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thebisweptualbisexual · 2 years

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disclaimer, I’m a millennial who absolutely grew up on Harry Potter and loved it at the time and initially had a hard time reconciling that supporting it meant supporting Her (and her terfy views) and I needed to drop it.

<rant>

I had a conversation with my roommate the other day about YA novels and media we used to consume when we were in middle/high school, and there were some dope ass series I loved as a kid that weren’t HP that I had totally forgotten about. Redwall, Uglies, Inkheart, and Blue is for Nightmares I hadn’t thought about until that conversation, Series of Unfortunate Events and His Dark Materials I only remembered when Netflix and HBO released shows around them.

And I feel like it’s super fucked that HP had such a monopoly on a lot of millennials’ childhood memories, like when you talk about books you read and movies you watched as a kid your immediate thought is HP*. You kinda forget about all the other stuff that was catered to kids you used to enjoy. Up until pretty recently, the only things I could remember reading/watching as a kid were a) things that catered more towards adults, and b) HP.

(*I’d add Lord of the Rings/Star Wars but HP was definitely more catered towards kids/teens)

And I don’t think I would have remembered things like Uglies if I hadn’t finally cut HP out of my entertainment. Uglies was actually a pretty interesting concept and I can see why I liked reading it as a kid, and I was kind of upset when I realized HP had taken up so much space in my memory that I'd forgotten about it. And yea some of the stuff I read back then was trash because teens have trash opinions sometimes but it was still fun and we ate that shit up. And I feel like I’m kinda starting to see similar happen with the MCU* where a lot of people seem to only watch those and not other things? Like they’re decent plots but they’re not the only things out there.

(*pinch of salt, I don’t really watch MCU movies)

Even before JKR got real public about being a terf I was still kinda starting to cringe at people who were still super into HP because it’s been over a decade and other media has come out. But JKR (and Universal) kept trying to monopolize millennial/YA consumption with her one cash cow after her attempt at writing adult literature kinda busted, and I feel like she really sunk teeth into my generation in a way that encouraged lowkey addiction to her franchise, what with the additional books that turned into lengthy ass movies (Fantastic Beasts), Pottermore, that play she wrote, Twitter engagement, Harry Potter World etc, and while I’m glad she didn’t pull an Anne Rice and ban all fan-art, HP fanart blew up in such a huge way from like Potter Puppet Pals to whatever that musical was that made Darren Criss famous that it’s not surprising to me that it’s the only media I could remember for a while.

There’s a bunch of millennials that refuse to drop it even though she’s a terf and actively using HP fans as "proof of support" for anti-trans legislation in the UK. To my roommate’s point it’s likely because they feel like dropping HP will mean abandoning their childhoods, but the reality is if you were into HP you were probably also into other stuff.

(Also like I feel like if trans kids have had to gamble between abandoning identity/happiness vs potentially abandoning family/safety/security, cis millennials can abandon an aspect of their childhood.)

And yea, it’s important to mourn things that made a huge impact that you don’t have anymore, but people aren’t even willing to mourn JKR’s terf spiral because we KNOW she's using HP support to justify her anti-trans views and people STILL try to divorce HP from JKR. You can't have this one both ways, and until people are willing to accept that, they can’t and won't move on.

</rant>

#anti jkr #anti hp #media consumption #rant #millennials #media monopolization #hp #jkr #ya fiction #anti harry potter

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misdre · 3 years

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misi's beyblade AUs masterpost

i like making AUs, i have many of them, here's a post of them from oldest to newest. (at least approximately) (the ones that got no art of them have photos from unsplash. i just enjoy setting the mood)

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Magical boy AU takao is an ordinary middle schooler who one day gets dragoon the magical spinning top from a cute little azure dragon, seiryuu, and transforms into a magical boy to protect the world from evil for some cosmic reasons that i haven't come up with yet. the rest of the characters have similar powers from their holy beasts and takao needs to gather up his team to fight the evil and. you get the drill is there art of it? yes 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 is there a fic of it? no note: i originally created this just because i like designing the outfits so i haven't planned the story much (this used to be my main focus but then 4kingdoms happened GJSDHGHSDG) i'd want to though, i'll get back to it eventually...at some point...... one of the charm points of this AU is that the holy beasts are these digimon-like animals that hang out with the characters and each have their own personalities.

Fairy tale monster AU takao and gramps live in a cabin in the middle of a forest full of monsters and takao decides one day to venture out to look for a silver-haired boy he once saw, he meets up with the other BBA characters one by one in the grim woods. is there art of it? no is there a fic of it? yes note: my oldest halloween fic. the characters are all these different cute spooky creatures and it's intended to sound like a fairy tale.

One day, he determined that the time was ripe: Takao decided to leave for an adventure. For his grandfather was old, it was not at all unusual for him to lay down to bed before sundown. Once the hut had fallen in drowsy silence, Takao packed his one and only bag with what little he felt he needed, took his cap and jacket, and stepped over the doorsill. He had left the safe warmth of the hut behind.

Royal fantasyverse AU (the tale of four kingdoms) takes place in a fantasy universe with four kingdoms (east, west, south & north) created by the four holy beasts, in an era where each kingdom happens to be ruled by an exceptionally young king due to their respective circumstances. when the four meet for the first time, a snowball of events is set in motion that's going to affect all four kingdoms. is there art of it? yes 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 is there a fic of it? yes 1 / 2 note: like a period drama with magic and gay and tons of worldbuilding. probably has way too many mysteries for the boys to solve because i have no self control when it comes to creating twists. this is The one AU that i have crammed every usable canon character into, i need enough people to inhabit four fucking countries

After creating the four lands, the holy beasts created people to inhabit them. Because the beasts were celestial beings and couldn't but guard people and the world they lived in from far above, they needed human vessels to lead the four nations. Thus they created four kings who would rule over other people using the four beast’s powers. The four kings were neither human nor gods, but something between – they were messengers, or icons, of the four holy beasts.

Omegaverse AU a canon divergence AU (i guess??) where genders are replaced by A/B/O and everyone being either canine or feline. max is a late bloomer canine and finds out he's the only alpha of the BBA boys thanks to a certain feline omega. is there art of it? not really but i do have dog boy max and cat boy rei art (which are a bit too cute for this kinkfest. i mean they're obviously aged up for the real thing.) 1 / 2 is there a fic of it? it's been in the works for like, five years but i always shy away from finishing it note: it's omegaverse, it's exactly what you'd expect. the smut is so filthy i've been too embarrassed to even post it. hiromi is also an alpha by the way

Coffee shop AU highschooler rei goes on a venture to hit on a local Hot University Teacher and coffee shop owner judy in a cafe owned by her, ends up receiving a bunch of flirty cups of latte from barista max working there. is there art of it? no is there a fic of it? yes note: i mean, rei being into blonde MILFs is pretty much canon

Now that Rei looked at the boy more carefully, he realised his hair was just as fair and eyes just as blue as he knew Judy Mizuhara's to be. Maybe they were related? It wasn't that strange if Judy had hired a relative's kid to help out at the shop, right? He certainly looked American, but he had spoken Japanese. And then, all of a sudden, the boy turned to look back to him. Startled, Rei blinked his own golden brown eyes and shifted them back to his now empty cup. God, it was rude to stare at someone, wasn't it? He'd been too deep in thought to even notice doing it. Not that the boy had looked judgmental – he only seemed to wear a smile.

Soulmate AU max keeps having dreams with peculiar scenarios about a boy named rei. one day he borrows a book on soulmates from hiromi and finds a chapter talking about meeting your soulmate in the realm of dreams. is there art of it? no is there a fic of it? yes note: i don't even care for soulmate AUs, this was my own dare to myself to find a single soulmate trope that interested in me enough to write a thing of it.

Max was walking through a crowded airport, carrying a heavy backpack with him. He had never been to this airport in his life, but somehow he knew exactly where he was, and where he was supposed to go. And he was in a hurry, and Rei had at some point emerged from the crowd, as usual, keeping up with him without bumping into any of the people that should have blocked his way. “I'm sorry, this is probably my fault,” Rei said. “I haven't even travelled in ages anymore, but these dreams just keep coming back to haunt me.”

Chess player AU rei is a young chinese chess champion participating in the world junior championships, ends up falling for the american chess prodigy max somehow in the process and is determined to get to play against him again. is there art of it? no is there a fic of it? yes note: so this is one of the weirder ones i've done. it was inspired simply by me having a very vivid mental image of a scene of them playing dramatic chess together. this is probably my most underrated AU even by myself, i think the writing is pretty solid for such a short story of a topic i know practically nothing about

As a child, Rei had initially been taught to play xiàngqí, a Chinese game much more popular back in his home country; but chess with its refined, uniquely shaped pieces was love at first sight for the young Rei. He was a fast thinker and had amazing concentration skills once he set his mind on something, and he also had an outstanding memory, making it easy to memorise game patterns he once saw and then use them for his advantage. This all granted him natural talent in chess. But despite his skill, he had a bad habit of easily losing his temper and becoming indecisive once his focus wavered. Also, he was just a tad bit too sentimental. These traits often became his worst enemy in important matches, much worse than the actual opposing player. Keep your cool. Focus. Play well.

Flower shop + fake dating AU yuriy doesn't really know anything about flowers but is working part-time in a flower shop for the easy cash. he keeps getting a pair of weird customers who ask about flower language for hypothetical situations. is there art of it? not by myself and i don’t have a link to the fanart made of it unfortunately is there a fic of it? yes note: did i write this for valentine's day? i feel like i maybe did. this is my only AU (and fic in general) so far that's about a non-BBA character as the main lmao

“So, I need some advice for a particular situation,” the customer then began, idly tapping the counter with his hand. “I mean, not a real situation, of course – hypothetically speaking, if someone was just pretending to be going out with another person, but they weren't really going but it just needed to seem that way to everyone else, what kinda flowers would get the message through?” Possibly an idiot, Yuriy concluded his analysis. “So you need suitable flowers for a date,” he stated, shooting his eyes at his notes about common flower-usage.

Classical music AU (the heart that i love) max is a piano prodigy attending a classical music college that holds annual music competitions for the students. he's got some haters for being the son of a world-known pianist who's one of the teachers, but he also ends up having a budding romance with rei the mysterious chinese violinist. is there art of it? yes 1 / 2 is there a fic of it? yes note: the origin of this was my "max and mao are besties" college AU. then it got mixed in with my thirst for classical instruments and max being bullied.

Max isn’t exactly a synesthet, but he has always been able to see music as pictures – as entire sceneries, as great adventures. This tendency of his emerges especially strong whenever he’s learning to play a new piece on the piano; as he moves along the melody, the scenery is also being built around him like a jigsaw puzzle, creating a complete picture piece by piece; and once he has mastered the song, he’s able to freely traverse and immerse himself in the world inside that puzzle. Some pieces have a more relaxed or soothing scenery than others, some are exciting and thrilling – even deliciously sinister in the way that a good horror film can be. Setting himself down in front of a piano is always an invitation to a world of his choice.

Bakeneko AU after moving to a small rural town in japan, max hits his head and starts seeing things, such as a weird white cat following him around. after a while, he's convinced that he's being haunted. is there art of it? yes is there a fic of it? yes note: another halloween AU, a more surreal one where max is human and rei is. well. not

Max kept walking, his eyes still on the narrow road. He hadn't noticed while deep in thought, but it really was quiet that evening. The sun had nearly set by now, leaving the sky striped with the dusk of the approaching nightfall. There was no wind to rustle the treetops, no birds chirping, nothing. Only the sound of Max's own footsteps on the pavement, and the matching sound that followed. Followed. What if someone actually was following him? A sudden, violent chill struck down Max's spine, causing his hair to stand on end. He stopped. After a short delay, the steps also stopped.

Genderbend AU a canon divergence AU where everyone's a different gender from canon (duh). starts off as an alternate version of the g-revolution world championships where the girls meet for the first time and befriend each other. rei is a professional model in addition to being a blader in the baihus, and max from the PPB is delighted to be able to battle her. she has no idea that rei has fallen for her at first sight, though. is there art of it? yes 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 is there a fic of it? it's... in the works. note: i created this because i wanted to design attractive girls, what about it. absolutely partial to maxine's huge badonkadonks.

It wasn’t like Rei hadn’t already taken notice of her before, given that they were participating in the same world championship tournament, but the real turning point was the first time they stood on the opposing sides of a bey stadium. It was the day when the match-up roster signalled the match between the Chinese team and the American team, the Baihus versus the PPB All Starz; and despite both teams consisting of five players, it came down to, to Rei’s immense joy, the tag team of Rai and herself against the two most interesting US players, Rikki Anderson and Mizuhara Maxine.

Vampire & merboy AU rei is a starved vampire just about to end his own life when he meets merboy max at a forest lake. is there art of it? of max yes is there a fic of it? yes note: yet another halloween monster AU, this time they are both monsters though. this one’s a pretty grim one i have to admit

Rei succumbed into deep thought, considering his few options, when something grabbed his unsuspecting hand. Something yanked him forward in one mad splash and forced not only the rest of his arm but also his shoulders and head underwater. Half a second later Rei, so badly startled that he’d come close to slipping into insanity, found himself staring at a pair of bright blue eyes only inches away from his own face. His other hand and lower body still firmly on land, Rei pulled himself back with strength that he didn’t even know his weak body still contained. As he did, he also pulled up whatever was clutching his hand, which turned out to be another hand – a white hand with elongated, dirty fingers, so sharp at the tips that they looked like daggers.

Mafia AU max is the boss of the BBA mafia family, rei is a hitman and max's right hand man, the rest have various roles in the organisation. salima, mariam and some other girls (at least) are reporters doing investigative journalism on organised crime who get interested in covering the story of a group of russian elite detectives doing a thorough investigation of the BBA. is there art of it? of rei and max yes 1 / 2 / 3 is there a fic of it? it's in the works but it's just a gratuitous reimax smut note: this is a story i wish existed but this kind of police investigation action thing is so not my genre of expertise. that's why i'm just doing a PWP of my boys and the rest exists on conceptual level

“Did you know,” Salima said, perfectly peppy about it, “that there are secret underground auctions for stolen artwork that’s sold in the black market? Not just online auctions in the dark web but actual, physical events held somewhere in the city! Isn’t that so intriguing? Can you imagine how an event like that would look like, Max?” Max can – in fact, he doesn’t need to imagine. But he’d rather not think about it; the memories bring the familiar taste of bile in his mouth and make his gut curdle with a mixture of disgust and very particular guilt. The mere thought of it makes him set his coffee aside and bring a hand between his tightly shut eyes.

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the next thing i come up with? who knows............

#bey things #i am only moderately insane #so i'm a person who never reads her own writing #but for this post i did. i read my old oneshots #and i wasn't disgusted by them!! actually i was rather impressed with them!!!#i didn't know such a feeling existed. to read your old writing #and be like how nice! writing of my OTP just the way i want it!#genuinely i was charmed by the soulmate AU because i'd forgotten most of it #bc i was so embarrassed about it for some reason? but it was a very nice story

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wordupcomics · 3 years

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We would like to see more about the adventures of the boys (Violet, Scoops, Becky and Tobey) when they were teenagers we really love to see our favorite team interacting with each other 💗

Hey Anon! Sorry this took so long! It took me a while to think of things and then when I did I wanted to draw them but by that point I'd already kept you waiting for a while so I only have two drawings but I have a lot of ideas I will share through text instead!

First lets do the moment with the drawings

So it starts with the gang as teenagers, all four of them in detention. The girls and the boys got detention for different reasons, and ask the other why they are there. First Becky and Violet ask Tobey and Scoops why they're there. It's a long answer, so I'll just have Becky sum it up for you

Becky:...So...let me get this straight...Scoops saw Mr. Smith and Mrs. Stevens kissing in the parking lot, and decided to right an article about it and why we should remain loyal to our partners...and then Tobey pointed out that if anyone saw that article he could damage Mr. Smith and Mrs. Stevens marriages and get in trouble. So to avoid getting in trouble you two decided to flush the article down one of the toilets in the boys locker room and it clogged the pipes and flooded the boys locker room and you two got detention for causing damage to school property????

Tobey: Yes we hear the irony that we did that to avoid Scoops getting in trouble and then ultimately got in trouble because of it

Becky: Not even on my list of concerns right now. First of all...why did you have to destroy the article? Why couldn't you have just not published it? You could have hidden it or thrown it away?

Violet: No they should have recycled it!

Scoops: What if I recycled it and someone found it? Or what if I lost it and someone found it? it would spread like wildfire!

