#actually there are many more issues

[clown-slasher]

The one issue with dating Pete is that I don’t think he can appreciate the art of “fun” bad. I show him my favorite goofy horror movies and he shits on it the whole time. Stop being an elitist fuck for five seconds and learn that bad things can be fun! FUCK!

[monstermonger]

I recently bought an art book on Caspar David Friedrich, whose emotional work stuck with me since I first saw it in a museum years ago. Over the course of a few weeks, I read about his life and at the same time did studies/interpretations of many pieces. It was a really enjoyable and fulfilling project; here's a good lot of them together :)

I was happy to see many people enjoyed Friedrich's work+my interpretations while posting them individually. It took way too long, but I FINALLY set up a print shop for some of these + some other pieces for those who expressed interest. Thank you so much!

[ciderjacks]

despite Laios low self esteem making him think that if he’d been eaten, Chilchuck and Marcille wouldn’t have helped Falin,

theres a small part of me that thinks the reason Chilchuck stayed with the party and went back in the dungeon in the first place was because he didn’t want to leave Laios alone. That Laios was moreso the reason he stayed.

[cosmicredcadet]

I wholeheartedly believe that the last thing that should be said in response to aspecs hating their identity is "don't worry! Aspecs can still do X, Y, and Z" and I'm so fucking serious about this.

The least helpful thing you can do to someone who have not accepted their aspec identity yet is give them ways to compensate for it. If an aspec person is upset over not being able to enter a romantic relationship, the last thing that should be done is to tell them they can still enter one or instead enter a QPR - not because that's not true but because that is quite literally going to stunt their ability to accept their aspec identity. Telling them they can instead enter a QPR when they're upset over the lack of romantic relationships is at MOST a bandaid for the main issue. Instead of them coming to accept their identity and accept who they are you have instead handed them an amatonormative alternative on a silver platter that allows them to pretend they still fit into amatonormativity without every deconstructing it. This is how we get QPRs getting shoved into an amatonormative framework - these people NEVER got over the "I'm sad that I'm aspec" phase because they were handed alternatives instead of given actual support in deconstructing their internalized aphobia, self hatred, and amatonormative biases.

[starry-bi-sky]

Blood Blossom Au: Baby's First Commissioner Meeting :)

TL:DR This Post: Danny (orphan) gets poisoned with blood blossom extract by Vlad. He runs away from him and ends up under the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman! Starry is loudly pushing her batdad agenda.

(Also known as "Late At Night, When The Nightingale Sings" on my ao3!)

This was a fun rough idea I've been sitting on for weeks, thinking about how Commissioner Gordon and Nightingale's first meeting might go.

---------------

Commissioner Gordon likes to think that he's adjusting to the new normal of Gotham very well, -- the new normal being grown men running around dressed like bats, in military-grade strength body armor, committing acts of vigilantism, -- and slowly, little by little, he was no longer being surprised when this new normal pops up out of the shadows like the world's most terrifying daisy. His shaving lifespan thanks him for it.

....

The kid is a surprise though.

Granted, he seemed to be a surprise to the Bat too.

There's been a string of murders lately, -- which, in Gotham, is kind of like saying there's been another storm during monsoon season. And there's just been another; in some dilapidated building down in south Gotham, with the broken, boarded-up windows and mildew-crawling walls to match. The victim is a man in his thirties, multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, left in the center of the room for the blood to pool out around him.

The place is already secured when he arrives, the building swarmed with officers and the forensic detectives. The Bat emerges shortly after he does -- or, he might've been here the whole time, hiding someplace dark and shadowy. For his own sanity, Gordon doesn't think about it too hard.

The kid is a surprise, and he appears like a bolt of lightning.

He shows up in the middle of a conversation Gordon is having with the Bat.

A whistle, sharp and loud, slicing through the air, meant for open air rather than a confined space. Gordon's ears pierce and protest the sound, and the solemn, murmured chatter floating through the room abruptly cuts off like the swing of a gavel. As he turns towards the sound -- as they all do -- he swears, up and down, that he sees Batman's shoulders jump, just slightly.

