New heist idea! Along with vampires trying to get their old stuff back from a museum, there should also be werewolves trying to get their paws on the moon rocks that NASA has collected, because those are basically reverse Kryptonite.

'We all yearn for the woods. That's why every fellow on this island wants to settle down near a tree - just one will do.'

I see a lot of stuff with Gimli losing his temper and Legolas having to hold him back from charging in axe-first at whatever has angered him (sometimes even picking him up to stop him) and admittedly I love this!

But also consider: almost every time somebody offends or insults Gimli in the books, his reaction is along the lines of declaring “I would take offense at your words, save that you are too ignorant to know how wrong they are” in I assume just the most refined, lofty voice you can imagine.

Whereas Éomer threatens Gimli one (1) time in front of Legolas and our Mirkwood madlad is immediately ready to throw-down with half* of Rohan’s army.

I’m saying what I would like to see more of is Legolas losing his temper, and Gimli being the cool-headed half of the pair that has to hold his lanky longshanks boyfriend back from doing a murder.

How about some more of that please, fandom?

~ Batman: Detective Comics (2016)

I'm living for how Bruce is written in DC 2016. He is a caring father, he has flaws but everyone does, that's normal, and he tries. He listens to others, or at least hears what they are saying. Here, he listens to Tim's plan for Gotham, and he agrees with him (proud dad mode a lot with Tim). He decides to follow Tim's vision, and even after Tim is gone, he wants to continue to realize Tim's vision. When Steph gets mad at him, he doesn't try to fight her, he wants to listen to her and explain himself. He tell people he is worried about them and cares for them, even if they don't believe him. (steph) He wants his people to take care of themselves, and if that means they don't put on the capes for a while, then so be it.

And this scene is so good. It's the passage from a generation to another, the transformation of the Batman's legacy. The mission takes another form. It's Bruce admitting that it's time for his way to die, it has served its time and his purpose. Tim is seeing further away than Bruce because Bruce was blinded by his grief, and his son is showing him the sight over the fog.

anyways, I’m so glad I actually have talent and the ability to make fics that make me happy so I don’t have to go around throwing shade at others’ writing because I have the creativity of a piece of fucking lint. So happy I have self esteem and a personality instead getting mine from the internet. Some of you obviously can’t relate.

Kipperlily’s villain origin story is that her parents are normal fucking people who graduated from Mumple. This girl has issues jfc

I just reread senator!anakin au and...

What if there is a revolution in Tattoine and reader -ani childhood friend- becomes their senator (Shmi and Cliegg can reign ie) but the're still in so much danger so the Republic put some jedis or clones cofcoffoxcofcof to protect them? Because planet and senator!reader (may or not may hutt-slay) lead free slavery movement?

Edit: also reader may think clones and droids are slaves too, to do things more interesting.

Going from Funger to reading Beserk for the first time is really funny actually

It's like slowly peeling away the layers of reskin and whenever you think you're done it's just: Ha HA! Fantasy Vatican is from Beserk too!!

Love it, this is deeply improving my reading experience :D

going back home today!! which means!! finally starting my next good omens wip!!

When Robin was first introduced, she had been working with Crocodile in Alabasta for the past several years, so I could understand her skin tone being a little lighter than it used to be, but not this bad.

It's extremely fucked up. I would understand the "it was an animation error" argument if it wasn't because it happens with all the characters (not only Robin) and they're whiter and whiter each episode (even the characters that should be black).

If we follow irl reasoning as you say, then all of them should be tanned because they're pirates. They're constantly under the sun. But no, they go backward and instead, they lack melanin every episode. It was already bad, but Egghead fucked up big time.

And don't get me started on Usopp because people could use that excuse on any other character, but Usopp?? I truly, really, don't think it takes too much thinking to get that he's black and Toei just keeps making him paler than Sanji. It's ridiculous and racist and people who ignore it or say it's been talked "too much" (because people say it and apparently there's a limit for them as to how much you can complain about racism) always get on my nerves.

