#i just had too many thoughts

[mogamingthe1st]

Three Grians drawn by the same person in the same day using the same tools:

None are the artist's normal Grian design. How did this happen?

[antisociallilbrat]

Reddie Vs Byler

Okay I am once again here with a take that may not be that popular but I think it's worth a conversation. If you have a different opinion please feel free to comment on this post or inbox me.

So I've said this before but I'll say it again: I have been in the It fandom since the beginning of it, Sept 2017, and I crossed into the St fandom later that year but didn't start actively posting about it until about a year ago.

Point is I've seen some shit.

I've compared these two fandoms before and their behaviors but I want to specifically talk about Reddie and Byler, two ships that are the biggest in their respective fandoms. (I know Byler's spot for the number one ship may be rivaled by ships like St Steddie but they're still up there in popularity.)

Reddie in the It fandom has been big since the beginning, and only grew bigger (maybe 'exploded' is a better term) after the 2019 movie. You can see why it's popular, it features two of the most loved characters in the fandom, the dynamics are fun, and it inspires great fanart/fics. Look, I've never been the biggest Reddie shipper but I can recognize this as fact.

Let's talk about the shippers real quick. There are a lot of Reddie shippers that are great but the ship is not without people that cause discourse- especially in the early days of the It fandom. I think any big ship has these people, it comes with the territory of being a 'big' ship.

Back in the early days of the It fandom, when the fandom was more alive, there were Reddie shippers who didn't like Kaspbrough or Stozier and would make that known. Those ships are the two that would rival Reddie the most so it makes sense those ships weren't liked by some of them. Also Kaspbrough which features Bill and again, some, Reddie shippers did not like Bill but that's another conversation.

But here's the thing: even if Reddie had a few of those...problematic shippers, the overall ship space of it was relatively safe. There has never been shipping discourse in the It fandom like how it is in the St fandom. Here's a post I made on why that probably is a while back, but to some it up; it's just widely accepted that all the Losers love each other and every ship is valid and because of that there's never been a lot 'anti certain ship' rhetoric.

Now onto Byler. There is so much anti ship rhetoric and a lot shipping discourse but to say it's all the Byler shipper's fault would be frankly ridiculous. Shipping discourse and the Stranger Things fandom walk hand in hand at the this point, despite how much I wish that wasn't the case.

No matter what you ship in the St fandom, there are going to be people who hate you for it and focus all their energy on talking shit about the ship and trying to bully down shippers of it. I truly don't understand these people because why focus on being a dick and tearing people down for shipping a ship you don't like instead of focusing on the ship you do like? I don't get it, why be a jerk?

Yes there are Byler shippers like this but the same can said for every ship in St fandom. You can't really point a finger at a ship and call all it's shippers bad because it's a moot point. Also to look at couple bad seeds and then call the whole demographic 'bad' it's so...dumb and wrong.

But the point of this post is to compare Byler and Reddie. I can't really talk about the shipping discourse around just Byler because I would have to talk about it around every ship in the St fandom and how it all connects and intertwines...that's just another post in itself.

The only reason I brought it up in the first place was to highlight the shipping discourses with Byler vs how it is with Reddie. Moving on.

There is one huge difference with the Reddie and Byler and that's Reddie is canon. Keep in mind it's only firmly canon in the movie canon, but canon is canon.

Byler on the other hand has yet to become canon. It feels like the natural progression of Will and Mike's story arc depending on how they handle it but at the end of the day, we simply don't know what will happen with the 'canon' of this ship.

You could equate Reddie's 'boom' of shippers after the 2019 movie because it became canon. Who's to say the same won't happen with Byler after season 5? If it becomes canon?

Another thing- Reddie shippers for the most part didn't expect the ship to become canon, it just didn't seem like a thing that would happen honestly. That being said they also didn't care if it didn't become canon, that wouldn't take away from the enjoyment of the ship for them. There wasn't a ton of concrete 'canon' build up to it, just speculation and theories that paid off when Reddie surprisingly became canon. When you look at Byler, there is some 'canon' buildup for it so it's not unreasonable for people to think it can happen. Reddie happened didn't it?

But let's take 'canon' out the equation real quick because I want to get to the point that started the idea of this post in my head.

Unlike Byler, Reddie has never had a real ship it was pitted against. It didn't come from a fandom where ship vs ship was common unlike Byler. I mentioned Stozier and Kaspbrough and the few bad seeds of the Reddie shippers but even with that it still didn't really happen. Probably because *romantic* Stozier and Kaspbrough were only popular in fanon and not canon.

Byler shippers do have a heavy ship they're pitted against, which honestly is a fandom issue, and that's where so much of the discourse comes from. They have justifications for wanting their ship to be canon and sometimes they have to beg to be heard.

