#that's interesting tbh haha

[wikiangela]

🐭 !!

🐭 - slightly intimidating

lol I did not expect that tbh, I wouldn't say I'm intimidating at all haha

how intimidating am i?

[datcravat]

It seems there's a new lawyer in town!!!

[raepliica]

priest guy sending mixed signals, what is he up to?🤨🕶🤏

~~~

[Image Description: A warm-toned comic featuring Trigun98 characters. It opens with Vash shouting "YOWCH!!" as a half-eaten donut flies through the air, a bruise on Vash's tongue. Meryl, editing papers, is annoyed as he complains: "Ow! Ow! I bi'e my 'ongue..." "What's the rush?" Meryl asks, "They're all yours." Vash, still hurt, tries to explain: "They're jus' sooo good!" Meryl argues back, "Well, savour it then!" Wolfwood has been watching the scene unfold as Meryl continues, "Satisfying your sweet tooth doesn't come cheap, unfortunately." Wolfwood clicks his lighter open and closed, again and again. Without a word, he leans closer, his thumb on Vash's lips. "Wolfwood...?" Vash trails off. Then, Wolfwood opens Vash's mouth and knicks his thumb on one of Vash's canines in one fell swoop. "Wah? Huh??" Vash says as Wolfwood pulls his bleeding thumb away. He licks the blood off the wound then snickers at Vash. Meryl looks disgusted, Vash has lit up in an embarrassed explosion, and Milly remarks, curious: "Those are surprisingly sharp, Mr. Vash!" Question marks float around Vash, and his donuts lay discarded on the table. Each panel is signed by raepliica. End ID]

[doctorsiren]

things didn’t work out with the Mothman

I don’t think the siren mentioned in Lost Legends that Ford had dated ever had a name, so I’ve decided to call her Penelope because silly Epic reference

I found those deleted storyboards from A Tale of Two Stans where it showed the siren and so I’ve decided to draw her my way based on those boards and do some sillies (5th drawing features my friend @pinkhibiscustea ‘s mermaid OC)

[starflungwaddledee]

from: @starflungwaddledee to: @post-it-notes7

message from santa: "happy holidays post-it-notes! 🎄🥳 i know you very politely only wished for a few modest things- characters high fiving, or struggling in christmas attire- but i hope you'll still enjoy this given that i kinda went the opposite direction entirely! i'm an enormous fan of your work and most times you post anything i wind up browsing your art tag from tip-to-tail in enraptured delight. as such, i thought it was only fair i give back something a little more significant in gratitude for all the joy your work has given me. i knew i wanted to do a comic, so i was thrilled you already had a whole storyverse for me to work from!! this scene seemed the most obvious choice (chapter 8 of "wishful thinking" on ao3) given that i enjoy a dramatic fight scene 😂 i tried to stick as beat-by-beat to the writing as i could and worked in as many details as possible; i hope it'll be fun to see it envisioned this way! merry christmas! ~starflung 🎀🔔 "

[pynkhues]

Idk if uve discussed this before, im new haha but I really enjoy your readings of the show and I’m curious, would u call louis a femme? Idk i think it’s a widely accepted canon in the fandom and i constantly see it spread all over twitter with no argument whatsoever and im over here like i.. i dont see it?? Idk!

Hey! Welcome, anon! And thank you for your kind words! You’re very sweet!

I think I’ve probably discussed it in fragments before, but not outright said it, but no, I wouldn’t call Louis a femme. It’s certainly a largely accepted fanon in a vocal part of the fandom, particularly on Twitter and ao3, and yeah - - I mean. I’m really glad people are having fun with it! I do also sometimes feel they’re watching a different show to me though, because it’s honestly not something I see at all. I don’t know if their arguments are necessarily organized in the one place (although I could be very wrong in terms of that!) but I might use this as an opportunity to collate my thoughts and the previous posts I’ve made addressing the arguments around this particular topic. SO! Okay! Let’s break it down and dive in:

Louis is femme because he’s a Gothic Heroine

I just don’t agree with this argument, I’m sorry. I’m not going to get into the weeds of this one, just because I feel like I’ve done so already, but I don’t personally read Louis as a gothic heroine at all. In fact, I see him as a very archetypical Byronic Hero, which I talked about in this post, and in others in my Byronic Hero tag.

Louis is femme because he is a Battered Housewife / relying on a Sugar Daddy

This point often gets tied up into the gothic heroine one, and it’s one that always kind of surprises me a little bit. Even putting aside the fact that it’s an ugly, misogynistic trope in general, Louis’ relationship to being a quote-unquote ‘housewife’ is one that – to me – is symbolic of his feelings of emasculation in the Rue Royale household not as a result of Lestat alone, but as a result of the white power structures in New Orleans that would disempower and disenfranchise him. He doesn’t like it, it doesn’t make him ‘femme’, in fact, my interpretation is the opposite – it emasculates him as a Black Man, and he feels that in every part of his life to the point that both his daughter and sister weaponize it against him, and I personally think it’s a factor in his periodic impotence in his marriage. Respectively, Claudia calls him the housewife, and Grace calls Lestat his white daddy – these aren’t compliments, these are callous insults from both of them designed to bruise his pride and force him into action. The fact that neither of them work to move him the way they want doesn’t mean Louis identifies with them, rather it means he’s – at the time – committed to Lestat for better and worse, but their words compound in a way that fuels his resentment of Lestat as both an adulterous husband and a symbol of everything wrong with his life.