Becky: Okay, but why flush it down the toilet??? You could have shred it?

Violet: Or painted over it!

Becky: Or used one of Tobey's robots to destroy it

Violet: Or you guys could have thrown it in my fire pit when you came over next weekend to roast marshmallows!

Tobey and Scoops (realizing they're right): ...

Becky: And secondly (Looks to Violet as they both try to choke down a laugh) Mr. Smith and Mrs. Stevens are married

Scoops: I know, that's why I wrote an article on cheating Becky!

Violet: No, you guys, they're married to each other

Tobey and Scoops: ...What..??

Becky: Mrs. Stevens wanted to keep her last name so she never changed it

Violet: They've been happily married for twenty years

(Tobey and Scoops then realize they got detention for basically no reason at all as Becky and Violet burst out laughing):

Tobey: Oh yeah! And why are you two here, hmm? What bad thing could the two most rule-following students in the school have possibly done to end up in detention with us?

Becky and Violet (paniced): No reason

Scoops: No no no! We told you, now you gotta tell us! What'd you two do?

Violet: ....Well...Becky brought her laptop to school today so we could look at Pretty Princess fanart at lunch...

Scoops: At lunch? A teacher shouldn't give you detention for goofing off on a computer at lunch

Becky: Yeah the problem wasn't when we were looking at it...the problem was the particular fanart that just happened to be on the computer when the teacher passed by...

Tobey: ... What in the world kind of fanart were you two looking at?????

Becky: We were just looking at normal fanart! As it turns out some people one the internet are...messed up and we accidentally ran into some fanart that...um...

Violet: Will haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life...

Becky: and was ultimately deemed "highly inappropriate" by the teacher...

(Tobey and Scoops then burst out laughing):

I'm gonna put some more scenarios under the cut!

Becky begged Tobey to read this amazing book she just loves:

Becky: Have you read it yet?! Wasn't it amazing?!

Tobey: ...Becky you are one of my dearest friends but I have to be honest with you-This was the worst book I have ever had the displeasure to read

Becky: (Yanks the book out of Tobey's hands and "covers it's ears") (Gasps) IT CAN HEAR YOU!!!

Tobey: ....please see a shrink...

Mrs. McCallister is finally ready for Tobey to meet her new boyfriend and Tobey is super nervous. Scoops gets this idea that he'll look up the guy in the phone book, call him, and pretend he's randomly interviewing people on the phone for a school article, when instead he's actually getting information Tobey needs to get to know the guy better so he knows what to expect (fun fact: this man would later become Tobey's stepdad, his name is Alex). Scoops has the phone on speaker so Tobey can hear

After a bunch of oddly specific questions:

Alex, on the other end: ...Are you a friend of Claire's boy, Tobey?

Scoops: ...

Alex: ...

Tobey: ...

Scoops: Bye! (hangs up in panic)

Tobey: SCOOPS!

Scoops: He was on to us! I panicked! What was I supposed to do???

Tobey: NOT THAT! YOU MAY AS WELL HAVE SAID YES!

Scoops wrote an article about WordGirl. He didn't see anything wrong with it...Becky did...

Becky: How could you say that about me!?

Scoops: I didn't think you'd care!

Becky: Well I do!

Scoops: I'm sorry, Becky. I didn't know you felt so insecure about this or I never would have written it, I promise!

Becky: Insecure! I am NOT insecure!

Scoops (raising an eyebrow): ... define insecure

Becky: ...

Scoops: ...

Becky: I'm leaving! (leaves)

Tobey is in the park reading, Violet is also at the park, doing an art show. She walks up to Tobey all sad and sits next to him

Violet: Hi..

Tobey: What's the matter?

Violet: Someone came to my art show and said he thought all my art was terrible...

Tobey: ...Who in the world would say such a thing???

Violet: That guy over there...

Tobey: You know he's probably just jealous of how talented you are and is masking his insecurities behind rude comments

Violet: ... You really think so?

Tobey: Oh yes, I used to do it all the time..I still catch myself doing it to be honest

Violet: Well now I feel bad for him..

Tobey: Well there's nothing you can do about him, so if I were you I'd just go and continue your art show like normal

Violet: You're right Tobey! Thanks! (leaves for her art show)

Tobey: (pulls out his remote) Insult my dear innocent friend? Not on my watch

Becky and Violet talking about Pretty Princess

Becky: I mean...I know none of it is canon but it's still a good idea right?

Violet: Becky! This is the best AU idea I've ever heard!

Becky: (gasps) I'll write fanfiction for it and you draw fanart for it?

Violet: YES!

Becky and Violet: (Excited screams)

Tobey, now officially having given up crime, is doing community service (of his own volition) to make up for his past actions. Becky, Scoops and Violet come up

Becky: How's community service going?

Tobey: It's awful! But I'm glad I'm doing it

Violet: Want some help?

Tobey: No, it wouldn't feel right

Scoops: Well, can we just sit here and keep you company then?

Tobey: ... Of course!

In high school, Violet got into acting and often performed in school plays. Her first play ever she invited all her friends to come see, and of course they were happy to watch her have fun on stage! However when they saw the play it was....horrendous. Worst thing they'd ever seen. After the play was over Violet happily came over to ask them what they thought of it. Important note: Violet and Scoops were dating at the time

Tobey, seeing Violet coming: What do I do??? I can't tell Violet it was terrible! It would break her heart! But I can't lie to her either! That's wrong!

Becky: Tobey, relax, just do what I do

Violet: Hey guys! What'd you think?

Becky: you looked like you were having so much fun!

Tobey and Scoops: Yeah you did!

Violet: I was! But what did you think of the play itself?

Becky: ...Well...honestly you guys mispronounced so many words I couldn't really enjoy it. I mean it's not your fault, no one uses those words anymore but you know...I know how they're pronounced and can't stand when words are pronounced wrong so...

Violet: Oh that makes sense! We'll work on that! Maybe you can tell me how to pronounce them!

Becky: Sure!

Violet: Tobey what did you think?

Tobey: Um...I wasn't really a fan of the genre so I probably didn't enjoy it as much as I could have

Violet: Oh, what kind of genres do you like?

Tobey: ....a consistent one...

Violet: (laughs) You're so silly Tobey! Scoops! What'd you think?

Scoops: ... Um... I loved it of course! I mean, you were in it! And I love you! So how could I not love it!

Becky, having learned from the WordGirl stuff, later told Violet the truth and explained that she didn't like the play at all and only liked that Violet seemed so happy doing it. Violet took this well. Tobey and Scoops however...:

Scoops: PROBLEM PROBLEM PROBLEM!

Tobey: What?

Scoops: The school paper wants me to review the school play! I can't say it was good, that goes against my oath as a reporter! But I can't say it was bad either, I already told Violet I loved it!

Tobey: Ask someone else to do it

Scoops: No one else has the time to take on any more assignments! What am I gonna do?! I don't wanna upset Violet!

Tobey: um...uh...could you post it anonymously?

Those actions eventually lead to Scoops and Violet breaking up (don't worry, they did get back together years later)

Scoops took his and Violet's break up particularly hard, and Tobey tried to cheer him up by finding weird things happening in the city for Scoops to write about. It didn't help a whole lot, but Scoops appreciated Tobey trying to cheer him up. Meanwhile Becky, who by this point all her friends knew she was WordGirl, essentially tried to fix Scoops and Violet's now ended relationship, and between trying to help them, school work, hero work and family life, she ended up stretching herself a little too thin to the point that all her friends had to do an intervention and tell her to stop because it wasn't good for her.

I've mentioned before that Becky's necklace in Word Up in significant and special to her. This necklace was actually made by Scoops, Violet and Tobey. Note the fact that her friends made it isn't the reason it's so important to her, but it is sweet they took the time to make it for her.

For one of his birthdays Tobey invited his friends to a demolition derby. When his friends said they thought it odd he'd be into that, he stated it was his new outlet for seeing destruction now that he was no longer doing crime.

Hmm that's all I have for now! If you are wanting more and have any particular questions or ideas, feel free to send more asks! If they are a little more specific I'll probably get to them a little sooner

#wordgirl #word up #becky botsford #tobey mccallister #violet heaslip #todd scoops ming #scoops ming

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lilydalexf · 3 years

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Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Circe Invidiosa

Circe Invidiosa has 11 stories at Gossamer, but there are even more X-Files stories at her website. Some of my favs I’ve recced here before, like Make It Worse and Slap a Goatee On Me and Call Me Evil. She also made a bunch of X-Files collage art, including some cover art for fics (hers and others), which you probably saw if you were reading fic back when authors posted fics on their own websites where art could be shared. Big thanks to Circe Invidiosa for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

Well, it would surprise me if people did read my fic. As it happens, I don't hear much feedback from my fic these days. Probably because the bulk of it is on Gossamer and my own site rather than AO3. Also, I was never a BNA. I worked a lot behind the scenes – hosting other authors' sites and making fanart and dustjackets. I think that's what I'd be remembered for, if anything.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience?

I miss the collective excitement and discussions we had as groups. When you got in with a group in the XF fandom, you felt like you knew everybody there. Now the fandom feels a little faceless except for the people I still follow from my old groups.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

Most of my experience was on Yahoo Groups. I joined Scullyfic while it was still there and then E-muse when it became an e-mail list, which I'm still a part of. I was part of several Yahoo Groups (can't remember all of them now), where I'd post my fic, RealPlayer slideshows (remember those?!), and collages. I never really took part in discourse because I'm shy and don't think anyone cares about my opinions (still don't!). The e-mail address I used for those groups was purged a couple of years ago, so I've lost all those messages.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

My take away is that fanfic made me a better writer, thanks to having some great betas, and it made me a better professional writer for it (my real-life work is writing but not fun writing) because I learned to take criticism.

I also used to make a lot of fanart, collages and dustjackets for fic mostly. My big take away from that was that I really got into graphics and I got super proficient at Photoshop, which helped my own artistic endeavours and photography. I didn't realize how much skill I had developed until I've had to help someone with their graphics or photo editing.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

My mother was watching X-Files before I was and she was raving about it. I don't have a great relationship with my mom, but one thing she was usually right about was TV shows. It's where I got my love of Sci-Fi.

I think the first episode I watched was Ice, which definitely hooked me. As for when the shipping started, I remember we were watching Lazarus, and when Mulder was yelling at Lula (I had to look that up) about hurting the hostage Scully, my mom said, "Oh, he's so in love with her." And I was all, "What?! Pfff." But then I could not stop thinking about it. And then I thought about it way, way too much.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I was in my late 20s, and it was around the end of S7 and I kept thinking about what if these two dumb idiots actually talked one day. And I kept thinking about dialogue in my head about what they'd actually say. The internet was still in its infancy back then, but I'd seen fan sites here and there. So I decided to search around to see if other people were talking about it and thinking about it like I was. I was such a noob I'd never even heard of fanfic. Imagine my delight when I discovered it. I found a few stories and thought, 'Well, I can do that.' And I wrote up my first story, found a place to post it (wasn't Ephemeral the best?), got some kind feedback, found a really nice person (not sure she wants to be named since she used her real name in the fandom back in the day) who encouraged me a lot and directed me to all the e-mail lists and Yahoo Groups that I needed to be on, and then, Bob's your uncle, I wrote more and more.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Periphery. Most of my experience in any fandom is now on Tumblr because that's where my attention span is. Show me pretty pictures and funny stuff. I am old now and don't want to think hard.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

Veronica Mars was my next fandom experience. A number of my XF friends got me hooked on VM. The VM fandom was a LOT younger compared to the XF fandom. When I joined the XF fandom, I was the kid compared to most of the other fans who were all goddesses and royalty in my eyes. But in the VM fandom, I was in my 30s and the rest of the fandom were all in their early 20s if not younger. It often showed, so I stayed out of discussions and just posted my fic once I started writing it. I took a new handle (invida) when I started writing VM fic. Just in case these kids felt like my writing sucked, I didn't want it getting back to the XF fandom that I’d branched out and failed spectacularly.

By then fandom experiences had moved over to LiveJournal. I never really got involved in the discourse or the fandom fights. I knew what people were saying and where the schisms were, but I was all about the fanfic and the pretty pictures. Most of my LJ friends just discussed the episodes and posted their fic and that was good with me.

What got me writing fic for VM was Anjou's brilliant VM fic Into the Blue. Seriously, if you love VM S1, read her fic. Just so beautiful.

VM was also where started writing a WIP, which was a wild trip. I wrote a much-loved WIP called Damn, Damn the Circumstance which people still ask me about finishing to this day. Someday…*wistful sighs*

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

Scully. She was everything! Lapsed Catholic, degrees in science, skeptic, always trying to work within the rules but still not taking crap. Yeah, she was the best.

Veronica Mars was great until she wasn't. I have a lot of issues with her beyond S2. And don't even talk to me about S4. For me, S1 was the best, I enjoyed the movie, the books were okay, but nothing else happened after that. NOTHING.

And the first character I ever loved was Princess Leia. She was also everything to me growing up. I wanted to be her. I still do.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

Now and then. Not as much as I used to. I sometimes have it on in the background when I'm doing other things. Back before the pandemic, my BFF and I would have get togethers where we would play Scrabble, eat a lot of candy, and binge several XF episodes. I miss doing that. Hopefully, we will get back to that soon.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I am not an active XF fanfic reader right now. I will read any stories my friends put out. Otherwise, I only occasionally read some I come across on Tumblr in my feed, but I am not seeking them out. I will beta for any XF author who asks me as well.

I am reading fic in other fandoms though – Endeavour, Broadchurch, Sherlock…huh, I'm just realizing that's a lot of British stuff. I have been really into British detective series for the last few years.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

I used to run an XF fic recommendation site called How Will It End usually with at least one other person (I went through at least 4 partners on that project because I'm a control freak). We'd compile our recs and then I'd post them on my site. We'd also feature authors we really liked and interview them. Not unlike these interviews!

I'm terrible at giving feedback/comments. So I solved that problem by making a rec site. That way I could tell authors I loved their fics by recommending them. I didn't have to comment, I'd just say, 'I'd like to rec your fic'. And then they'd get promotion. Win-win. Back in those days, the fandom would absolutely roast you for promoting your own fic, so to get on a rec site was a big deal. Not that I had a popular rec site or anything. But I think authors really enjoyed being asked.

All that to say I've liked a lot of fics. I can pull up the archives of HWIE and show you all the faves I liked. :)

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Back in the day, E-muse would hold Improv Challenges, where other members would give you a prompt that you had to include in your fic. I was always really proud of the stories I created from those challenges (No Earthly Means and Elephant in the Room if you want to read them).

I enjoyed writing Dead to Rights which is an XF/Dead Like Me crossover because I loved the challenge of writing a crossover. It was the first crossover I ever tried writing even though I only recently published it.

Otherwise, I like re-reading In a Graveyard, Importuning Life for Life, and Some By Virtue Fall. Of my more recent fic, I like Slap a Goatee on Me and Call Me Evil because the premise was ridiculous and I think it's funny as all get out.

Probably my favourite of my VM fic was Stay Outta Riverdale. Because: 1. The title is a Simpsons reference who doesn't love a Simpsons reference? And 2. I think I was hilarious throughout it.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I'm always open to writing more fic (and, of course, I don't mean my WIPs…don't look at me like that). Lately, my only motivation has been from writing prompts on Tumblr. I haven't had anyone give me a prompt in over a year, so here we are. I have snippets of dialogue in journals and word documents that have never found their way into stories. I'd be happy to dust off any of those and shoehorn them into a new story.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

The last fanfic I wrote was a mini-fic over a year ago (with a prompt from Lilydale!). I've written a bit of original fiction but I haven't been able to finish it. Otherwise, I do have a number of real life hobbies which are where my creative outlets lie now.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

Lately, challenges and prompts. It used to be from wanting to see more from a scene. I really had a thing for fill-in-the-blanks or scene continuations. And sometimes my motivation is just plain old spite. :)

What's the story behind your pen name?

Circe Invidiosa is the title of a painting by John William Waterhouse. Love the colours and the absolute malice on the face of the subject. It felt like a good pen name – the envious witch. That's me!

I chose it when I posted my first XF fic (which I cringe to read now, ugh so terrible) without knowing there was already a Circe in the fandom. Whoops. I tried to go by the full Circe Invidiosa or Invidiosa as much as possible after realizing that (invidiosa is my url and my username on a lot of sites, etc.). Now I think that I've been around long enough that it doesn't matter as much but I still like it.

