#there's so many ships i love though it was hard to chose | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

harrystylesfan2686 · 6 months

Text

Pieces Part 3

Pairing: Azriel x Reader

Summary: the aftermath of the break up has different effects on both, Azriel and Reader.

A/N: yall I'm sick🥲 the updates might be late but I'll try to post as much as possible. Hope you like this one!

Pieces Masterlist

○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●

It's been one month.

One month of Healing.

When azriel left, I told myself that I will not contact him until I'm ready. Doesn't matter how much I'm missing him or wanting him. I will not talk to him until I know I won't take him back the second I see him again.

I gave myself two days. Two days to sulk all I wanted. I spent the whole time crying and feeling miserable about myself. Before Az left at least, I wasn't by myself. At least I saw him once a day.

Now? Nothing.

I am totally alone. His absence hit me Hard. Everything I saw, almost brought me to my knees.

The kitchen where we would make dinner together, laughing and joking with each other that many times ended with us covered in flour and syrup.

The couch where we would sit cuddling and talking until we fell asleep, always waking up with strained muscles.

His office where he would sit on his chair in front of his desk, writing out reports and whatnot while I sit in his armchair reading my book. Just enjoying each others company and occasionally taking breaks to make out on the very deck, and then some.

After those dreadful days though, I called Feyre and Mor and had a very much needed girls night. We took out a wine bottle and I spilled everything to them. My mind was too drunk to think my feelings about Elain might offend Feyre but she genuinely felt sad for me and embarrassed about her sister. The poor girl even apologised to my about Elain's behavior to which I immediately told her it wasn't her fault.

When I told them how lonely it got being alone in a big house like this, they suggested maybe I should get a job or something to keep my mind distracted and promised that they'll visit me often. So I did juat that.

I found a part time job at a local library. I have to admit, I'm really enjoying it. I'm the second assistant to the sweetest lady, Hilda, who owns the shop. I don't do much, just help her in small things like adjusting books on self or helping in shipping books out or in. Layla, the first assistant, handles most of the work around the shop. My job is basically doing what she asks of me. The salary isn't much but I don't care because it's never been about money.

The first week was very hard. Everyday after I came home, the silence felt like a slap on the face, reminding me of everything I lost.

But, slowly, I became comfortable with it. Now it's doesn't hurt me as it did before.

There were many times when I think of Azriel, tears filled my eyes, but I never let them free. I sucked them in and did anything else that didn't made me cry, like taking baths, baking my favorite chocolate brownies, reading in front of the fire place while drinking hot coco or calling my friends to take me shopping.

And as time went. I started to heal. I started to feel good, happier with myself. And without even realizing it, I started to love myself.

-☆-

Azriel

It's been one month.

One month of regretting everything I did to my mate.

I've spent my whole month sulking in this room, crying and regretting everytime I chose Elain over my wife. I haven't slept at all since I came here, just enough to keep me functioning. My appetite is gone. I don't eat unless Rhys come and force feeds me like I'm some baby.

I told Rhysand and Cassian everything the first morning i stayed here. Which earned me a flick to head by Cassian and a very disappointed look from Rhys. Even though they didn't give me any scolding(which I very much deserved), the flick and expression said enough.

Rhys has refrained me of any work, handling it himself or having someone else do it. While I have been sitting around here and hating myself. It seems like even my mind has declared itself an enemy, showing me memories of everytime I dismissed Y/N and hurt her in any way at most random times, cutting a deeper cut in my heart everytime.

"Hey Az, I was thinking if we could go out for dinner tonight? There is this new amazing restaurant I saw while walking near Sidra. I really want to try it." She told me as I put on my coat, ready to go.

"I can't, I have a mission for today. Rhys told me it's important so I can't skip. We'll go some other time. Okay?"

"Ok."

I could hear the excitement in her voice when she asked me and the hurt when I rejected her and promised to go another time. The time never came. She never asked again. And I never noticed.

"Az, are you awake?" She whispers in the dead of night. Both of us sleeping on the bed. My back to her, hoping to fall asleep quickly because I have early training tomorrow.

Cassian is spending time with Nesta more, so Rhys has told me to go to an illyrian camp to check how things are going. I have to wake and go there early to catch them off guard to see what's truly going on.

I can't do that if Y/N doesn't let me sleep.

I didn't answer her that night, hoping if i dont respond, she'll think im asleep and doesnt call me again. She really didnt call me again. I prioritized my sleep over her. Her voice sounded so small. She needed me. And I didn't care.

"So, I saw a really cute baby in garden today and..." I drone out her babbling and try to quickly I can get out of here, I promised Elain to help in her garden today. She'll be disappointed if I show up late.

"Az? You're listening to me right?" She suddenly questions, I clear my throat and answer a small, of course, she nods and takes a deep breath, not saying anything anymore. I sign in relief of the silence.

I put my head in my hands and tug hard on my hair, wanting to feel hurt, hurt the kind that she clearly felt and I didn't care.

I hate myself more and more as memories flash through my mind. I can't even cry at this point. I wished she'd hit me when we fought. Slaped and paunched some sense into me. I don't blame her at all for not talking to me. Gods, I wouldn't even blame her if she left me. I deserve it.

How do I fix this?

○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●

Taglist: @cleverzonkwombatsludge @crazylokonugget @going-through-shit @wallacewillow0773638 @kalulakunundrum @cat-or-kitten

#acotar fandom #acotar #acotar fanfiction #acotar angst #azriel #azriel angst #azriel x you #azriel x reader #pieces

459 notes · View notes

crazydaymycrazyway · 3 months

Text

Song Taewon is an amazing character. But I kind of hate him. I mean, I get where his actions come from. Like, in the end it's for the safety of Yoojin. I hated how obsessively protective Yoohyun was of Yoojin. But it mellowed down somehow, and ultimately, he learns how to be protective without having to think if chaining up his brother. And Yoojin was also able to convince him to change his ways. But this man, Song Taewon. I understand how he is afraid of himself and hates himself amd think he's a monster and all, and I do feel for him. I kind of understand him too, like where it's all coming from. But like, it's for your own good so let me just choke you so that you know how dangerous S classes can be, and by giving you this trauma, you'll stay away from them. I understand there's a power imbalance between Yoojin and Yoohyun, and the S class brother can easily abuse the frail one. Taewon's right on that part. But his actions somehow make me think that he wants Yoojin to stay away and be afraid of his younger brother. Like, think about Yoojin's wishes here? Man knows how dangerous it is and he still chose to take the risk, because he knows it's worth it. And it's not like he was fairing any good without Yoohyun anyway. Drinking and smoking away, depression amd stuff (Eventhough it was mostly because of Yoohyun's later actions)

Song Taewon's like, lemme reduce the rank of your skill and proceeds to reduce the one skill that keeps him mentally sane? Like dude, do you know how many nightmares and trauma that fear resistance helps to keep at bay? I know he doesn't know it. But still. He did it so that Yoojin wouldn't come near the S classes and also so that the S classes won't salivate over his doubling skill. He felt the power and exhilaration and he liked it, it was addictive and he got afraid of it because it's hard to control his desire. But dude, it's Yoojin's own skill and he decides what to do with it. I understand if he was going around and murdering everybody or something. But he's literally what? Helping so that dungeon raids become easier and the society could be more at ease? Uprooting the association's corrupt parts? He's using his skills as he pleases without negatively affecting the world. And like, you come and do this sh*t? Who is he to decide this? For Yoojin's protection? Well congrats man, you just made his life more miserable. More nightmares, more trauma and anxiety. Yet he continues to do what he does, this time struggling even more. As if what he faced isn't already enough. You use your skill on another guy for his 'protection' but he cleary doesn't want you to, and you forced it on him. Like, dipsh*t, where's a person's freedom of choice here? What if the skill he deranked was one that reduces the pain he feels and what if Yoojin had some kind of chronic pain? Well, your decision to 'protect' him will cause him to go through hell! Isn't he a guy with self control? Can't he think?! I hated this about him.

But I do understand where he comes from. Doesn't make me hate him any less. It might've been the paranoia or something. And he might've thought it to be the best course of action.

But dude, if I had a dream of being a model, and my dad goes and says it's dangerous for you and there will be creepy people staring at you so you can't be one and forcefully make me chose another path, saying it's for my own protection, am I supposed to feel good? What about what I want to do? My freedom of choice? You can't just force me to do something I don't want to. It's not like I'm causing the society any harm by pursuing my dreams? (Just an example)

Song Taewon's a civil servant, he has duties and a very important role in the stability if the society. I understand. I also understand the inner turmoil he faces. But I hate him.

His dynamic with Yoojin and Sung Hyunjae is quite amusing though. I'm not shipping the three if them, I will never. But it is cute, like I'm introverted and unworthy of love, I'm a monster and the other two go aigoo, who's my little monster, my cuddly bug, you're so sweet, so big and intimidating but so cute. It's funny.

But I hate him to guts. Just my opinion though. I think his character is intresting and a little funny, but that's it.

