#but i'm so honored to even be asked

[overtake]

can i ask how you color and sharpen your gifs? they’re so vibrant 👀

Of course! I don't know how helpful I can be because I don't do anything special, so this is mostly an incoherent ramble and offers absolutely no insight. There's so many amazing coloring tutorials out there, so I would recommend any of those rather than reading the jumble of words below the read more lmao. The best resource ever is this blog. You can find tutorials for everything ever.

First, I crop by using width x height x resolution rather than just plain cropping and then resizing the image. I have no idea if that actually makes a difference in the quality, but I've gaslit myself into believing it's a difference maker. My settings are usually 542 px x 400 px at 135 px/in. The reason I do 542 is because then I go into canvas size and do 540 x 398 to cut off those tiny transparent borders that always show up after you crop (I don't think it's noticeable at all when you upload a gif but I'm just in the habit of doing it). Once it's cropped, I flatten my frames into layers and use a sharpening action. I have no idea what tutorial and specific sharpening action I downloaded because it was years ago, but there's so many out there. Here's just some random ones I found, but there's a lot if they don't work for you [x, x, x].

As for coloring, I color every gif from scratch each time. I know a lot of people use PSDs, and then might alter them slightly based on the gif. That looks great and is faster and works very well, and it can be a great option for you to seek out. I'm just a control freak who wants to manually adjust everything.

Gifs with a dark or solid, colorful background are my favorite to color because it's so much easier to make the person stand out. I can just talk you through my mindset for this gifset.

I used exposure, brightness/contrast, selective color, color balance, vibrance, and levels. Exposure was +.53 and offset was -.0015 (I like using offest and gamma correction when I have a very dark background I want to emphasize, but I keep them at very very very low levels). Brightness was 9, contrast 7. I don't really like using brightness/contrast too much, but a little contrast in the right color conditions does sometimes make things more visually interesting. Selective color in black under the black subheading was +26. I go wild to make a dark background darker. If it had been a pretty blue background, however, I would've been in the blue and cyans section just messing with the sliders until I got a nice shade of blue I liked, and then I would've gone to the blues under hue/saturation to make it even brighter. I didn't use any 'selective color: neutrals' on this gifset, and I kind of avoid them because it's really easy to wash someone out or give the gifset a kind of ugly color tone if you're not very cautious.

Specific color balance numbers would be annoying for you to read through, but make sure you work with all 3 of the shadows, midtones, and highlights. I almost never go more than a +/- 5 on any of the sections, and I always hide the layer after to make sure I actually like the colors I added because you might accidentally take a totally normal gif and suddenly, all the blacks are looking magenta toned because you went too wild in color balance. I just added a tiny bit of vibrance (+8) to make sure I wasn't washing him out, and then I finished off messing with levels to once again emphasize the dark background.

90% of the gif coloring I do is done in exposure, selective color, and color balance. Those three are the backbone of my gifmaking. I spend so much time messing around in selective color with all the standout colors in the gif. I wish I could drop a magic secret here, but I really just go through and adjust the sliders until I find a balance I like.

I think color balance is so important to making sure the person isn't a weird shade after you mess with other colors - it ensures sure they're not super yellow or overly cool-toned. When I have a colorful background that isn't a red/yellow/orange (because messing with those colors will mess with a person's skintone), I also usually make it brighter through selective coloring and hue/saturation. I cannot emphasize enough how much selective coloring changed my life. It's my world. When I finally do upload my gifs, I always save them to my drafts and view them from mobile and desktop to see if there's anything that looks super weird that I need to fix. Sometimes a gif will look great in photoshop but suddenly the person is bright red on mobile, so it helps me make adjustments.

I used to be very conservative in adding lots of color and I tended to wash people out and was too afraid to make a colorful background even brighter or a dark background darker. For example: this old gifest I made on my main just looks so .. dull? There's no life in that skin. What I would do differently now, just as a basic starting point, is brighten the blues and the reds in his skin through selective color + hue/saturation, add more exposure, and use color balance to make his skin tone more human. With just those adjustments alone on top of the gif (which did already have coloring on it!), it looks way better and brighter. I mean, does it look good? No, it's a screenshot of a gif from almost 2 years ago and I spent 30 seconds on it, but it's better!

My advice is just to not be afraid to mess with colors and make them stand out. I have zero comprehension of color theory and no artistic background, so I was flying blind when I started adding all these adjustment layers and was very timid about them. I really just think the best thing to do is to mess around in photoshop working on gifs with different colored backgrounds so you practice how you want to mess with those colors. I seriously spend so much time making gifs that will never see the light of day because it's fun to do and it helps me learn the adjustments. My understanding of color also significantly improved when I started trying to make more edit-y style gifsets, because I'd try to recolor the background of the gif with the brush tool and changing the blend mode and wouldn't understand why the color I'd painted over top an orange background wasn't turning out exactly how I wanted when I changed the blend modes.

I'm sorry that this is an absolute mess with no real advice besides "I like these adjustments" and "just mess around!" I know that's not particularly helpful, but I'm honestly too busy being flattered that I was even asked for advice.

