#but it doesn't really appeal that much to me...

[horny-marbles]

can you tell us, what are the creeps ideal types? personality, body type, fashion, etc! 🖤❤️

yes i can 🙂‍↕️ i'll try to keep this as short as i can because i always get carried away lmfao

jack:

personality wise, he'd gravitate towards someone that resembles him in the ways that matter — someone that doesn't start shit but finishes it, quiet and self aware, a critical thinker, collected, stuff like that. but he'd appreciate gentle patience (even if he'd never expect anyone to wait for him to come out of his shell, it would be his undoing) and a positive view on life, opening his eyes (haha) to the details that make a shitty situation not so shitty

he doesn't have a preferred body type, flesh is flesh and if you put your trust in him to handle you despite his nature, that's all that matters. he does love some meat to grab and feel and he loves softness that contradicts his sharp edges, but he definitely won't be picky lol

fashion wise... jack is blind, he really doesn't care — not to say that if he could see it would matter. I KNOW I'M NOT GIVING YOU MUCH TO WORK WITH HERE but i really genuinely think this is entirely trivial to him

jeff:

he will never admit it if it was pulled out of him with pliers, but he will get palpitations if you match his bullying. instant ticket to boner town if you go off on him like it's just an afterthought, rapid fire insults that come easy like you don't even have to think about it. it hurts his ego and hits something real nasty in his groin at the same time 🙂‍↕️ other than that, sarcasm and shock value humor will get him furiously in love, and if you're the sort of person that takes crazy risks but almost never loses anything to it, you will NEVER escape him lmfao

i've said it before, this man loves tits like no one's business, even considers himself a rack connoisseur despite folding at the sight of anything above an a cup under a low neckline. he's mostly into short + thin or athletic, but again, tits are the main attraction to him so

to no one's surprise, "need me a goth bitch" truther, but unlike most users of this phrase, he actually fucks with any kind of goth style, from trad to mall. maybe not pastel goth. also, biker clothes = hard smash

toby:

his "type" differs wildly from what he needs. he thinks he wants someone that matches how unpredictable he is and how erratic he can get, but the moment he experiences gentleness and lack of judgement it's like his whole idea of attraction gets flipped on its head. the moment he gets a taste of soft and understanding, he starts chasing it like crazy. bonus points if you're funny!

as for body type, he's not one to turn down an opportunity based on your physique, but he does have a soft spot (or should i say a hard spot lol) for thick and tall. thick thighs, wide hips, meat to grab everywhere. 100% in your comments on social media talking some "mommy? sorry. mommy?? sorry uhh mommy?"

a slut for sluts. the less clothes you wear the better, that's all that matters. you can be goth, emo, preppy, gyaru, y2k, basic, it doesn't matter. take your top off.

ben

you need to meet 3 criteria to appeal to him: be loyal, be open minded and be a freak. everything else is semantics to him. you're hyper and have the energy of 10 toddlers on sugar? cool babe, i'll cheer you on from my bed. you're aggressive? hot, bite me. you're mellow and grounded? awesome, let's kick back and let me eyp. you're shy and awkward? cute, take your time, i'm patient.

half of his heart belongs to soft bodies, round edges, curves to smother him, the other belongs to The BBL Body™. he's chronically online guys, it should be no surprise. but, he's at least aware it's something not easily achievable, so he doesn't have expectations like that from anybody—mostly made peace with admiring from afar (aka jerking off to megan thee stallion 3 times a week)

as for fashion style, he might as well be blood related to toby. as long as you have at least 70% of your skin showing it's a hard smash.

tim

he wants someone severe and steady, with patience to anchor him back to reality and slice through the fog when the lines start getting blurry. just like jack, he wouldn't ever put this pressure on someone, he's fully aware of how one sided and toxic this shit could get, but nothing is more attractive to him than reliability and staying through it all when he knows he doesn't even deserve it.

a mom/dad bod lover. something about the strength under softness that doesn't give it away man... the "i carry my life in my skin" look, the realness of curves that aren't polished, just mm mm mmm

really into kinda cottagecore-rustic-americana??? very specific, but basically this

brian

he has two types: aggressive freak bitch that's just mean enough to get him itchy, or soft spoken mellow sweetheart, no in between. if you can be both consider yourself married without papers and without the commitment. bonus points if you want him more than he wants you!! that's equally hot and crushing to him because he knows how you'll end up, but the high OHHHH the high of it

he loves curves. the less his hands cover on your ass the better. loves love handles, loves tits that sag with weight and plumpness, loves soft tummies, loves creases and folds and movement, it's just so (howls) you know?

