#I'm gonna hurt you

[psychic-enemy-dragon]

You hurt her and I will hurt you. Simple as that. Don't you ever FUCKING dare to make her feel bad, hurt or something like that. I swear to anything..... You will regret this......

[denkies]

Me: i ❤ doomed relationship

The doomed relationship: *fulfills the "doomed" title*

Me:

[royalarchivist]

Tubbo: I swear to God, Chat - I promise you, if it's the last thing I do, I am going to break up Fit and Pac.

Mike passed the crown of #1 Hideduo hater to Tubbo, and Tubbo took that title very seriously.

[ Full Subtitle Transcript ↓ ]

-

Pac: I have a date with Fit tomorrow! You know the news, Tubbo?

[ Tubbo's Homophobic Arc ]

Pac: I got a date with Fit tomorrow!

Tubbo: You're - no... You're kidding..

Pac: Yeah, for real! Look - Mike shaved my hair you know, and gave me a new outfit so I can be like, sharp for tomorrow. ...You guys like it? You like it, Sunny?

[Judgemental silence]

Tubbo: That's so cool man, what he hell. That's fckin' sick.

Pac: Yeah, thank you! I knew it, I knew you'd- Oh, thank you, Sunny! I knew you guys were gonna love it, you know? I knew it.

-

Tubbo: I swear to God- I swear to God- We need to add homophobia to the QSMP, I swear to God- I swear to God-

-

Tubbo: Guys, I have to do everything in my power to break them up. What do you mean "no"?! This is awful, Sunny! This is awful!

Sunny: But why Pa?

Tubbo: THEY WERE NEVER MEANT TO GET TOGETHER! The stars told me so! They were never meant to actually get together!

Sunny: WHY PA

Tubbo: It's just wrong, Sunny! It's just wrong! I dunno how to explain it to you. It's just wrong!

Sunny: But it's loveeeee

Tubbo: ...If that's what you want to call it.

-

Tubbo: HOW IS THERE GONNA BE ENOUGH SPACE BETWEEN THEM FOR ME NOW, SUNNY?!

Sunny: You're telling me you've never been in love Pa?

Tubbo: Listen, it's just not right.

Sunny: But I like bodyguard Fit and driver Pac :(

Tubbo: I like them too! They're my best friends! But they can't be together.

Sunny: I think you are projecting

Tubbo: PROJECTING WHAT? HUH!?

Sunny: I will find you someone, Pa.

Tubbo: I DON'T WANT SOMEONE! I DON'T WANT SOMEONE IT ONLY SERVES TO DISAPPOINT ME AND GET MY HOPES UP AND LEAVE ME- LEAVE ME NOTHING BUT A SHELL! A SHELL OF A MAN!

-

Tubbo: Sunny - They're gonna hurt each other, Sunny- they're gonna hurt each other! And how will there be enough space between them for me now?

Sunny: Why would they do that if they care for each other?

Tubbo: People that care about each other, Sunny, hurt each other all the time! ALL THE TIME!

Sunny: But I care about you, and I don't hurt you.

Tubbo: No, that's different! That's different! The love that we have for each other is unconditional. Ok?

Sunny: Pa, I think you're just scared.

Tubbo: I'm not scared, I'm logical. All flags look red when you're wearing rose-tinted glasses.

-

Tubbo: [In response to Sunny talking about Aypierre's agreement to build her a statue] You already have a statue! [Sunny hits him] Ow!

Tubbo: What about the one Fit and Ramon made you for your birthday? [Tubbo has an idea] See? Do you think Fit would have time to do stuff like that if he's too- if he's too preoccupied with his little shag buddy? I don't think so! I don't think so!

Sunny: Wait.

Tubbo: See? You see what I'm saying? You see what I'm saying!

Sunny: You have a good point now

Tubbo: See? You under- yes, exactly! We HAVE to break them up! They can still be friends! Fck it, friends with benefits! But they cannot be together. We cannot let them.

Sunny: OK I'M IN

Tubbo: [Claps] I KNEW I COULD COUNT ON YOU! I knew I could count on you!

-

[Looking at fanart of Pac, Fit, and himself]

Tubbo: We- we have to split them up. We have to fckin' split them up. Oh, but I'm in this one! Oh, that's so-[Realizes it's him crying as a third-wheel] SEE?! SEE?! THEY KNEW! THEY KNEW! THEY FCKIN' KNEW! THEY FCKIN' KNEW!

-

Tubbo: [In a thick "red-blooded American" accent] Wha- I just don't understand why they have 'ta keep shoving it down our throats! Goddamnit! I JUST WISH IT WASN'T MY SMP! [He hits his desk and laughs]

-

Dono: Streamer becomes homophobic 'cause he can't get any

Tubbo:

Tubbo: Sunny, I'm just gonna need to brb for a moment.

