#but i gotta like...make a story for them .

[palossssssand]

Hey there! Are there any other beasts in slug city or is it just the orchid and electric ones?

there are other beasts !! Smooks has one, it's made of paint! Best seen in this image

Delta and Oster and Co. have them too, Delta's is a round-ish beast with many leg and eyes surrounding its entire body with waterfall-like tears. Oster and Co's is one with multiple heads, each representing one of the "main" alters. I would like to heavily rework these both design-wise and concept-wise. Here's old art of them!

#slug city #delta #asks #my art #my ocs #oster #thank you for asking!! #I like the concept of delta's I would just like to redesign it #I like the concept of oster and co's too but I would need to figure out if its. iffy. in terms of depiction of plurality #obviously the beasts are not supposed to literally represent '''the illness''' that each character with a beast has #it IS a manifestation of their problems and issues And societal stigma #which I gotta find out how to make that clearer in the story progression or find a better metaphorical concept for them

[kinokoshoujoart]

oops all rock (springtime edition)

i’ll be able to draw digitally again soon! ;w; in the meantime i’ve been scribbling a lot on paper…

could not wait for Soon, so i resorted to coloring it using the markup tool in default iphone photos app (don’t do that ever again)

#my art #sos awl #debating whether to just dump my sketches from my soujourn to hell or save them to be transferred and finished as digital stuff #or like both idk. i don’t know how ppl feel about WIPs #i’m happy to post art again ;w; thank you everyone who welcomed me back i’m slowly getting through everything i missed while i was y’know #and thank you for the sweet messages while i was gone i am bbghkjh i need to calm myself and respond !!!! love #rock tumbling (sos) #story of seasons a wonderful life #bokumono #story of seasons #harvest moon #hm awl #harvest moon a wonderful life #bunny sighting 😳 i still have THOSE wips too #there’s certain things i wanna prioritize once i can use my tablet again and those are one of them #but i will also probably post new stuff alongside finishing old unfinished stuff….. i hope that is OK…… #idk i’ll have to talk more later! right now i am nervous!!! i love you all!!!! #fanart #awl rock #bokujou monogatari #hm anwl #unfortunately this scum neet still has my entire heart so. most of the notebook is just him pulling goofy faces… sorry…….. #also a lot of lumina and nami…. and molly…. they r really cool… #ceci is also cool and i’ve drawn a collage of her that i just. never posted #mostly drawing HMDS related stuff about the descendant characters #OK I’LL STOP TAGBLOGGING #i am once again back in DS for girl hell. i want to make a series of posts about differences in the English vs the Japanese version #and also fun secret things related to DS #this is all in the future i gotta finish all my unfinished stuff…. uuuu…. #i love you all mmmmmwah (i cast sleepy time blanket and sleep forever)

[harbingersecho]

Lasombra fashion show?

Now how did you know I've been meaning to draw fashion 'shows' for all the clans…?

But! Here's some Lasombra fashion stuff for you!

+ bonus because I love bullying Lasombra abt their tech issues (:

#vtm #vampire the masquerade #clan lasombra #lasombra #outfit design #mine #*24 #ask #lasombra is kind of interesting/difficult imo in terms of making a fashion 'style' for them bc they're very varied internally #from corp goth shadow ceos to religious leaders to streetwise survivors. theyre unlike their counterpart ventrue in that their appearance #isnt rooted in sociological reasons as much as theyre personal ones imo. if that makes sense lol. but i tried to do a few different things! #something classically lasombra and then some more modern discreet + showy stuff. hope you like em? <3 #for me lasombra is like dark fuschia-violet-purple and gold. silk velvet and dark lace. and ofc religious symbols #none of these guys have backstories or names or anything btw i just threw shit together. its easier to make up styles for chs #that have a story or a personality but like. i cant put rafael in this stuff or whatever lol he's kinda boring fashion wise #i thought abt doing shadow fashion too but i was like. thats way too impractical. #i kinda wanna finish those tremere fashion 'sketches' too. and maybe do some of deja's outfits bc she's a fashionista. there's also my #outfit wips for rose who's a ventrue... but also i wanna do freaky sabbat outfits... and a toreador look book... and finish the new #nikifor tzimisce fashion looks... help mee. at least the tzimisce one is like 85% done i just gotta work on the extra stuff a little -_-

[luck-of-the-drawings]

smth smth about 'the thing that the character did that you thought was rly rly funny in the moment is actually linked to a terrible trauma that lies within said character.' or wahtever.

