#and it's? idk it's odd but it's not? like *I* know how i feel about my sexuality and gender

[whirlingstarz]

OK SO: ahem

• Shadow and Stone would so obsess over Motorbikes together while Robotnik is ranting about how much he hates motorbikes and how dangerous they are (he’s so not worried, why would he be?? It’s just Stone and a stupid hedgehog) (he’s so worried) I feel like Stone would try to ease his worries while Shadow would just be like “yeah that’s why I like them?”

• Stone would so make little family portraits with latte art, it would start normal then he’d go wackier and wackier with the poses (yk those hilariously bad family photos?? Like those) Shadow would definitely hate it at first but it would grow on him (not that he’d let that show) and Robotnik would give suggestions for the next ones, it gets to the point where they are printing out pictures and hanging them on the walls

• There would be weekly movie nights on Thursdays (why Thursday’s? Friday is overrated) it would be touchy for Shadow because of his movie days with Maria and there would be a lot of deep conversations about that (with Stone ofc, Rob would not handle that well) and it turning into more of a NEW thing not a replacement or different version of what he had with Maria (I love found family GAWD) they would take turns on who chose what they watched (before Stone set the rule every movie night was practically a bloodbath) there still would be small arguments (mainly between Shadow and Rob) about the turn system but overall they respected it.

• Shadow would be embarrassed by them for sure kinda like a kid seen with his totally embarrassing parents (very awesome parents that he loves)

• Stone would be the ‘strict’ parent, Robotnik would be the ‘fun’ one (but it depends on the situation ofc, I mean staying up til 3am explaining the specifics of coffee making is definitely acceptable and necessary)

• If Stobotnik wasn’t together by then Shadow would so ship them so hard but also be so confused like “wait they aren’t married??” (He thought they were, he was 100% sure)

• Shadow and Robotnik’s dynamic is so hard to pin point tbh) cause they would definitely bond emotionally but on the surface they’d pretend they didn’t care about each other bc they think they don’t bc they’re both emotionally REPRESSED (it drives Stone INSANE)

• Robotnik would definitely make sure Shadow knows Quantum Psychics bc no kid of Doctor Ivo Robotnik (adopted or not) would NOT know Quantum Psychics?? (It’s so easy it’s basic level! Right?)

• Despite the family’s appearance (A bald, evil, mad scientist, a normal guy??, and a “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT” (anthropomorphic emo hedgehog)) any town they lived in would adore them for sure. Stone would do odd jobs around the town and everyone would love him, Robotnik would just kinda exist (but hey he’s the nice man that saved the world! So nice of him), and Shadow would be the idol of any kid in town and would be considered the coolest being in the universe

• I have a few AUs for them. I mean ofc we have:

• Shadow saving Robotnik and they find Stone and the shenanigans from there, kinda becoming a little weird villain family

• Stone and Shadow stick together after the events of S3 then Robotnik shows up (how did he survive? Idk? Bro is Robotnik, he just does, don’t question it)

These HCs can be in any of em tho

(These are my main ones since they stick to canon)

ANYWAYS I HAVE MORE BUT I FIGURED I’D START OUT SMALL *grins and blinks*

I have so many hcs for Shadow with Stone/Robotnik being his adoptive dads....

[inkskinned]

she's singing in another room and my dog is asleep at my feet. my grandma asked me why i haven't found a man yet and i laughed. oh, you know. i like my house clean.

my girlfriend is also my man is also "my partner" if i'm in a professional setting. yesterday we went to a ren faire and a man mimed at me - you're together? and at my delighted nod, his baffled, you're gay? made me laugh. a woman with rainbow hair said i love the two of you together. you're both so beautiful it's absurd.

my dad introduced my partner as my "..... friend. or whatever" the other day. he knows we're dating. in the same way, i was never able to get my sister's husband to stop saying that's gay like it's 2008. he still uses the word fa***t, and my sister's defense of him has always been well, he's just kidding.

my lover and i dance to old music in a tiny kitchen. we judge new music together and take food critique very seriously. we watch love is blind before we fall asleep and agree that if they had a queer season, it would be bloody but also make for excellent tv. of fucking course queer people would know someone for only 2 weeks and agree to get married. what are you saying.

at a bar with friends, a man puts his hand on my wrist. got a boyfriend? and yes, i do have a boyfriend, she's amazing. i am texting her while i wander around a gas station named after geese. i am visiting a swing state for a wedding. in the candy aisle i overhear: she's actually like a lesbian it's disgusting. two teenage girls with packaged sandwiches in their hands, giggling. no literally, like. i'm not, like. okay with her being there while we're all, like, naked and changing.