a slut for the "femme fatale" style. all black tight dresses and leather and killer heels and garters, textbook definition of "sexy" in the form of fabric

with all that said and done tho, these are men after all so the fashion preferences are a reach, but this was so fun to think of hehehe

[acmee-arts]

i'm fairly certain it's you who was talking about Xaria not liking sam and the ways in which it makes a first impression on the player that ppl aren't willing to examine?? its been rolling around in my head A LOT, especially about Xaria likely /being/ a "good person" (as much as i don't think that's a helpful descriptor) who has generally put in an effort for positive change & simply... is not being considerate to Sam.

i think it also says something very interesting about how much people respond to lyle's fawning at face value and how SO many people love him on sight because he immediately establishes himself as a positive asset to the player, someone who likes sam, someone who will help sam. lyle has not... actually done anything worthy of praise aside from coerce several intimate gestures out of sam for photo paper. i personally struggle to characterize lyle as anything but self-interested and kind of... a liiitle bit roll my eyes at some depictions of him i've seen.

LIKE!! these are the things i /like/ about lyle. but i think its interesting how so many players fall for the masks these characters are clearly putting on for/around Sam, and it doesnt actually have anything to do with how 'good' those people might or might not be. just how convenient

/ @cryptozombologist

(sorry for rambling in ur inbox LOLLLL)

(images provided have alt text)

OH okay okay, so while I have regarded that i think, i also believe it was @/crunchybeards who made a more extensive essay then what I previously said, verbalizing that about Xaria as well? Which to be fair, absolutely has been rolling around in my mindscape as well too ..

Now this ask however does make me think, the points about Lyle compared to Xaria reception - UPDATE OH MY GOD THIS BECAME A XARIA ESSAY

Lyle, as you said, is putting on a mask of sorts to appeal to Sam. He doesn't flat-out address his .. hobbies unless you narratively push back on him and get to his 'project' room, and even then, a large amount of activity surrounding his character and additional actions (Seen through a sort of rose-tinted glasses way?), are sidestepped in place of indulging something adorable on the surface, in the wake of all the horrors surrounding every other situation you meet these primary characters in.

From what I've seen off Frankie, he absolutely agrees that Lyle was intended ('lab-grown') to be cute (and, apparently people were already fawning over him with the OG game demos too), to capture first players in, which I'm a fan of personally; not the other way around where he so /happens/ to be fawned over by proxy of interpretation, there's an intent.

----

With Xaria on the flipside; as much as I do love Lyle's character - I honestly find her through and throughout to be more of a (in-character) genuine person then him. That's a given, she isn't hiding anything from the player - and in fact has a habit of stating her mind and show where her boundaries and needs are, which is SUCH a breath of fresh air, honestly

(Especially for a character that isn't intended to be another guy character in the first place:

- She's any number of adjectives to describe 'harsh', but she isn't trying to appeal to anyone besides herself and Monty. Not in a self-centered way as Lyle acts, but in a way that tells me she really could give less of a shit about putting up a front to get ahead in life. You get a pretty raw version of her that speaks more care towards things, then someone who trades you intimate gestures for important items. (To summarize, not bashing Lyle on that, i just thought about being blunt)

In addition, the player themself using pushback on a lot of characters does end up with the more interesting routes and dialogs, doesn't it? Items as well, not that you have to kill people but just get a bit creative if you're up for alternatives. Xaria's way of acting reminds me of that tbh, picking the most outright options to get intense responses.

-

Her Octocook dialogue is a really good way of showing it's not just attitude on her/that's all she is, but instead that she genuinely /does/ care about being present in her own way. Besides the game gradually offsetting her, there is an entire thought process she /really/ goes over with herself that we're never fully let in on until she can state the argument, and I LOVE that so much.

It's something the narrative doesn't even pick up on itself, nor does Sam, because it's something cute to gloss over.

