#whoops sorry it's long

[dementedspeedster]

She's tugging on his shirt, next - a thinly pressed frown etched onto her flawless and well cared for complexion. It's clear she has some thoughts. Thoughts of how they look different enough, feel different enough to have garnered the sympathy of the elder.

"I don't understand why you don't extend the same... sympathy. To the other's like us. The way you do with me." She admits, quiet. Theo's brows only furrowed, and she tried to find the words to ask, to inquire.

"Am I really that far removed from you and your experience? Why would that mean that any of us deserved what happened?"

@voloartius

Thad's still reeling himself in. Each inhale and exhale still audible as he tried to calm himself. Anger is difficult for him to let go of. Most of his life was dictated by that one emotion.

But with the tug at his sleeve and hearing Theo's voice speak up he finds calm because his anger is not directed toward her. He doubts it ever will be like it is with some other versions of himself.

He swallows at her question. He knew better than anything that he was not a friend to himself. That Theo was right that he saw her as different in ways, "Your life is very different from mine and I don't know what is going through your head. Not always at least." He understood what she thought about her purpose, he understood the hatred, but there were great chasms of difference between them as well. He could have never faked loving Bart like a brother like Theo had done with Bea. He couldn't wrap his mind around ever loving Bart like a brother let alone merely accepting anything positive about him.

"I don't always understand you or your thoughts. I can't assume or work with similarities like I can with other versions of myself that reflect a life much more similar to mine....If you're asking why I'm kind to you then I don't know. I just am. Maybe I think you're different. Maybe I can't judge you like I can those others. I don't know." There was a lot he simply just didn't know.

Thad crosses his arms over his chest somewhat as if to steady himself, to convey some confidence, but another part of it was to protect himself too, "I only said that because I think I did or do?–– deserve it. For everything I did. For how blind an stupid I was. He reminds me so much of my stupid younger self. He's so goddamn blind and he still believes those lies that I want to shake him. I want to shake sense into him." His teeth clench beneath his lips as he just thinks on his youth and it pisses him the hell off. He had been so stupid. So god damn stupid. None of it had been worth it. Not for the sake of the Thawnes or the feud, or even himself. He was left as raw as he had been before he killed Bart and it took spiraling downward and his own death for him to find any clarity or even a twinge of regret.

"I think I deserved it, but I learned with that pain too. I know I hated what happened to me and that I yell and rail against it, and I know I'm being contradictory, but a part of me feels it was deserved or necessary too." He lets out a dry laugh and shakes his head, "I don't know. I just don't know. It's hard to explain and I don't have any easy answers to give. I just feel the way that I do."

[egophiliac]

"IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A JOKE" As someone who's been playing TWST since march and stopped going out of my way to be spoilerfree after I got stuck at Overblott!Jamil? That's honestly been one of my favorite things about it - seeing something in fanart or a comment you think is just fans joking, only for it to be canon. "The economy!", "May I also throw a tantrum?", Malleus' gargoyle thing, and... everything about Rook being my top examples.

there's a whole bit in Trey's platinum birthday card where he goes on about how he became increasingly obsessed with mustard for like a week straight until the other students held an intervention. how are you supposed to talk about this. how can you bring up something like Trey's descent into mustard obsession to the point that the other characters are worried for him without it sounding like the most obvious lolrandom "he mentioned it once and now fandom acts like he puts mustard in everything" joke. also, how can I slip this into every Twst post from now on, because I need everyone in the world to know that this is a real canon fact about Trey "I'm just an average normal guy (who sticks my hands into people's mouths and owns 20 toothbrushes and used to eat flowers off the side of the road)" Clover.

for bonus points, 1) the punchline is that he still doesn't even like mustard that much, 2) he's saying all of this to Leona, and 3) Leona is actually kind of invested in Trey's mustard story for some reason, which is the most unbelievable part of all of this to be honest. (then Trey gets distracted by a painting of the Cheshire Cat and Leona takes the opportunity to powerwalk away to freedom before they can start talking about dijon versus spicy brown or whatever and extend this bit even longer)

[izzystizzys]

There is a scratch mark on the floor of the Council chambers that Mace has never noticed before. Not a deep one, mind, quite shallow. This matters because it’s making the white-hot pulse of agony stabbing through his eyeballs ebb momentarily. Then, he chances a glance upwards at the fidgeting Knight in front of them, and it returns in full force.

Huh, he’s never seen Oppo Rancisis’ face turn that colour before.

“Hmm”, Master Yoda hums, deep and scratchy. His expression is unreadable even to Mace beyond a baseline gremlinness, and the force with which he grips the edges of his seat is making his bones creak. Master of the Order you should become, they said. Follow the calling of the Force, you should. A fulfilling purpose, it will be. Mace is going to hunt the little goblin for sport when this is all over, and he’s going to laugh the whole time.

“Show us the livestream again, could you, Knight Parvo?” Yoda asks. Mace bursts a capillary, he’s pretty sure, and so does poor Knight Parvo, whose orange Mon Cala skin tips all the way into blood red with stress. “Most unusual, this is.”

“Absolutely not!”, Ki Adi intervenes before Mace has to, thank the Force for little mercies. Plo Koon’s tusks tremble slightly with either suppressed laughter or abject horror, maybe both, and Stass Allie has her head in her hands. “The holo stills should be enough”, Ki Adi proceeds to add, and Mace has to reconsider all feelings of grace he just felt towards his fellow Councillor.

He never wants to watch Yoda zoom in on someone’s abs again. Or Depa raise her eyebrows at the curve of thighs bent over the dripping front of a speeder.

“Speeder Wash For Our Troops”, his former padawan reads out loud from a still of what has to be hundreds of the things gathered in the public senate parking lot. “Fund Our Boys And Get A Wet Seeing-To!” The series of images features dozens of Coruscant Guard troopers in various stages of unkitted, gleaming and shining with soap suds and water. The fact that the whole thing is also massive shatterpoint after massive shatterpoint is, quite frankly, insulting.

