#not talking about an entire series

[blurrilines]

All I’m gonna say to anyone who claims to like Bernard or Timber is the very second we see them again or even just Bernard, you’d all better be buying the Fucking Issue

[ghostslazy]

Extremely rough first stab at the Taz Vs. Dracula lineup bc I love them all so so much already and don’t have the time to finish a lineup of characters for fun rn 🥲

Close up sketches, design notes and surprise drac under the break:

Travis’ characters are always the hardest for me to design idk why, but I made him very western inspired with some vampire hunting flair. Lady Agatha Thistle’s breed was one I hadn’t heard of before but I love a good blood hound. I always end up making Travis’s chapters warm toned, they’re all very red/orange coded to me. (Beef would be the exception I think he’s very pink and blue in my mind)

Clint always makes the sweetest roundest characters I love designing his. I wish we had a cannon spelling because there’s so many directions you can go with “Filo” also his characters are usually green or green adjacent to me. I cant wait to see him bust out more booger potions

Justin never misses with a character and I cling onto every single one he makes so quickly and violently it’s getting embarrassing. I like the idea that she would still dress extremely fancy and posh even tho her new body should be in some battle ready armor. Also I made her blue since she is a Frankenstein’s monster and most likely wouldn’t have the blood flow to have a human color. Plus I love the monster high color palettes so I’m referencing a little bit. Justin has very cool coded characters to me, lots of blue and purple and forest greens.

Probably not sticking with this Dracula design but I want him to love a bit more silly and slick, I think having him be lanky and shorter will pair him very well against our rough and rowdy boys

[blossoms-phan]

thinking about what it means to be chained together, work, life and social, to quite literally be beside each other in life and… still make the confirmation that phil is indeed the funniest person he knows sound like the most earnest and sincere thing in the entire world? to spend so many of your days and years together now, with evidence of all those smiles and laughter written all over your face. something about the simplicity of these questions, timeless ones but untainted by social media or meme speak, leaning fully into the girly sleepover night energy but also just… answering so honestly, in a way that’s funny and charming and completely them but walls down. thinking about them trying to make dil and tabitha best friends and being disappointed when that reduced their romance level. thinking about “i think 14-year-old dan and phil would have been friends”, about more than just romantic, about i didn’t have a best friend for the first 18 years of my life, real best friends. their friendship is so important real lovers are friends first etc etc

[aroaceleovaldez]

reminder that the only reason the "ADHD is actually demigod BATTLE STRATEGIES" and "dyslexia is DEMIGOD BRAINS HARDWIRED FOR ANCIENT GREEK" things exist in the PJO universe is because it's a very direct reference to early 2000s teaching/parenting techniques for neurodiverse and disabled children, which aimed to frame childrens' disabilities and hardships as a "superpower" or strength so that the children would feel more positively about their disabilities or situations. This technique has fallen out of favor since then for the most part since more often than not it just results in kids feeling as though their struggles are not being seen or taken seriously.

Yes, demigods are adhd/dyslexic (and sometimes autistic-coded) in the series. This is extremely important and trying to remove it or not acknowledge it makes the entire series fall apart because it is such a core concept. Yes, canon claims that their adhd/dyslexia is tied to some innate abilities, which is based on an outdated methodology. It's important to acknowledge that and understand where it comes from! But please stop trying to apply it to other pantheons in the series like "oh, the romans have dyscalculia because of roman numerals!" or "the norse demigods have dysgraphia for reasons!" - it's distasteful at best.

