#i dont plan on going too in-depth in this LOL

[higgs-the-god]

could Not get it out of my mind so. fuck it. deadstrandy warrior cats au

idk how much of the ds universe is gonna b in this so names/designs/etc arent solid

higgs. basically sol (as far as i know) as in everyone thinks he's a lot cooler than he really is. he also rolls in soot and dirt and then glitter so he can say he's some shitty starclan cat or some shit

sam. loner who was roped into clan biz bc his pelt is ~starclan blessed~. still a repatriate and no one knows why. idk how to design lou yet but shes in this au ofc

deadman -> deadpelt. considering having him like. been a cat that was studied on by scientists or whatever And also he's never been visited by starclan despite like everyone else in the au having the exact opposite luck

heartman -> moorheart. not entirely sure how to work in his dying every 20 or whatever minutes but he's a medcat who knows way too much abt twolegs and whatever they get up to. would be the kinda guy to dissect prey and such

mama ->sandstream. ran from Bridgeclan and keeps sam company before/during being "recruited" by bridgeclan

lockne ->shadepool. maybe the deputy? usually building dens or fortifying the camp

[choccy-milky]

Hello! When your Seb x Clora pregnancy one-shot is complete, will it be on ao3 or wattpad? (or both?)

waiting with bated breath btw

not pressuring a finish tho, take ur time Choccy 🥰

it'll be on both ao3 and wattpad!! and omg ik its taking long IM SORRRY, its bc its gonna be way longer than i expected LMAO, i just recently finished my outline and the outline ALONE is 41k words💀and im currently at 8.3k written😩🙏 IM GLAD YOU'RE LOOKING FORWARD TO IT THO🥹💖💖i defs hope to get it finished by this month or die trying...but heres a lil sneak peek in the meantime of impatient seb who cant wait to bring baby celeste into the world LMAO🤰👼

(seb is a freak but so is clora)

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[orcelito]

God, what even is my "reasons this hasn't been updated in 4 and a half months" list anymore hfkshdj

I think we're at: wrote a smut fic, got a new girlfriend, got into bg3, quit my job I had for 8 years, my dad fucking died, got Throat Bleeding Disease, got into crochet, started watching way too much anime, got into Stardew Valley again...

🤔🤔🤔🤔 things sure have been busy, huh?

[alfheimr]

My Favorite Cheap Art Trick: Gradient Maps and Blending Modes

i get questions on occasion regarding my coloring process, so i thought i would do a bit of a write up on my "secret technique." i don't think it really is that much of a secret, but i hope it can be helpful to someone. to that end:

this is one of my favorite tags ive ever gotten on my art. i think of it often. the pieces in question are all monochrome - sort of.

the left version is the final version, the right version is technically the original. in the final version, to me, the blues are pretty stark, while the greens and magentas are less so. there is some color theory thing going on here that i dont have a good cerebral understanding of and i wont pretend otherwise. i think i watched a youtube video on it once but it went in one ear and out the other. i just pick whatever colors look nicest based on whatever vibe im going for.

this one is more subtle, i think. can you tell the difference? there's nothing wrong with 100% greyscale art, but i like the depth that adding just a hint of color can bring.

i'll note that the examples i'll be using in this post all began as purely greyscale, but this is a process i use for just about every piece of art i make, including the full color ones. i'll use the recent mithrun art i made to demonstrate. additionally, i use clip studio paint, but the general concept should be transferable to other art programs.

for fun let's just start with Making The Picture. i've been thinking of making this writeup for a while and had it in mind while drawing this piece. beyond that, i didn't really have much of a plan for this outside of "mithrun looks down and hair goes woosh." i also really like all of the vertical lines in the canary uniform so i wanted to include those too but like. gone a little hog wild. that is the extent of my "concept." i do not remember why i had the thought of integrating a shattered mirror type of theme. i think i wanted to distract a bit from the awkward pose and cover it up some LOL but anyway. this lack of planning or thought will come into play later.

note 1: the textured marker brush i specifically use is the "bordered light marker" from daub. it is one of my favorite brushes in the history of forever and the daub mega brush pack is one of the best purchases ive ever made. highly recommend!!!

note 2: "what do you mean by exclusion and difference?" they are layer blending modes and not important to the overall lesson of this post but for transparency i wanted to say how i got these "effects." anyway!

with the background figured out, this is the point at which i generally merge all of my layers, duplicate said merged layer, and Then i begin experimenting with gradient maps. what are gradient maps?

the basic gist is that gradient maps replace the colors of an image based on their value.

so, with this particular gradient map, black will be replaced with that orangey red tone, white will be replaced with the seafoamy green tone, etc. this particular gradient map i'm using as an example is very bright and saturated, but the colors can be literally anything.

these two sets are the ones i use most. they can be downloaded for free here and here if you have csp. there are many gradient map sets out there. and you can make your own!

you can apply a gradient map directly onto a specific layer in csp by going to edit>tonal correction>gradient map. to apply one indirectly, you can use a correction layer through layer>new correction layer>gradient map. honestly, correction layers are probably the better way to go, because you can adjust your gradient map whenever you want after creating the layer, whereas if you directly apply a gradient map to a layer thats like. it. it's done. if you want to make changes to the applied gradient map, you have to undo it and then reapply it. i don't use correction layers because i am old and stuck in my ways, but it's good to know what your options are.

this is what a correction layer looks like. it sits on top and applies the gradient map to the layers underneath it, so you can also change the layers beneath however and whenever you want. you can adjust the gradient map by double clicking the layer. there are also correction layers for tone curves, brightness/contrast, etc. many such useful things in this program.

let's see how mithrun looks when we apply that first gradient map we looked at.

