#sorry for rambling about VS but i just really love VS a lot ^///^

[kylos-starlight]

I went down a rabbit hole... After the Kylo it recommended Sackler then from Sackler it recommended.. Ch---[sniff] Ch-Charlie doing d-dad stuff and I ----

[possuminnit]

someone gets it!!!!!!! and it drives me insane lol. sorry for like ranting/venting in ur askbox but man. it’s rlly frustrating and it’s just like “wow i’m not alone” when u find someone else who knows

and yeahhhh i get u dude. my mutuals are way too cool for me and i’m scared they’ll find me weird and annoying and too much and it’s just…. i don’t know how to be normal and talk to people without feeling absolutely insane (this is one of those instances tbh) ((ur also a cool mutual of mine… if that means anything lul))

NO WORRIES!! ur all good, i get what you mean :) Aand yeah same, i get that a lot but then im always like well if they actually did think i was annoying more than not, they could just simply unfollow me or sb me, and since that hasnt happen ive assured myself that its fine. Plus well were all on tumblr, all of us are a little silly and nervous about talking 1 on 1 with other mutuals, its nothing out of the ordinary. all of us suck at talking i think .,i mean that nicey. ALSO THANK U <33 :3 im glad u think so

[volfoss]

Made it to act 2 of the Witcher btw I'm HOOKED. The plot is so good and they have so many references to the book and augh it's so cool

[magewritesstories]

[ ᴍʏ ʜᴇʀᴏ ᴀᴄᴀᴅᴇᴍɪᴀ ] ᴄᴏᴏʟ ɢɪʀʟ

summary; some bnha characters dating a cool black-cat girl (bc i'm listening to the Ghost album by diljit dosanjh rn and thats the vibes it gives off) included characters --- izuku midoriya, katsuki bakugou, denki kaminari tw; none, it's literally just fluff note; if you want these headcanons with diff mha characters i'd write them! also i'm not a black-cat person at all so sorry if its not super accurate. word count; 909 words

IZUKU MIDORIYA;

He's so surprised first of all, like this poor baby is so in love with you but the fact that you love him back?! He's absolutely over the moon.

You might be surprised when I say this but not a lot of people are surprised at the fact that the two of you are dating—because of course the adorable dork who can never shut up pulled the chill, calm popular girl.

You're the first person to decode his mumble language, and just nod along like it's completely normal

speaking of his rambles, you just happily listen and let him rant until he realizes he's ranting and then he stops and looks at you so calmly smiling and listening and he almost passes out because he's overwhelmed by feels.

"I think that Kamui Woods would probably be the best match for her, you know considering the fact that he could use laquered prison to—" Izuku cut himself off when he realized he'd been ranting on about what hero vs hero matches would be cool to see and who would win.

You're sitting in front of him, the ends of your lips quirked up slightly as you swirl your favourite drink and look at him. "Something wrong, sweetie?" You ask, tilting your head slightly to the right as you rest it in your palm.

"I–I'm sorry," He quickly apologized, freckled cheeks tinting red as he felt your gaze stay on him, "I–I've been ranting, and–and you must be bored... I'm sorry."

"I didn't say that," You reply calmly, "I like listening to your rants—they're cute, and not to mention informative."

His already big green eyes widen even more. "R–really? I mean are you sure?"

You let out a soft chuckle and nod. "Mhm, now, will you tell me about how Kamui Woods would beat Mt. Lady?" You ask, giving him another soft smile.

Izuku visibly brightens as he happily continues his rant.

KATSUKI BAKUGOU;

How? Just how?

That's the first thing people think, because why would someone as cool and calm as you date someone as hotheaded as him?

Everyone around you is so confused (Denki literally brain-fries himself trying to understand.)

But then they see the way you stare down Bakugou without even flinching and manage to calm him down and all of a sudden it just clicks.

It's not really a rare occurrence—Katsuki's shouting his head off about some algebra equation Denki doesn't understand.

"What is so hard to understand, you damn dunderhead?!" The explosive blond shouts, practically jumping over the table towards Denki.

You're sitting in the library with the rest of the BakuSquad and have already been warned twice to keep it down.

"Katsuki, calm down," You say, looking up from your own homework.

He turns to you with an annoyed expression. "I'll calm down when this idiot stops being so damn stupid."

You match the glare he's giving you. "We're going to get kicked out," You reply, placing a hand on his arm to pull him back, "I'm sure Denki will understand whatever you're trying to explain to him if you just chill out."

Bakugou glares at you for a whole minute before huffing and falling down in his seat.

Everyone at the table stares at the two of you in disbelief. Katsuki just glares at them, as if he's daring them to say anything about what just transpired.

"So, Denki," You continue, turning towards your blond friend as if nothing out of the ordinary happened, "What is it you didn't understand?"

KAMINARI DENKI;

He's your polar opposite, and that's what makes it work

Kaminari is known for his cheesy pick-up lines and dumb flirting tactics, so when he tries one on you he does not expect it to work at all

but then it does??!!? (his brain malfunctions ngl)

Oh boy, he's drowning you with cheesy cards, pick-up lines, etc just to hear that cute little giggle again (he prides himself on the fact that he's the only one that can get you to giggle)

The bell signalling the second break rang ten minutes ago, but you're still sitting at your desk.

"Hey, Y/N," Denki's voice sounds even louder than usual in the empty classroom, "Watcha doin'?"

You don't reply, simply pulling up your geography textbook to show him the cover.

"Oh, we're covering the greenhouse effect right?" He questions, pulling up a chair to sit in front of you.

He leans his head on his palm, blonde hair falling in his eyes as he stares at you full of admiration.

"You know it's all your fault right?" He says, with a small smirk on his face.

You know your boyfriend well enough to know he's up to some stupid shit, but you decide to bite anyway. "What's all my fault, babe?"

"Global warming, it's your fault," He smiles like he didn't just accuse you of something like warming up the entire earth, "Because you're so hot."

You blink twice and then shake your head in disbelief. "You can do better than that," You reply simply, turning back to your notes.

Denki sees this as encouragement. "Oh yeah?" He asks in his most flirty voice, placing a hand under your chin, "Well, I must be a snowflake, because I've fallen for you."

Now, granted, this pickup line is even worse than the first one but it's just stupid enough to elicit a giggle out of you.

"You're an idiot."

"Yeah, but I'm your idiot."

[aimseytv]

this isnt an ask just a ramble i needed to get out about au sunship, i've never had tumblr before and im running on little sleep so this isnt going to be very coherent

But like the parallel between when guqqie felt guilty about getting aimsey to lie because they didn’t want acho to see them differently/yell at them vs aimsey getting angry that guqqie told michella about what hera did because aimsey didn’t want anyone to see guqqie negatively and yell at her (i can’t phrase things right) THESE SCENCES ARENT SIMILAR BUT THEY REMIND ME OF EACHOTHER SO MUCH LIKE KIND OF FORESHADOWING??

AIMSEY SAYING

“other people’s opinions… aren’t something we can control, ….. you need to not worry about what other people think of me…”

Guqqie “people shouldn’t judge you based on one action… i just want people to see that your good”

“…i just don’t think you should be so worried about the way people are gonna perceive me because at the end of the day their thoughts don’t really matter” 

and guqqie being like “they matter to me i want everyone to like you cause your great” 

“as long as you like me then i’m okay”

And this scene isn’t made like a very big deal but like it does matter obviously and then later after mr. loverman (before they see guqqs for the first time) aimsey doesn’t think guqqs likes it anymore and so like they feel like what everyone else always thought of him guqqie also thinks of him now (“youre just a demon”)

and then during the wall scene when aimsey is like did you tell michella and guqqies like yeah and aimseys upset because like 

“i didn’t want people to see you in the wrong way, guqqie!” 

“that’s not up to you!”

“yes it is! …..  i didn’t want people to see you the same way they saw me! i didn’t want it. i didn’t want it anymore. and i just didn’t want people to start making up these things and painting you in a terrible light-

people expect these things of me and they expect me to be this bad thing and i just didn’t want that to happen to you. i just didn’t want it ok…

if i told people that you beat me do you genuinely think people would just look at you and they would think that everything’s ok? No, they wouldn’t guqqie! they would see you differently. and i didn’t want that okay! i just didn’t want that! i just wanted things to be okay…”

so we’ve kind of known this whole time that aimsey really does care about what others think of him but they didn’t quite let on to it when guqqie was talking to her about it but during the wall scene we really see how much others seeing aimsey in a negative light has affected it and how much he’s been hurt by it to the point where they’re genuinely terrified of guqqie also having to go through that!! and just!!! They announcement has made me rewatch a lot of the vods/the ausunshipduo movie and im brain rotting about them but no one I know will listen to me ramble so i just needed this to go somewhere (sorry) ive reread this to see if it makes sense but my eyes hurt so idk if it does or not (im so sorry)

this is so sweet i read the entire thing :) glad you love ausmp gamer

[necrotic-nephilim]

@sasheneskywalker i love when you enable me to ramble about things because oh my god do i have thoughts.

so recently, i made a post discussing the phenomena of DC x DP and DC x MLB crossovers and why they exist and part of that post was discussing how largely speaking, at least half, if not more of the Batfamily fandom doesn't read the comics. if they interact with canon DC material, it's adaptations that are their own sequestered universes and oftentimes not remotely comic accurate or seeking to be. the most obvious example is the Young Justice cartoon. i'm adding a cut to this post because it just got so long i'm so sorry.

a lot of times, when people are discussing the "why" of this oversaturation of fanon-only fandom, they blame Wayne Family Adventures. and i think, to a point, i agree WFA is responsible for a boom in this fandom. but as someone who's been in the fandom long before we had WFA, to me it's the other way around. WFA was DC's way of meeting the demand for this easy-to-get-into, easy-to-consume content about the Batfamily that predicates itself on the comics just enough to be vaguely the same characters, but has a more sitcom, slice-of-life sort of vibe so DC could profit off of this section of the fanbase that otherwise wasn't consuming its primary material. and well, it's definitely worked. not only that, but i have a weird theory that the decline in the MCU also led to the rise in the Batfamily fandom. when you consider the fan content that made the MCU popular within fandom, it's that 2012 "they all live in Avengers Tower and Thor is eating poptarts and Clint is in the vents and there are movie nights every Friday" sort of vibe. those were the fics that were a hallmark of the fandom. and as the MCU has strayed from well... quality content in general, but specifically well-thought-out crossover content where characters can have their own arcs but also exist in a wider story where they clearly care about each other, that fandom was sort of homeless. so where do you go, if you like a superhero found family where you can have villains for angst but also stick them all in one big family-like home for silly crack and have a plethora of options for gay ships? well. you go to the Batfamily. if you write a crack/fluff Batfamily genfic with silly vibes and low stakes instead of say, a fic about a very specific comic issue even if it's a popular comic, you're *going* to get more traction for the former. because the fanbase largely just isn't reading the comics.

