#I hurt my eyes while doing this

[lillyscarlet]

Today is Otter man's birthday, to show him my gratitude, here's my fanart :>

[bunnyboy-juice]

you guys know butch =/= taking T right? you guys know dyke masculinity is not correlated to being transmasc right? you guys know that even your silly jokes where you flatten butchness to taking T/being transmasc is extremely transmisogynistic right?

[candycatstuffs]

recently voted pinkest girl in the entire world

doing my own little limited color scheme challenge! [pink and red]

✨️ Prints ✨️

[methoughtsphantom]

Jason “my family doesn’t know im alive” Todd and Danny “my family doesn’t know I’m dead” Fenton going alongside each of their plans my beloved. like Danny will absolutely go head-to-head with all of Gotham to support his new best friend on all his crime lord endeavors while he drags Jason to also attend collage with him. They are roommates and there never seems to a mention of family from either side. It’s an unspoken understanding they have. They met because Crime alley as a ghost lair thrummed with so much loneliness, it was at first the perfect place for Danny to hide his ecto signature in. But then he saw the dumbass whose lair it was lean his motorcycle just a tad too much when making a sharp turn to an alley, he sweeped the floor through a lifted chain link that passed his body but not his helmet. Yep that’s right the red thing got stuck. Danny who at the moment happened to be watching through his window snorted. Much to his horror because if not a ghost that dude could’ve gotten his head flung off.

Still, the scene was ridiculous.

On a whim he irrationally sees the police closing in on the guy and panicked at the thought of the guy using intangibility to free himself so Danny phased them both through his apartment wall and left the guy sprawled in his couch. Jason didn’t freak out but that’s normal when one’s got a concussion, one the guy immediately denied having as Danny laid out the medical supplies. The idiot proceeded to almost flatten four steps to the door with his stubbornness. He also said “I’m asexual” in the most deadpan voice as Danny dropped him back in the couch.

Danny sighed. Clearly though, he’d done so too early in the night because the guy kept trying to go, kept trying to knock Danny out, kept trying to slash him with knifes Danny didn’t know he had stashed. He’d only disarmed the guy from his guns. The visible ones apparently, cause at one point the guy did take out a gun and shoot until the ammo ran out and then teetered the thing like it was an art prop and hit his moon lamp.

Danny "yeah you aren’t officially my friend until you’ve tried to kill me" fenton my guys.

Anyways both keep having the same argument over if Danny technically kidnapped Jason or not. Danny holds the fact that the police at least didn’t see the guy make the ridicule. Jason argued that happened cause he was sporting a concussion. Danny argued he got that after.

Jason at first thinks the guy's a meta, but no. Danny introduces himself, sheepily now that he recognizes this is who the lair he invaded is from. He bandages him and tries to cook for him. If Danny didn’t have ice powers he most certainly would’ve burned the apartment. Jason then proceeds to kick him out of his own kitchen and make them both enchiladas. It’s the most normal both had in a while with another person and the air seems oddly settled. From then on, Jason constantly invited himself over, under the pretense that this was his territory and therefore he could drop in unannounced. Danny who has actual powers says he only allows this because Jason cooks very well.

Danny stays away from the crime fighting business unless his buddy is in deep shit he can’t get himself out. Also it’s Danny’s turn to cover for his vigilante friend which Sam and Tucker give him so much shit for. (but also advice)

And they were roommates. (omg) Danny effectively derails Jason’s big comeback plans by casually dropping ghost lore every two days. Like,

Jason, talking about how he doesn’t want Bats snooping on his territory:

Danny: Just don’t let them in

Jason: ??

Danny: yeah!! Hasn’t Batman died and got revived??? You can totally kick out death touched people you don’t want entering on your lair.

Jason: …I can?

Danny: Yep dude, your lair’s supposed to feel safe.

Jason: wait does that mean I can kick you out?

Danny: First this is my apartment. Second, im dead, not dead touched. Third, it’s too late to get rid of me. bitch.

Anyways Jason is super excited. You mean to tell him he can actually deny people over to his territory haunt?? (Yes it’s only to people who have died and came back but still!! The sample size is exactly the type of people he doesn’t want to see—!)

Joker my beloathed can’t step foot in Crime Alley.

(Jason’d feel a lot safer if the clown was dead but the possibility of his murderer turning into a ghost and their little loophole not applying on the clown is too scary to contemplate.)

Anyways, Jason loves experimenting with the power. It can go from simply making people shudder and not want to enter crime Alley to straight up not letting them enter like there’s an invisible wall blocking the way.