gadzooks. apologies for eyestrain. we have turned mithrun into a neon hellscape, which might work for some pieces, but not this one. we can fix that by changing the layer blending mode, aka this laundry list of words:

some of them are self explanatory, like darken and lighten, while some of them i genuinely don't understand how they are meant to work and couldn't explain them to you, even if i do use them. i'm sure someone out there has written out an explanation for each and every one of them, but i've learned primarily by clicking on them to see what they do.

for the topic of this post, the blending mode of interest is soft light. so let's take hotline miamithrun and change the layer blending mode to soft light.

here it is at 100% opacity. this is the point at which i'd like to explain why i like using textured brushes so much - it makes it very easy to get subtle color variation when i use this Secret Technique. look at the striation in the upper right background! so tasty. however, to me, these colors are still a bit "much." so let's lower the opacity.

i think thats a lot nicer to look at, personally, but i dont really like these colors together. how about we try some other ones?

i like both of these a lot more. the palettes give the piece different vibes, at which point i have to ask myself: What Are The Vibes, Actually? well, to be honest i didn't really have a great answer because again, i didn't plan this out very much at all. however. i knew in my heart that there was too much color contrast going on and it was detracting from the two other contrasts in here: the light and dark values and the sharp and soft shapes. i wanted mithrun's head to be the main focal point. for a different illustration, colors like this might work great, but this is not that hypothetical illustration, so let's bring the opacity down again.

yippee!! that's getting closer to what my heart wants. for fun, let's see what this looks like if we change the blending mode to color.

i do like how these look but in the end they do not align with my heart. oh well. fun to experiment with though! good to keep in mind for a different piece, maybe! i often change blending modes just to see what happens, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. i very much cannot stress enough that much of my artistic process is clicking buttons i only sort of understand. for fun.

i ended up choosing the gradient map on the right because i liked that it was close to the actual canary uniform colors (sorta). it's at an even lower opacity though because there was Still too much color for my dear heart.

the actual process for this looks like me setting my merged layer to soft light at around 20% opacity and then clicking every single gradient map in my collection and seeing which one Works. sometimes i will do this multiple times and have multiple soft light and/or color layers combined.

typically at this point i merge everything again and do minor contrast adjustments using tone curves, which is another tool i find very fun to play around with. then for this piece in particular i did some finishing touches and decided that the white border was distracting so i cropped it. and then it's done!!! yay!!!!!

this process is a very simple and "fast" way to add more depth and visual interest to a piece without being overbearing. well, it's fast if you aren't indecisive like me, or if you are better at planning.

let's do another comparison. personally i feel that the hint of color on the left version makes mithrun look just a bit more unwell (this is a positive thing) and it makes the contrast on his arm a lot more pleasing to look at. someone who understands color theory better than i do might have more to say on the specifics, but that's honestly all i got.

just dont look at my layers too hard. ok?

[sporeclan]

Hellooooo! I’m working on a clangen blog of my own, so I’m going around asking my favorite clangen blogs some questions. I’m happy to get answers to whichever you feel like answering (or none at all if you don’t feel like it!)

What program and file size do you use?

If you use a font, what font is it?

How far ahead do you recommend playing?

Do you have any advice for layouts?

Do you have any tips for lighting/drawing fur?

Do you have any tips for making cats look more unique?

If you do backgrounds, do you have any advice for creating them?

If you use them, where do you recommend finding reference images?

Hi!! :D

1) I use Clip Studio Paint! Unfortunately not a free program, but I'm very very fond of it. Definitely recommend it to anyone who has the money! My file size is about 1680px wide, I believe? With varying heights. I definitely wouldn't recommend doing it that way, but it's what works for me so :')

2) I made the font myself, actually! Highly recommend doing that tbh, it's a happy medium between getting something handwritten looking without having to spend a thousand years writing haha :D There are probably a hundred websites out there that let you make you own font, but I used Calligraphr

3) It depends! For me playing to about 12-15 moons ahead with a minimum of 6 moons works really well with my style and workflow. Makes me able to cobble together these small interpersonal plotlines while also letting me occasionally play and get new drama to get invested in these characters all over again about. But if I were going for something with a major overarching plot, I would probably go a lot further ahead, if not straight up take the playthrough as far as I'd want it/until a game over just to not risk rng screwing with my plans

4) I would suggest looking up comic panelling tips in general for a better explaination than what I can offer, but I'll try to explain my basic process :'D I mostly go by heart, but I do like to sometimes follow this rule of thumb I like to call the 'Z'

When we read text, we learn to go from left to right, then back to left at a slight diagonal to get to the next line. By following that simple shape when placing characters and especially text, it makes it flow much more naturally to us. And when your pages flow well, you get to break that flow when you want a scene to feel more tense! I tried doing that with the last two panels of the page above and I really liked how that came out :D

Another couple of tips is 1) try not to make the panels too uniform 2) if you want to use two panels for one scene, slanting the side of a panel can make it feel like they flow into each other better, like matching two puzzle pieces if that makes sense 3) small overlapping panels are great for reaction shots and so fun to do!

And lastly, don't be afraid to break the panel border!

It can add a lot of momentum and impact if used right! Plus it's so fun to do <3

5) No sorry, I don't do lighting/shading in my comics at all :'D

6) I have a couple posts here and here describing my own process a bit! But otherwise I'd like to refer to whisper-cats' response to this same prompt, it's pretty in depth and I think they give some really solid advice here!

7) Not particularly, just find a style that works for you the best. I don't do a lot of backgrounding, but when I do, it's in this lineless limited palette style because that's just my favourite kind of background to make

I do highly recommend trying to limit how much time you spend on a background. Don't burn yourself out on one panel because then you'll never wanna finish the whole page!

And for 8), I dont use references so sadly I can't give you any good recommendations there either :')

I hope any of this made sense, lol! Good luck with your blog!

[agaypanic]

smutty blurbs w eric forman?? 😱

Eric Forman Smutty Headcanons

Masterlist

Request Something!