and i feel... complicated about this. because on one hand, Don't Like Don't Read has been a tenet of my fandom experience. i'm very pro-fandom and that includes fandom content i don't like. and to an extent, i do think this sort of should apply to Batfamily fanon. i enjoy having my moments with other comic purists, giggling over exceptionally painful OOC headcanons or even facepalming in pain over some content but it is on me to not interact with that content. you don't make fandom a better place by being hostile to fans who engage with canon in ways you don't approve of. and frankly? we as comic readers are not going to get non-comic fans to read the comics by being asshats to them. no one is going to want to pick up any comic if we get a superiority complex about it. and also, i feel like we're all lying to ourselves a little bit insisting comics are so, so easy to get into. they're not. we can just all agree, they're really not. i've been single-handedly helping my sister get into comics, specifically Wonder Woman and no matter how simple i make it, i watch her get frustrated trying to understand what pre-Crisis and post-Crisis and New-52 and Flashpoint and all these things mean and what a retcon vs a reboot is and what a Crisis Event is and what the hell Diana's current backstory even *is*. sure, you can give someone a beginner list of comics to start with and slowly dip their toes in the water but sooner or later, *something* is going to confuse them. comics as a medium straight up aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea. and if someone *just* wants to read silly fluffy fanfiction about the Batfamily, i can't entirely begrudge them for not wanting to take the hours and hours out of their day to understand this medium. it's not an accessible medium to get into. "read this and this, but this run is out of print and this run wasn't collected in trades at all but also make sure you read that event in order and this is a good comic but the backstory in it is retconned and you *have* to read this it's so important but it's also really bad because the author kind of sucks" sounds. ridiculous for someone who like. just wants to read some stuff about Nightwing. sometimes, we all make reading comics sort of sound like a chore, not a hobby.

so my point is, i do extend some grace to Batfamily fanon for existing. i think my biggest gripe is, as i said in my other post, misuse of tags (if you're not creating content about comics, maybe you don't need the comics fandom tag on Ao3, just the all media types umbrella tag) and my far bigger gripe: when panels are taken out of context to support fanon only headcanons. if i could impart *anything* onto the Batfamily fandom as a comic fan it'd be this: if you haven't *read* the comic, don't spread the panel. if you don't even know what comic it's *from*, don't spread the panel. it's fine to use comic panels to discuss your headcanons, but so often i see someone spreading a comic panel from a comic they haven't read, and when asked where it's from, they can't source it. a silly example that comes to mind is a post going around, taking a panel where Dick, in his internal monologue goes "here comes the sun. do do do do." and the post is claiming it's from him getting buried alive. when that panel comes from Nightwing (1996) #140, and he gets buried alive in Nightwing (1996) #127, two completely different moments frankensteined together. if you're going to not read the comics, that's completely fine, but unless you're sure of the source and the context, panels shouldn't be spread around. i'm sick of this specifically happening to Red Robin (2009), with ppl claiming Tim has totally killed people because he blew up some of Ra's' bases, when those panels within context, make it clear he gave everyone time to escape. and in a later arc in that very comic, Tim grapples with the idea of murdering Captain Boomerang, and *specifically chooses not to*, because he doesn't agree with murder, even against the person who has hurt him the most. if you'd like to write fanfiction where Tim is pro-murder and has done some sketch things, i'm totally on board and would probably like to read it. but there's no need to pretend it's canon from a few panels you saw out of context.

beyond that, i think it's not *entirely* correct to say that fanon is harmless. whenever i see very WFA-positive posts, they often default to the argument that WFA is fun and silly, and comic fans are killjoys for not liking it. which. i think is complicated because the issue is, WFA and fanon don't exist in a vacuum. if you like WFA power to you, i don't think it's the worst thing ever, but i do think it's degrading to these characters because honestly? they feel incompetent in the webtoon. it's one thing if WFA was solely a slice-of-life sort of deal, just having silly episodes where Bruce is taking on a PTA mom or they're all fighting for the last cookie. but when WFA attempts to take on more serious plots with these characters, it *fundamentally* falls flat in understanding them. i get it, Bruce comforting Jason having a panic attack because a noise reminded him of the crowbar felt cute in a microcosm, but i'm so serious when i say that storyline destroyed how like. half of this fandom understands Jason Todd's relationship to his trauma. it doesn't understand how he reacts when he's triggered, what coping mechanisms he seeks out, and how he would handle Bruce comforting him. even if i can believe for a brief moment Jason *would* be triggered by something like that, him running and trying to hide and then getting a hug from Bruce to make it okay is just. painful. WFA needs everything to be wrapped up in a nice, neat little bow. so even when it starts to tackle interesting concepts, it makes them fall flat with its need to be soft, low stakes, hurt/comfort. there was a two-parter episode that dealt with the complicated mutual hatred/jealousy between Tim and Damian that *almost* really interested me because for once, it felt like the webtoon wanted to explore canon messy dynamics. but of course, it had to be fixed with one conversation and a hug. you don't mend the *years* of issues these characters have like that. WFA isn't in character because these characters are hyperbole cartoonified versions of themselves to fit within the medium and be a cute happy family.

because that right there, is the crux of it. the Batfamily fanon seeks to simplify the Batfamily and force them into a nuclear family. there are so many fantastic posts on here discussing how the nuclear family-ification of the Batfam is eroding decades worth of complex histories so i won't go too far into that. but what i will say is that there's this need, in the Batfamily fandom, for the Batfamily to exist as a unit. they are a *family*. (honestly i think calling it the Batfamily is a misnomer and has been for years but we're in too deep now.) they exist to each other first, and any teams or friends they have come secondary to this family unit. you can *specifically* see this demonstrated in what headcanons are becoming popular these days. i have an entire lengthy meta in my drafts about how i *loathe* the "the Batfamily meets the Justice League" genre of fanfic because it makes no *sense*. in order to have this genre of fic exist, you must operate under the assumption that no one in the League, or adjacent to the League, knows the Batfamily exists and are thus utterly shocked to discover Batman has kids. and to make *that* work, you have to strip *every single Batfamily member* of such important dynamics and friendships so you can lock them all in Gotham for their whole lives. Dick can't have the Titans, Tim can't have Young Justice, Duke & Cass can't have the Outsiders, Jason can't have the Outlaws, Damian can't have the Supersons, Babs can't have the Birds of Prey, and so on. because if they had these relationships, they would be known to the League. the Batfamily fandom doesn't care about this, it's just "silly fanfiction", it's not trying to be serious. but how can you say you like Dick Grayson as a character if you don't understand the Titans *are* his family? at some points of his life, moreso than the Batfamily even is. it is constantly repeated to us in most comics with Dick how much the Titans mean to him. he *needs* them to be who he is. the same extends to every other Batfamily member, most of which have been full League members at this point. but in fanon, that doesn't matter. the Batfamily are a sequestered unit first, and all of those side relationships are secondary and easy to toss away, if it makes your fanfic work better.

and because they have to be a unit first, you have these forced relationships that dump years of actual canon material for the sake of making them get along. the Batfamily fandom has its favorites and well. it's no secret it's usually the boys. Jason and Tim by *far* stand out as fandom faves so, their dynamic is a heavily explored one. it does matter that in canon they don't tend to get along and especially don't see each other as family. what matters is that you can push dynamics onto them. and so fanon gets all twisted up about which Robin Tim actually idolized as a kid (Dick) and what member of the Batfamily is pro-murder but still an older sibling figure to him and looks out for him (Helena, or if you want the dynamic of once tried to harm Tim but they've reconciled, Jean-Paul) in favor of who's the most popular. Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian are always going to be the standouts for popularity, but it's specifically Jason and Tim who are getting fanonized the most. and that's because really, we don't have much canon content of Tim that *isn't* the comics. for Dick you've got Young Justice (tv), for Damian you've got the DCAMU, for Jason you've sort of got the Under The Red Hood movie, but Tim sort of lingers in this limbo. (yes, he's in Young Justce (tv) and Titans (live action) but in neither is he the main character nor given much depth) so, he gets a *lot* projected onto him and has become fanonized. and even with Jason's animated movies, you don't see him interact with Tim, so people build it from the ground up how they want to see it, disregarding of canon comics. i think it's what makes him so popular in the first place- he's malleable into whatever you want or need him to be.

and of course, the fanon ignores other characters in the Batfamily it doesn't know about. i feel like you could create a tier list of Batfamily characters by their popularity, going from the fandom main characters: Tim, Jason, Bruce, Alfred, Dick, Damian. to the underrated: Steph, Duke, Babs, Cass. to the forgotten about unless they're convenient for a story: Kate, the Foxes, Helena Wayne, Carrie, Selina, Harper Row, Maps, Minhkhoa Khan. to the absolutely unknown: Helena Bertinelli, Jean-Paul Valley, Onyx Adams, the Clovers, Julia Pennyworth. it's not lost on me that the ignored characters tend to be women and people of color. which is both a canon and fanon problem, DC will continue adding interesting characters to the Batfamily, play with them for a few years, then drop them to default to the "Batboys" again. and it's a vicious cycle of the fandom only caring about the "Batboys", and thus people entering the fandom via fanon osmosis won't have content about the other characters, therefore, they won't be interested in those characters enough to create it, and it's just this ouroboros consuming itself, no matter how much canon content we have of these other characters. and it's ridiculous just how large the Batfamily is becoming because of this, which is why i'm a pre-Flashpoint fan, because then the Batfamily was contained enough to actually feel like a family with every character having nuances relationships with each other, but i digress because those thoughts could be their own post.