#the s classes that i raised #song taewon #han yoojin #sung hyunjae #my thoughts on song taewon's actions #based on the latest episode of the manga #i don't like him #just my opinion #his dunamics woth the jinjae couple is funny #i understands him #a little #but i still hate him #I'm ranting cuz I'm frustrated #a rant

60 notes · View notes

justsomeoneintoomanyfandoms · 6 months

Text

Headcanons for @chantillymoon

This was really fun to do! I am currently up to episode 261 of One Piece (Water 7) so please keep that in mind while reading. Because I haven't officially met Brook yet, all of my headcanons are based on what I've read in fanfics and a bit of research so hopefully I'm not too far off.

Platonic headcanons on the rest of the Straw Hat crew can be found here!

Fandom: One Piece

Characters: Brook and Usopp x gn! Reader (separate and platonic)

I see Brook as someone who’s always got a song stuck in his head. And he’s going to make it everyone’s problem. But is it really a problem when he actually has the voice for it? Yes. Yes, it is. Especially when you’re listening to him humming the same part of that one song for the tenth time that day.

At the same time, he’s great to have around if you’ve got a song stuck in your head. Brook knows so many songs that you’d be hard pressed finding one he couldn’t sing for you. And if he doesn’t know the song, he’s pretty good at picking up tunes quickly.

Have sore muscles? Those bony fingers are great for digging into twisted muscles and sore spots. Brook may have gone through a lot because of his Devil Fruit but he’s glad he can do something with it to help his friends.

He’s got a surprisingly good eye for fashion…if he had eyes! In all seriousness, please take him with you next time you need to go shopping for clothes. Between him and Nami, you’ll get back to the ship with a whole new wardrobe full of amazing clothes that suit you perfectly.

Whether you’re quiet or talkative, Brook loves just being in your presence. If you’re on the quiet side, he likes the tranquillity of sitting in companionable silence with someone. And if you’re talkative, he enjoys listening to everything you have to say.

Similarly, Brook’s great to talk to if you want to get anything off your chest. He’s a good listener and won’t spread around anything you’ve told him unless he thinks it could harm the crew (even then, he’d most likely keep it secret for a while). He also gives really good advice.

Brook missed out on a lot during his time in the Florian Triangle so he enjoys having a younger friend to help bring him up to speed. That being said, he’s an absolute menace with the way he mixes slag from his era with modern day sayings. Think something along the lines of “oh, they know their onions, they're no noob” and "ok you cad, time to catch these hands".

If you want to learn how to play an instrument or sing, Brook is more than happy to help. He’s had decades of practice and, even though he’s a bit rusty at explaining things to others, he’s patient and dedicated to teaching you.

Everyone has that one artist friend. And Usopp definitely falls into that category. He’s constantly got a sketchbook with him and will draw anything and everything. If you’re also into art, you’ll definitely bond over that.

Will absolutely hid behind you in battle. Whether you’re taller than him or not, he feels comfortable enough around you to chose you as his hiding spot.

Makes up stories about your bravado and wild adventures as well. While the other straw hats might react badly to Usopp telling stories about them, even if they are meant to improve their reputation, he hopes you will react differently.

In the same manner, Usopp would love to practice his pre-battle speeches with you and get some feedback. He’s a theatre kid at heart but he needs someone he trusts to work on his lines with. As one of his closest friends (and someone hopefully less judgmental than Nami), you fit that description.

He is also the perfect person to tell you stories about the other straw hats, especially if you joined later. He’s an entertainer and, even if he exaggerates his role in events, you’re able to piece together their adventures to date.

Much like Brook, Usopp has a good eye for fashion, but more from the perspective of figuring out what colours and patterns go together. If you’re struggling to put together an outfit, he’s more than happy to give you his two cents worth.

Gossip buddies! If you like gossip or have a way of knowing things about people, you, Usopp, and Nami are the designated “gossip squad” of the straw hats. Usopp is always a good source of information, even if he tends to embellish sometimes.

If you have long hair and don’t feel like tying it up, Usopp should be your first port of call. Sure, Sanji’s amazing with styling hair but he’s usually busy in the kitchen and Nami and Robin usually wear theirs down. Usopp has the free time and skills to help you out. Fair warning though, he may get carried away by his creative tendencies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey, did you enjoy this? If you like my writing, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi page! This will allow me to make some money off my writing, something I enjoy doing.

ko-fi.com/justsomeoneintoomanyfandoms

Important Note: Please only donate if you are financially able to. If you are currently in a position where you can't donate, a like, comment or reblog will mean just as much.

#writing #fanfic #headcanons #headcanon request #request #one piece #soul king brook #usopp #one piece x reader #platonic #brook x reader #usopp x reader

70 notes · View notes

lovelenivy · 7 months

Text

you know what hate crimes md enjoyers, idk if this has been done before but i wanna start like a little tag game: i wanna know your favorite seasons in order, what you think is the best episode each season, your personal favorite ep from each season, any honorable mentions if you have them, and your least favorite/worst episode in your opinion. i'd also like to have you sort the main characters/fellows from favorite to least favorite, plus tell me your favorite ship (and optionally, a ship you enjoy and think is underrated)! feel free to toss in any explanations for why you chose what you did. (: kinda long, but oh well – feel like it'll be fun.

i'll go first (so you can see the format) – listing seasons from the best imo, to the worst, and the episodes.

Seasons:

1. Season 3

Best episode: one day, one room (?)

Favorite episode: merry little christmas

Honorable mention(s): cane and able, words and deeds, family, needle in a haystack

Least favorite episode: que sera sera (?)

it was hard to pick the best bc i'm biased towards merry little christmas, but i don't know if it would be the best of the season exactly. as for que sera sera, nothing really wrong with it but honestly i had a hard time picking a least favorite too. great season – to me it's like the classic house season.

2. Season 5

Best: birthmarks

Favorite: under my skin

Honorable mention(s): the softer side, last resort, both sides now, painless

Least favorite: big baby (?)

i literally just barely remember big baby compared to the rest, i think, no matter how many times i see it. amazing season though, honestly so up there with s3 for me that it became a tough choice.

3. Season 6

Best: help me

Favorite: wilson

HM(s): the down low, broken (part 1 & 2), baggage, lockdown

Least favorite: epic fail, remorse (?)

help me is such an amazing episode, it always makes me cry. epic fail is extremely annoying tho and idk why, like after i watched it more than once or twice i started having a hard time rewatching it. and honestly every time i watch remorse i get pissed off on thirteen's behalf and it's just not a fun feeling. not a bad episode though. i know a lot of people don't like s6 but i love it.

4. Season 2

Best: euphoria (part 1 & 2)

Favorite: no reason

HM(s): skin deep, distractions, hunting, clueless

Least favorite: sleeping dogs lie

i recently rewatched euphoria and it's so fucking good i legitimately cried. sleeping dogs lie isn't a bad episode, it just is frustrating to watch for many reasons. another classic house season.

5. Season 4

Best: house's head/wilson's heart

Favorite: house's head/wilson's heart, 97 seconds

HM(s): mirror mirror, you don't want to know, frozen, living the dream

Least favorite: the right stuff

nothing really wrong with the least favorite – it was honestly a tough choice. also i couldn't pick a favorite, it was so tough. i honestly really like this season despite how short and different it is.

6. Season 1

Best: detox

Favorite: detox

HM(s): three stories, histories, control, mob rules

Least favorite: heavy, everybody lies (pilot)

the pilot being orange just makes me laugh the whole time so it's hard to watch, and chase's insane fatphobia in heavy is just disturbing, which is the only reason it's a least favorite. for the best i was torn between three stories and detox, but i think detox is better. s1 is ranked so low bc of general weirdness.

7. Season 8

Best: the c-word, everybody dies

Favorite: the c-word

HM(s): dead & buried, twenty vicodin, nobody's fault, post mortem

Least favorite: we need the eggs

we need the eggs isn't bad, the case is just ??? weird and kinda sad tbh idk. i haven't rewatched the c-word yet but i remember it fondly, so i couldn't really choose a best episode. is picking the finale kinda dumb? maybe, idk. i like a lot of episodes from season 8 surprisingly, like most of them, but it's so different from the previous seasons with cuddy absent and the late addition of two new main characters that it can't be any higher for me.

8. Season 7

Best: after hours

Favorite: after hours, out of the chute

HM(s): unwritten, bombshells, the dig, moving on, fall from grace

Least Favorite: two stories

god i really can't stand rewatching two stories. idk what it is but the fucking kids that house gets stuck with in the principal's office are so annoying ??? probably my least fave episode in all of house. but despite how s7 is at the bottom, it did have some great episodes. just wasn't my favorite season at all, especially as someone who isn't really into huddy.

Characters:

from favorite to least favorite of the main characters –

1. House (of course)

2. Wilson

3. Thirteen

4. Cuddy

5. Chase

6. Foreman

7. Kutner

8. Cameron

9. Amber

10. Taub

11. Park

12. Adams

13. Masters

favorite ship: hilson (house / wilson)

underrated ship: thirteen / cameron, or chase / foreman

Tags:

anybody that wants to participate! i know it's kind of long so no sweat if you don't want to do it. i'm also indecisive so i had trouble picking episodes lmao

#house md #hate crimes md #hilson #gregory house #james wilson #lisa cuddy #remy hadley #eric foreman #robert chase #allison cameron #house #tag game #house md tag game

58 notes · View notes

makima-s-most-smile · 10 months

Text

Trigun Maximum 10.4

It is time…

Trigun Ultimate: 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 Trigun Maximum: 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1, 5.2, 6.1, 6.2, 7.1, 7.2, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 9.1, 9.2, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.5

07: Wolfwood

Farewell, my friend.

