#also I put them in a very loose order which does not exist in the actual playlist

[gatorbites-imagines]

Hello, hope you are having a good day/night?

I was wondering if I could request something where Joker uses Jason Todd's DNA to create a child (male) and raises him. What would happen when Jason finds out he not only has a kid but the kid been being raised by Joker the man who tortured and killed him!

And how will Bruce react to seeing Jason's son and how much he looks like his dad?

Platonic batfam x kid reader

Headcanons

I’m still right in the middle of exam season right now, which is why I haven’t been writing much.

Like I said, you are a redheaded kid, because I love redhead Jason too much not to add it. Joker being the joker would most likely make you color your hair black though, just like Jason did when he was robin.

If Joker got Jasons DNA when he killed him, then you would be around 8, as Jason died at 15 and is 23 nowadays (I got this age from the dc twitter account), and because of Jasons genes you are most likely a small and skinny kid.

The smallness most likely also comes from the fact that Joker is the one raising you, alongside Harley if they are still together at that point.

Raising you is a very loose word, Joker does not have a parental bone in his body, and only clones you to taunt the bats. So, he is nowhere near a good parent and treats you like an extension of the Robin he killed.

This would lead to a lot of mistreatments, because it’s the Joker, what do you expect. Both mental and physical abuse would be present in your life, as the Joker wouldn’t feel any love or care for you as a person.

Because of this you wouldn’t be going to school either, but you are smart, so you teach yourself how to read and write, and you’ll have to learn math and the likes to be able to use some weapons to their full potential.

Instead of being allowed to be a child your only purpose to exist is to be a tool to taunt the bats, so you most likely wouldn’t be given a name either and would just be called Robin by Joker and anyone else who knows you exist.

Being “raised” by joker also means your morals are very skewed, and you have no problem with murder or torture, but what do you expect from someone like the joker.

The bats would learn about your existence during one of the Jokers latest plans. It would be during one of his more crazy ideas, you know, with a lot of hostages and a lot at risk.

I can imagine two scenarios. The Joker either tying you up and posing you bruised up and bloody whilst wearing the Robin outfit, to taunt Batman.

Or you are being used as a surprise attack when they get a little too close to catching the Joker. Joker of course wouldn’t care about your wellbeing besides being a tool for him, so if you get shot or break bones he doesn’t care.

They would of course all be shocked and shaken at seeing an 8-year-old kid wearing Jason’s robin outfit there, and especially with how little care you show about yourself and your own wellbeing.

Joker would whisk you away at the last moment, though not without you being hurt during the fighting, because he still has plans on using you to harm the bats, especially batman and red hood.

The batfam would panic at the knowledge that Joker has a child that hes using for his evil plans, they have no idea you are Jason’s clone yet, but they still want to rescue you.

They can only assume you’ve been trained since birth, with how skilled you are, which makes them all emotional. Especially the likes of Damian and Cass, since they were trained from infancy as well.

They would immediately start searching lost child cases for anyone fitting your description but come up empty handed because you are a clone.

After this encounter the Joker would use you in his plans more and more, because he gets great joy from seeing how desperate the batfam is to figure out who you are or to save you.

You’ve never felt kindness before and have never been your own person though, so you don’t trust them and just do whatever the Joker orders you to do, putting yourself in life and death situations more than once.

Bruce would be heartbroken with how familiar you look in your robin outfit, as you are a complete copy of how Jason looked back then. Dick and Jason, and maybe Tim, would be the only ones able to recognize your appearance, which would make them all want to save you even more.

After finally getting your blood and/or DNA to test after another deadly situation you’ve put yourself in, they take it back to the cave to test, where they learn your relation to Jason.

To say the batfam would all be shaken and enraged by the discovery would be an understatement. They’re shaken at the fact that Joker has had a child grown from Jasons DNA for who knows how long, and would be enraged at the fact that Jasons DNA was used and that you’ve obviously been abused this entire time.

They buckle down even more to get you to their side and make you come with them willingly, and it works in their favor as the Joker has become more lax with your reigns. It seems he’s growing bored of using the same thing over and over again, so he’s kinda just letting you run freely as he comes up with new plans.

It would start with Jason or Tim, or maybe even Cass, who would be able to get closer to you. They wouldn’t push to get you to come with them, and just get you to be used to their presence instead of immediately seeing them as a threat.

They know this is a slow process and that they can’t rush it, since you would run at the first sign of them trying to snatch you up.

As this is happening Jason can be caught reading parenting books, things about child psychology and the affects of child abuse. He already knew all of this, but he keeps refreshing it for when they get you to trust them.

Bruce would be going through a grieving process again, as you are a direct result of him failing Jason. But this time he would have a larger support system which would stop him from spiraling like last time.

Over time you get used to the presence of the batfam when you are on your own, they bring you meals or stuff to drink. Of course, you don’t trust it in the beginning, knowing they could be drugging you, but as time passes you start to eat with them.

At some point, Damian would end up telling you about his own childhood and how wrong it was, and that he didn’t deserve that abuse, and neither do you.

That would be what starts to make you understand that the Joker isn’t a good guardian and that you may be worth more than he says you are.

They don’t get much further though, as the Joker has gotten bored of you and the purpose you were supposed to serve, so he wants to get rid of you. He would try to recreate the day he killed Jason, with the crowbar and everything.

Bruce is the one to save you before you get blown up though, Bruce almost in a frenzy to not lose another kid that way every again. You would be bruised and battered with broken bones and a concussion, but you would be alive.

They would bring you to a doctor or healer, probably a league one for identity reasons, and the fact that they could use magic to heal you faster.

Jason wouldn’t leave you alone as you are unconscious for days, the batfam would stick close by but also be working hard on cracking down on the Joker and destroying whatever he has left of his cloning experiments.

After you wake up, a lot of time would be used introducing you to the life of a normal child, and helping you heal both mentally and physically.

Thankfully they have a lot of experienced with helping kids who were raised to be weapons, with Cass and Damian and the likes, so they know what to do for the most part.

Jason never thought he would be a dad, especially not with how young he is, but he takes to it like a duck to water. Hes always had a soft spot for kids, and maybe in the back of his mind always wanted a kid of his own, so you help him settle in a way he didn’t know he could.

They all joke about Bruce spoiling you, because you are like a mix of Cass, Damian and Jason, and that Bruce’s fatherly urges can’t be stopped. It isn’t a joke though, after you learn to have your own opinions and wants, Bruce would bend over backwards for you like he would for any of his kids.

The first time you call Jason dad, he has to choke back tears, because he never thought you’d see him as your dad or accept him. You two go out to bat burger to celebrate.

They of course make up legal papers for you as well so you can start going to school after healing mentally and physically. They wouldn’t allow you to run around at night with them for a while either, as they want you to find who you are before you decide to be a hero or not.

And whether you decide to be a vigilante or just a civilian, they support you the entire way. Even if you pick to be a hero, they’d still be overprotective since you are the youngest, much to your annoyance, but you know its cuz they love you.

They all love you, and you love them. And if you choose to be a hero and base your outfit around your dads and it makes him cry, who will catch him with the helmet on. The other heroes think you are adorable too. You have youngest child privilege in the hero world, learn to wield it.

#male reader #kid reader #dc #batfam #jason todd #bruce wayne #young justice #justice league #dc imagine #dc headcanon #dc x male reader #dc x reader #batfam imagine #batfam headcanon #batfam x male reader #batfam x reader #jason todd imagine #jason todd headcanon #jason todd x male reader #jason todd x reader #bruce wayne imagine #bruce wayne headcanon #bruce wayne x male reader #bruce wayne x reader #young justice imagine #young justice headcanon #young justice x male reader #young justice x reader #justice league imagine #justice league headcanon

[karniss-bg3]

I figured you’d be the right person to ask this question, why is Kar’niss’ skin super pale when he was originally a drow? 🖤

I had the same question myself and I did some digging a bit ago. All of the official drider concept art I've seen has depicted driders with dark skin, so it stands to reason that the transformation alone wouldn't be enough to alter his appearance. This leaves one interesting theory at play; Kar'niss was a Szarkai.

Szarkai, which translates to "ghost spiders", are albino drow. This is a very rare mutation that affects only 0.1% of the drow population. Their skin tones are so light in fact that they are able to pass as surface elves with little trouble. Some would think that this would make them outcasts but in fact Szarkai were viewed as a blessing of Lolth, hence their namesake.

There are some interesting crossover traits between Kar'niss and Szarkai that lean me more toward this theory, such as: -Szarkai look almost identical to drow outside of the skin tone. However, they have also been known to have minor deformities. The most notable is "gnarled and claw-like hands" which we know Kar'niss to possess. Originally I thought this was due to the transformation, but now I think he may have had it prior to the change.

-They are very adverse toward combat, preferring to let others do the dirty work so to speak. When the player engages Kar'niss in a fight one of the first things he does after his multi-attack is cast sanctuary on himself, protecting himself from harm and forcing his companions to take the hits. I also saw a video where someone cast banish on Kar'niss and when he returned he disengaged, healed himself, and ran from the fight. Now this was likely a bug, but it'd be on brand for Szarkai's desire to escape a fight rather than engage in it.

-They were mostly used as spies and gathering information since they could easily blend into surface societies. While there isn't much evidence that Kar'niss has much training in this field, what stuck out to me was the professions Szarkai favored. One of them is bard, and we have at least some notion that Kar'niss is linked to one musical instrument by way of the spider's lyre. I recall someone commenting asking if the lyre may have belonged to Kar'niss at one point and while I can't say with certainty, if it was and Minthara was merely holding on to it then it'd lend credence to him being a bard formerly. That and he's super pissed if you play it poorly!

-I haven't done a playthrough with Minthara in my party so I am not familiar with all of her dialogue lines. However, she does know Kar'niss in some capacity and the lyre is used to call him. Her last name is Baenre which is one of the most notable drow houses in all of Menzoberranzan, famous for Jarlaxle the leader of Bregan D'aerthe. I say this because Szarkai seemed to be far more common in noble houses, which Baenre would be. This could, even if loosely, establish a link between them.

IF this is true, that puts a very intense spin on Kar'niss' potential history. Szarkai were protected, considered valuable, and their existence kept secret. They were removed from drow life, and even kept in far safer conditions than others. This didn't mean they were shielded from the cruelty drow are known for but it was a different kind of cruelty. Often trained from a very young age to be spies and saboteurs, and subsequently being shipped to human cities to do as ordered. It makes me wonder what Kar'niss could've done to incur Lolth's wrath to the extent she warped him into a drider. Betrayal? Failure? Weakness? Or perhaps Lolth just really wanted an alabaster pet, it's hard to say.

Thanks for the ask!

#baldur's gate 3 #kar'niss #drider #bg3 #karniss #baldurs gate 3 #szarkai #drow #lore #answered

[jacksgreysays]

i saw this and this is SO perfect for shikako: "ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem" (with the sword, she seeks peace under liberty) - maybe something with the shikabane-hime in the gardens-verse?

Okay anon, I did learn a few things about this phrase, specifically: The phrase is often loosely translated into English as "By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty." The literal translation, however, is "she seeks with the sword peaceful repose under liberty." The "she" in question refers to the word manus from the full phrase manus haec inimica tyrannis ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem, which means "this hand, an enemy to tyrants, seeks with the sword peaceful repose under liberty."