A/N: couldn’t really think of blurbs so i decided to do some headcanons, also i dont have too much in depth knowledge about star wars. Eric might be a bit ooc but idc lol

C/W: smutty content (duh), roleplay, mentions of bondage, i feel like thats it

***

Loves roleplaying lmao

Remember that episode where Donna dressed up as Leia for him and he had the stormtrooper helmet??

Yeah yall do that

Sometimes, it’s hard to stay serious because he’s having too much fun with it

“Tell me what you know about the Rebel Alliance’s plans, prisoner.” You could tell that Eric was lowering his voice underneath the bulky Stormtrooper helmet. You had to keep yourself from giggling so you didn’t break the illusion of being a Stormtrooper’s prisoner.

“I’ll never tell you.” You responded defiantly, glaring at your boyfriend’s hidden face. 

Eric took a step closer, bringing a hand out from behind his back to reveal a Stormtrooper gun, which you remember getting him for his most recent birthday.

“Be obedient, and you might be rewarded.” Eric pointed the fake gun towards you, his bulky white helmet tilting to the side slightly. “Resist, and you’ll regret it.”

“Don’t point that blaster at me.” You backed up as much as possible, trying to appear scared, but it wasn’t long before your back hit Eric’s headboard.

“Actually,” Eric said, lifting his helmet off his head and looking at the gun, “It’s an E-Eleven Blaster Rifle, Y/n. We’ve been through this.”

“Oh, so sorry.” You rolled your eyes before laughing at Eric’s seriousness. Pushing off the headboard, you crawled over to the end of the bed and kneeled on the mattress in front of Eric. His eyes followed your body, his own stiffening at your seductive stare. “Is that another blaster in your pocket, Mr. Trooper? Or are you just happy to see me?”

“Storm-trooper,” he corrected, his voice quiet as he slowly let the helmet slip back down. You sighed but quickly brushed it off.

“Mr. Stormtrooper.”

Good at foreplay

His nickname’s “foreplay” for a reason lmao

Well, it’s supposed to be an embarrassing nickname

But once he starts dating you, he becomes a bit proud of the nickname

“Eric.” You whined, squirming around on the bed. “Please, do something!”

“Shush.” Eric’s hands lightly trailed up and down your sides underneath your shirt, the contact making you shiver. “Be good, Y/n.” He lifted your shirt over your head, and you helped pull it off, throwing it somewhere in Eric’s room. 

Soon, you were almost naked, your underwear being the only thing covering you. Yet Eric completely avoided the place that ached for him most, no matter how much you begged.

“You’re such a tease.” You pouted.

“Oh, it’ll be worth it, baby,” Eric smirked as he lowered himself to the end of the bed, pushing your legs apart. “Just you wait.”

Back to roleplay real quick

Makes a lot of references to movies or comics

Either during sex or the reference leads to sex

Days where you and Eric had the house to yourselves were rare. With Red being retired, Hyde living in the basement, and the Forman’s house being the hangout spot for your friend group, it was hard to find alone time unless you wanted to be at your house or go somewhere in Eric’s car.

But on the rare days when no one was home, the two of you took full advantage of it.

“Spider-Man’s so cool,” Eric mumbled as he read through a comic book, holding it with one hand so his other arm could be wrapped around your shoulders while you watched TV.

Taking full advantage usually meant sitting in the living room instead of hiding in Eric’s room or the basement.

“I wanna be one of Charlie’s Angels so bad.” You responded as you watched Jill Munroe, Kelly Garrett, and Sabrina Duncan kick some ass. Eric looked up at the screen and smirked before looking at you.

“I’d let you interrogate me in a bikini.” You jokingly slapped his chest, making your boyfriend laugh before returning to his comic. “God, having web shooters would be so awesome. Swinging from building to building, fighting crime.”

“Yeah, and you can tie people up.” 

It was an offhand remark, as you were only half listening to Eric while watching TV. But then you felt Eric’s intense gaze on you, and when you made eye contact, you realized how he took what you said. His eyebrows raised suggestively, and soon, you were turning off the television, throwing the comic book onto the couch, and racing up to Eric’s room.

[creatingblackcharacters]

hello ice!

i was planning on doing an interpretation/design of a preexisting character that has only been shown in-game as a sprite.

^ this is their sprite (clover from undertale yellow)

i was in the middle of drafting some concepts when i remembered from your lessons of how little racially ambiguous characters get interpreted as Black. i then quickly sketched up a Black interpretation of their sprite, with everything the exact same except for the hair turning into locs, the lips being two-toned, and the nose being wider.

this game has several endings, two main ones though. one where this character chooses violence and vengeance as "justice" and the other wjere they choose self-sacrifice ajd peace as "justice".

as a nonblack POC, it feels weird to initially interpret a paleskinned pixel art character as white, and then change it to or have another design/option/idea of them as Black. Also, it feels strange that the main reason behind me doing so was a sudden remembering of what i could add to contribute to the greater community, but i fear im using the character's ambiguous race and my presuming of them being Black is tokenization.

another small element is that all artwork by the creators done of this character has been protrayed as nonblack.

i dont really know what i should do -- move forward with them being interpteted as Black for only one design? for both? for none?

(also, i apologize if my phrasing is offensive or awkward or innappropriatw -- i dont know if its right to refer to a design as "the white one" or "the Black one")

thank you for your time!

Just do it lol. It's fine. It's a Black edit and Black edits are fine. That's what we all do when we make them- go "yeah, they were white. BUT WHAT IF-" and then decide to add a new depth of perspective to them, their designs, and their decisions, now that they're Black.

The fact that you even put that much thought into it is more than someone who was tokenizing Black character design would do- just make sure you're being honest with yourself and your motivations, and that it doesn't become a source of you feeling good about yourself rather than just something you feel passionate about, or wanted to try. If you genuinely realize you're doing it for clout, stop. But if you actually care, proceed.

