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drysaladandketchup · 3 months

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5 mattdrai for the writing meme please

I wasn't entirely sure how I wanted to handle this prompt, but I hope it's still to your liking, anon :)

5. things you didn’t say at all

"Hey."

Matthew really isn't in the mood for this right now. He was having a good time being back home in St. Louis for his first All-Stars, talking to some of the best players in the league, watching the skills competition, going out with the guys, and now the game is in a couple hours--

"Tkachuk."

Yeah, no, he's real. That's Draisaitl yelling at him. Well, he isn't yelling, but since he apparently is so hard pressed to even be around Matthew, it'll probably escalate to that soon.

I'd probably get off the ice.

Even if it was a joke--and maybe Matthew is willing to entertain the idea that it had been, coming from mister 'taken out of context'--it makes sharing the locker room awkward.

The thing is, he kind of likes Draisaitl. Admires his game, anyways, even if he is playing for fucking Edmonton. If Matthew had actually been drafted by the Oilers back then, like he thought, they probably could have been friends.

If he's being honest with himself, he kind of likes Draisaitl beyond hockey, too. Because he'd watched Leon's interviews, checked out his Instagram a little--he was curious, sue him--and because McDavid talks a lot when they're training at Gary's. Also, come on, Matthew's not blind. He hates the concept of him in Edmonton, but it's not fair to say Matthew genuinely hates the guy.

Right now though, this may be the first time he's heard Draisaitl ever actually say his name, and he wishes it was anyone else.

"Hey. Hang on." Draisaitl is in front of him now, stony and unreadable, and only then does Matthew realise like a fool that he has actually stopped. They're face-to-face, alone in one of the maintenance halls, the hustle and bustle of the arena a distant hum.

Matthew stares at him, not unkindly, because his mom taught him some damn manners, but not openly friendly, either. Not until he can get a gauge on what Draisaitl wants. Leon. It's Leon. That feels like the only thing Matthew really knows about the guy, sometimes.

"Did you want something?" Matthews asks coolly, leaning against the bricks with his hands shoved deep in the pocket of his sweater.

Leon glances down the hall, up to the buzzing florescent lights, running fingers through his hair. It's hard not to follow his tongue when it pokes out to wet his lips. Damn it, he has no business looking this good.

"I wanted to talk to you," he finally says, and even after all this time Matthew is still caught off guard by how soft he sounds.

"Talk to me?" Matthew narrows his eyes. "I didn't think you'd even want to be seen with me."

Which is a shame, because they'd look pretty damn good together. In his opinion, anyways.

Leon doesn't take the bait. "I saw that interview you did."

"Buddy, you're going to have to be more specific. I've done a few lately. It's the All-Stars."

"Before the break. I don't remember with who. NBC, I think? They asked you about me. What I said."

He doesn't need to elaborate. Matthew raises a brow, scratches the sudden itch at his neck. The air in the hallway is stuffy and warm.

"What about it? I said you were a great player."

"After that, though."

Leon doesn't need to elaborate on that, either. The intensity of his stare does the job well enough.

What did Matthew say again? I probably can't answer that or he'll get mad at me.

Yeah, because the only thing running through his head when he heard what Leon said was, Well damn that sucks because I wanted to find out if he fucks better than he fights. He remembers biting his lip because his brain unhelpfully supplied him with some tempting ideas that were not exactly family friendly. He's twenty-two, he's got hormones, what's he going to do?

But he was pretty sure declaring he wants to fuck a rival player wasn't going to win him any favours with anyone, let alone Leon. And maybe that comment irked him a little in the moment, but no one's opinion matters to Matthew more than his own. Accidentally outing himself during an interview was not high on his list of career moves, so he'd played it safe, locked it all down, and assumed that'd be the end of it.

"I didn't say anything," Matthew says.

This feels strange. Leon doesn't look pissed, he looks curious. Piqued, like he's waiting to hear something specific.

"I know."

"So what's your problem?"

"What were you going to say?"

Matthew cocks his head. "What, you thought I was going to burst into tears because the German Gretzky doesn't like me?"

Except he knows Leon's not an asshole. Not all the time, anyways. Not off the ice. Which makes it fucking hard to just blow him off.

"You were all over us that game," Leon says. "Kass was pissed. You're a fucking pest, what the hell did you expect me to say?"

"Is this you trying to apologise? Because if it is, you're doing a hell of a job."

"You never hold back on anything."

"Why the hell does it matter?" Christ, it's like Leon is trying to pick a fight.

"You looked like you had something to say." There's a hint of suspicion--of implication--in Leon's voice that makes Matthew tense.

"You think I'm an asshole, so I don't know why you care."

Maybe this is a prank. Maybe he figured it all out and he's waiting for Matthew to break down and declare, I think I could fall in love with you if you let me.

Leon shuts his eyes briefly, shoulders rising and falling as he takes one long, deep breath through his nose.

"I didn't mean it how it sounded."

"Yeah, I heard." Matthew's stomach rolls in ways it shouldn't. "I don't know what other context you want me to take it in, though. It's not even a big deal, anyways. I mean, yeah, it kind of sucks finding out a guy you like thinks you're a piece of shit, but it's whatever, right?"

"I didn't call you--I don't think you're--"

Groaning, Leon thumps his head against the wall and dragging a hand down his face. He takes a minute to compose himself, staring up at the ceiling, then down between his feet, face screwed up in thought. Finally, he looks back to Matthew.

"You like me, eh?"

It's been a long weekend; Matthew's too tired to backpedal and try to make up some excuse. Part of him just wants to drop it out in the open and be done with it. Just come out and say, Yeah, the 'I want to take you home' kind of like. The 'I want you to make me scream' kind of like.

Just to see what Leon would do. At the very least, he probably wouldn't punch Matthew. He's not a glove-dropper, after all, and he's not so scary without a stick in his hand.

He tries to imagine Leon's wide eyed, slack-jawed expression. Maybe the little 'Oh' that would slip through his lips. Because yeah, 'Oh' would be about right. It would be the most embarrassing conversation of Matthew's life; more embarrassing than when he came out to his family and Brady asked him to rank his favourite players by 'fuckability'.

"It doesn't matter." Matthew shakes his head, clears his throat, looking anywhere but at Leon. "Look, man, let's just go back to beating each other up on the ice and pretend this never happened, okay?"

"No, hey, don't"--Leon grabs Matthew's arm as he pushes off the wall, fully ready to disappear and never talk about this again--"It does matter. Tell me."

Matthew would rather go dunk his head under the sink and rub the embarrassing flush from his cheeks. He's hot all over, from the beating in his chest to the blood in his veins. Where Leon's touching tingles with an intimacy they've never had. It may be the first time they've touched without the aggression of a game to justify it.

And damn, Leon's looking at him like he can read Matthew's mind, or trying to get Matthew to read a little of his own. It's all heat and intensity and a look that says, I don't think you hate me, and I don't want you to think I hate you.

"What do you want from me?" Matthew says. "Why's this so important to you?"

It's possible he imagines the way Leon's eyes flit down and back. They're pressed almost right against each other now. That must be why Matthew's overheating, struggling to catch a full breath.

"i just want to know..." Leon swallows the rest of his words as he takes half a step closer; a little too close to be innocent. That brick wall of a chest is pressed up against Matthew's arm, nearly crowding him against the wall.

"Know what?" Matthew barely gets the words out.

It's scary to wonder. Ideas are forming in his head--excited, hopeful ones. Matthew won't pretend he's never wondered about Leon; what he could do with him. To him. How his mouth tastes, how his hands feel, what it'd be like having him over and under and around and inside.

And Leon is looking at Matthew like he genuinely cares how he feels. Like maybe, just maybe, he's thinking, too. Wanting.

Wouldn't that just be the biggest fucking drama of Matthew's life?

There's still too much they're not saying.

Neither of them gets the chance.

Something clatters down the hall, followed by the echo of voices.

Leon lets go abruptly, hand dropping to his side. "Shit, sorry. I should, um... Never mind. Just... forget it."

He spins and walks away, just like that, shoulders hunched and hands shoved in his pockets. For a guy who never backs down from a challenge, it looks a little too much like running away.

But it's not like Matthew can call him a coward when he can't even get his own voice to work. Breathless, he slumps against the wall and tries to piece together what just happened, how they managed to say everything and nothing. It feels like he's been through a tornado.

Fuck, he can't deal with whatever this is right now. He cannot be thinking with his dick come game time, let alone worry about whatever the hell his heart is doing.

He stands alone in the hall for a good five minutes, waiting for his nerves to settle, until he finally has the courage to head back, falling into the bustle of players and staff and media.

He avoids Leon in the locker room as best he can. On the ice, too. They don't talk and they keep enough bodies between them on the bench.

Once this is over, they can crack open that can of worms again, figure out what's going on. But there's more important things right now.

They play the All-Star game like they're bitter rivals.

Matthew feeds him a slick pass that turns into a goal.

He skates off without a celly, and Leon gives him a "fuck you" with a smirk and a tongue between his teeth.

But it's fun. Really fun. And despite it all, they're both smiling at the end. Leon's smiling at him.

And Matthew wants to believe that means something.