First play:

Second play:

Third play:

Fourth play:

-

There's something there that severely speaks to me about what she might have experienced to find this kind of situation messed up to her as it is. It's showing a real investment and taking a situation seriously in something that'd otherwise be 'just a character', from a character, in a game. Granted she has some assumptions on the octopus chef's situation, but she also could have researched the game too where she wasn't seen by the player otherwise.

Also an assumption - but it's a perspective to perspective none the less. I love it. I LOVE love love it and this is severely understating how much i love her character AHHH AHH SCREAMS . either way, it's always fascinating to me how the more abrasive character (Xaria) has such an investing conversation surrounding her writing, compared to a more indulgent character (Lyle) fawning over Sam, but ultimately is a bit shallow in himself. (This is a compliment)

anyway i hope its obvious i think about her a lot thansies for reading mwahhhhhhhh <3 <3 <3 THANK YOU ALSO FOR THE THOUGHT PROVOKING ASK @cryptozombologist IT MEANS A LOT TO ME!!!!

[marisandini-chu-blog]

You know what today is?

MO SHA'S ARC! MO SHA'S ARC! MO SHA'S ARC!

Last week's episode really rattled the fandom as the reveal of ALIENS drop into the setting. People immediate went into speculation mode of whether Hero X came with that ship — regardless if it's actually alien or from the future.

Personally, I still think Hero X is simply a civilian, just like us. Because that's the appeal of what made a lot of people drawn to him.

Don't get me started of ths Spotlight's leader. It would seem they don't know all the plans the Comission have involving Fear. But they do have their own research lab to make tools that take advantage of Fear like a versatile dopamine.

Ghostblade's arc would be a curious one because the possible connection with the plane crash and Johnny's father/Former X.

One of the things I've always been curious about the conflicts in TBHX is the type of heroes conflict that got so bad; it's nor strange for the Plane Crash be the reason of sabotage between heroes.

Like, I'm so confused about Liu Zhen's motive. He found out the Commission DID cover-up that the plane crash wasn't an acciddent and hid it so Cyan could live a normal life, BUT WHO'S CONNECTION DID YOU USE TO GET IT?! MICKEy?!

Anyway, time for one of the edgiest Hero's time to shine.

PAPA JOHNNY ALREADY?!

ALDBDKBDKEHRKFJDHDUDJFJJF

@subtextdecoder YOU WERE RIGHT! HE FUCKING KILL HIM! ON THE FIRST 30 SECOND TOO!!!!

BRUTAL!!!

Wait, huh, he has a large family?

The PV had him look like he was experimented on though... did I misremember it? Huh?!?!?

Okay, for someone who is silent he actually talks a lot in his head just to be a "cool" assassin

No fucking way he became popular as a silent butcher....

OmG Mo Sha talks a lot about being a cool assassin and all I've seen is him being a total loser for being socially awkward

Not to mention he has such a childish view of right and wrong – or is that just him being in denial?

Mo Sha's Wife aaaaaaaaa!!!!

HE RESUED HER FROM BAGEL ALLEY?

NUONUO, GIRL. THE TRADITION IS STILL GOING STRONG!

176... wait aminute, wait a minute, that's roughly 6 months later... okay, not unrealistic to be freaking honest

No...

He did not....

He did not just...

IT WAS LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT?!?!?!

MO SHA YOU ABSOLUTE LOSER!!!

The woman never once look up from her phone... mood

EVEN IN HER WEDDING?!?!?!

SHE REPLIED IN HER PHONE!!!

I... This is supposed to be the edgiest character in TBHX... but this ended up to be more like a comedy...

These two are match made in heaven, goddamn

Oooooooooh, okay.... so having a child made Zhang Lan put down her phone and actually become someone who has to speak up in order to be a proper mother

Which mean abandoning the part of herself that made Mo Sha's fall in love with her in the first place

Now, whether Mo Sha can change too in order to be a father would be a different question entire

Is Mo Sha... have some sort of condition that gets easily overwhelmed by loud noises???

Is he perhaps afraid he could dislike or have proper emotion for his own daughter?

MO SHA YOU ABSOLUTE LOSER!!!! YOU'RE AN ABSOLUTE DEADBEAT! I SWEAR I HOPE NUONUO FINDS OUT SO SHE COULD BEAT YOUR ASS!

