#general ramblings

[ontarasmind]

Please please please don't ever be afraid to tell the people in your life thar you love and care about them.

Sometimes hearing that can make the difference in someone's day.

#general ramblings #emotional intimacy is so much more important than i could ever emphasize

[snarky-magpie]

I was so excited to write for prongsfoot because I wanted to contribute a bit to a ship that I personally like, but that doesn’t get much content. So I figured it might make other fans happy as well. Turns out, to no one’s surprise, that no one actually cares to read whatever I put out there. The longer I write fanfic, the more I struggle with my inability to connect with the reades, no matter the ship or the fandom or how hard I work on my stories, so to quote my favorite show, 'the problem in the neighborhood is me'. Guess it's time to face the fact my writing just isn't that good and stop wasting my time and effort on it. I'm not a native English speaker, and I'll never be a decent enough writer, so what's the point in trying? And I know it doesn't matter because everything will be written by Ai in a year or two, and nobody cares, but I feel like giving up and it makes me sad. Anyway. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. I'll finish PS. I hate you, but then I'm done, I think.

#fic writing #general ramblings

[theramblingsofadork]

I spent a day and a half sleeping because I’ve been sick, and immediately wrote another long winded fanfic upon coming out of my coma.

I’m gonna edit it when I feel better and hopefully have it out soon. (I wanna make some art for it too)

#ohoho yall arent prepared for this #amp twins #general ramblings #Act 0

[biggestidiothere]

Recently, I have grown to wish for more Nate and Katie content. Not shipping specifically - I'm neutral to Natie - just content of them being friends, bouncing off each other and things like that.

Don't get me wrong, I get WHY the dynamics between Nate and Katie don't get that much attention in the games themselves (except 4, where they are both protagonists but 4 isn't dubbed in English yet, so I don't know for sure how much attention it gets). It's just recently I really, really want a consistent more out of the dynamic beyond Nate having a crush on Katie and Katie accidentally being bad with phrasing (even if I do find that funny). More reason as to why Nate likes Katie so much and just moments of them hanging out as, well, normal friends. (Also, next YWA continuation, please let Katie have a yokai watch of her own, thank you. I will admit I haven't checked on the anime in a while though, so maybe she got more attention there, she was in an opening.)

#yokai watch #nate adams #katie forester #general ramblings #Also please bring Yokai Watch 4 to the west #this also applies to Bear and Eddie to a lesser extent but Katie's dynamic with Nate being like this feels more noticeable #I just want more content of them being friends and less jokes at Nate's expense or ship teasing #Gonna be real this is somewhat mainly talking about the anime incarnations

[toastandjamie]

Just started Mistborn, I’ve reached chapter 5

I’m enjoying it so far, Vin is so cute and I’d die for her. Kelsier is actually feral and Dockson is the only brain cell and I love that for him.

It reminds me a bit of Six of Crows because of the whole magic heist thing, which is in fact a good thing since I adore Six of Crows. Interested in seeing how it goes since I’m still very early in it.

#mistborn #general ramblings

[mmuffncakes]

i am over 5k words into chapter 2 and ive not even gotten close to where it needs to be for getting chapter 3 going and im realizing very soon that this chapter may be well over 15k words if i continue at this pace. "oh, im gonna try and take 2 weeks per chapter, itll be a-okay!" and im approaching week 3.5 and im not anywhere where i want i need it to be fuCK me man

#general ramblings #my work #writing stuff #this is specifically for the spyscrapper spooky western fic im working on

[christaaah]

Had a job interview a few days ago and at the end we all said goodbye and it was dead silent as I walked out, until the second the door clicked shut, when they all started loudly talking at once.

I kinda want the job but now I'm more interested in learning whether they were saying, "we've found the perfect candidate!!!" or, "holy shit that was the weirdest one yet!" Could go either way honestly.

#general ramblings

[dukeswonderousmenagerie]

Angsty Jiglup Pt1:

Obligatory Ping: @mmangaboi

Ok so, this is gonna get pretty long, but basically

I headcanon Jigen is head shy, he doesn't like people touching his head/face unless its absolutely necessary. But its not just because of the hat, he just uses that as an excuse. It’s mainly because due to him being a gunman he’s extremely protective about his eye’s. Even the permeant loss of one eye can drastically screw with his depth perception and when your entire life is based around looking down the scope of a gun it’s no laughing matter.

So far only lupin has been allowed to touch his head intimately or otherwise because he has the most trust in lupin.