At the source, perched on the window, is a boy. A boy in a gray-blue scarf and an oversized black hoodie, one that hangs off his frame and has ace bandages wrapped around the wrists in some attempt to cinch the sleeves. The hood is up, big like the rest of it, and threatens to swallow the upper half of the boy's face whole in the fabric. What upper half Gordon can see, is smeared with some kind of opaque, black face paint. He's holding onto the side of the frame with one hand, on his hip is a grappling hook. A familiar grappling hook.

Gordon has multiple questions, and his officers tense up.

Martinez puffs up, brows furrowing as his face shapes into a frown. Shoulders rolling back. "You can't be here, kid--"

The reaction is immediate, like a spark to gunpowder, the boy yanks his fingers from his mouth and his mouth twists into a scowl. Head snapping over to Officer Martinez, his hood manages to stay on but Gordon swears that as he bares his teeth, the glint makes them look sharper than they should be. His voice is rasp and quiet and harsh; snappish in its hissing; "Put a fuckin sock in it, Martinez. I'm not stayin."

Martinez reels back, and the boy immediately veers his attention off him. Like a switch, his demeanor drops. Despite half his face being covered, his mouth twists into a cringing, apologetic smile. Slanted and off-beat, embarrassed. It'd be disarming if this wasn't Gotham, and if he didn't just hiss at Martinez like he was about to bite his head off.

"Sorry." He whispers, voice deceptively polite and softer now. Gordon has to strain his ears to hear him. "I was looking for him."

He points his finger towards-- Gordon? No, Gordon follows the direction, and finds himself looking at -- the Bat.

The Bat, who always looks stiff as a pole, now looks even stiffer. Somehow. Well, the explains the grappling hook attached to the boy's waist.

"What are you doing here?" The Bat says, gruff and unable to completely smother the stumble of surprise in his tone.

The boy still holds a sheepish smile, and slips off the window ledge. His feet hit the creaky boards with a near-silent thud, the Batman finds his feet and rapidly begins crossing the room.

Gordon notes the slight tremble in the boy's legs as he straightens. He adjusts his scarf, which droops close to his knees now that he's standing, and slings a backpack -- how long has had that? -- off his shoulders. When the Bat reaches his side, he does as he always does, and looms over the boy like a spectre. A threatening mass of shadows cloaked in all-consuming black. Standing next to him, the boy looks teeny in comparison.

The Bat is a man who terrifies even the most hardened criminals, Gordon has seen grown men shiver in fear at the mention of his name. And yet when the boy looks up at him, he doesn't even flinch.

Instead, his sheepish smile melts away like ice under the sun, holding only traces of his previous embarrassment. It remains as a shadow on his face, a small upturn at the corners of his mouth. The boy pushes his hood back just enough to reveal glinting, ice-flint eyes surrounded in tar-black face paint. He holds the backpack up with one arm. "You forgot this."

[cable-salamdr]

Sth archie covers except I drew them and went insane in the process

(There is more to come I just need to figure out how to draw and render an airplane first. click on them for details and such please yah yah)

[molinaskies]

An interesting “side effect” of the canonization of the “classic era” meaning “younger era” is that the classic era now reads as “cute fun times” before the core cast became teenagers/tweens and things got super, super complicated.

Because the characters are “younger,” there’s an air of “little rascal innocence” to everything they do now. The new releases like Mania and Superstars now feel like little throwbacks to the young heroes just learning how to work together and make a difference in the world.

I don’t think this is a bad thing at all.

[oblique-lane]

more mercenary analysis, whichever merc you want <3

Not a mercenary but... Okay!

Let's dissect Pauling

Always so collected, responsible and efficient. The one who is not afraid to get her hands dirty for the sake of a goal, and her performance is always one hundred percent. What could possibly be not cool about her?

Well, maybe the fact that this all is, in fact, an act. Of course it is.

I'm not saying her determination and dedication to her job aren't sincere decisions of her heart, she really enjoys it and shines in her work. It's just a matter of WHY and WHAT she's doing it for. And on what scale.

For her, her job is EVERYTHING. Eagerly working 364 days a year with barely any rest, masochistically putting herself in so much danger, blindly following the boss's instructions, not even hesitating to kill people standing on the way...

Wow, there's gotta be something going on here.

