Tumgik
taakoluup · 3 years
Text
a moment of silence for your favorite character’s fanon interpretation
55K notes · View notes
taakoluup · 3 years
Text
Candlenights Gift Exchange
@too-much-alphabet-soup
I was making your gift for the @thecandlenightszone gift exchange! Hopefully you enjoy some mags and ango bonding!
shoutout to @sunshine-zenith for being my beta reader here
"Okay, run!"
"Sir, I can't see where I'm going!"
"We gotta move it, Ango!" Magnus laughed, picking him up with ease and carrying him.
"Where are we going even?!"
"It's a surprise!"
Angus sighed, resigning himself to being jostled with every sprinted step. Twelve years now, he'd been dealing with Magnus' horseshit. It was less meanspirited now than it used to be when he was still just a boy detective, but at twenty-two, sometimes he could swear Magnus, Taako, and Merle just liked to take the piss out of him for no reason whatsoever still. It took a few minutes longer of running before Magnus finally set him down, onto a distinctly metallic sounding floor.
“Okay, hold on tight!”
“To what?! I have a blindfold on sir, I still can’t see!”
Magnus just whooped loudly, his voice echoing strangely in the room. The floor jolted, shuddered, and hummed to life beneath their feet, Magnus cackling as the room nearly tossed Angus. He only barely managed a dex save to keep from falling on his ass.
“Okay, now you can look!”
With Magnus sounding altogether too proud of himself, Angus pulled off the blindfold Magnus had put on him. Despite more than a century’s wear, the metal still gleamed, sleek and beautiful- the helm a gentle, matte shine from decades of different hands. In spite of her disuse, the Starblaster was never in ill repair- perhaps an anxious tic of her pilot, engineer, and captain? Or that of her designer and science officer? Angus made a note to ask later as he marveled at the stars streaking past them, almost faster than he could catch.
“Happy birthday, kiddo!” Magnus gave him a broad grin from his seat at the helm, his hands sure and steady at the wheel.
Angus couldn’t help but laugh in amazement, ignoring his diminutive. The ship, the engine humming behind it with the force of the bonds of its original seven passengers- every inch of it was legendary. It got all too easy to take for granted sometimes that he was in such regular contact with the saviors of the multiverse, the actual Crew of the Starblaster, it was hard not to be a little stunned by it all! The history and stories that this bridge had seen… 
“It’s amazing! We’re actually here, sir! Is the engine still tied to you all? Would you reset if you went to a different planar system? Is this how it really was? Does it really run on your bonds? Can just you guys fly it?”
“Slow down, Ango! You can ask the nerds their dork stuff later. But that last question, that I can do! Get over here.”
“Really? You mean it?” Despite being newly twenty-two, he couldn’t help but feel like a kid again, nearly vibrating as much as the ship itself as he moved next to Magnus at the helm.
Magnus braked, slowing the ship down to hang amongst the endless stars before he got up, gesturing to the seat at the helm. “Get in there, before I change my mind!”
He practically dove for the seat putting his hands on the wheel as Magnus started pointing at the different panels, dials, buttons, and switches.
“Okay, so, pay attention. Here’s the thrust. This is your speed, your attitude, heading, vertical speed, and altitude, but most of those aren’t super useful. This button is for landing, this is nav. These are the backups, and over here is the OMS and their computers, it’s for when you want to orbit something. And over here is the jump.”
“O-okay. The jump?”
“Don’t touch it.”
“Oh, um. A-alright, sir. So to get it to go, do I just..?” He pushed the thrust forward, making the ship jolt forward, nearly knocking Magnus off his feet and giving Angus whiplash.
“Yeah, like that, but slower! The ship’s really sensitive, and it moves really quickly, so you don’t ever need to handle it roughly. Be careful with the wheel too, it’s the same way.”
Angus nodded to himself, trying it again with a little less force, easing the ship into a steady pace. It was still a little shuddery, but the grin was plastered onto his face. He took it into gentle turns dancing past galaxies as he pushed the ship to go faster, laughing as he left his stomach behind with each one.
“There you go! Just like that, perfect!”
He grinned wildly, taking it into different maneuvers as he got the feel for it. How often did he get to fly a spaceship, after all? Magnus laughed along with him, keeping his balance with a practiced ease as the ship weaved and spun. A nebula danced at the edge of his field of view and passed him just as fast, the ship moving at incomprehensible speeds. After building her up, he took the ship into a flip. He whooped with it, though the excitement quickly turned to fear as the throttle slipped from his hand, cutting the speed and dropping them both mid-flip. 
