#i'll probably change it later

[dearlystars]

not to complain about two things in one day but the last post got me thinking about how popular todd ingram became in fat gay artist circles after takes off when stephen stills is right there and at least to some degree intended to be a canonically fat gay character (even if the only real indicator of that is that he's drawn a bit broader than most of the guys [which frequently gets forgotten. looking at you volume six and the game. and also was portrayed by an actor that isn't fat in the movie] which i still have some thoughts about.) but i do think the biggest frustration i have with takes off is just how dirty they did stephen stills. this ended up getting kind of long so hi read more sorry for anyone that reads through all this

the whole point of the show was meant to be a "what would happen if scott wasn't there" story and when one of the biggest examples of scott being self-centered and hardly knowing anything about the lives of his friends in the original graphic novels was him not only not learning that stephen stills was gay until he saw him with his boyfriend but also not even knowing that one of his best friends has a boyfriend until a good few months into their relationship. yet in the one scott pilgrim story we got that doesn't center scott and his viewpoint it's genuinely unclear if stills himself even realizes that he's gay by the time the final episode wraps up because almost all of his screentime outside of just general main cast shenanigans is dedicated to his musical gag with knives.

at first when i finished the show i was kind of just hoping that it'd be for the sake of bringing over the "oh yeah i came out last volume but you looked busy so i didn't think to mention it, scott" gag just translated into "oh yeah i came out last season but you looked busy so i didn't think to mention it, ramona." in a stills-centric episode but then they confirmed that they had no plans for a second season and the sequel baiting credits scene with gideon and julie was meant to be a gag at that sort of sequel baiting credits scene and not a genuine one (despite not being written like a gag at all. no julie saying the goose is loose honk honk does not count this is scott pilgrim have you seen half of the dialogue in this series.) and it's just like??? okay so what happened with stephen stills then. i still think the way the novels handled knives' arc is far and away the best anything has but at the very least knives got to have a bit of her own thing coming into her own w/o scott in takes off but stephen stills really was basically just all the musical gag subplot in takes off.

i get that at the end of the day some things need to be cut for time especially in an eight episode tv series of half hours and that ramona really doesn't know stills all that well so it makes sense that he doesn't get to do a lot and he also didn't get a ton of focus or his coming out scene in the movie which is what takes off seems to be pretty heavily based off of so like, again, it makes sense, but god it's frustrating. scott pilgrim has had three major adaptations (four if you include the animation but considering that had a far more narrow scope and didn't even feature stills i'm leaving it out of the discussion) and in all of those stephen stills is kind of just there to be there. at the very least he gets to be a playable character in the game which joseph does get to show up in but even then his ending is one of three that doesn't feature any romance (with the only other two being nega scott who gets a gag ending about taking over the world and wallace, the other out gay man in the main cast) like. i don't really want to say that stephen stills getting shafted so much (pun very much intended) boils down to simple homophobia because like i am very much in the camp that believes that scott pilgrim as a series is just like. stupidly gay incredibly gay like it's still shocking to me how popular it is with cishet white guys gay but it's just like. weird to me how so consistently the characters that get the short end of the stick are him and lisa (who at the very least got to have her moment in the animation.)

it really does feel like this is Just A Stephen Stills Thing and i can't help but wonder why that is, i guess? i don't really think it's an aversion to the character or anything considering o'malley was willing to give him multiple cameos in seconds and he was also happy to own that noda gaku doujin about him and joseph so it's kind of just confusing to me. my only real guess is that maybe it's because he's named after a Real Ass Guy and o'malley wanted to avoid cluttering any online discussion about The Real Ass Guy with discussions surrounding a gay guy from a series that starts with a grown man dating a high schooler but at the same time young neil got to play a pretty big part in the series all things considered who that is also applicable so it's kind of just??? why stephen stills???

also this is just meant as an aside since i know o'malley has a tumblr and occasionally looks through scott pilgrim things on here. so like. if you're reading this, hi! i promise this isn't meant to be a slight towards you or your work like. scott pilgrim is and has been very important to me especially when i was younger and i love seconds i still recommend it to people to this day. i'm just an annoying gay that cares arguably too much about one of your side characters and frequently think about what could have been when it comes to him and his writing.

[burnt-venus]

goodbye mitsumi pfp, you'll be missed, but I got a new obsession

[paintedcrows]

Some Fords! (and Martin K Blackwood is also there)

[cnth-rb]

Sleeping like the princess that he is

[mustlovesteve]

thanks so much to @toktopus-art for this awesome commission that she drew! based on a scene from my vamp!eddie steddie fic.