Which, you know, is VERY in flavor of my usual “let’s murder Danzo, that’ll take care of at least 95% of the world’s issues” as seen within the Shikako Nara’s Guide To Delinquency and Military Insurrection series which is basically where I put all of my messing around in the Gardens-verse.

But I find myself interested in the, hm… steps of translation for the phrase… like, the original specifically saying “this hand, an enemy to tyrants” which is then removed from the final phrase. However, the final phrase does still keep the sword and also specifically says peace ONLY under liberty.

So my interpretation of this is: once “this hand, [she who is] an enemy to tyrants,” goes away, all that remains is the sword, ie violence, and the prioritization of liberty over peace. Which actually makes me wonder if… hm… I wouldn’t necessarily say a “dark turn AU” but a… pessimistic version of the “let’s murder Danzo, that’ll take care of at least 95% of the world’s issues.” What happens to Konoha as an institution after Danzo is dead and all of his machinations are brought to light?

ESPECIALLY considering how much he claimed to be merely following the Nidaime’s vision. Imagine the repercussions! The implication that Konoha has been so twisted and rotten from its founding. And I’m not saying it’s a return to the Warring Clans Era, because it’s not as if the clans would necessarily rekindle any issues with each other, but how much of the village infrastructure is suspect? How many people did Danzo influence either with the ROOT seal or with Shisui’s eye?

How many clans then think, we are not free under Konoha?

For example, the twins vows when becoming genin prioritize clan, then allies, then teammates, then the village. (I know they had different vows, but I think that’s roughly the order of priority for both of them?) But I can’t imagine—given Hatake Sakumo’s treatment by Konoha when he saved his teammates and “started the war” (although I do have Danzo-related headcanons for that, of course)—that vow would prevent a court martial or disciplinary action.

So if being a good soldier of Konoha contradicts being a good member of the clan, then the existence of Konoha itself is a contradiction to a clan’s existence—I am, of course, exaggerating for the sake of the premise, and I guess what I’m saying is that the premise is:

Shikako killing Danzo does solve a lot of problems, but then unleashes a whole lot of other problems which, unfortunately, a single murder will not solve. Might be multiple murders. Or maybe a war. Whoops.

Because! The fact that the phrase wasn’t shortened to just “Peace [Only] Under Liberty,” the fact that the “by the sword” part was kept is interesting. But a sword without a hand behind it, a sword without an enemy to target, is just an unsheathed weapon that could harm allies or yourself.

So that is the premise, but I don’t know what the plot would be, per se…

OR maybe this is a universe in which someone that ISN’T multiverse-traveling Shikabane-hime clocks Danzo’s rancid vibes and kills him but without a plan to deal with the fall out or a way to deescalate the situation. Like… if it were Shisui and/or Itachi who killed Danzo but in a kind of panicked way. The Uchiha clan is already SO SUSPICIOUS to the rest of the village (at least, that’s the impression they’ve been given) so they can’t come out with a laundry list of Danzo’s crimes and everything will be fine.

Okay, this isn’t the prompt necessarily, but the idea of two freaked out teenage Uchiha just panic whispering to each other over the corpse of Danzo who they just killed while Shikako watches from the shadows, bemused, because… well… they beat her to the punch, but also they have no idea what they’re doing. It’s very funny.

#jacksgreyson #anonymous #ask box advent calendar #ask box latine dictum #dreaming of sunshine #the many gardens of shikabane-hime #shikako nara's guide to delinquency and military insurrection #danzo shimura #shikako nara #shisui uchiha #itachi uchiha #ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem

[vicbutnotactually]

PLEASE give me any world building ideas you have for the caseynardo au!! That art was gorgeous, I’m so curious about it now 👀

Pssst ive got your Elder Gays fix >:]

First off, some lore on various phases in the Husband’s lives courtesy of @lucatea

- The guys have their own loose knit clan of scavengers, but that clan also has an enemy clan, competing with them over territory mainly. This other clan has a tendency of being violent, yes they’re basically the evil dudes in this AU.

- in a tasty parallel to Splinter’s human life, this enemy gang does burn down the boy’s first home, with Leo getting trapped in the burning house and almost dying, for some context a tangent:

- The Gays have a divorce era >:] 💅 it was inspired by rewatching Road to el Dorado and the melodramatic gay breakup in the movie with a song by Elton John ft The Backstreet Boys (slay.) After some time stranded in this new dimension, Leo starts to think that no one is coming for them, while Casey holds on to hope, they are pretty young here but they have already started scavenging. This entire time, they have been mainly looking for portal tech in order to try to get home (the tech does exist, but it’s very very difficult to find and there are just tiny fragments, which makes it very difficult, especially since these guys have no idea what they’re doing.) Leo falls into dispair and grows tired of searching for tech and wants to give up, while Casey wants to keep looking; so they fight, and split up, which is the first time they’ve been in their own, since they stuck together the entire time they were there. Tangent over, back to the fire 🔥

- They spend some time bitter but also worrying about each other. Meanwhile, the enemy clan has noticed that Leo is on his own now and has decided to take him out, cue housefire. Meanwhile, Casey decided to come back, realizing that they need to stick together, and while he’s not far from their house, he’s pacing back and forth, deep in thought, trying to figure out what he’s going to say to Leo and doesn’t notice the orange glow in the distance and the smoke rising from where their house is. When Casey runs through the woods towards the house he goes from the dark and calm woods to looking up at a raging inferno. He runs in and tries to get an unconscious Leo out, but part of the house collapsed and is pinning him down, with most of the weight on his right leg. With the flames closing in and the house filling up with smoke, Casey makes a heat of the moment decision and cuts off Leo’s leg at the knee (which wasn’t too hard since the bones were mostly reduced to shards.) He gets them both out alive (barely,) and manages to stop the bleeding. During the ordeal, Casey sustained many burns (but Leo not so much, the brunt of the flames hadn’t gotten to him, just the falling rubble,) mainly on his arms and back from shoving away the burning rubble.

Casey barely has time to breathe when he has to take Leo and make a run for it, since he can hear the enemy clan coming for them. Adrenaline is the main thing that gets him out of there, considering he’s trying to carry a still unconscious Leo on his back. He flees for who knows how long, trying tend to Leo’s wounds and being paranoid that he might die or that the enemies are still after them. Eventually, they come across an abandoned base, which becomes the home in that painting I did.

Leo pulled through, but Casey felt incredibly guilty about cutting his leg off, so he hyperfocuses on trying to make him a prosthetic which leads to:

- Casey made Leo’s prosthetic. I think that after a learning curve, he’d actually figure out how to make stuff out of the ancient tech, since he is kinda mechanically inclined in the show, with fixing cars and making himself gear and stuff.

He’d be running around putting himself in danger to find parts and worrying the hell out of Leo. But he’d have to constantly worry whenever he’s away that something might happen to Leo (who’s still at the base,) like he’s going to come home and find the place on fire.

- The boys have pets. This world has a domestic Horse-sized dog species. At some point, Casey finds a stray and brings it home, Leo disapproves but Casey does puppy-dog eyes and gets to keep it. But are you ready for the best kind of pet?

Grabcrabs:

Grabcrabs are very smart chihuahua-sized crab creatures and are the most common type of pet. They are child-like and very empathetic, as well as handy. Grabcrabs often have hobbies or jobs, and can be taught to do most things, but are not capable of language. Grabcrabs like accessories and normally wear something reflective of what they like to do. Grabcrabs are often helpers and therapy animals at places like hospitals (they wear little nurse hats.) A Grabcrab cannot be bought or chosen by a person, a Grabcrab chooses you. They can be very mischievous too, but never cause real harm because they feel bad when they do. They are pure little guys and it’s despicable to hurt a Grabcrab. The relationship to these little guys is different depending on what society they’re with; they can have genetic differences because when inside a city, their populations are mostly isolated, and their social roles can be different, with some cities even considering them equal to people while others even worship them.

At some point, they notice a little crab creature following them and after trying and failing to get him to go away, Casey names him Ricky and they now have a crab toddler. Ricky learns basic first aid, and he likes to garden so he has a little sun hat.

Ricky is the best boi. He plays a big role in saving Leo from the fire. When Ricky saw that Leo was trapped, he ran out for help and alerted Casey to the fire by freaking out and running circles and tugging on his pant leg. And when Leo is alone at the new base, Ricky tries to stand guard with a little stick, but Casey eventually gives him a knife. Ricky loves mischief but is also very protective and caring

Ok enough Ricky, we need some angst:

- At some point, Casey gets kidnapped by the enemy clan and he is held prisoner / hostage for some time (a month or two maybe?) during which Leo is losing it. He is furious and will stop at nothing to find him. Over the time Casey is missing, Leo starts to fear that he’s already dead or that they’re hurting him (since these bad guys are very much evil assholes,) so when he finds the enemy base he rips that place up and goes on a rampage beating the crap out of everyone there. He finds Casey chained up in a cell with all his gear gone and in poor condition.

After they escape, Leo takes care of him and he seems to be recovering before he takes a sudden turn for the worst. It was the point where he was walking around normally before he suddenly collapses. He gets very sick and gets close to the brink of death. He makes it but he gives Leo a good scare.

Random tidbits:

- the guys go on date night inside the cities, most often the restaurants or festivals. The cities hold different kinds of festivals yearly, and Casey drags Leo there.

- Casey is better with tech than Leo is.

- The way their house is depicted in that one painting I did it looks very peaceful. That’s because they’re above the treetops, but everything below is a jungle/forest hellscape. They have a massive barrier or electric fence of some kind surrounding their house to keep things out, specifically dangerous animals. In this world, the higher up you are, the safer you are, cities are often built high up in mountains or trees, although some take the other route and try to go underground instead. Most of the dangerous megafauna lives at sea level.

- around that world, you can find ancient remnants of various kinds of tech, mostly being giant destroyed mechs made for fighting. There are also rare labs and facilities that can be found (most are buried underground.) in these facilities is where most kinds of advanced tech can be found, as well as power source crystals (like the Kraang Crystals but smaller,) while the above-ground tech are mostly just rusted hunks of metal.

- the most peaceful times outside of the safe zones are the daytime, mainly early morning or afternoon. Night time is the most dangerous, with midday being close second, since most predators hunt at these times. Midday is also dangerous since it’s when the weather becomes the most extreme, with intense heat waves in the summer.

- Casey kept up his graffiti and now likes to do murals in their house.

- The jungles where they live have many Cenotes and underwater cave systems. The issue is that there is a species of vin that grows across these in a thick mat, covering them completely. It’s easy for someone who isn’t paying attention to fall through the vines and into a cave/cenote/pit, basically any hole in the ground, the boys fall into these a lot when they first get there.

I you have any questions or ideas, don’t hesitate let me know!

