#tagging him because... y'know

[wolves-in-the-world]

the thing about eliot spencer as a character, right. the thing about him.

(and as always your mileage may vary on my analyses so if we disagree that's cool actually)

is that he is in fact a somewhat emotionally constipated idiot who is occasionally sensitive about his perceived masculinity and gets defensive about emotional intimacy around other men (largely hardison, who's much more comfortable expressing affection and embracing a softer kind of masculinity), but eliot displays enough emotional awareness and sensitivity and respect for women etc etc that anyone who's been subjected to that era of television will put on rose-tinted glasses without even looking twice.

(and he is, don't get me wrong, incredibly emotionally aware for a professionally punchy guy with enough trauma to sink the titanic. it still startles me to see.)

on top of which we have the layers and the accessories and the excellent hair with the secret braids and the way he barely has an ego and he's good with kids and protective of his team without taking it too far, and some of us never stood a fucking chance.

[fl00mie]

i fucking adore how he says ""where am I" instead of "where are WE", this mf is always aware of his selfish ass and i love him for that

[batsplat]

[arrowpunk]

God damn it all. I want to like Arcane. I really enjoyed everything up to like. The final two episodes. But then they had to go and make. The disabled guy who was trying to make the world a better place. Into a eugenicist.

And the stuff Jayce said to Viktor about how Viktor always saw his disability and sickness as flaws to be fixed/cured/perfected or whatever. Was like really gross. Yeah. Viktor didn't want to fucking Die. That doesn't mean that he wanted to? Remove disabilities in general from the world. He wanted to make the world a better place for everyone. He grew up in the undercity, and because of that he got a terminal illness that was slowly killing him. He wanted to make life better for people in the undercity so they weren't Suffering.

That doesn't mean eugenicssssssss.

And making it so that Viktor has actually been the big villain/antagonist all along? And that apparently?? In Every Single Universe? He becomes a eugenicist? Unless Jayce saves him from that???

Dude what the actual fuck. What the actual literal fuck.

[autistickaitovocaloid]

I've been thinking about him all day to be honest.

[sparky-is-spiders]

Ok I do actually need to work on assignments, but here's a short little thing I wrote about aro Jon. Hopefully later I can come back to it and add a few more scenes and give it a good polish (it's a tad rough lol) but for now enjoy. Fic under the cut.

Warnings for: descriptions of burning (about on par with what happens in episode 67 in terms of severity (w/ Jack and Agnes))

“Oh are you working on- er, is that the statement with Agnes?”

Jon leveled a cold, flat stare at Martin. The kind which, in a better world, would be capable of wiping people from existence. Martin failed to dematerialize. Jon rubbed their forehead.

“Case #0071803, yes. What about it.” It should’ve been more of a question, really, but they just couldn’t be bothered with the inflection. They were too exhausted, and quite frankly Martin wasn’t worth the effort.

“Nothing! Nothing! Just…” Martin trailed off for a moment. Jon briefly entertained fantasies of him turning around and leaving. As per usual, Martin failed to meet expectations. “It seems sort of romantic, doesn’t it?”

What? “What?”

“Well… you know… I mean it was horrible, obviously. But… at the same time it was sort of- was sort of sweet? I mean, he must’ve really loved her.”

Jon took a brief moment to compose themselves, “Martin, that’s-” then another one, for good measure. “She-” The memory of scalding heat, of liquid flesh flowing between their teeth, a searing agony they had never experienced and yet knew intimately-

A deep breath. “Forgive me if I don’t see what’s so ‘romantic’ about receiving third degree burns just for a kiss.”

Martin looks hurt, maybe. Or somehow upset. And like maybe his hurt or upset or whatever else is somehow Jon’s fault.

“But… haven’t you ever-”

And wherever Martin was going with that particular line of inquiry, Jon didn’t need to hear it.

“No, I have not. Now if you are quite finished, I need to get back to work.”

They stared him down with as much ice as they could muster, and at least this time, it had the desired effect of encouraging Martin to remove himself from their office.

