#i couldnt do them anymore

[grubloved]

oh

[cubbihue]

Does Chloe still exist in ur au?

She does! I've kept core parts of her personality, but retconned massive chunks of her history with Timmy.

Chloe never got fairies, and never shared them with Timmy. But she was his neighbor! They used to play a lot as children, but one day, Chloe wasn't allowed back at the Turner's house.

As a grownup, Chloe's a social worker! She's usually the Go-To person selected by the state to handle difficult public cases involving children. As in: cases involving celebrities, important figures, or the such where the child's identity is at risk to the public. She's an expert at keeping their life secret and away from social media.

Bitties Series: [Start] > [Previous] > [Next]

[cptnbeefheart]

last year in my sketchbook: can representational art be more sustainable for me if i take it less seriously? can i balance the two? | my art

[pansyfemme]

i have been a ball of depression lately as well as my physical health worsening pretty severly this past week due to stress and so my friends have been. trying so hard to get me to get out and do things and its very sweet but i feel bad because the whole time i’m just a total mess

[hydrossity-zone]

[5/19/2024]

[ominous-horse-noises]

not done talking ab fhjy actually so i'll just say some of you guys who go on about how you could've done better themes and narrative arcs can't even think critically about the one in front of you.

i do wish that the other bad kids had interacted with their foils more this season because it was fun seeing them trade insults, but i also dont think it would've done much for them. i mean, people forget the tbks did try to turn reuben early on (they literally saved him from grix even though it was his fault he showed up trying to kill people). adaine thought oisin was cool and tbks were onboard with thinking maybe he wasn't that bad, and then he sent his grandma to murder them and their entire school. fabian tried to get an 'in' with ivy and it nearly cost him a genuine relationship with a character who had a way better chance of helping them figure things out without the risk of being betrayed. kipperlilly had an ego-driven hateboner for riz since BEFORE the rage stars and killed her own party member in cold blood just to stick it to kristen, and you're telling me that she could've been my little ponyied into giving up her chance to squash the symbol of all her inadequacy? buddy and maryann are the only rat grinders who havent fucked them over meaningfully and guess what? they're not thrilled about having to kill them- they're actively avoiding targeting them! almost like theyre capable of distinguishing between someone not on their side and someone who's proved to be a threat!

brennan made it pretty clear that trying to befriend trgs in their rage forms was futile and actively punished it ingame. you can have your opinions of that, but it definitely had a narrative point: if you get rage starred, you cant be 'this isnt youuuu'd out of it. you think ONLY of rage, and rage can't be reasoned with. it's arguably worse than death, bc at least someone can revivify you and there's no lasting consequences. think about how hard brennan was trying to push the ihs into taking rage tokens. he knew exactly how dire he'd made the consequences and that was on purpose. the season has no stakes if you can just talk your way out of being rage starred bc tbks could save each other easily. the whole climax literally can't happen if trgs arent being evil bc porter can't be a living god of rage without followers. tbks hating trgs isnt a flaw in the story: it IS the story.

[void-writing]

Escape from Flower Fruit Mountain

"What can you do? You were all trapped. Either you all die in Peng’s hands or the celestial flames burn you all alive. You never should’ve sent your brothers inside. There’s no exit, no - wait.

There was a way out. The transportation circle in your room you never quite got to erasing."

Chapter 15 of "Queen of the Mountain" by @centuryberry

[mo-ok]

💛🌻✨ yellow ✨🌻💛

🌠

[termagax]

redesigning these guys because i missed them

[akimojo]

i get so disappointed thinking about how close ff was to having another revolutionary female character with jill but they just had to fuck it up by taking away damn near all her plot relevance and screentime once her revenge arc finished 😭

[pshawtyy]

i’m bout to quit my job 😂😂😂😂😂😂

[basslinegrave]

art from a year ago cause i came across these when browsing my files and i dont think ive posted them before, i really like them!

[void-pitcher]

errgh just hc never expecting anything from xl, nvr having a "oh no i put him on a pedestal he cant reach" and instead just wanting xl for things he has done, not things he will and how xl lost so much bc ppl put him on such a pedestal and how hc was the only one who listened when xl told him not to kneel and how the uniqueness in hc's view of xl isnt bc he sees him as untouchable when everyone saw him as touchable but because he saw him as touchable when everyone saw him as untouchable

[passerinesoncaffeine]

tonight on thinking about homura and madoka.