As I said, I took the name Invida for the VM fandom which is just a shortening of Invidiosa.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

My significant other knows and that was quite a reveal (oh how awkward). However, the SO has been very supportive and has read all my stories since the reveal and sometimes betas them. The SO also wants us to collaborate on writing some original fiction but we haven't found a project that works for both of us creatively or timewise.

My BFF knows because I dragged her into the online fandom. We've known each other since we were 14, but our love of XF really solidified our bond in our 20s. She wrote some short but sweet fics under the penname Helen Quilley which I bullied her into posting, and we wrote Of Ladies Most Deject and Wretched together. She is mostly embarrassed that she wrote fanfic now but we still fangirl together.

No one else really knows other than fandom folks I've met in real life. And some friends know I've written 'short stories' but I don't elaborate. I work in a stodgy, uptight industry where anything fun or actually having a life is frowned upon.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

Over the first lockdown, I got my shit together and got my fic site, invidiosa.com, up and running again. My site houses fic by Rain (now @doctorhelena on Tumblr and AO3), Helen Quilley, ML (who I miss so much), Folieadeux, Shelba, TLynn, Oracle, Piper Sargasso, Diehard, and me. And I made all their dustjackets (except Folie's). The site got hacked a few years back and it was so much work to get running again that I put it off for years and years. I still feel terrible that I did not get the site back up before ML passed away, especially when ML had asked me about it a few months before she passed.

Anyway, all my XF fic is here: circe.invidiosa.com. I have 3 of my newer XF stories on AO3. And my fic-LJ also has some of my stories. Some of the newer stories are on Tumblr but the tagging is so erratic that I'd have to list several tags before you'd find them all. I don't know why I haven't moved everything over to AO3. Probably laziness.

I'm @invidiosa on Tumblr. I'm still on E-muse. I'm still on LJ. I'm always reachable by e-mail (invidiosa at gmail).

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Thanks for reading, writing, and commenting. It is always appreciated.

(Posted by Lilydale on January 5, 2021)

#new post #old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #circe invidiosa

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ashilrak · 3 years

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Tips for Commenting on Fics

Hello! Have you ever read a fic and really wanted to leave a comment but had no idea what to say? Maybe you’re anxious about what the writer is going to think, maybe you’re trying to comment on more of the fics you’re reading and have no idea where to start. Well, it is I, your friendly neighborhood fic writer here to help!

Disclaimer: This is entirely based on my own experiences and opinions and I speak only for myself.

Brief Introduction: I’ve been kicking it in the fanfic community for over ten years now, starting back in the days of ff.net. For most of the time I’ve been a lurker, maybe posting a few one-shots here or there. For some of the time, I was incredibly involved in fandom, posting regularly and hosting fic exchanges and the like. I’ve been in many and have written everything from explicit one-shots to full-length aus to chat-fics.

If you take anything away from this, I want you to know that comments are the most meaningful form of feedback on a fic. Writers have lives outside of fanfic and write fanfic for free. They’re doing it in their free time and put a lot of time and effort into their work, and who doesn’t want to see their work appreciated? Anything you have to say will be appreciated. So, let’s get started.

Ashilrak’s Tips for Commenting on Fanfiction

Commenting 101: Introduction to Commenting

Maybe you’re new to the whole commenting thing, maybe you just know you really liked a fic but don’t really have anything specific coming to mind and it feels like a kudos just isn’t cutting it. A comment doesn’t need to be a novel!

Maybe start with something like:

I really loved this!

This was great, I can’t wait to see what happens next!

In general, I would recommend avoiding leaving comments such as:

Please update soon!!

When are you going to update?

I really wish you’d update more often.

You’re a terrible writer.

These characters are really ooc.

Is that it?

That doesn’t make any sense.

Writers put a lot of time and effort into their fics. Sometimes, for me personally, there’s nothing more disheartening than posting a chapter and immediately getting asked about updates. I personally recommend a “I can’t wait to see what happens next” to a “please update soon” as it gets a similar message across.

And obviously, no one wants to be insulted. Some authors do ask for criticism! And that’s okay! But if they’re not asking for it, I wouldn’t go out of your way to insult the work.

Commenting 201: Reacting to the Fic

You just read a fic, you’ve left your kudos and you’re ready to comment. But this time, this fic made you feel a certain type of way. Maybe you have questions, maybe a specific scene stuck out to you!

Comment examples:

Oh my god, I loved that. I can’t imagine that A is going to let B get away with that so easily. I can’t wait to see what happens next!

Oh wow this was amazing. I hadn’t realized it was something I needed, but wow did you do a great job handling that scene. You really captured the thought process I imagine A was going through and it was handled really well.

Your characterization is perfect, I can literally hear the character’s voices in my head while reading their lines. And the conversation really highlighted the differences between them.

“What did that Master bit mean? Otherwise this was an interesting and entertaining fic. I had wondered how B was going to show up and it was neat to see how he did. I am a bit surprised A forgot about C knowing B. I wondered how she explained herself out of that mess. Also, I can't believe how quick they were to murder him. Good ending. Thank you for the story.”

“Woooooow. This story is amazing! I loved seeing the original characters, but I also enjoyed seeing others, especially A. His personality traits and actions kept me laughing as I was reading. While I was a little sad to see how B and C's relationship turned out, I am really happy with and adore how the story ended. It doesn't get any cuter than this. I'll be reading the sequel for sure!!“

“I think your A is very in character! Even if you don't feel like you're good at writing him or it doesn't feel as natural, you're doing a great job off making him work. There's a lot of work for this ship that involves them getting together, but not a lot that follows the past that too deal with the day to day off being a famous couple, and I really like your take on that. I'm looking forward to reading more from you!“

As you can see, these comments are a bit more personalized to the fic you’re reading. An “I loved this!” let’s the author know you liked the fic, but an “I loved this because you really captured the tension in a way that didn’t feel fake” lets them know why you loved the fic.

These comments don’t have to be more than a sentence, but they’re super fun to write and a lot of authors will respond to questions and it’s a fun way to engage and potentially even influence the direction of the fic or spawn a one-shot.

Examples of things you might want to point out while reading:

A particular line that stuck out to you, maybe it feels quotable.

A scene you’re really looking forward to seeing in the future.

Characterization

A scene you’ve been waiting for that finally happened, maybe the first kiss in a slow burn

Maybe the author is making a particular trope of ship that you’ve never liked before work in the context of the fic.

You’re re-reading a fic because you love it so much.

This is honestly what most of the comments I make on other fics resemble.

Commenting 401: Engaging with the Fic

Time for some advanced commenting. Now these are the comments I love best, and I feel that most writers would agree. This is where you dig into the weeds of the fic and potentially start a really good conversation with the author. This is where you go into the what-ifs and how you view a character. These are the comments that have writers squealing.

But, they’re not the easiest comments to make. I’ve left them and I’ve received them and they’re a rare treasure. These are Reviews.

Maybe you’re starting to get a taste for the metaplot of a fic. Maybe you’ve reread this fic over and over and over again and it’s inspired scenarios that play over and over again in your head before you fall asleep. Maybe you have so many questions about a character’s motivations. Maybe you wrote a fanfic for the fic, did fanart, or want to write a translation.

Examples:

“Oh my god. That was just wow. It was so good. I haven't read anything as satisfying as this in a long time.

I especially appreciate not only the writing style, but how literally every mentioned character, every small scene had a deeper meaning to it and or referenced to something. Everything is thought through so carefully. I can't imagine how much research it must have taken you to make this so authentic. I also liked the humor a lot - it was much needed and placed just at the right places. Thank you for this piece of art! And, while I was able to predict many things that happened, I pictured the end in many different ways, but not like this. Simply amazing.“

“Oh shit. I was wondering if B caught feelings for A too, considering that one time A said an off hand comment about their relationship meaning nothing and B frowned. But the addition of this scene, with B locking away a bunch of emotions. Oh boi. Plus, the moment where he was coming to a decision. I'll bet B had been the one to knock in C's door and they were discussing something and they both went over to ask D something. Probably about the aforementioned book. Which would be what thud could have been. C dropping it upon hearing B ask if C knew A fucks D as well. Which also makes me question if B had talked to C about this whole ordeal, even, perhaps, going as far as to admit his own relationship with A. That seems like a bit of a stretch though. Either way. This fic is absolutely amazing and I love it with a passion. I check every day for an update. You're amazing. Thank you for putting so much dedication into this work.“

These are so personal and so meaningful and these are the ones I keep in my inbox and read over and over and over.

Anyway, I know this is a lot, but I hope you found it helpful!

#Fanfiction #Comments #Fanfiction Comments #archive of our own #Long Post #I was bored I guess lmao #Karli Talks Writing

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ravenwolfie97 · 3 years

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2020 Art Summary

Yep, it’s 2021 already. 2020 is finally over. It felt like it lasted forever, and it felt like the end would never come, but here we are. Crazy how the time flew by.

I felt like I didn’t get much art done this year because of Current World Event, but I made a lot more than I thought I did. Even some of my new favorite pieces came out of this year, so I think that’s worth celebrating and looking back upon!

I was insanely productive during the first month of 2020, and looking back I was surprised at all the stuff I did, but then I remembered that that winter season was actually one of the best times of my life! I started being more socially involved, and I think my newfound drive at the time translated into all the art I pumped out this month. This is just a small fraction of what I made in January, but I only have so much space. Quite a few complex pieces in both style exploration and polishing my own style.

Apparently February was a rather intimate month. Things began to slow down in terms of my own art here, with me spending more time in social settings and school work ramping up, I didn’t have as much time to coop up in my room to draw. I did wanna do something for a friend’s Valentine’s Day OC art challenge, so I drew my lovey-dovey couple from Dance of 1000 Words havin’ a dance. Nothing actually came of that challenge, but it was fun to do regardless.

One of the things I was most proud of in the winter season was making more friends, and one of the closest friends I made was completely coincidental. I met a person named Kiri on the bus one night I decided to volunteer somewhere by myself, and we ended up chatting and getting along. They quickly told me their tumblr username, and I shot them a message immediately after they left. A couple days later, we met up for brunch, and we started becoming really close friends and creative partners!

Not much else happened in March cuz that’s when Current World Event started becoming an issue, but Kiri and I still kept in close touch and we randomly started developing a concept for a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Galar Edition. These are a handful of characters we thought up, with Skipper the Scorbunny and Dross the Dreepy as the main characters, Morgrem as the main antagonist, and some shopkeepers such as those of the Greedent Bank and the Indeedee General Store. This was also my first time drawing all of these Galar Pokemon (except Scorbunny, but I also made Skipper a bit more unique than a regular Scorbunny).

Lots of events happened this month. First of all, Steven Universe Future ended, one of my favorite and most influential shows was no longer continuing. I had to do something as tribute, both as a send-off to one of the greatest cartoons in the world and as a cathartic release for my feelings towards it.

A while later, I got the opportunity to start playing an MMO in beta called Fer.al, by the same people who made Animal Jam, which coincidentally I had also beta tested for back in the day. I ended up getting really attached to my first character, a Senri I named Sasha, and though I’ve made more characters than them since, they’re still my absolute favorite. Though I haven’t touched the game in a few months, I was really engrossed for a long time and enjoyed playing through the beta and early access phases.

At the end of the month, some friends of mine invited to a roleplay group with some mutuals, and we all played characters in a crime syndicate. Just a bunch of ragtag thieves and criminals who ended up together in order to protect an artifact called the Crown of Thieves, which was essentially a flag to be taken by other groups to prove that they are the best thieves in the land. My character was based heavily on my sona (if it wasn’t obvious) and was also influenced by Cloud Strife, since the FFVII Remake had just come out and I was super into watching the cutscenes at the time. My character’s (code)name is Valkyrie, and they are a mercenary, going between multiple different employers to carry out whatever duties they need to do. They have a more complicated backstory, but presently they were recently hired by recommendation of their friend Shark (played by @shmoots-universe who is also My friend now ily maya) who works with a group called the Court Cards who are currently in possession of the Crown of Thieves. Valk never really had a place to call home, but staying with this group of people had to be the closest they could get to that feeling. They still sleep with a knife under their pillow because of trust issue but that’s okay.

Okay, so technically these examples started in April, but I continued making content with them in May, and the month was just pretty void of art in general, so here I am addressing them.

There were two main things I worked on this month: a Steven Universe AU of my own and the whole #sixfanarts thing that kicked off around then. Let’s start with the fanart bits. I did two and a half of them (six in April and nine in May), and it was so much fun to be able to draw stuff I don’t normally do! My personal favorites are shown here: Blake Belladonna from RWBY, Roll from Megaman, Yuki Konno from Sword Art Online, and Link from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. The other thing I’d been planning for a while was a Steven Universe AU, probably to cope with the show being over but also because I was inspired by a lot of those SU AU artists I started following at the time. I won’t share the details here because it’s gonna have its own blog at some point, but the example I’ve shown here is of a comic I made loosely in order to introduce a divergence in the plot of the story as well as introduce a character unique to my AU. It was a lot of fun figuring out how to draw the characters and get a feel for the style.

As the year progressed, my amount of art I made per month began to dwindle, this time mostly because school was kicking my ass especially hard with finals. However, I took what time I had to get some backburner pieces finished, like the Tigerlily picture which I sketched out a couple months back, and the Gunvolt picture which I started working on SIX YEARS AGO. I don’t quite know why I got the urge to work on it again after so long, but it was nice to finally realize. The other drawing for DOTS was done in the dead of night but I was really happy with how it came out.

Despite only having two summer classes left of school, this month was really rough because they demanded a lot of my time and attention. I did not have the gumption to do anything digital, so I stuck to my sketchbook to get out what I felt like getting out.

My friends and I did a stream of the game Helltaker, and I really enjoyed the concept, so in following my friends I made my own Helltaker demon OC named Raksha the Ravenous Demon (it’s a pun but also got mythical insp). I also got super into Hazbin Hotel at this point, mostly because the Addict music video dropped and I couldn’t get enough of it, so I doodled Angel Dust cuz I felt like it. The other drawing I did was actually a free commission I gave a friend of mine as a prize for a trivia game show I ran back in June. He along with a couple other friends got some free drawings from me for getting the top three scores, and this one in particular was fun because of how interesting it was. He wanted me to draw a video game reviewer called the Irate Gamer from a specific moment, and I decided to go ham and just make it as dramatic as possible.

University classes finally wrapped up and right after that I was in the process of moving out of my apartment and getting adjusted to living with my parents again. I did a couple of agg.io drawing sessions with my friends from the Court Cards group as well as a new Dungeons and Dragons homebrew group I had joined. I drew some more of Valkyrie and came up with a design for my DND character Qakuqtuq (or Kai for short). He is monkey grandpa and I love him.

My main focus was on finishing a polished piece for my friend Cake, whose birthday was in the upcoming month. I wanted it to be as amazing as possible, so I put a lot of time into getting more detailed and making them look good. In addition to that, I did a few TOME doodles just for fun. The creature on the bottom was for this month’s art challenge on my Discord server where we made original TOMERPG monsters, and I created Hundylow, a Crystal-element monster based on the Grindylow from English folklore.

This month was a lot more productive than the past few had been. I tried to do a 31-day art challenge called Creatober but failed to get past the third prompt because I was still swamped with other work. I’m still happy with what little I did, including the piece with my characters Kyle and Guarudan from DSWD.

I don’t remember how, but I also suddenly rediscovered an old Flipnote Hatena series called Tales of LostClan, a Warriors fan series that I would say was the most obscure thing I’ve ever been super invested in. It was what got me into the actual Warriors books, and I liked it so much I redrew the animations into a comic... twice. Didn’t get nearly as far the second time but clearly my love for this little fanfiction had not waned after nearly a decade. I felt like drawing a book cover/movie poster for the series, just to get it out there and see how much I’ve improved over all that time.

Also I felt like making a vampiresona just before Halloween because I never dress up for Halloween in art (or real life anymore, for that matter), and I wanted to do something like that for once. It was short-lived but I really liked the design!

The focus of this month was definitely on Pokemon stuff. As per usual I contributed to the current Gotta Draw ‘Em All collab, and I was tasked to draw Regieleki. It was really fun to figure out how to make it stand out and look like it was made of electricity.

I also committed a lot of my spare time to my Fakemon Gym Leaders, as I had been working on bringing them to life in the past year or so now. As of this post, I’ve finished rendering their full body poses and gym badges, but I’m still working on completing all eight VS portraits, the first half of which are shown here.

I... didn’t draw anything this month, actually. What I’m showing here was worked on in the last few days but has actually been in progress for a couple of months, and I just finished it earlier today, in 2021. But I needed to show something off, and it’s also about time I mentioned it.