Further to that – and I say it in the Byronic Hero/Gothic Heroine post that I link to above  – but a vital part of power dynamic tropes in gothic literature is that women lose power through marriage, they don’t gain it, and Louis does, in fact, gain it. Lestat’s a ticket to social advancement for Louis because as much as Louis (rightfully! It’s extremely racist!) hates being forced into a servitude role publicly at the theatre or in lease agreements, it’s Lestat’s whiteness that allows Louis into more conversations politically, and eventually allows him to buy the Fair Play Saloon and turn it into The Azaelia. It’s a limited power, of course, as a result of his race and the era, but the show actually explicitly lays out certain things for us like the fact that Louis pays Lestat back in full, and pointedly, that Louis never felt that he had to pay Lestat back at all:

The last line of which is Louis greeting Lestat not as a sugar baby or a housewife walking out to his sugar daddy or husband, but as a business man to his husband.

In fact, the interesting exchange of power in that sequence actually leans to the reverse as Lestat ends up playing host to a new client while Louis lords over an empire.

(You can't see it exactly in these subtitles, but it's Louis who says 'you about five years late', and Lestat honeytrapping with taking the man away).

It's a dynamic that repeats with the musician who tries to leave that Lestat coerces into staying - Louis' king of the castle, and Lestat, the show implies, I feel, plays the placating partner smooting over the edges.

But isn’t Lestat a symbol of patriarchal power in the Rue Royale Household?

I’ve had a couple of asks about this and have a long reply in my drafts that I’ll try and post this weekend, but yes and no? I think in Rue Royale, Lestat’s definitely a symbol of patriarchal power to Claudia, and I think Louis sometimes feels him that way too, but I don’t think it’s actually true for Louis in the way that it is for Claudia. Gender isn’t what divides Louis and Lestat, it’s race, and every time Louis has the chance to exert patriarchal power against anyone outside that house or inside it, he uses it – from coercing Lestat into Claudia's rebirth to physically assaulting Claudia over Lestat’s murder, to even trying to influence her diet and guilting her into staying, to throwing Lestat out of his own house and then fucking him in his lover’s bed (which, obviously, are after Lestat's singular act of violence), to being literally a pimp, strongarming his sister and his mother, to giving less than 0 fucks about Lily’s murder and the attempted anal-rape of Bricktop - - just.

Yeah. There are two patriarchs in the Rue Royale household, and both their names begin with L.

Eldest daughter syndrome

Sometimes men are also eldest siblings who feel the burden of responsibility?

Even beyond that though, I think Louis’ response to Grace is particularly paternalistic, a pattern he’d repeat with Claudia, which I talk about here. I do think Louis has a lot of responsibility and weight on his shoulders as an eldest child, absolutely, and I actually think there’s a lot to talk about in terms of his complex position as brother-father to Paul and Grace in s1 (and I empathise with him intensely in this regard as someone who’s been a sibling’s guardian), but like. That’s not a feminine trait, nor is it one that makes him an eldest daughter. I’m not one, and he’s not one either. Sibling dynamics aren’t cut and paste.

But Louis buys and reads Madame Bovary and obviously relates to Emma

I mean, he doesn’t buy it – the show literally, explicitly makes the point of telling us that it’s Lestat’s copy of the book that he’s reading, which honestly makes sense to me. I talked about it here (where I include the caps of it being Lestat's book too), but Emma as a character cheats because she finds monogamy boring, provincial life even more so and dislikes her daughter, while married to a successful man in a regional town. Louis’ not the Emma in that equation, Lestat is, given he's fucking Antoinette – allegedly because he wants variety – escaped the Auvergne in Paris, and can’t cope with parenthood and/or Claudia.

Interestingly too, Louis’ focus in that scene is on the 'denseness' of the prose and 'the absence of metaphor' not the content, as he ignores Lestat having a meltdown directly opposite him. My interpretation of that scene is that the writing is pointing out exactly how disconnected they are from each other, and that Louis can read a story that parallels a lot of Lestat’s experience, and fail to relate it to, or empathise with Lestat at all, even as Lestat indulges Louis’ depression and hoarding, which ! I love Louis, but Lestat does in that sequence (not that that justifies anything that Lestat does, of course).  