And as for their character route, that's fine too. Black characters should have complex stories!

[unfinishedficideas]

dark sbi alien au

(this felt like it was way longer because of world building just as a warning, like cool concept but why did i go so in-depth world building for such a random idea lol)

tommy is a human. humans do not have instincts in the typically universal alien way. alien sbi have no knowledge of this.

tommy is rescued from an illegal trafficking ring, along with the other kidnapped aliens, by a group of space pirates/mercenaries who are working for the local planets government, who send all the other kidnapped aliens to their home planets, who are rather shocked to now have a human on their planet that they have no clue what to do with.

the planet's government is kind of sketchy but not completely immoral, they don't plan to kill tommy off or anything, but they can't bring him to the galactic council to try and see if they can return him to earth, because it would bring alot of attention to their planet and the dubious/illegal things they do to keep it safe. like hiring mercenaries.

in fact, mercenaries solve alot of their problems. this situation for example.

they have a lot of mercenaries who they hire for miscellaneous things, who they would trust not to betray them to the galactic council, but not alot who wouldn't just sell tommy back to traffickers when left unattended.

buuut mercenaries like the syndicate wouldn't.

the syndicate are then hired and payed ALOT to take tommy on and let him stay on their ship with them.

so tommy stays with them and the sbi get attached, of course its dark sbi so they all are pretty instinctively attached to each other, and used to using each others unique instincts to get what they want from the other.

what they want now is for tommy to be family, and they plan to go about it the usual way they do.

now, the planets government pays and does alot to ensure tommy's comfortability over the course of his stay with the sbi, like give the trafficking's files on tommy's human biology, over to the mercenaries so they know what to feed tommy that won't make him sick.

the sbi don't exactly know that the other parts of the file not pertaining to diet are wrong and exaggerated.

they take quite a few things out of context.

namely, that tommy, as a human, would automatically feel the need to take care of sick or weaker looking things and then consider them family.

as such, techno and Phil come up with a plan doomed to fail.

techno fakes being sick in order to get tommy to come into his room/den, which tommy had previously refused to come inside (because he was told at some point that it was considered rude to do so for techno's species unless you were close family.)

tommy comes inside to deliver techno some food that phil has insisted that he was too busy to bring to techno, and freaks out just a little when techno acts like he's on his death bed.

techno thinks tommy is getting swept up in his instincts.

tommy is just overwhelmed because he doesn't know if he should tell phil to call a doctor or something or if that would be too troublesome or if phil and techno even can call a doctor because they are criminals.

techno makes tommy sit with him for like 2 hours waiting for tommy to start reacting or anything. tommy is only sitting there because techno asked and he couldnt say no to the poor sick guy.

plan failed. techno has to stop pretending to be sick eventually and tommy hasnt suddenly started treating them like how the folder says humans treat family.

(folder says humans need their family to be near them at all times or they freak out and get violent) (which is behavior they observed from other kidnapped humans but exaggerated, because again aliens all think humans are instinctively driven just like all other species registered in the galactic council)

so sbi are trying to make tommy act like they are family, which because he's been staying with them for like 8 human months already and he is really lonely, he sorta already considers them to be.

but they dont know that so the plans go on

they stay really close to tommy and attached at the hip with him to try and get him to pack bond with them

they think eating all their meals with him will help him bond with them, tommy just thinks they wanted to hang out

then they think giving him all his food instead of having him make it himself, will make him think of them as providers but it only gets them weird looks

and then because theyve used all they can of the files, they decide fuck it the files must be wrong, which is true, but they decide to find out what tommy's human instincts are, they're just gonna see if any of their instincts also align with his

so they have tommy sleep with them all in one room with a bunch of pillows and blankets, under the guise of a human movie night that tommy told them about (phil's instincts)

they have tommy fake save them from soemthing? maybe he saves them from like other space pirates or something as a coincidence and they just write it off as not it. (techno's instincts)

idk what wilburs would be, playing and chasing each other wround? maybe like some weird form of tag that tommy only entertains because he misses earth?

then a horrible idea occurs to them...what if humans bond for life and tommy already has a family back on earth?

they ask tommy if he had a family back on earth, tommy says he used to have parents but they gave him up for adoption.

they ask what adoption is

tommy tells them and explains the whole process of being put up for adoption and getting adopted.

they then decide, that of course, that must mean humans have to ask and be accepted into families.

so they ask tommy if they could "adopt" him

tommy is like ???? i thought we were already sorta fam? oh no did i assume wrong?!?

and then they get embarresed and explain what happened and after all this flailing about and plotting to figure it out themselves they finally just ask tommy what his instincts are

only for tommy to say humans done have any

(btw when i wrote this i remember thinking this ending was really funny) (anyways happy thanksgiving to anyone who celebrates ig)

[mvmnbnv]

Hi, I don’t know if you’ve spoken in depth about your feelings on Vi’s relationship with Caitlyn or what you think of Caitvi, but I know you mentioned you can’t seem to enjoy the ship as much. Although they said Arcane is now canon, we can all assume the general direction of her character will be like in the game. How do you feel about that? Would you be satisfied?

I know for myself I can relate to not being able to enjoy the ship as much. How I consume content around them has kinda been lowkey ruined because of their fans. I definitely think I’m being ridiculous and overly sensitive.

I just dislike how they’ve chosen to speak on the overall characters/plot/storyline especially ones that are quite serious, but then analyze things in the most black and white way. Including Vi’s character where they can’t even try to put herself in her shoes and think about everything she’s experienced, but then just be so…shallow about it. It’s like they’re not seeing her entire character or story. Just her relationship. Her own fans can’t even give her some basic empathy.

