#which is what you basically are lbr

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

Ngl, I would love to see a Lego video game adaptation of all the Disney Princess movies, although I have zero idea how the devs at Lego could make that work properly. If not that, then at least an adaptation of the Renaissance movies or even some of the Post-Renaissance/Experimental and Revival ones. A combo of the three eras, perhaps? The possibilities are endless!

[wetpapert0wel]

@ my ex ay yo get ur shit off my calendar lmao

[ranticore]

some more horse guy fashions, specifically historical

erased the mandolin for this one goodbye mandolin i couldn't be bothered drawing you

so my thought process for this is like what would a society of, lbr, british ppl who are horses value and how would that translate into what they wear if they specifically don't have a taboo against nudity. these fashions are pre-florian conversion (florian was the guy who gave them all government-mandated shame) and considered traditional (the full coverage dresses are also traditional but to a post-florian period so those would be called like. idk. classical). they were still in use in the enclaves north of ironwall for quite a while. anyway returning to the point, the answer to 'what they value' is movement. in actual horses, herd hierarchy and social function is based off movement - free movement for animals for whom the flight response is so strong is an incredibly important thing. dominance in horses is expressed and reinforced by controlling and curtailing the movement of subordinates. for these people, free movement was enhanced by kinetic fashion - free-flowing garments like capes, loosely-pinned headgear with feathers and floaty cloth, and noise-generating devices like bells and chimes were all used to elaborate and enhance the appearance of somebody's gait. the overall look was mostly based off of morris dancers (pheasant feathers, bells on the legs, handkerchiefs) because i like the tie-in to suppression of folk dance by puritans. i think these guys would have some great folk dances

in much the same way trainers are just normal everyday footwear now, game kerchiefs/flags were worn in non-sports contexts because it suffused into the mainstream and became Cool. the flags were used in a game similar to tag rugby if you've ever seen that played (where snatching people's flags is used instead of full contact tackling, forcing someone who's been 'tagged' to stand still until the flags are returned). as i said before somewhere, centaur team sports go incredibly hard.

the tail ornaments were status symbols and in appearance a bit like the traditional show turnout of shire horses. woven grass and straw could be used for a temporary ornament like these, but metal or carved wood were really impressive, and very common gifts of favour between romantic partners. more flags could be hung there if you wanted to be really cool

variations of this style of mane décor were also employed (they loved their ribbons)

in the same time period, Ironwall fashion was a little bit different. These expensive caparisons were usually purchased secondhand after a real horse was done wearing them, with distinct front and back halves of different length. The garments would usually have the original liveries removed and replaced by generic religious iconography as few centaurs would ever have their own heraldry. Later, in the Georgian and Victorian eras, full coverage to the pasterns with a single undergarment was the only acceptable option (that's the classical style now) The rest of the picture is self-evident, but centaurs at the time wore additional... equipment on the withers which were called a variety of very colourful names but mostly referred to as gelding bars (as in, they will geld you if you sit on them). they were metal and spiked. these were introduced by the florian government to discourage the grossly inappropriate contact of one person's legs around another. previously there was no great taboo against riding on a centaur's back, it wasn't super common but nobody was like "this is basically public sex" until our pal centaur cromwell i mean florian came along and decided this was the work of the devil. young people were also made to wear these to discourage the homosocial behaviour very common to the mid-20s age groups of both sexes, and they also had a place in preventing stallions from wrestling (ironically increasing the danger of their fights because well now all we can do is stand back and kick). the wearing of these devices was mandatory. headcoverings were not strictly necessary, and neither were fully-wrapped tails, but some especially devout citizens took to it quite well.

[dhwty-writes]

oh and we are failing miserably at being subtle about it

crush guy and i are down bad

[lucabyte]

How do you get your siffrins to look adult? I keep accidentally giving them a baby face but I WANT THEM TO LOOK GROWN AND EXHAUSTED LIKE HE DESERVES

okay so i legit think i fail at making siffrin look adequately adult like half the time but here's a general breakdown of my like. thought process when im actually um. thinking .

So first of all heres my general tips for proportioning a face, and how i attempt to keep the roundness of sif's in-game proportions while also like... drawing them more realistically? i had to practically reinvent a Human Style for drawing isat fanart since im a furry artist so a lot of this is fresh in my mind, luckily(?) for you i suppose.

This newness also means you can like, watch me fight and struggle against how the hell to do this in my earlier fanart. so feel free to try and see what changed as i pieced it together.

Another note is body proportion. You note giving him a baby face specifically, but some of it MIGHT be that you're drawing the head too big for your style? Try and figure out how many "heads tall" your figures are and tweak the numbers until you find what looks "adult"

Here I cracked open one of the comics I used CSP Model refrences for (albeit feat Loop, who i envision to be the exact same height as siffrin. i am NOT a tall loop truther i think its funnier when that bitch is five foot NOTHING!!!!!)

drawing sif with adult proportions can be deceptively difficult though on account of their Being A Tiny Motherfucker. Mostly here though, I find that the best way to do this is to drop like 1/3rd of the length of an average drawing figure's legs. Short people tend to have short legs. I know this on account of a lot of my ocs being 5'3" and below (... for... reasons...... unrelated to my own... height.... 100%.... ) so once again I think a lot of this can come down to trying to fiddle with numbers and noting down what works.

OKAY NOW ONTO SOME MORE SIFFRIN-SPECIFIC DRAWING TIPS. like these are what i find myself doing to make them look older if i accidentally baby face them myself

The above kind of chibi-er doodle style im still not sure has Siffrin looking adult enough for my liking (someone who considers them minimum 28) but considering they're presumably genuinely a deceptively baby faced guy at least by game's start (even if they should probably look. unhealthy.) it's like... forgivable.

the bald spot is basically fucking cheating in terms of "making them look older" lbr but i am so fucking insistent on it and i punch the air in celebration every time i see anyone else do it. winner is ME!!!!

Anyway. the body hair thing is funny considering we basically have Word Of God that siffrin is not the kind of person who ever likes being naked/even having their feet out in a casual setting. but like. hi its me the weird fucked up miserable nudity guy. of course im drawing every pockmark and texture on their body.

Another note here is, on their naked form, I avoid overly smooth lines for outlines of the limbs and torso. This avoids making them look "sexy twink thin" (not my bag at all) and instead gives the impression of loose skin from fluctuating weight, uneven fat distribution, skin becoming baggier with age. I also let joints jut out and look sharp wherever I can. This is because im an asexual pervert who likes the human form the mostest when i can see 'imperfections' This adds to the haggard nature of it all, by being reasonably honest about what the kind of persistent decade-long neglect of self care and implied malnutrition would do to a guy

Last note: eyes. i find i end up drawing a vague glassy black smear with a hint of white for the sclera for siffrin like. a Lot. Eyebags to show weariness is not my preferred method as I find it, to be rude, a bit of an overused shorthand. Plus, while sif in game does get eyebags, they're usually more on pushed expressions where they're forcing their face. So I put more emphasis on drawing the folds of the upper lid (which the game does not do) to make them look weary.