Angus landed painfully on the console, directly onto the controls.
He grunted, the wind thoroughly knocked out of him by the feeling of reality kicking him square in the chest. He was beefier now, a far cry from the nerdy little ten year old he had been, and still he found himself gasping and trying to blink the stars from his eyes. He felt himself being moved by arms far stronger than him off of the console, keeping him in place as the ship was righted, with Magnus at the helm once more. 
“You okay Ango? Hold on just a sec, we’re a little out of sorts.” 
“Wh-what just happened? I’m sorry, sir.” He looked around a little more warily now, trying to understand what exactly had happened, his eyes widening at the sight beyond the windshield. Twelve discs of different colors, spiraling in and out of a coordinated dance.
“You jumped us out of the planar system, and probably got us in some trouble. Hold tight, we have to get back in now…” Angus nodded at that, going quiet to watch Magnus work deftly with the ship, a practiced ease in the set of his shoulders as he guided them right towards one of the planes. He couldn’t help but feel nervous as they approached the massive, solid-looking purple disc, in the midst of a pas de deux with it’s bright red partner. Magnus slammed the jump.
And with the same gut-punch feeling, the discs vanished, leaving them hanging in space once more over Faerûn.
“W-wow… That’s um. W-was that supposed to happen..?”
“Ehhhh… It’s supposed to do that for sure, but we shouldn’t have done it now.”
“Why not?”
“Everyone’s still tied to it? So they probably know we stole the ship now.” 
“We stole the ship?”
“Yep! Cap’nport’s gonna kill us!”
“Sir!”
“Relax! I’ve stolen the ship plenty! The twins and I took it out for my twenty-second just like this!”
“Oh… you did?”
“Yeah! It was hilarious, he was so pissed, he about ripped his mustache out! Barry freaked out too, he looked halfway to hyperventilating or tearing us apart for it. He settled on hyperventilating when Lup told him how she got up on top of the bridge to fuck around up there while I flew.”
Angus stood there for a long moment before rushing forward, pulling Magnus into a tight hug.
Magnus huffed a laugh, hugging him right back. “That was the best birthday I’d had since we left.”
“...thank you, sir.”
“Anytime, Ango. And don’t worry, dying’s not so bad the first time. Cap’s gonna make it quick for you!
“Sir!”
“Now get it moving again, we only have a few more minutes before they start calling!”
23 notes · View notes
taakoluup · 3 years
Video
youtube
Heya @taakoluup!!! I was your Secret Santa for this Candlenight! You wanted some Twin/Taako Angst, so I delivered with this animatic of Candle Queen song. I hope you enjoy! @thecandlenightszone
17 notes · View notes
taakoluup · 4 years
Text
Tumblr media
I haven’t hugged or kissed or been within 6 feet of my girlfriend since the end of March and I’ve been projecting.... in case you were wondering my gf would be Aubrey bc she is magical and smart and funny and—-
2K notes · View notes
taakoluup · 4 years
Text
barry, showing the boys his cave:
Tumblr media
2K notes · View notes
taakoluup · 4 years
Photo
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Beginning of stolen century must’a been rough huh???? seven people who do NOT know how to live in close quarters with each other Getting Used to Everyone’s Weird Habits… (including their weird “i stayed up too late” personalities…)
this comic includes (1) scientist learning in a confusing way that the taaco’s cope by making depression food in the middle of the night. not pictured in this comic: me drawing lup scaring this “barry” fellow with her three am mac and cheese mania in an attempt to not give into the urge to make myself mac and cheese when i should be going to bed.
transcript under the cut
Keep reading
5K notes · View notes
taakoluup · 4 years
Text
We see the body of Barry Bluejeans, lying in a hole that is barely big enough. A pile of dirt is dumped over him, and then another. He’s being buried.
We see Lup leaning on Taako’s shoulder and shaking. Neither of their faces are visible, but it seems she’s crying.
Taako: Hey…
We see Taako’s face, impassive, mouth on the straw of a juicebox.
Taako: Why the hell are you doing this, again?
We see the grave-digger. It’s Barry Bluejeans, in lich form.
Barry:
Barry: Self care.
We see Lup’s face. She isn’t crying; she actually seems to be laughing. She holds herself together long enough to look indignant.
Lup: Have some respect for the dead!
Taako shoves her off.
3K notes · View notes
taakoluup · 4 years
Text
My brain sometimes: oh man am I slowly slipping out of my taz special interest?
