#i don't have anything to explain

[tinukis]

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[egophiliac]

I have never been more concerned for a JP update from your art than I am seeing a Cheka knowing the context of Leona’s dream.

My bois ok right?????? My sweet nephews ok right??????

well

uhhhh

I'm sure the real one is fine :)

[zvahlne]

aphmau, pre o'khasis heir reveal but post face reveal, telling garroth "i didn't realize you were such a prince!" (in reference to his Youthful and Handsome appearance when she definitely thought he was an old man). garroth, who stumbles down the step he was on with a loud clattering of armor behind her, "W-WHAT?!"

[tritoch]

deleted cutscene between shadowbringers 5.3 and 5.4 where krile's like huh. i finally figured it out, g'raha. i was a little annoyed to be left out, but clearly the exarch didn't summon me to the first because i would've blown up his spot immediately. that's why i was one of the scions left behind.

and g'raha has to be like oh no that whole thing was an accide--what do you mean you're a scion. sorry. krile, my good friend and colleague, what do you mean you've been gallivanting around eorzea with my hero and idol the warrior of light.

leaving krile in turn to be like. yeah i was involved in the warriors of darkness stuff and the war in ala mhigo. wait. do you mean you don't know? oh my god. oooooh my god am i not in edmont's fucking book?? am i not a big enough deal to be in the histories?? i'm not in the legends??? have i been EXCLUDED from the HISTORICAL NARRATIVE? zenos did LIVE HUMAN LALAFELL EXPERIMENTATION ON ME. am i a FOOTNOTE?

g'raha patting her on the back. cheer up, queen. those are from a doomed timeline. you probably. you probably do some really cool stuff in this timeline. anyways can you tell me some stories about the warrior of li--

[kettlefire]

As Good as Good Gets (DP X DC Snippet)

Richard "Dick" Grayson is the golden child. In the eyes of the public, and in the eyes of the league. Dick is a sweet, caring son, a man who went from being a sidekick to being a hero. The pipeline from Robin to Nightwing had many people applauding his dedication to keeping Gotham safe.

No one knew the full story, not truly. No one but Bruce Wayne himself. And maybe a certain butler. Many don't know that Dick only became Robin to stop him from hunting down and killing the man who killed his parents.

No one really knows about the harsh fights and arguments he has had with Bruce. The times when Dick would find himself cut off from the Wayne name for a week or so. No one knows that the first person Dick warmed up to was Alfred. Having been bribed with cookies.

Things weren't always this good, trusting, happy relationship between Bruce and Dick. It had been a rough ride, a complicated one. But that was okay, because it got better.

Dick stopped being so moody and angsty. He grew up, he learned, and he changed. He became an older brother, found people that needed him. Needed him in a way that the citizens of Gotham didn't need him.

His brothers like to call him annoying. A goody two shoes who Bruce trusted more than everyone else. They couldn't fathom how someone like Dick could be so stupid and bubbly at all times.

All times, except when shit hits the fans. Despite the name calling, despite coining Dick as the stupid Wayne. They all knew better. They knew that when it mattered, Dick Grayson always pulled through. He was a force to be reckoned with when needed.

The whole Wayne family was a force to be reckoned with when called for. It didn't have to be under the guise of costumes and vigilante acts. Whether he was Officer Grayson or Nightwing, Dick was a man with his morals and values.

One night on patrol as Officer Grayson, Dick found someone who needed that force. A force willing to protect and care for the innocent. The hurt. The damaged, yet still good.

It started like any other night. A call of shots fired by an empty warehouse. There was no sighting or knowledge of any rouges being there, so Dick took the call. Told the team he'll contact them if it seems more than just a civilian incident.

The warehouse was dark, reeked of copper and oil. It didn't take long for Dick to find the trail. The liquid he found looked like the person had been dragged before walking. There was a clear struggle, even with the mess and emptiness that was the warehouse.

That wasn't Dick's biggest concern. The concern lay in just how much blood there was. Too much for any normal person to lose and still manage to stumble through the warehouse.

It wasn't just blood. It wasn't that much, but Dick could spot the strangeness in the liquid. The mixed in green that had an eerily similar color and glow as a certain pit.

