#it's fun to give him shit though

[hurlumerlu]

Just wanted to say I appreciate your Kant posts - not only do you catch moments that I think some others miss (e.g. his expression after he "enthusiastically" told Style they're unbeatable toward the end of ep 4 - that is not the face of a man who believes his own words!) but you also treat him with a little more grace and nuance than most (whilst still giving him an appropriate level of shit!). Trying not to be one of those ppl, but it does make me a little sad the way some seem happy to dismiss him as the villain of the piece - the writers did not lay down all those situational parallels tween the brothers and Kant just for us to woobify one whilst crucifying the other! Anyway, point is I'm enjoying what you're putting out there!

Very kind of you to take the time to send that ask, anon! I feel like what I'm putting out there is more "excited flailing around" than it is anything else. I love Kant a lot, and it doesn't surprise me at all: I've always loved liars and petty crooks, characters who would do anything for their siblings, characters stuck between a rock and a hard place - desesperately trying to wriggle free, characters the narrative keeps grinding down, and shameless flirts. I love that in almost any other story, Kant would be dead before the credits roll, but here he's gonna emerge at the end - maybe not unscathed, certainly not unscathed - but free and loved, and it's gonna be it's own kind of triumph. And I'm not the only one loving him! The person who made the post I reblogged about Kant believing he's unbeatable (or not) clearly loves him too, and was maybe the first person to write a long post defending him and pointing out that his motivations and Fadel's are very similar. There's also a number of gif makers and fic writers who obviously love him, or they would not spend so much time writing and giffing him. We may all have slightly different reads on him, but we do love him. *solemnly grabbing your shoulders* you're not alone, anon. I do think the audience's reluctance to love him is interesting, though. Would it be uncharitable to say some of it comes down to liking the signs of a healthy relationship more than the exploration of what would make one? Not that all fictional relationships should be healthy, of course, but I've seen a number of analyses disliking how messed up K & B's whole deal currently is (valid, we've simply got different taste) without really grappling with the fact that it would still be messed up if they were healthily dicussing boundaries F & S style. But also, like I said, it is probably an uncharitable way to look at it, and definitely simplifies views I don't really understand. I'm just happy to love him in my little corner. Here are a (x) few (x) posts (x) celebrating (x) him (x) just (x) because :)

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 317

IMAGINE THIS: Lil baby Damian, bored and being not quite old enough to start learning how to use proper weapons (curse these wooden ones, he wants true steel!) is wandering the base. This is not out of the ordinary, he’s the prince after all. What is out of the ordinary is that his shadow, his Akhi, is not here. 

Technically, he should be napping, but he woke up and neither his mother or his brother- who is quiet but gentle and isn’t a good speaker (mother said it was from a head injury)- is there. Which is how he finds his way to the Pit, which he’s not supposed to be at. Or at least not alone. 

But! His mother and Akhi are there! And- and Akhi is screaming and he’s never heard him scream like that, like he’s in agony- His eyes are green- they were blue, had, had Mother placed him in the Waters- 

And then the pool is bubbling- he should be running away, get assistance or something, he’s five, he shouldn’t be running towards it when everything is screaming to flee. But one moment he’s at the doorway, the next he’s clinging to his akhi as something writhes in the Pit, a mighty bellow echoing even as the Shadows take defensive positions. 

The water cascades, laps at their feet, splashes everywhere as a scaled form rises from the depths, wings like a bloodied sunset spreading as fur bursts into flames. Crimson eyes glare down at them all, pupils slits as they bare down at his Akhi. 

The creature- the dragon- dips its head down, its breath warm as it chuffs at his akhi, wings folding as though it is bowing. His akhi is clinging to Mother, shivering, several scars glowing as they fade and a burst of hair burned white. 

Oh. 

Oh.

