#rather telling i think

[maximura]

[eydilily]

would you bite the hand that feeds you?

[0vergrowngraveyard]

bromtherss

[im-here-homie]

a happy audience is the key to the academy's heart

shadow milk design by @catxolotlquoise

[ruegarding]

one thing abt thalia and percy's dynamic that is often overlooked is that percy was punished for the same things thalia was rewarded for. there's a prophecy abt one of the big three kids? percy is treated like a liar and thief and ppl refuse to talk to him. thalia? everyone respects her (including gods!) and assumes she'll do a great job saving the world. thalia is accepted immediately at camp and threatens the place percy spent two years proving he deserves. percy wants to go on a quest to save his friend? he's an attention seeker and glory stealer. thalia? well, she's the obvious choice. thalia comes up w a plan to win capture the flag that's basically "leave everything to me" and percy comes up with a plan that's basically "if you see a good opportunity, go for it," but percy is viewed as the control freak.

what i'm saying is percy had every reason to resent thalia and he didn't. he chose not to. and thalia had every reason to look down on percy and didn't.

even when they were fighting, i never saw it as a power struggle. they were being pit against each other, and instead of doing what everyone expected them to (kronos was fully expecting thalia to kill percy), they chose to love and respect each other. because they're not their parents. they're just two kids who started cracking under the pressure but refused to break.

[dykedvonte]

I think about the fact Anya locking herself in the infirmary with Curly to kill herself and how it is in way reclaiming a space that was initially hers from Jimmy.

Not to mention how she must've been aware of Jimmy's obsession with Curly and the idea that he would lose his power over the both of them (based on the fact she likely thought they would never get the door open) and having to face the responsibility of two deaths being on his hands as acting captain.

It was her final act of agency stuck on that ship with her abuser and it says something that she chose to die next to Curly, despite his inaction, leaned against him as if they were just in a casual conversation before her death. Despite everything, Anya made the final decision on her own terms and it speaks volumes considering her treatment and demeanor up until that point.

[miss-americanbi]

lowkey ford had a point getting a metal plate installed on his skull to keep an ex out of his mind

[doctorsiren]

Day 21 of Sirentober / Doctober

Prophecy / Face

Silly Ford! She wasn’t talking about you!

Available as a print on my Etsy Shop

[inkskinned]

she says he won't let her get a dog, which is fine, because they're in an apartment, and that's the kind of thing people say about their partners. he won't let me get a dog. and you're at a dinner party and you tilt your head a little to the side just like that dog he won't let her get, because is this the thing that's going to upset you? you don't know every corner of their relationship, she could be joking, they could have had so many healthy conversations about the dog, right, and maybe she's not letting herself get the dog because of money and time and whatever. but, like, she did say let

and she wants to move away from his hometown and he wants to stay and then he tells you with a wink and a conspiratorial stage whisper don't worry i'll convince her and she laughs about it - so clearly this is something they laugh about. but you do just stand there and stare at him like what the fuck, man. you can't say what you want to say which is why do you get the final say on everything because they're both obviously aware of the other person's stance on this and have obviously had private conversations about it and what are you going to do about it except make a scene and then he'll be mad at you and call you one of those bitches behind your back and she'll cut you off, which is a loss that doesn't feel worth it just because he makes you a little skeeved out every 3rd comment

and they both agree he just isn't the type to get flowers which is fine because everyone shows love differently, and are you really gonna judge someone based on their sense of individual relationship responsibility? maybe he's constantly cleaning her car and writing her poems and making her furniture or something. maybe she doesn't even like flowers and this is perfect, actually. and no you couldn't date him, obviously, ew; but like, she tells you she's happy. you almost send her a tiktok that says don't be 25 and the cool girl that doesn't need anything, you'll hate not getting flowers at 30, but that's like, starting drama & you shouldn't start drama needlessly.

and you're a little older than her but not so much older you can pull the whole trust me on this one babe thing and besides that wouldn't have worked anyway (when does it ever) and besides you have trauma so you and your therapist both agree that you're always looking for a problem even when there isn't one. and you tell yourself that just because you see them for 15 minutes every month does not mean you can identify every single red flag based on a single shitty half-joking(?) comment

and besides, what are you going to do? she says i actually wanted another stand mixer but thankfully he stops me when i'm about to spend too much money and you're standing there like are you okay? is this normal? is this just something people say? and again - what are you going to do?