#hockey #mattdrai #matthew tkachuk #leon draisaitl #my writing #asks #this fic gave me a hard time for some reason #I didn't want to to do the obvious 'the thing you didn't say was that you love me' but I guess it kind of became that anyways lol #really my first thought was just 'matthew never said what he thought about leon's get off the ice comment and it haunts me' I NEED to know

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marley-manson · 10 months

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Could you expand on your dislike for the Raphael!Crowley headcanon? I'm fairly certain I know why but your meta posts are always so thoughtful and articulate and I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic

Thank you, I really appreciate it! And fwiw I always enjoy reading your thoughts as well!

And yeah I'm happy to! I mean first I should say that I don't actually like, hate-hate it in fanfic, it's not like an instant back-button for me if it comes up, and I feel like I've seen one or two fics after season 1 where I thought it was fine and it didn't take me out of the story.

But yeah in general I just don't like Crowley being special lol. I like the book vibe where Crowley and Aziraphale are just two... not quite nobodies, given their roles in Eden and the spy allegory of the present day, but certainly not particularly powerful or impressive demon/angels. Crowley and Aziraphale's "superpowers," such as they are, are just their adaptability thanks to living on Earth so long. That's what defines them compared to the rest of Hell and Heaven and sets them apart as uniquely capable of giving a fuck and doing something about the apocalypse. Eg Hastur and Ligur are explicitly more powerful than Crowley, but Crowley escapes them by the skin of his teeth because he's able to break convention by weaponizing holy water, and he's familiar with technology, and more capable of thinking on his feet in general.

I like that all their uniqueness comes from living on Earth with humanity. It resonates with the thematic core of the story, it's fun, and it's interesting. Crowley now being able to perform super impressive miracles and casually resurrect people (something presumably not every angel can do since Aziraphale can't resurrect Edinburgh girl) and read heaven's secret files and potentially stop time in season 1 because he's a former archangel diminishes that vibe to me.

Another con of Raphael!Crowley as a headcanon is that a lot of the time, ime, it feels similar to lost scion of royalty headcanons in other fandoms in an unpleasant way - the way that kind of leans into the idea of someone being inherently superior and worth more by birth (or creation I guess in an angel's case lol). I don't think this is necessarily inherent to the headcanon, or an aspect I think Gaiman will definitely emphasize, but there is that worry lol, especially considering how gary stu-ish Crowley felt to me this season.

Like, why is him being a former archangel meaningful or significant at all? Why does the headcanon exist? What makes Raphael!Crowley different enough from Random Angel #2398!Crowley that it's even brought up as a character detail or plot point that excites people? And I'm not implying that there are no valid reasons (eg exploring why a high ranking angel specifically would fall, or to add some drama for Aziraphale if he finds out and it matters to him, or to add drama between Crowley and the other archangels, etc), but quite often the vibe I get from this headcanon is that Crowley's just inherently more interesting and cool if he used to be a high ranking angel instead of some rando, which is a vibe that puts me off.

Ultimately I just tend to prefer mundane origins to surprise significant origins, and stories about average people (at least in their own context, as angels or w/e) moulded by life who make interesting plot-driving choices rather than inherently unique and special people. And Crowley being Raphael doesn't necessarily make him special, but it does lean in that direction, especially if it's treated as a surprise significant reveal and yk, a source of superpowers.

And to be fair I actually have been thinking about directions this concept could go in season 3 that wouldn't annoy me, and one is to emphasize that archangels aren't inherently special at all and it's an arbitrary designation, and Crowley doesn't give a shit and anyone who does (like other archangels or w/e) is going to be painted as naive and silly and too into hierarchies.

And/or, yk, emphasize that "Anthony Crowley" is emphatically NOT Raphael, regardless of who God created him as. Choose your own destiny. All that jazz. Especially if the Metatron is offering him angelhood again I could see former identity and status being brought into play and held up as extra significant by the antagonists and treated as something to be shut down and dismissed by the narrative, which I would enjoy.

So yeah, at the end of the day I just prefer Crowley as just some guy who happened to get the Earth Agent assignment, rather than the mysterious only fallen archangel.

#also it begs the question of why no one recognizes him since he looked the same as an angel #but that's easily handwaveable. god anonymized the fallen angels in everyone's memories or whatever #or maybe they do recognize him and no one mentions it lol #marley on good omens #text post #good omens spoilers #(lol this is probably longer than it needs to be but enh)

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majorbaby · 5 months

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some early and candid thoughts on MASH: The Comedy that Changed Television

I thought Gary Burghoff had the most illuminating commentary to offer. he was specific, technical and detailed when recounting how the show was constructed, a style of media commentary that caters to my preferences. he has one comment that really stuck with me as a strong descriptor of the Radar character (paraphrase from memory): they needed a character who was experiencing the concept of war for the first time, for whom you could see the

after Burghoff, I thought Jamie Farr had some interesting things to say re: Margaret - 'she contains multitudes' being one of them, and a recurring theme when everyone was speaking about the character

i have to talk about mike farrell's comment on anti-war vs. anti-military: i've talked about how I feel that the post-reynolds/gelbart years have heavily watered-down messaging re: war before, and i've pointed to several episodes where i feel this is obvious, but mike farrell saying (quite strongly) that he felt the show was anti-war but never anti-military is pretty damning evidence.

i mean, i think this is good characterization for BJ, to take a more, let's call it 'broadly', anti-war stance, rather than be opposed specifically to military, particularly to the US military. it fits with his aspirations to live a quiet, middle-class life, with his insistence that he's always done 'the right thing' and imo, a good motivation for him to butt heads with the more radical Hawkeye, who opposes authority figures in general (per Alan Alda himself in this same special) - which actually goes beyond the military...

so i love it for BJ but i hate it for a show that never framed him as being wrong about that idea specifically. i can't say for sure whether BJ always held Farrell's beliefs of course, or vice versa, but if BJ ever did oppose the military as a system, Farrell doesn't know it. this knowledge makes episodes like Preventative Medicine and Back Pay land even worse with me.

'some of us were IN the military' he added, as a justification for his point that the show could not have been anti-establishment which i would speak on even more candidly if i was going to make this unrebloggable lol. but truly it's not that serious except in terms of how i think about the themes of this show - he seems like a perfectly lovely person who really loved making MASH and i think his fans will enjoy watching him speak about that.

Mclean Stevenson makes a point about how what Radar anticipates about a character tells us something about that character beyond what we would receive if we just heard the character say it themselves (which they usually do, at the same time as Radar) - I need to think about this some more when re-watching those scenes...

dlfkjaljfk I've never heard David Ogden Stiers' natural voice I thought someone was giving commentary over footage of him and then i realized he was actually giving the commentary - I feel like everyone knows this, but he was immensely talented, a master of voice and speech

1 hour and 10 minutes (including ads, or 'commercial breaks' as we used to call them back in my day) spent on seasons 1-3. tbf there's character-specific commentary in the first half that is for characters that were with us for the whole run, but, there's also a lot of time devoted to talking about how the show was initially constructed, the pilot being good (correct), and something that made me smirk - Larry Gelbart's commentary on how people were incensed and outraged at Henry's death and felt they had been misled, lied to, about their funny haha, wholesome weeknight comedy (set in the Korean War???) is almost indistinguishable from how people talk about plots they don't like in media nowadays

it was good! i had fun!

#re: mash #idk about uploading the whole thing because tbh the audio is pretty bad but i'll try to do a few gifs

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petricorah · 3 months

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i wanna start making comics but like. i dont really know how??? are there any tips that you could give me perhaps?

hi!

i've been working on trying to compile a list of resources for people (@aangsfrogs--i didn't forget!) who want to make comics for a long time. It would consist of some of my personal tips and a lot of links to other people's PDFs and youtubes. But that's...a hefty project, so if you had any specific questions for the meantime, my askbox is open!

But, for just beginning, here would be my tips:

Read comics. Read manga and webcomics and cartoons and medical comics. There is so much out there, and reading is such a big way to learn. If you see something you like, take a moment to think about why you like it. Are the expressions or colors appealing? Did it make you feel a certain emotion? Analyze what the artist may have done to get across what they did. (Is it the camera angle? the style they chose to draw in? the paneling? the pacing? the color? etc.) Doing this over time will help you recognize the tools available for telling stories through this medium, and you'll be able to put them in your own work.

Try to think about what you want to make comics about. What moves you? What topics interest you? What ideas or tropes do you love in media or think about often? What do you hate and wish was done better? What characters are you drawn to, or what characters do you want to create? (What about them compels you?) I find it's hard to create an idea out of thin air, but if you start writing down random ideas you have, you'll start thinking about them, and over time, you'll have a bank of things to pull from when you want to create.

Lastly, anatomical skill or knowledge of color does not a comic make! You don't have to know much to begin, and there aren't rules. Just start drawing what is meaningful to you!

This is just cursory and doesn't get into super specifics like paneling or scripts or plotting or colors or thumbnailing or....etc, but I'll try to expand my list of resources and get that out! And, hmu if you have any specific questions on topics!

happy drawing~

Book list under readmore:

Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and his Making Comics. These books are taught in like, every comic class ever. While not my complete favorite, they do a good job of showing some history and fundamentals, and how easy it is to make comics even if you don't have a lot of drawing experience.

99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style by Matt Madden: Really good if you don't know how to start analyzing comics. (Also it's just a fun visual exercise.) It shows the same short story done in 99 different styles with different emphasis on different moods and points of view.