#jrwi show #jrwi fanart #jrwi riptide #gillion tidestrider #made this within a short span of wahtever bc i gotta go up to the mountains for my stupid gay job tonight n im trying #nnot to frrRREAAAK THE FUCK OUUTTTTTTi dont wanna work but. get that bread we fuckin shall i guess #ONWARDS TO THE FISH TORMENT!! sometimes flowers feel pain when you trim them before their blossoming. atleast i imagine so #i used to draw gillion with loooong hair tied into a big ol braid. and then it was confirmed that he had short hair when he was little. #AT FIRST I WAS SAD. but then i realized the duality of. when they were little. gill had short hair. edyn had long hair. #AND NOW THEYRE OLDER. and gillion has long hair. and edyn has short hair #both mirroring eachother. looking up to eachother. subconsciously or not. they most certainly care. and most certainly miss eachother. #GILLION ALWAYS LOVED HOW LONG HAIR LOOKs. atleast i imagine so. he hasnt cut it since he left the undersea. sure he wanted to go back home #but even at the very start. he knew he was free in some way now. free to grow out his hair. an adventure would await him before he returns. #he knew it would be a while. so he cant let this go. he cant let this sought-after hair-length get cut away from him again #not yet. not yet. i like to think he loved music too. I SAW SOMETHING INTERESTING A BIT AGO #i see alot of ppl commenting on my baby gill comics like;'i wouldFIGHT this teacher i wanna KILL EM i want them DESTROYED #all very good and nice sentiments! i LOVE the energy here! and it would be nice. to have that catharsis #but the story of young tidestrider is not a story of catharsis. it is a story of agony and being so so small and so special and also so dum #and sucking so bad. and just being a kid and doing the things that a little kid does and so many tired tired people reacting badly to it #youre supposed to be the hero that will save us. our world hangs in the balance and you are the one who tips the scales. #YOU are supposed to SAVE US!! you NEED to SAVE US! CAN YOU PLEASE STOP SQUIRMING IN YOUR STUPID CHAIR!! #you'd think that young tidestrider ought to prevail. and be tucked someplace all safe and sound. #elders gone missing and rotting in a jail. their cultists nowhere around. but theres no happy endings. not here not now. #this tale is all sorrows n woes. you may dream that justice n peace win the day. but thats not how this story goes #BIG ideas for this lil baby gillion series. if anything i make ever gets disproven im killing myself in a well as to poison a water supply

[becauseplot]

Penciled Lines

(Cross-posted on ao3, if you prefer to read it there. Reblogs still appreciated!)

Missa wakes up, and he thinks he might be doomed. This doesn’t scare him nearly as much as it should.

Missa is awake early—by his own metric, anyway. His nocturnal nature causes “early” for him to mean “early night” and not “early morning.” Regardless, “early” means that Philza is not asleep yet, still going through his nightly rituals. “Early” means that Philza is sitting up in (his? their?) the bed, pillows propped up behind him, notebook in his lap, sketching away.

And when Missa wakes up to the soft scritch-scratch of a charcoal pencil on textured paper, his forehead just so happens to be brushing Philza’s hip.

Missa can hardly breathe.

Oh no.

He knows that if he gives any indication that he is awake, Philza will stop sketching, close his notebook, shift himself over until he is politely seated on his side of the bed, and greet Missa with a friendly smile. Philza has done it before, when Missa wakes up early. That’s how Missa knows he’ll do it again.

Thus, Missa can hardly breathe—his breaths have to be the slow in-out of sleep. He can’t so much as twitch, either. He has to keep quiet and play dead or else he’ll be found out. Seen. Caught living the lie.

“Husband,” Philza calls him. They’re not married. They share a bed. They’re hardly ever in it at the same time. They have a son and a daughter. Neither of them know Missa very well. Philza has had an extra set of armor and a skull on his backpack for months, waiting for Missa. Missa doesn’t even know Philza’s last name.