On the other hand, the 'bad seeds' of the Byler shippers are much more numerous than they ever where with Reddie shippers and they contribute a just as much as any other St ship's 'bad seeds' to the shipping discourse and the reason for that is simple. Byler has a bigger mainstream audience, it's a so much bigger than Reddie even when Reddie was in its hayday. Logically, the more people who ship a ship, the more bad seeds there's going to be.

Okay I'm done, I ended up rambling a lot and I'm sorry. Thank you if you actually read this.

[socksandbuttons]

anyway now that i have brain I tried making an Evil Lunar AU, instead i made a angsty au.

[druid-for-hire]

[images ID: three images of a comic titled "one must imagine sisyphus happy" by druid-for-hire. it is a visual narrative beginning with someone with wrist pain (depicted by bright orange nerves) working at a drafting table. the reader is shown the same wrist as the person uses it for many everyday tasks such as carrying a grocery basket, pushing elevator buttons, typing, and doing dishes, until the pain dissolves all the panels into chaos. the person then performs several physical therapy exercises until the pain subsides. they sit back down at a desk with their laptop, sigh, and begin typing. a small spark of pain reappears. end id]

a fun little piece i made during the semester and submitted into our school comic anthology! (which you can buy at the Static Fish table at MoCCAFest in NYC ;] ). it's about artists and injury

[sadmages]

In my mind palace my tav and Astarion are playing the exact same game of 5D chess and they don't realize it yet

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The indescribable tension between an overworked and underpaid smut writer, and his biggest fan hater.

(for @frummpets)

[soriastrider]

this has almost certainly been done before, but i think it's funny so i did it anyway

original:

[bluastro-yellow]

Kurvitz stresses that Kim doesn't actually have a character sheet hidden in Disco Elysium's code. Imagining that Lieutenant Kitsuragi has only one natural attribute point in Motorics helps the ZA/UM team to understand the depth of his character beyond what's referenced in the game's dialogue. "We just came up with this stuff for coherency," says Kurvitz. "And because we're nerds."

"I like to think Kim has a Thought Cabinet project called Revolutionary Aerostatic Brigades that he's worked on since he was a teenager," Kurvitz says. "This raises the learning caps for his Reaction Speed and Interfacing."

Kim's high Volition skill makes him impervious to prying, Kurvitz says, as the detective can find out on occasions being met with Kim's brick-wall resolve. Kim often chastises these whims of the detective's, but will occasionally play along. The Lieutenant finds his new partner funny, says Kurvitz.

Kim is naturally shit at Motorics and thinks Harry is funny source

[theresamouseinmyhouse]

tbh i do get a little bothered by the notion that tim took the first shot he had to drop out of school because he hated school and didnt wanna do it and all of that bc i feel like it ignores the probably very important context that he dropped out after his dad (as well as steph-or at least, he was led to believe, in the same week) died, also he was in a school shooting. He did attempt to go to a school in bludhaven but the kids there were so wildly insensitive about the shooting that tim dropped out under the pretense of his "uncle" homeschooling him. In his oyl era, he /did/ go back to school, and it provided him some form of normalcy. Tim was a normal kid, he wasnt crazy about school but he still went to school and it helped him feel like a normal kid, something he desperately clung to. He only dropped out again to do his Brucequest, in an era where he was notably Not Doing Well (which. Yeah. he wasnt doing well bc he was like 17 and almost everyone in his support system was dead, he recently had hits put out on him, got blown up, and backstabbed by his not-dead-ex, he couldnt support his theory that bruce was alive and was extremely stressed about that, and he didnt know wtf he was doing. I love him btw.) Basically tim dropping out of school was a signifier that he wasnt doing well and he was giving up on the normality that he tried to cling to and im a bit of a nitpicky person who gets irked by minor things

[nyaagolor]

Good morning I’m thinking about the von Karmas and gunshot wounds. Contrary to popular belief, in most cases you don’t really want to take out a bullet unless you absolutely have to, since digging around in there causes more soft tissue damage and opens more possibilities for infection. One of the few places that bullets are almost always taken out, ironically, is the shoulder. Shoulders have a lot of important junk in them, and over time, the bullet crushes, tears, and destroys what’s around it, leading to nerve damage, loss of function in the arm, chronic pain, etc etc. It's kinda like shoving a rock in a really delicate machine and leaving it rattling around in there. Even if the wound itself was minor, the act of leaving the bullet in just steadily makes things worse If a bullet is removed from a non-complex gunshot wound to the shoulder, it’s not uncommon to get all your function back with minimal pain within months. If you don’t, the bullet just quite literally tears you up inside for the rest of your life And ain’t That a fun metaphor

