#that's what makes him terrifying

[bearfeathers]

no but the way halloween (2018) restores to michael myers the identity of the shape and the boogeyman is just 🤌

[im-smart-i-swear]

coming back home.

@barrenclan

[ghost-bxrd]

Prompt:

Damian isn’t happy about father’s rule not to hurt the gaggle of false kids he has acquired. How is he supposed to prove to him that he is the only one worthy of the title of heir now?

But fine. Most of them are stupid enough they’ll end up dead sooner or later. Damian just has to play the long game. Establish himself as the only constant.

But then father’s wayward son, Todd, comes home… and it’s so much worse than Damian expected.

He remembers this man. Remembers him from hushed whispers in the League, from mother’s creased eyebrow, and training halls drenched with blood.

And he’ll take one look at Damian and know. Know that he’s a threat to his position.

And the worst thing: Damian isn’t allowed to defend himself.

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: trauma / ptsd / violence / brainwashing / ]

I’m not done talking about Raph and Leo yet because you know what kills me? How the beginning of the movie with Raph very angry at Leo to the point of lashing out at him is paralleled with how the end of the movie has the Krang very, very angry at Leo and beating him horrifically.

Both Raph and the Krang are so much bigger than Leo, both have been very angry with him, and both deem him responsible for ruining their respective missions.

To make matters worse, Raph’s body was used to hurt Leo. So it’d make sense for Leo to just…flinch, sometimes. To have his body reflectively brace for a blow that will not come because Raph would see this and just be horrified. Their fights, their roughhousing, their existing together all have a newfound and unwanted extra layer to them.

And Raph? Raph is traumatized enough having been brainwashed the way he was, turned into a monster in a way he always dreads in general. To be made into the antithesis of a hero and instead be a villain’s pawn, made to hurt his own family…poor kid, to say the least.

Can’t imagine what it must feel like, the first time post invasion that Raph gets mad at Leo and they fall into their old dynamic only for Leo to see the Krang and for Raph to feel like he is the Krang.

[serpentface]

This was going to be a panel of a little comic but I got too invested in drawing minute background details so, here.

[kazanskyy]

iceman + his concern for maverick post-hop 31

[izzystizzys]

Ever since touching down on Triple Zero, both a military and quality marker for the planet in his mind, Marshall Commander Fox had become intimately acquainted with the biting pain of headaches and migraines.

This, however, feels like it’s going to make his skull cave inside out.

“I can hear voices, Thorn”, Fox hisses, wide-eyed, breathing harshly through his nose. His bucket sadly lolls around on the pavement from where he ripped it off in a panic, unable to breathe all of a sudden. But even exposure to the open air hasn’t helped much - now, Fox just feels like a fish drowning in water, desperately breathing in the air but unable to keep it in his lungs.

“I mean, we all hear voices, ori’vod, that’s really less concerning than if you couldn’t -“, Thorn begins, hands stretched out towards Fox like he’s trying to approach a rabid beast. “Voices, Thorn!”, Fox repeats, whisper-screaming over the strange sensation of all his blood pooling in his head and ears popping. “In my kriffing head!”

Thorn’s mouth opens to gape, then closes again immediately, countenance turning decidedly more alarmed than before. Fox crumbles to the ground, head clutched in his hands, moaning in painpainpainpain-

The only thing like this he’s felt before is after one of his private meetings with the Chancellor, the one he never lets anyone else have and Fox never remembers. It feels like there’s something else in his head, worming around his thoughts and bouncing off the insides of his skull-

“- is kriffing losing it, Thire, I don’t know what to do -“

“- keep position, help is -“

“- kriffing RED ALERT, what the -“

“- do you mean a karking Venator exploded over Coruscant?!”

“- call it the Zillo Beast - it caved in the side of the ship, apparently, and is making for the surface -“

The pressure inside Fox’s head increases, warmth dripping over his cheeks and from his noise, swelling until he thinks his head really will explode, and then - stops-

Fox looks up, gasping, at the shadow that has fallen across his and Thorn’s patrol, into two massive, glowing eyes. The thing tilts its head, and chirps. It sounds like a greeting.