Philza is a good man and a good friend—and Missa doesn't deserve him. Still, he takes what he can get. Curls around it. Hoarding every innocent kindness Philza extends like a starving creature: the generosity of a backpack fully stocked with equipment; the trust Philza places in Missa to watch the kids when he’s asleep; and now, the courtesy of not moving his hip from Missa’s forehead to ensure his “sleeping” isn’t disturbed. Missa clutches all of these little offerings in his greedy claws and hugs them into his chest, even as the guilt eats away at him.

Because, regardless of the lack of mutual feeling, he loves Philza. He loves him so, so much, and that is why he is doomed. He can’t afford to lose what little he has. He can’t cross that line. 

So Missa lies beside Philza, forehead pressed against Philza’s hip, pretending to sleep so he can imagine that they’re not just lying in bed together, but lying in bed, together; and later, when Missa truly wakes, he will sit on his side of the bed and look at Philza’s face soft with sleep and think about how lucky he is that he still has a side-of-the-bed to begin with.

Missa doesn’t mean to drift off. When it starts to happen, he’s hopelessly torn between shaking himself awake and thus giving himself away, or remaining how he is, silently fending off the inevitable. In the end, Missa clings to that scritch-scratch sound of Philza’s pencil on the paper for as long as he can before the fog at last pulls him under. 

Eventually, he dreams. In fact, he dreams of the calloused fingers he dreams of every night, hands like his own, an artist of Death, cradling and shading the contours of his face—a softness dashing charcoal across his jaw, and over his cheekbones, and perhaps on his lips, too, if he’s lucky. Defining every edge of him.

~*~

A deep sigh. Phil stops sketching as Missa shifts in his sleep. He tilts his head up so that the tip of his nose is now just nearly brushing against Phil’s hip. The motion disturbs the wild splay of his dark hair, revealing more of his face: eyelashes, cheeks, warmth. Tender blush of something Stygian and otherworldly. New.

Phil’s lips tilt upwards. He turns to a fresh page, and he starts again.

#qsmp #pissa #qsmpshipping #qsmp missa #qsmp philza #i hesitate to put main character tags bc it's shipping content but i think we're all p much okay with that?? we chill??? we chill thumbsup #my fics #ficlet #anyway would you believe me if i told you this took me a week to write. hhourgh. #i'll prolly make small edits as time goes by if i dont scrap this version entirely. #i really like it rn but we'll see how i feel abt it in like a couple hours or a day. the sheer number of times ive rewritten this hhhhh. #this little character/relationship study is primarily for me to try to work them out in my head. #so if this doesnt quite hit the exact vibe you know why. #im still getting acquainted w missa's character but i gotta start somewhere ya know #i didnt actually get to explore missa's feelings of inferiority as much as i wanted to but thats bc i found trying to tackle that As Well- #-as everything else saddled the fic/setting w too many Things and made it cumbersome and muddied the story being told. #so another time perhaps. #anyway i adore them. beloveds.

[galacticlamps]

Jamie + Zoe textposts, not because they even vaguely relate to anything going on in canon, just because they have a very memeable dynamic & their screenshots pair well with the humor on this website

#second doctor era #Jamie McCrimmon #Zoe Heriot #i live for classic who textpost memes #sorry if the actual text in some of these textpost memes is sized poorly some have been sitting on my computer for ages #like multiple years ages #embarrassing i know #but it's bc i do usually try to stick to making them more relevant to the actual stories/episodes #however #at the moment i just keep getting notes on a nuwho post of mine #and that just seems off brand for this blog so i've gotta get some classic up there again to even out #and they do have a memeable dynamic #*german solider from the war games voice:* the girl is from the future and the boy is from the past? #the jokes write themselves at that point

[potatoesandsunshine]

listen like... in my opinion the pov character should be wrong or contradictory or unreliable sometimes. this is third person limited they're not supposed to have all the information or always be right. the narrator doesn't stop being a character