[crowsgrudge]

fionna's world being represented by a dandelion makes so much sense ... they're weeds. yet people make wishes through them, changing their whole meaning from something meant to be destroyed to something hopeful.

dandelions are also resilient and it makes sense that something associated with them would. you know. perservere despite the destruction caused by the scarab.

but ultimately i think what REALLY made me tear up over this is that dandelions are really boring plants. when you're a kid you blow on them and make your wish but they're not eyecatching or anything but still, fionna's final wish was for her old world to still exist as it was when she left it (> plain and simple. boring even).

like the moment she realized she would lose her friends, and that her friends might forget each other if the world got its magic back, she immediately decided she didn't want it and I think that ties back to the dandelion metaphor so well... like, do you really need magic to be real to find it everywhere? or can you turn something boring into something magical?

[hazel2468]

"UWU op defends Israel UWU"-

Have I not made it clear enough what I think of the Israeli government? Have I not made it clear enough that what infuriates me the MOST about all of this shit going on is that neither government gives a damn and civilians will CONTINUE to die because Hamas and Netanyahu are cranking that war machine for their own benefit? Have I not made it clear that I think what the Israeli government is doing is fucking horrific, a war crime, murder, a violation of human rights?

Why do I even need to MAKE that clear? Why is it that you can talk about LITERALLY anything else, any other country, and people don't rush to fucking accuse you of personally supporting the government when you discuss the wrongs committed against a people, but the SECOND you're a Jew you have to justify your stance about Israel?

Why is it that I cannot even be angry about the slaughter of MY FUCKING PEOPLE. Innocents. Civilians. Fucking CHILDREN. The slaughter of the Palestinian people. Innocents. Civilians. FUCKING CHILDREN.

Without one of you absolute fucking monsters deciding to slap some shit on an unrelated post about how "uwu op defends an apartheid state just ignore that"? Do you have to make it part of EVERYTHING I do? Do you consider everything I put out there tainted somehow because I don't support your joy, your cheering, your unrestrained GLEE at the murder of Jews? Do I need to publish a fucking thesis on my stance on Israel, Palestine, and their respective governments like a fucking disclaimer any time I want to talk about myself, my oppression, my experience as a Jew, or a disabled person, or a queer person, because you fuckers cannot for five seconds be NORMAL about Jews?

To decide to slap something about Israel and Palestine on a post I made about MY oppression, about how people will oppress you no matter who you actually are- it all depends who they think you are. It's a bit ironic, isn't it? Doesn't QUITE fit, but it's funny that someone would read that post, agree with it, and then think "Ah yes, THIS is the place to put some tags about how OP, a Jew who has been reeling for the last couple of weeks about the violence, who has been checking on their Israeli friends every day to make sure they aren't fucking dead, who is dealing with vicious antisemitism from people who they thought were friends, who watched as the people claiming to be progressive supporters of human rights on this hellsite and others OVERWHELMINGLY reply to the murder of their people with good they deserved it fuck you, is CLEARLY a defender of an apartheid state and that makes them a bad person because something something I don't know what nuance tastes like and I am a bigoted ass."

I am TIRED.

[emlovessid]

@jegulus-microfic january 27, scene, 242 words

He doesn’t want to cause a scene, but as he watches James disappear through the airport doors, Regulus realises in that moment that if he doesn’t tell James that he loves him then he’ll regret it for the rest of his life. And it’s this thought that has him putting his car in park and running through the airport like he’s in one of those romantic comedies James and Sirius like so much.

He’s staring at the security line, wondering whether James would have gone through straight away or stopped for food first, when he sees none other than James himself walking right towards him, eyes on the departure board above Regulus.

“Oh, hey,” James says in surprise when he notices Regulus standing there. Patting down his pockets, he says, “Did I forget something?”

“Yeah,” Regulus says, walking right up to him, throwing his arms around James’ neck as he pulls him into a kiss.

James doesn’t waste any time in kissing him back, dropping the McDonald’s bag in his left hand in favour of wrapping his own arms around Regulus and holding him so tight that his feet lift off the ground. He thinks that this moment puts every airport scene in any movie to shame with the way that James licks into his mouth, Regulus sighing into him.

“You’re gonna miss your flight,” Regulus whispers eventually.

“If you think I’m getting on that plane now, you’re out of your mind.”