I hate how I’m basically letting them ruin the show for me. It’s ridiculous of me to react this way.

hi!

i havent spoken in depth here about caitvi mostly because my content is pretty vi centric. if anything i just mention caitlyn in passing unless i have an analysis on her too. but i really am unsure about how i feel about the ship atm, and its mostly because of what we've already seen but also what we havent seen. and yeah then there's the fandom itself. they speak about vi in pretty shallow ways when it comes to her pain and it just gets frustrating. but its also the choices theyve let us know they made with her and it almost seems like she has no plot outside of caitlyn. during her pitfighter arc caitlyn is all she thinks about. not vander? her mom? Loris (her big enforcer buddy) after they parted ways? hell not powder??? the one who she failed in her mind?? they were planning on putting a cupcake on the back of her jacket? really...? during a time like that? meanwhile one of the writers go on about listening to songs about unrequited love and how they inspired her decisions...like im not a fan. I already know the unrequited stuff is going to be coming from cait's side because of where she is at this point, while vi puts all this time into her, another creator even implying that cait is pretty much home for her now.. the imbalance in this relationship is just icky to me and i feel bad for vi's end of it. especially after having everything ripped from her during her pitfighter arc. for fuck sake i need them to adress this attitude she has toward caitlyn as the character flaw that it is. but the thing is i havent even watched the show so how do i know they dont, yknow? and the way things are set up in their LoL lore, from vi having her own place to them only being speculated to have had something going on by the people around them but not really being confirmed, makes me hopeful for vi. i need her to start putting up boundaries, start having a spine and to not just lean on caitlyn, because we already see it not end well for her. this season is going to stress their power imbalance further and it makes me just hope they go about it in the right way, and that vi isnt just some love sick puppy crawling back to cait after all the shit she's done (enacting martial law, working with ambessa etc) because she's dependent, espeically when one of the writers has been going on about unrequited love...that just feels gross.

in conclusion yeah, its kind of a mix of fandom and what has been presented so far as far as trailers and whatnot. dont feel bad that thats how you feel, it happens lol. but we all will have plenty of time to make our own conclusions when we see the show in its full glory

[jonathanbyersphd]

Since you have phd on subject I want to ask you something. I sometimes get so mad how less blorbo got to do in s4 but when some of his anti says especially fan of that guy says that he did nothing I feel like fighting them(which I dont bcz of their lack of media literacy and for my own mental health). Like he their fav guy did practically nothing in entire season. He didnt saved anyone life (if anyone give max's life saving credit to him I will just explode), didn't figured out any mystery with his tiny brain, didnt even had any emotional or deep scene, didn't fight anyone,even in the last ep creel house scene he was just standing their. It was Robin and Nancy who did all the work for hawkins grp.( If he did something was touching the watergate which activated the hive mind which led to him being dragged to UD whicb led to Nancy and robin jumping after him bcz of survival guilt making their life difficult.If he wouldn't have doubted Nancy and let her go there is no way she would have done that.) On the other hand he jonathan made this whole plan of escaping from cali, saved mike and will,took everyone to utah,helped save el,helped her piggyback to save everyone else and ofc his scene with will had so much emotions and depth. Even for comic purpose cali crew was way better than whatever banter they were trying to show with him and dustin. Like yes he had more screen time but for most of it he was just existing there not doing anything.

(Lol idek why I yapped way too much like I wasn't even that serious in the beginning but idk what happened then😭💀)

Hi Nonny,

Honestly I try not to bash on a certain character too much because I enjoy my peaceful existence here. But simultaneously I did argue last week that s4 is Jonathan's best after s1 and I think for me a large part of that is the agency in his own storyline.

Like whether or not people want to acknowledge it, he makes the choice for the Cali Crew to try to get to Hawkins. Granted he spends a bunch of time being the getaway driver but still he's the one who approaches Mike and Will. And without them finding and rescuing El who knows how bad things could've gone.

In contrast, s4 for Steve really feels like he's just there. Like if we want to point fingers at guy who's just driving others around we need to talk about Steve existing as the “babysitter”. Furthermore, the choices he does make (jumping into the lake, pursuing Nancy 🙄) end in cringefail.

Like for me personally s4 hammers home that they haven't known what to do with Steve for a long time. There's this vague idea of an RV and six children but you can see Nancy's face fall and you see him slunk away. Which imo that's a resolution for the “revival” , even if stans want to argue otherwise.

Whereas Jonathan's storyline puts him back into the limelight. His entire plot of college evolves his entire network of relationships, not just Nancy. We know his fears, we see them directly contrast his wants. We see him lie about his letter which leaves his plot open to resolve in s5.

TLDR: Jonathan has agency in his s4 story and Steve doesn't

[fayedartmouth]

Can I just say that im super excited that you are writing fics that focuses on mental trauma? I mean please dont get me wrong all of your fics have characters depth but it’s mostly filled with physical hurt/comfort and i still love them all, they changed my brain chemistry forever.

But I really got excited when you shared your thoughts on the best of the bad deal book 3 and your long fix it and when i saw there’s more focus on the characters mental aspects/trauma i lost it lmao

I already saw how you handle that aspect in the last chapter of surrender and it was perfect and I really can’t wait for more :)

I am incapable of being brief, so I'll put this under a cut to be nice to people who don't like to hear me ramble.

I love physical whump in ways I can't explain but there's something special about the emotional stuff. Especially with JJ. I honestly think that's the worst part of the way the show killed him off. The show took him to such dark places in S4 and let him get as low as he could get -- literally suicidal -- and then we're supposed to feel like he had a magic moment where he saved Sarah and he was suddenly okay again. Which -- no, no way. JJ rallied because his friends needed him and JJ has always been willing to be what his friends needed when they needed him. It's the only way he understands his own worth -- by what he gives others.

