Barry's Photography, Duel Courtois 1453

Beach day!

Here’s the speedpaint ^^

long time no snm art lol

Embrace Death (he gives great hugs and Zag could use one)

-Please do not reupload, edit, or use without proper credit or linking back, ask first please.-

My favourite trope has to be:

I sacrificed myself to save you. I didn't plan to survive. I burnt all the bridges. I intended to break your heart with my death, but that would be all right, because I wouldn't be around to see you. I pretended that you'll mourn me for a while and move on. I convinced myself I was going down in the blaze of glory. That my deed was appreciated. That everything was going to be all right afterwards, and I didn't need to be there to see it.

But I survived. And now I have to look you in the eye. I have to pick up the pieces of the life I shattered and figure out how to put it back together. If it can be done at all.

part of what makes tragedies tragic is the story being preventable from the outside but unpreventable from the inside

we've been running from love 🫀

practical writing advice part 2

part 1

get used to carrying a notebook around with you. or get used to writing on your phone. you will not always have access to your computer, but it’s much easier to take something compact with you to quickly jot down ideas. also i have chronic illness and sometimes my bones feel like lead and going upstairs to get my laptop is a herculean task, BUT i can write on my phone lying down instead of just scrolling through my camera roll and being miserable. which brings me to my next point:

if you have to choose between writing unconventionally or even unproductively and not writing at all, choose the writing. i’ve said before not to create a habit of writing in bed, but if it comes down to writing in bed or not writing whatsoever, i’ll write in bed. i just try to stretch before and after (which you should also do!!!).

you’re not wasting time or being silly by making playlists or moodboards or memes of your characters and environments. having fun with your stories outside of writing them is a good way to stay motivated.

i like to stop my writing sessions in a place where i know exactly what i want to write next, so when i pick back up i won’t be left hemming and hawing over where to begin. HOWEVER, if you’re absolutely locked in, don’t interrupt that flow state. it’ll be harder to find it again later—instead, wait until you find a natural place to stop where you haven’t run out of ideas.

“why do i have a headache 3 hours into my writing session?” because the last time you had a sip of water was 4 hours ago, you dingus! keep your drinks near your workspace while you write. and i do mean, like, a full bottle of water at least. if you’re like me, things stop existing when they leave your line of sight, so keep these beverages where you can see them and refill during bathroom breaks.

uhhh try not to think negatively about your writing while you’re doing it because when i do that i just get bummed out. “this scene is terrible” -> “oh yeah fuck it up oh yeah fuck it up” (positive reframing)

ok thanks bye

a dance with death

Five Fics

@ruiniel tagged me to do some shameless self-promotion for five of my stories! Here goes:

Chthonic Bed Death - 🔞 Hades Game, Thanatos x Zagreus - This is my most popular fic on AO3 and I'm quite proud of it! I really put a lot of myself into this and like... not to brag or anything, but I still think it's pretty damn hot 😏

Until the Sun Rises Again - Castlevania, Alucard x Olrox - this is my main WIP at the moment and considering how rare this pairing seems to be, the response has been wonderful??? I'm just so obsessed with these characters and while they may not have interacted in canon yet, they have all the chemistry in my heart 😩

Hideaway - 🔞 Hades Game, Ares x Thanatos - this was a discord drabble that quickly went out of control. I love it though. There's some emotional moments and bits of imagery I'm really, really proud of in here.

How Do You Sleep? - Once Upon A Time/California Solo, Lacey x Lachlan - My beloved crossover disaster ship! I loved taking these two deeply flawed, dysfunctional people and making them learn how to lift each other up in their own way 😭

Resonance - Hades Game, Thanatos x Zagreus - My other WIP that has sadly taken a back seat while my Castlevania brainworms have been wriggling 😅 Thanzag AuDHD solidarity is very dear to me and the response from people identifying with the ND stuff as well as some of the gender stuff really warms my heart ❤️

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No pressure tag: @killingkueen, @ver-writes, @coffee-writes, @mareyshelley, @red-hot-moon, @delta-pavonis, @abovethemists, or anyone else who wants to do this 😘

Just finished watching MHA season 7

I am not okay. I am in shambles. A shallow husk of a human being. I have exhausted all my emotions and have nothing left to give. I'm sitting right there in the middle of charred earth and ash with tears frozen on my face. I might need a hero to sacrifice themselves to stitch my destroyed heart back together.