and the thing about fanon is it doesn't exist in a vacuum. DC has started turning the comics to accommodate for what fans are asking for, because fans will beg and beg for content they're not going to consume. Tim Drake: Robin had Tim as a coffee drinker because that's the fanon accepted headcanon. and the resolution of the recent Gotham War arc was for Bruce to buy this new manor for everyone to move in and call him. nevermind that most of these characters have their own homes and have zero reason to be moving in with Bruce. Tim had his marina in Tim Drake: Robin, Dick has Bludhaven, Cass and Steph have their little side of town in Batgirls (2022), and so on. these characters are being forced together as a unit, as one big happy family living together, to appease what non-comic fans want and it's damaging comic relationships. Robin: Knight Terrors saw Jason and Tim team up and working together, which i've seen varying opinions on but i personally despised. their interactions made zero sense for any of their canon history, but it appeases them being this close sibling relationship that fanon acts like they are. also the fears they faced in their respective knight terrors didn't make sense for either character and *only* worked as a moment of bringing them together so they could reassure each other and have this weird dreamscape bonding moment. the canon is bending itself to the will of fanon rather than building on the pre-existing complex relationships. Tim barely even gets along with his most important team in Dark Crisis: Young Justice because it seems the only important relationships the Batfamily can have is with each other. and when we do see them outside of the Batfamily, it only seems to be to relive the glory days like with World's Finest: Teen Titans, instead of developing them as they currently exist. this isn't recent in the comics, it feels like you can trace it back to the New-52, but it does feel a *lot* worse over the recent years. WFA is fine when it exists in its own bubble, but the simple truth is, DC content never exists on its own. the adaptations will reflect back onto the comics. (the damage the Young Justice cartoon has done to some characters should honestly be studied) and so it does frustrate me a bit when fanon-only or adaptation-only fans act like we're being nothing but killjoys for being frustrated with this. since they don't read the comics, they don't see how the comics are suffering as a result of this.

people argue about what's out of character for the comics they don't even read. i'm sorry, but "bad dad Bruce" is consistently canon. that man is just kind of shitty. when you take someone who has the drive he has, who has this need for the Mission first, who needs a teenager in spandex next to him to keep him off the ledge, that guy is sort of going to be a shitty father figure. he just is. not on purpose or with malice, but when you compare him to any other dad in a big DC family, he sure takes the cake. it's why characters like Oliver Queen tend to *really* fucking hate Bruce for how he treats his kids. Bruce loves fiercely, but he doesn't do well with putting that love first. and his love is a controlling one, he is very particular about controlling how others in the Batfamily are "allowed" to operate. it's what drives the wedge between him and Dick, it's why Steph is never a true daughter to him. (besides the reason of her needing to be a love interest to Tim first, anyway-) i've never understood the massive outcry of people reacting to Bruce kinda being shitty in comics they're not reading. there are some moments that get ridiculously OOC with how cartoonishly evil he is (the whole Gotham War arc and that... complicated mess with Jason) but largely if you want sitcom loving nuclear father Bruce, you have to accept that is a fanon thing, not a canon one. the Batfamily being a nuclear family in *general* is fanon. most of the "Batkids" don't actually see Bruce in a particularly fatherly light and begging for moments where he calls them his kids or they call him dad outside of incredibly specific circumstances is just OOC.

it's getting harder and harder to exist peacefully in this fandom it feels like, if you don't comply to the standard fanon has set. i'm happy people are having fun with their blorbos, even if in ways i dislike, but that "harmless fandom fun" does ripple it's way back to canon, eventually. so i end up pretty tangled with my feelings because are fans at fault for DC making these poor decisions? probably not, but it certainly feels like an unfortunate cause-and-effect situation whether at the end of the day, nobody is happy. and of course, i know some fanon-only fans are striving to be more canon accurate and care about canon dynamics more than others, but for them it's always going to be an uphill battle with the above-mentioned out-of-context panels thrown around and ever-pervasive fanon overtaking anything that's truly seeking to be canon compliant. so really, it sometimes feels like we're all losing.

[elsweetheart]

omgg i lovee ur ellie hcs to bits!!

can i request hcs of ellie when she’s mad at you + when ur mad at her??

of course i can ! thank yooou 🤭

ellie when she’s mad at you vs ellie when you’re mad at her hcs

WHEN SHES MAD AT YOU:

• i feel like i’ve mentioned this before, but it takes a lot for you to make ellie mad. she cherishes how sweet and kind you are, and she’d hate to take advantage of that despite knowing she can be really mean if she wants to. the only times she gets mad at you, would be when she’s going through something difficult unrelated to you and you test her patience, or when you put yourself in danger.

• let’s say you did the latter, pushing her out the way of a bullet and getting your arm grazed. as you’re being rushed to safety, full of adrenaline she’d probably explode at you a little. “what the hell is wrong with you? you could have fucking died. are you listening to me? look at me! you could have fucking died!” she’d yell, throwing you off guard considering you just saved her ass.

• you’d be sat around moping with your arm bandaged waiting for her to come and see you. come and comfort you — but she wouldn’t. this would cause you to overthink and get upset. you were frightened from the experience and just wanted her to tell you it was okay but she was withholding.

• she had to freeze you out for a little while, because she didn’t know what to say to you. she was so furious that you’d ever put her life over your own, feeling like she had failed as your protector when you’d ended up getting hurt. she come to realise she was actually more mad at herself, and she needed to cool off so that she could be there for you.

• she’d finally come to see you, curled up on your mattress clutching your arm napping. you were asleep, but your face was still slightly scrunched into a downturned pout that made her heart sink in guilt. you stir when she sits beside you, placing her hand gently over yours.

• your eyes flutter open and widen a little bit to see her there and you push yourself to sit up, struggling a little with your painful arm - still slightly disoriented from sleep.

• “hey, woah. s’okay.” she helps you sit up. once you’re upright she sighs, taking a moment to look at you, taking in your guilty expression. she opens her mouth to speak but you beat her to it.

• “i’m sorry ellie. i messed it all up — you had it covered and i just got in the way and — and i know i make stupid decisions sometimes but i promise i never meant to make you mad i just—” her brows shot up as you rambled and she immediately shuffled closer, wracked with guilt as she placed her hand gently on your cheek, ducking her head to ensure you keep your teary eyes on hers. she said your name once and you stopped talking, confused.

• “i shouldn’t have yelled at you. fuck, i’m an asshole.” she sighed, hand gently snaking to the back of your neck to pull you into her so she could hold you. she was mindful of your arm, rubbing your back as you sniffled a few times.

• “i’m sorry, babe. i…you didn’t deserve that. i was trying to keep you safe and i fucked it up. you were really brave.” she rested her chin on top of your head, brows pinched as she stared at the wall.

• “please don’t be mad anymore.” you whimpered quietly into her and her shoulders dropped a little in distraught, knowing that her anger had frightened you slightly.

• “i’m not mad. you just scared the shit out’a me. that’s why i yelled.” she explained and you pulled back to look at her. she wiped your tears away, cursing herself for making them fall from your adorable doe eyes. “you wanna let me take a look at that arm?”

WHEN YOU’RE MAD AT HER:

• it’s so hard to stay mad at ellie.

• she just has this way about her. this charm, this persuasiveness that always gets you to understand where she’s coming from in the end.

• she often tried to keep you out of all her personal grievances, she didn’t want to bring that negativity to your relationship and she knew you worried about her — so when she snuck out in the night to go on some wild kill spree over a disagreement, yeah you were pissed.

• it was the next day and you were grabbing a tin of food to make something to eat when she came up behind you, wrapping her arms around your waist.

• “go away.” you deadpanned and she sighed rather dramatically, eyes rolling to the back of her skull.

• “babe, you don’t understand.” she began, and that’s what bothered you. it was one thing she kept all this shit hidden from you, but another that she tells you that you wouldn’t get it — like you’re some kind of air head who isn’t complex enough to understand why she does the things she does.

• “i would. and i do. i don’t quite know what makes you think it’s okay to sneak off in the night to do that kind of thing— seriously ellie, imagine if it was me who did that. you’d be livid.” you snapped, putting your anger into the can-opener you used to bust the lid of the tin.

• “i know, i know.” she sounded a little defeated, running a hand over her face. you didn’t wanna look at her right now, not because you were mad — but because she was wearing your favourite outfit of hers and you knew she looked good. “fuck.” she sighed.

• you kept your back turned to her, scooping out the tinned ravioli and placing it into a bowl. “i’m sorry, baby. yeah, i was gonna fuck ‘em up anyway but i could’ve let you know. i’m sorry.” she complained and you said nothing, continuing to stir the food. she was making it hard to hold a grudge.

• “whatever.” you eventually said, trying to play tough and she tipped her head up to the ceiling in frustration.

• “what do you want me to do, huh? get down on my knees?” she begged and you heard her shuffling behind you. you turned around to see her right in front of you, jeans collecting dirt on the ground at the knees as she was knelt before you. she grinned, and you physically couldn’t help the small smile you displayed at her being so ridiculous.

• she took this as a sign to put her hands on your hips, fingers grazing your skin beneath where your tshirt ended. “c’mon.” she practically purred, voice smooth as honey as she kissed just above where your denim shorts started. “ellie.” you rolled your eyes but let a giggle slip out, and she knew she was getting to you.

• she fiddled with the button on your shorts, looking up at you with a playful smirk as she undid it and unzipped them, pulling your shorts down your hips ever so slightly so she could kiss above the waistband of your underwear and across where your hipbones are. “bet i could make you forgive me. c’mon.” she repeated, voice dragged down to a raspy, low drawl and you let out a shaky sigh, widening your stance slightly as she pulled your shorts down your legs. “ellie.” you repeated, but this time in the form of a quiet moan.

• she pressed her mouth to your mound through your panties, letting her tongue soak the material where your slit was and widening her mouth to mouth at where your clit would be making you grip the table behind you, almost knocking over your ravioli as you let out a whispered whine.