Silence. Then -

“You’re right”, Fox says, in a daze, “we should kill the Chancellor.”

“WHAT”, Thorn screeches.

———————————

Fox wakes an indeterminate amount of time later to a gentle breeze and nebulous feeling in his head. This is strange for several reasons - one, Guard HQ are both insulated and airconditioned like ass, thus the temperature is always wrong and the air constantly stuffy, and two - he hasn’t woken up not in pain since touching down two years ago.

“Stabby gave you the good shit”, his own voice says, and yeah, that would explain that.

“Stabby is a little bitch”, Fox tries to say, which comes out more like a warbled gurgle. “You’re welcome”, a third voice replies, sarcastically. Fox pries open his eyes with great difficulty. Ah, yes, that’s Stabby looming across the room - and Stone, next to his bedside, lounging in a chair next to a passed-out Thorn, whose head is tilted across the back of his chair at an angle that will definitely put a crick in it.

And, behind them, where the medbay wall used to be, two gigantic, glowing green eyes, tilting along with the rest of the eldritch face floating next to Fox’s bed.

“Hgngndndnsndnfnfffhhh”, he vocalizes, and Stone shrugs. “Yeah, been there the whole time. Do you remember anything?” Fox frowns. Stabby snickers somewhere from his far corner, quietly bustling around and probably concocting something nefarious to make Fox sleep or “take a break”.

Stone’s eyebrows rise incrementally. “Really? Not even when you mounted the space monster, took a joyride through half of Coruscant, crashed through the Senate Dome and battled a lightning-launching Chancellor?”

Fox blinks. The Zillo Beast chirps cheerfully. “Huh.” A sense of strange, deep satisfaction spreads through Fox’s chest, raising goosebumps. “Did we bite his head off? I think we bit his head off.”

Stone chokes, and Stabby races over to thump him on his back, Fox watching warily for any sharp objects. You never know on that one - one second he’s checking your pupils for dilation, then you’ve got a needle sticking out of you and boom, ten hours gone. Or suddenly you’re spitting out decaf - ew - at five kriffing in the morning, being lectured about heart health and some other banthashit.

Something that feels strangely like a chuckle titters across Fox’s mind, and when he looks over, the Zillo Beast is blinking innocently at him.

“Yeah, your little friend did actually bite off the Chancellor’s head” Stone confirms, once he can breathe again. Thorn slowly stirs, until he jackknifes to awareness all at once, and then Fox has a lap full of hugging vod’ika.

“ - took twenty years off my kriffing life, goddamn, ori’vod, you’re giving me grey hair -“

“It’ll match your old man bones”, Stabby murmurs, making Thorn screech indignantly into the top of Fox’s head. The Zillo Beast trills mournfully, aiming a sad look at the medic, who shakes his head and brandishes a hypo at the thing. Fox wonders if he’ll have to intervene - he would try to hypo an eldritch space monster, the absolute lunatic. “Absolutely not - we talked about this, no scritchies until we can be sure it won’t bust more of Fox’s ribs!”

Fox’s mouth opens, and Thorn snickers mercilessly. Stone, far too dignified for it, buries a grin in a datapad. “It’s imprinted on you, Fox’ika”, he says instead, the traitor. “Tried to gte to you in the Jedi temple, but it wouldn’t fit - which is when we brought you here. The interior design was so butt-kriffing ugly it wouldn’t matter much to tear it out.”

“Imprinted?”, Fox asks, not even willing to touch on anything else that’s been said yet. An image flashes across the inside of his skull - him, tossing a space-tennis-ball into the air, and the Zillo Beast slithering off after it. In reality, it perks up and mrows hopefully at Fox God, he wishes he was still insensate. Thorn snickers again, and the desire increases tenfold.

“Yeah, like in that one holoshow, whatchacallit - with that one blonde chick, the Mother of Krayts - you know, the one that made Hound cry when they killed the loth wolves so we had to ban it in barracks?” Thorn’s eyes light up. “Wait, does that make you the mother of Zillos?!”

“Oooh, mummy Fox!”, Stabby screeches, the absolute traitor. Stone breaks out into barking laughter, and Thorn sounds like he’s actively asphyxiating. Fox hates them. Fox turns to the Zillo Beast.