to your therapist you try to language it - it's not, like, any of my business. but sometimes, doesn't it feel like - you should do something. there's got to be something, right? you've tried dropping little hints but they sail right through and you've tried having a single serious conversation and she got upset because why does it matter to you, yes it's different but we're happy, it doesn't need to make sense to you and you're like. really unwilling to push a boundary about it anymore; because the truth is that you know logically it shouldn't matter to you, as long as both parties are happy.

and besides, you've been wrong before. it's just... like, every time you see them both, something else happens, some kind of shiver down your spine like do you even hear each other when you talk. it's their strange, bickering orbit. just the way he's on his phone through dinner or watching sports instead of helping in the kitchen or, fuck, another one of these little throwaway comments he makes about we'll see about that, babe. she laughs when he calls her passions stupid shit and meanwhile she gets him tickets to see the knicks and he tells you well at least she's smart about something and still! it's none of your business.

you say get the dog anyway and she laughs. like, this is is you being funny. and not you saying - no really. get the dog. get the dog and get out of here. pack up and start running.

[mollysunder]

The thing I never got about the fan reaction to Mel and Jayce's relationship (in general) is that people were incensed on Jayce's behalf that Mel used him for political gain, but like... that's what happens when the government sponsors your research. Obviously the funding mechanisms aren't the same because Piltover is an oligarchy where civic functions such as the Enforcers and even Zaun's ventilation system are privately funded instead of through a common pool of taxpayer money, but the purpose is the same, which is to benefit from the conclusions drawn from the results of the research.

I don't understand how anyone in the audience could be shocked or angry that when Mel, a high ranking representative of Piltover’s government, chose to invest in hextech it wasn't clear that she and Piltover would benefit. And it's not like this foreign concept to Jayce, he was originally being SPONSORED by the Kirammans', which is almost the same relationship except it's more explicitly private to the Kirammans' benefit, but I didn't see any pitchforks out for Tobias and Cassandra.

It's just such a double whammy headache to end up reading posts where Mel is hypervillainized while Jayce is practically infantilized because as an adult man in his 30s he simply can't understand complex relationships or make his own decisions. The way some fans have been offended on Jayce's behalf straight up erases any agency or even intelligence he has.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Shout out to all artists who had to work without any strong direction or instruction.

I wish you a merry “the client likes it anyways”

[enemui]

If I was Cait, I would've simply hauled Vi to a private room with a bed, urgency and desperation and yearning be damned. I could be a privileged piece of shit with a history of violence against the impoverished innocents, but I'd still draw the line at having my first intimate encounter with my girlfriend, who was in prison since she was a kid (and I know this cause I was the one who bailed her out, even if it was for my own benefit), in a fucking jail cell (that her sister was locked in less than an hour ago!!!).

[frobby]

This is a really specific post but i just wanna talk about how much i like a specific design detail of ichi's witch outfit: the fur pelt

Obvi the fur pelt is there cuz ichi is fucking crazy and loves hunting (it was present on his metaphorical normal uniform too) but i love its function in the silhouette. Usually magical girls have a big dress or big hair giving them a powerful vibe. Not ALL magical girls obvi but more contemporary ones

Heres the cast of wonderful precure for an example. Big hair big dress big personality. But usually magical boys lose that and are kinda stuck being the sleak variety cuz they have no big hair and no big dress

Heres pretty cure dancing stars (the anime poster for consistency) theres an effort to make their silhouette bigger with capes but its still typicially smaller than magical girls

Also heres tokyo mew mew au lait even tho the tokyo mew mew magical girl outfits were always in the sleeker variety more of a sailor moon than a smile precure.

Theres nothing bad with that but i think its good for magical boys to have options rather than only being 1 style of typical magical girl which usually makes them their outfits feel all samey cuz the silhouettes have the same basic shape.