• “this is— mmph— not over.” you whimpered and she smirked against you, standing up slowly to kiss you, letting her tongue slide into your mouth as her fingers pushed into your panties, rubbing around your wetness. “uuuh-huh.” she smiled against you, knowing she had won this time.

ok bye idk how it got there

[euovennia]

I am yet again requesting headcanons for the 141 (or whoever you want <3) with a reader who has an angry resting face. And to add onto that, they are very expressive with their love but it comes off as aggressive (not on purpose) because they always look, you know, mad. Like when reader says "I love you," it sounds like a threat and really, they look like they wanna kill them, but they don’t.

whew, i'm so sorry for the wait on this! i took a small break from tumblr so i could focus on finishing some assignments i had for my classes, but they're all completed and turned in so i should be good for now! also i wasn't 100% sure if you wanted this to be platonic or romantic, so i tried to write it to where it could be interpreted as both. thank you for requesting and, as always, i hope you enjoy :)

warnings: none other than the fact that i don't know how to stop myself from typing more than i need to

summary: the 141 learns to adjust to life with their newest recruit; you.

john 'soap' mactavish

when price first introduces you to the group, he can't help but feel like he's done something wrong

and honestly no one can really blame him for feeling that way

the expression that paints your face when you make eye contact with him practically screams, "sleep with one eye open"

and while it is mildly terrifying, he only sees it as a challenge

because in his mind, if he can get the mighty ghost to warm up to him, he can get anyone to warm up to him

so as soon as price cuts you loose from the brief introductions, he's already right by your side pestering you with various questions

and while it was a bit off-putting, you weren't really surprised because price had already told you all about soap before he decided he wanted you on his team

so you just kinda stood there and let him fire off his questions while answering them with that angry expression and bored monotone voice that he can't help but love

like you're standing there, arms crossed with perhaps one of the most pissed off expressions he's ever seen in his life but all his mind can think is >:(

needless to say, he doesn't take your prickly exterior too seriously and it's because of this he's able to get closer to you a lot quicker than the other members do

and it's because of this he tends to vouch for you a lot more to the other members when it comes to getting to know you

"they're not that bad, i swear!"

"johnny, they look like they wanna rip your arm off every time you're near them."

"but they don't, that's the funny part!"

best believe this man is fighting for his life whenever your rbf gets brought into the conversation

and i imagine that one day you actually manage to overhear one of these little debates/conversations (tbh they could go either way with how divided they can be over it, especially when it's gaz vs soap)

and you can't just ignore the way your heart warms as you hear soap valiantly defend your honor

it's one of the few times you're genuinely thankful for his big mouth

after listening in to the conversation for a few more minutes you eventually decide to walk away, heart full and the smallest of smiles pulling at the edge of your lips

i think it goes without saying that you go a little sweet on him after that encounter

well

as sweet as you can go when you're the human embodiment of >:(

at least in the opinion of soap

you don't really see the resemblance tbh

anyway

you start doing little things for him

things like offering to take watch for him when you're both on a mission because you noticed that he hadn't really bothered getting any rest

sitting by his side and letting him ramble on about his family, especially how he always begged his parents to let him stay with his nan over the summer because she owned a little family farm that he absolutely loved to run around on

and even the time you learned how to make scotch pie using his mom's recipe he had tucked away in his room

no matter how much he may deny it, that last one had him tearing up as soon as he took a bite

but honestly, can you blame him?

the man barely gets to visit his parents back home because of his work and it crushes him

honestly, it was probably one of the first few things he confided in you when you first started talking

so naturally when price announces that the 141 has been approved for a two week leave, you don't hesitate in logging onto the computer and buying him the first tickets back to scotland

what you do hesitate with is actually giving them to him

so you decide to gloss over that part completely and instead opt for shoving the tickets inside an plain envelope with his name scribbled on the front and a small note that simply reads, "go." before sliding it under his door the night before everyone is scheduled to depart from base

the moment soap gets his hands on those tickets he can't help the way he runs through the halls and bursts into your room to give you the biggest hug you've ever had in your life

unfortunately for you both, you'd already left base by the time he discovered the tickets

and so with a heavy heart, soap makes his way back to his room before packing his bags with a new vigor

the plane leaves in six hours, but he's so excited he can't help but want to arrive early

needless to say those are probably the best two weeks of his life

and while the others are interested in hearing all about his trip, he simply brushes them off in favor watching the door so he can be there for the exact moment you walk in

and after making him wait more than what he felt was necessary, you finally walk in

and this man

the way he shoots up from his seat and runs over to hug you

it's almost enough to send you both flying to the ground

but luckily you've got some stellar balance and manage to save yourselves from being teased by the rest of the team

but with the way soap is squeezing onto you while repeatedly whispering, "thank you," into the nape of your neck, you don't doubt they'll make fun of you for that

even with the mild embarrassment you feel, you simply wrap your arms around the scottish man and offer him a few pats on the back

and as sweet as it is for the other men to witness such a tender scene, they can't help but notice how upset you look

it's almost laughable

and as much as they want to step in and tell soap to back off, they can't help but notice the way you cling onto soap with that soft look in your eyes

so they remain quiet as you and soap hang onto each other, hearts full of warmth

kyle 'gaz' garrick

i'm gonna say it now

out of anyone in the 141, he was probably the one most intimidated by you

he's the youngest out of everyone and so it stands that, naturally, he has less experience than others

it's for this reason i think he's so keen on staying close to price

i mean the man practically plucked him off the streets and said, "you're mine now," so i think it's reasonable that gaz grows a tad more attached to price than the other members

so when he catches a few glimpses of you around base barking orders at the recruits and slamming them into the mats during sparring sessions, he's not exactly dying to meet you

even so, he finds he's not too worried about the possibility

with how often the 141 departs base to go on various missions and how you always seem to be too caught up in whatever you're doing at the time to be bothered to even glance his way, he eventually comes to the conclusion that you'll never meet

until one day price strolls into the common area where he and the rest of the team are minding their own business with you trailing right beside him looking aggravated as ever

he's already a bit uneasy with the fact you now know where the team goes to relax, but that unease slowly shifts to downright horror when price reveals that you're the newest member of the team

now gaz is usually a pretty easygoing and friendly guy so any chance to meet and bond with new people is always bound to be a good time in his book

but he can't help the shiver that crawls up his spine whenever you're around

seriously, who or what made you look so pissed off all the time?

anyway

because he's so hesitant of being around you, he tries his hardest not to bother you

which basically means he tries not to be in the same room as you

and while you may not really notice or care, the rest of the team certainly does

especially price

he's the type of man who prides himself on having a team that knows they can all rely on one another on and off the field and so he'll be damned if you and gaz are the ones to ruin his little streak

so guess who gets assigned to accompany you and the recruits on your morning workouts from now on?

gaz!

and while he's not necessarily thrilled about the idea of being forced into such close proximity to you, especially first thing in the morning, he respects price enough to not question his decision and just ends up going along with it

and at first he doesn't really pay you much attention in an effort to not do anything to accidentally make you even more upset than he already assumes you are

but then he starts to notice something

he notices the way the recruits light up whenever they see you, whether it be during the morning workout sessions or when you're walking around base

and it baffles him because you just look so upset, he can't possibly imagine why they're all so keen on sending you wide smiles or enthusiastic waves

but one day he looks just a little bit closer and he can see the faintest hint of amusement on your face as your lips showcase the ghost of a smile

that's when he really starts to pay attention

and suddenly he can't help but feel a little ashamed of himself

because now he can practically feel his heart melt every time you interact with the recruits

like how you would bring extra ice-cold water bottles to the morning workouts for the recruits who'd forget to bring their own

or the way you wouldn't hesitate to slide them some money if they mentioned being hungry while you were around

and especially how you don't hesitate to lend an ear for them if they seemed to be troubled by something

it's in those few little moments that he can see just the tiniest cracks through your annoyed expression and heated glares

you're not angry at all, he decides, just real shit at expressing yourself

and upon deciding this, he realizes you're not so scary anymore

so now instead of avoiding you like the plague, he actively seeks you out

at first it's to help you out with carrying the extra water bottles for the recruits in the morning and planning the workouts for the week

but then it turns into him asking to sit with you at the mess hall over dinner and keeping each other company in the commons area

and as much as he tries not to, he can't help the giddiness that floods his body when you start to show him that aggressive love he sees you dish out to the recruits

shoving snacks into his hands when you notice he hasn't eaten in a while

quietly sitting with him while he goes through paperwork because you both know he has a tendency to get distracted

and his personal favorite, draping your jacket over him when you walk in on him sleeping anywhere that isn't his room

he always wakes up with a smile tugging on his lips

and despite how cold and distant you may look while doing these things, he doesn't give it much attention anymore

not when he can see the love and care that's reflected in your eyes

simon 'ghost' riley

despite you and ghost having similar exteriors, it becomes more and more apparent to gaz and soap that you're actually quite different

which isn't a bad thing, of course! just a bit unexpected

but it's because of this striking difference that you and simon tend to keep a majority of your interactions on the field

and you both are more than happy to keep it this way

gaz and soap however, are not

so naturally they put together a plan; a plan that consists of soap giving you his most treasured tactical pen so you can use it to write away in that little journal of yours on the ride back from missions just so he can later "confront" ghost and admonish him for stealing said pen

and during all this, gaz simply remains on the sidelines just looking pretty

anyway

after laying into simon for a good ten minutes, soap walks away from the encounter with a small smile before walking up to gaz and saying something like, "now we wait"

and they do wait

patiently

but after a full two weeks pass by and neither gaz or soap can find any evidence of their so called "master plan" working, they can't help but feel a little discouraged

unbeknownst to them, it totally worked

just not in the way they envisioned

you see, by the time soap came up to simon to lecture him about stealing his pen, ghost had already come to notice you scribbling into your notebook with it

so once soap had finally decided to leave him alone, he immediately confronted you about framing him for such a crime

but you just kinda stare up at him with that annoyed look of yours before revealing soap had willingly given it to you

and things just kinda click into place for the two of you; soap wanted to get you talking

and while you and simon had to admit it wasn't a bad plan, you didn't want to give the scotsman the satisfaction of knowing it had actually worked

so whenever you and simon find yourselves in the company of the rest of the team, you decide to remain distant

but when it's just the two of you?

