#cleaning out my drafts again

[sentientsky]

there’s a reason my drafts stay in my drafts

[cleromancy]

saw someone complaining that tim keeps being in jasons books... sorry that theyre cosmically intertwined. as if its my fault

[wheresurboytonighthelookslikeenj]

magnus’s “i have just been kissed by alex fierro” is of course hilarious if he’s realizing it just at this moment. but like. throughout the books he’s already aware? he gets flustered when around alex regardless of what gender he is, he knows he’s into him. he describes male characters as attractive. he has relative knowledge of queer experience, having met other queer kids while in shelters or on the streets, always growing as he talks more with alex and other people and learns more about the world and himself. the fruity edge line. magnus's "i am absolutely great about that" was the culmination of a journey he's been on for a long time, perhaps more subtle than that of nico di angelo but still important. this was a point he reached !! this state of comfort and ease with himself and his identity and being was something forged over time !!!

[scarecr0wsam]

thank you ghostfacers episode for allowing dean to say fuck and sam to say shit

[elektroblues]

james spader in sex, lies, and videotape (1989)

[kissdeficiency]

“You no longer have any obligation to see me, to touch me, to bed me, you are . . . you are free of me!”

“Let me hold you, keep you close to me, I long to hear your voice . . .”

[moongothic]

Okay so realistically speaking, giving birth is an excruciating, painful nightmare, and from the few Crocodad fics I've seen most people seem to prefer to write realistic pregnancy and make Luffy's birth a (physically) painful thing. Because it makes sense, it might be more relatable for some writers that way etc, and that's perfectly fine (like genuinely, it's not an issue at all, this is not a critique or a complaint)

God I don't know how to make this segue- Have any of you watched Ore Monogatari!! (My Love Story)? It's a great early 2010s romantic comedy series, funny as hell, super cute and sweet, would reccomend, but that aside. During the series the protagonist Takeo's mother gets pregnant and she ends up giving birth to Takeo's baby sister. And it's that scene, where Takeo's baby sister is born, that I keep on thinking back to whenever I wonder how Luffy's birth might've gone.

Takeo and his mother alike are Sturdy Motherfuckers. Like absolute gigachads, borderline superhuman, it's great and it's funny as hell. And because of that near superhuman nature... Takeo's mother goes to give birth at 4:15 pm. And she has finished giving birth at 4:16 pm. One fucking minute is what it took for this woman to bring a child into this world. An absolute legend

The screencaps do not do justice to how fucking funny this is in the actual episode

And so like

Like we know Crocodile's been through absolute hell, being an amputee and all. And as Domino told us at the entrance of Impel Down, we also know the man did not even flinch when forced into Impel Down's traditional 200 Celsius cleansing bath (or 392F)

So Crocodile has better pain tolerance than the average person. Like, you might have to put in a bit of effort to cause him actually hurt. So if giving birth to Luffy was an absolute cakewalk for Crocodile, not only would it make perfect sense in-universe and be completely in-character for him, but also

It would be objectively funny as hell

[lifemod17]

I was watching the fall for me music video again (yes, on purpose. Yes, i cried. Why do i keep doing this to myself 😅 )

Extremely heart wrenching, soul crushing, gut punch of a song + mv combination aside- the part where he goes "oh god I wish you were here" is actually so cinematic and well edited?? The back and forth between the text and the close up of him yelling into the camera??? makes me wonder if Vessel had any help with the editing of the music video. I like to think that he did.

[sentientsky]

who the fuck is craig and why was i so pissed at him ?

[xthescarletbitch]

[foodlesoodlesdoodles]

Older Bes doodles are always crazy to me because sometimes I look at these and I’m like . Who is this??????

[robertseanleonardthinker]

my take on house's empathy, but i'm autistic and struggle with understanding and perceiving empathy/sympathy/etc so idk if this makes sense

so canonically house has aspd/npd traits (i don't think??? he ever actually got that diagnosis, but that's what nolan said abt him) and bc of that, he has lower empathy. however, i don't think he has no empathy. just less. what empathy he does experience, he struggles to know what to do with it because he's autistic. he doesn't know how to express those feelings. that's why he avoids patients. he doesn't know what the hell to do with that empathy, and he doesn't like that. he doesn't like not knowing what to do, so he avoids empathetic situations in general. that's why he avoids patient interactions

idk if this makes much sense. ppl far more knowledgeable than me r welcome to add their 2 cents :3

