#sorry if it's a little disorganized

[silverwhittlingknife]

How do you feel about Jack Drake?? What are your thoughts on him and Tim’s relationship?

Anon, I hope you were interested in a novel, because look, I am fascinated by Jack Drake.  He’s key to a whole lot of what I find compelling about Tim as a character, and if I were in charge of DC, I’d bring him back to life.  This would make Tim unhappy but would IMO make for good plotlines.

Jack and Tim’s relationship is Complicated (TM)...

Jack and Tim hug in Nightwing 20 / Jack impulsively yanks a TV out of the wall in Robin 45 / Tim grieves in Identity Crisis

“I could tell the truth.  But I don’t.” - Robin 66

...and it involves a whole lot of Tim lying, and feeling guilty about lying, and thinking about telling the truth, and choosing again and again to keep lying.

And I think that’s great.

Below the cut:

Shorter version - key points about Jack

Really long version - my gentler take (vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports) vs. my harsher take (Jack has some major flaws)

Final thoughts

Shorter version - key points about Jack:

He’s a bad parent.  He’s self-centered, he consistently prioritizes his own comfort and interests over his son’s, and when upset, he does things like order Tim off to boarding school.

But he’s never a bad parent in an actionable way.  He’s not like David Cain or Arthur Brown, who are abusive monsters.  Jack’s not a monster!  He just...kinda sucks.

He genuinely loves Tim. If Jack’s aware that Tim’s disappeared or is in trouble, he’s always worried and upset.  He periodically resolves to be a better dad, and IMO he’s always sincere.

And Tim loves him, a lot.  Tim’s protective of him and worries about him when he’s kidnapped or in danger, and when they’re reunited, Tim’s really relieved and usually hugs him (and Jack hugs back!). 

...But they have very little in common, and that’s a problem. Jack doesn’t value the things that Tim values, or respect the people that Tim admires, or care about the things that Tim’s interested in.  Tim lies to him a lot, but that’s partly because he correctly guesses Jack wouldn’t respond well if he knew the truth of what Tim’s up to.

The Batfamily is a surrogate family that Tim’s drawn to because of the ways his real family doesn’t meet his emotional needs…but also he feels guilty about that and disloyal. (And to the extent that his dad recognizes what’s going on, he's jealous and resentful!)

Very long version:

(LISTEN I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS)

Okay!  So first: Jack’s a character who IMO is pretty up for interpretation.  You can interpret him very charitably, and make excuses for the bad behavior, and fill in the blanks sympathetically when situations are ambiguous; or you can interpret him uncharitably, and emphasize the bad behavior. I don’t think either approach is invalid - it depends on what kind of story you’re interested in!  I have enjoyed Bad Dad stories and also stories that redeem Jack.

My personal take on canon is that Jack and Tim’s relationship is in a gray area.  Jack's definitely neglectful, and he does prioritize other things over Tim, but he’s never so bad that Tim can easily reject him, and he's never so bad that Bruce could justify taking Tim away.  He's just...not great.  Tim loves him, and feels loyal to him, but it’s a very mixed-up complicated love.

I have a gentler take and a harsher one which I switch between as the spirit moves me. xD

My Gentler Take (tl;dr: vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports)

Here’s the core conflict: Jack and Tim are very different people with different values.  Tim idolizes Bruce and Dick and vigilantism, and secretly gets involved, knowing his dad will hate it. He gets increasingly wrapped up in his secret world and lies to his dad...because if his dad finds out, he’ll make Tim quit.

This is a great setup for an ongoing comic.  It’s practical, because it provides endless potential for plotlines, and it’s nicely thematic, because it maps closely onto relatable real-life situations with extracurricular activities:

Tim the drama nerd whose dad thinks he’s playing football and not in the school play; 

Tim the closeted-queer kid secretly getting involved in his school’s politically-active Gay-Straight Alliance; 

Tim the choir kid whose dad only values making money and wants him to go into the family business (and Tim keeps promising himself he'll give up choir soon, definitely soon, but maybe he'll stay in just a liiiittle longer, because they need him, you see, the last tenor left town, so...); 

Tim the computer geek with the sports-obsessed dad (this one’s just canon);

etc. etc.  

The extracurricular metaphor works pretty well for Tim’s relationship to vigilantism.  Tim's involved in his "extracurricular" because he genuinely thinks it's important and fulfilling, and he values it and wants to be good at it. He idolizes Bruce and Dick because they're good at it. He's been collecting information about it since he was a little kid, and hiding it from his parents because he knows they wouldn't approve. And mayyyybe there's also an element of low-key rebellion against his dad, and maybe that's secretly part of the appeal. And yet also as Tim gets more and more invested, he starts to daydream: maybe I could tell my dad and he'd be proud of me and supportive. But he doesn't, because actually he knows his dad would be upset and angry and make him quit.

