#<- sort of but not quite

[soullessjack]

sorry for the winchesters posting so late in the game but im finally seeing it with my good ol buddies and oh my god there are so many jack parallels it almost has to be on purpose. and like yeah Tony the half-Djinn who tries to be a good monster is the most obvious parallel but holy shit. MAC from episode 6 is soo.

like. you have a quaint little hunting circle, and there’s a guy with a bad background and a “dark soul” that you allowed into your circle fully knowing that he had a “dark soul,” and posed a risk because of it. but when you saw how that darkness and violence could be useful to you, you just let it go unchecked and worsen over time and you let his need for power become extreme enough that he turns to **dark magic for it and only when he became a threat to you, did you decide he just had to die because in the exclusively hypothetical scenario where he finally turned on you, you knew he’d win.

and the thing is, you already knew he was a threat from the get go. you knew about his darkness and why he did what he did. you knew he needed help, but you didn’t know how to help him, and frankly you didn’t even try to help him because he was more useful to you as a weapon, and only when you were at the same mercy you inflicted on others with him did you finally act. and you didn’t know how to help him and frankly you didn’t even try to. you had a friend stuck in a cycle of violence, and instead of helping him, you wielded him like some kind of weapon.

**and like, I know Jack didn’t turn to dark magic for the exact same reason Mac did—Mac was an abuse survivor who wanted to stop feeling powerless and became excessively power-hungry in the process, while Jack is an all-powerful being who hates feeling powerless and also explicitly feels that not using his power for others is selfish and wrong, which in turn drives him to become power-hungry specifically for the sake of others and doing things for them: resorting to potent and unstable necromancy just to bring Mary back for Sam and Dean; drawing on + destroying his soul just to kill Michael for everyone he’s ever cared about and because he personally hates Michael, using the fullest extent of his power to excruciatingly kill Nick and Duma’s targets for Sam and Dean, becoming a living God-destroying bomb just so he can make amends for his actions, etc.

and that’s his personal cycle of violence. that’s the cycle both he and his family explicitly weaponize for their benefit.

Mac’s cycle was seeking more and more power, becoming more and more violent as a result of his past abuse and helplessness, and instead of helping him with that initial trauma like TFW sort of did, Mary’s aunt (?) and her circle of hunters fully enabled him to seek out more power and be useful to them, and when he became what they let him become, they blew up a cave with him inside. buried him, similarly to how Jack was “buried” in the Ma’lak box after the state of soullessness and Michael-blinker that Sam and Dean were both responsible for and complicit in, made him an unstoppable threat. (although to their credit, TFW does make some effort to break it by repeatedly telling Jack that he doesn’t need to be strong or helpful to be valued/loved by them, and they do make efforts to help him, but they also don’t exactly stop him from seeking/gaining power depending on the long term goal and they really only help him after he’s already suffered the ‘inevitable fate’ of the monster they created in him).

ultimately the episode ends with Lata convincing Mac to destroy his cycle, to choose peace and move on from the past instead of dwelling on resentment and becoming as angry and violent as his abusers, and Mary’s relative (i rlly don’t remember her name I’m sorry) says that she has a lot of work to do if she’s going to make it right, even if she can’t undo what she did, which i feel is a very solid parallel to Dean [and Sam] working to make amends with Jack.

I know that Dean didn’t create this alternate universe and isn’t a controlling force like Chuck, but given that he’s the narrator and blatantly speaks from his experiences as The Monster Club goes through them, I can’t help but think that all of these parallels to Jack (between Tony and Mac and even a few things with John that I’ll post about later), are on purpose. …

[elodieunderglass]

Horror isekai where Perceiving the Weird Eldritch Thing gets you catapulted into a nightmare labyrinth of puzzle-solving.

I.e Those Who Perceive The Hunt of the Goblin King Must Partake In The Labyrinth and Can Only Be Freed If They Complete It In One Day and One Night. By Fae Law. For Reasons.

But the definition of “perception” clearly needs to be updated because some normal guy simply films the Hunt of the Goblin King Behind Arby’s, and puts it on Facebook -

No, not instagram or TikTok, it’s important that it be Facebook -

Because the rules are pretty clear, “the rules are the rules” as is carved ominously in elvish runes above the grim gate, and the Contract is Sealed. and so therefore the guy and 25 of their most random real-life acquaintances must run the gauntlet together. It’s Some Guy, their immediate neighbors, their first partner’s mom, their friends from hobby Facebook groups (oh this poor guy and their hobbies; the elderly birdwatchers from Facebook and the young up-and-coming drag king community), their random teen kid niece, college friends, a dog who also watched the video, a couple consisting of a woman who is the guy’s Facebook friend and showed her husband the video, and the husband doesn’t even know Some Guy, so he’s in the labyrinth and absolutely furious about being forced to be involved, and they proceed to break up over the course of the puzzle.

