#❝ beyond the reasons.( interactions ) ▹

[fatedroses]

Zenos viator Galvus and him trying to deal with actually feeling things for once (Even if he doesn't really understand how to handle the comfort he receives from others for it)

I am also giving this man a dad that actually cares, because this brainworm have gotten me and there is no saving me from them.

[bitterrobin]

something that's super underrated in fic is Damian having a life in the League of Assassins. It's not just training 24/7 and mind games between a boy and his grandfather. It's not just Damian getting put through the child abuse simulator so that Bruce or Tim or Jason or Dick or whoever can rescue him. Damian is a character that experiences slow growth. He goes through the "no killing" rule, but there's storylines where you can tell he's only sticking to it for Bruce and Dick. He follows their lead because he needs their validation and affection, to prove himself - not because he genuinely believes in what they're trying to do (at least not yet).

For a child to be stuck in such a mindset, tells me two things; obviously the indoctrination runs deep because he was raised in the League. He doesn't understand his family because their lives are alien to him. But also that the League shouldn't just be a place of misery and despair. It needs to be full of people who praise his actions, people who try and value him.

They are teaching Damian that the Earth is something to be cherished, that he kills to honor his family and one day lead the revolution. It's something very overlooked; the League doesn't believe that they are evil. They are a fringe organization with the fervor to save the Earth. They worship Ras al Ghul, of course, but that's because they believes he embodies what the planet needs - rejuvenation, redemption, the care for endangered and extinct animals, the dismantling of rich billionaires and corrupt governments and exploitative companies. If they have to kill and turn the oceans red with blood to ensure that the Earth exists for a thousand more years - then so be it - Ras will take us there.

Damian internalizes this. He lives in this League day in, day out. He may not always appreciate the teachers his grandfather gives him, but he learns. He absorbs. He watches the initiates being sworn in shadows. He observes the cultists and their rabid worship, gets pulled in and placed high above the clouds as a piece of god. He lives his life every day surrounded by the Shadow assassins, spies, information specialists. He is waited on by League staff who are happy to serve them. He has handmaidens he's known since he was an infant, who pamper and spoil him. Bodyguards who have died to save him. Cooks and doctors and researchers and farmers and innocents living their own lives. They come from all over the world. They have families and friends. They have lineages as far back when Ras first founded the League. They treat him like a son, like a little brother, like an older brother, like a friend, like a student, like a messiah, like a child and like an equal.

And when he leaves the League...he loses those connections. The handmaiden who took care of his hair, leaving him to slather on hair gel in an effort to maintain an image. The boy who was being trained a Shadow and befriended him, one whose deathly image he can never shake when talking to anyone his age. The teacher that taught him meditation, an inner peace he yearns to return to. The woman who taught him how to hack computers and he never look at Barbara without remembering her. The man who taught him boxing, his first experience with the life of a performer. The thief who gave him lockpicks and pilfered sweets, whose detached demeanor always remind him of Selina. The actress who taught him to manipulate his voice, a talent he will never get to show her again. The bodyguard who treated him like a little brother, whose sacrifice screams in his mind when interacting with any of the Waynes. Damian can never return to those days. He can create new memories in America, but his heart forever lies in the city amidst the mountains.

[eridude]

Even With Recent Happening In The Canon

Had Thou Thought Of Jadenaya, Little Bit Of The Space Players :3

THIS ASK IS SO OLD BUT I FINALLY GOT TO IT !

they're dreaming together

[applestorms]

i was just gonna leave this as a comment, but my response started spiraling sooooo. guess i'm makin' this a full on post lol =3=" uhh anyways, responding to @skyborneveggie's tags on this post:

#really good analysis #always here for high-functioning depression light takes #i want to add; while Light is better at reading & manipulating people in the moment he also tends to overlook some things in the long run #because of his superiority complex #like his father volunteering for the eyes in matsuda's place #and matsuda in the ending. As much as i like to think of matsuda as wholesome- #-i do think if light played his cards right he could have manipulated him over to kira's side #but he didn't because he didn't think matsuda was important in the grand scheme of things

very good points!! about matsuda in particular— it’s interesting in retrospect how consistently he’s set up as a side character, particularly with how he is almost always immediately pushed off to the side despite that. like, alongside soichiro, he’s really the first member of the JTF we see pre-lind l. tailor (in the anime, anyway. in the manga it’s a bit more ambiguous, though matsuda definitely shows up to mention KIRA bringing the crime rate down in ch.3, still quite early).

