#MAYBE A YEAR AGO AT MOST

[civetside]

day 341 of drawing TLT characters doing stupid goofy OOC nothings to cope with how emotionally devastating the books are

[jackmanifold-daily]

I& know this is less than 2 lines into the song so it's a very unsatisfying clip but at this point I&'m realizing I& am never going to finish this animatic so y'all can have the 7 seconds of shitty sketches. praying emoji. Please imagine the rest in your mind yourself pls and thank you

song is I Don't Get Sleep by Naethan Apollo

[silverior968]

Redraw of some doodles I did wayyyyyy back and then never posted. Many such cases

[Image ID: Several colored sketches of human versions of TFP characters. The biggest doodle on the page features a human version of Ratchet, drawn as a 50-something year old white man with pale, lightly freckled skin and various scars, including a big one on his chest, and teal eyes, along with sideburns and a goatee. He's holding a tea mug in one hand, and gesturing with the other. The dark spots under his eyes are larger than normal, and he looks tired. His ginger and white hair is messy. His tea mug reads "world's okayest grandpa". His outfit consists of blue trousers and a loose ABBA-shirt. His speech bubble reads "Yes I do look like shit, I'm so glad you noticed. Now can we please circle back to the fact that it's 4am and your elbow is broken." The doodle on the top right of the page is the same design of him from the shoulders up, smiling with his eyes closed, and with an outfit that consists of a red and white zip-up and jacket. His hair is no longer as messy. The text next to the drawing reads "I realized I have a hard time drawing this version of him happy." The last doodle, placed on the bottom of the page, shows him and the human version of Optimus, drawn as a middle eastern man with light brown skin, also aged 50-something. His hair is long, tied into a ponytail and black and gray in color. He also has stubble and various scars, including plague scars on his right temple. He is wearing a black turtleneck. They are taking a nap together, pictured from the shoulders and up. Optimus has his arms loosely around Ratchet's shoulders, both fast asleep. Ratchet is wearing a white zip-up with a red lining. /End ID]

[deoidesign]

Just some thoughts about recent WEBTOON discourse from an originals creator. I recognize my inherent bias in this situation.

But please recognize that saying "fuck you" to a company means supporting the workers, not making them out to be unfortunate suckers... "would have/could have/should have's" don't get people out of situations.

"I never would have signed with them" is an incredibly tone-deaf thing to say. "this is why you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket" is true, but it doesn't help people who are contractually obligated into exclusivity.

Most of us are making merch, running patreons, trying to get book deals, etc... and most of us aren't able to stop working and still pay our bills. we're trying. we'd all love to, but we can't.

If you really want things to be better, maybe try not putting down the people who are in the bad situation? it ends up feeling like people using our pain and mistreatment as an outlet to advertise themselves...

Our company is getting worse and worse by the year and we're risking a lot to talk about it! Please listen! The only power we have is complaining about things, and it's risky every time!

[sysig]

Can I request a pokemon drawing? Was thinking mewtwo but idk whoever whatever!

Day 11 - Quiet pls

[skunkes]

[ceaselessims]

it does make me laugh a little bit that stolas made this deal about the full moon, but once they were actually hooking up both he and blitz start blurring the lines of what that means almost immediately 😭

By the harvest moon festival (s1e5) they're already having sex outside of the "normal" schedule for the deal. And in truth seekers (s1e6) they're having sex because they want to, without even considering the full moon. Of course after Ozzie's, Stolas stops asking Blitz to hook up at all. When he finally reaches out again, Blitz is genuinely excited to hook up and plans for it the whole month (evidenced on his calendar) and then packs for the night with stolas all day in Full Moon

blitz really said the sex is too good and i'm catching feelings but it's for work rn so i can't really think about that :-)

[froschli96]

You know what, fuck it, I have to speak my truth! (this is gonna be a rant, so anyone who actually likes assassin's creed revelations and/or the secret crusade, be warned or maybe don't read this at all)

remember how altaïr talks to king richard at the end of ac1, and richard is like "[humans] come into the world kicking and screaming, violent and unstable. it is what we are. we cannot help ourselves."? and how altaïr answers "no. we are what we choose to be." and how that ACTUALLY has meaning bc he himself was "violent and unstable" at the beginning of the game but he has learned and is now CHOOSING to be a better person who cares about others and humanity at large? remember how his calmness and gentleness was something that he ACQUIRED over the course of the story?

