#mostly this character and another one

[puppyeared]

learned something about myself lately

#i dont think its even the fact almost all my characters are somewhat beasts in one way or another. i just #really like tails and wish i had one myself #and then my oc designs are a little tame theyre mostly human shaped with animal features. but they always have tails #my eyes have recently been opened to the appeal of long whiplike unicorn tails.. so flowy and curly #something about the tuft at the end being long and swirly just does something for me.. #maybe it would make sense to change auggies tail shape so it looks like a meteor. her design is mainly pink with hot pink accent #so it would be cool to use that and orange to make it look like a fire meteor.. maybe itll help complement the blue/green in her design #head full of ocs today so expect a ramble later #if i had a tail i think it would be long with a kink. so it kind of folds over once but not in a curl #when it wags its kind of a swaying motion. i have thought about this a normal amount #yapping

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

+1 friendship with Jin Ling: He warns you now.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #wei wuxian #jin ling #I'm not usually a fan of 'character tries to help another character but there's a misunderstanding' but this scene rocked. #mostly because there *is* a genuine shift in how JL sees his uncle (mxy in his eyes). #yeah the stinky gay insult gets thrown but there's at least a small step towards mellowing the hell out. #I've yet to see any 'wwx/ylly takes jin ling and raises him AU's but idk i think there's potential there #Something something responsibility for his actions. Something something coincidental petty revenge on the Jin Clan by taking the heir. #sadly I don't think it would make as much of a wave as one might think. Lots of other candidates would *love* that kid to stay lost. #actually I think it would be Jiang Cheng who suffers the most in this AU. JL is his depression puppy. His designer purse dog. #to be fair to him...A-yuan is also treated like wwx's depression puppy. JL can't escape that fate I suppose.

[toomanycharr]

A reminder that male and female charr have different horn/ear set ups!

(Of course, do what you want but- It seems a lot of newer charr people just don't know!)

#charr #Tea has pet peeves and so many people are drawing them in the wrong places for the character's gender recently so #I'm not in charge of you draw them how you want but- #I'm honestly mostly doing this so I have a handy guide for when I commission things hah #I lost my other one when I stopped using twitter #And If I'm commissioning art of Polaris or another of my NBi charr I put the bottom horns straight in front of the upper ear >:3c #i really could not care less if you disagree with the actual literal game #i made this as a reference for things i am paying for because it does matter to me #not to tell you what you can and cant do #sorry to add grumpy tags

[pepperpixel]

More adventure time art! This time featuring! Simon getting mauled but like… in a sexy way. And my delusions of betty ever getting along w ice king ghghg-

#adventure time #betty grof #simon petrikov #ice king #petrigrof #doodles #these ones are rlly sketchy. I just didn’t feel like doin anything more w em! #there will be more adventure time art tho… and mostly likely most of it if these two ghgh #*of these two #cuz I’m obsessed w them.. #blood #do I need to tag… a character biting another’s neck… as suggestive??? #idk… I rlly do not know ghghg #I guess I’ll tag it just in case #suggestive

[aardvaark]

obsessed w the episode of Bones where they’re telling some wealthy lady with a mini pomeranian that her ex husband is dead and she starts crying and instead of offering any kind of comfort, brennan just takes the dog off her and happily exclaims (and this is verbatim) "he’s so compact!!"

#bones tv #temperance brennan #i don’t think there’s much of a bones fandom on here which is why i haven’t posted abt it #emily deschanel #sometimes bones is too copaganda for me and sometimes bones is like ‘ah shit the government committed murder again’ #mostly i just appreciate that it’s early 2000s and one of the main characters is a canonically bisexual woman of colour #(angela i mean) #and the main main character is a genius anthropologist woman who is HEAVILY autistic coded #still at its core it’s very 2006 with it’s often vaguely liberal but mostly centrist stances portrayed #though sometimes it’s wild w like. extremely pro legalising marijuana attitude in one ep i remember #and then another ep is weirdly pro death penalty #incredibly strange political alignments and also ghosts just randomly canonically exist #no idea what to make of all that #let’s just say i certainly watch it critically like with any other media #edit for tags: i said angela was bi but i’m p sure in canon she says she has no label so im sorry abt that. i meant she dates men and women

[blood-orange-juice]

ok so ive never properly played genshin and don’t plan to but i know a bit about it’s lore and characters and i think it’s really neat. however i have thousands of hours on ffxiv. on that note please explain why graha and childe are similar. i only have very basic knowledge on childe and i gotta know

Fellow ffxiv enjoyer. <3

(anyone asking me about G'raha has a 100% chance of getting a wall of text and I'm not apologising for that. enjoy your wall of text)

I'm not entirely sure I'm not a case of a person with a hammer to whom everything resembles a nail, but I do think they are the same archetype.