I dont think i can elaborate on my opinions on How To Draw Eyes without it becoming a way the fuck too long essay because "drawing emotions good" is like. my number 1 goal in every drawing so even if everything else is scuffed to hell I HAVE TOOO get the eyes right because theyre the most emotive part of the face. if i cant capture an emotion correctly the drawing isnt getting fucking finished is the thing, so....

Luckily for me, drawing over eyes and continously tweaking them by painting over and over and over and redoing them can have the side effect of making them look over-detailed and thus worn/tired/agonised. yes this is why i draw loop's face so scrunched all the time. All I can say for this though is to do a lot of studies of both real life faces & the most emotive cartoon faces you personally have experienced. So like. steven universe is great for this because rebecca sugar is so scary at drawing eyes. theyre so fucking scary at it. or sometimes i just go stare at rebecca's old comics because jesus christ. anyway.

??? but yeah hope this helps. its something i feel like i have a genuine hard time with too, especially since im so intent on keeping their face round & my artstyle is genuinely very cutesy even when i am being weird soo ...?

tl;dr:

draw the eyes smaller, give them a chin, the canon nose helps a lot & dont forget the bald spot. everyone draw the bald spot. for me.

[jon-sedai]

Imo saying Jon won't care that he's half Targ because he has "nothing to do with that house" is a not only very simplistic way of viewing his arc but also just a flat out wrong and bad take. Like my brothers and sisters in R'hllor, he has everything to do with that house even though he may not bear the name! Jon is constantly equated with Targs in the series. In fact, he's constantly equated with the best that house has to offer. He's got Jaehaerys and Alysanne in him, he's directly paralleled with Maester Aemon and Aegon V, he transforms into Daeron the Good at the Wall, and he's basically best boy Jacaerys resurrected some 200 years later. Let's also not forget that he's best girl Dany's 1:1 narrative mirror. Jon's personality is what you get when you combine Daemon the Rogue Prince, a little bit of Maekar I, Egg, a teaspoon of Rhaegar, a few sprinkles of Baelor Breakspear, and a whole cup of Jaehaerys. He has the heroism of Aemon the Dragonknight, the innate leadership of Aegon the Conqueror, the youthful foolhardy of Daeron the Young Dragon, and the aggressive pettiness of Prince Daemon. He's got Daemon Blackfyre's nobility and Brynden Rivers' terrifying pragmatism. His rebirth is literally equated to the waking of a dragon ("two kings to wake the dragon", "promised prince born amidst salt and smoke"). He has both the good and the bad that comes with House Targaryen. He also has the good and bad of House Stark, but no one ever thinks less of him for that... Y'all let Targ hate and Rhaegar hate (both of which are just extensions of Dany hate lbr) cloud your judgement and ignore what's right in front of you. Jon is a Targ. The same way he is a Stark. He's not either or, he's both. The lesson at the end of the day isn't for him to choose one or the other. The lesson is to recognize that he so much of BOTH in him, and he can take these and become whatever he wants - bastard as he is.

[tozettastone]

Okay, the results of my Bleach OC character poll specified: Hollow, needs a little treat, bad eyesight, causes catastrophic plot derailment.

Here's a very rambling draft (about twice as long as it needs to be lbr) of how that might begin. I've named her Espina Espinosa, but her name doesn't come up at all in this which I guess is part of how you know it's a first cut draft lol.

---

Sometimes, you just need a little treat to get you through the day. Or, in my case, the night: in hueco mundo, it was all night, all the time.

You know, I thought when I dropped out of my university classes in a wash of shame and humiliation that my life was basically suffering. It was as if, having forsaken my higher education, I was then destined to be trapped living in my one room in a sharehouse, and working stacking shelves forever.

Spoiler: it was not forever! It was barely six months! And then I got hit by a train, crossed over to the other side — which was apparently a fucking anime, by the way, more on THAT later — and lost years and years to scrabbling around in the desert like an animal. I didn't remember who I was until I emerged from the Forest of Menos as an adjuchas, trembling like a newborn foal and panicked about my weird undead body.

And then I knew what it really meant to say 'my life is suffering.'

Suffering was being a fully grown human personality stuck inside an undead lizard, living in a lightless hellscape and eating other undead animals just to survive. Supermarket shelves seemed less dire a fate, then.

The body grew more humanoid over time. Once I finally hit vasto lorde, the hunger was less demanding and the risk of regressing and losing my personality was eliminated. Vasto lordes did not regress. They just died.

...If something could kill one.

Today's reasons as to why I deserved a little treat were as follows:

My vasto lorde body was clearly designed by Kubo Tite. I was a nightmare of spiky armour and claws, with no real face, but god forbid I get around without built-in high heels and smooth, round, pendulous boobs. My adjuchas form had been a spined lizard. I was not even a mammal. Why did I need boobs? What were they for? Why were they the size of my head? Just the demands of the story in which I found myself, I was pretty sure.

I had minimal access to goods or services of any kind, because Hueco Mundo, right? And it was hard to stay long in the human world to get anything because just showing up tended to freak the shinigami out. Like, vasto lorde-class menos were nigh mythological, we were so rare, and even if I suppressed my presence so people on the ground couldn't sense me organically, shinigami researchers had instruments for this. Ugh.

I was constantly hunted by other hollows, especially powerful adjuchas on the look out for advancement. Eating a vasto lorde basically guaranteed they'd get the power they needed to become one. Today, one of them had left a nasty bite on my spiky tail and I'd eaten him, as he deserved. But it hurt, and I cried about it, because... I was still a giant baby who cried when I got hurt.

Bored, bored, oh my god, bored. So bored.

I'd broken my glasses, AGAIN, because I had no goddamn ears to keep them on, and my mask was a... challenging surface.

Most hollows somehow didn't seem to get bored in hueco mundo. They roamed the sands, ate each other, fought a lot, made occasional uneasy alliances, and napped.

But I had a very good memory of my last life, back when I was not an unrealistically buxom masked lizard woman, and all this shit was just a daydream from a manga.

I got so bored. I wanted something to do other than running away, lying down, or smacking weaker hollows.

So every... period of time? ... well, once I presumed the shinigami had stopped worrying about it, anyway, I took a little jaunt to the human world and treated myself. And, like, what was a little shoplifting if you were already dead, am I right?

I had a sweet tooth, and I liked jewellery and books. Hueco mundo was boring and lightless, but if you could curl up in a cave with a heavy duty flashlight, a pile of candy and a novel, you could just about pretend you were somewhere else for a while.

But visiting the human world and getting stuff was a pretty full-on operation. I had to pick places where there was enough ambient reiatsu to hide what leaked through my suppression, and there were not many of them. Then, it was often better to visit in the middle of the night, because if I tried to shoplift while surrounded by people — look, a vasto lorde has a lot of reiatsu and human beings are, on average, fragile. It was better to browse a dark shop after hours. And the last thing was: there was no optometrist in hueco mundo, because it was just kind of full of cannibal demons who wanted to eat me. I just had to stop by a chemist that stocked glasses and guess my prescription based on vibes. It sucked. A lot. And then when I inevitably broke them again, I stopped being able to read my little stash of novels and got quite sad.