and remember how in revelations they then suddenly had a PRE-AC1 altaïr say about the first of his targets "no man should pass from this world without knowing some kindness." and be all wise and calm and collected during a nice little chat with al mualim, who suddenly acts all fatherly? (like, this is suddenly supposed to be a positive relationship? what??)

also, during the confession the target says to altair: "you put too much faith in the hearts of men, altaïr. [...] humans are weak, base, and petty." and altaïr answers: "no. our creed is evidence to the contrary." KJASJFJDKL???? like, it’s almost insulting how close this exchange is to the one with richard. you know, the one that was actually earned after a whole game of character development. like WTF??? cool congrats now that development means nothing. like, apparently that was just altaïr reverting BACK to being the exemplary assassin who understands and believes in the creed that he was apparently just born as. (i also hate how having a young inexperienced altaïr saying this implies that altaïr's faith in humanity is a sign of naivete instead of a sign of the wisdom he has gained after being confronted with counter arguments for a whole game, and also something that distinguishes the assassins from the templars who use humanity's supposed wickedness to justify controlling them like in AC1, but whatever)

altaïr’s development in AC1 mattered BECAUSE he is not NATURALLY a good person, it actually said something about humanity's capacity for both bad AND good and how humans don't have to be forced to be good through mind control bc they can by their own free will choose to be better when taught how and when allowed the freedom to grow. but no. apparently altaïr has just always been calm, wise and gentle. and he just sort of forgot about that during AC1 bc…. ? bc of adha?? bc of abbas???

oh don’t get me started on the whole abbas thing. (it doesnt even make sense that abbas is so hung up about his father and "his family’s honor", like what about the whole point of al mualim not allowing parents to be close to their children bc it would make them weak? like, my dude, you’re not supposed to HAVE any family aside from the brotherhood)

they used the throwaway character that had like 5 lines and made him into altaïr’s main antagonist in revelations… like, abbas wasn’t supposed to be this ONE dude who had personal beef with altaïr, he was just supposed to show how while altaïr’s revered by many, a lot of his brothers also hate him, bc 1) altaïr is a shitty person at this point and 2) bc there’s no real feeling of community and family in this version of the brotherhood, but just a pervasive sense of competition and jealousy — these assassins don’t care about their goal of safeguarding humanity bc they’re too hung up on petty squabbles and divided by rivalries (you know, the things that made malik hate altaïr even before solomon’s temple and that he overcomes in the end which enables him to forgive and to reconcile with altaïr so they can work together and stop al mualim? (you ever just think about "we are one. as we share the glory of our victories, so too should we share the pain of our defeat. in this way we grow closer. we grow stronger." and cry? bc i do. all the time. malik, the man that you are))

and now abbas is altaïr’s childhood best friend turned lifelong enemy?? like, bowden bent over backwards to come up with an explanation for why altaïr is an arrogant ass at the beginning of AC1, when the explanation is right there: he was raised to kill without asking questions and was constantly praised for how good he is at murder, which resulted in him becoming arrogant and disregarding human life. like, it doesn’t have to be some shakespearean family feud type shit. and guess what, this "simple" explanation actually plays into the story’s themes, who’da thunk!

(like, abbas might not have been a "fleshed out" character in AC1, but he had a specific function and now that function is gone. mr bowden, mr mcdevitt, you know characters are allowed to simply exist to tell us something about their worlds and the systems they live in and sometimes that’s more important and also more interesting than having every single character have a detailed backstory to explain all their behaviors, right?)

with all of this revelations loses all nuance in regards to the levantine brotherhood and also the creed in general. like, altaïr being a master assassin at the beginning despite being a terrible person and not actually understanding the creed is a criticism of the brotherhood and the creed itself. like, it said something about the order that someone like altaïr was able to get that high in rank, simply bc he's good at killing, which also tells us what is considered important in the al mualim era assassin order. when you make altaïr’s arrogance the result of his personal conflicts instead of how we was raised by a brotherhood that only valued one's ability to kill, you lose that characterization of the assassin order itself!