“Please, please eat them.”

[sculkshrieking]

saw or mcyt you say… how about saw AND mcyt. put trafficgrian into a situation. reverse bear trap him or fuck em up in some other way do whatever you want forever have fun!!!!!

i loooove drawing AUs that a total of three people wanna see <3 this is how we finally get mcyt fans into Saw

[jackdaw-and-hattrick]

The Batfam becomes convinced Danny is a clone/son and try to get a DNA sample. They can’t, not because Danny knows what they're up to, it’s just because he’s been so thoroughly ingrained with zero waste practices by Sam and never throws anything away.

[hijinxinprogress]

Whenever the JL starts complaining about YJs public image YJ just straight up gaslights them

[thepersonperson]

Sukuna's Loneliness Part 2 (Sukuna is a fraud and it's funny.)

Part 1 Part 3

Before we start...

1) I will be mainly using the TCB scans because of their accessibility. 

2) This was written as of JJK 262.

(Click pictures for captions/citations.)

Fraudkuna

You’ve probably heard JJK dudebros call The King of Curses a fraud. Fraudkuna to be exact. I want to say that they’re 100% right, but that doesn’t make Sukuna a bad fighter. Sukuna is a fraud in the way Saul Goodman is a fraud. He’s so good at being fraudulent that it’s his very way of life.

This person puts it succinctly. 

And remember Reggie’s Star’s words of wisdom.

The best sorcerers are masters of deception.

Mimicry

Sukuna constantly steals from people—he takes something that isn’t his, and then morphs it into something for his purposes whether it’s bodies, Cursed Techniques (CTs), or strategies. This guy barely has original ideas of his own, using someone else’s work as the base and then building himself on top of that. This is fraud behavior. 

Puppeting Megumi

In a 2 for 1 special, Sukuna steals Kenjaku’s original idea to turn body parts into cursed objects and Megumi’s 10 Shadows along with his body.

Naturally he steals the hand signs for Megumi's CT too.

What’s interesting about this copying is that the hand signs are inversed for every Shikigami except Mahoraga.

I think the inversion for Sukuna is an act of disrespect or a form of acknowledgement for a lesser since the hand sign for Mahoraga, who Sukuna respects greatly, is identical to the original form. Sukuna’s Mahoraga is virtually unchanged in design as well. It might be slightly bigger, unlike the other Shikigami whose forms are distorted compared to Megumi’s.

I lean towards distortion being an act of disrespect since Sukuna despises Choso almost as much as Yuji and steals his Piercing Blood while tweaking the hand sign.

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. And just about everyone has picked up on Sukuna’s Megumi obsession. However, what most don’t realize is that this obsession wasn’t for Megumi the person, but his potential. Mahoraga to be exact.

And though Sukuna adores Mahoraga, his obsession with this Shikigami is in service to someone else…

Professional Gojo Satoru Simp

When I was writing this section, I was greatly surprised. I went back and scanned through everything post-Gojo Death (JJK 236-262) to see how often Sukuna copies Gojo as evidence of fraud. What I found fundamentally changed the direction of this analysis. I will tie it all into how Sukuna is a fraud don't get me wrong, but there's something else at play here...

Post-Gojo's demise, Sukuna thinks of Gojo whether directly from himself or implied by the narrator. 15 TIMES.

Sukuna, for no discernable reason, keeps copying everything Gojo did. It's not a one-off thing like Megumi for a long-term goal, it's a consistent non-stop mimicry after their fight. Here's all of them so far:

1. Using Reverse Cursed Energy (RCE) to heal a burnt-out CT.

2. The hand sign for Unlimited Void. (Aside: Yuta inverts the hand sign as Yujo, but in his case I think it's an act of respect since he doesn't see himself as Gojo's equal.)

3. The hand sign for Red.

4. Shrine based Infinity barrier.

5. Using Blue's gravity to fast travel.

6. Black flashing to restore Cursed Energy (CE) output.

7. The chanting and Honored One Pose at the same time. (And there’s even more layers to the chants themselves check out this post.)

