#now I'm scrappy and petty | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dootznbootz · 4 months

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"Odysseus giving baby Telemachus a lemon to see the funny face he makes" WIP fic update :'D I'm still doing it.

I got into a funk for a while and basically didn't touch it ( I currently have 12 pages of actual story I'm keeping and 32 PAGES of "scrapped ideas/paragraphs/story/etc." ) But now I'm just basically restarting and finally not going to give a flying fuck! >:D

Thank you all so fucking much for the love and sweet/fun chattering about my headcanons/ideas as really made me get outta my funk and gave me a boost! 😭

I basically got trapped in a cycle of

"Is this OoC? Can I be more casual in my wording? Can I have so much fluff and sweetness while still keeping OdyPen scrappy? Is it okay that I'm having this mythological hero getting drooled on by his son? Would it be disrespectful to have this king's baby pull on his hair and face? Is it okay if I have Odysseus constantly have to grab tiny things and jewelry away from his son because baby boy is teething and putting everything in his mouth? Mycenaean Greece from what I've researched didn't even have access to lemons yet! Can I even HAVE Odysseus holding and playing and caring for his son so much despite historically, baby boy would've probably spent most of the time with his nannies/wet nurses? CAN I HAVE THE WATER WIFE BE THE WATER WIFE?!"

And then I would just sit here like this

and kind of give up...

And also just...I guess you could say I have gender roles nonexistent in a way? More in a sense of "men and women do whatever they want and no one bats an eye". You just do whatever you're good at. With Water Wife? I'm definitely having her "playing the waiting game for the suitors" as I LOVE that but I definitely plan for her to be athletic af, built like a swimmer (Naiad. she's from Sparta, etc.)

OdyPen is "likeminded". Think, act, ARE the same in basically everyway. They are kind, clever, rude, reckless, wise, snarky, petty, mean, loving, etc. While she might not tell the cyclops her name like Odysseus would...she'd end up doing something else that wouldn't be good as well... THEY'RE THE SAME.

She'll tell you that the trade they had was unfair as 2 cows that were given have Mad Cow disease and spread it to a few others even when they didn't just to get more of them. A councilmen she doesn't like is afraid of Snakes so she purposely wears snake jewelry and just says it's in honor of Athena. (it is but it's a plus that she can be petty with it as well). She has her pet geese do whatever they want. They're both a menace as much as they're a blessing. Don't get on their bad side.

I have SO much fun with my ideas but got so embarrassed and worried but I'm just... I'm going to go fucking nuts.

Heads up, it's kind of a "sickfic" in which, yeah, Penelope basically gets magic food poisoning. One of my favorite things to write is very "human" moments. it's why I love the Epic Cycle so much. Messy moments, awkward moments, cheesy moments, embarrassing moments, HUMAN. And with love? the whole " I love you no matter what" is my FAVORITE. Telemachus spits up on his parents and OdyPen doesn't care too much as that's their icky wonderful baby boy. Penelope is sick and he cancels an event to take care of her. Stuff like that.

But yeah. Kind of gross shit like this.

Sneak Peak, (unedited), . idk, she's throwing up.

"He wouldn't be taking care of her! The other women would-" Hi! You're going to shut the fuck up! :D Let a man take care of his sick wife WITH the other women! Loving someone when they're at their worst is love! Yahoo!

#I'm going to go feral and not give a fuck anymore. I want sweetness. I want a toothache. and I'm goign to fucking get it #I want a hot water wife with sharp teeth who's built like a swimmer and who's reckless and sassy and clever and loves her husband and son #Mad rambles #shot by odysseus #wip #odypen

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kimbapisnotsushi · 7 months

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you seem to have a good read on HQ and your takes are great, so i have a question...and if you'd rather not go there, please ignore this! but i see oikawa get called "arrogant" quite often and i'm curious, would you say he is? what is it that makes people think that? imo he has a plenty of flaws, but i truly don't think arrogance is one of them. self-centered, sure, but not arrogant i think. i'm open to being wrong, i'm just legit so confused by that particular criticism, it makes me doubting my reading comprehension. i feel like that one post that's like "free my man, he didn't do that. he did a lot of other stuff tho" LOL. if you do answer this, then thanks for your time!

oh, dear anon. this is a very very big question and i'm honored you think i am capable of providing an answer that does it justice!! i don't consider myself an oikawa expert by far, but i'll do my best because he's still very beloved to me, and i hope whatever i say helps!

