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#and idk I actually don't really want to salt on her that much
blueberry-macaron · 2 years
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Ever since the Alya insta saga ( where fans including myself said Alya was mean on posts forcing creators to post as Alya and Marinette saying they’re besties) I always felt she was the epitome of peer pressure and the force kiss proved it. What’s worse is fans can’t say it’s ooc it’s one of the only constant things in canon. Nino and the girl squad too but Alya as the bff is the main culprit. Hell didn’t she also lock Marinette in with a villain or am I misremembering?
Yeah I remember something like that about how people had issues with their dynamic but Marinette can handle the teasing or smth weird like that. And the "locking Marinette in with a villain" happened in the NY special I believe? I'm actually not sure, I've never watched that special.
I have to agree though, Alya is the one who pressures Marinette the most into doing things she really doesn't want to do and it's extremely annoying.
A problem with Alya's behavior towards Marinette (that I feel isn't talked about enough) is that Alya falls under the category of "the black best friend trope", a racist trope where the black best friend only exists for the white main character (or in this case half white/ white passing). TV tropes describes it as follows:
Your black best friend is sassy. She's never too busy to lend an ear, or come along on your wacky schemes. She is flawless to the point of being unreal. (Until it's time to save the day of course. That's what white heroes are for.) Is it because she has no love life, no apartment, and no family? It's hard to say, but there's one thing for sure. She has a cell phone, and never ignores your calls.
With the expection of Alya having a love life and a family which has been shown on screen, the rest fits pretty well. Alya's role is to somehow shove- I mean guide Marinette to her endgame aka Adrien. Other than that, Alya doesn't have her own arc, her (few) struggles are either brushed off or solved within 2 minutes and when she spends time with Marinette it's never about her, it's about Marinette (or Ladybug in season 4), and by extension, the love square.
Now mix the "Alya being nothing but a tool for bringing the love square closer together" thing with the "It's so funny when Marinette humiliates herself" and voila, you get the canon Alyanette dynamic with Alya getting Marinette into awkard situations and overstepping boundaries constantly (because god forbid Adrienette bonds without there having to be outside meddling). And since the series appears to have this weird philosophy of "the end justifies the means", Alya doesn't face negative consequences like Marinette talking back to her or getting into a fight etc. because ultimately, in the eyes of the writers, she does a good thing. She brings Marinette closer to Adrien in a "fun" way that "entertains" the audience.
And it sucks because I actually liked Alya at first. She was a fun character. Now, I look at her with a weird mix of "you are more often a bad friend than a good one" and "the writers did you so dirty", u know? Alya had potential to be a great character, especially in season 4 after becoming Marinette's confidant, and the writers did nothing with it as always.
Alya exist for the love square and not herself and honestly, I find that to be sad.
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mossmurdock · 9 days
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Toxic gfs please 😖
TOXIC GIRLFRIENDSSSSSS
anon, my love, my world, how could i see this without immediately thinking about mei mei??
i was literally thinking about this ask all day, so a lot crossed my mind!! but what i really ended up latching onto was a childhood friends sort of au (v canon divergent)
obvs, i feel like having any sort of relationship with mei mei that lasts this long is going to turn sort of twisty and complicated. she's so honest about her greed, and i feel there's def an always present insecurity surrounding the reader concerning their value to her. not a pressing one, but one that's simply there. addressed so rarely that it's become dust covered and logical.
the tests start off small, like her asking you to do certain tasks for her. little acts of service like grabbing her snacks for lunch, or doing her work, or offering your gym clothes when she forgets her own. the people around you call you a pushover and a doormat. but things have always been this way, and the benefits are so easily identifiable.
she's kind to you. and despite what everyone else says, you're aware that once you turn your back that it's hypocrisy that fuels their attitudes, because it's your shoulder bumping against mei mei's when the two of you leave the room.
you're turned golden with the connection. she's always had midas on her side, tucked into her lashes, her teeth, her nails, any part of her that she can drag along your skin.
it's a hot summers day when she brings you out to an abandoned train track. she's brought you to the edge of a thicket. the old rusting tracks look like they're the ageing borders to another world.
something in your stomach croaks as mei mei playfully balances along the steel rail. your feet remain carefully planted into the loose gravel. the sound of hollow metal and rock clashing against each other is a pleasant one. despite your subconscious unease, you briefly close your eyes and take in the warm air around you as she reaches out to grab onto your hand whenever she misplaces her balance.
she brought you out here to celebrate getting through another year together. your ears had burned at her words: together. so much implication behind such a simple word. you found your mind running as she brought you out without any other explanation. it wouldn't matter as long as you were together. as long as you were there whenever she threatened to tip over while treading along the thin metal beneath her with her arms splayed out like an elegant bird's.
the thicket walks along with you both, never ending in its length. just as mei mei hops off the rails and stops walking, you wonder just how she stumbled upon this place.
"we're here." she circles you languidly as your steps also slow.
"here?" you question dryly as she stands behind you.
you're facing the thicket head on now, eyes sucked into a whirlpool of sameness and obscurity. the endless and thick lanes of bark all mold into something foreign. the birds have ceased to chirp. something rancid seems to waft out of its clearing, like a gaping mouth that's feasted and starved.
"yes," mei mei whispers. her mouth is dangerously close to your ear.
she rests her head on your shoulder lightly, staring up at you with a look you've seen a thousand times before.
your head rests against hers, leaning into the touch.
"what is it?" you ask. eager, and perfectly pliant.
she chuckles softly, raising her hands to block your vision. they act as a blindfold, though her palms seem softer than any fabric.
"a surprise," she answers cheekily.
she makes contact with your skin, completely darkening your vision. your senses frenzy as one is dampened. for a moment, all you're able to register is mei mei's body against yours.
there's the faint chance of her perfection melding into whatever it is you've made of yourself.
the chance is however eradicated by the sudden rise of a rank smell. it oppresses the other scents around you so strongly that the feeling of it sliding down your throat has you choking on your own breath and spit.
with the loss of your sight, the rot in the air grows heavy with every passing second, stalking its blind prey.
your expression twists beneath mei mei's palms and she seems to feel the shift of every muscle in your skin. her fingers separate from themselves slowly, allowing light to creep into your vision through her command and nothing else.
what hobbles across the train tracks turns the spit in your mouth rancid.
what you can only identify as a discoloured mound of flesh and teeth writhes between the thick trunks of the thicket ahead of you. its skin gleams with bright and volcanic cysts, oozing the smell of rotten and overly ripened fruit.
"mei—"
"shh," she hushes. her lips are so close that they're able to graze your ears now, her breath fanning across your face. she smells sweet, like lollipops.
"just look," she demands. her voice progressively becoming shrouded by the caws of birds
her hands have hardened around your skin and if you weren't so frozen by fear you would recognize the testing and prodding of her fingertips. they try to spot any flaking, any fools gold feathered across you.
when she finds nothing, when your feet remain planted into the ground and you remain in her clutches, when you mold and gouge against her instead of crumbling, mei mei finds herself smiling.
she turns your body towards her just as crows manically dive into the monster and begin to merge each other into a pool of unidentifiable gore.
you've gone weak in the knees, but she catches you, still grasping you by your soft cheeks. the fear in your eyes glints against the excitement of hers as her thumbs brush the sweat and tears off your face.
there's a sort of ownership in her hold that's never felt safer to you before now.
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aliensunflower-fics · 5 months
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My Recommended Fic List
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So, I got this ask awhile ago, and since I have been re-reading a bunch of my old favorite fics as a way to cheer up after work I figured why not. This list will be long... and varied but mostly its older fics cuz idk there my favs. Now lets go:
Fashion Upgrade - By @soap-lady : Straight up one of my favorite fics ever, its fun, its creative, it never fails to make me laugh when I need something warm and wholesome after a bad day. Also go check out the rest of her stuff there's so much good okay like shes just a writing queen. Shes on AO3 I don't want to spoil you on her other stuff just GO experience it for yourself.
Ode To Decoy pt 1 / 2 / 3 - By @a-marlene-s : Ive always liked this short sweet little fic about Lila getting caught. Its Lila + class salt though so avoid if that's not your flavor.
EVERYTHING - By @unmaskedagain : They have salt, they have sugar, they have funny, they have crossovers. Like honestly they are a just a great writer with so much variety so go check out the masterlist I linked and I guarantee there will be something there you like.
@ravennm84 Is a writer on the saltier side but they have a wonderful selection of weird wacky tales from the salty but oh so well written Damning Evidence that sees Lila get caught in the best way to the 3 part Horror inspired Serafina other great fics from them include Marinettes Family Court Circus pt 1 / 2 and Of Moldy Bread and Cockroaches / Be Kind to Servers honestly its worth giving there blog a look.
@mochinek0 Is another writer with several beloved fics. They write a lot of Maribat and we love them for it. Ones to check out would be Blind Date / Bruce vs Gabriel just go check out there tag list of daminette for more.