he’s always the one counterpoint within the group, playing devil's advocate in a way with how he brings up the pro-KIRA side of things, yet as you say light underestimates him So consistently that he even ends up evolving into a full on joke/shakespearean fool character by yotsuba, which is really what makes his actions in the end so incredibly significant.

i distinctly remember reading that section where aizawa & mogi are getting more deeply involved with near and, in the case of aizawa in particular, are starting to genuinely consider the possibility that light might be KIRA, and just getting sooooooo so SO goddamn suspicious of what matsuda was doing. this was in part because i already had some spoilers about the ending, specifically about matsuda shooting him, but goddamn do his actions start looking suspicious when you begin taking him seriously as a threat. like, while aizawa is starting to live through his own psychological horror novel come to life, realizing that the innocent kid & strong leader he's been taking care of & following all this time might actually have been the fucking serial murderer they've been after for literal Years, here's what matsuda is up to in the background:

(light's face here. fuckin freak LMFAO)

(this one is particularly notable to me as it shows that even aizawa underestimates him— it's not just light, it's the whole damn team. even ryuk joined in earlier.)

(and of course, my absolute favorite example. the contrast between their expressions alone here is absolutely golden all on its own, but matsuda's heartfelt "don't worry, light!! i'll never betray you!!!" in comparison to THIS only makes it all the more juicy:

like, light doesn't even bother responding to him until he's got a goddamn bullet in his hand. he just sits there confident in the expectation that matsuda will lick his soles like a dog. jesus fucking christ.)

anyways, as i was saying: he's mostly just doing a bunch of dumb shit, making silly jokes in the background, fucking around with ryuk and being written off as an idiot by most characters, especially light but again also aizawa and ryuk. AND YET. he is Always hanging around over light's shoulder, lurking somewhere behind him in almost ever panel he shows up in, perfectly innocent to the point where it's can almost be more off-putting than if he were outwardly, actively questionable. like, this panel in particular, and i mean goddamn, just look at it again:

it hits So Hard in retrospect, not just because matusda is the one to shoot light in the end, possibly being his cause of death had ryuk not stepped in when he did, but also because it's true. as incredibly fucking suspicious as this panel may seem if you are armed with the knowledge that matsuda does, eventually, end up being the one to shoot light, it's equally easy to write it off as normal dumbass matsuda behavior because that is Exactly What It Is. and you would be right!! matsuda is trusting of light to a fault— when he eventually breaks, it is Not due to his own betrayal. it's the evidence of light's. and not just of his manipulation of the task force, for years and years and years on end— it's soichiro's death specifically that finally makes matsuda lose his faith in him.

the idea that light could've manipulated matsuda over to KIRA's side had he just tried a little harder is fascinating, but i think i can also understand why he didn't exert any more effort— it was kinda unnecessary. for basically the entire story, from the moment matsuda is formally introduced, to the minute light breaks and admits he's actually KIRA, matsuda is one particularly dedicated conversation away from being a full-on KIRA supporter— or so light believes, anyway. and he's probably not that far off.

really, i'm of the opinion that it's matsuda's existence as this KIRA-sympathetic figure in the task force in the first place that causes light to believe so strongly that he could eventually convert the entire JTF over to the side of KIRA— possibly even saving all of them their lives in the process. like, as i've said before, for all that light monologues about how he's Definitely Going To Kill The Task Force, Don't Worry, I Can And Will Do It When I Have To, he. never actually does it. instead, light goes through all the trouble of keeping the JTF strung along behind him for more than half a decade following L's death, holding on to all of these strings of his former life even when they are almost undoubtedly more of a pain than they're worth. unable to kill his father, unable to kill misa, unable to kill matsuda— even when he directly tries to.

i forget which post this was on, but i believe someone pointed out before that potentially a major part of light's grief following soichiro's death comes from the fact that he springs a shock on him at the last minute before passing: soichiro never stopped suspecting his son. when he sees light's lifespan above his head his first thought is to be relieved, because the question he's held at the back of his mind for Years has finally been undoubtedly assuaged. light is desperate to believe up until the end that he can make the world truly and genuinely pro-KIRA; his final actions in the moments of clarity before he starts begging at ryuk's feet for his life involve an enthusiastic speech as he makes one final bid at converting the JTF and SPK to join him and believe in his vision of Justice.