The fact that Zhang Lan never remarried and always keeps in contact shows in a way she's still holding onto hope for Mo Sha, even if she has to make Nuonuo believe he's dead to keep her from holding onto the same hope

Bad influence? AHSHDJSHSJSHSH

I can't believe Luo Li and Mo Sha already have a one-sided beef before they officially meet

We're going to the crash site?! Fuck yeah!!!

I can't believe this is the hero put among the Top 10. What the fuck, Mo Sha does not deserve to be a top hero. He's too much of a loser to be one.

I can't even bring myself to call him Ghostblade. That name is too cool for him.

Though considering people know he's an assassin and still think of him as hero... in this universe Assassin aren't a questionable profession that someone could dream to be an Assassin and doesn't think it to be an outlier or anything.

EDIT: Hold on, I just realized something...

So the reason Mo Sha was so distressed at having to stop being a hero... was because he didn't want to go back being a butcher with his loud in-laws?!?!?

He could have still been a father if he just manage to communicate he wants to keep being a hero?!?!

Oh wait, no... he is silent because his followers believed him to be. He has to shed away his hero persona if he wants to change and be able to communicate with his family properly...

LEARN SIGN LANGUAGE THEN!!!

[morlock-holmes]

I feel like a lot of Trump supporters (Including many voters and pretty much literally everybody in his actual cabinet) don't really have politics in the way that you or I would think of them.

I think they are people with a number of grudges (Some legitimate, some not), an incredibly shaky and surface level understanding of how anything in society actually works, and a bottomless appetite for good vs. evil stories where they get to imagine themselves as Neo in the Matrix, some bad ass underdog who's finally going to expose the corrupt bosses who have been keeping everybody else down.

And I think their policy ideas at any given time are therefore: Whatever policy idea lets me think of myself as the bad-ass but morally pure underdog finally winning one for the little guy against the scum who have been keeping us down for too long!

Like... The National Guardsmen and Military in LA clearly just clearly don't have a mission the way you or I would think of it, with some kind of concrete goal rooted in objective reality. Their mission, I think, is to be extras in the story where the brave and stoic Donald Trump finally put a stop to the Death Wish-esque anarchy which had been gripping LA.

And in order to accomplish that all that has to happen is that they're physically in LA and the crazy evil Democrats are complaining because somebody is finally doing what needs to be done and putting them in their place. So it doesn't matter that in actual practice they're sleeping on courthouse floors and just sort of... aimlessly milling around wasting their time and our tax dollars.

Or like, the head of a DOJ anti-semitism task force retweeting something from the founder of Identity Evropa.

Like... If the Trump administration are committed Jew haters they could just, like, not have an anti-semitism task force. What, are we going to say that Trump was pressured into it? That the Department of Education isn't a big deal, but god forbid the DOJ task force goes away?

And if the guy is supposed to be an undercover anti-semite then, like, he sure fucking blew his cover.

And anybody who is actually interested in fighting anti-semitism would fucking know what Identity Evropa is and not laugh at jokes about Trump revoking people's Jew card.

Like, you reading this and me writing it start with some kind of idea of what racism is. Maybe it's "prejudice plus power" or just "The expression of a prejudice based on race." and when we see something happen we check it against the definition. We ask questions like,

Was that an example of prejudice plus power?

or

What evidence do we have that this was an expression of prejudice rather than a coincidence?

And this can become incredibly Procrustean but I don't think Trump's lackeys even get that far.

I think that for them the definition of anti-semitism is "The left are the real anti-semites but they use it as a cudgel against the right". And so when they see a tweet or a claim they evaluate it based on whether it fits the story that the left are the real anti-semites.

And if the thing they're evaluating is coming from a literal holocaust denier that doesn't matter, because that has nothing to do with anti-semitism, that's how fucking far gone they are.

I really think this is kind of the only way to even vaguely make sense of their actions.

It's also why a lot of them used to have like, vaguely Occupy Wall Street or granola hippie politics: Because for a while far left politics let them imagine themselves as the bad-ass underdog sticking it to The Man, and when leftist rhetoric and fashion changed enough that it no longer worked to burnish their self-image that way, they found a new ideology which did a better job at it.

In fact I think the general haze of inconsistency around Trump is part of the appeal; if standards get too objective then those standards might eventually actually be used to judge them as something other than the heroic underdog, they might be measured and found wanting. But if there's no consistent or objective standard of measurement, that's way less likely to happen.