A better option is to acknowledge the meta inspiration for why that exists in the series, such as explaining potentially that Chiron was utilizing that same teaching methodology to try and help demigods feel more comfortable with their disabilities and they aren't literal powers. In fact, especially given Frank, there's implication that being adhd/dyslexic isn't a guaranteed demigod trait, which means it's more likely to be normally inherited from their godly parent/divine ancestor as a general trait, not a power, and further supports the whole "ADHD is battle strategy" thing being non-literal. It also implies the entire greco-roman pantheon in their universe is canonically adhd/dyslexic - and that actually fits very well with the themes of the first series. The entire central conflict of the first series fits perfectly as an allegory about neurodiverse/disabled children and their relationships with their undiagnosed neurodiverse/disabled parents and trying to find solutions together with their shared disability/disabilities that the kid inherited instead of becoming distant from each other (and this makes claiming equivalent to getting a diagnosis which is a fascinating allegory! not to mention the symbolism of demigods inheriting legacies and legends and powers from their parents and everything that comes with that being equivalent to inheriting traits, neurodiversity, and disabilities from your parents).

anyways neurodiversity and disability and the contexts in which the series utilizes representation of those experiences particularly during the 2000s symbolically within the narrative is incredibly important to the first series and the understanding of what themes it means to represent. also if i see one more "the romans have dyscalculia instead of dyslexia" post in 2023 i'm gonna walk into the ocean.

[demigods-posts]

i really think the fandom kind of glosses over the trauma annabeth endured in ttc. like, the poor girl fell off the side of a cliff, was manipulated into holding the literal weight of the sky on her shoulders for hours, and (if i remember correctly) was tied up at one point. but this is all we can be certain happened because that's all of what percy saw. but what about what we didn't see? the poor girl probably spent the first few days immobilized and in so much physical pain once artemis took the sky from her. she was probably starved, or at the very least, not getting the amount of food and water she needed consistently. she probably spent most of her nights in an endless cycle of torment knowing that her friends were coming for her, but not knowing how long it would take them to find her. she probably quietly cried herself to sleep knowing the reason she was even in this mess was because of luke. i could go on and on, but you get my point.

[wotchernewt]

i think the most interesting thing about wild life so far is how textually, canonically, Explicitly Stated Within The Episodes And Therefore Admissible As Canon Lore, grian is in control of this one. like you can go around writing angst about the rest of the life series being The Watchers tormenting everyone but this time it's unambiguously grian responsible for the torment. he knows all the wild cards in advance because he designed them, and he has the power and authority to stop them in their tracks if he decides they've gone too far. i want fifteen fics about this on my desk by this evening.

[lotus-pear]

rewatched madoka magica again today bc i fucking hate myself and to absolutely no one’s surprise i went through all five stages of grief in a single evening

[sibylsleaves]

I still think it’s so funny that they did that whole Josh “do you think about him when he’s not around are his concerns your concerns is his happiness at least as important to you as yours” speech when they literally showed. zero indication of any of that being true

[xinilia]

the great thing about hua cheng’s devotion is I straight up cannot get enough of it. I will reread fics hundreds of times just to hear him describe the sheer depth of the adoration he feels for xie lian. it’s therapeutic to hear about how much love someone can be capable of

[the-bat-bros]

Playing Arkham Knight and giggling - swinging my feet every time Bruce is like “I wOnDeR wHo ThE aRkHaM kNiGhT cOuLd Be!?”

[desultory-novice]

Do you think Galacta Knight's horns are real or part of his mask?

...Oh wow. This ask floored me, anon, because personally I've always believed they were a part of his mask and not real horns and yet, I have almost never found anyone who agreed, let alone would even entertain the possibility they were just decorative...!

It just always made the most sense to me...?

Like, that kind of thing is VERY standard for medieval helmets - animal, insect, and demonic motifs to be an intimidating figure on the battlefield, that is. Both realistic and exaggerated depictions.

(Also, the game IS developed in Japan by a Japanese studio and it would not be at all weird for them to draw inspiration from samurai helmets for his mask design.)

We KNOW Meta Knight, at least, is shy to show his true face, so why would another puff not do the same thing and try to look fiercer than his face suggests? Especially if his only inborn distinctive trait is having angel wings, a symbol of peace and benevolence?

(I also believe, aesthetically, that having the only physical difference between Galacta Knight and Meta Knight outside of their opposing colors being MK's devil wings and GK's angel wings - as opposed to devil wings v angel wings AND horns - makes them MUCH better parallels to each other? Adding real horns in just muddies it.)