“Well hello- oh dear”, Obi-Wan’s blue form crackles to life in his chair, followed by several sounds of choking that are definitely not him. Good, Mace thinks acidly. If he has to deal with this, then so does kriffing Skywalker. “I’m sorry, why am I looking at Commander Thorn using a washrag like a lasso on top of a speeder?”

“Oh, the Guard’s little fundraising project”, Bail Organa says, as he steps into the Council chambers. Normally, Mace likes the man well enough. Now, he just smiles and adds on, “I’ve already donated, in mine and Breha’s name. Remotely, of course.”

“The Guard’s fundraising speeder wash?”, Obi-Wan repeats, edges of his holo form flickering with what Mace suspects is Skywalker very unsubtly trying to edge in. Force, but the man really is horrible at any and all stealth, like kissing his secret wife in an open arena in front of his Master. “And they are fundraising for…?”

“GAR budget allocations have to come from somewhere”, Organa shrugs. “And with the tide of public opinion turning, they’ve been tending towards cuts. The Guard feels them more keenly than any other sector - they’ve been reduced from half to quarter rations, and medical supplies have not made more than a token appearance in the last draft. The Chancellor has cancelled three consecutive meetings on the matter, and thus it was agreed that a more hands-on approach was needed. Any surplus will go into the Army fund.”

“Surely it can’t be that dire”, Oppo protests, a slightly less concerning shade of purple now. Senator Organa shrugs again, jostling the smattering of cracks slowly building around his person in a way that makes Mace wince quietly. “It’s all publicly available data, Masters.”

It really can be that dire, as it turns out. And quarter rations is only scratching the surface of how dire, considering the Guard has apparently never had access to bacta in all their posting, and also includes requisitioning forms available to the Senate for reconditionings and decommissionings, two words Mace has only heard Ponds whispers amidst shuddering in the early days of the war before Shaak Ti went off and just about tore some throats out over it.

“Alright”, he concedes, rubbing at his temples. “Fair enough, we have failed to tackle a massive blind spot in the Guard’s well being. There is no Jedi assigned to Coruscant, and that’s an oversight on our behalf. But how in the everloving kriff did this get past the Chancellor and Commander Fox?!”

Who have both signed, black on white. Bail Organa smiles cryptically. “Well, if you scroll a bit past that one image, up to the industrial speeder in the back - Commander Fox is currently having credits stuffed into his codpiece in the back, I believe.”

“HE’S WHAT IN THE WHAT NOW”, Commander Cody screeches through the speaker of Obi-Wan’s holo image, and Mace has to summon every bit of Jedi-serenity he possesses in his body to keep from dropkicking a cackling Yoda through the chamber windows.

[feather-bone]

[ID: an illustration of a pink mantis facing to the right, on a teal background with pink petals and green leaves. End.]

Orchid mantis! Adapted to camouflage amongst orchid flowers and ambush pollinators with swift arms and a powerful bite.

[cosmicwhoreo]

due to the requests of a very SPECIFIC and might I add, MANIPULATIVE Grim Reaper I loathe to call a friend that I will not name- I was asked to doodle my own version of Herobrine for their B day. And I couldn't stop after that-

Tl;Dr- damn you @grimmixxart

[lazylittledragon]

what do you mean youre technically a detransitioner cause of terf bullshit?

it's a v long story but i detransitioned for a couple of years when i was 16/17, for multiple reasons but mostly because i fell into the blaire white/kalvin garrah chamber of "you have to be This way to be trans otherwise you're not real".

i was already Deeply insecure about myself and my 'passing' and i was led to believe that i couldn't want to wear makeup or skirts, and i couldn't choose not to have bottom surgery, and i couldn't do anything but bind for 12+ hours a day to the point that my ribcage is still misshapen. basically i thought that if i wasn't suffering enough doing 'feminine' things, i couldn't really be trans, so i should just go back to being a girl and suck it up.

the terf bullshit is because i'd seen a lot of terfs/detransitioners talking about the 'dangers' of testosterone and how it would turn me into a horrible ugly evil monster and how there was nothing worse than wanting to be a man. which combined with 'you need to fully medically transition to be valid at all' creates some very dangerous and upsetting feelings to cope with.

it also came from trying really hard to put myself in a little box before i realised that my sexuality/gender are very fluid and it's FINE for me not to have a label and just do whatever i want. when i was 19 or so i went back to using they/them (and eventually he/him) and changed my name again because even though i like doing 'feminine' things, i don't want to be seen as a woman.

tldr: i was conditioned by transphobic/terf rhetorics to think that i was being trans the 'wrong' way so i couldn't be trans at all, so i believed i must actually be a girl if i still wanted to do 'feminine' things. nowadays i am a transmasc who does feminine things because i don't give two shits about what any transmed prick thinks of me anymore.

[aipurjopa]

BURN MY SOUL

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Fishing Interlude

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[lesbiamano]

the way i can see either enki, ragnvaldr, or cahara taking up the role of girl's parent/guardian EXCEPT d'arce,,, like ive tried but i feel like throughout the entire dungeon crawling experience she is too out of it to like be a proper parent figure to the girl. not to say she wouldnt take her in if she found her and protect her, i feel like she would, because its funny seeing her take in le'garde's child without knowing it. but either way she'd be too stuck in her own head and her want to reach le'garde as soon as possible/revive him that she wouldnt be able to give her the proper parental love im sure girl yearns for.

ragnvaldr used to have a child, he probably sees his kid in her, and he takes her in not just as some child he found that hed take care of until they got out or until she died, hed see her as HIS child and would truly care about protecting her and not letting anything come her way. she'd feel like a way to make up for the fact that he could not protect his own child and im sure that one day when he realizes shes the child of the man who ruined his life and family, it'll be extra painful.