The PreHistory of The Far Side: A 10th Anniversary Exhibit by Gary Larson and The Calvin and Hobbes: Tenth Anniversary Book by Bill Watterson: Two great books with work from my two favorite cartoonists. They both have writings from the author about getting ideas, developing stories, and being a comic artist.

Uncanny Bodies: Superhero Comics and Disability, edited by Scott T. Smith and José Alaniz and Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation, edited by Sheena C. Howard and Ronald L. Jackson II: These two aren't really about making comics, but they are great collections of analysis about old and new comics alike.

By no means a complete list, but some good ones that I can think of off the top of my head.

There's also the book Webtoon School: Everything you need to know about webtoon creation and story writing. To be honest, I didn't read this completely through because it was a bit more fundamental than I was expecting, but it gives a good cursory look of how to write comics if you're just starting out! It covers some history, how to write stories and arcs, etc.

Also, look to your favorite writers! A lot of webtoon/webcomic artists do tutorials or youtube videos. for instance, velnxi has this great tutorial up I really suggest looking at here.

#how to make comics #mytutorials #comics tutorials #asks #i also want to do a post on how to analyze comics #because analysis is often talked about in english or writing classes #but most dont talk about how to analyze a comic which i think can be a bit different #if people would be interested in that lmk #can yall tell i almost went to school to teach comics lmao. i love talking about this stuff

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sicklyseraphnsuch · 8 months

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Can you write about Fionna, seeing the Simon petrikov of her world?

"Woah, wait what? There's a university nearby? Since when?"

Marshall shrugs. "Since forever?"

Gary blinks. "Marshall, you graduated from college?"

Marshall smacks him on the arm. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Gary smiles as charmingly as he can. "Well, I mean... With your lifestyle..."

"I seem like an uneducated boor?" Marshall grins with just a hint of menace. "And you would be right. I never graduated. Mom made me take a bunch of business classes that I hated with every fiber of my being. So I dropped out."

Fionna blinks. "How come I never knew this about you? We've been friends since... since..."

Actually, if Fionna tries to think about when they became friends, her memories get a little foggy. Marshall crosses his eyes as if experiencing the same thing. This must be one of the side effects of their world technically being only 12 years old and at the same time much much older than that. Fionna is not 12 years old but neither can she concentrate on anything that happened before 12 years ago. It's... just a little unsettling, if she thought about it for long enough.

So, she does the tried and true method of simply not thinking about it too much. In the same way, she won't think about how it's completely novel to learn about nearby cities as if other cities didn't exist until very recently, like maybe even right now. It's whatever. She's learning about it now, and that's that.

"I... do remember..." Marshall murmurs softly, as if tugging on a particularly stubborn weed. "I snuck in an elective that Mom would have hated. It was about like Mothman and the Loch Ness monster."

"They teach you that in college??" Fionna gasps, her eyes going starry.

"Eh... It wasn't specifically about them but it was about folk lores and folk songs in general. I really loved the professor that taught it. She described like cryptids and encounters of the third kind in this really poetic, almost romantic way. It was kinda weird and like really cool at the same time. What was her name? Petrikov? Petrova? Petri-something..."

Everything in Fionna stops. She can no longer hear Marshall speaking. Because there's no way. There's no way!! Nothing outside of this city - which she knows like the back of her hand - has existed until literally someone "remembers" it exists. Their world is balancing on the knife's edge of already born and currently being made. And now there's a Petrikov here? What? WHAT?!?

Gary gently taps her arm. "Um, Fionna? You in there?"

Fionna grabs Marshall by the front of his shirt. "You have to introduce me to... her? Professor Petrikov is a woman??"

Marshall squints at her, looking markedly more intent. "Yeah. She is."

Fionna should probably note the terrible emphasis in Marshall's tone just now. But her mind is whirling with implications. Simon is here? She has a Simon in her world? A Simon specifically for this world? Holy schmazow.

Gary tilts his head, observing his boyfriend in a way that Fionna is simply unequipped to presently.

"You're... protective of her. That's kinda sweet."

As always, when faced with evidence of his sentiment, Marshall curls into himself, shrugging it off as casually as he can. "I mean, it's just you know... She's a really great professor. I learned a lot from her."

Then as if rousing himself from sleep, a certain awareness enters his eyes. Fionna catches that and wonders if a new part of their world - their shared lore - was just made.

"Yeah, actually you know what... The semester that I took her class, that's when I started playing around with songwriting. She inspired me to look into poetry more. And after her class ended, I dropped out." Marshall nods to himself, kicking back with that patented bad boy smirk. "I've been a vagabond ever since."

Gary rolls his eyes at him. "Some vagabond you are, crashing on my couch."

Marshall winks at him. "You'd be lonely."

Fionna raises a hand. "Let's get back to Professor Petrikov. Can you like introduce us?"

Marshall turn, losing some of his sass as he focuses on her. "I mean yeah. I've been meaning to visit."

Fionna feels her smile stretch so wide, her cheeks begin to hurt. "Road trip!!!"

#adventure time #fionna and cake #simon petrikov #marshall lee #gary prince #ok we dont actually get to meet simon #but i couldnt pass up the chance for marshall to intoduce us to simon

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not-poignant · 4 months

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Everyone can feel however they want about any character etc etc obligatory disclaimer... that said, I do wonder how people would feel about Temsen if he was white. It's the same thing I wondered when I saw some comment reactions to Kadek back when he was introduced in FFS.

I'm a big fan of Temsen, btw. The way he talked about both Efneisen and Gary's abusive actions was really responsible and useful, and I love characters who have both an upright moral core and the smarts to be able to take actions effectively.

Hi anon!

Yeah I do...sometimes have these moments as well. I also have the self-reflective 'am I writing POC too often as assholes' and then think about Eran and Leo and some of the other characters I've written and it's like okay, I don't think it's necessarily that specifically (though there's always room for improvement) and I really really do like writing hot assholes dsfjkaf

I also love Temsen, I love characters who are just really complicated but ultimately still doing their version of their best. And that anon might not have been thinking of the race factor at all, but it is something that also occasionally plays in the back of my mind because after 10 years of writing, there is a certain kind of 'he just rubs me the wrong way' that characters like Eran, Kadek, and Temsen have gotten just a little bit more than some of the other characters (and on the flipside, the 'oh I didn't know they were POC' which is...a whole...*sighs* - probably at its most painful when it's fanart so you know someone's put a lot of effort into something but also blanked the description of a character's skin colour and features at the same time) - I guess there's just an awareness? Also an awareness of my role in what I'm perpetuating as a white person because realistically I will unfortunately fuck it up too.

I am team 'give anon the benefit of the doubt' because I do canonically write Temsen to be unnerving and intimidating and I do think some readers will be a lot more receptive to / sensitive to that than others. But yeah, I also think this is a really understandable thing to wonder? It's a crunchy space to be in, because I also think Temsen's hitting the mark if he is unnerving some people as a character, just like Gary does. A sort of 'I like it when disabled / POC / queer people can all be hot assholes' lol

But in this instance like, in addition, Temsen has been one of the least directly harmful characters in the entire cast in terms of his actions and I do think about that a lot.

I think until society gets better about racism and decolonisation gets way way way way further it's just a normal thing to wonder about tbh.

(And on an aside, I am glad that the sentiment largely swung towards very positive towards Kadek by the end of FFS. He's one of my favourite side characters that I've written in a while, and I'm hoping to write more with him in side stories one day).

Also re: the talk he gave Efnisien, that has honestly helped Efnisien so much. Him stepping into his strength and consciously thinking about it has directly led to so much of the positive growth he's experienced in the last like 10 chapters. It was so needed, even if the timing wasn't great, Temsen really delivered on that front.

#asks and answers #ohlo ohlo temsen #underline the black #underline the rainbow #i also think i'm very lucky that i had to 'learn' that awareness vs.#POC having to carry it as a constant thing they can't let go of #anyway thanks for bringing this up anon #it's another part of the conversation whether or not it was with that specific anon #it certainly has been in the past?#so it's good to discuss

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sillystringpony · 1 month

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Reflections on Rosemary:

experimenting with a psuedo-pop-art style (ben day dots yay!) for some angsty chalmskinn fanart, and a discussion about Rosemary Chalmers.

[TW: discussion of eating disorders]

I made this piece because I feel like I haven't really seen a lot of chalmskinn content that takes Shauna into account, which I guess makes sense since she isn't given all that many interactions with her dad. Anyway, I've always seen her delinquency as stemming from her mother's death: in my eyes, she's not a bad person, she's just a girl who misses her mother. I started wondering how that would play into the chalmskinn ship; I feel like she'd be fine with her dad's various flings and one-night-stands, but would recoil at any sign of her father moving on emotionally from Rosemary. I definitely want to explore how that might impact the dynamic between Seymour and Shauna a bit more in the future, especially since I've always been a huge fan of the new step-parent trying to connect with a hung up step-child trope (I really love Quibble Pants/Clear Sky because of this... if there are any bronies reading).

Her Father's Temper and Her Mother's Eyes, 2024.

no need to grip the pancake so hard girl it aint going anywhere

If I'm remembering correctly, Rosemary's character was first introduced in season 16 when the superintendent mentions his wife is very sick. There's then no real mention of her until season 23, in Bart Stops to Smell the Roosevelts, when she's pretty much confirmed dead, and Gary reflects on how he misses her (which was way more upsetting than it should be, fuck you, you funny yellow people). She's finally explicitly confirmed as dead in season 30.