#if i am doing a good job as an author then the reader can TELL when this is happening #i just think it's so boring to write from one character's perspective if that means flattening out everything that makes them a character #if he tells the audience he's outgrown something but the entire story is about how you're never as far from the past as you think #then the implication is that this is NOT outgrown. anyway you've gotta trust your readers a bit. #got a GREAT comment on a fic where someone noticed this and it made me smile all day. like YES you saw what i was hoping for you to see

[seaweedstarshine]

[just after having helped River make a getaway from a heist of an astatine lace shawl — the rarest substance in the universe — without her even needing to ask beyond a simple “hello sweetie�� scrawl in the sky] [Eleventh Doctor] “I can see its worth — but Alice is right! What’s so special about a lace shawl?” [River] “Ah, well, lace, you see, is the traditional gift for a thirteenth wedding anniversary…” [Eleventh Doctor] “Wedding anniversary? Whose wedding anniversary?” [River] “Spoilers…!” *winks* [Thirteenth Doctor, reminiscing] “I love River.”

HAPPY THIRTEENTH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY TO THE DOCTOR AND RIVER SONG!

Sources: Diary of River Song: The Furies, Diary of River Song: The Lady in the Lake, The Day of the Moon, Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #33, The Wedding of River Song, The Big Bang, The Angels Take Manhattan, The Many Lives of Doctor Who: Without a Paddle, The Time of the Doctor, Forest of the Dead, Let's Kill Hitler, Diary of River Song: The Wife of River Song, Eleventh Doctor Year Two: Physician Heal Thyself, A Good Man Goes to War, Eleventh Doctor Chronicles: Broken Hearts, The Husbands of River Song, Doctor Who Confidential: When Time Froze

#river song #eleventh doctor #twelfth doctor #tenth doctor #thirteenth doctor #yowzah #edits by seaweed #words by seaweed #I know there's not a lot of 12 and 10 and 13 rep but oh well theres not as much source material. I got like a quote from them each #regular reminder that psychopath has no clinical meaning and is more of a reclaimed slur than a descriptive term etc #reclaimed language #ableist language #this is about them being messy (positive) together. ALSO river was promised Stevie Wonder for her 13th anniversary <3 #I HAVE ZERO SOURCES FROM BOOKS WHAT im sure there are some perfect quotes from novels & short stories but well #I got episodes and audios and comics and magazines #did I miss posting a thing for 'fourteen years since fish custard' day a few weeks back? yes. yes I did. #am I trying to make up for it by celebrating a day that references a very specific comic that less people likely heard of? yes. yes i am. #maybe shoulda posted this at midnight last night. April 22 is almost over in the UK I think #okay I gotta go to work now! ima watch Wedding of River Song tonight

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

*

#ranting in the tags like a big whiny baby #reminder to myself never to cross post a story to tumblr again #getting interaction from only one person on a fic is a big oof (don't get me wrong tho I absolutely eat that interaction up) #and i hate having to tag people to have anyone see it because then I feel like i'm forcing them to read and i dont want to do that either #writing a 70k word fic over the course of 6 months and not having the fandom interact with it at all because its not x reader hurts too #the lack of interaction is a big ouchie to the pride #makes me feel like i'm stuck being a one trick pony with kit if i want anyone to be interested in my stuff #but then i also cant just write smut all day either #writing for my self just isn't all that much fun right now. I love my story but I want others to love it too. #gotta suck it up and keep on keeping on. at least AO3 readers got my back

[roetrolls]

I'm starting to lose steam for right now so I thought I'd take a break and slap all of today's swaps on the same post, with sizes and stuff adjusted a lil :]]

THANK YOU GUYS AGAIN FOR SENDING ALL THE SUGGESTIONS, I'm having so much fun with these and I can't wait to do more QvQ

#genuinely like. when i say im losing steam i just mean physically #these are so nice on my brain #because i get to draw guys that are second nature to me at this point #but figure out how to make them THEM even when defining physical characteristics are changed #AND i get to think about what it means for their stories #it's like. a very cost effect way of being creative if that makes sense #doodles #drawing meme #bloodswap #bloodline swap #au #(sorry for excessively tagging all the asks btw. since search is trash i gotta cover my bases for future roe's benefit)

[blushinggoku]

Been trying to read some goku x reader fanfics (because I love him and cringe culture is dead) but there's soo few out there it's insane. I'm disappointed in this fandom for not loving goku more