my girlfriend and i tailgate, drink gin and cider out of cups. from the frat group beside us, a man corrects himself with one of his friends: bro, i mean, nonbinary entity, and it makes everyone around him laugh, myself included. he razzes his friend the same way i would have killed for at 19 years old - like nothing happened, he continues: you apply sunscreen like an alien. he does a little sassy (and fairly accurate) dance interpretation of the motion. his friend is laughing so hard they're crying.

i am lucky, i live in a safe neighborhood in a safe state. my masc passenger princess comes up from DC. i drive her for an hour to where all the leaves are a violent arrangement of color. we walk along the trails, letting autumn into our blood. in this part of the state, there's a lot of pickup trucks and trump signs. when we chastely kiss before getting into the car, i accidentally make eye contact with a woman holding her child's wrist. she looks disgusted. she looks fucking pissed.

two hours later my girl and i are eating dinner on a patio, soaking in the last warmth of new england sun before the chill of winter sets in. we are giggling and trying to talk through plastic vampire teeth. at another table, i see a young woman sit up straighter. i watch her watch us. she blushes and takes her partner's hand from across the table. shy, like the taste of evening has just become something deeper.

it's worth it for this moment, i think. my lover is still humming the same song she's been singing for four days straight and i don't want to kill her for it. her guitar is beside my bed. her toothbrush is in my bathroom. in a few moments i will make us lunch. we are lucky enough to have found each other. it is lucky enough to be in love.

[sysig]

You're still standing off to the side. Somehow, center stage has shifted from under your feet without you realizing, and you're standing in the wings, performing to no one.

Starring Role (Patreon)

[hplonesomeart]

Ah nothing stings quite like a doomed friendship. Especially when you’ve got no one to blame except yourself for all those careless, selfish actions that pushed them away. Going as far to hurt them for your own gain. You’ve become the catalyst of your own loneliness. A path you forged willingly. A path you thought would bring you recognition…but it’s only lead to you being forgotten. Irreversibly.

[the-stove-is-divorced]

there will never be 0 tabs. the tabs are forever. the tabs know all.

Platonic relationships get seriously side-lined and it's honestly maddening. They make a point to have hero teams, long standing and assumingly incredibly tight knit, and then have ZERO elaboration for any of those dynamics! We get a Kate & Immortal, Rudy & Monster Girl which are both weird as best, but no actual exploration into what TT was like! It's so odd? Like they're teams! TT is arguably family-like. AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON MARK AND EVE, OMG. Like, they incited Mark's interest in her, not from Mark just admiring her, naturally crushing on her over time, bonding, or even her flirting first, it's guilt. Like, actual guilt? It's not even her her, it's another verison of her that actively rescued him at such a horrible low, Mark probably feels like he owes her! It feels like they're checking it off the last quickly than natural development? It's so bizarre??? We already discussed Kate, too, but it's all so odd. What are the priorities???? (」＞＜)」 I loathe their ship because of it, istg.

Kate and Mark need to hang out and just chill, please. Literally they both need it.

Yeah, and if they're test subjects, or anything like Rex, this normally would be an insanely fucked up thing to do, but especially fucked up thing to do! Where's the rage at feeling like a lab rat all over again? If Robot got them all together, where's the accusations that he was just testing them, seeing which one made the best to copy? AND RIGHT? Why doesn't it affect how Rex sees Amanda? How Amanda sees Rex?Where's any commentary about this impacting dynamics permanently? Why are they just cool with it? Where's the arc to gain trust back? Why haven't the dynamics shifted for a season, mistrust? Missions gone wrong because they don't believe him? Leaving rooms because he's in there, even. Outright refusing to even go on the field with him. Go dramatic and have him kicked out the team! SOMETHING! What GDA doesn't and do know about the Mauler twins will never not be funny to me like they're casually pushing the boundaries of technological accomplishments when blackmailed, and even not, they could single-handedly end wait lists for organ transplants.

I'd love more look at Art as a way to explore the hero ecosystem, like him being outright, stubbornly neutral. Does he have discounts for non-indestructible supers? How does he keep from being pressured to spill anything about villains if GDA/GoG knows/figures out what he may know about dangerous villains? Does he kinda just know everybody by proxy? Like does he refuse to know any details about what people do, or does he just get close to some clientele like Nolan? Does that make an unintentional informant, if he wanted to be? Do registered supes have their suits paid automatically? I'd love if villains/heroes referenced him randomly, like "damnit, I just saw Art," like randomly.