Accidental Crime Boss Marinette - By @lady-literature : This is a wonderful idea and a wonderful little fic and I just... I just like it okay. Sadly I haven't read a lot of there other stuff... But I might after finishing this list considering how much I enjoy this one.
@nobodyfamousposts I love a LOT of there fics. They are one of the best when it comes to striking that sweet spot of calling out the show for some of its garbage while not getting so salty that you cant have fun lighthearted goodness. I have been looking for a masterlist of there work but cant find one so just go stalk there tags. I do recommend there Chloe's Lament Series 1 / 2 exploring how certain 'wishes' would backfire. Guardian Assistant Kevin is also a good one Miracle Queen Aftermath pt 1 / 2 / The 8 parter Burn the Witch series / The Wisdom Teeth Reveal / Kagami Vs The Wall of Faces / Resigning With Grace & Spite / I tried to give a lot of links cuz they have a lot of stuff
Kill Them With Kindness - By @luki-fanfic : Well written, good salt without going overboard. Just good vibes. I havent stalked there other stuff but if its anything like this fic its probably excellent quality.
Stephen Vladislav pt 1 / 2 - By @stormiclown : Adrien centered salt on the idea of finally giving Adrien his own proper rival. I like the idea of Adrien having a rival because its usually Marinette and this was just the right length to get those creative ideas flowing. Also just well written what more can you ask for.
Power Trip - By @storygirl000 : This was the first fic that made me go... Wait would it be more fun if Lila was actually competent? And that set me on the path to writing my own fics where Lila is more villainous and more capable. Its short, well written. Good.
Your Wish is My Command - By DemiGoddess28 on AO3 : A great 11 chapter fic looking into Lila's life if she were to win and get a miraculous wish. Its got sugary goodness for our protagonists and the class and salt for our dearest friend Lila.
LadyBugOut AU - By Miraculous-Content on AO3 : A 50 chapter fic made up of snippets and ideas. I found it really inspiring in many ways. I also love how it redeems Marinettes classmates showing how and why they were tricked but holding them accountable anyway its just... Good.
Juleka vs The Forces of the Universe - By goldenlaurelleaves on AO3 : For those of us not yet ready to accept the death of luka/mari we have this wonderful fic showing Juleka being the biggest wingman as she helps these idiots find there way together.
ChaoticNeutral on AO3 has there own Chloe's Lament fic as well as a Gabriel's Lament fic for people who need sweet salty of those two characters.
BroadwayCutie16 was Inspired by the person above and DemiGoddesses your wish is my command fic to write Lila's Lament fic going over Lilas failed wish. Honestly I always love these fics because there just so interesting and the way wishes can be taken and twisted is always a fascinating idea to me.
#WayneAngel - By Tired-Writing-Teach on AO3 : For us Maribat lovers. Its fun and lighthearted with some good gags and some light fluff.
Damian in Paris - By Lilliesandliveries on AO3 : A sweet Maribat series showing what would happen if Damian ran away from home and found himself in Paris and getting therapy.
How a Demon Commissions an Angel - By AlixAnonymous : Damian blackmails Marinette into letting him be her client so he can get his bros the best gifts, they end up becoming penpal buddies.
Mythomania - By LadyEnna_50 on AO3 : Proof that I dont hate Adrien or Mari/Adrien. In this fic Adrien's spine gets titanium plating and he sees just how bad Lila is hurting Marinette and does something about it.
The Contingency - By AbyssalGuardian on AO3 : SALT. Also Tim/Mari but even still I love the way this was written, the style, and some of the ideas just ugh love it. Its not for those who dont like salt so just avoid at your own discretion. Its about a chaotic Marinette done with her life running away to Gotham where she meets her true black cat, and gets her life back on track.
The String That Binds Us - By FaithAndATypeWriter on AO3 : Okay so is there any Mari/Bat fan who hasnt already heard of this one? Who cares its good, its cute, I love it. May the author be blessed with snacks.
The Great IKEA Game - By @batsandbugs : Okay again... I think every Mari/Bat fan has probably heard of this one already because its just that good and that popular. But who cares I am recommending it anyway. Don't read if your allergic to fun I guess.
If this list still doesn't somehow have enough salt for you then try @goggles-mcgee fics here is a link to there Masterlist. They are in a way a professional at salt and angst and they make you want to adopt Marinette and pop her in a blanket fort.
Honestly I could keep going but this list already feels so long for other great recs though I can link you to @jayphoenic who has some great Daminette Fic Recs and some Lila Salt Fic Recs!
Feel free to reblog this and add some links to stuff you would think I or others might like! Also lets just acknowledge how many talented authors the community has like wow.
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genericpuff · 3 months
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I wonder why christian misrepresentation are rarely talked about if compared to other religion misrepresentation. Like, I've seen people really vocal about Greek myths misrepresentation in LO and such (and it's valid because it's a culture and religion) but I rarely saw the same thing with christian even though there are many media who use christian religion innacurately, to the point where it comes off as using it as an aesthetic and not a proper religion.
Is it because of rampant religious trauma especially in western world? No ulterior motives on this question. I'm not a christian and yet I'm curious about this. I apologize if this sounds harsh.
I obviously don't have The Answer(tm) to this but personally speaking (and I'm about to get VERY personal here so take this with MOUNTAINS OF SALT), I think it's just the obvious - Christian mythology is one of the most well-documented and strongly protected out of virtually any other religion on the planet. Especially here in the West, it's commonplace for kids to go to Sunday school, for couples to have Christian weddings even if they're not practising Christians themselves, even the American anthem references the Christian God. It's simply not as easy to 'misrepresent' it because the representation is written into our very fabric of society. Even Greece itself is primarily made up of Orthodox Christians.
So anyone that does 'misrepresent' it are either completely mislead hardcore Christians, or people who are doing it intentionally, such as with the intent to make a parody of it or to deconstruct it through a different context or whatever have you. And of course, people will still get mad at those things, if you're implying that people aren't vocal about Christian misrepresentation then frankly IDK what to tell you there LOL If you want a contextual example in the realm of webtoons, Religiously Gay was dragged to hell and back during its launch for having a very crude and insulting depiction of St. Michael, and frankly, yeah I don't disagree because what the fuck is this-
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(like at best it's just terrible character design lmao that said, there's also plenty else to criticize Religiously Gay for, including its fetishy representation of gay relationships and the fact that it's still just the "naive person who looks and acts like a child hooks up with mean person in a position of power" trope, blech, but the character design is definitely the first thing you notice)
There are even plenty of hardcore Christians who will deadass claim "misrepresentation" over things that ARE factually correct but they just haven't read the actual Bible and simply cherry pick what works for their own agenda. And of course those people are routinely called out by people like myself who know for a fact that Jesus wouldn't have promoted the war crimes that many modern day Christians are committing and justifying today. So it really depends on the definition of "misrepresentation" here.
The issue specifically with LO and Rachel that I personally call her out for (and many others) is that she's called herself a "folklorist" and claimed she's so much more knowledgeable on Greek myth than anyone else, while making a complete mockery of the original mythologies while not being honest about her intent as to whether LO is actually supposed to be a legitimate retelling OR a parody (because it sure acts like the latter more than the former, but she still seems to expect us to take it seriously and consider her knowledge of Greek myth superior?) Which leads to a lot of her teenage audience claiming shit like "Persephone went down to the underworld willingly" and "Apollo did assault Persephone in the original myths actually" and the classic "why would Lore Olympus lie or make up fake myths?"
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You just can't pull off this extent of erasure with Christian mythology because we have a whole ass book of it that's been preserved, sold on shelves, and systematically integrated into society for thousands of years. Of course, there are people who will still try their damned best to twist the Bible to match their own bigotry with the whole "Jesus hates gays" bullshit (he would never), but it's met with equal amounts of 'misrepresentation' that are actually fully well-read and are intentionally subverting and changing things to either critique, parody, or restore the original intent of a lot of stories in the Bible without all the manufactured right-wing crap.
Greek myth, on the other hand, has some stories that are well preserved, and others, not so much. And in the modern day outside of the poems and hymns, you'll also rarely, if ever, see anyone use stories from Greek myth to ostracize, torture, and murder other people. "Misrepresenting Christianity" is more often done by actual Christians who are using the Bible to commit hate crimes than the people who have actually read the Bible and are just taking creative liberties with it for the sake of deconstructing / parodying / analyzing / subverting it. Veggie Tales "misrepresents" Christian stories because obviously Moses wasn't a fucking cucumber lmao but it still accomplishes its goal by retelling Christian stories in a way that's fun and educational for children.
By comparison (on the whole, I'm not comparing LO to Veggie Tales LMAO) LO just isn't clear in its intentions beyond Rachel's initial statements that she was trying to "deconstruct" the myths, while labelling herself as a folklorist. Therefore, I'm going to criticize how she does it because the way she's done it up until now has been very mishandled and has resulted in a lot of misinterpretations of the myths simply for the sake of fandom. And yes, these people exist in Christian media as well - they're called TV evangelists.
