being aromantic and into whump is like. shoutout to whump for being a great opportunity to engage with stories about intimacy and vulnerability and powerful emotion and physical interactions with other people and intense relationships that are not presumptively based in romance. what would i do without you.

i truly love seeing both aro and non-aro people reblogging and agreeing with this sentiment. join me, let's appreciate intimacy and vulnerability and powerful emotion and physical interactions with other people and intense relationships that are not presumptively based in romance. i love you whump genre.

bring back zooterkins, the best 17th-century swear word

I don't normally do Just Characters Swearing, but. ...this kind of wrote itself and then wouldn't leave my head. it comes from both a piece of character-writing advice that has always stuck with me, and also my conviction that Leona is 1000% funnier as a character if his dialogue has to stay G-rated. let Kalim say fuck, but don't let Leona say bastard.

(I'm sorry)

i haven't written big fics since summer 2022 but if i had ideas on how to make an evillious chronicles×lis verse crossover it would be a fucking 150 thousand words fic and a maniacal hyperfixation

Hell yeah!

I only have the Diaz brothers for Story of Evil but feel free to share your castings 👏

I honestly think it's so weird to see people who think it's "failing" Daniel to model low morality behavior for him, like how is it better to deprive him of important resources than to break the rules of a society that's already traumatized him? both high morality endings involve Daniel being violently separated from his brother and raised by near-strangers, isn't that a form of failing him, too?

i fully believe daniel never grows out of his sweet tooth. no matter how old he gets he loves chocolate and cookies. u can expect to find a half-eaten bar of chocolate in the center console of his car 100% of the time

Diaz Family Headcanons

*Ending spoilers and pictures under the cut*

These have been sitting in my drafts since I started posting here again. I’m a sucker for tickles & Diaz family fluff and I just want them happy, laughing and having fun, So here’s some silly tickle hcs about my favorite wolf pack.

Keep reading

I feel like these two poor children would really enjoy each other’s company :’)

saw a one piece live action character impressions post that pegged luffy as having daddy issues which is hilarious to me because luffy has, like, the opposite of daddy issues. he has daddy solutions. if you hang out with luffy long enough, your father-related angst starts to resolve. this has happened to multiple characters.

"Esteban would not want his sons to become what they became in Blood Brothers/live the life they live in Blood Brothers."

This is a really popular argument from those who criticize the ending of "Blood Brothers", but I don't think it works as well as it seems from the outside.

Esteban is, first of all, a loving father. Who takes care of his sons (both) and stood up for them in front of a police officer (which led to his death).

I really don't think Esteban would be happier with an outcome in which his eldest teenage son would spend most of his life in prison (Sean was 16 years old at the start of his prison sentence and 31 years old at the end of his prison sentence) for a crime he didn't even commit. Esteban would not be happier with an outcome in which Sean comes out of a long (15-year) prison sentence a mentally broken man with no real prospects. Sean's life is broken (like Sean himself).

I doubt very much that, as a father, Esteban would have preferred this for Sean. And that it's Sean's fate would be more comfortable for Esteban than Sean living in Mexico and working there as an auto mechanic (like Esteban, you know). It doesn't make sense to me.

Esteban would definitely prefer "Blood Brothers" to "Redemption."

It is also ignored that in addition to "Esteban taught his sons to be good" (they do not become bad people from doing what is necessary for their own survival), he also taught them brotherhood and wanted them to be close. What he told Sean about the importance of their brotherhood and connection.

Esteban wanted his sons to be close and for them to stay together (an outcome we only see in "Blood Brothers"). This is what happens at the beginning of episode 3, in flashbacks.

The idea that "this is not what Esteban taught them" comes from Sean's possible response during the dialogue with Karen, but even if he taught them to follow the norms of society (the path of high morality), he did it when they lived an ordinary life and nothing threatened them. Not when they have to constantly run away and pick up scraps from garbage cans so as not to starve to death.

Karen, a woman who had been married to Esteban for several years, never said that they could not go to Puerto Lobos and that Esteban would not want them to choose Puerto Lobos over Sean's imprisonment. On the contrary, she was the one who convinced Sean to cross the border with Daniel.