for cahara, hes already expecting a child on the way, and so whats one more child to pick up and take home too? enough of cahara dying in the dungeon after girl ascends to godhood, he gets his treasure and gets out of there with her. he can give her and his newborn child the best life he possibly could, and i feel like hed definitely raise her as his own child, so his newborn gets an older sister. shes part of his family now!

for enki, hed begrudgingly take her along with him on his path to enlightenment. at first hes not really fond of her, but eventually, realizes he cant just let her go after he gets what he wants! i mean, gods, thats a waste of an assistant, right? as much as he hates admitting it, hes found some sort of fulfillment and contentment in teaching her spells and seeing her do them decently as she follows him around, and nosramus definitely wouldnt let him just sacrifice her or something. so he keeps her. and shes his child now, even though he only says shes his assistant/student.

but for d'arce, as much as i WANT to give her a happy ending where she gets out of the dungeon and live her life with her three weed smoking girlfriends, i feel like that just wouldnt happen. and even if she does care for the girl and keep her safe, its not the maternal sort of way that the girl probably desperately seeks, even if not specifically from d'arce, but from anyone. d'arce cannot stop and think that perhaps it would be better if she and the girl turned around and left the dungeon when she finally gets to le'garde and sees his corpse lying there. no. she absolutely loses her mind. she has to get le'garde back, he had so much left to do and she trusted that he knew what he was doing. and besides, shes never been one for the children. with the work she does as a knight, be it a knight of rondon or a knight with le'garde's group, settling and finding a partner and even having kids felt like a distant reality. even with le'garde, hes always been out of reach for her and she knew that she couldnt have something like this. she's committed to this. because if she does back out, where would she go? she abandoned the knights of rondon and her family for the sake of the knights of the midnight sun and for the sake of le'garde. she cant go back home. she cant give girl the life she deserves outside the dungeon. she digs le'garde out of his grave and lies in it for the sake of everything she chose to leave the life she knew for.

tldr. d'arce i will not allow you to have a happy ending

[link7057]

SHARE YOUR HEADCANNONS ABOUT CHRISTINAAAAA 🫶🫶

First, I'm so sorry for the late answer months later 😭😭🙏 Please forgive me and second!! Actually I hadn't thought of many headcanons for her... yet... but she's one of my favorite characters so ofc I thought of some!! I might say silly ones or ones more about her personal life (and definitely not projecting some parts!) I love Christina Posabule 🙏♥️

Music wise I think Christina would like 60s music, rock, and/or synth-pop or idk genres are hard to actually get right nowadays. If it's specfic, "The Daughters of Eve" and Mitski would be part of her favorites fjjdbrbnd (then I think she'd like The Killers especially "When You Were Young" when she was in her teens :)) Speaking of Christina in her teens, she'd want to learn piano or some sort of instrument but her parents probably got annoyed by how much she played so she wouldn't have as many chances. She's definitely a bookworm or just loves reading and also writes in her freetime like little stories or poems. And when Block ended up staying with Orel's family, she was kind of the only one who missed him as her parents didn't really mind/express their emotions about it.

Andddd talking about her parents, they're both VERY controlling and kept watch on what she'd do, the polar opposite with Orel, which his parents didn't gaf where he was 💔💔 Especially Poppit, and I think with Christina's story it'd be a toxic mother-daughter relationship (mommy issues!) rather than her and her dad, and that Poppit rather likes taking charge but to be in "a woman's place" y'know sexism and even tells Art what to do but makes sure that he does what a "man has to." And she'd be veryyy persistent on Christina with how she presents herself and make sure that she was a nice church girl at all times. And Poppit would very much have breakdowns in front of her and vent to her about her own issues... yeah... And whenever Christina was getting yelled at or being told what to do the only thing she could do is not say anything back to not upset them. She was also grabbed a lot like by her wrists or something similar how they showed in the show. When she moved to Moralton, she was bummed out bc yeah she just moved to a new place where she knows no one. Then when she met Orel something about him intrigued her and she's like Oooh y'know what I like this place already... then BOOM! Having to move again :( Also I don't know if it's just me but she's probably homeschooled or she's just attending another school jfjfnntnf and about her past town she'd be doing so many shenanigans during the same time as Orel probably. Another silly thing she might be more confident than him like I think he'd be more shy when he got older fjjdjnfbfn

Also yes Christina was sadistic I had to say it bc... we remember Orel's masochist era... And same thing with her being emo/goth when Orel was and at least for a while when they were teens👍👍 It's canon bc I said so

About when she's an adult, once Orel and her got married and had their kids, she'd be really worried about repeating anything her own mother used to do to her (along with Orel who'd try to be the best dad to his kids and would ask Christina if he was doing a good job if he was too worried about becoming anything similar to Clay or just anything otherwise) and I'm not quite sure about if whether she kept contact with her parents but she probably would but obviously has a strained relationship with them along with Orel's parents... But she would give her own family all her love :D also she's definitely working in a type of job I forgot which one but something that helps people bc she's sweet like that <3 so yeah girlboss !!

I might've forgotten some things to mention or other things I had in mind for her but yeah!! Or it was badly/worded weird perdón. Thanks for reading 💕

[jounosparticles]

reply to the tags of your reply to my previous ask: PLEASE RANT TO ME ABOUT THEIR RELATIONSHIP!!!! i want to hear. they rot my brain too and im glad that i found someone who's also suffering the suegiku takeover

OKAYOKAY YAY!!!!! this will be fun >:)

a huge suegiku analysis:

okay in the last ask you mentioned how tetchou stabs jouno for fun and sillies and stuff which happened to make me think a lot about how tetchou acts decently different around jouno than others.

tetchou is typically rather formal in the way he acts in a way? as in he's very straightforward, generally composed and calm in his words, and polite to anyone he's dealing with.

an example of this is when he still treated the cafe owner kindly despite him being an "accessory to terrorism" in jouno's words.

basically, in most situations, he remains very composed. even when he's up to his sillier antics (like when he was watching ants or doing pushups during a meeting). he's direct and straight-faced almost always around most people. he doesn't act that way to be seen as silly, it's just who he is (and i love it).