[fernsnailz]

went through my unposted art files early this year, multiple sketch dumps queued for tomorrow <3

[desertangels70s]

[pokeberry5]

PLS what is the story/lore behind the tim insomnia art piece (w/ him holding the bloody batarang) the angst looks SO GOOD

ngl it's been a while so my memory of the concept behind insomnia is spotty, but for more artsy pieces like this it's less about the lore or specific situation and more about the visuals/feeling to me? so it's more that i have a scene come to me and i build that out (<- me trying to explain that i dont have elaborate lore lol)

so the context i came up with to justify the scene is tim being overwhelmed/semi-dissociating, caught up in the problems he's been running from as tim drake using robin an escape, unable to deal with them, and trying not to think about the fact that half of those problems are caused by the fact that he's robin, that he has a secret identity, and that he's going through it in ways he can't explain to people not in the know -> hence, tim clutching the batarang both as something to ground him and as something that's hurting him

i had also recently read silverwhittlingknife's post about tim as a watcher, especially when he's first introduced—the set of panels where tim is just a set of eyes definitely informed some of this ("some" being the panel with the giant eyes lol) (pls read swk's meta their stuff is always so cool)

i think? i also pulled the aesthetic of the bloody batarang from an old scrapped piece i never posted bc i didnt like how it turned out (it's like. from when i first started drawing tim) so some of that is there

this was like. one of my first attempts at more comic-style dramatic lighting and yeah damn i've come a long way. again! i dont know what's happening here, i just wanted to draw tim bleeding, clutching a batarang, and under some dramatic lighting

(this is also. beyond what you asked but: i think this shows how much my design for tim has changed since my initial conception of him--he had much straighter/longer features that have really softened up, which i think you can see most in the nose. and no moles!)

[beevean]

The more I think about S4 and how much of a rushjob the Styria plotline was, the more amazed I am at the utter failure that the ring is. When you really, really think in detail about how it works, it's so easy to see the gaps in logic in it.

What were the issues of using Hector to create an army for the Styrian council?

He would be able to create an army for himself that he could sic against the sisters. The ring allows them to assume control of the Night Creatures. We only see this as a short flash when Hector forges a creature, but he has to cut his own finger to force his army to stop attacking Isaac, so the ring solved this. One point!

Striga wants to strike the iron while it's hot and take advantage of the chaos in the region, and Lenore is taking too much time in "domesticating" him with good ol' fashioned gaslighting and manipulation. The ring brutally speeds things up: this could have been a nice plot point to show how prideful and eager to prove herself Lenore is, but in S4's quest to woobiefy her, it goes nowhere. Still, it can be seen as an answer to Striga's issue, so two points.

However, in the same scene, Striga also points out the paradox of relying on dead bodies to make an army when they need living humans to feed. This is straight up an issue with Hector himself, not the way he would be made to work. While we see mercenaries in the castle when Isaac assaults it, this problem never comes up again, and Hector is delivered as many bodies as he needs.

He doesn't want to be there. The ring binds him to the castle. However, considering Hector's plan apparently involved creating an escape channel that would connect his forge to Carmilla's quarters at the top, which he apparently planned to use to run away ("I had to assume I might be running from the top of the castle one day"), it seems that his own magic would have been strong enough to break the spell.

He doesn't want to work for people who hurt him. Lenore was actually doing a good job at convincing him to work for them with solid reasons, such as the fact that they shared the same plan and Lenore was willing to improve his life conditions and, by the time the idea of mercenaries comes up, she liked him enough that she was his only chance of being kept alive... then she raped him to put the ring on him, and as the beginning of S4 shows, Hector can stall for time as much as he wants. He still doesn't want to work, as we see later he's actually doing things behind everyone's backs, and nothing forces him to obey any orders. Lenore, his own mistress, has to plead to get him to move on!

That's two out of five, by the way, and one point only lead to bad consequences.

Lenore really did the exact same thing Carmilla was chastized for, breaking Hector's trust before securing his cooperation, and the story... is odd from now on. If you lay down the events, it seems that the ring's failure was an intentional plot beat: of course Hector would refuse to work for the woman who betrayed him. It looks like an honest mistake on Lenore's part, much like Carmilla beating him and then expecting him to do her bidding. But Hector actually doesn't display any anger like he did for Carmilla, and the two are on good terms... even though he planned to run away and bring back Dracula... even though he also waited for Isaac to kill him... even though he spares Lenore's life because she doesn't deserve to be hurt... even though he completely destroyed her life by causing Carmilla's death...? I honestly don't understand if it's a writing failure or not... which makes it inherently a writing failure lol. At least Carmilla got thoroughly called out for her idiocy.