Because of this large bond of trust, forehead presses or face touching tend to be drastic indicators of how close the pair are to one another, since it seems only lupin can get away with doing it. If its not lupin, expect jigen to be tending to his own head-wounds by himself.

Goemon has some leeway in touching Jigens face and head, but between the two, Lupin is allowed more free range and longer periods of time

As a addition to that HC I thought of something else. I always found head petting to be something that Jigen liked

But if it’s a comfort thing, or just the need to know someone’s there, Lupin forgoes petting/stroking his hair, and instead does something that only Jigen allows him to do, which is cup his face/cheeks with his hands. That is usually a big no no because that’s thumbs being way to close to his eyes, but with Lupin doing it, it doesn’t make him nervous, it’s a comforting and soothing thing

It’s kinda like a it’ll be ok or a it’s alright kind of thing

But here’s where it get’s angsty Lupin is a jackass

He would do it at the least opportune of moments

Like the bastard could be bleeding out to death after a shootout, and instead of worrying about himself like he should he randomly just cups Jigens face in his hey it’ll be alright kinda way and all Jigen can do is look at him cause he’s not the one bleeding to death currently yet Lupin still finds the need to show him it’ll be alright even tho all of Jigens finely tuned instincts are telling him No it’s not, it’s not ok

And the sad part is, Jigen would end up throwing those instincts telling him shit’s not ok out the window the moment Lupin would cup his face cause it’s like I trust him, I trust his judgement, if he says it’s alright then it’s ok, it’ll be ok even tho something is nagging at the back of his head telling him no

But Lupin hasn’t been wrong yet about these things

until the day he is

Like I said before, in situations like these Jigen would end up throwing whatever instincts telling him shit’s not ok out the window the moment Lupin would reassure him cause it’s like I trust him, I trust his judgement, if he says it’s alright then it’s ok, it’ll be ok even tho something is nagging at the back of his head telling him no

But what if it came to a end

Basically picture this

Lupin is bleeding out somewhere and Jigen is essentially just. . .being Jigen he’s trying to take care of the situation, he’s trying to keep ‘em both safe cause that’s his job that’s what he’s promised to do, he’s promised to protect Lupin and he’s never broken that promise yet unless it was completely out of his control, but in the end it all worked out

Only this time, it isn’t. Something is different something is wrong, they both feel it but they don’t know what it is

Or maybe they do and their in strict denial about it, whatever the case something is wrong and either they both know what it is, or their both in strict denial about what it is .

But Lupin is calm, he always is of course until the moments he’s not, but in this instance he’s calm but he’s not calm for himself, he’s staying calm for Jigen, cause he knows how Jigen will get when he doesn’t feel in control of the situation he’ll get high-strung, antsy, prone to making stupid decisions that in his mind are last ditch efforts.

But Lupin is calm, and if he acts calm it oozes onto Jigen seemingly by osmosis and keeps him calm.

But times ticking, something is coming, somethings gonna happen Lupin feels it. Time passes into nearly a hour, Jigen is desperate and Lupin is already struggling to keep his eyes open despite Jigens attempts to stop whatever bleeding is going on. But still he’s calm, still he’s chill, because he doesn’t want Jigen to worry himself to death.

But Lupin doesn’t feel right. Something feels off, and as time ticks he begins to remember the feeling but still he’s calm, because he knows Jigen trusts his judgement, and maybe if he keeps Jigen calm something good will happen, he’s sure of it

But times still ticking, slowly but surly time is still marching on. And sometime after Jigen decides to stay close to him, to protect him like Lupin’s always been proud of knowing Jigen would do, even if it cost him his own life.

But he see’s the look in Jigens face. He knows somethings up, and Lupin doesn’t like that look, he likes calm Jigen he doesn’t like worried desperate Jigen.

So he does what he knows is best,

He puts his hand out and he cups Jigens cheek, it’s worked before to bring the gunman back to a stable mindset maybe it’ll work now.

Lupin doesn’t even realize the thin streak of blood he’s left on Jigens cheek

But Jigen doesn’t care, instead he holds the hand close to his face, cause this motion he recognizes. It means safe. It means everything will be ok

or at least it did Jigen isn’t looking at Lupin’s eyes, he doesn’t notice the sudden but smooth shift, he doesn’t notice the sudden blank stare, he doesn’t fully realize that this wasn’t a it’s going to be a ok motion that Lupin is doing

It’s not a it’ll be ok

it’s a you’ll be alright and I’m sorry

Because Jigen think’s it’s Lupin reassuring him, telling him that everything will be fine

When in actuality, it’s Lupin saying goodbye

He doesn’t notice as he’s cradling the hand to his face, as Lupin slightly stiffens, eyes sliding away, expression blanking as some inner light, some indefinable soul, snuffs out as easily as you'd pinch the flame of a candle between your fingers. And just like that he’s gone he's gone.

