ever but otherwise... idk. ollie and mia? I don't find hero/sidekick duos all that compelling tbh which is funny bc I am into The hero/sidekick franchise. I just find "favorite" is the wrong word. like bruce and tim are fascinating to me as batman/robin as are bruce and steph but also bruce was so terrible to them. OH wait DING DING DING final answer!! max mercury and bart allen. I miss impulse 1995

14. What's your favorite thing about character [x]?

you did not provide me a character 😔

31. Shine a light on a character you think deserves more love.

GRETA HAYES GRETA HAYES GRETA HAYES!!!! she is like THE most ignored member of yj98 which is wild since she's been there LONGER than cassie and cissie??? but she's literally everything to me. she died and then came back Wrong and everyone can see it and they're scared of her inherently because she's made of death but she literally just wants to be a normal girl but she's so so so terrified of being evil that it drives her into a spiral where she eventually becomes evil!!!!!! underrated duo: slobo and greta. I'm begging everyone to actually read all of young justice 1998 before yj posting because she is by FAR the most interesting character.

39. What comic plotline gives you brain worms?

hmmm okay so in titans 1999 when those kids from the DEO or w/e break into the tower and stay with them for a few issues. in my HEART! I think the titans should've just continued to have a gaggle of children in their tower. if we expanded each one to have a coherent character it very reasonably could've been an expansion of lian's gen alongside cerdian except DC decided they hated kids and murdered all of them in between the years of 2006 and 2008 </3

same thing with james from huntress 1989!! where did he go!! DC loves introducing kids between the ages of 8 and 14 and then wiping them off the face of the planet a few issues later. helena straight up adopts a child supergenius, gets erased, and when she appears again two years later she is childless. where are they :(

also fear state (batman rebirth) was a really cool concept but the execution was terrible. in my heart I did it better

[linddzz]

The fact that James Cameron used legit great directing of cinematic visuals to tell a stories that do not work as movies (that is if you actually do want to go deeper than "environmental and cultural destruction for profit is sad :((" which...I legit couldn't tell if he did try to go deeper than that or not lmao) is fascinating and hilarious to me. You took potential great stories. You took great skill in this story telling medium. You deeply failed to smash them together skillfully. I'm almost in awe of it.

Tbh the visuals are great but I want the novels which is also hilarious to me. There are basic ideas set in this big world and a cast of characters that each have different conflicts and relations to the Big Picture ideas. You could have a series of novels with entire books set with a different character POV!! All the good meaty stuff I think would be better served with the more internally driven narratives of novels tho which is why I keep leaning that way.

How about a novel of Neytiri struggling with the cognitive dissonance of her love of Jake and her children conflicting with the rage that the trauma from the first movie left in her?? How about we go more into her character than "fierce angry wife." How does she feel about the child of a sky people avatar having this deep connection to Eywa? With the anger we see her directing towards Spider wouldn't we see her struggle with Jake using human military language with their kids???

How about a novel with the whales and their societal struggle with them now being violently hunted vs their pacifist values?? How does this new conflict affect the relations of their sister culture of the islanders???

The movie mentions that the avatar bodies don't set off the planets defenses. We see the commando avatars able to bond with the dragons (I ain't gonna remember all these names ok!!). This IMPLIES that just by having the Navi biology they are connected to the planet now. How does this effect them?? How about a novel from the baddies pov where they make more and more avatars to conquer the planet and slowly find that it backfires as the two way connection changes THEM. Who can handle it?? Does it drive some of them insane?? How about we have a failed redemption arc with Colonel Full Ass Throttle as he feels this two way connection with his dragon. What if that whale hunting really disturbed him and he's fucked up over the fact that he is disturbed now?? Wouldn't he be viscerally disgusted at this mental connection to this planet?? How does that contrast with seeing his son WANT that connection that he hates?? What if we get a visceral rejection scene where he cuts off his braid/connection?? (Honestly thought they were doing something like that with him and I was like ?????? when nothing happened there dkdjdk I guess we had to keep it at a basic mumbled something about father and son dynamics)

I promise this isn't a fixation that'll last long I just need this day to process how baffling this movie was as a grand image of one man refusing to actually dig into his own themes bc he'd rather keep it to the most bland of takes that don't go beyond "isn't this upsetting and bad? What if unobtainium but more bluntly evil?"

[wackus-bonkus-maximus]

i know it’s probably late but ⭐️ i am so fascinated by odnlb and i want to hear everything you could possibly have to say about it

no it's not late! this game ends when i say it ends lol.

send in a ⭐star⭐  to have the author select a section they’ve been dying to talk about!

today i have some odnlb discarded scenes/ plotlines for your enjoyment! 💀

pv kiss plot:

there was going to be this arc from like act 2-3 where ladybug was trying to figure out cat walker's identity. so because she was super pissed at him, she "created" a curse on his miraculous. he would have the ring stuck on his hand & wouldn't be able to take it off, leaving his power to slowly consume him. "how can i break the curse?" cat walker asked in one of my drafts, to which ladybug responded, "with something chat noir always wanted, but never got. something i'll make sure you never get, either." (it was a kiss from ladybug)

anyways i discarded it because 1) why make marinette slowly kill adrien when he would do it himself just to save her and 2) it was kind of redundant to be cursed by 2 rings. also the more i thought about it the more it seemed silly, so i reworked it into matter of luck!

zoe-luka-chloe love triangle:

i actually DON'T like love triangles and especially not when 2 of the people in them are siblings. ...however i could see this one working. originally chloe was touched that luka had so much faith in her, more than zoe seemingly, and her final selfless act of the fic was "letting zoe have him." thinking more on it, i felt really meh about it, so i changed chloe's issues to center more around sibling jealousy and inadequacy while simultaneously wanting a better sister relationship. i like her turning point of selflessness as giving up her miraculous much better!

zoe akumatized bc she thinks luka is cheating:

yes friends la voleuse was going to be akumatized bc she found out luka had "spent the night with marinette" during the fight in chapter 15. she confronted luka about it, and guessed rightly that he had gone to marinette, but obvs for the wrong reasons. i cut this because then it would've led to a marinette/ladybug identity reveal too early. and also because it was just kind of a meh plotline for me that didn't reveal the best or worst of anyone's character.

nino finds out adrien's identity:

i actually really wanted this and couldn't find a way to fit it in! it would have taken place after nino gets his miraculous back. he was kind of going to be adrien's secret-keeper, like an alya to adrien's marinette, and they were going to cry and hug and mourn lost time and stuff. there was also going to be a scene where nino and alya were obviously hiding stuff from each other and wouldn't say, and they both got pissed off at one another in the middle of all their wedding prep lol. but honestly i like the way dj wifi played out in the fic!

deleted scenes:

there was going to be a scene where cat walker played the piano for ladybug, and she recognized it as a tune adrien had played/written for a school thing long ago. adrien was going to play it again at the wedding for dj wifi.

there was another few scenes planned where cat walker would leave roses for ladybug like kid flash from teen titans did to jinx. a few scenes ended like that, and both me and marinette were sorry to have to cut them. keep an eye out though i might recycle these ideas for future fics 👀👀

from the fanfic writer: director's cut ask game.