#flawed good guys

[my-heart-of-heart]

So normal about Jon being like I don’t remember what you looked like but the man who let you die is going to suffer for what he did to you. If only Sasha coulda seen that.

So normal about Jon being like you died hating me and wanting me dead but I’m still gonna make sure this man knows I’m ending him in your name. Sure wish Tim coulda seen that.

So normal about the fact that everyone believed Jon was losing his humanity but no one got to see the ways his love and compassion for the people he lost or who hurt him drove him to that final moment.

So normal about the fact that even after everything Jonah’s done to Jon, the only person he never thinks to get justice for is himself.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

He was just being a silly little guy!

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[ankahikoibaat]

my two sentence pithy hopepunk post escaped containment - you never can predict what will! - and it was obviously never going to encompass the whole spectrum of story possibilities hopepunk obviously like, omg, people in the notes. but i reiterate!

Star Wars is hopepunk! not grimdark!

it doesn't mean there's not darkness or evil or bad in the stories or genre, but ultimately it's about the triumph of good or the possibility thereof!

personally, i find the focus on stories in the fascist government point of view loses that - and are honestly a drain - and I stand by that, but also, stop defining morally gray at me people! i do know the meaning even if i'm not writing out the damn definition!

also, morally gray does not automatically mean more interesting or more nuanced! (anyone saying that can fight me.) (i'm a wuss and too chronically ill for this so not really.)

choosing to be good, to do good in a world of increasing darkness and evil and selfishness is a fucking compelling story, and it can be handled with such complexity and delicacy if someone actually gives a shit and doesn't go "good vs evil is boring" automatically!

[kylejsugarman]

its actually maddening when people reduce skyler down to a "girl boss" without looking into her actual character and how her competence changed the trajectory of the show's events. we're told from the very beginning that walt is intelligent, he's wasting his intellect teaching high school chemistry, he was responsible for helping launch a now wildly successful company. this is stressed to the point that the first few episodes really linger on how much "dimmer" the people around him are: hank is an ignorant loudmouth, marie is a vain airhead, jesse is a raging dumbass, and skyler has her pipe dreams of writing, doesnt she?? how Cute. but as the show progresses, we start to realize that walt is not some tortured genius surrounded by incompetents. skyler is just as smart as he is: she picks up right away on his bizarre behavior, she does her research and puts together pieces in an exacting manner, she thinks ahead to potential consequences and scenarios that walt doesnt even consider. we learn that she's brilliant with numbers and finances, that she's keenly observant and dedicated. and that fuels walt's resentment. he was the genius behind this empire, the one in control of everything, the one singlehandedly rescuing his family from ruin. his pride was such that he saw skyler as his loyal handmaiden, his inferior (trying to rape her in the kitchen is the pinnacle of this attitude). but as soon as skyler got involved and started solving problems and running things, he grew resentful and hateful. skyler forces him to confront the fact that he's not solely responsible for all of this success and that he lucked into a great amount of it. his wife becomes his equal for the first time in their marriage and he can't stand it. and it just makes u think: why Did skyler stop writing?? why did she sound so unconfident when marie asked about her novel?? why did gretchen end up with elliott?? was it just because elliott "got" her first?? or could walt never be in a relationship with someone who was so obviously his intellectual equal and could not be dissuaded from this fact??

[reineydraws]

had to draw this to understand the way i feel about him now that the manga's ended. 🥲 on that note: if you like hawks and his ending, maybe don't read my tags lol. it's not bashing (imo) but they're not v nice. 😅

bg + unobstructed pose under the cut!

his expression's a lil different 'cuz i only changed the merged layer, all the lighting effects already flattened onto it. 💀 alas.

[bigskydreaming]

Imagine looking at a character whose entire premise is that in every stage of his life, he's made every version of himself into someone that inspires people to such a degree that EVERY SINGLE VERSION OF HIM has people wanting to literally follow in his footsteps in some way or another.....

And coming to the conclusion that like.....the most important things about him are the sum of all his trappings. His entirely homemade developed from scratch could not exist if not for what he already was and brought with him BEFORE crafting this newest version of himself trappings, with his greatest trait throughout all of it being his adaptability; his ability and willingness to roll with the punches and not try to simply weather any opposition or changes to his life but instead reshape himself as needed to better fit INTO whatever new shape his life and the world around him takes. All while managing to carry the most innate, fundamental and necessary aspects of himself from one version to the next. Thus every single version of himself is different but simultaneously every single version of himself is also undeniably the same person.

The strength of this character, to me, will always be that he can be so many versions of himself, he can become so many things, all without ever actually losing or discarding any of the aspects of himself he considers most essential, the things he's not willing to lose or give up just to keep going. Finding that road not taken by most, usually because most never even think to look for it as an option. But one that he's always able to find because the one trick he's mastered in his tumultuous life is threading that needle of not just digging in his heels in an unproductive way but rather being selective about when and where he makes a stand and decides "this is not a thing I'm willing to compromise about" but here are places and ways I can and will change and evolve and adapt in order to make it possible for me to hold onto these parts and keep them as they are.

And that's why its always so mind-boggling to me that so many writers can't seem to think of anything else to do with Dick Grayson other than invent some new reason for him to just....not be that person, or to like just take the character whose most basic fundamental trait he's NOT about to compromise on is willingly giving up his spot in the driver's seat of his own life.....and make him just a passenger in his own life and stories.