Well, obviously the Administrator plays A HUGE role in this situation. Why would Pauling trust her so much? Referring to the comics, Pauling trusted her wholeheartedly on whatever the Administrator was planning, even though she didn't know what it was. This blind following that vaguely resembles nothing less than a weird somewhat child-to-a-mother attachment. It's just a Boss, just a job, why?

Because that's what it is. Mother issues. Very apparent.

We don't know anything about Pauling's past, so there's where the headcanons begin:

I'm assuming her birth mother was very neglectful and dismissing, never acknowledged her daughter's accomplishments and struggles. No matter how hard Pauling tried to become "worthy" in her eyes, it seemed to be never enough, as if she didn't even exist at all. Maybe her mother was a substance addict or something and their household wasn't safe and stable, so Pauling had to become an adult early and run away from home as a teenager and find a job to get by.

(I assume that because I believe there was a mention in the canon lore that Ms.Pauling had been working for the Administrator for long long years (don't remember exactly), indicating that she started working when she was still a minor).

So, being taken under the Administrators wing, her young wounded brain found a substitute for a very thing she was lacking, subconsciously clinging onto the Administrator as a newly mother figure, in order to "get it right this time".

Administrators Strictness, responsibility and demandingness were the most favorite qualities of a person of authority in Pauling's eyes, in contrast to the laziness, unaccountability and indifference of the environment in which she grew up. She could finally strive.

This time she would show the mother figure that she's worthy, she's important and irreplaceable; she exists. She would prove that no amount of hardship is too much for her if it means approval for the Administrator.

And the Administrator kind-of-sort-of gave Pauling this pseudo-love in return, encouraging her to sacrifice herself even more for their work. Which is at the very least unfair, and at most just predatory. Administrators "love" was conditional, in contrast with when the real motherly love Pauling unknowingly expected. Administrator was too immature for a mother figure, too much in power for a partner or a friend, yet too close for a formal boss. What is this!? Something not nice.

The Administrator doesn't love Pauling for Pauling, she loves her working qualities. And thus, Paulings subconscious guess was confirmed that "I'm only important when I'm doing the job. I AM the job."

Tying your worth to what you DO instead of what you are is a huge dangerous existential rout one could choose. But she never really knew her importance outside of her skills, so she wouldn't know.

Now imagine how actually painful that character arc was for her, when the Administrator proved herself to be unreliable and secretive, and when Pauling started to question her intentions for the first time.

"... Because I trusted you!"

"Then why are you questioning me now?"

It wasn't even the real conversation between them, just Pauling's mind torturing her.

It reminded me of the crisis of a 4-year-old when they realise that their parents aren't perfect; they don't know anything and they CAN hurt you.This shattering illusion of almighty love. When a child stops believing that the "harsh love" their mother treats them with is simply an abuse.

Wouldn't it be terrifying to realise in your 20s thar despite running for "the mother's approval" all your life, you will never truly get it. If your mother failed to provide it to you at such a young age, nothing will truly substitute that, especially now, when you're an adult, no one will love your inner child the way it was supposed to be loved.

Unless you yourself decide to take that role.

...

Realistically speaking, it's not nearly that sever with Pauling! She's happy in the environment she's in, there's lots of interests for her to explore (Guns, fights, killin'!) So many adventures every day! Even if Pauling has her inner suffering, it's not that bad aa I describe it. Her mother problems may actually be an advantage, a reason she is such a good and caring boss for the mercenaries.

I'm just edgying things down for the sake of the clearer analysis. But still...

If the Administrator will be gone and Pauling loses her life-dedicated job... What will be left? Who is Pauling once Mann Co is no more? Can she answer that?

References:

– A video that helped me better understand the Good Girl mask:

– "Lise Bourbeau's 5 soul wounds model: Injustice"

[nellasbookplanet]

While I have Many Thoughts on the plan to convince the gods to go mortal, most of which others have already addressed at length (mainly how the fuck is this going to work in practice in both the long and short run, and also really cool idea but could’ve been set up better), I haven’t seen anyone bring up how this particular solution may actually bring a chance at change and growth for the gods that has so far been withheld from them.

Because, until now, the pantheon as a whole has been sort of - stuck. They went from beings of endless possibility in Tengar to being distillied and calcified through trauma into a single trait, the domains of which they became gods. The primes and betrayers aren't different sides of a war but a family locked in a struggle that will never be resolved because neither side will ever relent, nor are they either truly willing or capable of (being immortal) killing each other. They seem incapable of truly changing, and several of them (notably the Arch Heart and the Raven Queen) have expressed simply being tired. They don’t necessarily want to die, but they recognize a need for change, just that they themselves can't be the instigators of it.