Autism is as autism does, so I fixated in on these little tidbits and tried to fill in the gaps with my own headcanons. Around the time I was doing so, I was going through a really hard period with my own anorexia - I was experiencing a lot of potentially fatal symptoms and beneath the anorexic delusion, I was genuinely scared for myself. Because of that, I sort of subconsciously projected myself onto Rosemary; it's never explained how exactly she died, only that she was 'very sick'. Rather than take the more conventional route of headcanoning her as having fallen victim to a fundamentally physical illness, I decided to go the route of having her lose the struggle to anorexia nervosa.

At first, obviously, it was just a simple projection of my own issues and illness at the time. You know: I'm scared I'm going to die from this illness... I'm going to cope with these fears by exploring the lives of a person's loved ones after an eating-disorder-related death. It did kind of start to make sense to me, though: Gary Chalmers is a very traditionally masculine man, and I feel like the struggle of losing someone to a mental illness is something that would play with his character with more depth than simply losing her to physical illness. This, in part, came from seeing my own father (who admittedly reminds me of Gary) react so poorly to my own eating disorder: there is something very emotionally impactful about witnessing men who only have the capacity to understand mental illness as a non-physical, unmanifested ailment fight to understand why their loved one is fading away because of something that cannot be cured with surgery, or medicine, or physical therapy. Also, inpatient treatment isn't exactly cheap; so I feel like Chalmers' working an extra job to earn money for what was implied to be Rosemary's treatment checks out under my headcanon.

I haven't really thought much about the specific timeline of things, but a few months ago, I was writing a chalmskinn oneshot where the boys get drunk and wind up on Mount Springfield in the middle of the night (sadly unfinished): there's a moment where the two discuss the death of Rosemary that I think pretty much sums the details of my headcanon up:

“Doy,” sang Seymour: admittedly in slightly bad taste. "You know, you never said what it was. Oh- Hic… Let me guess. Was it, ya' know... The big C?” “No, no… Heart failure.” “What-? Wait, wait, wait… All those years ago, you said she was sick.” “She was sick, you… You… Stupid,” grumbled Gary. He collapsed backwards and next to Seymour with a resigned sigh. “She had anorexia.” “...Oh.” “Mmm… I- I paid for every single treatment I could, Seymour. Behavioural therapy, so, so many inpatient stays in the psychiatric ward, but no matter what she went through, she just kept getting worse. It was so scary- I, she- The woman I married was, she was disappearing right in front of me; a little more every day. I tried to get her to eat; I- I tried to stop her from throwing it up… God, it got physical, once: she was a small, small woman, but that day… She fought like a, a wild dog- Scraping, and kicking- Fuck, even biting, just to get herself free enough from me to vomit.” “Goodness. I- I had no idea.” “Pssht… Nobody did. She- she hid it so well, but behind closed doors,” Chalmers had to stop speaking for a moment. He swayed from side to side in silence; as if the rocking would stop the tears threatening to spill from his eyes. “She was dying… Sometimes I wish it was cancer. Well- No, not cancer, just- Something physical, something that could have been cured with treatment, or a pill, or surgery, or what-fucking-ever. But nooo, it had to be a disorder that me- Stupid fucking me- That I couldn’t understand. That I couldn’t help her with… Besides paying for her treatment.”

I'm currently just over two months into recovery for anorexia, and I'm doing so much better (not to be TMI, but I definitely will not miss the gastrointestinal bleeding and incontinence, haha). Anyway, I just wanted to half-dedicate a post to talking about Rosemary; I was really socially isolated when my symptoms were at my worst, and it was headcanons and projections like this that helped me feel a bit less alone, and at the end of the day, really got me through the struggle of fighting a disorder on my lonesome. I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts on this, or if you personally have any similar headcanons for other fictional characters.

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fountainpenguin · 3 months

Text

Fanfic Schedule News - 2024

You can find this post later in my Pinned Post links

Overview

- Fairly OddParents - On hiatus while buffer building. Weekly Friday updates when ready, probably in summer. Origin and Knots are planned to alternate to show both sides of the war, but can be read independently. - WordGirl - On hiatus while buffer building. Weekly updates when ready, but lower priority than FOP. I'd like to post a few one-shots in spring and summer. - MCYT - Weekly Tuesday updates (Dog's Life until Chapter 30, then other 'fics while Dog's Life is on break). I'm also posting on Friday, but am moving towards posting on Sunday. - Total Drama - I'm not writing new content for the TD fandom, but I have 40+ 'fics I posted on FFN, but not AO3. Now that many are 10 years old, I'd like to archive some on AO3. - Every year I say I want to post my Mario drafts, but... I don't think 2024 will be that year. We will see.

Fandom-Specific Series

I post 'fics under my AO3 account, FountainPenguin.

If you'd like to get notifications for new works but don't want to follow me as a user, consider subscribing to some fandom-specific series:

Fairly OddParents

130 Station - All pieces in the 130 Reasons Why I'm Fairy Trash series.

These are further broken down into "Trains" (Ex: Main cast, Anti-Fairies, Pixies, shippy stuff, etc.) - Find info HERE

Notable pieces that are not 130 Prompts include Origin of the Pixies, Frayed Knots, Come What May, and Reedfilter Rules, which may be best subscribed to individually- They do not have a series at this time.

WordGirl

Heroes' Journey - Stuff about WordGirl and Huggy learning to share Fair City with Kid Math

28 Million Degrees - Character studies

MCYT - Not RPF, but the 4th Wall is very thin

Pixels Imperfect - Pixel people (who are all mob hybrids) live in a server hub and roleplay with their friends. Lots of interpersonal and social drama mixed with humor.

Neighborhood Watch AU - A serious take on the Life series lore and mechanics, ft. a semi-medieval world where the first 5 Life seasons take place in a single timeline.

Roundabout - Misc. MCYT content

These pages also have links to character relationship series.

Total Drama

Riddle's Drama - Total Drama 'fics I wrote 2013-2016.

These are also on my FFN, where I cross-post my FOP and WordGirl content as well.

-------

Fairly OddParents

I'm working on a buffer for Origin of the Pixies and Frayed Knots chapters so they can alternate during the war. At the moment I'm posting content for other fandoms, but once the buffer is ready, these will roll out weekly. Hopefully by summer.

- Origin is caught up and ready for the war meeting next chapter, so we're just wrapping up Anti-Cosmo's school and relationship drama in Knots :) - We're in the era of 2016 draft chapters, so it's a combo of "Lots of stuff is already written" and "Lots of stuff needs to be updated."

Origin and Knots will update on Fridays when the time is right (alternating weeks).

The 130 Prompts wrapped up Arc 2 in December and is on hiatus.

If you missed the Arc 2 finale, check out "Grudge"- It's about Happy Peppy Gary and Crocker striking a dangerous deal and I think it's cute :)

Ideally, I'd like to finish the whole Come What May draft before I post more chapters (so we don't have more of these long lurches between chapters), and Reedfilter Rules is in a similar boat.

Origin and Knots are my priority, but once Come What May starts, I'd like to do weekly or bi-weekly updates until it's done.

WordGirl

Factor It In - I'm very happy with how the story has come out so far. It's fully outlined, but this is a "serious and fluffy" story and I've been on a "silly and angsty" streak lately, so the mood isn't there.

- I'd like to circle back to it soon, but don't want to post more chapters until I have a nice buffer. - I'd like to post again in autumn 2024 and keep up weekly updates for several months. Origin and Knots are higher priority, but I really like this story and look forward to more.

I have some WordGirl one-shot drafts I've been sitting on for months. I haven't been satisfied with them enough to post, but you might see them soon as I finalize them. There's no schedule for these, but they include:

- Local alien girl is SO brave about Rex's problems while they lie in the grass discussing love and culture - Local alien boy loses his fawn spots, comes of age, and hits up Hal Hardbargain for alien-strength deodorant - Character study for Victor Best (My horrible son) - Character study for pre-series Rex living on Hexagon (My somehow more horrible son) - Other drafts from 2018 that need polish

I so desperately want to show the world my "Hopelessly romantic life planner since he was born" x "She can't commit to anything including this" marriage of convenience superhero drama... He's oblivious... She's dying inside... He is so embarrassing... Do u understand my vision?

MCYT

- Dog's Life Session 2 will end with Chapter 30. I've finished up to Chapter 28 and just need to tweak the remaining chapters. It will then be on hiatus for a few months while I work on the Session 3 buffer and other projects.

Edit - Session 2 will actually be 37 chapters, so another month

Expecting 4 to 5 months of hiatus from regular updates with some intermission chapters a few weeks apart (Full moon arc, my beloved). I have 'fics I look forward to posting (including new multi-chapters that already have nice buffers and will post weekly), so there will be plenty of MCYT content, but it seemed wise to leave Dog's Life on break to avoid burnout. I hope you enjoy these new stories! When Dog's Life returns, it'll be with weekly updates for several months as per usual :)

My "first half of 2024" goal is to close out as many of my existing MCYT multi-chapters as I can. Thank you for your patience with multi-chapters that have slow updates- I plan to finish them soon :)

I recently completed For Sale: Bird Wings (Never Worn) with weekly updates and am on track to finish One and a Half Birds with weekly Friday updates.

After this, I would like to finish the last 2 to 3 chapters of Criminal Experience (which has always had Friday updates as well). I don't want to post the next chapter until I nail down the story's end, so there's been a delay, but I'm glad I've wrapped up other multi-chapters and I look forward to finishing this soon.