Dick Grayson at age nine....at age nineteen...at age twenty nine....the one core thread running through all versions of him is the only way he's standing back and letting you call the shots for him or putting him on the sidelines in some way is over his dead body.

HOW he goes about that, what that looks like, who he becomes and what aspects of himself he plays up at some times and what traits he lets fall by the wayside at other times when they offer less in service to his primary goal here....that changes constantly. He changes constantly.

But those changes are almost always (or at least they used to be/should be IN MY OPINION) made with the intention of keeping certain things about him or his life as consistent as possible.

That's the duality of Dick Grayson that I'm here for. The inherent contradiction of him that COULD allow for endless conflict and breaking new narrative ground in all sorts of ways if mined properly:

His eternal willingness to compromise....but only ever in pursuit of doubling down on the ways he's not willing to compromise.

Forever walking that tightrope in ways that only a kid born and raised in a circus could ever hope to.

[frogs-in3-hills]

rewatching hxh is crazy like the foreshadowing is so good. i’m just as emotionally engaged as i was the first time watching but in a COMPLETELY different way bc it’s almost hard to watch through the sheer sense of foreboding you feel as gon learns more and gains more power. his recklessness was always taken quite seriously by the narrative and that’s clear on a first watch, but knowing exactly what happens and where that self-abandoning recklessness, that thrill-seeking, that bullheaded perfectionism (not to do everything perfectly but to do everything with perfect accordance to his own terms), and that childish willingness to disregard everyone else in pursuit of his own impulsive goals (thereby reinforcing his own worldview for better or worse) goes… the show is SCREAMING at you that this is all going to go horribly wrong and it’s so sinister in this weird offhanded way, like it’s sticking to shounen tropes just close enough that you definitely notice something off but don’t suspect it’ll snowball the way it does.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

I think what chronically upsets me about TotK is that. So much of it could have been so good with so little change.

I am into Zelda as a sacrificial, wondrous and silenced creature who must literally carry the blade of the hero as a wound inside her forehead and silently wait to be humanized again --and the injustice of a kingdom built on such a premice doomed to repeat itself, especially if the kingdom was founded on such dubious grounds to begin with. I am into Ganondorf forcing the present to reckon with the past through the most violent clash, forsaking everything that made him a person while sinking down into petty vindictiveness until no connection and no humanity remains, even though independance was what he was trying to protect in the first place. I am into Link as somebody trying to hold onto his most important connection to the world he once knew being used to force him into a conflict that has ultimately nothing to do with him (sure that's SS again but, it could have been explored even further). I am into Rauru as this self-important, self-made king who used his own association to godhood to live out a power fantasy that refuses to ever be acknowledge as such, maybe compounded by the fact he is one of the last of his species and feel, himself, the crushing weight of their fading heritage?

I don't know, the Tears of the Kingdom or something????

But, it all tragically depends on one crucial thing, which is to allow hylians to be wrong sometimes.

And it's wild to me how all of this incredible potential to comment on the series' history and the characters' role in it is just. Flattened into nothing, because Good must be Good and Evil must be Evil, and Hyrule must be righteous at literally every cost --even if it means nervously rewriting their own history through convoluted logic that rejects conflict and depth and vulnerability at every turn.

[iamfitzwilliamdarcy]

I think something people miss the point of in Tolkien’s work is it’s not just “good guys win” — it’s the submission to duty

[mxystan]

i like xie lian BECAUSE he has the opposite of parental instincts. he has that deadbeat dad swag

[beebopboom]

I think it’s a good day to remember that they said this -

Michael - “Aziraphale’s favorite thing about Crowley I think it’s probably the same thing that is the most annoying thing about Crowley - which is his constant questioning, his constant rule breaking, and bending the rules. Not doing things by the book and that really annoys him but overtime it is what has drawn him to Crowley.”

David - “It’s very - I’m going to give a very similar answer to you. It’s the things that infuriate and also draw him to him. It’s his openness, it’s his consistency, it’s his kindheartedness - drives Crowley up the wall and yet he is inextricably drawn to it. They are the yin to each others yang.

Michael - “They are - I like my yang but I like it better when your yin is next to it”

[shannonsketches]

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bare skin, bare feelings.

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[messangerforthestars]

“We need more morally gray characters” you guys can barely handle topaz and jade.

[oh-no-its-bird]

The biggest lie Naruto tells its audience is that you can be both a good person and a good shinobi.

[sunlit-mess]

How did you get so good at animating and drawing? Aside from practice, what techniques do you use? What software do you use?

I only know the basics/fundamentals of both drawing and animation.

For drawing, I've carried out lessons about the Elements and principles of design, the history of graphics design, traditional drawing techniques, color theory, anatomy, character design, blah blah blah. Lots of info I still do my best to practice/put in my art. If y'all notice me animating gifs then it's bc I have time to do so... ( I'm in term break until late July ) They're likely short, but it's through animation blocking, timing, and incorporating both in-betweens and tweening.

I've used Adobe Animate/After Effects for school projects, sometimes for doodles only, I currently use Clip Studio Paint bc it's where I'm more comfy with ^^ Maybe someday I'll be able to afford Toon Boom hehe.