Isn’t Louis compared to Juliet and Mélisande?

Mmm, yes and no? Armand does put him in the Juliet role, which Louis riffs with Dreamstat about, but I tend to interpret that more to be about the involvement of the balcony than I do about their roles as Romeo and Juliet – because, y’know. Not everything’s actually about gender, particularly with same sex couples of that era who had limited reference points generally, and certainly limited mainstream ones.  

And Melisande - - not at all, actually? I do have to say that I’m a little bit baffled by this particular argument given we have the lyrics to Come to Me and Lestat puts himself in the feminine role of Mélisande (and I actually do think you can mount the argument that he's done that because he’s intending for Antoinette to sing it, which I thought for a long time before hearing Long Face tbh, and now I actually do think it’s deliberately playing into Louis’ sense of masculinity), and he does cast Louis in the masculine role of Pelléas. The chorus literally goes:

Ruin each other Like star-crossed lovers Your Pelléas, my Mélisande Oh, come to me Come to me

So, yeah. Again, that argument just doesn't quite land for me.

Wasn’t he jealous of Grace’s pregnancy though?

Was he? That wasn’t my interpretation, but I’d actually genuinely be interested to hear a case for it, because I feel that’s kind of tasty on a narrative level, haha. My interpretation of that entire sequence though kind of feeds back into that eldest sibling thing again where he a) resented Grace building something of her own before he could, and b) was terrified of the idea that her having her own family would mean that she’d pull way from him which she, of course, did.

I tend to see Louis’ desire to have Claudia as a fairly impulsive one, and I actually see (in the show’verse) his desire to have Lestat be the one to turn her as a part of him further interlocking him and Lestat together, particularly after he's effectively just broken up with Lestat. It's messy! But yeah, I mean, I think 2.07 laid out pretty cleanly that Louis' choice to turn Claudia was inherently a selfish one, and I personally don't see it as one borne out of jealousy so much as needing an anchor. 

Anne bases Louis on herself

She also bases Lestat on herself and/or everything she wants to be, and also washes her hands of Louis as a character for books at a time, and like - - I’m sorry, this is not the tone I usually take, but like - - lowkey, who cares? Everyone in this fandom loves death of the author until Anne says one thing they can use to justify their headcanons, and I just don’t really get it. Why are you trying to interpret a vampire novel as a memoir? Obviously it’s not factual? Anne’s not a man, she’s not drinking blood, she’s not romantically entangled with her dead daughter, like I do understand that it can feel noodly sometimes with authors and characters, but as someone who works with a lot of writers, I can promise you they’re dipping in and out of characters like crazy, haha.

It doesn’t mean a character’s them, and it certainly doesn’t mean you’re interacting with Anne when you're interacting with Louis, which I suspect a lot of people don’t want anyway? I don't know, personally I view this one as a bit of a non-starter.

Louis’ pretty though

Yeah, he is! He’s your Helen of Troy! He’s beautiful! He’d look amazing in tights and heels! That doesn’t mean he’s canonically femme though.

[turtleblogatlast]

Combining the boys’ abilities (and I mean actual combining not just using them at the same time) because I was thinking about it and wow they’re kinda cracked actually-

[ cw: death mention / def not for them though 💀]

Raph & Mikey: infinite clones (aka unbeatable) + strength completely unparalleled + infinite cloned chains + the clones are very fast and can fly + potentially reverse any damage on main shield clones or even damage in general

Mikey & Donnie: constructs that also can last much longer than usual possibly forever + potential future vision + every single cable or wire or anything of that sort has the potential to be taken over akin to Mikey’s chains + full telekinesis

Donnie & Leo: pinpoint portal/teleportation themselves or constructs just by knowing where to aim (aka instadeath for any enemy if used right) + telepathy

Leo & Raph: teleporting clones who can grow or shrink at will (which can also be instadeath like above if used right) + said clones can also act as homing spots to switch places with + potentially swap damage taken to clones

Raph & Donnie: they literally can make Voltron, but more than one + basically impossible to destroy shields + constructs can also be cloned

Mikey & Leo: freezing time and being able to move during it + heat death of the universe + “oops hey it’s other alternate iterations of us???” + this is a time and space team up you’re not winning this-

Basically any combo is an instant “you win.” I wanna go further into these combos later and maybe even add or subtract as I think more on it because there’s so many I left out and I can always extrapolate on and explain these ones more, but this was fun and these boys have terrifying powers even without combining them all together.