Without thinking, Dick followed the trail. Barely remembering to make contact with his family. Give them an update on what he found. Words telling him to stay put for backup went in one ear and out the other.

Something in Dick's gut was telling him he couldn't wait. He needed to find the source. Whoever was currently bleeding out in this warehouse. He silenced the comm, moving further through the dimly lit building.

Then Dick found it. Or more so, he found him. It was just a boy. A boy that reminded Dick too much of the youngest Wayne. A boy sat against a wall, looking pale and weak.

Red and green coated the front of the boy's shirt, arms wrapped tightly around his middle. An attempt to stem the bleeding. A puddle had already started to form beneath the boy, and Dick moved without thinking once again.

He quickly found himself kneeling beside the boy, hands carefully reaching out. Before Dick even touched him, the boy flinched. Eyelids suddenly opened, wide and terrified blue eyes landed on Dick's.

In just that one look, Dick knew what he had to do. The haunting, terrified, and pained look in the boy's eyes told Dick everything he needed to know. The boy was in danger. Someone had hurt this kid, and it was clear it wasn't the first time.

The boy struggled weakly against Dick's touch, terrified whimpers, and barely coherent pleas spilled from the kid's lips. It had Dick's heart aching, clear as day the poor kid has been through hell and back.

It took a lot of reassurance, gentle touches, and promises of help before the kid let Dick take a look at the bleeding wound. A promise on Dick's soul had been the final thing that earned him any semblance of trust. A strange promise, but Dick was willing to make it.

That concern turned to pure anger the moment Dick managed to pull the sticky shirt away from the wound. The sight of a Y-incision cut perfectly into the skin, stitches tight on the skin, but blood still leaking heavily from the wound.

It didn't take long for Dick to realize why. Despite the perfect surgical care of the wound, a good couple of stitches had broken. Leaving gaping spots for that red and green liquid to pour out of.

The boy was deathly silent, tears streaking down his cheek as wide blue eyes stayed trained on Dick. In that moment, Dick knew he had to help. Had to get the kid to safety, patch him up, and find out what kind of monster would do this.

It didn't matter if the kid was human or not. It didn't matter if the kid had special abilities or not. No one, absolutely no one, deserved to be vivisected.

The kid was shrouded in mystery, but that mystery only seemed to grow and become clearer when Bruce had entered the scene. The boy had tensed, eyes flashing a bright glowing green.

Lazarus pit green.

It set a pit of dread in Dick's gut. His mind brings forward memories of Jason. Jason, after his revival, after his dip in that cursed pit. The same flash that his brother would get if he got too angry. Too emotional.

As much as Dick wanted to focus on finding who did this, if it had any connection to Ra's al Ghul. He couldn't. Not when the kid tried to get up, to pull away as Bruce and the others made their way closer.

Right now, Dick only cared about making sure the boy was okay. Fixing those stitches, getting him a meal, and a warm bed.

He needed to get this kid someplace where he felt safe and secure. Comfortable and protected. Dick wasn't sure why. Maybe it was the promise he had made, but he wasn't letting anyone get to the kid.

That included his family. As strange as it seemed, Dick put himself between the others and the kid. Shooting them all a glare that they had only ever seen a handful of times.

Dick lifted the poor boy up in his arms, cradling the crying child close as he led the way out of the warehouse. Ignoring the questions or confusion coming from Bruce and the others. As Dick walked, feeling the trembling boy clinging to him, he made a rather obvious realization.

Maybe the eldest son really was more like Bruce than he expected. Just a few short moments the the boy, a boy that Dick didn't know his name, and he was ready to pull out adoption papers. To give the boy a safety he so desperately needs.

Give him the chance that Bruce had given him all those years ago.

[iamhereinthebg]

Let's talk about the clock keepers boundary!

(warning: spoilers until chapter 124!!)

I've had some guess on where they could be from so let's look at what we have in the manga for now. I will keep things on surface level for the most part but it's just some things I noticed!

The first mention of the town is in chapter 111, where we finally have a view on their boundary.

A lot of fans already guessed from their clothes that they were not from Japan, this panel definitely confirms it and even points more precizely to a European country, mostly Western Europe. And also a country where Winter with snow exist.

It's also not an English speaking country, since Akane cannot understand the language and we know he has english classes at school.