And - again, just like with lonely kids and extracurricular hobbies - one of the things that happens is that Tim starts getting his unfilled emotional needs met ... by people he knows through this secret hobby. And people like Bruce and Dick start turning into a surrogate family. Which Tim feels guilty about. And also as Tim gets more and more wrapped up in their world, he has to lie to his dad even more, which means the distance between Tim and his dad gets bigger and bigger and more and more unfixable.

I love this dilemma. It's simple, it's recognizable, it provides endless sources for conflict, and there's no obvious solution! Tim can't tell Jack: he'll make Tim quit! And Tim doesn't want to quit, because he loves choir / art / theater / whatever.  Yeah, it’s difficult, and there are challenges, and sometimes he has doubts...but at the end of the day, he cares about it a lot.  And everything he values is there, and all the people he admires and cares about are there, and all he wants in the world is to feel like he's one of them and belongs there. So he has to lie, even though he doesn't want to lie, and he feels guilty about it...

...but also he ends up lying more and more.

(Sidenote: I think it's important that Tim chooses to keep lying - Tim's narration often glosses this as "I have to lie to my dad," and that's certainly how it feels to Tim, but this... isn't quite true. He has to lie to his dad, because if he doesn't, his dad will get mad at him and try to stop him, not because he literally has no choice about it.)

Other Reasons Why I Like The "Secret Extracurricular" Interpretation

(tl;dr it complicates not just Tim's relationship with his dad, but also all his other relationships)

Tim's problems have some obvious parallels to Steph and Cass, who both become vigilantes while rejecting their evil supervillain dads. But Jack isn't evil. And that means the Tim-and-Jack relationship is ambiguous and complicated in ways that I like. Steph and Cass can just leave their Bad Dads in prison, and say good riddance, and feel very righteous and triumphant about it! Tim’s more complicated. Tim gets into vigilantism ostensibly out of duty and altruism, but secretly, he's also involved for straight-up selfish self-fulfillment reasons. He's lonely, and bored, and his life feels pointless, but he thinks that Bruce and Dick are cool and amazing and he wants to be a part of the things that they do.  When his dad gets jealous of Tim’s relationship to Bruce, and feels like Tim’s looking for a surrogate family, he’s... not wrong.

And the ways in which Jack is not Actionably Bad complicate things from Bruce's POV.  If Jack was a straight-up villain, it’d be an easy call to keep in touch when Jack finds out and makes Tim quit...but he’s not a villain, not really.  So what do you do?  Do you try to surreptitiously stay in touch with Tim even though you’re ignoring his dad’s express wishes and thus forcing Tim to sneak around?  Do you respect his dad’s wishes and stay away from Tim even though you have a years-long relationship at this point?  

Again: a bit similar to the extracurricular analogy.  Say you’re the choir director and you’ve built this whole relationship with a kid in the choir, and you’re an important mentor to him and you care about him etc. etc. etc.... and then right before a big performance, his dad finds out he’s been secretly involved, and yanks him out.  How would you react?  Well, maybe kind of in some of the ways Bruce reacts.  You replace him. You’re annoyed with him. You miss him. You want him to come back. You’re also worried about him.  You’re upset with his dad.  But also... what should you do, exactly?

Bruce and Alfred and Dick care about Tim as if he were part of their family, but he’s not part of their family, and there’s a lot of interesting tension there.

My Harsher Take

Jack never hits his son.  But his temper is a big deal.

In his worst moments, he takes out his anger on Tim’s stuff - wrecking his room, or ripping his TV out of the wall and confiscating it.  When he’s worried about Tim, he usually expresses that fear by yelling at him / punishing him / sending him away - threatening to send him to boarding school in Metropolis in Robin III, or threatening to send him to military school abroad in Robin 92, or actually forcing him to go to an all-boys' boarding school post-NML.  

This is bad behavior!  It is Not Good!  

And you can easily connect the dots to a bunch of Tim’s terrible coping mechanisms, like the constant lying and or the fact that Tim’s go-to methods for dealing with interpersonal conflict are 1) repress it and pretend it never happened (most of his fights with Bruce), 2) withdraw from the relationship until he can pretend the conflict doesn’t exist (when his friends get mad at him in YJ, he quits the team for a while), or 3) literally run away from home.

Also, Jack is a Manly Man with firm opinions about how men behave vs. how women behave, and he thinks boys shouldn’t be scared and thinks Tim should date hot girls and pushes Tim to work out and wants him to play football and expresses period-typical sexism, etc. etc. etc. ... and though obviously this wasn’t what the writers had in mind at the time, all of that is certainly interesting to read backwards in the light of Tim as a queer character.