***

Somewhere in Jon’s flat, tucked away in some crevasse or fallen behind the sofa, there is a flag. On it, there is purple, fading to white, fading to green. A reckless purchase made upon the news of their promotion, when they thought it might just be them and Sasha and Tim, and perhaps it would be alright, if a few other people knew.

It had arrived in a small package on the first day of their new position, when Jon had learned that it would be Sasha and Tim and Martin. They had considered putting it there anyway, in the little clay pencil-holder shaped like a cat (apparently it had been Gertrude’s, and it was quite possibly the only useful thing she had left behind).

They thought about unknown eyes measuring it. Measuring them. They thought about questions, and unwanted comments, and all the opinions people liked to have about love and sex and abstention from either.

The flag never made it out of their flat.

[non-un-topo]

Outfits of the Guard from an older fic of mine, Tangerine and Roc. Supposed to be a bit of a mix of styles from Central Asia in the late 15th century as they go about their travels, with a little battle-ready touch.

[radiance1]

Little Burning Spice Cookie rant thing.

So, I've seen a bit about people thinking that Burning Spice Cookie's reason for going rouge was kind of... Not it, really? Which is fine and dandy, their opinion an all.

But to me, I think it's a pretty solid reason for Burning Spice Cookie and like... Characters like him, I suppose?

Okay so, Burning Spice Cookie held the Light of Change before it was taken from him and he was imprisoned and, like the other 4 Beasts before their fall, they represented and were practically the physical embodiments of those concepts (I think.)

To be honest, out of each of the Beasts I genuinely think that Burning Spice Cookie's concept was the most ironic, and the one most prone to, well, 'failure' for a lack of a better word.

(Though if I'm wrong, lemme know.)

Knowledge, Volition, Happiness, and Solidarity are all concepts that are prone to change.

Knowledge. Pretty self-explanatory, with anything new that is discovered, or prior knowledge viewed from a different angle, then that knowledge in itself would change.

Volition. Kind of difficult for me to explain but like, one's willpower could either crumble and fade or hardened and become stronger than ever. You could remain true to your own will, or submit to another's. Thus, change.

Happiness. Anything can make it happen, across various individuals the same or something different can make them happy. Or, the opposite, what once made them happy no longer does, thus changing.

Solidarity. People can no long believe in the same thing, what once brought them together in unity could no longer be enough to uphold it. A common interest that they no longer support, thus changing their views on the subject and no longer being in solidarity with others.

To me, all of the other Beasts before the fall where capable of changing, as the concepts they were meant to embody were all given the range to.

Except, Burning Spice Cookie.

He was the only one, the only Beast, that was supposed to be unchanging. Despite his very concept being that of change. Ironically, Burning Spice Cookie would have been the only one who was to remain steadfast, unchanging throughout history entirely despite everything else changing around him.

Stagnant.

The pure opposite of what he meant, made to embody.

So, of course, he got bored.

Burning Spice Cookie, despite representing change, was stagnant. Meant to always be stagnant if the Light of Change was always to remain true, to shine its light upon him and the entire world.

I do believe his boredom ran a bit deeper than surface level. As he did say in Episode 6:

"All this Change, and yet it's never changing."

Which, really, just supports my point that Burning Spice Cookie, the representation of Change itself. Was stagnant and unchanging despite change happening all around him.

So, when he was given the opportunity to Change. To no longer remain stagnant. I think it would have been expected that he would take it.

Burning Spice Cookie was baked to be a hero, a God-Like virtue that would be a beacon among Cookie Kind along with four others. To protect and allow them change, civilizations to rise and fall and yet, he, himself, would remain unchanging, should remain unchanging if his purpose was to be realized.

That, is why, I believe that Burning Spice Cookie, or any other Cookie baked to hold the Light of Change, was and would be doomed to fall. To fail.

[dedicatedfollower467]

okay maybe a hot take but like. people going "spirk is canon now omg!!!" after that short film that just dropped - you do realize that like. it's not any more canon than it has been for like, forever, right?

they held hands and watched the sunset together. big whoop.

yes vulcans have a whole hand-holding thing, but like. kirk and spock have held hands before, this is not? any different? than any of that???

like people are out here screaming "OMG SPIRK IS CANON AFTER 57 YEARS" guys if holding hands and staring into each other eyes while the music swells is good enough to call it "canon" then spirk has been canon since the motion picture came out in 1979.