The show lets him die with that mentality, that his worth is only determined by his utility, and it never let him deal with his abandonment issues or any of the other traumas he'd dealt with. I sincerely believe his downfall in S4 was set up for his redemption -- so to have him die at the end was just devastating.

In the fix-it I have planned, JJ dealing with his trauma is a core element of it because I don't think, after all he's been through/done, that there's some quick fix. It's going to be a long slog because it has to be. It's messy and complicated with a lot of ups and down.

(In the first fic, he does hit rock bottom and becomes essentially the worst version of himself. In the second fic, he has to confront his demons and finally overcome them -- and it is a process. There will be a very depressed and withdrawn JJ who becomes increasingly more depressed the more he tries to act like everything is fine. He's a total mess, and blames himself for everything, the events of S4 only making him feel less worthy of his friends than ever. He goes to some dark places before he comes out on the other side. But again, the ending is happy and hopeful and sets up, lol, a third fic. There's also a long journey for Kie and her mental health, which is also a complete mess.)

I wrote Best of a Bad Deal before S4 came out, but the idea is a lot the same. JJ has PTSD from his illness -- but from so much else, too. He's finally willing to put in the work to deal with both and end up a happier, and healthier person on the other side. In Best of a Bad Deal Book Three, he 100% ends up in therapy and it's very, very good for him. He will literally get everything he ever wanted, lol.

Which is all to say, I will always write physical whump and it's what I love. But for JJ, the emotional healing is what he needs most and I hate that we were denied some acknowledgement of that before he died. It's not even that they killed him. They killed him so flippantly and acted like he got everything he ever wanted. I 100% believe that final speech was for Kie's sake only --because yeah, that's what JJ would do. He would look out for her first and foremost, because JJ cares about his friends more than he has ever cared about himself.

[choccy-milky]

Okay so I read your entire fic in three days and I LOVE IT!? ITS SO GOOD!?! I am supposed to be studying for finals and instead have spent 72 hours definitely not doing that. I originally got into your fic because I saw your drawings from different scenes and OH MY GOD THEYRE AMAZING. The way you draw Seb makes me want to bang my head on the table (in the best way ever)…that boy does things to me. The whole thing is just uGHHH chefs kiss amazing work love it love you amazing

AWW TYY IM GLAD YOU LIKED IT SM (ENOUGH TO BINGE IT AND IGNORE SCHOOL) AND THAT YOU LIKE HOW I DRAW SEB TOO💖💖😍😍😍

LMAOO but fr as a procrastinator and horrible student myself, im pleased with this theme of interfering with ppls schoolwork/thesis/whatever else to read my fic...im dragging yall down with me...just stop using your brain and enjoy sexy seb aha😜 (ILY TOO GOOD LUCK ON UR FINALS)

@jstfndmthngs omg thank you for such a long and in depth ask i hope u dont mind i just screenshotted it and cut it into 2 BAHAHA but THANK YOUU im glad youre enjoying it so far!! 🥹💖AND YESSS BAHAHA IVE ALSO BRAINWASHED YOU TO SEE SEB AND CLORA WHEN YOU SEE A BLONDE + BROWN HAIR COUPLE mission accomplished😈😈 and I LOVE THAT YOU DAYDREAM ABOUT SEB AND CLORA TOO!!! people thinking about your fic/art when theyre not actively reading it is the highest honour fr...😭🙏 AND BAHAHA I REMEMBER THAT COMMENT THREAD ABOUT LEANDER AND HIS LITTLE GARDEN PATCH LMAO and him and seb competing as neighbors/dads over who has the better yard...LMAO im putting in my oneshot that leander lives close by, i might try and find a way to allude to that if i can LMAOO speaking of IM GLAD YOURE LOOKING FORWARD TO THE ONESHOT 💖💖 ive been working on the outline every day the past few days and its 24k words AND THATS JUST THE OUTLINE😭😭LIKE DAWG i was planning on this oneshot to just be short and sweet BAHAHA but i forgot im fluent in yappanese...then i just kept thinking of cute pregnancy moments i wanted to add so it spiralled....BUT ANYWAY I HOPE I CAN FINISH IT SOON!!🙏 also im so impressed you only read 1 chap of my fic a day BAHAHA i admire the self restraint bc i could never...but i feel you with wanting to make things last. LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU CATCH UP!!🥳AND TY AGAIN!!💖💖

omg anon this is diabolical...at first i was imagining it as seb being the one caught in the time loop and going crazy, but i actually think its better if its clora... because the idea of seb watching her slowly spiral into semi-insanity while knowing its bc of some weird time shenanigans and he doesnt know how to help would also make SEB go crazy BAHAHAH. i dont think ill ever write this but i just wanted to tell u i love this idea LOL

aw TYYYYY!!! i’m honoured u think so omg😭🥹💖 you sent this a while ago (before all of the recent family posting ive been doing) BAHAHA so i hope youre enjoying the kid content bc u manifested it girl🥰 and trust me i aint doing work for the fandom, the fandom is doing work for ME!!! by continuing to humour my brainrotted ass😔🙏

"they're my legal parents now" followed by "so anyway can you draw them going down on each other" LMFAOOOOO💀💀💀thank you i love you anon. and i HAVE been wanting to draw this for a while so YES!! i just cant guarantee when...but the day SHALL come rest assured🫡😇

[helpallthenamesaretaken]

EP 4 was just mostly talking and conversations, but there was so much depth THAT I MUST TALK ABOUT IT.