Tubbo: [Stands up from his desk, walks away, and screams]

-

Tubbo: I swear to God, Chat - I promise you - if it's the last thing I do, I am going to break up Fit and Pac.

[majimasleftasscheek]

💍 pt. 2

[buglaur]

if virgil was in a horror movie he'd probably be first to die

[essektheylyss]

One thing that I feel is really interesting and often forgotten about Essek is that fundamentally, his characterization has been from the start based upon his desperation for external perspectives and connection, which, along with much of his narrative and mechanical positioning, means that he actually has an extraordinary and almost (but not actually, as I'll show) counterintuitive capacity for both growth and trust.

(Buckle in. This is a long one.)

In particular, I would argue, knowing now that many places where the plot touches Ludinus have long been marked for connecting back into the current plot, that he was quite possibly built as a prime candidate for radicalization by the Ruby Vanguard. He felt isolated from his culture, he was desperate for other connection, and he was certainly of the type to believe he was too smart to be drawn into such a thing, given his initial belief that he could control the situation and the fallout. If things had gone any other way, he easily could've been on the other side by now.

As such, he has been hallmarked by being fairly open to suggestion, perhaps for this reason, but the thing about that kind of trait is that it is both how people are radicalized and deradicalized. This is certainly true of Essek, who experienced genuine kindness and quite frankly strangeness from the Nein and was able to move from the isolation the Assembly had engendered to meaningful and genuine connection, largely propelled by his own internal reflection. By the time Nein are aware of his crimes, he's already begun to express regret to an extent and, furthermore, doubt in the Assembly, including explicitly drawing a line against Ludinus, even in a position where he was on his own and probably quite vulnerable.

Similarly, when the Nein reach the Vurmas Outpost some weeks later, he has moved from regret for the position he's ended up carrying a heavy remorse. This makes sense! He's fairly introspective, seems used to spending a lot of time in his own head, and was left with plenty to mull over. It's not some kind of retcon for him to have progressed well past where the Nein left him; it just means he's an active participant in the world who has done his own work in the meantime.

This is another interesting aspect to him. I've talked about this a bit before but I cannot find the post so I'll recap here: antagonists in D&D have significantly more agency than allied NPCs. Antagonists are active forces, against which the party is meant to struggle; allies are meant to support the PCs, which means they tend to be more passive in both their actions and their character growth. Essek was both built as an antagonist, in a position that gives him significant agency, and also was then given significant opportunity to grow specifically to act as a narrative mirror for Caleb's arc. Even when he becomes a more traditional D&D ally, he still retains much of that, though he occupies a supporting role.

I believe that this is especially true because of the nature of Caleb's arc, which I've already written on; the tl;dr of this post is that Caleb is both convinced that he is permanently ruined and also desperate to prove that change is possible. Essek is that proof, because he is simply the character in a position to do so. But this also means that his propensity for introspection and openness is accentuated! He has to do the legwork on his own, for the most part, because that's where he is in the meantime.

But he still ends the campaign necessarily constricted; he is under significant scrutiny, he's at risk from the Assembly, and he goes on the run fairly soon after the story ends. He spends most of the final arc anxious and paranoid, which is valid given the crushing reality of his situation. It would be very easy to extrapolate that seven years into this reality, he would be insular, closed off, and suspicious of strangers, even in spite of the lessons he's learned from the Nein and their long term exposure.

So seeing his openness and lightness now is surprising, but at the same time, given this combination of factors in his position in the narrative over time and his defining traits, it's not by any means unreasonable.

But one thing that I found so delightful is how much trust he exhibits, which is obviously a wild thing to say about Essek in particular, given much of what he learns is both earning and offering trust, which was something he says explicitly in 2x124 that he's never really experienced: "I've never really been trusted and so I did not trust." It makes up much of the progression of his relationship with Caleb, and the trust that he is offered by the Nein in walking off the ship is the impetus he needs to grow.

But I think it's easy to talk about trust when it comes to people who have proven themselves to you or to whom you've ingratiated yourself, and that's really the most we can say about Essek by the time he leaves the Blooming Grove. There is this sense in a lot of discussion of trust (not solely in this fandom) that it is only related to either naivete or love, but there's far more to it. Trust at its best is deliberate—cultivating an openness to the world at large is a great way to combat cynicism and beget connection instead. It allows a person to maintain curiosity and be open to experience, but it can be incredibly difficult to hold onto.

