#he trusts her implicitly

[ieidolon]

Insane to me that certain comic book creators who shall not be named dismissed Jonathan Harker as a "milk sop" and a boring character. White-haired avenger with ambiguously vampiric superstrength Jonathan Harker. Most violent and unhinged member of the vampire hunters Jonathan Harker. Ran at Dracula with a kukri knife without skipping a beat and then tried to climb out of a window to pursue him Jonathan Harker. "Like a living flame" Jonathan Harker. Calls his bond with his wife "the holiest love" and determines that if she becomes a vampire, even if Dracula calls her to his side, "she shall not go into that dark night alone" Jonathan Harker. You know. That one.

[writer-room]

Hey. The Finders have no idea that Bonzle was captured. Fritz and Spitz are still waiting, playing video games in the Monastery, for Cole to bring their sister out of hiding now that the blood moon is over. Geo is still sitting by the window, watching and waiting for a dragon on the horizon to return his kid safe and sound. Cole took a very unsure Bonzle, assured them all everything would be okay, and they'd be back soon. He promised he'd find a way to protect her.

Don't think about how they'll smile when Cole finally trudges back, happy to know he's okay. Especially don't think about the Finders stopping, looking out over the group, and how Cole can't look them in the eyes when they turn to him and ask; where's Bonzle?

[cabinetduo]

I'm sorry yall but Charlie has infinitely more shooters than sunny, there's no reason to preemptively defend his actions as a character when there are already ppl cheering him on for OUT OF CHARACTER saying that he wants to kill her 😭

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

APPARENTLY IT’S INTERNATIONAL FRIENDS DAY AND I JUST HAPPENED TO WRITE A LITTLE FICLET ABOUT MEI AND MK OFF OF AN IDEA I HAD ABOUT THEIR FRIENDSHIP there was more i kinda wanted to add cause it felt slightly off to me and I wasn’t going to post it, BUT HECK IT HAVE SOME BEST FRIENDS CONTENT HAPPY INTERNATIONAL FRIENDS DAY 

Hype Man

Mei didn’t think all that highly of herself for a dragon.

Her parents had tried to instill some of that pride in her, a dragon descendant of oceans, she had a tall standing heritage to be proud of, but it mainly just resulted in her feeling inadequate. Like she could never quite reach as amazing as every other one of her ancestors, all dragons. Something about her felt different, felt wrong. Her family came from the ocean, but Mei felt like she was burning from the inside out some days.

She couldn’t seem to connect with her family the way her parents did, some sort of disconnect there that led her to seek connection elsewhere. She started a bit of a gaming channel, didn’t ever show her face, just mostly chatted, looking for some form of connection. She bought bikes, dismantled them, built new bikes with the parts, she stared at her creations and couldn’t bring herself to show her parents, instead keeping them hidden away, because something so important to her couldn’t possibly be important to the family.

They left her alone for the most part. They were more involved when she was younger, but once she became a legal adult, they did seem to withdraw a bit. She figured they just didn’t want to seem overbearing, but their absences just seemed to make things seem more impossible.

Mei would show them things, talk about her accomplishments quietly at dinner, voice getting meeker and milder once she said them out loud. A couple thousand followers compared to a couple thousand dedicated warriors didn’t seem like much. A few races won compared to hundreds of battles won didn’t feel worth sharing, so she mostly let them talk. If they asked she would just say she was filling her time. Sometimes it felt better to say nothing at all than to mention gaming or racing.

Compared to all of her family, sometimes Mei felt like nothing at all.

Then she met Mk.

He was… silly. A little odd at first. Nothing at all like the tall white and jade pillars of home, or the endless empty hallways. Mk was loud. He was animated. He was waving his hands about and filled every second like a firework, like he could like he didn’t have a moment left to lose.

It was a contagious sort of energy. Mei had always felt a little too energetic herself compared to her composed, poised parents, still and calm in their movements; hopping from foot to foot in place when she was excited compared to their subtle nods of their heads. But next to Mk it felt natural to bounce around a bit, talk loud, laugh louder.

He was a little jumpy at first. Something she wasn’t sure she wanted to look too far into considering what it might’ve been, but after an initial stiffness Mk relaxed into contact like a cat soaking up the warmth of the sun. Throwing an arm over his shoulder became almost as easily as breathing.

If Mei didn’t know any better, she’d say he was a little touch starved, leaning into every shoulder bump after he was more comfortable around her, seeking her out for a hug even when he wouldn’t outright hug her first until later.

She made sure to maybe hug a little more than she usually would, just because it seemed to make him smile and a little giddy, and soon that too felt just as natural, and she couldn’t help the breathless grin when he slammed into her to initiate a hug for the first time. And from then on, hugging him, holding his hand, bumping into him, felt natural.