#i need to draw more affection between these two #tmnt 2012 #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt leonardo #casey jones #tmnt 2k12 #leocasey #caseynardo #disaster husbands tmnt au #disaster husbands au #sorry for the massive block of text lol #tmnt 2012 leo

[missgryffin]

hi! I’m a new writer and I started a fic but I just wanted to ask if you had any advice for writing fanfiction. I started my fic but I’m kinda hitting a writers block and I don’t know where I want my story to go. I want my characters to have dimension but I don’t think I’m communicating it well. And my plot line, I feel like it’s so hard to communicate in writing. I just feel like my writing is bad as a whole and I wanted to ask for advice because you’re literally one of the best writers I’ve encountered! Love your writing so much

Thanks for the kind words, anon!! 🫶 This got long, so I put it below a cut:

First off, congrats on getting started — that's always the hardest part, and there's a lot of bravery in starting something new and letting your work exist outside your head. The #1 piece of advice I hear everywhere and pass along to you is simply to keep going. Writing is a muscle, and it takes repetition, practice, reflection, etc. to find your style and get better. I came back to writing in 2020, and it took writing consistently since then for me to be where I am now of feeling like my writing's where I want it to be and feeling confident about bigger pieces.

On the direction of your story and your plot, know that this is such a common dilemma for writers!! And honestly, the advice out there varies a lot depending on if you're more of a pantser (make it up as you go) or plotter (plot it all out first). I'm somewhere in the middle. I plot a decent amount, but sometimes it's only in broad strokes, so I leave room for building out scenes intuitively as I write. I also get stuck all the time, and for me, I know that means that something's not working — either I have to go back and change something in the prior paragraph/dialogue, or I have to take the scene in a new direction, or I have to figure out a different way to bridge the gap between what happened and what I know I'm building toward.

At this point, my advice to you would be this: do some daydreaming. Go on Pinterest, browse Tumblr, go on a walk with a good playlist. Let your mind wander, mood board your fic, let all the vibes marinate. Whatever scene ideas pop into your head, write them. Write out of order (you can always massage things to fit chronologically later). Loosely figure out your ending, so you at least know where you need to end up — sometimes it's easier to work backwards when outlining the latter part of a fic. Use tropes and their conventional story beats as much or as little as is helpful to you.

Once you have that direction, my advice on "communicating" your plot and characters really boils down to the adage of "show don't tell." Which sounds so cliché, I know, but it really does work!! Think about the aspect of your plot or character you want to be coming across to the reader, and then brainstorm actions or scenes that could demonstrate that happening.

An example of when I was very conscientious of this is Castling. (Spoilers ahead!) The main plot is present day, but I wanted to build the emotion and pining and just the stakes overall by inserting past flashbacks, as opposed to just saying, Lily and James were best friends while growing up at school. So I came up with a handful of significant moments to show their friendship in action throughout their past. The second year scene sets it all up: Lily does not hesitate to confront James for Remus, demonstrating both her fierce + sassy personality and the depth of her friendship with Remus. The seventh year scenes show how everything's evolved: first there's the fight in the corridor, in which James steps in to shield Lily and punches Mulciber after an incident that escalated while they were brewing Amortentia in Potions, and then later that night Lily finds out James got broken up with. I never had to say that they were starting to subliminally have feelings/attraction toward each other — we pick up on that based on what happens: James doesn't just defend Lily out of basic nobility; he's "a caged bull in Sirius's arms" in the immediate aftermath of Amortentia 👀, which is the breaking point for his girlfriend. James picks Lily's friendship in his girlfriend's ultimatum without second thought. And they don't hug. It's not a sibling-like consolation because there's an undercurrent of tension that's decidedly not sibling-like anymore — they're just in total denial about it. And then finally there's the post-school scene, in which they're more comfortable around each other in part because they're simply more mature and have figured out how to care about each other without crossing the boundary of friendship (yet).

Something I tell myself a lot when it comes to figuring out plot and "showing" the reader is plot can be small. I'm constantly saying this to myself. And what I mean by that is, "plot" doesn't have to be some sweeping, complicated thing. Of course some stories go that way and longer stories often necessitate more complex narratives, but there can be just as much plot in "discovering feelings for each other" (As Lovers Go) as there is in "planning a complicated mission that goes awry because of a secret double-agent" (Vindicated). It's simply a matter of going more deeply into smaller details and the emotional trajectories of the story. So "plot can be small" doesn't mean the plot itself is "smaller" or "lesser," it means that plot can be based in small actions that are incredibly important or meaningful to the characters, and the story then teases out all the little details surrounding those small actions.

And finally, the last thing I'll say (this already getting way too long 😅) is that plot and character development are both very layered things. The Castling corridor fight initially was just a corridor fight — the idea for adding the Amortentia element came later, and the idea for connecting the fight with the ultimatum and the breakup came even later after that. Don't put pressure on yourself to figure things out entirely the very first time you write something down!! Ideas build on each other as you keep writing. You'll add layers that make scenes better. And the layers of the story and the characters will keep building throughout the story. This is where dimension comes from. We don't need to know everything about a character right away — let the layers peel back as the story goes on.

If you're still reading: I hope this can help!! Best of luck with your writing!! 💗

#ask #on writing

[loveoaths]

“Nothing, again?” Anakin repeats for what can only be the hundredth time, his long hair curtaining around his ears as he leans over Din. “You don’t feel anything? Really?”

“Really,” Din sighs, long and deep and only half as weary as he feels. Brushing Anakin’s hand off his helmet is easy. But pulling his aching body from the pile of splintered wood and loose dirt he currently lays face down in? 

That’s hard. 

Very, very hard. 

He wants to sit up and tell Skywalker, I’m done. I’ve faced a mudhorn, Moff Gideon, a furious Mandalorian queen, and a sand dragon, but somehow you are twice as exhausting as all of them combined. But Din had given his word he’d help the Jedi understand his strange disconnection to the Force, and if that requires getting his skull smashed in by wooden crates all day, he will, because Din Djarin never breaks an oath. 

Instead he says, “Do you have the information you need, Master Skywalker?”

He’s tired. Has been tired for the last ten years, if he’s being honest, but these last few hectic months traveling with the kid, sleep had been the furthest thing from his mind. He had a job to do, and then a quest. Now that the child — Grogu, the inner voice in his head that sounds suspiciously close to The Armorer reminds him, Respect the name, for it is all a warrior has — has been reunited with his Jedi-kin on Coruscant, Din had looked forward to sleeping for a day or seven.

Yet despite his best effort (or, more accurately, because of the universe’s better efforts), Din Djarin is not, in fact, spending the week in hibernation.

Instead he’s getting flung around a Jedi training room by Master Skywalker.

Again. 

“It doesn’t make sense. You do not make sense,” Master Skywalker huffs. With a faint grunt, Din rolls onto his back to watch the Jedi pace back and forth across the room. He’s learned by now that Anakin needs to move in order to work something out. Which explains why he’s been in perpetual motion ever since Din managed to mess up the Force so much that it violently sucked him and Grogu into a timestream and spat him out 35 years in the past. 

(”It’s as if you were a piece of tissue paper the Force couldn’t decide between getting rid of and keeping in its pocket,” Master Kenobi had mused a few days ago, before patting Din’s shoulder. “No offense, of course.” Din stayed silent, but he’d been a little offended. It seemed to him that rudeness and the Force went hand in hand.)

“The Force exists in and can be exerted on all things, and I do mean all,” Anakin continues, “Birds, bees, babies — even bantha poodoo, probably.” 

Skywalker extends his arms and presses his palms up. The wooden crate behind him levitates effortlessly off the ground. “I can lift this, but the second it’s within five feet of you—“ He floats the crate closer. When it’s within five of Din, the crate wobbles; by three feet it suddenly drops to the ground. Skywalker clicks his tongue, annoyed. “That happens. You aren’t just disconnected from the Force, you’re… hostile, to its very existence. You’re a black hole. Except not even that, because those have Force signatures too. I can throw things at you if they have enough natural velocity to carry them through your dead zone, but that’s about it. Do you understand what I’m saying here?”

“Yes,” Din replies, despite not understanding much at all. He sits up, this time pulling himself to his feet. Anakin extends a hand. Din glances at it a moment, earning him an impatient hurry up gesture, then takes it. Anakin hauls him to his feet. “The Force doesn’t work on me.”

“Doesn’t work on you yet,” Skywalker corrects, flicking a woodchip off Din’s shoulder before eyeing him like a shiny new droid he can’t wait to pick apart and put back together wrong. “I will figure you out. You’re too dangerous not to.”

“Thanks,” Din says, because as much as it is a warning and a threat, he also knows this is Skywalker’s highest compliment.

Force negative!Din does some “training” with Anakin.  // anadin fic tag.

#Force Negative!Din #the Mandalorian #Anakin Skywalker #Din Djarin #the Mandalorian fic #anadin fic. #freewriting is fun jfc #fic tag. #negative space

[flavia8]

"Cartoon" Book Covers - What's with them?

These are just some musings of mine. Just thoughts kinda organized with some things linked. Lately, there have been discussions about the recent trend of "cartoon" covers for books that have been coming out. As like any discussion of art, a lot of it depends on subjective opinion on how the covers look, the feel they evoke, and if it encourages people to read the book. Before I continue, I think it's important to define some terms and scopes and all that. Ready? (Also this is very long)

"Cartoon" covers seem to be the most prevalent in recent romance releases, however, cartoon covers exist in any genre and are not just a recent thing. (Recent here being loosely defined as within the last 10 year) Romance as a genre is derided, pretty much all throughout history until now which is awful. By talking about this, I am not trying to say that romance is a worthless genre that has nothing to say, in fact, I think the opposite! Romance is extremely important and worthwhile, from brain candy romance to literary romance. It is not a genre I read a lot, just because of my interests and such, but I do read them because I believe in reading a wide variety of books and that exposing yourself to different things is extremely important. But, since many romance books have cartoon covers nowadays, a lot of the books I'll be talking about are romance. Also, I am talking about the covers, not the books. Cover does not indicate book quality, but covers do serve as a sort of "appetizer" for them. I also will only be talking about books, as in novels and such (I am not sure how best to put this, I mean books mostly composed of words alone), not comics or other different types of books.

There's also the issue of how you would define a "cartoon". I will be using the definition of "Cartoon" given by the Oxford Learner's Dictionary, with a bit of modification.

Cartoon - a simple drawing showing the features of its subjects in a humorously exaggerated way, especially a satirical one in a newspaper or magazine. (X)

The modification being that humor/satire is not required to be considered a cartoon. Thus, the definition becomes this:

Cartoon - a simple drawing showing the features of its subjects in an exaggerated way.

Regarding Cartoon Covers, the recent prevalent opinion seems to be negative, with a variety of reasons as to why readers dislike these covers, which line up with my own reasons I dislike *some* of them.

For me, personally, they do not have enough thought or effort put into them. The compositions are not very creative and tend to be static, which is quite boring. They are generally quite simple, but not in a good way. Generally cartoon covers look cheap. However, Being simple does not equate to looking cheap. And yes, while there is something to be said here about how cartoon covers are cheaper for publishers and thus that is a reason they have become prominent, this is a separate (though related) issue. Figures rarely have actual eyes or features, and are not really anchored within the "scene" and they look stiff. Limited (if any) shading means these covers lack depth. The backgrounds are often silhouettes that are a slightly different cover than the overall background color. Honestly, they tend to have very limited color palettes in general. Since I am from the U.S, the covers will probably be U.S Versions.

However, there is a distinction to be made I think between the types of cartoon covers drawing ire and cartoon covers that are not. IE "Good" covers and "Bad" covers. Of course, this is subjective and many love cartoon covers I would consider "bad", and inversely many that would dislike covers I love. In order to illustrate my point, I would like to present to you this cover of the Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas.