The god debate hasn’t really taken this into account, though the overhanging shadow of it has been growing heavier since downfall. The kill-all-gods side obviously has no reason to care whether the gods are locked in endless misery (other than using it as an additional excuse for murder), but the save-all-gods side isn't any more helpful when it comes to this particular issue. Saving the gods won’t heal them.

Maybe becoming mortal (however many, many issues that brings with it) could actually allow them to become whole as people the way mortals are, no longer as strictly tied to their domains. Now that the entirety of Exandria no longer rests on them playing nice, maybe they can find a way to resolve their family feud (through blood or reconciliation). Perhaps, as mortals, they can even eventually even find a way to live a full, final life and find rest at the end of it.

[tordoise-x3]

Just my drawigs from today cuz I haven’t been finishing anything 😞

[singingcicadas]

Megatron's Opposite Day

"I free slaves"

This is Soundwave binding Ratbat but seeing as Megatron did the same thing to Pentius by putting his spark into Trypticon and reformatted Rumble and Frenzy into cassettes against their will I think he approves a lot of this practice

Megatron on Optimus and humans, after his defeat in All Hail Megatron ⬇️

he really salty

"I implant ideology" aka brainwashing

Decepticon cause = Megatron. nuff said.

"I liberate cities" says the person who let Nyon burn to make a point

Cities are too small, think bigger

Holding New York hostage.

"Like Autobots, they believe in the sanctity of life" which he doesn't. Kudos for being honest.

Allowing troops to do free-rein massacre is a reward for conquest. Nothing like some easy murder for de-stressing.

The Simanzi massacre which halved the Cybertronian population is off-screen so it doesn't deserve its own pic

"The revolution"

"We only feel good when we stand with a blade in one hand and a throat in another" "Let's make the entire face of the planet into our new gladiator arena"

What nice, confidence-inspiring revolutionaries. I'm sure they'll rule the population with benevolence after they've killed all the Necessary People with Necessary Violence. Final interpretation of what constitutes as Necessary is reserved for the sole discretion of Megatron, ofc.

Good goals.

Sentinel might be an absolute asshole but at least he's got one thing right: they're literally a gang of thugs who gets high off murder.

"The people are my utmost concern"

'The people': ................

"Battling for freedom"

Freedom of what? Function? Autonomy?

Religion?

the ability to choose whether to fight? on which side to fight?

Idk why they used the word "pogrom" for this, it's way too specific

Anyways it doesn't matter, they won't be missed.

Good for Bumblebee for calling him out. Screenshotted this just to appreciate Megatron's bitchy face ⬇️

Other urban legends:

"Megatron loves Cybertron" let's just burrrrn it

He did fight to save Cybertron in Chaos Theory but also made it pretty clear why he did it. It's not out of the goodness of his heart or any sentimental reasons like that. It's an ego/dominance thing.

Plus his wording when he's trying to convince Optimus to let him go with the Lost Light: "I broke the planet. And that, Optimus, is why I owe it to you - to everyone - to find a replacement."

Replacement.

In other words: I made a mess and can't be bothered to clean it up, so I want to get away from it and find somewhere new to start clean.

I don't think Optimus appreciates the favour.

"Megatron tore down a corrupt government" which is true, just too bad that he's worse

He's also, um, a closeted Zeta admirer?

"Megatron advocates equality" ???

Megatron x dictatorship is literally his OTP. They were inseparable for four million years. A lot of people died trying.

"Megatron cares about the Decepticons" no he doesn't. Not his troops nor its cause.

Like for one thing he treats them with complete scorn

Admits that the most useful thing about keeping Starscream around is that he can bully underlings into line

Wants to use the humans' nuke to get rid of his troops and reformat them into peaceful drones after they outlive their use because they were "too ruthless" for his perfect peaceful society

Has zero scruples about fighting Deceptigod, just affronted that his own soldiers are being used against him

And basically just drops the Decepticons like a bag of vermin after he surrenders. He never once mentions them of his own accord, other than to insist he has nothing to do with them. Even his surrender speech is something Optimus makes him do as exchange b/c he wants to go on parole. He wasn't planning on making a public address otherwise, he was just going to leave them hanging.