[canisalbus]

Hii!!! Hello I just discovered your blog and oh my god im absolutely hooked I love machete so muchhh. I’ve known machete for a day and a half and if anything happened to him I’d kill everyone in this room and then myself- /ref (machete: *gets assassinated* me: a.)

Anyway!!! because of that I’ve really wanted to draw him and I was wondering if you’re okay with me posting it 👀 with proper credit of course and I’d tag you! Ik not everyone is comfortable with that so I thought I’d ask.

[lavenoon]

bh!Eclipse "asked to reach the top shelf" meets "can't reach the lowest cupboards without folding like a paperclip" - @clxckwork-sun-n-moon

Yeah, I mean, there's a reason SI is laughing here after Eclipse "gets on his level" - man's too tall, he'd need to lie down to get close

But shenanigans are so very fun, so:

vs

It's called symbiosis <3

bloodstain fool by naffeclipse and og detective au by sunnys-aesthetic!

[bakughosts]

SPARE VAMPIRE BKG THOUGHTS ??? SPARE VAMPIRE BKG THOUGHTS SIR MAAM ??

omg i have been traveling so it took me forever to respond to this because i wanted to be able to type out my Thoughts on the computer but WILLOW omg..... u spoil me by asking this. because i have so many and they constantly live in my brain ldfskjfslkdjf

i think what i love about bkg so much as a character is that he has desires but most of those desires take the form of achieving a goal. he has so many things he wants to be the best at and so many heights he wants to reach and yeah, part of this is because he's an ambitious person but part of it is because of his ego and his insecurity and the expectations placed upon him by the people around him/society at large. and i think bkg in any context has these things that he wants to achieve because his desire to reach his lofty goals is integral to his character.

and vampire bkg... think of all that time. what do you do when you've achieved everything you've ever wanted to achieve? what's left after that? for a century he has been achieving his goals, and now he has everything. money and power and even respect from locals in the villages near his castle (though that respect is tinged heavily with fear, because even if they don't know exactly what the handsome bachelor that lives inside the creepy but beautiful castle on the horizon is, they know he's something other... and not to mention he looks exactly like his father, and exactly like his father's father, and isn't it strange that none of us have ever seen their wives, have never seen these men at any point in their lives outside of their late twenties/early thirties?)

i don't think stagnation sits well with bkg. i don't think he's ever learned how to be still. despite having unlimited time, he had to accomplish everything as quick as possible, because he just wanted it all. he wanted to be the best so bad that it sung in his veins like adrenaline. and now, in the aftermath, he feels that same emptiness. adrenaline come and gone and only a hollow tiredness in its wake. now is when you feel the pain--nothing distracts you from it.

and one day... you, cat-curious, find your way to his castle. (this has gotten long lmao so im gonna put a read more)

maybe you're a traveler, or an adventurer, or simply someone in one of the nearby villages that doesn't believe the rumors. but no matter who you are and where you come from, you've heard the stories of his Otherness. though you don't know it yet, just like him, you thrive best with adrenaline thrumming through your veins--you thrive when you have something to want. and you want to know the secrets behind the Otherness that everyone else is so afraid of.

does that mean you're not afraid? god, no. of course you are. but you've reached his castle under an auspicious moon and you're sure this is a good omen.

here is why desire is such a dangerous thing: it is often insatiable. for a long, long time, bkg has survived from the blood of his livestock which he cares for, from game on his land. deer in spring, grouse in winter. to live like that for so long, and then to have something so much more tempting come directly to him, delivered to his doorstep--it's almost like a gift.

at the same time, i don't think bkg relishes the idea of drinking human blood, and certainly not killing a human. i think he could be a bloodthirsty vampire, but specifically when it comes to vengeance. he could hurt someone that wronged him, but not someone whose only crime is their curiosity.

you offer to work for him. to clean his castle, to tend his grounds, to care for his cattle. you know how to cook and how to bake (though you're unaware that this means little to him), and you have more fortitude than your appearance belies--his long-fallow farmland would thrive under your hands if he gave you the opportunity to work with it.

if it was years ago and he was still the same man, he might have said no. but it's hard to care when you feel empty. fine, he says. but don't expect fancy lodging or riches beyond measure.

you work, you investigate, you sleep. it's a cycle. and bkg watches you the whole time, though you're none the wiser. he's smart. he knows what you're doing. but you've broken up the monotony for him.

there's no food in his pantries, and you have to find him to ask for coin to go into town and buy groceries. he doesn't provide you the coin directly--a smart move, perhaps--but later that day, what you've requested has been stocked in the pantry shelves. and that's how you mainly interact with him for a while--weeks, maybe. you wake at dawn and clear the land and feed the cows and pigs and begin the monstrous task of cleaning a castle that has been left to rot and you go to the room you've chosen when the sun is long set, settle into your moth-eaten bed, and sleep harder than you've ever done in your life. if you need tools, feed for the cattle, groceries, supplies to clean, you relay this to him, often finding him in his study reading or in the greenhouse, pruning exotic plants. he never gives you more than nods and grunted words of acquiescence, but despite his temperament, he always provides what you ask for.