More Disorganized Thoughts on Jack Drake

Tim’s our hero, so we’re naturally more sympathetic to him, but it’s also true that relationships are a two-way street, and Tim doesn’t value any of the things his dad values, either.  Jack at various points is shown to care about grades, business, money, boarding schools, archeology, football, a kind of macho bragging-about-dating-hot-women ethos, and a very public and performative kind of caring. Tim tends to respond with discomfort or disinterest or even disgust.  When Jack gets on TV to try to rally the government to save his son from No Man’s Land, Tim isn’t touched—he’s mortified.  When Jack makes some bad investments and loses money, Jack’s deeply upset and his self-image is majorly impacted, and far from being sympathetic, Tim’s annoyed and kind of contemptuous of the idea that this is a problem.  Jack thinks fishing in the early morning and going to tennis matches is a fun father-son activity; Tim finds it exhausting and tedious.  And so on.

This means that Tim often longs to be closer to his dad in theory, but this longing is more tied to fantasy than to reality. He rarely seems to enjoy spending time with His-Dad-The-Actual-Person.  So for example, when Tim’s deadly ill with the Clench, he has an extremely poignant fever dream about telling his dad the truth and getting hugged…even as he insists in real-life to Alfred and Dick that he does not want them to tell his dad what’s going on.

The same is true of Jack, who IMO genuinely wants to be closer to his son and is continually declaring that he’s going to turn over a new leaf and get closer to his son…and just as continually backs out of activities or loses his temper when faced with spending time with his actual son.

Tim and his dad sadly get along best—by far—in Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder situations.  When Jack gets kidnapped or is in danger, Tim worries for him (and Tim grieves him deeply when he dies).  When Tim disappears or runs away, Jack’s genuinely worried about him.  So e.g. they have a really moving emotional reunion and hug when the earthquake hits Gotham, and Tim panics about his dad’s safety and comes running home (and meanwhile Jack’s been panicked about Tim’s safety!).  It’s the day-to-day, regular life stuff where they don’t connect.

Jack's written quite differently by different writers. Mostly, Tim's parents are at their least likable in his early appearances and early miniseries (this is where you get, for example, Jack and Janet being nasty at each other while a pained employee looks on, and Tim disappointed to once again get news of where his parents are via postcard - "I guess that sums them up! Never know where they’re going to be–or when–or even how long!” - and Tim alone on school break, and Bruce and Alfred thinking there's something weird going on with Tim's parents, etc. etc.). Jack's more sympathetic but still often unlikable in most of Tim's Robin solo, and he's almost invisible (but positively treated if he does show up) in Tim's team books.

For obvious reasons, Jack's remembered way more sympathetically after his death. Tim's completely devastated by Jack's murder, which he arrives moments too late to prevent, and he basically never gets over it. We see him grieving Jack again and again in Robin, and also in Teen Titans, and also in Resurrection, and again in the Halloween Special, and again in Batman: Blackest Night, and all the way up to the end of Red Robin. Tim also grieves for an extended time over Janet - he hallucinates a happy reunion with her when he's feverish in Contagion, and hallucinates her in the final issue of Robin, and the reveal-your-buried-emotions song in Robin 102 brings up his grief for her too (meanwhile, other characters dance or laugh or otherwise get giddy).  Tim’s grief over his parents’ deaths is intense and long-lasting.

I'm not going to clip comic panels because this is long enough, but if you're curious, here's a nice and fairly lengthy compilation of comic panels with Tim and Jack.

If you're interested in a Jack-centric story with a softer-but-still-recognizably-canon take on Jack, I really like the way Jack’s narration is written in the one-shots Heart Humble (set shortly before Jack dies) and Never a Hero (Ra's resurrects him during Brucequest, and Jack's archeology skills turn out to be unexpectedly useful).

[anderscim]

✦ another (even wilder) theory with bagel

similar to my teruko theory, this one also has a lot of room for rebuttal. to be honest, a lot of the evidence i have for this is quite flimsy (_ _;)

this theory is mainly about mai akasaki’s connection to the cast, and how it relates to the killing game in general.

take this with a grain of salt as always

//spoilers for up to chapter 2 part 1 of drdt

//additional spoilers for bonus content, such as the bonus episodes and the new “literature girl insane” MV

there shouldn’t be any tally5 spoilers if i’m not wrong ( ・∇・)

here’s one question i have for you all: how many members in the cast, right now, actually know mai akasaki?

it’s definitely implied in the bonus episodes and the quotes on her character page that she’s connected with everyone in the current cast, but there was a paradox i noticed—if it even is one, that is (-.-;)—that led me to think that this question…may actually be a lot more complicated than it seems.

