#I thought I was so edgy

[trekkiedean]

the funniest part about the boys prequel has already happened and it’s that show turning into the exact kind of mcuified franchise it started out mocking

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

MDZS x ISAT part 2: Grandmaster of Time.

(Part 1)

[gabelew]

zora sketchdump. and link is also there i guess

but who cares about him, what matters is the zora npc content me and like three other people need in their lives

[screwpinecaprice]

World piercing alien laser beam vs the indomitable human spirit?

Commissioned by @jeshuamorbus-blog!

Part of Steven's skin is mildly holed out due to the laser beam, (the pink is melted off his body as it's literally him, but he is healing while taking damage.) Though you would have to zoom the image for those to be clear. I wanted it to look more violent but I do have to admit to my limits than deny+force it and delay this commission further. ( I am not joking when I say I draw slow, guys.😬) So thank you so much jeshuamorbus-blog for ordering and for the patience!

[2hoothoots]

(photographer voice) "okay, now let's do one where canon events play out slightly differently and everyone ends up in a significantly worse place because of it"

here's an au of an au because i have issues watched the genghis khan music video one too many times. lore dump + crops/bonus art below

Due to an unfortunate combination of chance factors, Razputin Aquato arrives at Whispering Rock one day late.

He finds the camp a ghost town. The campers are stumbling around, brainless; the counsellors, nowhere to be found. Ford doesn’t know what to make of this kid showing up out of nowhere – but he’s got promise, and with Sasha and Milla out of action, he’s their best hope. He gives Raz a crash course in what he needs to know, and sends him out across the lake.

Raz pulls through, against all odds. But he never gets the starstruck meeting with his heroes Sasha and Milla that he’d been hoping for; never gets to bond with Lili, or any of the other campers. It’s a harrowing and lonely experience for him, but one that ties a burning knot of resolve in his chest. If he works hard, he can be a Psychonaut just like he dreamed. He can save people.

When the alert comes through from Headquarters that Grand Head Zanotto has been captured, Sasha and Milla scramble the jet with Lili on board. They don’t bring Raz along – Ford’s account of his accomplishments is impressive, but without seeing him in action themselves, neither agent is convinced to bring him along on the mission. Sasha invites him to next year’s session of the camp – after all, he clearly has promise, and the Psychonauts are always interested in nurturing young minds.

Raz returns to camp next year with something to prove. He throws himself into his studies with a single-minded dedication, sparing little time to interact with any of the other campers. This time, he’ll show them. He’ll show them all.

Sasha, Milla and Lili are unable to locate Truman in the Rhombus of Ruin. It ultimately takes a week to locate the Grand Head, following an anonymous tip-off (later found to have been planted by Nick). It takes six months for the ruse to be uncovered. Ultimately, Nick is unsuccessful in finding any clues to Maligula’s whereabouts. Lucrecia will pass a few years later, surrounded by a family that has no idea who she really is. Ford never remembers the truth, and when Razputin is fourteen, he takes the secret to his grave.

Truman’s brain spends almost seven months in a box, under poor conditions with insufficient oxygen. When it’s finally returned to his body, he’s not the same man he used to be. He quietly steps down as Grand Head of the organisation, and spends years of his retirement in intensive therapy.

Lili is heartbroken. Her faith in the Psychonauts is shattered. She never returns to Whispering Rock again. Over the years, she becomes more and more withdrawn; isolated from her peers, estranged from her mother, and struggling with her relationship with a father who on bad days can’t even remember her name. The bitterness grows day by day, blooming within her chest.

She’s sixteen the first time she's forced to turn her powers against another person. Even in his current state, her father has enemies – old foes the Psychonauts can’t (or won’t) protect him from. There’s a raid on her house, late at night. It’s only by chance that she’s still awake. She breaks two of the assailants’ bodies, and when she twists her hand, the plants in her father's greenhouse writhe under her command and rip the third one to pieces. It’s the last time that house ever feels like a home to her. She cuts ties with the Psychonauts entirely, and never looks back; the next time they hear of her, it's under a completely different name.

Dogen Boole never returns to Whispering Rock either. He’s thoroughly traumatized by the events at camp, and his parents refuse to send him back the following year. With nobody to help him learn to control or harness his powers, his episodes steadily become worse as he gets older. Although reluctant, his family is eventually forced to reach out to the Psychonauts to help. Compton is still a nervous recluse, and nobody else in the organisation is quite sure how to handle Dogen’s powers. He spends his teenage years in and out of psychoisolation, and is subjected to more and more intense experimentation in the name of “treatment”. Nothing works. In the end, all he has to show for it are the scars.

His helmet is the only thing he can rely on to stop him mulching the cranium of anyone in a fifty-foot radius. There’s no place for him in “normal” society. Just like Lili, he’s driven to become a villain by a combination of circumstances, trauma, and a bitter feeling of hurt and betrayal towards the Psychonauts.