@fairy-lights-and-blobs @f4nd0m-fun @hdgnj @radiance1 pspspspsps

[ruporas]

special operatives (silly interaction beneath read more)

[ID: Digital Art in color of Trigun Maximum, characters included are Wolfwood, Elendira, and Legato in a casual meeting situation. The piece consists of orangey yellow lighting and purple shadows. Wolfwood sits on the left side, facing Elendira who’s on the right. He’s seated on a plain wooden chair with one knee up and he’s holding the strap to his Punisher in his left hand while his right sits against his thigh, He has an irritated expression as he speaks to Elendira. Elendira is sitting in a fancier seat, her right arm rests against Wolfwood’s propped up knee, her left hand holds her suitcase. She’s sitting cross legged with an amused expression. Legato can be seen in the back at the center of the image in his mobile body case, one of his eyes shown to be glaring at Wolfwood. End ID]

[ID: Sketch, uncolored comic. Elendira says to Wolfwood, “I’m not telling you to dedicate yourself to him, but just accept the situation at hand. We could get along better if we were on the same page.” Wolfwood responds, “Don’t peg me me for an optimist. I’m not dumb. But, I’m also not going to just live in resignation. Plus, I don’t have any interest in getting along with ya.” Elendira coos, “Aw, you sure? I have a wonderful shoulder to cry on when the weak people you’re trying to protect eventually dies in the coming months. Though, I guess it’s fine. Someone like you might just die before then anyway...” She snickers in her hand while Wolfwood is speechless and just glares. Legato is faintly drawn in the back, glaring at Wolfwood, muttering “worthless” repetitively. End ID]

[tagarilaghost]

When you when you when you-

Silly nightmare guy! I think at least I started this drawing with that in mind. Kind of got carried away I guess-…

[gingermintpepper]

I saw it in your tag game post that you're also fond of the Apollo-Heracles conflict 👀 for a myth that appears in only a couple of sources, it sure has a lot of presence in the vase paintings (no seriously, everytime I think I've seen the last of it, I find ten more)

SO do you have any favorites among the paintings that represent this story??

OMG OMG THIS ASK IS A GIFT. IT IS A GIFT THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR LETTING ME TALK ABOUT THIS

I also think it's extremely interesting that it's a story so popularly portrayed by vase paintings and in such a variety of ways!! It's certainly one of the stories that gets left out of written compilation of Heracles' legend a bit (which is a shame, I think it's a fantastic story) but Apollo had a very peculiar relationship with Heracles in general that I just kind of find amazing (and very, very funny).

Apollo is not a god with any legitimate grudge against Heracles, but he does argue with the mortal a bit like he argues with his favourite brothers 😂Part of why I love the story of Apollo and Heracles fighting over the tripod so much is that it is such a little brother thing for Heracles to be upset with the proclamation his elder brother has given him and so, he throws a great fit, taking up the chair and declaring that he'll just give himself a better prophecy! And Apollo, instead of being a marginally professional big brother, decides to fight him for it until their father has to break up their cat-fight. Like was that not just the plot of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes? Is this not exactly how Apollo treated Hermes when he was a child and now those two are inseparable? ���

Because of this, my favourite vase paintings tend to be the ones that highlight the personal squabbling between Apollo and Heracles the most. There are some very elaborate ones that have the full host of them - Athena, Heracles, Apollo, Artemis, usually a dog and a doe, I've even seen a couple that had birds and plants etched on them, but the simplest ones that show Heracles about to bonk Apollo with his club out of frustration or depict Heracles nyooming away from Apollo while Apollo (presumably) yells curses about how he's going to fling Heracles head first into Tartarus for daring to take his things? Yeah, those are the premium big brother/little brother things I'm looking for.

(Photo. Marie-Lan Ngyuen)

(Photo. Museo Claudio Faina)

Also the one in the Theoi.com archives is a real classic - perfect energy.