As comfortable as she was around Mk, Mei still didn’t talk about herself all that much. After all, what was a new drifting turn trick in a race compared to turning into an actual dragon?

She did eventually let something slip.

“Wait, you're a gamer?”

Mei halted and stared at him like a deer in headlights.

Mk backtracked immediately. “I mean--I know you, like, game, like pshh, yeah obviously, we’re literally in the arcade right now. But I meant more like, gaming like, consols, VR, all that fancy stuff, and like, streaming it, you said you had a livestream--I mean you might not even be a gamer, that could have been a different kind of livestream, which in that case, this is kinda awkward and now I’m going to apologize for assuming--”

“No no,” she waved her hands a bit, then stopped and let them drop. “It’s… uh… yeah it’s a gaming channel.”

Then the enormously unexpected. “That’s so cool.”

It was?

Mei blinked. He knew she was a dragon and thought… gaming was still cool?

“How many followers do you have?” He was looking at her so excitedly, she couldn’t exactly not tell him, but it still felt weird to say it aloud.

“Uh, I dunno, like… 80k… I think? Last time I checked?”

Mk gaped at her.

“I mean it’s a big city,” she felt the need to add. She knew so many channels with millions of followers, her’s honestly wasn’t that big in comparison. “Lots of people watch streamers, so it’s not… like a super high number but--”

Then he was shaking her, hands on her shoulders and pulling her back and forth. “80k? Mei that’s so freaking cool, that’s so many followers--ohmegosh wait, what if I follow you already?”

“Cool?” Mei stammered out.

“Um yeah!” He said it like the most obvious thing in the world. He was pulling out his phone that had a Monkey King charm hanging from it and an art piece decorating the back of the case. “What’s your channel? I wanna see if I’ve watched you before.”

He had, as it turned out, been subscribed to her channel for around two years.

“Mei,” he whined, clinging to her arm.

“What,” she laughed for the twelfth time.

“Mei you don’t understand, you’re so good at video games. You’re so funny and clever, you’re so cool, how do I know such a cool person. How is this legal? How am I meant to survive?”

It made her laugh hard enough her face turned a little red.

“I’m not that cool,” she told him fondly as she got on her bike.

“YOU DRIVE A MOTORCYCLE?”

“Um…” she glanced down at her helmet, then back up at him. “Yes?”

He grabbed her face and bonked their foreheads together, squishing her cheeks. “Mei, I need you to be real with me for a second.”

“O-okay?” she managed to say, voice a little muffled by the way her face was being squished.

“I need you to tell me you didn’t build this.”

She blinked.

He stared directly into her eyes.

“Um…”

Then he was back to shaking her. “Mei. Mei you don’t understand, how are you this cool?”

“It’s just a bike--” she tried to say.

“Just the coolest looking bike I’ve ever seen,” Mk said, even louder.

“Okay, okay,” she laughed, pulling her face out of his hands. There was a heat to her cheeks and a warmth to core of her chest. She looked away. “Okay, so it’s kinda cool.”

“Extremely cool,” he corrected.

“Extremely cool,” Mei amended. “I actually did some repairs this morning after yesterday’s race--”

She stopped short at the look on his face.

“What?”

Mk put his hands together in a praying motion, pressed them against his mouth, crouched down next to her bike, one leg stretched out, leaning back on the other and looked up at her.

Mei leaned away from him a little, nervously laughing. “What?”

He inhaled.

“BOI--”

“So, let me see if I got this all right,” he said after the bike ride to Pigsy’s noodles. His hair was a mess after wearing her helmet all the way there, sticking up in every direction, some of it smooshed against his head in odd shapes, and his cheeks still flushed from whooping so loudly and screaming at sharp turns. Mei nodded along, stirring the ice in her soda bought from the vending machine down the street with her straw. “You’re a dragon.”

“Correct.”

“Like a literal descendant of the Dragon of the West, a direct descendant of the White Horse Dragon in Journey to the West…”

“Yup,” Mei said, ending the word with a pop and then leaning down a bit to sip from her soda.

“You have a million subscribers--”

“Not a million yet.”

“A million subscribers,” he said again, stressing the words and widening his eyes, as though daring her to argue, then sat back in his seat, waving his hand and gesturing to himself. “Of which, yours truly is proud to be one.” He slammed his hands down on the table. “Which is for good reason since you’re one of the best gamers out there--”

“I’m not even in the top hundred, Mk.”

“Only because every other streamer shows their face which adds to the experience of watching them game.” He aggressively slurped up some noodles before continuing.

“Not only that but you’re a freaking racer. You race a bike which you built yourself.”

Mei hummed around her straw, looking away tapping her fingers on her phone lightly, a heat to her face.

“And on top of all that you destroy arcade games like you’re going for a walk in the park.” He finally slumped back in his seat. “Did I get all that?”