Jason because he’s hurt that Bruce never even patrols Crime Alley and also because he’s petty put B under the category of “invisible wall” blacklist. His reasoning is that the man doesn’t even attempt to enter Crime Alley. To him it’s surely just a place shadowed in tragedy. (anyways that’s it’s the place he met Jason)

Ironically, Jason totally forgets that Batman does venture into Crime Alley one day in the whole year. The day he met Jason.

Okay. He didn’t forget at first. The first year Jason remembers cause it was only a few months till then but then the next— Jason forgets that today’s the anniversary of the day’s Bruce’s parents died. He forgets to allow B in when he feels a slight tug and dismiss the feeling that prompts Bruce to investigate because he literally can’t enter Crime Alley. He starts the trialsTM, he scouts on the very edge and sees people the whole day enter and get out and cross with no problem but Bruce can’t.

It’s literally just Bruce.

Time to call Constantine, i guess.

[bertoyana]

X-MEN: DAYS OF THE FUTURE PAST (2014)

[eliseliedl]

Caterpillar dress

[soothsayerditty]

local gods make a geep

[xxplastic-cubexx]

chat i think im gonna be sick

(Powers of X #6)

[robbiensonblueso]

These two were on the same canvas but i felt like separating them :'D

Ink looks like he's wanting help but he doesn't wanna say it out loud-

Idk why I made error look at us like that. Im sorry

[timetravelwitch]

the POTENTIAL this duo had

platonic or not, they would have loved each other

[ronnabyte]

garmadon devouring his son ,HAPYP BIRTHDAY @dynamo-roll3r!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

It's weird to expect lb to be able to read cn mind and called her a bad partner for it. But it's even weirder for lb to ignore cn WHEN HES OBVIOUSLY IN DISTRESS and not called her a bad partner for it because I think called her a bad partner for ignoring it is understandable and justified especially since she consider herself as his boss.

Every time I bring up this conflict, I try to make it clear that I don't think Ladybug was blameless, I just think Chat Noir's writing was worse. Let's walk through the problem to show what I mean.

Season four stars with Marinette extremely stressed by her new Guardian status. In Truth and Lies, the first episodes of the season, we get this:

Ladybug: Will you cut it out with the practical jokes? I could have really hurt you! Cat Noir:(answering while hanging by the yo-yo) M'lady, the only thing that really hurts me is when you make me go on patrol by myself. (sighs, relaxing his posture) I even missed your little angry pout. Ladybug: Sorry, Kitty Cat, I'm a bit over my head at the moment. (pulling him up) Cat Noir: I bet! "Guardian of the Miraculous", big name, big responsibility!

This is also the start to Chat Noir communicating poorly. In this episode, he's straight up told that Ladybug is in over her head and he never once asks how he can help. In fact, we even get him saying this when asked how he feels about the change:

Truth: Cat Noir, tell me what- (interupted by Ladybug throwing a present at Truth) Ladybug: (covering her parasol with foil) ...do you think about my new role as guardian! Cat Noir: If it doesn't change things between us, then I'm good with it!

So not a great start to the season. I know people focused on Adrien's terrible treatment of Kagami in these episodes, but this Ladynoir dynamic was actually what rang alarm bells for me. I kept waiting for Chat Noir to offer his support since it was really, really obvious that Ladybug was in over her head since she was late to patrols, the last season literally ended with her losing her mentor figure, and, you know, she straight up told him that was what was going on?

The next episode is Gang of Secrets in which we see Marinette out her identity to Alya. I get why she did this, she needed support and her partner doesn't seem interested in giving it, but she can't say that for certain because she never asked him directly and she should have. Trusting Chat Noir over Alya would have allowed Ladynette to maintain the security of her secret identity - a thing she claimed was more important than ever - and to honor their partnership. At the very least, she should have told Chat Noir that Rena Rouge was now a full time holder so that he could account for that in battle and to minimize the fallout by owning up to her mistake asap. The longer a lie goes on, the worse the truth will hurt.

To Ladybug's credit, she does eventually acknowledge her mistake after the Scarabella incident:

Ladybug: You... must've been pretty surprised to discover there was another holder! (Silence. She sits beside Cat Noir.) Ladybug: I'm really sorry, Cat Noir. I should've told you. I mean, if I found out that you told someone about your secret identity, I'd... probably be upset, too. I'm really sorry I hurt your feelings.

This is a decent apology. She doesn't try to absolve herself of wrong doing. Instead, she acknowledges that what she did would hurt her, too, if the shoe were on the other foot. The only thing she loses points on is the fact that she doesn't tell him about Rena Furtive.

