#WOULD MAKE ME PASS OUT

[alchemist-shizun]

LMAO i was not expecting to be aware of the context this is great

Polyamorous relationships are not for everyone. Monogamous relationships are not for everyone. Romantic relationships are not for everyone!!! We are all different people with different needs, maybe just stop trying to condense the human experience into a homogenous gray monolith!!! aaaaaaaa

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

real talk having the 2nd worst new years eve yet 🤢🤢🤢 (throat infection, twisted neck, banged-about-foot, ego AND the rest o' me all bruised like misjuggled peaches 🍑🍑🍑)

im bent outa shape and suspectin the universe owes me 8 buck if anyone wannsa chip in

[sameboot]

Paraphrasing again buuut I wanted to try illustrating this scene!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

MDZS x Brazil (1985)

(Yes. Real movie dialogue)

[theoldkyokodied]

One wedding and three funerals

Background paintings under the cut

[littlecrittereli]

Wanted to doodle some comfort bros to balance out the angst of my recent posts lol

Hey pookies! Just wanted to say I really appreciate all the love and support I've been receiving lately for Decoded! I always love your comments/asks/fanart/memes, it genuinely has been bringing me so much joy and I'm so grateful for it <3

I know I said I had a lot of art to post (and then proceeded to post none of it LOL) I'm just a little overwhelmed rn with some life stuff so sorry for the wait! I also have a lot asks that I haven't gotten to and I apologize for that as well!

Trying my best to keep up, but I haven't had a lot of time recently. Art's gonna be a little delayed, but don't worry Chapter 8 is still gonna come out this Saturday as scheduled!

[heynhay]

merry Christmas klancers 🎅

[beargregor]

wait i'm curious, what makes you say that gregor doesn't like everyone else (if i read that post right)? just curious since i've never seen anyone else say that

i don't necessarily think gregor dislikes everyone else at lcb but i do think that gregor is an incredibly petty person that isn't nearly as close to the rest of the sinners and even outright dislikes some of them cough cough rodya cough cough which a lot of people just Refuse to see because he's as much of a doormat as he is. there's several examples i could get into to try and prove my point however i'll just focus on what i personally think to be the biggest ones.

additionally, this is going to be kind of long, so i'm adding a read more. read more! read it. sorry for being so wordy. i have several diseases.

Pt1. gregor is the type to try and get along at least decently with everyone, especially if he gets a good first impression from them.

this is less a point in favor of gregor's distance w/ the rest of the sinners and more just a contributing factor to it. once again there's several examples i could point to here but i think the most in your face one happened in canto I with yuri, as several people have pointed out. even before gregor comes clean about growing attached to her as quickly as he did because she reminds him of his sister, we get this interaction.

i'll go ahead and make the disclaimer now that i don't necessarily think gregor is the most reliable of narrators, especially when it comes to his feelings and interactions with most people, but from the way he acts when the topic of yuri comes up (and the way we still see him act even all the way up to c7, nearly a whole year after yuri's death) i don't see reason to question his sentiment here. gregor immediately got that aya and yuri were close, potentially even taking note of their traded belts, and went out of his way to get something nice for yuri despite hardly knowing her.

i feel like a lot of people have forgotten as much, especially since it's been so long since c1, but gregor actually spent a good bit of season 1 doing the exact same thing with the other sinners! gregor reads a connection between him and ishmael pretty quickly despite getting off to a rocky start

mostly because gregor can tell that ishmael is pretty sardonic in a very similar way to him. there's been multiple instances where ishmael and gregor have essentially expressed the same sentiment at different moments, most notably gregor's little argument after ishmael got shot with a decay ampule in c4

and ishmael's response to pilot talking about self-sacrifice in c5

i could go ahead and pull up more examples, but in general pm has gone out of their way to show us that gregor and ishmael are pretty similar, so it makes sense for gregor to assume that they're friends, right?

this will be pushpin 1. keep note of this for Later.

ishmael's only the first sinner we see gregor trying to do this with in s1, we also see him try it out with heathcliff, sinclair, and ryoushuu

he's tried to get along with charon, being one of very few sinners that we've seen actually try to establish a connection with her at all

even rodya, despite my insistence that gregor doesn't like her nearly as much as the fandom thinks he does

all of these seem pretty fine and dandy, right? sure it frequently leans towards self-degradation, micromanaging, and commiseration, but gregor can at least be pretty chummy with most of the sinners, can't he?