and by suddenly making al mualim a semi good "father figure" you also downplay his manipulation of not only altaïr but all those under his care. (altaïr says something about al mualim being "as a father" to him exactly twice in the codex, but he doesn’t mean by that that he WAS a father to him, what he means is that he was the CLOSEST THING he had bc HE DID NOT HAVE PARENTS, not because his mother died in childbirth and his father was executed when he was young btw, BUT BECAUSE IT WASN’T ALLOWED, like his parents actually lived but weren’t allowed to be close to him, he says he came to view al mualim’s "weak and dishonest" love as enough and even better BECAUSE HE HAD NOTHING ELSE, BECAUSE AL MUALIM ISOLATED HIS ASSASSINS FROM THEIR FAMILIES. al mualim "loved" him bc he was good at killing people for him! hm, i wonder if this could be trying to say anything about cults and indoctrination and the inherent contradiction in fighting for peace and free will by taking children away from their parents and raising them to become killers?? like, altaïr wasn't ~the special orphan boy~ taken in by al mualim bc his father died a hero's death, it was "the way of the order" to have al mualim be the closest thing to a parental figure for everyone to ensure absolute loyalty! altaïr saying al mualim was like his father is not supposed to make you go "oh, he must have actually been a good guy for altaïr to consider him a father", it should make you go "oh that's kinda fucked up that he considers the dude who made him into a killing machine and who manipulated him a sort of father figure"!)

and then in revelations they suddenly portray that relationship as positive and healthy??? like, it would be one thing to give it some nuance by delving into the psychology behind al mualim’s "love" and maybe showing how al mualim did care about altair in a complicated, fraught sort of way (like, you know, there’s a lot of interesting things you could say about al mualim at several points addressing altaïr as "my child" in AC1 and how that parallels Garnier referring to the people he drugged and abused as his "children", and what that says about how the templars view the people who they say they want to save and in whose best interests they supposedly act (in any case, al mualim doesn’t use that phrase because he has any real parental feelings but rather to patronize and to invalidate any objections, like in a "mother knows best" way))

but they even fucking DARE to parallel that relationship with that of altaïr and darim in revelations, by having the reflection in the puddle of darim hugging altaïr showing altaïr hugging al mualim…. like their relationship wasn’t inherently abusive but just tragically cut short because al mualim was just "corrupted by the apple"… like WHAT???? so it’s not the very real problems like grooming, manipulation and indoctrination and the hierarchical structure of the brotherhood itself (all of which are antithetical to the assassin ideology), it was just the evil apple all along. great. that’s DEFINITELY a lot more interesting.

god im sorry i really dont want to spread negativity but this is driving me INSANE. like, somebody please tell me im not crazy bc i feel like somehow most of the fandom is in agreement that revelations and the secret crusade have better storytelling and characterization than ac1.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, can we talk about how, even IF we completely ignore AC1 and treat revelations altaïr as his own character…. the narrative still doesn’t really work?

basically, the whole point of his story in rev is that "he gave his whole life to the brotherhood", this obsession led to him not using his time with his family which has him ending up dying alone in a dark library and this in turn makes ezio reevaluate his life choices…. except. he doesn’t? neglect? his family? or whatever? like, his devotion to the assassins is sort of painted as this tragic flaw that leads to a lonely death bc it supposedly comes at the cost of his family, but… his wife has joined the assassins, (at least) one of his sons is in the brotherhood and even when he goes to protect the assassins against the mongols, he takes his family with him (except for the son who stays behind bc he has a family of his own and who, ironically, ends up dying bc of that)… like, you can’t describe altaïr as a good husband and father in the database and have his son tell him that "everything that is good in me began with you, father" when they say goodbye, and then want to make us believe that he put his family behind the brotherhood and that that is a character flaw that leads to his tragedy.

because you HAVE to have a character’s tragedy be the result of a character flaw. like. that is how tragedies work. otherwise it just becomes tragedy for the sake of tragedy which is… boring bc it has no purpose. and we know it is SUPPOSED to have purpose bc ezIO FUCKING QUITS BEING AN ASSASSIN AFTER WITNESSING IT!

it’s like they want to have their cake and eat it, too — they didn’t want to actually make altaïr a bad husband/father, but still wanted to make his life a tragedy where he loses his family which is why instead they outsource all responsibility to abbas who now has to be the reason for ALL the deaths.

like, they try to make at least maria’s death kind of sort of the result of altaïr’s rashness or whatever but like… these guys KILLED THEIR SON and TOLD HIM THAT ALTAÏR HAD ORDERED HIS DEATH. like, altaïr losing it in response to that is not rash, it’s fucking logical and justified! if anything the scene made me angry at maria for trying to stop him. like, GIRL, he was YOUR son too??? but god forbid we give female characters actual real emotions, she has to fill the role of "voice of reason who dies for altaïr’s man pain" i fucking guess.