he's surprised by your tenacity. by your boldness, to ask for so much, even if it's not for your direct benefit. when you cook dinner each night, you make a serving for him as well. he can admit, begrudgingly, though you are in his space and disrupting his quiet, that he admires the way you chop vegetables so uniformly, that you're so careful with the way you measure out the spices he has filled his cabinets with for you.

and above all, for the first time in a long time, he feels something like desire.

he's never been intrigued by other people--he has friends, other vampires he has known for decades (kirishima and mina), but their friendship was foisted upon him until he gave in. he doesn't think he's intrigued by you. but your blood--

it has been a very long time since he has been tempted by something so sweet.

(i think there has to be so much context for this situation because i truly believe that the longer bkg is alone, the harder it is for him to let someone in. after a century of shutting himself away, it would be almost impossible for him to open himself back up in any significant way. it's the situation that allows for this desire to grow. the lack of anything else to hold his attention, the feeling of achieving everything you've ever wanted to achieve and having nothing left to strive for, the unobtrusive yet spellbinding nature of your presence. he remembers what it was like to want something. this, at first, is what draws him to you. nothing more.)

vampires are always hungry. even when sated, they know that hunger is going to return. there's nothing to stop it. it's the nature of their existence. so yes, at first, it's his hunger that draws him to you, though he wouldn't ever do anything about it.

he talks to you more. finds out things about you. your father was a drunkard and you never smile with teeth. you've worked on farms since late childhood and your right pinkie is crooked from a bad break. you read romance novels late at night and deny that you've been in his library when he asks you about it.

and after dinners spent together where he doesn't eat, after early evenings when he joins you outside to feed the cows, he tells himself this pull he feels is because of that hunger. because of that desire--not for you, but for the lifeblood that nearly intoxicates him just by scent if he gets too close to you.

(though you are aware of his Otherness, he is disarming to you. it's something about the earnestness in everything he does, despite his gruff exterior. he seems rusty at conversation, but his efforts are genuine. he doesn't eat your food, but he picks at it so as to not make you feel bad. you find this more endearing than you care to say aloud.)

and then kirishima and mina visit, and they meet you, his new human employee that lives in his castle and reads his books and touches his shoulder gently when he steadies a ladder for them so they can rehang one of the long-covered paintings in the drawing room, as if he has ever let anyone touch him, as if he has ever let anyone close enough to try--

and it's kirishima that finally asks what's going on, and when bkg says nothing, obviously, he asks again because he knows his best friend better than anyone else in the world--now, perhaps, better than anyone except you--and the truth is more simple than expected.

for so long, bkg had only ever experienced desire as hunger. hunger for blood, hunger for power, hunger for everything greater in the world. he was hungry to be the best. whatever that meant. because becoming the best meant that no one could question him. no one could doubt that he was powerful and all the things that came along with it. no one but himself. surely, he had thought, once he got to the top he would stop having those doubts because he would, unassailably, be the best.

just like hunger, doubt is something that can never be truly sated.

and for a long time he sat with that.

but then, to his own surprise, he was shown that desire can be something other than hunger. something softer, a smile with less teeth. desire can be vegetables chopped precisely, or dirt from the fields caked under fingernails, or a badly-healed little finger. desire can be a gentle hand on his shoulder, an act of trust: i know you'll be there to steady me.

he never knew he could want something without being hungry. never knew he could have his teeth to someone's throat without drawing blood. but now it's all he wants to do.

[fluffs-n-stuffs]

Amethio sweetie you're not beating the 'related to Gibeon' allegations anytime soon fr

[mel-loly]

Dont mind me:3

I- Tsu.. You didn't need to... But.. Yeah, uh... Thanks..😅💛

(no pressure, but if you can read the tags, I'd be happy! and that doesn't just apply to tsu but to everyone)

[redo-rewind-if]

Yaaay I got so excited about the Chapter 3 release that I stopped everything I was doing to read ˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶ (Sorry for any mistakes, english is not my language)

Ahhh, thank you so much!! It makes me really happy to hear that. I hope you've enjoyed it!

And don't worry, your English is great, no mistakes at all! (*^▽^*)👍

[envolvenuances]

lesbian masterdoc and the unforgivable damage of making people hear compulsory heterosexuality and think of "can lesbians have crushes on men?" (no) instead of "are heterosexual women settling in unhappy marriages with men bellow their worth because of economic and social pressure?" (yes)

[meadow-roses]

I found you through your Green Ember art, and you have been a huge encouragement to me personally as an aspiring artist, so I just wanted to say, thank you 😊

Oh my goodness 😭😭😭 This is such an encouragement to me, thank you SO MUCH for your message! 😭��

I hope you continue to draw and grow in your skills! Don't be shy of trying new things!! You can do it! :D

[luxurysystems]

"I'll tell you a funny story..."