What Toei is doing is just disgusting and people defending it are always the ones who refuse to see any mistakes in the things they like. News flash! You can like something and admit it has mistakes.

I am so beyond amused at the idea of Celebrimbor and Narvi watching from opposite ends of the afterlife as Legolas and Gimli bumble their way through their unrealized mutual pining, absolutely S-C-R-E-A-M-I-N-G at these two idiots to get their shit together already oh-em-Eru!!!

Narvi is practically tearing their beard out in frustration. Celebrimbor has transmuted into the physical representation of the Barbossa “JUST KISS” gif. If they weren’t both already dead, they’d be dying. Dying. In fact, Celebrimbor is going to speed-run his recovery just so he can get re-embodied and knock some sense into these idiots! And Narvi is going to give Mahal a stroke with all the badgering to be sent back, no seriously Maker just for five minutes, five minutes that’s all it’ll take me, I promise, I’m just going to bang their skulls together and scream at them until they figure it out—okay, two. How about two minutes? I can do it in two, watch me...

We’ve had the sheer poetic perfection of Sansûkh’s emotionally devastating voices-from-the-afterlife story. Now we need the unhinged crackfic of Narvi and Celebrimbor simultaneously and separately hacking and rules-lawyering their way out of the Halls of Mandos solely to come back and kick Legolas and Gimli’s asses into figuring out they love each other DAMMIT.

And if Narvi gets to help kick Sauron’s ass somehow along the way, good. That’ll teach the smarmy fucker to put his hands on someone else’s elf.

Seeing people clutch pearls over Arya having killed people is so funny cause the list is literally rapist, murderer, torturer, criminal, some combination of the bunch...and all people who Arya has personally witnessed, or directly heard about, committing these acts. Like, contrary to popular belief, she is not just a mindless killing machine.

I redrew something from 2022 :3! Yippie, now you guys get to see the old one and the new one next to each other heck yeah.

I’m gonna rant like absolutely bonkers length about Simon’s Quest and the endings and story under a cut for anyone interested:

The original version (the last image) had this like long rant about how I see the endings of the game, but it wasn’t as comprehensive cause I was still kinda new to things and well instagram character limit lol.

The endings of the game are a really really cool topic to me because of how ominous and vague they all are. They’re all left pretty open! But I’ve always gotten some sinking dread even when getting the fastest “red sky” ending. The game really sets up the ending with a lot of empty areas and suspense beforehand, especially with the still present but now more pressing clock still ticking ya know, and the final battle is kinda just there, but it ends off all this tense build up with

A eulogy. One definitely written for Simon too. In every ending.

The first ending (grey sky) is really vague, just a general statement that “Simon you will always be remembered for your bravery and courage” and that “Peace and serenity have been restored to Transylvania and the people are free of Dracula’s curse”. Which is really odd for what would be assumed to be a “bad ending”. This generally sounds like a pretty good outcome and it’s primarily the same in the Japanese version just slightly worded differently. Heck, it’s not even stated in the text outright if he died. But the visuals, oh man. Dreary greyscale and Simon doesn’t even appear on screen in front of Dracula’s grave. Did Dracula even get reburried? It’s some really bleak imagery compared to the otherwise pretty unsuspecting text.

And second ending (blue sky) is very interesting. Simon appears on screen with some nice bright generally cheery colors, but the text deliberately mentions his death in both versions. The English version however says something the Japanese version doesn’t: it says the curse wasn’t broken. The original text says “until a young man to fight against evils like him comes again to this world, Transylvanians will keep praying forever.” Which I guess you could assume means that something went wrong and the curse still exists, but it could also be taken as a general “there’s no cool badass vampire hunter guy to kill any other general threats, so we hope another one comes along”. So, again, it’s so extremely vague.

So far the first and the second don’t really have all that much different as far as implications go: Simon beat Dracula but he died.