Fitting, that we do not see Wolfwood here, but little Nicholas. Because in the end even though he was aged up and tortured, this child remained in him. This is his true self. The lost little boy that felt himself as a burden to all and that shouldered the responsibility of the wellbeing of the place he loved most. The lost little boy that cared too much in a world that cares too little. The morals of this little kid made Wolfwood the man he is today, through all the torture and everything, they persevered. This is the best of humanity.

Wolfwood has been an awkward idiot even in childhood. He cannot deal with open affection and becomes shy. It is sad and cute at the same time.

Is that a young Chapel? How much did he age in those six years? Damn!

The tricks the cult used to get children. It was a trap and it got Wolfwood. He left to become a tradesman… And a tradesman he did become, just not the kind of tradesman everyone imagined. Wolfwood was a great brother to many and they loved him.

Even if confetti is selfmade, we know they didn't have much ressources there. It surely was not cheap to produce it, even if it was selfmade.

How old does Wolfwood look there, maybe 10? Maybe even younger. The timeline is really not something we should look to close up. Nightow went by vibes, that’s all we need to know.

Like I said so often, the orphanage is Wolfwood’s paradise. The place where he was fed, could sleep and felt safe. He didn’t require anything more and that says much about his living situation beforehand. Much like Rem for Vash, it is an ideal for Wolfwood, a perfect place, something that has to be protected from the reality of the world. This ideal has been his saving grace. It made him survive not only Chapel and the torture, but it gave him reason to go on when his guilt became too much. If Wolfwood is truly devoted to something, it is this.

Wolfwood’s sorrowful eyes… He looks younger here. And softer. The softest Wolfwood we have ever seen. Close behind the Wolfwood that let down his guard the night before he brought Vash to the ark and they relaxed a last time together.

Even after all he did and all he accomplished, Wolfwood feels undeserving for any forgiveness or any welcome. If Chapel has achieved anything then it is that Wolfwood truly has no self love. Wolfwood was hypercritical with himself before the cult got his clutches around him, but I have no doubt that the things he went through have worsened his self worth massively.

He wants to be kept in memory as the innocent, but responsible, big brother Nico and not the bloodied gunman he has become. He wants to keep their innocence and the illusion that somewhere their beloved big brother is still out there. He wants to protect them one last time, this time from the grief that comes with his death.

But, Wolfwood is a complex character. If the kiddos knew, would they really go away that easily? Wouldn’t they try to make him come with them? Being either forced to watch Wolfwood die on the way to Home or having to see Wolfwood breaking down, because he cannot keep up the masquerade anymore. He cannot be vulnerable, especially not in his last moments.

I wish we would get more info, does Wolfwood chose to stay because he knows he would not get to the main ship for help/he knows that his body breaking apart is not treatable or has he ‘just’ given up. I think it is the first, I just wish for some hard facts. But neither of the two lovely calamities left are really able to talk directly about the elephant in the room. Vash is so desperate.

By not addressing that Wolfwood is actively dying, by trying to push Wolfwood to leave with the others, they both avoid one thing… The helplessness. This is Wolfwood’s choice, so it is okay, so it is bearable.

There is one really big headcannon that I have for the case that either Wolfwood decided to stay there even though there may have been a possibility to save Wolfwood or that Vash may have been able to heal Wolfwood with or without a cost of his lifespan, but Wolfwood denied either of it. And it boils down back to agency. Vash is so much about having none/giving others the full agency, that he cannot force Wolfwood to do something he either doesn’t have the energy to or doesn’t want to due to the cost. Not only is that one of Vash’ biggest modus operandi, reacting instead of acting, but here it is something more. It is about Wolfwood’s agency. By now it is absolutely clear that the only true choice Wolfwood had in his life was to die for the things he loved or lose himself. Vash cannot rob Wolfwood of his agency. Not when he finally regained some in his last moments. (That said, I do not judge any peeps who use Vash overriding Wolfwood’s wants and healing him or bringing him to safety. One of my most favourite breaks-my-heart-art piece is the one where Wolfwood awakes with golden hair on the couch, because Vash has given him all his life. And Vash sits lifeless next to him. I have so many feels about that one.(by popular request a link to the pic, damn had I dive deep into my bookmarks))

Neither of them really talk to each other. But from what they know of each other, it says more than words. Wolfwood, stressing that he is a gun-ho-gun, a killer, an assassin and a traitor to Vash, even seemingly proving it with the coins, Wolfwood wants to keep Vash from grieving. Vash does not need to grieve for Wolfwood. Wolfwood is a shitty person. There is no last-minute discussion to be made about it. Vash accepts the plea behind it. He disagrees with Wolfwood. But he helps Wolfwood to keep the illusion up that they aren’t that close, that Wolfwood doesn’t need to feel sorrow for leaving Vash, because their connection is not real. They both comfort each other by not talking about it.

Personally, I am so sad, that even in his death, Wolfwood is all about others, about lessening the pain that comes with it, that he cannot be vulnerable and just grieve his future. I am sad for Vash, too, but Vash will live on, for the better and worse.

That’s… Wolfwood had no goals for himself. He has always been the protector. He never imagined a future beyond that. He had his purpose and that has been fulfilled. Not completely, since Knives is still there, but he has done all he could. He has done what a human could do. And I understand that Wolfwood cannot regret his decision. It is too intrinsically intertwined with his identity and self-perception.

And again, Wolfwood cannot bear vulnerability. Neither can Vash. Which ends in this silly exchange. But, truly, if Vash didn’t react that way, I believe both would have broken down.

The last time? The last time was when Vash got drunk in the bar with the two outsiders and Wolfwood was persuaded by the nice granny to let his guard down and drink a glass, too. It was the talk where One-Eye stressed that “you’ll always end up alone and be alone.” Damn…

Birbs. Nicholas can finally enjoy his freedom. For a moment at least. For a moment he is free like a bird. The struggle is over. He is already dead. There is nothing to fight for him anymore.

It confused me. This sentence at the moment. Two possible interpretations for me: 1. Wolfwood still tries to fake more distance between them to make it hurt less and/or 2. Wolfwood truly wishes for a future for Vash in which he can smile with a full heart.

But even Wolfwood cannot hold the soft feelings in. Not all of Vash’ smiles were empty. Many smiles that Wolfwood saw and/or caused were real ones. I read this as Wolfwood trying to tell Vash that he knows that he was someone important to Vash. And now Vash cannot bear it. Because he is about to lose Wolfwood forever.

(What ruins the mood a bit for me is that I cannot not laugh at the funky pose of Wolfwood. He really was like: I am a twister!)

This is the first time I saw Brad in the background. He must think they are all crazy! He doesn’t know.

Wolfwood always had a home. They love him. They accept him as he is. They know that the bloodied man is their beloved big brother. Wolfwood can pass with the knowledge that he is accepted into paradise with bloodied hands and all.

Wolfwood cries. The man that so stoically had been in control of himself, that has been so incredibly avoidant of even an ounce of vulnerability, cries openly. Most likely for the first time in years. We have never seen him cry in the manga, we have seen him in shock, in despair, we have seen him shout out in pain, but he never cried.

And with that realisation… I cannot say how to interpret this scene. Comes the realisation of this love with a wave of grief because he cannot be with them, that he has no future to enjoy together, that he loves them and cannot tell them? Is it a last surge against the inevitable? A cry for mercy to the absent God? Does he wish to stay with Vash and his family?

And his bell tolls. Wolfwood has died.

I do not believe that Wolfwood would regret his choice. He fulfilled his life goal. He may regret leaving Vash, he may regret not having had a future or more time. But the one thing he can be sure of is that Vash will take over his burden and fight for their future. They are not defenseless. He can rest. For me, the smile does not mean he died happy or without any regrets. But he died not alone. And that is enough for him.

And Vash stays, again. Vash avoided any real connection to humans. Even those he called his family always felt artificial for me. Wolfwood was the first human since Rem that got under Vash' walls and got into his heart. And I truly believe that other than with Rem, with Wolfwood Vash sometimes wasn't aware of the for Vash so obvious difference between plants and humans.

Wolfwood’s death… My feelings are divided and are all over the place. It is handled with such care and the consequences of his death are felt so deeply through the narrative, to which I say more in a later volume. He wasn’t alone, he was with his best friend. He didn’t die in a fight, but out of it at a place he could choose. And even better, he got a very clear message that his family loves him, even if he cannot do it himself. It is one of the most peaceful deaths imaginable for this pained soul.

But at the same time, it is so unfair! Wolfwood sacrificed his whole life for the safety of innocents, he bloodied his hands again and again and endured so much and all he got was a death that wasn’t the worst. He got the knowledge that he is welcome home. He gets the knowledge that his loved ones are safe for now and that his friend will try his best to keep it that way. But he never gets to experience it truly. He never gets to enjoy the fruits of his labour. He didn’t want much. He didn’t even really dream of anything. But if he could have a place to rest, to eat and to be safe, he wouldn’t want more.