Me listening to the last episode of the stolen century: nothing else can compete with the wins and loses, the emotional highs and lows of high-school football The Adventure Zone Balance
445 notes · View notes
taakoluup · 4 years
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
insert something abt how i don’t want to post these on instagram so i look for validation here instead
129 notes · View notes
taakoluup · 4 years
Text
Tumblr media
I guess that I should say that there’s no better place than home
But home’s a place that I have never known
That’s why we’re on the run
459 notes · View notes
taakoluup · 4 years
Text
Tumblr media
110K notes · View notes
taakoluup · 4 years
Photo
Tumblr media
Afrocentric noses are beautiful, don’t you ever think otherwise.
94K notes · View notes
taakoluup · 4 years
Text
everybody gets one Taz crack theory and this one’s mine:
Festo is short for “Communist Manifesto”
thanks for coming to my Ted talk
2K notes · View notes
taakoluup · 4 years
Photo
Tumblr media Tumblr media
[ID: First image is of Aubrey and Dani standing arm in arm. On the left is Aubrey, a short, young human woman with curly, undercut hair and a lot of piercings. On the right is Dani, a tall, young sylvan woman with long hair pulled up into a half bun. They are both wearing black t-shirts. Aubrey’s shirt reads, “She’m I’s” with an arrow that points to the left. Dani’s shirt reads, “I’m She’s” with an arrow point to the right. They look very pleased to show off their shirts. Second image shows Barclay and Mama standing beside each other. Barclay is a tall, sylvan man with a lot of facial hair and his hair pulled into a bun. Mama is a middle aged human woman with long, thick hair. Barclay raises one hand while saying, “um.” Mama has one hand on his shoulder as she interjects, “No, don’t. It’s cute.” End ID]
As promised! the gorls :0
4K notes · View notes
taakoluup · 4 years
Text
On White Fear & Creating Diverse Transformative Works
So whenever fandom tries to address the question “Why aren’t there more works featuring characters of color?” there are a myriad of (predictable) responses.  One of which is appearing with increasing frequency: “Because we (usually: white creators of transformative works) are afraid of getting it wrong.”
And like.  I’ve already addressed how ‘thinking you’ll get it wrong’ is a failure of both imagination and of craft/skill (and a symptom of the racial empathy gap, which I forgot had a proper name when I wrote that post).  Meanwhile, @stitchmediamix absolutely accurately pointed out that the ‘fear’ being discussed is fear of being called racist, not necessarily fear of failure.
Now, we could go into the whole absurdity of white fragility here, but google is a thing and “white fragility” is discussed all over the place and I trust ya’ll to do the work if you actually give a shit about this subject… which I assume you do, if you’re reading this – but if you’re just here to find a way to dismiss the issue at hand, I’m gonna save you some time and recommend you scroll past.
Writers can also be fragile, especially in transformative works communities, where “if you don’t have anything nice to say, hit the back button and keep your mouth shut” is the primary expectation wrt feedback, and anything that deviates from that is considered a mortal insult (do you vageublog about my fic, sir?).  But if we’re willing to deploy an array of tools to make our writing not-My-Immortal-bad, from spellcheck to wikipedia to in-depth historical research to betas and britpickers and so on, then we should be willing to employ equivalent tools to avoid writing racist stories.
Incidentally, writing stories that erase/ignore extant characters of color, especially if they’re prominent in the source text? is racist.  So avoiding writing characters of color altogether is not the solution to making your writing not-racist.
And, okay.  I feel it’s important to acknowledge here, as I have before, that the Fear of Fucking Up is a very real fear that genuinely does affect people’s enthusiasm for / likelihood to write, regardless of the validity or fairness of that Fear’s origins, and I’m going to be generous enough to assume that there are some people who are acting in good faith when they say “I want to, but I’m scared.”
So. This is for those who are acting in good faith, from the perspective of a white fan who has written fic about characters of color in several fandoms and never gotten pilloried for it, even when I know for a fact (in retrospect) that I’ve fucked up details.
(oh, side note: I know this is mostly tackling things from a writing perspective, but a lot of this can apply to creating transformative works overall with a few tweaks.)
First: realize that the likelihood of getting called out is actually pretty low.  And fans of color aren’t as Mean and Angry and Unfairly Sensitive as some people want us to believe.  (Do you vagueblog about That Dumpster Fire Meta, sir?  /  No, sir, I do not vagueblog about That Meta sir; but I do vagueblog, sir.)
This is not to say that there aren’t people out there who’re more than willing to make a (justified) stink about egregiously racist writing.  But it’s actually very rare to get targeted, especially publicly by a large number of unhappy fans.  Because you know what? most fans, including fans of color, want to just have fun in fandom as much as anyone else.