By the definition above, this is a cartoon cover. (This book is a YA Contemporary bildungsroman) It also matches some of the characteristics of covers I dislike. The composition is simple and the figure is not traditionally "anchored". But, I LOVE this cover. The symbolism of the title being on a protest sign is amazing and extremely fitting for the work. The sign itself serves to anchor the the young girl, and the contrast between the figure and the background, interrupted by the sign adds visual interest and makes the figure and title stand out. To me, it this cover feels "cared for" if you know what I mean.

In contrast, there is this cover of The Hating Game, by Sally Thorne:

This cover is so awful. My first issue is the woman is so undefined that her pose looks unnatural. Her torso looks unnaturally twisted, as if she's both facing the reader and has her back to them. The man looks like a poorly done papercraft (No hate on papercraft itself) blob with his floating hand and the amalgamation of simple "layered" shapes. (Though there's not a lot there) The figures just float, and the composition is boring. This is a nitpick, but I dislike that the words overlap with the woman. Word placement and font are extremely important to book covers.

Some more examples of covers that I think are unappealing and that I think are the types of covers contributing to the dissatisfaction with covers that are "lazy, cheap, and hollow". Some are more unappealing than others.

While I find these covers to be bad, the thing is that a lot of them actually have aspects that "could have been good." For instance, I like the Idea of the Covers for "Happy Place" and "The Heir Affair." "The Charm Offensive" Has a boring cover, yes, but I like the spotlights separating the figures. But overall, these covers seem poorly done, and "corporate." It's especially sad, I think because it discourages people from reading books they may enjoy and creates a negative association with cartoon art. There is also a metric FUCKTON of these types of covers. They're ubiquitous. In contrast, I want to highlight some cartoon covers that I think are good (Though not without flaws), and are not the same type as those above.

For me, all of these covers are leagues better than those above. They are visually interesting and dynamic. The figures don't look lifeless and stiff, and they all look unique to their own book. Arguments about if I should be comparing books of different genres and aimed at different audiences might unfold, but I think that's reductive. Cartoon covers exist in all genres for all audiences. Case in point:

Some of these I like and some I don't. I actually do think that *poorly done* cartoon covers are a legitimate problem. Since the genre most plagued by these covers is romance, it can encourage further dismissal and invalidation of the genre. If romance covers are largely perceived as cheap, hollow and insipid, those perceptions further color the perception of romance as a whole. I do not think that romance is any of those things, or that the covers should cater to people who hate romance. But, romance being generally a feminine interest is, like a lot of things considered feminine, mocked and considered inferior. I worry that prolific bad cartoon covers only serve to reinforce this horrible association. Additionally, the saturation of these covers begins to homogenize the romance genre covers making it hard to identify the type of story the book holds. Romance readers (AND AUTHORS) deserve book covers with effort and thought put into them, that match up with the type of book it is. Silly fun books should get silly, fun covers! More serious books should get more serious covers to match. (Of course, cartoon covers can be both but when silly cartoon covers are the only thing being created it's bad and leads into stuff I mentioned) And I know book covers, like most things, have trends. But still.

Book covers looking similar is not a crime, and it generally doesn't bother me. And I'm not trying to be mean or attack the designers of the covers I don't like, I'm just trying to critique and distinguish certain types of covers. I know a lot of this is subjective, and this is by no means anything definitive. This is just my thoughts on something I noticed. This is not -serious- analysis! I did not do any *in-depth* research. And I'm not even touching on AI images. It's just. This trend of simple, flat, blobby, cheap art in covers worries me. I know the publishing industry is beyond fucked and tiktok is NOT helping. Cartoon Covers can be quite lovely and amazing! That Cover for "The Picture of Dorian Gray" is one of my favorite book covers of all time. But the push for cheap mass appeal is creating/exacerbating problems. There's not even really anything wrong with going for mass appeal, (especially since book covers are supposed to draw the audience in) but when it becomes the ONLY aim, instead of being a fun/creative way to enhance the book/add to the experience through visual means as WELL as to appeal to readers, something very important is lost.

#eta #books #book covers #cartoon book covers #booklr #reading #romance books #romance genre #cover art #booktok #book cover art

[enlighten3d]

okok soo gonna try to put a timeline for janette and adele’s relationship/story! (in order)

-They both meet at the town’s pub (adele being there after an argument with josh, her husband, and janette being there after a problem at the church)

-They end up flirting, adele lying about being married and end up hooking up basically (but before that janette explained her being aro-spec to just put put there that she isn’t wanting anything romantic and adele pretended to listen)

-They then end up in a friends with benefits relationship (adele’s husband josh is oblivious to this she’s definitely not telling him) for a couple of months and janette says that she hopes they can be friends as well

-Adele refuses that, since she has very complex feelings about aro-spec people (adele your arophobia is showinggg/hj) and thought they had a romantic relationship(since she didn’t believe janette) and they don’t speak for a while after an argument over that

-During that time, Janette has to (forced by her mum’s ghost) carry out a ritual of sorts to solidify a next heir to run the cult when janette’s dead and she doesn’t want to give up her nephew so she chooses a girl named Carmela (i have lore for her too) and due to the prophecy (that this ritual is based off) carmela has to hurt/kill a loved one, and it ends up being her boyfriend ryan beckett, adele’s son!

-This ends up with him loosing an arm and adele immediately knows who’s behind this (janette) and decides to carry out her own form of revenge (of her son and herself since she thinks janette was manipulative in their short lived relationship- adele darling stop making things worse)

-Said revenge ends up being burning down the cult building and Janette ends up being in it when that happens and she burns alive (uh oh) and adele thinks that’s been taken care of

-Until Janette comes back alive thanks to weird monster/spirits that give her life basically except with a catch- which is that if she cuts her skin in anyways, blue flowers and vines will burst through her skin and probably kill her again

-She’s forced to stay out of the town since if she walked back in, she’d be killed on sight (weird rules that i can explain) so she has to figure out how to kill adele

AND THATS ALL I HAVE! FOR NOW! So basically yeahh adele is kind of a shitty person!!! I have more lore for all the characters so if you have any questions pls do send them my way! (i live for questions about my lore/hj) :D these characters stay in my head aghh toxic yuri beloved uhmm okok byee this was longer than i thought oopsies

(sry this took a hot sec to reply to)

oooh boy.. this truly is VERY toxic yuri... i want to fight adele ngl. as an aromantic person, i am staring at her and Judging.

adele is on some shit.. sgdhdnf

ARSON. ARSON AS REVENGE 👍👍 IS YOUR SONS ARM GONE?? ARE YOU AROPHOBIC AND VERY GAY?? THE SOLUTION IS ARSON.

gods i feel bad for josh... he knows Nothing. poor guy.

OOH THATS FUN.. (janette being cursed like that). are bruises and shit okay?? if its severed skin specifically... oh boy yeah shes not gonna last long is she.. paper is her mortal enemy...

whys she gotta stay out of town?

ALSO WHAT DOES THE CULT WORSHIP. I AM SO CURIOUS. IS THE EXISTENCE OF THESE SPIRITS WIDESPREAD KNOWLEDGE, OR JUST SHIT THAT THIS CULT KNOWS?

was adele insane before she met janette or was she always this way

does janette know it was adele who started the fire...

WHAT ARE CARMELAS THOUGHTS ON ALL THIS (esp the having to fuck up her boyfriend... do they break up afterwards.. does he know it was her...)

i have so many questions /pos

#asks #i am Fascinated 👁️ #murder lesbians

[starlightandsunshine]

So like I'm back to rewatching Charmed (1998, obviously, yay for like my first fandom ever) again for the umpteenth time, (in a randomised order, of course, because why watch chronologically like a sane person) and I was watching "That 70s Episode" and then looking at additional trivia and episode information as you do, and I came across a comment about how Magic School makes the entire plot of the episode into a plot hole or vice-versa, which just… No.

I'm not going to say that their haven't been some absolute ass-pulls in Charmed that create plot holes in earlier episodes (The cleaners vs "All Hell Breaks Loose" is technically one even though I have Thoughts on that) but the existence of Magic School is really not one of them for quite a lot of reasons that I can't be bothered to go into rn because this post is about "That 70s Episode".

Time travel in Charmed happens in an essentially fifty-fifty split between time travel that intentionally changes the past (like "A Witch in Time" and the whole s6 arc with Chris) and closed time loops/predestination paradoxes that essentially mean the whole thing was one long foregone conclusion from the start (like "All Halliwell's Eve" and also "Imaginary Fiends" if you take it from the time traveller's perspective and not like Piper's). "Forever Charmed" and "Morality Bites" are exceptions to this that sort of hang about in their own bubble for Reasons but literally every other incident even tangientially related to time travel is one of those two (time travel in Charmed is maybe something that I've put a bit too much thought into but that's a different post)

(all my thoughts on "That 70's Episode" as a closed time loop under the cut because it, uh, got really very long)

Now admittedly, I may be coming at this from a slightly different perspective since the first time I watched Charmed I did it out of order and saw a couple of the later seasons first before I watched s1, which means I already knew about magic school and was elbow deep in the shows mythology (specifically relevant here: whitelighters, which iirc hadn't really been delved into at all - I can't remember if the episode w Phoebe finding out about Leo and the little witch boy called Max was before or after this one but either way they don't really start building on whitelighters until "Love Hurts" and s2). But literally the first thing I actually thought about here was that it was a closed time loop where they basically contributed to causing the whole thing in the first place (and hey, I just remembered that there's a different time travel ep in s1 where a warlock comes from the future to change it in the truth episode, so in hindsight I was probably like "oh cool they're showing two different ways it works already").

But I mean really, lets take the time travel out of the picture for a second:

If the sisters don't travel back in time at all, how does this situation play out? Like, Patty gets threatened by a warlock into blessing a ring to give him immunity to her daughters powers and presumably goes home and tells her mother about it and then they bind the girls' powers after Phoebe is born and don't? do? Anything? About the situation. Like in the threeish years between being threatened and dying Patty never tries to do anything about this warlock that is almost definitely going to try and kill her babies? (lets be generous and say that she didn't want to do anything while pregnant, that still leaves thirteenish months between Phoebe being born and Paige's conception, and sixish months between Paige's birth and Patty's death, and even then she doesn't have to actively be doing anything to be figuring out a way to track him down and vanquish him or whatever) Penny "Battleaxe Grams" Halliwell doesn't ever go after him or try to do anything about him and for twenty-odd years just twiddles her thumbs about the situation while he visits every year??? (the very same woman who had a relationship with and then vanquished the freaking Necromancer!) Neither of them ever tell their whitelighter Sam about the whole thing (which, you know, is part of his job description), they never reach out to other witches about this dangerous warlock running around (like say the multiple canonical witches that the Charmed Ones meet that worked with one of them), they never go to the canonical magical school that presumably has plenty of competent magical beings on staff or to the Elders like "Hey you know those prophesised Charmed Ones you've been waiting for? Yeah we had to bind their powers to save them from this one warlock, if you want them to ever be able to use that power you need to help us find a way to get rid of him, K thanks"?? Like I know they're not the Power of Three babes, but come on, they're still Warren Witches and plenty powerful and competent in their own right. They've both gone after tougher opponents alone and it's not like they couldn't work together (and if your argument is "what about the sisters", like it costs zero money to ask Sam or even Victor to watch them for like an afternoon while Patty and Penny go and vanquish the active and real threat to their lives) And like after all of that, after not hunting this warlock down or telling anyone about him or doing really anything at all about the situation for over twenty years, Penny, after being diagnosed with a heart condition, doesn't then ever think, "oh hey, when I die, this one warlock's going to come after them in like twelve months at most because he keeps popping by once a year, I should do something about that, like write a note in the Book or make an addition to my will about it or something"???