Back in October, I kept seeing people rave about this game called Genshin Impact, and I was interested but not so much as to start playing it... until my friends started playing and I was like “fuck it, let’s download it”. Since that day, I have been super immersed and in love with this game, to the point I came up with my own canon based on my gameplay experiences. This also included the creation of an original player character: Astra, the non-binary Traveller. And now, I’ve finally drawn them and brought them to life.

It has been one hell of a year. I had some of the highest highs and lowest lows in 2020, lots of changes, and I have now officially moved onto the next chapter of my life now that my time at university is finally over. I’m very excited for what 2021 has to offer, and I’m going to go forward with great ambition.

#my art stuff #art summary #this is always a joy to do every year and i'm glad to keep up the tradition for the sixth year in a row #this year was super good for this as well just to look back on what i was actually able to accomplish #long post #tome #hazbin hotel

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colour-outside-the-liness · 3 years

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Hey, I'm doing good too. Just normal amounts of stressful stuff right now. Just moved to a country I've never been to before but can't complain, things are not as hard as the last time I did this so. Thanks for asking! Yeah, I saw you posting about some pretty scary health issues before, I'm glad you came out of that alive and hope you're healthier now!

The nerve some people have! Haha I know I would be pissed if people were questioning my intelligence like that especially after a couple of drinks in haha. Though I do like taunting people when I play group games, I'll be like "don't need to try that hard guys, you're gonna lose anyway" just to mess with them or just call people sore losers if they accuse me of cheating haha (they're probably right on the accusations tho). People get real mad sometimes it's kinda funny. 😂

Omg literally laughed out loud reading this! Hahaha, how did you manage to fall over a road sign then end up in a ditch? lol omg hope you didn't get hurt too bad 😂 I was trying to downplay my drunken escapades but since you shared yours I should tell you my worst one:

I was at this summer street party at night and got drunk on something made out of tropical herbs and cachaça (which is about 48% alcohol), drank 3 and a half bottles of that like it was apple juice, made friends with a bunch of strangers in a bathroom queue (who tried to talk to me weeks later but I had no idea who they were), had to be held by my best friend while I peed (mostly missing the toilet), fell in the middle of the street and scraped my knee, threatened this boy who was helping me walk and told him not to try anything funny or I would beat him up, then dragged my friends to the beach and left them shortly after to go make out with my ex, came back with lipstick all over my mouth and chin and when my friends asked what I was doing I said I was just talking to my ex and they were like NO YOU WERE NOT, hahaha then I kissed all my girl friends on a dare and we danced under the full moon, then I told my best friend I had to puke so she took me to the ocean but I changed my mind and happened to step on a dead turtle on the way back and started crying bc of it, but last month my best friend told me it was a rock I had stepped on (I believed it was a dead turtle for 7 years!). Had the worst hangover of my life the next day. ✌️✨

Ah I'm happy you liked it! I've never listened to Six musical before but it sounds fun! I can see why you like it haha made me want to dance around my apartment 💃. And hey if liking musicals is your thing then it's great, I'm sure Hozier will understand if he's not your top artist of the year. 😋 Here's my "damie" Pinterest board if you or anyone else wants to check it out, totally recommend making one if you're a visual person like me!

https://pin.it/UcHVlkq

Oh I could talk about Dani and Jamie forever I think. I love the beast in the jungle speech too and it's so painful to watch, VP delivered that beautifully, but I have to admit I'm always a crying mess from episode 1 when older Jamie starts reciting that song about being sad while waiting for her lover to return, this show is fucking cruel I hate it and love it at the same time hahaha. Omg your mom 😂 but I mean it's truly an honor to be compared to someone like Dani, no? She's really great even if she needs a little help haha (don't we all).

Aaah you're amazing! Thank you so much, I'll read this pirate AU soon!

I used to draw a lot, really loved doing it when I was a kid as I said before, and all throughout adulthood too but I haven't done that in almost a year now bc I've got a bit of a case of burnout I guess, it just takes a lot of effort to do it when it shouldn't be like that at all. I used to do fanart too, for other fandoms. Even made one for Dani x Jamie but ended up not liking how it turned out haha. I've got a lot of respect for writers and fanfic writers also! Yall can make words make sense in really interesting and beautiful ways, build worlds so enthralling I can see them vividly in my head. Writing is such an incredibly fascinating skill to have! And I guess the most important thing is that we enjoy doing these things right? Even if we think we're not particularly good at it.

Anyway, have a lovely weekend! 👋✨

Good I'm glad you're doing great but sorry you're dealing with stressful stuff!! Hope living in a new country goes well for you I'm so jealous that you've lived in different countries I'd love to live somewhere else even if just for s few years!! Awwh thank you so much I definitely came out of it alive and am feeling so much better now thank you I mean I do some pretty ditzy things so when people say it to me it's pretty deserved sometimes, I'm secretly smart and people just don't expect it so I never mind too much haha I might have to start saying the things that you do and just taunting them over it I mean, I usually do win even when they make me answer different questions so I will definitely have to start saying things like that to them Haha I love that you're just like "yeah they're probably right in their accusations" I agree seeing how mad some people get over games and stuff is funny (it's me I'm people I hate loosing games depending on what it is and I am very competitive) So it was very dark and all we had for light was my roommates flashlight on her phone but while we were walking home a friend of ours that lived else where kept texting her to make sure we were still safe (my phone as dead at this point) so while she was texting him her flashlight was facing down and someone had moved this road sign to the footpath and it was on that sits on the floor so while I couldn't see it I walked into it and fell over it but while I feel I grabbed hold of it and flipped with it and fell in a ditch with it on top of me... I was fine and was just laid laughing while my friend looked down at me and in the most northern accent ever just said "get up you dickhead." and helped me off of the floor and then asked if I was okay... and I was so it was all good!! Haha 😂 I love this drunken story that sounds like one hell of a night and is a roller coaster from start to finish!! I'm sorry you thought you had stood on a dead turtle for 7 years though, someone really should've told you that it was just a rock!! But that sounds like my kind of night!! I love nights like that... stories that will last a life time... the only down side is the hangover... luckily I have only ever had one hang over in my life and it wasn't the morning after the road sign fiasco... I felt surprisingly good the morning after that haha 😂 It's such a good musical it's about Henry VIII wives and I just love everything to do with his wives and that musical is so much fun and actually gives a little insight to the lives the six Tudor queens had away from Henry and with him because at school we're mainly just taught about him which sucks!! I loved the Hozier song and am definitely gonna have to listen to more of his stuff!! I love musicals so much I mainly listen to musical soundtracks at the minute- usually, Legally Blonde and Six on repeat haha 😂 Ooo thank you I will definitely check out this Pinterest board thanks for sending it to me!! I could talk about them forever too... since watching Bly Manor my niece has been asking me so many questions about it and I am more than happy to talk to her about it haha!! The beast in the jungle speech just breaks my heart every time I relate to it so much and VP just delivers it so beautifully!! Oh yeah now I know at the beginning that it's older Jamie I am just a wreck the whole show is just so beautiful and heart breaking at the same time I LOVE IT!! Even though it makes me sob- I keep putting myself through it!! I mean, yeah I was happy that she said it Dani is great but it was the way she said it... my mum can be something else sometimes... she said she thought Dani was like me the first time she does the accent when she says "I've fallen quite in love with London" because I just randomly do accents a lot too but it was the way she was like "She needs help... but I like her she reminds me of you" I was just like... "Should I go get help?" I still don't know the answer to my question about if I need help or not but I mean I probably do need it You're welcome I really hope you like it!! It's a

great fic I love it!! Yeah I get that if stuff starts taking too much effort and burns you out you're not gonna wanna keep doing it so it's understandable that you stopped!! I think fan art is great and I really would love to be able to do it myself but I just don't have the skill it takes!! Awwh it's a shame you didn't like the Dani x Jamie one you did I would've loved to have seen it!! Honestly there are so many talented writers out there and when I read their fics I am just in awe of the worlds they have built and the stories they have created we are so blessed in this fandom to have so many amazing writers and so many amazing fics out there Oh yeah definitely its important to enjoy what you do!! I know I love writing and love writing fics for Dani and Jamie so I think I'll be doing it for a while even if I'm not great at it haha Awwh thank you very much I hope you have a great weekend too!! ☺️

#lib3rtin33

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thessaliah · 4 years

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Why do you think the fandom is so willing to forgive or like Goetia/U Olga/Tamamobitch but condemn Lev despite the former doing worse shit?

Hmmm. Good question. I'm going to focus on Goetia vs Lev, because touching the girls is difficult when their arc isn't done. Disclaimer: I guiltily admit liking Goetia over Lev too. I don't wanna say because he's hot, but I think that plays a role he doesn't look like a Leprechaun with crazy hair who shops his ties at Hot Topic. Spoilers for part 2 ahead.

But that aside, I think is because Goetia was more honest toward the end about his feelings and being better written to be a more palatable tragic villain to the readers. Also while the flashback of the motivation was for all the pillar demons, the readers take it as exclusively as Goetia's (which is natural reaction/misconception, including mine, I forget). In the beginning, and until like the destruction of the hive, Goetia did not have a sole ego, he was a sum of the individual pillar demons, being a spell that worked as "administration bureau," but Goetia did not have an individual personality. That's why when communicated with others, it wasn't a "Goetia" who spoke, but a different pillar demon emerged to interact with people depending on who addressed him. That's why Dantes said he was "like a mirror". Goetia started to develop individuality and ego slowly by identifying first as "Solomon" or the cruel villain image the pillar demons had on him so he switched between "I" and "We" when he talked. Since Solomon the cruel was their king, the administration office became it.

After the hive collapsed, Goetia was born as a person, but not before, it was a brief life that was being consumed away by Ars Nova that died feeling a sense of satisfaction and joy. I also love the fanart and doujins Goetia (hot blond and naked) existed before this and snuggled up with Solomon, but sadly I don't think he did. He was born and died in that instant as a human being. His arc is a lot more finished and explored, enough for Guda (= the players) to understand the motivations and feel bad about him and his misguided way to help humanity without realizing all demon gods had that same motivation.

Lev meanwhile was not as smoothly written, although there was material about his motivations and struggle, this was buried with his extra characterization and with his insincerity (which I didn't take into account until later I re-read all, Clocktower 2015, Nasu's journal notes about him, etc). He also suffered some mistranslation in NA which favored Goetia and affected Lev's layers. What was that? In NA, it says Goetia wanted to save Mash for a measure of uncertainty or something like that existing in him, it makes it look is Goetia's choice and idea. But in the original, while Goetia went with it, it's because specifically one pillar (which Nasu affirmed in his blog was Flauros, but really who else could have been) had doubts about this plan and wanted to save Mash. It's Lev who wanted to save Mash and why Goetia made that offer. But Flauros, who according to Nasu humanized/became emotional before any other demon, lashed out/instigate the ones he felt empathy toward. That was why he's the only individual demon pillar in the Temple who emotionally confronted Chaldea. It's not fully explored, but it sounds like Lev human personality and his emotions shortcuited and made him an angsty demon when he became Flauros and was trying to cover it up. He was also the only pillar demon with doubts about their grand feat, Goetia's entire questioning came from him. So it was still the Flauros-side of Goetia (before he became an individual) that largely influenced his more complex characterization before his birth as Goetia the human and individual at the end.

I think Roman understood and forgave Lev in their exchange. I think he and Da Vinci realized his dilemma. They realized Lev, if he hadn't been integrated into the hive as demon god, would have never turned against Chaldea. Why would Flauros who by right should cease to care about the human bonds Lev kept bring up Roman hiding his skill as if he was hurt despite his intention to kill him (and all humanity for fuel! Nothing personal)? Because he did care at some level still, IMO, even if he refused to acknowledge it and this made him act even extra assholeish about it because, unlike the other demon pillars, he was suffering human emotions (Nasu said others will develop some, speaking of the Epic of Remnants ones, but Flauros was the first). Da Vinci being petty and fabulous rubbed into his face that Romani didn't trust him for real. She wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t know he was bluffing at some level, imo. Lev as a character with multiple personalities, egos, and emotional issues that contradict each other was already explored (in a different light) in Clocktower 2015, so feels like Nasu took for granted we knew this all along.

One of Nasu's weaknesses is that he sometimes relies too much on his players to read or watch other extra material, mats, or his blog when he should have inserted it in his game. Because Lev is a character who, much like Olgamarie, is given exploration outside the game, we (and I include myself here) are more naturally inclined to forgive Goetia and find him a tragic anti-villain, even though he was the Human Inciniration, the one who killed Mash and the reason why Roman died, over Flauros, who was the only pillar demon who doubted things even in FGO (and in other worlds killed himself to stop Goetia) and whose worse actions were being mean and blow up a bunch of cannon fodder (I love Team A, but they were not characters in part 1, Sylvia and Dustin in part 2 prologue had more characterization than Masters without names) and Olga (who ended up being part 2 final boss-for now- so he had very good reasons to try to take her down - and we see in Melty Blood crossover, he still struggles a little with the choice of killing her or not) in the game prologue. This is all caused because of the lack of exploration in the game and a clumsy handling of the character.

#fate asks #meta #speculation #goetia #lev lainur flauros

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mysterious-masked-man · 4 years

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Now what I'm about to tell you sounds outrageous, and might be disturbing, but it's something that happened to me, and even though it was brief, I can't feel at peace until I tell you what's going on.

I'm a big fan of the online animated show, Epithet Erased. As such, I'm a huge peddler of fan content, indulging in other people's edits, fanart, and OCs, and creating my own. I dont share any of it, not with anyone online that I don't know. I am a good editor though, and I get asked to help edit compilations a lot by my friend, who's name I wont tell you for privacy reasons. They've asked me to edit silly little compilations out of raw material they send me, usually just of funny thing their favorite characters say.

This is the reason why I wasn't that perturbed to receive a video file over email from an unknown person. Their email was "[email protected]", and even though it's just a bunch of random letters, I didnt think anything of it. I myself have some weirdly named emails because I like getting free trials of stuff over and over, and I only remembered the name because I copied it to include in a message to said friend, asking if they'd sent someone who needed editing my way. I didnt get a response, but I decided to open the file anyway, just to watch it and see what was up.

It looked like content I'd already seen before, and since the thumbnail was of Sylvie in the museum, I immediately recognized it as the beginning of the 3rd episode. I watched through it, and nothing really stood out. For a moment, I had thought someone really just sent me the third episode as a .MOV file. The battle between Sylvie and Giovanni and Molly began, and everything went on like normal. Right up to the part where Giovanni was batting Molly on the head with a ball of yarn, it was all how it should have been, and I laughed at the joke the same as I always did. Then, Giovanni tossed the yarn, hit it with the bat... and things started to diverge from there.

First off, the ball didnt just bounce off of Sylvie like it did in the original. He flew right off screen, and that's when I had become confused. It had already been edited, it seemed to me, so I became confused as to why it was sent to me.

Giovanni said something like "wow, that worked? I didnt think it would", and I realized I hadn't actually heard that line before, or if I had, the inflection was different. I'm autistic and this is a special interest of mine, so I've watched the whole series over again nearly a million times. I could probably recite the first episode word by word if you asked me. As the dialogue continued, it became more apparent that these were professionally recorded lines from the original voice actors.

I got really excited, thinking or hoping for a moment that it was like, a leak of some first-draft content. I didnt even think about how weird it was that it was just something I'd gotten in an email. I paused the file and tried to exit my editing program to tell my friend, but my computer wouldnt let me exit the program. It's old, so this isnt unusual. I pulled discord up on my phone to tell my friend, and that's when I'd noticed they replied to my message earlier. They told me that they hadn't told anyone my email, and to not open the file, because it was probably a virus.

I told them that I had ended up opening the file, and that it was of epithet erased, but it was different. For a while, they thought I was pulling a prank on them, but I told them it was really well done, and the voice acting was too spot on to be fan made. They *demanded* I send the clip to them when I finished watching it, and I promised them I would.

I continued playing the video, and molly and Giovanni walked over to where Sylvie had fallen over. Molly suddenly became very upset, shouting and crying. Giovanni had to drag her away. The acting was spot on, and I was seriously disturbed. I couldnt imagine what it was that made Molly react like that. Giovanni pulled her out of the room, shushing and cooing at her as she struggled and kept crying. As they left, the camera didnt move, and the music had faded. It stayed at the exact angle for another few minutes. I don't actually know how long, but I couldnt skip forward, even though I tried. Actually, I couldnt view a preview of the video when I hovered my mouse over the bar at the bottom like I usually can. I could move the mouse over the line and see it was still playing, though. I tried to pause it, but for some reason it couldnt pause anymore. I decided since nothing was happening, I could just pull out my phone and text my friend about it.