#listen I understand he's married but that's what AUs are for #also there's way more vegeta x reader fics out there than there are ones with goku and that's a crime #he's the MAIN CHARACTER ffs!! #vegeta is written better and has a well written story arc that is true #but still #I guess this is the only way he could beat goku huh #this is should probably be a case of “if you want someone done right you have to do it yourself”/ #“you want this foc so bad make it yourself” #however A) I'd get too flustered writing goku x reader fics. #B)I'm already busy writing some stories for other fandoms that take all of my time #and C) I'd be afraid to make any of dbz's characters OOC (I need them to be accurate for my peace of mind or I'll cry) #so I will just suffer knowing there is not much of the fics I want out there #I have read a couple of good ones. but I'd only recommend like 2 of them #btw I gotta ask how tf is this possible. dragon ball has existed for 40 years and there's barely any selfshipping fics wtf #again especially pertaining the main fuckinh character. it baffles me. boggles my mind. makes me sob #star scrambles #goku

[strawbubbysugar]

Ough as the end draws near I’m seeing more and more comments that are making me nervous that the ending won’t live up to all the hype & expectations aaaa aa

#ask #for example #there’s a few notes I’ve forgotten about that we’re gonna be important but now make no sense in the story #so I’ve gotta figure out how to work them in #without it feeling forced #and at the same time #continuing with the idea I’ve been married to for a few weeks about what the ending is gonna be #but now I’m so nervous that people won’t like the ending #and I’ll have ruined this fic #sobs #ik most of you will hopefully enjoy it!! but even seeing a few be like ‘aw :( I hoped something else would happen’ is gonna be ROUGH #but honestly #thank you all for the amazing experience you’ve given me writing this #I never realized just how much I enjoy writing until I started writing this fic #and all the love has been so sos o life changing #so thank you all <3 #one person specifically said I was ‘stalling’ but like :( I’m drawing out the tension. if I do things too quickly it won’t have any umph. #I just haven’t been able to stop thinking abt that comment sigh #personal

[essektheylyss]

I am obsessed with how narratively convenient Lark's divinatory abilities are. She's the only one of the protagonists who is both pragmatic and has a working sense of self-preservation, so having some internal impulse that is actually the guiding hand of the cosmos pushing her into doing the REALLY stupid shit is both necessary and really useful.

Like, I am the type of writer who kind of scoffs at the idea that characters are beyond the writer's control and will completely screw over your outline, because on one hand, a sensible outline will follow the characters' personalities and tendencies anyway. Obviously in an ensemble cast you will need to do some wrangling, but in theory your characters are responding to varying degrees of stimuli in order to maneuver them into the places you need them to be for things to all come together in the end.

But more importantly, "curse from god" is the funniest and easiest way to push any character to do things beyond the realm of reason when necessary, and frankly, what the fuck is the point of playing god if you don't embrace that?

#midst podcast #midst spoilers #cr meta #anyway at all times I am advocating for taking full responsibility for your characters and overall story #this is also why I laugh at those posts like 'um if you're not going to treat your characters right then you shouldn't get custody of them' #sorry babe there is no CPS in my head. I am the cruel custodian and these are my poor darwinian orphans. #that's a joke but really like. look. yeah sometimes you gotta fabricate scenarios to make characters do what you want #but like... you do that by going 'who is this character and what would it take to push them to x'??? #and especially in an ensemble cast sometimes that thing is 'curse from god' or 'divine insight' #fun fact: I LOATHE that post about 'my writing teacher made a joke that the characters are driving and the writer is locked in the trunk' #absolutely fucking hate it. #because THE WHOLE POINT OF FORMALLY LEARNING WRITING IS LEARNING HOW TO BE INTENTIONAL. #it is perfectly possible to write successfully without ever having a formal teacher but IF YOU HAVE A FORMAL TEACHER. UH. #like yeah yeah 'workshopping' but like. okay go build your own workshop group don't pay somebody jfc #(cuz it's not like most creative writing teachers know how to teach you to workshop. let's be fucking real.) #if you wanna learn how to workshop take a script class for the love of god. #ANYWAY rant over but I'm correct. the highest purpose of a writer is to be a control freak and to play god.