[kyouka-supremacy]

The best thing that came out from the latest interview is everyone agreeing that there's only one person who can Give Akutagawa's Life A Meaning and that person is Nakajima Atsushi

[overly-verbose]

I'm just thinking that Uraume is a great cook, but the real masterpieces are made up of people. I understand that Sukuna will be a little uncomfortable eating people's kebabs (that usually scares teenagers, you know). BUT. The moral mobility of His Evil Majesty's mentality simply says to me: Find the enemy, and the big guy will finally get a nice meal. He worked so hard, he deserves dinner. ("Fu_k, Marry, Eat" game. Start). SO. ONE DAY. People tempura — yes or no? How much Curse is in our King?

Uraume is indeed a great cook, ridiculously even lol

- I mean afaik it's canon that, whilst human meat is supposedly difficult to prepare well, they managed to do it; which is one of the main reasons why Sukuna kept them around aside from the fact that they're a powerful sorcerer lol

(he most probably liked the unaltered taste by itself too (he did in my Series Canon for sure), but Uraume made it additionally enjoyable - so for Mr. I Do What I Want it was definitely a unique plus lol)

As for SIkuna eating people, hmm

Although he's pretty deeply in denial about it, he doesn't actually directly feel anything negative at the prospect

(as showed in Part 4, he actually found the little taste of Yuji's blood he got by accident ridiculously enjoyable, if in terms of Identity Issues and 'Ah Shit That's The Kid's Blood' extremely distressing as well. What a fun combination)

- it's Everything Else around it that makes him uneasy; like the fact that he Knows It's Wrong, The Kids Would Most Freaking Likely Not Like it, and just overall the Character Dissonance he feels about it all

because how the fuck can he be a protective inner marshmallow that would just like to hug the kids, and give them headpats, and heal their wounds, and just overall take care of them as best as he can 🥺

and someone that gets absolutely freaking giddy at the idea and acts of violence and bloodshed (as long as it doesn't involve Some People but especially if it involves Other Ones) at the same time y'know?

(sorry bro, you're not gonna get any less contradictory anytime soon if ever - have fun being yourself, whatever that means, lol

Complex characterisation and all that ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ)

But returning to the topic; I won't say anything about further down the timeline

(he might, he might not, who knows, probably not in a way that would upset the kids too much if anything but ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯)

but there is this one particular, hm, person that would fit all boxes in terms of being a mostly guiltless but still tasty snack, though not as tasty as possible, who miight be meeting him relatively soon (how??)

- and SIkuna wouldn't even need to break any promises with Yuji (oop spoiler 👀) to indeed have a spooky snack!

So, before anything as sophisticated as tempura - there may be moreso sashimi :] *HeeHee HoHo's a bit as lighting strikes in the background and I comically jump in surprise because wtf the sky's clear-????*

.

[zaphodbeeblebroxssecondhead]

queerplatonic johnlock is so important to me i don't think you understand

[batsplat]

☕️ on marc/dani as teammates? bc so many ppl on here especially have such a simplified and maybe even rose-tinted view of their dynamic imo…..

hm yeah it's a tricky one because I do think there's a lot of genuine interpersonal fondness there that was forged in the aftermath of some equally genuine animosity. for me, it's that development that's particularly interesting... what I personally have always found the most appealing about this rivalry is just how ruthless marc as to someone he genuinely admired and considered one of his heroes or 'references'. like, I think it's a bit different from the dynamic with valentino because it's kind of... vale's the childhood hero vs dani as a rider who's ahead of you who you want to directly emulate in rising through the ranks. with valentino, marc didn't really think they'd ever be competing at the top of the sport because of how big the age gap was, but with dani? different story