Now there are several things we can look at to have more clues!

First, the architecture.

This type of house is called Timbered framed houses. It’s important to note that the roofs on those houses are really really sharp here. Which means theywere built for snow, so it can slide off the roofs more easily. The trees are also pines, something that can be found in a lot of Europe. (wood was needed to be able to create houses made of wood/with visible Framework( Little note: I know Italy was a guess for a lot of person because of the link to Pinocchio, but Italy main material for houses is stone not wood. And it is also not known for its winter.)

Here we can also see bricks which is something more associated to countries like Germany, Belgium or the Nertherlands, we don't have the colors so we can't guess from which minerals it was made for now.

But we have even more informations when we look at chapter 124!

The bridge and tower may be inspired by a fortified city, something that you could find A LOT in Western Europe during the middle age, not a lot of cities still have their entire walls but you can still see it if you go into old medieval towns. We can also see something that looks like a Belfry on several panels. Towers used mostly to indicate each passing hour of the day (may be a campanile or a bell tower (the difference is wether it's linked to religion or not basically)

Second! Let's do a little bit of clock making history!

I won't go into details, but there are some countries to point for this. England, The Netherlands and Germany. We already took out England before and we can easily erase Nertherlands from the list with the next step (my favorite one).

The food! I already had my suspicions confirmed with this bonus art from volume 22.

First of all, they have tea which is not something that was in Europe before the XVII century. But let's look at the sweets they have here.

Chocolates which look close to Belgian chocolate ( I say Belgian but other countries' chocolate is pretty close to it) , Christstollen Cake, and Spiztbuden.

We have even more to look at with the new chapter! And they confirm that it's indeed a stollen cake.

With all these foods it's now pretty obvious which area the clock keepers are inspired from.

Stollen cakes are German cakes, ginger cookies are from Germany too. I will also add that there is a chance the crescent moon cookies are VanilleKipferl. We have another panel showing Sausages and bread. Only the Almond is something not typical from Germany but which clearly was all over Western Europe with trades.

Their city already looked like the 'perfect christmas city' you can see in movies, inspired by German culture. And they also mention Mulled Wine which is THE beverage to take in any chritmas market in Europe.

Chritmas markets are inspired and coming from Germany first, but I wanna point something more.

My main guess was, Nuremberg, the city where the ancestor of the pocket watch was created, the Nuremberg Egg. It's also a Fortified city and it has forests around it. It's also known for its Ginger cookies!

So Germany would be a great pic, but the more I think about it the more I can also see the link to another region: Alsace.

Alsace is a region from France right now BUT it's a mixt of german and french culture (I will not make a history lesson but it is a place that always switched between France and Germany basically, now it's French).

All the food mentionned before are also made in the Alsace region!

It's situated in the Vosges, a chain of mountains known to have a lot of forets of pines and which is known to have villages like this:

Which were also the main inspirations for movies like Howl's moving castle for example. You can see the similarities between the artchitectures

The first ever Chritmas Market was in Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace, when it was German and it spread accross Europe after.

I will now look at something I usually don't do because I exclude Aus from canon but it's just a funny thing to point out.

This au shows a snow town inspired by ginger bread houses. I just find it funny because Aoi is shown as a baker, with bread (which are not baguette I think, it's way larger here) but with some croissant on her table (disclaimer: Croissant are not french at first, this form here is, but it's from Austria otherwise) And Kako clearly has something similar to a Wine bottle in his hands. This au is the only one featuring them, was given with their volumes and the vibes are really similar to their boundary.

I would say no matter what it's definitely closer to German culture but I wanted to point out this region which is known for it's Christmas season and its typical houses.

I will mostly say that it's an inspiration from this region of Europe, I don't know if a real country is the reference for it since we don't even know where tbhk takes place, but it's always funny to look at those things :DD

Little bonus:

In a more messy note, the clothes. I put them at the end because besides their hats, I had no idea how to describe it, since it seems pretty typical of what people could wear in winter.

I did the research in the other way, to look for German and Alsacian clothing to see if it match and it kinda does but I don't think it's speficific to this region. The girls wear classic white Charlotte and big clothes with layers for Winter.

The clock keepers clothes are different, it looks like a mixt of Japanese and western European clothing (especially from england).