It’s so quick that by the time Jigen notices something is wrong, Lupin is gone. There’s nothing he can do. All Lupin left behind was an empty shell, a corpse, knock-knock, nobody's home, and his glassy eyes are still open. And they seem sad, almost guilt ridden as if apologizing about his own death as it happened, once again always tripping over himself to make amends, especially to Jigen.

And Jigen doesn’t notice until last moment because Lupin cradled his face in a signature everything will be alright and Jigen believed him.

The shock takes hold quick, Jigen doesn’t get angry, he doesn’t cry, he doesn’t scream at the blistering sun to bring back the one thing worth living for in his life.

He doesn’t do anything cause now he’s numb, it’s hit him, the situation has hit him but not in they way that warrants any form of emotion except complete numbness. Instead he rocks himself, eyes closed, Lupin’s hand still warm from where it had braced Jigens face, and lets himself shut down, and lets himself believe that Lupin was still right as he still cradles the hand against his face

that everything would still be ok when he opened his eyes again

#lupin iii #lupin the 3rd #lupin the third #general ramblings #jigen daisuke #daisuke jigen #lupin the iii #my headcanons #jiglup #arsène lupin iii

[windflower-official]

Getting myself a whole ass coding degree from trying to figure out how to put down spaces in my description, why is this so hard

#general ramblings

[general-thinks]

People won't know what horny on main truly means until they'll scroll the sunflower from plant Vs zombie google page

#general ramblings

[ontarasmind]

Sadistic girlfriend who gets off on feeding her cow girlfriend burgers, and the cow girlfriend who's too empty-headed and was never told what burgers are made out of

#general ramblings #moo #i can imagine this has already been said in another post #but if not #here it is

[snarky-magpie]

I have a long jegulus fic all planned and outlined (bully James and abused/timid Reg who are forces to work on a year-long project and grow as people in the process), but I'm wondering. Is there even a point in writing yet another (Voldy-free) Hogwarts AU? I feel like there's a lot of them, so I'm not sure whether I should add to it.

#just wondering #general ramblings #on fandom #jegulus #regulus black #james potter #ao3fic

[theramblingsofadork]

Holy catfish, thank you for all the love on my art piece today. ;w; I’ve been feeling very off creativity wise lately so this was a nice surprise. 💖

#general ramblings #muchas gracias #hides face in hands #it’s been a rough several weeks

[belliesandburps]

It’s Me Birthday

Today, I celebrate my 33rd birthday.  Kind of amazed I’ve evaded the death eaters this long after stealing the life force of that poor bastard from over the pond, but since I’m still here, feel free to send me any asks ye like, be ‘em kink-based or otherwise!

Unless you’re one of the death eaters trying to send me back to hell for my sins.  In which case, I should warn you that I’ve layered my apartment with garlic.  Yes, that only works on vampires, but it WILL be quite pungent.  So your move, demons...

...I dunno what the hell I’m on about either.  I’m old, shut up.  ‘XD

#general ramblings #birthday #kink asks #you ramble with age #i think death eaters are a thing #i was thinking of ghost with patrick swayze #those cheap shadow bastards who go after tarzan at the end of the movie #i'm joking that they're after me #because i did some shady shit #the life force thing is technically inspired from angel heart #i told tt2 about that movie #he really dug it #it's pretty fucked up #and back when mickey rourke still looked human

[h-worksrambles]

I know that characterisation is a really hot button topic in the Sonic fandom. In particular, there’s this whole debate of “Are the characters getting flanderised overtime?”, “were they better handled overall in the 2000’s games than in the 2010’s ones?”, “did the movies or the IDW comics ‘fix’ the characters?” Now my thoughts on this are…kinda complicated. But there’s one example I do want to talk about in the 2010s games, and I don’t know if this is a hot take, but there’s at least one character who (contrary to what seems to be popular opinion regarding most of the cast) I’d argue got full on character re-railment from Sonic Colours onwards. And that’s Eggman.

I really like Dr. Eggman as a character. He’s kind of the perfect villain for a series like Sonic. He’s cartoonish, funny but still capable and menacing. Hammy and egotistical, but with the brains to back up his boasting. Being an evil scientist who exploits and industrialises nature for personal gain, he drives home the environmentalist undertone of the series. He’s never had a voice actor in English or Japanese whose performance I didn’t enjoy and he’s so consistently fun to watch on screen.