Sweet characters who could have been perfect sidekicks (who still are perfect sidekicks) but listened to too many epic tales as kids and found themselves in a wrong place at a wrong time and now have to play a key role in some universe-changing story.

Both are defined mostly by their stubborness, they are not very suitable for the roles they've chosen and fail over and over again until they do it somewhat right (barely).

No matter how badass they look, their power is not their own, G'raha is a glorified technician of someone else's miracle and little else than a living key, Childe wields an art of old Khaenri'ah without fully understanding it. It's all borrowed from someone else who needed them to achieve a goal.

They do look badass, but mostly because they larp. I'm honestly not sure which one enjoys theatrics more.

Civilisations that created the magic they use specialised in perversion of the natural order of things. They try to use it in relatively noble ways and mostly hurt themselves but the flavour is there.

Both are unbelievably tragic and both somehow make their stories seem almost lighthearted. Complete absense of self-pity. I think that's what makes them both so charming, it's a rare trait.

Both have an incredible capacity for loyalty and love and an incredibly twisted view of what relationships look like. "I'll cross time and space for you, I'll die for you, I'll build a city for you, I'll live for you but please don't ask me to share my plans." "I'll sacrfice my own health and respect of my subordinates to keep my brother's happyness, probably my humanity too, but don't expect me to actually interact with him."

Both have something that looks like self-sacrificial tendencies bordering on suicidality while being, if we are honest, a self-serving trait (partially born out of low self-esteem but still self-serving). They want to live in an old myth and sacrificing oneself is a perfectly reasonable price for that.

Huge egos. And I mean Huge Egos. It's a bit less obvious in Graha's case but I know the type, you see guys like that in PhD programs a lot.

Huge dorks. Both of them.

Both are stuck somewhere between human and non-human and, hmm... their ability to remain human is the most astonishing quality of both. By all accounts, neither should have. They somehow did.

Both are incapable of lying to the point where a third of each fandom headcanons them as autistic. Both are somewhat all right with tricking people without technically lying (although Childe had more practice).

Both are secretive because no one would understand anyway.

FF XIV is a kinder story, so it's easy to overlook, but technically G'raha is a case of body horror, accepts the role of a villain for a while and hides from the player way too much. Hmmm... Where else have I seen it. Hmm. Oh right. That ginger guy from Genshin.

Minor things:

Both are little shits and enjoy annoying the hell out of people they dislike.

Abysmally bad fashion sense. There should be a name for this particular type and level of bad. I don't think I've seen this anywhere else.

And then there's the colour scheme. Red+black+white+blue and red+black+light grey+blue (it's an "anime magician" color profile, I think. black-red-white as alchemy colours + blue as pure magic/something elemental). Childe doesn't quite fit but still the combination is rare.

They way they talk. Dear gods. Who the hell talks like that.

Here's where the similarities end.

One is morally grey but ultimately a good guy (technically. I think the point of ShB was that Emet and G'raha are almost the same), another is a morally grey but still (kind of) a bad buy.

At every step of his story Graha is surrounded by people who love or at least appreciate him, Childe is pretty much on his own and surrounded by people who are either shitty or clueless.

G'raha is kind. Truly and astonishingly kind, in a doomed world he chooses to love everything he touches. Silly little priest of hope. Of all the things he has done this is the most wondrous, I think. Not the time travel, not the city he founded, just being able to remain kind after everything that happened to him.

Childe is... well, Childe. I think he is a deeply decent person (to the point of having a visceral distaste for any kind of unfairness) and he's idealistic but he's indifferent more than he is kind. Empathy usually develops only when someone has shown the person empathy first and, as far as we know, he didn't have much of that in his life.

Also G'raha builds things. Childe breaks things. Childe breaks pretty much everything he touches.

One is an archeologist and a mage and another is a warrior.

I think these differences are caused mostly by the settings they were put into. Childe raised in Sharlayan would have been a very different person. G'raha trained by a voidsent and shipped off to Garlean military would look very much like Childe.