Okay back to ichi

This is why the fur pelt is so cool cuz it bridges that design gap while also seemlessly conforming to who he is a character

I can see here its not stationary either. It moves as tho hair would were it magical girl hair.

i think its just a really neat design choice i wanted to highlight

Also i love that its red i feel like we never get red and black magical girls or boys and it really shows off his bloodlust

[euzede]

(part 1)

"HeLLo HoBsIE."

"... Robin?"

"YeAh, y0U'vE bEeN CalLing mE tHaT... bUt tHaT's NoT mY NAmE. IF YoU wAnt, i CaN sHoW H1m to ¥oU..."

"N-no. Please, Del."

"SorRy."

"Is Dream here? Can I see him?"

"i SuPpOsE yOU c0uLd. YoU WOuLd. buT DReAm iS. aNGrY. fURIoUs. SaD. WoRr13D. sC4rEd."

[howtodrawyourdragon]

Does Berk think Hiccup is frivolous in Httyd 1? Maybe a little bit aloof?

Stoick tells him to stop joking around in the opening scene of the movie, after the dagons have left. "This isn't a joke, Hiccup!" He tells him. And he tells him that after his rant about how he has things to worry about, like making sure the village doesn't starve in the coming winter, Hiccup answers to with a sassy "the village could do with a little less feeding, don't you think?" Which really only manages to make Stoick even more mad.

After their first lesson in dragon training, Gobber asks the class "where did Hiccup go wrong?" and Astrid's response is "he's never where he should be." I think she means it literally. Why is Hiccup, of all people, in dragon training? Ruffnut and Tuffnut make sense. Snotlout makes sense. Even Fishlegs makes sense. (especially since Fishlegs has already shown effort by memorizing the Book of Dragons, effort Astrid clearly approves of given her shock at the twins and Snotlout disregarding Gobber's order to read the book.)

But Hiccup? Hiccup McSassyPants? Who gets told that his village could starve in the winter and answers with "well maybe they should eat less"? Who steps outside during a raid and actually causes more damage than the dragons pretending he's capturing a Night Fury? What is he doing in dragon training? That class literally ended with Hiccup almost losing his life to a Gronckle.

This is further backed up when after she has to protect both herself and Hiccup from a Deadly Nadder, which happened because Hiccup wasn't paying attention the whole time, getting them both in trouble. (Which is because he's fixating on figuring out a certain Night Fury, but they don't know that. To them, it just looks like he's annoying Gobber with meaningless questions. Why are you asking about the Night Fury? The one dragon who's single instruction is "hide and pray it doesn't find you"?) She explicitly asks him "Is this some kind of a joke to you?"

Followed up by "Our parent's war is about to become ours. Figure out which side you're on."

Once again someone questions Hiccup about how serious he takes things. But it's more than that, she's trying to give him a wake up call! Wake up, Hiccup, our parents are actually fighting a genuine war here and someday it'll be your turn! Stop making everything a joke before you get yourself or someone else killed!

Astrid actually isn't as much against Hiccup at this point as people often believe. There are actually a few points in which she eithers feels sorry for him or tries to help him in her own Astrid-y way. (And if the deleted scene hadn't been deleted, there would've been an almost friendly conversation had between the two before dragon training even starts)

Let's also not forget Hiccup's and Stoick's talk before dragon training even starts. When Stoick shows some actual vulnerability by laying his son's life in his son's and Gobber's hands when he decides to give in and let Hiccup go to dragon training while he's off on a voyage.

Hiccup tells his father "I don't wanna fight dragons!" in a tone that is rather pleading. To which is father chuckles and says to him "come on, yes you do!"

Remember in the opening, Hiccup practically makes the claim that he lives and breathes to kill dragon, it's "who he is." And now he suddenly claims he doesn't want to fight dragons at all? Can't fight them?

Stoick keeps his tone light, telling his son that he will fight dragons, don't you worry about that, Hiccup. With Hiccup doubling down that he's very extra-sure that he can't fight dragons, which makes Stoick double down in return, his levity disappearing.

"Can you not hear me?" Hiccup asks, desperate to be heard.

"This is serious, son!" Says Stoick. Which makes this three times that Hiccup is explicitly told to take something serious. (And you can just see the disbelieve or realization in Hiccup's eyes as he's once again not being listened to.)

(Followed by Stoick telling him to act like everyone else and to stop being Hiccup, which gets him, you guessed it, a sarcastic remark from Hiccup.)