After this, I plan to post MCYT content Tuesdays and Sundays, leaving Fridays for my other fandoms.

What's on Tuesdays?

At the moment, Dog's Life for 7 more weeks. Session 2 ends with Chapter 30 on April 9th.

Edit: Chapter 37 on May 28th

I've started new multi-chapters while chasing inspiration bursts, but I held back from posting them, so now I have buffers for those. I look forward to sharing them throughout 2024. Two notable ones are:

- Chalaza - Quick story about Martyn arriving in New Star Station. Bdubs voice study, some practice writing short scenes, and this is the story that helped me nail down pixel person anatomy. ^ Highlights include Bdubs trotting around with Martyn's dissolved soul in a fishbowl and regaling Etho with tales of how the Phantom Dragon carries phantom hybrids in her mouth. Also, Martyn hides under Etho's couch for 4 days. - Herobrine's Guide to the Between Dimension - A meta story about my Between lore, hybrid anatomy, and hybrid culture. No plot, but I think it's fun.

These are expected to post Tuesdays while Dog's Life is on break :)

What's on Sundays?

At the moment, nothing- I'm posting on Fridays (weekly updates to One and a Half Birds for the next several weeks).

I've also got a draft called "Scar's Castle" that's about Grian doing chores during 3rd Life... we'll see if that turns out nice.

Now that Secret Life is over, I've been able to do more worldbuilding and story planning for Neighborhood Watch AU. I plan to post some one-shots soon. Highlights include:

"Goodchild Oscar" - Oscar Goodchild's lovely parents put out a hit on his soulmate. He drags Grian around the Hearts Club Ball in his attempts to thwart it. Title's subject to change, but this is a fun one :) "They Never Found the Desert" - Local Green Life parrot can't get Red Life soulmate motivated for anything. Desperate times call for desperate measures. "Ethograms, Etho Slab, and Something About Ethics (Probably)" - Joel studies wolves... and the single(?) dad who keeps coming around with his kids.

I've also been working on the big multi-chapter for this universe, which centers around the Clocker family: Arsenic Waltz. It's fully outlined and I'm 5 chapters into the buffer, but it doesn't feel "fun" to read yet, so... Hmm.

- If anyone wants to beta read the first 10k words where Martyn arrives at the Clocker residence and meets his soulmate Cleo for the first time, lmk? Been struggling with the pacing of action vs. world lore for months and it'd be nice to get outside thoughts. - My plan was to start posting in April after Dog's Life ends, but it might need more time. With weekly updates, it should finish in December or January, but I'd like a nice buffer first. Possibly, this story will start in the summer and end in early 2025.

EDIT - I ended up killing all these darlings and moving them to a separate story, which will be released at a later time. The pacing was just not working :)

Additional multi-chapters to wrap up:

Closed Door Policy - Can't finish until Criminal Experience is done. Will post Tuesdays or Sundays as appropriate (Expecting 2 or 3 more chapters).

Dear Future Captain - Waiting for Dog's Life to catch up to this part of the timeline (Between Sessions 4 and 5?) - I like my draft for Chapter 3, but I'd rather wrap up other stories first.

With Acid In Your Eyes - Outlined and expecting 10 chapters. This is a high-tension story I was excited for, but it's on the backburner while finalizing lore, social dynamics, and plot points. It was ambitious to post this one before things were solid, but I look forward to returning when I'm ready :)

If you're interested in being a beta reader for any of my work, you can get in touch. I've not worked with beta readers in fanfic before, but if you're interested, we can talk about it!

Thanks for reading! Happy 2024!

#Fairly OddParents #FOP #WordGirl #ridwriting #Dog's Life #FAIRIES!#Pixels Imperfect #Neighborhood Watch #Long post

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notoriousbeb · 11 months

Note

hi! I'm new to tumblr so I don't know if you already talked about this but I recently discovered Something I've been waiting for (written with Gary Lightbody 👀) and I see a lot of parallels to How you get the girl (am I the only one?)

Welcome to tumbler, anon! 👋🏻

I think you’re onto something. Specifically “This might sound crazy/'Cause I just lost my mind, mind, mind” compared to “Tell her how you must have lost your mind.”

And “Baby, don’t you know that I’d wait all my life” versus “I would wait forever and ever.”

I’d love to know when SIBWF was written. Maybe we’ll find out someday! 🤞🏻

#ask #haylor #lyric parallels

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kiisaes · 2 years

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thoughts about bkdk being canon?

i sorta answered this already (here if u're curious) but i suppose i can answer again, this time more in depth and specific to bkdk :')

this turned out WAY longer than i thought so erm. more under the cut LOL

personally i don't think bkdk will be canon. before bkdks throw tomatoes at me, it's not because i dislike them as a ship — rather, canonizing them would be canonizing a main boy x boy relationship in an extremely popular shounen series. i've expressed my pessimism way more times than i should LOL but i truly don't think shounen jump would be willing to take this risk. let it be known that shounen jump has allowed canon lgbt ships and characters in their IPs — blue flag is perhaps the most well-known example of a main relationship being between two guys — but blue flag is not nearly as internationally famous as mha. the more eyes on an IP, the more cautious its choices have to be. it's why the most popular shounens tend to be "stereotypical", "cliche" and "cheesy"; this is what works with its main demographic (teenage/young adult males, to be exact), and if a series gets as big as the likes of mha, it's only smart to keep following that trend.

now, horikoshi does have a tendency to subvert expectations, even within his incredibly cliche hero school story.

bakugou is a subversion of the morally dangerous, edgy rival character by being one of the most heroic, straight-laced teens in the series (as well as genuinely apologizing for his faults that he recognizes are his own). even though he looks and acts like that, his motivations and aspirations are always admirable, even pure and childlike at times. unsurprisingly, people hate him for not being either fully evil or fully good, despite how horikoshi specifically wrote him to be a healthy balance between both his failures and his accomplishments.

deku is a subversion of the stereotypically boyish, emotionally stunted, shounen main character by being unashamedly emotional, awkward and sensitive regarding feelings other than anger or happiness. aka he cries a lot, so much so that average shounen dudebros genuinely hated him for being "soft" and "a baby", but praised him during his vigilante arc where he was ... well, for lack of better phrasing, far more similar to existing shounen protags for being less openly empathetic and more badass. you could honestly argue that deku's entire character isn't meant to be typically badass, flashy, or otherwise appealing to the standard shounen audience. his character arc literally deals with being the hero no one thanks or acknowledges, but he continues to selflessly help others despite the lack of appreciation.

ochako is a subversion of the one-note, intentionally-less-interesting-than-the-mc love interest character — it may not look like it at first glance, but ochako has her own arc that is both connected to deku, yet simultaneously not dependent on him that's been festering in the background since she developed her childish crush on him. the more i read this series, the more i'm convinced that she was never meant to end up with deku. she was only meant to play that role before she comes into her own skin and uses her attraction to deku as a way to be her own kind of hero. or horikoshi is going to shove them together last minute, in which, well, fuck me i guess.

all might is a subversion of the gary-stu archetype, because instead of being the perfect human specimen the way he always presents himself to the public, he's constantly physically deteriorating. not to mention he's a subversion of the know-all mentor character, because he honestly kind of sucks as a mentor. this comes from his own faults as a selfless hero, unable to properly learn from his own mistakes until it was too late. also because he's never taught anyone before so like duh. love him though. i am a toshinori supporter first, everything else second

there's other characters that have been subverted too but you get the idea. horikoshi is very good at writing characters, and to an extent, character relationships. that might be his biggest strength outside of, obviously, his art. and clearly he likes subverting our expectations, otherwise he wouldn't write his main characters like this. he knows what's the norm, uses those tropes as a baseline, only to go out of his way to overthrow those norms the further he develops each given character.

however! i don't think horikoshi will go so far as to subvert the stereotypical main ship (izuocha) and instead pick the relationship between the main two characters (bakudeku). rival relationships in shounen are pretty popular anyway, and mha is not the first shounen to have a deeply meaningful relationship between the male main character and the male main rival/deuteragonist. naruto and haikyuu both have oddly homoerotic friendships between the main two rivals and neither of these relationships are romantically canon.

the reasons why they aren't isn't ever explained why, but i sincerely think at least a sliver of the reason is because both characters are of the same gender. case in point: haikyuu only has a handful of canon boy x girl relationships by the time the series ended. so little that you could literally count the number on one hand, despite the amount of characters in the full cast. and yeah a vast majority of those characters were guys, but those guys were left presumably single, or at least their relationship statuses weren't disclosed. haikyuu did what naruto didn't, which was consciously understand that the most impactful relationships within the entire series were always between two men. for example, hinata and yachi are canonically close friends, and furudate could just pair them up without much thought. but they didn't, instead opting to keep hinata single and keeping his most important relationship with kageyama. likely somewhere there, no matter how faint, furudate didn't canonize kagehina due to fear of backlash, even though it'd make sense chemistry-wise.

