#I just had to insert a bit of it here

[slightly-nerdy-rambles]

Robstar Week Day 2: Joy and Confusion (Prompt: Power Swap/Role Reversal)

For this prompt, I decided to take the role-swap AU that @burr-ell made a while back for inspiration. Some of you may remember that I've done this once before, bouncing off of one of the AU concepts to make a sort of alternate version of a scene from the "Masks" episode. I did the same basic thing here, taking inspiration from a doodle on the original post that invokes an alternate version of "Stranded" and expanding the concept into something that I could picture happening in that situation. I deviated a little more from the canon version than I did in the Masks AU, and I think this story is better for it.

As for doing the role-swap itself, that was an interesting challenge. I feel like a lot of Starfire and Robin's interactions and differences are rooted to some degree in the fact that she's a Tamaranean and he's a human, so when switching their species I had to think of how much those species and cultures would affect their respective personalities while still making the characters recognizably themselves. I ended up toning down some of Starfire's emotional energy and especially her reaction to Robin's "she's not my girlfriend" moment (since in canon her strong reaction was mostly because she was trying to keep her powers from going on the fritz), while cranking her already significant human observation skills to maximum as part of her training from Phoenix and leadership role. For Robin, I tried making him more emotionally open while still having that grimly determined streak and awkward shyness about romance, which pretty much resulted in his bout of power failure being his own darn fault lol.

Joy and Confusion

Robin was walking ahead, mouth set in a thin line as he quietly focused on the mission, and that was the first sign that something was very wrong.

It wasn’t that focusing on the job was a remotely bad or even unusual thing, Starfire thought to herself with a small frown. Their mission on the interstellar communications relay had been an unprecedented disaster, and of course their top priority now was to get themselves off of this unfamiliar planet. And besides that, Robin was a warrior prince of a planet with its own host of dangers, whose people defended themselves fiercely from threats both on their homeworld and from beyond. He knew just as well as she did how to knuckle down and get to business.

But Robin was also enthusiastic and open, always easy to read whether he was happy or angry or grimly determined. Starfire thought it might be a Tamaranean thing – cultural or psychological, she couldn’t say, but she’d seen a lot of the same emotional energy in other Tamaraneans back when they’d visited his home planet. Now he seemed… not angry or afraid, exactly, but vaguely nervous and like focusing on finding the others was just an excuse to bottle all his emotions up. And she had a bad feeling that she might know why that was.

“Robin?” she asked, sprinting up to him. “Are you… upset with me?”

Robin’s face pinched a little, and he pulled ahead of her again. “No,” he said curtly. “I do not envision any reason to be upset with you. Do you?”

That was hardly reassuring. Starfire ran to catch up with him again. “Because I overstepped my boundaries as team leader. What I said back at the station…”

Her brow furrowed as she trailed off. Why had she said that? “If I’m not your girlfriend, then what am I?” She’d just been so annoyed in the moment, watching the combat partner she obviously had some kind of chemistry with freak out and act offended at Chimera’s light teasing, that she’d just kind of blurted it out. If she’d just been a regular member of the team it might have been fine. But as the Titans’ leader, there was a sort of force behind her words that came out even when she didn’t intend it.

“I just wanted us to be on the same page, that’s all,” she finished lamely. “I was taught that clarity with your teammates is crucial, but I think I was the one being unclear. And for that I’m sorry. You were technically correct, after all,” she added with an awkward little smile.

Robin’s face seemed to twist through a series of emotions at that – nervousness, embarrassment, hope, excitement, fear – but then it settled back into that vaguely anxious look that he’d had since they first started trekking across this planet.

“You are forgiven,” he said, his voice neutral. “Please, let us focus on finding the others.”

With that, he continued across the volcanic canyon they’d been traversing, leaving Starfire to valiantly resist the urge to scream and start pulling her hair out.

Instead, she sprinted to catch up to him yet again. “Robin, will you please talk to me? I can tell that something’s still bothering you.”

Robin stopped, staring intently at the ground, and held up one hand in a halting gesture.

Starfire grit her teeth. “We can talk while we search, you know. I just don’t want –”

She was interrupted suddenly by a red-hot geyser shooting up from the ground not two feet in front of her. Robin watched the geyser run itself out and drop back down with a disgruntled twist to his mouth.

“The ground is unstable here,” he said, his voice low to keep the geysers from getting worse as he looked about. “We should find another way around.”

Starfire sighed internally, but bit her tongue until the two of them found a sturdier part of the canyon marred only by a single long fissure that seemed to relieve volcanic pressure with bursts of steam. She thought things over to herself, mentally reviewing the day they’d had so far as they walked along either side of the crack.

Then a revelation struck her, and she hopped over to his side of the gradually widening fissure in between steam eruptions.

“Robin?” she asked gently. “Does this have anything to do with your powers failing?”

Robin froze mid-stride – she could practically see his muscles tensing up. “Why do you say that?”