i would imagine he could act this way for many reasons. it is most likely him being professional, likely as a reference to the irl tetchou who had samurai lineage; making him act with the tone and professionalism of samurai.

despite his professionalism, maybe he has difficulty being expressive around most people, or maybe he doesn't want to be expressive around people by choice.

but this is where he's different around jouno.

firstly, i'll talk about the times he's stabbed jouno. this has happened twice, and both were to de-escalate jouno from his tendancy to mentally torment people.

the wording in these panels implies this is a regular occurrence. which is a little funny to me hehe.

anyway, we see by the way that he acts around others that usually he de-escalates situations by talking first instead of acting. he will turn to violence if he believes it's needed, but typically he talks first. we see this when he confronts kenji verbally before attacking.

yet with jouno he doesn't bother to tell him to stop first, instead opting to jab him. remembering that the hunting dogs have enhanced physical strength, a small stab wound probably isn't a huge deal for them.

because of this i think the stabbings are tetchou partially teasing jouno. him messing around like that isn't something he does with anybody else but he seems to enjoy pissing off his partner.

also. stabbing him directly in the ass? gay as hell. jouno following up by saying "don't poke my ass every single time" implies that his ass specially gets jabbed a lot. hmmmm

anyways

another example of this is when tetchou smirks/chuckles at jouno insisting that he's the greatest hunting dog. the small laugh was most definitely to bother jouno.

mmmm theyre both so pretty.

once again, tetchou pushes aside his composed self and being intentionally silly only really happens towards jouno.

arguably, this can be shown again in the pushups scene.

tetchou acting unbothered and then calling jouno's weight "just right" while he continues to exercise seems like a combination of him trying to (jokingly) annoy jouno as well as his tendency to not acknowledge his own actions as bothersome or odd to others.

anyway to sum up this segment: tetchou is only seen intentionally bothering and teasing jouno and nobody else. he acts much differently towards others but seems to let his professional guard down around only his partner. this shows a great layer of trust and comfort between the two!

oh. but im not done talking about this. not at all.

the other huge display of emotions for tetchou was everything that went down with kenji.

as displayed throughout most of tetchou's appearances, he's incredibly justice-orientated. he has a tendancy to put justice above everything. here's a couple panels showing this:

ooog tetchou is so pretty. i love that left panel so much

using his own logic here, he should have went after bram after having found him. tetchou even admitted that, but there was one other thing more important to him than that. jouno.

starting here, this panel takes place after bram and aya escape. at this point, tetchou had assumed the agency was using bram to control people; meaning it wasn't just kenji he technically had business with at that time.

i will also preface this by saying the book's influence likely had an impact on tetchou attacking kenji before they could finish talking.

however, the book's writing didn't stop tetchou from insisting on finding jouno before taking down the agency. his worry towards jouno's whereabouts made him change his stance on justice as well as deterred him from prioritizing taking down the agency.

now that he's talking to kenji, i'd like to start it by showing that he seemed genuinely grateful and happy when kenji initially offered to help him find jouno.

as well in the anime, his eyes soften when kenji offers to help.

after talking to kenji for a brief moment, he opts to attack instead of continuing. this seems out of character for tetchou; he even apologized to kenji before saying he needs to find jouno as quickly as possible.

the fact that he apologized, combined with how we've seen him treat people in the past shows that this isn't typically what he resorts to.

also, in the anime we can see the gloss his eyes slightly shaking as he says this line, which could display worry, sadness, or anger towards whatever could be happening to his partner.

he seems almost distraught, which is a huge contrast to his typically-composed self.

and, of course; there's the fact that mid-fight tetchou had to tell kenji that jouno is a good person despite what people think.

he looks genuinely sad here, as if he's speaking from his heart. jouno has very-clearly put up a tough exterior that he uses around everyone, but tetchou goes out of his way to defend him even when he absolutely doesn't need to.

he could have stayed silent or just said he wants his coworker back, but he insisted on stating that jouno is a good person.

it's also important to note that nobody else tends to speak kindly of jouno, which puts a lot more depth on their closeness to each other. tetchou sees through jouno's words and actions and knows that he is heavily misunderstood.

and of course, we have tetchou directly saying that he will place jouno above justice despite knowing what the right course of action should have been.

he is putting jouno above the very thing he basis his career as well as his morality on. that's how worried he is. that's how much he cares.

and in this panel, we see he's extremely angry towards kenji's lack of response.

lets compare this to the first time tetchou fought the agency.

in chapter 61, when he was fighting the agency alongside jouno; he kept a more menacing/intimidating look as he attacked. when he was not attacking, he kept calm-looking despite being pissed off. compared to when he was fighting kenji in chapter 100 and looked infuriated. even the different fonts used for the dialogue puts further emphasis on this.

now, i'm going to jump ahead to the end of tetchou and kenji's fight. tetchou recognizes his mistake and asks kenji to kill him.

it's important to note that his reasoning as to why he should have chased justice was because he doesn't think jouno would have condoned his choice.

he specified it again, even opting to call jouno his friend. also note how white his eyes are here, meaning his intent was pure and he genuinely felt awful for misjudging what jouno would have wanted. he cares so much that he was asking to be killed for misunderstanding what was the correct course of action.

and then after kenji insists on helping him find jouno instead, he smiles in relief before the two pass out.

one last small note is that we've only ever seen tetchou smile three times throughout the manga so far, and all of them were mentioned here and involved jouno.

to sum it all up: tetchou, who is typically very composed and justice-orientated, is willing to throw aside his entire stance on justice for jouno. he lets his professional guard down around his friend, allowing them to tease each other and be silly as well, which he doesn't appear to do around others often. this shows that the two have a close bond and genuinely care so much about each other.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

as for jouno, i don't have as much to say however there definitely is a few things i'd like to touch on.