I think part of my reaction stems from me being from an individualistic society. We learn that you put the work in and receive your reward, that selfless behaviour gains you a reward. Look no further than the fairy tales that are used to teach Europeans like me morals, The Star Money is one that fits this idea. But Wolfwood as a person did not get a personal, selfish reward. He got death. And that makes it so painful. His death wasn’t for nothing, but his life feels so cut short. He just started the path of forgiving himself. He just realised that he wasn’t alone anymore. His development was not at an end. But what Nightow wanted to say with him in the story was. The difference between the narrative and the character. And that is upsetting, while still being completely okay.

Taking in consideration that Nightow comes from a collectivist society, I feel that the outcome that Wolfwood was able to save his home, his group, even at the cost of his life, is meaningful in a way I may not completely get. Wolfwood will live on, in the actions and life of the people he saved, he will live on in Livio, he will live on in Vash. But I see the abused kid that could not be saved. The abused kid that protected others because he wasn’t protected. That is the tragedy for me.

Maybe, adding to that, on a personal note, I am a Millennial. The world that was promised to me was built up on lies and is crumbling under the greed of a few people. But media says it is my generation's fault for *looks at today’s paper* eating avocado instead of diamonds. Parents being absent due to work, being alone and self reliant, maybe the oldest kid that has to take care of the siblings instead of the parents, those things were more a normal state than a rare occurrence, when I was young. With the wars, the crash from ‘08 and the shit that came after it, the existential dread is real and the hopelessness, too. I can only try to lessen the impact for the people who come after me and try my best to endure. And Wolfwood’s whole character vibes with my experience. And on this personal note, that the character who cared so much and tried so hard could not be saved… I want hope. I need hope. In this day and age more than ever.

08: Final Parting

What’s more to say? It is final. In spite of all of his powers, Vash was unable to save Wolfwood’s life, even though he was able to protect Wolfwood’s treasure and was a big part of Wolfwood freeing himself out of the cage that Chapel put him in. It’s just so damn tragic that after all he has been through, his freedom lies in the way he was able to part.

The denial, the looming panic and then Vash laying out the facts, short, precisely and with a deadpan face. This scene is just so... It hurts. Wolfwood's death is final. It drives it home.

There is not a small part in Vash that may despise Livio right now. It won’t keep. From Vash’ perspective, Wolfwood entrusted Livio and the whole orphanage to him, the future as a whole, but especially the future of his loved ones.

Razlo has been a brat, but Livio seems also extremely young. I do not think he ever truly believed Wolfwood would truly die and only now he starts to understand how much Wolfwood sacrificed to get Livio out of Chapel’s claws.

Vash not only protected Wolfwood’s body and Livio’s life, he protected the whole orphanage. Vash protected Wolfwood’s paradise from Knives’ laser.

And by reflecting Knives’ power back to their source, Vash declares war.

How does Knives do it? He is further and further gone the longer the story goes.

But not only that, what must that mean to Knives? His brother uses his so important lifeforce to not only spite Knives, he does it for the human Knives has sent out to betray Vash. This human has been somehow able to become more important to Vash than not only his life, but also his brother. A massive middle finger right in his face. And the worst part of it, Wolfwood is already dead. He cannot even take revenge upon him. Remember the two-face panel of Knives when he cause the fall? He drew blood with his thumbs over the left side of his face, the first panel here resembles this from the pose. Kinda as if Knives does his last step to complete and utter madness.

We know that Wolfwood came from a place of scarcity. Food is his love language or one of them. So it's fitting that both of the boys have memories with Wolfwood regarding this. Not only that, the memories shown are either the first meeting or the start of their journey together. Vash makes the food that Rem has made him and food that reminds him of Wolfwood.

I learned that food can be an important part of grief. You need to keep yourself fed and grief can be easily so overpowering that you cannot do it. But they must keep going on. So they eat.

The fucking third vial! You were a red herring for Wolfwood’s survival, a false counter. I despise you!

And this is a peace offering from Vash. I still believe that Vash is incredibly angry, but he understands why Livio was in that place. Remember Wolfwood, remember the man that was everything to me and that gave everything for you.

Wolfwood’s burden made him the man he was. It is just a fact.

And now it is Vash' burden. Vash takes over for Wolfwood and keeps going where Wolfwood couldn't. What a sad situation. When the only thing that binds you to your lost friend is the burden that he carried and that killed him in the end.

#trigunbookclub #trigun bookclub #trigun #trigun maximum 10.4 #I am done I ugly sobbed but I am done

84 notes · View notes

amorficzna · 13 days

Text

This has annoyed me enough that I need to speak out.

Gamers are, by most recent statistics, about 50/50 between men/women with other identities such as agender and non-binary people making up a small portion of that demographic (hard to say if it's because of generally lower rep, the representation in statistics, bad questioning, etc.)

Okay so anyway there's this thing going around BG3 that the most played origin is Gale and the most romanced character in Shadowheart ergo Gale romancing Shadowheart should make up the majority of the idk... Shipping? Rather than Astarion. And that this is not the case because of the "silent male majority" of gamers.

What male majority???

Even if you look back to the stats of US gamers from like 2008, women make up 40%??? Sure, this may vary from genre to genre, but DnD and RPGs are not a genre that women have been like, historically excluded from, unlike things like shooters where males are the majority (which is a whole other can of worms).

Also as a stats nerd it annoys me because Larian has given NO other information aside from what we've already seen, so you can't even make the assumption to begin with.

All we know is that 1.3 million players have COMPLETED the game, and around 500k players have CREATED a Gale origin (like, they could have just played the tutorial as Gale for all we know). Two very different things.

Removing the fact that players probably create multiple characters, this implies - extrapolating from the fact that 94% of players have created custom characters, and ~2 million players have created one of the origins - that there around about 30 MILLION PLAYERS!! Y'all cannot be surprised that Gale is "the most chosen origin" when origins have been chosen about 6% of the time!! And that only a fraction of those players would have chosen to romance Shadowheart! Like it's such a small fraction of players !!

For example, if even half of players that chose a Gale origin chose to romance Shadowheart, that's about 250,000 players out of 30,000,000 aka 0.83% - which is NOT a lot.

And y'all cannot tell me a good chunk of those Gale players did not want to live out their Bloodweave dreams while still having the full Astarion experience on the other end!!

Additionally, there is no data on the difference between chosen romances - for example, the actual difference in romance percentages between Shadowheart to all the way down to the lowest origin romance may be as low as 1% or less (just making this off the top of my head but I have worked in the games industry and with game data so this is totally plausible).

Like, the difference between a Karlach and Shadowheart romance or even a Shadowheart and Astarion romance may be way lower than you think, even though Astarion is not in the top 3 romanced companions. We have NO stats on the actual variable differences between these romances.

SO all that to say that this assumption removes a lot of variable data such as:

Most people probably playing as Tav. Just because Gale is the most played origin does not mean that there's a lot of people who did that in comparison to playing as Tav...

...and then assuming a correlation exists (ie. Gale origin = Shadowheart romance, or Shadowheart romance in mind means player will play as Gale) where one was never given in the first place.

Assumptions about gender identity of people who play as Gale.

Assumption of gender identity of people who romance Shadowheart. Like we all know the lesbians love Shadowheart and I cannot blame them.

Assumption of who primarily plays games like BG3 - something that absolutely cannot be assumed from pure player behavioral data. There's a reason that, generally, when doing user research studies, we pulled players based on their behaviors and not their demographics - it is more likely to give us actionable results that way.

A plethora of SO SO MANY OTHER THINGS.

And finally this annoys me because I love Galeheart and if ONLY it was as popular as y'all imagine it to be lmao.

This is kind of what annoys me about releasing data into the wild without raw numbers or specific definitions behind words being used.

People will make their own inferences without totally understanding the raw data as it is, or what was done to make us see the numbers we see, which is especially difficult in videogames when working with telemetry and hooks. These hooks have to be really specifically defined. If they're not, the data can be severely skewed. It also means you're working with very context-specific data (hence why they specify the "third act" romances in the OG data they shared, among other things).

Tl;dr stop making correlations where they don’t exist please. Games have been a space for everyone for a long time despite what bigots want us what to believe and the more we assume there is a “silent majority run by men” the more we feed into ideals and assumptions about gaming that are not necessarily true.

#anyway i know im late but im tired #statistics #are important #i love them #and its so easy to assume or mess them up #anyway #bg3 #gale #shadowheart #gale dekarios #baldur's gate 3

20 notes · View notes

starrrbakerrr · 3 months

Note

Just reread the books as an adult and I must say as an adult it’s actually really hard to be nice about Gale. As a kid I was trying to be balanced and nice about the love triangle but as a grown adult woman I’m like “I don’t agree with your politics and also if any guy treated any of my friends the way you treat Katniss, I would stage an intervention”. And also Katniss never smiles around him 😞

I'm also doing a reread right now because I finally got hard copies of the books! It's going very slowly though lol

I really don't remember my exact feelings about Gale when I first read the books (I was in 6th-7th grade), but I don't think I ever liked him. I also remember hating how the movies emphasized the love triangle when reading the books it was obviously always Peeta.

