#i both love and hate him

[scooterpengie]

I decided to write a bit about Black Hat because he's one of the strangest characters I have ever seen, writing-wise (I'm trying to be objective here but I might be a bit biased because Black Hat is also not my favourite 😅)

He's super powerful which means no one can ever defeat him but also super evil, so he'll never feel any emotion towards other characters which means he can never change/grow. Because of these things, he can never be challenged in any way and it makes him very one dimensional.

He treats Flug awfully (as well as the rest of his employees) which is common for the "evil villain and his subordinates" trope. Although most stories where this trope is used, the subordinate either gets tired of being mistreated and leaves, or the villain faces consequences for their actions. Except that Black Hat is a protagonist and we're supposed to like him. The show gives no indication that this will ever change, or that Black Hat will receive any sort of comeuppance.

These aren't necessarily criticisms, they're part of what makes Black Hat (and the show as a whole) so interesting, but I'm also very confused at why the writers decided to make him this way. I hadn't seen anyone say this yet so I'd love to hear other people's thoughts!

[indecisive-dizzy]

been thinking about The Book of Life and the fandom way back when. specifically the trans Manolo headcanons akfhakdgajdha

It's so funny to me! In a trans!Manolo universe Carlos really said

"You can be a man, son. But if you're gonna be a man You're gonna be a SÁNCHEZ MAN!"

[jmorpart]

Just found out you can have more than one blog.

I might have this as my neat and organized art blog and then make a gremlin blog to divert all my insane bg3 ramblings and BS to. Oh this’ll be fun. I’ll be unable to shut up about Gortash

[yanderefairyangel]

drawing rafal is pain, drawing rafal is suffering

(he is pretty much inconsistent in everything ....)

[notrobinsomethingworse]

Dick (Nightwing) and Jason (Robin) stare at Bruce. One sports pleading eyes, the other a shit eating grin. There’s a child between them with black hair and blue eyes.

Bruce, he doesn’t know what’s happening but he doesn’t like it: No.

Dick, grinning: He’s our younger brother now.

Jason, nodding seriously: You’re not gonna take him from us.

Tim, got kidnapped while taking photos of patrol, just happy to be there: Where’s the Batcave?

Bruce: what.

Dick, grinning wider: He’s ours now.

[xirae]

I've been kind of addicted to calling America / The Western World a violent and coercive schizophrenic metropolis..... how fire is this take ??????

[willthespy]

stupid stupid stupid i love them

[egophiliac]

Hello ! I positively adore the running joke of Idia unknowingly finding Lilia to be the coolest guy ever whenever he doesn't know it's him, like when Silver described his father, or obviously with muscle red. I can't say what'd be funnier, Idia finding out his online best friend is actually Lilia, resident spooky hyper fairy; or them both never finding out, and it'd become even more ridiculous as time goes on. How do you think it'll play out ? You're always so on point

(Also, though it makes sense, I'm still devastated bat boy didn't get a ticket for the Halloween skeleton train : ( does anyone mentions him at some point ? Like how he'd have fit right in with all those Halloween town little freaks, and how he'd have impressed them with his spooks and scared techniques; after all he's been every Briar Valley's children worst fear on Halloween for centuries. I'm on the eng server and I didn't wanna spoil myself by watching the whole thing on youtube)

Have a nice day !

you and me both, Idia and Lilia being oblivious online BFFs (+ Idia being incredibly intimidated any time Silver brings up his jock gamer dad) is my favorite running joke/subplot. 🤝 it's SO good, to the point where I also am unsure if I actually want it to ever be resolved or not...maybe, like, as a post-canon stinger or something? everyone's standing around covered in overblot ink, and Idia and Lilia's phones go off at the same time...

(legit I do think this is part of why Idia couldn't be present for Lilia's dream, because for some reason Lilia decided he was going to just. embody his past self online. he probably quotes his own battle strategies or whatever in the middle of boss fights. Idia didn't pick up on the whole "oh how weird that we both live on a super remote island" thing, but he would spend thirty seconds listening to General Lilia describing siege warfare and be like "w-wait")

all that aside, however it does end up happening, I do see Lilia being very blasé and all "oh! cool!" about it. y'know, taking it very much in stride! and Idia...very much not.

(can't tell if tumblr is going to chew this into illegibility or not, this will be a fun surprise ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ)

as for Lilia sadly missing out on Halloweentown shenanigans...he does get one little mention as part of an offhand reference to the light music club, but so far no one has brought up how this basically is just Lost In the Book of Liliatown (Sebek's been too busy yelling about not getting to be in the same group as Malleus). 😔 honestly though, it's probably for the best that he got left out, because he would just settle right in and refuse to ever leave. canon would shatter. we would miss out on all the delightful angst of episode 7 because Lilia is too busy eating poisonous shrubbery inbetween practicing his very best screams, and no one can pull him away from it.

(I can hope for a sequel next year though...)

[greykolla-art]

Don’t know if I ship it, but I do want them to have as many scenes together as possible…

[ruubesz-draws]

Godzillas need trimming too, I believe. Too bad Minus One hates it...

From this:

[briarhearts-art]

resting after a long battle

[theresistanceneverquits]

There’s not enough people talking about how important Stephanie is to Damian’s growth pre-Flashpoint.

Bruce had seen Damian as a beast to be tamed, Tim sees him as a ticking time bomb, and Dick is far better with him but he’s still an authority figure for Damian to combat with. But then he meets Stephanie, a college-aged girl who nobody trusts and he bullies her relentlessly and becomes inseparable from her.