8. Detonating his own technique on himself.

9. Even the way in which he smiles as he beats teenagers up.

By the way this face punch he did to Yugo is a replica Gojo's very first punch he landed on Sukuna.

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery but got dang. This is a bit obsessive to put it lightly.

But it didn’t start here. Sukuna’s Gojo obsession started from this panel. As Sukuna himself confirms.

No. Let’s go back further. This is when it began. Chapter 2 of the manga and Episode 1 of the anime in early June of 2018.

This motherfudger has been planning on how to slaughter Gojo for 200+ chapters. In canon time that is about 6 months.

I want to point out that his promise to kill Gojo first wound up being a lie on multiple fronts (more fraudulent behavior). He admits that it's the wrong brat's body while leaving out the fact that Gojo wasn't his first kill.

Technically Sukuna made Yuji's body his temporarily in Shibuya and killed thousands, but that wasn't deliberate. Sukuna didn't target those civilians specifically, they just got caught up as collateral in his fights with Jogo and Mahoraga. The first person Sukuna went out of his way to kill was Yorozu/Tsumiki (killing Ryu along the way). And he didn't tell Gojo that for a reason.

Much like Gojo, Sukuna is a 2 birds and 1 stone person as in he has multiple reasons for doing a single action. This can make his motives appear dubious or have plausible deniability. Sukuna on the surface went after Yorozu/Tsumiki to subjugate Megumi's soul. But that too was still in service of killing Gojo. Yorozu’s Perfect Sphere, if you remember, acts just like Infinity. And Sukuna trained Mahoraga on it deliberately to get past it.

This also means that retroactively, his Megumi and Mahoraga obsession is a part of his Gojo obsession. He saw his personally trained student’s potential, found out about Mahoraga’s adaptation, and used it specifically to upgrade his CT for the sole purpose of killing Gojo. Sukuna admits to this himself.

Not with his own technique by itself, but with Megumi’s because deep down he realized Gojo’s CT was better than his and he’d lose to him in a fair fight. A fraudulent way to victory.

By the way, when Mahoraga finally adapts to Infinity in a way Sukuna can copy, he's observing the adaptation from the shadows, fully bumming the fight, as Gojo 1v2s Agito and Mahoraga.

What’s so fascinating about this planning is that it was made up on the fly. Sukuna has been obsessing over how to kill Gojo Satoru since their first 10 seconds interaction. (Toji behavior much?) Megumi and Mahoraga being a part of his plans occurred by chance. There’s a certain level of adaptability and skill needed to think on the fly like this. It truly makes Sukuna the Best Fraud in verse.

Lies and Hypocrisy

Simply copying those you admire is base level fraudulent behavior. What makes Sukuna the King of Frauds are the contradictions in his words and actions. This isn’t like Gojo Satoru who is actively hiding his true feelings as a trauma response. Sukuna betrays his own inner logic on convenience. Uraume even notes this as his “capricious nature”.

These are excuses made by a Professional Sukuna Understander who also acknowledges just how much he was into Gojo despite Sukuna actively denying it himself. (He’s just a fish? What kind of fish engages in 6 months of psychological mind games and preparation to catch outside of Moby Dick? Yes I know he’s a whale but the obsessiveness bordering something else is there.)

We'll get back to this eventually. For now we will focus on how Sukuna picks on children.

Hating Ideals and Roles

Sukuna hates ideals. Everyone knows this because he tells Yuji constantly how much he hates them. He spits on Yuji for having ideals and goals. And then turns around and gets hyped when he finally has his own goal to chase. The hypocrisy speaks for itself.

But that’s not the end of it. He also berates Yuji for seeking a role in life, outwardly teasing him when he finds one besides cog. And then gets this excited when Maki “forces” one on him.

He’s not just being a hypocrite here. I think it’s envy. Yuji gets all the things he was denied—a society that does not exclude him for the circumstances of his birth, clear cut goals and purposes alongside others, and fulfilling connections with equals. In the worst case of Sour Grapes I’ve ever seen, he derides the things he believes he’s incapable of having. But the second he gets a taste, he starts salivating.