[sudden-memory-loss]

I want to extend my deepest thanks to everyone who convinced me to watch doc. I understand why hermits think it's so fun to mess with him now

[seventh-district]

“Why’s he call you Darlin’?”

on my knees begging my brain to stop trying to associate this song with Sam

[loverboybrightsideghost]

one of my favorite clark headcanons that i have (that is completely unsupported by canon) is that he's transgender by kryptonian standards. martha and jon kent raised him as a boy and as he grew up he never had any reason to doubt it at all, he was like yeah i'm a boy, makes sense. and then he gets to the fortress of solitude for the first time and it turns out how Gender works on krypton was just Different enough that clark doesn't really fit the kryptonian standards of whatever he was supposed to be. bonus points because this makes him feel like even more of an outsider as a kryptonian, even if he's the last one left.

[lucabyte]

hits chrome with the had braces as a child beam. also hits him with the no they didnt fix shit tbh beam

[feroluce]

So I went to the wiki page for the henghill Bullet & Brain mission of 2.2 looking for some dialogue I had missed and

a) I found something incredibly tasty that slotted into some other thoughts I'd been having, more on that on another day, and

b) I saw this super fun little trivia at the bottom, which!

I knew Penacony characters like Boothill took a lot of inspirations from old movies, but I didn't realize it was even in his and Dan Heng's relationship, that's so cool!!

It fits them very well, it's such a fun reference. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" was an old buddy Western film (from 1969- nice) about a pair of outlaws. Butch Cassidy was the leader of a gang, and described as clever, affable, and talkative. Meanwhile, his closest companion, the Sundance Kid, was known as a man of few words.

Cassidy's original birth name was much more plain, but similar to Boothill, he took on a new moniker when he became an outlaw. "Cassidy" had been the last name of his beloved mentor, who taught him how to shoot and ride. And Sundance Kid was known as he was because Sundance was the name of his hometown, and it was the only place that had ever managed to catch and jail him, back when he'd been younger (also similar to Dan Heng, but ouch).

These two stick together like glue throughout the length of the film- through Cassidy's leadership of the gang being challenged, through a train robbery gone wrong, through being pursued by mercenaries, and even through fleeing to Bolivia and trying to start over together.

I don't want to say too much more, since the mission title is referencing one specific movie that I've never seen. I kinda wanna watch it now, though, just to see the inspiration that went into Boothill and Dan Heng and how they get along. I just think it's really sweet that these two were literally made to be the best of bros, how lovely is that. 💕

[beatcroc]

hi mecha, what would you do if you went to penacony

[starry-skies-writes]

When the possessed dude was leading Sol Regem towards Katolis why didnt Sol Regem question the length of his flight—?? Just flying in the clouds for probably, what, an hour??? Even though the sunfire elves must be a few minutes away???

[ambyandony]

every time I draw pannacotta fugo in sketches he’s always just holdin papers n shit 😭

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I wanna know ur Fontaine msq criticisms 👁️👁️👂I’m all ears

I'm not sure if you wanted me to talk about this secretly or publicly but! Here I go!

The TLDR: Fontaine MSQ aestheticised prison, poverty, child abuse, the justice system/court and didn't properly address any of it.

More:

Focalors/Furina has way too much of a sympathetic angle for a dictator who's lets people drown with her inaction.

Neuvillette feels Bad for sentencing some people to death/prison, but that's it. He's one of the most powerful people in Fontaine. If he felt like there are systemic injustices, I.E sending an abused Child to prison, he should be the first person to DO something about it, not just cry and be sad so the audience can be like aw, that's complex character writing isn't it? No it's not! And guilt doesn't absolve you!!!!!!! (These are stuff we deal with in OTCOJ read my fic now /j)

Meropide has children in it, both Sentenced there (Wriothesley) and BORN THERE (Lanoire), and this is just a quirk of the place. Not only that, Meropide accepts prisoners of all genders and crimes. There are abusers and abuse victims in one place. Do you know how bad that is? How much potential for crimes to happen in a place like that— oh wait, Meropide isn't under Fontaine's jurisdiction. If you are assaulted as an inmate it literally means nothing to the court.

