#<- yes thats relevant

[absolutelynotsanebaby]

I was talking to my mutual about Cole when I had a surge of Thoughts so per usual you all have to hear them now. I was considering a couple things, namely his development and place as the "strong guy" on the team and his masculinity (and how it presents in the show vs in fanon).

Cole's pretty often typecast as the gruff strong guy in a lot of fan-media (from fanfics to fanart etc) which isn't wrong because he was like that, especially within the early seasons. The way he spoke, the way he acted, his place as a sort of leading force. In season three you even see him in that stupid lumberjack fit (said affectionately), it's all very traditionally masculine. Which fits his whole Strong and Big guy of the team role (the five man band archetypes etc etc). However, it's interesting to say because at his core, he's very emotional and very driven by a strong sense of internal compassion (with a canonical affinity to children). Which obviously none of that is opposed to masculinity but these traits begin to show more as the gruffness pulls back. The first real example of that I think is in ToE with his fight with Jay. I don't read him as being invested in their fighting the same way Jay was. Jay was fueled by insecurity and a very strong sense of jealousy and possessiveness. Cole? I think he was just reacting to Jay's aggression, which didn't put Nya in a better position but it is a difference. 

So when their match rolls around, he's the first one to realize what they're doing is stupid and give in. He reaches out emotionally to Jay. However, Jays still is a friend so that is easy to write off as a symptom of friendship. And then following ToE we have possession and DOTD which I think are where he really begins to develop, and have the strongest examples of what I'm getting at. I'm going out on a limb and saying that I really see his prior gruffness as a sort of armor, to be good enough for the team (insert that one Wu note of him staying up late before missions) and also there his whole rebellious streak against his father trying to force him to be someone he's not. (Note: I wouldn't be surprised if how Lou raised him really had a impact on all this) Then, we get to Possession and both his self worth and self image are shook badly by literally dying. He outright says he's not a ninja anymore, which I think he based a lot of who he was on (<- which is why struggling with it hit so hard).

Finally DOTD comes up and I think we see the strongest example of where his compassion really become a core trait. It's his fight with Yang. He had no reason to reach out to him, to be honest he had the right not to, but he did and it worked! He didn't get out of DOTD in the end with brute force, he got out of it with emotional support (his team showing up), a stubborn adherence to his moral code, and reaching out to Yang with empathy. From that point on, I think he's softer and more prone to being emotional, it's like there was a very real shift. To circle back to Jay, because I think he makes for a good comparison, he does not develop like that post ToE. Actually, the issues carying from s3 (though, they do exist prior just not as starkly) all the way to Skybound where it gets violently (literally) addressed. Jay fans can probably say it better than me but the season is about his insecurity and treatment of Nya and there's a reason both Nadakhan and Cliff are like that (read: they're parallels). It's just interesting because both Cole and Jay have issues with self worth and image but they present and develop very differently. 

There's also the fanon aspect with those two that's really funny. I think everyone's aware of the infamous fanon-bruise, the 2010s-yaoification. Uwu Jay, Big Strong Man Cole, and how weirdly racist it is. It's just funny to note because the issues projected onto Cole in fanon are ones Jay has, like, in the show. Cole's the more emotional and compassionate one of the two, but because of the strong guy role, it gets flipped around in fanon. Going by the 'traditional' (read: toxic) masculine standards, in terms of personality and character, I think Jay more closely aligns. It reminds me of this post I saw once, it was of Hunted where Jay was making the plane (?) and Cole was with baby Wu. It called Jay the 'mom' and Cole the 'dad' which I find kind of funny because if you look at it through that hetero-normative lense, it really should be the other way around. Cole's the one caring for the baby pretty consistently, Jay's the one making a machine and Working. Did Jay just get called the 'mom' there because people think of him as smaller and weaker and therefore more feminine? Did Cole get called the dad just because he's strong and considered bigger? It's interesting. Fanon does Cole really dirty sometimes.

To get back on topic of Cole's narrative development, then we get to MOTM (like a bajillion years later which no I'm not complaining except I am). Cole's characterization in MOTM is so fucking good. MOTM does a fantastic job at tying together several of his strings. It ties in Lilly, his self esteem, his staunch morality, affinity towards leadership, and compassion into one, pretty bow. MOTM puts Cole back into a leading role, and it gives him several groups to reach out to (Vania, the munce and geckle, the uppily). It draws back the insecurity present in him, letting it show again to be addressed. It even ties in his relationship to Wu in a really lovely way to me. MOTM is the season where Cole finds who he is, his identity and his place as his mothers son.

Speaking of that, I have a very strong love for male characters who exemplify who their mothers were and what they taught them. The scenes with Lilly really put his entire character into a different perspective. At the start he was this tough kid fresh off grief and pressurized so strongly by his dad and himself and he goes through loops and hurdles of strength and identity and by the end he finds himself exactly where he needs to be. Where he's the strongest and it's in his mothers footsteps, as someone both emotional and strong. It's a really lovely character arc to take him on, and though I haven't watched DR, I've heard they continue that on. 