It’s important that the narrative keeps trying to be a sexy dark horror isekai! but within this the comedic reality of Catherine, 52, the guy’s horse-riding instructor, being passionately involved in escape-room-style puzzle solving and grappling with minor goblins. They are in fact speedrunning the gauntlet.

The Goblin King finally has to say: all right, actually, I only really set all this up to fuck with one (1) guy at a time, thanks for your willingness to participate, but I think all 25 of you can consider the gauntlet fully run.

And the group would be quite hurt by that. The rules are the rules. We have a contract, actually. Let Catherine cook.

[aeide-thea]

on principle opposed to describing art i dislike as 'masturbatory' because even though it's an alluringly contemptuous word to sneer it's impossible to reconcile with my pro-masturbation stance

[almondcroissantsandink]

hark! it's the cringefail loser squad from on high

[theartingace]

So on my recent revisit of centaur bodyplan challenges on my Centaur Wheelchairs post there was some talk of how centaurs would be stretching to make up for the decompression horses usually get in their backs when they graze, and also I've just seen a few tags and other notes curious about centaurs stretching and folding so.. here ya go! Some new stretches focused on stretching more like how horses do with their necks, and then just a collection of all my wibbly wobbly Big Stretch! and general range of motion doodles

[tubbytarchia]

got an urge to design ponies oops

[novelconcepts]

I Saw the TV Glow is such a uniquely, devastatingly queer story. Two queer kids trapped in suburbia. Both of them sensing something isn’t quite right with their lives. Both of them knowing that wrongness could kill them. One of them getting out, trying on new names, new places, new ways of being. Trying to claw her way to fully understanding herself, trying to grasp the true reality of her existence. Succeeding. Going back to help the other, to try so desperately to rescue an old friend, to show the path forward. Being called crazy. Because, to someone who hasn’t gotten out, even trying seems crazy. Feels crazy. Looks, on the surface, like dying.

And to have that other queer kid be so terrified of the internal revolution that is accepting himself that he inadvertently stays buried. Stays in a situation that will suffocate him. Choke the life out of him. Choke the joy out of him. Have him so terrified of possibly being crazy that he, instead, lives with a repression so extreme, it quite literally is killing him. And still, still, he apologizes for it. Apologizes over and over and over, to people who don’t see him. Who never have. Who never will. Because it’s better than being crazy. Because it’s safer than digging his way out. Killing the image everyone sees to rise again as something free and true and authentic. My god. My god, this movie. It shattered me.

[washiinmachiine]

i am extremely late for team frye propaganda oops

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

thinkin' about Bardaby and his illusion smoke...

[myrkulitescourge]

i'm surprised i haven't seen any text posts yet about the Unsubtle Differences between astarion’s tiefling party/high approval forest scene and the one you get after the goblin party.

there’s something so terribly interesting about how the conversation afterward plays out depending on which variation you pursue.

like, most people have seen the tiefling party version by now. astarion basking in the sunlight the morning after, playing off most of what tav says with relative ease, even when they ask about his scars and he tells them about cazador. his cadence is smooth and composed, his smile almost friendly, even though you know, as the viewer, he’s playing a game of manipulation at this point. the only real crack in his demeanor is if tav notices that cazador’s “poem” was written in infernal, which, understandably, startles him.

but recently i watched the goblin party version of this same scene, and everything reads so differently. unlike at the tiefling party, it’s still the middle of the night when astarion tries to leave, thinking tav is asleep—almost immediately after the act, in fact. when tav does speak to him, he’s visibly nervous, halting and stammering in the middle of lines delivered unflinchingly in the other version of the scene. he gestures broadly and fidgets more while talking, his smile comes and goes. there’s even some of his distinctive high pitched, fake laughter sprinkled throughout the exchange, almost identical to later scenes where he's very, very obviously uncomfortable (like if raphael mocks him and magics off astarion's shirt to show the party his scars in act 2, or when confronting the gur children in their cell in act 3, etc etc).