And that's my (very heavy) two cents.
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420technoblazeit · 1 year
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in my mind dean was always supposed to get older and become the new bobby. like ok you're a hunter, maybe a little new to the scene and still figuring things out. and you're tracking down a werewolf, easy case. except some things don't line up quite right and now you're thinking it might not actually be a werewolf. so you ask around a hunter's bar and they all say the same thing. go to this one bunker in the middle of nowhere in kansas
and you're like sure what the hell. you're stumped anyway, might as well check it out. maybe it's a weapons storehouse or something. but then you get there and there's a doorbell and a bee-shaped welcome mat out front and you're starting to think you've got the wrong place. the door swings open and there's this middle aged guy with a robe and batman pyjama bottoms. and he laughs at the look on your face and tells you to come in, he doesn't bite. not since he got that vampire cure, anyway. you're not sure what to make of that last part but he winks at you when he says it so you figure he's joking. maybe.
he gives great advice about hunting everything under the sun and if you stick around long enough he'll go on and on about how he saved the world at least five times. ok sure. you don't want to be rude so you just sit there and sip your coffee politely while he talks about some guy called chuck and how much of a bitch he is. and another guy who's aged a little more gracefully comes padding down the hallway in a metallica t-shirt and rolls his eyes. has he told you about tvland yet? ('i was just getting to that part!')
if you go to the basement you'll find shotguns filled with salt, wooden stakes, holy water, and demon-killing bullets for sale. and if you're lucky the witch who sells hex bags might be around. low-grade curses only, of course. you better leave the powerful stuff to the professionals. and she'll get in trouble if she gives you anything stronger, not that she can't be persuaded. a girl's gotta make a living after all and she's always encouraged eager new witches. it's worked out pretty well for her so far. and then a guy you swear is twice your height will raise an eyebrow at her and insist she only sell the weaker hex bags, please. you don't need any more witches in your coven, rowena. you've got plenty
pagan god giving you trouble? there's a man who swings by every once in a while who knows how to deal with those. give him some candy or a fun magic relic and he might help you out. it depends. he's a little picky about dishing out advice and he likes to play favorites. and if you've got a demon problem they can give you the number of a guy who swears up and down that he used to be the king of hell. but you've seen him walking around with a purse-sized terrier tucked under his arm and a dozen more following him so you're not really sure if you believe him
idk i like to think that dean got to grow old and retire. that doesn't mean he stops helping people, it just means he hangs up his coat and becomes an old man who rambles on and on about 'back in my day' and makes a dent in his leather armchair. there's a foosball table where the dungeon used to be and sam complains about beer bottles being everywhere and it becomes a safe haven for anyone still fighting the good fight. it's just that for dean and the rest of team free will the fight is over. they're done hunting now
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sepublic · 5 months
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People -and this did include myself at one point- really don't want to engage with the fact that Belos is modeled after white supremacy by trying to bury this under the lens of "Oh he's actually a lonely weirdo like Luz!!!" when Belos' superiority complex is the most important part of him and it's where all analyses inevitably must stem from. I think the problem is that people are too attached to their speculative fanon version of Belos and instead of letting go of that to rebuild their understanding of him from the ground up (since he's a mysterious character who is only gradually revealed bit by bit), they keep clinging to this sympathetic tragic villain as the core behind their interpretation of him. 
Everything about Belos makes so much more sense when you explore him as someone akin to a lot of right-wing 4channers; A lonely young boy who was radicalized because white supremacy promised to rescue him from his isolation, and after buying into it wholesale, he very much chose to cling onto the need to be superior to the "NPCs" even when someone close to him actually unlearns and deconstructs for him why this is harmful. He sees firsthand how someone just like him is happier for leaving this mindset, and then kills them to eliminate that contradiction threatening his world belief; At which point it’s inaccurate to infantilize him as just a lonely and misguided kid, because he’s no longer a kid and he made a very cognizant and informed choice to double down and commit actual violence.
And everyone knows that by this point, such people are not actually being sincere; They’re not secretly misguided, you can’t simply attribute their harm to not knowing better because this is what their religion says or whatever. These people know they’re committing harm, but rather than help on “lesser” people’s terms, they ‘help’ the way THEY see fit, in the way that strokes their ego. That’s what separates Philip from someone like Gwen, who humbled herself to focus on what Eda was saying she really needed. So the Titan’s summarization of Belos as someone who only cares about being the hero in his own delusion, and fears what he can’t control is… hardly an oversimplification, it really gets to the core of Belos as a character, and the narrative he embodies. It captures the difference between wanting to help and having a savior complex, and is what ends up delineating the two at the crucial crossroads. 
And I find it a little concerning to joke about how this type of character is “just a silly guy” when people exactly like him are on the rise and committing very real violence right now. It’s also why I don’t buy the justification behind a lot of salt about how villains need to be humanized in order to show kids how THEY can become villains, because the show is fairly outright about how Belos rationalizes atrocities under the guise of the ‘greater good’ and refuses to self-reflect, and it’s not as if we don’t have Luz learning to understand characters like Amity or Lilith, the Collector and even Kikimora (whom she DID relate to personally, yet Kiki still doubled down with or without Belos), while still having the show emphasize that they need to get their act together and can’t just depend on people to save them. 
There’s also the very obvious theme of Luz realizing she doesn’t owe her oppressor anything, especially not when he won’t ever meet her or anyone else on their terms, but idk some people just seem to hate Luz for having boundaries I guess, even though she already put in the effort to be kind and understanding to Belos and she got hurt for it. Hell the Collector made that effort after being inspired by Luz, and Luz was murdered protecting them from that mistake!!! There are some very obvious stories and lessons being told here with the actual protagonists being the heart of those narratives, but the problem I’ve noticed is that a lot of the people complaining on Belos’ behalf are those who hyperfixated almost exclusively on the Wittebane aspect of the lore, going over it with a fine tooth comb and microscope to extrapolate an entire fanon from the littlest of details… only to just ignore the actual show and narrative and themes happening on-screen. 
And that leads to many not understanding various narrative decisions because they weren’t really paying attention to the actual point they’re in service to, and then they blame the writers for their own chosen ignorance, and how the story wasn’t about their part specifically so everything else doesn’t count and the whole show is wasted potential, really. The way so many of said fans immediately turned on Luz after the finale and tried to drag her down to Belos’ level by acting like she wasn’t any better for also wanting things and 'demonizing enemies', claiming Luz had unaddressed ‘flaws’ while Belos deserved more sympathy, and framing Belos as a ‘better’ character who ‘worked harder’ while claiming Luz was retconned into an arrogant chosen one who never grew, is actually baffling.
A lot of them are just upset that Belos didn’t play the role in Luz’s arc that they wanted him to play, so they’ve opted to dismiss Luz’s overall storyline as badly written and even a reflection of Dana's 'Catholic complex' (which is a tasteless jab to make) because they neglected the nuance behind every other aspect of Luz that wasn’t directly tied to Belos, that didn’t set her up as the one person who understands him or whatever because that’s more important to them than addressing the sheer trauma and pain that Belos willingly inflicted upon Luz. Because god forbid this brown girl be angry against her white abuser, huh? God forbid the white guy be used to set up the brown main character, rather than the other way around right????? It’s really just a jealous complaint about the show’s choice of priorities and celebration, hidden under the false guise of ever caring about Luz’s arc for Luz’s sake.
And that’s how you get insincere arguments about how Belos should’ve been able to survive, that’s how you get AUs that undermine the lessons of canon to egregiously relegate Luz to being Belos’ sidekick, or even present her as an obstacle to him getting his much-needed redemption, as if that last part hinges on all of Belos’ victims getting over their pain to help him, because obviously he needs it more than they do! Because we gotta spare Belos’ feelings by giving him friends instead of consequences!!! Unbelievable. He is not Amity, not Lilith, and definitely not Hunter, and the people who forgave them had actual reason to do so. And even Lilith had to move in with her mother so she could be given reparations by someone who actually owed it to her, rather than her younger sister and two kids.
And there’s definitely a major difference between Lilith and Gwen’s dynamic and Philip and Caleb’s, especially since Caleb was also a child when he moved into Gravesfield. Even if you think Belos' bigotry was radicalized due to 'grief' over losing his brother to witches, that's just entitlement and control because it's not as if Caleb can't have more than one positive relationship in his life; Philip is no better than people who blame minorities for some incident in their life and use that as justification to become white supremacists, and there's nothing sympathetic or 'tragic' about that.