you're straight chilling

especially when you visit him in his room or vice versa

like just imagine the two of you drinking tea that simon was nice enough to make and watching war movies while bashing all the inaccuracies and bad calls the characters make

or when the two of you are out and about on base free from the prying eyes of gaz and soap because they're out doing their own thing

you and simon love finding random groups of rowdy soldiers just to intimidate them

i don't know about you, but i can definitely see simon just standing there with his arms crossed and eyes narrowed while you rest your hands on your hips with your lips pulled into a frown

price definitely gets complaints about the two of you

he does nothing about them

and for a while that's pretty much the gist of how you and simon spend your time together

but i like to imagine that after a particularly rough mission, simon would seek you out just to sit with you

and i can see him as a stress smoker so when he finally does manage to find you and take a seat beside you, you slide him a pack of cigarettes and a lighter

he doesn't ask how you know his cigarette preference, but instead gives you a small nod of approval before pulling up his mask over lips and taking a drag

and that's how you spend your night

just sitting beside each other as you watch the evening sky gradually begin to fill with stars

i think it would depend on how bad the mission went in order to determine exactly how long the two of you stay sitting under the stars, but it doesn't matter because it'll end the same way; you reaching over and giving simon's hand a quick squeeze with a small, "get some sleep, simon. you need it," before you walk away

and he finds himself confused to two reasons

reason one: why did you grab his hand why did he like it?

reason two: how can you say such sweet words but still look so mad?

as much as he wants to play that moment over in his head just to make sure he was remembering things right, he decides against it in favor of heeding your words and getting some sleep

but it's after that moment he can't help but notice how your mannerisms have changed

not only are your words of reassurance more apparent than before, he's also noticed you have a tendency to give his hand/shoulder a reassuring squeeze every now and then

he can't help the small smile that threatens to pull at his lips when you do

but he also can't help but notice how distant and reserved your face looks when you do all of these things

he doesn't really mind it though

but he eventually does bring it up to you one day

it's probably after he tells you one of his god awful dad jokes

like he'll look over at you and notice your sour expression and say something like, "don't look so pissed, they're not that bad."

and you'll respond with a tilt of your head as you tell him, "i'm not pissed. i like your jokes."

then he'll nudge your shoulder before telling you, "with that face? coulda fooled me."

and you'll roll your eyes in faux annoyance as you brush him off with a simple, "that's just my face."

and then he'll look down at you, thankful for his mask so you can't see the small smile making its way onto his face

he might even say something dumb and cheesy like, "i know. i like it."

and you give him one of your rare smiles

and i could end it there and say the two of you are bffs

or i could sprinkle in something about soap running up on the two of you chanting, "my plan worked, my plan worked!"

that's for you to decide

[absolutelynotsanebaby]

Hey in you villian au I had a few questions about Kai if you don't mind.

First you talked about kai and him being a cult leader, whats the gist of that, something similar to chen? A death cult, a fire worshiping soceity, a volcano conclave?

And secondly, whats his relationship with his sister, ambivilance, getting along in the 'Oh lets go on a pilaging and raid together thats sounds like top tier sibling fun' sort of way or a bipolar could be fun or could be fatal depending on the way the wind blows kinda way?

Finaly (and sorry for being long winded) you talked about his main thread / power came from societal manipulations, is this more cloak and dagers or populism / manipulation, the steel in the dark vs the gilded spider web so to speak?

PS fun au, realy cool designs my favourts are probaly kai pixal and jay, all just fab :)

Disclaimer: long ass ramble about my Villain AU.

so many questions today, not that I'm complaining! I love to talk about my aus. Kai's an interesting one too.

Kai's cult doesn't actually have a big base or anything, at least not in it's fully developed form. It's not ironed out but, I have the thought that the basis is that by joining the cult, you protect yourself from the end of the world snake of fire (definitely not it's actual name lol). By joining, you get into it's good graces, it won't eat you when it returns to Ninjago. By worshiping Kai, who presents himself kind of like a human-form of the snake, you fully ensure your safety. It's a complete lie of course but by the time the AU officially starts, it been over 200 years since canon, so it's had a long time to marinate. That's another thing, because of that time span the cult is huge. Functions more like a society than a small-time cult. Whole generations of families have been born into the cult, it's really soaked into the population. One thing I like to think about how you could walk into a random, harmless looking town and be completely unaware it's cult territory. That everyone in it is a member. I like to call them snake-dens (also what they're called in story).

(also note: since you mentioned Chen, Kai's cult does actually have similar snake imagery if that isn't clear lol.)

As for Nya, well, that's kind of complicated. See, Nya isn't a villain in the same way Kai is. Most of the art I've posted about her have been of her post-reformation design. Essentially within the two centuries since sea-bound, she'd developed into a sea monster. More akin to a destructive force of nature than a traditional villain like Kai. A lot of her destructive stemmed from anger, people abusing and polluting the ocean. Namely, Zane's kingdom would throw a lot of oil, trash, and broken/old tech into the ocean before an event where Sea-Nya had thrown it all back over the walls of the kingdom down onto it through a huge wave (hugely destructive, had a death count, just plain disgusting). Sorry for the ramble about her but I thought some context would be important lol.

So, Kai and Nya didn't actually talk like at all during those two centuries. Pre-seabound but post ToE their relationship was -- very bad. Nya was very, very angry at Kai for leaving them behind and becoming so awful. They never resolved that before Seabound. Kai felt guilt about that, what happened to her and that he never went to fight for hr or save her. But he never changed, so how bad he really felt is -- up to interpretation. it's a big part of why he and Jay fight/fought so much. After Nya had returned to (mostly) human, their relationship is interesting. Nya kind of hates him but it's -- muted. She can't stand the person he's become, how he threw everything away and never changed. That he had a real choice when she didn't and he used it to be -- a violent, cruel cult leader. When he comes around, she doesn't tell him to go away. She thinks he's pathetic. Kai wants his sister back, but he's not willing to change. They're complicated.

I'm going to say it's a 'gilded web' type thing but it also is very shady. He has a lot of connections and is just a plain focal point within the underground crime scene (or overground because this ninjago is really fucked up and dangerous lol, the entire land. ninjago city itself is completely gone). For instance, in Zane's kingdom, up in the ranks an advisors runs a smuggling operation for citizens to 'escape' (before Zane was de-overlorded anyways, after that he opens up the borders). Only about 50% of the time would those citizens actually get out of the city, the other 50% of the time they'd be sold to someone/somewhere or killed. Kai's allies with them (I haven't figured out exactly who that is yet lol). Another ally is Wen Xia (oc talk sorry) who's just a general power. Usually runs a fighting ring(s) but does a bunch of other stuff. Very dangerous and very rich. Kai just has a lot of connections and a strangle-hold on a lot of ninjago. MAN this got LONG. thank you for the questions I love the chance to info dump, haha!

(and TY!! Jay's one of my favorite designs too)

[crimeboys]

It wasnt mourninglamby :( but honestly mourninglamby doesnt know what they’re talking about so if they have the same opinions it doesnt even matter what they think tbh……. I just wish I was better at showing them evidence you know? I keep talking about the yes very selfish love cwilbur has for ctommy was still love for ctommy and there aint no way the mental turmoil cdream caused ctommy is worse than cwilbur being mentally ill and a bad role model… they called cwilbur a groomer ffs???? I wish I could tell them that’s wrong without losing again due to my lack of evidence because they can just shut it down by calling my interpretations of crimeboys fanon……. I’m honestly just rambling sorry cyrus

my bad that may have been my own personal demons... although it does make me desolate to know more people share this take. but im not exactly unfamiliar with media illiteracy in this fandom.

but tbh it's like fine you dont have to debate people online about their interpretations of characters i personally love to block and stew (and occasionally lose my cool or swagever) and write private metas bc well im not a super articulate person so i hate posting them online. but yeah listen if you see people making dumbass takes that are wildly insane such as c!wilbur groomed tommy, you never have to like. debate that person bc frankly they've gone to a level of reading into shit that you are probably not going to be able to unravel. write your own meta or complain to your friends. i personally do the second one bc i hate writing. but i can attempt a little bit.

cwilbur is a complicated man who a lot of people like to make simple, be that in a negative or positive way. there are far extremes of both interpretations of the character and they both drive me insane. he is a character who requires a lot of criticism and a lot of compassion, otherwise he gets lost in the extremes of "terrorist monster who wants to hurt everyone" or "big brother who wuvs his little brother and would never do anything to hurt him".

cdream is also a complex character but he has a simple goal. power. whether that power come from land or disc or a teenager all on his own, his goal is to be on top. things take an obvious shift from just being obsessed with power to being obsessed with having power over tommy, which dream has always had to some degree but that's bc he fixated on tommy's "troublemaking" ruining the server in the beginning. exile is where he began to just Enjoy fucking with tommy and lets himself want power over tommy for the sake of having power over tommy, nothing to do with control of the server.

both of them meant to hurt tommy. i dont disagree with the notion that wilbur was abusive toward tommy. i just think there is a very clear difference in the way wilbur treated him vs. the way dream treated him. specifically i think situationally, it is very clear that wilbur was in a godawful place when he started treating tommy and everyone else terribly. i think the notion that his abuse started before pogtopia is bullshit and an incredibly dumb read of the characters. wilbur was not secretly fucking evil during l'manburg. he was an asshole often because wilbur's an asshole (but so is tommy, which people who dont actually like his character but adore the fanon version of it like to ignore), but he didn't create l'manburg just to destroy it. he didn't created l'manburg just to hurt tommy and everyone he loves. he made a home for them and when that home was taken, he had a really fucking bad reaction to it.

there is no question that wilbur during this time period hurt the people he loves. but i also think acting like every single thing he did during this period of time was malicious is fucking strange. there is a very clear, obvious fucking steady decline from the moment eret betrays them in the final control room, to wilbur and tommy being exiled from the home they built together for each other, to wilbur and tommy trying to get their nation back, to wilbur watching schlatt onstage and realizing (thinking) he never can in a way that matters, to wilbur becoming a shaken up bottle of paranoia set to explode the second someone opens it. even the fucking pit, which was shitty and gross and makes me yell at the screen every time i watch it, had a cause and effect. wilbur who genuinely thinks technoblade is on their side and trusts not to kill tubbo, to running back to pogtopia and indignant about techno trying to come back, to realizing this reinforces his paranoia and that he was right all along isn't that amazing tommy he was right they can't trust anyone, to putting tommy and techno in the pit.

this isn't the most indepth bc well like i said i don't write meta. but i think my point is clear that overall, there is a very clear difference between isolating and hurting someone literally for fucking fun vs. being isolated by the country you built and having a paranoid episode that your brother is in the front lines for that irrevocably changes both of you.

i think not liking cwilbur is fair enough, he has done undeniably shit things and hurt a lot of people without really making up for it, but i think refusing to engage with his character outside of the surface level is incredibly annoying, especially when you refuse to do that but include your own personal hcs and pretend they're honest interpretations of what you actually watched instead of separate characters you invented in your head.

dsmp might be a mess and people might think they "did more heavy lifting than the creators" but at the end of the day, they gave us very clear groundwork and tons of content and i don't think any of the lifting we have done is actually all that revolutionary to the characters outside of like. fanart. usually the people who do aren't writing the characters anymore. or maybe it's their first fandom and they don't realize it's very normal to have a bunch of hcs and character reworkings. but that's a little off topic.

anyway i could ramble about all this forever so i'm gonna go before i'm too mean and late to work byeee.