Uh, no. They would not do that. That is incredibly out of character for the Halliwells that we know and love. They'd probably have spent the nine months Patty was pregnant with Phoebe figuring out how to vanquish him and destroy the ring , and then if he didn't show up right after Phoebe was born they'd have asked Sam or maybe a couple of other witches they know to keep an eye on the sisters for a couple of hours while they summon Nicholas and vanquish him while he's off guard. The whole situation is over and done with by the time Phoebe turns one and the sisters' powers don't need to be bound at all.

But when you take the time travel into account, the whole lack of proactiveness on Patty and Grams' part makes a whole lot more sense. Because after having to bless the ring and then telling her mother about it, Patty remembers the other people who knew she was pregnant, and being the very much not stupid witch she is goes "hmm, maybe there's something going on there". And then like the plot of the episode happens they steal back the ring blah blah, and lets say that when Patty unblesses it she does it with like a time delay when its first used or it uses the powers of the girls to undo the blessing or even it takes a hot minute to take effect bc like Patty said they didn't have time to test whether or not the unblessing worked or whatever - its magic, we've handwaved way worse in canon - so that Nicholas still has the two minutes of being able to blindside the girls when he first attacks them and they can't use magic that prompts them to cast the time travel spell.

The girls then get sent home and Patty gives the unblessed ring back to Nicholas without letting on that she's unblessed it, fine. But because the girls have now time travelled, Patty and Penny realise that they have to preserve the order of events that led to them time travelling in the first place. Which means that when Phoebe is born they have to bind the girls' powers. Ok fine, they do that. They raise the girls with no knowledge of magic. Except, they're not stupid, they saw how the three girls looked at Patty and how they talked about Grams but not really about their mother, and they put together that Patty dies young. So Patty puts some entries in the Book, some messages for her daughters that she's not going to get to see grow up. Information that she'd rather give them in person but that need to be recorded somewhere for them because she won't be able to - like the Demon of Fear entry, or about magic around babies and so on. She doesn't know when she dies, but she figures it's got to be before Prue is a teenager because there's a different way you look at a parent you lost in your teens to a parent you lost as a child and because if Prue was a teenager then Phoebe was at least seven or eight and the girls would have something to say about her that proves who they are rather than just the wistful looks. And Penny keeps on raising the girls and doesn't do anything about Nicholas even though he keeps coming by, and she puts the vanquishing spell in the Book for when they need it, right by the spell they'd use to go back in time. And events play out like in canon.

The time travel being a closed time loop also neatly provides a further answer that isn't just "we were afraid" for why Patty gave up Paige rather than say, binding her whitelighter powers (like she did canonically) and pretending that she was the child of someone other than Sam (like maybe a one night fling with Victor, which, hey, that's how Phoebe was conceived, it could be true for Paige too!) or even just pretending that she was adopted from a different witch. Because the sisters clearly didn't know she had trouble with pregnancy and aren't very practiced witches, they came back in time to change the past and they didn't once mention a younger sister. There was no fourth daughter that time travelled, so either the three older daughters just left their younger sister behind when trying to stop Nicholas (which, unlikely), or they don't know she exists. So Patty takes the harder option of giving Paige up rather than the selfish one of keeping her and endangering all of her daughters because as previously mentioned, she's a very smart witch and figures out that this is a choice that she already made in the future her daughters travelled from.

But what about Grams wanting to strip their powers in "Pre-Witched"? You ask. Well that's easy, Grams knows she's ill, she looks at her granddaughters who look very much like the three time travellers she met and are about the same age as them too, and figures out that she's going to die soon. Now remember, she met the sisters after they'd already been Charmed for a while and only saw them as a united front that supported each other and were a pretty good team. She didn't see all the difficult growing pains they went through at first or how it took them a minute to get their shit together as a team. So she looks around at her granddaughters, who are not just a mess, but also cannot keep it together for five minutes, or even long enough to take a picture. And she comes to the conclusion that she must have messed up somewhere, that she changed something by accident and stopped them from becoming the tight-knit sisterhood that she saw in her past and she lets her doubts take over and stop her from listening to Patty, who has faith that they'll still pull together. And then, before she can go through with it, destiny strikes, and she dies, which kicks off the events that lead to Nicholas coming to the house and finding her dead and trying to kill her granddaughters who go back in time to stop him and end up causing the whole chain of dominoes that lead to them growing up without their powers and having to time travel in the first place.

Ta-da! Closed time loop. I'm probably forgetting some things, but this was basically a rant post about how not everything big and new about magic in the back half of Charmed is a continuity screw up or ass-pull ft. one of my favourite s1 episodes

…there's also a bunch more thoughts I have about Halliwell's time travelling in general and also specifically them meeting their parents/ancestors when they're young/not yet born and how there are a bunch of repeating patterns that keep popping up surrounding it, but again, that's a different post.

#charmed #that 70's episode #1x17 #patty halliwell #penny halliwell #grams halliwell #charmed ones #time travel #meta post #maybe also slightly a rant #i have so many thoughts on time travel in charmed #but also like this episode in particular bc like #this episode is literally the thing that kicks off the stuff in the start of the show #bc without it they wouldn't only be coming into their powers now! #and there's something about closed time loops thats just #i cannot describe how much i love this episode #and how much of the stuff that happens in this episode can be linked back to later #but also don't come in here and tell me that magic school is an ass-pull bc of this episode #bc this episode answers the q of that in and of itself long before magic school was invented #i can and will happily die on this hill istg #this episode is basically a love letter to the concept of self-fulfilling prophecies #that cause the very action they tried to prevent #which #there's also a really interesting thing about how phoebe's power links in to that #but that's a different post

[lilliankillthisman]

Finished The Machinery of Freedom. It's written engagingly, describes interesting ideas, and is more convincing than I'd expected. No regrets at all about reading it.

The good parts - the first three Parts of the book, original from 1974 with a few added notes, all work well. Part I, "In Defence of Property", is a broad manifesto setting out the case for a radically capitalist society based on private ownership without government interference. It's interesting to look at as, you, know, this is loosely the movement where many US Republican policies have come from; unfortunately, that knowledge makes Friedman's otherwise compelling arguments look a lot worse. You also have to look out for things that were true or likely in 1974 but not today, like Social Security redistributing income away from the poor.

Part II, "Libertarian Grab-bag", is a combination of policy proposals to bring us closer to this society, in both concrete ("state governments should sell the roads to private companies") and more abstract ("this is how pollution might be constrained in a decentralised, market-driven way in a libertarian society") ways. Plus, of course, why the existing systems run by the government are dreadful. These are sometimes genuinely convincing ideas, and at worst they're thought-provoking. I wrote here about how his answer to that second problem was dumb, but even then there were still neat and convincing bits in the chapter. I'm going to make a couple of posts tomorrow on why specific chapters here don't work, but the reasons are always complex enough that I can't put them in a quick and witty way.

Part III, "Anarchy is not Chaos", focuses on how what we consider the essential functions of the state (law and order, courts, national defence) could be handled in his anarcho-capitalist vision. It's very much the most radical part of the book, and Friedman's ideas for the decentralised, market-based generation and enforcement of laws - is genuinely much more convincing than any other anarchist work when it comes to these topics; you really do come away thinking this would function and wouldn't become a tyrranical protection racket or a new government, even if it wouldn't be great. The national defence part, too, has actually got more convincing since 1974, due to the collapse of the Soviet Union as a credible military aggressor.

Less good parts - he talks way too much about moral philosophy in the later sections for my taste; he doesn't have convincing answers (well. famously no one does) and he obviously knows that but he keeps talking about it. he talks about intellectual property for ages without proposing any solutions at all, and he lapses into unsourced pat anecdotes instead of data when he's not talking about economics. There's also a constant throughline in the 1974 and 1989 sections where he spends ages focusing on why capitalism works better than socialism, in a way that feels insecure and snarky now but was obviously more relevant when the Soviet Union was around as a rival system.

Neutral parts - he throws in chapters where he focuses on an author and talks about the ways in which he agrees with and differs from their philosophies; I haven't read any GK Chesterton or any Kipling, and his chapter insulting ayn rand is not going to captivate people who dislike ayn rand more than he does. Parts IV (added in the 2nd edition, 1989) V and VI (added in 3rd edition, 2014) feel kind of haphazard; they are more collections of articles than anything else, and I came here for a coherent vision of anarcho-capitalist society and ideals. There's plenty of good stuff in there, but not that.

#the machinery of freedom #that's a link to the whole book at the top there #do check it out if you have nothing better on #i didn't regret it at all

[fiendtheanonymous]

What is "What Once Was" all about? :)

Glad you asked!!! So so glad I'm able to infodump about this. Not sure how comprehensible this will be but whatever.

Okay so, What Once Was is about a few things and ended up developing in my head after I just wanted to write a Mojo Jojo oneshot. Essentially, it's a fic that studies the relationship between Mojo Jojo, the Puff, and the Ruffs 25 years post canon (in my own AU timeline but that's a bit of a given). Specifically, it takes place on the Puff's 30th birthday. Mojo Jojo in this fic is a sad old bitter fuck who hasn't been in the Ruff's lives at all (let alone as a father) for years upon years and is angry about that fact, he's pissed off about the fact that he's lost his youth and he's close to death and that he has nobody. And today of all days, as he's grumbling around festering in his own frustrations and failings, he looks back on his actions and decides he's gonna attempt to get back into his kids lives even if he does have to put up with those blasted Puffs.

Meanwhile, the Ruffs have not been in Mojo's life for years and are more than happy about that fact. There was a fuck ton of work put into it on both sides over the years but the Puffs and Ruffs have formed essentially what I'd like to call a "found family unit" with one another. While yes there is shipping here (color code because I'm traditional and BORING!), the main focus here is the sturdiness of their unit as a whole and how they all interact with one another. Not to be sappy or anything but they all love each other and they worked their asses off to get to that point given that the six of them were made to inherently despise each other.

The main conflict of this fic arises from the fact that Mojo and the Puffs and Ruffs want two directly different things out of their lives. Mojo wants to get back to the past in order to relive his glory days, while the Puffs and Ruffs want to run as far away as possible from their past due to a variety of factors, mainly the fact that their relationship to Townsville has become fairweathered and tumultuous at best along with the fact that they've just experienced a lot of shit at the hands of so many people over the years. The Puffs and Ruffs are very, very much reaching their limits and that'll bleed through the fic along with the familial tension that exists between the Ruffs and Mojo. Those are the two main emotional points here.

The Puffs and Ruffs just want to look towards the future as they hit new milestones as adults, while Mojo is stuck in his ways and will do anything to drag them back into the past so he doesn't have to think about his own mortality and loneliness for too long.