[compacflt]

I just wanted to say as someone who has stumbled across your blog and has read your Wednesday wips and posts about anything topgun related that your thought process and consideration of mav and ice, specifically their political beliefs and relationships with their own identities, is honestly so impressive and cool. You have brought such realism and life to these characters which is just so refreshing to see. idk i just wanted to express how cool and awesome i think that is

Because of the thought into these characters does it make it difficult to like them or understand them if you have differing opinions from them? for me personally i feel like if i were to ever actually have a convo with ice or mav regarding identity politics i would actually start to lose my mind (like how one feels when your dad or fun uncle talks for too long at thanksgiving dinner). If it does make them difficult to like, does that make it difficult for you to write them sometimes?

oh yeah! i think, my ice i really empathize with & really love & really could get along with, once he grows out of the sexism of his teens & twenties, but my maverick drives me crazy. someone sent in an ask a while ago that was like “WHY is cyclone simpson your one true love??” And it’s because i too would absolutely hate maverick & hate working with him lol. people who are overly cocky & un-self-aware & a bit self-centered make me CRAZY. (narrator voice: compacflt is a hypocrite as all these things also apply to compacflt.)

Politically… It’s difficult to say. no one really wants to hear the intricacies of one person’s political journey, which is why i won’t give you mine, but suffice to say—since the start of the russian invasion of Ukraine, and my semi-concerted effort to learn more about the political landscape of modern warfare, my own personal beliefs have shifted a whole bunch. definitely aided in that shift by my top gun fic project that specifically aims to understand the conservative straight-passing male mindset as it relates to military matters… there are many end goals to a project like mine, but one end product is a filter you can take away and hold up in front of your eyes and see the world through it. When writing from the eyes of a conservative straight (passing) white man, your priorities totally shift. I had to write from the perspective of someone who doesn’t care about identity politics. Because they don’t! A core tenet of conservatism is very proudly not caring about that stuff, and being very annoyed when people (usually left-of-centers) make that stuff very visible and want you to care about it! “Don’t shove it in my face,” etc., etc. Don’t force me to care about this taboo, private thing I really don’t care about. It violates my freedoms, or whatever, to be forced to care—or even bear witness to—stuff that i don’t care about. Etc. And then, to be nominally a part of that community that you really, really don’t care about, and then to be told that you have to care about it because of your publicity… people asking you to be proud of something that has had a negative connotation for much of your entire life… that’s not a transformation that happens easily.

Jesus, I could write an essay about this. I have, several times by now in responses to asks over my blog. But there is so much that I could talk about. I think… I really worry that some of my writing falls into the first of the below categories:

I really try not to romanticize conservatism in my writing—I tried to show that ice and mav’s happiness is the price they pay for their conservatism. They’re actively choosing to be unhappy—but because they prioritize their honor over everything, due to EXTERNAL PRESSURES they cannot control, and which I think are often ignored in the fandom space for one reason or another. The fact of the matter is, in 99% of IPs, characters prioritize something other than their sexualities. It’s never Maverick’s personal identity that is at stake in either Top Gun or Top Gun: Maverick, because he has built himself so impermeably masculine that there are no grounds upon which to question his personal identity. He just isn’t thinking about it. He’s thinking about how to get into Charlie’s pants, how to win the Top Gun trophy, how to uphold his promise to Goose, et cetera. If he’s fucking guys on the side, it’s because he wants to and because hes maverick and he does what he wants without thinking about it—that’s the whole point of his character, from a story-construction standpoint. That’s his archetype. He’s a renegade maverick superstar who is both thoughtlessly brilliant and thoughtlessly dangerous. He’s thoughtless. His priorities are to survive and to look cool doing it, and that’s it. He is a savant in the Naval Air Force, where honor is your lifeblood, who feels he has been dishonored by his own family name, and who willingly joined the conservative post-Vietnam Navy right when/after Ronald Reagan was elected President, and who wears cowboy boots and who disrespects women to their faces, and who is eager to get into altercations with Soviet-Chinese-DPRK-X-second-world-country-coded-but-EXPLICITLY-Soviet-manufactured-Mikoyan-Gurevich-MiG-28s(-F-5s-painted-black)… I’m sorry. In my opinion, the conservatism is baked into him as a character. I find it extremely difficult to separate him from his conservatism, because in some ways his patriotic conservatism is his raison d’etre. IMO if you take that away from him, he ceases to exist.