Starfire frowned thoughtfully as she remembered back through their encounter thus far on this planet. Things were starting to fall into place, but she knew she was still missing a piece somewhere. “When you fought off that slug monster, you were using regular weapons. I didn’t think about it at the time, because I was too busy trying not to get eaten, but you weren’t flying and I didn’t see any starbolts. And despite the treacherous ground here, I still haven’t seen you take to the air once. Is… is something on this planet blocking your powers somehow? Is that why you’re so distracted?”

Robing seemed to be shrinking in on himself as she spoke, and when she looked expectantly to him with her question he winced. Fiddling with his fingers and looking anywhere but at her, he choked out, “It… is not… the planet, precisely.”

Starfire’s brows furrowed in concern, and she placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Then what is it?”

Robin made a distressed little groan in the back of his throat. “Tamaranean powers rely on strong emotions, and mine are… that is to say, at the moment I am feeling very confused.”

Well, that certainly explained a few things. Starfire filed the revelation about Tamaranean powers away for later and asked, “About what?”

Robin looked at her with a sheepish half-smile. “You?”

Starfire raised an eyebrow, but let him continue. Robin let his smile collapse with a deep sigh and he added, “When Chimera said, ‘the girlfriend,’ I did not know how to respond. You are correct in that it was not factually true, but still I could sense that his words meant something beyond that. And now that I am thinking about it I am nervous and uncertain, and you are upset, and I… I do not know where else to go from here.”

He was blushing and averting his eyes again by this point. Starfire blinked rapidly as she tried to process his odd confession.

“So…” she started slowly. “You are upset and emotionally confused for the same reason I was earlier? Then why didn’t you want to talk it out?”

Robin made the distressed groaning noise again. “I always expected to be matched into an arranged Tamaranean marriage,” he muttered, his blush deepening. “I am not very good at understanding Earth relationships.”

Starfire thought about it for a moment, and then suddenly let out a little laugh. At Robin’s questioning look she said, “Honestly? Neither am I, at least when it comes to this.”

After another moment’s consideration, she stepped back and offered a shy hand to him. “Perhaps we can figure it out together?”

Robin looked at her proffered hand for a few seconds, his face shifting through uncertain expressions again. Finally, gingerly, he reached out and took her hand in his own.

“I think I would like that,” he replied, not seeming to notice as he hovered an inch off the ground.

[pepperpixel]

Initial drawings of that old man… I literally, I haven’t finished reading the book of bill yet!!! I had to stop and take a break for a week to feverishly draw fanart of myself petting fords floofy hair and giving him attention and shit…!!!! The urge was too great….!! I’ve literally. I had a crush on this guy the instant he was first REVEALED in the show, but I did not have the artistic prowess to draw good looking old men back then… but I do now… thank god… thank fucking god

[lumi-cherries]

do you have any rei boob hcs... i like to think she has stretch marks from them growing kind of quickly (projecting) i like to think she was flat chested at first but then they seemed to grow overnight LOL

STRETCH MARKS.......................................... HOLY SHIT. ANON. YOUR MIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS SO GOOD this will officially be my hc as well thank u

[hybbat]

I do think a good chunk of the 'cringey atheist' stereotype did come from the fact that, especially americans, regardless of their actual religious status are just casually christian and refer to things through a religious filter and that isn't seen for how overwhelming/obnoxious/frustrating it is. Its absense, such as when writing a story and things like "oh god" or other casual references are remove or replaced, is seen as notable the same way people find the cast being all women or queer being 'abnormal'.

And I think more people, especially here on tumblr, should take a moment from ragging on some kid being "cringey" saying god doesn't exist or making atheist jump around like dancing monkeys to establish they're one of the good respectful ones before they ever even begin to talk about their own thoughts, and examine why so much content just inserts god into a conversation that had nothing to do with religion like it's the expected norm, the same way they examine the invasiveness of casual heteronormativity.

[ikilledamanforthisurl]

really fun parallels between Minami & Nishida in which one guy who wants most of the fights he gets into generally has a bit of a dodgy win/lose ratio, meanwhile the other who has only ever welcomed one single fight in his life is the more violently competent

[kaidanalenkosprmanager]

THE BEST OF TUCHANKA: TURIAN PLATOON

Featuring: Cmdr. Sophie Shepard, Lt. James Vega, EDI, and Lt. Tarquin Victus With: Lt. Steve Cortez and The Ninth Turian Platoon Decisions like these weigh heavy on me- when I was a General, I could pass them up the chain of command. But now? I'm all I've got. I'm beginning to understand why leaders so often seem lonely... Worst case scenarios aren't just theories- they're what you'll be dealing with five minutes from now. Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition (2021)

[local-diavolo-anon]

I inked those doodles from the other day and made some more! Enjoy!

Further context on the au under the cut for who is interested!