The main plotline of this fic I'd say outside of these character studies is that there's a big 30th birthday celebration event happening in the name of the Puffs, which also so happens to be they day where the six of them are going to be announcing some massive changes to Townsville's police system, particularly their budgeting with a ton of the existing budget now going to be funneled into aspects such as more affordable housing, education, and healthcare. This is something the six of them have been working together on for years and it's a decision that not a lot of people are going to like (especially when "police budget cuts" and "Rowdyruffs" are involved in the same sentence). The entire fic builds up to this ceremony and follows Mojo, the Puffs, and Ruffs perspectives as we lead up to that ceremony. There are also a lot of flashbacks in this fic, mostly coming from Mojo reminiscing about his relationship to the Puffs and Ruffs, although there's some from other characters (mainly Boomer for now but I'm still figuring things out).

The main types of relationship dynamics that will be explored and compared will be that of nuclear and found family dynamics. Besides the "nuclear" (I use nuclear super loosely here) relationship between the Ruffs and Mojo and the found family relationship between the Puffs and Ruffs being compared, the nuclear family relationship the Blues and Reds have formed amongst themselves (with the Blues having a set of twin four year olds and the Reds having a newborn) will be contrasted against Mojo, the Professor, and Miss Keane's (who is the adoptive mother of the Ruffs in my AU) as the Reds and Blues explore what it's like to be parents. The familiar relationship with Miss Keane, The Professor, and their sets of kids is contrasted against Mojo's parenting, Mojo and the Professor's relationship to one another is explored. There's a ton of familiar comparing and contrasting here, this is a family fic at its core and I will explore that to the best of my abilities.

This is also a grief fic at its core in multiple senses, particularly regarding the grief about the passage of time, what's to come, and one's past. What Once Was is not a happy fic and will not have a happy ending, maybe bittersweet, but not happy. The penultimate chapter I have in place especially is going to be devastating and existential. This is a forewarning, it will not be the only forewarning I give, but this will be the first. I don't know if that counts as a spoiler per say, but I feel like I should put that out there given that I don't want anybody to come in unassumingly and read what I intend to become a very emotionally intensive piece of fanfiction. For PPG standards, What Once Was is a darkfic. It's not graphic outside of canon typical violence for the most part, but it does dive heavily into darker themes emotionally/mentally. Maybe I'm using the term wrong though.

Mojo is a piece of shit in What Once Was, to describe it best; he's a cartoon villain dealing with real life issues and handles them with the grace and compassion of a cartoon villain and he faces the consequences of that regardless of how infallible he believes himself to be.

I think that's all I can say without getting into spoiler territory about Mojo's actions and what ends up happening throughout this fanfiction. I will give you some synopsis notes I wrote for the first pages of my character bibles though.

(I forgot a couple words here and there in these but whatever.)

#asks #anonymous #What Once Was #Unnamed PPG AU #also I'm an evil dad lover as much as the next guy trust me but I do not think that Mojo would actually be a good dad in a million years

[raptorfae53]

Monster High Reimagined.

Frankie Stein redesign/character bio.

Frankie Stein (any pronouns bar It/It's)

The Simulacrum child of Dr's Stein. (German-American)

(Genderfluid and Demiromantic)

One of the new students at monster high this year,frankie was only zapped to life 15 weeks before the school year began, wielding both an unbridled love and respect for living (seemingly ironic considering they're made of corpses) they're already considered one if the most compassionate,friendly and caring kids in the school,always eager to make new friends and acting as the mediator and "parent friend" of their existing friend group,despite her naivety admittedly getting them into hot water themselves sometimes…

Likes: science,her friends,trying new things,doll modding and helping people out.

Dislikes: bigotry, hypocrisy,unsafe laboratory environments, unintentionally making people uncomfortable and zier staples and stitches coming undone.

Killer style: one of the things Frankie loves best about meeting new people is seeing hitherto unknown styles of clothing which she takes inspiration from for modifications to her own outfits,regardless of what style inspires her though there's always a distinct streak of dark academia stylings throughout whatever she wears.

Familiar: Watzit,a dog,cat,bird,lizard…thing and her parents first experiment with the science of resurrection before creating Frankie,regardless of what animal parts he's made of Frankie adores the lil guy.

Pet Peeve: if there's one thing Frankie can't stand, it's bullies, especially those attending monster high,it just doesn't seem right that bullying could happen in the same school who stands by the value of being a safe and welcoming space for all who attend. That and improper lab safety.

Freaky Flaw: Naivety, having only been alive for four months Frankie is more than a little naive about the world,and often this coupled with their inquisitive attitude gets them into trouble if not given the full picture, although with some help from their friends they usually come out unscathed by the end.

Spooky Secret: Frankie isn't really the type to keep secrets himself but tries his best to keep any his friends are comfortable with telling him.

Dream job: Having just arrived at MH Frankie is far from focused on what exactly they would like to do once they graduate,but whatever it is it'll probably be something to do with science.

Five Fearsome Facts:

Due to rigor mortis and loose connective tissues, like most other undead monsters Frankie uses a walking aid (in her case specifically a pair of crutches) for ease of movement.

Frankie is Autistic,and stims via handflapping,rocking herself in her seat and bobbing her legs,during this xe also tends to spark from xyr metal staples and bolts as well as this in order to experience everything to its fullest extent Frankie likes to try his best at everything he does and tends to hyperfixate down to the smallest detail,whilst this is admittedly a useful skill while doing things like scientific investigation,it admittedly has its ups and downs elsewhere…

As his parents were able to source only one foreleg before his creation Frankie has a prosthetic leg, made out of (thankfully non magnetisable) metal that he likes to decorate with stickers.

Frankie loves to do doll modding as a pastime,this is spurred on by a fascination with the science of the creation of simulacrum like herself and her mother,however since the creation of simulacrum is a science tied down by heaps upon heaps of permits,forms and other bureaucratic business she instead puts her energy into modifying dolls and making vlogs about the hobby.

Despite literally crackling with energy the majority of the time Frankie is very much a night owl (I mean when was the last time you heard of a mad scientist doing experiments at 9 in the morning?) And as such is far from a morning person,7am on a weekday being one of the few times they're actively grouchy,not helped by their dad semi-sarcastically yelling "it's alive!" every morning as they come down at breakfast.

So yeah, I'm writing out a full reimagining of Monster High.

While I adore the original series concept I feel like it didn't really act upon the values it set out to represent so I decided to reimagine the series from the ground up, essentially my version is Derry Girls meets WWDITS with a little bit of Kipo thrown in for good measure.

(PS, I'm sorry but I'm not a great artist so I'm not really able to visualize my idea for how these characters look, although if you want to see artwork of these characters please check out artists like @spookberry and @creativitydeficient ,since their redesigns of characters like this one are partly what inspired me to start this series in the first place)

(Also reblogs are very welcome)

#monster high #monster high redesign #frankie stein #also yes I'm starting with Frankie because they're intended to be the initial audience surrogate to the MH world #as time progresses the other members of the friend group become the central protagonists as well #overall it's more an ensemble cast if anything #Monster high Reimagined

[artificial-ascension]

Tim and Brian HCs because guess who just finished Marble Hornets and fucking loves these guys

Ok so first off they're kinda proxies but in a weird way

For whatever reason neither and be controlled through regular means and need to be severely weakened with Slender Sickness first

And even they they can still fight his control and maintain their own agenda

This is how Hoody and Masky exist

Slender's control works at different levels ranging from minor influencing to full on possession. The farthest he can go with Masky is making him as much of a mindless robot working fo Slender as possible and even then he still doesn't listen and just kinda walks around dazed

Furthest with Hoody is outright commanding him, a step above minor influencing. The closest thing I can relate it to is Ticci Toby killing his dad, he was thinking about doing it but wasn't actually going to do it until Slender took control. That's what's up with Hoody and also Masky

Neither will do something they don't already want to do. Murder is pretty much off the table for Masky unless he really hates the person (cough cough Alex) but he'll still beat someone up

Masky also only listens to Hoody and will outright refuse an order if it wasn't directly from Hoody. Hoody in question has a tendency to do his own thing, often going completely rogue

This is because Hoody is better at fighting Slender's control. Somehow he's able to pull himself out of total zombie mode but not completely able to get himself put of Slender's control, this results in a really interesting phenomenon where instead of getting dumber, he get smarter

Because when completely under control, most proxies are uh, stupid. Full control is only used on the people who don't suffer from, what the med bay has dubbed, Dumbass Proxy Syndrome which basically means they loose all common sense when fully under control. Toby is the worst offender considering he can't feel pain so his nummbed out brain equates that to can't be hurt and he does reckless shit

Masky also suffers from Dumbass Proxy Syndrome but in a less self harmful way where he tends to forget what he's doing and needs Hoody to point him at something to chase

Pretty much everything Masky does is result of Hoody's conniving

Hoody is actually lowkey super scary with a very different personality from Brian. Brian's kind of a ditz, honestly, but Hoody's a mad genius with a passion for making everything worse. One of the things they have in common, though, is being fully devoted to Tim/Masky

Brian remembers alot better than Tim. He can remember bits and pieces of being Hoody, usually he remembers what he did but not why he did it and sometimes how. Likewise Hoody remembers everything about Brian. Hoody is less "alternate personality" and more "Brian using all his brain cells to be a bastard" this means Hoody knows Tim=Masky and that means he puts most of his energy into protecting Tim and Masky

In a weird way though. Hoody has a preference for Masky considering he's... stupid and obedient and thus much easier to look after and also funner to be around. He'll still look after Tim even if Tim forgets who Hoody is

Because, Like I said, Tim's memory is worse. He can't remember being Masky at all. Absolutely nothing. And Masky also can't really remember being Tim. There are a few things he knows, places, people, that sort of thing but only surface level stuff

Masky only sort of knows Brian, but he won't listen to him unless he has Hoody's mask on

If one of them is Hoody/Masky they always try and get the other to join them

Hoody doesn't necessarily think he's not Brian, he just considers himself to be the complete and better version of Brian and chooses to go by Hoody as an alias. Masky... doesn't really think. Masky and Hoody are pretty much the opposites of Tim and Brian, where Brian goes from being a ditzy but still pretty cool, chill guy to a conniving genius Tim goes from being a clever, sarcastic, laid back individual to Masky, the man who only thinks about whatever Hoody is doing and chasing people through the woods (and killing Alex but Masky being aggressive of his own fruition is rare)

Personally I like to toss them into the Slender Mansion for funssies despite them technically not being creepypasta but uh... think of it like an epic crossover

Initially I wanted to say they'd been there since the beginning but I'm counting "the beginning" as like, when Toby got there so assuming maybe 2012 which overlaps with the time frame of Marble Hornets so...

Tom and Brian were there off and on since the filming of the Marble Hornets stopped in 2006 but Brian was there alotnmore often being... legally a missing person and presumed dead. Tim had s life to live and was there as Masky sometimes but not always

There was alot of memory altering going on. To put it simply, up until the end of Marble Hornets, Tim didn't remember the Slender Mansion or anything he did as Masky prior. AFRER Marble Hornets when Tim was driving away he got his memories back and got a visit from Brian in a hotel room formally "inviting" (I'll touch on that in a bit) him back to the Slender Mansion

Brian couldn't remember much when he was being Hoody and running around leading Jay everywhere but after his fall he got all his memories back and became a permanent member of the mansion

Also Hoody survived his fall because he landed on his feet, spraining one ankle and breaking the other along with a broken foot before falling on the ground and hitting his head rendering him unconscious. Slenderman just teleported him to the med bay in the mansion afterwards and Dr. Smiley fixed him up from there

Cut to after Marble Hornets, Tim just kinda, packed up and left to go... somewhere. He wasn't sure. Until he stopped at a hotel for the night, got all his memories back and Brian showed up at the door in crutches saying he was going to explain everything.