The more I think about it, the more this mess seems to be caused by two ideas badly meshed together: it's possible that in the first draft, Hector was meant to betray Lenore and the others (remember the foreshadowing with the fireplace), which would explain his plotting behind the scenes, his little "thanks again for that", and the way he caused Styria's downfall... but then someone in the team decided to ship Hector and Lenore together, so the ring got completely nullified to remove as many reminders of her past cruelty as possible and he displays zero emotions other than vague fondness for her. With this in mind, it becomes effectively impossible to determine if the ring's ineffectualness was planned to facilitate Hector's revenge or was a result of rushed writing to facilitate Lenector.

A very, very simple solution to this entire mess would have been revealing that Lenore... never wanted Hector to work in the first place. She didn't like Carmilla's plan, but she wanted to save his life because she found him cute and wanted a sex slave pet, and she knew that the others were waiting for a good reason to get rid of him. So it was for her sake, and in her mind Hector's, but not for the council, who was planning to do something she didn't approve of and doesn't respect her anyway. That would have been nice, fit Lenore's established moral code (to be fair, she does look a little miffed at the idea of keeping humans in pens, and while she tells Hector that it's their plan, it's obvious she's only trying to manipulate him and has no feelings on the matter), and very selfish personality. Who cares about the livestock? She wants this new puppy! And she'll save it from mean Carmilla, because despite all the gaslighting and sexual coercion and trickery, she is a good person and likes feeling good! And if she can stick it to Striga who underestimated her, even better!

In short: no, the ring wasn't meant to work, only keep Hector docile!

I like this idea of Lenore having her own agenda and being with the council only out of mutual convenience: they don't like her but use her, and same goes for her. As long as they live nicely without causing issues, she cooperates, but Carmilla's plan is idiotic, so she snatches the pet for herself: from there, it's easier to have an arc where she grows to care for Hector as a person, without the pressure of the council who she doesn't care for in the first place, being fully aware of being nothing more than a tool to them (hint hint). And Hector can be as torn as he is supposed to be, but ultimately choosing to make Styria fall and only keep Lenore alive, but in a way that crushes her heart.

And since it's common to whitewash Lenore in S3 and assume she was a better person than what she actually was, no, I don't believe this was the intention:

Lenore wouldn't have pitched her deal to Carmilla, which was "he'll work for us in exchange for the castle". She wouldn't have even set up the expectations, because then no shit Carmilla would get "very cross". She could have kept it for herself and agreed with Striga's suggestion to hire mercenaries.

In fact, the very first perk of the ring she mentions is that now Hector's Night Creatures would obey the council as well, eliminating the danger of him using them to attack them. This is literally the only function of the ring that is shown in S4. Lenore expected Hector to work for them and was happy to reassure the sisters that he was no longer a threat.

In the dick jokes scene, Lenore sounds worried that she can't keep Carmilla at bay, but her solution is pleading pretty please for Hector to work, in a tone that implies that it's what she expects from him as well. The complete lack of apology for any morally questionable action she has taken doesn't help assuage the impression - as I have stated multiple times, the show is not subtle, and if Lenore meant to go behind Carmilla's back and was deliberately being twofaced, she would have admitted it.

Related to what above, Lenore keeps insisting that she's loyal to the sisters, and her whole angst is that she feels out of place among them in a way that implies that it's not just about her pride, but because she genuinely cares. Sure, she still comes off as a selfish brat who ragequits life because she lost all her power, but it's safe to say that we weren't meant to interpret her like that lol.

So yes, Lenore really expected Hector to work for her after breaking his heart, and pulled the mother of all shockedpikachufaces.jpg when he didn't. Although he still fell in love with her. Although he still planned to betray all of them. Although he still cared to save her life letting everyone else die.

It's just amazing to me. The more I try to meet the writing from different angles, the more issues I find. true peak.

I guess I can chalk this up to yet another way I could fix the plotline: have Lenore be a wild card in the council, and have her using everyone around her, to the point that no one can trust her, and she's only a Queen because someone like her is best to have as an ally and not as an enemy. Only after Hector betrays her, she starts to regret her actions: because for the first time in her existence, she had grown to care about someone other than herself, but by then, the damage was irreparable.