But the point is that Caleb ultimately wasn’t THAT important to Belos because he’d always be secondary to witch-hunting, Belos clearly chose his white supremacy over his brother, and any ‘takebacks’ that come in the form of the Grimwalkers are insincere given Belos does nothing to actually repent or regret his violence committed on the people of the isles; It’d have been one thing if he DID try to undo his mistake by choosing differently, by cloning Caleb and giving up witch hunting, but he still doesn’t (Note that Belos does not hallucinate the ghosts of the witches he killed; He still feels no remorse over them, because his fear of being wrong comes from a selfish place). And unlike Luz, Belos can’t have it both ways because one option explicitly calls for the extermination of the other; It’s the Paradox of Tolerance that Luz struggled with, except contrary to what Belos claims, humanity’s existence does not require the eradication of others.
Because yes there IS a meaningful moral distinction between Luz and Belos -don’t forget they’re not just parallels but explicit opposites- that occurs even before you get into the genocide, not that you should neglect that other part either because it’s incredibly important, being the starting point for this entire rant. Society already has a bias towards devil’s advocating bigotry as some big misunderstanding, and prioritizing the angst of white dudes who commit it over the victims of color; Can we avoid applying that to fiction?!??!? I literally saw someone complain that the show didn’t portray Belos’ grief from murdering Luz, and that Luz’s “glory moment” took away from a Wittebane backstory!!! At this point, people are just being racist.
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"Murder is Werewolves" - Batman
I don't got the SPOONS to do this thought train justice, I have seriously been trying to write this thing for MONTHS so just, idk, have this half baked skeletal outline of the essay I guess:
I don't believe that Batman's no-kill rule is primarily about rehabilitation or second chances.
His refusal to believe that Cassandra could have killed someone when she was eight years old because "how could a killer understand my commitment not to kill" is absolute fucking MOON LOGIC from a rehabilitationist standpoint. No jury on the planet would think for even a second that she could reasonably be held accountable for her actions in that situation! Her past cannot condemn her to being incapable of valuing human life under a rehabilitation centering framework. However, Batman's reasoning makes perfect sense if he believes that killing is a spiritually/morally corrupting act which permanently and fundamentally changes a person, and that corruption can never be fully undone.
Dick Grayson killing the Joker is treated both narratively and by Batman as an unequivocally WIN for the Joker. The Joker won by turning Nightwing into a killer. Note that this is during a comic in which the Joker transforming people was a major theme! Batman didn't revive the Joker because the Joker deserved to live; he revived the Joker to lift the burden on Dick.
His appeal to Stephanie when she tried to kill her dad is that she shouldn't ruin her own life. He gives no defense of Cluemaster's actual life. Granted this is a rhetorical strategy moment and should be taken with a generous pinch of salt, but it fits in the pattern.
When Jason becomes a willful killer, he essentially disowns him, never treats him with full trust ever again, and... Well, we can stop here for Bruce's sake. Bottom line is that his actions towards Jason do not lead me to believe that he thinks Jason can become a better person without having his autonomy taken from him, either partially or fully.
The Joker is, for better or worse, the ultimate symbol and vessel of pure, irredeemable evil in DC comics now. He hasn't been just another crook in a long time. He will never get better, he will only get worse. If you take it to be true that the Joker will not or can not rehabilitate, then there's no rehabilitationist argument against killing him.
Batman does not seem to consider it a possibly that he'll rehabilitate. Batman at several points seems to think that the Joker dying in a manner no one could have prevented would be good. Yet Batman fully believes that if he killed the Joker, he himself would become irredeemable.
Batman's own form of justice (putting people into the hospital and then prison) is fucking brutal and clearly not rehabilitative. He disrespects the most basic human rights of all criminals on a regular basis. It is genuinely really, really weird from a rehabilitationist standpoint that his only uncrossable line is killing... But it makes perfect sense if he cares more about not corrupting himself with the act of killing than the actual ethical results of any individual decision to kill or not kill.
In the real world cops are all bastards because they are too violent to criminals, even when that violence doesn't lead to death. Prison is a wildly evil thing to do to another human being, and you don't use it to steal away massive portions of a person's life if your goal is to rehabilitate them. In the comic world, Batman is said to be necessary because the corrupt cops are too nice to criminals and keep letting them out of jail. I don't know how to write a connector sentence there so like I hope you can see why this bothers me so damn much! That's just not forgiveness vibes there Batman!!
I want to make special note here of the transformative aspect. You don't simply commit a single act when you kill, no, you become a killer, like you might become a werewolf.
The narrative supports this a lot!
Why did Supes go evil during Injustice? He killed the Joker. Why did Bruce become the Batman Who Laughs? Bruce killed the Joker. Why was Jason Todd close to becoming a new Joker during Three Jokers? Because he killed people, to include the Joker.
Even if these notions of redemption being impossible aren't the whole of his reasoning (people never have only one reason for doing what they do) it is a distinct through-line pattern in his actions and reasoning, and it is directly at odds with notions of rehabilitation, redemption, and second chances.
So why does he give so many killers second chances?
Firstly because this doesn't apply to all versions of Batman. Some writers explicitly incorporate rehabilitation and forgiveness into his actions. You will be able to provide me with examples of this other through-line pattern if you go looking for them. The nature of comics is to be inconsistent.
Secondly the existence of that other pattern does not negate the existence of this one. People and characters are complex, and perfectly capable of holding two patterns of belief within themselves, even when they conflict to this degree. You can absolutely synthesize these two ideas into a single messy Batman philosophical vibescape.
Finally and most importantly to this essay: he has mercy on killers the same way that werewolf hunters sometimes have mercy on someone who is clearly struggling against their monsterous nature, especially if they were turned in exceptional circumstances or against their will. They understand that they are sick, damned beasts, cursed to always be fighting against themselves and the evil they harbor within. It is vitally kind to help them fight themselves by curtailing their autonomy in helpful ways and providing them with chances to do some good to make up for their eternal moral deficiency.
I think in many comics Batman views killers as lost souls. Battered and tormented monsters who must be pitied and given mercy wherever possible. (The connections to mental health, addiction, and rampant, horrifying ableism towards people struggling with both is unavoidable, but addressing it is sadly outside of the scope of this essay.)
Above all, the greatest care possible must be taken to never, ever let yourself become one of them, because once you have transformed the beast will forever be within you growing stronger.
To Batman, it is the most noble burden, the highest mercy, the most important commandment: Thou shalt suffer the monsters to live.
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yunxi-11085 · 11 months
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let's sing together
or— listening to music with Honkai : Star Rail people (part 1?)
list ~ Serval, March 7th, Dan Heng, Blade, Jing Yuan
this is written romantic/y?? but idk
let's start off with Serval~~
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Serval is superrr into music, and what does she like most? you liking her rock n roll! everytime you take out your earphones from your bag, she comes out of nowhere and asks you if you want to listen together?? of course you'd say yes, both of you would take a walk around belobog talking about music, maybe you should try playing guitar? serval looks super cool while playing the electric guitar!! maybe she should teach you sometime
shes super good at making songs too, she should maybe start a concert around belobog though she has a mini concert already!
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March loves your music taste! whether it be pop, rock, edm?? she doesn't care! as long as it's something you like, she would like too! on your usual trailblaze trips, you and march would be super close and chat about the latest news about your favorite artist's new song and listen with you. while singing along with the song. everyone would pretend to not notice but both of you are so cute?! pretty sure some of them already took a few pics and sent them to get printed hehe
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Dan Heng would sit next to you while wearing one ear of your earphones, he's so warm-hearted and nice. maybe he was kind of confused when you first reached out to him and asked him if you could listen to music with him, but he would gladly accept for you.
you'd lean on his shoulder and hum along the song while he watches the music video on the phone. you were surprised when he started humming along with you and he smiled at you— gosh this could make your heart explode into millions of pieces
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Blade doesn't get music but he still gets it in a way. he sits next to you, both of you sharing earphones, while he listens to you hum along the song. maybe although he doesn't understand music, he likes seeing you and hearing you sing. it's like music to his ears lmaoo
Blade would listen to you rant nonstop about how the music is really good, your favorite parts of the music video, etc.
he'd pat you on the head when you attempt to sing a high note but failed.. it's okay! blade gives it a 97 percent score maybe you should try practicing more often and he'd gladly give it 100%~
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You would sit beside Jing yuan while he tries to lie about how the diviner told him he could rest today. but still he took a day off and endured the scoldings of the diviner Fu Xuan just so he can find time to talk to you n listen to you talk about whatever you want to talk about! he's so sneaky and you love him for it
Jing yuan pats you on the back for trying to sing a high note while his birds start singing and bombarding you both with your failure because they are sneaky little critters, just like their owner ^^
maybe you should try to tell diviner fu xuan to let Jing yuan have his way sometimes! the general could probably work overtime after listening to his cute lover sing
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I actually have to study n not write this because tmrw is my exam day buttttttttt my head was screaming for me to write this ++ after farming a bunch of stellar jades for blade (I finally did it. I finally got the 100% guarantee.) my head is not the right state for studying 👍🏻
take my headcanon with some grain of salt, sorry if some characters don't have enough lines I tried putting as much..