bakudeku is in the same boat, where deku could be paired up with ochako if horikoshi just stopped giving fucks — they have a good friendship, with ochako having a crush, or at least a strong admiration, on deku — but he is decidedly not. at least not yet, but it'd be weird to canonize them after taking deku's long platonic feelings for her into account. deku has been entirely single this whole time with nothing aggressively romantic happening between him and ochako (except for the blackwhip situaiton, which ochako's VA herself mentioned as not inherently romantic, but as a chance for ochako to showcase her heroism). i'm inclined to believe this is part of horikoshi's subversions: specifically keeping deku and ochako away from heartfelt, desperate moments where their connection can be brought to the forefront. this makes it even stranger that horikoshi gives bakugou a lot of the standard damsel-in-distress roles, such as being taken hostage by the sludge villain, being kidnapped by the league of villains, and even being carried by deku during their fight with all might. granted he was carried over the shoulder, but he was specifically carried, lol. compared to ochako, bakugou is put in much more danger, consequently "depending" on deku to save him, as much as he hates that.

narratively, this makes bakudeku the most purposeful relationship, from their connection since childhood and having it develop slowly but surely during their adolescence.

their relationship is significantly meant to represent change and equality, as their relationship arc is parallel with many of mha's core themes. canonically they are the two students that inspire the rest of their class to be better heroes. the character deku interacts with most is arguably bakugou, if we put their history into account. even though bakugou was his bully for most of their lives, deku still unconditionally cares about him, even without bakugou asking him to. most times, it's actually against what bakugou wants, which is for deku to leave him alone. he also has the most emotional investment in bakugou, since he canonically sees bakugou as his image of victory, as well as someone who instantly triggers his emotional response as opposed to his logical response. literally like 80% of deku's "outbursts" where he acts utterly irrationally (and not always in a heroic way) are related to bakugou. see: sludge villian,

bakugou's kidnapping (in the original japanese version, i believe he says "give him back" in a distinctly possessive way, as if bakugou is genuinely his. but i could be wrong, idk how to read japanese),

deku vs kacchan 2 (instead of trying to talk down bakugou, he ends up fighting him even though it's against the rules, just because he can't exactly say no to bakugou's unconventional way of dealing with his feelings),

blackwhip's awakening (there is murder in his eyes. monoma insulted bakugou and deku was ready to kill him),

danger sense's awakening (same as blackwhip's awakening, but amplified to 100 given how bakugou was straight up stabbed in front of his eyes),

and bakugou's apology. (this one isn't deku being impulsive, more that bakugou appealed to his emotions and it worked way better than any of their classmates' attempts lol)

through a few of these given pieces of evidence, it's also evident that bakugou cares a hefty amount for deku, just in a more lowkey, less obvious way. this feeling gets distinctly more desperate when deku runs away, so much so that bakugou bluntly tells everyone that he knows deku best (something he probably would have never verbalized earlier in the series), mobilizes his class to chase him down, and eventually talks deku into coming back. so it's also canon that bakugou cannot stand the thought of deku not being near him — "it makes me wanna keep him at arm's length" and whatever.

in literally every story-related way imaginable, it makes sense for bakudeku to be canon. in terms of relationships, they have the most developed, dynamic, and interesting one. they get the most screen time. the proof is quite literally in the story. everything bkdks look at for bkdk proof is canon, a somewhat rare situation shipping-wise, where two characters that aren't together in canon already feel like they are together in canon. at this point, all they'd have to say to make it canon is "i like you". so why the hell am i such a fucking cynic about them?

i've already mentioned up there that it's already pretty damn hard for a shounen jump to canonize a gay ship. it doesn't matter how popular the ship is in the fandom; if the mangaka and/or the manga distributor doesn't want them to be canon, then they won't be canon. it's made even worse that deku and bakugou are the main characters; if they were background characters, they honestly might've had a better chance in my eyes.

because here's the thing: canonizing bakudeku means that mha (and to an extent, shounen jump) is now officially supporting the lgbt community. which it already techncially is with its side characters like toga (either bi or pan), magne (trans) and tiger (trans), but they're side characters. purposefully not as important as deku and bakugou, who are the poster characters for merch, advertising, and spin-off material such as movies and games. regarding the lgbt community, japan is more conservative than the US — they haven't legalized gay marriage, and the overall understanding and acceptance of it is lower than the western world. all of this combined makes it very hard for any canon lgbt content to be big, mainstream and serialized. this isn't to say that japan doesn't allow any shows involving gay characters, but those shows are considerably more niche, many of them falling under bl/gl instead of any other broad genre. even yuri on ice, which was a big hit for what it was worth, only got one season and a movie that is seemingly never coming out.

mha is, in every sense of the word, not a niche series. horikoshi would be risking a lot making his male main characters romantically involved with each other, because mha is not a series that can fly under the radar and be solely picked up by smaller groups that are more accepting of queer people and relationships. it'd be like making luffy from one piece canonically gay. and i have never read one piece but i'm pretty sure all the dudebros in both the west and in asia would flip their fucking shits. it doesn't matter how close deku and bakugou are. as long as both of them are guys, their canonization will be inherently "political". at best, people would complain about why romance should be in a story like this in the first place (a common homophobic argument against lgbt relationships, since they have nothing against the male mc dating the main girl). at worst, people would be outright homophobic, aggressive towards the direction the manga is moving, and horikoshi could face serious repercussions regarding funding and advertising.

shows in the west get screwed over constantly for including lgbt relationships. steven universe had to fight tooth and nail to include ruby and sapphire's romance, and even harder for their wedding. the owl house's lumity faced something much similar, and the show even got "cancelled" — i know it's a glass half-empty idea, but i think they got cut short partly because of lumity. kids cartoons always try sneaking in lgbt content, but either they get cut, hidden, or relegated to background characters where you'll blink and you'll miss it. we're getting better i guess, but the undeniable truth is that if even the US is this finicky about lgbt representation, then there's no way japan will fold so easily.

if bakugou were a girl, then bakudeku would be canon by now. if deku were a girl, then bakudeku would be canon by now. it's the same shit every time; shounen series write the most groundbreaking, mindblowing relationships between two dudes, only to never make them official due to their genders. instead, they're stuck with having the most important dynamic within the entire narrative, but it's strictly platonic. i don't think it's because shounen mangakas are inherently homophobic. i don't think horikoshi is homophobic at all. i simply think that they'd rather play it safe, knowing their main audience. shounen is not written for any fandom demographics. we're big, but ultimately we hold no power over the story.

when i say i don't think horikoshi is homophobic at all, i truly mean that, because — i think if he had it his way, he would've made bakudeku canon by now.

there's already so much shit. a baffling amount of shit to prove their loyalty to each other, how they affect each other and their arcs, how they're save to win, win to save. how bakugou is a key component of deku's character, and how deku is probably the most important character to bakugou's entire development. horikoshi is deliberate in how he writes them. he's deliberate in how he framed bakugou as "the girl" that "the hero" needs to save. he's deliberate in their complimentary personalities and values. he's very fucking deliberate in how he specifically makes their relationship the most changing, beneficial, and understanding. if horikoshi didn't care about these two and their connection, he wouldn't have done all this. he would've latched deku and bakugou onto other characters, or had them be standalone individuals. but no; their entire existence is about dependence. about finding that middle ground and growing together, intertwined.

he's also not afraid of adding lgbt characters into his series, as long as those characters don't get a large amount of screen time. like previously mentioned, toga is canonically not straight, having interest in both deku and ochako. and she's written pretty damn well too, with her attraction to deku and ochako playing a huge role in her characterization. like i said before, horikoshi is good at writing characters and relationships. i don't doubt that he's capable of writing lgbt relationships too, if given the opportunity. i'd actually shit bricks if horikoshi made togachako canon. somehow i find that more likely than bakudeku. sick and twisted.

he also made magne and tiger, who are both wholly unimportant characters and one of them fucking dies. but the point is, i believe that horikoshi would want to make more characters lgbt, he just very possibly cannot right now. there's too much at stake; he's a popular mangaka writing a hugely successful series, with an insanely wide outreach. there will obviously be a sized portion of his reader base that just absolutely hates the gays. i'm pretty sure he's aware of this.

all this said, i find it hard to believe that horikoshi doesn't like bakudeku as a canon duo. not a romantic relationship exactly, but at least as an official partner duo. they're constantly paired up promotionally anyway. it would take horikoshi zero effort to make them future pro hero partners. it would probably take him more effort to justify why they aren't. what i'm trying to say here is this: horikoshi is possibly trying, in the most subtle ways possible, to allude to their relationship deepening in the coming years. just, well, not strictly romantically. in the same way his fellow shounen mangakas either stuck to heterosexual romances or no romances at all, he will likely settle for a simple platonic relationship between bakudeku. but he won't confirm nor deny that bakudeku are more, the same way furudate didn't say shit about kagehina. it's up to your interpretation. they could be just friends or dating or married; just know that the mangaka himself likes the idea that his main two guy characters are this close with each other.

ANYWAY. THE POINT IS. i do not think bakudeku will be canon. i refuse to get my hopes up, and i will continue to be a pessimistic little bitch until i'm proven wrong. i hope i am proven wrong. i hope horikoshi decides to make them canon, i really hope he does. but i'm just not sure if he'll be allowed that chance, or if he'll want to do it in the first place. in the meantime, i am fully prepared to see bakudeku as yet another failed mlm relationship in mainstream shounen, one that could have been genuinely revolutionary. oh well. at least we still have fan content.