The Immortal and Mark comment is actually insane, when have they ever? Immortal actively distrusted him???? Like, there is potential for Mark somewhat projecting into Immortal and trying desperately to prove himself to him specifically, because if someone who KNEW Nolan AND hates Mark changed their mind about him, then it could really prove he's not his Father's Son...and dammit I want a fic on this now. That's so compelling. Dammit. But in canon, it's just like one-sided mistrust that dies after one mission and they're like distant coworkers. Though, kinda crazy Mark isn't trying to have some mentor, I'd think he'd want to model himself after anybody else. He wanted to be just like his Dad so bad, it'd make sense to me if he tried find a new role model. Idk gimme desperate asf Mark.

AND YES. Please give us SOMETHING to work with 'cause why is no other nation even mentioned? How is there NO throwaway lines about that? Shadow gov't type comment would work so perfectly, it's so fitting??? [[ Also still baffled that Immortal cared so much to yell at Shapesmith about AMERICANS getting left behind on Mars and not just, y'know, HUMANS. ]] <- This is such a good fucking point cause why does this show ffr not mention ANYONE ELSE. And why is Immortal (incidentally???) such a patriot??? I'm too tired to add on my own questions, but it's such a head scratcher. This is needed world building here. AND INCENTIVE for hero kids is so interesting. Like hero recruiters trying to snatch up needed heroes, or even flex how many they have in case of anything. Is having more heroes like having more nukes/weaponry, or something adjacent? Like is it a threat if one nation has more loyal heroes than others considering how potentially destructive they can be?

NO FR! WHAT WAS THE CECIL INCIDENT AND WHY IS DEBBIE NEVER LETTING IT GO. I would fucking laugh my ass off if it was because while babysitting, Cecil stopped paying attention while his precious teleporter was still in production and he just fucking lost Mark. Like they were running tests and Mark got hit by a stray beam of light, or sneaking somewhere and they lost him. I'd never forgive that either. What do you mean you lost my CHILD? AND HE COULD BE ANYWHERE ON EARTH OR EVEN FUCKING BEYOND? Please, let this be the reason I'd die laughing. It'd be typical of a kid POV if for Mark he had this grand adventure one day but after his Mom HATED Cecil and he never babysat again.

ALSO YES? This is what I'm talking about like the impact of a Hero Family, because yes Debbie shouldn't be afraid of her own husband but also like,,,, he could kill you in seconds, I'd be wary, personally. Like her sense of danger should be skewed? Maybe even desensitized to violence, death, threats, dangers. At what point does the vaguely dangerous stuff your husband does become mundane? Like, at what point does it become kinda meaningless??? Or, has she always been a Take No Shit kinda person?

I feel like this is what I mean but how it's ODD that Invincible tries to have the "normal family for YEARS" dynamic that ONLY changes when Mark gets his powers, but refuses to elaborate on how average they can possibly be with their shown dynamics, or possible implications considering who they are? I get why, it's a classic comic setup, average teen until POWERS, but also... it is so much more fascinated and makes more sense if they're fucking unhinged in weirdly specific areas by proxy. Debbie has a completely warped sense of danger + unimpressed by most heroic activities b/c they've become mundane, Mark, subconsciously, views heroic work as ultimately superior if it's more important than his Dad being home, Nolan thinks is fine to be majority hands off for his own child, etc, etc.

While I'm not too familiar with the DCU- your batfam meta posts are intiguing- so in transfering some of the broader strokes from them- I think you tackling a 'Mark isn't Nolan's biological son' fic would be fascinating. Sort of a step to the side of the 'what if Mark never got his powers' fic that sometimes pop up in the fandom

OOOOOO chewing on this currently, hm, the much a distinct flavor of exactly what you’re talking about, but the potential for more family drama depending on WHO knows. Does Mark know?? Is he waiting every day only to be crushed? Does he confused non-Debbie features with Nolan’s? I suppose I’m not the most enthusiastic about non-power AUs, but I think there’s something very fun to explore about Mark having to settle with, if he knows all his life, he will never have powers? I think the trajectory of his dreams will obviously shift, I can see him still having that distinct fatherly idolization, but perhaps embraces being useful to the GDA? Cecil’s number one intern—only intern—curtesy of nepotism, ha! There is something tickling me about Mark taking the Robin Route/Role for the Teen Team in terms of having no powers, just insane skills, BUT there’s something way more delicious about intern Mark when s1e01 happens and Mark tries snooping around to find out the truth about what happened to his Dad.

I wonder if, with Mark having a whole another father, if they’re more or less distant relationship, depending on WHEN Nolan entered Mark’s life? Like if Debbie met Nolan later for this, or just for fun, they dated once, separated (Mark being born during then), then they happened to stumble into each others lives again and Mark’s already been born, anywhere from tween to teenager so there’s a gap in how close they are. I feel like one important aspect of the whole Family Drama is how close they’re supposed to be, a functional, loving family turned upside down? So I wonder what more distance does. I wonder how Nolan copes when his family is entirely human and he can’t project onto Mark.