I told them about all that I had seen so far, and they told me it might have been an original storyline that was just way too dark. Then I asked them why it was sent to me. They said they didnt know. I set my phone down, and looked back up at the computer, then froze.

Because I was staring at my phone, I missed it, but there was a clip of Sylvie on the ground. It was a sprite that was unlike his usual slouch/laying down sprite. This was about the time I knew something really fucked up was going on.

The ball of yarn had lodged itself into sylvie's eye. I could see the glass had broken, and the yarn ball was seriously deep in his face. Glass stuck out of his eye socket and his cheek, and blood dripped down his face, pooling down the sides. His head was also tipped back a little, and with the blood seeping into his hair and up his head, the back of his head must've split open, too. There was a dragging mark down the wall, and the origin point was a huge red splatter where he probably got thrown into the wall.

The sprite wasn't static like they normally are. Sylvie shivered and his chest would rise and fall with his shaky breath. I was honestly grossed out by how far this had gone, but it was like I couldnt stop watching. I knew it wouldnt pause anyway. I was too scared to message my friend, because I thought it might change again.

It might have gone on for another minute, just Sylvie breathing and bleeding, until he just stopped. There was no sudden flail, no cough or sputter, he just stopped breathing, and there was no more shuddering. After he stopped, it only took a few seconds for things to start happening. The flames started up again, like they did when he used nightmare fuel on molly, and the fire alarm went off. It cut right to Mera panicking about the fire alarm, and hitting indus with a crowbar.

I was so jarred by how this became normal again, I actually didnt believe it had happened for a second. I didnt believe they would just... kill a character like that. I didnt know what was going on.

Things didnt stay the same though. Before Mera could even find the amulet, Molly and Giovanni ran into the room. Molly looked shocked to the core, and Giovanni was really panicky. Mera made Indus apprehend them both. Indus went on his whole spiel about barriers, but Giovanni and Molly never finished the punchline. He did eventually trap them, and Mera found the amulet. She admired it, and put it on. As she walked towards Molly, Giovanni tried to escape his containment to stop her, but Molly actually looked more panicked when he called out to her. Mera extended her hand, and lifted Molly up.

The sound cut out for the next few moments, but you could tell a really awful noise alerted all 4 of them, and it must have been loud, because the screen shook. The camera panned over to the entrance, which had been blocked by rubble. The roof caved in, trapping everyone inside of he storage area. The sound returned, and there was audio of molly crying, but her sprite wasn't matched up to that audio. It moved as if she was speaking, and characters would reply, but her crying would be playing over it.

The room filled with white fire, and the fluid animation that usually appears at the end of arcs began. Mera, Indus, Giovanni, and Molly were all silhouetted by the fire, but the focus was on a figure that walked through the flames. It was obviously Sylvie. As he was illuminated though, you could see he was different. It was as if he had been grayscale. His skin was white, the clouds and decoration on his coat and pants that would have been teal were all dark gray, and everything else was varying shades of gray. His hoodie and his glasses, however, were red. One eye was red with a black sclera, and drooped. The other was pure black, and the glass of the glasses were cracked. Blood dripped from that eye, and from his mouth. The back of his hair was adorned with a ring of red.

You remember how I said there was audio of Molly crying overlapping everything else? When sylvie appeared, it stopped for just a second, and then grew more panicked. It was loud enough to drown everything out, and I couldnt hear what anyone else was saying. Molly just sobbed and screamed. There wasn't even any music, just that. Sylvie didnt say anything. He just stood as the flames grew closer to the four.

Indus shouted something, then ran at Sylvie. Before he could reach him, there was a spark of red dust, and he stopped. The back of his head exploded, and he fell forward. Another track of molly crying began playing over the current one. Mera looked around for a quick escape, but I guess she just got too panicked, and she ran right into the flame. She fell down in it, and i could see her silhouette burning and clawing at her skin, which was flaking off in the fire. Yet another track of molly screaming and crying played over the two, and it was beginning to get discordant.

Giovanni brandished his soul slugger doom back, taking a step back. His eyes filled with tears, watching as Sylvie approached. His grip on the bat tightened and it shook as an extension of himself. Giovanni let go of the bat and fell to the floor on his knees.

All the tracks of Molly crying cut off as Sylvie reached down, and picked up the bat. Giovanni bowed his head, and Sylvie threw the bat to Molly. Her eyes full of tears and her gaze averted, she picked up the bat and swung it down hard over Giovanni's head. There were a few frames where the bat collided with the back of his head, but then the screen went black. The audio continued to play. I didnt catch a lot of what was happening, because I began to feel this awful pain in my neck that caught my attention.

At first, it wasnt very specific. It was just an ache at the very top of my spine, like I'd been sitting funny. I heard molly crying again, and crackling fire. Then the pain got worse, and there were police sirens. The last thing I really heard clearly was percival reporting something to her radio, about being at the scene and finding the body of "an adolescent boy" in the museum, which I assumed to be Sylvie. The pain became unbearable - it was like someone was driving a nail into the base of by neck. I closed my eyes. I couldnt see the video anymore, anyway. As I focused on the feeling, I realized it was becoming more specific. My breathing cut short, and at first I thought I was having a panic attack, but it became more apparent that there was a pressure on my neck, like a hand squeezing my throat harder and harder, nails digging into my skin.

I lurched forward and turned my computer off. Once it was off, the feeling vanished, leaving a small ache in my throat. I coughed and wheezed, and the actual panic attack began to set in. I turned my swivel chair, expecting to see someone behind me, since it felt distinctly like I had been choked, but nobody was there. I grabbed my phone and fell onto the couch, hiding under a blanket as I fell deeper into a panic attack.

Once I was calm (or once it was over, anyway), I messages my friend and told them about what happened. They didnt actually believe any of it, and they thought I had been pranking them. I swore up and down that it was real, and I still do, but they demanded proof. So I had to turn my computer back on.

I got the courage to turn it on again about half an hour later. The file was no longer open, because the program closed when I turned my computer off. I tried to open it again, but I got an error box titled "Oops! An error has occured", and the box read "you weren't supposed to see this." When I checked the email again to download it and send it to my friend, I'd gotten a response from Lptnmjngaeprkfl that just read "sorry. That wasnt for you. Don't watch it again okay? I'm so sorry." No matter how many times I tried to message Lptnmjngaeprkfl I never got a response, and every time i downloaded the .mov file, it wouldnt open. If i tried to send it to my friend, it would crash my phone or computer, and the message would never send.

To this day, I'm still not really sure what I saw. I kind of wondered if it was possible for some other people to contact the creator and see if they would respond. I got my friend to message them, but they didnt respond at all. I'm hoping they respond to someone. Please, message [email protected] and tell me what you find out.

#epithet erased #long post #lptnmjngaeprkfl #tw blood #tw gore #tw death #tw fire #tw murder #tw panic attack #tw choking #creepy #sylvie ashling #[email protected]

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tessmontyart · 3 years

Text

2020 year in review

It’s funny, last year I never actually got around to doing one of these. I didn’t think it was overly interesting. Oh 2019, how I miss you so 😭Such an innocent time ....

I’ll do a quick recap, cause hey no-one but me reads these anyway. 2019 was a glorious time. I went to Italy for the first time, went on an awesome Hunter Valley trip with my friends, had a 100th birthday celebration for my pop, I got to see the show I worked on air on TV, we saw the Lano and Woodley apartment in Melbourne .... Good times!

I didn’t give a rats about being unemployed and took matters into my own hands by making loads of new merch and selling at the most conventions I’ve ever been to. I tabled at Sydney Supanova, Adelaide Avcon, Sydney SMASH, Coffs Nexus Con, Sydney Oz Comic Con and Brisbane Supanova! I did so much travelling and events, it became my full time job. It was exhausting, but it was loads of fun, it paid the bills nicely, and it was wonderful to meet followers and mutuals in person.

My partner was very invested in counting up the numbers of what was selling and what wasn’t, and taking note of what was inconvenient with my setup and how to make it better. He even made a powerpoint presentation on what I could focus on for 2020, what kind of merch I could focus on and adding more conventions to my list. We were both excited about the idea of trying out Armageddon in New Zealand, which would have been my first overseas convention!

Cue 2020.

It started off uneasy. There were still bushfires everywhere and smoke hanging around, but I was optimistic they would die soon and the rest of the year would be fine. I booked a bunch of conventions early as usual. Got a whole bunch of new things made and ordered for the first convention of the year, Melbourne Supanova in early April. Some Acrylic charms didn’t make it in time because of COVID, but I thought that’s ok I still have a whole years worth of conventions to sell them at!

COVID-19 was just a spooky mysterious thing that was happening overseas at that point. I think there might have been 1 case in Australia, so all the toilet paper and hand sanitizer was sold out, but we were still able to do our usual travelling for the event. Little did I know, Melbourne Supanova was the first and last event I could do in 2020.

COVID hit Australia hard, Melbourne especially. There were lockdowns, quarantines, planes were grounded, airmail was halted, the cases kept multiplying, rules kept changing and changing and it was all so new and such a headache. Seeing every single convention I had booked cancel one after the other was hard to process. This was my main source of income in 2019 and now it’s up and vanished. Everyone were losing their jobs too, so the idea of getting a new job was completely out the window.

I tried to cheer myself up by drawing ‘Toilet Paper Chan’, my new magical girl character who has the ability to summon toilet paper in a time of need 😅

I made it into a Draw This In Your Style challenge, seeing as everyone was bored out of their minds in quarantine I hoped it was something people could pass the time and have fun making.

(here’s a handful of my favourites) I had a few entries which were all very adorable, but I admit not as many people joined as I expected. I don’t blame them though, this whole pandemic was very soul sucking and demotivating, especially hearing the constant stream of bad news when it all started.

I also made some lineart of a cute Easter girl, encouraging people to colour her in if they are bored in quarantine.

That was really fun, and I planned to do more, perhaps whole colouring books for a small price to download.

Then, out of nowhere, my friend from the last animation studio I worked at in 2018 contacted me. “Hey Tess, are you looking for work?”

“Um .... yes?”

Work? In 2020? What?

It turns out the animation industry is one of the only industries that are doing fine in the pandemic. Literally the only change is that animators have to work from home instead of at a studio. If you have the animation software and an internet connection you have everything you need.

So my good friend had recently scored this job for a studio which outsources all their animation for their animated TV series. The role is just fixing up any animation errors inhouse to minimize the amount of back-and-fourth between studios. It doesn’t sound like much but it became too big a job for just one dude to handle, so he contacted me and 2 of my other animation friends to help out. We had a ball!

It was loads of fun, and the contract lasted the whole year!

It wasn’t just fixing up errors either, I got to animate walking/ running / jumping / flying cycles for the overseas animators to use, which was great practice for me, and we even had a whole episode to ourselves to animate from scratch which I really enjoyed.

And then ... the year just flew by, because I was busy working the whole time. It was really quite surreal!

There were a few highlights, such as being a bridesmaid for my best friend’s wedding and organising her hens party, which is one of those once-in-a-lifetime things.

(Hens Party - it was yellow themed (her favourite colour) and High Tea.. it was adorable!)

(The bridesmaids and the bride on the Wedding Day)

Unfortunately there were some lowlights too ... This was the last year I got to see my aunt.

She was the craziest, funniest aunt, and still far too young to go. I honestly don’t think I’ll ever be the same without her.

As always, drawing is the only way I cope with anything. My family chose a plain wooden casket, encouraging everybody to write a message or draw something on it, before it would be sent to the crematorium. I drew Spotty, her awesome horse I remember from my childhood, surrounded by her favourite flowers. Monty draw Mingus, her awesome ferret we also remember from our childhood.

That wasn’t the only bad news either. Pat’s Grandpa passed away later in the year, and a handful of my friends had relatives who either passed away or were diagnosed with cancer or some other horrible life threatening disease. A musician who collaborated with favourite artist collaborated passed as well, and even though I didn’t know him personally, it was still horribly devastating. Not to mention all my friends/relatives pets who didn’t make it through 2020. There was just so much loss this year, and I’m still grieving my cousin and my friend’s mum who both passed last year, it’s getting harder and harder to cope. It’s gotten to the point where I’m paranoid about who the next person will be because I haven’t finished grieving the last ...

All I can say is I hope 2021 is a little kinder when it comes to my loved ones. The small light at the end of the tunnel is; any suicidal thoughts I used to have frequently have all completely vanished, because I’ve been faced with the reality of it all. You really don’t realise how many people love you, people you don’t even know.

...

That was very dark, but it’s definitely something I needed to get off my chest.

Lets go back to a much lighter note.

More highlights:

🌻Animal Crossing New Horizons came out this year! I used to play Wild World back in the day so it was wonderfully nostalgic, and me and Pat have made the cutest little town with all our favourite villagers. It’s a nice way to escape from it all ^_^

(Monty’s island when we started)

🌻Speaking of games, the brand new Crash Bandicoot came out this year too! It was actually jaw droppingly amazing seeing all the awesome new ideas and mechanics they came up with while still keeping it classicly Crash. I loved it and I’m so excited to see if they give Spyro the same treatment!

🌻2020 brought about new and interesting ways to still enjoy Live entertainment. Lano and Woodley did a Zoom show which was absolutely hilarious, and Lights did an amazing online Dead End show which had me so pumped!

🌻Pat and I continued our anniversary High Tea tradition, this time trying it out at the Hydro Majestic hotel in the Blue Mountains!

🌻Speaking of Pat, his sister got married this year too, despite the pandemic. Congratulations!

🌻Pat randomly bought a Miku figure for himself, out of the blue, completely unravelling years of unnecessary ‘shame’ I’ve inherited caused by a pushy mother and a crappy ex. I used to love figure collecting but was convinced by certain judgy people that it was stupid and I needed to sell them all. I kept my very favourites in a cupboard ‘just incase they increase in value’. But now I can finally display them all again knowing Pat loves them just as much as I do!

We also added a ton more to the collection to make up for lost time (and because there’s SO MANY CUTE MIKUS NOWADAYS)

It’s a bit messy because we recently got new ones and need to make more space for them. The shelf with the Vocaloid nendoroids were my original ones hidden away in the cupboard, the rest we got this year ^_^ They make me so happy!

🌻Speaking of Pat unlocking things I’ve always wanted to do in the past: I am now planning to revive my old OCs Yui and Lotto! They were just characters of mine back in the day, but since I’m not good writing I never really came up with a story for them. But with Pat’s writer wisdom and my kawaii art style, I’m now planning a webcomic featuring the two cuties ^_^ It’s still in the very early planning stages but I’m super excited, and forever grateful for Pat, for believing in me ;w;

🌻This year I drew 31 more Owl City songs in copic markers, to go towards my ongoing project to draw every song! I’m actually getting quite close to my goal now which is exciting!

🌻This year I went to a Drive-In movie theatre for the first time to see the new Bill and Tedd movie, it was glorious and now I wanted to try more drive-ins. Going out to see a movie on a big screen *without* being able to hear smart-asses or screaming babies? Yes please!!

🌻How could I forget, this was the year my idol noticed me!! Lights shared and retweeted my Deadend fanart! Life = made.

What to to look forward to in 2021:

This is the first New Year where I actually have an idea of how 2021 will go! I managed to secure another animation job at a new studio starting January, ending January 2022 😊So thats the financial security for this year sorted! :P

As for general goals for 2021;

I’m hoping to have a decent plan, concept art, chapter ideas and hopefully even a script done for my new webcomic! I also wanted to make some cute simple animations of the characters just because c:

I’d also like to just do more of my own animation in general ... I animate every day for work but I never get to do my own animated projects. It will be hard with a full time job, so maybe this can be a 2022 goal ... but hopefully I can do at least one little animation of my own!

I suppose another goal is to make a social media accounts for my animation, too. Even if I don’t fulfil my goal, I still would like a page to showcase everything I’ve done so far.

And if all else fails .... Another goal is to draw more Miku. It’s crazy that I love her this much and haven’t drawn any fanart!