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paracosmicparadox · 1 year
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So, I'm falling back into the FFXV kick, and I have decided that I disapprove of how little complex character development Square Enix has given the guys?? Like where is the emotional depth beyond surface-level cutscene angst?? So I took matters into my own hands and have compiled a handy little list of headcanons / expanded canons that I think make sense.
Noctis: Has clinical insomnia and frequent lucid dreams (sorta a given, but bear w me bear w me)
Feels the weight of having to take so much on from such a young age much, much more than he lets on
Loves to argue
Would've been happier if he and Luna stayed as childhood best-buds rather than betrothed fiancés (controversial, ik, but it just didn't seem like he cared that much for her romantically to me?? Like he obviously cared about her, but it seemed like a really strong penpal vibe rather than a "We're-gonna-get-married-and-be-the-next-hotshot-couple" vibe. If you disagree, coolio, I'm not gonna debate w you on this one)
Has a natural sadness to his eyes regardless of what he's feeling
Went through an anime phase (possibly still in his anime phase, idk)
Social anxiety for the win
Severe RBF
Prefers tea over coffee (black tea is best---particularly lavender earl grey)
Can play the cello (practicing tho?? Don't know her)
Writes the most beautiful poetry when The Motivation™ strikes him (usually when he's home sick and half-delirious)
Prompto: Has ADHD and clinical anxiety, but is undiagnosed and doesn't take any meds for either of them.
Is legit like SO SMART, but can never focus, so not many people take any notice
Wears contact lenses (he had glasses as a child and I refuse to believe he had some high-tech corrective surgery to eliminate the need for them when lenses are cheaper and less risky)
Doesn't drink caffeine because it makes him jittery
Doesn't drive the Regalia when the guys are around because having other people in the car distracts him from the road. Also he tends to drive like a speed demon, which worries Ignis to no end.
Sunburns insanely easily
Could legit become a hitman if he wanted to with the amount of gun-knowledge he has. It doesn't matter what firearm you put in this boy's hand---pistol, SMG, sniper, rocket launcher, you name it. He can and will hit the target every single time.
Addicted to adrenaline
Pansexual
Has a lot of self-loathing (we see a bit of this in Ep. Prompto) and talks with an online therapist about it via text whenever his lows hit him. He's making great progress in learning how to heal and how to accept himself for who he is beyond the mask he wears for others
Ignis: More than a little bit of a control freak, and works very hard not to be too overbearing or critical about his friends' misgivings
Hypochondriac
Wants to protect everyone all the time and mentally kicks himself when he doesn't get there fast enough
Is SO PROUD of Noctis's journey and felt a stronger hatred towards Ardyn than anyone else in the group for what he forced Noct to go through (he stayed up at night sick to his stomach with hollow rage and baked nonstop to take his mind off of it)
Can verbally obliterate a man, but only rarely chooses to do so bc he's classy like that
After losing his eyes, he notices so much more beauty in the world than he used to (the sound of rain on the Regalia's roof, the specific gait of each of his friends, the smell of salt on the wind in Galdin Quay, the flawless feel of one specific silk tie he has in his repertoire, etc)
His internal compass is never wrong
Regularly takes antacids for his stomach
Has the straightest teeth you've ever seen
Demiromantic
Gladio: Hates being wrong: it's his way or the highway
Actually so much smarter than the musclehead jock front he puts up
A little vain and easily jealous (this man has a Jealous Face like no other)
Thunderstorms are his favorite; his ideal place to be is at a campsite, during a storm, with a well-worn book and a mug of Irish coffee in hand
Would throw himself in front of a bus for any one of his friends
Would beat up kids for the folks he cared about in middle school and spent the time he wasn't training to be a Crownsguard sitting in detention with the most unrepentant, smug, and-I'd-do-it-again look scrawled across his face
Can make a better smoothie than anyone (except maybe Iggy)
Spotify junkie
Had a dinosaur phase as a kid and can still name random facts about them whenever the opportunity presents itself
Avid technology-hater and only has a phone to make calls and join the others in playing King's Knight since they begged him so profoundly (he's sure the thing's going to be his downfall)
Gets most of Prompto's pop culture references
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nuttytani · 5 months
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Hold my chai, aunty has arrived in the Mansion
(adventures of aunty in the ikemen vampire universe. into the ike-verse!)
It was just a normal day of work for aunty. You know, the usual, kicking her husband and children out for work and school with their tiffin and bags in tow.
Finishing cleaning the house like a sonic with extra energy drinks and taking the rubbish out,
Then finally! A hot shower
She was only left with making her sweet and relaxing lunchtime tea when her doorbell rang.
She opened the door and.....everything turned white and aunty's life turned upside down. Or did it?
Actually it turned up. I mean her life was already up but now it's better-ish?
She's basically on a month-long vacation! Away from her husband and children (I mean sure she's worried about the state of the house but they can manage by themselves right? They won't miss her.....right? Ok fine maybe she's kind of sort of worried about them and missing them but she KNOWS she can go back so haha!)
The mansion people were quite warm and welcoming towards her so it didn't take much time for her to adjust.
Except for the food and... tea.
YOU CALL THIS FOOD? DEAR SEBASTION, WHERE ARE YOUR MASALAS? WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVE SALT AND PEPPER-- THAT'S NOT MASALA
And the tea! How…. she won’t even describe how she feels except for pure disappointment. These people had no ingredients for chai
Comte had no choice but to order some.....groceries for dear aunty. He couldn't say no to her. Especially with how disappointed she looked while eating food or having her tea.
He also had to turn the wine cellar into a grocery store room. But he sure had great company with aunty! Joining her outside in his garden. 
Smoking who? Comte got rid of his cigar and now constantly has a cup of chai in his hand (mostly because aunty would yell nonstop for him and leonardo to stop smoking. Because 1) she doesnt want to be a chain smoker 2) smoking is bad for your health and makes you look like a gangster…. Aunty’s words, not mine!)
(Psssst she also taught Sebastian how to make chai 101 until he got the recipe right till perfection.)
The other mansion residents weren't having that much....fun tho. It felt like having a mom after many years. Which is funny because technically, they’re wayyyyy older than her, and they’ve told her so many times, and each time she replies with a: but you all act like children, that’s not my fault is it? Now my dears, would you please pass me that newspaper? 
One day, Arthur was walking around half naked around the mansion only to receive the MOST judgemental stare in his entire life
“Put some goddamn clothes on, child! You’ll catch a cold at this rate.”
“Aunty, that's not possible for vampires….”
“Do I look like I care? Put some clothes on.”
Or the first week in the mansion, practically staring daggers at everyone 
“Shoes inside the house? Who’s going to clean this… Sebastian? Mitsuki? Your mom? Me? Well definitely not any of us.”
House slippers became a thing ever since and now NO ONE dares to wear shoes inside the house. 
Vincent had to learn cooking as well, like proper cooking.
Aunty found it shocking that even her daughter's terrible cooking wasn't as bad as his. So that was saying something.
Dazai stopped using the windows as a way to enter the house 
Actually there were a lot of positive changes in the house, at least for Sebastian and Mitsuki 
They had SO much help in the kitchen. They wouldn’t let aunty do the cleaning and laundry though, that’d be rude and she’s basically on a vacation. She needs to relax! 
Her favourite weapon of choice to discipline the mansion boys is her handy dandy jharu (broom).
She'd pass it to Mitsuki or Sebastian when they'd go wake up Napoleon. If he tried to do his sleep-kissing thing- he'd get one smack on his face with the broom.
Idk how she got it but she somehow has it so we roll with it okay? 
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random thoughts that had to be written down. they don't really make much sense but heyyy who cares?
I've brought back my taglist, fill it in if you're interested!!!
here's the link
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seraphdreams · 2 years
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Prompt 9 + 100 with ran please 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫
RAN HAITANI X READER!
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PROMPT : "You'd better get rid of everyone in this house or I swear to god I'm gonna fuck you on the first flat surface I can get you to, and I know you don't want anyone to know what you sound like when I'm fucking you." / "Say it louder for me, baby. Say my name louder or I swear to god I'll stop everything right now and you can get yourself off. Do it, I want him/her/them to hear you scream my name."
CONTAINS : bonten ran, afab!reader, smut, tiny mentions of blood (in clothes), sex around others (idk?? it’s not exhibitionism), creampie.
A/N : i actually love how this turned out, thank you ace bae for requesting !! prompts are temporarily closed at the moment.
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when your boyfriend ran would say that he’s coming home early, you’d usually take it with a grain of salt, since 90% of the time mikey would send him out on a odd job that’d take up the whole afternoon and sometimes up until midnight.
you had invited a few friends over to catch up, preparing a few finger foods to chat your lonesome away with, still not expecting the criminal you call a lover to show up. it wasn’t like your friends knew his real occupation either, it was confidential. you skated by with just telling them he’s a ceo of some foreign business. suddenly, you hear the latch of the doorknob, indicating that the door had been opened. much to your surprise; your boyfriend, blood stains in his indigo suit and splotches on his face, stood at the doorway with a puzzled expression.