Seriously, should each of them train these abilities to the best they can be, there is no beating them even if they’re alone.

[orviposition]

the "I'm not interested in men" line debuted in the webtoon newest (still behind paywall) chapter and mfers on reddit are like "hah finally the shippers' dreams are crushed" you Fool, you illiterate buffoon. you Do Not understand yaoi literature like I do and it shows. if the many, many, many novels, mangas and doujinshis that I've read have taught me ANYTHING is the irrefutable fact that this single line is PEAK homosexuality and you Cannot actually prove me wrong

[nhaneh]

Old Kea steps on your OC: @sylaurin's Kabniel Shinespark been quite a while since last oops sorry about that

want your own character to be part of this series? let me know!

[skinsbyoctober]

Curious if there would be any interest in releasing work that isn't at all flexible and may require cookie-cutter forums set up in the way the skin was built? Like, I use the same formula in pretty much every skin I design for myself, and if you were to use it, too, you'd have to follow it as well (or know how to edit it yourself to make any changes).

For example --

Or is that just too inaccessible/unfavorable?

[moeblob]

So in the base plot she isn't really mentioned but there is lore that one of the bartenders (James) is the work dad to the hot bartender. And he's got a girlfriend who is never mentioned by name. Buuuut in the Royalty AU there's a young woman named Erin who is hired as the new head gardener at the castle and while she is getting adjusted to the role, she has some assistance from someone she used to work with at the flower shop in town. And that's the hot gardener!

So basically, Erin exists more in the AU than she does in canon/base but I'm stressed and wanted to design her.

For those that are new/don't know my OCs, Hot Bartender (HB) will never be given a name. That's just him now. He's the hot bartender. He's got a huge crush on Paul (another side character). That's Erin's work son vicariously in main and her work son directly in AU.

[wacadoodles]

Thought.. Bc I was thinkin of Alderpaw & Jayfeather's mentor-cousin-brother dynamic, wouldn'tve it been interesting if Lionblaze was Sparkpaw's mentor and they shared a somewhat similar bond. (And then Berrynose for Alderpaw's warrior mentor to add in some good ol Lion/Berry rivarly, but Alder's anxiety might not be able to withstand him-)

[inumbrapugnabimus-maybe]

i colored some of them!!

[the-sun-and-the-sea]

Odesta Week Day 1: Modern AU Monday

"Did you hear the news?"

Annie digs into her locker to find her coat, only half listening to the girls on the other side of the lockers. Whatever news they're sharing can range from somebody lost a paper clip to the world is ending outside, and she probably wouldn't believe them either way. The girls at Panem Skating Club have a penchant for gossip that is more frequently false than true. 

"What news?" the other girl asks. Annie can only see flashes of dark hair every so often from where she's standing, but she can't tell who's speaking. Somebody a few years younger than her, probably. 

"Finnick Odair is looking for a new partner."

Annie almost laughs aloud, but refrains at the last second. Finnick Odair is something of a legend in their skate club. His older brother Adrian was a former Olympic solo skater who took home the silver a few years ago. In their small town, that basically makes you a hero. Finnick himself is a great skater, but hasn't gone to the Olympics yet. Still, he and his partner Cashmere are pretty unshakable. The thought of either of them retiring so early is ludicrous. 

"No way," another female voice calls, as Annie pretends to not be listening. "Cashmere's only twenty-three. That's a pretty early retirement."

"Age isn't the reason," says the first voice. Annie's brows furrow. Injury, maybe? "She's pregnant." 

Whatever is said after this point, Annie doesn't hear. Her coat and scarf are wrapped firmly around her body and there's no need to listen to the gossip any longer. Even if it is true, listening in on the details of another woman's pregnancy just feels invasive. 

Her ankle aches dully as she walks out the doors of the skating club. She's recovering from a minor case of bursitis in her ankle. It's kept her at home for the past three weeks, and Annie hasn't been back on the ice until today. Today's practice had left her sore and exhausted. Apparently, it would take a few days for her body to get used to skating again.

That's one of Annie's biggest issues with solo skating. There's nobody there to compensate for your faults, or to support you in your successes. There are coaches and other skaters who may be friendly, sure, but come competition time, it's just her on that ice. 

These days, Annie's beginning to wonder if she even wants that. 

***

Annie can't be certain why she does it. 

She sits in her car, parked in the diner's parking lot. Maybe it's because the rink started to fill up and she had nothing to practice with no coach. Or maybe she's just curious. 