It is clear that the Essek we meet now is a very pointedly and intentionally trusting individual. He trusts Caleb and by extension Caleb's trust in Keyleth, as he shows up and picks up a group of strangers from a foreign military encampment and walks in without issue. He trusts the Hells to follow his lead moving through Zadash and to exhibit enough discretion so as to avoid bringing suspicion upon all of them. He trusts that Astrid will respond well to his entrance, but he also trusts himself and the Hells enough to execute a back-up plan in the case that she doesn't. In the end, he even trusts them enough to give them his name and identity.

He doesn't scan as someone who has spent half a dozen years living like a prey animal, afraid of any shadow he runs across in an alley, withdrawn into himself and an insular family, which would've been an easy route for him to take. He scans as someone who has learned the kind of trust borne of learned confidence and a trained eye for good will and kindness, which are crucial weapons one would need for staving off cynicism in his circumstances—as if he has survived thanks more to connection and kindness than paranoia and isolation. (If we want to be saccharine about it, he scans quite poignantly as a member of the Mighty Nein.)

So it is easy to imagine this trust and openness as a natural progression of his initial search for perspectives external to his own cultural knowledge. Though he makes those first connections with the Assembly to try to vindicate his personal hypotheses, he finds in them exposure to the deepest corruption among Exandrian mortals, which could've—and did, for a time—turned him further down that same dark path.

But it's also this same openness to exposure from the wider world that allows the Nein to influence him for the better, and in spite of the challenges he's certainly faced simply surviving over the past seven years, he seems to have held onto this openness enough to move through the world with self-assurance and a willingness to extend the kinds of trust and good will that he has been shown.

(I would be remiss not to mention that I was reminded about my thoughts on this by this lovely post from sky-scribbles and their use in the tags of 'light' to describe Essek's demeanor this episode, which is really such an apt word for it.)

[yashley]

ashley in c2e87

[fizzytoo]

outtakes <3 (i just really wanted to post these🧍🏽‍♀️)

[bakudekublogblog]

god thinking about katsuki murmuring "gotta win... right izuku?" right before charging right into his death is so so so fucking batshit insane of a thing to include. like he's yearning for him. like not only is he speaking as if izuku is still at his side, but he still remembers what izuku said to him all those months ago and is fighting to live up to the version of himself izuku admired. and then he goes "tell me.... izuku.... can i still reach you" CAN I STILL REACH YOU LITERALLY LONGING FOR HIM, TELL ME, ONE LAST THING BEFORE I GO, JUST TELL ME IF I CAN REACH YOU FUCKING I'M LOSING MY MIND OVER HERE IT'S PEAK PINING TRAGIC ROMANCE

[spicyvampire]

THE SIGN (2023) EP. 2 // EP. 5 // EP. 6

[veinsfullofstars]

🪞 Fallen angel... who do you see staring back from the Mirror? 🪞

(ID: Kirby series fanart of Galacta Knight and my personal interpretation of his Mirror World counterpart. GK hovers above facing slightly to our left, his feathery wings spread wide, shaded in lilac and tipped with gilded wing talons, a swallow-like tail visible. He holds his shield forward in his left hand (our right) and his lance to the side in his right (our left), a single magenta eye leering at the viewer through the visor of his mask. A halo of heart spears floats and shines angelically behind his horns. Below him, M!GK hovers in the same pose but flipped horizontally and without the halo. Visually, M!GK has mostly the same features as GK, with his color palette being darker and less saturated (dusty purple body, dark gray armor, gray mask, maroon lance, rose-gold horns and weapons accents). His eyes are not visible in the shadow of his mask, but there are signs of erosion running down the metal surface in rusty orange lines, almost like tear tracks. Instead of feathery wings, M!GK has wings composed of jagged shards of pink crystal, glittering and lit from within by a luminous glow. A few pale feathers can still be seen peeking out from his back. END ID.)

Hey, so... what if... I went a little insane for a minute? What if I just... concepted a character... for the sequel... to an AU... I've told no one about... and haven't even finished writing yet? What if I then... pulled the salt shaker labeled "ANGST" out of the pantry and just... unscrewed the cap all over this poor lad? Oh, and Galacta Knight's here, too, I guess.

Sketch started 02/21/24, render started 03/01/24, finished 03/06/24.

[ponury-grajek]

academic year has started so I'm drawing my comfort characters because, woof, I'll need a lot of comfort

[songofstrawhats]

Luffy Week Day 4- Emotion

One of the things I am most fascinated by in One Piece is the continuity between this small angry child, and the happy-go-lucky pirate he becomes.

I think it's all still in there, he just knows more now!!!

[fem0ral-artery]

Tonight's cooldown sketch

[chirpsythismorning]

Some of the evidence supporting Mike not being in love with El is brutal. No, but seriously.

