#but then Yes It Does. bc in order to do that it has to be drawn precisely onto that stupid rough special paper

[autisticshadowthehedgehog]

yes the plants take the gem but what does that have to do with sonic and tails can you explain I'm very intrigued

i'm assuming you're referring to this post!

In the anime Sonic X, the third season was dedicated to a completely original story. (also obligatory "please watch the subbed version, the dubbed version got censored heavily" mention) The spoiler-free version is that group of aliens in fucked-up robot armor, led by Dark Oak, descend on Mobius to try and steal the Chaos Emeralds. In attempt to save the universe from these freaks, Super Sonic scatters the emeralds across the galaxy before crashing to the planet (he's fine tho). The aliens, known as the Metarex, then attack the planet and steal something from its core, causing the plants to slowly wither and die.

Around this time, a refugee from space crashes on the planet, looking for Sonic. An anthropomorphic plant, her name is Cosmo and she is the last survivor of her race after the Metarex attacked her ship. She knows Sonic as the only person who can control the chaos emeralds, and begs him to help defeat the Metarex. Turns out these guys have been planet-hopping and genociding as they go, but their main goal is to steal the Planet Egg, which is a magic thing at the core of each planet that keeps it alive and thriving. She currently doesn't know what they're using them for but it's not for anything good. And, well, now they're hunting chaos emeralds... and, as we find out later, making fake ones.

Tails happens to have a spaceship so the whole gang goes into space to fight the Metarex. This takes up the entire season and it fucks severely. Again, the English dub was heavily censored; the og Japanese has constant death and shit. In the last of the spoiler-free bits, I will say that if you have ever heard of "Dark Sonic"... this is where he appears.

The entire season is extremely dark but extremely well-written, which makes it very popular in the fanbase. Ian Flynn has previously stated he wanted to adapt this arc to comic but Sega wouldn't let him; us seeing the Chaos Emerald surrounded by plants, along with fake chaos emeralds and Dark Sonic-implications, is making us wonder if Sega's let up and we might get this arc after all.

Now, spoiler version, though I really do suggest you watch the subbed version of this season bc it's a fucking masterpiece:

We find out late in the season that Cosmo and the Metarex are the same species. In this species, the sexual dimorphism is a different "final stage" of their life cycle. The "male" plant-creatures enter their final stage as basically a kaiju, in order to defend their society from threats; the "female" final stage is turning into a giant fuckin tree in order to reproduce with seeds. The downside is that once you enter this final stage, it is FINAL, and you die shortly after.

However, when their planet was attacked by an unseen threat (it's never clarified, but a lot of people theorize it to be the Black Arms considering Shadow 05 was about to drop), they were all about to get wiped tf out. Dark Oak started experimenting with the Planet Egg in order to stay permanently in kaiju version without dying. His wife, Earthia (or "Ashia" in Japanese, but it just translates to "Earthia") is fucking horrified that he's fucking with the life of their planet like this. While he convinces the "males" to join his side, Earthia escapes with the girls and bombs their planet to kill Dark Oak and his new monsters. They survive though, and Dark Oak starts leading them to steal more planet eggs.

Turns out their plan is to use the power of the eggs and chaos emeralds (fake or real) to do a full-scale attack on the entire fucking universe, which will kill all animal-people and turn every planet into overgrown plants. We actually see some characters from a Shadow one-off episode being killed and violently turned into trees in one scene. Fucked up. That's what they want to do to everything.

And Cosmo? Well she didn't just happen to be a survivor; turns out Dark Oak spared her from the attack on her ship, semi-possessed her in order to spy through her eyes and ears, and yeeted her down to Mobius. He's been using her to spy on the Sonic Crew this entire time, against her will and without her knowledge. It fucks everyone up a WHOLE lot.

Anyway there's like a three-part finale where Super Sonic and Super Shadow are desperately trying to keep these fuckers from Mass Genociding. Finally, Cosmo realizes that she's the only one who can stop this and sacrifices herself; she goes into her Final Stage, turning into a tree but trapping Dark Oak in there with her (it's a long story, he kinda turned into a meteor). She then appears to Tails, the ship captain, and tells him to fucking shoot her to kill both her and Dark Oak, saving the galaxy.

The problem is, Tails and Cosmo have had a bit of a romance over the course of the season. It's been fucking adorable, and Tails became extremely protective of her after Shadow tried to kill her (long story). There's an uncomfortably drawn-out scene (and I mean that in the best way) where Tails is like. Emotionally broken and trying to figure out any way to do this without killing Cosmo. Eventually, he has to give in and fucking shoot her, blowing her and Dark Oak up. It saves the galaxy but traumatizes the hell out of him.