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Danse Macabre

[Commission]

[baeshijima]

mmm thoughts of private executioner!blade, who is high priestess!kafka's bodyguard. well, more like her guard dog, as many fearfully seem to think.

he is aloof and gruff and rough around the edges, his name capturing it perfectly. when in the eyes of the public he either keeps to himself or stands ready by kafka's side, but when out he lurks in the shadows ready and waiting to carry out her death orders.

you, yourself, haven't had very many pleasant encounters with him... if you can even call them that. that being said, you haven't had many pleasant encounters with anyone. notorious for your... less than pleasant disposition, for a lack of better words, you have more people who'd rather see you run through than those you can call a friend.

in a dog-eat-dog world, you had no choice but to protect yourself. that, however, ultimately became your demise.

"oh? so you're the one sent to kill me. can't say i'm all that surprised."

standing before you is the feared executioner. his sword is tucked inside the sheath attached to his hip, that ever-present dark swirl of an aura stifling the air. he doesn't say anything, instead opting to silently stare down at your slumped and worn-out form. you find that his gaze doesn't bother you; rather, it's oddly comforting knowing someone will see you in your last moments.

"i've never asked you for a favour before, so this will be my first and last request for you." in all honesty, you're not sure where this chattiness stems from. considering you're currently in a holding cell under the crime of attempted murder towards kafka (a poisoned wine you were most definitely framed for, though you can't say you were surprised) and are awaiting for your turn to be under the guillotine for your public execution, you probably should be a little desperate towards the private executioner in front of you.

and yet, your mind is nothing if not peaceful.

with a huff, you relay your request, "can you make sure it's quick? painless, preferably, but i'd rather you just get it over and done with."

silence blankets the cold chambers. moisture accumulated along the cobble ceiling drip in a steady rhythm, like a clock ticking away the seconds. it's unnerving, almost, how there is not a single sound other than your impending countdown.

"why?" comes his low mutter, effectively causing a ripple within the stagnant air. you almost think you misheard him, but his following words cease the thought, "why won't you ask me for help?"

had it not been for the abrupt shuffle and clanging against the metal bars, you would have never looked up to see him in your last moments.

his scarred hands gripping the metal until his knuckles turn a ghastly white and blood dripping from his palms is what greets your sight. as your gaze slowly trails up, you almost let loose a laugh of disbelief; who would have thought blade, the infamous guard dog of the high priestess, could make such a desperate expression? one looking as though his whole world crumbled before him, in which he can do nothing but sit and watch.

(you will never know of the anger and desperation which coursed through his veins the moment he heard of your predicament. had it been anyone else, he wouldn't have cared. but you're not anyone else; you're you — unapologetically, wholeheartedly. it didn't take him long to hunt down those behind it, cutting them down without thought and putting an end to their miserable lives. he rushed as soon as he could when kafka gave him the order, no thoughts other than you, you, you, occupying his mind.

you will never know of the anguish which overcame him when he found you in such a state, your once healthy complexion and defiant gaze reduced to nothing but a tiredness which had always sat quietly behind your disposition. he's almost positive the muscle which unwillingly keeps him alive tore at the seems from your request, the acceptance in which you displayed causing his mind to go astray. even as he damn-near begs you to rely on him for help — to run away with him to some place no one knows of you and start anew there — you merely smile, resigned and peaceful.

you will never know of how much blade is willing to put on the line for you, for you never made it to see the complete and utter carnage he wrecked in your name.)

[birdricks]

the really interesting thing about mortys fear of relying on rick is that it really does go both ways. like as much as hes afraid of needing rick... rick needs him just as much, if not more. and i think this ties into mortys fear of having to be responsible for ricks sadness.

there are SO many times where morty threatens to leave rick... just as rick constantly reminds morty that he can be replaced.

the difference is that morty COULD leave rick behind if he really wanted to. and he could probably be okay without him. but hell always come back to rick... because thats how hes meant to be. a mortys defining trait is how he will always put rick and his emotions first.

we can see this in evil morty and how he was able to escape the cycle simply by no longer caring about ricks feelings. what makes him different isnt being evil... its simply no longer prioritising the feelings of rick over his own.

like how many times do we see morty choosing to stay with rick despite everything rick puts him through? and i think this is partly where his forgiveness comes from. of course he does truly love rick and that plays into it, but hes also terrified of what might happen without him there to fall back on.

any time rick feels he might lose morty he spirals and lashes out in some weird manipulative way to keep morty reliant on him (which is ironically the very thing morty fears most).

and whenever he DOES lose morty for any amount of time he turns into a complete wreck. probably part of the fear of his own reliance on rick comes from knowing its largely manufactured by rick and not fully his own choice.

even WITH morty there to support him rick is incredibly prone to suicidal ideation and self destructive tendencies. its not hard to work out what would happen if morty was no longer around to cater to his emotions.

so he stays. of course its awful for him. but he does it. hes willing to sacrifice himself and his own emotions to save rick over and over again. because he knows what will happen if he doesnt.