I reread the books last March and as an adult I picked up so much about him. I think when I was young I was mostly anti-Gale because I loved Peeta/Everlark so much, but rereading as an adult I'm really able to specify what I dislike about Gale. He's just so... annoying.

On his politics, I'm actually a teeny bit sympathetic towards Gale because I don't think all the responsibility for Prim's death should be wholly on him. The severing of Katniss/Gale's relationship is so much deeper than him killing her sister. It's a plot point and dialogue that's been misinterpreted because of the movies. I think the way they presented it cheapens the story and it cheapens why Katniss ultimately chose Peeta.

Regardless, I can't help but dislike Gale. It is how he approaches his relationship with Katniss for me, and as you said how he treats Katniss. Whenever he speaks I'm annoyed. What bugs me is the entitlement he feels he has to Katniss. And some things he says give me the ick.

Knowing there’s people legitimately ship Everthorne is wild to me like 😭

Thanks for the ask!

(below is a tangent on the anti-Gale rhetoric. It’s a defense of one moment I think his hate is a bit too unreasonable so read with caution i guess)

I saw someone say on Twitter that Gale should be vilified for saying that killing people isn't much different than killing animals, and I think that person missed the point of that part in the book. And as some who likes literary analysis outside of my personal feelings for characters and ships, I kinda love that Suzanne wrote this. The dialogue:

“Katniss, it’s just hunting. You’re the best hunter I know,” says Gale. “It’s not just hunting. They’re armed. They think,” I say. “So do you. And you’ve had more practice. Real practice,” he says. “You know how to kill.” “Not people,” I say. “How different can it be, really?” says Gale grimly. The awful thing is that if I can forget they’re people, it will be no different at all.

In the movie, the line sounds brutal and violent and I think part of it could be delivery. In the book, to me, Gale doesn’t say that with confidence or with the belief that humans are dispensable, but “grimly.” And in the movie we don’t get Katniss’s inner thought that even though what Gale said was callous it’s valid because this is the world they're living in - a world that is violent and where Capitol citizens don’t see children as anything other then prey. These characters are extremely desensitized to violence and death. In Catching Fire, Peeta and Katniss curl up on the couch with a mug of warm milk to watch Haymitch's games like it’s a movie.

I think there are a lot of moments to dislike or have distaste for Gale, because I have many. But some of his hate goes overboard and people mostly on twitter and tiktok bc they see the movies as canon solely put the blame on an 18 y/o with immense trauma instead of the adult leaders who have never experienced life like him - Coin is from D13, Plutarch and Snow are from the Capitol.

And to call Gale worse than Snow and to excuse a lot of Snow’s actions, even making shit up about Snow like he cared and gave genuine condolences to Katniss about Prim, or say he didn’t murder Lucy Gray as a defense against Billy Taupe like the murder attempt isn’t just as bad, is seriously gross. I’m kinda glad tbosas and hunger games hype has died down on Twitter because the takes were increasingly getting worse and more illogical.

#anti gale hawthorne #but also #gale hawthorne #text #ask

23 notes · View notes

litgreadersroom · 5 months

Text

How To Use AO3 Tags

Want to find a fic but have no idea how to get started? Are you writing a fic and don't know how to tag it? Don't worry, you aren't alone. Tagging is hard and people don't always follow the same rules. But hopefully this will give you a place to start!

Relationships

Character/MC: romantic or sexual pairing with the fic's main character, may be named or referred to by pronouns or MC

Character/OC or Character/Original Character: romantic or sexual pairing with a named individual created by the author

Character/Character/OC: romantic or sexual relationship containing three individuals all involved with each other (note: this is not the correct tag for a love triangle, in that case, both relationships should be tagged separately)

Character/Reader: romantic or sexual pairing with an unnamed main character (you or Y/N), meant to feel as though the person reading the fic is in the story

Character & MC: platonic or familial relationships with the fic's main character, may be named or unnamed and referred to using pronouns or MC

Character & OC: platonic or familial relationships with a named character created by the author

Character & Reader: platonic or familial pairing with an unnamed main character (you or Y/N), meant to feel as though the person reading the fic is in the story

General: there are either no relationships of note in the fic or the fic does not focus on any relationships

Multi: often used for one-shot series or multiple POVs, should be used when there are 3+ pairings essential to the fic

The big question is always 'how many relationships should I tag in my fic?' Especially in villa fics, there are multiple pairings and the relationship tag can get convoluted. There is no set answer to the question, but the general rule of thumb is that if it's not a key plot point of the fic, don't add it as a relationship tag. In a villa fic, there are going to be multiple relationships, but other than the main pairing, tagging those relationships doesn't add anything. There's nothing more disappointing than looking for a fic for a specific ship only to learn that it's a background pairing you rarely see. This includes one-off sexual relationships and villa couplings that aren't romantic (and if you want to include those, additional tags are your best friend!).

Rating

General: very rare in LITG, but basically, any fic you'd be okay with a child reading

Teen and Up: fluffy, romantic fics with NO smut

Mature: implies the presence of sex or violence without going into detail

Explicit: detailed description of sex or violence

Not Rated: author did not select a rating, could be any of the above ratings

A lot of people get tripped up on the difference between M and E. When it doubt, think about the envelop analogy: a mature fic tells you that the character sent a letter in an envelope. An explicit fic goes into detail about how the character did it including describing putting the letter into the envelope, the taste of it as they licked the seal, etc. These lines can blur when it comes to chaptered fics; some authors may chose to rate a fic as mature but include explicit scenes, so be sure to check the additional tags.

Archive Warnings

Graphic Descriptions of Violence: gory and descriptive violence, it is up to the author as to what exactly falls under this category

Major Character Death: one of the main characters dies, does not have to happen 'on screen' (note: just because this tag isn't there, doesn't mean that there isn't death, just that the author doesn't consider that character to be a major character in the fic)

Rape/Non-con: pretty self-explanatory, does NOT include consensual rape play (although that SHOULD be included in additional tags)

Underage: any sexual activity in which one or both characters are under the age of 18, does not include kissing

Author Chose Not To Use: one of the above warnings might apply, either the author isn't sure if their content qualifies or wants to avoid spoilers, PROCEED WITH CAUTION

No Archive Warnings Apply: none of the archive triggers are included in the fic, does not mean that there are no triggers, but does not have any of the ones listed above

Characters

This is a section for you to include any characters included in the fic. The parties to your pairing should be included here, as well as other characters they interact with. General rule of thumb: if they're just mentioned in passing, you don't have to tag them, but if they have a conversation, it's worth a tag. The big exception to this is villa fics: obviously in a S2 villa fic, every S2 character is going to be mentioned, so you might not need to tag every S2 character unless they contribute to the plot in some way (and there is a tag for 'other love island characters' that exists to capture this). This is entirely up to the author's digression, but as a reader, please remember that just because they're mentioned in the character tags does not mean they are necessarily in a lot of the fic.

Additional Tags

Any tags that don't fit under the other categories. This is where an author can truly tell you what is going to be included in their fic, including any additional triggers that don't fall under the AO3 archive warnings. The nice thing about AO3 tag searches is that it is not exclusive, if you want to filter your search for an alternate universe, AO3 will include all variations of the tag in your search (i.e. AU, alternate universe, and alternate universe-sports AU will all come up on a simple AU search). This is the space to include tropes, triggers, setting, smut/kinks, etc.

Fandom

For the most part, the LITG fandom contains exclusively Love Island The Game-Video game tagged fics. But you will run into the occasional crossover or fusion fic. Crossover fics should be tagged with both fandoms as they contain characters from both. Fusion fics should be tagged with only the LITG tag as they contain exclusively LITG characters in the world of another fandom.

#litg #litg fanfiction #ao3 tagging #fic tagging guide

37 notes · View notes

senkusphone · 6 months

Text

Dr. Stone chapter 3D trivia post

Hello, um. I hope yall had a pleasant solstice celebration of your choice- I've been pondering whether what we just saw merits a triva post, but let's try to squeeze some for the sake of completion, shall we?

Check out also my trivia posts for chapters 1D and 2D.

They're the same picture.

It took me way too long to notice what was off in this cover, it seems to be nothing but an aesthetic choice. Other than these off colors, this specific suika melon design first appeared during the Treasure island arc, right after Ryusui punted her off the Perseus.

To directly quote what I wrote at one time on the wiki:

Too bad, the ship Chelsea shows up in is not the Perseus D. Monkey from chapter 214 (which itself is a One Piece reference, as Boichi is a big fan).

Interesting that we get a nearly identical shot, instead of Kohaku standing behind her, it's Ruri and Matsukaze.

This posture done my Matsukaze is called Namaste (with other names such as Namaskar), which is used both as a greeting and as an indication of reverence all over the southern parts of Asia, along with other similar gestures. I know this is familiar to many myself included but I had never looked into the deeper details until now.

Figurines showing this pose have been excavated from the Indus valley civilization dating to between 2700 and 2100 BCE, making this piece of cultural heritage at least 7800 years old by the time of this panel.

Xeno has clearly had his hand in the architecture of the Japan side of the KoS, with some new constructions resembling his own Evil Disneyland back home.