[rebka18]

All.this.merch makes me headcanon reigen and seri got múltiple weddings xD

[godsfavoritescientist]

Building off of what I wrote in my fic "Sparks," I'm really compelled by the idea of Ford genuinely no longer being interested in sailing around in a boat with Stan by the time they were seniors in high school.

I like the idea of it not being just a symptom of the resentment that had been building between them, nor it being a dream of Ford's that only paled in comparison to west coast tech, but it being a genuine loss of interest on Ford's end. I think it complicates things even further in some really juicy ways.

Like, imagine going through high school slowly losing more and more interest in the dream you've shared with your twin and only friend ever since you were little kids. How do you break it to him? How do you explain it to him without making it sound like a rejection of him? Without it making him hate you?

How do you explain it without it feeling like a spit in the face to all the hard work he's put into a plan that started out as a way of him comforting you by telling you "it doesn't matter what people say about you, you're going to be an adventurer who sails away into the sunset and never has to hear their mockery ever again, and there will be babes and treasure and heroism, and then they'll all see how cool you really are!"

And all through high school you think to yourself, "he's going to move on to more realistic dreams any day now, and then I won't have to say anything about it!" But no matter how many times you mention something else he could do with his life that he seems interested in, or bring up the challenging logistics of traveling around long-term in a boat, he sounds just as committed to the childhood dream as ever, and completely oblivious to how apprehensive you sound.

So resentment grows, little by little. Because that's easier than confronting the soul-crushing levels of guilt that are building up inside of you, every time you don't take an opportunity to tell him you don't want to do the plan anymore. You don't have a single person in your life who modeled how to have difficult conversations for you. As far as you know, having this conversation with Stan would crush him into tiny little pieces and then he would hate you forever, and you can't stand the idea of losing the only friend you've ever had.

So tensions grow. A lack of interest turns into a bitter resentment that, if you were really being honest with yourself, is directed more at yourself than it is at Stan.

And then the falling-out happens, and it seems like you were proven right. Stan hates you now, and he's never going to forgive you for giving up on his dream. But two can play that game, so you try to hate him too. Because if you hate him too, then maybe it won't hurt as much that he never came back. That he never even turned up at school, or by the boat, or in through your bedroom window in the middle of the night. He knows what dad's like, and how he says impulsive exaggerated things when he's angry, and haven't you both dealt with his harsh words countless times before and been able to dust yourselves off and joke about it later? So why isn't he back at home, joking with you about how absurd your dad acted that night, being impossible and belligerent about ruining your dream, but at least now you're even, because you've ruined his dream too.

-

And now imagine you find out he risked the lives of everyone in existence to bring you back, right after you had accepted your fate was to die killing Bill. It would be terrifying and confusing and infuriating. If he cared so much, why didn't he do something to reconnect with you sooner? Why did he ignore you in favor of trying to make it big without you? Why didn't he take the infinitely safer and simpler action of reaching out to you without you having to track down his address and send a desperate plea for help? You were convinced that he didn't care enough to bother with you unless you had an important enough reason for him to come. But even then, he thought your plans were stupid. He didn't want anything to do with you, not even with the world at stake.

Did he save your life out of guilt? Does he pity you that much? It doesn't add up with what he did in the decade leading up to shoving you into the portal. And the dissonance between the version of him in your head that hates you, and the man who held out his arms to welcome you back to your home dimension, is so strong that you feel like you're being lied to again, like you're back in the depths of gaslighting and manipulation that Bill put you through, even though there's no way that's what Stan is trying to do... right? You can't figure it out, so you run away from it. You don't want to know the answer to whether or not Stan hates you, because you don't know which answer would hurt more, so you try to make him hate you more than ever, because at least then you would know for sure how he feels.

And in the end, after he sacrifices his memories for you, and for the world, things seem clearer. The layers upon layers of confusion and anger and hurt seem to have washed away like drawings in the sand, leaving behind the simple truth: that you two had an argument, and didn't move past it for forty years, and despite everything you put each other through, you both still want to re-connect.

So you sail away in a boat together.

And at first, it's wonderful. It's exactly what you want. It feels like an apology to Stan, and a thank-you for saving the world, and a once-in-a-lifetime chance to heal the rift between you two, and it's good to be back on earth, and you wonder why you ever doubted the dream you two once had.