Well, that's my theory anyway.

[freyafrida]

rilla of ingleside, chapter twenty

I feel like I've sorta softened on the jingoism in Rilla, on the whole -- definitely as a youth I was like "everyone was such a war-mongering dumbass about WWI, I would never!!" whereas now I think it's important to recognize the universal, human drives behind the reactions to the war -- the desperation to believe that you were doing what was right, and lashing out at people who told inconvenient truths. Nobody is immune to that.

That said, I still think this chapter in particular is quite mean-spirited and smug -- Pacifists Bad! Norman Douglas does what everyone wishes they could do! Everyone on the bus in the church claps! (once they get back into the privacy of their own homes, anyway)

Ngl, I'm not a Norman Douglas fan -- that scene in Rainbow Valley where he decides he likes Faith because she talks back to him was just -- so annoying to me as a shy kid, lol. Like he wasn't going to apologize for yelling at a little kid if she weren't sassy or outgoing enough to call him out on it. (I do get that Norman probably saw something of himself, as an outsider, in a girl who didn't conform to standard politeness -- but man, you're an adult! You do not need to overidentify with a child to be kind to them! Get over yourself! See also: every adult in Avonlea with Dora tbh.) Anyway, long and short of it is, I'm not inclined to like him and the fact that we're supposed to be impressed and think he really stuck it to Whiskers here annoys me even more. Don't tell me how to feel about this man!! I'll hate him and his stupid beard if I want to!!

“The Four Winds Harbour boys belonging to it from the Glen and over-harbour and Harbour Head and Upper Glen were all home on their last leave”

Sidebar: slight explanation of how all these towns are connected? The area is broadly called Four Winds Harbo(u)r, and those are all different settlements in it?

“that the deluded armies being driven to slaughter on the western front might have their eyes opened to their iniquity and repent while yet there was time—that the poor young men present in khaki who had been hounded into a path of murder and militarism, should yet be rescued—”

I'm not sure it's wrong to pray that soldiers who you feel are on the wrong path should be rescued from it, but I'm not sure if the implication is that they should be rescued from their path (normal, inoffensive) or that they should be rescued from, like, certain damnation (in which case I can see why everyone got riled up; although again, very much a Pacifists Bad portrayal to act like pacifism meant going around telling mothers and fathers that their sons were going to hell). That said, this paragraph is described as a "pacifist appeal of the rankest sort", which...let's not exaggerate or anything.

“ I reckon you won’t be troubled with any more pacifist prayers.”

pacifist prayers?? In a church?? say it ain't so

I will say I do not know why Mr. Arnold would have invited Whiskers to speak instead of any of the other Presbyterian elders. Unless he was trying to be nice and let an unpopular guy have the floor for a moment, but like, realistically, what did he think was going to happen? (Which honestly seems like something Mr. Meredith would do, too. Why do all the ministers in Glen St. Mary have approx. 3 brain cells to rub together?)

On another note, were none of the younger generation there? Ken walks Ethel Reese home from prayer meeting in one of the earlier chapters, so it doesn't seem like something only for the old folks (especially since several enlisted young men came to this one).

“Where are you wandering, Anne o’ mine?” asked the doctor, who even yet, after twenty-four years of marriage, occasionally addressed his wife thus when nobody was about.”

Ending on a nicer note -- love that Gilbert is a nickname guy, love that he still calls Anne pet names when no one's around 🥹

“There was a good deal of grey now in his still thick curls that had not been there two years ago. ”

gilbert fighting baldness just like his son 🙏 (i will say, most dudes in my family are bald, so the way it's avoided like the plague for fictional love interests always kills me. it's more common than you think!! [simpsons voice] it will happen to you!!)

glossary:

Readying Rilla bits:

The chapter originally started off with the "Every village has its unwritten history" bit, then the scene with Anne and Gilbert was added in ❤️

Cut line where Anne asks Gilbert if he's coming to the prayer-meeting (implying they don't always go together?) and he says he promised Mr. Meredith he'd "drop in."

Cut line where Miss Cornelia says "I am sixty-nine years old and this will be the first time I've ever darkened the door of a Methodist church."