So what about the third ending (red sky)? Would it shock you if I said there’s not much difference from the text of the first ending? It’s essentially just another eulogy text with nice things to say about him. It says “Simmon Belmont put an eternal period to the legend of Dracula” (yes the Japanese version says Simmon lol it happens), which is something we know isn’t true because well more games got made later. Also because Dracula’s hand pops out of the ground afterwards! Which is hard to say the meaning of, is it just a teaser like “to be continued” or is it actually meaning that Dracula wasn’t put down properly and will be back really soon? Because that still is in line with things since yeah Drac did kinda sorta come back early in Harmony of Dissonance. Anyway— But it’s just another way of saying “he killed Dracula” and probably “he ended the curse”. The last section is just “his blood and sweat have penetrated into the ground of Transylvania and will bring us full-blown flowers with happiness in next spring”. Which is, again, just a really pretty, poetic way of saying “we’re never gonna forget this guy”. And again, this ending never outright says if he lives or dies!

Which is so!!!!! Weird!!!!!!!!!!! Why have multiple endings in a game if they’re all so vague that they’re almost completely interchangeable and can all be argued to be the ending of the game? You could genuinely make an argument for each of the endings being the canon ending and it would affect essentially nothing. They’re so vague to the point that a lot of people assume that they were mixed up at some point in development, which I find unlikely coming from the dev team of the guy said to want his games to be a cinematic experience. But it’s so strange! Why!?!?!

But I think that this vagueness and sense of idk how to put it— um ya know when something builds something up to get you all excited and convinced it’ll go one way and then it pulls the rug out from under you? Like when it’s set up to where it feels like the protagonist is finally going to get something and then it just doesn’t happen completely unceremoniously? Like a hope crushing twist?

Idk what I mean is, to me, it feels completely intentional. It feels to me like the game is just ramping up the tension and the suspense and the dread just to cut it off with vague, bittersweet endings that just seem to imply sad things and don’t sit right. It’s like as if the game wants you to get the first ending, see that it’s really gloomy, try to figure out the game more and get the second ending, see that that one outright says he’s dead, then try to get something better only to run into another awkward seemingly negative ending and a realization that you can’t do anything about it.

And I was thinking about this again a bit ago and realized that it really fits with the rest of Simon’s story. Simon kinda has this general “hero goes to save the day” plot in the first one with some slight mention of Christopher before him and the fact that this is a clan and a repeating 100 year Dracula cycle right? But things go wrong and he gets cursed and presumably either struggles to figure out what to do or just puts it off for like 6 ish years. Add the general vibes of “will I ever be as good as my ancestors?” and repeating themes of being alone and then compare that with Dracula’s Curse that comes out not long later and this game is suddenly the most “power of friendship” “seeing the good in people” “together we can overcome this” kind of story in the whole series and it hit me: Simon feels like a subversion of the lone hero trope. Like this super uplifting, unlikely band of heroes story coming out right after the solitude if it were personified as a 1600s vampire hunter story feels so so so so important to me. And then The Adventure and Belmont’s Revenge come out and what are they about? Christopher goes into the castle alone and something goes wrong! And I’ve noticed how other Belmonts and protagonists in later games get companions or friends or helpers or somebody else, and oh boy does that make how alone Simon is that much more noticeable.

It just all comes together in a messed up way. I really feel like Simon dies in all of these endings. And I didn’t even get into weird symbolism discussion lol—

And maybe this is just me looking too hard into an old game from a modern used to stories in games being detailed perspective, but idk man, I love the Simon’s Quest because it never fails to baffle me. Honestly so much of Simon’s Quest genuinely haunts me (affectionate), like I’ll just be sitting around and think of another possible answer to something and it’ll end up just as vague and full of holes as any other speculation, it’s wild. This game will have you sitting around looking for answers only to consistently run into dead ends with sad or nonexistent implications. I hope any of this makes sense, this game drives me insane I love it debating replaying and overthinking it again hmmmmmmm—

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

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

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

Hi

flint's look to silver when he escorts him to the beach and he just... walks on and kisses madi. he's bittersweet. he's uneasy. he's a man being reminded once again that he's lost every single one of his loves. that silver might share his darkness, but it's not the only thing he has. he has madi, and loves her, while he can watch from the sidelines knowing he has no place of that kind in silver's heart.