I could literally feel the anguish exuding out of Sally trying to teach Percy to swim

Ngl i was a lil skeptical about azrien’s acting but hearing that scream changed everything

“Hey, you still sleeping?” “Yes” she’s so relatable i love it

i thought we were going to wait until the zebra truck scene for the trauma bonding but we got some of it now which is cool and also makes me wonder whether they’re going to take it to a whole level in the zebra truck scene

I kinda like how annabeth knows so much about grover their dynamic in the show is just so chef’s kiss

I dont know if the whole “thalia made me earn it” thing is canon but its an interesting spin on their dynamic

Grover is such a mood pls shoutout to grover (this episode focused a lil more on percy and annabeth’s dynamic)

Its interesting how they changed frederick chase in the show. In the book frederick never wanted annabeth but in the show frederick loved annabeth. It makes more sense now that percy asks her to go back especially in the books, that was very controversial to have annabeth seem like she was overexaggerating about what she went through with them

i was waiting for them to introduce the searcher pan stuff i almost thought they’d erased it, thankfully they brought it up

ANNABETH’S FACE WHEN THE COP CALLED HER A “LITTLE GIRL” LEAH YOU’RE A ROCKSTAR

Medusa>>>>echidna in the show IM SORRY ECHIDNA WOULDN’T STOP TALKING

The architect in annabeth is coming out i hope she explicitly talks about it later on

I don’t think the writers knew what to do with grover when percy and annabeth were talking so they just made annabeth a little unnecessarily rude for some reason?? At least its better than the movies, where annabeth and grover just WALK AWAY from hermes and percy

i didnt expect the random posh voice it threw me off but it was so funny

OK but can someone help me with this? Percy in this scene says “i have a gift” to annabeth? Could someone pls explain? What gift?

Last episode i was cringing at the screen at percy for the “can’t we just call your mom?” This episode i was cringing at the screen for annabeth’s “you wanna say hi to your dad :))))” these kids have no sense of touchy subjects do they

you’ve done so much more to me in the past few days than poseidon has done in my whole life. If i have to stick with somebody, i—“ “be careful, you were about to call me a friend” THIS DIALOGUE IS SO PRECIOUS ITS WORTH A BILLION DOLLARS

Im suspicious about the percabething this series is doing so far, i feel like its too early, its giving me a feeling that there’s going to be some big angst thats going to happen later on to break the world

When Percy fell, i was genuinely thinking he was going to give annabeth a hug lol (“wow annabeth no you are my friend!!” Something like that)

alexa play jump and fall by ts

I love that they’re expanding the consequences that came with sending medusa’s head to olympus, and how it negatively impacted annabeth, which will probably turn angsty later on

Also, percy looks half dead

The plan to push annabeth into the stairs was executed so smoothly wow

i like they are exploring the very concerning side of percy too, the part of him thats like “im the useless one im ready to die no probs” ALSO THALIA PARALLELS THEY’RE DEF GONNA TOUCH ON THAT NEXT EPISODE

i like how the water grabbed percy like a little tunnel

Its so funny how the nereid says poseidon’s name and percy just starts struggling more like “HELL NO”

THE PARALLELS OF THE START OF THE EPISODE OF PERCY TELLING SALLY TO BREATHE AND THE END OF THE EPISODE OF NEREID TELLING PERCY TO BREATHE

What the heck is that throne thing? Why is percy turning golden? What is happening? HUGGGGGG!! (Too early, as i said), oh look ares—OMG ITS ARES!!

[orcelito]

oh fuck it's may now

my birthday is in 12 days

[mbat]

!! these were made using bases !! the bases will be linked below the cut!!

the cut is so the post isnt too long to scroll past, but also i will be talking about the au in it!!

decided to draw my own take on adult flurry heart, mostly so i could draw my own take on opaline in the au where opaline is like a nightmare moon of flurry heart. if youre wondering who the third pony is, its chrysalis' disguise for the au, named gentle heart.

flurry hearts base:

opalines bases (one for the body, the other was only for one of the wings):

gentle heart/chrysalis' base:

i had to use bases because ive been in such a weird art block lately, i just couldnt draw bodies right, but i was having this idea and i just had to get it out of me lol. i drew everything else just fine, idk why i couldnt draw bodies. shout out to elementbases on deviantart for having a lot of good mlp bases! and organized into categories no less!

btw for reference for adult flurry heart i mainly used images of her only adult appearance which was in some mobile game ?? i never played it but its real and its the only time we see her as an adult, though i dont think we get any details about her aside from how she looks. i just wanted to say that cause idk how many people know about it.

also yes her cutie mark is different between versions of her

so this is an au ive been tossing around for a while, especially since it started out as a half-theory i had about g5 before it truly did set in that they were just fucking up the entire thing (no hate to g5 or anyone who likes it but im personally just. disappointed), namely when they were like 'oh yeah opaline is just some alicorn that celestia and luna knew as kids and when they didnt want to play with her she held onto that for thousands of years and became evil over it'

also apparently the reason equestria is separated is because she just. idk whispered mean things in everyones ears? idk man i dont read the mlp comics, i plan to read g4s comics but not g5s. i didnt even know g5 had comics until i looked up why the pony kinds were separate.

anyway the idea was a theory because before all that we had no idea who opaline was, why there was some random alicorn, i mean, weve seen so few throughout g4! she was so mysterious for that, and i feel like the most popular idea was that she was flurry heart, since that was one of the few alicorns we knew of, and flurry is such a blank slate, especially since we dont technically ever see her adult form (with one exception)

i still personally think they shouldve gone that route but i know now that they wouldnt have, they probably wouldnt have wanted to give one of their previous characters, especially one like flurry, any bad traits or make her a villain, even though it would be such a cool idea. not to mention, they couldve redeemed her? idk man. worse villains have been redeemed lol

on to my au though. i wanted to keep it feeling like it couldve been canon but also stretching it just a little bit to make maybe more sense and also be more my creation, yknow?