I think I’ll leave it there because I’m babbling now. 😅

I’ve done so many of these now o_o

[2018] [2017] [2016] [2015] [2014] [2013] [2012]

#2020 #year review #cw: death #cw: pet death #cw: suicide

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incarnateirony · 4 years

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You didn't ship Destiel until S13!? That really took me by surprise! In that case, thank you for defending the ship even if you didn't ship it, that's really nice and your meta made it easier to deal with the antis. And welcome to the Destiel side of the force! :)

Yeah, several people -- @dotthings off the top of my head, I really don’t remember who else -- literally witnessed the screaming fall into the dumpster.

Again, I really don’t know if I still consider what I do ~shipping.~ I have no specific demands for how their relationship continues from here, I just acknowledge it within the work. The difference that hit in S13 was welcoming that content instead of guarding myself against it because we got slammed with several consecutive bookends that completed an entire romantic arc and punctuated it with a far more impacting mirror of an endgame that didn’t even have said romantic arc to begin with, in Swan Song, so like??? what am I supposed to do? Just ignore it? Act like I can’t understand what just happened in front of me?

To put some perspective, I’ve been running SPN games for... a while. My most recent one was on a discord server that’s niche, but my prior one was on a giant multifandom server. I covered for Cas to keep his power levels in check to the story balance without like, making the humans irrelevant. My Dean at the time was hardcore shipping trash. His name was Chris, he was a bisexual dude in Chile, psychologist, good dude. But like??? it deadass annoyed me? How up Cas’ ass his writing was? The shippers that came in actually kinda annoyed me with trying to matchmaker them in game??? Like. I saw it, but I guess it’s the old “That’s not what the show is about” (which unlike how fandom whips it around, doesn’t mean it can’t exist at all, it’s the obsessive tunnel visioned focus that pissed me off because it kept railroading scenes)

But despite that, during and before it, I was yeah, defending it. Just because I wasn’t an active ~shipper~ didn’t mean I was cool with people stomping on people for very reasonably seeing the stuff my last post mentioned. I just kinda kept myself from investing because I know this old media song and dance too well and didn’t expect it to break, say, S10 levels. And then 11 happened. And then 12. And then--

Because no matter what this fandom says, Castiel’s alien mystified staring at Dean, while great chemistry in old seasons, does not actually compare to things like frequent lunch dates, need and love yous, mixtapes, Eileen being Sam’s Cas in 15.09 and so on. In the actual, not-head-up-ass-about-old-rewritten-content-meta’ed-15-times-over often fused to really bad hot takes on what people call queer coding. But I could respect that, say, the ramifications of swapping Cas and Anna roles to keep Misha around while Julie was bouncing out and getting uncomfortable naturally landed Cas in the hero’s journey goddess role, ala princess Leia if you will, the distressing warrior nondamsel rebelling against the empire and whatnot. But that doesn’t start or end at star wars, that’s thousands of years of human writing.

So while yes, the show heavily stripped the actual content that would have traditionally structured it romantic, people like seeing that x their chemistry early on-- not crazy.

And I defended it for years /to my wife/ despite my server vexations. On this giant dozens-of-thousands-of-users multifandom server not connected to any core fandom spaces and hosting innumerable fandoms and walks of life, I was the oddball out -- me. As a nonshipper annoyed by the crowd, often having 20-30 people logged into my channel at a time playing everything from early Cain to Benny to TFW to Wayward to *throws dart at board* whatever, of the hundreds of names that drifted through the game in sum (including player rotations, OCs and audience that just came to watch/read like a fic), you know how many antis we had?

Three.

One was my wife. so removing her, two.

Do you know how many shippers there were?

Yeah neither do I, just, “pretty much all of them.” a few hung in “see it, don’t care, moderately annoyed” like I did. But this idea that the GA is a bunch of het-guzzling bozos that can’t do the same basic math all of you fucking did before you got here, just because some other dead-ass irrelevant ship composed entirely on leftfield interpretations to validate niche fandom ships -- that shit’s so far fucking divorced from goddamn reality.

As for my wife, yes. She was an anti. In fact long before I wandered into fandom social media (I think I actually jumped in around S12 bc I saw Dabb taking over and Bobo getting promoted and was interested in Yockey-- Yockey was the first person I tweeted at), I was on these servers, running these games, having these ARGUMENTS with my wife to be quite honest, because like, look, I get it, Destiel fandom can be weird and needy and over the top but they’re not crazy for what they see out of it. By Carver era it was classic subtext.

But she had followed Winbros for years not realizing it’s literally run by the real world becky and her BFFs that have tasteful POVs like “Misha Collins is cancer” “Dabb is a disease” and whatever else on their personals that proxy through their posts and motivations. She attended it on Facebook, which is THE goddamn conservative magafarm asshole platform and yeah, read a lot of shitty arguments. Yes, she picked up sayings like “it ruins the show”. Yes, she hated it. No, that didn’t mean I felt anyone deserved more than mild frustration for their behaviors at the time just because they were stuck in fanfic-shipping-fiction-over-romanticised-land and not canon-divergent-show-genre-complex-interpersonal-relationships fiction.

She, too, cracked about the same time I did. I was more receptive sure, I saw it more sure, but after a mix of addressing some personal problems, making an OC that completely changed how her perception filtered Dean and Castiel working together, whatever-- and yes, 12.19->13.5. The night of 13.5, the final shot, as the screen went dark, she stared over her phone and, with tonal distaste, said “Oh. So they’re going there.”

Yes, it’s that fucking obvious. No, she didn’t admit that’s what did her in. Not until the end of the season, when she admitted she had been bullshitting arguments since early season 13 because, literally, and I quote, “otherwise Min wins.” -- which, if that comes by way of my own wife, I can only stare into the fandom camera at other people that have turned this show into a decade long money sink and have been divorced from the actual canon path for like minimum 3 years, maybe 6, yelling about it being wrong all the time, etc. Because on the internet, people convince themselves they have ownership and power, that their opinion of what the piece should be overrides even the creators, et cetera. Yeah. There’s a lot of disingenuous horse shit.

TLDR my wife fell into the dumpster and, as the flag of the end of our weird spats, and a birthday present, I made her this, since she IDs as Dean (OLD vid, has hiccup issues newer ones don’t)

youtube

So, yup, dat me.

To this day I still don’t read fanfics or browse fanart or any of that. I’ve never cared about that face of the fandom. I’ve never cared about making up rando ships, I’ve never cared about exactly how any given relationship plays itself out, I just enjoy the ride and address it as it does indeed play out. Most shipping culture still pisses me the fuck off with its dialogue, as I’ve made very clear. But because I’m acknowledging the text instead of denying what keeps happening more centrally and critically every year on screen, I’d be called a shipper. Because I’m tired of watching people spew logic even most children could pick apart in an endless roundabout of negativity, because I have no tolerance for absolute horse shit and fandom whining so I just lay out counters to bad talking points, I’d be called a shipper.

But 13.5ish is when I finally let myself start emotionally receiving the content rather than barring it off in a distant wall of exhausted old gay that knows their media too well. Why? Because it already completed and went above and beyond every element of the original way they painted the original goddamn endgame and I guess because I won’t set unfair bars against queer relationships and set them at Extra Hard Difficulty, I’m a shipper. IDK. This fandom fucking exhausts me. Fandom culture in general exhausts me.

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maxdark158 · 5 years

Text

CHAPTER FIVE IS HERE! ALERT THE GUARDS! The fic is almost done and I can’t even believe it... Luckily I’ll have more to write after this due to the partner fic and the sequel that I am planning.

Please check out @ozmav they started this whole au and are still an inspiration to me ^^

tw for panic attacks and violence

Characters are probably OOC because MLB is a kids show and there’s SO MUCH Batman just too much

Angel in Gotham: Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 6 ~ Ao3

Demon in Gotham: Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Ao3

Fanart for AiG: Riddler ~ Joker thank you @thegreysman

Please tag me in any fanart you draw for this guys ^^

oooOOOooo

As soon as Joker said those words, Marinette threw her chocolate bar at his face.

It wasn’t much, obviously. It was just a chocolate bar. But it still hit him across the eyes and distracted him long enough for her to grab the vending machine and throw that too.

Well, throw is the wrong word. She wasn’t able to pick it up and hurl it like Superman would a building, but she was able to quickly move it and sent it falling in the Joker’s direction. She saw it land but didn’t want to stick around to see him get out from under it.

“Run!” she yelled at Lila. She didn’t move right away so Marinette grabbed her wrist and pulled.

Lila began to run with her. Then she changed their course toward the elevator. Marinette didn’t like that – having to wait was bad enough, but the doors wouldn’t shut the Joker out if they sensed his limb in the way. She tried to lead Lila toward the front doors so they could get some help.

“What the hell are you doing?” Lila hissed.

“We can’t lead him to the others, and I don’t want to be trapped in an elevator with the Joker,” Marinette let go of Lila’s wrist. “Besides, the vending machine won’t hold him for long-”

Lila growled and grabbed her wrist. “I am tired of your superiority complex, Marinette-”

She ripped her wrist from Lila’s grip. “Look who’s talking! Besides, I’m only being rational. We can’t win, we need help, and our teachers and classmates won’t be able to do sh-”

The vending machine’s glass shattered when it crashed to the floor. Joker staggered up, clearly injured. Even in the dying light of the vending machine, Marinette could see his wide grin. It made her bones shiver.

“You certainly are a challenge, Parisian brat!”

She reached for her purse. She had two stale cookies, her key card, and the purse itself. She could maybe use the cookies as-

A playing card, razor-sharp, whizzed by her hand. Her purse fell to the ground, clearly cut by it.

He had projectiles. He had a deadly chemical. She had to assume that nobody was coming for her, that Joker somehow distracted them or they just didn’t care. She had nothing. She was nothing she wouldn’t ever be anything she was useless, unworthy, unlov-

Marinette ducked automatically to avoid another round of the sharp cards, the movement jarring her mind. She had to focus! She didn’t have time to panic now!

Deep Brea-

“I’m going to take great joy,” The Joker laughed, “In watching you laugh and seeing you smile, girlie. Maybe I’ll even see what you look like under that spotted skin of yours.”

Marinette tried to keep the imagery of him peeling her freckled skin off her face out of her head. It didn’t work.

His gait was slow. He was bleeding through his suit. He had to rely on the cards more. These were all good things.

Her earlier maneuver caused her to end up next to the front desk, where she was entirely visible in the only remaining light source. She could still hear the Joker’s steps and see his shadow in the dim light, but it wasn’t much. Her purse was on the ground, a few feet away, the strap cut off. These were all bad things.

She couldn’t breathe. The walls were closing in, she was drowning, her lungs screamed.

But she had to do something.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lila continuing toward the elevator. When it opened, a new light source from the inside of it illuminated her and her position.

The Joker noticed – of course he did he wasn’t as stupid as Hawkmoth – and threw several sharp cards at her. Marinette yelled a warning and Lila screeched, dodging barely.

Well, mostly dodging. Several chunks of her hair were cut by the cards, but right now Marinette couldn’t care less. The elevator closed when Lila didn’t enter it.

The Joker was heading toward Lila still – No! Marinette reached up onto the desk and grabbed the first thing she could and hurled it at him.

She saw it flying – a landline phone – and heard it made contact. It was only after she threw it that she realized she should have maybe used it to call the police.

Oops.

The Joker growled. “Ed failed to mention how annoying you are. I can’t blame him. He prefers rules, regulations, patterns. He doesn’t understand anarchy. He doesn’t understand that chaos is-”

Marinette cut him off by throwing the battery-powered lamp from the desk at him. The lightbulb shattered on his jaw and plunged the entire hotel hobby into pitch-black darkness.

Marinette was now heavily disadvantaged, but so was her adversary. And hopefully, her experience in swinging around rooftops at night, and fighting akuma in pitch black rooms would help her come out on top.

Two sets of footsteps. One pair heavier, gait slow and uneven due to injury. The other lighter, along the walls across the room.

Marinette tuned the other out, focusing on the footsteps that were trying to end her life right now. She could feel the carpet underneath her bare feet, the slight sting of rugburn. It grounded her, kept her from spiraling.

“Where are you, girlie?”

She silently rolled over to her purse. The clasp would make a click when she opened it, so she didn’t. She picked up the card used to cut it, carefully, and cut it open.

Two stale cookies, her key card, and the strap that was removed from the purse earlier.

She heard his footsteps move past her and put a hand to her mouth to muffle her breathing. She heard the sound of wood being sliced – he must have thrown a bunch of cards at the desk where she once was.

Marinette, as silent as a cat, crawled along the carpeted floor toward the front doors. She still remembered the layout of the room, luckily.

“Do you know the power of laughter?” The Joker sounded further away, but not by much. His footsteps were walking away from her, toward the elevator.

It was only after Marinette had been blinded by a light that she realized she should have paid more attention to where Lila was. The girl has walked along the wall behind the desk and turned on the lights by the front door.

The Joker whirled around to see her, grabbing some cards-

No.

No, Marinette couldn’t let him do that, no no n-

“No,” she screamed, throwing a crumbling and stale cookie at the eye she could see from the side angle. It hit, and the Joker let out some strong obscenities as it did so.

Marinette noticed him trying to regain his balance and slid her room’s key card under where his feet landed. Luckily, her plan worked and he slipped cartoon-banana style onto his back while still rubbing cookie crumbs out of his eye. His fall aggravated some of the still bleeding cuts on his body if his angry scream had anything to say about it.

Lila had begun to run to the elevator. As stupid as her classmate was, Marinette was glad. The Joker was fully focused on her, and wouldn’t care that the elevator was being used so long as he was occupied with Marinette. She wouldn’t have to worry about Lila’s life.

The Joker turned to face her, eye still red from the cookie. His pant leg seemed to be more blood-soaked now and he had a few newer cuts on his jaw and neck from the lamp. And he was furious.

Very furious.

Marinette couldn’t count on any help. There was a chance that Lila would leave her to die to the Joker, hoping he would go away after she was finished. She didn’t want to assume any of the heroes were coming, she didn’t want to think of them right now.

There was no way she’d beat the Joker.

But she had to stay alive long enough to call for help herself.

“If you weren’t so resistant and,” The Joker lolled his head and grinned, “Dull, I’d consider allowing you to become my new Harley-girl.”

“I’d rather die,” Marinette said without thinking, slowly standing from the floor. She clutched her purse strap tight. Her last cookie was too crushed to use.

“And so you will,” The Joker raised his cards.

Marinette wouldn’t be able to dodge fully, but if she could avoid dying instantly she can still fight while injured – she’s done it before.

But then a vine grabbed his arm from behind her.

No, not a vine. A whip. A whip made of a vine.

“I suggest leaving the girl alone,” Marinette glanced behind her to see a woman with bright red hair and an outfit made of plants.

Poison Ivy.

She looked back to Joker, who’s grin was now a snarl.

You see, Joker was the A++ of the villains because he’s the one that got all the normal questions and all the bonus questions right. Everybody in the world knows about him. Ivy, in terms of ferocity and general evilness, she scored lower than Joker.

But the Joker is injured. He had a limp and he’s bleeding and Ivy isn’t. Plus, for all Marinette knows, the Joker has been cheating on all his tests.

Though right now who was the better villain didn’t really matter because one was trying to kill her and one was trying to save her.

Marinette rolled out of the way of the two villains and stood. Joker wasn’t focused on her; his angry eyes were trained on Ivy.

“You stole my Harley,” he growled. Marinette couldn’t find it within herself to feel an ounce of sympathy for him.

“She wasn’t ever yours,” Poison Ivy spat the name ‘yours’ like a curse.

Marinette felt like they were two nuclear bombs about to go off and she was just waiting to see who would blow up first.

It was Joker.

He grabbed onto the vine wrapped around his arm and pulled. Ivy lost her balance but let go of the vine so it hit Joker in the face as he yanked it. The vine landed near his eye that still leaked cookie crumbs and Joker howled.

Marinette tried to remember something about Ivy’s powers. She was immune to all poisons and toxins. She could make other people immune too. And…

Marinette’s eyes went to the plants by the hotel lobby’s windows. She knew they were real, she could smell it when she first walked in. Fake plants didn’t emit the same scent that she started picking up on the longer she was Ladybug.

While Joker and Ivy were fighting – Ivy just kicked him in his bad leg after he tried to use Joker Venom on her and failed – Marinette ran to the plants.

“Let’s see if I can help her,” she mumbled, picking up one of the larger pots. It had a rock about the size of papa’s fist in the pot, likely to keep it from falling over. It was still light compared to the vending machine.

“IVY!”

Poison Ivy glanced at her, then Marinette threw the pot, hoping she wasn’t skinned alive for throwing a plant. But she seemed to get the message and extended a hand out to the plant.