Anyways, consider it positive masculinity, consider it anything else. I just had a lot of thoughts to share and hope I don't sound too 'reading-too-deep' about it. Bye bye Kar ramble over.

[fury161]

portraits for a de au i think about a little bit

[lucabyte]

i CANNOT stress enough how incompatible the themes of these two pieces of media are. i promise my media literacy ability is actually good im well aware that these character mappings are absolutely nothing. that said. play with me in this space. in this sopping wet miserable space. its bad luck to kill a piou piou

original screenshots (and hypnosis 1904) for reference

[clockworkreapers]

collection of mspa art, quadrant stuff, cybele as a kid and the new kismesiss who belongs to my friend security.

[punishedyke]

i think about Archimedian Yonta's "Objects that have affected one another continue to affect one another even when they're separated. I've missed you." and "I think you'd have liked me, back when I was human. I mean, I hope you would." more than anyone should.

[roxiusagi]

lookie lookie!! I made for myself some danmei food-related stickers to decorate my cookbook (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ𓇼

I actually think they turned out super cute!! Unfortunately tho the sun was not in an agreeable mood so the pics don't rly do them justice but whatev i wanted to share them now!

attempt to save the poor photoshoot conditions by adding some artistic greenery is a courtesy of Mayhem my beloved all the kudos to her xD 💓 (oh also she made the fancy lettering lol I couldn't make anything that pretty)

[asp3nn]

more siren penelope bc i really like suffering and i like her and shes altering my brain chemistry for no good reason

[aro-aizawa]

pros: very sucinctly describes his quirk; explosive + palm; snappy and quick; not reliant on character development

cons: heavy negative connotations relating to horrific injuries and deaths sustained from use of it in war, many on civilians and is a brutal killer; too creative and simple for bakugou to have come up with on his own

[chiimeramanticore]

tumblr is a beautiful website bc it's the only place you can make a post and then have someone rb it, restate everything you said as if it's a new idea, ultimately agree with your post, and then still somehow accuse the original post of being ableist

[girlwiththegreenhat]

i am never going to recover from the death shroud radio play actually

[aroaceleovaldez]

do. you consider the graphic novels to be canon (in some way)? and if so, what do you make of sadie and carter wearing the chb and cj t-shirts respectively at the end of tot i think

I consider the graphic novels to be their own individual canon - they're an adaptation of the source material and follow a different series of events than book canon, so they're in the same category as like the movies, show, or musical to me (and DS game, lmao). They exist completely separate from the canon they're adapting from, so they're their own entities.

The material I consider strictly "canon" is the first series, so Percy Jackson And The Olympians only. Then HoO and TOA as extraneous canon on top of that - sort of a like "recommended but optional." TKC and MCGA also kind of operate as their own canons within themselves but can be linked to main PJO canon, so similar category. Published companion novels and similar material (so like Singer of Apollo) are also optional add-ons.

Stuff like Un Natale Mezzosangue and Nachos After The War where they weren't ever formally published are non-canon official material to me, kind of in the same vein as promotional material released alongside the books (the activity guides and such). The official art exists in the same sphere to me. I also personally consider CHB: Austin's lore to be semi-canon or non-canon official material, because they're actually affiliated with Rick Riordan (he has directly interacted with the camp's activities in the past) and I think it's just kind of cute.

The ReadRiordan articles are just straight up strictly non-canon. They just are. That is just an objective fact about them. I am slightly more lenient towards some of the old official Riordan website's media, like the interactive Argo II map descriptions, just since those descriptions were one-and-done and presumably had to have been approved versus a ton of articles with different anonymous unaffiliated authors. It's at best in the same category as the non-canon official promotional material.

As for Sadie and Carter wearing camp t-shirts - it's a cute cameo! And also kind of interesting in that they're technically one of first official published depictions we have of the camp shirts with any kind of details on them (the old official art doesn't count actually cause that was also bonus material).

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

deciding to have my Lavellan drink from the Well of Sorrows not for what it means for future plot or the lore or for any in game-reason but because there is nothing more on brand that i, the player, can do than to drink from an ill-advised body of water i find outside

[odegoob]

"if you don't have kids how are you supposed to leave a legacy" tell that to alexander the great, known for being gay and having 1 million cities named after him

[spark-circuit]

veteran HSR player, Genshin co-op buddy and irl bestie convinced me to try out HSR Easter Sunday night because I was free and I was telling him Aventurine was trending on tumblr (he's a Raiden/Acheron main and beat Aventurine pre-nerf) - only for him to show me, a Certified Childe Main, the official artwork tweet.

so naturally we made joke edits of it lmao.

[soft-hardboy]

⛈️I ain't leaving you.

im posting all this stuff like way out of order but i need to post this one sooner before all the others or else ill FEEL BAD cause... i drew this for 7/25 of course ANYWAYS DISTORTIONS HUH, PARALLELS IN THERE HMM! im normal about them im normal about them im normal about them i promise

[elfdyke]

sm ppl making my mouthwashing comic about swansea only... ok