We know that Hiccup changed his mind about participating in dragon training because he found out he couldn't kill Toothless. (or rather, he can't kill the scared and the defenseless, as the Red Death would later show) But Stoick doesn't know that. Berk actually seems to know very little about Hiccup and that's why they think that he's joking around at all times.

I'm willing to bet that the "disasters" he causes "every time he steps outside" aren't much of a help either. (and I wonder how many of these are actually Hiccup's fault or if Hiccup happened to be involved, so the blame is just automatically put on him.)

And this isn't a post to bash Hiccup. I love him to death, I love his sass as much as any other fan. And I am very much of the opinion that Hiccup's sass is a defense mechanism.

His feelings get hurt, so he tries to hurt someone else's back. Like when he probably feels guilty about his father worrying about the village getting through the winter, so he makes that comment about how the village could eat less to offset that guilt. (Which again, only makes Stoick angrier.) And I think the proof is in the rest of the franchise.

Hiccup sasses the most when he's 15-16, a.k.a from Httyd 1 to DoB. But by the time we see him again in RttE (chronologically) he sasses a little less and in a friendlier and more playful context, but he has also matured to deal with his negative feelings differently. RttE is, chronologically, when Stoick actually begins to consider if his son is ready to be chief. He can see how much Hiccup has matured, especially when there's such physicaly distance between them. It's the equivalent of not seeing someone over summer break or watching someone go traveling and see how much they've changed when you reunite with them.

(also, he can knock Snotlout unconscious with a single punch, I bet that helps as well.)

But it is the way Hiccup chooses to defend himself, giving sassy comments (think "Thanks, I was trying!" to Snotlout's comment about the mess he made) to either painful comments about him or actual serious statements like the ones Stoick makes that still gets him in the feels that make him seem so shallow and unserious in the eyes of Berk.

Then there is his apparent history of crying wolf. When he actually does manage to shoot down a Night Fury, his father doesn't believe him and Hiccup explicitly says "this isn't like the last few times, I mean I really actually hit it! It went down!"

When you combine all of this, you get a teenager who doesn't appear to take anybody serious, including the lives of himself and others. Terrible traits to have as a person, let alone when you're the chief's son.

Somehow, a narrative of frivolity and aloofness was build around Hiccup that he just could not escape no matter how much he tried to crawl out of it. At some point, Berk put him in a box, marked it "jokester" and Hiccup's efforts to get out of that box only grew and grew. When his efforts failed, whenever he sassed back, Berk just pushed him even deeper into that box. Not looking further into what Hiccup actually needed or was trying to say.

Do I think Berk was right? Not at all, because this is all surface-level, things Hiccup legitimately says and does to protect himself and nobody realizes this.

Toothless doesn't speak a single word to him during the Forbidden Friendship scene, yet he can get across exactly what he expects from Hiccup (mainly "keep your distance, I don't trust you enough") without being mean about it. He doesn't snap, he doesn't bare his teeth. He just gives him faces that Hiccup understands. Only growling or hissing when Hiccup passes a boundary Toothless very clearly isn't comfortable with. (or, let's say, when his feelings are hurt, like when Hiccup steps on toothless' first drawing.)

And it's because he's not mean about it that he actually makes more progress with Hiccup in half a day than Berk does his entire 15 years.

And that's sad. That's what this post is about. About how sad it is that Berk takes Hiccup at a very shallow level and decides that must be his entire self as a person.

[hellohellowelcome]

Standard shonen endings have rotted some people's brains. I've seen so many dudebros disappointed that Izuku didn't at the very least "bag his girl" as some sort of reparation for losing his quirk. And so much Ochako slander for "ghosting" Izuku for 8 years for being quirkless (not true btw, leak mistranlastion) because she wasn't explicitly Izuku's endgame love interest in typical shonen fashion. I even saw a tweet doing crazy numbers (70k+ likes) suggesting that Izuku should've gotten with Hatsume because at least she spent 8 years working on his suit....? Ask yourself why you feel like Izuku needed a canon love interest post-time skip to be happy. And then ask yourself why you hate women and view them as the MC's "much-deserved" reward for saving the day.