“ran?” you query, making your way towards the door after excusing yourself from the living room. “what’re you doing back so early?”
his eyes looked over you, trying to find the source of the laughter he heard from further inside your shared apartment. “told you i’d be back a little early, baby. you have people over?” he responds, finally looking at you. “just a few friends, i didn’t think—”
he leans to whisper into your ear, a smile quirking at his lips. “well, you’d better get rid of everyone in this house or i swear to god i’m gonna fuck you on the first flat surface I can get you to, and i know you don’t want anyone to know what you sound like when i’m fucking you.” his tone is menacing as he pulls away, back to his nurturing facade as if his words didn’t contradict that.
you look to him dumbly, trying to piece together the right words to say as a pulsing sensation grows between your thighs. “i-i don’t know if i’ll be able to-” you start, glancing back at your friends. “then you’ll just have to introduce me to them. you know how, right?” you nod, and he takes your hand into his, leading you through your apartment, past your friends and to the bedroom. you quickly promised that you’d be back soon.
he’s already hard and leaking through his slacks. what worked him up so fast? who knows. what you really knew was that you wouldn’t want to risk the embarrassment that would come if he so decided to have a quickie with guests in the apartment. he wasn’t wrong, you sound so pretty all fucked out on his cock and crying for more, but that’s when it’s only the two of you.
he seats you onto the bed, removing your bottoms and pushing your underwear to the side. his eyes are transfixed at your drooling core, wondering how you got so messy in such a short amount of time just for him. he slips in two fingers, quickly thrusting them inside until your legs begin to shake and you’re reaching at his wrist to halt him, trying to keep moans from leaving your mouth.
just moments later, he’s replacing the lost feeling of his fingers with his cock, setting it free from its confines and lining himself up with your slit. “fuck, baby.” he groans once he slips inside, hands gripping at your waist. gradually, he fucks into you faster and harder, watching how you struggle to keep quiet under him.
“r-ran i-” you try to rasp out as lowly as possible before you’re cut off by him. “say it louder for me, baby. say my name louder or i swear to god i’ll stop everything right now and you can get yourself off. do it, i want them to hear you scream my name.” you can tell he’s worked up, enough to push himself in deeper within you and fuck up in that perfect spot. “ran! ��s so deep! y’feel so good!”
a smile etches onto his face when he hears your satisfactory whimpering. he decides to rub your clit in tandem, aiding in the process of making you lose your mind on his dick. “r-ran! ran, ran, ran! gonna cum!” you cry out, seconds from releasing and after more of his playful taunting, you finally do and he follows suit, the two of you a panting mess against the sheets.
he quickly cleans you up then himself, fixing up imperfections in the mirror before heading back out to the living room to greet your friends.
“nice to meet you, i’m ran.”
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aihoshiino · 5 months
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do you think b komachi (specifically the 4 founding members) were ever friends at one point? i think 45510 implied it with how ai refers to them being friends before and nino saying that ai didn’t ‘cling to her friends’
personally, ive assumed that they were never close due to that rift between her and the rest of them therefore leading ai to want to make friends with them but knowing that they mightve been close in the past (even if it was brief) before distancing themselves away and growing to resent and envy her is just
Idk it hurts
I THINK ABOUT THIS SO MUCH AUUUUUU...
The Spica novel implies they never really connected at all and that there was some pretty nasty bullying of Ai basically immediately but uh, the Spica novel also has a lot of weird contradictions with the main series so I kind of just have been taking everything from it with a grain of salt... it'd be one thing if it was actually written by Akasaka and he was retconning but I genuinely think this Tanaka guy just did not know anything about oshi no ko when he wrote it lMDKMSLSKS
SO COMPLETELY IGNORING SPICA IN THAT REGARD...!
It's hard to pin things down exactly because we've never gotten a proper snapshot of that part of Ai's life. The closest we come to having anyone from that time period talk about it is in 45510 and Nino is sooooo biased that it's hard to know how seriously we can take her words.
I tend to believe that Nino is mostly telling the truth about how things went there from a purely narratively utilitarian standpoint of "this is our only source for this particular information so she cannot be a wholly unreliable narrator", even if her obvious emotional bias means you can't just uncritically accept what she says. Kyun kind of accidentally corroborates this in Viewpoint B where she describes Ai as being a little distant and seeming to have her walls up, which matches Nino describing her as 'aloof'.
I don't think this was something Ai was doing intentionally, though! This isn't something anyone in B-Komachi would've had context for but immediately worth noting is that, given that we know Ai can't be any older than 11 or 12 when she debuts in B-Komachi, this is two years at the very most out from her being separated from her mother. As Ayumi herself admits, her abuse of Ai escalated and peaked when Ai was eight or nine years old and Ai was put into the children's home and abandoned by her not long after. Given how fresh the wounds of abuse and abandonment would've been, it's really not a shock to me that Ai might have been kind of wary and defensive in a way that would've read as aloofness to kids who don't know what's up with her.
And also, like... Ai is autistic lol! She literally has a type of neurodivergence that affects her ability to socialize on top of her being implied to have been pretty poorly socialized up to that point as well. Chances are good that during this important period of making first impressions in B-Komachi that she probably wasn't great at masking, so that combined with her already having her guard up a bit likely would have made her seem really standoffish.
With all that laid out, I think my read of what initially happened with the founding members and Ai is that they were all reaching out to each other but ended up missing the final step they would've needed to really connect. The other founding members eventually gave up but Ai never stopped trying to reach them even long past the point where even she admits that they probably hate her. She never gave up on the idea that they could be friends.
It's definitely sad! I think the way the founding members fell apart is a really good depiction of like... an emotionally messy situation where it's hard for me to really blame anyone. In the aftermath of ch132, I've seen a lot of people really ragging on Nino and blaming her entirely for Ai's isolation within B-Komachi but like... isn't Ichigo also to blame for letting things get that bad? Isn't it the manager's job to make sure toxicity like that doesn't fester? Hell, a big part of why the girls in B-Komachi resented Ai is BECAUSE of Ichigo - because the group's management spotlighted and promoted her to the extent that all the other girls felt like they were just there to be Ai's backup dancers.
Thank God that could never happen with the present day generation of B-Komachi, right? Ha... hahahahhaa...............
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evilwickedme · 1 year
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Ooh, do you have any good Jason fic recs?
anon I cannot tell you how long I've been waiting to see those words!!!! yes I have good Jason fic recs in fact I have so many good Jason fic recs that after narrowing it down I still have fifteen links for you
I have read more fanfic for Jason Todd than maybe any other character ever. I do not understand the hold this man has on me but it's simply the situation we're in. anyway
Jason comes home fics
Make a Little Birdhouse In Your Soul is hands down my favorite. I'm talking favorite DC fic, top fics of all time period, not just from this list. I love this fic series. It is actively and regularly updating, thank fuck, because that little boost of serotonin is everything keeping me going I swear
The 70 Days After Groundhog Day is technically from Dick's POV, but it's about the aftermath of a timeloop that Jason was stuck in. it's. oh my god it's so good. just trust me on this one.
Emotional Motion Sickness is the "bruce goes to therapy" fic series we all want. canon get on this level
Retrograde Motion - I never used to like de-aging fics; not for any particular reason, I just never vibed with them. Recently I decided to see what all the fuss was about (bc there's so goddamn many in this fandom) and I'm glad, because I opened this fic and it's just. oh my god. the use of the de-aging trope here is truly incredible. after a whole week of dipping my feet into the trope I never need to do so again, because this fic made me fucking lose it. this is not going where you think it's going. also, for some reason there's not that much rebirth outlaws fic, and I really like what this author did with that team
matching wounds haha just gonna sneak my fic series on here and pretend that it was an accident, wait how did that get there (some jayroy later in the timeline too which can be read on its own if Jason coming home fics aren't for you)
other non-ship
Too Much Fucking Salt deals with the straw that broke the camel's back. I've read all 22k words of this in one sitting more than once. this is the anti "Jason Todd comes home" fic (this is in itself a whole genre of fic too honestly).
take his name out of your mouth (you don't deserve to mourn) is about Jason mourning himself, which he fucking deserves to. also he smokes a joint with Dick
Sown in Winter is about Jason pulling himself out of a depressive episode partially through the power of Stardew Valley. also technically jayroy, but it's honestly incidental to the story for the most part imo
JayRoy
I do read other ships for Jason but unabashedly this is my favorite, so
A Solid Resume - competency kink. that's all I have to say.