Raz enters the intern program at thirteen, and quickly graduates to the rank of Junior Agent. The Psychonauts he finds waiting for him is undergoing a marked transition from the organization it used to be. Upon Ford’s passing, the only member of the old guard still around is Otto. Hollis is a Grand Head forced to prioritize efficiency in order to keep the Psychonauts afloat after numerous losses and funding cuts.

Raz enters a passionate, determined boy, remarkably talented but who struggles to connect with his peers. When he gets his promotion at eighteen, he’s the most decorated junior agent the organization has ever seen. At twenty-six, he’s in the prime of his career, honed by years of training into an efficient, meticulous, ruthless Psychonaut.

He’s the perfect agent. As far as he’s concerned, that’s all he needs to be.

under-the-cut bonus, here's some tighter crops on the art, and also a couple extra bits and pieces:

dogen's helmet seals up like a pillbug most of the time, to stop his powers from leaking out when he gets stressed. i couldn't find a way to work it into the art while still making clear that Hey It's Ya Boy, but i think it's a neat visual. the extra pic of lili was gonna be a mugshot - at first i was planning to composit her art into, like, a dossier/file, but i couldn't make it work in the end

[chessb0r3d]

i cracked the code.

[twipsai]

was thinking about Sonic and Shadow having their fucked up forms, and it made me sad that Silver was left out so here!!! he gets to be an angel <3

i was inspired to act on this idea and got some of the design ideas from this post by @kosmic-neptune !!

(dont mind the little guy in the top left, thats my friend he wanted to be in the drawing)

[penofwildfire]

Nice happy not-angsty concept where Kai by some miracle gets bars in the Nether-space and receives Wyldfyre's voice messages and manages to call her and everyone's happy to know he's safe for now and also that Bonzle is alive and even though it's not a permanent thing because eventually Kai's phone's gonna die it's still a relief and gives everyone the strength to carry on until they can bring their family home <3

[flamemons]

It's alright to scream

I'm screaming too

Why'd you think I do the things I do?

For shadows haunted me like ghosts

So I became what I feared the most

I conduct fear like electricity

A manmade monstrosity

Killer — The Hoosiers

i woke up from a nap with this song stuck in my head and. yea

[winterdesu]

crimson phantom yakumo photos part 2

part 1 [here]

[dipplinduo]

I AM FUCKING DEAD

I made the horrible decision to download the character ai app and I was fucking flabbergasted that Kieran exists on there, and I immediately was irresponsible as hell with it:

Some of the wording got messed up because I was saying things aloud, but I think you get the context regardless. 💀💀💀

[katartna]

My Pokemon Scarlet team in gijinka forms!

[liorlen]

kazuma should have dressed more edgy imo. that time he was possessed doesn’t count

[nathaniel-underwood-is-an-intj]

Post Ptolemy's Gate ramble

So I just finished Ptolemy's Gate, thoughts are a bit all over the place and aside from mentioning the obvious I thought I'd dump some thoughts here.

Piper's apathy certainly shocked me. I know she's stressed running the council and she's got loads of organisation to do but oof she sure did come across as cold in her conversation with Kitty. Kitty has that kind of apathetic resignation of grief but it really felt like Piper had already put it behind her despite it only being two days before. Her boss that she worked for died horribly to save them all and she didn't even seem to share a quiet moment of grief with Kitty idk it just felt a little brutal 😅 I had an impression of her being really sweet so I was a bit taken aback.

One thing that really stood out to me was Nathaniel's apathy to the situation, I found it really interesting. I guess something could be said about it being the magician in him.

Nathaniel really has this duality to him, the obvious being Nat vs John Mandrake and of course Nat + Bartimaeus but in chapter 36 part ii something that caught my attention

'it was the feeling of consummate superiority, the delight of power weilded without peril. He danced beneath the night sky, smiting down his enemies.'

It already seems as if he's being elevated to something other- a martyr perhaps, except martyrs have causes and ideals, they do something because they have a strong belief in their justness. And Nathaniel:

'He felt aloof disconnected and alone. If his hatred for demons he had killed was dull and almost matter-of-fact, so was his sympathy for the people whose lives he saved.'

So he seems almost like an avenging angel, I love the religious imagery, especially because it seems to call back to Bartimaeus comparing his body to a holy mosque. But also divine rage is the driving force for an avenging angel and he's no longer even angry at the destruction caused.

'Pride spurred him on.' this almost makes him seem God-like?? His sole motivator is the pride of a deity, and I love that. But it's also just very true to him as a boy, pride spurred him on against Lovelace and against Duval and Whitwell.

