#the way he constantly has hold of him

[lokimobius]

LOKI S02E01 “Ouroboros”

[magnecalliope]

Branzy is not some innocent waif by any means, but I feel like everyone misunderstands the ways in which he matches Clown’s freak. Particularly, they want to subvert what they view as the architypical dynamic between Branzy and Clown without any real regard to how Branzy's personality actually meshes with Clown's. They recognize that Clown’s intimidation of Branzy is surface level, but don’t seem to grasp what’s going on below that to give Branzy his own edge over Clown.

Branzy is a homicidal maniac in his own right, and certainly has aspirations of being the kind of murder machine that Clown is, but he just does not have the fighting skill to back it up, nor was he a particularly skilled engineer when he first joined Lifesteal. At his core, Branzy is a coward. He gravitates towards whichever player or team he thinks is going to protect him, and he'll stroke their ego to get in their good graces. He gets by on his charisma and charm.

Clown, despite having a clear advantage over Branzy, still frequently comes across as uncomfortable with Branzy's attention, while also craving it and seeking it out. He's also a deeply reserved individual. Even when he's emoting he's still very quiet and even tempered. He plays his cards close to his chest. He's a loner. He has his reputation in part because he's unreadable and intimidating. He was coming off of a season where he hadn't died a single time. He’s an unstoppable force without an immovable object.

So here's the scenario: You're a stoic assassin. Usually you like to work alone. Other people slow you down. But you want revenge and you want to execute it in a particular manner that just happens to be outside of your wheelhouse. You have to team up with someone, and it just so happens you know someone with passable talent and a common enemy. You can tell he's afraid of you, and he should be, because he can't even beat Spepticle in a fight, how would he ever take on you?

But he's also... strangely affectionate. You box him in and he lets you, even as he's shaking with fright. You flirt and he flirts back. You're used to letting your reputation speak for itself, but here he is singing your praises to anyone who will listen. He puts all the credit for the collaboration on you, and downplays his own contribution. He sticks around even after you've exacted your revenge, and he still has nothing but good things to say about you, no matter how much you push and prod and scare and tease.

The fundamental difference between Branzy and Clown is vulnerability. Branzy has had no choice but to embrace his, while Clown has done everything in his power to excise it from himself entirely. Branzy allows himself to have big emotions and Clown barely speaks above a whisper at any given moment. When it comes to a fight, of course there isn’t much that can scare Minecraft’s Deadliest Assassin. But Clown has no idea how to navigate emotions, while emotions are Branzy’s greatest asset. People relate to Branzy, they trust him, and he uses it to manipulate them right into their traps. He can trick others’ emotionally as easily as Clown can cut them down with his sword. His relationship with Clown was made on the foundation of betrayal; he sacrificed his alliance with Vitalasy for Clown's protection. It was more important to him to stay on Clown's good side than remain loyal to his previous team, and this is because he felt, with 100% certainty, that Clown offered him more than Vitalasy did. And Vitalasy never saw it coming. 

That’s what makes Branzy so terrifying to Clown. Because he trusts Branzy. He lets his guard down around Branzy. He lets himself be vulnerable with Branzy. What if Branzy’s just manipulating him too? Or worse. 

What if he’s not?

[theweeklydiscourse]

God forbid you ever criticize the lack of consequences Bakugou experiences in MHA, or suddenly you’ll find dozens of Bakugou stans pouring into your mentions to make a speech about how cruel you are for forcing him to eat cement. They’ll act as though “consequences” inherently involves throwing him into the dungeon or putting him in detention for 100 years and then moan about how him facing consequences would only perpetuate a cycle of abuse/discrimination.

Listen, it’s not really that much of a consequence if the “consequence” in question isn’t directly connected to his current or past bad behaviour. “Oh but his scars!” “When he died that one time!” “His guilt for getting kidnapped” None of those are related to his bullying, and in my opinion, that makes them insufficient as consequences in an arc about changing for the better.

The consequences I would actually like to see could be as simple as: Izuku feels sad/mad because of what he went through, or certain characters reflect on how Bakugou’s past impacts their perception of him. More introspection on the victim’s end is needed, Bakugou doesn’t necessarily need to be pilloried for the arc to be satisfying.

[puppyeared]

RETURN TO MONKE (PUBERTY EDITION)

MK’s monkey form doesn’t feel right to me so i wanted to break up his transformation into stages. Maybe as he learns to accept that side of himself it becomes part of him, instead of changing between human and monkey randomly (which is probably painful). Love yourself, NOW!!!

@zymstarz im tagging you for FULL MONKE

[broken-clover]

Deeply deeply attached to the idea of Potemkin and Dizzy being friends and an unreasonably large portion of that is the thought that she's basically one of the few things he would be able to hug and not immediately reduce to paste

[potatobugz]

Lucky is he, Who lives unaware

[nemaliwrites]

have a snippet from the lil kwami swap thing i'm working on!