In midair, it expanded. Grew. The plant was well taken care of, so it grew enough that the pot burst, it’s roots hit the ground and its rapidly expanding stalk punched Joker in the throat.

It stopped growing once it hit about four and a half meters. The high ceiling of the hotel was about six meters, so nothing stopped it from falling.

She heard someone say something. It sounded like, “look out,” but Marinette was more focused on scrambling out of the way of this plant that chose to fall toward her instead of Joker.

It crashed through the window, spilling shattered glass onto the street. The sound was loud and Marinette flinched, her back against the wall adjacent to the window to avoid becoming smashed like a bug.

She barely had time to think before more playing cards were thrown at her. She hit the ground, using the huge plant as cover.

“You dirty rat,” he spat out. His voice was raw, and she couldn’t see the bruise forming on his neck. She could imagine it though.

Her lungs ached. Marinette covered her mouth and breathed in, trying not to make noise.

“You best leave her alone, Jester,” Ivy snarled. She sounded fine, slightly winded, but uninjured.

“I wanted to see the little Parisian smile,” he sounded wistful, sad. Marinette closed her eyes and remembered his face. She wouldn’t fall in his little trap. She hoped Poison Ivy wouldn’t either.

“You wanted to kill her.”

“Killing you would be a dream come true too.”

She heard more cards. She heard the vine whip being used. She heard something be sliced – the door? She heard Joker laugh.

She smelled blood.

“What?” Ivy’s breathing was labored. “You think a little flesh wound would bother me?”

“It’ll bother that brat you stole from me,” Joker sounded utterly delighted. “It’ll bother her more if she finds it on a lifeless body!”

Marinette’s heart lurched into her throat. No, no she couldn’t let this happen. She couldn’t expect Ivy to save her without risking Ivy.

She still had her purse strap. Silently, Marinette moved around the plant.

She heard Ivy lash out with her whip again. It sounded slower.

Marinette ducked and rolled under a stalk that was high enough off the ground to go under.

After a brief scuffle, she heard something else being sliced. It hit the ground, and for a moment Marinette panicked before realizing it was too light to be Poison Ivy.

While crawling, her hand landed on some far-reaching glass from the knocked over vending machine. The pain registered, but Marinette didn’t care about it for long.

“You bastard,” Ivy sounded winded. She had to help, please let her be able to help.

Her eyes landed on a rock, one about the size of papa’s fist. The one in the pot earlier. She picked it up carefully and began tying her purse strap around it. It wouldn’t have as much range as her yoyo, and it would be heavier, but it was better than nothing.

“Afraid you can’t beat me without your little plant?”

She turned, now past the plant and on the side with Joker and Poison Ivy. Her newly-made weapon in hand, she crawled slowly and silently behind Joker. She was still under a large leaf, so Ivy didn’t see her. She could see both their legs and the cut whip at the ground.

“I think you’re underestimating me.”

Marinette could see blood trickling down Ivy’s left leg. She was bleeding much faster than the Joker was. She pushed forward, ending up behind Joker. His legs were within arm’s reach.

“There’s not much to underesti-”

She swung her rock-and-purse-strap yoyo as hard and fast as she could at the Joker’s injured knee. She heard his leg crunch under the force, saw his leg beds an unnatural angle before he fell, heard his scream.

Marinette felt sick.

All she could cause is pain all she can do is hurt she’s useless she can’t save anyone-

“You,” Joker’s words are muffled against the carpet of the hotel lobby. He calls says a word in English she doesn’t know. It rhymed with the English word witch.

“Takes one to know one,” Poison Ivy huffs out.

Then the other window – the one that wasn’t shattered by the plant – shatters. A dark and cloaked figure looks odd standing under the lights of the hotel lobby.

“Poison Ivy,” he paused, just then noticing the Joker.

“I can see I’m not needed anymore,” she turned around, “I was just here to save the kid, no need to arrest me this time.”

The Joker laughed. “You call her a kid?” he asked. “She threw a vending machine at me! Broke my leg! This brat is not a kid, she’s a menace!”

Her breath left her. She’s a menace, a villain, a revolting person…

Marinette looked at her hands. They were bloody.

She barely heard him repeat menace a few times before his breathing evened, likely falling asleep. Poison Ivy made no further comment as she walked out of the miraculously still functioning door. Marinette didn’t hear it close until two pairs of footsteps walked in.

“Batman, why’d you let Ivy walk ou- oh,” a voice she didn’t hear at the manor, Damian’s older brother, spoke. Dick Grayson, his name was.

“Father,” Marinette froze at Damian’s voice. “What is Joker doing here?”

“It appears she was rescuing…” Batman paused, clearly still trying to asses the situation.

Marinette is an idiot. She must be, because she chose that moment to shakily stand up, revealing herself to Batman and Nightwing and Robin.

Robin’s breath hitched.

And that little sound is what made the dam break.

“I’m sorry,” she was spiraling, but she didn’t care anymore. “I’m a hor- horrible person and-”

“Hey now,” Nightwing took a step closer. “I’m sure you’re not-”

She held up her hands, showing the blood on them. Her blood, but that didn’t matter.

“I broke his leg,” she took a big gulp of air. It sounded like a sob. “With a rock. And I threw things at him. A chocolate bar, a cookie, a phone, a lamp, a vending machine-”

“A vending machine?” Batman sounded far away, muffled.

“Miss, please calm down,” Nightwing’s voice was grainy. She wasn’t hearing it fully, she wasn’t there she was away, far away.

“I’m terrible, horrible, I shouldn’t have done this,” all she could hear was her words – were they thoughts? She didn’t know anymore.

She wished she didn’t exist, then she couldn’t make mistakes.

Her vision began to grow spotty. She couldn’t tell what was up and what was down.

“Angel,” Damian’s voice seemed to whisper. “You need to breathe.”

Her lungs ached. She didn’t care though. She didn’t need to breathe. She didn’t matter that much.

The world went dark around her.

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the-sheep · 4 years

Note

ID GO ABSOLUTELY BONKERS IF U TYPED OUT HIS ENTIRE HISTORY FBFBFBFB i would like 2 see it..........

alright right right

This ended up being A HUGE POST so all info is under the cut.

Unless you’re on mobile, in which case, enjoy scrolling.

It all starts on flight rising. Well, Heart starts on FR. It REALLY starts with my webcomic/animated series.

It wasn’t well drawn or animated at first, but it steadily got better. One of the plot holes, back in 8th grade, was “who created priscilla and Jake?”

It was mostly summed up to “Penny made all the bots its all simple” but i was a middle schooler and i needed a complicated (and edgy) story.

Thing is I had already made Fandragons of a good chunk of my ocs on flight rising.

I bred two dragons to get my main characters, so why not just use them?

Christy Suggested the name Cavet, and I liked it.

Yeah this is my first digital image of him as a human and he DOES NOT LOOK RIGHT

no necklace, no beard, orange eyes…

horrific.

So I made human designs for them both, but Chrysanthemum remains forgotten, not even canon to Mechanical Fury anymore.

Here’s old art of her and Cavet back before she got wiped out from existence.

the art is bad btu the Heart gimmick is there

Here’s him in his second image ever. The one that pretty much defined his design.He also quickly gained a husband

Anyway he quickly morphed into a villain several time more dangerous than the main villain

He’s responsible for the deaths of not ONE, not TWO, but THREE children.

Two his kids, one the younger sister of a character that one of the dead kids liked.

One of his dead kids got his own story, the other was literally a main character.

Chloride, (Charlie) in all his glory, lucky enough to get resurrected as an android but after finding out he’s not who he thinks he is, has to attempt to live a normal Human life… when his two best friends are paranormal investigators, his love interest having lost their arm and their only remaining sister to the main villain.

He originally found out he was an android by finding his own blueprints, hearing his Mom cry about it, and then cutting open his face (for his signature scar) and running off.

Running into Cavet’s husband, Nathair Liu. He stitches him up, know all about robotic n all that but he is.

also a secondary villain….

youtube

I hate the art in this video but its not my worst.

(Video was Vendy’s debut, too. tho Vendy was more Nate(logan/mind/princi/whatever)’s kid than Cavet’s)

Okay i’ve gotten off track.

Yeah at this point I was really loving Cavet, on FR, and wrote an entire long story between him and Skittles based on the events of Mechanical Fury.

This was where I got the idea for reincarnation.

I needed an explanation for why the same character was in two different universes, and it was perfect. In fact, it lead to an amazing way to end it.

But what is in control of all this? What does he see in the in between?

Well, Death was packaged with two other red herrings to keep people from thinking she was more important than them from the start, when in fact, she was. One of the plot points is that Cavet dies. He continues causing havoc, but nobody can figure out why or how. he doesn’t have a body.

Except he does. Death.

She was scary, but that was just her, she was a literal robot grim reaper. Nobody suspected she was spreading a virus to make robots susceptible to Augap’s control everywhere she went. Not even her. Cav liked hanging out in the AI scape, AKA the robot afterlife or virtual heaven.

What a fun way to make a real grim reaper.

I never really kept track of the transition from “cute robot char” to “cute real god char”

and i guess it never happened. Heart still thinks of her as she was, as cute little Litty. Except when she’s not. He gave form to the literal concept of DEATH. And became her friend. She still calls him Papa, sometimes.

In any case, Cavet’s doodles started being more and more revolving around his angst with the reincarnation.

in fact, i had a few character in the same boat as him, as I had made a couple dragons into MF characters as well.

I called them The Artifacts. It didn’t seem rounded out with only four, so I added a 5th. To give me more leeway in case I make a character i like enough to bring with them.

and turns out. I did.

I was sad enough about Cavet losing the love of his life, betraying him, creating a rift between them with his descent into obsession.

So he came with them.

They’re inseparable.

after a few lives of getting revenge on him for killing his sons and some adult humans and a BUNCH of robots, (not even counting his crimes in the vampire life he committed because he thought he lost Liu forever) Soul revealed to him something about Heart’s 6th life, which Mind doesn’t remember.

But he was there.

Long story short, he was Captain Shuggazoom. Yeah 10 lives of stuff he forgot before he started remembering his past lives. Messed Heart up.

ANYWAY BACK TO DEVELOPMENT!

I went around, making original characters to fill in Heart’s lives. I put him in a LOT of stories, but a notable one is My Old Ask Blog, @ask-musical-monsters

In which Heart is our lovable Tweedle, Bean.

He’s the bird. (this is also the blog where Willow was made!) (also a character i referenced when putting antauri on the baldi blog)

I still hadn’t abandoned MF so Bean has a lot of influence from Cavet.

I REALLY liked bean. It occured to me here-ish that Heart isn’t constrained by being my oc. He can be whoever he wants and nobody will care.

So of course I immediately declare him purple guy. No drawings of him, but I know I said he was purple guy at some point. Also at this point in time I started organizing the lives by number order, and making a simple arc for Heart and the others to follow.

1000 lives.

I made a brief description of heart’s 1st life, but made it purposefully very superfluous so i can change it whenever i want. All i know is he had albinism, and a desire to live forever.

That summer I got an amazing idea. I would take advantage of the Baldi’s basics trend with a ASK BLOG.

It was a mathematically calculated success. I did as many things as possible to generate more audience. MAIN thing being posting as often as possible, and being REALLY funny.

But knew I wasn’t going to like adding to the ask blog if i didn’t like the main character

I already knew he was going to be Baldi, but I wasn’t sure exactly how to characterize him either.

Turns out making him heart solved both of those problems. He’s always been Heart.

And Princi has ALWAYS been mind.

Even if they don’t always show their artifacts, they always were the same people as all these other things ive made. They have a DEEP connection to both each other and me.

At some point, I re-re-discovered SRMTHFG. The first few seconds I saw SK I knew he was Heart. It was so perfect it scared me.

HE EVEN DOES THE POSE!!!!! RED EYES!!!! AAAH!!!

I got an idea for a storyline based on formless and regret and monkeys… so.. uh

Anyway that kinda brings us to today, where the events of the blog have happened based on Heart things, and i can play around with Heart as much as I want.

And Willie’s next life? Well, 23 is my favorite number. It’ll be cool, but I’m not sure how. All I know is 23 wears a striped shirt, and is a vamp again.

In summary, Heart is the most important character I’ve ever made, and I will never come close to anybody as wonderful and as complicated as him. He’s the greatest formless, the best villains, the heroes, and one character i want to hold out for finding irl.

I love them even in scribbles i find on bus seats, in fanart of him, love her in songs i hear, in flowers i see in the wild.

Whoever they end up being, it’s safe to say I’ve fallen in love with Heart.

If you want me to describe his in universe story, I’ll need a seperate post.

Other Heart Resources:

The Spreadsheet

The Playlist

#heart id tag #long post #baldis basics #my singing monsters #mechanical fury #fnaf #the mind electric #srmthfg #hfytus #IM SORRY IF THIS ENDS UP IN THE SRMTHFG TAG SHOWOFF

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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 4 years

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An Explanation of Why Louis and Violet are Both Terrific Love Interests [2/5]

+Why both romantic routes are not only amazing but better than other games I’ve personally played in the past.

+Why some people are idiots and get off on picking stupid fights.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Romantic Option #2: Warren Graham

Uhm.... Warren’s a person in this story, too.

He, uh, he’s really nerdy. He does some science shit. He has a huge crush on Max which is made very obvious by the everything about him. Uh..... he took a fist to the face and got a black eye because he was helping Max, uhm.... he took a picture that was pretty important to the plot... um....

I literally can’t remember anything else about him.

I couldn’t even remember his last name. I had to look up his wiki to remember anything about him.

That’s how forgettable he is.

Hell, fans of the game took his character and made him more interesting in fanart and fanfics than he ever was in the game! I remember more about THAT version of him than I do about the him in the canon of the game!

I gave you that whole bit about Chloe from memory. That’s how much more fleshed out and important she is within the game than Warren is. Everything I’m about to talk about here if from reading his wiki and remembering things that way.

We meet Warren and find out that he’s into nerdy shit like Max. He’s also obviously into her and does a shit job at hiding that fact, but then Nathan comes over and beats the shit out of him because plot.

When I first played, it was pretty obvious that Warren would be romanceable, and truth be told, I liked Warren. He was fine! He’s dorky and weird, but I thought he and Max could potentially be a cute couple, and so does the rest of the school since you can’t talk to any of the girls without them implying that Warren likes Max.

I kept waiting for Warren to be important, but it never really came! I mean, you could talk to him and help him with a science experiment [in which he fucking blows up] and you text him a lot. Oh, and you can go to a Planet of the Apes marathon with him which you never actually get to go to, but the game constantly reminds you that you’re going because Warren won’t shut up about it.

Let’s see, he also sends you instructions on how to build a bomb so that you can break into the principal’s office, and then he beats Nathan up, and then he shows up and takes a picture of him and Max that ends up being important in the final episode and then.... he doesn’t do much else.

Well, okay, he does talk about Max’s powers a little bit in ep5 and you can give him a smooch or hug him or disregard him completely.

And that’s about it.

........Wait a minute.

A boy with boyband hair who has extensive chemistry knowledge, knows how to make bombs, uses said bombs for pranks, gets fucked up by one of the antagonists AND was a throwaway character that the writers threw in there to further the plot along but doesn’t really do much so the fandom took him and made him better than the game ever gave him credit for...?

.....Welp, that’s a whole thing that I’m not gonna get into. One post at a time, folks.

ANYWAY

Back on topic, Warren’s a romanceable character, apparently. You can agree to go on a date with him and smooch him. You can tell people you think he’s cute. It’s fine.

With all that about these two choices in mind, compare Warren to Chloe.

There is no comparison because Warren’s “romance route” is... is nothing! It’s a whole lot of little things that don’t amount to much! With Chloe, Max has all this chemistry and you spend 90% of the game with her! You forget that Warren exists until you get another text from him or another character brings him up!

You know what Warren feels like? He feels like a character that the writers threw in because they were worried that players wouldn’t want a tragic wlw love story between two best friends, who reconnect and fall in love over the course of five episodes.

Which, fair, because people are idiots.

Could they have made Warren more important? Sure, but like with Skybound and Telltale, they didn’t have an unlimited budget to pack everything they wanted into the game to make it better, and that’s not just limited to the relationships, that’s clear in the endings we got. And I’m sure that some Warren stans will read this and retaliate and tell me that he’s just as important than Chloe, I just don’t understand because I’m a shithead.

And maybe that’s true, but look me in the eye and tell me that if you took Warren out of the game, it would have drastically changed the story beyond repair.

Now, what does all this mean?