So on that night, with my busted glasses and six Vampire Hunter D novels waiting in my cave, I decided I deserved a little treat and I did something kiiiiiind of stupid.

Despite knowing that it was exactly where the plot of Bleach was hiding.... I went to Karakura in Tokyo.

It wasn't as stupid as it sounded, you know. Sure, I knew they monitored for every garganta, yes. But I also knew that there was so much reiatsu in Karakura. If I crushed mine down enough, I was absolutely certain I could hide beneath the suffocating blanket that was Kurosaki Ichigo.

I opened my garganta for maybe half a second and slipped through with my reiryoku squished into a tiny ball inside my belly, so scrunched up it left my claws tingling with cold. From the sky, I pinpointed two pretty obvious locations: the Urahara Shoten and the hospital. Then, because I wasn't goddamn suicidal, I picked the furthest point away from both of them that still fell within the range of Kurosaki's spiritual pressure and made that my landing point.

There was a big labyrinthine train station, a bunch of warehouses huddling miserably behind it, and a series of cramped stores all piled in on each other lining the nearby streets, poised to catch commuters as they went by. A few of the bigger ones were still lit up from the inside, bright lights glowing out. But it was very late indeed, and almost everything was closed. The local 7-eleven was apparently open from 7 AM to midnight, a rarity even on the outskirts of this twenty-four hour city.

I couldn't find a good chemist, but there was one of those travellers' shops next to the station that stocked an array of low-prescription glasses, which would do in a pinch. I looked both ways — as though there were any cars on the streets at three o'clock in the morning, and as though any could damage me if they were — and scuttled up to the darkened window.

After a quick inspection to confirm the existence of glasses inside, I tapped my claws on the reinforced glass. It cracked, one long jagged line through the glass. I tapped again, and it shattered into a multitude of glittery pieces.

I hopped inside, heedless of the glass. My skin was next-level tough, even among hollows of my class.

Very likely the cameras wouldn't catch me at all, but what they would see is floating glasses, which wasn't necessarily much better for the humans' peace of mind. Ideally, I'd get this done and nobody would be any the wiser about any mysterious activities relating to a break in. I paced the shop, squinting around for cameras.

There was an alarm system in place. It was armed, so it started wailing about thirty seconds after the glass broke, flooding the dark street with noise. A few lights went on above stores, but mostly it remained dark — this wasn't a residential district.

There were two, blinking green lights from either end of the store, so I jumped up and ripped them both out of the ceiling, sending a rain of plaster dust down upon me to get caught in my spikes. Who knew what the owners would make of that, but probably they wouldn't automatically think it was a hungry ghost.

Glasses were stored neatly on a circular stand, ordered by strength — which, of course, I couldn't read, because I needed glasses. I plucked pairs at random and crammed my mask's eye holes up against five of them in quick succession. The fifth let me read the prescription information, so I decided that was good enough to be going on with.

My mask did not come off, obviously — trying to get out off hurt like all hell, and I didn't know if I needed to be an arrancar badly enough to go through with that — and it was covered in angular, stylised spikes, and I had wide useless little horns but no fucking ears. So my new glasses were sitting kind of lopsided, but as usual when I got a pair, I was excited about how much I could see with them.

The humming of a drinks fridge attracted me, briefly, on my way out, the way a fire attracts a moth. Did I want a soft drink? I did like the ramune ones with the little marble... And I could read the labels, which was a huge novelty.

I'd spotted a 7-eleven on the way, though, and I wanted to see if they had a slurpee machine. They were pretty rare in Japan, generally, but if they didn't have one I'd still be able to get a different sugary drink there.

I hesitated for a second, thinking about the wisdom of this plan. I should get out of here, probably, but... If I'm honest with you, my spirit rebelled. Did I truly not deserve a slurpee? A single fucking slurpee?

So, anyway, I broke into the 7-eleven. No, I didn't need to. Fight me. (But, er... don't, actually. I am a delicate flower.)

I stepped outside the store and — okay, listen, in my defence, the shop's alarm was really loud and I was busy clutching my slurpee in my clawed hands and marvelling at my semi-okay vision through the only-slightly-lopsided glasses I'd swiped. I did not immediately hear him, and I wasn't actually looking for shinigami using persquisa because I'd carefully marked where the Urahara Shoten and the Hospital were, and I had avoided them so carefully.

So, from my perspective, there was no reason to worry about shinigami, until I came out of the 7-eleven squinting at the text on the side of my slurpee cup, and then almost walked straight into one.

And not, like, a little one, either. It was a lot like being surprised by the sudden introduction of a spider — like, you know, if it's a little house spider, you might twitch, but if you turn around and see a twelve inch birdeating spider on the wall, you might actually just shit yourself.

Anyway, I slunk out of the seven eleven store, ignoring the alarm, completely absorbed in my slurpee, and then almost walked face first into Hirako Shinji.

He was actually perfectly recognisable from canon. He was about an inch shorter than me, skinny, and wearing a long grey coat, presumably because it was the middle of the night and cold enough to freeze your nipples off. (Still warmer than hueco mundo.) His blond hair really did fall in a perfectly smooth pageboy down past his chin, like it was all one meticulously styled piece. It probably wasn't. It was like my lizard tits: demands of the setting. Loads of people had hair that looked styled and required no styling.

Just in case you're wondering, on the Unexpected Spider Encounter Scale, Hirako was probably, like, one of those Colombian giant tarantulas.

I froze.

He stared at me.

A vasto lorde was scary shit in her own environment, so I was probably worth a stare. However! (A huge, flashing neon 'however'!)

A veteran shinigami captain was scarier.

Especially since I was a pretty weak vasto lorde, all things considered, and Hirako was... well, if I remembered right, he was not necessarily one of the weaker shinigami captains.

I was used to fighting adjuchas who were aggressive, hungry and bestial, and I mostly got around them by being like... marginally smarter than they were. I distracted them or trapped them.

I did not highly rate my ability to trap or distract Hirako. For one, he was an actual military officer.

For the first time I realised exactly how unfair Aizen must have been to his little arrancar army. Hollows were killers, but we weren't soldiers. Our only training was in appetence and its satisfactions.

I stared, frozen, at Hirako and blinked rapidly.

In hindsight, I would eventually come to understand what this looked like from his perspective: he came to investigate the unsteady flickering of hollow reiatsu and the alarm, but discovered a surprise vasto lorde — already so vanishingly rare as to be basically mythological — wearing lopsided reading glasses and clutching a slurpee like her life depended on it, outside the broken window of a 7-eleven at three in the morning.

"...I saw that, Hollow-san," he said slowly, looking at the broken window. His eyes drifted from the window to me and back.