High above the streets of Paris, Mister Bug and Lady Noire talk about love.

It's a dangerous topic, to be sure; one that has to be tiptoed around with utmost care. A balancing act for Mister Bug. For Lady Noire too, perhaps, but she never seems like it affects her quite as much. Maybe that's why she's the one who brings it up.

"Are you in love, Mister Bug?"

His feet, from where they'd been kicking back and forth rhythmically, come to a stop. "Huh?"

"I'm just curious," says Lady Noire. On the rooftop they sit, there's more than a few centimeters of space between them. A gap that they're both waiting for Mister Bug to bridge. He only wishes he could. "Are you?"

Mister Bug tries to catch her eye. "Are you sure you want to talk about this? We... we don't have to--"

She waves a clawed hand in the air dismissively. "It's fine," she says, even though he knows it's not. He wonders what it is that's fine: talking about love, or talking about love when they both know he won't -- he can't -- reciprocate her feelings? "I wanna know. Is there anyone you love?"

There is. 

[the-woman-upstairs]

Honestly, even without Art’s attempts at manipulation and sabotage, I don’t think Patrick and Tashi’s relationship would’ve survived anyway. Before they started dating, Patrick was criticizing her career plans and Tashi was never interested in entertaining his massive ego at her expense. Passion and chemistry are important to relationships, but if that’s the only foundation, it’s gonna crumble quickly.

The only difference between Patrick/Tashi vs Art/Tashi is that the relationship would’ve ending with a bang instead of a whimper.

[jrueships]

https://twitter.com/danfetes/status/1712166167572361344

josh says people saying stuff about stef ticks him off 😭 that's the meanest he'll ever get off the field 😭

that was kinda... 😏😏😏

and i definitely know stef feels the same... 😏

" tired of hearing all this nonsense... lot of guys in this league that have that same fire that don't get talked about, but--"

" frankly that kind of ticks me off when people wanna say stuff about him, but... we'll keep that all internal here 🙂🙃🫥."

this is allen at his boiling point omg 😭😭 held back by pr

[pwurrz]

who’s ready for more yakumo trauma talk-! *i am forcibly removed from the stage before i can begin speaking*

[divinekangaroo]

Was contemplating the whole ‘Tommy has no friends except Alfie’ thing/thought (it’s my own internal running joke too) but it can't really be true?

Tommy appears to have this huge social network, groups of people he’s still in touch with from the war, including internationally, and including in the officer class; these supposed very reliable contacts in Ireland which I can only assume ties back to the family connections to Ireland and maybe some visit across in his past; the huge respect (and edge of fear) network in Small Heath extending broader into Birmingham; seemingly a very *useful* social-climbing networking he's developed to be able to get the mayor and various politicians to the Grace Shelby charity opening in S3, a society networking which he maintains and builds upon all the way through to Tommy being able to invite actual upper crust society to a ballet at his house (and people attend!)

I mean, there's a level of reserve (rank/war respect) or transactional basis (professional tit for tat society networks), but he also had more friend style connections with say Barney, Freddie (even if it’s soured by the time we see it) and Danny (again, changed by Danny’s own PTSD into that Sergeant-Major thing, but lots of hints it wasn't always like that).

I’ve imagined Tommy puts a significant effort into his social (and society) networking as he does into his business - staying in touch, staying useful, even to the point of using Arthur (or let's imagine his secretaries, his ministerial aides, Polly; picking the right 'hand' who can maintain that relationship for him) to ensure letters and communications keep happening so people remain aware of him, and he stays alive in people’s minds at any possible level of class. He'd have to be maintaining that network like a garden.

The party for Lizzie also didn’t seem like a first time thing for them so I also imagine he hosts quite a lot of social affairs to remain current and connected, which becomes vitally imperative in a different way as a politician compared to a businessman.

But I think that default inner joke, Tommy has no friends and is isolated, is sometimes the claustrophobia of the actual seasons/scenes we see, which are so zoomed into him, into the family, into the worst, that I sometimes double think myself. Just...there’s no way he’s as successful as he is without pouring buckets of effort into society. Admittedly, maybe hardly any of these networking connections are deep connections in the odd way Alfie became one, or Ben Younger could have been one, but Tommy would be talking and meeting and greeting and hosting and writing letters allllllll the time

[carefulfears]

thinking about tena taking the photos of her children out of the frames and burning them before she died and mulder’s first reaction being “this is all she had left of us”

and how he could’ve said “this is all she had left of her,” but he didn’t, and he’s right. it is all there was left of them. all there was left of two kids playing baseball and arguing over a board game. all there was left of him before he was walking into the same room every day, before he was chasing ghosts, before no one talked about it.

all there was left of there being nothing to chase, of being still, of being a whole person to someone, knowing where you stand in the world.

it’s all she had left of her children, together and complete for some of the last times, and it’s crime scene evidence to cover up.