let’s bring up the bonus episodes first. min’s bonus episode is definitely during their time at hope’s peak. they’re literally at the school, studying about it, discussing min’s “role” as an ultimate compared to the other students, etc. basically, many details point to min and “unnamed classmate” (who is presumably mai, based on the flowers in the dialogue box of the bonus episodes matching up with those on mai’s tattoo) being students of hope’s peak academy in the united states. though there’s no physical evidence or exact basis for this, i would personally like to think that xander’s bonus episode is placed during spring break at the academy. he is talking to his “classmate,” after all—and in that case, it would also chronologically line up with min’s (whose bonus episode takes place a week before spring break).

presumably, the other bonus episodes will follow a similar pattern, and we will see mai/UC talking to other members of the DRDT cast to get to know them more. i will assume this means that the whole cast, not just min and xander, have been to hope’s peak before—and attended class as students there. after all, it would be the only way the bonus episodes would make sense.

however, the dialogue from the first few episodes of the series suggests something else.

as implied from the dialogue, all of the students believe they are only entering the entrance ceremony of hope’s peak as freshmen, and had no previous affiliation with the school. including xander.

obviously, this means that at the very least, their memories have been tampered with to remove anything regarding their experience at hope’s peak academy.

— sorry, very quick side tangent (*'▽'*) going by this theory, if the drdt cast genuinely went to hope’s peak, it’s very likely that they had to do a bunch of paperwork and submit a lot of information for their enrollment—which probably includes medical information and any accommodations that were necessary for their well-being. additionally, if we assume that the cast attended hope’s peak for a year or a few years, it’s likely that whoever the mastermind is, they had the time to know the rest of their classmates well enough to be able to identify their preferences either way, this would actually be a pretty strong explanation as to why many components of their environment seem to be extremely fine-tuned to their preferences and necessities, despite no recollection of sharing that information with anyone involved in the killing game. though i bet this was already obvious, i felt like it was something i probably should bring up.

—

in that case, however—how would it affect their memories with mai?

as i can’t exactly speculate for the other students, i’m going to trace back to what i know. at the very least, it seems to be implied that min only met mai after being admitted into hope’s peak academy. min essentially drove her entire life around schoolwork, and studying for the “ultimate contest for eminent students,” the test that allowed min to receive her title—it’s likely that before then, she never surrounded herself with friends nor had any time for herself to explore her own hobbies. which probably means that she wasn’t acquainted with mai before enrolling into hope’s peak.

her backstory is really sad, by the way. i really wish she lived longer ( ´△｀)

as for when it comes to the other characters, i would like to remind you that hope’s peak scouts across the country for their students—so it’s more logical to assume that many of them resided in hometowns that were very far away from each other. so unless mai’s talent was the ultimate traveler or something, i think it would be very improbable for her to know everyone in the cast before their admittance into hope’s peak.

taking this into account, and assuming that the cast’s memories of hope’s peak were completely erased, there’s a possibility that the cast doesn’t remember mai akasaki, despite her connections with them. the only exception would be teruko, who clearly remembers mai—and seems to have been helped by her when enrolling into the academy in the first place, pointed out by this theory here by @laly-481.

…or at least, that’s what i thought at first—until someone decided to kick in the door while holding a new music video.

i guess in that case, the biggest question i should answer is this—why does david remember mai?

getting into very, very wild theory territory here. take what i’m about to say with a grain of salt assuming that the music video is really a reflection of david’s worldview and thought process, please ignore the fact that i’m acting like the antithesis of occam’s razor right now, then there’s no reason for mai akasaki to be featured in the video—much less have a photo of her placed in a wooden frame—if he didn’t remember her.

yet, there she is, on the right:

she even has a little description about how she was “someone dearly loved,” which fits perfectly with her character and the secret quotes on her profile page.

this is indicative of the fact that david remembers mai—and knows her well enough to even make an accurate statement about her. but, how?

obviously there’s the simpler explanation of “david knew mai before they went to hope’s peak,” which is of course a totally valid explanation—however, some details about the new music video made me consider a possible, different theory.

a grain of salt? more like, a mountain of salt from here on out

when i was watching the “literature girl insane” music video earlier, i noticed something interesting about this frame: 

here, xander doesn’t have his eyepatch. though i’m not throwing away the possibility that this was just a technical error on the artist’s side—personally, this could be a indication that david knew xander before the killing game. 

seeing as all of the cast are connected by the unnamed “classmate,” after all, it’s a likely possibility that the current participants of the killing game were originally in the same class at hope’s peak academy. which means, they all probably knew each other before this whole killing game went down. 

in an earlier theory, i talked about how xander may have been the person in the opening prologue cutscene, and how he probably had his eye injured at that time. given that the person speaking during that scene is aware of the killing game (and is expressing their desire to end it), this event likely happened right before the killing game started—otherwise, it would be pretty imprudent for the mastermind to announce it and then wait for an entire month to set up everything, then make everyone fall unconscious, then remove their memories, etc. 