(but also - maybe take what i say with a grain of salt LMAO)

anyways, to get the main point out of the way: i completely agree that oikawa isn't arrogant! i actually haven't seen any commentary about that myself (bless!!!), so i can't say for sure why some people might think that, but my guess is that they think his pridefulness = arrogance — they think that the confidence he has in himself and seijoh contributes nothing to their actual power and is utterly meaningless if they don't win, especially in the face of ushijima. which, like, come on. what kind of captain would he be if he wasn't confident in himself and his teammates? is he supposed to tell them that they're going to lose??? is he supposed to discourage their hard work and effort???

or maybe it's because oikawa acts like he's all that, but doesn't have anything to show for it. who does he think he is? what does he think his pride is worth? what right does he have to go around making grand declarations when he has nothing to his name?

(which isn't entirely true, either, but we'll get into that, promise.)

now, do i think that he can, occasionally, be flippant, shallow, and/or petty? yeah, sure. he's got one hell of a personality about it. even iwaizumi says as much. oikawa is great at being a little shit. it's one of my favorite things about him!

but is oikawa genuinely arrogant, or self-centered? well . . . i don't think so.

see, here's the thing about oikawa: he knows he's good, but he doesn't think he's good enough. i think it'd be easiest to really explain what that meant if we broke this down into two separate parts, so let's give it a go, shall we?

(buckle up, friends, because it's about to get LONG. also: TIMESKIP SPOILERS!! and there's a tldr at the start of the tags because. WOW.)

so, first things first: if people are calling oikawa arrogant, then i'm like 99% sure that they don't actually know what the word "arrogant" means.

"arrogant" is used to describe someone full of themselves. it's used to describe someone conceited and pompous. it's used to describe someone so assured of and invested in their self-importance that they don't care for other people, and if it seems like they do, then it's usually wildly off the mark and still serves to inflate their own egos.

oikawa has never once been like that. he's been pretty much the exact opposite, in fact.

and yeah, sure, by his third year of high school, he knows he's good at volleyball, and that's fine! it's perfectly all right to claim you're good at something if you have the skills/experience to back it up. confidence is healthy as long as it isn't in overabundance, and we actually see a lot of this throughout the series!

(not to mention that this was where ushijima fell short. he was overflowing with confidence. he did not believe, for even a single second, that hinata shouyou and his meager, scrappy little flock of crows could beat him.

but oikawa? he knew. he knew what it looked like to make something bloom.)

the key to oikawa's confidence that made him better was that he could pinpoint others' strengths and weaknesses just as well as he could with his own. and (bear with me, please, i might get kind of boring here bc it's nothing that hasn't been said in the manga before) i don't mean it in the way we see the coaches or more analytical players do, as observations to be taken advantage of by everyone else; i mean that in the sense of how vital it is to his position as a setter. that was always the biggest difference between oikawa and kageyama: no matter how much more raw talent kageyama had, no matter how much better oikawa believed him to be, kageyama, especially in the beginning, struggled to do what oikawa could with a team. kageyama struggled to bring out the best in each player. and it wasn't because he didn't know how -- oikawa freely admitted that kageyama had the skill for it, that kageyama, once he got his shit together, could win against him -- it was because kageyama didn't have that same confidence in himself.

(not until much later, anyways. but that's another story, for another time.)

so, oikawa's confident. he knows he's good. he can bring out the best in each player. he's got a killer serve (and a killer smile!), a mind for tactics that borders on machievallianism, and cherishes the trust he is given like it's something precious. his coaches let him lead without leaning on them. his team has the utmost respect and admiration for him. he has a reputation. from karasuno to shiratorizawa to the whole of miyagi -- there is not a single character who knows oikawa tooru and would believe that he is, in any way, bad at volleyball.

but it's not enough. despite all of that, oikawa still doesn't think he's good enough. and that, friends, brings us to the second point.

oikawa tooru is nothing if not passionate.

so were the others, of course. kageyama kept going after his grandfather's death. hinata kept going while being a nobody from nowhere with no one to back him up. atsumu kept going while osamu didn't. it's not even about just those who went pro -- kenma, kuroo, noya, and everyone else found things that they were passionate about and kept going with it. the entire story revolves around loving what you do and trying to keep that love alive, and, sometimes, that can be really, really difficult when it seems like it doesn't love you back.

oikawa was so insecure over kageyama to the point where he nearly decked the poor kid. oikawa got crushed by ushijima-- who kept telling him that his team was not good enough, that his choices were not good enough, that there was nothing good enough to be proud of -- for years in a row. oikawa was taught that there would always be someone better than him no matter how skilled he was, but if he let that stop him then he didn't fucking belong on the court in the first place.