However, instead of agreeing with her and telling her that she has hurt him, Chat Noir says that she did nothing wrong and never once brings up how their weakened partnership is bothering him:

Cat Noir: You didn't hurt my feelings. You did everything right. Paris will always need a Ladybug superhero to watch over her. It's just... I realized that if one day that hero wasn't you, m'lady, since we don't know each other's identities, that means... I'd never see you again. Ever. And now, I just don't know if I can bear it.

This is the thing that I hate about this arc. The reason why I say Ladybug is blamed for not reading his mind. Especially because, three episodes later, we get Rocketear, which gives us this:

Cat Noir: Everyone has doubts now and then, (looks down) even me... Ladybug: Is everything okay, Cat Noir? Cat Noir: Yeah, yeah. (prepare his fist) Pound it! Ladybug: (fistbumps) Pound it!

Rocketear is the episode where Nino outs that he and Alya know each other's identities while acting like Ladybug said identities weren't a big deal even though that is very much not what happened. You'd think that Chat Noir would want to know the full story, but instead he just lies and says that everything is fine.

So we have two situations where the show allowed Ladybug to give Chat Noir a chance for clear and open communication and both times he turns her down.

What's worse is that he clearly starts making up stories in his head, leading to Kuro Neko, which starts with Adrien avoiding a fight on purpose as some sort of shit test. He then gets upset when Ladybug... doesn't lament his absence on national TV?

Clara: (from TV) By the way, where's Cat Noir? You've saved Paris without him quite a few times recently. Are you two at odds with each other? Carapace, Pegasus, Vesperia and Pigella: (from TV) Pound it! Ladybug: (from TV) Of course not, it's just that... umm, he's a partner like any other! The most important is to pick the best superheroes for each mission, with or without Cat Noir. No matter what, we've got a great team and we'll always be here to save Paris. (Adrien is shocked.) Adrien: (turns off the TV and sighs) "A partner like any other..."

Dude, what did you want her to do here? Complain that you flaked on her? Make Paris feel less safe by saying she doesn't know where you are? Imply that the fight was barely won without you? What are you doing? Plagg, you are completely failing as a mentor right now.

The shit test continues as Chat Noir goes to meet up with Ladybug now that the battle is over, arriving just as Ladybug has finished instructing the team on what to do:

Ladybug: Come on, guys! Hurry up before you all detransform. I'll meet you at rendezvous points. (The heroes jump away in different directions, and Ladybug starts typing something on her Yo-yo.) Cat Noir: Hey! Meow are you, m'lady? Ladybug: Great, thanks, but I gotta go retrieve all these Miraculous. Cat Noir: I could lend you a paw to help save time. Ladybug: Thanks, kitty cat, but it's a guardian's job to do it. Cat Noir: I know who some of them are, remember? I was there when you first gave them their Miraculous! Ladybug: You don't even know where their rendezvous points are, I don't have time to— Cat Noir: Playing cat and mouse is my forte, you know— Ladybug: (yelling) If you wanna save me time, stop wasting it in the first place! (Cat Noir gasps. As Ladybug swings away, Cat Noir clenches his fist.) Cat Noir: And take my Miraculous back when you're done!

So Ladybug doesn't publicly chastise Chat Noir for missing the battle and rejects an offer to help because of very legitimate timing concerns, leading to Chat Noir quitting because she failed his stupid, petty, childish tests. Realistic writing? Yes. Writing that paints Ladybug as the one in the wrong? No.

Going into this episode, Ladybug has no idea that things are messed up between them even though she has actually kept communication lines open. She asks him if things are okay, but he lies. And when he's ready to quit? He plays stupid games and wins a stupid prize. It's really not shocking that the next scene sees Ladybug totally baffled by what just happened:

Plagg: For a while now, you've been neglecting this camembert— I mean Cat Noir, and going on adventures with the all other cheeses! Ladybug: But he should be happy about it, it gives him more time off. Plagg: Cat Noir doesn't wanna have time off, Ladybug! He is in love with you! And your persistent calling on all the other heroes has broken his heart.

And how is she supposed to know that, Plagg? Was she supposed to assume that her partner was lying when he said he was fine? Because she did ask and he said that nothing was wrong. But something was wrong and it lead him to build up a story in his head, reading nonexistent intent into her actions, all of which is toxic and unhealthy communication.

I cannot stress how common this shit is. I've seen it so many times and I will own that I've done it in the past and wound up getting no support when I needed it because I'd directly told people I didn't and they committed the heinous crime of... believing me.