like, it’s this weird mix where his tragedy is simultaneously painted as his own fault but also not really bc abbas is the one responsible for all the shit that happens. it just… it just doesn’t really go together.

the only way to make his story make sense narratively and to give it actual purpose is by looking at it in the context of ezio’s story, bc the things he sees in altaïr’s memories are supposed to be a revelation (ha!) to ezio specifically. and i guess that’s maybe the crux of it all — altaïr’s story in revelations was conceived of first and foremost to support ezio’s story and development. which is probably also why many people maybe don’t notice bc, having skipped ac1 and started with ac2, the majority of people mostly care only about ezio and only really appreciate altaïr’s story in as far as it serves to push ezio forward. (tho i’ve also seen a few people say that ezio is also written kind of weird in rev, but i’ve never really been an ezio girly myself so i can’t speak to the truth of that)

like, altaïr dying alone in the library doesn’t really have to make sense for his character, i guess, bc it’s only really supposed to be a cautionary tale for ezio.

so, i guess, for once, they actually had a MAN dying for another man’s character development, which is pretty woke actually. ubisoft, i take everything back jksdsfjhgdsahfhsdhfghfdsgjhsdgjh

[gxtzeizm]

the fact that me, as a fan of both lando and oscar without any bias (maybe a bit on lando but not that much), is going to witness both "oscar fans, lando antis" and "lando fans, oscar antis" posts all in my one dash 🥲🥲

also the fact that atp i couldn't even bother enough with this same situation on both lewis and george. now it happens on lando and oscar as well which got me like....

[symeraid-s]

Watched the new episode of Alien Stage. I'm in pain.

[can-of-slorgs]

Completed the Shenkuu Stamp collection some time ago, so it was only fair to draw my girl Mirsha

[rafyki]

Compilation of all the secret little smiles Jack has for Joke during ep 5

He hasn't forgiven him yet - yeah sure, that's why he keeps looking at him like that, of course

The "i can't believe he got so hurt while trying to help me and now he keeps apologizing to me" smile after treating his wounds

The "secretly listening to him and finding him so cute and nice" smile

The "oh my god he might be talking about me" smile

The "oh woah he's such a good person" smile

And finally the "yeah who am I kidding I had already forgiven him from the start" smile

Really, our boy Jack never stood a chance

[cyellolemon]

So i recently read Ron Kamonohashi and i don't have enough words to express how much how much that manga was for ME (i mean.. my two favorite manga ever are Detective Conan and Reborn. do you even get it.. and i love gay people as well) So yeah i had to draw Rontoto at least once

[simcardiac-arrested]

IM SURE YOUVE ALREADY EXPLAINED IT SOMEWHERE but.. may i ask about the story in bitter choco decoration. I like those guys :)

you’d be surprised but i apparently have never talked about these particular ocs’ story in detail on this particular tumblr blog. so i shall do just that…. i tried to summarize but it got kind of long oops, as it always does when i talk about my mentally ill ass ocs

so! as u might already know the guys in the video are rikki and william, and the animatic happens from rikki’s pov. rikki is basically the golden child of the family—smart, well-behaved, always keeping her parents satisfied, etc etc. generally she is put under a lot of pressure a lot of the time. and then her family decides to get an insurance child so to speak—just in case rikki fails in life—but they don’t want to go through the trouble of raising another one, so they decide to adopt.

that’s where william comes in, baby! now he is decidedly Not the golden child. he is the problem child. parents thought they could reform him—well, not much to show for that. but him and rikki surprisingly get along, even though they’re opposites. william actually gets someone who cares about him for once and wants him to be okay, and rikki gets someone who wants her to be more bold, stand up to others and consider what she herself wants instead of people-pleasing. he even gets her to make snide jokes and cut her hair. they’re best friends, it’s nice. for a while.

but, none of it is perfect. you know how rikki always seems to be smiling even though she’s clearly not having a good time? and you know all those red eyes that appear pretty much everytime william’s on screen? rikki has so many layers of masks that william never really feels like he actually knows her. and william, even though he mostly wants rikki to do her own thing, can still kind of be selfish and controlling (because he’s a teenager, and traumatized, and scared of losing his best friend, but it doesn’t change the fact that rikki feels the same pressure from him as she feels from their parents).

