#strong basics

[mochiobonio]

[nerdyfangirlingbooks]

"I can't stand by and watch him die" "Then don't look" is too raw a line to come from bbc merlin

[demon-at-peace]

DC + DP

Danny helped people. That was what he did. He protected others. That was his job. he ignored the little voice in his head that dreamed of visiting the stars. He did his job well. But it never ended.

"Help us," people screamed at him after they'd shot at him, and he did. They never said thank you. Not one. He helped them nonetheless.

"Help us," the ancients asked him after ignoring his place on the throne for years. After they pretended he wasn't worthy because he was still alive. (at least part of him was.)

"Help us," his friends asked as they applied to colleges. Colleges he'd dreamed of attending, colleges they promised they'd go to together. But he stayed behind, because people needed him.

"help us,' the newly dead begged, uncertain and lost. Just like him, unguided and stuck, wanting to move on. They did, moving forward. Danny remained behind tethered and lost.

"Help us," the GIW begged when the ghosts tried to declare war. Danny did, saving those who cut him open. There was peace once again. Still no one thanked him

"Help us," and Danny did. He helped. he didn't protect, he'd solved all their problems. Now he sheltered them, the little boy who dreamed of the stars stopped dreaming. Some days he'd dream. Not often.

Today was one of the few days, Danny was sitting watching, space was silent, Danny liked that. He was alone with the stars, the stars he'd reached but could never be his. Like something just out of reach on a shelf. Right there, your fingers brushing it but never close enough for you to grab it.

Danny wasn't held back by gravity but by people. By a job he never signed up for. A job he wished he could quit. Couldn't he though? wasn't it just a matter of saying no?

His thoughts were halted by the jerk of a summons. I'll say no this time, he decides. He arrives and waits there's a silence. And suddenly someone bows, others follow suit.

To him. The Ghost Boy. The fake king. The Halfa, a freak of nature. The boy who'd dreamed of the stars.

"High king phantom of the infinite realms," they began. And Danny stares. High King, he'd never been called that before, never with such respect. So he stares, at the man who looks like a wind could blow him over. With a name from the pits of hell and the magic to match it.

"Hellblazer," he whispers the name of rumors. The man startles surprised at being recognized. Danny studies them, he's waiting for them to say it. Demand it as every other has.

"We'd like to negotiate a deal," The hellblazer speaks with such confidence and Danny freezes. This isn't how it goes. This isn't how it works. People don't make deals deals, bargains, agreements, with Danny. They simply make demands of him.

"What do you want?" he asks already bored, waiting for the ridiculous request.

"Well we've tried everything," this time it's a man dressed in complete black who speaks, with a horned cowl, "But we can't defeat them so we were wondering if you could help?" he asks gruffly.

"Who?" he asks quietly.

"Darkside," the name is unfamiliar to Danny but the way the Hellblazer says it. "In return we're willing to offer a soul, or anything else you desire."

Danny stared at them in shock. A deal. They offered a deal, offering a soul for him to defeat a villain they'd tried to defeat,]. They were scared, terrified even. They ddin't tell him to help them. Didn't demand it. He didn't need a soul though.

He didn't need anything, but for once he didn't want to say no. ahe wanted something though. "A home," he speaks first, "A place to stay in this dimension," he specifies just incase.

"Thank you," the Hellblazer breaths, then holds out his hand. "Deal," he offers looking tired and relieved but a bit worried. Danny smiles wearily.

"Deal," he breathes, and magic fills the room, an oath, a binding one. "Guess I'll deal with your problem now?"

"I guess?" the hellblazer smiles and Danny leaves.

--

John doesn't know what to say, doesn't know what to do, the king is powerful, it hangs around him, heavy and soft. When he said deal though the room broke. The magic latched onto his and John didn't know what to say. It was gentle, powerful, and terrifying.

He left without a word, simply vanishing, but he was doing what he'd said, and now it was there turn. Guess he was going house shopping? "We need to fulfill our end of the-" he begans only to be interrupted.

"Done," Batman stares out the window in frustration. "It's by Fawcet so we have one hero constantly monitoring them."

"Why you don't trust him?" John asks sarcastically but the bat nods utterly deadpan..

"Besides they have the most heroes besides gotham," he says easily, "Gotham is cursed, and metropolis has too big a population to be risked."

The rest of the league doesn't argue with his logic the they look amused. "Let's just watch the fight," he grumbles seeing their expresions.

they do so without complaint and the fight is.... horrifying. the king is hardly trying, and Darkside is already down. The king stares him down with those toxic green eyes of his and smiles.

when he starts talking though is when John's blood runs cold. his voice is like ice, nothing like the whispery tone he'd taken with them, it's cruel and dark and angry.