Same thing with Ice and his unwillingness to openly rebel or go against the grain. That is his whole reason to exist in the story at all. I know that I’m saying this in a fandom space where the whole point is to change characters & put them in different situations (fanfic) but… in kind of a perverse self aware way, as in I know I sound ridiculous and pretentious, i guess i don’t really understand an impulse to change the core tenets of a character irreparably in fanworks. We are shown that ice always goes by the books in TG. Then we are shown that he achieves the fruits of that labor (four stars) in TGM. So he is rewarded for never rebelling, whereas Maverick, who always rebels (but NEVER in a way that challenges his personal identity), has stagnated in the ranks at full-bird O-6. And that’s Ice’s character. That’s what he’s there for in the story—he’s a tool to show us the value system of rank and prestige you earn by following the rules of the Navy. Why take that away from him? That’s his priority! Canonically, that’s his priority and reason for existence! And historically the way to achieve that priority is through conservatism.

And you ask me if it’s hard to like my ice and mav. Yes, but that’s not my choice. The movie already did that for me. They are not, I’m sorry, likable people. I am not a straight white conservative male writing about straight white conservative men to validate my own beliefs—I’m a queer AFAB person of color writing about straight white conservative men because I want to understand the limits of their conservatism. What they do and do not care about, and what it takes to make them care. And from what we are shown in TG… ice and mav would not care about ME. At all. And they would not want to be forced to care about me. Ice’s casual careless dismissiveness… “the plaque for the alternates is down in the ladies’ room…” mav following Charlie into the bathroom… turning the key in the ignition and driving away while pretending not to hear her… “what?? i can’t hear you! 🙉” … they do not care. They have no desire to care.

Again. Maybe I subscribe to a very very old-school and labored and pretentious ideology when it comes to writing… I know a lot of people write just to have fun. I do not. I wish i could, but I don’t. And when you’re not writing to have fun, you don’t have to like the characters you’re writing about. They’re nothing more than tools at your disposal to get your point across more effectively. No, I don’t like them! Of course not! My ice is cruel and cowardly and careless and hypocritical and subservient and weak, and my mav is demanding and dangerous and dismissive and oblivious and so, so, so unbelievably bitter.

And that’s what my story needed, to get my point across. So, shrug. My point was my priority. I don’t care too much about the characters themselves.

Re: icemav & identity politics. Part of hopefully selling this story is the attempt at empathy for the conservative male, to bring this discussion back to the top. Why write fiction at all if you’re not going to write about people different from you, and why write about people different from you if you don’t want to understand them? So… part of trying to understand them was to understand and have empathy for this shift in priorities. Conservative guys do not want to care about labels, or sexual orientations, or, God forbid, discussion of their gender identities. I can kind of see Ice tolerating it by the end… but, there are limits. Again, it’s supposed to be private. I think he’d chafe against getting labeled gay—he wouldn’t want to be called the first gay compacflt, or SECNAV, etc. He can’t say, “i slept with like a hundred fifty women before I even MET the ONLY man ive ever slept with,” because that’s like intensely private personal information!! No one deserves that information, but people still want to call him gay, even though in his head he really is not!!!! Again—from the conservative perspective, it’s a public imposition of left-wing, overly sexualized, too-neat labels and politics onto an area of life that has typically been kept private and respectable—I don’t agree with the conservatism, but I can at least empathize with it. Pre-Maverick’s death (pre-coming to terms with it), it would’ve been shameful & embarrassing to him; but even after coming to terms with it, it’s still not something he “takes pride” in. I think he thinks of it like this—most people aren’t proud of being straight. Like, it’s weird if you are. Same thing with being proud of being white, etc. Why be excessively proud of things you have no control over? Why not take pride in your ACTIONS—for instance, his career that he has actively sacrificed so much of his pride for? I can really empathize with that thought. I don’t necessarily agree, but I get it, especially in his professional circumstances, where he has so much to be professionally proud of, and yet people keep wanting him to publicly care about this private part of him he has no control over and can’t change.