Mei tapped her staw against the edge of her cup and slurped up the bits of soda from the bottom of the straw. “Yup.”

He went limp as a noodle and slumped all the way down, sliding until she could only see his hair, his knees bumping into hers.

“You’re so cool, Mei,” he whined. “Why are you so cool? I’m like… I deliver noodles.”

She laughed and lightly bumped her leg against his. “Hey, delivering noodles is cool.”

“You built yourself a motorcycle,” he hissed back.

She found herself grinning. “Okay, so it is… pretty cool.”

He popped back up just so he could slam his hands down on the table again. “Extremely cool.”

“Extremely cool,” she grinned wider.

And that… was kinda how things went.

Mei did a new trick on her bike? Mk was there across the street in the empty stands yelling about how cool it looked.

Mei beat own high score on an arcade game? He was right there jumping up and down.

When Mei hit a million subscribers she was racing to Mk’s apartment above the noodle shop in the middle of the night to tell him about it before she could even think about how a million subscribers was nothing next to a million subjects in a kingdom, and Mk opened the window with his Monkey King themed pajamas and was awake in seconds to squeal with her.

Her ancestry was still a massive thing to try and live up to, and something that was still immensely important to her. And although her accomplishments now seemed like nothing compared to their great feats… every dragon started somewhere. And right now, winning that race was a big feat, because it was her feat. Something she did.

Even if she wasn’t a full fledged dragon, Mk was right there next to her to remind her of just how amazing she was.

[elizabethrobertajones]

hm.

[lakemichigans]

i want to talk to dan about plants so bad it's unreal

[frecklenog]

. gently hands hugh a six year old vulcan

[annasvinyl]

I wish she was mine. Me too. I love her. So why won't they let me adopt her? Because you went to prison for a year for nearly killing a man. And the adoption people have a very dim view of that. Look at what your family did to you. No one stopped them being parents. We love her. That's all that matters. Is it?

[waitineedaname]

i finished the first season of heaven official's blessing! I like it so far!! im not wild about how some of the women are treated, and i understand now why i was warned abt some questionable depictions of chinese ethnic minorities, but otherwise I'm having a fun time. I like the main four characters a lot

[g0nta-g0kuhara]

Here's an analysis on gonta that I really like

https://www.tumblr.com/unweavinglies/624144216037244928/gonta-gokuhara-character-analysis-when-a-genius?source=share

YES I've seen this analysis around before it's very good. Although I don't necessarily agree with all of it, I really appreciate the depth OP went into with it, its really well written and thought out!

[jerrydevine]

steve didn't know robin didn't have her license but he still drove her everywhere no questions asked

[queen-scribbles]

I spent ten minutes trying to pick which dialogue here before settling on the last one bc it’s the most in character for Casi. 😂 That’s the longest I’ve ever spent on a non-romance choice the whole time I’ve been playing. 

[doctorbrown]

they're gonna love you . like i do . -clara. probably very flustered.

Not for the second time that morning, in an uncharacteristic bout of self-consciousness, Emmett checks his reflection over in the mirror, ensuring his appearance was wholly suitable to be taking over Clara's teaching duties for the next few days and that any specks of dirt or dust or grease from his day-to-day duties were cleaned off.

The last thing he needed was for one of the town busybodies to catch wind of his less than perfect performance as temporary schoolteacher and find a way to drag Clara through the thick of it.

Emmett sighs, then smiles as he catches sight of Clara's reflection coming up behind him and turns to face her. She reaches to straighten his collar and he stands as still as he possibly can, eyes glued to the deep blush spread across her cheeks.

❝And if they don't,❞ he quips, leaning in once she pulls her hands away to peck her on the cheek, ❝then I should be glad you'll only be gone about two days. Did we leave the lesson plan on the table after last night? I know you were looking forward to the science experiments with the kids and I wouldn't dare deprive you of that, so those will be postponed until you return.❞

I SEE YOU.

[kelpiemomma]

Thinking akari had Khan as her under bed monster from the time she was like,,,, 3 or 4 until she finally got pulled out of her home at roughly 7. Khan wasn't able to get to her in the care facility and so he lost track of her until a couple years after ingo adopted her. He always felt a little silly & stupid for getting attached to a kid he was supposed to scare the shit out of, but apparently it's not uncommon for under bed monsters to get attached to their charges so at least he's not alone!!!