Here's the other thing, there are times when I'm in distress and legitimately don't want or need help. Times when I just need to be alone for a bit. So if someone asks me if I'm okay during those times, I'm probably just going to say, "Yeah, I just need a people break" or something like that. That's why the Scarabella scene is so bad. Ladybug can see that Chat Noir is in distress and he gives her a fully plausible answer: I'm not upset with you, I'm just saddened by the idea of losing you. And she believes him because why wouldn't she?

Same goes for Rocketear. It's reasonable for Ladybug to assume that Chat Noir is just shaken by the fight. She has no idea about the bombshell that Nino dropped right before the fight. She doesn't even know that Nino and Chat Noir are actually close friends, making this fight a lot more devastating than it looks at face value. Her actions here are not objectively wrong. They're only wrong if you know the whole story, including Adrien's needs. Things that she cannot know unless Chat Noir uses his words to tell her things.

I cannot over stress how much season four is a textbook example of denying yourself support because you cannot communicate your own needs. Is it an understandable character flaw for a character with Adrien's background to have? Yes. Absolutely. 100%. But it's still a character flaw. This season desperately needed an arc about Adrien learning to tell people what's wrong. Not because he's the only one in the wrong here, but because things cannot get better when Ladybug has no idea that she's hurting him. (Nino has no idea either, but let's keep our focus on Ladybug.)

One of the most important things you can do for your own mental well being is to dismiss the idea that your needs are the same as everyone else's. Everyone needs different amounts of attention and values different behavior based on things like their upbringing and life events.

I get the feeling that I'm wired pretty similar to Marinette. At least, it influences how I write her because I can go months without talking to my best friends and still call them my best friends, a trait we all share because two of use are artsy introverts and two of us are moms to young kids, which allows for very little free time. Meanwhile, my SO and his best friend spend hours on the phone almost every week. I swear that those two go into withdrawal if they don't talk at least once every seven days. If months went by without them talking? Something would be very wrong, but the exact same time gap isn't even remotely concerning when it comes to my friends. It's something my SO and I had to figure out when we got together because I need a lot less attention than he does. But we communicated and found a balance that we continue to work to communicate about so that he doesn't feel neglected and I don't feel overwhelmed by too little me time.

What I'm trying to say is Marinette wasn't horribly wrong for assuming that Chat Noir was telling her the truth or that he liked having a larger team so he had less responsibility. Those are reasonable assumptions. Especially since he never actually indicated that he wanted more responsibility until he was ready to quit and decided to shit test her by pushing for more to do when she was stressed and on a timer.

I do think that she should have offered it to him before that or - at the very least - the show should have clearly stated why she didn't do that since it apparently had nothing to do with Chat Blanc trauma like we all thought it did. I'm not saying that she's blameless or perfect or that there weren't things she could have done better. It's just really hard for me to look at Chat Noir's behavior in season four and go, "Oh yeah, he's the injured party here. Ladybug holds all the blame and did everything wrong." She did many things wrong, but generally speaking, she owned her faults and tried to keep communication channels open. Chat Noir chose to ignore those chances to talk or otherwise try to express his needs in a clear and understandable manner.

We'll end with one final point to drive this home: You said that she's his boss. Well, if my boss asked me, "is everything okay with the project?" and I said, "yes" while freaking out about the upcoming deadline that I'm probably going to miss because he's given me too much work, the issue is not all on my boss. It's on both of us. Him for overloading me and me for not telling him I'm overloaded. You could even argue that it's mostly on me because I'm the only one who can properly gauge my own ability to do a given workload. As soon as it was too much, I should have said something. And if I don't feel like my boss is approachable? Then I should quit. But that isn't the situation I'm in and it doesn't appear to be the one that Chat Noir was in, either. He wanted to stay part of the team, he just totally failed to tell Ladybug how being on the team was making him feel.

People magically knowing what you need and how you feel is a myth. I promise you, most people in this world do not want to cause you pain, but if you cannot clearly express when someone is causing you pain, then you will continue to get hurt by people who would be very happy to not hurt you if they actually knew that their actions were causing you pain.

[forbiddentaako]

the intended vibes of this are very much the nightcore version of angel with a shotgun

(done for @notherpuppet 's DITYS on bluesky)

[milkbreadtoast]

some quick messy phone doodles...🔥

[hazelnootnut]

ED 13A - Hired Puppet It's all that you have ever wanted! Pray that you will never come to regret this decision.