She doesn’t interact with him based on his past, but on what she can see. This 10 year old just threatened to kill her? Wow he doesn’t get outside much. He’s not old enough to have seen Gremlins. What do you MEAN you’ve never been inside a bouncy house before we are fixing that immediately.

They are like cousins to each other. They poke fun at each other for being lame and stupid and Dick has to tell them both to shut up. She doesn’t see him as a project to be molded and redeemed, he’s just a kid with a crappy childhood like her and if he’s nice to her for 5 seconds she’ll do something with him to let him feel like a kid. And he doesn’t look at her and see a liability or a failure or a lost cause, like everyone she’s ever interacted with does. When he’s awful to her, it’s because he’s an obnoxious preteen boy.

And then you get the “there’s room in our line of work for hope, too” scene. Because Damian has gotten to know Steph and he can’t fathom why she’s here. She obviously has had to deal with crap and is still working through being kept on a leash by Nightwing and Oracle, but she isn’t broken like the rest of them are. Damian is surrounded by people who were molded and shaped and torn down and broken to become the monoliths that they are, and then there’s this girl who seems so at peace with herself and is constantly making quips, and it’s so foreign to him.

And she tells him that she’s in his world because she believes people are worth fighting for.

[one-chaotic-neautral]

Arcane ships ranked, for fun

The main ships and some rarepairs I've found, I like pretty much everything in the first 4 rows. I probably missed some but idk what they are and I'm too lazy to add more rn.

feel free to add your thoughts or ships but again its just for funsies :)

[fairylando]

imagine you are YUKI TSUNODA and you are constantly HARASSED for being violent (you're really not) and harsh with words (not more than the others) and you change THREE TEAMMATES in three years and they all get to be CONSIDERED for the RED BULL MISSING SEAT???? and you don't!!!! and you're stuck at the SUGAR FREE REDBULL TEAM for FOUR years and you get a year-end bonus of 22 EUROS... and all because the TALKING CORPSE hates you.

[reginalusus]

Ah yes. When the protective dad-figure beats up the son-figure's past tormentor only for said tormentor to make a point(?), because the tormentor is the catalyst of Gotham's chaos, and seeing two pieces of the debris from said chaos come together to try and be less broken is amusing. The butt of Gotham's joke, if you will.

I just felt like illustrating a scene from a possible future Harvey-Jason-centered fic...

[pollyanna-nana]

One of the most tragic and compelling aspects of Dunmeshi, to me, is that we’ll probably never know (unless Kui tells us lol) how Delgal actually felt about Thistle. I’ve seen people say that he genuinely cared for him as a brother and his journey to the surface was to save him from his madness as much as it was his people. I’ve seen people say that he saw Thistle as nothing more than a fancy accessory or tool that ended up going astray. Others I’ve seen (and personally agree with) say that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. But honestly, I think any one of these interpretations has the potential to be correct… and that’s just heartbreaking.

After all, Delgal is dead. Like, dead-dead. The very first chapter of the manga starts with his spirit leaving this mortal coil, taking that answer with him. And…

How he talks about Thistle here… it’s interesting. He does not ask for him to be talked down, or captured or imprisoned, but instead “defeated”. Which Mithrun interprets as asking for his death… which is reasonable, because that’s likely how the vast majority of adventurers interpreted his words, too. Obviously as he was crumbling to dust he probably didn’t have the capacity to be particularly verbose or explain the complex backstory to how the kingdom ended up this way, but the effect is the same no matter how he may have felt with it. He asked for Thistle to be killed.

But… even in situations where he wasn’t under any such time limit to explain what was going on, he still seemed not to. Most glaringly:

Yaad seemingly has no idea that it was Delgal’s fault that Thistle sought the demon’s power. Obviously he couldn’t talk to him about it because Thistle was, uh, a little out there by that point, but why didn’t Delgal explain? Was he embarrassed? Mournful? Couldn’t find the words?

Delgal was scared of dying. He wanted prosperity at any cost, and how could Thistle possibly refuse? Did he even realize that what he was the one who pushed his own brother— One who basically helped raise him despite being a child himself, and in many ways is still a child— down this path? Or was it like watching an overzealous employee misinterpret directions?

The way Yaad describes things here makes it sound like Thistle simply dug too deep in his studies and fell into madness, but we know that’s not true. Delgal didn’t “suggest” he learn magic, he wanted a mage who could help himself and his people defy death, which he admits to Thistle openly:

So, why? Why not tell his grandson, at least, the truth of the matter? Did he worry it might make the remaining residents more likely to upset Thistle, and therefore suffer the consequences? Did he just not care? For what it’s worth though, Yaad does suspect the truth from Delgal’s behavior.

He “always blamed himself” for his descent into the dark arts. This is just Yaad’s observation, and that’s without knowing that it was quite literally Delgal’s fault Thistle went down this path. So, why? Why was it all kept a secret?

Of course, this made things ripe for the winged lion to manipulate to its advantage. Clearly despite knowing he’d pushed him into using it, Delgal still thought the lion was a force of good that was misused by Thistle as a result of his madness. His face in that last panel is particularly haunting. He looks terrible, gaunt and pale with overgrown hair and missing teeth. Had he gone mad, with grief and sorrow, as well?

Could he no longer see Thistle the way he did when they were younger? No one can ask him, because he died long before the story even began.

To go back to the original question, well, how did Delgal see Thistle? None of the previous points make a definitive answer any clearer, and I think that’s just brilliant. And so, so tragic.