so this all culminates when they’re in high school and rikki buries herself in work—she wants to secure a good education and a good job so that she can actually get them both out of this shitty abusive household. for the first time in her whole life, she has a Goal that she personally has chosen. she now has someone to work hard for. but she also ends up spending a lot less time with that someone because of her studying, and it eats at william and eats and eats until—it turns out rikki’s hard work has actually paid off. she’s gotten a scholarship, and she can leave for a good university and she’s finally achieved something that she herself has wanted to do and not anyone else. for both of them. for her brother.

except her brother doesn’t react with support, like usual. he’s not cheering her on now that she’s fulfilled her dream and beyond. he just looks betrayed. because they’re best friends. they promised to be there for each other, to get out of this hellhole house together. how could she leave him behind? how is he supposed to make it without her, who is he going to have on his side? william loves her and wants her to be happy but he doesn’t want her to leave.

so in turn—because rikki is a) an avoidant little bitch who would rather masterfully evade conflict than try to have an opinion and b) doesn’t want her brother to hate her forever and not speak to her ever again—in turn, rikki, as always, as second nature, lies. i mean, it’s her dream, it’s something she’s been working towards for years, but she’ll stay. she’ll leave it behind. it makes perfect logical sense to her—best of both worlds: she doesn’t spend the last summer at home with her brother resenting her, and she still gets to actually go to university. it is basically flawless.

all up until, you know, the day comes where she actually has to move out and go to university. and william inevitably finds out that she lied to him. and they fight. it’s not good. it’s not happy. they end up separating on really bad terms, and not talking for the next 7 years because william runs away from home pretty much soon after rikki leaves (it’s not shown in the animatic but he does go MIA, rikki visits home once on holiday to find that her brother is just Gone, no one knows where he is, her parents couldnt give less of a shit, not great all around!!!) then rikki ends up graduating and looking for an easy first job, just to kind of set her foot in Job World.

unfortunately, it is also the exact same easy, convenient job that her brother ends up picking. hoo, boy. long time no see.

[purpurussy]

I feel like the "dan is bi" anon is trolling but just in case they're genuinely confused: yes dan said in BIG that he loved and felt attracted to his high school gf (although he also made it pretty clear that they did not have sex so idk where anon is getting the idea that he has slept with "multiple women" 💀), and he alluded to his attraction not being confined to a specific gender in the part where he talked about labels, but you're completely taking all of that wildly out of context and missing the point of the whole video by calling him bi. I feel like this is probably the part that's frying their brain:

(shoutout to the legend @goldenpinof for this transcript!)

But firstly, imo it was very clear from BIG, as well as other stuff he's said over the years, that he just doesn't like labels. Which I find very valid, it took me a long time to figure out how to label myself. I still don't know what my gender is lmao but I started saying "bi" for my sexuality because it's a widely-used term that gets the point across. And I think that's the thing here: he came to the conclusion that the labels "gay" and "queer" are the best descriptors of his identity, which do the most accurate job of approximating something extremely psychologically complex and multilayered and nuanced in a simple everyday term that gets the point across to other people.

Obviously words mean things and it doesn't make sense to just pick a label at random (like for example it wouldn't make sense for me to identify as a lesbian, since I definitely feel attraction to men as well as women and everything outside the binary, and am interested in acting on that attraction at times, so I wouldn't be conveying accurate information to other people if I used the label lesbian for myself) but a label is just supposed to serve the task of conveying relevant information to other people (if a lesbian feels some kind of abstract attraction to dan and phil, that doesn't mean that the alphabet council needs to immediately revoke their lesbian card!! Since the word "lesbian" still does a perfectly good job of conveying relevant information to other people. Likewise if a straight dude has a fun little gay dalliance with his college roommate, but has absolutely 0 interest in men beyond that incident, it wouldn't be remotely necessary for him to start calling himself bi if he didn't want to, because what would be the point in that if he's only interested in women? Like if he told a gay dude who found him attractive that he's bi, only to backtrack... Do you see what I'm saying here?). It's perfectly valid for Dan to use "gay" and "queer" as umbrella terms that in his opinion do the best job of describing him, out of the language that's available. If he's like essentially a kinsey >5 and decided to just round it off to a 6 at this point, who are you to tell him he can't lmao

(shoutout to the legend @goldenpinof for this transcript!

Human sexuality is often way too complicated to boil it down to a single label in a way that doesn't erase any of its nuance, and I feel like this is something he's struggled with in the past, especially with him being a public figure. He's mentioned multiple times that feeling like he had to choose a label was a factor that prolonged his decision to come out.