Tenderize is a series of oneshots all of which slowly build Jason and Roy's life together and coparenting lian and I just !!! could also double as a Jason coming home au but honestly that's mostly in the first fic. also a lot of discussion of various chain grocery stores in the united states that I will probably never actually step foot in
Dick Grayson and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Two to Three Weeks (But Who's Counting) is so fucking funny I die every time I reread this. there's a scene early on in a coffee shop that just. I don't even know what to say everything about this is perfect. I AM the girl sticking her nose in their business, at least spiritually.
dust devils on the horizon isn't even the only western au I've bookmarked for these two. something about jayroy and horses, man
unity of time: april 27th, 2020 is just,,,, super sad, man, idk what to tell you. it's f!jayroy, but happens after Roy died in sanctuary during the 24h of Jason's death day, so all of it is very fucking depressing. It's also fucking beautiful. I want to reread it now.
Promise After That I'll Let You Go is a poisonivory fic. I was introduced to poisonivory through the daredevil fandom earlier this year and may I tell you when I found out that this author writes for jayroy I lost my goddamn mind. this is my personal favorite, but I almost recommended at least two more aus. Their jayroy sugar daddy au is one of the only sugar daddy aus I've ever truly enjoyed. also really like the one where roy has had feelings for dick since their teen titans days but still starts a fwb thing with Jason. poisonivory can make me into kinks I'm not even into I s2g. anyway this one has lian literally dragging roy back into jason's life
finally, Reciprocation (or: Sex as Violence) shouldn't even really count as a jayroy fic but I feel weird putting it in the other category since it is sort of a jayroy fic. it's ace-aro!jason, which is one of my personal favorite interpretations of Jason (with so much textual evidence wtf), but there's still like... a lot of sex in this. Jason does not have a healthy relationship with sex in this fic. I would describe this as ending in a QPP for jayroy and lian.
honestly there's a lot of good jason and roy and lian fic out there I didn't rec cause this is already long enough
so yeah this is my very VERY pared down fic rec list for Jason Todd let me know if you want more and thank you so much for asking
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butmakeitgayblog · 9 months
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i really enjoy your blog so much that I had to write, after I saw all the questions marks about Alycia Debnam-Carey's height. There's been too much speculation over the years and it some of it is downright hilarious.
I'm not giving any personal information so you'll have to take this with a pinch or a good dash of salt, but I've worked with her. Her eyes are a clear green (lighting really makes a difference) and she is 5'7". Her body has changed a lot over the years giving her a more hourglass like figure and along with how cameras work, makes her appear a little smaller. She is almost always around people who are 6' or better and that also makes her appear smaller. In a lot of her photos and selfies she exaggerates certain poses especially with other people (leaning, bending) and this also makes her look smaller. Eliza, on the other hand, in almost always wearing four or five inch heels. She rarely wears flats or trainers.
On the set of The 100 they wanted Eliza and Alycia to be eye-to-eye and again, if you notice how the camera is set whenever they are in a two-shot, this is accomplished almost seamlessly. Eliza is 5'4 and a half and usually wore heels and lifts that were easily disguised by clothing/camera angles. Sometimes this is for practical reasons, like keeping everyone in frame or creating a certain effect. In the episode where she has Lexa backed up to a table, Alycia drew herself up to her full height and you can see the difference.
Sometimes these differences are considered a little comical and that's not what they wanted, so it didn't happen again. Not even in the scene when they're both barefoot in Clarke's room. Alycia is leaning forward as she walks (diminishing her height somewhat) again, to keep them close in the shot, which is quickly cut to them being seated.
How actors fit in a shot is important for focus, lighting and composition. Tom Cruise often appears much taller or at least of the same height as his co-stars through these means and he's the same height as Alycia. Watch for it in films and TV and you will simply never know someone's actual height, unless they are so blatantly tall, someone like Chris Hemsworth can even look to be close in height to Robert Downey Jr.
Take another scene with Eliza and Alycia, outdoors, during the pauna scare. Alycia's legs are constantly bent, which seems practical, on her guard, ready to run. She's standing next to Eliza whose legs are not really bent, and they appear to be the same height. Again, they are being kept closely in the frame. This happens too during Finn's funeral but if you notice in the long shot, Alycia's mark is deliberately right in a small divot and Eliza is standing about an inch forward. during season 3 they are always kept at the same eye level to emphasize these are twin commanders, two sides of the same coin.
Another little note on filming: women are almost always made to look smaller than they are, especially when paired with a male actor. If they are taller than the male actor, lifts or flats will be used, body posture, stance and the camera. Rarely is work done to make them look taller. One exception is Gal Gadot who wore wedges and lifts in her Wonder Woman costume, and she's already about 5'10" but again this was mostly for the camera as she was surrounded by actors her height or taller.
Hope this gives some insight as to how it works in filming and why.
Listen I am both shook, but also not at all surprised. And yes I am taking it with a grain of salt because idk you lol but you didn't say anything ~scandalous~ so I don't particularly see why you'd have any reason to lie.
1. Fuuuuuck you about the eyes 😩 fuck off noooo I don't— I didn't— I don't remember reading that part shhh shuuush shu— shut your mouth shut—
2. Yeah ok so, I had always heard she was 5'7 and that was the general... idk, feel that I always got from her. But like you said cameras always lie in the interest of getting shots and also she is,,, always gd surrounded by people taller than her. I mean take Laura for example. Her in flats vs Alycia in heels, even then she still looks tiny so it's always so hard to tell unless you're right there. But I checked out the scenes you mentioned and it seems at least at a glance that you're right. She does duck her head and somewhat rolls her shoulders forward when she walks into Clarke's room, and that gives the illusion that they're roughly the same height for a second, but even then she still has a touch of height on Eliza if you pay attention and account for the distance between them and the angle. And with the pyre scene
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That sure does look like a bit of a dip in the ground with Eliza on a higher, flatter surface compared to it. It's minimal to not the draw the eye plus the draping of Lexa's coat, but I think I see the difference you're talking about. Alycia's foot even looks slightly tilted on the slope of it.
And even still, side by side they're not the same height. If they were shoulder to shoulder it'd be even more obvious.
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I mean objectively I always knew they played visual tricks and fucked with wardrobe (lifts) and stuff to make scenes work. I've heard of the whole thing with making actors stand on boxes and having dudes practically in high heels to create height, so none of this seems out of place in the slightest, and it does fits more into what I had previously always thought about her height.
Sooooooo it was TLFOAH flyer that was the liar saying Alice is 5'5 (I know I know, the character is 5'5, whatever you know what I mean.)
I do appreciate this input! Even though obviously I have no idea if you're just talkin shit, but again I mean, what would really be the purpose. There's nothing to really gain.
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dairy-farmer · 5 months
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Sorry if you've already touched on this, but what are your thoughts about the discourse/discussion about Tim in the comics and Tim from the lens of A03/fan fiction?
For example, I hear a lot from old comic fans about how the series with Tim dating Bernard was doomed to fail bc 'the writer wrote him like her fanfiction version of Tim and not the real character'. There was a lot of discourse with canonical announcing Tim as queer, and that's kinda all these older comic book fans seem to keep coming back to. Idk, there just kinda seems to be an underlying feeling of misogyny towards the female writers and anti lgtbq vibes that it's hard to hear like a real arguement against the series.
I guess as a long time a03/Fandom person, I'm so used to just creating another little reality for the things I disagree or want to explore with a character, that it's strange to see people so upset that Canon doesn't flow the way the want.
it's no problem!! and i haven't really touched on the newer comics all that much mostly because i also don't particularly like them, not for any specific reason-they're decent enough but i don't really think they're 'tim'-but i do know what you're talking about. on twitter and tumblr i see a lot of different takes regarding tim and how he's written in this newer robin series.
for starters: i get what you're talking about where criticism of the comics might partly because of anti-lgbt attitude. especially since tim getting confirmed to be bisexual made A LOT of people mad (including ppl who arent homophobic but are mad that it wasn't THEIR favorite robin who got confirmed queer like dick, jason, or damian etc). comic bros and even casual comic fans who had never even heard of tim or even gave a shit about him were now furious. and while there might be ppl with genuine critiques- some of hatred of the way tim is written in the newer comics you really have to take it with a grain of salt because it very well could be comic bros hating because "robin isn't gay".
same with the writer, meghan fitzmartin. in general, women DO have an uphill battle when it comes to working in comics because it is very male dominated. and it's no secret that a lot of comic fans are opposed to women writing in comics. so misogyny, and even jealousy also plays a role with how much criticism is ACTUALLY warranted. but that doesn't mean a woman in comics isn't allowed to be criticized if they do a bad job or do a botched execution when their job is supposed to be making good, enjoyable, stories that do justice to the characters. i do think meghan may have some decentish ideas but whether she genuinely has the writing chops to deliver on those big ideas is well...iffy. but then again i genuinely don't keep tabs on comic writers or they're projects so maybe that will change.
when it comes to the critique of tim being written like a "fanfiction" version and not a "real" version of him i do see what they mean.