Okay, back up. Earlier this morning, she had made it to the rink for a practice session, although that quickly proved to be useless. The one highlight was meeting Mags Flanagan, Finnick’s coach. She was an Olympian back in her day before retiring from competitive skating to coach others into the same success she had. When asked about it in interviews, Mags says she'll quit when Finnick does.

So it was quite the surprise when Mags asked Annie to consider being Finnick’s new partner. 

The offer didn’t completely come out of nowhere. It’s not like Annie has anything better to do, and Mags had said that her technique was almost perfect. Her flaw in skating wasn’t about the jumps and spins. It had always been about emoting. Her coaches have been telling her that for years, but their vague instructions have never made sense to her. She can do almost any jump they ask of her, and her spins are basically perfect. What else is she missing?

"Finnick, on the other hand, feels the emotions of the performance very deeply,” Mags had told her. “Sometimes, his technique gets...lost."

And if Mags Flanagan thinks that she and Finnick can balance each other out, it’s probably not a bad idea to at least consider it. 

Taking a final deep breath, she leaves her car and walks into the diner. 

Finnick Odair isn't hard to find. Not only is he one of the most well known faces in their skating club, but he has a sense about him that radiates life. He sits with his back to her in a booth, idly stirring sugar into a cup of coffee. 

Before Annie can talk herself out of it, she slides in the booth across from him. 

"Hi, Annie," Finnick says, like he's known her for years. "Coffee?"

"No," Annie says. "Thank you."

She's expecting the silence to linger, but Finnick picks up the slack easily. "Mags told me you might be coming. I know you probably have questions, but if you want to know why Cashmere's retiring, you should probably go to her for that."

She shrugs. "It's not my business."

"Oh," he says, showing his first hint of surprise. "Cool. Okay. Well, I know this would be a risk."

Annie pretends to peruse the diner's menu, but her mind is on anything but breakfast food. "That's an understatement. Most pair skaters have been together for at least a decade. We'd be at a major disadvantage."

Finnick sips his coffee, wincing at the heat. He pushes it away. "True. But it's not like we're doing so great right now. I mean, my partner just left. And you're..."

She's what? Washed up? Obviously not making it anywhere beyond the confines of her own rink?

"You're a good skater, Annie," he decides on. That was diplomatic of him. "I've seen you perform, and I agree with Mags. But forget about that for a second. If you're happy where you're at, I can respect that. But if you're even a little unsatisfied, what do we have to lose?"

Annie's throat constricts. When she can finally get words out, she asks, "Don't you want to go to the Olympics?"

"I would love to go to the Olympics," he answers automatically, without thought. "More than that, I want to skate."

The same can't be said for a lot of skaters. She doesn't know many people who would be satisfied through the sport alone. There's a certain buzz that comes from competition. Watching her scores climb, standing on that podium. It's intoxicating. Sure, they love the sport, but they love more than just the skating. 

Finnick's unasked question still hangs in the air. "Okay," says Annie, because Finnick's right. Why the hell not? "Let's try."

[deoidesign]

Look at these stickers my brain is literally so huge. God. I love them so much.

I hadn't tried to do a sticker sheet at home before because I knew it would be difficult, and I was right! Getting the cut lines to line up with the print was super hard and there were many failed attempts, but it was so worth it I'm so happy with them!!!

This sticker sheet is for my patrons this month ^^

[boatboys]

actually on the topic of old drawings; the first-ever drawings I did of Rich, Liam, and Sol turned up on my deep-dive of old discord messages and I was compelled to redraw/compare!

Rich very much predates the worldbuilding of the Michigan Fleet universe, as one of Key/rollerskatinglizard's oldest OCs, and was originally just a normal amount of un-tweaked big and buff dude, although I also sucked at drawing people with body mass back when I drew these lol. It does make me laugh that the huge crooked nose and sad, downturned eyes have been a constant from sketch one!

Liam predates the Michigan Fleet as well and was originally mine! He..... hasn't changed much actually haha. Although his size/prettiness/temper being a genetic modification is new, from the first lengthy discussion of mods where fourhands and hastings both got established (although not by those names). It looks like I coined the mod name "Babydoll", which I do NOT remember doing.

Sol was the most Group Effort of these three, looking back at the messages: Key invented a salty little gorgeous asshole with modded hearing for a snatch of interaction in a wildly different context than his new introduction; roach was the one who suggested the elf ears and iridescent hair to go along with it, I was the one who suggested he was from New York and threw several large pinches of "a big tsundere about Rich" into the mix, and a lot of the much later patrician worldbuilding was roach.