I squeaked. My claws dug straight through the cardboard slurpee cup. "Um," I said, slowly. "Do you... perhaps... also want a slurpee?"

With both slurpee-clutching hands, I gestured towards the store and the source of the screaming siren.

Hirako tapped his zanpakuto on his shoulder, squinting at me like I was something new and strange and he had not quite settled on his opinion of me yet. I did not like that.

"Think I'll pass," he drawled. His Kansai Japanese was actually pretty new to me; there was no need for me to ever go to the Kansai region. What was even there? Osaka? Was there a Soul Society version of Osaka? "You came to the living world for a slurpee?"

I inched sideways so maybe my back could not be to the building and I could get a clear path of retreat by which to mcfucking book it down the street.

"As you see," I hedged, holding the cup out like it would protect me from him. It would absolutely not protect me. His zanpakuto would go through it, and probably also me, like fucking pudding. "Slurpee."

His facial expression was doing something super complicated. "That... might be the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

"Well, it feels dumb now," I muttered.

The alarm seemed so so loud. I would have wrinkled my nose but, unfortunately, my face was covered in bone. Hollow problems.

"Look, Shinigami-san, isn't it a global chain? They'll have insurance for break-ins." Probably. "I'm just here to get my glasses and my slurpee."

"Insurance," he repeated. The sword went tap-tap-tap. I could see the tendon flexing in his wrist where the cuff of his shirt did not quite cover it. "Uh-huh. Sure. They got insurance. They're teaching you about insurance in vasto lorde school now?"

Vasto lorde school was just regular school, was the rub there: hollows were all just human souls, after all. Fucked up human souls, but just human souls. I didn't say it.

"You're giving everyone in a twenty kilometre radius nightmares," he pointed out, mouth tugging down.

In my defence, I simply couldn't prevent that, just like I couldn't prevent the yowling cats. Besides, what was one bad night's sleep? Nothing, honestly. Come on. Don't be such a coward!

"Sorry?" I offered. Obviously, I was not sorry, but his expression made it seem lke I should at least lie about it.

He opened his mouth to speak and gestured — with his sword. Seeing the zanpakuto swish in the air made me jump. My new glasses, absolutely predictably, flew right off my mask and hit the pavement with a heart-rending crack.

"No!" I gasped, and nearly dropped my slurpee on top of them. I crouched down to grasp at them but the lenses were, of course, already fucked. I couldn't see it very clearly, but I could sure feel the jagged cracks with my fingertips.

"No, no, no," I chanted. "Nooo."

In a flash, the horrible future unfolded before me: long periods of endless night, alone, unable to even pass the time with a book, stuck in a cave. It would be ages before I could creep into another human city with another garganta. My reiatsu suppression just wasn't good enough to hide from the technological sensors the shinigami used, and a vasto lorde in the human world put them on highest possible alert.

Karakura was probably the only exception, because Ichigo, but now there would be other shinigami here expecting me. If I tried to come back here, surely I'd be getting a face full of another vaizard, or maybe Urahara.

It all seemed so overwhelming. I really just wanted to have a slurpee and read my book. Didn't I deserve that much?

I made one of the more pathetic noises it's possible for a hollow to make, a sad little multitonal keen.

Whatever Hirako had been saying (to which I had naturally stopped listening, due to the tragedy that had befallen me) stopped abruptly.

"Are you crying?" His voice was unflatteringly incredulous.

I probably was, though. I patted my mask. It was kinda damp, yeah.

"No," I lied, with a highly telling warble in my voice.

[the-unconquered-queen]

I had a realization about my Blades MC x LI dynamics which means absolutely nothing but has been living rent-free in my head all day regardless. Here goes:

TyrilMC/AerinMC - Lovers who happen to be best friends

MalMC - Best friends who happen to be lovers

Ramble I had to add under a read more because it was originally going in the tags before I realized I was approaching 30 tags with no end in sight (it's gonna show):

Look, I can't speak for y'all's MCs and pairings and playthroughs, but that's literally how it is in mine. And I'm not favoring one type of dynamic over the other, it's just a difference I've noted and this is how I finally put it into words. And I can't speak for all LI/MC dynamics either, which is why I'm limiting this to the LIs I personally romance.

I was just thinking that Mal's scenes often feel like they have a bit more of a friendship element to them even when they're romantic compared perhaps to the others, if that makes sense? I mean, MC is literally said to be Mal's best friend regardless of whether you're on his route or not, whereas for my other two LIs, there is definitely a strong friendship, but it feels like it is strengthened by their relationship with MC.

The more obvious example of the two is Aerin. Lbr, who is his best friend if not MC. And I feel like being on his route emboldens his being intimate with MC, and I'm not even referring to physical intimacy, just in an opening up kind of way, an expressing himself more freely kind of way. 'Cause if you're not on his route, there's no real reason for him and MC to be particularly close as a duo within the larger group, and they are not portrayed as one by the book either. MC is often not even particularly nice to him outside of his diamond scenes. So while my MC does genuinely enjoy Aerin's company, I know their bond is harder to justify on canon alone if they're not dating.

And then in Tyril's case I think his romantic relationship with MC really propels their specific Kilvali, even though I think there'd be a special kinship between them regardless if he and MC are the only elves in the party (which is the case in my pt) and they nevertheless would grow closer by virtue of him being a link to MC's lost culture and heritage that he enjoys teaching her about, but I think their love is what makes them such a close duo and therefore reinforces their friendship. I mean, consider how long it took for Tyril to recognize his relationship with MC as Dinvali vs how much longer it was for Kilvali, even though they had a blossoming friendship before it turned sexual.

Meanwhile, with Mal, it's like their relationship was the natural progression to their friendship, making it the other way around for MalMC—as in, their friendship strengthens their relationship. Because if I take away all romantic elements of my MC's relationships with them and leave only the platonic—and also strip personal headcanons about their dynamics and personalities to focus on what the books actually wrote (because, for example, you can hc an MC who has basically the same personality as Tyril/Aerin which is why they get along so swimmingly, so maybe a sarcastic, blunt MC for Aerin or a cool, sort of stoic MC for Tyril, who then is a perfect fit for their respective LI, but that doesn't mean that's how the writers wrote MC, who, like it or not, does still have a canon personality that is closer Mal's and not much like the other two), anyway yeah, so strip all of that and Mal would likely be the one of the three MC is closest to. I think that canon MC personality is a big reason why the MalMC dynamic is pretty effortless, while I feel like if I don't make the active effort to include TyrilMC/AerinMC in my playthrough (with romance being the more effective method imo, bc it leads to coded moments instead of just vanishing entirely as soon as a diamond scene is over), the game will not do it for me and they will not be as prominent.