Brian explained that happened and also explained that the way to cure the sickness, or at least, lessen the symptoms, was to move to Wisconsin and be a part of the mansion again

Because obviously Tim and Brian would never want to be apart of the mansion, they wanted to live their lives normally but nooo The Operator had to fuck their shit up but of course, without an easy way to control them, they had to be threatened into living there

Because Tim spent alot of time not at the mansion or as Masky while in the mansion, it took a little while for everyone to get used to Masky's face and voice (oh because Masky doesn't talk, Hoody does sometimes but Masky is completely non verbal) and Tim had to pretty much meet everyone again

They got settled eventually and the Slender Mansion isn't the worst place to be forced to live, Tim would still prefer to live somewhere warmer but he's fine

While in the Mansion their jobs are pretty much house keepers. Along with EJ and Liu they both cook, clean and make sure no one is starting fires

They get along fairly well with everyone else, Brian better than Tim on virtue of being there longer and being friendlier. Tim still gets along well with everyone else though, in his own way

Tim and Brian have basically adopted Toby and by extension X Virus. The reason why is because Brian wanted a kid and was also super stressed so he found a child mkre stressed than him to take care of to pretend he had control over his life. Tim was... not thrilled about being some random kids surrogate dad but he managed

Tim bonds with Toby over their messed up childhoods and mental illnesses. Tim also takes Toby fishing and taugh him how to use his hatchets right

Tim knows this stuff because after he got sent home from the hospital he lived the rest of his life as a regular farm boy, aside from the drugs he had to take

Tim is a pretty good dad aside from the fact that Toby was like "Yeah I have bipolar disorder and turrets and didn't have a good upbringing" and Tim's response was "Hell yeah brother mental illness, have a bud light."

Brian was raised as a city boy in Minnesota and dosen't condone giving beer to children (Toby's like 19 when he actually get to bond with Tim but Tim also gave booze to Jeff who's like... 15 at the time so...)

The fact that Tim gave Jeff beer is probably the only thing bonding them. Tim gave him drugs and other than that Jeff wouldn't let Tim or Brian get close to him

Also I mentioned childhoods lets go back that

Tim and Brian literally could not be more different. Tim was raised in Minneapolis as the single child of a upper middle class family and was very spoiled as a child

He was popular and well liked and pretty much there was nothing wrong with his life except after his parents died and he moved to Alabama to live with his grandparents in his last year of high school

Brian never really got over the death of his parents deaths and it kinda made him super depressed and thus didn't make any friends in his senior year

His grades dropped, he had no social life, he spent most of his time in his room and didn't really get his life together until college where he decided to try and make friends again

He made friends with Tim and Alex and made alot of acquaintances

Tim on the other hand, grew up on a farm right outside Tuscaloosa. When he was 7 he got admitted to a mental facility and didn't get released until he was 12

Tim's parents were both kind of assholes in that very special southern way and the only friends Tim had were his three older brothers Tyler, Caleb and Jeremy (him and Jeremy were never very close though.) Tim also had a little sister named Celia but they didn't hang out much

Tim made absolutely zero school friends of his own and hung out with his brother's friends who tolerated him out of pity. Tim really didn't want to be the creepy schizophrenic kid ruining everyone's good time with his overwhelming fear of walking around in the woods at night so he just kinda turned his "hallucinations" into stories to be the best ghost story teller around the campfire. Because of his attitude for scaring people his brothers and their friends jokingly told him he should be a horror writer and Tim took that to heart and decided to go to film school when he got older

Tim and Brian are both gay (and in love I don't make the rules) Brian never got the chance to come out to his parents and never came outnto his grandparents so short of Alex, Tim and a few other old friends no one knows he's gay. Tim told his brothers and they were cool with it on the condition that he was only allowed to date cool guys. Tim only told his parents after he'd settled into his new apartment and had a job which was a good thing because they immediately disowned him and banned him from the property

His mom died in his third year of college though so... karma?

While in college he made friends with Brian who was his only friend and they lowkey fell in love and had been dating for about a month when Marble Hornets started being filmed

They were both in their second year when Alex stopped filming and had gotren pretty serious when Brian disappeared

Tim was obvious really concerned that Brian was just... missing and never really got over his boyfriend disappearing. After a while Tim just assumed Brian died and put that on his list of trauma as well

They did still manage to stay together though as Hoody and Masky because even under The Operator's control they're still in love

Tim and Brian have their own house outside of town on the edge of the forest that they stay in when they want alone time from the masnion

Tim and Brian are also the only people from the mansion who can walk around freely in town. It's a small town so most who know them close are fully aware that they're proxies against their will and don't try to pry into what everyone at the mansion is like because everytime they start to overshare Slender stops them both with a coughing fit

The general consensus in the town is that Tim and Brian are in with the monsters and killers in the woods and their actions as Hoody and Masky don't reflect on them as people

Hoody and Masky can both also walk safely down the street because pretty much everyone knows they're not very dangerous and some people will straight up just start a conversation with them

It's kinda like that for most proxies though, Hoody and Masky are just alot safer because... Marble Hornets did paint them in at least an anti slenderman light

Because Marble Hornets is still a web series here, it's just 100% real (and for whatever reason, this series showing real life murder and various other crimes along with Slenderman is still up on YouTube)

The general explanation about the show is that it's all fake and just really well done and that's the end of it for most people, actually most people never even heard of it. Obviously there's alot of refuting about the reality of the show, mostly because Alex and Jay conveniently moved away and were never heard or seen of again after their characters died and Brian actually went missing for some time and Tim actually broke his leg and yeah there's alot of people who know it's real but the cops don't arrest Tim and Brian because they kinda don't care enough to? Also any smart person can put two and two together and realize that if the murder was real so was The Operator and that's the real horror

Somehow most people in the masnion have never heard of Marble Hornets except for like, Liu and BEN who just found it one day and Toby because Toby already had it explained by Tim and Brian

Eventually everyone in the house had watched it because BEN can't keep his mouth shut but all it did was stir up some dislike of Slenderman and garner Tim and Brian alot more respect (mostly because pretty much no one except other proxies had seen Hoody and Masky in action and everyone thought Hoody was cool)

Tim doesn't like watching Marble Hornets because it's the video record of his life being ruined but Brian likes to watch it and brag about how cool Hoody is

They get alot of visitors to their cabin because whenever someone comes to town to research all the crazy shit happening there everyone sends them to Tim and Brian

Seriously you could make a Lovecraft novel out of this. Guy goes to strange small town in Wisconsin to investigate strange happenings, gets pointed to a cabin on the edge of town and gets info dumped to by two guys with a bunch of weird symbols around their house before they both erupt into violent coughing fits and ominously tell the guy not to go into the woods under any circumstances but then he goes into the woods and gets murdered? Yeah that sounds very Lovecraft

Also I say strange symbols all over the house because The Operator symbol is just... everywhere. Along with plenty of papers with the black marky drawings, most of these are from Brian coming down from being Hoody after a mission and being weird

Brian will also mumble to himself in the mirror and maybe make a weird fucked up totheark video but he never uploads anything to the internet. Not because he doesn't want to see his slender sickness induced abstract videos but because he forgot the password to the accout

Tim coming dowm from being Masky is just drunk and a bit more obsessively loyal towards Brian. Pretty much Masky but speaking and trying to come up with his own ideas again with no memory of what just happened

Speaking of their cabin, it's quite large. Four bedroom, two bath with an attic they rutenly check out of Alex paranoia. Their kitchen is also fairly large and they have a nice dining area. Plus the garage and the back yard... yeah it's a big place

Most of the time it's just them but Toby and X virus stay the night too sometimes

Tim also sold his car and bought a pick up truck (country boy I lovve youu ahh) that has one of those roofs you can put on over the bed and they use that as a tent of sorts while camping. They just throw a comforter in there and boom, a bed

Toby was absolutely terrified to be in Tim's truck the first time but he's slowly getting over his fear of driving. He can be in a miving vehicle he just needs the radio on to distract him and someone to hold on to

Toby was also very alarmed at the fact that Tim would drive after drinking and Tim had to explain to him that he's been drunk driving since he was 14 (yeehaw am I right) and that made Toby feel a bit better and made Brian alot more concerned

Speaking of radio Tim fucking loves Country music, like all he listens to is country. Brian will attempt to introduce him to more pop and hip hop that he's fond of but Tim never likes it

Tim is such a country boy to me and I don't know why. He drives a pick up truck. Owns a coyboy hat. Only shops at Tractor Supply. His favorite drinks are bud light, iced sweet tea and ski soda (they only distribute it in a few U.S. states, mostly southern ones. No clue if it's as big in Alabama as it is in Kentucky) favorite foods include Kraft mac and cheese, baloney, bbq, catfish and deer jerky and he actually enjoys fishing and hunting

At fist everone was skeptical of Tim's weird southern food but schizophrenia be damned my boy can grill. Tim's used to cooking for big family gatherings so he pulls out no stops making good diner everynight. Plus he has alot of quick and easy meals for feeding alot of people for breakfast and lunch

And if you're wondering yes his favorite dessert is cheesecake, he doesn't have a favorite flavor though

His favorite actual food is pulled pork

Honestly Tim just looks like the physical embodiment of the word Alabama, and Brian looks like the embodiment of the word Minnesota to me

Brian himself is very northern. I do not know what that entails because I've enver been further than Columbus Ohio but take my word for it

Combine with their son(s?) from Denver and... yeah. Weird family. Sometimes a family is two ARG antagonists, a hatchet wielding murderer and an evil virologist

That aside it's a happy family mostly. Tim gets really angry sometimes and has to punch a wall but he's gotten better and not being angry around Toby (first time he yelled at Toby Toby cried because it brought up a lot of bad memories for him)

Honestly Tim and Brian are just trying to break the cycle of abuse because Tim's parents were way to hard on him and Brian doesn't really understand how you show a kid you love them without giving them stuff

They're still good parents though, aside from the fact Tim gave alcohol to children and Brian is a bit overbearing

Toby follows Tim around like a duckling. They bond very well together and Tim taught Toby how to use the hatchets, how to fish and tried to teach him how to hunt but Toby's tourettes make stealth pretty much impossible for him also maybe don't give Toby a gun he's a bit unstable

Toby loves country music because of Tim. X Virus (oh yeah because he's also their son too, Toby just spends more time with them because they're all proxies) pretends to not like Country but he hums some of the songs to himself when he's working

Tim, Brian and Liu once had the idea to collect all the cameras people drop when they come in the woods to film the weird shit and make a found footage documentary with them. Liu did the narration, Tim and Brian put their film school knowledge together to do everything else

Toby also works with Hoody and Masky as proxies on missions. Masky won't kill at all unless Hoody tells him to and Hoody knows Brian doesn't want blood on his hands so he never makes him. Hoody isn't opposed to murder but also isn't one to get his hands dirty unless absolutely necessary. Toby will break down a door and kill everyone in a room hatchets blazing

Toby is effectively another Masky but smarter and less stealthy and more destructive. Can't get through a door or wall? Toby breaks it. Need to kill someone? Toby kills them. Usually Hoody sits back and gives orders while Masky does most stealth stuff and victim chasing so Toby and safety barge in and kill if they need him to. Hoody rarely dose anything himself but he'll shoot someone of he thinks either Toby or Masky are in danger

Hoody almost exclusively uses a gun but will use other weapons if needed. Masky uses anything and has alot of range but normally just uses his hands

Masky is an idiot who'll take a bullet for Toby (Tim won't do that because if Toby gets hit at least it won't hurt him) and Hoody is somehow more protective than Brian. That's a good thing though because without Masky as back up and Hoody to supervise Toby tends to get hurt

(Aaaa that was alot but that’s pretty much all I have to say about them. I love them <3 and do choose to interpret the interactions between Tim and Hoody as Hoody caring for his partner even if Tim doesn't recognize him.)