Wriothesley had no qualifications when he took over. Depending on how long he lived on the streets, how old he was when he killed his parents, how old he was when he was first taken in by the orphanage, etc, the man might never have more than 4–5 years of formal education. Sigewinne probably had to teach him how to write reports. And do Meropide's spreadsheets. Edit because I forgot to elaborate on this one: This isn't a point brought up anywhere, which is bad, because when poverty and incarceration robs you of a proper education (and the rights to vote in many places too, too, by the way), it reduces your prospects for jobs, reduces many people's ability to get a home etc etc. Wriothesley was just, narratively, Given his position.

Meropide is an industrialized prison, and they portray this as a good thing. Prisoners are paid in coupons for their labour, and this is also portrayed as a good thing.

The One-Meal-A-Day reform was something Paimon gushed about being so great of a perk, that people might want to go to jail for food (could be interesting and reflective of systemic poverty if MHY had brains, but they don't, so I was just Pissed because essentially all Paimon wanted to say was "Prison isn't so bad, but still don't go to prison guys! Prison labour is really hard!"). By the way, in most real-world prisons they are obligated to feed you three meals a day. Because that's how much food a human needs. MHY went with one meal just so they can say "if you want to eat more, you have to work." And then the welfare meal is a goddamn gacha. So imagine you're a starving child who's too weak to work in the fucking robot assembly line, and you wander up for your first meal in 24 hours, only to luck in with a shit one. I'd kill myself.

They wrote Wriothesley, who's a victim of the system, into a guy who's say shit like "I'm the Duke I can do whatever I want" for a cool moment where he choke-slams an inmate (I know he was a bad guy. But also, in copaganda when cops are violent/disregarding protocols, they are always only portrayed to do that against bad guys, so what does our critical thinking tells us about this one?) They wrote Wriothesley, who was an inmate of a prison so bad, so notorious that it is the literal boogeyman of Fontaine, that has a legal (???) fighting pit, with an administrator who abuses his position to be unreasonable, to willingly stay in the place and become an Administrator who would choke-slam an inmate while saying a cool line about how he has the power to do whatever he wants. They wrote him, the guy who had to be fed on the streets by melusines, to think one-meal-a-day was a good enough reform (while he spends god-knows how much on his boat). This wasn't a victim-turns-into-abuser narrative either, they want all this to be seen as positive character growth.

And then, the final kicker is, they gloss over his entire abuse. You can only read about these shit in his profile, which most people don't because they don't Have Him or doesn't care to unlock it/read it online, and they jammed his entire backstory into a flaccid info-dump at the end of his character story quest. This man isn't Allowed to feel abused and neglected and show any reaction to it within the narrative of Fontaine itself, because if they actually Gave Weight to what happened to him, they'd have to confront THE FUCKING JUSTICE SYSTEM they had NO PLANS on criticising. I don't think they ever explicitly said the fucking Crime-Theatre nonsense was Bad either.

I could go on, but this is already so long. But yeah, I hope this gave you an idea.

[applestorms]

who do you think is smarter: l or light? without any sort of external help (supernatural forces, $$$)

L. ez. i actually already talked about this in my little ramble on intelligence in DN (in response to another ask) but to elaborate on those two in particular a bit more...

ok first of all, to reiterate: intelligence is a difficult thing to really Measure. not only could there be considered to be a lot of different areas/types of knowledge, but there's also a lot of different ways in which that understanding/informational backlog can be utilized or acted on. (plus the whole thing about how IQ tests only determine how good you are at doing IQ tests, etc. etc.)

that being said, i don't think we have to say that intelligence is entirely relative, or that there is absolutely no objective basis under which we can judge how smart someone is, particularly in the case of fictional characters. SO,

let's begin by setting up the parameter that "without external help," specifically refers to circumstances throughout the show itself, if only because it's a lot more complicated to try and figure out who light and L even are if they aren't connected to their canon backstories. this basically just means that they are beginning with whatever strengths/weaknesses they gained throughout childhood and their early teenage/adult years, like we're judging between who they were right at the start of the series pre-lind l. tailor and before they met.