Hating Love

Sukuna's hatred of ideals and roles in society is but a microcosm of his one true hate—love and connections. Anything soft like bonds makes people weak. Sukuna seeks only strength so he believes the following:

Not only does Sukuna admit here that connections with other people are a weakness, he believes Gojo to be the modern pinnacle of casting them away to obtain strength. In a very roundabout way this is him praising Gojo for being a monster like himself.

And that's where the next contradiction lies. Despite Sukuna preaching the benefits of isolation, he still craves that monster to monster connection. He adores anyone just like him. Monsters who throw all their humanity away just like him. He wants that connection so badly. Look at how often Sukuna gets excited when he thinks others might be like him. (Notice the half-assed Brat is Sukuna calling Yuji out for not committing to monsterhood.)

Uraume of all people should fulfill a bit of that social want Sukuna has, but they put him on a pedestal. They are his servant and he is their master. Even though they can intuit his needs, they can’t fulfill all his emotional ones since their relationship is one with inherent distance between them. That being said, Uraume still understands exactly what Sukuna is looking for—other monsters.

Professional Sukuna Understander once again gives insight onto how this fraud thinks. Sukuna is strong enough to endure solitude. He is fearless and alone by embracing power.

And yet Sukuna cannot abide by his own principles against love.

December 24th is the most romantic day in Japan. This information is in part how we infer Gojo Satoru is in love Geto Suguru time and time again. Kenjaku calls Gojo out for this. Setting a battle date to December 24th is romantic in nature. And Sukuna, of his own volition starts seeing Gojo as the one who will teach him love.

No. That's not right either...

Gojo has never been the one trying to teach Sukuna love. He never heard those words from Yorozu. Not once. It's the other way around. Sukuna is the one trying to teach Gojo about love. Every single time "The one who will teach you about love is..." appears, Sukuna is in the final frame. It's never Gojo. It's always Sukuna.

The loneliness that comes with unrivaled strength. The one who will teach you about love is...Sukuna.

Kashimo takes Sukuna up on the offer. He has Sukuna teach him about love. When Sukuna first starts his speech about love, he speaks of Yorozu as someone who could've taught Gojo of love—as in Gojo was the one who needed teaching. He also spells out for Kashimo that the strong love with their violence. Sukuna himself admits that he loves by slaughtering. All while saying it's worthless in the end, because the only thing that matters to him is strength.

Wanting love and strength is greedy. You can't have both. Sukuna killing Gojo was not only an act of love, but an act of denial in pursuit of self-preservation. Sukuna found someone he could possibly love and he did everything in his power to kill him for the sake of maintaining his strength.

This could be proof he's not a fraud when it comes to hating love. But he still engaged with it and became stronger as a result of it—contradicting the very principles on which he decries love as weakness.

In retrospect, this makes this particular Gojo glazing Sukuna sequence from the infamous JJK 236 ironically hilarious.

Gojo never realized that Sukuna obsessed over him for 6 months nonstop after meeting him for 10 seconds. He never realized that Sukuna's cruelty and cuts were trying to reach him. The most Gojo knew was that Sukuna bagged Mahoraga to kill him. He didn't know about the planning that went into it or the heart behind it all. Gojo has always been iffy about understanding other people's feelings towards him mind you, but...

In the same way Geto did not understand Gojo's love for him until both of them were dead, Gojo did not understand Sukuna's love for him even in death. Because Gojo and Sukuna are the same person.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni (When the Seagulls Cry) is a visual novel about a person who is fundamentally misunderstood by those around them. They desperately want to be loved without being perceived, believing themself to be unworthy due to trauma and immutable characteristics given to them at birth. Instead of telling anyone these feelings directly, they play games akin to torture. They torment the ones they love over and over in hopes they'll see through their actions and understand them.

The Consequences of Fraudulent Behavior

The tragedy of Sukuna is his inability to fully realize his desires. He wants an equal in strength to play with or be killed by, but he crushes anyone with the potential to do that. Gojo was the closest thing Sukuna ever got to realizing that desire. Hence the “You cleared my skies. I shall remember you for as long as I live.” and subsequent "Where's Gojo Satoru?" ad nauseum.