In s3, when El's leg is injured, instead of Mike putting his arm around her waist, allowing him to take some of the weight off her injured leg, he puts his arm around her shoulder, basically having the exact opposite affect of taking the weight off of her, instead just adding more weight for her to have to carry.

Now, I’m not coming at Mike here, I’m actually coming at the writers, because this choice here has everything to do with them using this gesture to signal Mike’s lack of feelings for El, even at the expense of realism.

I say this bc any person with common sense, including Finn and everyone around him and Millie filming these shots, would've known it looked unnatural for Mike to be adding more weight onto El as opposed to taking some off of her.

This means that what Mike did here, Finn was directed to do, and therefore it was for a specific reason.

And we know they could have easily made the opposite choice, because they show us Max AND Lucas doing it.

See how putting an arm around El's waist looks so much more natural? Because homegirl is injured and clearly needs help taking weight off her leg to qualm some of the pain she's experiencing there, which is why Max and Lucas are shown here doing it the correct way.

And so, why can't Mike do the same? Why are the writers making a point to show Mike being incapable of simply taking some weight off of El, instead doing the exact opposite?

I don't think it's as deep as Mike not being able to do something intimate, and that's bc, again we see Max and Lucas doing it.

I honestly think what they're trying to convey with this choice here, is that Mike thinks he's helping El, when he is in fact doing the opposite despite his best efforts. The implications of that and how that sort of aligns with their romantic relationship and what it leads to at the end of s3, going into s4, is pretty spot on.

I do think Mike thinks he's doing the right thing by being with El instead of voicing any doubts at the end of s3, because he is under the assumption that she is in love with him. I do think he believes he is indebted to her and that this is the least he can do after everything they've been through together, which has mostly been riddled with romantic pressures and so continuing that instead of disputing it seems like the only option anyways. Not to mention, he does care for her deeply, so it's not hard to imagine that he's a teenage boy confusing deep care for love (he literally tells us this is his problem when he can only say care and not love to El's face... but that's a whole other conversation).

Still, when it's all said and done, Mike's not actually doing El any favors by being with her romantically, if that is not what he truly wants.

Because that's the sad truth about all of this, which is that you would never want someone to be with you just because you want them. If you knew that they truly couldn't have those feelings for you, you'd want to know, right? You don't deserve someone just because you have deep feelings for them. And I think there's so many layers to this idea, bc many people are capable of not giving Byler a chance bc they truly believe Mike could never return Will's feelings. Will also feels this way atp, so though it hurts, he rips the band aid off, because he would never want Mike to be with him just out of pity or something. No one would want that. And so it all really comes down to who Mike truly loves romantically and wants to be with. And the right thing to do, even if it hurts someone, is to be honest, because being with them just bc you think that will make them happy is never going to be enough if you aren't truly feeling it, or worse, feel it for someone else.

We see how Mike's inability to be honest with El at the end of s3, leads to a season of Mike feeling deeply insecure and undeserving of the love El has to offer him, and even though he does try, he always comes up short. Despite Mike putting up this front that they are the perfect couple, the details are telling us something is off. And it gives him away.

Another example that I think is very similar to this loaded gesture from Mike to El in s3, is the scene in s4 when they hug in the airport.

Common sense ppl, picture this: You're reuniting with your long distance girlfriend. Then suddenly, she runs up to you, with her arms wide open, and instead of opening your arms wide to embrace her properly, you take the bouquet of flowers you brought her as a gift, and shove them against your chest just as she approaches to hug you, effectively squishing the present you got for her (a pretty delicate present at that) for no reason other than to... what exactly?

Like?? El isn't even squishing the present Mike, she's trying to hug you, dude! Your gf is trying to hug you properly and you threw the gift you got for her in between you so you could throw in a careful! x3??

Again, this has less to do with Mike's thoughts and reasoning behind this gesture in a literal sense, and more to do with the simple fact that this is a narrative choice! Mike is not a real person! There are real people sitting down and writing this and actors are having to do multiple takes to act it out. What feels natural for a situation is going to be what is often chosen 9 times out of 10, because of realism and wanting the audience to see stuff happening that is believable. That 1 time though, when it's not being done the way it would usually be, is usually because there's a specific reason for it.!

So the question really is, not why is Mike doing this, but why are the writers having Mike do this, and what message are they trying to convey about Mike's feelings based on his behavior, in these moments where he's just not capable of committing to El genuinely, one way or another?

[sunnysssol]

i wasn't sure what kind of braids to put her in so I just did these two !! @thegoliathbeetle tysm for the request <33

[ not taking any more! ] [ comms open / do not repost ]