oikawa tooru is intimately acquainted with not being good enough, but he keeps trying to be. he keeps going. he tries to keep the love alive even if he's not loved back. he pushes and practices and takes a plane far from home to become even better. even if he doesn't have the skill, even if he doesn't have the talent, even if he doesn't have the love -- he still has his pride. and what does that mean, in the end? how far does that take him?

in the end, oikawa tooru walks across a world stage and sees people who believed in him on the other side and calls it a family reunion. in the end, he gets to play the volleyball that reminds him of why he loves it and how it gives him so much love back. in the end, his pride is unyielding and unbreakable, a product of the forge. he molded it with his own two hands. he will not let it falter so easily.

arrogance would not have taken oikawa tooru this far. i hope this has proven that he is anything but.

remember: instinct is something you polish. talent is something you make bloom. and never, ever let anyone else tell you what your pride is worth.

#tldr: oikawa 's confident in himself but (believing that there will always be someone more talented) is always striving to become better #ANYWAYS #i know this one's a bit different from the itachiyama post where i analyzed each panel but like #that was REALLY hard to do for this one since there were so many good ones i could use!!!#so i ended up just smashing 2-3 panels together that i thought were best representative of each point i wanted to talk about #and then just diving deep into the whole thing #if i had done it the first way we would have been here FOREVER #literally that's why it took so long i kept deleting and rewriting and going 'holy shit how the fuck do i write this'#'how can ANYTHING i possibly say do justice to oikawa tooru'#i hope i did a good job and i hope this helped anon!!!#i genuinely think this is the most insane thing i have ever written so thanks for that i guess #oikawa tooru #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#haikyuu meta #sou says stuff

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clonerightsagenda · 3 months

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lucy carlyle for the ask game!!! :)

(Ask meme here)

We are 2 for 2 for teen girls hanging out with the dead tonight huh. Maybe Aradia should be Lucy's next dead girlfriend.

First impression

Stroud likes his scrappy teen girls, huh? I respect that. A man can have worse stock characters.

Impression now

While she clearly shares DNA with Kitty (insert the 'he she lost her whole squad' meme) she is her own character and I like that she's petty and irrational and unfair in ways that make sense for her age. Honestly she is so extremely 13-15 it is hard for me to imagine what she will be like once she is an adult. But yknow. Tossup whether she'll make it that far anyway.

Favorite moment

I go on about all the CEOs she kills but siccing a guy's dead ex-girlfriend who he murdered on him after he threatens to kill you because he thinks you're the weak link was a great move. Really set my expectations.

Idea for a story

While I respect Stroud writing technology out of the world because he simply does not want to deal with it, I would love to see Lucy Carlyle unleashed on social media. I think she'd do numbers (derogatory). She'd write lengthy screeds about ghosthunting procedures and then tell people disagreeing with her to kill themselves. Meanwhile Lockwood has a google alert for his name and George is on fantasy Sci Hub. They can still have their intervention like 'Lucy you are putting too much trust in mysterious beings whose true faces and intentions you can't ascertain, it's drawing you closer to a realm inimical to human life that will warp you beyond all recognition if it doesn't kill you outright' but it's just because she has some weird tumblr mutuals.

Also don't think I didn't notice that when Lockwood goes "yeah I told Barnes there's no way we're doing anything with the other side ever again" and the rest of his team loudly agrees with him Lucy is conspicuously quiet. She's keeping her options open. Maybe she wants to go beat up Marissa Fittes again. She deserves to.

Unpopular opinion

Leaving the agency when she did was probably the right call. She and Lockwood's clashing personality traits and priorities were bringing out the worst in each other and making everyone else miserable. (I am so sorry Holly.) They didn't really resolve everything either, so if that workplace relationship is going to work out they should probably get therapy. Bright side is there must be loads of child therapists in this universe right. They'd probably have to be dragged kicking and screaming though. Maybe if you told them the office was haunted and then locked the door behind them.

Favorite relationship

If Lucy and Lockwood have clashing traits that bring out the worst in each other, Lucy and the skull just share a lot of their worst traits already, and I think that's very funny. Instead of saying she is so empathetic and pure of heart that she can befriend sinister ghosts Stroud was like yeah they just both suck in similar ways and thus get on, to everyone else's confusion and dismay. Honestly surprised they got anything done during their flatmates era besides coming up with mean burns about their neighbors.