what i’m trying to get here is that the cast, had they still retained their memories from hope’s peak, would definitely remember xander with both eyes. however, we know this to not be the case—from his introduction, we all see that xander had already lost his right eye from the beginning of the killing game. therefore, for david to remember xander from before he got his eye injury, he must’ve had at least some partial memory of hope’s peak—otherwise, it would be highly unlikely. this would give a possible explanation as to why the frame of xander without his eyepatch appears in the “literature girl insane” music video. and maybe give a possible explanation as to why david cared about xander despite only knowing him for ~three days. and defended him passionately during the first trial even after a lot of evidence pointed to him attacking teruko.

this also would explain why david remembers mai—assuming they were in the same class, since mai likely had incredibly close connections with the cast (including david), it’s more than likely that david cared about mai and possibly (vaguely) remembered her even after having his memories tampered with.

well, the “no-eyepatch” deduction completely hinges on the assumption that xander didn’t like, take off his eyepatch in front of david like he did with teruko, so i may be completely wrong about this. however, it is interesting that such a small detail was included in the mv.

so is this one:

i don’t know how it is for you guys, but that fork seems suspiciously similar to the fork in the prologue (which i theorized to be the item that caused the injury to xander’s right eye). additionally, the fork literally stabbing the “face” of the clock is… quite symbolic. it may be just me. i’m not sure. (-_-;) though, it could suggest that david remembers that scene—and perhaps knows about the “possible escape” of killing teruko? i highly doubt he was the one who wrote the note (rather i think that was xander himself), but it may account for that 2nd vote for teruko in the first trial.

my personal (unhinged) theory (with really no way to back it up) is that david may have retained partial memories of his experience at hope’s peak—but probably only a little, definitely not all of them. this may explain why he remembers mai and seems to recall xander before his eye injury (despite xander seemingly not remembering that they’ve met before)—but hasn’t called out the true mastermind nor seems to remember an escape yet. also, though his current behavior in the 2nd trial may imply that he’s trying to end the killing game early via wrong vote, i personally think he’s just breaking down and acting suicidal without that objective in mind, based on his actions.

little side note at the end: it would be absolutely amazing (and ironic) if the two people with the most distant character relationships with the rest of the cast (as of now) happened to remember the single person that had the closest relationships to all of them.

minor clarification/add-on: i just realized that i never said this, really sorry about that. m(_ _)m but basically, i don’t think david has any sort of clear memories regarding xander and mai at hope’s peak—rather, when i say “partial memories” i meant more along the lines of “vague nostalgia you can’t quite place.” he might somewhat recognize their faces at most, but likely not any clear sequences of events. and honestly, what i wanted to talk about more in regards to this theory is more about the fact that only teruko (and maybe david) remember mai in the first place—the rest of the cast probably can’t, with the way their memories were wiped.

uh, this was quite the ride. i truly felt like the antithesis of occam’s razor as i was writing this

however—this theory likely has a lot of points that can be argued against, as well as many other possibilities i didn’t consider. please, don’t be afraid to drop them in your reblogs or comments, i would love to read them!

and as always, take this with a (larger than usual) grain of salt

[soullessjack]

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waiter waiter more snake motif jack web weaves!!

(pt 1/?)

-

[same-picture-of-a-rock-every-day]

Rock mod rock collection reveal? More likely than you think

[rottingraisins]

I'm not gonna lie I'm shocked that all that Requiem/Divorceverse stuff was just an AU, I had completely internalized the idea that all this was on the wiki somewhere. Your commitment to an AU with one fanfiction to its name is commendable.

[falmerbrook]

Today I had a thought (headcanon, au, addition to his character?) about Martin.

Imagine if he grew up rather anti-Empire, whether that be out of a genuine anti-Imperialist belief system, or just a more shallow fuck-the-man anti-authority attitude as a younger man (which you could even apply to his unhappiness for his studies with the Mages' Guild). Perhaps it starts out as a shallow version of it and turns into a genuine disdain for the structures present in the Empire as he ages and matures. He has that belief, but then is suddenly thrust into the role of Emperor, with no one else to fill the role and the threat of apocalypse if he doesn't. He's a good man, he'll do it for Tamriel, but it also represents everything he's against. I think it would add a bit more meaning to his sacrifice at the end. Not only is he sacrificing himself for the greater good, but he's also putting an end to the shitty divine right structure that keeps an Emperor in place.