and yet. he never quite gets mastuda.

never bothered? or never could? perhaps a bit of both, but it's a fascinating character progression nonetheless, and easily one of the most interesting arcs in the series. poor, poor mastuda, indeed.

sidenote: this is a somewhat half baked thought, but i can't help but make a somewhat minor connection between light's treatment of matsuda and his treatment of misa, as well as his relationship with takada. like, let's think through the list of his main (human) supporters throughout the series, the ones who end up taking on the title of KIRA themselves: in the first half, misa, in the second, takada & mikami. if we add matsuda to this list, we get two mirroring pairs: misa & matsuda for the front half of the series, takada & mikami for the latter.

light's treatment of each of these pairs is quite different, despite the fact that they all essentially fulfill the same purpose to him: misa & mikami act as KIRA's eyes, killing those light is unable/unwilling to himself, while takada & matsuda fill the role of KIRA's spokesperson, albeit to very different audiences. thus each half of each pair executes a different side of KIRA's ideology: misa & mikami the practical side, becoming killers themselves, and takada & matsuda the persuasive side, pointing out the positive influences KIRA's actions have had on the population to The People and the rest of the task force respectively.

it's not quite as simple as i've laid out here, of course— tadaka eventually ends up killing before she dies at light's hand herself, misa lives as light's partner until she loses her memories and never quite recovers, mikami becomes quite static, just playing at a killer for Appearances, until his actions eventually end up accidentally betraying light and leading to his downfall. yet it still seems notable to me that despite light treating takada & mikami noticeably better for the majority of the time that he's working with them, those two are the ones who eventually end up dead, betrayed and betrayer respectively. yet, in the case of misa & matsuda... for all that light degrades them and treats them like shit, those two are the ones that get to live on past him while remaining stubbornly loyal until the end, until light's own actions twist back and smack him in the head.

i think perhaps part of the reason why light never ends up converting matsuda is not just his own ego blowing Shit outta proportion and assuming that matsuda will either very easily convert/is too much of a dumb liability to even bother with, but also light's own discomfort with having followers at all. like, it really takes him that full time skip to get fully on board with the idea that people will Submit to KIRA, despite the fact that he logically must know how necessary that is. light wants the recognition and love and commitment of other people, but he doesn't necessarily want the responsibility of their own stupid actions— a sentiment perhaps reflected in how easily he kills criminals, seeing their "evil" as something to be Purged, an annoyance just as much as a liability for the happiness of the Good, Pure People of the world.

as i've outlined before, misa is the main person who's enthusiastic submission consistently gets on light's nerves and icks him the fuck out, but i can't help but wonder if this same reaction applies at least in part to his distaste of matsuda. it's easier to get away from matsuda at least, considering he doesn't have to play the Good, Heterosexual Boyfriend around him, but that doesn't mean it isn't still somewhat present either. this also gets interesting if you start considering lawlight dynamics during yotsuba as well, and L's similar (if somewhat more overt, even) dislike of matsuda during that era BUT. that'll perhaps have to wait until another essay lolol =3=

[moe-broey]

Got inspired to revisit this FEH comic redraw I did when it first dropped! Specifically these panels:

Ended up freestyling that second Xane though LMFAOO he is just so impish to me...

If you wanna get Old Art Jumpscared I'll also include the original sketch under cut!

AAAAAAAAA JUMPSACRE AAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!

In a way though, I'm glad that I dropped it and picked it up again later... like I feel like this isn't even from that long ago (guy who has no sense of the passage of time voice), but the characterization and even design of Moe is so different. The Scrunch and :< face were game changers for it LMFAOOO (also just making it autisticer 👍)

Beyond that I think everyone looks a lot better and closer to how I envision them, esp Loki!