#MIN SHUT THE FUCK UP. OH MY GOD.#NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR U TALK FOR HOURS ON END ON WHY U'RE AN ASSHOLE CYNIC.#but uhhh yeah those are my unfiltered thoughts. absolutely batshit insane of me i think.#again these are just my thoughts totally opinionated u can fully disagree with me if u want #also this probably makes no sense and has no structure. whoops. sorry #long post #asks for becki #bakudeku

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popculturegenealogy · 1 year

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A different type of family tree: Applying family history concepts to animation

"Modern Cartoon Family Tree 2.0" by AlexB9598w

This family tree is unlike any other tree I've seen before. I thought I'd do a fun one this week. It's not focused on a specific character or on the draw of family, the latter which I wrote about before. Instead, this shows the connection between people and their different shows. It all starts out with Donovan Cook and moves down from there. I think this tree is interesting in that it shows the connection between these shows. However it is also, you could say, limiting. I say that because it doesn't exactly focus on the interconnection between people. I know that, for instance, that Rebecca Sugar and Ian Jones-Quartey are married, but this chart only shows them as writers. Similarly, I know about the controversy which enveloped Twelve Forever, leading to the end of the show, and Shadi Petosky, a trans woman, becoming the executive producer of the show and having her own project on the way. Since I don't know most of these shows, I'm narrowing it down to the shows I do know and working back from there. Let's start with one of my favorite shows, Cleopatra in Space, and focusing on the executive producer of that show, Doug Langdale.

Reprinted from my Genealogy in Popular Culture WordPress blog. Originally published on August 28, 2020.

I then expanded this by looking at the companies behind each one of these productions, and it starts to look more like a bit of a tree, showing the parent companies and production companies. Keep in mind that Sony Pictures Television, as of 2002, owns both Columbia divisions, so the chart would look a little different now. Additionally, DreamWorks is now owned by Universal Pictures, a division of NBC Universal, which is, itself, owned by Comcast. So, the chart would look different today.

Now, I wanted to expand this a little more, so I originally wanted to look at all those who have been listed as being on the Cleopatra in Space crew (herein called Cleo Crew), apart from Doug Langdale. Since that was 40 people, I narrowed it down to storyboarders, which consisted of 18 people in total: Aaron Brewer, Abigail Davies, Adam Temple, Andrew Marshel, Bob Suarez, Chris Ybarra, Derek Thompson, Eugene Huang, Gary Ye, Ingrid Kan, Kevin Slawinski, Laurianne Uy, Samantha Suyi Lee, Scooter Tidwell, Thalia Tomlinson, Topher Parnell, and Wei Li. From there, I broke it down by the overlapping shows that they had worked on. [1] I ended up narrowing it down mainly to DreamWorks shows, as you'll see in the chart below:

We learn a lot from this. For one, Chris Ybarra and Bob Suarez had worked together and/or on two of the same shows: Big Mouth and Turbo Fast. Additionally, Adam Temple and Wei Li had both worked on Carmen Sandiego, while Abigail "Abby" Davies and Laur Uy had worked on Spirit Riding Free. We also find that Bob Suarez and Laur Uy worked on the same show too. Even more fascinating is the fact that ALL of these productions were on Netflix and most, apart from Carmen Sandiego, were tied to DreamWorks. We can conclude that many of the storyboarders probably knew each other and/or had worked with one another in the past. If we combine this with the information about Doug Langdale I showed earlier, it would mean that Langdale worked on the same team as Bob Suarez and Laur Uy on The Adventures of Puss and Boots. These connections were likely part of the reason they were hired in the first place.

In sum, this is a unique family tree of sorts, which shows connections between those in the animation industry. You can see who the "parents" (like DreamWorks and Houghton Mifflin) are and who the "children" (like Bob Suarez and Laur Uy) are as well. This sort of analysis is much better than the "modern cartoon family tree" shown at the beginning of that post. That post almost treats the connections between individuals as static. I may do another one about LGBTQ animations or something else. We'll see what happens! As always, comments are welcome, as I'm deeply unsure about what I'll write about next.

Notes

[1] I also found that Aaron Brewer and Eugene Huang storyboarded Little Big Awesome, which was produced by Amazon Studios and Titmouse, Inc., and that Aaron Brewer and Bob Suarez storyboarded Niko and the Sword of Light, produced by the same groups. Additionally, Frank Squillace directed Jackie Chan Adventures, while Scooter Tidwell was a storyboarder. At the same time, Bob Suarez, Frank Squillace, and Scooter Tidwell storyboarded The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Furthermore, Abigail Davies worked on Cartoon Network's Ben 10, with Scooter Tidwell as a sequence director. Finally, Frank Squillace directed Transformers: Rescue Bots while Thalia Tomlinson worked as an animator for the same show.

#animation #family trees #twelve forever #shadi petosky #rebecca sugar #ian jones quartey #cleopatra in space #doug langdale #dreamworks #comcast #nbc universal #the weekenders #storyboarders #spirit riding free #lgbtq #pop culture #reviews

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coquelicoq · 10 months

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First I'd like to say, it's a pretty impressive list of french books to have read in only 12 months! (even for a french speaker ngl).

I'm not super well versed in classic literature, novel wise (tho I liked "le dernier jour d'un condamné" by Hugo, "la promesse de l'aube" by Romain Gary, and as cliché as it may be I adore "le petit prince") but if you like theater ! In classics I’d recommend "Phèdre" and "Iphigénie" by Racine, Molière ("le malade imaginaire" and "les fourberies de scapin" are personal favorites),"Hernani" by Hugo again (♡♡), and for more modern stuff "Rhinocéros" and "la cantatrice chauve" by Ionesco. Oh, and "Huis Clos" by Sartre!

In poetry, first of all I think Villon is a great, and brave choice especially if you have it in old french (one of my all time favorite poem is his, "la ballade des pendus"). Otherwise, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine and Apollinaire !

In a bit more modern things, if you liked Queneau I’d say give "Zazie dans le métro" a try – tho the way he plays with vocabulary and spelling in this one can be challenging (but it is very fun). Then "Au bonheur des ogres" and "La fée carabine" by Daniel Pennac (I assume the rest of "La saga malaussène" is good too but I have only read those two so far), "escalier C" by Elvire Murail (this one is a big big big fave of mine ♡♡♡), "mercure"by Amélie Nothomb (she’s super prolific but this is the one I remember really enjoying).

For sci-fi, I realize I am not very up to date with what french literature proposes. It’s been quite some time but I remember enjoying “le cycle des fourmis” and “les thanatonautes” + “l’empire des anges” by Bernard Werber. Also “les lutteurs immobiles” by Serge Brussolo. My mother is a harcore fan of Pierre Bordage, so I will slip his name here too. Then I don’t know if you enjoy reading short stories, but in between some scifi/fantasy/fantastique I can rec “la vieille anglaise et le continent – et autres récits” by Jeanne-A Débats, “notre dame aux écailles” and “le jardin des silences” by Mélanie Fazi, Oh and in … I guess technically fantasy? But bordering historical fiction bc of the realism, “chien du heaume” and the next one “mordre le bouclier” by Justine Niogret are two very good short novels.

I am probably missing a ton of great titles, but my brain is failing me and I have very few books in french here (*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ) (most of them stayed, well. In France). But this makes me think I really need to get back into actually reading in french – so I am adding Valérie Perrin to my lists for sure!

omg thank you for these recs!! this is so detailed and specific, i love it. you're reminding me i've read several of these before, like i had forgotten about rhinocéros but we read it in high school and i really loved it! i should reread that and/or read some other ionesco for sure. speaking of absurdist plays, have you read en attendant godot? i've read it in english but i know it was in french originally so i've been thinking about trying that. big fan of french absurdism.

i also read a lot of molière in high school french classes (i remember giving an extremely boring and long-winded presentation (for everyone else; i was super into it) on his plays to my english class for some reason??), which is how i first learned what a cuckold is lol. and of course we read some baudelaire but i really want to revisit him! also omg apollinaire is the calligramme guy, right? those rewired my brain. i will check out more of his stuff for sure. and it's good to have the names of some other heavy hitters so i can expand out to cover more than was included in my formal education obvi. (like i have read zero racine? which seems like an oversight in curriculum, but what do i know.)

i do have villon in old french 😩 or i guess technically middle french is what he was writing in. the reason i've been putting it off is that right after the preface there's a four-page section on "graphie et prononciation" and i was just like hmmmm is this really something i need to be introducing into my life at this formative time. like i'm still sort of coming to terms with modern french spelling and pronunciation and this seems like it might just confuse me. so i might not be quite ready, but it's here for me when i've leveled up lol.

i loved the one book by queneau i've read so far, so i super appreciate getting recs for other works by him. and i read one amélie nothomb a few years ago, but when i went to look at what else i could read by her i got so overwhelmed by the sheer number that i couldn't pick! so it's good to have your suggestion for a particular title 😊 i've not heard of the other people you mentioned but will look into them!

thank you so much for pointing me in some scifi/fantasy directions 👀📝 i will take a look at these authors and titles...

yeah i super recommend changer l'eau des fleurs, and i know valérie perrin has written at least two other novels, so i'm gonna try to get my hands on those! the challenge now is that whenever i try to buy books from overseas my credit card company marks it as fraud and cancels the transaction lol. my grandmother found this us-based company that imports books from france and really wants to get me some more french-language books for christmas, but their selection isn't huge. this gives me lots of ideas though and i'm sure they will have at least some of the books you mentioned! thank you again, you really came through 🥰🥰

#always looking out for me...you're a legend for real #french #to read #asks #not anon #also le petit prince is cliche FOR A REASON #absolute classic. i haven't reread but only because 1) i don't own it and 2) it is extremely emotionally potent and i'm not sure i am #in a place to have my heart dissected right now #mais si tu m'apprivoises ma vie sera comme ensoleillée...#j'y gagne à cause de la couleur du blé.#<-GET OUTTA HERE WITH THAT SHIT! I'M TRYING TO LIVE MY LIFE!!!!