we see at the end of g4 that chrysalis is trapped in stone alongside the other two villains she was working with, but we also know that these stone prisons can still be escaped, as we saw in discords introduction. my idea is that the stone is kept locked up, but unattended to, and she escapes, though her fellow villains dont. the specific details will be saved for if i go more in depth on all of this somewhere else lol

she develops a plan, that being to disguise herself as a normal pony, and to become staff at the crystal empire castle. that disguise is gentle heart, a name she literally made up because she was mocking the 'stupid' (from her perspective) names that ponies have, and she just kept it. while she works at the castle, she gets close to a young flurry heart.

she acts very extremely sickeningly nice and sweet in this disguise, but theres an uncanniness to it, a disingenuine undertone that is only noticeable when youre looking for it, really. flurry heart comes to love and trust her as a friend, and gentle heart isnt seen as suspicious to really anyone in the castle. people still think chrysalis is trapped in stone, after all.

her next step in the plan, however, is that when no one else is around, she shapeshifts herself into cadence or shining armor, and acts like a horrible parent to flurry heart. this creates a deep disconnect for flurry, as one moment her parents are the best ever, and the next they arent. if flurry tries to bring this up to them, they have no idea what shes talking about.

flurry begins to confide in gentle heart about this, and gentle heart begins to plant the idea in flurrys head that she should run away, and that gentle could run away with her. after a while of this, flurry finally decides to do this.

they run far, far away together, flurry being a child/young teenager, and they hide where no one else really goes, far from towns and pretty much any ponies. (this location hasnt been chosen yet but its not the mooost relevant? the basic point is that theyre hidden away) and they set up a home here.

soon in, gentle heart makes a decision. she shows her true form to flurry heart, a flurry heart who was never taught about how changelings used to be before their reformation, as her parents thought it was a conversation for when she was older. they didnt want her to feel paranoid, or scared. the changelings she knows are bright, and covered in generally round shapes. theyre not like the jagged and dark chrysalis.

gentle heart tells flurry that she was cursed. that her pony form is her true form, but she was cursed by the princesses to be in this form. being in her pony form drains her of energy, her changeling form recharges that energy. really, its just her excuse to not need to be in that pony form anymore. she tells flurry that she was cursed falsely, accused of a crime she did not commit. that she was made to work at the crystal castle so an eye could be kept on her. she asks to be called chrysalis, as being called gentle heart in this form feels wrong.

chrysalis right now is the only person in the world that flurry heart trusts, so she accepts this as truth.

as flurry heart grows up, chrysalis begins to plant ideas in her head that the other ponies are awful and horrible, just like her parents seemingly were. that flurry heart is better than all of them because shes not horrible, and on top of that, shes a natural alicorn. there hasnt been a natural born alicorn in thousands of years before her. flurry heart begins to believe all of this too. she doesnt have anyone or anything else to tell or show her otherwise.

these dark beliefs warp her appearance overtime, making her go from her parents daughter, into what we know as opaline, akin to princess luna turning into nightmare moon. she becomes annoyed with, averse to her cutesy name she was given by her family, and adopts the name opaline, both because of her crystal cutie mark, and because part of her still thinks of the crystal empire as her home, though now more like its hers to own someday.

speaking of, into her adulthood, opaline and chrysalis form a plan. a plan to take over equestria. the idea of being the ruler of all of pony kind was a natural conclusion that chrysalis wanted opaline to make, and so she did. their first step was to invade the crystal castle and take it over.

chrysalis tells her that cadence was never a fighter, so she shouldnt be an issue, but shining armor would be. if both chrysalis and opaline combined their power, they would easily overpower him and anyone else daring to fight them. the thing is... this works.

for a few reasons, actually. people were shocked at the return of chrysalis, and on top of that, despite her warped appearance, opaline was recognized as flurry heart. there isnt exactly many alicorns, and especially none that look similar to her. there was a fight put up, but not at full power. no one wanted to hurt the lost princess.

she takes over the empire, trapping any who oppose her, especially her parents. she doesnt even give them the option to talk to her. she plunges the empire back in dark days, not in the way that sombra did entirely, but still. shes strict on her subjects, and begins to make them like a military, planning to use them to invade canterlot. anyone who would dare come to attack the empire would be held off.

after she knows her subjects are loyal (terrified), and properly molded into an army, she storms canterlot, chrysalis by her side. its a hard fight, but they do it. they trap the other princesses, and they take over.

opalines first rule of business is to make the crystal empire the new capital, the new seat of power. for a while, this is the most drastic thing she does, otherwise going slow with her horrid ideas and changes.

the worse comes when shes already caused distrust and discomfort among ponykind, pitting ponies against eachother. she begins to decree that ponykind must be separated by type, designating towns to each, forcing ponies apart by law. she made sure it was enforced. she didnt need ponies coming together to rise against her, so she forced them apart. the damage is done.

this of course doesnt last forever. twilight is free and gathers the elements, and they take opaline by surprise, ending her reign. they empty the empire and trap her alone in her castle. thing is, she also trapped them in a limbo-like state, along with the other princesses (and her father), as they had also tried to join the fight. and a final blow to her, chrysalis got caught in crossfire, and was seemingly killed. no one intended it, but it happened. opaline is devastated.

and now, shes stuck. trapped alone in a castle in the middle of a city. she has the whole city alone to herself, and all she has now is the items left behind by her people, and mostly books. she only ever sees them as fiction or propaganda though, refusing to take them to heart and accept them as truth. alongside reading and re-reading the books around the city, she schemes of a way out. she is not very successful in this for a long time.

the closest she gets to getting out is when she opens the barrier just long enough to see, and kidnap, a young unicorn. a one misty brightdawn. she forces misty to be her only companion in a long time, and raises her like a daughter, but not lovingly.

some stuff continues on similar to canon, like misty befriending the mane 5 and leaving opaline behind, but i wont say more because i can keep some secrets for myself :] i do have an ending to her story planned though!

also pls ignore timeline and other canon contradictions pls pls pls pls pls lol