[sonknuxadow]

seeing knuxouge fans upset that rouge isnt gonna be in the next sonic channel art knowing that sonics last minute victory was at least partially caused by me being really annoying about the poll

[pebblezone]

She is soooo Living Dead Girl core

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

thinking about fallout 4 against my will

[menelaiad]

hello here to push my patroclus/menelaus agenda.

they are so similar. in both. character, story (to an extent) and how the bard/author of the iliad treats them.

they are literally both deemed as 'kindly' - the only two.

if y'all make me talk about the defence of patroclus again i'll riot (mother cow. slain for my honour. the DEFENDER not the attacker)

they exist in the shadows of greater heroes (despite being pretty awesome themselves) patroclus in achilles' and menelaus in agamemnon's and yet they don't begrudge that. they're fine... happy with the spotlight being on these other figures because they love them and care for them.

they are catalysts to a greater story. aRUGABLY achilles wouldn't have rejoined the war without patroclus' death and the trojan war would not have started had menelaus not sought help from his brother/partially initiated it himself.

they both have weight on their backs. patroclus is a murderer and an exile. menelaus is cursed and an exile.

they were both suitors to helen. they have met before.

in the agamemnon/achilles fight ... bro. they both can see both sides. they can see achilles' slighted honour and agamemnon's fragile mental state but they can also see achilles' stubborness and agamemnon's willingness to try. they both can't wholeheartedly take a side.

they would have spoke after so much time at troy. they would have got on so well.

there's a line in the paris musical where patroclus sings 'menelaus i indulge your grief, your dignity and your pain' and for a campy insane iconic musical??? it made some points. its got hanDS.

incredible lads.

[bloomeng]

what i want out of helluva boss?

for Stolas to acknowledge any of the significant people in Blitz’s life. like he supposedly has strong feelings for him yet does he know the names of anyone in IMP? does he know Luna’s name?? how does he feel about Blitz’s obsession with Moxxie and Millie’s relationship??? like we literally know he’s aware of these things; he’s met Moxxie and Millie and Luna multiple times, he seems to know who all of them are, he even was dragged by Blitz to be a plus one to his lil spy session for Moxxie and Millie’s anniversary. he must have thoughts on this, and yet i feel like he never interacts with them. which feels significant bc if you like this guy so much you’re certainly not even trying to get to know the parts of his life that aren’t even a secret!! even fucking Verosika, she was also there that night and that wasn’t addressed.

like sure i wonder how Stolas would feel about Blitz’s relationship to Fizz or even his sister but that all makes sense for him to not know about bc Blitz goes to extreme lengths to not talk about them. but cmon man not his daughter? not his best friend?? shaking my head.

that and real Millie development but that’s a given

[swagging-back-to]

riot finally showed material of isha so;

heres to hoping that isha dies by the end of the season :)

[ningningkittie]

tbh i feel like a couple of ppl are just weirdly mad and annoyed by the fact that i am not conventionally attractive but since i treat ppl w kindness and respect and understanding (a lot of) ppl still like me 💀

[icewindandboringhorror]

Recent ones of these even though they all look the same lol.. forcing myself to document progress..

[uncharted-constellations]

(I would include the game art but their designs are identical despite not being the same character)

TLOZ Zelda: Breaks the triforce of wisdom to hide the pieces from ganon before being captured, Link is called upon by her nursemaid Impa after saving her, to re-assemble the the triforce of widsom, destroy ganon, and rescue Zelda from his clutches. (Link was about 10 at the time, Zeldas age was unestablished)

TAOL Zelda: Many generations ago she was cursed by her brothers associate into falling into a deep sleep after she refused to give up information about the triforce. Link now 16, is told by impa that he is destined to awaken her due to the mark of the triforce, and is sent on an adventure by her to do so, where he inevitably uses the triforce to wish her awake (again this zeldas age is unestablished, other than technically being several generations older due to magic nap, the other zelda from the first game does not make an appearance)

[florenceisfalling]

having internet friends is just listening to a bunch of people from the uk shitting on the fact that you live in texas until you seethe like a man betrayed

[moe-broey]

From my notes....... like to me Sharena is projecting a little bit, here. She's frustrated with Veronica not only because of her behavior, but because if SHARENA EVER acted out anywhere NEAR that way. Maybe there would be severe consequences. Maybe it's something Sharena makes an effort to correct, within herself, before any consequences can catch her. And yet. Despite all that. Sharena still has moments of attitude and dare I say, Stubbornness, too.