Super Sonic and Shadow contain the blast, and Super Shadow chaos-controls it away and disappears (this is likely bc they were setting up for the Sonic Heroes arc, where Shadow would have to appear out of nowhere again). When Sonic returns to the ship, Tails meets with him, desperate for him to say he saved the day last-minute and brought Cosmo back. Instead, all Sonic could find was a single seed– considering how the Metarex reproduce, it's probably Cosmo's child, but it's never clarified. This causes Tails to have a complete fucking breakdown.

The season p much ends there. They show everyone starting to heal on Mobius, have a bit where the anime-exclusive character Chris has character development and leaves to go home, and then go "and now we're going to have more adventures!! yay!!" before panning to a potted plant in Tails's workshop, showing that the seed has sprouted.

As I said, it's very dark, but VERY good, and thus we all really really hope that it's what Sonic IDW is building up to. They've been building up fake Chaos Emeralds, Tails blaming himself for things outside of his control, and Sonic being 110% done. I didn't even get into the Dark Sonic stuff, cause it only appears briefly in one episode and then is never mentioned again, which you'd think would be bad writing but no it just raises so many questions and you know that was what was intended by it.

The arc is really beloved but because it only appeared in a 2005 anime (which was heavily censored in English, and the og Japanese didn't air officially until a couple years ago), not a huge chunk of the fanbase knows about it. Which means we really want to share it and get more people into it and how good a character Cosmo is. So yeah that's what we're excited for.

[pinkfey]

ice cold take but i hate how male centered fandom is

[skitskatdacat63]

In the Pre-Quali show, Will Buxton and James Hinchcliffe discussed the team orders controversy from today's sprint. I agreed with some of what they were saying, but at the same time I felt they were being a bit too harsh in the way the talked about it. Commentators are allowed too be opinionated, of course, but I was curious to see if anyone else was a bit put off by this, or if I'm just being irrational/oversensitive(sry in advance for it being four mins lol)

[skunkes]

i think watercolor wld be less daunting if it didnt require special paper, which is Obvious but I dont even mean it in the "i dont wanna waste the good paper" way, more like I'll doodle aimlessly in my sketchbook and if a Nice Drawing happens to come out of me as a result, and I feel like painting over it in gouache, I will simply do that... watercolor is scary bc i feel i have to go into the Specific Special Paper with a plan and I rarely have plans

[autism-alley]

Honestly another thing that annoys me about Gabe's death in the show is that the downplayed nature of the abuse makes his fate, for lack of a better word, inappropriate. Gabe being an explicitly physically and emotionally abusive bastard was what warranted him dying in the book. Yes, he is still financially abusive in the show, but he's more of a pathetic slob than a monster. Contemptable, sure, but hardly worth killing. At best, his death is a tasteless gag. At worst, it's disproportionate retribution.

fr like. after the first episode i was like well what the hell are they gonna do at the end of the series? from episode one it was always gonna be either don’t kill off the loser and commit to erasing a woman and her child’s story of surviving abuse, or do kill off the loser and have it be a completely unjustified killing (not only bc of the reduced abuse but bc they outright state sally divorced him!! book sally had no other alternative divorce financially was Not on the table!!). he might have been killed by his own hand in-universe, but the writers made that call, purposefully, to condemn his actions so severely they warrant death. i’ve seen people who don’t even believe his death was warranted in the books just out of the principle all killing is wrong—my opinion is firstly it’s fiction but secondly it sends a pretty clear fucking message that you don’t get to be an abusive fuck and walk away scott-free. self-defense and justice have a right to serve consequences, and sometimes those consequences are your wife with righteous blood lust and a desperate need for education funds

[afniel]

Maaaaaaaaaaaan, come on.

(the post has ended up in the tags btw. I am not changing this and I need you to understand that it is just me talking to myself semi-publicly)

[phagodyke]

i dont pay much attention to global listening stats on spotify cuz i just listen to shit i like but sometimes ill see smth and be like how tf do they have so many/few plays on this??? like my impression of how popular some artists are is so WILDLY disconnected from real life

[im-smart-i-swear]

How about Eenek's family for blorbo meme? If it is ok

hiii of course its ok!! had a lot of fun making these<3

thanks for the ask bestie<33

[pinkopalina]

as a huge batjokes shipper i want batman and joker to hate each other in the sense they dont really hate each other, they just have really different goals and see their own version of potential in the other and right now hate is the best word for their situationship. they both love the other for what they could be but neither of them wants to be what the other one wants, and that's equally as frustrating as it is necessary for them to keep existing in their current roles. they're deadlocked and that fate surrounding each other is kind of the point -- we both have to be like this, the opposite of what the other wants, for us to keep existing at all, and for giving me that gift i both love and hate you. it's an agreement. i think the hate that's there now is born from an intense underlying love.