of course, this means that immediately, L has an advantage over light purely by the fact that he is slightly older and has had more direct experience testing the limits of his knowledge through his detective work. while light has also seemed to receive a decently bougie education, he has not had a wealthy man looking over his shoulder to specifically give him everything he wants/needs to Develop His Mind-- he's top of his class, top of everyone in the country, but even that seems to not be particularly challenging to him. thus i don't think it's too out there to assume that light's logical reasoning/pure book & experience knowledge is somewhat stifled.

that being said, he does possess one distinct advantage over L, which is demonstrated quite extensively throughout the show-- his ability to manipulate and understand people. because L is catered to so specifically in such an isolated environment, he never quite gets the chance to have to Live Around People in the same way that light does, meaning that he is a lot less inclined to have the same kind of Instinctive Knowledge as light about how to mask his emotions or fit in with a group. also, the autism. his approach is kinda just to (white) lie a lot-- you could perhaps view this as L being able to understand other people and their motivations/emotions/etc. in the context of a kind of detective case/puzzle, but not quite knowing or realizing the importance of covering his own ass, in the way that light does. the closest he gets with this is when he pretends to be a misa fan right before yotsuba, but even then that's a pretty minor case and clearly planned to some degree beforehand.

thus: L's strengths are in his logical reasoning and ability to puzzle out all the pieces together, pay attention to minute details in evidence, and understand people in terms of base motivations and personality, particularly with regards to crime. his weaknesses are in his ability to understand people in the moment, particularly the ways in which his own actions/presence may influence them in minor ways outside of his few intentional moments of manipulation.

light's strengths are in his ability to respond in the moment (so long as his temper doesn't get to him first), to manipulate people and mask himself so thoroughly n so regularly that he can be under surveillance 24/7 and still manage to murder a few people in secret while keeping up the Sweet, Dedicated Boy Persona in the privacy of his own bedroom, and also his Pure Dedication when it comes to sticking with one plan (KIRA), especially when his own emotions/view of himself is at stake. his weakness is in his ego/reliance on people due to his need to be Seen as someone good and just, as well as his logical reasoning, which really isn't quite up to par with L.

i think people sometimes forget that in the case of both light and beyond, their ability to "reason out" the logic of these cases is specifically because they are the ones perpetrating them, and planning them out in advance. L trips light up time and time again because L is able to think through the evidence more cleanly and consider more potential paths than light, who is always biased towards his own reasoning/justification by nature of the fact that he was the one who came up with the damn plans in the first place.

throughout the series, again and again, light fails to account for the multitude of ways in which people catch on to him-- it's part of the reason why his getting naomi is such a significant moment, because it really was Pure Chance that he stumbled across her right at the time that he did. he simply didn't account for the possibility that raye may actually have close family and loved ones he would talk about his work with, much less someone intelligent enough to put the pieces together about KIRA, despite the fact that he specifically threatens raye about a loved on in the first place. idiot lmfao

in the case of the anime specifically, i'd also like to add that i think L is a bit more emotionally intelligence/mature than light, to some degree, or at the very least has more of handle on or acceptance of his own emotions (and fucked-up-ness). both are pretty childish and self-centered, yes, spoiled little brats in their own particular ways-- but, particularly as demonstrated in the rain scene, L seems to both know what he is and Accept the extent to which his morals are actually quite gray in a way that light just. can't. part of this may be due to L's lack of connection to other people, that he doesn't hold himself to their standards quite so highly, though part of it may also just be again that L is a bit older and therefore less in the throes of teenage Image angst or whatever.

additionally: if you would really like to even out the playing field, and consider 24 year old L versus 24 year old light... honestly i still think L wins LMFAO.