firstly, despite claiming to hate tetchou a lot, jouno still uses a respectful honourific (-san) whenever he refers to him. i'm not a japanese speaker so please feel free to correct me if i'm wrong but there's a good chance jouno would opt to not use an honorific at all if he genuinely detested tetchou as much as he claims.

and when it comes to teasing, jouno does it much more often than tetchou does (however he also messes with more people, it's just a personality difference between the two).

clearly with the way they act around each other, jouno does not actually hate tetchou. i think they like to bother each other by play-bullying.

also, noting on jouno's criminal past, he was given an easy oppurtunity to be thrown into the DoA where he could be incredibly powerful and would likely not face any consequences for his actions had he joined.

we know he declined fukuchi's offer because he found joy in saving innocent people. but i would the influence of the other hunting dogs helped set him into that place of mind. tetchou seems to be the one he works with most, so there's a good chance he takes a lot of inspiration from how tetchou handles justice.

another thing i noticed with jouno is that his displaying of emotions is almost an inverse of how tetchou acts. jouno keeps smiling a lot despite who he's speaking to. in contrast, he can keep a straight face when interacting with tetchou a lot.

of course, that could make it seem as if jouno is unhappy around tetchou, but i would argue it's the opposite.

some people will force a happy expression to appear unassuming or kind (or in a lot of jouno's cases, intimidating). so him allowing himself to maintain a straight face around tetchou could mean that he is comfortable enough around him to not feel the need to express everything. he doesn't need to keep his guard up around tetchou.

jouno almost always keeps a very happy or calm composure around enemies, likely as an intimidation factor. yet he allows himself to express frustration and annoyance around the hunting dogs in general, and most often with tetchou. i'd like to imagine this just shows his security in his partner.

jouno talking to an enemy, for reference ^ i also just really love this page hehe

the last thing i'll mention here is a lot of speculation on my behalf. however i think that jouno seems like the type to push away those close to him. i kind of perceived his supposed hatred towards tetchou to be a combination of joking around as well as possibly a defense mechanism to try and avoid keeping people close?

my main reason in stating that is that he's claimed to not like any of his coworkers yet still opts to not betray them and still works well with them. if he truly hated tetchou, he probably wouldn't allow them to work together. he likely says such things to avoid being liked too much, and these actions proved to work since tetchou acknowledged that everyone sees jouno as cold.

yet through all that tetchou still knew he was good despite the exterior, which makes them well-suited for each other.

anyways: i feel like these two really do treat each other much differently than they treat the other people around them. that puts a lot of emphasis on their bond and closeness in general. they can be silly around each other, they can get through arguments no problem, they make a great team, and clearly care about each other a ton! they mean so much to me <3

i love my sillies :)

[sleepless-crows]

don't you ever just think about how kaz said "i'm a cripple. that's my tell. no one's ever smart enough to look for the others." the others. i think, especially with the show, a lot of us forget that and think his only real weakness is inej. but it isn't. it's definitely jesper too, the brother he cannot lose again. and i know he means the other crows as well. because that's kaz's character. deep down the way to hurt him is to hurt the people he cares about. he's extremely loyal and his revenge plot against pekka was to avenge his brother. his biggest motivation isn't money, it's the protection and security he can give the people he cares about with it. and those people are his tells

[eyestrain-addict]

I just realized why lestat marked Tom, like the big stupid idiot I am

(I know everyone else probably already figured this out, but this is MY blog and I get to post whatever deranged thought crosses my pea brained mind.)

When I watched that scene in episode 5 where they're at the bar talking to Tom, I was confused as to why exactly. Why does Lestat mark Tom? If he's marked to kill, why does he wait almost 2 decades later? Well I realized, as all realizations come, in the shower.

Lestat has been planning on killing Tom the whole time.

(Warning before you click read more, this post is a lot longer than I first intended holy fuck)

Well not the whole time. Just right when Louis realized that Anderson and Fenwick had screwed him over. Maybe even longer if he knew it was a trick ("ridiculous of you to mix human and vampire business it always ends poorly"). Notice how he's upset with louis when he kills the guy who's microaggressive with him, cus lestat wasn't there (even if he was there I have my doubts Lestat would understand microaggressions, but he would have definitely killed him for touching Louis.) But tells Louis he's proud of him for killing Alderman. I think this has to be because he witnessed the disrespect first hand. He didn't give a fuck about the money, what he DID care about was that those two disrespected not only him, but Louis.

Even with Lestats little understanding of race relations of the time in America, he did understand hierarchys. He's from 1700s France for God's sake. It's no coincidence wanted to be king of mardi gras. Lestat came to New Orleans and saw himself as the king, even if no one knew it. And he wanted Louis to be his queen. Honestly I could make an entire other post about how Lestat almost literally saw himself as if he was a King and Louis his beloved Queen, which is why he thought it was okay for him to sleep with other women (mistresses and playthings of the king should mean nothing compared to the queen in lestats eyes) but that's getting off topic. I only bring that up because I'm trying to paint a picture of how I think Lestat sees disrespect done to Louis. To him that goes beyond disrespect or rudeness, it's irreverence.

You begin to notice if you watch scenes with them together. Because while I wouldn't say lestat is good at controlling his anger, he's definitely great at concealing it until it erupts (props to Sam Reid have to be given here) lestat is always on the verge of fury when talking to Tom. It starts as a distaste then as he begins to fall more in love with Louis and become more protective of him, his anger builds. Claudia was wrong about one thing, it was no petty slight that was the reason Lestat killed Tom first, it was a loooonng time coming.

I could list every detail I think supports this but I'm sure you get the gist by now. My main point is really the layer of complexity this adds to not only the story, the characters, but also lestat and louis' relationship. Consider it for a second, Lestat saw all his violence as justified, everything he did one can see it through the lense of him punishing the disrespectful (take a shot every time I say disrespect in this post jesus christ). "I bring death to those deserving" indeed. Lestat has a god complex out the wazoo, and every attack, torture, and death he caused was righteous to him and thus enjoyable. Louis on the other hand didn't see himself so highly. He may seem confident but if you look through the cracks it's apparent Louis's self worth in near nonexistent and he's horribly insecure. I think lestat thought when Louis was made a vampire he would see himself as Lestat saw himself, and as Lestat saw Louis. But again, another post for another time.