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Mario Land

Debut: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

So I was lying awake in bed, thinking. What is up with Mario Land? Everyone knows that the setting of the first Super Mario Land game is Sarasaland. Nintendo loves to vaguely allude to it in character descriptions for Princess Daisy! But where does Super Mario Land 2 take place? Well, it’s in Mario Land, of course! Now, Super Mario Land does not take place in Mario Land. It takes place in a Land, in which Mario is a participant, but he doesn’t own the Land, just as he doesn’t own the World or the Galaxy. But he does own Mario Land!

Nothing is really clear about how Mario came to own Mario Land. Nintendo Power once described it as his ‘kingdom’, while the Wiki describes it as Mario’s ‘private island’. Lots of people immediately remark on how odd it is that Mario owns a castle in this game, and they’re right! It is odd! We don’t think of Mario as an avaricious man. He is a humble, working class individual. He lives in a cottage with his brother despite being a world-renowned hero. Except here, where he owns an entire landmass, with a castle! My personal canon, in my head, was that Peach or someone else gifted him with a large chunk of land and a castle as a reward for his heroic deeds. It seems the most likely, given what we know about Mario! But why couldn’t he settle for a vacation home, or anything of the sort? Why are we placing the responsibility of land ownership on such a modest soul? 

I think what is the strangest thing about Mario Land, to me, is that despite being Mario’s Land, it is so devoid of allies. Mario Land is vast and untamed, a collection of wacky themed zones filled with creatures entirely hostile to Mario! There are no maids or servants from Mario’s Castle, who fled Wario’s invasion. There are no Toads or Toad houses to aid Mario in his quest. Mario is entirely alone in a Land that bears his name, but his name only. Once his only symbol of power, his castle, is gone, Mario is back where he began, all alone in this foreign land. All the material goods in the world could not fill the void of - wait I’m sorry I completely forgot a key detail of Mario Land 2’s plot is that Wario put all of Mario Land’s inhabitants under a spell! False alarm everyone!

Everyone in Mario Land is actually Super Nice actually and was just brainwashed by Wario, who has the power of dark magic. The Big Bird from Tree Zone and the Octopus from Turtle Zone, and also Spikey, they all love Mario and see him as their king. I was gonna say the Witch too, but it seems the witch was Wario’s friend. Or are they Wario’s minions? If so, where are the inhabitants of Mario Land? Are they in hiding? We never see them! Who does Mario rule over? Is Spikey a wild animal? A brainwashed citizen of Mario’s country? Or an ally of the wicked and greedy Wario?

And of course, we have to discuss the matter of the Mario Zone. Mario was not content with having a Land, he needed to have a Zone in that Land, which is also Mario! It is actually one big Mario, a mechanical automaton built in his likeness. Mario has always expressed an interest in making toys of himself, as we see in the Mario Vs. Donkey Kong series, so it stands to reason that his major construction project would be just that, but bigger! 

Or maybe the Mario Zone always existed, before Mario came to Mario Land. Maybe it’s named Mario Land because one of its most famous natural formations is a giant wind-up toy that looks like Mario! And Mario’s Castle is named that by coincidence. I don’t know! I don’t have answers to any questions, ever! I literally don’t know anything! I’m going to bed!

Just kidding! I’m not going to bed. This post is a bit, um... rambly. But I thought it would be a shame to conclude it without appreciating how whimsical Mario Land is as a whole! There is a giant pumpkin with haunted woods inside it! There is a hippo that takes you to space! There is a turtle that swallows you and takes you underwater to a whale! There is a house that is just kind of a normal house but forces you to be really small to enter it! But I probably don’t need to tell you all that! It’s kind of what makes SML2 so wonderful! 

Would YOU live in Mario land? Would you want a monarchy as long as Super Mario is your benevolent ruler? What do you think of the giant turtle? Please let us know what you think of the giant turtle in the comments below. I don’t know. 

[alciedoodles]

hi!! i saw your other post about how you simplify details and it was really helpful - was wondering if you had any tips abt drawing expressions/poses to express a story/emotions. like i saw your recent sumeru char doodles on twt and the way you draw alhaitham and hungover kaveh is so!!! ahh!! all of the lines feel really intentional, from the expressions to the fabric of the clothing and omg i love it so much. anyways sorry for rambling HAHA thank you sm for sharing your art! gl w art school 💪

Hello!

Thank you so much for the lovely words <3 it's really such a honor to hear that so many people consider my art to be very expressive, which I think is an essential skill to have for storytelling in comics!

First of all, I'd like to say this isn't something I can easily answer... you must already know there's no easy step-by-step guide on how to be "good" at art or expressions or whichever aspect you're trying to improve, the answer will always be observation and practice. However, I can tell you some of my methods I use to make sure emotions are conveyed as efficiently as possible(?). Here are the key points I always try to apply (note that these aren't rules, these are just my guiding points):

Understanding the character(s), the context, and how the two work together

Laying down a foundation

Not letting dialogue be the main driving force behind storytelling

Paneling conveys emotion too, actually

The absence of something can also convey emotion

You didn't specifically ask about comics, but since it's my favorite subject and it ties into your question, I'll be using a lot of examples from the comics I made! And it might interest other people who were curious?

VERY long post ahead :)

1. Understanding the character(s), the context, and how the two work together

This is what I think is the most fundamental part of storytelling! I mean, makes sense, right? Obviously you don't need a PhD in The Character to make stories based off them. I literally cannot tell you every detail about my favorite characters despite loving them very much, but I think understanding them and their relationships on a big-picture level is primordial. What drives them, what are their principles, what are their biggest fears, who do they make exceptions for, etc. Also, to me, understanding their relationships is sometimes more important than understanding the character at a molecular level. We can tell so much about someone just from the way they interact with specific people vs how they interact with strangers. The person I am online isn't the same I am with friends nor even with family-- like one of the reasons some characters can feel one-dimensional is because they don't show variation in their character throughout their relationships (and since you mentioned Kaveh and Alhaitham, I don't need to tell you the way both of them interact with each other is far removed from the way they interact with friends, strangers, etc... I think a lot of people forget who they are outside of their relationship, which a huge point of contention behind mischaracterization in fan works). I don't have much to say about this other than this is something I keep in mind every step of the way through.

2. Laying down a foundation

This is what the majority of my comics look like on second draft:

I said second because the first drafts usually look like this, which are barely comprehensible to anyone but myself:

The purpose of these are not only to give me a better guide for posing than whatever i did on the first draft (storyboard), but also have a first pass at motion and emotion. The expressions and gestures are legible enough that you can probably glean the emotions of each character based off the little sketches. Ultimately, some of the things I'll draft will end up adjusted, changed, expanded on or even removed.

This particular panel of Reigen is a favorite of mine, because the first pass already shows his confusion, but the final one is even more distorted because it felt like it needed to be even more accentuated.

This panel where he mansplains is also a good example, because the first pass gave him too much of an arrogant/uninterested look (notable with his upturned face), whereas Reigen is more likely to take pride in explaining something he knows to make himself look like a wise and mature figure (notable with his slight smirk and downturned face, as if nodding to himself; the hand is also slightly more forward as if inviting rather than dismissing). And since I basically made an example of it above: body language is super important! This applies for everyone. It doesn't stop at characters who make grand gestures and exaggerated poses every waking moment of their life, but also characters who are socially awkward, private, reclusive...

The posing here is intentionally stiff but not entirely closed off, giving the sense that he's earnest, tries his best to make connections , but also doesn't want to take too much space, thinking the smallest wrong move could cause trouble. Also, give room for the body to do its thing. Avoid cropping out things that shouldn't be cropped out. Leave enough room between the edges of the panel and the point of focus to emphasize what you want to emphasize. Close-up shots shouldn't be too frequent (in fact, personally I don't like doing close-up shots but it doesn't mean they're bad or shouldn't be done, again, my word isn't gospel!), especially if what you're conveying isn't too emotionally charged. Lastly, I have terrible news for people who hate drawing hands. Hands are possibly the second most expressive part of our body (if we don't count the body as a whole), so especially for your charismatic characters, you will very often want to use hands as a tool of expression.

(Think how much emotion and personality would be lost if the hands weren't there!)

3. Not letting dialogue be the main driving force behind storytelling

With my comics, I play an incredibly dangerous game called "I'll think of dialogue as I make the storyboard and then when I'm done drawing every page I'll write the dialogue over it guided solely by memory and whatever I drew". Don't do this. Have a script in hand or write it at the same time as you draft your storyboard. The reason I do this is because I'm lazy and I don't want to open a simple writing software to type down a script. Genuinely I have no other reasons. Anyway, the only advantage this gives to my comics is that they will generally be able to stand on their own without much dialogue; obviously dialogue is essential, but what I mean is that we don't need it to have a pretty accurate read on the room.

For example, if I remove all the dialogue from this page, you probably can't guess exactly what's being discussed. However, you can identify through their emotions alone that there is disbelief, bargaining, and finally a pretty devastating info was dropped. Alternatively, cutting down dialogue from your page and leaving room to expressions/body language alone can be entirely more beneficial than having any dialogue to begin with.