[kuromi-hoemie]

hehe im making my friend a collar for his birthday ^.^ ♡⁠ i kinda wanna get him a choke chain like the one i wear too.. imma tell him to wear a black tank top for me when i drop em off like buddy my guy my boy.... i need to see this look on you.

[wonder-worker]

are there any books you'd recommend for Isabelle of Angouleme?

Hi! I’m really not an expert on Isabella of Angouleme so I'm probably not the best person to ask for recommendations for her. Here are some I've heard of, though I haven't read all of them:

"Isabella of Angouleme: John's Jezebel" by Nicholas Vincent (King John: New Interpretations). I haven't read it myself but I've heard good things!

“Maternal Abandonment and Surrogate Caregivers: Isabella of Angoulême and Her Children by King John” by Louise J. Wilkinson (Virtuous or Villainess? The Image of the Royal Mother from the Early Medieval to the Early Modern Era). It focuses more-so on Isabella's tenure as queen, the period shortly after John's death, and her decision to leave England. Despite what the title may imply, it's sympathetic to Isabella and analyzes her situation in detail.

“Co-Operation, Co-Rulership and Competition: Queenship in the Angevin Domains 1135-1230” by Gabrielle Storey, her PHD thesis which collectively focuses on Isabella of Angouleme along with Empress Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Berengaria of Navarre. You can read/download it here, it's an excellent piece for all four women.

Sally Spong has written/is writing:

Isabella of Angouleme: The Vanished Queen (Norman to Early Plantagenet Consorts). You can see her conclusion here. It's nuanced and sympathetic, though not without its issues and pre-conceived notions.

Isabella of Gloucester and Isabella of Angouleme: Female Lordship, Queenship, Power, and Authority 1189-1220 (PHD thesis University of East Anglia).

“Isabelle d’Angouleme, By the Grace of God, Queen” by William Chester Jordan. You can read it online here, though I will say that it's ... very very questionable, accepting the sensational claims of lot of unreliable sources (including the idea of John abducting Isabella in a fit of uncontrollable infatuation) entirely at face-value.

“The Marriage and Coronation of Isabelle of Angouleme” by H.G. Richardson, available here on JSTOR.

Isabella has also been the subject of two complete French biographies till date:

"Isabelle d’Angoulême, reine d’Angleterre" (Aquitaine: 1998) by Sophie Fougere.

"Isabelle d’Angoulême, comtesse-reine et son temps (1186-1246)" [Actes du colloque tenu à Lusignan, 8 au 10 novembre 1996] by Gabriel Biancotto, Robert Favreau and Piotr Skubiszewski.

There are also a few blog posts about her (here and here) which may help if you want a brief overview of her life, though they can get a little sensationalistic sometimes.

Hope this helps! If anyone knows any others, please feel free to add on!

[yeonban]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOBIAS! (24.05)

@effigist asked: / Tobias bday festivities ! this got long . my bad bestie

ash lingers in dark shadows cast down from the buildings surrounding the big celebration’s location , vigilantly observing from outside rather than daring to step in . he heard about tobias’ birthday a few days prior from some of his blabbermouth men who had timidly asked their leader if they could attend the big party dedicated to no other than the sharpest thorn in ash’s side . he responded with a dismissive scowl , grumbling something like do whatever the hell you want , while doing his best to seem as disinterested as possible . last thing he wanted was for the men to think he would be attending that hellish celebration - god , no , he’d rather get himself thrown in the slammer just to avoid it . in great contrast to his apparent dislike for the celebration , he nonetheless loitered outside for a good hour after showing up towards the end of the celebration , remaining out of sight until groups of people filed out from the doors &. ash concluded it was finally coming to its rightful end . about time . only when the detested birthday boy enters his line of sight , does the lurking predator step out from the shadows . though , instead of attacking or otherwise antagonizing tobias , he merely walks with an air of leisure &. casualty a teenaged gang leader had absolutely no business maintaining , before stopping at the dark haired teen’s side .

❝ you tired of gettin’ pampered like a snobby princess , yet ? ❞ a playful smirk tugs at the blonde’s lips , implying he must be in a decent mood . gingerly , his arm lifts &. stretches over tobias’ shoulder , although no contact is made . he merely keeps his limb hovering just above the point of contact , but close enough to where any bystander from a distance would be fooled . swiftly , ash’s nimble fingers drop a little plastic card into the other’s chest pocket . It’s a library card . ash is more than aware that the man could easily access any book of his choosing with his status , connections , money , &. influence , but he paid it no mind . once the sneaky exchange is completed , his arm lowers , but not before giving a slightly - too - hard - to - be - considered - a - pat smack into the back of tobias’ shoulder . ❝ better be careful around my guys until the clock strikes midnight , cinderella . they’ll give a loser like you a beatin’ for every year you’ve been alive . ❞ they won’t .

The birthday boy is one of the last to exit the building, animatedly chatting up the few who have chosen to continue their conversations with him even after the party has ended, and it's only when they're stepping down the outer stairs and the teen can feel a distant gaze intently focused on him that he steadily shepherds the guests towards the end of the conversation, shaking their hands and waving them goodbye before glancing in the direction of the gaze. Whatever he may have expected it to be caused by --- an ambush on his birthday or an informant returning to report their findings; the sight of Ash Lynx willingly approaching him had certainly not been it.