Pt2. hell's chicken was more than just comic relief guys please

i'm fully aware that this is quite the hot take, but i think hell's chicken deserves a lot more credit for character writing than the fandom gives it. hell's chicken gave us foreshadowing for several events, such as the donqui bloodfiend reveal

heathcliff's distortion in c6 (as well as hong lu's highly speculated distortion at some point in the future)

and ryoushuu and sinclair's continued connection by making him the odd one out on her team

which, hey! that implies something about gregor's odd one out, don quixote, too, doesn't it? yes. yes it does. that's pushpin 2. keep note of that for later.

speaking of pushpins, hey! that's pushpin 1!

splitting into teams is one of the major events in hell's chicken, and most of the sinner's choices are either motivated by very little, backhanded, or motivated primarily by not wanting to be on the opposite leader's side. i didn't include all of the picks, just because i feel like including most of them already gets this across, but i think gregor took one major thing from this: most of the sinners, when push comes to shove, will only side with gregor when they refuse to or can't take his opponent's side.

now, don't get me wrong, i'm fully aware that this is primarily intended to be comedic relief, but when gregor is being described as having his trust broken by ishmael or nearly crying because no one on his team properly sided with him for him, i feel like it's pretty fair to read into this.

something that i think is pretty important to remember in conjunction with this is that we know that gregor is the type to hold a grudge, both from his general attitude towards the G corp soldiers in c1 as well as his continued distaste for vergilius

even beyond the splitting into teams of hell's chicken, the sinners have given gregor plenty of reasons to feel bitter. i feel like this is something people have noticed but haven't really put a finger on, but it's kind of wild just how often the rest of the sinners make gregor the butt of the joke

and sure, we could argue that a fair few of these aren't really made with any ill intent. quite a bit of it could have been meant as harmless teasing, but with gregor being more sensitive than most, it coming from nearly all sides, and as often as it does? yeah, i think he's prone to taking it a bit personally.

Pt3. yes i do still think gregor was the third most important character in canto VII you guys gotta hear me out okay

of course, all of this leads up to the bit of the story i highlighted, doesn't it? c7? i totally get why people haven't really picked up on all the gregor things i did in it, seeing as they were mostly not *directly* said about him or by him.

personally, i think that gregor's distaste for talking about himself on any serious level and thus leading to him getting sort of "sidelined" narratively (which i take issue with that claim, but still. it's effective for getting what i mean across atm) is supposed to lead players to take a deeper look at the times gregor gets held up to other characters and compare and contrast what's being said about them by the matchup. as i showed earlier with his immediate latching onto ishmael, i think this is something gregor himself is at least partially aware of too.

so, that begs the question, who was gregor compared to in canto VII that makes me think it's one of the most critical pieces in understanding his character?

really, i'd like to avoid getting too lost in the analysis of this canto specifically, since i'd like to do a proper post about this later, but i figure i can bury the lede a little before doing it properly.

c7 features several characters being made to perform in sansón's play, acting out the relevant backstory for this segment of the plot. a lot of these characters have rather direct, degrading reasons for playing the roles they do.

outis, a character with an inflated ego who wants her journey to have a purpose, is made to play an aimlessly wandering villager with a single line.

hong lu and ryoushuu, two characters for whom families and the expectations placed upon them are likely going to play a major role, are made to play bloodfiends.

rodya, a character who resents her lot in life and is constantly shown to be eager to leave her destitution behind her and become someone special, is made to play a helpless villager that's too poor to even offer any money to the hero that saves her.

heathcliff, a character that has spent most of his life getting dehumanized by comparing him to beastly animals, is made to play a literal bear whose sole purpose in the plot is to get beat up and then quickly left by the wayside.

sinclair, a character that has two opposed parties essentially treating him as a macguffin to procure for their side, is made to play the character who was arguably the catalyst for this entire canto, not to mention playing a decently major role in ruina.

our star don quixote is made to play her father, the first kindred, but there's someone by their side the entire time, isn't there? don quixote's dear, steadfastly loyal companion. a character which don quixote has tasked themself with getting to come out of their shell?

hello again, pushpin 2.

gregor has been made to play our unreachable star, sancho. someone had to, of course. you can't really tell a story without it's main character, now can you?

now, i should once again give a disclaimer. i am not trying to say that i think adapting what happens to donqui/sancho in c7 to gregor is the road pm is going to take here, not only would that toe a bit past the line of foreshadowing, but it'd also just amount to rehashing that plotline again, which i don't think would make for a particularly exciting story.

what i DO think is that we can take a lot of the things that are said to either directly be the case for sancho and use them to inform how we see gregor.

and god, does playing sancho have some fucking implications for our favorite ossan archetype.

starting off, the earliest moment we get to see of sancho is quite literally her just waiting for death to take her in a pile of ashes.

which, i should remind everyone, is actually pretty damn close to what happens to gregor's literary counterpart at the end of the metamorphosis. gregor samsa experiences one final breaking point that pushes him over the edge and makes him decide to just wait for starvation to take him.