And this is something that I think works for these LIs' personalities! Because Tyril and Aerin are more reserved characters who need to be close to someone (in this case, through a relationship) before they are comfortable letting loose and truly being themselves. As in, you have to get past their initial lack of charm to get to their actual charm. Whereas Mal is the opposite because he is very charming and charismatic right off the bat, so you don't need to tease that out of him, but it's within the relationship that he can be more real, such as him admitting to MC after a b1 hookup that (before her) he wasn't used to wanting certainty, a home, and someone to share it with, plus the rest of that vulnerable conversation. So then, instead of Mal starting out more serious and having the relationship show him how to let loose, he starts out casual and the relationship emboldens him to be serious, I think is a way it could be put.

Aside from personalities, it's possible that the timelines play into this as well, when you think about it. Yeah, all three of these LIs have stated at different points throughout the series that they were attracted to MC upon meeting her, but Mal was the one who was a friend the longest before the dynamics took a turn for the romantic. Because while Mal's and Tyril's relationships with MC were both taken to another level that night they had their first kisses in the lodge, Mal had been traveling with MC longer (consider how long it takes the group to get from one location to another off-screen) and therefore had more time to grow platonically before something else was added to the mix.

And Aerin, of course, took the fastest track, given that MC could kiss him the very day they met, and, if romanced since book 1 (which is the case in my playthrough) at no point has their relationship ever been solely friendly as a result, and even when they grow back together in book 2, MC learning to be friends with him post-betrayal happens simultaneously as MC and Aerin rekindling their past romance. Considering his characterization, I'd like to point out that Aerin seems to have an easier time with romance than friendship, as (so far—shoutout non-VIPs) he doesn't really show hesitance when it comes to being with MC romantically (aside from worrying—completely reasonably, may I add—that she wouldn't want him after the stuff he's pulled) and does often take the lead in that regard, but it's the idea of budding friendship that sent him running for the hills. Even now, as of b3 ch 11, he's said he's "not there yet" about his closeness to the party, but didn't even hesitate before proudly introducing MC as the "love of his life" to his mother. In his case, it's definitely the relationship helping the friendship progress.

To finish this off, I'm not saying all of this stuff I've been pointing out is exclusive to the romance routes. Certainly someone who's not romancing these LIs can have moments in their playthroughs where they let down their guards to their MCs, but I feel that, within my playthough in which they are romanced, this is how their dynamics appear, and this recontextualizes scenes and dialogues that any player can get outside of their romances. So yeah, I'm not trying to minimize whatever friendships other people's MCs might have with these LIs and I'm definitely not implying that either friendship or romance is inherently better or more profound than the other. But just that ever since I came to the conclusion that the MalMC friendship feeds and elevates the MalMC romance while the TyrilMC/AerinMC romance feeds and elevates the TyrilMC/AerinMC friendship, I feel like I'm seeing their dynamics in a new light.

[punkeropercyjackson]

In addition to not changing him into a poser,punk suits Percy better as the alternative subculture and political activism it is and not in-name only.Diy,thirft stores,underground parties and shows,constant petty crime,a lot of other staple punk hobbies,punk/metal,indie media and accurate punk fashion are way more Percy's style than the 'punk' but not really tastes and aesthetics and lbr,personality in dark Percy and those stupid ass mortal aus and Percy pr*ship spaces.His complete lack of powerlust is a very important fascet of what good punk rep he is,he's psychologically incapable of wanting authority or status and combined with his extremely impressive track record of direct action and zero care for conformity,he's canonically an anarchist and 'The sea does not like to be restrained' was a reference to this

So when you strip him of these traits,then he's no longer a punk and he shouldn't be called a punk.He's a sellout.By joining the gods,he isn't rebelling against anyone,because that's what everyone wanted for him from the start,in the sense they tried to convince him so bad they're actually the good guys but he never bought into it(since he's anti-capitalism /silly).Goes for Luke too,who had neither the right idea nor the right methods and was merely a fascist with a god in denial complex.Punk history does involve sexual liberation and exploring your sexuality boldly as a major part but Percy can't do that with men in power and call it 'sticking it to the man' when they ARE the man and it's canon he hates older men for being them so it's contradicting canon to say he ever had crushes on them.It's also more fitting to Percy to be more about exploring his gender in the form of genderqueerness,which has actual grounding in canon for his not cishet identity issues,specifically transfem and bigender/genderfluid

The point of this worddump is:Fanon punk Percy is the most basic edgy white boy with a victim complex shit i've ever seen.Please use real punk things for him,he's the realest real to ever real and he deserves the same

[martyreddie]

But we know nothing about the way Helena treated Shannon? We don't know what their relationship was like.

well feel free to disagree with me on this, but I think we actually know quite a bit!

first of all, in 3x15, when eddie's returned home, he complains that he apparently "served his son a beverage incorrectly" and shannon immediately guesses that it was his mother who made that comment, noting that she's "familiar with the tone". it appears that helena makes these kind of comments often (and thus implies shannon isn't competent at being a mom).

then we've got the fact that shannon is struggling with the task of parenting christopher because she's basically a single mom at 19, which to me shows that helena does not properly support her. i am aware that real life logic sometimes just doesn't apply in 911world, but realistically speaking, an arrangement where shannon gets to stay chris's mom and primary caretaker but is aided by helena and ramon is far from impossible! (in fact, i know people who were in similar situations!)

and then we have to consider how helena talks about shannon after she left. now i can't check the clips right now as i am typing this at work (time theft! yay!) but iirc she has literally no kind words to spare for her. it seems she doesn't empathise with her situation at all (lbr whether or not you think shannon made the right decision in going to LA, you have to acknowledge she was in a tough spot), and later, at her funeral(!!!), she uses the occasion to try and get eddie to come home instead of, you know, at least waiting until the earth above her coffin has settled.

so yeah, while it maybe hasn't been as explicit in the text as possible, i do think that helena treated shannon badly and never really saw her as a member of the family.

[marley-manson]

well i shouldn't have complained about how annoying all the criticism and hate in the yellowjackets tag is because i think i cursed myself lol

I am less than enthusiastic about the season 3 finale unfortunately.

I think the writers turning the hunt from the pilot into a secret faction vs faction battle of wills was meant to be just a neat twist and a way to add more interpersonal conflict, but like, I'm actually here for the story of the fucked up survivalist teenage cannibal cult and how it still impacts and tempts the survivors 25 years later, and what that says about like, the nature of humanity and stuff.

I'm not super into 2.5 people bullying 10ish other people into cannibalism because they're mentally ill/power hungry, while the innocent ones plot against them to save themselves. That is just inherently less thematically rich, and less interesting in terms of complex characterization, and it introduces irreconcilable problems.

Like eg if Natalie is a saint trying to save everyone who sees the cannibalism as completely fucked up and is horrified by Lottie and Shauna... why was she just as into the hunt reprise in the season 2 finale as anyone else?

I get that they're trying to explain some discrepancies (like eg Natalie and Shauna civily interacting as adults I assume) by mentioning trauma fucking with their memories a few times this season, and I'm willing to accept that as a way of smoothing some continuity over even if it is a bit shoddy lol, but like this is a total 180 of thesis statement.