Tobias' expression doesn't change much, yet the surprise is apparent enough if one knows where to look for it. It hides in the sudden blink and the lingering stare as the blond threads closer, it crawls in the unspoken but palpable question of what's going on and in the quick yet subdued glance behind Ash as if to check whether the blond has either been coerced into it or sought him out with an urgent purpose in mind. Grey eyes return to look into the jade pair and yet none of these possibilities seem to have quite hit the mark. Ash's smirk isn't gloomily sarcastic nor does his body language speak of anxieties or woes, and there is nothing whatsoever to indicate that he's come here in a hurry. If anything, he appears to have either been on a stroll to this location, or been hiding nearby for a while.

Tentatively testing the waters, Tobias' lips curl into a matching grin, carefully watching each of the gang leader's movements. ❛ Ash? You could've told me you were dropping by, you know. I'd have ditched the others way earlier if I'd known you're around. ❜ The subsequent close proximity is as shocking as the other's presence near the celebration's location and Tobias almost opts to jokingly remark on it when the corners of his eyes catch a glimpse of a thin card delicately sliding into his chest pocket. Hm...? ❛ What, you got me a gift, too? ❜ This may have counted as a teasing comment had the exchange taken place on another day and for the first few seconds Tobias even means it as such, but with Ash's jesting and the deliberate secrecy surrounding the gift-giving, as if this display of cordiality has the potential to be ruinous to the blond's image, Tobias can't help but reach into his pocket and bring the alleged present into his field of vision. A gift? Really?

He doesn't bother inquiring from where Ash has learned of his birthday, he'd expected as much with anyone worth their damn being able to find out about it one way or the other, but the sequence of events following that has barely been considered a priori, imagined as unlikely from the get go and thus unworthy of being thought about; yet it appears his calculations have, shockingly enough, been slightly off the mark. He'd figured Ash would accept hanging out with him if he approached the blond after the fussy festivities were wrapped up (if begrudgingly so), but had he misjudged how challenging it would be for them to reach this point of vague friendship, back during their first few meetings? Or had Ash just coincidentally felt generous on this occasion?

The library card that graces his eyes once he fishes the present out of his pocket might seem as nothing much to most in his position, but Tobias grows troublingly quiet at the sight, the grin on his face slowly dissipating into a thin line; neither annoyed, nor upset --- but rather, cognizant. Under normal circumstances it would take nothing more than a name and an address for such a plastic card to be issued, and it could very well pass as a friendly insult, jokingly implying the receiver should open a book for once, but in their situation it's a calculated effort, and quite an effort he's sure it has been. False identities such as his own come bearing little documentation, or if there is any available it certainly wouldn't be at everyone's discretion, so the existence of a library card with Tobias' name on it hints at a far grander and more complicated process than the regular person would give it credit for, and it seems the blond has deemed him worth the trouble, despite the older teen having indirectly offered Ash a way out of the mandatory gift-giving by not inviting him to the celebration.

Yet perhaps even more baffling still is another minor detail, something so subtle that it would have passed entirely unnoticed had it been anyone but Tobias attempting to grasp its meaning, or had he not been as attentive to Ash's lifestyle and habits as he chose to be. A detail he is more than certain represents a major step in their relationship, and one which signifies a degree of trust (whether conscious or subconscious) that he hasn't been expecting to receive for at least another year of incessantly bothering the blond. Being offered access to Ash's last safe haven, by the gang leader himself.

The silence continues while Tobias stares at the gift in muted incredulity, unsure of how exactly to react to any of the rapid fire surprises this simple choice of presents has flooded him with. Is it a code for something? No, Ash seems to be having a good day, there is probably no reason for him to ask Tobias to meet him at the library for a secret conversation. If so, is he going to request or demand something? No, also unlikely given the ease with which Tobias already offers him everything. There'd be no point in going the extra mile for something he could receive for free while doing nothing.

Is Ash really just reaching out to him of his own volition? That almost seems more doubtful than the previous possibilities, but unless the younger teen is a greater actor than all of the ones Tobias has met... he doesn't seem to be the sort to harbor ulterior motives or take advantage of others without first being given a reason to; and the orphan would like to think he hasn't done anything egregious enough to the gang leader or his men to warrant that. Ash's honesty is one of the traits he values about the other, after all (quite the rarity in their field of work, for better or worse) and what a shame it would be for him to senselessly lose the privilege of knowing for a fact that Ash's words and behaviors are always connected to the definitive truth.