Their main outfits for Akane and Kako really just look like a typical waistcoast/costume you can find in the XIXth century in Europe and Mirai's seems more inspired by a mixt of a Kimono with several layers(she also has sandals and frills) and a coat? The little knots Kako and Akane have on their coats look like something inspired from Mizuhiki knots too (I actually saw a costume with those exact same knots in a museum but I didn't take a picture rip)

So I would say they probably changed slowly their attire when they arrived in Japan, we don't know since how many times they are here, but we know that what is happening in the deeper place of the boundary is linked to memories previous to their arrival. According to their origin I think we can say that it's pretty sure they arrived after the Meiji/during the Meiji Era in Japan (1868/1912), since it's a this time Japan mostly imported Western culture (for clothing here, the first contact was before this. And note: it was mostly rich people who dressed like this). And If we look at some others dates like the things they are eating, used to have or even their clothes, I would say it's more probably the Meiji Era and not in the XVs.

Another note is that their clocks have the numbers written in japanese on it (in the og version but it maye just be so it's readable for the japanese readers? idk if it's a choice or not).

I haven't searched much on their clothes but it was still something I wanted to note here ^^

[ddakhun]

[kaiserouo]

i really want my drifter to have guns

[thethiefandtheairbender]

Had a good chat with my partner about it today that maybe let me put a finger on what's always bugged me about "we're here to fix canon" attitudes being so prevalent in fandom (especially in the past 10ish years) throughout my life. This is not to say there's never a time or place for that (I've written fix its myself, or the occasional meta on how something could be fixed/improved) or that people are wrong to (we're anti fandom policing). It's also not an issue to me on the basis of "I love my blorbo in canon and fandom mischaracterizes them in the name of 'fixing' them" etc as it is just... coming from a fundamentally different perspective for story analysis / interaction than most (not all) people in fandom, I think.

One of the reasons I enjoyed getting my English degree was because I was finally being encouraged to and taught in alignment with what my brain had always be inclined to do: you always assume that there's a reason, and a good reason, for the story to do whatever it's doing. It assumes that the story is already exactly what it is supposed to be as it is supposed to be, and it's up to you to find the reasons Why.

The story was boring, or made you feel uncomfortable/bad, or you couldn't root for a character or relationship? All of that, at least at the beginning, doesn't really Matter. You assume that the story is paced fine, you assume the discomfort was intentional or part of something broader (historical shit that hasn't aged well) or that the dichotomy of "I feel invested or not invested" isn't useful. And in doing so, you replace all that with asking why.

An example I'll use is 1984 by George Orwell. I read that book in high school and I fucking hated it. Normally, I like the protagonist the most in anything I watch/read, but in that book, I loathed both the two leads and were actively rooting for them to be captured and tortured so the book could end faster; it was an actively miserable affair. I don't think that was necessarily the author's intention (certain amount of death of the author is baked in, but for a lot of the texts I was reading, we didn't even know the author or anything substantial about them, i.e. Beowulf) but, more importantly, I don't think any of those things are Flaws or downsides in the text.

Part of this is because 1984 is a dystopian novel (if a romcom book breaks genre convention that badly where you're miserable reading it, yeah, maybe something went wrong, but more on that in a minute) but even then it doesn't really matter on the basis of genre; I'm sure some people read 1984 and felt fascinated/excited while reading.

Rather, the focus becomes: what do I find so unlikeable about the protagonists? Why would they be written that way (on purpose)? What does it say about the society they live in? What does it say about their characterization, social stratification, etc etc? If a character does something that I think is non-sensical, why? Have I missed something? Should I watch retrospectively for clues? Is there another way to engage and to understand? Is what I label as confusion potentially a, or the, Point?

It is only after finding the reasons, and/or finding them unsuitable, that I let my subjective feelings into play. While a story can have great merit on the basis of relatability, relatability or "this aligns with my worldview / expectations / desires / etc." is not the be-all end-all of discerning quality

For example, I'm never going to be a fan of Jane and Rochester (she's 18, he's her 40 year old employer who routinely lies to her) but there are reasons, Good reasons, they get together in Jane Eyre (a book so subjectively boring I struggled through it twice) in response to both when the book was written and with the book's themes / symbols / their characterization. If they didn't end up together, it would be a fundamentally different story; it would not be Jane Eyre. So objectively, it's fine and an understandably massive influence on the western literary canon; subjectively, it's so fucking bad and I'm so glad I never have to read it again. But if I stopped there with my lack of interest or dislike of the main romance, I'd be missing out on what the text has to offer as well, the text.