Despite Louis' insecurities (or perhaps because of them) louis revels in the violence lestat commits for his sake. That's probably why louis is so quick to forgive lestat about the priests. For a brief moment Lestat truly said the truth to Louis and Louis could forgive him because of it. As lestat says, he doesn't kill the priests to intimidate Louis, nor does he do it just because he enjoys it. He does it because he sees them as humiliating Louis, charlatans that don't deserve Louis' sorrow. Louis didn't want the priest's to die, but he could understand why lestat killed them, simply because for once in his goddamn life lestat told the truth, and louis loved that truth. That truth being that lestat killed and mutilated and committed such horrors not just because he liked it, but because he did it out of a fucked up sense of protection. Him killing the priests was essentially a knight killing a dragon to earn the princess' hand in marriage.

The worst part is that Lestat doesn't even realize it. Not fully anyway. Let's be honest with ourselves, lestat doesn't understand Louis. Obviously there's the race, background, culture differences that lestat doesn't understand nor seems inclined to try, but there are better posts about that made by smarter people than moi. I'm mostly talking about lestat doesn't understand louis' mind itself (louis' mind in a vacuum I suppose you could say) he understands Louis' desire for violence sure, but he doesn't understand the core of that want. Honestly I'm on the fence of if he ever understood that Louis loved it when lestat was protective in the first place. I guess it can be dumbed down to Louis wants Lestat to kill to protect Louis and to protect the family (and anyone who deeply disrepects them), lestat perhaps understood a little at one point, but since he sees everyone as a threat and everything is a slight to him, he has no trouble and qualms with delighting in the torture of people Louis views as innocent. Louis' heart is a bit dark, but ultimately human, so he's disgusted by lestats violence towards the undeserving. Lestat can no longer read Louis' mind and even if he could, Louis doesn't quite understand the difference himself (that's why he tries to hunt for criminals briefly) so the cracks of miscommunication starts to form, and neither of them even realize there is miscommunication.

Therein lies the importance of Tom Anderson for season 1. Not much of a character, more of a plot device in human skin. Claudia can see that Lestat hates him, but doesn't understand why, nor does she care to get to the depths of that. (*Mr house voice* understandable) I think it's notable that Louis rarely brought him up, he didn't understand the depths of lestats love. Nor did he know about Lestats 3 decade long grudge, all because Tom disrespected Louis.

Now I'm not excusing Lestat's actions, I just think it's interesting how this one throwaway character reveals a whole level of complexity to the relationship between him and Louis, and better sheds light on not only Lestats personal philosophy but louis' as well. Even Claudia to a degree.

Anyway, uh. End of essay. Bye.

[berrysquared]

Hotguy and Cuteguy, being silly on rooftops patrolling the city at dawn

[ok-boomerang]

Hey Lena!

Zutara Drabble # 5 & 8, please. ^.^

“Wait a minute. Are you jealous?” & “Wanna bet?”

Katara knocked once, briefly, on the Fire Lord’s office door before pushing it open and inviting herself in. She and Zuko had worked together for so long—had been friends for so long—that they no longer had the need, or the patience, for a semblance of formality.

Katara supposed that on some unlucky day in the future she might walk in on him practicing his Iroh impression, or worse (better?), with his pants down. But per usual, the Fire Lord was merely at his desk, head in hand, as his glazed-over eyes scanned some boring parchment.

“Hey Zuko,” chirped Katara, feeling herself almost expand upon seeing him, upon seeing the transformation of his face when his eyes fell on her—the subtle widening of his right eye, the easy smile that pulled at the corners of his mouth.

“Hey,” he said in response, setting his parchment aside and giving her his full attention. A piece of hair had fallen out of his top knot. “My favorite ambassador—"

“Mhm, whatever,” she joked back. “Funny how I become the favorite every time the fishing waters treaty is up for renewal—"

“You’re always my favorite, I just happen to point it out at specific times.”

Katara rolled her eyes, even though she felt her cheeks warm a little at Zuko’s words.

“Anyway,” she said, shrugging off that impossibility, “I’m just delivering the report on the healers in Fire Fountain City.” She handed him another piece of parchment, which Zuko took with some hesitation.

“The report on the healers—?” he muttered, eyes scanning the page. “But I didn’t need this for a couple more days—”

“Yes, well, Tanriq invited me to the Fire Lantern Festival tomorrow evening, so I got it done early.”

She watched as Zuko’s eyes stopped scanning the parchment, but he didn’t look up.

“Tanriq?” For some reason, his voice had gone up in pitch.

“Do you know another Tanriq?” Katara asked, curious at Zuko’s confusion.

“The—the ambassador from the Northern Water Tribe?”

“Of course,” said Katara slowly.

“You’re—together?”

“No,” she said immediately, and then chided herself. “I mean—I’m giving him a chance. So…maybe in the future? We’ll see how it goes—”

“It’s not going to go well,” Zuko interrupted her.

Katara blinked at him. “Huh?”

“I mean,” Zuko said, bringing his hands in front of him on the desk and rolling them together. “I just mean—it’s just a little odd, the two of you—the Fire Lantern Festival—"

“What’s so odd about it?” Katara asked, half surprised and half curious about the issue Zuko saw that she couldn’t. “I like festivals.”

“Right, but do you like them with Tanriq? I—I dunno you will.”

“Sure, he’s a little boring—”

“He doesn’t know you at all!” Zuko interjected, and then quieted, shifting his eyes. But he continued. “I mean, will he know to take you to the food stalls that sell ocean kumquats? Will he take you dancing early enough so you don’t miss the tsungi horn players?”