I love thinking about these, omg.

[dykedvonte]

I dislike takes that Danse would be just as conservative in modernized aus when it's clearly shown his staunch views of things come from his time in the Brotherhood and his deep-rooted desire to belong to something with a greater purpose.

Not to mention lines that show much more open-mindedness that get overlooked for his harsher sentiments when you first meet him. Like the oppurtunity to be a part of something is why Danse fell so far into Brotherhood dogma and it doesn't negate the offense things he does but I feel like it's just lazy to be like "hmmm he'd def be racist" just so it aligns to his BoS beliefs.

[telesodalite]

I need to be weirder about the scavengers and cannibalism...

[2-the-moon-and-2-saturn]

i hear what you’re saying and i agree that they tried, but the way i see it, they wrote too much story with too little time to tell it. the result is that there was a lot of stuff just up in the air for fans to either grab or remain unaware of. the biggest issue, in my opinion, was one of prioritization. at the end of the day, i feel like at times they just made the wrong decisions regarding which storylines would end up getting screentime.

for example, i really like billy’s character, i’m not a hater by any means, but somehow it feels like his episode cleared up more about his origins than agatha’s did about hers. and that’s ludicrous when you consider that this is literally her show. how did we come out of it after nine episodes still knowing so little about her?

and obviously this kind of information (that she and rio were married, that they wanted nicholas to look like rio) is important in order to understand agatha, because jac is trying to let us know about them now. i mean, it amps everything up so much!

agatha harkness, who had recently been near-murdered by her own coven trusted someone enough to marry them sometime in the fifty odd-years between that and her child’s birth. that’s remarkable, considering a witch’s regular lifespan and the trust issues we know agatha has. and it illustrates how devastated, how betrayed she must have felt when her wife killed their child so much better than the way the show put it.

it’s not even about shipping agathario or wanting to get more of a lesbian couple (though i do and i do), it’s that there are still so many questions about agatha left unanswered and we will likely never get to revisit them. this is it. this is about as deeply as we’ll ever know agatha harkness (because she will definitely be a supporting character from now on if there’s no season two). that just makes me so sad.

anyways, jac is obviously an incredibly talented individual and did a beautiful job both with wandavision and with aaa. there was some incredible writing in there and the way she handles grief is just stunningly heartbreaking. however, i do feel like she fumbled when it comes to certain aspects of the way she told agatha’s story.

i’m glad she’s made it so clear that they worked on agatha’s backstory a lot behind the scenes – it seems to have been important for her, and is probably how she managed to get anything across with so little screentime (that, and damn good actors) – but it just didn’t translate into the series as much as it should have (at least, that’s the way i see it). from a storytelling pov, it shouldn’t be necessary for her to still clear up details so long after it ended, you know?

idk, i just feel like either you leave the audience to reach their own conclusions or you make it so that the series says everything you want it to say, but when you reveal so much in interviews after the fact, it just seems like you should have done a better job getting the message across on the screen.

this is only my opinion, of course, and i agree we need more people like jac writing for the mcu, not less. i don’t think that first post made it abundantly clear, because honestly i was just peeved and wanted to get it out somewhere, but i admire jac shaefer’s work a lot, and i love agatha all along. episode seven specifically is one of the best episodes of anything i have ever watched in my life. i still think it’s important to acknowledge its flaws, though.

imo it did seem very obvious that the energy agathario were giving off was that of an estranged married couple, but goddamnit, jac, you should have devoted more time to this. it’s not fair to show as little as you did and then fill in the blanks in interviews over time. it’s been this way since the series came out and we deserve better. it’s poor storytelling and it just looks like fanservice

[coquelicoq]

good morning can i show you guys the christmas card my little sister wrote me in french (she does not know any french)

joyeux Noël, j'espère que vous comprenez ce que je dis compte tenu de la fiabilité de Google Translate. Jespère qu'à l'avenir nous voir plus de deux fois par an. Je ne sais pas vraiment quoi dire d'autre, alors joyeux Noël et j'espère que papa t'a offert. Profitez également des autres choses que je mets sur la carte au lieu de vous ècrire un essai complet.

and then she wrote me a little crossword and a "connect the language to its way of saying 'merry christmas'" game 😭

[seaofreverie]