The level of character writing in this series is amazing. I stand by my (probably controversial) take that there are some issues with pacing and setup/payoff, though I haven't read the manga so I can't tell how much of that is an issue with the adaptation. But what the show does excel at is portraying a large cast of characters with deep and diverse motivations, and it somehow manages to build on them in a deliberate, believable manner. (Let me piss off another fandom real quick: JJK could never.)

I was spoiled on the Dabi reveal before I started watching the show. In fact, that spoiler got me interested in watching it in the first place. I picked up on the tiny hints that were sprinkled in from very early on and was interested to see how they pull the reveal off. I was a little disappointed with how one-note Dabi was for the entire time up until that point, and the reveal itself was far less effective without the intended shock value. I almost wrote it off as missed potential. However, the seeds that were sown were not in Dabi himself, but the Todoroki family dynamic. Once we get to the flashbacks and eventually the grand emotional showdown, we have already gone through a character arc with Shouto, Endeavor and the rest of the family, and we have seen how All For One grooms vulnerable youth to his cause. In the present, Dabi is only fueled by hatred and revenge. In the past, we see a sad little boy who is raised to believe that his value comes from the strength of his quirk, and who is then told he can't use it (thus stripping him of his value). He's practically abandoned as a failed project, and Endeavor's misguided attempts at discouraging him by distancing himself instead of showing him he's got value beyond his strength and usefulness drives poor Touya even further along his doomed path. And this is incredibly fertile soil for All For One's grooming. It's heartbreaking. The reason Dabi is so one-note is that there's nothing else left in him. He's too far gone to be saved. We can bring the entire Todoroki family together to finally see his cries for help and acknowledgment, but it's simply too late. Sometimes it's just not possible to bring the "black sheep" of the family back from the edge of self-destruction. God, it's too real, and devastating, and narratively satisfying.

And then we have our misguided pansexual queen Himiko Toga. I was pretty neutral on Toga for most of the series, because the yandere archetype never really appeals to me. Turns out there's a lot more to her than that. For her entire childhood, she was ostracised and derided for being different and gross. I see an interesting mix of autism-coding/queercoding in how her innate ways to approach love and affection are seen as wrong and abnormal, and how she fails to conform to social norms because nobody's explaining them to her. I do like how neither allegory is one-to-one, and how it's internally consistent with how the world and Toga as a character work. Her childhood environment stunts her emotional development and leaves her with a black-and-white thinking, where you are either good or evil, cute or gross, completely accepted or completely rejected... a hero or a villain (boy, the society desperately needs reconstruction). It leaves her desperate for deep connections, and the deepest connection she can get is from becoming the target of her affection with her quirk. It's a selfish kind of affection that literally weakens the other party. At the same time, she's sabotaging her relationships by intentionally showing her ugly side and looking for signs of rejection to enforce her expectation of not being accepted for who she is. As someone who's struggled with (and, through therapy, learned to manage) traits of borderline personality disorder, I can relate to her chaotic approach to interpersonal relationships and powerful but volatile emotions. When both Deku and Uraraka very reasonably condemn her actions as a villain, she takes that as a total and complete rejection of her as a person. This is an especially heavy blow to her after the loss of Twice has brought her entire worldview into question. Then, when Uraraka reflects on this more and tries to reach out to her again, she's in full defence mode. She can't risk being rejected again, so she lashes out to keep Uraraka at an arm's length. Yet despite all the maliciousness, despite being stabbed, Uraraka fights to get through to Toga and show her that she sees the beauty in her and is willing to accept her in spite of her flaws. And then, after being properly seen and accepted by someone she loves, she's able to commit a purely selfless act of affection by giving away her own blood to keep Uraraka alive. Blood is her love language, and for once she's able to give instead of taking. It's hauntingly beautiful, and it's heartbreaking, and it closes her character arc wonderfully. (Mind you, I think their relationship would have been toxic and codependent, but I don't care. I'll be a Togachako truther from this moment until the day I die.)

This season alone had a lot of effective (and also some less effective) character moments that I won't touch on because this post is already too long and rambling. I especially have a lot more thoughts about best boi Kacchan, but I'll leave that for another day.