Also, imo, in every render and model of him, the "horns" are too closely modeled into the helmet to have room to feasibly grow out from his head! Just saying, but that would be a ridiculously uncomfortable design to wear in RL, constantly rubbing and chaffing against his horns, preventing it from moving and "breathing" with his face while not providing any form of protection for them either!!

They're also made of the same golden color AND texture as the ornamentation of his shield. I know I'm going against fandom popular opinion here, but that also tells me they are ORNAMENTAL.

While ornamental horns just seem the most logical to me for species, character, historical, and design reasons, it's pretty obvious that aesthetically and interest-wise, non-ornamental horns have a complete stranglehold have won out in the fandom.

I have seen innumerable asks questioning + folks speculating via art and other mediums, "What horns do you think Kirby will develop when he grows up?" Most people go to great efforts to research, dream up, or uncover the appropriate "head attachments" for their puffs when designing Kirby OCs to "fit" their interpretation of Galacta + what a mature member of Kirby's species simply MUST look like.

Quite simply, Galacta having horns clearly stirs folks imaginations(1) more than a dark pink puff with angel wings who wants to represent themselves as a fierce demon on the battlefield.

...Even though Galacta Knight making a conscious choice to contrast their angelic visage with demon horns whenever they are in battle says a lot of fascinating things and makes them a more interesting and nuanced character to investigate, in my opinion.

--

(1) While I think it's more fascinating if he doesn't have them, I would be remiss to ignore the issue that, in a lineup, it provides Galacta Knight some much needed visual diversity from the others. It makes his gijinka and unmasked form instantly more recognizable than they would be otherwise.

Real horns have more appeal for the same reason many folks (and I am guilty of this) give Dark Meta Knight a scar on his eye under his mask, even though realistically, him taking that kind of injury is practically impossible. (That's what the mask is there FOR lol!)

[absolutebl]

It is WILD to me that GMMTV is fielding OffGun AND TayNew in the same quarter

That Last Twilight is airing AS WELL

That they optioned 3 JBLs

That The Sign is up there licking kicking ass and taking names (and Saint is behind it!)

That there's a high heat omegaverse BL staring Pavel

That there are 20 BLs airing right now and none of them Korean.

With 5 VAMPIRE BLs announced for next year

Thailand legit looked at 2023 and thought "yeah but we could make it worse better weirder"

[sunsetovertheocean]

I feel like sibling and platonic relationships don’t get talked enough, especially in relation to romantic relationships in fandoms.

Like cool, I love these ship, but can we PLEASE discuss the fact that Dean is the only person who has never lied to Lia? How he is the only person she will listen to, because he’s the only person she trusts? How Dean was the one person who prevented her from feeling trapped all the time? How Dean was the only person Lia ever let know and get close to the real her? How they were the only constants (besides Judd love him too) in each other’s lives for years in their childhood? The way he knows her and she knows him? She knows how to comfort him and distract him and get him to feel things and tried to help him with his father by looking through his father's file, ignoring her own feelings about it because she just wanted to help him only to find out that she can’t help. (Just think for a moment how she must have felt when she realized that. Because this genuinely breaks my heart.) The fact that they are intensely protective of each other, the way they have conversations without talking just by looking at each other, the way Dean trusts her and Lia trusts him, how they are literally siblings.