gregor and sancho both consider themselves to no longer be human, something which sancho goes out of her way to highlight repeatedly throughout the canto and gregor is quick to get defensive on her behalf for when outis starts really tearing into her

sancho spends quite a lot of this story denying herself the joys of community and friendship, despite knowing that, even with the rest of the sinners frequently making jokes at her expense and outright insulting her, they were things that she desperately craved.

and, while this is getting into my "outis is a red herring meant to distract us from gregor's eventual betrayal" theorizing, i also think it's worth noting for this discussion that sancho's fellow kindreds, her family, all seem to be under the impression that she dislikes them and ultimately her departure was an act of betrayal

and that, despite gregor being one of LCB's resident mood makers and attempted conflict de-escalators, one of the sinners that's most prone to making appeals to the bonds they've all forged together, only him and faust remained silent during everyone's speech

so yeah, i think there's quite a lot of little details and hints building up to the reveal that gregor's not quite as fond of everyone as he presents himself to be. i do think a lot of this ultimately comes down to gregor getting in the way of his own happiness, similarly to donqui, particularly because he's been frequently portrayed as something of a self fulfilling prophecy, especially by giving him as many christ allegories as they have by way of priest and garden of thorns. gregor is convinced that the rest of the sinners don't like him because he's not convinced anyone could like him, so he convinces himself that he hates them because why should he care if someone that he hates hates him too?

a lot of this ultimately ties back to my personal interpretation of what happens in the metamorphosis as well as my own theories regarding all the times gregor has made weird callbacks and references to lobcorp and ruina, but yeah. i think about this guy and his deeper characterization a fairly normal amount, i think.

to end this off i'll highlight one of my favorite little "gregor is fucking seething and trying so hard to keep it cool" moments, in the credits CG for c7 we see rodya teasing him by drawing a little horse on his window and actively pointing and laughing at it, which gregor really doesn't seem all too pleased about.

i personally think this ties into the other cruel part of sansón forcing gregor to play rocinante, which is the more literal "he's actually just straight up playing rocinante" side of things. gregor was quite literally made to play something less than human, less than even animal really, as he was reduced to nothing more than the shoes don quixote wore as she got to play the leading role. sansón directly makes jokes about gregor being nothing more than shoes in the play twice, which adds to this reading, i think.

this, imo, really plays into the adaptation of the metamorphosis! i've seen a lot of readings for the book that posit that, despite being the protagonist, gregor samsa can't really be considered the main character due to nearly everything he experiences in it being used to further his family's character development at his expense, which i think fits nicely with limbus gregor seemingly having the most said about him through indirect means by holding him up to other characters. also it's rodya carelessly making fun of His Big Major Insecurities™ again like she did in c1 which i always find fun. rodya i love you but god you're the worst.

[slavhew]

breaking badifies them. happy pride motng

au elaboration under cut

this is just copypasted from twt i forgot to post yetsterday

I imagine that the Dirkjake dynamic would be down on his luck partyboy and the estranged high school friend that coerced him into a drug dealing operation. For reasons he refuses to elaborate on. Jake doesn't really want to be cooking meth but he needs the cash and sees Dirk as the one stable thing in his life really. Dirk really needs a partner and an in to the business and is most of the brains behind the operation.

Dirk is also doing a fair bit of posturing to keep them both safe but Jake... hooo Jake. Dear whining Jake will become a loose cannon when it counts. The power balance would fluctuate alluringly.

To be honest I imagine their dynamic would be much closer to a hypothetical high school au turned drug-dealing and wouldn't be much like Walter and Jesse. Wanna think there would be a happy ending but realistically they'd sink into their worst traits & probably end up in a saw trap by the end of it. I wanna imagine most plot beats still happen... gf dies... "gale" dies... Codependent yaoi and corruption arc flourishes.

I imagine Dirk's wardrobe would start to resemble more and more of Bro's and some of his personality might too. But I also don't think he'd go as far or be as bad as Walter, since here there's a care and concern for Jake as more than a pawn and stand-in (aka the Walter special). Damage would still be done though. The love didn't save anyone etc etc.