Looking at the publication timeline, Megatron started out as an established Evil McEvilson-type villain similar to how he is in G1 and it's not until Chaos Theory in 2011 that JRo really gave him a sympathetic backstory that drew his characterization away from the bloodthirsty pugno ergo sum warlord into someone who once held ideals about societal reform and remains convinced of his own moral supremacy throughout the 4 mill years of death and war, adding worldbuilding such as Functionism/oppression/government corruption as justification for the beginning of the Decepticon movement. But because the start of the Decepticons was already written in Megatron Origins and every evil thing he'd done up till Chaos Theory can't be retracted and they had to keep Megatron as a villain until his story was no longer central to the Autobot-Decepticon war line, and JRo didn't try to downplay the atrocities he'd committed (some of the most sadistically disturbing things Megatron did were exclusively in MTMTE flashbacks), but rather tried to distance him from them and placed the focus on the juxtapositions to emphasize change, this as a whole just resulted in Evil McEvilson getting turned into Hyper McHypocrite.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Why would you—That's not—I just wanted to ask for help, why did you have to go and make it awkward???

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[jinlin-at-the-moon]

i dont know how to Articulate my thoughts abt this but like. im deeply fucking surprised i haven't seen any 3zun fics where it would fully lean into jin guangyao's severe parental issues. like maybe im just too svssspilled (its totally me being too svssspilled thanks 'i wouldnt abort you' sqq) so the freudian angle analysis comes way too easily to me for it to be normal but like. someone else has gotta be seeing this shit right. rancid desire for approval meng yao couldn't get from his father specifically was already deeply seeped into his relationship with nie mingjue from the start. sideyes lan xichen and raises an eyebrow. "the child desires to kill its father for it is in competition for its mother's affection", huh? shit kind of writes itself and my primary reason for even considering this angle is that jin infamously committed actual incest and later also kicked out his half brother for trying to flirt with him guangyao would absolutely hate it

[moeblob]

A lil guy !

[nenoname]

stan twins the canon cptsd brothers i will always think about all your unaddressed issues that would make perfect plot fuel for your spinoff

and also the whole 'stan getting that poem by bill via a website which contrasts with bill getting one from the axolotl via a website' foreshadowing thing

like idk i would love something like su future but like more optimistic, aka not an accumulated breakdown that has to be mostly resolved off screen at the end :/// but something thats being kinda addressed throughout? (although would love to see one of them turn into a monster thats always fun lol)

stan having severe issues from his dad and those years of being homeless that we keep on getting more info on but never really getting confronted on (the drifter catalogue and tijuana incident...), him being completely alone for like twenty years when running the shack before soos comes along to the point that 1998 is noted as his low point, and him not really learning about bill+what he did to ford until ages after he killed him if he ever did get the full context

while i think amnesia and everyone seeing him as a hero actually helped with stan's 'i'm a worse version of my brother' thing its still a lingering issue too and we now got him being insecure over his own hands

ford being immediately thrown from 'being tortured by bill' to 'being stuck in the multiverse and being chased by bounty hunters constantly', him fully expecting himself to die when destroying bill, and him only now being safe for the first time in 30 years ....relatively safe, he's still in constant danger because of course he is

idk in the end the series wants them to be happy and they deserve it, its why i wasn't too worried about the book being like 'ooh bill is back!! and the book is haunting ford' thing cos i knew they'll be ok

[charafansmile]

Trying to do hw but my mind solely wants to think about how charas motivations only make sense if you look at it from the eyes of a child and that ignoring them being a kid is how the fandom got stupid ideas in it's head of them being a mass manipulator who's entirely evil even though the game beats it into our head they made the plan BECAUSE they loved the dreemurrs. Like obviously their plan was never going to work it was a bad fucking plan from the getgo and little kids are 1) stubborn and 2) not known for thinking things through????? People saw asriel call them not the greatest person and a say he wished frisk was his friend (which fair!! Charas plan did get him killed and was the catalyst for things going wrong!) And immediately jumped to making them abusive ignoring all of the evidence that chara did care about and loved monsterkind.