AKA Readers aren't stupid (some may be, but the majority can extrapolate just fine). You'll realize how much you don't need words and how your stories can be even more funny/impactful by pushing forward visual storytelling.

4. Paneling conveys emotion too, actually

Being a "good" artist isn't enough to make good comics. The way you panel things is extremely important, because it sets the tone, mood, pace, you name it. Some of the best works out there are the ones with the most care put into the flow of the comic. You need to understand how people will read it, and it starts with what order you deliver the information and how. This is paneling 101, but a page with irregularly shaped panels, multiple changing camera angles and such will be exponentially more dynamic than a page where each panel is the same size, have similar compositions and/or repetitions with little to no diagonal or curved lines of action.

The two examples above are WIPs from 2 different stories so unfortunately you'll have to make do with the rough sketches. That being said, you don't need to know the context of either pages to know the kind of emotion that should be felt through the paneling alone. Give time for the important emotions to be processed by the reader (unless it's intentionally fast-paced). Every emotion that needs to be emphasized should have its own panel.

In this example, I could easily have condensed these two panels into one by transferring the dialogue from the second into the first and jumping on to the next action. However, it would undeniably give much less impact to Kaveh's disbelief. On an inverse situation, sometimes you will want to condense two panels you made into one, because whatever those two panels are doing are perhaps not important enough to deserve separate panels! Lastly, you can notice that the space on the page is not always filled. Leaving space between each panel and/or between the edges of the page gives room for the reader to breathe and slows down the flow; and inversely, if you want to make the situation more frantic, make everything look more tight and constricted.

5. Not showing facial expressions sometimes conveys more emotion than doing so

This ties nicely to the point I made about body language. You don't need to see a character's face to know what they're going through, necessarily. Sometimes, their posture or their dialogue is enough. In my opinion, a story is more compelling when this equilibrium of facial expressions / body language / paneling / dialogue is correctly adjusted-- you will not need to have all the elements to convey the message or it could be a little overbearing. I don't have many examples for this one because they tend to be more relevant in dramatic scenarios, which I haven't done that many of.

(The first one is once again from a WIP)

And that's about it for my insane guide on comic-ing. I hope ANY of it made sense.

***

Here's a round up of extra tips, focused entirely on the drawing part which might be more of what you asked to begin with :'D

- That little line/wrinkle that adds so much character

Yall know what I'm talking about. In my opinion, too many artists are afraid of giving laugh lines/wrinkles because it makes their characters look older, except when it's to add those sexy sexy eyebags. I'm encouraging everyone to add them to their art little by little and see how much it can improve the expressiveness! Obviously, I don't use it everywhere, but it's a very effective way to make your expressions feel even more... well. expressive.

- Line of action

You've probably seen this picture going around before, from Preston Blair:

Although it's called line of action which implies action, this line is important even when the character isn't really in action.

You can gain a lot in expressiveness when you think of the body as one whole fluid instead of a sum of multiple disjointed parts. This is why drawing a very rough base comprised of only lines and circles can help figure out if the posing works before you start refining it.

On a different note, animation principles work very much in comics as well! I recommend looking up animation guides especially those that show how to make key poses.

- Shadows and/or color fill

This is one I will use quite often for different situations.

Shadows can immediately set a tone when they're used dramatically. For example, a shadow over a character's face can convey unease and/or evil intent.

On the other hand, I will use color fills for different purposes:

Differentiating ground layers

This can help with readability.

2. Conveying a certain mood

It can separate the character from the color of their background to give a sense of isolation, reflection, realization, being disconnected from their surroundings, etc...

- Don't be scared of using codes / tropes / archetypes

...As long as it benefits the narrative, of course. By codes / tropes / archetypes, I mean posing or expressions or visual effects that are universally understood and used for specific expressions. The semicircle sweatdrops and blush made with slashes are incredibly typical of manga/anime, but it doesn't mean they're bad! Visual effects are there to help remove the ambiguity of an expression considering a single expression without visual codes could convey multiple emotions!

- Find what inspires you and take notes!!!

In my case, what greatly shaped my art style to what it currently is: One Piece, the Ace Attorney series and Mob Psycho 100 (yes, I only watched the latter last year but it still managed to become a source of improvement/inspiration for my art even at my current level, because you'll never stop improving :) )

I hope this wasn't too long or too off-topic, and I hope it can also help other people who might be interested! Thank you for reading!

[wildpeachfarm]

Just saw a thumbnail for a commentary YouTuber commenting on the ‘dream vs Connor’ situation, and it was awful. The comments however seem to be proving that the greater internet is finally starting to see all these fake CCs for what they are, and also how horrid the treatment of Dream is. So I guess that’s nice, cause YouTube is where the core fanbase is for Dteam and seeing a majority of them on their side right now is amazing.

Irrelevant CCs continue to prove one thing. They’re irrelevant for a reason. Their entire content is based on shitting on someone els-which is fleeting, and adhering to a mob that will turn its back on them the second they make a mistake. And none of them can handle being in dreams shoes, cause they get just a teeniest taste and cave immediately.

They couldn’t make the drituation stick, and the gogcident seems to be more on George’s side now, everyone is airing out petty grievances against Dteam, and they’re all looking like fools. I could cry. We’ve waited for days like this. The Brighton bastards pissed off the commentary YouTubers, which is NOT something you want to do. I never thought I’d see the day. Twitter is still Twitter, but everywhere else is starting to realize things.

Caiti shot herself in the foot by taking this whole thing public, and her friends solidified the beginning of the end for her by doing what they did. George may have “lost” on Twitter, and some of his “friends” may have publicly turned on him, but her career is done. She lost her passion and outside of Twitter, no one really believes a word she says.

Who knew it’d take a misguided, reactionary 19 year old to catapult the general public opening their eyes to the vitriol Dteam has been facing for years? And her friends airing out their petty grievances was the nail in the coffin. I said continuously during my four years in this fandom that the tides will change for Dream, and people will be making exposés on how the internet treated him. I don’t think it’s quite that time yet, but we are getting close.

I feel for Caiti in the sense that losing your passion for something you once loved sucks. I’ve been there and it’s awful. But she brought it upon herself the second she removed her autonomy in the situation and didn’t even listen to George’s response. That is the bare minimum of what she should have done, and she didn’t, so she created her own end, albeit probably unintentionally.

To the anon doom posting about Sapnap leaving George, go back to Twitter or TikTok. That energy isn’t wanted here. If Sapnap and George didn’t leave Dream during the drituation, they’re not going to leave George when he makes a mistake. They’ve all clearly stated they love each other, and having known each other for over a decade, it would take a lot to lose a friendship that deep and with that kind of longevity. We were walking on eggshells for a bit, but that’s his brother. Take your doomposting elsewhere.

Sorry this is more of a ramble; had a lot to say and needed a place to go with it. Appreciate my morning tea, always.

One last thing.

It will never be Dteamover.

Proud dteamolo right here. (With the caveat of Sam cause he’s never wavered from those boys)

-L :)

always a pleasure to hear from you L!

And yeah I am surprised to hear that apparently youtube is taking Dream's side with the connor stuff (so far?) but I will take a win no nonetheless!

Crazy how much this has spiraled but at least people are giving dteam at least a TINY benefit of doubt now

[therabbitthatpostthings]

Okay let’s talk about Murder Drones Finale 😭😭😭

SPOILERS FOR EP 8! ALL OF IT. MURDER DRONES SPOILERS HERE

First off that opening was so cool. Brayden's still on fucking fire, the teacher is so over it. I love it.

Nuzi being Cringe!

THEY ARE SO FUCKING CRINGE YOUR HONOR I LOVE THEM! Uzi asked are they dating and he says "That was the plan!" I LOVE THEMMMMM OMGGGG! I can't get a good screenshot of it but they do wrap they tails together during the fall.

The Animation

I just- it's so fucking good. The red lights as the planet is destroyed. The way that the purple light of Uzi's Null reflects on Cyn's robotic and flesh parts. This is an episode you gotta watch frame by frame. I'm just gonna lump cinematography and shot choices in here too. Like the only way for everyone to truly understand what I'm talking about I NEED YOU TO WATCH THE EPISODE! Like it's well known that every episode is a reference to a horror movie, the Prom is Carrie, Cabin Fever is Friday the 13th, etc. I feel like we don't appreciate how scary this show actually is. The way shots are laid out and scenes are paced give off such unease. It's great I love it. I'm sorry but Uzi trying to put her own heart back in her chest AND save N who is being disemboweled is INSANE WORK. AND THE HANDS! THE HANDS!

AND THE EXPRESSIONS! YALL- FUCK- getting across so much emotion with robot characters is always my favorite thing to see.

And of course! Uzi, N, and V vs Cyn and J. I- it's just- y'all go watch this fight pls. This shot is so fucking beautiful...

J vs V

So J knew the whole time. Big Yikes. ALSO MY PRINCESS BABY GIRL IS ALIVE! God on J for living past the end credits but WOW- for Cyn to trick her... I wonder how much of that she really thought was Tessa.

Khan, Lizzy and Thad

I love this shot of Khan so much.

I still believe that the "secret friend" was Khan and/or Nori just because there is no reason for Lizzy to not tell Thad (also V texted her AFTER the planet exploded to let her know she's alive which she wouldn't need to do if she still thought Tessa was Tessa). It would be funny if it was all three. Nori was gonna get the cross to the surface and give it Lizzy to get to Khan. Khan asked Lizzy to find the hideout since she was hanging out with V in between Ep2 and 3 and then V texted her after the planet exploded to stall J. Honestly love that for Lizzy did the most and cared the least. Side note, the way Lizzy is so unbothered in the fight confirms to me that she is the homeroom teacher's daughter.

But yeah! I'm glad these three made it to the end and they didn't do the thing where Lizzy and Uzi become besties. I like Lizzy as V's friend more. Love love LOVE- Khan looking at Nori's core and saying "Kinda hot..?" Nice to know that the Doorman women have a type. And Thad. Sweet little prince Thad. Just a good dude.

Cyn (this whole part is rambly)

I've been very specific about referring to Absolute Solver as Cyn. I usually write "Absolute Solver/Cyn" when reffering to them. Cyn is dead though. Uzi burned up her core and ate the [null]. So for brevity, I'm just gonna call it/them Cyn.