when I think of fanon tim I think of all the mischaracterizations that have been popularized. a coffee obsessed gremlin that doesn't sleep who is deeply insecure and agonizes over his place in the family, thinking he doesn't belong. people LIKE that tim is portrayed like that (in fanfiction) otherwise that characterization wouldn't be so pervasive in fics (there's also the possibility that a lot of ff writers DON'T know any better because many don't read comics but they do read fics and so they base their portrayals solely off what they read in fics resulting in this racoon eyed, coffee loving character who they believe to be an actual portrayal when it's really just someone's idea/exaggerated interpretation of tim).
i really don't see a lot of that in meghan's writing, the issues with tim's writing with her are different. if anything WFA is the one that really have the 'written as a ff character' vibe. but that series is also SUPPOSED to be deeply unserious as a fun slice of life universe where nothing goes wrong for anyone ever as a soothing balm for the oftentimes depressing stories in batman comics.
but in meghan's writing I also don't see a lot of what i consider to be core tim values. is she the best writer for tim? no i don't really think so. but there is a certain degree of understanding for his character. I see the comics and I can recognize that it's tim. so it's not offensively OC.
a lot of complaints seem to stem from his relationship with bernard being too much of a focus. people say how tim does too much thinking about him when...he was a lot worse in the 90s with steph. I remember getting so irritated when entire comics of robin would be narrated by steph or about her, i'd be like 'I want to read about ROBIN and his adventures, not steph, why is she even relevant?'. but tim's relationships to other people are a core part about him so you just have to take it.
the part that i think is justified in critique is in talking about whether her writing of bernard dowd is good. that is a much easier thing to answer. and its that its not good writing. in fact it's a pretty bad, inaccurate portrayal of him given how he was written when we first knew him. he's sort of been...sanded down? kind of remade into some new, almost unrecognizable character that fits into what she believes would be a nice, wholesome, gay partner for tim. which is an issue for me because we have seen and know what tim is like in relationships. tim had tension with, disagreed with, got annoyed with, fought and argued with his other partners like stephanie and ariana. but he also enjoyed himself and was happy with them. there was a balance there of good and bad because tim's unique situation of being robin made it so there had to be good and bad. with bernard it's all very passive and easy. they don't argue, they don't really fight, or have any struggles in their relationship when trying determine compatibility. avoiding tension in the relationship when tim has a track record of it makes it almost seem like she's afraid of the risk of portraying a gay relationship in anything less than a golden light. which is not good writing. BUT it is also very NEW. so maybe that will change (but there's a similar problem with jon kent and his bf so idk)? i personally believe kon would've been a more ideal partner with their shared history, chemistry, tension, the fact that fans have wanted it for decades, and the fact that it would've been such a good addition to the arc of self acceptance for kon's character. and many of the issues that tim being with bernard wouldn't be a thing because tim and kon famously don't see eye to eye 100 percent of the time and so their relationship would struggle and grow as they go from friends to romantic partners.
ultimately in my opinion to write a truly good tim drake you need to be able to accurately portray the thing that made him such a great robin: his heart of gold. tim cares about doing the right thing SO much. he cares about helping people. he's not some cold, unfeeling calculated computer who uses people as pawns and abandons his morals at the slightest inconvenience or seduction to the 'dark side'. and he's not some coffee drinking hacker man that is 20 steps ahead and smug about it.
tim worries about people, he's upset at injustice, feels guilt at not being able to save people, is judgy, sometimes a brat, sarcastic, gets angry at people for throwing their lives away, gets very invested in things that catch his interest, is too curious for his own good, nosy. he lies through his teeth and then bats his eyes in sweet as pie innocence. will think VERY rude thoughts about people but will bite his tongue because he's a nice boy👼 but sometimes things slip out. he is somehow simultaneously able to be the 🥺 and 😈 emoji at the same time. his odds of making bad decisions increase by 100 fold if in the company of other stupid teenagers.
now i write tim as a very exaggerated version of that core self. that's what a lot of ff authors do. they choose a handful of traits they like best about him and spin entire fics about it. i don't think writing tim as a fanfiction version of himself is a bad thing because some fanfic is genuinely better than the source material and that comes from being very good at understanding the character. the tim of today can't be written the same way he was in his golden age, the 90s, because a lot of his struggles and hurdles that he dealt with in those comics are over. they're done. tim can't be 30 years old and still wondering if he's doing a shit job as robin. tim IS a good robin and he should be able to acknowledge that (funnily enough one of his clear acknowledgements of that is often wiped away by fics- that being the titans tower scene where jason asks if tim thinks he's the better robin and tim, without hesitation, says yes) a lot of older fans are clinging to problems that tim has already resolved. he's not thirteen and insecure about his abilities. he's not on his first relationship with someone (but he is in his first relationship with a boy). he's not still learning how to navigate his relationship with batman and the rest of the family or struggling to come to terms with his civilian and caped life. do some of those things still trouble him on occasion? yes but they're not the main focus anymore.
tim has to have new problems, new challenges, new growth.
i had some hope for new tim comics.
would i like to have seen more tim centric material or at least good stories. and often times in the new tim comics tim was exactly the same at the end of the issue as he was at the beginning. tim struggling with his identity is something that made an appearance in 90s comics a lot but I think for the newer ones that it would've been better received/more interesting if it were...written better?
idk. i don't know a single comic fan that loved every detail of their fav's comics. was it the best run? no. but it was okay enough i guess. it was lukewarm, not standing ovation worthy but also nobody should be throwing tomatoes at the performers either, it just earned a polite clap of acknowledgement which i don't think is a very bad thing but still i hope we get something better!
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apalapucian · 1 month
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hiiiii hope you're having a good day!!
💥👀💖😈🎢 for the emoji asks, please!!
hi diana my mom who is actually also my child who i am adopting. ily i hope you're also having a grand day!!! thanks for these!!! 💖💖💖
👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!
AAAAHHH okay i'm putting this first so i can put the rest of the questions and answers under the cut okay. also since you've supported bad day wall so much (thank you for that, endlessly!!!), what i can say about part two is that it will cover summer and then the beginning(? so far?) of seventh year and it will have a happy ending because you and i deserve that and here's a small snippet (but again, pls, grain of salt and all that, because this is a rough draft):
"what happened?" james asks, concerned.
"do i look not okay?" lily asks back, not unpleasantly, just genuinely curious.
"kind of."
"how? like, in what way? because i really thought i was holding up fine."
"you're — sad contemplative."
"i have other kinds of contemplative?"
he sits beside her. "loads," he says. "you have judgey contemplative, confused contemplative, life crisis contemplative, nostalgic contemplative... all sorts."
"hmm, and you know all this because... ?"
"um, so i know when not to cross you," he says, like it's ridiculous that she doesn't know. "any wise man would."
that makes her chuckle.
"so what's up?" he nudges her lightly. "why are you sad contemplative?"
💥 How do you feel about criticism?
oh damn i'm a baby lol. no but — ok, so, i write for a living, among other things, and i do like my bosses/editors (we have the same writing styles and preferences and i like their work and respect them for their work ethic and command of the field and experience etc etc), so criticism/edits are a normal everyday thing by now they don't really faze me anymore. so i would say i'm okay with it generally. but when it comes to fanfic, which is my happy space and where i'm much more protective of the creative liberty it affords me (i mean, i write in lapslock for god's sake, that's like, not just an invitation for critics to take a piss, i understand it also tends to make readers not take me seriously), i am very selective about which critics and criticisms i make room for. like, i will read/listen to everything, i can't not if it's already there, but if we don't write about the same things in the same way to begin with, i will also just carry on. easily and unapologetically. not to say i don't consider critique and don't need it anymore, just that i've long been able to segregate the actually helpful ones from the ones that just. end up being noise. here's a post from inkskinned about this that i resonate with!
💖 What made you start writing?
stories? i don't even remember now. i was an imaginative child, i guess?? i do remember my first ever story, as in like handwritten on a pad lol, it was about this girl who pretended to be her sister because she liked her sister's boyfriend. i was nine??? idk where that came from?? i also was really fascinated with english as a language. i love good sentences. i would come across one from anywhere — a book, a news report, on energy drink packaging, from some executive's speech — and i would send them to my friends, because WAAA LOOK AT THIS SENTENCE AND HOW GOOD IT IS. WHO THINKS OF THIS. and i wanted to try making good sentences as well. so i'm still doing that lol. oh but jily fanfic — um, because of TLAT, i think. there were fics before that, but i think i really fell in love with them through that fic first, and then i fell into a deep pit of other well-written fics, both canon and AU, and found different versions of them and the whole friend group (still anchored to their canon characters/dynamics of course). then i started coming up with my own plotlines and i couldn't find them anywhere, so i started writing my own!
😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?
sirius's "dead by twenty-one" comment in bad day wall for sure :)
🎢 Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?
ah, time lapse. i wrote that feverishly for weeks in the summer of 2016 and then it died down and then it picked back up and until now it's still wild. the outline keeps changing as well.
for oneshots, the storm one was also kinda wild hahahaha
thank you so much ily!!! 💖💖💖
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