i've mentioned this before, but light post-time skip really isn't all that inventive with the Sick New Schemes he comes up with. honestly, a lot of what he ends up doing in the latter half of the series is exactly the same as his plots throughout the first half, just with slightly different pieces in place. he uses takada and mikami in place of misa in some cases while still refusing to get the eyes (even his father at one point), he switches the notebooks around a whole bunch to ensure he isn't caught due to the lifespan/DN owner thing, he fights a couple snarky geniuses whose names he Desperately wants to find out for a truly stupid amount of time... really, post-timeskip light comes across as very high-functioning depression to me in this half of the series, to some degree going on autopilot with the plans that he Knows will work because he's sunk cost fallacy too hard to give up on KIRA now, despite the fact that his heart really isn't into it as much by this point. kinda like L during yotsuba, though their reactions are quite different, with L going the opposite way to intentionally drop all his shit and give up to the annoyance of everyone around him cuz he's salty that his "intellectual partner" or serial killer boytoy or whatever has disappeared now.

so... yeah. i really do think L is just a bit smarter. light is certainly intelligent, yeah, he can keep up with L just fine throughout the series, but he also uses his intelligence in really fucking stupid ways sometimes (coughcough using his Stunning Reasoning to logic himself into a corner where he has to keep killing people to be a good person. make it make sense, yagami) and is much more heavily influenced by his emotions and Especially his temper and ego.

[buff-muffin]

Travelling Luffy modern AU:

A modern AU where when Luffy met Shanks as a kid he and his mates were living in a van travelling the country probably as some form of criminal but no one in the sleepy village of Foosha knew him. And it inspired Luffy to travel when he grew up. So after high school Luffy picks up random jobs saving money for himself and others to travel going on these grand trips over seas and when he gets back squats at a new friends place and finds a new shitty job to save money and does it all again. He tries to get all his friends to travel with him though it doesn’t always work out so it’s usually two or three of them.

And even in completely different countries Luffy just has a way of befriending the locals finding the best restaurants and activities and even making genuine friends who he is still pen pals with years later. So many times the craziest things have happened to him but Luffy never takes photos on his journey so Nami and the other Strawhats had made it their mission to document every bullshit lucky occasion because no one will believe him otherwise.

His car broke down? Yeah turns out the mayor of the city found them and helped them out. Now they regularly share animal pics. The random old man he befriended in a big city? Yeah turns out he’s actually one of shank’s dads and a criminal and while though retired is still conning a casino for their money and running from the government. The tall rando he fought at a restaurant before both of them decided to just eat and chill? Turns out his mother is one of the biggest gang leaders in the country and he is her right hand man.

Ace also travels but never as frequently as Luffy does now. He’s seen the big places and heard plenty of stories from his friends (the white beards) but is pretty happy in the city. So it’s always a pleasant surprise when the random stranger Luffy befriended happens to know is big brother.

It’s even funnier if you imagine that’s how Luffy meets the grandline strawhats. Like Robin was an exchange student staying overseas, he befriended and greeted her when she returned home. Chopper was graduating high school in a sleepy snow town and because of Luffy decided to head to the university local to him to become a doctor. Franky was actually a professional mechanic and after talking and a lot of pushing decided to make a better name for himself in Luffy’s town for a fresh start. Brook was an old professional singer who was stuck over seas they randomly found and decided to help out, renewing his passport finding his birth certificate ect. He now performs at bars and is working on a solo career. Jimbe was travelling for his own kind of work though after a few encounters with Ace and then Luffy, he found himself so charmed and in need to settle a little, chose to become a teacher at the local university.

The one time Luffy flew by himself because none of his friends could make time he ended up having to stay over seas for two years due to issues with his visa. By some fucking miracle Rayleigh was there and ended up looking after the kid helping him with his piss poor education, inability to hold a stable job and his own house. Luffy came home to the biggest party ever and while most of his friends graduated he started taking online courses while travelling got a share apartment with Zoro and started really cleaning up his resume and not quitting his fucking job every time he traveled.

Luffy just has the travel bug and a need for adventure and has taken all of the east blue gang with him multiple times on these adventures. Something always goes wrong but works out in the best ways.