#Not really a serious thing

[eastofakkala]

The Sunshot Generation as Babies/Toddlers

(And That One Story that was always told about them when they got older).

Wei Wuxian: Surprisingly, was a very good kid. There are shockingly few juicy stories. 

Lan Wangji: By contrast, he was an absolutely feral toddler who terrified EVERYONE. Lan Xichen was the only one who could settle him down. It got so bad that Wangji got to attend class with his brother, because discipline did not work. 

Jiang Cheng: Very cuddly baby/toddler. Was nearly kidnapped once or twice because he was offered cuddles. Developed his temper/paranoia/general prickliness later on. 

Jiang Yanli: Accidentally kidnapped Wen Chao once. She wanted to give him soup because he looked sad. He was one year old and could not properly explain he was supposed to stay in place. They were halfway to Lotus Pier when it was discovered that the Jiang delegation had accidentally taken Wen-gongzi hostage. 

Lan Xichen: Much better toddler than Wangji, but for a while refused to walk anywhere on his own. Surprisingly, the adult who gave in to his (very muted) temper tantrums most often was Lan Qiren. 

Nie Mingjue: At his 100-day ceremony, he cried every time Wen Ruohan got close. His father was very apologetic. His mother thought it was hysterical and had to duck into antechambers to laugh in private. 

Nie Huaisang: Normally too sick to do much, but bit Jin Guangshan one time at a delegation when he didn’t listen to the also-small Nie Mingjue’s warnings that Sang-er didn’t want to be held at the moment. Once again, his father was very apologetic. Mingjue was extremely proud of his didi. 

Wen Xu: Made the mistake of shoving Yanli at a discussion conference. She tried to tell him to stop, but he didn’t listen. After the third time, she gave in and shoved him back, knocking him off the pier and into the water. 

Wen Chao: Went through a period of time when his favorite adult was Wen Zhuliu, and he would throw a raging temper tantrum if anyone else handled him. This included servants, other sect leaders, his father and his mother. Neither he nor Wen Zhuliu were ever able to figure out why. 

Wen Qing: While she did not cry very often, she scowled so fiercely at everyone that her parents had an exorcism performed on her at one point for fear that she was being possessed by a very unfriendly spirit. Nope, she just had enough of everyone’s nonsense before her hundredth day. 

Wen Ning: Very nice baby. One time accidentally ripped the head off a doll and cried for hours until Wen Qing fixed it. She explained that he was giving it surgery. 

Jin Zixuan: Very quiet baby. Was routinely taken to healers to ensure he wasn’t sick. Nope, he was just boring. 

Meng Yao: Could climb before he could walk. Meng Shi learned this the hard way when she turned her back and found him on top of a table, clapping his hands and babbling excitedly at her. It was the only time she well and truly freaked out. 

Mianmian: Was left alone in her parents’ garden one afternoon. When they returned, it was to find that she’d somehow dug up five worms and declared herself the worm empress. Once her husband heard the story, he teased her with it for weeks. 

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

anything u need me to be, ill be it for u!

[bixels]

tarpit site.

[blighted-lights]

ravage is #1 personal space stealer and heater, 10/10 would recommend having him as an amica. usually he'd be sleeping curled around soundwave's head but the other cassettes are out harassing starscream on patrol, so soundwave's chest is free real estate

anyways send me asks with ur soundwave and ravage hcs and mayhaps i'll draw them soon

[goldensunset]

when people refer to canon story-relevant kingdom hearts games as ‘spinoffs’ it makes me sad not only for the obvious reasons i always say but also bc like man i WISH this series had spinoffs. imagine what they could do if they had permission from nomura to truly go off the rails and ignore the greater canon for a second and just do some fun whimsical plotless thing in an alternate universe. imagine a fishing/boating game on destiny islands. kh fighting game. it is an injustice that we have been deprived of kingdom karts. can anyone hear me

[solroskajan]

The solver is gone (?) They put Bizcuit in a normal worker body. They really didn’t expect him to grow sharp teeth or a tail. He doesn't need to drink oil to live but that won't stop him from trying. (cw: vomiting)

(I actually drew most of this before episode 7, but I felt like cleaning it up a bit and posting it now)

[bayeis]

I haven't watched this show a day in my life

[cursed-rat-of-homosexuality]

they... they call him the nightcrawler bcs mah boy is CRAWLIN all night long haha- *coughs up blood*

[stunfiskz]

brain rotting about how fucked it is to be a darkner again lately. how do you care about being abandoned by your gods if they never seemed to care that much about you in the first place

[electronicmail]

Firefox-official vs electronicmail

Hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby

okay come up with a better idea then. firefox-official is gone asshole it’s electronicmail or nothing

[egophiliac]

Ego how do u draw the shroud bros hair? Its so hard 😔

Atp i might as well draw them bald😭🙏

I don't draw them at all consistently (let alone anywhere near on-model), so I'm not sure how helpful this will be. :') but I can share how I break it down, if that helps at all!

standard disclaimer that this is just how I draw them, take from it what you will, et cetera and so on and so forth. I really don't draw them close to canon at all, so this is sorta specific to my process, I guess? (and I am SUPER bad at putting things into words, so my apologies if this all comes off as a bunch of incomprehensible "you just, you know, ~*~*draw it*~*~" nonsense. 🫠 I can make no promises, but I'll try!)