Instead of allowing these potential companions to realize their abilities fully, he kills them and then gets upset about it. There's honestly no difference between him and a dog impulsively tearing his favorite chewtoys to pieces and getting confused by the outcome. (And in the case of Gojo Satoru, that's the dog catching the car but if the dog had spent half a year studying the exact speed and timing down to the stud before ripping the bumper off.)

I genuinely cannot tell if Sukuna is aware of this problem himself. Seriously, I don’t think anyone has told him that if he wants a matured fighter, he needs to let them…mature in the first place. I know he was treated like animal since birth, but he’s smart enough to know better. 

He’ll never reach satisfaction like this and it’s as funny as it is pathetic. Even Megumi, the first person he saw with the potential to entertain him, was chewed up with ease. Not just him, but the very reason he took interest—Mahoraga. Instead of having a Shikigami that will always evolve with him and therefore always be a source of everchanging entertainment, he tamed it and added it to his arsenal.

Sure all of that was to kill Gojo via masterclass frauding, but that too cucks him in the long run. Gojo is still the only person in Sukuna’s entire existence to keep up with him and nearly kill him on his own. If Sukuna were smarter, he could’ve developed a lifelong rivalry that fueled both of their growths. But Gojo beats him fair and square, so he binding vow frauds his way out in a way that permanently destroys this source of fun.

And on top of that, his killing of Gojo may have also been Sukuna trying to trick himself into believing he doesn't need anyone to satisfy him ever. He probably believes this from the bottom of his heart. Kashimo calls him out for it. "Then why mince your soul into cursed objects and watch all those years go by?" Why get so excited when Uraume shows up too?

I'm not saying that Sukuna has been secretly craving romantic or sexual love for the past 1,000 years. He has had plenty of opportunities to engage with this kind of love and has chosen not to. (Though I do think Sukuna saw his fight with Gojo as a some warped version of a date at this point.) The kind of love Sukuna seems to crave is one between friends, peers, and equals. What I'm saying is that Gojo shattered his world view in the same way Gojo also shattered Toji's world view. But unlike Toji who was able to admit his way of thinking was flawed, Sukuna is actively in denial.

He denies his own feelings and desires for companionship while running around looking for another Gojo Satoru that will never exist. All that Sukuna is left with are disappointments and ghosts to chase. The only person who keeps getting up stronger every time he knocks them down is Yuji. And he hates Yuji. 

I’m not sure what this all means in the grand scheme of this story, but I am fascinated by how this absolute menace sabotages his own chances at happiness because his power and fraudulent behavior has stripped him of his ability to socialize.

[ineffableteeth]

They probably almost kissed after this

They probably almost kissed after this

They probably almost kissed after this

[6ug2pray]

[da-janela-lateral]

Guilt.

[turtleblogatlast]

The fact that Leo can go literally anywhere on earth to be alone with his thoughts at a single moment’s notice is something that shakes around in my head all the time. Like, portals and teleportation are amazing and convenient abilities both in and out of battle, but they could also so easily be used to run away as well.

I don’t think Leo ever would, at least not most of the time. He loves his family too much, and is too dependent on their love and attention to cut himself off so suddenly like that, but it’s a very real possibility nonetheless.

It’s a good thing Leo’s overall temper is more on the mild side and he prefers going to his room or something to complete solitude, because it really is dangerous for a kid to have the ability to isolate themselves like that at their fingertips.

[wyrmwinds]

Someone with a better mind for character design than me should redesign Vauthry because of how the fatphobic design makes idiots unable to read the nuance surrounding him and ALSO because I do feel like there's a good design in there.

The way he's stylized doesn't do him any favors but I think that the tie between his baby-like appearance and the whole concept of innocence surrounding him could be so good if they didn't do it like that. At the very least, I feel like he should have gotten childlike eyes.

I feel like it would have been interesting if instead of leaning heavily into "grotesque fat manbaby" stereotyped design they maybe made him look like. An actual child, to give off that air of innocence. Sort of like a padjali situation with him, which offers an interesting tie between the "pure" white mages of the Source and him. I also feel that it would offer a more visual parallel between him and Alphinaud. He can even keep the fat, with it even giving him a design aspect of angelic cherubs.