"Help you?" he laughs, "why should I?" the king laughs. "I help people, when they ask nicely, I help people who say please and thank you," he scoffs. "Most don't."

There's a crunching of bones that makes John almost hurl. Or he would if he hadn't forgotten to eat lunch again. "Besides you should know already, I don't like killers, so have fun!" they grin as they wave and suddenly darkside is gone, all that is left is destruction. "

"Hello," the king greets them calmly and John shudders at the sight of him.

"We found a home," John says with as much confidence as he can. "Here's the address," the king smiles, it's surprisingly human.

"Thank you!" the king smiles at him as he passed and John remembers his comment about manners.

"You're welcome," he stutters as the king leaves again.

--

Danny stares at the house with wide eyes, it's large, warm and homey, in a rundown part of the city so he's less likely to be bothered. He smiles softly, until he remembers the fight.

Danny had lost his temper, but the way he said it. "Help me," an order, like he actually expected Danny to listen. Like he expected Danny to just obey. Danny was sick of that, he wanted to live. Wasn't that okay?

He didn't need to obey others, he wore a crown, a mockery of one but it's power was the same even if the title was mocking. He ruled the realms, every detizen had to obey him. He didn't use the power but still... he had the power.

Still he went overboard, he'd thrown him to the realms to be treating, certain that Frostbite would help. He finds a kept on the door, magic practically coating it, metallic and recognizable.

He smiles softly, the hellblazer wasn't who demons painted him out to be.

[colchiansiren]

percy : casually strangled a snake as a toddler.

yall :

percy : defeats the minotaur with his bare hands at the age of 12 with no training at all.

yall :

percy : fights and defeats the literal god of war with only a few weeks of training, again, at 12.

yall :

percy : holds the weight of the entire sky at the age of 14.

yall :

percy : carries a literal goddess on his shoulders.

yall :

percy : gets judoflipped by his best friend who is professionally trained and sparred with him for years. where he wasn't even hurt or injured and casually laughs it off.

yall : she aSsAuLtEd him. annabeth is aBuSiVe. percabeth is tOxIc.

[aethersea]

I do think Blazing Saddles handled its one depiction of native americans very poorly, and the full extent of its representation of chinese workers on the railroad is they were literally just there. not even one single speaking line. unclear if this is worse or better than the redface.

it's fucking phenomenal at lampooning antiblack racism though. extremely blatant, extremely funny satire, which is constantly and loudly saying "racism is the philosophy of the terminally stupid at best and morally depraved at worst, and we should all be pointing and laughing at them 24/7"

plus the main character is a heroic black man who has to navigate a whole lot of bullshit but is constantly smirking at the extraordinarily stupid racists and inviting the audience into the joke. the one heroic white character is a guy who was suicidally depressed until he met the protagonist and they just instantly became buds, and he's firmly in a supporting role the whole time and happy to be there. the protagonist saves the day with the help of his black friends from the railroad, and uses the position of power he was given to uplift not only those friends, but all the railroad workers of other minorities too, in an explicit show of solidarity.

anyone saying "Blazing Saddles is racist" had better be talking about its treatment of non-black minorities. it had better not be such superficial takes as "oh but they say the n-word all the time" or "they have nazis and the kkk in there!" because goddamn if that's the full extent of your critique I very seriously suggest you read up on media analysis. there is too much going over your head, you need to learn to recognize satire.

[silly-jewish-vents]

Begging, screaming, pleading with gentiles to use Hashem, G-d, or The Tetragrammaton to refer to the Jewish god specifically. Being academic or whatever nonsense you’re using to rationalize it is no excuse to butcher the pronunciation of a name that is not meant to be spoken by the culture you’re referring to. You’re not being academic. You’re just being a jerk.

Edit/additional notes for clarification: this is specifically talking about attempted pronunciations/spellings of the Tetragrammaton in areas like Academia or in conversations about Judaism centered around Jews. This is not about in terms of a religious context such as church or mosque.

The spelling of G-d with a dash instead of an o is my personal comfort level for this post. For anyone for whom that isnt their custom that isnt an issue and they can absolutely use an oh and spell out G-d fully. I chose not to for this post. I may choose to spell it out in the future.

There is technically an argument to be made for exceptionally early israelite history like canaanite era usage. Personally still makes me and others uncomfortable and feels weird. That argument does not apply to temple or onward Jewish history era.

[arsenicflame]

Bonus round! Do you use a queue tag?

[cutie-chimera]

Just a Barbarian and her bestie 🥰

[somewhereincairparavel]

'i hate jason grace because he thought he was worthy enough to compete with percy' I'm sorry have y'all SEEN jason. this man defeated a TITAN without weapons and his bare hands to the point the titan wanted to rise from the UNDERWORLD with the help of a GODDESS to seek vengeance over him. I think we can cut him slack for having some well deserved self respect bc I'd brag too wtf

[zillychu]

Consider for a moment: A slow-burn identity reveal “no one knows” AU with an emphasis on ghosts being taken seriously as an actual, world-changing threat.