Although there is an ongoing dispute in his mind, Ash's remark doesn't pass by unnoticed; bringing a familiar tint of amusement in the otherwise uncertain state of affairs. Paired with the quizzical gift in hand, it brings the smirk back onto Tobias' face, if a tad more hesitant than it had been before, and it prompts him to turn to look at the other again. How should he react now? Where do they stand, if not where he'd thought they did? Should he wait and see, or should he outright ask? ❛ ......Then, prince charming, how about you act as my bodyguard 'til I'm safe from harm and ready to depart? Midnight is still a long way off, but surely your macho men won't think to lift a finger on someone as frail as me with you around to keep them at bay, ❜ Perhaps slowly prodding is the way to go, if he's learned anything from Ash's lethal allergies to appearing vulnerable. He'll always have the time to ask later, if the moment is ever opportune enough, and maybe there won't even be a need for that after observing Ash's behavior for a while longer.

Lifting his free arm, Tobias leisurely brings it 'round the lynx's shoulders as the other had done to him prior, except he lets his arm come into contact with Ash's shoulders while slowly poking him with the library card present in the other hand. It's a blithe touch, one blatantly meant for gauging where he stands with the other rather than an attempt at rudely breaking into his personal space, and one he had been very careful not to engage in prior to this day despite physical contact being the brunette's go-to when interacting with practically everyone else.

However... with all of the surprises already sent his way, and particularly so with the confounding (albeit indirect) openness Ash has showed him today, it might as well be the best moment to check what boundaries he's currently kept at, and figure things out from there. Will he be shrugged or pushed off as he'd previously figured it'd happen, or will Ash allow him this sort of friendly touch, and surprise him for a fourth time? ❛ And while you're at it, how about you show me to the library, too? I could use some new book recommendations. Who knows, maybe you'll even find that I'm a pretty good reading buddy to have. ❜ The request can easily pass as a debonair way of bringing Ash along for the ride, but with the lengths Tobias has gone to not encroach into the library for as long as it had been Ash's turf, the assistance with maneuvering inside the humongous building might actually be helpful.

[aceofspades-sml]

BUT IM SORRY IN ADVANCE IM GONNA BE ANNOYING ABOUT THE OLYMPICS ONLY BECAUSE THEYRE IN YOUR COUNTRY

Sooo real of you bestie

[fobnsfwdoodlesbackup]

https://www.tumblr.com/decaydanceredacted/744406072854478848/i-need-to-watch-stump-from-every-album-era-in-one?source=share

Im mentally insane

I have been thinking about this for AGES 🙏 I wanna draw it but in all seriousness...I want to paint it. Imagine it, giant, Renaissance style, terribly intricate with complicated composition...just every version of Patrick doing the nastiest things ever 😔😵‍💫

But it would be such a big project that it pretty much has to be a commission. Either that or maybe the patreon reward for a month!

[justatalkingface]

Hey! I've been reblogging some of your stuff and throwing my two cents in what I think. So I come here with a simple question...

What're your thoughts on Shota Aizawa?

Because for me, he's no different than the teachers in Aldera when it comes to handling Izuku. He's also a flatout hypocrite by getting onto All Might for favoring Izuku when he does the same with Hitoshi.

And I'm not even mentioning how he uses his trauma to justify his bs teaching ways

...Hahahahaha! So, you have no way of knowing this, but I've basically been preparing for this moment, to make this rant, for the longest time. More than probably any other character in this series, I've thought about Aizawa, tried to put into words what bugged me about him, scoured the internet for opinions to broaden my understanding, to find the right words. Quite a few posts have been yours, actually.

The short answer is that, simply, I hate him. Once I got past his Kakashi Aura from my first impression, I didn't like him, but fandom hype for Dadzawa, as well as the fact that usually comes with horrifying levels of bashing for people like All Might (ironically, perhaps the most unsung hero in the setting, seeing how few people seem to like his character) curdled it deep into loathing. Still, I'm going to be try to be objective as I talk.

The long answer is more complicated, and very, very long, but still overwhelmingly negative. For me, part of it is that Aizawa is easily the winner of the title of being The Favored Mouthpiece. This is a mixed blessing for him, to say the least; on the positive side, this fact has done a lot for his positive reception and total screen time, the the narrative bends over backwards to agree with what he says, time and time again. On the negative... for all that I'm aware that he's just lines on paper, on deeply visceral level I have sympathetic disgust for all the times he's been used like a puppet to parrot one agenda or another, and it muddles the water on who his character actually is. Honestly, it's been going on for so long, and it's still going on, I wonder if I should just... accept these random outbursts as part of his actual characterization.

At a fundamental level, I've had this question burning inside of me for a long time now: does this man even want to be a teacher? No, this is a serious question: he is effectively working two jobs, and managing it terribly (unlike every other UA teacher, who are all heroes for no apparent reason, and especially Present Mic who somehow has three jobs and still is full of energy. Does that man ever sleep?). He seems to hate the daylight. He seems to hate being clean. He seems to hate children. He hates, if not teaching, then teaching people that don't vibe on his level. He hates being on a schedule. He hates following authority. Really the only part of being teacher he does probably like is the actual paycheck.