This applies to more modern day stuff as well. I don't like Double Trouble from SheRa as nonbinary representation, and I'm nonbinary myself; however, I can acknowledge that the things I don't like about them were probably simultaneously empowering and exactly what the author (who is also nonbinary) wanted to be per his own experience of gender. Having a "I assume the text is right" mindset means that I can hold space for my own feelings/analysis (i.e. I also did not like Catra's arc, as I think she needed to learn other things / be written under a different lens) while holding space for the text as is (under the canonical lens of Catra learning it's never too late to be saved, I think her arc is conclusive and well done). And these two viewpoints aren't fundamentally opposed, but can coexist as analytical soup, being equally true / having equal value under the subjective (my view) and more 'objective' (the canon text's construction, or what I / the scholarly consensus, if it exists, believes it to be, anyway) at the same time.

Again, none of this is to say that you can't take issue with a canon text, or want to change something. I remember one time I was watching a show where their refusal to explore a romantic relationship between the female lead and her guy best friend was actively making the show worse; I understood their reasonings of wanting to put them with other people to explore their relationships, and wanting to emphasize a male-female friendship at the core of the story, and I still wanted them to put the two together as a Ship instead for various reasons. But that doesn't mean my line of thinking would've been Objectively Better—assuming if they had been paired together would've been executed in the manner I'd enjoy, or that them being paired with other people couldn't have been executed in ways I would've enjoyed more—merely that I likely would've enjoyed the series more per my own subjective preferences.

What I see in fandom sometimes is that people, understandably, aren't approaching at the start from a "the story always has a good reason" as much as they are speed-running from a "this didn't make sense to me or felt bad/off" and maybe examining why (which is supremely useful!) but not going back to examine the other side of the coin as to why the story would do it anyway.

Because sometimes the story—or a part of a story—is still 'bad' to us. It's just worthwhile to look at why it's 'good,' too.

[soggy-fishsticks]

I FINALLY FINISHED THIS!!!!!!!! I might tweak some of the wording, but this is for my school project explaining what goth is ☺️🫶

[ganonfan1995]

Watched Lion King 2 in the Zelgan server and this was the conclusion.

[nattikay]

I had so much fun putting my sona on the little Na'vi base I made recently that I had to do some more characters as gifts! 😸 there were two more I was going to do also, but just these four already took way longer than I anticipated and I need to move to something else for a while. Might come back to them later though... 👀

@arcadia-trash, Gwen is lucky she's a Reef Na'vi; she gets to keep the G and D in her name 😹 in the Forest dialect it'd be spelled Kxuwentxolìn. I based her loincloth on one of the designs from the Metkayina concept art, then for her top I tried to make it match the loincloth while still remaining similar to that initial sketch you did a few years ago haha. Also threw in some white shell/pearl accessories that would shine all pretty in the light as reference to troll!Gwen's moonstone skin :) also originally tried giving her some arm tattoos in addition to the chin and torso ones, but between the detailed chest piece and long curly hair I thought the area was starting to look a little too cluttered so I removed them. But I can still send you the version with them if you'd like! 😸

@the-tiny-dragons-tea-room, I know Kiwi is actually the name of your Sarentu character which may not be the same as the character in the sketch I based this on, but I wasn't sure what else to call her hrh. The sketch only showed her head so I had to take a lot of liberties with her outfit; tried to give her a kinda goth-ish vibe, hope you like it! 😸

[fluffydeoxys]

... just another twisted pair of threads through the Occurant that produces mayhem, violence, and Madness ...

[melkor-did-nothing-wrong]

Soooo if we operate under the assumption that they circulated any form of currency... do we think that Utumno/Angband coins had Melkor's face on them, on account of him being the ruler orrrrrr...?

[javierduffy]

one million things that i probably won't finish. some of this is super old and grody 💀

[artblocked]

Fucked up creature that spawns from the Ultimate Weapon after four souls stew in it for God knows how long honestly