#but the love thing?

[not-poignant]

we know that alex has been in love for a long time but what about sebastian? he makes me so confused lol

i’m always wondering about what’s going on in his mind

Okay, so, I'm happy to talk about this! But it is kind of spoilery so like gird your loins or whatever :D

Sebastian has not had any romantic feelings for Alex at all. Ever.

He's never really thought about him sexually, and when he has he's kind of been grossed out because he can only really imagine Alex in heterosexual situations (that might be changing, but slowly, lol). He's concealing no secret feelings or anything like that.

He is however growing genuine feelings of friendship and care, and there's definitely potential for him to grow more (otherwise this story wouldn't work).

But there's no 'mutual pining' here or anything. Alex was completely alone in his love for Sebastian. Not only that, but Sebastian didn't even realise he was gay until he met Martingale (at least that's the working theory I have so far, we'll see when it comes to writing it). Not only is Alex gay, he's known it about himself for actually a lot longer than Sebastian has about himself.

Sebastian has a strong sense of internal justice when it comes to being paid fairly and being treated well for work. This is pulled directly from the canon. In the very first cut scene we ever have with Sebastian, he's pissed off that his mother and Abigail don't take his work seriously, and you also have the option of respecting / not respecting his work. So this is pretty foundational to his character. It's the first thing he ever opens up to you about. So that's definitely influenced some of his behaviour in A Stain that Won't Dissolve.

But it's not like Sebastian offered Alex the cleaning job, Alex actually had to put himself forward and then really push for it, because Sebastian's initial response was no / that's not a good idea.

I honestly think the thing that really opens Sebastian's mind to the idea that Alex could be someone he's attracted to, is learning that one of his guy friends hits on Alex (which is coming in a couple of chapters).

But yeah, much of Alex's love would have been received as extremely unrequited, and Alex has also known that. It's why he doesn't try to like... subtly 'seduce' Sebastian. He just wants to be closer to him. He hopes at best for friendship and doesn't expect even that much. He doesn't think about his infatuation with Sebastian as anything more than something he has to deal with privately for the rest of his life, like a burden his brain made him carry and he can't make himself stop.

On that front, he's actually pretty accurate in his assessment of Sebastian as being not attracted to him, or at least not personally interested in him (I think Sebastian could be attracted to Alex - I mean he obviously will come to be - but has ruled Alex out due to him just being a straight dickhead, lol). The reason it's hard to tell what Sebastian's thinking on that front is because Sebastian isn't really engaging on that front.

I don't think Sebastian has any idea that Alex is gay, that Alex could be into him, anything like that. Alex has done a good job of hiding it from everyone, which many people who fear for their lives re: their sexualities do actually get pretty good at, especially in country towns. Especially if you know your family wouldn't have approved, or worry about it.

Sebastian definitely isn't like... secretly aware of this stuff, and he's not secretly concealing feelings towards Alex. Sebastian's story is a slow burn towards growing attraction. Alex's story is unrequited love for way too long.

Also, Sebastian finding out Alex is gay, Sebastian finding out Alex might be attracted to him, and Sebastian finding out that Alex is in love with him, are all going to be three completely separate realisations!

[pnkrathian]

i feel like the knowledge that there are some medical databases with free-to-use 3D scans of various human organs available for 3D printing would have drastically reduced tumblrs amount of bone stealing scandals. plus you can make ones that glow in the dark.

look at my glow in the dark humerus boy

[kochei0]

I turn to Ares.

Thanks to Tyler Miles Lockett who allowed me to draw inspiration from his ARES piece for page 2! Look at his etsy page it's SICK

⚔️ If you want to read some queer retelling of arturian legends have a look at my webtoon

[yeah-yeah-beebiss-1]

in case you were wondering how things went down at the pokemon world championships this weekend:

-during the top 8 of the TCG masters division, chilean player fernando cifuentes was running a gimmick deck that consisted exclusively of four iron thorns ex and a whole ton of control-focused trainer cards in a strategy that either completely shuts down opponents or shits the bed entirely

-through skillful play and some good luck, fernando made it through 2 days in a tournament with over 1100 players to get to the quarterfinals

-fernando lost 2-0 to ian robb, who was running regidrago vstar (widely considered one of the best decks in the current format)

-in an overexuberant victory celebration, ian did what can only be described as a jacking-off gesture, on a stream with tens of thousands of viewers run by a company with very firm player conduct expectations

-the judges determined that this warranted a penalty of game loss, but for some reason, rather than applying it to ian’s next game in the semifinals, they applied it to the one he had just won in the top 8

-(it should be noted that the prize money for making top 8 is $15k while top 4 is $20k, so this jerking gesture cost ian robb $5,000)

-nearly an hour after fernando came to terms with his loss and the end of an impressive run, he was told that he was to get back on stream because he’s now playing in the semifinals due to winning by default

-the player he was up against in the semifinals was playing a deck (miraidon) that happens to get shut down hard by iron thorns’s gimmick, so fernando wins the semifinals

-said player, jesse parker, had notably had an undefeated run throughout the whole tournament up to this point, and likely would have continued that streak had his intended semifinal opponent not gotten a game loss penalty for miming a lewd act on stream

-meanwhile, the other semifinal winner is japan’s seinosuke shiokawa, running a deck (roaring moon) that players had largely written off as underwhelming months ago

-the grand finals are on the following day, so saturday evening was abuzz with a lot of people baffled by the absurdity of the situation

-come sunday afternoon, the grand finals are set to begin, with fernando cifuentes running iron thorns and seinosuke shiokawa running roaring moon

-it should be noted here that the roaring moon deck doesn’t rely very much on abilities, so iron thorns’s gimmick has very little effect - this is basically an even matchup

-fernando wins the first game of the set, and seinosuke wins the second

-the third and final game of the set is a bonafide cheek-clencher, with both players reaching a state where a single KO will win the game, but fernando manages to clinch it at the last minute

-and that’s the story of how a guy pretending to jork it led to the first instance of a pokemon world champion who also lost the quarterfinals

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The math just adds up!

[daughterofchaosstuff]

done healing my inner child. next up is my inner teen. her highness demands a sword.

[so-many-ocs]

[on the verge of having a complete breakdown] i need to make some kind of list or perhaps sort things into categories

[turbo-autism]

will forever love ryoko kui for depicting spooky evil laios despite him not actually having a villain arc

like thank you. i needed this. laios would never, and yet we have been fed anyway. ah dungeon meshi, as they say. do you get me.

[lemongogo]

mimics

[bambiali]

[0sbrain]

alternatives for ai to design ocs

hero forge

picrew

the fucking sims 4

your local furry artist

bitmoji

shitty photoshoped collage

DeviantArt bases

zepeto

making edits of your favorite character

searching "dress up game" on the app store

learning how to draw

[lucdoodle]

thought that one Alastor scene would look cool in comic lettering, so i drew this

[creekfiend]

what's my biggest pet peeve well it's when someone makes a text post on tumblr dot com in which they are trying to romanticize the notion of the livestock guardian dog but they don't know the distinction between a livestock guardian dog and a herding dog and also they've never met a livestock guardian dog and do not realize what their attitudes towards the sheep that they protect actually are

[druid-for-hire]

[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled "immortality” after the poem by clare harner (more popularly known as “do not stand at my grave and weep”). the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]

a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”

[thissmycomingofage]

- Left-wing deputies of the newly formed French parliament refusing to shake hand with the member of the far-right tasked with guarding the ballot

[litaesthete]

hearts in trees ♡