And this is going into kind of headcanon-y territory, but I like to believe that Dean didn’t ask Lia any questions about her past and waited for her to tell him herself, and refrained from profiling her (too much at least), and truly didn’t/doesn’t know anything about her past that she didn’t/doesn’t tell him. And how Dean told him things about his past he hadn’t told anyone before, not just to get her to trust him, but also because he trusted her. Just think for a moment please, how Lia, a girl who has been lied to and hurt and threatened and abused by every single person in her life, would feel about meeting someone who didn’t do any of that. Who never even lied to her, not once. For every lie she told him, Dean only ever told her the truth. Dean didn’t blame her for anything, for any part of what she went through. How confused she must have been, finding out that not everyone was like that. How hurt she must have been when she realized that what happened in her past, her childhood, was so much worse than she thought. Because before she thought that everyone was like that and it was normal, but meeting Dean who was entirely fundamentally different in every single way, showed her that it wasn’t. Think about how Dean must have felt, meeting a girl so defensive and closed off. How meeting her awakened a side of him he didn’t think he had, the side that felt and loved and trusted and the side that felt the inexplicable need to protect that girl.

And the fact that to protect her, Dean turns the attention on himself and his past, which he hates, just so Lia doesn’t have to face questions about her own past. Lia would go through hell for him, and he would do the same for her.

Think about how before, all of Lia’s love had essentially been very idk submissive almost, like how she followed her mother and what her mother told her. I think she truly believed at some point that her mother was safe to trust. And then, well, we all know what happened and how her mother is actually evil and— Anyway, after her mother, the only person she trusted in her childhood before, completely shattered and destroyed all senses of trust in others, she lets herself trust and love this boy who trusts and loves her. And this love is fierce and protective, infinitely intense and powerful. The kind of love that can destroy worlds and build new ones, defying all logic and all boundaries. The opposite of what her love had been previously. And think about how much she had to have trusted him to let herself love like that.

Also think about how hurt Lia must have been when Dean shut her out. She trusted him with her whole being, she loved him and she saw them as a unit regardless of what happened and what other people entered and left their lives. They would always be with each other. Dean had never shut her out before, and Dean shut her out too. That hurts my soul way too much for it to be healthy. (I am choosing to believe that they had a conversation afterwards and then they both proceeded to cry and it never happened again yay happy ending tbh considering writing that bc I don't think I will survive if it doesn't end happily like that)

And Dean!! He’s lived his entire life terrified of feeling, terrified of becoming his father. He was living in a house alone with Judd and profiling killers which definitely perpetuated his fear, and then here came this girl whom he could protect. A girl he wouldn’t let himself hurt, a girl he could help for once and not mess it all up. And he didn’t mess it up. He saw how hurt she was, and how little she was willing to admit the truth to. And in that, he saw someone he could understand. He saw someone who he could profile for a good reason, but only profile enough to be able to get her to trust him and not enough to violate her privacy and that trust. He let himself get close to someone for the first time in his life. And for the first time in his life, he wasn’t a monster. Lia didn’t see him as a monster.

Because of their past and childhood, Dean didn’t trust himself and Lia only trusted herself and no one else. But meeting and loving each other? It taught Dean he can trust himself not to hurt someone. And it taught Lia that she can trust someone who won’t hurt her.

Maybe it’s because of the amatocentric world being way too focused on romantic relationships, but why aren’t we talking about this more??

[celestriix]

thinking about klavier gavin again because i saw someone say that the fact that he's the only prosecutor in the series who wants to find the truth and isn't insanely obsessed with winning like the other prosecutors makes him really boring

and i understand it to some extent when comparing him to other prosecutors but... Klavier Gavin??? BORING????

after playing aa4 i was OBSESSED with klavier gavin and the untouched potential of this guy

he loses his best friend/bandmate, his brother AND his mentor in the span of like a year?? i think??? which is INSANE.

there's something very tragic about klavier, a person who values finding the truth above all else, finding out that two of the people closest to him betrayed his trust and lied to him and used him for their own means AND ARE MURDERERS.

and then his mentor, a person who taught that seeking the truth is what a lawyer should do, gets murdered by a person who believes that winning in trials is the most important thing above all else WHICH IS THE SAME EXACT THING THAT KRISTOPH VALUED AS WELL !!!

this core belief of finding out the truth that klavier has, leads him to finding out about the things that daryan and kristoph did, and even though they are important to him, people he CARES about, he continues to work with apollo to see that justice is served.