siding with the goblins represents something deeply familiar to astarion, a level of cruelty he's more than familiar with and embraces likely because cruelty and duplicity, to him, go hand-in-hand with the power and freedom he craves so badly—but he won't stay the night with this tav, even if he approves of their actions. no, in this case, he'll keep to what's familiar and attempt to leave them in the forest under the cover of the very same darkness he resents having been cast into by cazador. when he gets caught, it sets him on edge, and everything he says becomes such a blatant lie to save face that tav would have to be completely oblivious not to see through him, or maybe just not care enough to.

but if tav saves the refugees? challenges his worldview and comes out victorious? oh, he'll complain of the poor rewards for his trouble at the party and whine about it being boring, but he decides to stay with tav through the night while they're asleep and on past dawn. he takes a moment to enjoy the morning sunlight, returned to his life after two centuries without. the same is true if you have high enough approval that he asks before the party, in which case, you've almost certainly hit his biggest approval gains: trusting him and supporting his safety. maybe he doesn't trip over his words when he speaks because, well, maybe this is someone he doesn't have to worry about. someone who's already more than proven themselves a foolish, heroic sort with a bleeding heart or otherwise demonstrated that they're already in his corner. in other words, not a threat—at least not to him.

does any of this make sense. i wanna study this guy under a microscope.

[cowboysmp3]

it is always under appreciated how secretive phoenix is like he’s very breezy and hard to nail down. i feel like it’s bc he’s often seen in the context of his relationship with edgeworth but like. edgeworth isn’t cagey. if anything he’s somewhat willing to share a moderate level of personal details if he’s able to, he’s just awkward and very formal and task oriented. phoenix is snarky and impersonal but everyone allows it cause he gets deemed as harmless and goofy. kind of a slay

[ovenproofowl]

there was just something so genuine about kirk realising they’d need money in the 21st century, spotting a chess table and .. just .. sitting down and playing random strangers for a few spare notes at a time. no competitivity, no real sense of urgency, no hard feelings, he just spends the whole afternoon betting strangers he can win and winning every time because of course he can. ‘one dimensional’ chess is a cake walk compared to the chess he’s used to.

and no one leaves that table feeling like they’ve really lost out. it was a good game, kirk wins fair and square, they enjoy their time with him, he even gains a crowd as people get invested in the matches. he shakes their hands and they move on. it was such an endearing way of showing us the kind of person kirk is. charming, easily personable. he finds a fair way to get by in a completely alien situation that still matches his skillset.

I don’t know, it was such a short scene but it showed us so much without any dialogue. They could have shown la’an and kirk figuring out how to grab some quick cash in a bunch of different ways, but they chose one with a lot of heart and that’s why I really love this show.

[turtleblogatlast]

Leo being put into a situation where there is absolutely no fighting, just verbal manipulation and perception games, would be amazing to witness. We see a lot in the series how good he is at subterfuge and how he uses his perception to manipulate to great effect, so it’d be so cool to really see it put to the test even more.

Manipulation is one of the most effective tactical strategies of all time, so just imagine Leo putting this skillset of his to the full test. Imagine the boys slowly get up to busting bigger and more powerful criminals, including those with networks of crime under their belt, and a simple fight isn’t enough to take them down. For criminals like this, Leo’s skills in subterfuge would be deadly.

[beannary]

*quietly deposits a separated au and then scurries off the hide away in a corner*

Beginning | Next

[joaniejustwokeup]

DPxDC Prompt:

The next blow sent the human tumbling into the wall. It wheezed and spat up a gob of blood, pulling itself up on trembling arms and legs.

Pathetic.

“So this is the mortal who captured our young king’s attention. The so-called warrior who he trusted with the sacred duty of guarding his core.”

A shadowed hand pinned it to the wall and it uselessly pawed at the blade-like claws pressed against its fragile throat.

“How a weakling like you seduced High King Phantom, I’ll never know.”

The human squeezed its eyes shut. I’m sorry Danny, it mouthed with cracked and bleeding lips.

The impudence.

Slammed into the ruined bricks once more, the human let out a breathless cry.

“You dare address him like that. You dare to call upon his living name!” Dagger sharp teeth dripped shadowy ectoplasm inches from the mortal’s flesh.

“I’m doing him a favor, disposing of you.”

There was silence.

Then.

The human looked up with glowing green eyes.

A wave of unearthly force erupted from its body.

A dual layered voice echoed out from its miserable throat.

“Oh you just made a BIG mistake.”

[apuff-comics]

i really hope mcr5 does not come out before this is scheduled or else it would be really awkward