Hold back yer tears

Kaseki has lived well. It's hard to tell how old he is now, he lived longer than the timeline's consistency thats for sure, I blame time travel.

At the time Taiju got wed, he was around 70 years old.

Kaseki and Chrome go back way further than the KoS, the fanbook tells us that Kaseki helped Chrome build his shed when he was just a boy.

Feel your heart a bit shakey? hang on there, we now get to talk about whyman's sorrow, and a small observation that I've made

Whyman can have emotions, the circuits that process that can be switched on and off, but the fact that a message can, or needs to be "left" for themselves, as well as his farewell for all eternity, has an interesting implication: once switched off, whyman loses the recollection of any experience they had in the meantime. These circuits allow whyman to feel, and also to then forget. This is useful, as emotions help them survive, but forgetting prevents the emotional baggage from growing infinitely over a virtually immortal life.

"If we remembered every single parting person, it would only be a few generations before the sorrow would pile up to the point it became unbearable. Maybe it is a blessing to forget. Forgetting allows us to get even. Forget sorrows as new ones replace them. Life can go on, if tragically. No accumulating loss that would one day make everyone struggle to survive and eventually pass on; though that last thing does also sound very much like today."

(10B points to the ~2 people who know where this quote is from, I digress)

So that's cool, and heartbreaking, but so what, does it connect to anything we've seen before?

Well...

In ch. 232 we see that Whyman does not know what created them.

How could that be, if they can remember things over deep time?

Maybe it is that Whyman chose to forget their creators, and everything they felt about them. Beings that they may even have loved in the deep deep past, and could not cope with yearning for.

The blonde, bangs & ponytail lineage.

The village graveyard. Last time we saw it, Byakuya's gravestone was opened to reveal the glass record.

A lot of recognizable headstones are still up now, some appear to have moved.

Other headstones might be gone or be different... The one with four dots that was there originally can't be seen in this new shot but it can be seen later in the chapter.

Also, I hate to break this to you, but there's more headstones now than there were before.

I counted 45 in the original shot, 50 in the new one, not including any that Chelsea and Senku may be covering. Granted this is likely just an oversight.

(I should mention that in order for them to match bottom to bottom, the top image is flipped horizontally).

(omg look at the babiesss)

What Xeno is telling Chrome is that if whyman went and altered their own past, then what they are seeing currently is the result of that, since whatever changes they made, are in the past after all.

They already happened and they are part of the timeline that leads them to where they are now.

Assuming they actually found Byakuya (or a petrified time traveler) means that either whyman created some sort of causal loop that is self sustaining (ie, the ramifications of the changes in the past include whyman going back to do them in the first place), or more in line with the many worlds hypothesis, that going back to the past and changing it creates a new parallel timeline where the repercussions of that happen, with no effect in the first one.

In the latter case it means the timeline we see now was altered by the whyman from a parallel universe.

The stone axe is a bit dissonant with where they are, technologically speaking, yes? Thing is, that's the one Senku took to the moon with him.

He's had it since chapter 1.

A few people I've seen mystified about this structure they unearthed at the cementery:

This is a collapsed building just like the structures that the Tsukasa empire occupied.

(shoutout to that guy about to die in the back)

Interestingly, this means that Ishigami Village is established on top of a once urban area.

I am always pumped for any extra bits of village lore I can get.

Did Suika's handwriting trigger your AI generated image senses? it did for me.

We were bamboozled again. If it ends up happening it's gonna be like the tale of the wolf. The moment we stop taking it seriously, Inagaki is gonna smack us across the head with it.

We were actually preparing for the poop on a stick to hit the f.a.a.n on discord. What do I make about the ending? I don't know, I got no big analysis this time around but I believe it's very likely we'll see more at some point.

30 notes · View notes

flamedraco · 4 months

Text

c!Wilbur Redesign

This is my compromise to the current situation regarding Shubble and the speculation surrounding Wilbur. This is coming from a fanfiction writer who has always, and always will, see the CCs as nothing more than voice actors for their characters. Buckle in, this is going to be a long one. But please read all the way through. If you don't know, recently Shubble came forward with a video about how she was in an abusive relationship. And she dropped some hints because she wants people to speculate about who it is. Wants to make sure that a person with bad intentions can't get away with more bad things. A lot of people are speculating that, due to said hints and previously established crush that he had on her, Wilbur is the person who abused her. Now personally? I do not believe this. It's hard for me to believe that Wilbur would do something like that. I don't like the idea of hopping on the hate train or immediately jumping to cancel someone. So I will be waiting for real facts and confirmation before saying anything regarding the CC. A lot of the speculation doesn't make sense to me logically and I also never got the chance to see the video before it was deleted. This is not me calling Shubble a liar. I 100% believe her and my heart goes out to her completely. She doesn't deserve being treated horribly, nobody does. The situation I'm hearing she went through is a wretched thing and I will not TOLERATE people insulting her or saying that she should just say who it was. That shit is not okay and never will be okay. HOWEVER! I will NOT stop writing Wilbur's character. A little fact about me is that when I came into this fandom, it wasn't because I watched the CCs. It wasn't because I was interested in MCYT. The reason I came here was because a very close friend of mine asked me to cowrite a fic with them. At the time the only fandom we really shared even vaguely was DSMP. I knew very little about it but I knew some things. I let my friend choose the ship. They chose TNT Duo. And it's thanks to that friend that I wrote Arsonist's Waltz. That I started to adore Quackbur and wrote my most well known fic, You Were Never Meant to be a Hero. And thanks to YWNMTBAH I made so many cherished friends. It's all because of these two little characters that still have me in a chokehold even though I've been writing them for quite some time now. And that's why I can't simply let go of Wilbur's character. But regardless of my ability to separate the Cs from the CCs, for some people that distinction is harder. The CCs to me are just glorified voice actors. For other people it's harder. They can separate the characters from the content creators just fine, but this situation hits them close to home. And it hurts. So, this is my proposed solution, brought to my attention by a friend who was heavily affected by this situation, but loved the work she was doing and didn't want to have to let it go. C!Wilbur doesn't have an actual canon design. When you think about it, the only thing we have to go off of is his Minecraft skin. Something that, when you think about it, doesn't tell us much about the character at all. There is no canon design because most of what we see as "canon" is based on the CC, not the character himself. When you look at c!Wilbur, the skin, does he have an eye color? Do we know his height? What about his hair length? His build? What do we actually know about this character outside of the clothing on his back and the personality his actor gave him? And when you make an AU everything changes. From now on? My c!Wilbur design that I'll use as a baseline for most of my fics is a 6ft man with heterochromia. One eye blue, the other teal. He's going to have brown curly hair that dips just below his shoulders and a light scar over one of his eyes. Sometimes he'll have freckles because what the fuck can we tell from a Minecraft skin anyways? He wears black nail polish because why not? Slay.

I already treated him and c!Quackity like glorified OCs already. Why not further OC the glorified OCs? So what if they aren't a faithful adaptation? How can anyone say what is and isn't "faithful" when we're talking about BLOCK MEN. Make them eldritch. Make them supernatural. Make them whatever kind of hybrid you want them to be! I'll die on my Magpie!Wilbur and Shrike!Quackity hill! Give them different eye colors and let them dye their hair sometimes, I'm going to make the white streak PINK because TWINS DUO and CHERRY BLOSSOM TRIPLETS! Give your Phantom!Wilburs green eyes and glowing blood! Give your Shapeshifter!Wilburs more hair and eye colors! Do what you want because the character has no actual canon design. Go wild with your AUs and remember that you're doing this for fun. For your enjoyment. Don't conform to what someone else wants from you just because your adaption, your interpretation, "isn't the real Wilbur". The characters are what we make them. Because the reality of the situation? They are literally just blocks in a cube game. There is no canon design. Don't let the actions of some asshole ruin what you love.

#Build your own Wilbur #mcyt #mcyt fanart #The characters are not the CCs #Build a c!Wilbur #cosplay #writing #art

30 notes · View notes

mdhwrites · 5 months

Note

I don't know if you've watched Gravity Falls or been deep in the fandom but I just realized how similar Luz and Mabel kinda are. They're both young quirky girls whose selfish actions helped the main villain achieve their goal (supposedly, in Luz's case) and learn the lesson of facing reality instead of being stuck in a fantasy world where they get everything they want (although Luz doesn't really learn this even though it was kinda set-up for her in s1) (they also have a girl rival with shit parents that the fandom ships them with but anyway-)

I'm not saying this to shit on Luz though, I like Luz. But it mind boggles me how Mabel gets shitted on way more than her does despite being younger, actually learning her lesson, and apologizing for it. It might because they're different shows but I know a lot of TOH fans were/are GF fans because of the creators' relationship so the fandoms aren't that different from one another. It MIGHT be because Mabel trusted Blendin so easily despite the situation being shady as hell (while Luz just thought Philip was a normal human in the demon realm) but to be fair, Mabel was cornered in a moment of vulnerability and she literally didn't even know what she was giving him. Abandoning her friends and family for her own fantasy land while an apocalypse going on was really horrible, I won't deny that, but Luz also pretty much did the same when she chose the demon realm (place she doesn't know anything about with STRANGERS) over her own world in the first episode. Sure there wasn't anything horrific going on in the human realm so her ignorance of it wasn't as bad as Mabel's– BUT THEN in TTT she thinks of leaving everyone behind by staying in the human realm while the Collector was doing who knows what???