Again, I think he would definitely prefer this outcome to "Redemption."

But even if we take for truth the popular thesis "this is not what Esteban would like", the brothers have the right to build their own lives regardless of their father's wishes.

"when Daniel attacks the cops in Blood Brothers/Lone Wolf, it's so terrible! they don't have to be harmed at all, it's literally shown in Parting Ways! low-morality Daniel is who attacks first. cops were just defending!"

Um, well, how would… no? it seems to me that when people say such things, they really don't understand what happened at the border and what happened in Parting Ways.

at the border, they were surrounded by cops, whose main task is to prevent Daniel and Sean from crossing the border, arrest Sean and present Sean before the court. it is absolutely obvious that they will not let the Diaz brothers go. so Sean and Daniel have only two choices, it's to give up or to continue the fight. the second option means that Daniel will have to attack the cops.

I really wonder how people imagine a "humane" way to cross the border when it doesn't exist.

if Daniel had just moved the cars out of their way without hurting anyone and opened the way for them to move on, the cops wouldn't have let them go. they wouldn't say something like, "well, since you broke through our fence with the help of unknown magical powers of your younger brother, then have a good trip!".

the cops would continue to chase the Diaz brothers and attack them because there are no other options here. they won't let them go just because Sean and Daniel just drove past the fence, and even more so they won't do it when they witness Daniel's superpowers. the cops came there for the sole purpose of stopping and detaining them. how can people imagine that the superpower demonstrated by Daniel and going beyond the fence will convince the cops to abandon their goal, turn around peacefully and leave with the words "oh no, we screwed up! well, it would be impolite to continue chasing them, so we give up"?

"but in Parting Ways!…" in Parting Ways, the cops literally started shooting at them, trying to kill them, as soon as Sean drove on. they started shooting even before Daniel even damaged their cars and demonstrated superpowers. wtf, people. if they want to cross the border, they will have to attack the cops, otherwise the cops will kill them. the cops try to kill them even when Daniel isn't attacking them. after that, how can you say that a low-morality Daniel, who wants to cross the border, could not attack?

this is literally what Sean says to do when he decides to cross the border. In Parting Ways, Sean wants Daniel to do what he does in Blood Brothers and Lone Wolf, which is why the highly moral Daniel says he doesn't want to do it and jumps out of the car.

Daniel: I don't wanna! I'm not hurting anyone else!

Sean: It's too late! They're shooting at us, Daniel. This is the only way!

Parting Ways directly tells us that they can't cross the border any other way, but the fandom somehow drew the exact opposite conclusion from this. it really blows mind.

The only reason the cops didn't follow Sean was Daniel falling out of the car. the younger Diaz, who demonstrated incomprehensible superpowers in front of them, is clearly a much higher priority for them than his older brother.

if Daniel had stayed with Sean, the cops would have continued the chase. if they had driven on without attacking the cops, the cops would have continued the chase. so… it's obvious. low-morality Daniel attacks not because he wants to be awesome cool badass, but because they have no other way out. high-morality Daniel jumps out of the car not "for fun", but because he does not want to attack (and it is necessary to attack in order to cross the border together).

"Daniel destroyed the cars" but did not erase the cops and Florens's memory of what they saw.

it's a little funny when criticize the Blood Brothers and the actions of the Diaz brothers at the border, but ignore that what happened at the border in the Blood Brothers is what Sean demanded from Daniel in Parting Ways. Daniel, who is comfortable with Sean's desires and shares them is bad. Sean, who forces a scared Daniel to do something Daniel doesn't want (risking his life), is good. although what Sean demands from Daniel is bad by the same logic.

okay…

People in the Life is Strange 2 fandom, are obviously lacking decent media literacy skills. A lot of us Blood Brothers choosers, like myself included, are all about acknowledging canon dialogues in the game that doesn't relate to and with determinant choices, reading through Sean's perspectives through his sketchbook, and we think rationally about each of the lis2 endings as well.