Khans initial form was his large, lanky, four arm & two legged one, the one he tends to find most comfortable. He was supposed to be an under bed monster and frighten Akari, after all. But as he grew closer and more sympathetic to her, as he began to care, he appeared as something softer. Something more dog like, fluffier (he's not truly fluffy- under bed monsters are only slightly corporeal and touchable unless they focus on otherwise), something to bring her comfort. There's a vague psychic link there and it was odd when he learned and realized that she found his scary form comforting as well. He would appear as both, gradually realizing that his frightening form was a comfort because the malaise he radiated (greater in that form) also affected her parents and encouraged them to leave her alone

[theheadlessgroom]

https://www.tumblr.com/beatingheart-bride/711956093597794304/theheadlessgroom-beatingheart-bride

@beatingheart-bride

“I would love nothing more.”

Randall had never been in such a tizzy before when he went down to the café to pack them a picnic: He felt light on his feet, unable to keep the smile off his face as he seemed to float around the kitchen, packing a little box full of sandwiches with all the fixings, a little pasta salad on the side, some freshly-squeezed lemonade for a refreshment, and some colorful little macarons (of varying flavors, including strawberry and blueberry) to round things out. He hummed and whistled cheerfully (normally, he’d be very quiet in the kitchen, but he just couldn’t keep it to himself today, in too good a mood to silence himself) as he packed this all up (along with a nice, big tablecloth to serve as their picnic blanket) and left a very generous tip (even moreso than usual!) before disappearing back through the passageways.

The air was cool and crisp, but not too chilly when Randall made it to the rooftop, still humming happily to himself as he found a nice little spot in the sunlight to set up their picnic, unfolding the cloth and beginning to lay everything out, as well as pouring them something to drink to start. In the air, he could hear all the usual cacophony of the city-people calling to one another, birds warbling, the usual hustle and bustle of a busy world, but up here, right now, it all sounded like a symphony of his ears, as he peered out over the city from above, all drenched in the warm sunlight. It was the perfect day for a picnic.

[paragonrobits]

some important calvin and hobbes facts in case you haven't read the original comic strip in a long time or only absorbed stuff on it from memes and out of context bits on here:

Calvin's last name has never been given, and neither has any of his parent's names. This was actually why his uncle Max only showed up for a brief storyline; the creator of the comic, Bill Watterson, ultimately felt that while it was fine to have him as someone for his parents to talk to, it felt far too awkward to never have Max refer to them by name and he never made a return appearance.

The general tone of the comic is fairly light-hearted, with a big emphasis on goofy slapstick comedy contrasted by clever wordplay and often surprising adult-centered jokes that'll hit you like a slap. A big part of the comedy is, as Watterson put it (paraphrased) "It's really funny to me when people express deeply stupid ideas with really fancy terminology." One notable example you might have seen is that one bit where Calvin asks his mom for money to buy a Satan-worshiping rock album and his mom replies that there's nothing genuine about them and they're just putting on the attitude for shock value, and comisserates with Calvin as he deplores that mainstream nihilism can't be trusted. He concludes that childhood is disillusioning.

There is a LOT of criticism of the extreme materialism and selfish mentality of the late 80s, when the comic was initially written. This may go a long way to explain how its aged so well; much of what it criticizes resonates well with people today.

Bill Watterson views comic strips a legitimate form of artwork, and repeatedly fought to have more space to draw more beautiful and artistic backgrounds, which was a very hard fight and unpopular even with other comic strip artists. He eventually did win some compromises and a lot of Calvin And Hobbes' artwork shows it, with the use of space to indicate time as well as a sharp contrast between the often plain environments of mundane life contrasted by the wildly beautiful imagery of Calvin's imagination (which often sports realistic depictions in an art shift of sorts).

Hobbes is explicitly not an imaginary friend, by word of Watterson himself. We don't know WHAT he is exactly, and Hobbes is apparently unaware of the strange nature of his reality; people look at him and only see an ordinary stuffed tiger plushie, but he has a tangible effect on the world that would be physically impossible for Calvin to do on his own. He's apparently been around for a while, and was apparently around when Calvin was a young baby.

On that note; Hobbes has implicitly killed (notably treated as both a gag and also with the vibe of 'he's a tiger, duh') and while he doesn't do it again on-screen, he doesn't have any moral issues about it. Calvin claims that he's never had trouble bringing Hobbes to school because the last time he did, Hobbes killed and ate a bully named Tommy Chestnut and simply comments that it was gross and he needed a bath. Calvin's tried to repeat this again, but Hobbes was grossed out at the thought having to eat a kid raw and not being allowed to use an oven first, or complaining that children are too fattening.

Hobbes became gradually less human-like in body language and more like an actual cat in both body language and behavior; this was due to Watterson drawing more inspiration from his cat, who also inspired a lot of Hobbes' running gags, such as pouncing on Calvin when he got home. Several years into the syndication of the strip, Watterson's cat passed away, and he did a tribute to her with a comic strip of the two of them agreeing to try to dream together so they can keep playing when they have to sleep; Watterson's commentary (if I recall right), remarks on his cat: "We can see each other again in dreams."