I don't know, this might be kinda petty, I haven't rewatched GF in ages, but I just think it's unfair Mabel gets more hate than Luz. I feel she's had more character progression compared to the latter and at least she always got called out when she did something wrong and learned from it.

So take all of this with a grain of salt because while I've heard a little of this discourse, I haven't watched a lot of Gravity Falls (recently tried again and found myself not loving the first episode if I'm honest) and have never been a part of its fandom. However, this is a chance to talk about why Luz is so liked and 'relatable' to so many because it is not hard to figure out why people like Luz. Why? Well... A lot of it comes down to framing and how the two shows see the two girls.

Gravity Falls sees Mabel as a tweenage girl.

The Owl House sees Luz as the embodiment of what a teenage nerd wishes they were/could be.

Those are VERY different goals and framing.

One, Mabel, is going to be INCREDIBLY fallible. Neither her or Dipper are anywhere close to perfect people because... Well, they're teenagers. They get way too into certain things. They're awkward when it comes to those obsessions. They're awkward about how to deal with change, consequences, etc. like that because that's just the age they are. They're figuring out the world and are going to run face first into it and that will be awkward, clumsy and often destructive without any sort of excuse besides they didn't think the consequences through. That's kids for you.

The other is... More idealistic. Luz doesn't face real consequences for testing her boundaries and is always bailed out. When she fucks up, she always does it with the best intentions and/or no one actually gets hurt. People coddle her and always make concessions to her desires with minimal push back and always end up on her side unless they're just a REALLY big meanie head. She always makes peoples' lives better, she never gets real criticism or ridicule for her interests and is always accepted by the right people for those interests. Always given more and more for being her quirky self!

A lot of this for Luz is because she's an audience surrogate and TOH wants the audience to feel good about themselves. It knows that a lot of nerds will be the ones watching it and leans in. This is actually contrasted by the fact that, well, Mabel isn't the audience surrogate or the absolute primary character of Gravity Falls. Her role is more complicated versus Dipper who IS the nerdy one who's closer to being the audience surrogate.

Just to really drive this home: People on my Discord have talked about this and one of the biggest 'crimes' as seen by a lot of the fandom is that Mabel causes Dipper to lose out on his dream of researching with Ford and staying in Gravity Falls. I could even see some arguments of things like "He's planning a future!" or "He's making the world better!"

But... Let's shift the framing for a moment from "Mabel caused Dipper to give up on his dream" to "Mabel made sure Dipper chose reality over fantasy." After all, his desire was to throw away his friends, his family, EVERYTHING to just continue hanging out with this one old dude and studying the weird phenomenon of the world, an inherently isolating job. He gets to go on this big adventure and follow his intellectual drive... At the cost of reality and everything he has known.

So why don't people get upset at Dipper for trying to do this? Well, there's a lot of potential reasons that I can't really narrow down without watching the show. It may have just been framed as a positive while Mabel's is framed as negative. It could be that while Mabel's is just a generic, girly fantasy that not much of the core audience actually wants, Dipper's is the cool, smart fantasy that is totally not just a fantasy, but a CAREER. Or it could go back to the root problem: Because Dipper is closer to the audience surrogate, closer to the main character, there is a bias to inherently see his actions as good. We could literally watch two characters do the same thing and we will root for the main character simply because that is who we are trained to root for.

A great example of this from TOH is how Luz is allowed to get mad at people for lying to her but not the other way around. She literally attacks Eda and gets the two captured in Titan, Where Art Thou? because Eda lied to her and she is supposed to feel justified in this anger to make the tragedy angle work. Meanwhile, there is ONE time when anyone gets mad at Luz for lying and honestly, the framing and reactions cause it to end up feeling much more like it was just for a prettier scene change during Reaching Out. After all, Amity still wants to fix Luz's pain before Luz even apologizes for breaking her word by lying. So why doesn't anyone call out the hypocrisy here? Why is NO ONE allowed to get upset with Luz about this?

Because she's the main character. Because we are trained to root for her and, well, Luz also is the one we are told to want to be. She is the every nerd. She is meant to connect to a very wide net of outcasts who feel like they don't belong and wish things were different. Wishes people weren't mean to them or didn't get mad at them when they made mistakes. That just let them be the hero of their own story.

So of course, they don't want Luz to be yelled at, even when that is the actually human and reasonable thing for someone to do. They don't want to question what she does so when the show gives them an excuse, or they have to go to reality if the show itself doesn't give an excuse (This is why people emphasize Luz's age and nuerodivergence to excuse her while bluntly ignoring Mabel's age when it comes to her actions), so that they don't have to recognize that Luz does some REALLY shitty things, especially in the back half of the show. It is simply more convenient for the narrative they want out of the show for Luz to be this way.

And that is okay from a casual standpoint. A lot of fiction is escapist. There's nothing wrong with wanting to jump into a world where you're never actually wrong and never in trouble. Where your angst is always met with hugs and understanding rather than actual human emotion. That's how media works. Most mass appeal products are escapist. It's part of why the Isekai genre is SO prevalent right now because it is one of the purest forms of escapist fiction out there, especially due to modern isekai tropes.

But if you're going to talk critically about something, escapism is very rarely a good jumping off point for it. It will make you ignore a LOT about the work because it's uncomfortable for you to ask questions about it. I'm not talking about "Why does this world have magic" sort of things mind you. I'm talking about, say, "Why does this character get so many power ups, so easily, and with little effort in earning them?" When you want escapism, the pacing won't bother you. If you're actually looking at themes and payoffs, it will bother you a LOT. And yes, this does tie into TOH because if you want to be Luz, getting the glyphs feels great! If you actually interrogate the story, you go "Wait, they hadn't actually done like... ANYTHING with her not having magic in a magical world and she already gets a spell? And two of these spells she does literally nothing for. Arguably three since she is put into timeout as a punishment and gets the glyph I guess for being a bad person." That TOTALLY is good storytelling and makes sense with positive themes and proper explorations of its own ideas.

*sigh*

It's a rough push and pull and it can make it so people, even if they like the show, who disagree with the popular opinion, the one that usually lifts up the audience flattering elements the most, are just in a rough position where they hear the same opinions over and over again. All while knowing that if they speak up, they'll be stomped on.

Just like Mabel was while Dipper was raised into the spotlight. At least by the fandom.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#the owl house criticism #toh critical #gravity falls

29 notes · View notes

dsmprarepairbb · 7 months

Note

i'm very excited for this as a rarepair enjoyer! this is a great thread on the subreddit that might be a good starting point to think of cut-off qualifications: https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/eohtgm/what_exactly_counts_as_a_rarepair/

while i'm very on board with this event, i think trying to say 'anything but dnf' can feel too targeted, and i don't think it's the intention at all, it might make people feel singled out or unwelcome here. for instance, i think karlnapity and quackbur are also ships that are worth disqualifying (and i say this as someone who loves those ships XD).

good luck with putting this together though! i know a lot of work goes into these things <3

I held onto this ask for a long time for a very specific reason: I really enjoy spreadsheets. I wanted to wait until after I had closed the interest check so I could go through all of the submitted ships so I could get some data to back up my reasoning.

And back up my reasoning it did.

A total of 75 ships (including DNF) were listed by people who said they were interested. I took all of these ships and looked them up on AO3. I decided to look at AO3 for this as this is going to be mostly about content creation, and I feel that utilizing the otp:true function helps a lot.

Of the 75 ships, 15 didn't show up on AO3 at all, no matter how much I looked. For the rest, however, I noted down the number of works both in the tag as a whole, and with the otp:true filter. I put this into a spreadsheet and generated a pie chart using the otp:true data that looks like this:

Due to this discrepancy, I feel that it is valid of me to make this current rarepair big bang only exclude DNF. I am retracting prior statements of excluding XDNF, as that ship was lower than I had thought. In the future, the list will be refined, but for now, the only ship excluded is DNF.

Further reasoning below the cut.

So, this is not the only chart that I did. I also did a pie chart of the unfiltered ships as well.

As you can see, this percentage is lower that otp:true, but you can still see that the gap is quite large. No other ship even compares. Also worth noting is that in this view, fics where a poly relationship is present can skew the results, as many chose to tag their fics not only with the poly ship, but also the individual pairings (or smaller groupings) of that ship.

I also generated a bar graph, but due to the amount of ships its very hard to read. The first label, DNF, is even pushed off the view so you can't see it, but I will attach it here anyways as reference.

yeah its...bad lol. Its so hard to read.

I am aware that in the link you put, there are multiple ways to go about this. As I said, in the future this will be changed. I am most likely going to make a tier list of sorts for these ships based on this data. Also, I did not calculate based off of percentage of fics in the fandom itself as so many of these fics are crossovers, and I felt it was a futile effort.

Also, for those curious, I'm going to post the data I collected just for funsies. The ones with a -1 were the 15 that didn't show up at all. They had to be denoted this way to ensure that they were sorted correctly. You can see that Karlnapity (#8) and quackbur (#4) are also listed!