So, again, why is he a teacher? I know he likes taking someone under his wing, but that use of a singular pronoun was very specific: he wants one person, one that fills whatever bizarre and unknown criteria, to teach (I'm still not sure what made him look at about five minutes of Shinso and say, 'This, this is the child I shall give all my skills, all my knowledge, and even my physics defying combat weapon.' Like, do they have to be his mini-me? Bear the soul of Grumpy Cat? I really don't know), an apprentice, not students plural. From what I gleaned from the Vigilante manga (which I should probably reread at some point), it's that desire, but misunderstood, combined with nostalgia, loneliness (his friends were already at UA) and peer pressure, that motivated him to start teaching at UA.

I don't really need to say it, but those are terrible reasons to become a teacher, and probably help explain why he's so bad at it.

Before I get into that, I want to address one thing: I've seen, online, that Aizawa's role as homeroom teacher is something completely different in Japan than it is for anywhere English speaking. So these various comments and what not say is, in Japan, these home room teachers aren't actually supposed to teach. They're supposed to be... something like councilors, I believe: they stay with the children and help guide them, and so on, and that's why he's a better teacher than we think he is. I've never actually seen anyone counter that argument, just agree, and I've had this response waiting for a long time now: when do you see Aizawa do that?

I know the Final Exam arc is supposed to show us that, yes, Aizawa is perceptive and does notice things about his students, and does care, but that's shit. His inner monologue tells us about Momo and her lack of self confidence. The implication of that, that he's only dealing with this now, means he's been sitting on this for... how long? However long he noticed that, I guess? So, from a time period ranging between the first day of class, and just before they prepared for the test, Aizawa noticed Momo had confidence issues and apparently did nothing until that test, probably because he wanted to be 'efficient' and deal with two things at once. Why do extra work and deal with a student's issues, when you can do it while they struggle to pass their final exams? Wow. A+ job there, teach.

On Shoto... just... just no. Come back to me, someone, anyone, when Aizawa even acknowledges that that mess is made out of red flags: the fact he doesn't use half of his goddamn Quirk until Izuku beats some self reflection into him. The fact he unsubtly hates his father. The fact he doesn't seem to know how to be a normal person. The burn scar on his face when he's heat resistant. Anything. Anything. I don't expect him to look at the kid and magically realized he's abused, but there's enough there that if he's a good teacher, or councilor, or whatever, he should probably be low key probing for information on his situation, see if there's something wrong in the most general of senses, because there's clearly something wrong there.

Literally anything about Izuku or Bakugou, though I'm putting a pin on discussing that mess until later.

See, the problem with saying that Aizawa is supposed to be the class's... councilor or something, instead of a teacher, brings up the fact that he's a shit councilor. Even if it's true (I'm not Japanese, I have no idea), this doesn't make his character better, this just brings up different problems instead.

Alright, so now that that's out of the way... now I need to point out that Aizawa is a Kakashi clone, and that's a good deal of the reason he's so popular; he rode off Naruto nostalgia. Let's list off how many traits he blatantly got from him. It's more than you think!

Aizawa is like Kakashi in that: he's a teacher that doesn't want to teach, his students include the Great Hope of the setting and his 'rival', he's traumatized from a friend dying when he was young, he deals with his heavy PTSD with unhealthy coping mechanisms, he has an eye based power that turns his eyes red, he loses an eye, he takes on an apprentice that reminds him of himself and gives him his signature technique/equipment, his dead best friend is alive, his dead best friend is the enemy, his dead best friend has been heavily experimented on, his dead best friend has warping powers, his friend group consists of people more cheerful than him who respect his skills, his best friend is overwhelmingly cheery in a way that balances with his low key behavior.

...When you list it out like this, it starts to get a little nuts, doesn't it? I wonder, sometimes, how much actual thought went into the character Eraserhead, and how much was Hori just... copying the copy ninja.

Here's the problem with that though, beyond the laziness of it all: Kakashi is a ninja. He is a mercenary, a child soldier, has killed more people than we have names for in all of MHA. He lives in a military village, under a military dictatorship, and is expected to kill. The teaching system he's part of is largely involuntary, though he avoids in in part because he's so good that everyone looks the other way when he ducks out of it. These students are also ten. There is just... just so much there, so much that is utterly alien to how MHA works, that putting a copy in is... flawed, to say the least.

That's why the Bell Test Quirk Apprehension Test is so bad: Hori put that in, as a blatant echo of Kakashi testing Team Seven, without thinking once of the differences in the setting.

He's in a school, and his job is being a teacher. His literal, actual ass job is to teach students (or 'help guide them', either way). This is something he chose to do, of his own volition. Kakashi trying to ditch his potential students is him trying to avoid an unwanted burden and him avoiding poking at this massive issues with teammates and responsible and everyone he knows and loves dying around him. And when he's forced to take some on? He tries his best to teach them, and he does: think about the first Battle of the End. The way Naruto and Sasuke fought each other. Think about how Naruto used to fight. Where did he learn to throw a punch like that? Kakashi. He may show up late, but the man did his work off screen.