Maverick though. I think he’d be actively hostile about talking about it in public. He Does Not Care. he does not want to care. It’s all an insult. They call him the first openly gay Ace cause he’s married to another man— “okay, but, like, I’m not. Stop calling me that. Neither of us are. Oh my god we have slept with so many women. Stop calling us that.” Ok then what do you want us, the press corps, to call you? First openly bisexual Ace? “No that’s worse!! That’s a word some teenager made up and doesn’t mean anything!! I’m sixty years old stop asking me to talk about this stuff im too old.” What do you have to say to LGBT kids who want to go into the navy? “😎👍 there’s a place for you etc etc. Let’s go back to talking about all the planes I shot down.” Maverick does what he wants without thinking about it. That’s the core tenet of his character. Very conservative. Don’t ask him to care too much.

Idk. No I don’t like them. But I understand them, if that makes sense. Like their conservative anti-label logic does make emotional sense to me. So that’s part of what I took away from this project, for better or worse… probably worse: I understand why conservatives don’t like the modern over-publicity of sexuality. They don’t care and they don’t want to care. And because they are small-C conservative, my ice and mav still don’t care lol. So, yeah. It doesn’t make them hard to write, because thats why I wanted to write them in the first place.

#what does it say about me that i put myself in their shoes & understand their position #i don’t agree with it but I understand it #the annoyance and the bad optics and the over labeling of hard-to-label sexuality #being a gay republican has got to be the seventh circle of hell #note my ice and mav are not republicans #but also note my story would not change even one bit if they were #i don’t LIKE gay republicans because they’re republicans. but i can empathize with them cause that’s gotta fucking blow. #normie median biden voter ice #now I think if a kid came up to maverick at an airshow and was like… #sir im trans and I think I want to go into the navy to fly & you’re my hero… #he’d freak out like ‘omg that means so much to me actually thanks!! it might be difficult for u i won’t lie but we need more people who #can overcome adversity…omg let me set you up with this admiral i know… yes yes yes…’ #he doesn’t like the conceptual discussions but he likes the people if that makes sense #& he really likes people massaging his ego #i find them incredibly annoying. but that’s what character development is for. if u start out liking ur characters ur doing smth wrong #& if they weren’t incredibly annoying then i wouldn’t have a story to write. #pete maverick mitchell #tom iceman kazansky #icemav #top gun #top gun maverick #asks #edts notes #**obvious disclaimer this is just my interpretation!!!**

[skybristle]

ok ok i think this is it guys. i got the campaign order down we stay sillyy

#i might swap seamstress and harbinger but idk #i think seamstress is more impactful After maw is dead #Oh btw harbinger leads to maws collapse. Did i say that #Shes dead asf #MAW DOWN !! [STAR WITH CONFETTI] /ref #sky rambles #story tag: bending horizons #i gotta make them all icons like i did for bh sometime

[sysba]

well well well, if it isn't the blorbos i have been rambling about for weeks! in other words, hello i have commissioned the most wonderful most talented @gncrezan so i could have the ctos x haikyuu crossover my heart longed for. enjoy angel and rayyan being so very sport-anime-rivals coded<3 they're about to be the most unbeatable pair just you wait!! + bonus teeny tobin who is very worried about the freshman's mental state lol i love jocks so much they're all insane or silly (and angel is both) 🥰

ps. rayyan beloved belongs to collegetennisoriginstory! which btw-- go read because it's the best thing ever

#college tennis: origin story #ctos art #rayyan afiq #angel rivas #rayyan x angel #if this isnt accurate my bad because i realised while commissioning that i didnt know what people looked like 😫 #and also....... if u can tell by the quotes that i dont know or understand tennis At All pls look the other way @allie im so sorry sdjksdjk #idk the technical terms and i didnt wanna risk making the dialogue sillier ok im a nerd idk any sports other than volleyball 😭 #i love these 2 so much tho pls #gotta love those gay rivalries and stuff #commissioned #najam tag #(((btw ang uses they/them pronouns)))