Now to be fair and because I'm an eternal optimist, this only truly kills my interest if the show doubles down on the good guys vs villains angle, and that does seem kind of unlikely to me.

Like for one thing, the show is still very direct about how fucked up the adults all are. Melissa is on the "good guys" side in the teen timeline, and she just killed Van for the sake of stabbing someone in the adult timeline. Tai is back in Dr Jekyl mode and she just ate Van's heart raw lmao. The show has pulled back on Misty's sociopathy a bit, but she was introduced torturing her patients and cavalierly killed a woman in season 1 and I think the show still knows she's fucked up. Also she was very casual about Callie killing Lottie.

Plus it sounds like they're all going to be trying to kill each other next season. Probably with shifting alliances and surprise enemies and allies, rather than strictly Misty and Tai vs Shauna vs Melissa. And like, Tai and Misty seem to be instigating it, which isn't exactly good guy behaviour lol, given Shauna didn't do anything to them.

And as for the teens, the overall framing sucked, but lbr more than three of them were howling for blood during the hunt. Most of them believe in the cult, Akilah killed her own animals to facilitate the hunt because Lottie told her to (I think), they all ate Ben while partying, and they all went along with Lottie's decree of a sacrifice pretty easily. And Misty has been blatantly fucked up in various ways the whole time. Saint Natalie might be a write off unfortunately, but you can't tell me Shauna's the only one into it. (And honestly Natalie could show her own dark side in a conflict with Shauna or something pretty easily.)

Like don't get me wrong, obviously I love Shauna going full villain protag and embracing her inner cannibal, and I'm looking forward to finding out what that's going to look like in the adult timeline. But I'm interested in Shauna as representative of a dark aspect of humanity and maybe the most extreme of them, not so much as a fucked up evil anomaly because she's just a bad person. If it turns out that she's only fooling herself when she says they all actually loved it deep down and that's what they had to repress, and she's the only one who loved it, I'm going to be upset because I was calling "they all loved it and that's what really fucked them up" the basic thesis of the show on my initial watchthrough of the first two seasons, and I was extremely happy about it.

But I've still got plenty of hope that season 4 will continue to be fun. I mean even if the teen timeline continues to annoy me, all the adults left are certifiably fucked up and about to battle royale each other. That should at least be entertaining.

[aihoshiino]

Always love reading your Ai posts! I lost interest in OnK somewhere in the movie arc but I still keep up with your posts haha <3

Can I ask about the Secretly Ai characters you mentioned in the recent Aikane ask? Pls and ty professor 🙇‍♂️

I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED!!! Sorry in advance that this is going to be majorly rambly lol this is one of those topics I have always sort of rolled around in my head purely as A Vibe and never had to rly articulate at length. but lbr you guys are here to read me post 50k word screeds about hoshino ai.....................

So when I talk about the Secretly Ai Characters in OnK, I'm talking about a little something I mentioned in an older ask, in which the story uses certain side characters and deliberately and obviously parallels them with Ai in ways that are intended to sort of, indirectly communicate things to us about her. Obviously they are still characters in their own right with their own individual role in the story separate from this - but those pointed similarities are very much intended to make you hear information about them and go "oh, so Ai must also..."

These characters are, imo, Yuki, Abiko and Mimi.

Of the three, Abiko is the most in-your-face and deliberate about it. Her colour palette is very similar to Ai's and the anime even adds a really explicit and clearly intentional parallel to one of Ai's most iconic frames from episode 1 - and this was so important, apparently, that it was basically the first thing we saw of her in the anime continuity when season 2 previews were being released.

Abiko's similarities to Ai are mostly about making the viewer understand their shared communication issues and how this impacts their social health - the way it contributes to isolation and a snowballing fear of trying to connect with other people.

I think there's also a vibe to Abiko being hyped up as being a "genius" and "supernaturally talented" in her field in a way that both obfuscates the obscene and frankly unhealthy amount of work she puts into meeting those expectations and heaps additional pressure on her to live up to the role of a "genius", without anyone else taking into account the fact that she's just a person doing her best. I, uh, probably don't need to elaborate on why that's particularly Aicore...

Yuki and Mimi are less clear cut, but for Yuki specifically, Akane's 'Aikane' performance cribs quite a lot from Yuki's persona on LoveNow in the same way it does from Ai herself. In fact, here's another one I just caught lol:

We can tell by these parallels that Yuki and Ai are similar sorts of people, then - or at the very least, similar sorts of performers. I think Mem puts it best here (DOESN'T SHE LOOK BALD HERE WITHOUT HER HORNS BTW) when she says it's "not lying, just exaggerating". This lines up with how Rie Takahashi (and, implicitly through her, Aka Akasaka) describe the difference between 'Ai Hoshino' and 'Ai of B-Komachi' - that the latter is not a wholly distinct fabrication but just a different side of the real Ai that comes out depending on the situation. In other words, an exaggeration.

As for Mimi, this one kind of speaks for itself I think LOL. She's definitely the most undercooked of the three... I think everyone in the fandom kind of like, implicitly agrees that Mimi and her brother were supposed to have larger roles in the narrative and that Akasaka just kind of dropped whatever he was setting up with them. So I'll start with the parallels that actually exist in-story and then I'll go onto what my current theory is for the role Mimi was supposed to play.

First off, I think it kind of speaks for itself that Mimi just... looks a lot like Ai? It's a bit less clear when she's in her big snuggly hoodie but when she has her hair loose for her Dig Deep cosplay, it's kind of uncanny.

and those eyes sure do look, uh. coughs. familiar.

Mimi's role in the industry is also very similar to Ai's. She's an indie VTuber seeing a lot of success without association with a major agency which neatly parallels B-Komachi's success as an underground group backed by a small agency managing to see major success even while fighting mainstream groups. A lot of Vtuber culture has its roots in idol culture and Miyako even points out in volume 3 that present day idol culture (in the world of OnK, anyway) is primarily online. So Mimi can be understood as a sort of 'modern day' Ai.

In fact, the more I went over Mimi's intro for this post, the more parallels I found...? Some of this is certainly accidental, but Mimi is managed by a family member just like Ai was and the reason she becomes a VTuber is because she has communication and mental health issues that make an 'ordinary' job difficult for her. She even dropped out of the education pipeline just like Ai did.

All this combined (the idea of those eyes being accidental is very hard for me to believe lol) makes me wonder if Mimi isn't supposed to read as a sort of 'failed' Ai or at least an exaggerated one. Both of them have (as mentioned above) communication and mental health issues that make living 'ordinary' life difficult for them and so they both commit themselves to strands of the entertainment industry that are maybe not necessarily good for them but because of their individual pathologies, they are uniquely suited to find success.

Heading into what is straightforwardly speculation territory (so take this with a huge glacier of salt), I actually wonder if Mimi was being set up to join B-Komachi as the catalyst for the Kana-Nino parallels and rather than Ruby being the Ai in that equation, Mimi would've been our Ai.