And yet, I sometimes wonder how much faith Sonic Team has in him as a villain. From Sonic Adventure onwards, the series got into a habit of having Eggman getting upstaged by new ‘monster of the week’ villains. We saw this first with Chaos and I’ll be honest, I don’t mind it too much here. Partly because Eggman is still the main threat for most of the runtime and gets a lot of great moments before Chaos’ heel-turn and partly because I like Chaos’ design, backstory and general presence enough that I find he succeeds in taking the baton from Eggman as the main antagonist. I’ve seen some defend this trope by saying Eggman is smart, but he’s reckless, doesn’t plan ahead and gets himself over his head out of carelessness. I kind of get this but don’t entirely agree. I think it’s more accurate to say Eggman is egotistical. He thinks he can keep a dangerous force like Chaos in line and has taken steps both to control and (if need be) get rid of Chaos. But he underestimates him out of arrogance. It’s less that he doesn’t plan ahead, but more that he underestimates Chaos due to his own confidence in his genius. I think that’s fairly in character error in judgement as long as you don’t rely on it all the time. Because otherwise, it comes across less as ‘brilliant but arrogant’ and moreso ‘just incompetent’.

Then it happens again in Sonic Adventure 2. For most of the game Shadow is playing Eggman like a puppet in order to enact Gerald’s plan to take revenge on the Earth. Eggman is mostly so drunk on the power of the Eclipse Cannon that he doesn’t seem to even consider the thought that Shadow is manipulating him. And I can’t decide if this fitting for Eggman’s ego or just makes him look kind of stupid. And the Last Story even has him working with the heroes to stop Gerald. Overall though, not too bothered here because I think Shadow is a good character and villain in his place, Eggman is still a fun and surprisingly menacing character throughout and him teaming up with Sonic was, at the time, rare and kind of interesting. I don’t particularly like how Eggman is being manipulated the whole way through but honestly the ‘fake emerald’ scene is so good that it kind of makes up for any gripes I may have.

This is one of Eggman’s best scenes in the entire franchise and it makes it hard for anything else about Eggman in this game to bother me.

But then we get to Sonic Heroes. OK, first things first, I’m actually quite fond of this game. To me, Heroes is kind of like Generations where saying the story isn’t very good or kinda dumb feels a little unfair because it’s so very clearly not focused on story. It just wants to give a few cheesy cutscenes to get you to the gameplay as quickly as possible. And that’s honestly fine. Some games can just be gameplay first. Getting too bothered almost feels like judging the game for what it isn’t instead of what it is. That said, boy I don’t like what this game does with some of the characters. And Eggman gets it worst. Because he spends the entire game locked in a cellar and getting dunked on by the Chaotix while Metal Sonic runs around with his face being the actual antagonist. I dunno, for a such a fun and supposedly smart villain, it’s a little undignified don’t you think? For a game that brings together playable characters from across the series’ history, the main bad guy honestly gets the short end of the stick.

You know you’ve hit a low point when you’re the butt monkey of the series’ butt monkeys.

And then it just keeps going. Sonic Advance 3 has him betrayed by Gemerl and teaming up with Sonic. In Sonic 06 Eggman is little more than a distraction for Sonic while Shadow takes care of the actual plot. And then he teams up with Sonic…again. Even in my beloved Sonic Rush he’s playing second fiddle to his AU palette swap who the game seems convinced is the more threatening of the two (he isn’t), which Rivals doubles down on. In Sonic Unleashed we’re basically just doing Adventure 1 again so Dark Gaia is pretty much ‘Chaos reskin no. x’ who betrays Eggman and makes him look like a joke. It just gets really old and is a waste of one of the most entertaining characters. There are bright spots like Sonic Battle but they’re few and far between.

I can’t help but feel we’ve traded down here...

This is more frustrating because the games seem convinced that these villains are more epic, and dangerous and serious than Eggman. When honestly? Most of them are just really boring. I don’t care for how Heroes reimagines Metal Sonic. Him being convinced that he’s the ‘real Sonic’ is a cool idea, but having him turn into a giant dragon while ranting about world domination honestly misses the point of why his character as this silent but still expressive mirror to Sonic worked to begin with. And, I’m sorry guys. I really don’t like Mephiles. Yes, Dan Green kills it as a voice actor but aside from that his design is dull, he has the personality of a rock and his plan makes no sense. He does give Shadow some cool development but that’s more a testament to Shadow being a good character than Mephiles being a good villain. I really like the idea of Sonic having a rogues’ gallery of villains, but if you’re going to do that, make them good villains. And do it without throwing your main antagonist under a bus.