[yuesya]

Hi! I saw someone mention something about “twin canons” on here, and they talked about vengeful spirits? I wanted to know what that is :)

Twin cannons AU is an AU of the twins AU (In which Shiki and Satoru were born as cursed twins, and Shiki was killed as an infant in order for the Gojo Clan to ensure Satoru's success). The twin cannons AU features a situation where twins-verse Geto Suguru lands in canon-verse, with Sato-Shiki soon to follow.

For a masterlist of AUs, you can check the list that was compiled by @moldeater02 here. (Big thanks to moldeater02!)

To take a look at snippets that were written for various AUs, you can take a look at the index here.

[samuraijackenjoyer]

sometimes I wonder what the fuck Genndy was thinking with Jack and his mother’s robes. I don’t even know where he got the idea for plain white kimono, considering that’s not really something in any samurai movies and such. The thing that’s especially amusing to anyone who knows abt traditional Japanese clothing is that. that’s essentially long Johns or a slip. It’s the underwear of the actual kimono and is sometimes a sleep dress. I think I know of one Japanese media where a plain white kimono is used as an actual public presenting outfit, and it’s Okami where Kushi wears one as the sacrificial offering. (hold on, getting to that.) If he wanted it to be an actual training gi, for one it doesn’t make sense that his mother is wearing the exact same thing, and two, it’s not a single layer kimono. anything samurai wore was not a single robe— the kimono shirt was double layered (with the white juban underneath normally) and the hakama pants were pants, not an open robe, despite often looking like a dress to outsiders bc of how flowing and wide they are. A gi looks even less like Jack’s robe— think of the white karate outfits. That’s a gi. For Iaido and Kendo and such the training clothing does tend to be the kimono shirt and hakama, but it’s not white on white, and I don’t know that it would be called a gi like the type worn for judo and such. I just wonder where the hell Genndy got the idea of Jack just essentially wearing underwear all the time lmao. I DO understand why he chose white, he wanted the contrast between Jack and Aku, but choosing a single layer plain white robe, beyond just for the sake of simplicity in animation, is the thing that surprises me. (Not in a negative way, just that I wonder where it came from). I have to wonder what people watching in Japan thought of Jack wearing that. No one seems to feel strongly enough to comment, and I believe part of that is just suspension of disbelief and Samurai Jack being such a simplistic cartoon in its displays that it’s kind of easy to ignore, but there have to be times ppl wonder why he’s wearing that lol. Especially bc Genndy KNOWS the proper attire, evidenced by the clothes he puts on Jack’s father in both the opening scenes and Birth of Evil.

I highly doubt this much thought was put into Jack’s clothing, but I do like to think that the reason Jack wears such a shockingly minimal and unarmored outfit is because of his function as the one meant to defeat Aku. Going back to the mention of Kushi in Okami, she wears those clothes bc she is meant to be the “pure, innocent, sacrificial offering”. The robe is not unlike those worn in Shinto purification rituals, or robes worn by Buddhist priests. It’s also very well known for being the clothes a dead person is put in. Kushi was basically wearing her shroud. Tying that in with Jack, I believe the reason Jack wears what he does is because he is meant to be similar. Jack is an offering from his parents, giving up their son to be the nameless warrior in order to defeat Aku for good. They want him to be the antithesis to everything that Aku is, so Jack wears robes meant for purification and to an extent representing sacrifice, a simple, genderless and unadorned kimono very uncharacteristic of the Emperor’s son, because as long as Aku lives, that title is not his. Jack wears that robe because he is meant to be the pure, innocent, forged and powerful sacrificial challenger to defeat Aku, or die trying.

As for Jack’s mother, part of me wonders if she had connections to the monks she stays with in the opening, and therefore from the moment she and the emperor decided on their son being the backup plan in case Aku returned, she was preparing both herself and him in her own way. (That’s the best explanation I can think of bc all things considered his mother should have been wearing some very heavy and ornate court Kimono. Maybe she and the emperor just weren’t into the style lmao.) edit: she DOES wear what looks like a simplified layered kimono in a few scenes, but the ones where she’s with her son, like the opening and I think the scene where she’s making a straw hat, she’s usually wearing a white robe.

[mirmidones]

me, talking about my father reaching out to a friend of mine about my whereabouts: it felt like... oh god this is terrible to say but it felt like your dog, who is unruly in the privacy of the house, one time goes outside and bites someone and you're standing there like in horror bc this wasnt supposed to happen, not on your watch, you failed at keeping your dog reigned in etc oh this is a horrible way to put it

my therapist: *is delighted* *brings the simile up several more times during the session*

[lildoodlenoodle]

Spider Freak Behavior Headcanons

Ok so we all know some of my headcanons and thoughts on making the spider people more spidery. So here’s some more, ignoring the obvious ones like eight legs and eyes and spinning webs. While not all of these, or even any of these, will fit all spider people it’s still fun cause you could def apply these to the more freaky spiders, like Miguel O’Hara, Jessica Drew, 6 armed spidey, spider noir, Kaine Parker, *sigh* SpiderHam, etc. If you’re curious as to why I singled out these guys check out here!