Aizawa trying not to teach his students is literally a man too fucking lazy to do his own job. We all know Hori retconned it with 'he just wanted them to get a taste of death' via expulsion (which, apparently in Japanese culture is something that would set them back in their prospects for life) but it's so nonsensical that it's hard to take it seriously that he just... does this. Was planning to do this the first day, because they were excited about being heros, like that deserved a taste of death (They aren't in the military, you ass, they're in high school). Is allowed to do this. That he did this to an entire class for some reason but not Bakugou, when Bakugou exists.

Which means it's time to wade into the mess that is Aizawa and Izuku and Bakugou. Let's start with Bakugou, first, since I already started.

Blatantly, obviously, Bakugou has plot armor in how people react to him, or don't, as the case may be, and one of the worst victims of it is Eraserhead. The fact that Mr. 'Taste of death' and 'Expels entire classes' doesn't at least punt Bakugou into detention, or more likely a 'taste of death' to threaten the other students (because that's how you teach your class of high schoolers! By fear!), after he actively attacks Izuku, is just... mind boggling. The way he constantly refuses to acknowledge which of them is the aggressor, which of them is the first to throw a punch, which one is constantly threatening the other....

The obvious conclusion here is that Aizawa likes Bakugou, for whatever reason, but... I don't think it's true. The thing is if he liked Bakugou, you'd think he'd... spend time with him. Try and train him. Something. But no, by and by large he acts like Bakugou doesn't exist, right until Hori needs someone to compliment him for the readers, or someone to defend him after he does something bad, yet again, and then all of a sudden he's singing his praises. This is where the downsides of being The Favored Mouthpiece comes in: every time he's complimented Bakugou, every time he's said that this mess of a child is going to be a great hero, every time he cries desperately that he, 'Still needs to be Number One!' or whatever the hell that bullshit was? That was Hori. That was always Hori. Aizawa basically isn't allowed to exist near Bakugou without Hori running interference for him.

Izuku, on the other hand, is half the opposite, half Aizawa's own biases coming in. Part of it is Hori needs Izuku to feel stressed to pump up the tension, make cliffhangers, and get Jump selling; Izuku can't have a normal school life, he needs a heart pounding one. In most shonen school settings, this is easy to accomplish because they're generally hell holes that put their students in life and death situations on the regular, and live in hierarchies based off power levels. UA, though? It's a normal, or at least "normal" school, if exceptional, in the "real" world, plus some super powers. There are standards, is the thing; they can't and won't send their students off to maybe die because of they're a secret society or whatever. They have accountability (to some extent) to the general public, in other words.

So where does Izuku's cliffhanger filled school life come from? Well, Tomura and the Tomura-ettes, for one, but for all the other times... Hori turned to his teacher.

Let me say this again, because I want to emphasis this: part of the reason Aizawa exists as he does, is so that Izuku can feel threatened at school by his teacher. Why? Because Izuku's suffering sells.

Meanwhile, though Izuku does get pulled into Bakugou's plot armor sometimes, and suffers for it (more), but as a person and a character, I think Aizawa unironically disliked Izuku from the start. He grows out of it, to some extent, but....

Let's backtrack a second, back to the Quirk Test. Izuku, at this point, is ripped. Even without his Quirk, he was throwing around fridges and working all day and night to prep for UA. He was at the peak of realistic human fitness, instead of whatever increasing soft cap we have for heroes is.

Toru is invisible. Sure, she's in shape, since she passed the exam, but Izuku clearly focused on his body in a way most of the other students aren't, and she has no Quirk that'd help her pass the test (a test that, as many have pointed out, Aizawa would have failed). She's a nice girl, sure, but there's no way she could have out performed Izuku in raw physical ability, even before the ball throw which was one of the best of that category, and far beyond whatever she could have done.

Yet Izuku was the one at the bottom, not Toru. Why? Well, you could blame Hori, and that's technically true, but the thing is, unlike Bakugou, Aizawa acts like he doesn't like Izuku. He blames him for everything, he refuses to do anything as he breaks his bones constantly, he calls him Problem Child, and anyone who thinks that's affectionate, and that Izuku should as such, and that it's a cute little nickname needs to consider that through the lenses of Izuku's low self esteem, much less from a teacher who constantly threatens his students.

Aizawa sabotaged Izuku's scores. He did it because, you're right: he's just like the teachers at Aldera, if more restrained, and for different reasons. Not because Izuku is Quirkless (though he would if Izuku was, because the man honestly is Quirkist), but because he has the wrong Quirk. Because Izuku had the audacity to come to a school to learn about how to use his Quirk, instead of practicing it illegally, or inside his own house where, at that power level, one wrong move could accidently his house. Because he apparently didn't read the files that said Izuku got it a month ago, or didn't care. Or maybe it's just he looked at Izuku, and realized that having him learn to control that was just... too much work?

At the end of the day, which reason he did it doesn't even matter. What matters is he did. The same way he plays constant mind games with his students for shits and giggles, in ways that should undermine their faith in him, the same way he paired a bully with his victim so they could 'work it out', the same way he puts minimal effort into so much of the work he does, and it's why I loathe him as a teacher.

Aizawa is a good hero, but the moment Nezu let him into a school was a mistake.