And this is not even getting into the impact that his trauma from his childhood and also from spending a chunk of his formative years in the public eye probably had on the way he identifies or the way he chooses to label himself. It clearly took so much courage and strength for him to finally be able to call himself gay/queer please have some respect for our brave troops

Ultimately the point is that he uses the labels "gay" and "queer", not "bi", and it really shouldn't be difficult to respect that. It's also not biphobic for him to choose not use the label "bi" (again speaking as someone who uses that label). It's just that he feels "gay"/"queer" are better descriptors for him and nobody gets to determine that except him!! :) He wants people to know he's gay so he calls himself gay and that's that on that.

There are definitely people on here who are way smarter and more well-educated than me who would've done a much better job eloquently discussing this topic without rambling all over the place but that's my take (if anyone would like to add to this please do so, I'm always open to learn more about topics like this. And I'm also not saying that the way I see it is the only objectively correct opinion, but anon is definitely wrong so 💀). Thank you for coming to my ted talk

[yujeong]

Time was at a standstill. Vegas was holding his breath without noticing, and continued to hold it when he did - he was afraid of what would happen if he exhaled loudly enough to draw attention to himself. His gaze was shifting between Pete and the man who was standing before them in the doorway, blocking their entrance. Vegas had never seen him before, but even so, he recognized Pete in him enough to know who he was. A dangerous aura surrounded him. There was an edge to his presence that Vegas would only come across people of certain circles. He was a fighter. A muay khao. Pete's father. Shame coursed through Vegas' body, smearing his skin, settling in his lungs, rendering him speechless. I thought he was dead, he wanted to tell Pete if he could. He wanted to scream at him, I thought you killed him. Pete was the one who broke the stillness. As if awakened by something, he took a half-step back and made a motion with his arms, almost raising them to his chest, but not quite. In an instant, Pete reverted into the pet Vegas had been keeping at the safehouse, bound by handcuffs and afraid of his belt hitting flesh and drawing blood. A lump formed in Vegas' throat. "Have you stopped practicing? Your form is off." The uncanny similarities between Pete and his father appearance-wise didn't mean a thing when it came to their voices. Vegas shivered. Was this what Pete would sound like in a few decades? (Were these the condescending words he'd choose to spew? Was Pete going to embody his father? Was Vegas embodying his?) "What are you doing here?" Pete whispered. "They let me out for a few days, so I came here to collect some money. Imagine my surprise when I found out my offspring left the job someone found him worthy enough of doing to... do what exactly? Yaai didn't want to tell me." He crossed his arms, waiting for an answer. Vegas didn't know what he was allowed to say. If he was allowed to say anything at all. "It's none of your business." "I'd say it very much is my business, as well as yaai's business who was dependent on the money you were making being some rich asshole's human shield." A choked sound scratched Vegas' throat. He didn't like getting reminded of Pete being the main family's bodyguard, even though he stopped being one mere months ago. Especially like this. That was the first time Pete's father stopped looking at his son and turned his head to look at Vegas. For a moment, there seemed to be recognition in his eyes. Did he know who Vegas was? Did he care? A snort came out of his mouth. He leaned on the door. "Oh, I see how it is." He laughed, scratched his neck. "I never expected you to whore yourself out for money. Tell me, is it preferable to the path I carved out for you?" Vegas could sense the disgust in his voice. He could also see it on Pete's face. He was too astonished to share it, but not enough to be unable to speak. "Khun, there has been some misunderstanding-" "Don't bother. I can recognize a faggot when I see one." Pete's movements were too fast for Vegas to stop him. A direct jab to the nose; his father fell like a pack of cards, groaning like a wounded animal. Surprisingly, no blood - Pete held back. Vegas didn't know what to think about that. "That was a pathetic attack, even for you." "Get up." "We're not in the ring, son." Pete growled. Vegas could see his hands trembling as he was keeping them in the air, maintaining an offensive stance. "That never stopped you before." "You were too young to understand what I was doing back then. What I was preparing you for." Pete was silent. "The world isn't kind. It'll fuck you over one way or another." He got up, spat on the ground. "You still haven't learned a thing. You're too old to afford being naive." He turned around, and without sparing a look at Pete again, said: "Now get the fuck out of my house." (For @musictooth, whose posts about Pete's father have reignited my passion for this specific concept and for @wretchedamaranth, whose comments on my writing are always lovely and precious ❤️)