So what do I mean by spidery behavior? So glad you asked!

Instinctually/psychologically: Feeling the need to wrap up villains like a spider does with bugs in its web(feeling the need to liquify and drink their insides(these motherfuckers love smoothies)). Loving shiny objects(noir with the rubic cube lol). Spiders do little mating dances and ITS SO CUTE! Spider people should get to do little wiggles to express different emotions! Some spiders also make little chirping sounds to talk to each other or when hunting, so I think spider people should be able to do that. And be able to purr!(more like a cat not just like a spider, cause it’s more versatile and spider people are largely still mammals) Yes that means they like to cuddle. But on the darker side we get aggressiveness and solitude. Like some spiders actively hate any member of their own species, and get territorial. But some do live in colonies(cough cough spider society). I also think many spider people make little web hammocks or little web nests as a comfort/safety thing.

Physiologically: AMAB spiders being smaller than AFAB spiders. Most female spiders are much larger than their male counterparts, so big buff spider ladies! Sensitive eyesight(Miguel looking at your emo ass) with proficiency in green and ultraviolet lights. So they might need to wear sunglasses. This would also go with a vibration sensitivity, like feeling a fly caught in your web. Some spiders are really hairy, like tarantulas! So it stands to reason some spider people might have a lot of body hair or even dense hair that forms spikes(miguel) and can fling those spikes like tarantulas do. Looking more internally, spiders have blue blood due to oxygen attaching to copper instead of iron like it does in humans! So you could totally have spider people with blue/purple/darker colored blood! Spiders don’t have bones either. They got a hard exoskeleton, but you break that and they just kinda squish. So you could definitely change spider peoples’ bone density and what the bones are made out of. Cartilage would be an interesting one. Or you could go straight for chitin, which is also similar to what fingernails and hair is made out of, and is what some exoskeletons are made out of. Spiders also don’t have eyelids, so that could be fun to play around with. Most of you already know, spiders can’t thermoregulate, but they can hibernate, which is definitely something you could explore and have fun with with angst. Oh! And some female spiders can make pheromones to ‘control’ males.(Jessica) I am also always a sucker for mouth body horror, so split jaws and oral pedipalps are very lovely to me!

Let me know if I missed anything else! Also you should add your own freaky spider things to the post, I love seeing fresh ideas on these sorts of things. But ultimately, feel free to cherry pick through this if you want to use any of these, not all of this will work or make sense for every spider!

Alright, I do have more underneath the cut, but it is officially a minors DNI area. We are getting into some frisky stuff below the cut!

Once again, a lot of this will vary based on the spider and spider person you’re talking about so feel free to squint your way through things and cherry pick if you want to use any of this.

With most spiders the males are smaller and submissive compared to the females. So afab spider people are more likely to be dominant in bed whereas amab spider people are more likely to be submissive. Some spiders even eat their mates after sex, so maybe some afab spider people get a little hungry after sex and enjoy biting their partners. If you wanna get freaky, have one actually try to eat someone.(hey Alexa, play Maneater)Whereas amab spider people might have some sex anxiety due to an instinct of getting eaten after sex. On the flip side maybe they like to get bitten? Some male spiders rlly want to be eaten actually, which could translate to masochism, but I could very much see that turning into anxiety and an impending sense of doom after sex. So like aftercare is probably very important(?). Either way biting would be involved. Some male spiders will even do little dances or give their female partners back rubs before sex(which is so cute and silly), so do with that information what you will. We are ignoring male penis detachment cause that is a lot even for me. But with that said, male spiders, in my opinion and if you know anything about how certain spiders have sex, should be really good at oral. To help this theory, Peter Parker 616 is not only canonically freaky but also fantastic at oral. Another one, purring. Some spiders purr during and before sex to attract a mate(it’s different than cat purring) but because spider people are largerly mammals I think they still purr when content(like a cat) and during sex but it’s two different types of purrs. Finally, back to the pheromones, those are mostly used by female spiders for sexual purposes on males, which could be translated over to spider people in a couple of different ways. But either way you go, feel free to interpret all the spidery behaviors however you see fit!

[tierra-paldeana]

☑ What is a plot idea you’re willing to play with virtually any partner? What makes that plot so special to you?

It’s Munday!