Also this is a hostage situation. I appreciate Stroud's willingness to make his leads complicit. Marissa delivers the classic "we're not so different you and I" villain speech, but she has a point. They're both trapping and exploiting the dead to protect their lives and careers; it's just a difference of scale, and once you've justified something, scale is negotiable.

However I'm very invested in Show!Lucy's doomed girlfriend so watch this metaphorical space for whenever I finally meet her.

Favorite headcanon

Talent seems largely random but Lucy is described as being connected to the other side even before she crosses over, so I think maybe she was a preemie or almost died some other way as a child and that's why she's Like That.

#perpetual perpetual ladies night #ask meme #lockwood and co

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takerfoxx · 2 years

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Arcane, Season 1, Episode 1, "Welcome to the Playground," First Impressions!

Because YOU demanded it!

I have heard a lot about Arcane. When it came out, people were RAVING in a way I haven't seen people rave for a new fantasy/sci-fi show since, I don't know, early Game of Thrones or Stranger Things. It became the new watercooler genre show, i.e. the one everyone watched and was talking about, and the fact that it's an animated show for adults only make it all the more intriguing.

So of course I had to at least give it a google, and I have to admit, I was surprised that it was a League of Legends show, but that was mainly due to the cliche of anything cinematic being made from video games almost never being good. But upon some reflection, I shouldn't have been surprised.

Look, say what you will about Riot as a corporate entity or the reputation of League's fanbase, but when it comes to them branching out into other mediums to promote their game, they do not skimp on the quality. All of their cinematic trailers are top notch and often tell way more interesting stories for something that's basically a bunch of really colorful characters kicking the shit out of each other, and their music forays have just been fantastic. And I don't just mean the image songs (though those are great too), I mean them defictionalizing their in-universe musical groups K/DA and Pentakill and having them release actual music. They hired REAL stars in their respective genres for the vocals, put in the work to create REAL songs that unironically slap, coupled with some really cool and creative music videos. Like, I'm not a League fan. I've never played the game and never will. But I'm always excited for a new K/DA or Pentakill or even a True Damage drop, because their stuff is just that good. So it shouldn't be surprising that when they decided to make an actual show detailing the backstories of some of their characters, they would go all out (see what I did there?) and throw real money into hiring real talent with real passion to make something that's not only a good adaptation of a video game, but just a great show in it's own right.

And honestly, that's how I'm coming into it. Like I said, I respect League and the effort they put into everything, but it's not my thing, it's not my genre of video game, so I've never played it and never will. I only know a small handful of the champions, and that's mainly those that show up in the musical projects, plus a very small handful of the more famous ones. So anything referencing League stuff will mostly go over my head. I'll point out the stuff I do catch, but mostly I'll be reviewing this show on its merits as a fantasy/sci-fi story.

And the hype don't lie: though I've only seen one episode, it was fucking great. And you guys were right. This is very much up my alley. I mean, an animated fantasy/sci-fi show for adults taking place in a super-cool steampunk city starring a bunch of street kids pulling heists just to get by? Fuck, I must have been a good boy this year, because Santa has come early!

Of course, that's going to change as the show goes on, and I will get to that, but putting all the League stuff aside, I would totally watch a show just about these kids pulling jobs and growing as friends.

So, what do we got for our set-up? Well, after being orphaned in a horrible war thingy that I'm sure we'll learn more about (and how was that for an opening scene?), sisters Violet and Powder are taken in by career criminal Vander, who raises them as his own. Now, years later, along with a pair of boys Mylo and Cragglor, they've formed a small gang of petty thieves determined to follow in Vander's footsteps and make their own place in the world. But when Powder pokes around something she ought to have left alone during their first real heist, it brings the attention of the rich and privileged Piltover onto the scrappy undercity of Zaun in a big way, and now Vander much choose between protecting the kids he's come to love as his own versus the good of Zaun as a whole, while our gang of misfits has to decided how to approach being wanted criminals in a big way, and Powder especially, who not only caused the explosion but also lost all their loot and apparently has a habit of screwing up jobs, is feeling the weight of her failures. Meanwhile, a sinister figure known as Silco is preparing a deadly mutagen and is looking to take advantage of the chaos to further his yet unknown agenda.

Kick.

Ass.

Okay, so this was absolutely top notch, and it held my attention all the way through. I totally got invested in these kids, in this world, and genuinely became afraid for their safety during the chase and the ensuing fight with Deckard. I've always been a fan of the Lost Boys set-up (a bunch of kids banding together to survive, especially in a fantastical world), so this was very much my drug. And like I said: they did not skimp on anything. The writing, the voice acting, and the direction are all top notch and creative.