He’s back baby! And not a single JRPG reject in sight!

But then we get to Sonic Colours. Eggman is the main villain again. No evil god monster waiting to replace him. The closest we get is the Nega Mother Wisp in the DS version, and even then, she doesn’t really upstage Eggman. She’s just kind of a loose thread Sonic and Tails learn about after Eggman is defeated. And her current state is directly because of Eggman to boot. Plus, his goals here bring back that forgotten environmentalist undertone that was kind of abandoned when we started fighting evil god monsters, an aspect of Colours I’ve praised before. He’s industrialising planets, capturing and experimenting on the wildlife, all while using the same gaudy theme park imagery from Unleashed to mask his efforts. Yes, Colours has a lighter, jokier tone, and a lot of his dialogue is trading banter back and forth with the goofier Orbot and Cubot. But he’s still treated as a threat who has to be stopped. Plus, what with all the Eggman PA announcements, he tends to get the best jokes as well. I get that Colours’ writing is divisive but I rarely hear anyone complain about those.

“Out here living my best life.” “Isn’t Infinite dead?” “This isn’t about him.”

And the later games keep up the trend of not only keeping Eggman as the villain but playing on the expectation that he’ll inevitably get betrayed. Generations makes you think the Time Eater kidnapped Eggman and he’s just a pawn of this monster. Nope. He’s actually taken this alien demigod, converted it into a robot and had complete control of it. Lost World starts with Eggman getting betrayed by the Deadly Six and having to work with Sonic, which at this point is familiar ground honestly. Turns out Eggman was playing both sides, straight up fakes his death and then takes over the Deadly Six’s plan right under everyone’s nose. I don’t particularly care for the Zeti as villains or much of the rest of Lost World’s story but Eggman’s role here is honestly pretty great. Even in Sonic Forces, as rushed and tonally weird as it is, handles Eggman pretty well. Not only does he succeed in taking over the world but again, you kind of expect that Eggman will just get betrayed by Infinite right? Nope, when Infinite loses, Eggman takes the Phantom Ruby to finish the job himself. Again, I’m not defending Sonic Forces entirely, but I do appreciate a game that’s able to have villains other than Eggman without making him a joke (though I do think Eggman is kind of lacking in screentime in this game, and needed more instance to be his hammy charismatic self for this to really land as well as it could have done). Sonic Mania has one of my favourite takes on this. In general I really like the Hard Boiled Heavies and their varied designs and boss fights, but I especially appreciate how the Heavy King doesn’t just take the Phantom Ruby and upstage Eggman as the final boss. Instead, the final fight is a three-way clash between Sonic, Eggman and Heavy King all trying to take the Ruby. Eggman’s egotistical ‘only I can rule the world’ outlook means there’s a lot of potential in having him compete with other villains. But only a few Sonic games do this without making him a complete afterthought or joke next to the more ‘evil’ Big Bad of the game.

I won’t go into the side media because I’m not quite as familiar with them as the games. I could maybe touch on how I find X!Eggman a little too goofy (though he gets points for being genuinely funny) before he gets upstaged again by the Metarex. But in stuff like SatAM, Boom or AOSTH, he’s basically a completely different character so it’s almost redundant to discuss. And while I haven’t read the IDW comics, what little I’ve seen out of context gives me mixed feelings on how he’s handled, and while I’m cautiously optimistic for Ian Flynn writing for Frontiers, I really hope it’s not a sign that we’re getting more cases of ‘Eggman gets ignored and replaced by other, more forgettable villains’.

Though frankly if we get more stuff like this scene in the game, I may have nothing to worry about.

Put simply, I think Eggman is still one of my favourite characters in the series. I’m not opposed to having other antagonists in Sonic. But I don’t find any of the series’ attempts at more ‘serious’ villains have resonated with me anywhere near as much. I do think that when we have discussions about the ways Sonic as a franchise has changed across the eras, it’s important to look at the good and bad parts of each era, not just to say ‘old thing good, new thing bad’, tempting as it can be to do so. And I think Eggman is a really good example of why that’s a helpful perspective.

#dr eggman #sonic the hedgehog #sonic adventure #sonic heroes #sonic colours #characterisation #general ramblings

[a-tad-bit-obsessed]

Ah the wonderful cycle of I’m really panicked and anxious about work today so I can’t focus on the work I was supposed to do this weekend, which in turn makes me more panicked and anxious about work

#ahhhhh #general ramblings