I won't begin from the start but assume he is living in the Pizza Plex's underground basement for the time being

After redesigning and building what will be new bodies for the 5 missing children, charlotte, and his son Evan, he had time to spare

While searching in out of order and backstage places, he found what remained of glamrock Bonnie and since there were pieces for him, Afton put him back together for fun

Mistake.png

Bonnie's head, which was what he first connected back to a battery, worked just fine, which meant he also started talking and bombarding him of questions at the speed of a machinegun

Considering the time Afton spent putting him back together they ended up chatting more than what he would have been otherwise comfortable with

Glamrock Bonnie is, therefore, also the first to know that 'Springtrap' isn't just an advanced AI like him inside of an old ass suit

His reaction was something along the lines of "you're like, mad creepy. Ya know that right? That you're mad creepy?" (Exactly these words, picture the beta glamrock chica voicetone for these, the country chica)

There is also a doodle of after he found out someone was tampering with the robots, when checking Moon's coding again after a second anomaly, he found pieces he did not put there

And of when after destroying what was of glitchtrap in the main network, he, gregory and freddy had to get rid of the last instance of mimic1, who is also burntrap

He got a bit mauled in that little stunt because of some nightmarionne staffbots that did not liked him

[coollyinterferes]

*taps mic; a certain gentleman is standing right beside him*

"Good evenin', everyone!! We're back!! Hope you didn't miss us much!"

"It sure hasn't been that long.... has it....?"

Uhhmmm....

[cosmic-ships]

Me looking at my notifcations like: Ya'll..... stop watching me be unhinged about Anakin... /j

[kakusboyfriend]

How I sleep understanding my favorite villain's personality and backstory and why they work so well while also throwing key aspects of it away for the benefit of my own indulgences btw ^_^

[cockyroaches]

Hey man I heard Futurama is back and my wives are not being tormented by horrible writing this time so I drew this to celebrate. There will be more

[unproduciblesmackdown]

fun connection on this archived kickstarter update from the 2011 production/s of "the bus" as found by @broadway-heere-i-come ft. many pics from their trip to wichita, kansas for several performances there, including this one

fantastic stuff & was noticing that it seems like partly legible lyrics back there, which sent me over to consult that q&a sincerely me vlog again like hang on lol. and sure enough

lo, behold

[flashdoesahundredyarddash]

I actually have no idea who made muppet versions of DC characters but I literally love it so much and I've already drawn concept art for Hal and Barry but I wanted to do a digital version (I also had time but at the same time I have been lacking rn in my current WIPs / sob to my Star Sapphire Barry and my Ballad Of Music Meister fic teaser poster.)

POV....I...WHEN....WHEN...I....turns into a muppet

this is what I get for listening to Man or Muppet and Do You Like Me?....bert and ernie my heart goes out to you both

heyyy....slides this song over to you so you can listen to it and look at my halbarry muppet art.....

[cerbreus]

baking never feels more like science to me than when i'm trying to cobble together an intricate multi step recipe together from several different recipes and tutorials online because the recipe I'm imagining doesn't exist....

[mad-hunts]

NIGHTMARES

another sleepless night, barton thought, except this time... he had company. it came in the form of wanda maximoff. a person whom, as far as he was concerned, was actually good. and the ugliness within barton's heart seemed to become even more prevalent to him because of that. a creased had formed between his eyebrows in worry before he turned his head to look at her. wanda looked so beautiful while she was sleeping, though, which was enough to make barton smile. the laptop sitting on his lap illuminated his face with its screen once more as he turned his attention back to it. there were numerous emails going back several weeks that were written in code on the page.

barton thought to just answer another one really quickly, but now, he wasn't so sure. what was more important to him: keeping up with the clients of his very unsavory 'business' or being present with someone the man might not have deserved but still had? with little hesitation, the laptop was soon being closed, before barton slipped it right back on the floor next to the bed. wanda seemed to have been tossing and turning a lot in her sleep that night. it made him wonder whether she'd ever suffered from nightmares. the answer, rather unexpectantly, coming much more quickly to him than he'd thought. barton nearly jumped back out of surprise when wanda had bolted up in bed, looking petrified. what came next was perhaps even more shocking however.

she'd practically lunged at him, her arm's embracing barton with such force that it was almost like he was her lifeline. a gasp left his mouth before he had time to realize what exactly was going on, ❝ wanda, oh my god, what's wrong? ❞ upon receiving no verbal answer but feeling her body start to tremble in fear, it was like a light switch had turned on inside of barton. he gathered her in his arms before pulling her even closer to the point where his head could rest above wanda's. although comforting people was not really his strong suit, he had to try, ❝ oh, ma blonde (my girl), you're shaking like a leaf. i'm so sorry. i'm assuming you had a nightmare, huh? well... you don't have anything to worry about now because you're safe with me. ❞

barton cooed, massaging her back up and down with one hand soothingly. he tried not to think about how much truth there was to that statement while just barely brushing his lips against her scalp in a kiss, ❝ i promise. i'm here for you, angel. ❞

[bmpmp3]

the really beautiful landscape/skyscape animation in makoto shinkai's works tends to be the big thing i see focused on and that is understandable and deserved like the weather and lighting effects are unREAL but i do think we should also appreciate how absolute insane the plotlines of his original movies get. at least two movies with in universe catastrophes with major ecological implications. the guns and explosions. theres that one movie i havent seen yet with the guy who turns into a chair (?)