// i don't really have a specific plot idea in mind tbh. the closest i can think of is her getting to visit other regions/have someone from another region come to paldea and interact with her, get to know her better, and develop a relationship regardless of its nature (platonic, romantic, mentorship-like, enemies-).

it all comes down to how rika, as extroverted and sociable and friendly as she is, lived most of her life confined to one place. it's not that she's against visiting other areas of paldea, or even outside paldea, but it's true that while other characters might've already had that experience, for this blog she barely has. most of what she's visited has been for business/work purposes (such as galar, kalos, and blueberry academy in unova), and almost always in regions that are geographically close to her own anyway.

she is itching to visit other regions and meet new people, but unlike my N, there's no real urgency in doing that, and she likes doing things at her own pace.

...before i get off topic, yeah, developing any sort of relationship to rika is something i love exploring with any partner, as basic an idea as that is. i just love experimenting with her, seeing how she'd deal with different kinds of people, whether she's used to seeing them or not. she's a very open-minded and amicable person, and unless the person in question meets a very specific, unpleasant criteria, she has no issues befriending most people.

[icewindandboringhorror]

Everytime I face a new character limit on a website that didn't have them before/used to have really long ones... AUGHHhhh the modern social media world was not made for people like me (lovers of details, rambling, elaboration, thorough explanation, and nuance)

[dizzycloudzzz]

most of the time I have ideas that make sense in my head, they seem good but for some reason when I tell my friends it's like:

"okay, in the Deadwardian era, everyone's a witch and Hunter have a possessing spirit of a bard-oracle person in the cursed harmonica he found near a palistrom tree, every time he plays it he revives dead beings and when Belos discovers this he pressures Hunter playing the harmonica to revive Caleb, but in reality CALEB WAS THE SPIRIT ON THE HARMONICA, so when Belos didn't get what he wanted he broke Hunter's harmonica and enlisted him in the navy to give up on his dreams. I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT BELOS HAS A CAGE STORE AND THAT WHEN HE DIES HE'LL LEAVE THE STORE AS INHERITANCE TO EVELYN (he was the one who supported his sister-in-law and didn't want to leave her with nothing after death. oh and Hunter is Caleb and Evelyn's son) WHO HIRES HUNTER TO WORK THERE SO HE HAS A PLACE TO LIVE AFTER LEAVING NAVY, ALREADY AN ADULT, OH AND BELOS REINCARNATES INTO A VULTURE WHO CHASSES AND DISTURB HUNTER EVERY TIME HE TRYS TO GO OFF THE TRACKS BELOS DECIDED FOR HIS FUTURE"

then my bff called me ugly names and block me just 'cause I sent a 9 minute audio explaining the AU 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

DAMNIT I DRAWED THIS BUT THE FANFIC WILL NEVER EXIST BECAUSE????? HOW EXPLAIN

HUNTER ADMIRES BIRDS IN THIS AU CAUSE HE LIKES THEIR SINGING AND THE FOREST BIRDS WERE THE AUDIENCE HE HAD WHEN HE PLAYED HIS NEW HARMONICA FOR THE FIRST TIME

I don't think I've ever drawn Belos before lol, everything has a first time

help I love tumblr sm

[brainrotisseriechicken]

im thinking of opening comms here to prep better for cf19 but im a little disorganized,,,,dunno..

[candyredappledragon]

Worry seed was taken away! Now you can sleep again! Hooray!

..oh thank goodness

if i stayed up any longer i think i wouldve gone to the terrarium and jumped in the polar biome waters or something.... the cold makes me sleepy

[gongedtornado]

oh yeah this is Vindictive TikkiTavi btw

gonna have an unorganized ramble about her below because i am simply just that normal (mild patapon 3 spoilers ahead(??))

somewhere in the game i had read a piece of dialogue from covet. i had to dig through my files to find this but she says “You were always the fussiest child… But to a mother, even the bad apples are so very sweet.”

so of course, my little autism brain had a great idea and interpreted as covet possibly having other children.

i have yet to figure out her ah-ooh name for now, so we’re just gonna call her by her known name.

TikkiTavi is the Dark Hero of Mercy, representing vengence.

she’s based on a mongoose (s/o to my bud for the species idea and s/o to my partner for the name idea.) she’s based on the tale of Rikki Tikki Tavi, which in short, is about a mongoose who defends his family from cobras. Tavi is Covet’s eldest daughter (in my au stuff at least).

i haven’t beaten patapon 3 entirely yet, so im just grasping at scraps here to get this storyline down. to keep a long story short, she was left in the remains of the dynasty’s fall as it was too dangerous to look for survivors. the archfiend of mercy takes advantage of this, yadda yadda. tavi wants answers and she wants her family back. uhhh

oh yeah i should also mention, i think covet and tavi had a big argument days prior to the dynasty’s fall, so the two of them have a bad taste in their mouth.

uhhhh what else should i mention. oh yeah-

when tavi does return to her family after searching, none of them remember her except covet. i need to make a more organized storyline and infodump on this but im dumped out . guhh

GET THIS GIRL SOME THERAPY. NNNOW!