#marble hornets #tim wright #timothy wright #brian thomas #masky and hoody #mh hoody #masky

[bedlamsbard]

So I hope it's all right to ask you a question about Lackey's books. Do I remember correctly your url comes from her Bard series and the first book in it, 'Knight of Ghosts and Shadows' was one of my favorites back when I was a teen. Just recently I discovered that there is more books in this universe, read the second volume and liked it, and now I'm struggling to get through book no 3. Anyways, my question is: have you read the entire series and would recommend getting through this book? cont.

part 2. Because so far I'm... disappointed with the direction ML took book 3. Wikipedia tells me the series was renewed after a longer pause so she might have just changed her mind but for me it kinda made me loose the wonder of the first book.

My username does indeed come from the series! (My friend @stellawind a few years ago gave me a copy of the Bedlam's Bard omnibus signed by ML and inscribed "To Bedlamsbard" and I may have cried.)

So, the back...two-thirds or so of the series, from Beyond World's End to Music to my Sorrow, co-written with Rosemary Edghill, are so different from the first couple of books (A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows and Summoned to Tourney, both cowritten with Ellen Guon) that they might as well be different series, in the same way that the Diana Tregarde and SERRated Edge books are both technically set in the same universe but don't have all that much to do with the Bedlam's Bard books. I actually started with Beyond World's End and the parts of the series that are set in NYC and didn't read the first two until last year (which was a wildly disconcerting experience, since I read the others as they came out in the early '00s), so from my perspective, the two California-set ones are the ones that are really discrepant. I really like them, but they are very different from the first two books and don't share all that much in common (as well as being set ten years later, in the '00s vs. the '90s).

I think it may also depend which third book you're reading, because they came out in a very weird order -- there's a prequel that came out after the first two books (that I actually haven't read) called Bedlam Boyz (written solely by Ellen Guon and not cowritten with Lackey), so I don't know if that's the third book you're reading or if it's Beyond World's End. The NYC-set books are about Eric; there's some shared cast from the California-set books, but most of the characters are new. They're very early '00s urban fantasy in tone in a way that can be a little discrepant now in the '20s. I know there's some effort to integrate the Diana Tregarde worldbuilding (with the existence of Guardians and Guardian House, but no character crossover) and the SERRated Edge books (some character and setting crossover). (For the record, I also didn't read the Diana Tregarde or SERRated Edge books until last year, so the references to those in the BB books I didn't pick up until then and then it made a whole lot more sense.) For me it's partially the difference between '00s urban fantasy and '90s urban fantasy, which is something I can identify but can't really put a finger on; the California-set ones are very '90s and the NYC-set ones are very '00s.

I realize this is not a particularly helpful response -- it's a weird series, tbh, especially with the nearly eight year gap between Summoned to Tourney and Beyond World's End. (This seemed to happen a lot in the early '00s -- Barbara Hambly also returned to a couple of her '80s/'90s series in the early '00s after a multi-year pause.)

#lady revanchist #bedlam replies

[fashion4standusers]

hi there! do you have any ideas for a "gyaru" kind of character for stardust crusaders? i'm trying to make a feminine oc for the part and am trying to give them that kind of fashionable, girlyish vibe but i can't find much resources aside from the usual loose socks + short skirt, which i find difficult to "jojofy" ;___; thank you so much for your help, and i love your ideas on this blog!!

I'm gonna put everything under a cut for this one because i have a LOT of ideas

I'm not very knowledgeable about gyaru, so I'm working off some very cursory research, but i gotta say, as far as the whole "jojofying an existing aesthetic/subculture" thing goes, I think gyaru lends itself REALLY well to that as-is. Heavy accessorizing, bold makeup, mixing patterns/textures, etc.

One of the classic gyaru outfits is the modified school uniform, which i think would work really well in SDC in particular. I know you said that you want to do more beyond just the baggy socks and short skirt, so lemme explain how i think you could do that.

JoJo LOVES to do that whole "uniform but also not" thing in its character designs (Jotaro, Kakyoin, Kei Nijimura, Pucci, like 90% of the DiU cast) and gyaru fashion already does that. Take a look at how Araki modifies a school uniform to make it more unique in part 3:

-jacket is worn open, accessorized with unusual belts and a giant chain, hat has unique symbols on it, weird hair/hat symbiote moment, jacket is a bit longer than a standard one

It's really only a few simple edits that make his design unique, and Kakyoin has even LESS going on. So, compare that to how gyaru edits a uniform:

-baggy cardigan, complex hairstyle, necktie used as a bow, skirt shorter than a standard one, baggy socks that put weight at the bottom of the silhouette

I think the gyaru uniform is already pretty in-line with the spirit of part 3! but in order to make your character's design UNIQUE and different from a typical gyaru look, i'd say accessorizing is the most important factor.

In terms of HOW to edit/accessorize the outfit, i like these examples from the japanese gyaru clothing brand MA*RS (source):

The things that stand out to me most here are hearts, chains, and especially bows. adding a HUGE bow around the neck would function the same way that Jotaro's jacket chain does-- it's a big obnoxious detail that draws attention and makes her stand out. You can also see these outfits using chain belts, which i think would be another great detail.

I think you could also use shoes as a variation on the baggy socks to make a unique design; in the same way that the socks create a heavy, blocky shape, you could instead use tall boots of some kind. There are LOTS of tall boots in JoJo, so those would be an easy way to ground your design within the universe while still keeping the aesthetic recognizable.

Another important factor is ABSOLUTELY the hair. I mentioned before that Kakyoin's outfit is a pretty normal school uniform, BUT he has a really weird hairstyle that makes him stand out. So, I think you can stray a bit from the typical gyaru hairstyles and use something a bit more unusual instead:

source unknown / king kong magazine / liquormeat

In a previous post i mentioned my shortlist of "jojo design details you can slap on any character":

Cutouts

Shoes that are attached to the characters pants

Text on clothing (the characters name, initials, their Stands name, etc)

Funky belts

Interesting patterns (not just simple stripes and polka dots, something a little more complicated or irregular)

Face tattoos/face paint/unusual makeup

I think in this case, the most fitting ones are the clothing text, patterns, and makeup. For patterns, you could find or come up with something unique to replace the standard tartan on the skirt.

With all this said, if you DON'T want to use the school uniform idea that i just rambled on and on about, you might want to research a gyaru subgenre known as "amekaji" that's a lot more casual and, for lack of a better word, "tomboy"-ish than the main variety. I think this would make sense for a character doing a lot of traveling, but it may not have the same girly-girl vibes you're looking for.

The Gyaru Wiki

I will say, SDC's main cast probably has the tamest/most desaturated/most mundane color palette of the whole series next to Phantom Blood, so you might want to consider how their design would mesh (or not mesh) with the Crusaders. The pink and black color palette seems to be pretty prominent in gyaru fashion, particularly in the "agejo" sub-style, but i think if you want the character to blend in with the crusaders, you'd be better off using those colors only as accents while the rest of the outfit uses a fairly "mundane" palette.

Another thing: gyaru is typically associated with the 90s and 2000s, and SDC takes place in the 80s. although it began as early as the 70s (therefore an 80s gyaru is totally plausible!), a lot of the really bold, emblematic gyaru styles didn't fully solidify until the 90s. interpret this how you want-- personally, i think it gives you reason to think outside the box and add details that you might not typically see within the subculture.

#ask #anon #request

[abbee-normal]

40 OC Development Questions: 8, 29, 33 for Mistii 😁

40 OC Development Questions: 8, 29, 33 for Mistii 

Does your oc prefer being in a crowd or being completely alone? How many people can be around them before they get uncomfortable?

Mistii doesn't like to be all alone, she prefers to have one or maybe two very close friends. She shares her living space with Fae, of course, she and her droid are inseparable. She makes a friend on one of her trips to Ord Mantell to meet with a client. A few close calls, a few adventures later, and to Mistii's surprise she blurts out that Doomi and her partner are welcome to join her crew. Doomi, eager for a fresh start and being a bit naive about the galaxy, accepts after thinking about it for a while. Doomi and Mistii become as close as sisters.

If Mistii is 'on the job' she can handle whatever she needs to. She gets into the zone and focuses on what she needs to do and will navigate however many people to accomplish that. When she is on her own time she prefers no more than 5, possibly 6 people around her, and only if they are good friends. If she was left to her own devices she'd probably hole up on Rishi and only come out for emergencies. Supplies she can have dropped off. 😉 But, for her sanity, and probably everyone else's, Mistii still has work to do which brings her all over the galaxy; two galaxies eventually.

How empathetic is your oc? Or are they closer to being a sociopath? Any reason why?

Mistii is Zeltron, so she's as empathetic as they come. Your discomfort is her discomfort. One reason she has a strict 'no kill' policy. Tranqs, stunners, EMPs are her go-to.

On the other hand, your happiness is her happiness. Yeah, it gets hard to disassociate her own feelings sometimes. This is partly why her first close friend was a droid. No feelings to tangle with. If she finds herself getting too caught up in someone else's feelings she will take a speeder or shuttle somewhere where she can be alone in order to get her head on straight.

How does your oc’s own perception of themselves compare to how other people see them? Is your oc aware that other people see them differently (if it’s different)?

Mistii sees herself as helpful, kind, always willing to help out someone in need.

Other people see this too, but they also see someone who puts other's needs so far ahead of her how that she fails to take care of herself.

She doesn't think this is a problem. Doomi and others see it for what it is, Mistii denying there's a problem.

Ha! The stripped clean ask got it right in this area:

I got silent admission… once you’re stripped clean, what’s at your core?

rippling sunset

you’re the nicest person i’ll ever meet, probably. with an undying passion to protect those who can’t protect themselves, you’re energetic and bubbly to a fault. it’s cute, watching you run around trying to tie up loose ends. i feel bad for you — out of everyone you know, you probably have some of the deepest trauma, more than anyone’s aware of. this isn’t something that you want attention for at all, and you’d really just rather forget it exists at all… even then, it seems like you can never escape it. i wish you a pleasant rest of your life, full of rippling sunsets and free of prying eyes.

#oc: mistii meena #zeltron oc #swtor oc #shynmighty #abbee nonsense #thank you for the ask it made me really think