It’s just, y’know, a little harder for fans of color to ‘just have fun’ when us white fans are showing our asses with stories involving “Dragon Lady” Elektra or “Angry Black Woman” Sally Donovan or “Spicy Latin Lover” Poe Dameron.  And sometimes us white fans only listen to what fans of color are saying when they make a Big Deal out of it. 
That’s not a failure of their ability to stay calm.  That’s our failure to listen before they get loud and organized.  Because I’m willing to bet that people who get called out publicly? got a few polite, private messages about their screwup first, and they doubled down instead of listening. 
Also: there is a thing where, no matter how politely they word their critique, fans of color, especially black fans, are more likely to be unjustly perceived as ‘mean’ and ‘angry’ by white fans.  Again, that’s our failure, not theirs.  Plus, even if they are angry, that doesn’t automatically mean they’re wrong (see: Tone Argument).
Step Two is: pay attention to discussions about racist tropes in fiction.  Yes, even when it’s crit of our favorite shows/movies/characters/etc.  If you understand the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope and why it’s harmful, or you understand the Bechdel-Wallace test, or you can have a meaningful discussion about Mary Sues, or you can (justifiably) rail about how Bury Your Gays sucks, then you can develop a similar appreciation for racial biases and stereotypes.  And then you can find ways to avoid them.  
No, no one’s expecting you to memorize bell hooks so you can write a drabble about Iris West, or demanding you write a dissertation on media stereotypes wrt the simultaneous fetishization and desexualization of Asian women (who aren’t a monolith, either, but Hollywood doesn’t seem to know that) before you’re ‘allowed’ to write Melinda May in a story, but like.  Pay attention when people, especially fans of color, are talking about common tropes so that you don’t unthinkingly replicate or perpetuate them in your fic.
Yes, racist writing can involve more than just thoughtless parroting of harmful tropes, but my best guess is, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, fanwork getting ‘called out’ in fandom involves those tropes.  So avoiding them takes your chances of getting criticized from ‘low’ to ‘almost nonexistent.’  Less to fear, see?
Step Three is: more research – basically, at least as much as you’d be willing to invest in any equivalent white character.  @writingwithcolor is a great blog, and has links to additional resources; .  If you’re the type to get a beta or a britpicker, find a sensitivity reader or a beta of the appropriate background.  Not all fans of color are willing to do this kind of unpaid labor, just as not all fans are willing to britpick/beta, but they’re out there.  Approach them respectfully, and listen to them if they say that something in your story looks off.
It’s worth noting here that writing about characters of color doesn’t need to involve - and in fact, some advice recommends avoiding - telling Special Stories About Racism.  Stories about characters of color don’t need to be about slavery or civil rights or the constant parade of microaggressions they have to deal with daily in order to be realistic or compelling (or angsty, for those who love writing angst, as I do).  Research can turn up useful information that can inform our choices as writers, but if we don’t share the oppression our characters face, it’s not our job to tell stories specifically about that oppression.
Step Four is: before posting, anticipate the worst.  What will you do if someone says you fucked up?  If your answer is “argue with them and talk over their concerns,” stop.  Remember that you’re not a victim of a ‘mean fan of color,’ but that you’ve probably written something that they consider harmful.  Being told that you wrote something racist isn’t an attack on your moral fiber.  You’re not an irredeemable monster if you fuck up, but your response to being told you fucked up is far more telling.  Acknowledge their concerns, fix the issue if you can, learn from your mistake, and fail better next time.
You cannot improve if you don’t try in the first place.  Failure to try is failure, so try your best, and improve incrementally – just as you already do as a writer with any story.
In conclusion: The 4 Steps to Getting Over Yourself as a White Fanfic Writer: (1) recognize that the likelihood of getting called out is pretty low; (2) educate yourself about the most common racist writing issues, so that likelihood will be even lower; (3) do your due diligence when writing; (4) in case of the worst: apologize, fix the issue, learn from the experience, fail better in the future.
(And again, google is your friend – there are a lot of people who’ve written about this subject, like Kayla Ancrum, Morgan Jenkins, the mods at Writing with Color, Thao Le, and Monica Zepeda, among many, many, others.  I’m merely sharing my own perspective from what I’ve learned from listening to a lot of smart people, in case it might help some of you – if it doesn’t, keep looking, a ton of great resources are out there.)
18K notes · View notes
taakoluup · 4 years
Audio
is he a bad rogue? yes.
270 notes · View notes
taakoluup · 4 years
Photo
Tumblr media
18K notes · View notes