(based on @youneedthisjob's current portrayal of protag that you should totally go interact/ send asks/ follow/ give love to because holy shit i've been going insane by fortune's characterisation of him. and protag's in a newly started arc akin to ED 13 so go send asks and get blasted with lore and pain)

((also also under the cut is a monochrome version without the pixel-esque overlay because he's too colourful. i want my grey tones.))

[yellowocaballero]

Been a fan of your fics for YEARS. I was just telling my friend how despite how much I read fics I never actually love them, with some of your fics (especially TMA) as the exception. Felt the need to reread some of them and saw you reblogged some ISAT fanart. So. Any thoughts on ISAT you'd like to share?

Hope you have a wonderful day!! So happy I found your fics again!!

I avoided answering this for a while because I was trying to think of a way to cohesively and coherently vocalize my thoughts on In Stars and Time. I have given up because I don't want to hold everybody here all day and I have accepted that my thoughts are just pterodactyl screeching.

I love it so much. I have so much to say on it. It drove me bonkers for like a week straight. I have AUs. It's absolute Megbait. They're just a little Snufkin and they're having the worst experience of anybody's life. Ludonarratives my fucking beloved.

I am going to talk about the prologue.

The prologue is such a fascinating experience. You crack open the game and immediately begin checking off all of the little genre boxes: mage, warrior, researcher, you're the rogue...some little kid who's there for some reason...alright, you know the score. You're in yet another indie Earthbound RPG, these are your generic characters, let's get the ball rolling.

Except then you realize that these characters are people. You feel instantly how you've entered the game at its last dungeon, at the end of the adventure. They have their own in-jokes, histories, backgrounds, adventures. They get along well and they're obviously close, but not in a twee or unrealistic way. They have so much chemistry and spirit and life. I fell in love with them so quickly.

But Sif doesn't. Sif kind of hates them, because they will not stop saying the same damn thing. They walk the same paths, do the same things, make the same jokes, expect Sif to say the same lines. They keep referencing a Sif we do not see, with jokes we never see him make and heroic personality he never shows - they reference a Sif who is dead - and Sif can't handle that, so he kills them too.

They become only an exercise in tedious frustration. Sif button mashes through their dialogue, Sif mindlessly clicks the same dialogue options, Sif skips through the tutorial, Sif blows through the puzzles. Sif turns their world into a video game. Sif is playing a generic RPG. Sif forgets their names. They are no longer people with in-jokes, histories, backgrounds, adventures. They're the mage, the warrior, the researcher, and...some random kid.

I did not understand the Kid's presence at first. I had no idea what they contributed to the game. They didn't do anything. As a party member in a video game, they're a bit useless. Why is the Kid there?

Because Sif's life isn't a video game. Because the kid isn't 'the kid'. They're Bonnie. Bonnie, who the party loves. Why is Bonnie there? Because they love them. There is no room for Bonnie in the boring RPG that Sif is playing. And then you realize that Sif is wrong, and that they've lost something extremely important, and that they'll never escape without it.

Watching the prologue before watching ISAT gave ISAT the most unique air of dread and horror, because you crack open ISAT and you see the person Sif used to be. You realize that Sif used to be a person. Sif used to be the person who made jokes, who gave real smiles, who interacted with the world as if they are a part of it. And you know you are sitting down to watch Sif lose everything that made them a person, to lose everything that made them a member of this world, and turn them into a character in a video game who doesn't understand the point of Bonnie at all.

At the climax of the game, when the others realize that something is deeply wrong and that Sif physically cannot tell them, they realize that there is nothing they can do. So Bonnie declares snacktime. And for the first time they have snacktime.

What is snacktime? Classic JRPGs don't have snacktime. There's literally no point to a snacktime - not in a video game, and not in Sif's terrible life. It's not fixing this, because nothing can fix this. But Bonnie gives Sif a cookie and Sif eats it.

It's meaningless. It's a cutscene. It didn't save Sif and it didn't change a thing. It will make no difference in the end.

But it did make the difference. It made all of the difference in the world. Bonnie is a character who you really don't understand the point of before you realize that Bonnie was the entire point.

ISAT is about comfort media. Why do we play the same video games over and over again? Why do we avoid watching the finale of our favorite shows? What is truly comforting: a story with no conflict, or a story where you always know what is about to happen? Do you want to live in a scary, uncontrollable world, or do you want to play Stardew Valley? Do you want a person or a character?

When I beat Earthbound for the first time (and if you don't know, the prologue/ISAT battle system is just Mother) and watched the ending cutscene where the characters part ways and say goodbye...I felt a little bit sad. I wanted them to be together forever. But that's something only characters could ever be.