But then, after the first long journey you spend on the sea together, when you get back home to dry land, Stan is already talking about planning your next adventure out on the open sea. He recaps every adventure you had on the first trip, over and over again, and he wants to chat with you all through the morning and long into the night, and you don't have the words to explain to yourself that you don't have enough social battery for this, and suddenly you're slipping back into the horrifyingly familiar feeling of Stan being overbearing and needing space from him and how could you think that? How could you think that about him after everything he's done for you and everything he's forgiven you for? But the longer this goes on, the more you realize that you still don't want to spend the rest of your life sailing around with Stan. It's great fun in moderation, but the idea of your whole life revolving around Stan and going on adventures with Stan and being in a boat with Stan with no time to be by yourself thinking about your own things and figuring out your own dreams makes your skin crawl with a claustrophobic kind of panic that you still don't know how to put into words forty years after the first time this feeling grabbed you by the throat and ruined your friendship with Stanley.

But the first time this happened, it nearly ruined his life forever. You can't let yourself feel this. You don't feel this. You're happy to spend the rest of your life fulfilling Stan's lifelong dream, and making up for the time you crushed his dream, and sure, maybe he crushed your dream once too, and maybe it would be nice for him to support your dreams like you're now doing for him, but you can't say that. He saved the universe, and it would be horrible and ungrateful and cruel for you to try to voice these feelings, especially when you don't know how to voice your feelings without it making other people feel like you twisted a knife into their gut. So you try to pretend the feeling isn't there.

You go out on a boat with Stan again. You planned out another incredible journey together, and this should be fun, and you should be happy about this, but the unspoken feeling you shoved as far down in yourself as it could possibly go is eating you alive. The worst part? Stan is starting to notice. You have never been good at hiding your emotions. The trick to it has always been to convince yourself you don't feel it at all, and not think about it, and that has always worked like a charm. But whenever the emotion claws its way back up to the forefront of your mind, you can tell Stan knows something is wrong. So you can't even give him the happy ending he deserves. You can't even convince him that you want to be here on the open seas forever with him, like he deserves. And you keep trying and trying to hide it, but Stan keeps asking in roundabout ways, like "You're being awfully quiet, sixer," and "whats that look on your face?" and eventually it comes exploding out of you like a shaken-up soda bottle dropped on its cap.

And then it's like you're back at home in New Jersey again, standing in the living room while dad grabs Stanley by the shirt. It all comes pouring out of you, in the worst possible way, with the worst possible phrasing, like a pandora's box of monstrousness, and Stan tries to fight back against the sting of your words, but you're made out of acid and you're burning through him and you can see it on his face, and there's never any coming back from this, not this time, you'll just have to either jump into the ocean or become a monster forever, so Stan can hate you more easily again, and-

-and at the end of the outburst, you're still on a boat in the middle of nowhere in the ocean with your brother, in dangerous waters, and you have things to do to keep the boat running smoothly.

You can't run away from him. He can't run away from you. You're stuck here for at least a couple more weeks, even if you turned around and sailed back towards shore right away.

-

And the thing that compels me so much here, despite how unbelievably angsty it all is, is that it sets up a situation wherein the Stans might end up forced to actually address the decades of resentment and confusion and wanting-to-reconnect-throughout-it-all that they thought they could gloss over and heal with enough time spent adventuring together on a boat. They might end up forced to actually address the crux of the issue that drove them apart in the first place: Ford wanting a little more space to feel like his own person, and to feel like he's able to have his own dreams, too.

It wouldn't happen easily, nor right away, but if they were stuck together on a little boat in the middle of nowhere surrounded by magical creatures they have to protect each other from in order to make it back home alive, then after they had one fight where they brought up all the things they silently agreed to never bring up again, it would probably happen many more times, and each time it would leave them both angrier at each other than ever, until eventually something honest slipped through amidst all the saying-anything-except-what-they-mean bickering. And once enough of these honest moments slipped through, then they would have a thread to tug on to start to unravel the gargantuan knot of their decades of unresolved conflicts.

And then, eventually, maybe Stan could learn that he can have a good friendship with his brother without needing to be glued to him at the hip, and Ford needing a certain amount of alone time doesn't mean he dislikes him or wants to abandon him, and Ford could learn that he can be honest and have a meaningful connection with someone without it driving them away and making them hate him.