From what we're told about gen 1 in the Movie Arc, Nino was originally the group's center and basically the entire reason they got off the ground to begin with but she was ousted in both position and popularity when Ai joined and completely eclipsed her. Part of this was due to Ai's natural talent as an idol but it's also pointed out that Ai and Nino both had very similar personas as idols and were thus competing for the same fans.

This is exactly the conflict between Kana and Mimi set up in the lead in to Scandal...

... which is very much not the case for Ruby and Kana, which makes the attempts to force that parallel in the Movie Arc (as the manga later does) a little hamfisted.

As such, I really wonder if Mimi joining B-Komachi would've lead to a long-term rivalry between her and Kana that more explicitly paralleled the one between Ai and Nino. I really do feel like that would've been a much more natural way to play with echoing that dynamic than what we get between Kana and Ruby - I've criticized this before but it really is kind of insane that Ruby treats Mem and Kana like shit all during her BH era, never apologizes or has to make any amends for it and when Kana is finally able to express discontent over this, not only is this framed as being something she's doing for Ruby's sake but also something Kana is at fault for, all so Ruby can graciously forgive her. Insane!!!!

As for why it never came to fruition if that was indeed the plan... who knows! The manga following the Scandal arc is littered with so many nonstarters and dropped threads that I really could not tell you what was going on in Akasaka's brain. It could just be that he recognized he didn't have the time for it and decided it wasn't worth taking up page time for. But again, the inner machinations of his mind are inscrutable to me so it's anybody's guess, really.

[dreamwreaver]

The fact that Alastor has more energy and sheer utter hatred in his rivalry with Lucifer than with Vox never fails to crack me up but it's worth noting that Alastor specifically has beef with Lucifer over Charlie.

Stayed Gone happened because Vox was boasting how he's much more powerful and influential in Hell than Alastor; Hell's Greatest Dad happened because Lucifer was boasting how he's much more powerful and influential he was for Charlie's benefit than Alastor. Of course, you could pinpoint exactly which song Alastor was particularly pissed over because he was out there pushing and shoving Lucifer out of the way while he basically ignored Vox's efforts to force him out of the screen.

Alastor brought his entire A-game and soul into that battle duet because he wanted Charlie to choose him over her dad. He has shown more hatred towards Lucifer than he has ever granted Vox in the show because Charlie is involved.

Honestly? Much of the energy of Stayed Gone is entirely from Vox's end. And he's also got Christian borle's voice doing a lot of the heavy lifting too. Same for Lucifer tbh. Like Jeremy Jordan is a fantastic singer and consummate performer and both of their songs do actually showcase their vocal range and talent. More of both characters' popularity is due in large part to the voice acting. Alastor's popularity is due to both the voice work and characterization.

And his possessiveness over Charlie is something super obvious. Like, lbr, the main reason Alastor didn't feature in Masquerade is because if he had found out what Val had done to Charlie Vee Tower would have been burned and Angel would have been freed from his contract and Huskerdust would have been pushed off a bit more. There is absolutely no way he would tolerate another man putting his hands ANYWHERE on Charlie, let alone looping a slimy ass tongue around her. He'd probably have been extra vicious knowing Val got to taste her flesh before him.

Like, he looks like he's about to put yet another hole in the lobby wall because of Lucifer hugging his own daughter:

Seriously; this is a fully clothed, fully familial platonic hug. Can you even IMAGINE what his reaction would have been to this:

Let's just say if Val was LUCKY he'd be subjected to the same thing he did to Velvette's best model. If he was LUCKY

[tanoraqui]

Dungeon Meshi Liveblog: Endgame...

I have no real notes on the 'escape from the dungeon' sequence, other than that it IS going to be fun to have an epic 'galloping away from total urban collapse/tidal wave' sequence in the anime.

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This is technically accurate-ish but also totally not, nobody but Laios (and we the reader) knows what happened in that final confrontation, and I wonder if he'll tell them? He has no reason not to, other than it being...deeply Weird(TM) in the way that only Laios really is.

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Namari expresses many feelings, including love, through violence, and I respect and appreciate that.

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I tagged this before, but: future royal advisors lmaoooo. (I know Shuro has his own princedom to rule, but not yet, okay, and even once he inherits, lbr every time he visits Melini for diplomatic reasons, Laios is going to be like, "Shuro!! :D Come to dinner! Do you have any ideas about [infrastructure taxes/crop rotation/vigilante assassinations/etc issue of the day]?")

(Note 2: I also know his name is "Toshiro" but the characters haven't stopped using the mispronunciation, so I'm going with what's dominant in the story.)

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He Suffers for this friendship :)

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CHILCHUCK IS BEING MEAN TO HIS FRIENDS AGAIN! NATURE IS HEALING!!

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THEY'RE BESTIES YOUR HONOR!!

Fun fact: this specifically, screenshot at 4:46am, was the point at which the combination of visibly lightening sky, mortifying threat of my roommates waking up early and seeing me still up, and the fact an eager Shuro/Laios hug signalled that clearly everything was going to be basically happy from here on out, all combined to make me finally close my laptop and get ready for bed...whereupon I read the rest of the comic in bed, because I REALLY needed to see Falin safely rezzed, for my own peace of mind.

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Hell yeah time to eat! our! girl!!!

And btw, shoutout to Laios for, indeed, eating the Winged Lion. King shit. (/Yaad voice) (ah shit, is someone going to have to break it to Yaad and all the other villagers that their "prophecy" was a demon's manipulations? Or has Yaad picked that up by now while traveling with Izutsumi?)

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Kabru: You know what you were doing, right?

Laios: 8|

Kabru: Never mind, don't answer that, so I can sleep at night ever again. Actually, never answer that, especially in front of any sort of press and/or foreign nationals.

.

I really like how the orcs aren't offering Laios kingship so much as sanctuary. The underground here is theirs, because nobody else ever wanted it, just like nobody ever wanted them. If Laios is going to be arrested by elves if he stays above ground, and Pattadol and Flamela with their oh-so-polite and flattering invitations trying to do, then he's an orc in all but name and form, and he's welcome among them for the rest of his life.

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Laios: I need you to help me eat my sister!

The rest of the party, as one: We know this sounds insane and we're sorry about that.

.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS PANEL:

Marcille resignedly headlocking Izutsumi so she doesn't maul anyone in response to being swarmed

Shuro, under duress, defaulting to strangling Laios (again)

Laios rolling his eyes because he's so accustomed to and tired of everyone reacting overdramatically to his perfectly reasonable requests

Kabru just rubbing his temple. He has a headache. He's so tired that he's not even trying to talk anyone down from anything.

Chilchuck closing one eye like maybe if he pretends to be asleep he doesn't need to be involved in this.

Holm nervously saying that he can't because he keeps gnomesher (gnome kosher)

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[happy sigh] politics!