i think batman "hates" joker for being so amazing and smart and cunning, for being able to create grand gestures and schemes, to pull people together under his charisma and make them all believe in something, for being as extraordinary as he is but batman hates that he uses it to hurt people. he hates that joker can't channel his energy into doing something good for the world, that he hurts himself and others just because he wants to be batman's greatest enemy. i think batman wants to help joker but also hates him at this point for joker exhausting him, constantly getting hurt both emotionally and physically by him, joker never trying to improve his situation, throwing away other people's lives, showing batman he loves him by lashing out and hurting him. batman hates joker because he loves his rogues, he wants to help them, and he knows they can do better. he wants to live in a gotham that doesn't need batman but he still needs to be needed, because when there's no batman, what is bruce going to be? without joker, he will continue being batman, but it's an empty crusade. some of my favorite interactions between harvey and bruce are the ones where harvey thanks bruce for "always being there for me, never giving up on me, my very best friend." even with someone like harvey, bruce can still hold onto that hope for his rogues, never give up on them, keep going for them, even if it puts them through the cycle one more time.

i think joker hates batman in the most toxic way possible, but it's still love. i just think he's selfish and doesn't want batman to think about anyone else but him, the same way he operates for batman, but if he must think about other people then joker will make it as amazing as possible! i think he hates batman for wasting his time on ordinary people, people who are so boring that batman claims he has to protect and serve and love them but joker thinks it's all surface-level. batman won't kill joker but he'll leave room for people dying in his crusade. it's a choice he allows, and even if joker knows that's a morally fucked up way to put someone in a box, he doesn't care. batman is the type of person to train himself mentally and physically for decades and dress up in a half-silly-half-menacing costume so that everyone can have an idea about him. batman himself is not normal, and joker knows that and loves that! why is he wasting his time trying to save people that use him, abuse him, don't want him to be the best he can be? i think joker's motivations for loving batman and lashing out as if he hates him lie somewhere in between extreme admiration -- like i truly believe in your cause and that you're the right person to do it, but i'm so angry at you for wasting your time on other people and i'm so hurt and jealous that you choose them over me, just so you can be a hypocrite and let them die if i want them to anyways -- and anger at his hypocrisy -- like it's easy for joker to dedicate himself to chaos and just being in batman's life by putting batman in situations that force him to be a better and better hero, but how can batman sit there and choose and pick what morals he'll uphold and who gets to live and who gets to die?

i want to be your greatest enemy because you are the greatest hero ever, and the only way you and i can keep being the best at what we do is if we do it together, because of what we both believe in.

[ryuuseini]

God I wanna... Say Something regarding fatphobia in media and the terms ppl use in describing characters who gain weight over time ("letting go" like bro shut the fuck up???) and how like, there's also nuance to the discussion (like, a character who starts out on the heavier side choosing to lose weight shouldn't be demonized either - as PLENTY of people want to lose weight for various reasons, and while you can point to a decent amount of it stemming from our fatphobic society, a lot of it is also just personal desire at the end of the day - but I also understand that if your ONLY fat character loses weight at the end and the other characters don't change either, then that's not good) but idk, I'm a little too tired to properly articulate what's going on in my mind? But I just... wish this was more of a discussion

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[gingergari]

i honestly do not think i will be able to draw all of these guys in time so here are my main splat ocs and their team alignments!

maybe i’ll draw the winning team members 🤞🏽

[hiddenbeks]

so many thoughts abt how schewpid the jedi council is in kotor but also not sure if i should write abt any of them before i finish the game because it's entirely possible that i'm still missing some critical information,

[waloeders]

also its super rare that barney or sleip interact with ppl who arent dominants, except this one time before the titan fight where sleipnir does this (under cut bc tw some violence? hugo kicks a lady)

the way he is here.... eughhghh

[solemntitty]

why are fast food sites and apps so shit to try and look up anything on. i can't find the subway menu bc it wants to know my location like dude i just want to know your standard menu. there's no way your menu varies that much between locations that you need me to share my location

[necrotic-nephilim]