Cut, earlier line where Norman is referred to as a mastiff shaking a rat, re: Whiskers. (Later line in the actual book refers to "a mastiff shaking an overgrown puppy".)

Cut bit of Norman calling Whiskers "That old Hun".

Rev. Arnold is originally mentioned as having a "keen sense of humor" (hence why he can't stop picturing Norman shaking Whiskers).

Gilbert originally says "by Jove" instead of "by George."

[h4l0l0v3sy0u]

I'm seeing like A LOT of conflict with the Roxy x Eclipse thing and I understand where some of the people who say "it's not like eclipse to do that" or showing your views on how you guys saw them BUT just hear me out when I try to explain something!!!

Seeing this as someone who has shipped them makes me pretty happy to see tbh but I'm gonna talk from a (hopefully mostly unbiased standpoint)

To the people who say "it's not like eclipse" or "eclipse wouldn't do something like that" PLEASE do not take this as me being rude, but at the end of the day they're not your characters they're the VA's characters you don't really know what the characters are FULLY like the only people who know that are the VA's who created them. It's kinda similar to if I were to make some OC's and post some animations of them and try to add something new in and someone says that my character wouldn't do or say that? I don't really know how much of a better way to put it

I see some people are mainly just upset about it (possibly) being cannon due to how they have wanted Eclipse and Roxy to just be co-parents or being queer platonic. Others see Roxy being a big sister to the kids or they see eclipse and Roxy as being siblings or the cool aunt to the kids. I respect your views and see them as you please but don't get mad at others or the VA's because you don't like the direction the show is going in, because at the end of the day they're trying to appeal to the audience they see the most of since it's still their jobs and they make money off these things. That's why TSAMS stopped doing gaming videos as often as they did and why TLAES got a reboot. Now, back to the views on the characters, there is a reason AUs exist if you really enjoy your views on fandoms but it doesn't become canon, make an AU! Yes, it won't be as satisfying as seeing it canon but still it's better than nothing.

If you refuse to watch the show if the ship becomes canon, that's your choice and nobody can or should do anything about it because you're your own person and should feel free to do as you please. But please don't act like the creators just saying "Screw you, if you don't like it you're just haters" and that all the fans want the same thing since I highly doubt that what they think

Anyways Darling out and feel free to talk about your opinions in the comments and I would gladly reply!

(I might take a bit to reply due to my horrid time management and or being on this app super doer often!!!)

[babygray]

Gintama goshuincho shrine/temple stamp books with kiryu brocade covers and matching flat pouches. (TVアニメ「銀魂」　桐生織御朱印帳・桐生織御朱印帳フラットポーチ) Release date: February 2024.

These are honestly very pretty. I don't have a need for a goshuin book, but I wouldn't mind buying one just because of how beautiful the covers are.

(Goshuin books, goshuincho, are used for stamps you can get at shrines and temples. Maybe you're on a pilgrimage, maybe you want to commemorate the visit, maybe you think the stamps are cool... For a small fee, they will stamp and write the name of the shrine/temple onto one of the pages in your book (or onto a piece of paper you can glue into your book later).)

[remcadll]

Gen obsessed with how.. *dead* your Jason's color pallete is. Like, that's corpse pale right there. Not a spec of blood left flowing in there (also father Todd's skin being full of color in comparison is a nice touch)

THANK YOU I love making him look a bit ghoulish. Guy who's not supposed to be alive but yes he is. no he isn't <3

[cutter-kirby]

my kerdly vision

[dawnthefluffyduck]

Comm for @ferronickel (for @gen-is-gone :> )

[irenespring]

Look at my evil princess. I love her so much. She's an unstoppable force of chaos that is simultaneously bent on assimilation. She is the worst person ever yet I am always rooting for her. Companies rise and fall based on who she wants to invite to dinner. I want her to destroy the world.

[divorcedwife]

maybe she went a bit far but i support her ways tbh assembling all my haters in one room and killing them with my giant bone creature is something i would 100% do if i had a giant bone creature. we have the same morals, i just lack the means and the determination so i can't judge

[expensivemistake]

The thing about Chip Zdarsky's daredevil run is that it takes inspiration from the Netflix show and forces that into the comic continuity, but it doesn't even lean into the elements I personally love about Netflix Matt?