which does affect the emotional approach, I reckon - you can admire them and still dream of beating them, you know? like, say you're fourteen years old in 2007 and are getting out your customised casey stoner voodoo doll while he's bitch slapping your two guys, what fantasies are you cooking up in your little brain about meeting your heroes? with valentino, it's probably him grinning at you while handing you your tenth consecutive motogp trophy and telling you how amazing you are... how you're his successor, the one carrying on his legacy... lots of daydreaming of him like, hyping you up after he's retired and calling you god's gift to motorcycle racing, etc etc. who knows, maybe marc was also fantasising about beating valentino in epic duels, but he wasn't really expecting to be fighting valentino, right? whereas with dani? oh yeah, marc might have thought he was great... but in an ideal world, he's ripping the crown off dani's head when dani's a three time defending motogp champion! so crucially marc wasn't blindsided by actually fighting him on-track, and was kinda more prepared for that to get ugly? dani acts as a 'direct' reference, where he's just a few years ahead and marc can see how it's done, basically. but what this still means... he'd admired this guy for years, he had posters of him and all that shit, but the moment they're direct competitors and teammates? all that is just... locked away. no interest no mercy, all he cares about is beating the guy. and marc did still talk about using dani as a reference point, about how much he'd learned from him... but of course that scary fast learning of his was all about beating dani

from dani's side... I'm glad he's gotten to a stage where he's at peace with his career, but. god, it must have been tough. at the end of 2012, he's the in-form rider - more so than jorge. he won six of the last eight races that year. incidentally, this is how jorge is talking before the 2013 season:

obviously, jorge is trying to fuck with dani here, but he's also not really wrong. all four of the aliens have got a lot going on early 2013, but if you had to point at the guy who is dealing with the most pressure? well, it's got to be dani, doesn't it. he was the one who still had something to prove in the premier class, who was now being thrown together with the super hyped rookie. this is how dani spoke about marc at the start of the year:

and here:

and then of course marc beat dani at qatar and then won at cota... granted, dani does a good job of keeping his head and regrouping for the next few races - but it was still an auspicious start, provoking a lot of discourse that wasn't particularly kind to dani. so in that first year, you've got all these different elements - you've got how marc is competing on-track, dani's injury, how marc is already attempting to assert himself within the team, how you've got the behind the scenes warfare between their two teams (again, see this article)... and then dani's issues with marc's actual riding (x, x). now, I think it's worth saying that aragon 2013 is not a case where marc has clearly fucked up. he makes a mistake, yes, but he couldn't have known the slight contact he made with dani would lead to that wire breaking and dani's highside. here's what dani said:

this is a case where different racing philosophies clash, right? what dani's saying is that what happened was a direct consequence of how marc approaches riding - that he's always flirting with contact and this time it finally went wrong. it's the kind of riding dani has consistently disliked, and it's something marc is the poster boy for. in this case, this crash essentially ends dani's title bid. he couldn't walk for three days afterwards. dani criticised race direction for choosing not to give marc a penalty (apart from the penalty points) - this was not something he just brushed off

and, look, you do have to bring it up... dani's experiences with sic will inevitably have influenced how he approached the marc rivalry. I mean, it kind of did for all of them - there's elements of that tragedy that will have bled into how valentino, jorge, dovi and dani reacted to marc. with casey, it's one of the reasons why marc never even had an on-track rivalry with him. now, obviously, dani had big, big issues with sic, a lot of tension including harsh comments in the press and refused handshakes and all of that, as a result of sic's very aggressive approaching to racing. dani was also the one who suffered the most as a direct result, in particular after the broken collarbone at le mans. he's spoken after sic's passing about his regret about how he handled that relationship... how it changed his approach to rivalries, that reminder that there might be things he'd never have the chance to fix

the other sic-related element is that of course, there were easy parallels to be drawn between him and marc, and his shadow did at times loom uncomfortably over debates over hard racing during that period. I think you can feel it most strongly in jorge's response to marc... the echoes of when jorge had gotten in a verbal clash with sic at one of the 2011 pressers and his frustration when his complaints were just laughed off by journalists:

this press conference was from the race before le mans, where sic was responsible for dani's broken collarbone. so if two years later, you've got marc publicly shrugging off jorge's complaints in an only slightly more respectful manner, how can you not be at least a little concerned? yes, marc did have a better feeling of where the limit was, he didn't really push things too far, but... this was still a very recent trauma for everyone and nobody knew how far marc would or wouldn't push it at the time. especially not after the kind of reputation he'd gotten himself in his 125cc/moto2 days. (though of course it's important to note that sic's death wasn't caused by his style of racing, and if anything he'd gotten more sensible in the latter stages of 2011). so the influence goes both ways, right? on the one hand, it all feels a bit too familiar, on the other... well, that's actually a reason why you probably don't want to be too harsh on this kid. because you never know