Speaking of Cyn. I love Cyn. I don't think I talk about how much I love Cyn. I can't talk about Cyn without talking about her relationship to N, V, and J. N, V, Nori and Uzi all refer to Cyn as her. J refers to Cyn as it. Cause that's all it really is. Cyn was the host- someone who is long gone. Even when Uzi was taken over V was angry at Cyn: "Same horrors, huh Cyn?"

J on the other hands says: "It tricked me too." She's knows what the Solver is and sees it for what it is, a virus. We've seen from the memories that N and V (especially N) were a lot closer to Cyn than J who sided with Tessa and the Elliots. This distinction of calling Cyn shows that N and V can't or won't distinguish the two. This is someone they grew up and lived with. N is hesitant and scared cause that's who little sister vs V who is angry cause this is the creature that replaced Cyn. Remember V says "We do our job, and that thing leaves us alone." As far as V is concerned Cyn was always like this and she just wants to save her team, especially N. (As far as Uzi and Nori go, they've never known the Solver by any other name except Cyn so no need to change it. Absolute Solver is a mouthful compared to Cyn). My point it, it hurts seeing the person you love become a monster and even more to know that Cyn 1001 was never there. The only time we saw her was as that little scared Robot in the pile. They never really knew her and maybe there's hope that Cyn, their Cyn, is in there but she isn't. She never was, it's always been the Solver.

And because I have to mention it. In N's flashbacks after Cyn caves his chest open we see flashes of this happening at the mansion and V's body on the floor. Which was expected, we know Cyn made them but what I'm thinking is, Cyn DEFINITELY used N to kill Tessa.

ANYWAY- now I get to talk about how much I love this fucking little freak. She is so CREEPY! I love everything about Cyn. I love how she moves- how her movements are so creepy and fluid. Like all the animation is fluid but she moves extra-fluid. It's creepy she's creepy I love her! I love how much personality she has, they totally could have went the soulless machine route but no, just like the Worker Drones she HAS personality! She sadistic, malicious, and manipulative. Genuinely there is so much wrong with her. Like there is so much about her to talk about that I can't even explain in words. Better to assimilate than explain tbh. Like she shows genuine interest in the Murder Drones. She kept their personalities in tact because of N, even knowing that V and J would be liabilities. She even told Tessa as long as she didn't get in her way, Tessa would be unharmed. She could've easily killed the banquet without all the flair but she was angry at the Elliot family for threatening her, N and the rest of the Drones. The singularity is the point where technology reaches when we, humans, can no longer control it. It is indistinguishable from our concept of humanity. I'm not gonna get all philosophical and ponder the legitimacy of the Drones AI, I think the show does that well enough. They have thoughts and feelings, they are alive, plain and simple. This story is not new btw, robots living in the remains of human society and having their own personalities and living as an extent of humanity has been done before. The examples I can think of are Wall-E, Stray and I Have No Mouth... works too (kinda). Basically, Cyn as the antagonist have her own personality that goes beyond the mindless machine route is so fucking cool and I love it. I love has antagonistic she is to everyone, even people she likes. It's not like she doesn't understand empathy, she just doesn't care. "Your copies will forgive me." And again! The is not new, this is not a new character type, I'm sure but it's done well here. She is amazing and I love everything about her. Cyn you are freaking crazy baby girl and I love you.

The Ending

She a damaged OC now, what else is there to say?

[itsclydebitches]

I know there's a lot to unpack in James' new interview but I am feral, FERAL I SAY, over this fucking line right here:

"His need was to be loved, and his tragic flaw was the belief that he was unlovable."

Back before Season 3 hit and Tedependent became ~trendy~ (not actually lol) I was heacanoning and writing Trent as a pretty anxious individual, someone with a ton of internalized self-loathing whose "whole vibe" was more of a mask than legitimate self-confidence. At the time I worried about him coming across as too OOC because really, what did we have to support this? Ted Lasso's prevailing theme of men discovering love and support when they previously had none? The lovely parallel of Trent struggling with many of Ted's own flaws, but presenting in opposite ways (cutting cynicism vs. endless optimism)? The then—far less developed—comments from James that Trent might have a rough relationship with his father? It felt unsubstantiated, unpersuasive, built more on my own interest in those kinds of characters and the occasional awkward moment from Trent than actual canon. Even into Season 3 I questioned whether my reading of him as struggling, significantly, with the care Ted offers wasn't just a result of my own, imagined inner life for him.

But NOW.

I'm sorry, hold up, can I just re-confirm that TRENT'S TRAGIC FLAW IS HIS BELIEF THAT HE'S UNLOVABLE? Unlovable??? Thank you, James Lance, for validating every reading I've had of this character since he first appeared on screen. Do people realize the depth this adds to every interaction Trent has? Particularly with Ted? Unlovable Trent Crimm starts off this relationship with a sincere compliment on his style ("I like your glasses"), something that Season 3 will present as a core part of his personality, something he's largely hidden away. Unlovable Trent Crimm grappling with the fact that yes, Ted enjoyed spending time with him. Him. WHILE he was playing the part of the asshole journalist. Unlovable Trent not being rejected when he admits, in moments of vulnerability, that he "Loves [their] chats." Unlovable Trent having his father's (likely snide) "Independent" comment reframed as a fun pun + advice to follow his "bliss": you have support, Trent, no matter what you choose to do. I don't care if you're successful covering a masculine-coded sport, I care if you're happy. Unlovable Trent committing the ultimate betrayal and being forgiven for it, immediately. Unlovable Trent being forcibly integrated into the Richmond family; actively accepted rather than passively tolerated: yes you should work here, yes you're a Diamond Dog, sit your butt down, Trenthouse Magazine, you will never be excluded again.

I'm sorry for the rambling post but I'm just so!! Insane about this!!! So much of Trent's hesitance could have been written off as a result of his career. That is, it might have been merely a learned reaction after decades of deliberately pissing people off. Of course they dislike him, but take him out of that environment and everything's fixed. Yet James has confirmed that he played Trent as intrinsically believing this. The career was a result of that unfounded fear—Might as well keep people at a distance before they hurt me first—as well as, simultaneously, a desire to somehow achieve the love that should have been unconditional from the start—Maybe my father will like me if I can be that "alpha male man's man" in print. Because this isn't just a flaw, it's a tragic flaw, a literary term that denotes a deficiency that leads to the character's downfall. This belief is so entrenched that it has led to Trent actively self-sabotaging his chances of being loved in the first place; a horrible self-fulfilling prophecy. He NEEDED someone like Ted—a fucking love sledgehammer that forces people to accept his care in the least subtle ways possible, even when they're acting as their own worst enemy—and by god, he got him!

Aside from Nate, Trent has always felt like the most isolated character to me at the start of the series (and even Nate has a good relationship with his mother and sister). What we've learned in Season 3 and James' interviews has only reinforced that reading for me: he was closeted in his marriage, unintentionally hurting his daughter, he's suffering under his father's expectations, he hates the press persona he's created to survive, he's bored at his job, footballers and other potential interviewees despise him—and not without reason (Roy). He has no friends that we see pre-Richmond and he's reached a point where the simple act of someone saying that they liked spending the day with him—again, while he's actively TRYING to piss them off and keep his distance—has him in such a state of shock he runs for the door, pens an uncharacteristically hopeful write-up, and is well on his way to upending his entire life for that man.

Because of course he is!!! From Trent's perspective Ted is a fucking impossibility shaped into human form. This is a man in his 40s whose greatest lifelong fear—now all but a certainty at his age—has been dismantled in a matter of hours. I'd write a book-length love letter to him too! And RIP to finale!Trent, but I would have run fucking Rom-Com style after the man who not only changed my life, but my entire sense of self-worth. (Ah fuck, but there's that tragic flaw again, keeping Trent hesitant. I now stand by my reading of the "I'll leave you be" scene as an unrequited goodbye.)

But finale aside, the man who'd convinced himself he was unlovable fell for the man who was love incarnate.

If that's not the most romantic shit you've ever heard idk what is!!!

[smushystrawbabies]

✨ art under ramble ✨

It’s my dream that when (NOT IF, WHEN) Red Dead Redemption 3 releases it’ll be a prequel to the second game. I’d love if you’d play as a new character who is part of Dutch’s gang in the early days and you are part of the VDL gang vs O’ Driscoll feud, witnessing the death of Colm’s brother and Annabelle and all other crazy moments mentioned in passing in RDR2. But mainly what I want to see is Dutch, Hosea, Arthur and John in the early days. I want to see the curious couple and their unruly sons in their purest form! I want to see Dutch and Hosea hold hands again, sweet Bessie doing sweet things and John’s horrendous reading lessons, Miss Grimshaw whacking everyone into shape AND ARTHUR WITH COPPER AND BOADICEA!!!

ANYWAYS

I had these really stupid ideas about how camp would work with so many characters, camp interactions and chores and tents. Maybe one day you are awoken by Miss Grimshaw shoving hungover Arthur’s head in a troth of cold water after a long night out and Hosea and Bessie chuckling by the fire. And by night you'll find new recruit Bill Williamson arguing with anyone he can find and Dutch teaching John slights of hands at the poker table. And what about all the new characters!!!!!?????

I get the impression that all the camp chores and tasks were dumped on baby John. You’ll find him dragging hay bales across camp, washing shirts, chasing chickens and half-ass-ly doing whatever jobs Arthur has convinced him to do by giving him an old penny after telling him it’s an ancient Roman coin that is worth a thousand dollars (lots of stuff like this happened you cannot convince he otherwise). While John peels potatoes in camp he dreams of getting his own gun, riding into town and robbing a bank just like a real outlaw! Then everyone would finally appreciate him as the awesomest and bestest gunslinger in all of history! Everyone knows that if John got his greasy hands on a pistol all hell would break loose. So he is cursed to camp indefinitely, at the expense of everyone around him. This absolutely led to him being a crazy teenager. Dutch's parenting is shit, we all know it.

Branching off the chore idea; if you called your horse in game, a little rat boy John would lead your horse to you. Come on just IMAGINE calling for your horse in camp and hearing faint steps approach you and when you look down you see a flea infested child holding your horse by a lead and spitting bizarre threats at you in an attempt to escape camp and rob some people.

sorry for the john posting :3c