Bro and Grandpa would have a dynamic MUCH closer to the s1/2 duo. Devil-may-care stoner and the guy who needs cash FAST and doesn't have time for this shit. I dont think Bro has the tender heart Jesse but he definitely develops some terrible loyalty complex regardless. Honestly have a LOT less idea how their story would go so I'm all ears

[untimelybones]

might come back someday to clean him up or do a better piece for him but. here's what i have for now??

eastern dragon doesn't make sense canonically but this is already so far from canon i don't care anymore

how do you even attach a bird to an eastern dragon they’re just noodles (i settle for neck fluff)

[uncanny-tranny]

I think respecting trans people comes with a territory of like... just because many people will pass as cis doesn't mean that it's a great idea to use their passing as a way of legitimizing how absurd transphobia is

Transphobia isn't absurd because I "look like a [cis] man," it's because transphobia is fucking ridiculous. It would be ridiculous whether or not I passed or whether I look like a "conventional man." I use myself as an example, but ultimately, passing or appearing normative should never play into whether or not transphobia is bad.

[thursdays-adult]

You know I never shipped Zutara back in the day. But I've been thinking lately about how it would have looked for the disgraced prince that's been banished for three years; who briefly returned only to become a traitor again; helped the avatar topple the current regime; and then ended the 100 year war to also start courting a girl from the water tribe. I mean yeah Zuko is likely cleaning house of all the Ozai loyalists and many people were likely exhausted by the war and glad to see it end. But still that's a populace who's been fed propaganda for over 100 years on the righteousness of the war and the superiority of the fire nation and who now has a fire lord speaking against all of it. A fire lord who seems more comfortable with earth nation and water tribe dignitaries than his own people, including his choice of a bride . In a way Mai seems like the more politically sound choice. A way to reassure the fire nation that they're still a priority and that not too much will change. Fire Lady Katara could possibly only stoke the flames of civil war. But then as Iroh said water is the element of change with a deep sense of community that holds them together through anything, and I think it'd actually be really interesting to see Katara step into all of that political upheaval and change because she might actually be the perfect person to lead them through it. And now I'm really fascinated by that concept.

[trixxedheart]

It is amazing how the "people that love and uplift transwomen" website will instantly fucking maul a transwoman if she even remotely insinuate that using radfem rhetoric harms trans people

[pcktknife]

seele (and acheron) redesign

[lemongogo]

they should get to kill each other at least twice .i think

[lunamugetsu]

Bring your sidekick to work day!

Inspired by the "What if Question was the one who saves Danny from GIW?" post that I made awhile ago.

Bring your sidekick to work day!

It was a tradition that started around the time multiple superheroes were taken on sidekicks. Everyone in the league knew why they'd bring their sidekicks to work. Their sidekicks get to socialize with peers their own age and they could properly introduce themselves to other heroes.

So it was a surprise when The Question, the league's faceless conspiracy theorist, offhandedly mentioned that he'll be bringing his sidekick to work while telling them about what new information he's found about Cadmus and another new government agency he thought they should start looking into.

The heroes found it hard to believe.

Question has a sidekick.

Surely they must have misheard.

No way that guy would want a sidekick, let alone get a sidekick.

When "Bring your sidekick to work day" arrived everybody was prepared to see the heroes and sidekicks.

Superman with Superboy

Batman and his 10+ kids

Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl

Flash and Kid Flash

The list went on

The heroes all mingle before realizing that they haven't seen Question. Maybe they did mishear the man? Or Question got his words mixed up?

That was until the computer announced the arrival of Question and a guest that was unidentified.

They all turn around to see the faceless trench coat wearing investigator followed by a tinier faceless trench coat wearing kid. The kid was practically a clone of Question, except...tinier.

"This is my sidekick. Who." Question points to the faceless kid

Flash: Who?

"That's me!" the kid says pointing to himself.

"Why don't you acquaint yourself with the others." Question tells his sidekick who just nods and goes off to introduce himself with the others kids.

Batman: I didn't take you one for having a sidekick.

Question: I could say the same for you. And the sidekick thing just kind of happened. The kid wouldn't leave me alone and I couldn't let the kid get himself into any trouble.

Batman: Understandable

Meanwhile with the sidekicks.

Everybody's asking Who various questions about Question and how he met the man. They barely know anything about the guy.

Question 1: What's the deal with your name?

Who: It's a work in progress. Since my mentor's name is Question. I figured my name should be like a question.

Question 2: How do you eat?

Who: I shove food into my face

Question 3: Where's your face?

Who: Wouldn't you like to know

Question 4: Do you know about his conspiracies?

Who: Of course I know about his conspiracies! I'm one of them

Other sidekicks: What?

After some talking, the sidekicks get along with each other very well. When they reunite with their mentors the computer rings stating that John Constantine was coming along with a guest.

The heroes then all watched as a girl with white hair and green eyes wearing a trench coat and was dragging John Constantine by his sleeve. She grins and introduces herself as Dani with an "i" and that she's John's apprentice.

Dani then spots Who and they immediately do the Spider-man point at the other meme

Who (Danny): you got a trench coat mentor too?!

Dani: Where's your face?!