Katara laughed. “I can tell him not to!” she pointed out. “You don’t need to be worried for me, I’m sure we’ll have a fine time—”

“Wanna bet?”

Katara stared at him. “Do I want to…make a bet about whether I’ll enjoy myself on a date?”

“Um,” said Zuko, shifting in his seat so that the chair squeaked. The panic on his face did not match the regality of his formal robes. “No, that was uncalled for, sorry,” he said. “I—I—”

And as Zuko stuttered, and Katara stared at Zuko’s rapidly reddening cheeks, she came to an unlikely—but perhaps possible?—conclusion.

“Wait a minute. Are you jealous?”

She hadn’t meant to say it out loud. She had to fight the urge to clap a hand to her mouth in horror. And if Zuko had looked skeptical whatsoever, she would have curled in on herself and scurried out the door like a goat dog with its tail between its legs. And then possibly quit her job and moved to the Foggy Swamp.

But Zuko didn’t look skeptical. Zuko did not calmly and coolly reject her suggestion. Instead, he noisily backed up his chair, stood, buried his hands in his hair, and yelped, “Me?! Jealous?! No—no, definitely not!” And then he laughed like an unhinged hyena leopard.

“I—” Katara started, over what sounded like the beginnings of a panic attack. “I—um,” she said, reminding herself that she was a waterbending master and teacher to the Avatar and she was not scared of anything—“I won’t go with him. If you—um—if you don’t want me to,” she said, knowing that her tone had drastically changed from teasing to serious.

Zuko’s laughter died down and he matched her serious expression. “Katara, no—I would never try to insert myself in your personal life—I’m sorry, I just got, um—” he paused, but didn’t finish his sentence.

“Can I take your bet then?”

“What?”

“But for the other side. I bet you I won’t have a nice time with Tanriq.”

“I—look—I was being childish—of course you’ll have a nice time—”

“Maybe,” she said, and Zuko’s face fell for the briefest moment before he schooled it to one of impassive regard once more. “But I think I’ll have a nicer time with someone who knows me better, like you said.”

Zuko looked away from her and stretched his arm behind him to rub the back of his neck. “I think you should go with whoever you want to go with,” he muttered.

Katara wanted to scream. But…she did want this more than she wanted to scream. “You,” she said, only a smidge of frustration in her voice. “I’d rather go with you.”

Zuko’s eyes snapped to hers. “Oh? Is that—is that—is that right?”

“If, um, if you want to,” she murmured, suddenly feeling her mortification rise. What if she’d gauged this wrong? She did get along with Hu in the Foggy Swamp. She could totally start a new life there.

“Yes,” Zuko said immediately. “I mean—yes. I do want.” His eyes were boring into hers.

“Um, great,” she said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “So…I’ll tell Tanriq nevermind…and you’ll just need to tell your guards—”

“No,” Zuko said, leaning forward now, and Katara felt her blood thrill. “Many of the festival goers will wear masks. We can too.

“Really? But I don’t have a mask—"

“Don’t worry, I have an idea for us.”

[kosmicdream]

Please don’t think of me as a male artist.

..is what i used to feel, for many years, even when I finally came out as trans. In a way, its one of the factors that kept me from pursuing HRT (which im so glad i finally did.) After only one year, my feeling on this hasn’t evaporated completely but i suppose I kind of don’t care anymore about how I am interpreted, as a person/artist, ect.. It isn’t something i can be in control of anyway, which upsets me less than it used to.

Sometimes in the past, the way i write characters has often been analyzed by the gender I am, or appear to be - that my male characters were written like how a woman writes men (too emotional/vulnerable, ect) , or how my female characters are written thoughtlessly- like how a man would. (too horny, stupid, violent, ect.) Its not a new way to analyze a story but I can’t say that it doesn’t annoy me. It could still be true that my characters/writing could fall into sexist/problematic archetypes, but gendering my work based on the way my characters act always reminds me of the “you draw like a girl/boy” comments, which used to be more frequent when i was a teen.. But the idea that boys = angular, good at cars! Or something and girls are, i dunno, gonna draw sexy anime men or something. Even as a teenager, i hated this idea that my art was “girl art.” Truthfully, i always viewed my art and myself as an artist as genderfluid, maybe even a type of drag performance, where i can explore any gender and not be limited by my body, it was my escape from that. Which naturally, it became my place to explore gender presentation and eventually helped me “crack my egg” of realizing i was a trans man.

I do think its important to reflect or regard my work as the art made by a trans man, or transmasculine person. I feel more and more just like “just a dude” these days. I am also a gay man. I think those things are important to my work. I think that the analysis of my work in regards to my identity as a person is important to reflect on. I also think the steps I took to get there were important, that transformation and my continued exploration of my older selves and more “label-less” self in the art i make. That’s a private space for me, that I happen to share with the world too. I feel the audience is part of my work too, I welcome it even. I have become part of the audience too and I look at my work as if I’m also a stranger. The older my work gets, the more of it I can study, the more I can see plainly how I got here and also it feels so confusing how it did. I try to study my art to help me find where I want to go to next, a map to guide me. 

In some ways, I feel more lost than I did before, where all my instinct was pushing me was just to grow and explore as much as possible. Now, I don’t have that same type of energy that I used to. Its not a bad thing, its just different. There’s a sense of duty and commitment and a sense of dread of the time it takes to do what I feel compelled to do on this step of my journey. I am trying to focus more on the things I used to think I was incapable of before and I’m trying to remember the things I used to think were so effortless. I can tell my art is sharper but it feels almost like a mimicry of my older selves - at least when I revisit old work to continue its journey past where its been frozen in time. Comics take a long time, after all, it's normal that after a few years - a story might be yours, but it feels like it belongs to the past of you too, maybe more than it does in the present. I like the commitment I have to my comics though, its not a burden to me. The feeling is strange anyway. 