He's not perfect, but NMCU Matt at his best is shown to be deeply compassionate and has such a rather warm demeanour to him. When he's happy (especially in college-aged flashbacks) he's really expressive. Women like him because he comes across as thoughtful, rather than being a womaniser. And there's no question as to whether he loves Elektra or not, considering he spends most of the Defenders trying to get through to her.

Not to mention that his Catholicism is deeply personal and certainly not devout. He's a person who grew up around religion and is uniquely attuned to the suffering around him, trying to work out his place in being a man of the people.

None of these traits are inherently better than 616 comic Matt, or even drastically different (although I do think they're fundamentally different characters who I like for different reasons).

But I guess my point is that... it feels like Zdarsky's Matt is based mostly off the "he's an emo Catholic who dresses like a devil to let out his anger and also sleeps with loads of women" jokes based on people's perceptions of Netflix Matt, without adapting a lot of the likeability and nuance that made me like him in the first place.

[mars-gallavanger]

Mechanical design process and additional sketches based on @ri47's Vesalblood

[telesodalite]

Every now and then, I stumble across that "Fulcrum was Pivot" theory/headcanon post again, and I have a thought about it, not exactly a theory at this point, obviously, and not backed up by any evidence whatsoever, but a funny headcanon/au that relates to it

What if Pivot and Fulcrum were twins? More specifically, identical twins.

Separated at birth, from one of the last Cybertronian hotspots, as the planet began to steadily decline, and resources continued to run out, one was taken away by the Decepticons, off to further and help build the future of the Decepticon Empire, and the other brought into the Autobots, learning and helping to further science and their continued survival. Neither one ever knowing about the other, or what happened at the hotspot they both came from.

We don't know much about Pivot, other than that he was lucky enough to find love in the shape of Chromedome, which uh... makes the "lucky" part a bit debatable, seeing as the next fact we know about him is that he's dead, and that Chromedome erased his memory of him, and that Brainstorm is the one that carries the burden of those forgotten memories.

But what if Pivot had one hell of a chin, and a coppery orange face, with bright warm golden optics, and little winged finials over his audials, maybe he smiled real wide too, maybe he had a big laugh in contrast to his leaner frame, maybe he had a terrible taste in comedy, maybe he was smart, another bright mind in the dark halls of the New Institute, and he fell in love, and he was loyal, and he committed, and maybe he was brave, too brave, and he messed up, or ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, or he ran towards danger, and then he was gone, and Chromedome forgot him, but Brainstorm didn't.

(And somewhere, far far away, Fulcrum feels an odd pang in his spark, unfamiliar and strange, almost like a rip or a tear, a sudden separation, which is probably concerning, but then it's nothing compared to the damning shadow of an Autobot dreadnought breaking through the atmosphere above him as he steps out onto freshly cyberformed ground, and it's background noise compared to the cold sinking feeling in his tank, and the sharp jittery urge to run as far away as he can as gunfire erupts and voices scream and shout around him, and he forgets it as his pump hammers a panicked doomed beat in his audials as he's dragged back home to face his commanders and his people as a coward and a failure.)

Years and years and years pass, and its been a long time since they've chatted in person, old contacts, subpar wartime spies, a handler and his insider at the bar, on a victory lap, and isn't it funny how the universe brings you together? But Brainstorm can't focus as Misfire chatters on, because that mech in his group is nagging at his processor. Because there's something so terribly, painful familiar about that face, those optics, even the chin?! But he can't place it. Somethings too different. The frame, the mannerisms, the voice. But maybe Misfire notices the wandering look, he waves, and Fulcrum turns, and it hits Brainstorm when he recognizes that look, that smile, that fond exasperated crinkle of warm golden optics, directed towards the mech beside him, because this has happened before, and suddenly, for a moment, he's back in the New Institute, with Chromedome at his side, and it's Pivot sitting across the room smiling at them.

Cue Brainstorm desperately trying to figure out how and why Fulcrum looks so much like Pivot.

Did Pivot somehow live?? Did the Decepticons kidnap him, then brainwash him, and then turn him into a bomb?! Is this just an imposter!?! Who's... not really good at being an imposter... Did Chromedome and Pivot secretly create an evil Pivot clone in the labs without including him or letting him know!?!?!?!

Shenanigans ensue

[gillespiejr]

heartwarming! their shared antisemitism bridges all political gaps!