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player1064 · 10 days

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i’d be interested to hear about your planning process for your neville fic… how did you think about what would be included in each chapter? do you have a general timeline youre working on that you fragmentes and rearranged? i really love the fic and would like to know more about how you’re going about it!!

oooooooh good question.... short answer I DID have a plan but I'm in too deep now and we're mostly going on vibes

okay I started writing out the long answer and it's getting VERY long (sorry guys for being passionate about my silly rpf fic writing process) so I'm putting it under the cut

I was actually working on this fic for AGES before I started posting it, it started out I'd just write sections as I thought of them but then I got Very Deep into timelines and stuff so it's like

I've got a list that's got basic details of Gary & Becks' actual careers going by year so that's got like:

debuts for club/england

retirements for club/england

trophies won by manchester united between 1993-2013

personal awards/honours won

when Becks moved to different clubs

post-football career stuff like start/finish of coaching jobs, tv stuff, salford, miami, etc

Personal life stuff - breakups, meeting real life partners, weddings etc

Salford stuff e.g. promotions and trophies from 2014-present

(here's a screenshot actually kdghdfkjfsda... turns out I Love talking about this)

THEN as an aside to that list I've got notes of the key things that have to change for the AU to work - and specific dates of scenes that I could potentially write (still basic stuff e.g. for the chapter that's just gone up I had '2000 - bad season', '2023 - fight about documentary', '2021 - collapses at the euros', '2020 - weird pandemic conversation with carra')

I also have a page filled with random dialogue I've written without the full like Written Out Section bc I'm someone who thinks in conversations so I like having somewhere to dump all the conversations I'm imagining happening at various points in the fic... they don't all make it in for example here's part of the original valencia conversation gary & becks were going to have:

Then I've got a list that goes year by year which is less focused on Events and more on like their emotional journeys and what their relationship situation is at any given point.... trying to see if there's anything on that list that wouldn't give spoilers i THINK this one has mostly all been covered at this point:

yes there is still more to come. SORRY this is so insanely detailed but this fic has consuming my every waking thought for months. so.

so before I started posting it, like I said I was just writing sections as they came to me. I keep them in onenote rather than word bc then they're separate pages which is easier to navigate quickly and find what I want as I'm going.

I actually wasn't sure if I was gonna do the mixed up timeline or go straight chronological order but I think going chronilogically would be difficult bc there are some parts of their lives that get a lot more weight and attention than others and some that get skipped over just bc they're not super relevant to the story. so instead they're organised kind of by theme.

SO how I decide what's going in each chapter is like I had a vague outline of what I want the sort of Journey through the fic to look like, which is basically (again no spoilers so JUST for what's posted so far):

(ALSO actually reading through my notes on this I've gone slightly off course lately bc these things sort of get away from me. so this is a good reminder to myself that I did at one point have a plan that I was quite happy with and I should try keep it in mind)

1: establish the main things that have changed in this universe (not being sold to madrid and getting together when they're very young)

2: this bit is harder to explain but it's like. part of it is sort of highlighting different points where their paths diverged from real life and part is just like they're happy and in love but the outside world keeps creeping in - Becks getting more and more famous, Gary feeling like he can't keep up, the difficultes of being a gay footballer.

3: Jamie's coming in and starting to mess things up

4: issues they're having with their careers sort of seeping into their relationship and making everything a lot harder than it needs to be.

again I've not read through these notes recently and now I'm thinking I probably should have - I've just been going with the vibes which sometimes u need to do it's not a bad thing BUT anyway I just saw this note I made and I really really like it I think it's a good summary of the fic as a whole kfdhjgkdfs

GUESS WHAT I'm still not done. Yes this is insanely intricately planned out yes like I said the last couple of chapters I've mostly just been going by vibes rather than the actual plan I actually had. For example turns out I had never intended to write that second jamie interlude. oops!

SO like I said I keep all the sections as individual pages in a section of a onenote notebook and those I keep in chronological order for easy navigating. Then I use notion's board view and I've got the date of each section as a card that I can easily drag and drop between columns representing chapters so that I can organise how I want them to flow and I can reorder things until I'm happy with them:

and then after obsessively researching every single section for historical accuracy I just kind of. throw it all together and post it and hope for the best........

THANK U FOR THIS ASK btw!!!!!!!!! it was really really fun trying to explain all of this and I'm sure it looks like a complete mess (this isn't even including all my random scribbles in notebooks omg) but yeah. I really really love writing this fic I love this universe I love imagining them happy and in love I wish I didn't have to give them so many problems but as I'm always saying I LOVE pain and suffering!!!!

#my god this ended up so long. anon im sorry #also if u all see how complicated im making this u can also understand why i've not been able to do any ask fics alongside it #bc i Cannot switch focus that easily. adhd babeeeeeeey #beville

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funky-gobbo-art · 9 months

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Trans!Donovan

I wanna share finally this really cringey au I made for Mafia 3 but I think I need to start with my trans!Donovan headcanon. I know I made a big headcanon note post here a while back but some little things changed since then. I'm way more open with headcanoning John as a homosexual man, and for a bit now I've also been seeing him as a trans man as well, mostly cause THIS post was the start of some brain worms.

So, most of my main headcanons are still in place: Born in the Southwestern part of PA, a November Scorpio, has autism and also BPD, parents are Irish immigrants, has 2 older brothers. Father is a WW2 vet, oldest brother fought in the Korean War, middle brother is a baseball player. Very Catholic upbringing, both parents were devout, were working class but dad got successful in either mining or steel based production.

Big change is that I think the oldest brother should die overseas in the Korean War, but he was the favorite in the family and his death made things even more tense.

Now for the trans specific stuff:

(Disclaimer: I'm very aware how difficult it would be for a trans man in this era to do ANY of this stuff.)

Born female, deadname was "Jacqueline" but got called "Jackie" a lot, despite being raised female in the 30's-40's, he still has his nosey personality, eavesdropped a lot. Still got into technology like messing with radios and phones, which would get him in trouble a lot. Was considered a nerd with his interest in tech, politics and history.

Had a habit of stealing his middle brothers clothes a lot, which didn't bother him, since they got along during this time.

Mom would dress him up a lot, especially for church, which John hated but had to take it for most of his childhood. Since he was socialized female, his mother would constantly make comments on his body and how he dressed himself, once he became a preteen and started highschool, she would start shaming him for even saying "Hi" to another boy.

Went to Catholic schools until he graduated. Was a hard kid to get along with but he was very smart and had great grades, even picking up of foreign languages very fast (got that USEFUL autism lol). Nuns did not like him especially in his later teens because he started openly questioning the religion and pointing on contradictions in the Bible.

Speaking of his teens: that's when he started to think more about his gender and while he was about 16/17, he started transitioning discreetly, even at a young age he was good at making shady connections.

Since binders and sports-bras didn't exist yet, he unfortunately went through most of his teens and 20s binding with bandages, or wearing a lot of layers.

He graduated highschool at 17 and was miraculously able to get in Princeton University, despite them not letting in female students yet. John used his dads connections and submitted an application under their noses and didn't let his parents know the finer details of it.

Since his own shady connections he was able to change up his legal documents so he can present them at the University to show them that he's a man.

Eventually he graduated and was recruited into the C.I.A. They did not know he was a FTM transgendered man, and never found out.

The only people that did know about his identity were, in order: the person that got him hormones and changed his documents, a friend thats a doctor that works for the C.I.A, Connor Aldridge, Robert Marshall, Jackie Grimaldi, Gary (helicopter pilot), and finally Lincoln Clay.

Speaking of Aldridge, in John's early days in the Agency he had to work under him, and since Connor was his mentor, he started trusting him a lot during their time together in Guatemala.

Obviously it ended really badly as seen in Stones Unturned, but this was the first time John really came out to someone officially and this shortly lead to him and Connor having a relationship behind the scenes.

After this everything goes from my trans headcanon to my Cringe AU, so I'll wrap this up here:

Is AFAB and started fully identifying as a man in his mid-late teens.

Binded with layered clothing and bandages. Takes Testosterone injections.

Got top surgery in Vietnam from a South Vietnam allied doctor. Claimed he got ambushed in the country and needed surgery when he's asked from superiors.

Cut contact with family during Princeton years. Cannot face them these days at all.

Liked boys when he was younger which his mom didn't like, still likes men now in a way a lot of people wouldn't like. But he doesn't care lol.

Hormones still won't let him grow facial hair.

Don't worry about the things that don't make sense :)

If you have any problems with this and think I'm weird, I understand but also 👇👇👇

Stay tuned for the Cringe AU which is gonna get a lot worse :3

#mafia 3 #mafia iii #john donovan #donovan mafia 3 #connor aldridge #stones unturned #headcanons #trans headcanon #trans man #transmasculine #gay #homosexual #traditional art #my art #im an autistic transmasc that attached myself to this character by accident and now the thoughts wont stop lmao

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