[ineed-to-sleep]

Some sketches I did to try to get a feel for what I want my Rook to look like 🤔

[qarameiio]

im in love with an eeeeemo boyyyyeeee

[yiqi-fr]

They wade through a shallow lake, but strangely don't make a sound. Somehow even silencing the droplets falling from their silky hair.

Meet Vergence!

[crayoncat-works]

"I wish... I could stay." bonus:

and he did!!!

[snipper-snap]

*Cyberpunks your mafiosos*

[bethanydelleman]

It bothers me so much that people latch onto this quote from Darcy but ignore the context around it:

“Shall we ask your cousin the reason of this?” said Elizabeth, still addressing Colonel Fitzwilliam. “Shall we ask him why a man of sense and education, and who has lived in the world, is ill-qualified to recommend himself to strangers?” “I can answer your question,” said Fitzwilliam, “without applying to him. It is because he will not give himself the trouble.” “I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,” said Darcy, “of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.”

This is the big proof that Darcy is shy/socially awkward/whatever. But there are two answers right there! Colonel Fitzwilliam has an explanation that makes Darcy look far worse: he is rude because he doesn't care to be polite.

Darcy likes Elizabeth, and while I'm sure he didn't outright lie because he's a radical truther, he definitely did not tell the whole truth! Because the girl he likes just called his behaviour "very dreadful" and he needs to make himself look better. And then we know what he says later when he feels actual remorse for his prior behaviour (which he does not feel at Rosings):

I was... allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing, to care for none beyond my own family circle, to think meanly of all the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own.

Where is his problem with conversing now? It's nowhere, because that was never the real problem. I am sure that Darcy does not converse easily with others, because I don't think he lied, but that is not why he was an unsociable asshole at the Meryton Assembly. It's because he did not think the unwashed masses of Hertfordshire were worth him putting in the effort.

[personallyfive]

thought i should make a icon and banner while i was at it DID YOU KNOW if you actually look at the characters for reference you can make better shapes for drawing the characters???

[atalienart]

"Wysoki i szczupły, K. był kwintesencją elegancji, od nienagannego ubioru, szytego według najnowszej mody, przez starannie ułożone, piaskowe włosy, po sposób w jaki się trzymał."

[wia-tia]

Oshi no ko's handling of suicide has been bothering me

It's been really bothering me that they're framing acting on your suicidal urges like a good thing in the last few chapters. I know that Aqua sees it as a regret in this chapter but he could've done literally anything else, yet the author made him choose to act on his suicidal ideation he had since he was four. Actually, probably since Gorou even. It also makes me sad that Ruby and Miyako never noticed Aqua's PTSD or suicidal ideation nor helped him, even though they should've been the closest. Yeah, Ruby tried with idolising him and all but that didn't adress the main issue which is Aqua's guilt towards his mothers' deaths. It even looked like Aqua loves Kana, Sarina and Akane more than Ruby sometimes (they barely had panels together before the movie arc). So, it feels like making Ruby the reason for his life came out of nowhere? Where is Ai?

Protecting Ruby doesn't make any sense, since when was that the goal? (It was always about giving up his life to further his revenge for Ai, till a certain point that it changed to protecting Ruby; I cannot find this turning point). Give her bodyguards, kill Hikaru and push the body in the sea (if Hikaru was really even that dangerous -> no stakes at all). The author could've made Aqua do anything else. Being alive would've helped to protect her from threats (that don't even exist btw -> again, no stakes). Now, it just feels like Aqua wanted an excuse to kill himself. It's so stupid to kill yourself for someone else's "protection".

He never took the second chance at the life he has been given. Even if he had good moments, Aqua threw it away just like that. He's only 18, he barely lived for himself in that time (he's so young). He's lived for others. That would've been okay if it hadn't been framed like a damaging thing for quite a long time in the manga and now this suicide is shown as a noble sacrifice and not just as suicide what it is?

I hope Aqua will still live next chapter and this message cannot be interpreted from this work, but I fear it.

[nguyenfinity]

Presenting EnSeason, a monthly release magazine featuring ES idols! This inaugural January issue is Trickstar following the announcement of their TRIP album :]

Image without text below the cut:

rendering got my ass on this one

[goldtealeaves]

please let them be okay