Compare Chloe and Warren to Louis and Violet as far as love interests go and how they were handled.

In TWDG, Louis and Violet are fairly even.

In LIS, Chloe and Warren aren’t even in the same universe. It doesn’t matter if you like Warren more, or if you like Chloe more, Chloe got more time and effort put into her story and romance than Warren did.

Think of it like this: Chloe is at a 90% and Warren 10%. Louis is at 48% and Violet’s at 52%, and that’s depending on how you look at it.

If TWDG did the routes like this, then Violet would’ve been way more important, would’ve have ten times as many scenes with Clementine, and if you took her out of the story, the whole thing falls apart because she’d be 90% of the plot, while Louis over here would’ve been used as background noise and plot convenience once or twice. Sure, we would’ve gotten to know him a little bit, but not nearly anything substantial and not nearly as much in comparison.

That’s what we could’ve had, okay? The writers could’ve given us a single love interest and said: “We want you to pick this person... but we’ll also throw in this other person just in case y’all are homophobic/racist/fucking stupid/whatever.”

In conclusion: We were blessed with Louis and Violet who each got an arc and love story, both of which are fairly even.

Have I made my point yet? No? You need more examples? Fine. I’ll give you another alternative to what we could’ve had, or rather, what we could’ve missed out on.

[Note: I want to add that I haven’t played Life is Strange 2, but I know that its playable character is also bisexual and can choose between a boy and a girl to romance, but I can’t comment on how well it did because I’ve yet to play it.]

[persona 4 and the relationships you can’t have]

This one time I tried to romance my partner but he was too busy trying to convince everyone that he’s straight to even notice.

Persona 4 is a game that came out in 2008, then re-released with new content in 2012 under the name Persona 4: Golden. The game follows your nameable protagonist who has just moved in with their uncle and cousin. During his year-long stay, he becomes involved in investigating mysterious murders while harnessing the power of summoning Persona.

Great game, one that took over my life for about a year. Great characters, great voice acting, great story, great antagonists, and great romance and romanceable characters.

While the romance is more of a side thing depending on if you decide to take that route with one of your social links, it’s still nice to have special moments with them to break away from all the TV murder and whatnot.

And you have several great options to choose from! You’ve got Chie, Yukiko, Rise, Naoto, and then you’ve got several other girls around the school that you can start a thing with, but they’re not as important as those core four.

Each of the girls has an incredibly well-written story and share a deep bond with you, the protagonist. So, the reason I’m putting this example here is that the choice between all these great girls is super hard, right?

Wrong.

Because when I played the damn game, I didn’t romance any of them. Not because I didn’t like them or because I didn’t want my character to have a romance, but because the asshole I WANTED to romance wasn’t an option.

Because I’m not allowed to romance the dudes.

And that includes this dude.

Yosuke Hanamura

Remember that pin I mentioned about how great it is that Clementine’s bi because not only does it give us well-deserved representation but also allows the player to romance both girls and boys?

The Protagonist of Persona 4 is not bisexual.

I can only romance the girls because he is straight.

But not really, because MY Protagonist pursued and sought after Yosuke despite the fact that the game would not let me romance him. Which is bullshit, because he clearly feels the same way, and no, that’s not my crazy brain making shit up.

My entire playthrough was pretty much

I won’t get into it because Persona is a long game and a complicated one to even try and explain to someone who hasn’t played it so that’s another rant for another day, but know this:

Yosuke was the perfect opportunity to tell the story of a boy dealing with internal homophobia, falling in love with his best friend [PARTNER] after the girl he cared about died horrifically and faced his shadow learned to accept himself and his insecurities. The potential here was wasted.

There are a shit ton more layers to that, but on the barest of bare-bones, that’s what I wanted.

Hell, according to a bunch of people, Yosuke was going to be a romantic option, but they scrapped it! Insult to injury, I’ll say!

Comparing this to TWDG, you could argue that Clementine only gets to romance Louis and Violet, but some wanted to romance Mitch, Aasim, Brody, ect.

Fair enough, but what I’m saying is this:

It sucked that I couldn’t romance the person I wanted to when I played Persona, and it still sucks every time I play a game and my person of desire is unattainable. This isn’t just Persona, that’s just the first game that comes to mind when I think about characters I always wanted a romance, but that includes all the other missed opportunities from other games, as well.

The Final Season is different.

The writers of TFS could’ve said, “Oh you want to romance Louis/Violet? Oh no, sorry, we were gonna do it but we changed our minds! But, don’t worry, we’ll leave hint after hint that they have feelings for you but you can’t actively pursue them. Allow us to tease you with the wonderful romance that could’ve been! Midnight piano lessons! Conversations under the stars! Lots of smooches! You’ll never see it in canon!”

Or, they could’ve only given us one of them, but that’s the topic of the next game.

In conclusion: They didn’t have to give us Louis and Violet or make them romanceable. If you want Clementine to have a relationship with them, you have the option to do that, which is something you can’t say with other games.

Continued in Part 3

#twdg louis #louis twdg #twdg violet #violet twdg #twdg clouis #clouis #twdg violentine #violentine #twdg clementine #clementine twdg

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scripting-life · 4 years

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FFVII: returning to my first love

*peeks out of the corner of my lurking spot*

Hello? Anybody out there? It’s only been, oh you know, four-ish years since the last time I’ve posted anything here. I apologize in advance for anybody who’s still following me from my Castle days. If you couldn’t tell from my extended absence, I’ve mostly moved on. Castle and Beckett were fantastic characters that let me to play with some deep-dive analyses, and Castle will always hold a special place in my heart as my comfort show and my first real and extended experience with online fandom. I’ll always be grateful to the community I’ve had the joy of interacting with (or, the community with which I’ve had the joy of interacting, as Castle would correct me my dangling preposition).

I honestly didn’t think I would ever have reason to come back to Tumblr after Castle ended. But the FF7 Remake has returned me to my very first love--when I was young and innocent and before I knew anything about OTPs or ship wars. I’ve been back lurking for several months now and seeing all the fanart/fanfics and fun theories and analyses has reignited my enthusiasm for the FF7 franchise. It’s also fun coming back to this franchise with a more mature understanding of the themes/concepts that completely flew over my head as a young preteen.

(This ended up being super long, so the rest is below the cut to spare everyone the pain of scrolling. Apparently, my rambling tendencies have not changed at all. lol.)

When FF7R was officially announced (five freaking years ago!), I was filled with apprehension. FF7 was my first taste of a “grown-up” game. I was 11 and played my brother’s copy of the OG on PC in 1-2 hours spurts on the weekends when I visited his apartment. It took me months, if not years, to finish the game (I ended up stealing his copy to play on our computer at home...lol), and I was so blown away by it. I remember the exact moment I finished it and how I was literally shaking as I watched the ending FMV.

Later, when I found out my brother had a copy of FF8 (my poor brother was so accommodating to his annoying little sister...haha), I was so excited to play, in large part because I thought it would continue the story of FF7. Young, naive me didn’t understand the numbering conventions of Final Fantasy titles. I was madly theorizing and breaking my brain trying to find connections between the two games’ plots and had literally played through more than half the game before I finally realized the storyline of FF8 had absolutely nothing to do with FF7. I was sorely disappointed, and I think that has somewhat tainted my appreciation of future titles. Not to say I haven’t enjoyed the subsequent FF titles, but I think a little part of me is always comparing them to that first experience of wonder and awe that I had with FF7.

I discovered fanfiction in my teens and starting writing FF7/Cloti fics in college. Aside from interacting with a few fic writers at the time, I was not involved in any online communities, so I kept myself pretty free of any ship war drama and the like. When I did research for my fics, I’d sometimes see shipping sites and theories where I didn’t always understand the logic of how certain conclusions were reached, but frankly, I didn’t much care and didn’t realize that Clerith vs. Cloti was such a touchy subject. I was peripherally aware that some sort great LTD war was waging, of course, but it didn’t really touch me. I stayed in my Cloti shipping/fic-writing lane and was probably a lot happier for it. And, to be honest, based on FFN’s listings for FF7, I felt like I always saw a bunch of Sephiroth/Cloud fics and thought that was just as popular as the more conventional ships.

Graduating college and entering “real life” pretty much ended my FF7 fanfic-writing journey. In the intervening years between college and the release of FF7R, I haven’t gone back to the OG too much. I’ve played almost all the Final Fantasy games since then, and I always enjoy getting my FF7 crew fix when I play the non-canon mobile games or the Kingdom Hearts franchise. But FF7 was a happy part of my teenage years, and I was content to think on it with sweet nostalgia.

Remakes, in recent experience (*cough cough* Disney, why?), have been hit or miss, with a lot of misses. It’s hard to strike a good balance between catering to nostalgia and delivering a fresh product, never mind the change in social mores through the decades. I was so afraid FF7R would screw up my memories, especially since I wasn’t the biggest fan of Advent Children. The graphics were great and the action scenes were fun, but the story felt like a let-down. Cloud, in particular, felt so different (and yes, moody) from where we left him after the OG. I understand now that a lot of his character motivation was better explained in the On The Way to a Smile novels, but back then, I just felt like AC came out of nowhere.

Btw, because I see this question a lot on other blogs when I’m lurking, I’ve ALWAYS thought that it was very clear in AC--even without reading anything else--that the reason for Cloud’s depression was due to guilt and not because he was pining for Aerith. The only reason I didn’t like his characterization in AC was because it felt like it came out of nowhere since AC is set 2 years after OG and by the end of the OG, he seemed to be in a pretty decent place mentally and emotionally. That being said, I can absolutely understand why some traumas resurface years after the originating incident and how times of peace might actually be worse because he is no longer solely focused on saving the world, but I was just surprised and a little bummed that this was the direction the devs chose to take AC at the time. Now that I’m older, I do better appreciate the complexities of Cloud’s mental state and the fact that they depicted a hero with lingering mental health issues is actually pretty awesome. I’m drawn to characters that have flaws--sometimes serious ones--but try their best anyway. Hence, why why Tifa Lockhart and Kate Beckett are some of my all-time favorites.

Anyhow, that didn’t stop me from pre-ordering FF7R, of course. I avoided reading any reviews as I didn’t want my first impressions to be swayed, and boy, was I happy that I went in mostly blind. That sense of awe really almost felt like playing the OG for the first time again, but somehow more. The combat system is incredibly fun and the world-building is nothing short of incredible. The variety and abundance of NPCs gives the game so much flavor and the locations have been rendered so well. As I’m going through areas like the Sector 7 train station and Wall Market and Aerith’s house, I can almost superimpose the layout from the OG in my head, but now it’s in 3D and so rich and full. It’s obvious that a lot of attention was paid to details, and I love all the head-nods and homages to the OG.

And oh, the characters!

This is the Cloud I’ve been wanting to see in glorious HD and the Cloud I remember from the original game: all awkward, dorky trying to be cool, socially inept, mentally unstable, abrasive-at-times, reluctant to act depending on who’s asking, wannabe hard-ass who’s actually a big softie inside Cloud. I remember reading an article a few years back about how the devs basically redid Cloud for the Remake because they wanted him to go back to his dorky roots--which ends up making him closest to his personality in the OG than his appearances in other franchises--and I was SOOOO incredibly happy to hear that. I was so sick of the way Cloud was constantly depicted as this cool, broody McBrood in his cameos when he was a pretty big dork in the OG. (Anybody remember him doing squats in the Highwind when Tifa says it’ll be lonely with just the two of them and Cloud responds that he’ll make enough noise to make up for it? Like I said: cute, but a dork.)

I WAS surprised by how comfortable and sweet and touchy (so very very touchy) the devs made him with Tifa from the beginning. That initial scene of Cloud being such a smooth operator giving Tifa the flower had my jaw-dropping and every single flirty interaction after that (and there are many) had my Cloti heart overflowing in shock and bliss. Throughout most of my years as a Cloti shipper, even though I believed Cloti was supported by canon and pretty clearly together, I was also under the impression--mistakenly or not--that Cloti was the minority ship. So for Square Enix to make it so blatantly obvious that Cloud is really into Tifa at such an early stage has been an unexpected gift.

Also, they’re just really hot together. (Clotiscrew tunnel--be still my heart!)

As for Tifa...oh, what wonderful character development we’ve already gotten for Tifa. Tifa has always been one of my all-time favorite characters ever since reading her character blurb in the OG game manual. Initially, as a child, it was because I saw so much of myself in her. She was outwardly bright and optimistic, but tended to hide all of her stronger feelings inside. She fought with her fists, and for someone who was a tomboy growing up who liked playing contact sports with the boys, I connected with her in a way that I had never been able to connect with other female protagonists who were primarily back-row specialists. (I also aspired to grow to her listed height of 5′4″, which alas, did not happen...lol).

I love how the Remake delves into more of Tifa’s moral conflict between the destruction that she causes as part of Avalanche and needing to do something to stop Shinra, and yes, even seeking revenge. They touched on this in the OG lightly, but the Remake really hammers it home. She’s perhaps the most conflicted character in terms of motivation in Part 1. That scene with the Shinra manager on the train is actually one of my favorite scenes of her because it highlights that tension. The elevator scene, if you opted for it instead of the stairs (or if you did one, saved, and reloaded to do the other one, like me), is also underrated in terms of how much it reveals about Tifa’s inner struggle.

On this point, I also appreciate that the Remake has the characters reflecting on the damage they’ve both indirectly and directly inflicted--the Avalanche team all do this to a certain degree. In particular, Jessie’s constant inability to figure out what she’d done wrong with the bomb to cause such a massive explosion and her remaining feelings of guilt during her death scene (”they were my victims” ouch!) were heart-breaking.

Aerith’s depiction was another pleasant surprise. I’ll be honest; I didn’t much like her in the OG. She was too pushy and willfully oblivious to the point of being mean at times. In the Remake, much of her sometimes too in-your-face playfulness was kept--perhaps still a little too much--but I appreciate the nuance that they gave her. The train graveyard scene tells the player that she didn’t have friends growing up, and I think that partially contributes to her lack of social tact at times. The other factor that gives her personality more nuance is the hint of special knowledge that affects how she interacts with the rest of the group. It gives her additional hidden motivation and adds to her mystery for new players while simultaneously pulling at the heartstrings for old players who get the impression that Aerith is somehow aware--to a certain, unknown extent--of her own fate.

I also appreciate that Aerith is more grounded as a real person than as some sort of revered being. I do blame AC for some of that. When you have the power to cure a fatal disease from the afterlife and send the dead back to life, it gets into some godlike territory. Maybe it’s a fair depiction of her powers as a Cetra, but I just get the feeling that Aerith herself wouldn’t really appreciate being made into this goddess-like figure. Remember that her character blurb in the original game manual implied that she was more interested in earthly things (i.e. the love triangle) than in exploring her own powers. I personally think that Aerith used the “love triangle” in the OG as a form of escapism from the weight of her burdens rather than genuine interest, and I just think she’d want to be thought of as a person rather than as a god. One of my favorite scenes for Aerith is when she and Cloud are traversing the rooftops and she slips on the ladder, letting out a simple, “Shit.” It humanizes her in a way that combats some of the ways she’s sort of been deified in the last 23 years. Also, Aerith wielding a folding chair like it’s WWE never fails to make me laugh. Overall, she just comes off as a more reasonably flawed and--as a result, to me--a more likeable character in the Remake, and I do very much like her now.

Barret is pretty much the exact larger than life character I imagined in my head, only somehow even better, and I really love how expressive and emotional his eyes and facial expressions are. His scenes with Marlene are truly the cutest thing ever. Red XIII is a big, furry ball of sass, and I need so much more of him in the coming parts (Cosmo Canyon still wrecks me to this day). The interactions between the Wedge, Biggs, and Jessie are incredible, and they really feel like people who’ve been friends and basically each other’s family for years. The Turks and Rufus are pretty much as cool as I imagined them in the OG.

There’s still so much more I haven’t even started touching on about the Remake, and I think that’s why I’m finally posting this now. I just can’t contain my love for this game any more, and I really really need a place to express myself. I don’t know if anybody is still reading, but I appreciate having the opportunity to finally gush about this game and franchise that I’ve loved so much for pretty much two-thirds of my life.

#ff7r #final fantasy 7: remake #cloti #cloud x tifa #cloud strife #tifa lockhart #final fantasy vii #final fantasy 7 #ff7 #aerith gainsborough #jessie rasberry #barret wallace #red xiii #for the love of the game #personal experience #not sure i'm ready to wade back into fandom life #but i really needed to gush #oh man i forgot to mention the cats #how could i forget the cats?!?!?

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