When he's alone with Bartimaeus he's taken on this air of not being entirely human. He feels alone and solitary from everything including humaity. But when he rejoins Kitty, Piper and the rest of the magicians waiting for him he's reinvigorated - 'he felt a surge of joyful impatience - 'he would detroy Nouda, rescue the commoners and return to Kitty.' it seems as though he has to be surrounded by people to remind himself he's one of them. It could be seen as an effect of sharing a mind with Bartimaeus, but of course it could be Nathaniel's own human pride and his memories of being othered even as a child. Just gives the impression of this human / higher entity duality.

But also I partly got the impression that this hints to depression- I'm sure it's hardly out of the realm of possibility for Nat to have it. Though it's never stated I think several moments in the books make a good argument for it, including the above- just the numbness to everything. And I guess the sudden change in demeanor at 'surge of joyful impatience' can be read as hopefulness, but it reminded me of the saying that when people have decided to follow through on their s*icidal ideation they come across as happy and like a weight has been lifted from them. Nathaniel is impressively calm for someone who realises he's gravely injured. And while he can be seen as a martyr or hero for his final actions, the hollowness he felt at that moment gives it a more bitter edge.

I think it's made even more sad when compared to Anthony Lockwood, who has that same sense of pride - because he's trying to make his dead parents proud and because he's trying to hide the fact that he doesn't like himself very much. Nathaniel gives this same impression. And Lockwood at the end had reason to be proud, he uncovered a huge conspiracy, his agency became the most famous in London. And Nathaniel had reason to be proud; he's managing to wield the staff of his childhood hero, something he had dreamed of doing, he's had the bravery to unite with a spirit and he's going to take down the biggest threat to London.

But Lockwood gets something Nathaniel doesn't-

There's this subtle idea seen through Lucy's eyes that Lockwood's biggest achievement was fighting through his s*icidal ideation and discovering he has something to live for, even just seeing his friends again.

And Nathaniel just doesn't get that moment.

He sort of acknowledges that he doesn't have to be a powerful leader, that he doesn't need his colleagues approval, that he doesn't need to erase the fear the commoners have of him and other magicians, but without these things he doesn't know what to do with himself. He has no plan for the future, because even before he's injured the idea of a future doesn't seem to have much appeal to him. He already appears to have given up on trying to uncover who Nathaniel is, depite finally having the opportunity to. Like after everything- being beaten, the fear of his colleagues trying to harm him and burying himself in the John Mandrake persona to protect his sensitive side- he doesn't want to uncover the remnants of that boy because he's worried it'll be too difficult to put himself back together.

Or maybe he feels that he already has discovered who Nathaniel is, a deeply unhappy, hollow shell of a person, whose personality has been pulled in so many directions he no longer has a sense of self. He's been stripped back to the barest version of himself and found he doesn't even have the foundations upon which to rebuild himsef. Like discovering dry rot in your walls and you keep pulling and pulling bits of rotting wood away from the home until you've finally got it all, only to realise the house has come down around you- there's nothing left.

He doesn't get this moment where he works through his trauma, where he realises he has a support system, where he realises he's loved. I don't know if Nathaniel ever really knew what it felt like to be loved. I don't think he did. Ptolemy's death was awful and heartbreaking but his short life was filled with affection. And Lockwood realises people do care about him, depite being told that no one does. It hurts so much that Nat felt isolated and alone his whole life, right up to the last minute. Potential love confessions aside, Nathaniel never got a chance to sit and bathe in the warmness of affection. Like Bartimaeus tells him, it's about 'being not doing.' Nathaniel never got to understand the importance of just being, of simply existing as himself or of being happy. He constantly had to be working on the next goal, the next plan, because if he stops working he'll be forced to sit with his thoughts and realise how unhappy he is. And the thought of that is just too much to bear, it's so much easier to give in.

The ending gave the impression of being very romantic, while sad. Nathaniel gets to be remembered as a hero and never has to confront the consequences of his actions with wars in Europe and America that he had a direct role in. Acknowledging his role and dealing with fallout are two very different mountains to climb. And I think that idea of dying like a hero perfectly appeals to Nathaniel's prideful tendencies, and maybe he views it that way to hide the fact it's a convenient way out of his unhappiness and confronting what he's done. It's quite interesting to see that after he's been stripped back to nothing and can't figure out who or what he wants to be if he gets the chance, he still has that vanity and arrogance to him- despite not really being good character traits, they're so authentically Nathaniel, he's been that way right from the start and it's nice little peak of the real him at the end, being so humanly flawed.

[sledz-z]

i'm not sure if anyone else has done this

[melonthesprigatito]

Pokémon Legends: Z-A is really out there making me dive back into certain character hyperfixations from my earliest Pokémon fandom days. I haven't thought about these people in nearly a decade

The vintage blorbos are resurfacing