And okay, there weren't exactly a lot of surprises how everyone was characterized or the conflicts between them. These are all very familiar character tropes and roles, but they're common because they work. Vander is exactly what you'd imagine when I say aging criminal mentor looking after a gang of scrappy kids. Violet is what you'd expect, Mylo is what you'd expect, Powder is what you'd expect, Cragglor is what you'd expect, and the list goes on. But they still worked, and I still grew very fond of all of them, and want to see what happens to them going forward.

And on that note, I was genuinely surprised that Mylo wasn't voiced by Jack De Sena. He just feels like a Sokka, you know what I mean?

And oh man, the world was fucking beautiful. Piltover kind of reminded me a little of Dinotopia, to be honest. And Zaun was exactly what you would want from a crime-filled undercity.

Anyway, the chase scene was a thing of beauty, but I liked the brawl with Deckard's gang even more. These are obviously kids used to fighting for what they have, and their respective fighting styles reflect that, from Violet taking advantage of her agility to Mylo's crafty opportunistic style to Cragglor's just chucking motherfuckers about. And honestly, I know that Mylo is kind of an asshole, and I do feel for Powder, but he kind of...wasn't wrong, you know? I know the smartmouth dude pointing out the obvious but getting smacked down for being insensitive is used so often for a reason, but c'mon. Was he wrong?

And I'm always here for a sophisticated crime boss with an intimidating voice who enjoys the finer things in life while ordering acts of horrible brutality! So yes, give me more Silco.

Okay. Now, let's talk about...that.

Like I said, I don't play League, so I recognized basically no one right off the bat, and since no K/DA characters show up this season apparently, I expect that to continue. So after watching this episode, I got curious and checked to see who showed up.

Okay, so Silco's mad scientist is a dude called Singed, so that's neat I guess. And hey, the little kid sweeping the floor at the pawn shop is Ekko, the teleporting dude from True Damage, so that's cool!

Wasn't surprised that Violet is also a champion, and I expected Powder to be one as well. But like I said, I'm not familiar really with the game or its lore, so you can imagine how hard my jaw hit the floor when I found out that Powder is...JINX?!

youtube

That Jinx?

I know Jinx; of course I know Jinx! And I had heard that Jinx was in the show, but I expected her to show up in a supporting role later on! I didn't think that this was her origin story!

So of course I hopped onto TV Tropes to see what the deal was between her and Violet, and...

Oh.

Oh, all of my yes!

Yes, I like that a lot. Yes, I would like to see this story play out, thank you very much. Oh, I am very excited for this.

Strap in, my dudes! This is going to be fun!

#league of legends #lol #arcane #violet #powder #mylo #cragglor #vander #silco #deckard #singed #ekko #vi #jinx #welcome to the playground #reaction #Youtube

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jimzub · 6 years

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Hey, Jim. A loaded question, but I just want to ask: Is it really worth breaking into comics? Sometimes I worry If I should because I hear so many horror stories and hardships regarding the industry and how hard it is to survive whether it's creator-owned, work for hire, or both. I'm probably just having my regularly scheduled moment of doubt as a writer, but do you think it's worth it? Am I just being overly mired in self-doubt and worry?

Worth it for me or worth it for you?

I’m not saying that to sound flip, I’m serious. Everyone’s reasons for creating art are different. Everyone’s thresholds for risk and reward are different too. I can tell you what I think (and obviously that’s what you’re asking me here) but, at the end of the day, only you can decide if you want to do it or not. Don’t let other people push you down a path with their expectations.

Okay, with that out of the way-

Comics as an industry are incredibly unstable. It’s a rough and tumble business with a disproportionate amount of visibility compared to its size. It’s the only creative field I know where new creators can regularly be on the shelves in major outlets and promoting their work at events side-by-side with the biggest names in the business. It’s also one of the only fields where it can feel like almost every reader, reviewer, and journalist is half a step from cutting you down to take your job because they’re 100% convinced that if they were where you are now, they’d do it better.

It’s small, scrappy, insular, petty, back-stabbing, and navel gazing while also being innovative, inspiring, and full of some of the kindest people I’ve ever met.

Comics gives me gray hair and warms my heart.

It kicks my ass and lifts me up.

The creative outlet it’s provided, the friendships I’ve made, the places I’ve traveled to and experiences I’ve had…for me, comics have been worth it…

…But after 16 years of making them, I’m still trying to figure it out.

—

(Jack Kirby sketch by Dylan Horrocks)

#makecomics #comic books

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