I always start by establishing the shape of the skull and roughly where the hairline is -- the Shroudbros especially don't look anything like themselves without their hair, it's terrifying. :(

really can't overstate how much drawing hair is helped by thinking about it as different sections! even you have a less cartoony art style, it helps a LOT to start out with it as big, simplified shapes and then breaking it down more and more as you go.

the thing about their hair in particular is that the closer it is to their face, the more hair-like it is, and then it gets progressively more fire-y as it goes back. so their bangs pretty much act like regular hair! Idia has long, downward-and-outward-swooping bangs in that classic Yana M-shape, while Ortho's are shortier and spunkier (they kinda, uhhh, "lean" more to his right in general).

Idia also has these little short spiky sections that cover his ears and ring around the back of his head. these also act more like regular hair than fire.

them they have these big sections that are brushed back from their bangs and stick up -- this is where their hair really starts acting more like fire, so it doesn't have to be super consistent, just getting some nice flame-reminiscent shapes. I think of it as being in three sections: a bigger center flame, then two sections of smaller flames that kinda frame that center one. (I tend to treat this bit as being kind of flat/frond-y, although that's probably not really how it's supposed to be. ( ᐛ )

then I kinda just...fill in the back of their heads with more flame-y shapes that layer over each other. Idia does consistently have this one longer curvy bit that sticks out on his left; otherwise I just try to keep his hair feeling brushed back and with that sorta downward swoopiness he has in general, with just the little flame-ends sticking up. Ortho, meanwhile, has shorter clumps with an upward swoopiness (and note that his hair is under his headphones, so it gets a little compressed by them).

Idia's longer hair is where it gets to be, like, just pure fire, so it's all about whatever Shapes I feel like doin'! it kinda just...flows down from the back of his head, if that makes sense? sorta like a cross between water and a stream of fire. (length-wise, it goes down to either the back of his knees or down to his feet depending on which reference you're looking at...it really isn't super consistent, so I'm not either. :')

and that's how I draw their hair! I don't usually shade it beyond that just 'cause I'm lazy, but the shading does help sell the fire effect a lot -- their hair shading uses a lot of curvy and weird shapes that darkens from the center of their hair clumps out, with highlights/transparency on the tips (and just a little bit where hair highlights would normally be, to get the feeling of the curve in there).

SO yeah, hopefully you're able to get something helpful out of all this! 🙇

[angstflavoured]

i never realized, in the beginning of weirdmaggedon 1, bill says that he's "been trapped inside my own decaying dimension." Ik a lot of people depict him like going other places after destroying his universe, but I guess that he really couldn't. that was the whole point of him trying to get ford to build the portal for him, so he WOULDN'T be stuck in the 2d dimension. everyone he met, he met through traveling through the nightmare dimension and the dreamscape. He'd never seen any of them in person.... which would mean that his physical self had to be stuck on euclydia, right??? that means every time he wasn't invading people's dreams, every time he woke up, he was right back at his home dimension where he killed everyone. Just kinda... i dunno, floating in space? like oh my fucking god, no wonder he was never able to get over it for millions of years. jesus christ yeah the guy needs therapy, every single one of his wounds are scabs that never got to even start the healing process.

[thepersonperson]

Sukuna is Peak Gap Moe. I’ll never be over this. This bastard talks tough, eats people, and kills like a woodchipper and yet…he is a poetic little sap. Getting mad over an improper haikus, the misidentification of flowers…and confessing his feelings to Gojo Satoru under several layers of wordplay no one except those well-versed in ancient Japanese would catch.

I've been over this in greater detail in Sukuna's Negative Rizz, but @tangsakura added more context in the replies to that post, making Sukuna's use of 凡夫 (bonpu) for Gojo even gayer.

In summary, 凡夫 (bonpu) can be translated as painfully ordinary or unenlightened. But in the individual kanji readings, 凡 is mediocre and 夫 is husband. You could read this as Sukuna calling Gojo his mediocre husband. And that's just the modern readings! The ancient readings...

So you can read this line from Sukuna as the following:

“You were born in an era without me and hailed as 'The Strongest'

1) And yet you turned out to be…painfully ordinary.”

2) And yet you turned out to be…unenlightened.”

3) And yet you turned out to be…a mediocre husband/wife/spouse.”

4) And yet you turned out to be…the ordinary one who could stand by my side.”

Sukuna seems to be saying these things all at once. (It’s no different than the Megumi Activities wordplay he uses with Enchain. Alt. link if the Twitter dies.) Gojo apparently makes him feel very conflicted. He’s boring, he can do better, he shouldn’t even call himself the Honored One, he’s his equal, they’re married. The irony here is that no one except Sukuna can understand this.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

your movie charles art gives me cuteness aggression

obsessed with getting these asks back to back and yet they both hold some truth i think ...... thank you very much everyone ....

[space-sheep08]

This originally started as a rough sketch to try and figure out how I wanted to draw the Stark children then I blacked out and woke up with this.

Won't be their final designs though, I want to truly work on their outfits which wasn't the case here.

I made two alternative versions because I couldn't choose which one I liked better-