I was about to start throwing plates because even though hours have passed, the messages on my deco my tree just wouldn't load and in all honesty I was looking forward to reading those more than getting my christmas presents. But looks like making an account on another sketchy website that was linked on that already also sketchy website did give me access to the messages finally. The only problem is that i can't see who they're from but also they seem to be chronological so I think I can figure it out lol. So after some frustrations i can finally say that i have read them and they were really sweet and nice.... so, thank you friends!!!!! 💝 I hope your holidays were great too. And moral of the story is don't trust random websites like these with something that's sort of personal to you idk

[kabukeo]

tonight's little doodles

[agirlinthegalaxy]

It's been rolling around in my brain the last few days for some reason, but I still hate the family backstory reveals for Sophie and Eliot. I've seen some of the meta for it, but quite frankly, it still makes no sense. If it had been something actually thought of and intentional in the original, I think it could have been so fascinating. I mean, Sophie's willing abandonment of Astrid to contrast with Nate's loss of Sam or Eliot's adoption in contrast with Hardison's and Parker's? Could have been excellent! But they came out of nowhere in Redemption and don't work with these characters.

Sophie was still actively using the fucking alias that she met Astrid under! She met with someone from her past on the show! Like. Quite frankly, that one is unequivocally bullshit that they made up and threw in and pretended could fit with the established canon. (And I'm sorry, but the idea of Sophie abandoning Astrid and never telling Nate about her just... So much of Nate's trauma was rooted in the loss of Sam, and I think that introducing this element after he's gone and unable to respond to it taints Sophie and Nate's relationship in a way bc I'm not exactly sure how Nate would've responded to learning about this but I think that it's something he'd have needed to know. I don't know how to fully express my thoughts on that but yeah.)

As for Eliot, I don't like the adoption aspect literally at all. The way that he would interact with his family and the memory of his family would be different, and I think that it's flat out ridiculous to think that he'd have never mentioned it to the team in the original show, especially when dealing with the kid cases. (I also dislike the biracial adoption as its own element because if Eliot was actually raised by Black parents in the... idk what 80s/90s? That just. doesn't feel congruent with how they write Eliot interacting with PoC, not necessarily in a bad way, but babe, he's written like a white southern man raised in a specific kind of culture that does not jell with that. It also makes Eliot look... really bad that he was apparently raised with the knowledge of how fucked up the military was and his parents' history and made the choices that he did.) Like the show may not have explicitly stated it but the implication of that relationship was vastly fucking different throughout the original show.

Just. These were not backstories that were congruent with their depiction and characters in the original show, and they're also just moves that I don't particularly like or find interesting directions for those characters. There's also something to be said about how it was apparently unacceptable for a woman to not have kids or someone not reconciling with their biological family when that was something that the original show handled a lot better. Out of all the directions to take Sophie and Eliot's stories, that's just not really one that I think was a good idea.

[jam-packed]

thank god im not a journalist cus the amount of eye contact would kill me

[sweet-milky-tea705]

Idk why i never feel like im allowed to think about my future. Probs a little depression thing but idk.

[hplonesomeart]

Whoops! Looks like this network is running on an outdated script, needs some immediate changes I’m afraid. But stay tuned during this brief commercial break as things get tidied up, we’ll be back on track in no time!

…..that was a long winded way of saying I’ve finished making some Mr. Puzzles fanart and I like how it looks :3

Bonus content section wahooo here’s the art without the dialogue included

By the way incase anyone is curious what the jumbled words scattered around are talking about- it’s song lyrics to Still Waiting by Jazz Emu. Was one of the inspirations to make Puzzle’s art since the whole thing is about getting immersed into watching television to an unhealthy extent that it pushes your loved ones away :)) seemed fitting

Also here’s a close up shot of just his face, taken by my wonderful phone camera which (for whatever reason) automatically puts a darker filter on it! Plus added pixel patterns from the screen itself kinda adding to the whole glitchy wave ambiance. Feel free to do whatever with it just please credit me somewhere and we all good 👍

[driftingballoons]

I hope you don't mind me asking two thing back to back, but for the reverse unpopular opinion ask game.

What piece of PMD lore/story just doesn't sit right / doesn't make sense with you?

Not at all! Love getting asks, thank you! :3

The one piece of lore that’s always bothered me a bit is how they handle humans in the series. Imo it’s just a little confusing and odd. Now for the positive! By leaving it vague, it really hands over the lore to the fans—how do humans live in this world? Are they common, or are you one of/the only one left? Do they tend to live side by side with pokemon, or are they more separate than in the main series? Where did Hero come from? What happened to their family? Etc etc. Plus, in Explorers, the idea of there being humans around, but you not seeing ANY in the Dark Future really adds to the oppressive and heavy nature. It helps show it’s such a harsh world that only the most feral of pokemon can truly thrive.