[triglycercule]

thinking about mtt literally physically dragging eachother down and being restrained to eachother because theyre genuinely that fucking ass for eachother but then it means i'd have to decide which of them to humiliate by putting a collar on them. and i can't choose. if they dont all equally suffer than whats the point man 🙁🙁🙁

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

your perception of itafushi. my beloved. my favorite little barbie dolls that gege loves to wind up. i miss them.

like the idea of yuuji being so jealous over megumi? the sunshine himbo…losing it at the sight of megumi smiling at this perfect little asshole who is totally hiding under an anxious mess facade. there’s no way someone could have it all and their this good guy. yuuji is waiting for the day yuuta messes up i just know it.

even with yuuji finally understands their dynamic i just know that those two have subtle competitions over megumi attention. like…it gets to the point where throwing cars at each other is the norm. (cue nanami being horrified at his legal and emotional children throwing cars at each other over a child of gojo. like yes he adores megumi. but somehow this is all gojo fault. don’t ask nanami how.)

BUT THE IDEA OF THE ZENINS BEING SO YUUJIPHOBIC? like the idea of them shuddering at the idea of megumi fucking around with the vessel of sukuna? that they had to set a bounty on him just to keep him away from their precious runaway heir? i just know mai pops out to the school just to bitch about megumi and his boyfriend being like modern day romeo and juliet.

i also love to imagine sukuna being a firm zenin hater. like he’s not even willing to eat them. he firmly believes that all of them taste like shit. especially naoya.

See I just love the idea of Yuuji being jealous over Megumi but exclusively when it comes to Okkotsu Yuuta. He’s legitimately not a jealous person. He’s never been jealous of anyone before in his life. He’s deeply secure in what he has with Megumi and knows that Megumi likes him back and that there’s no need to be worried or upset about Megumi having close relationships with other people. He wants Megumi to have close relationships outside of him.

But the universe fucking bends to give that perfect beautiful bastard everything Yuuji has ever dreamed of.

It’s a new experience for yuuji. He’s not used to experiencing jealousy. He’s literally never done it before. But there’s this impossibly gorgeous and perfect man swanning around out there getting his death sentence overturned and having his curse royalty unattach from his body in sparkling globes of light and having Nanamin legally adopt him as his actual child and having Megumi be His Boy and apparently it’s universally acknowledged* that Megumi is still Yuuta’s Boy despite Yuuji going to Herculean efforts to lock that shit down. He has assassins trying to kill him because it’s universally agreed** that his boyfriend is out of his league, apparently, and his boyfriend is still someone else’s Boy.

It does not help that when the Assassin Problem first appears yuuji wants to go to Gojo and Megumi decides he cannot take that level of humiliation and suggests going to Yuuta first. Which makes Yuuji insist that no no, he can handle a few assassins. No need to bother any impossibly beautiful upperclassman about it who are apparently better than Yuuji in every way. He’s got this on his own. Nooo problem.

Megumi stares at him for three unbroken seconds and goes to ask Yuuta for advice about it, which results in the second years going off to unilaterally threaten the Zenin clan, which none of the first years ever find out about.

Sukuna absolutely does hate the Zenin clan and it’s specifically because they did not consider him when putting a bounty on yuujis head. He’s a firm believer in knowing your worth and he knows his fucking worth. Sorcerers used to have style. They used to have respect. What the fuck is this. The Zenin are not worth dog shit on his heel. He’ll kill them all.

*universally acknowledged by everyone except Megumi, who still does not know that people call him that

** universally agreed by everyone except Todo, who thinks his brother is a beautiful beautiful man that anyone would be lucky to court and that Fushiguro is a boring child with a nonexistent ass who has inexplicably bewitched a gorgeous specimen of manhood.

[buttercup-barf]

Under the cut are mostly self-insert doodles of decreasing quality. Again, not much directly tied to Team Fortress 2. Might as well toss these out while I have no access to my puter. Much yapping under the cut and in the tags incoming.

Another self-insert, this time less of a "here's me as a tenth class" and more of a "here's my game experiences translated into the class I would take the place of". The Cleaner. Although I guess they could still be wearing either suit. It doesn't matter that much.

That one Convict's Case taunt with Backup would be extremely funny, because the man would be on the verge of a breakdown (he does not want to go to jail so bad you have no idea). The second image- I owe no explanation. You know what I am. You see the pattern with my favourites.

The duality of the man. Resting face versus "just heard you express interest in religion/Russian folklore" face. He's not that hard to make friends with, when you pull him away from all the explosions.

Some doodles of trying to figure his face out. Unfortunately, the more I stare at him, the more I worry that he looks like A Certain Guy With The Last Name "Kazarin", and the fear of never being original in my life caught up to me.

Don't look at me, don't perceive me, I refuse to explain any of my actions to you.

[truethes]

“go to hell” is basic. “i hope you have the opportunity to write a romatically dense character in a situation where even you can see the other characters romantic sense” is smart. it’s possible. it’s terrifying