Parting Ways choosers are one of those, unfortunately. They only care about fan services involving problematic ships like Sinn and Sassidy who aren't even main characters at all, and not good quality stories. The story was and is always and only about Sean and Daniel. I've seen this fandom bringing Chris into the Diaz Brothers' story - when really, he is a SIDE CHARACTER with a SIDE PLOT in episode 2, he wasn't meant to be a main character at all and Episode 2 isn't his episode, just a side plot we see later on. Episode 2 was only about Sean and Daniel learning to follow the rules again as if they were back to living in normalcy, like they used to have when they were living with their deceased father back in Seattle, but got grow to sick and tired of it.

Now, a common opinions I've seen with Parting Ways is how Daniel didn't really need to hurt the cops in order to "help" Sean get through the border. But how would they know there weren't any cops INSIDE in some of those police cars he thrown out of the way to get close to the border who possibly got hurt and killed by him? I've thought about this many times and no one brought it up but MYSELF.

Sean and Daniel didn't sacrifice for each other in that ending majority of the fandom likes to make up. Sean and Daniel actually put each other in danger even more through the recklessness of the players' choices, that Sean and Daniel will never agree to be separated, if anything. It could've been like Lone Wolf 2.0. if one of them actually got killed but still got taken back to the U.S and not flee to Mexico.

Sean and Daniel together — not only one of them, are allowed to make a lot of radical and drastic decisions together if they want to and can keep making them as long as they want. These two doesn't owe the world anything for how they treated them throughout the game. No matter which morality and brotherhood you get when Sean talks to Daniel about separation — Daniel will always say "I don't want to be separated!/Don't say that, let just get out of here" it's really canon these two don't want to be separated at all and choosing the high morality endings + lone wolf goes against their wishes.

it’s actually so interesting to me how one of the main criticisms of why people didn’t like life is strange 2 is because daniel is “annoying.” and i don’t know if it’s just because i have a sibling (who albeit, is older than me so not the same dynamic as the diaz brothers) so maybe i’m not as affected by his childishness but like… he’s nine. that’s literally how nine year olds act. like, are nine year olds annoying? hell fucking yes. but this being a criticism of the game itself is so weird to me because that’s like saying you’re annoyed that their dog mushroom… barked. that’s what dogs do. and this is coming from someone who doesn’t have or ever want kids and thinks they’re incredibly annoying most of the time. tbh, i thought daniel’s behavior was pretty normal for a kid who had just watched his dad get murdered in front of him and is now on the run from authorities and also homeless, and is all the while coming to terms with his newly discovered supernatural abilities. 

brothers wolves!!!!!!

same energy

The most unrealistic thing about life is strange 2 is that Sean didn't have at least one page in his sketchbook that was just eyes

Just thinking about how Daniel starts crying when he’s lifting the tree up at the lake, and tearing up myself

Been wanting to elaborate on this a bit, because I feel like this little detail is important. I feel like so many people were calling Daniel a villain or a villain in the making that had to be stopped after this scene, they focus too much on his power (and his power is a focus of the scene but not in the same way people focus on it) and not Daniel’s feelings during this scene.

That scene wasn’t some “villain origin story” (and personally I never thought that watching the scene), it was display of a hurt child, one that’s been through too much, one who constantly has to deal with the contradiction of being told to grow up but not being treated with the respect of the grown people around him, one who is lonely and misses the one person he had left.

So while yes, him lifting that tree trunk the way he does is wild and showcases how powerful he’s getting, that small detail makes it more sad than “supervillain” and I hate that people

“the diaz brothers became criminals” sean & daniel were branded as criminals the minute officer matthews judged them worthy of being held at gunpoint. there is no becoming. regardless of what you do, from the very intro of the game the boys are labeled as criminals.

“how to make sure the boys don’t become criminals” isn’t the question the game wants you to ask or the goal it wants players to strive for. thinking on what actually is a criminal, why people may possibly commit crimes, and what it means when the law labels a person that may or may not have committed a crime as being a criminal anyway is what the discussion should be about.