(I also calculated what percentage of ships tagged like that were also true because I'm a nerd who likes writing formulas lmfao)

I love dnf! Its fun! But you gotta admit that its reach is significantly more than other ships'. Also a fun aside from a friend:

#answers

30 notes · View notes

kataraslove · 4 months

Note

longing-for-rain doesn't do ai art. she tried to be honest by saying that the filter she uses can technically be considered ai, and people fixated on the ai and attacked her for it. be honest, you're just jumping on this hate train because she's a zutara shipper who responded to a braindead take your friend sent her. this is not a coincidence that she is the one you people chose to kick off your ai witch hunt

so you’re telling me that someone can rapidly improve their art like THAT in just 4 months? when it took other artists - actual artists - years to improve their art? please don’t insult all our intelligence by saying this is in any way a harmless ai filter. this is straight up ai.

again, the person who made this post explains it perfectly below, and i doubt that they’re a kataang shipper with the intent to “bring this person down” or whatever nonsense you came up with. and after reading this post, it makes perfectly sense, doesn’t it? why the eyes always looked like that, why the hair always looked like that, why it has that eerie ai feeling, why the art is always whitewashed. let’s just say it’s not ai - why were you all hyping up whitewashed art for months? do you not have any standards for the art you reblog? any common sense? you see a brunette with light skin and automatically go, “omg that’s literally katara!!!” even though it looks nothing like katara?

what longing-for-rain was doing (or continuing doing idk) is such a spit in the face to actual artists. do you know how much artists appreciate when you ask them to repost their artwork, merely because you asked for permission (which is the thing you should be doing)? on top of that, that fraud was asking people to send them money for ai artwork. who knows how many people donated. does that not enrage you? most likely not, because you don’t actually care about the ramifications of ai art on the artist community. you care about how this reflects on zutara shippers. well, my response to that is that tons of zutara shippers should’ve used their brains first before blindly reblogging ai art. especially reblogging whitewashed ai art?

all i was going to do was reblog that post up there with the tags “i should’ve known omg” because that eerie feeling I got when I saw their art suddenly made sense. you transformed this into something so much bigger by not only sending me these asks, but falsely accusing another artist (an authentic, non-fraudulent one) of creating ai art. conveniently, this happens to be the very same artist that happened to be the one to respond to longing-for-rain’s initial anti aang response, which they felt was not a fair critique (and they are within their right to do so, because this is tumblr!)

this extends far beyond aang or shipping wars - what l-f-r was doing is considered scamming. interestingly enough, after my initial reblog, i never arrived at the conclusion that the zutara community were filled with ai enthusiasts, because unlike you, i don’t suffer from fandom brainrot and actually go outside.

you, on the other hand, managed to make it so much worse. for the fraudulent ai artist you’re trying and failing so hard to defend. for the zutara community. if there’s an ongoing hate campaign against the “artist” (which i’m not aware of, because i want nothing to do with them), then you are the one instrumental in leading it, not me. 🤷🏽‍♀️

#good lord anon #if you had more going on in life you wouldn’t be doing this #antizutara #anti ai

17 notes · View notes

sophieswundergarten · 3 months

Text

I was tagged by the lovely @mahpotatoequeen!! Thank you, MQ <3

How many works do you have on AO3? 33!

What’s your total AO3 word count? 91,623

How many fandoms have you written for, and what are they? Technically three: MBS Books, TV Show, and then Wolf 359. I don't know if the Books and Show really count as different fandoms?

Top five fics by kudos:

- Lights and Sounds (And What Comes After)

- Of Missed Opportunities and Scaled Fences

- Chance Encounter

- An Averagely Cold Winter Storm

- Mental Literature

Do you respond to comments? I try to! Sometimes it's hard because I get all self-conscious, but y'all are the nicest people ever and so I do my best to answer whenever I get the time.

What’s the fic with the angstiest ending you’ve ever written? Probably either Deep Space Survival Tip #552, because of what I insinuate about Hui, or Dr. W Dex, because that wasn't the intended ending but then I completely ran out of steam on that one.

Do you write crossovers? Nope! I've considered it, but holding two differing narrative styles in my brain at once sounds tricky.

Have you ever gotten hate on a fic? No, thank goodness. I would be very sad if I made someone angry enough to leave a comment like that.

Do you write smut? No. And I don't think I ever will.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? I hope not! I don't think anyone would want to steal my weird little stories, though.

Have you ever had a fic translated? No I have not! I would be very honoured though, and it would certainly be an interesting experience.

What’s your all-time favorite ship? I don't really do ships, but I love Found Family of all kinds!

What’s a WIP that you want to finish, but don’t think you ever will? Probably that Dr. W Dex one I mentioned. I marked it as "complete", but it's technically still a WIP.

What are your writing strengths? I like writing dialogue, and I can do angst I guess?

What are your writing weaknesses? Goodness, it feels like everything asdfdf. But also descriptions and fluff. I'm working on getting better at fluff, but it's tricky for me.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fics? I can see where it has its uses, but I've never done it. I'm not confident enough to.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for? Technically, I found a rambley old file that was for the Tangled TV Show, so that's my first fandom. But I don't usually count that because it was so bad and never finished.

I normally say MBS, because that's when I actually understood fanfiction and intentionally chose to write it.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written so far? Ahhhhh. I hate looking back on my work. I usually publish it and then kind of pretend it didn't happen. But I do like Swept Away. It's kind of a silly concept, but it's something I thought about hundreds of times when I first read the books. Any of my older stuff, really. The further away I get from writing it the more I'm able to like it.

#tag games

11 notes · View notes

what-gs-watching · 4 months

Text

"It's not my fault you're like, in love with me."

So while I was trapped in the house for days on end because of ridiculous weather, I kept whinging that I just wanted to get out and see the new Mean Girls. My sister was not surprised at all to hear it, assuming I would have gone the day it came out.

Because I’m old, old enough that the original movie came out when I was a teenager and it was a big fucking deal. I remember going to the theater with my bestie and being completely obsessed. We all wanted to be Lindsay Lohan at that point, 2004 was a crazy time, and we were incredibly impressionable. So, Mean Girls was everything.

To be fair, it definitely wormed its way into the culture. My sixty-something mother-in-law knows ‘fetch’ and my metal headbanger favorite dude friend appreciates that on Wednesdays, we wear pink. Millennials get it. I’m honestly not even sure how many times I’ve seen it. If my life depended on it, I could accurately quote most of it.

So, I was excited to see the new one, and a little weary.

But it was cuuuuuute, y’all. I purposely didn’t read anything about it, so I was slightly surprised that it was basically literally the same story, but I guess that makes sense. The whole schtick is that it’s a musical now, so I can roll with that.

One thing I will say though, it’s hard for musicals to make perfect sense. You lose some of the story by trying to flatten it into a catchy number. So it didn’t feel as comprehensive or fleshed out as the original (which sounds insane because Mean Girls is just a story about girls being bitches, but still).

I also really appreciated that they kept a good bit of the classic lines that everyone wants to hear. You have to have “stop trying to make fetch happen, it’s not going to happen” and “Yo go, Glen Coco!” it’s literally not Mean Girls without that. (LOL at the explanation though that 'fetch' is slang from an old movie.)

They did strip out some of the weirder aspects, leaving out the gym coach hooking up with one of the kids, which was sketch to begin with, even in 2004. And Karen trying to make out with her first cousin, which, yikes. So ya know, progress.

But it did feel like they took some of the bite out of Regina. Like, I got that she was supposed to be mean, but there weren’t a ton of actions to reinforce that. Or even a ton of interaction between her and Cady. The frenemy-ship wasn’t fleshed out as much as I wanted it to be.

On the bright side though, I didn’t expect the actress they chose for Regina. Body positivity, gang! And the cast was a lot more diverse.

But, no one is ever gonna best Lohan at the role of Cady. Sure, New Cady was cute, and she did her best but honestly, she did not have the same kind of presence or charisma. But I’m probably biased as hell. Like I’ve said before, I just want Lindsay Lohan to get her life back together.

ALSO, this is just me complaining, but I absolutely do not fucking understand fashion right now. Like, I just…I can’t. It’s weirdly 90’s, and it wasn’t cute in the 90’s originally and it’s not cute now. I was not in love with Cady’s “makeover” and that was one of the funner aspects of the original. Which could just be me projecting because I wanted to wear all of the shit that they did in 2004 but I was not that cool, gang. So now I’m the old guy who wants gen Z fashion to get off my lawn. It’s not their fault, but it’s still confusing.

The point is, it was a fun way to spend two hours, and I love that Tina Fey and Tim Meadows reprised their roles. I will love anything Tina Fey does, forever and always. And she loves Mean Girls so much. So I’m going to, too. And I might bump “Revenge Party” because who doesn’t love a party that ends with a head on a spike?

Did we really need this movie? Maybe not. But I suppose we can let the zoomers in on the fantasticness that is Mean Girls. Y’all can have a piece of the crown too, I guess - it’s just plastic, after all.

#mean girls 2024 #mean girls musical #what g's watching #revenge party #cady x regina #regina george #cady mean girls

13 notes · View notes