and the fact that we don't get to see anything of klavier getting any closure after the events of aa4 makes me insane

we never get to see much of klavier's feelings on what happened or him fully processing the events of aa4 and that one case in aa5 and it makes me soooo upset. i wish he got more than that little cameo in aa5 and that one tiny flashback appearance in aa6.

in an alternate universe, aa4 got a true sequel that fully explored klavier's character, as well as phoenix's, klavier's, AND apollo's relationship with kristoph, and klavier's relationship with phoenix post-aa4, and also a more thought out? (for the lack of a better word) backstory for apollo, and an exploration of the jury system, and a game that ACTUALLY built upon the foundation that aa4 laid out.

and i am forever upset that we are not in that alternate universe.

[hyakunana]

Encounter V — Reverse Boost

+

[secriden]

I genuinely feel like I'm losing my mind about the opening scene in THK's Episode 6. Like, look at them, just look at them!!!?

Style is all playful, anticipatory defiance at first. He's just teased Fadel about falling for his "overdramatic" antics and has been shoved back onto the bed to wait with bated breath for Fadel's response.

And rather than getting annoyed, Fadel teases him right back, takes on that same flirtatious tone and actually escalates things. This is Fadel not merely appreciating the way Style is -- the way he never quits, and the way he is always eager for more -- but welcoming it and responding in kind.

Style's gaze goes half-lidded, already tipsy-drunk on the thrumming energy between them. I won't screenshot the whole exchange, but Fadel continues the metaphor, talks about the importance of exercise, of building up stronger muscles, and Style's eyes throughout are glinting in delighted amusement.

Fadel has learned to speak the same language that Style does. This goes beyond a knowledge of mutual desire and attraction, this is them falling into patterns of communication that celebrates who Style is as a person. Fadel has come so far from the man who rolled his eyes in annoyance at Style's obnoxious flirting. Fadel would never have spoken this way before he knew Style, but here he is playing Style own game brilliantly.

Style teases Fadel more, plays coy and innocent like they don't both know this is about sex and the natural progression of the metaphorical glove Style threw first. He wants to see how far Fadel will take this, wants to see if Fadel is going to back off or if he'll really see it through.

But Fadel doesn't crack, doesn't change the topic or dismiss the moment. Instead, he turns earnest and, I think, slightly catches Style by surprise here. The words he says are still in line with the metaphor, but Fadel's eyes run over Style's face like he's taking in each precious feature and his tone is all whisper soft and warm; it’s sweetly affectionate in a way that suddenly makes this flirtatious moment feel tender and fond and soft.

And the words themselves: “you need to exercise daily" -- an unspoken commitment, the domesticity of it all, the implicit acknowledgement of belonging. The suggestion of a permanent future with Style.

God I wish I could gif this specific 1-2 seconds so badly. I don't even have the right words to describe what's going on?? It's the way Style's eyes turn molten with intent, the way he ever so slightly tips his head upwards towards Fadel, the way something about his expression is suddenly broadcasting desire for Fadel to reach out and take.

So Fadel does, but the way he does is just so delicate?? He touches his lips to Style's almost like a prayer, gaze locked to Style's before both their eyes fall shut into the kiss. This moment is so exquisitely fragile, threaded through with this sense of something like wonder.

Fadel presses his lips down, first to Style's lips and then his cheek and the vulnerable bared column of his neck; slowly draws himself closer and closer until he has his whole weight pinning Style down, skin to sun-warmed skin (and heart to heart).

And Style welcomes every moment of it; tilts his head to give Fadel more access to his neck, runs his hand up along Fadel's back to cradle his head and pull him closer as he lets Fadel settle himself more firmly between his legs because he just can't get enough.

This scene is less than 30 seconds long, but there's something about it that makes me feel insane. It didn't have any of the heated passion and ferocity of so many of their other scenes, but there was something just so tender and lovely and soft and calm and sweet about this.

I'm just-- gonna-- *buries my face into a pillow and sCREAMS*