Ghosts are treated as an exceedingly dangerous, but unavoidable force of nature. They can come and go without warning, through naturally occurring spontaneous portals. They're territorial, driven only by obsession and hunger for the living. Particularly powerful ghosts are on par with natural disasters.

Life goes on because there's simply no other option. All major buildings have varying levels of ghost shields, some stronger than others. Just about everyone has some form of personal shield, weapon, or general deterrent. For the most part, humanity takes this apocalypse in stride, barely keeping it all together because there's just enough safety to keep them all sane.

Which is why the rumors of Phantom being able to fully mimic a human body incites panic in Amity.

Phantom was already a nightmare as it was–one of the most powerful and intelligent ghosts on record. His territorial fights with other ghosts for haunting (hunting) grounds in Amity have made global news several times already. Powerful ghosts could appear more human–but to think he was transforming down to a cellular level? Hiding among them? Bypassing ghost shields and alarms? Picking them off one by one?

The focus is mostly with Lancer's class, and how the school deals with this new threat on top of everything else. Everyone is a suspect, no one is safe, and Danny Fenton in particular gets slowly more and more exhausted, apathetic, and… unnerving.

The stress, the lack of sleep, the fighting, no one to turn to, not even his best friends or family–it takes a toll on him. Starving himself doesn't help, but he refuses to do more than take small bites from the ambient life energy and emotion of the living around him. Nothing that won't actually do lasting harm. He begins to slip up more and more, which Sam and Tucker begin to notice but haven't quite connected the dots yet.

But, well. What else can Danny do when Pariah Dark comes knocking on Amity’s doorstep, and his whole class is in the line of fire?

[artwah]

persona 5 x ffvii collab real ⁉️

i’ve seen a couple makoharu aerti arts around and they’re sooo sweet!! i wanted to draw them in the og7 outfits + futaber

[secretmellowblog]

Everyone talks about the tragedy of animated media getting reboots that replace their excellent art direction with uncanny realism —like the Lion King and its “live action” reboot—- but there’s one series that embodies that tragedy better than anything else. And I need to share it with you all because I can’t be the only one Haunted by it day and night. Please let me tell you the Sad, sad story behind this image:

There was an early 2000s video game trilogy called Sly Cooper, whose main appeal was its super unique art direction, style, and atmosphere. The trilogy had a unique tone focused on a cartoon Phantom Thief who did Moody Atmospheric Heists in a comic-book-inspired world.

The trilogy integrated 2D animation into the game for cutscenes, and the characters-- while low-poly-- were designed to look as much like those flat 2D cartoons with cel-shaded outlines as they could within the limitations of the Ps2.

It took heavy influence from comic books and anime, especially Lupin III. The first game even had alternate anime versions of its 2D cutscenes that you could unlock!

Nearly all the levels took place at night, but the designers talked often about how their goal was to create the illusion of night time through vivid color palettes rather than darkness, taking inspiration from the vivid nighttime cityscapes in Baz Luhrman's Moulin Rouge.

As a result of their stylized art direction, the visuals-- primarily in the second one, which is the one that focuses the most tightly on Thieving & Moody Atmospheric Heists-- still hold up today.

And then Sly Cooper started appearing in “brand crossover games” and “reboots” and Oh god. Oh no. so that's why no one talks about it anymore.

I am haunted by this. People talk about their favorite cartoon character getting hit with the Uncanny Hyper-Detailed Beam and I instantly think of the sad fate of poor, poor sly cooper, who I am very nostalgic for, and his now-dead franchise that hasn't had a new installment in over a decade.

But to me this really emphasizes how strong art direction is far more important than polygon count, realism, or level of detail. Because there have been similar franchises rebooted in ways that manage to elevate the old 2D-inspired art styles with more modern graphics. Toys for Bob's new takes on Spyro and Crash Bandicoot both had stellar art direction!

But that kind of thoughtful art direction can be difficult to achieve. It's not even the fault of the artists or developers; these things are often beyond their control. But I am glad we're in an era where stylized 3D animation is becoming more popular. I hope more creators continue to realize that there is actually a big demand for media with interesting, unique art styles! also you should play sly 2: band of thieves

[arolesbianism]

Oh god is that a comicfrin drawing where they have whimsy quick someone throw that guy into a decades long timeloop

[moeblob]

[fairgroundfreak]

i need shen jiu and shen yuan discoursers to understand that these two characters you pit against each other would make out on sight

[sofiaruelle]

Would you dance, if i asked you to dance? 😫🫣

A wip for now,,,,