I tend to think that 1-3 years of a project being made, those are the honeymoon years of the relationship. But you hit a wall in 4-5 years and sometimes you’re in denial about it, you try to keep the dreams and feeling alive as you drag it forward, and sometimes the project really reaches its end around 8-10 years and it becomes a type of empty promise to return to it. Not that this is true for every artist, every project, ect. But I think its a natural lifespan for comics that I’ve observed, and it's because it is uncomfortable to face morality and the morality of our own art. Art is this escape, and when it becomes a job - or an uncomfortable mirror into these things about ourselves, about our failures and promises we couldn’t manage to make, the pressures of the audience, the boredom of the task if you have already told yourself the story a thousand times and you have no longer a desire to continue it, ect - its a normal and natural feeling to want to drop it off a cliff. Blow it up, start over fresh - I know the feeling! Its happened many times. But its kind of temporary? Then, it cycles back to nostalgia - and the desire to create and recreate and reform the past to something tangible again.. uh

Sorry, sorry.. I am getting far from the point I started with. Not that any of this makes too much sense, I feel like writing it anyway. It bothers me that the fantasy of art to me, is the ability to dissolve yourself and stop existing, you are the creator creating. You don’t need to be confined by, really anything. It is in “your control” now, and you surrender your own control by falling into the art and letting it “lead you” places. This is a very seductive process and while it might temporarily be fulfilling (even when done for a lifetime) cannot really.. What.. completely fill the void of whatever you’re chasing down there? Its nice though. At least, when I think about when i first started drawing comics, it was to draw Vash the Stampede (from the original 98 anime series, i hate the new one. We’re not talking about there here) coming out of my television after a thunderstorm and he had to just live in my house now. It was the closest thing I could do to actually manifesting that as reality, of making this amazing anime husband come to life to just like live with me now and be my boyfriend. In a lot of ways I don’t see my pursuit of writing ocs, specifically male ones, really much different from this same desire of like “i can just make my perfect boyfriend!” born out of the loneliness I felt in my heart, and the fear that there is no boyfriend out there for me so i need to frankenstein my own - and this boyfriend will be poifect in every way. Or like, crafting the perfect “relationship” in replace the lack of one, or just the fantasy of watching very abstract extremes come to life in various puppets i crafted, beating the shit out of each other for entertainment. But to subject all these.. Abstract Internal conflicts as simply like a “boy author thing” or “girl author thing” is like.. Tiring. Are we really not past that? (Of course not.) 

Like there’s some hidden truth to the way someone might write/draw, the way that “makes sense” in retrospect once the identity of the author is analyzed and discovered.. How can you make sense of the self, let alone the other .. and In a way that’s permanent? And gendered? Does art now have an inherent sex characteristic? But I cannot deny that I do want my art to look and feel like part of who I am, what I have chosen to sexually identify as - a transgender, a man, a faggot. I DO identify as a sexual deviant, but that is hilarious because I have been single for so long at this point I can’t even remember in a tangible way what that felt like and I question if I ever felt it or experienced it “for realsies” because of the experiences I have had or havent didn’t feel very fulfilling or romantic, despite that being something I desire so much - and so I feel like a failure. And to create art just based on the fantasy of desire rather than the lived reality, can it even really display what that would actually be like. So its embarrassing, right? 

I have worked on my art a lot and I have often thought, or come to the conclusion (true or not) that my singleness is the result of my pursuit and dedication to art - which is the pursuit of self isolation and protection from harm. From influence, from acknowledging that life can exist and someday end. And when you work on projects for years and years, the pride/shame dichotomy only gets more.. Weird. It gets weird, guys! It always was weird, but.. I just think about so many my heroes, my art inspirations, working decades on their art.. I follow in their footsteps too and it feels scarier and lonelier than I expected it to be. And the more and more I realized that as a reality, as my 20s faded away, the more I kept walking. I wasn’t gonna stop now, even if I could, I don’t want to and its not hard to do other things too. I have a slower pace than I used to (thank god) and gets slower but I’m still moving. 

I don’t post or write my little art journals as much as I used to. Mostly cause I don’t really have anything good to say and it kinda feels embarrassing to post them too LOL. But.. whatever!! Its been a weird four months of me being off work and I’m about to go back to being a normal working person again.. But its like, its weird to tell people about your art when they ask about what you do. Its like “oh yeah, i draw webcomics” and they wont get it, you’ll say - “yeah its 8,000 pages long” and they’ll say, “thats a lot!” and it is. They’re very nice about it, but there’s a lack of satisfaction there with what that means. I don’t expect it, that’d be dumb as hell. Its nice to take a break from it too, to discover other sides of myself I never let shine because i stayed indoors for a decade, but its a weird feeling too. Like, what will it mean in the end? I don’t really know. 

I don’t think I need “success” to feel like this was worth it, its not like a trophy is gonna come in the mail for the good workTM I’ve done - there is no closure to the work I make even when a story finishes. I have to keep going regardless of that, and its strange to know it won’t ever feel done. But I am so thirsty for that temporary itch to be scratched, it keeps me working every day for the “maybe” of what that might feel like. Kinda silly, really. Is it my “male” pride that demands recognition? Would respect be given more freely if I had “remained” to be perceived as a woman, for subverting the expectations for what a woman can/can’t write? (lol) Is my value as a person determined by that sort of thing in my art? I don’t think of my pride as gendered, but I know its there and I know because of who I say I am, my pride will be gendered by others. I think when I was a woman, that pissed me off more than now because.. Well.. I wasn’t even living as the way i wanted to. I still don’t really live as the way I want to, the way I want to be perceived, but even being on HRT for a little more than 1 year, without much else lifestyle changes, I feel a little more at peace not mattering what others will take away from me or what i write about. I have a lot of my own expectations for myself and what i write about and that concerns me far more. 

I don’t really know how else to end this, I’m going to eat chocolate now. Oh, to answer your question (?) if you might have this one: can I think of you as a male artist, kosmic? sure. I am one after all.