I just love love love the 'all the random disparate allies you made along the way rally together at the end for an epic battle to defeat the big bad" - except the big bad is already defeated. USUALLY the way that works is:

Core hero party faces pre-plot climax interparty conflict, then resolves it

Rally disparate allies made throughout the journey to fight the Big Bad (note: allies may rally themselves; still counts)

Fight Big Bad first as a group, then winnow/isolate down to core party, then down to single Main Protagonist who faces and defeats the Big Bad in a character foil-heavy, extremely thematic final confrontation

Everyone lives happily ever after, the end!

In Dungeon Meshi, however, it was:

Disparate allies made throughout the journey rally together to...help the core hero party deal with their pre-climactic interparty conflict! (Marcille's monster army - which does still come down to the core party, of course)

Core party, then isolated to single Main Protagonist (Laios) faces and defeats the Big Bad in a character foil-heavy, extremely thematic final confrontation

Rally disparate allies to accomplish what Laios explicitly says was the TRUE goal all along: reviving Falin! (Via eating as a group because that's live! understanding! connection! life!!)

Everyone lives happily with continuous hunger, because that's what it means to live ever after, the end!

I JUST THINK IT'S NEAT

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It is sooo notable, though by this point unsurprising, that the elves' chief consideration of the consequences of all of this is that "things" (magic, international politics, etc) may end up "harder to keep under control."

My personal theory/headcanon-until-proven-otherwise is that mana levels above-ground will simply never fully subside to their dungeon-era levels again, and dungeon mana levels will be correspondingly lower - it'll all even out, basically, though underground will still have generally higher levels. This means:

there will be more monsters on the surface, especially large ones

magic will be easier for all races (though limits on how much they can hold at once will remain)

"dark" ancient magic, which (I headcanon) is particularly defined by an assumption that there is a Shit Ton of mana to draw on, will become easier and thus more common...which is okay because "need huge power source to draw on" is no longer the first step on a slippery slope to "let dungeon demon consume the world."

corollary: Marcille is going to live her best damn life studying and innovating with the above

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This micro-interaction is so sweet. Kabru isn't even talking to Laios, but he's still keeping him in mind, and he so casually says "my friend."

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TO LIVE IS TO WANT!!! CONTINUOUSLY! YOU JUST GO ON!

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It's so great and interesting how much the Canaries care about Mithrun! It'd be so easy for him to just be their royally-imposed boss, or their weird mascot that they have to take care of, and both of these things are part of the dynamic. But they also all care about him as a person! Fleki was smothering him like a doll a minute ago, but the instant there's real hope for his life, she's jumping on it breathlessly! They're all suggesting hobbies he could take up, and standing around rapt and breathless waiting to see if Kabru's speech works to get him back on his feet!

There's definitely parallels to be made with Laios here, in terms of adventurin party rolling their eyes affectionately at their leader and saying, "yeah, we WOULD follow this total freak into hell. That's our day job, actually. #onlysomeregrets".

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Mithrun... /single tear

I just wanna see this panel in color SO BAD, though. The green grass, the pale brown earth and the paler birch trees, and the semi-translucent ice fracturing the dark red dragon meat, with Mithrun's pooling green cloak and these 2 guys standing amids all of it... It's going to be so striking.

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I've decided that the one (1) headcanon I'm holding in total defiance of explicit canon is that TO ME, Yaad was the original concept art where's she's a fairy princess in aesthetic, the perfect princess-in-the-tower for a brave knight to rescue and so earn the right to kingship of the land.

She still ends up possessing her grandfather's body, to be clear, and having this and every other conversation. It just intensifies the "I survived 1,000 years of being a ghost by focussing all my hope on THIS TROPE and you are going to play it out!!" Sure, marriage isn't an option anymore but that's fine, that wasn't the most important part! If Laios doesn't know how to govern, then she (in her grandfather's body) will teach him! Or else!!!

TLDR Yaad's gender is Princess and I will not be taking counterargument unless it's very compelling.

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Lol @ how 1 of these guys is the actual, legally appointed ruler of the island and 1 is the top local crime boss, and everyone, even Laios, know they're on equal footing (at best - the Island lord is not a competent man.)

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Kabru of Utaya, PR Professional :)

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This really is a fun little chapter, with Izutsumi's struggle to figure out what to do next mirroring Laios's. She's wandering freely, insisting on her own freedom - and nobody is arguing with her! Everyone takes it for granted, so much that she feels a little unwanted! While every conversation she walks into involves responsibilities to others.

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Holy shit, forbidden civvies!Chilchuck. He has his sleeves rolled up and collar open and everything, sluttily baring his collarbone and a hint of chest hair... He's even implicitly about to get his forearms blood-splattered, while doing a domestic chore and explaining the importance of responsibility to his teen(?) adopted catdaughter. If he still looked like the 50yo tallman with 5 o'clock shadow that he equivalently is, he'd be the hottest sexyman on tumblr right here.

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Even though it has vegetables! Because it's made with love and life!!

[mixelation]

what got you into writing naruto fic

ummmm i think it was simply the natural result of being a weeb preteen who liked writing

i think i've STAYED in naruto just because the fic community is fairly active? i stopped writing fic for a while and basically only read SPN for a few years, but then when i decided i wanted to go back to writing fic, i gravitated more towards naruto. probably a contributing factor is that i've always liked OC fics and naruto as a fandom is extremely open to those. i've also always really like fics that are like "what if this female character who SHOULD be a total badass but is ignored in canon, did stuff and maybe fell in love?" which lbr spn is NOT the place for. plus i like villains and "what if there was just like a group of super evil people, all hanging out"

i like writing fic because there's a built in community where you can just slap some ideas down on a page and get feedback. every few months i'm like "but original fiction--" but that's a lot harder to keep up momentum for just because it's harder to find people willing to listen to you yell about a WIP

[bobbimorses]

Does Hawkeye have his own rogues gallery? And do you want his roster of villains to be developed in the future?

so i think i just answered this question recently, but

crossfire (led to clint being deafened, hired assassins to cut off clint's arm, has terrorized him and bobbi on more than one occasion)

zemo (thunderbolts, blindspot, usage in old man hawkeye storylines shows they want it to be an eternal grudge)

bullseye has been on loan (stole his duds with the dark avengers which mocked clint to no end including that time he stood there while clint was naked on that chair, freefall, same grudge deal with old man hawkeye)

i could say swordsman and trickshot but lbr. they only appeared briefly a few times outside of childhood flashbacks to be like "BOO! CHILDHOOD TRAUMA! and now we are forgiven, eh? ehhh?"

anyways everyone else is a series of occasional or one-time players like death throws aka a bunch of jugglers, or batroc sometimes. since clint is a team player, he doesn't really get the "regular villain just for Me" treatment. which is fine. he's more a motw-flavor kinda guy. he doesn't get the overarching 22-ep season procedural bc his solos save for v4 are all minis. hawkeye v4 did have a table of villains going "we gotta deal with this guy..." but that basically went Poof. i mean i guess i could answer "yes i would!" bc the only way they could even try to develop a roster of villains would be to get him on the page more and i want him on the page more. so uh, if it's marvel asking...why yes what a superb idea <3