in the end, the tensest year of their teammate partnership was 2013 - because after that title was sealed marc had won. by the end of the year, it wasn't really dani's team any more. his internal position had already been de facto undermined by casey, but not to the same extent because casey wasn't really interested in playing these games - plus the end stretch of 2012 had definitely cemented dani's role in the team. I've already given most of my thoughts here about how marc takes control of that team, which inevitably touches on some of his nastier behaviour. lying about what parts suited him is the obvious example... he's a ruthless teammate, he openly admits to it. and obviously, dani wasn't always just fine with that. who would be? he's accepted that's part of who marc is as a competitor, and at the end of the day he also had to accept losing. sometimes you just gotta make your peace with a status quo, yeah? it's tricky to strike the balance between not losing the competitive edge and not letting losing to your young teammate year after year drive you insane... dani's always been quite good at focusing on himself, even if a lot of the time 'focusing on himself' involved 'recovering from some horrid injury'

so you know, it's nice that their relationship has gotten warmer since they've no longer been teammates, and for the most part they did keep things civil while they were directly working with each other. also, you do just get over things when you're no longer competing with someone... I've said this before, but there's really only a relatively small number of truly burnt bridges in the paddock ecosystem. thing is, it's quite impressive of dani to seemingly not hold any grudges over what marc did to him... but he easily could have, and it kinda would've been justifiable? it's also primarily down to dani that this teammate dynamic didn't get worse than it was... which, y'know, you can argue if that was the right or the wrong approach, but it also meant he increasingly had to accept a subordinate role within that team - become a non-problematic teammate that honda was happy to sign again. and then you've got marc, who spent years looking up to dani and then spent years being pretty vicious to him and never saw the slightest contradiction between those two things, because of course he didn't! and of course he still has some historical fondness for him as a result of once being his fan... which is an element that has gradually snuck to the foreground again after marc increasingly managed to dismiss dani as a competitive threat. overall, then, as teammates they had their early tensions, then they were 'reasonably friendly coworkers', now they get on quite well. over the course of his career, dani's hardly been immune to drama with other riders, but at the end of the day he's pretty feud-proof on the whole. what kind of a nutter would you have to be to start a feud with dani pedrosa, eh

[danwhobrowses]

Taliesin for the sake of sanity I'm gonna have to ask you to NEVER LET ASHTON DO THAT AGAIN

Except the kissing Fearne part, more of that!

[buttercup-barf]

You know what? I'm intrigued by you. [ENA'ifies your Peppino Spaghetti]

I think a funny equivalent to Ena's total mental breakdown where she goes grey would be him getting so stressed he's neither horrified and panicked, nor violent and unhinged. He just. Goes blank. Not even in an angsty hollowed way, but just in an "Eh. Whatever." way, lmao.

And there are some other doodles under the cut! Expand! IF YOU DARE...... >:-)

Not gonna tag Mellow, because. Holy shit what have I done to him. I do, however, like the idea of him, Ena, and Peppino being some sort of a trio. Two surreal fellas and A Normal Man (who is more unhinged than the other two combined). Oh, also The Very Much Real Peppino is there too!

What hyperfixation? What new hand-therapy character? I don't know what you're talking about! /j

And these are just a reference to this video! ... I can explain.

Not tagging Noise either, because I did not do him justice there.

And a final assortment of floating heads and torsos, since I am. Still figuring him out. I do like the guy! He's very silly. (The one in the middle is miserable because every time I try adapting him to my usual style it goes as poorly as here.)

[creativesplat]

ok... so Lambert x Eve...

Eve and the two Blaiddyds

Lambert and the two Fierenes

The step-siblings

@blaiddydbrokeit and I were talking, and they have now sent me down the wonderful rabbit hole that is Eve and Lambert getting married and looking after their children.