@an-android-child listen your argument is perfect because all jokes aside when you're discussing a character like Bruce Wayne who's existed for nearly a century of on-going content there is going to be so many versions of him that it's hard to discussion him as a whole because you have to pick some sort of baseline. what is to me a terrible father figure based on the canon content I consume could be a great father figure based on the canon content someone else consumes so he's always fluctuating and changing. and while yes I prefer and think it's more "in-character" for Bruce to be flawed I can't discredit the opposite argument because something something the inherent nature of the art of comic books as a medium. HOWEVER COMMA

when we are discussing *Batcest*? There is *no* version of Batcest ships involving Bruce -BruDick, BruTim, BruJay, BruSteph, etc- where I think Bruce should be a good person. like my personal vision for *any* of these ships is built on the foundation of how terrible Bruce is to all of them. My Batcest ships are dependent on my Complicated Asshole opinions about Bruce. I think if healthy Batcest floats your boat I am cheering you on bc I totally get it, happy married couple BruDick does pretty well fit their vibe sometimes (particularly if you're using a Pre-Crisis or Rebirth framework where they get along The Most) but I want them unhealthy and toxic about each other. Dick and Bruce are That Couple™ who break up and get back together so often you have to text to ask them if you should send them joint or separate invitations to your Christmas party and by Christmas the relationship status has changed again. They are *so* deeply devoted to each other. They'd die for each other. They'd try to kill for each other and have the other half stop them. They also are only on speaking terms every other week. and 99% of the time Bruce *is* the problem. he's incapable of treating those he loves kindly because his hyper-vigilance is what drives him as a person.

and then with BruJay, honestly what better ship than those two, to depict the dynamic of loving someone to the point of possessive devotion but also wanting to change quite literally everything about them. Jason needs Bruce to be willing to break his moral code to prove he loves Jason. Bruce needs Jason to be a version of himself he's not anymore. they're so possessive of each other. they also can't stand each other because Bruce won't let himself believe anyone but him can be right about these things. i think BruSteph falls into a similar vein tbh, though with Steph i think she's less about wanting to change him and more about just wanting to push back and change how he sees *her*. someday I'll convince this fandom to ship BruSteph more tbh bc i think it's *rife* with problematic dynamics of Bruce being the Worst to her bc of all the power dynamics and her refusing to just take it, pushing back against him.

and then. and then BruTim. not to have favorites but if a ship has Tim it's going to be a favorite. these two are terrible for each other. i think viewing their history through the lense of shipping is so fascinating when you consider Tim's choices and how he feels Batman needs Robin. imo BruTim is one of those ships that's codependent on a past history of BruDick, even if it was one-sided. because if Batman needs Robin and Bruce and Tim end up in a weird relationship, that means the need for Robin relies on Bruce's need to be kinda Weird about Robin. is it consensual? yes. but consensual in the way of Tim considering the risk/reward ratio of essentially being a lamb to slaughter for Bruce. offering himself up in that way because if it's good for Gotham, he'll sleep at night. and then of course you add the respect Tim has for Batman and how Bruce takes advantage of that (sometimes even in canon) to get Tim to do what he wants. it's willful codependence on Tim's side, and Bruce just accepting this random kid as the next Robin and them slotting into a Weird partner/mentor/mentee/lovers/therapist relationship. and Tim being the first Robin Bruce has to have parents that are alive and he has a decently healthy relationship with, there's no pretense of it being father/son or Tim being a ward like with Dick or Jason. there's less of a reason for Bruce to need to hold himself to a "fatherly" standard around Tim, which i think shows in a lot of Tim's comics. so they're more openly Weird with each other and i like that a lot.

anyway sorry for infodumping on you but your comment gave me a chance to just run my mouth about dirtybadwrong fun ships. so ty this was delightful to get into.

If you want to be bothered. Maybe this for dick and Bruce???

i ALWAYS want to be bothered these are always the highlight of my day tbh you're a delight for letting me just yap <3

Dick. For the canon isn't real square I am Specifically talking about the Tom Taylor Nightwing run. Usually I ignore bad runs but given this one is ongoing (though about to end THANK GOD and get replaced by Dan Watters who i have high hopes for since i adored his Sword of Azrael (2022) run but i digress) so I counted it. Especially since it's so debated if that run is bad or not, for some reason. I'm a 90s Nightwing truther. I love Dick so dearly and tbh recently I've been more enamored with him the more I read his Discowing era, I didn't used to be as big of a Dick stan as I am these days.

Bruce. Honestly where do you even start with Bruce. I want to fist fight him and also patch him up. He got me into comics and superheroes as a whole but I roll my eyes whenever he shows up in a story. He's a bastard and usually not a good father but also complex and should be dissected under a magnifying glass. I love him dearly. He's also just the worst. I think that's why I love him. I'm always a fan of unabashedly Complicated Asshole Bruce who's generally not always the best person, particularly not to the Batfamily and that being the driving force of his relationships with them, especially in shipping.

And for bonus points, Tim. Because know above all else, I'm a Tim Drake kinnie /deg. He's been my number one for a decade and I've yet to uproot him from my brain. He's literally the Worst half the time and I love him for it. And the canon isn't real refers to Tim Drake: Robin because... that sure was a comic. And that's about all I can say about it. Pre-Flashpoint Tim I miss you so dearly. I think it's fun that I want to put him in a blender and drink the juice but also want Nothing Ever to happen to him.