G'raha also has a beautiful character development arc. I love his ShB role. He has this huge ego in the raids and is insufferable and then we see an older and wiser him with a bunch of actual achievements and a bad case of impostor syndrome (trying to do anything real always humbles a person, we all know that real world is held together by sticks and scotch tape. honestly, this change alone is beautiful). And he gets to be an actual hero when he abandons all hope to be Important and resigns to die as a nameless villain if it saves everyone and spares his loved ones from heartbreak.

Childe's character development is yet to happen and I'm not hoping for much but we'll see.

The only difference that definitely isn't created by setting is that G'raha is naturally manipulative. In a kind-hearted way and mostly for the sake of better larp but he isn't that straightforward. Childe is spectacularly blunt for all his mysteriousness.

As a bonus, they both compare main characters to stars, but in completely different ways.

"No doubt your heroism will be the star by which I chart my course," says G'raha to the WoL.

Childe mentions the morning star, which is, of course, pretty and a good companion to a lonely traveler, but also it's not a celestial body you can chart your course by.

It's a guy whose signature weapon is called "Polar Star" and his first artifact set was full of nautical themes, so I think he fully understands what he's saying. "You are my friend but I won't change anything in my life for you."

So I don't think his story will be anything like G'raha's, his life took a different turn very long ago. I do think they used to be similar as kids, bookish boys who dreamed of adventure and being special. So it's fun to compare.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. <3

#honestly I think it's mostly involvement in deep lore and the lack of self-pity #everything else just snowballs from it #I refuse to be contained #the world must know everything about g'raha #he's the only character who has a personal tag in my old livejournal blog #even childe doesn't #even dragon age morrigan #g'raha tia #eternal wind #ff xiv #childe #tartaglia #rinn talks to people #one would think that the closest ffxiv parallel to childe would be zenos #another blood knight #and in a sense he is #but also not really #zenos raised in sharlayan would still be zenos #but also maybe I'm overthinking and reading into childe's character too much #I hope not #I want a good story for him

[dateamonster]

spent a surprising length of time today binge reading angel's friends, a pretty good italian comic book series that was adapted into a pretty mediocre early 2000s cartoon series. i had been vaguely aware of the cartoon in the sense that kid me was prone to imprinting on anything with even a passing resemblance to winx club, but didnt know about the comics, and its kind of amazing how much better the comics are, in spite of apparently never being finished :(

like its not a masterpiece or anything and its got a couple of Very Questionable character designs but man im a sucker for silly angels vs devils brand fantasy media and the way the comics approach that type of story with some actually pretty fresh lore ideas (whether or not all of it necessarily makes perfect sense..) really gets me in my overanalyzing-childrens-media-worldbuilding brain.

also (with the exception of aforementioned questionable designs) its just so much cuter and overall visually appealing than the show like look at this

i dont even like dislike the show designs or anything theyre very y2k but im biased towards the one where they actually look like kids

#angel's friends #i dont remember a ton abt the show but from what i do know i think the characters and their relationships are a lot better fleshed out #in the comic as well #the show mostly gives the impression of the angels and demons always being enemies with the exception of the starcrossed love interests #but in the comics they p regularly work together and build friendships with one another even as their respective teachers disapprove #the concept of these boundaries and when its both possible and necessary to break them is like a big part of the whole thing #it rly surprised me! its genuinely p interesting stuff for such a simplistic core concept

[hadescabin]

TW// GROOMING, MANIPULATION breaking down tigerheartstar and dovewing and why i think its awful ik I said that I dont really like warrior cats anymore but recently i've been thinking about some stuff regarding the series and its fandom and there's one thing that's been particularly bothering me. dovewing and tigerheart. it's just crazy to see the shift of support for tigerdove considering early 2010s warriors fandom seemed mixed on them. now there seems to be this equivocal support for them, probably because most of the fandom's exposure to the couple has been the recent books which frames them as man who loves his wife x burnt out prophecy kid who will do anything for her malewife. which theres nothing wrong with that dynamic, i think it's cute, but people really seem to forget about how tigerheart straight up groomed and treated dovewing awfully throughout oots and even in tigerheart's shadow. it seems to be a forgotten fact that tigerheart was a full grown warrior by the time he was pursuing dovepaw, who was a newly made apprentice. for perspective, this was a 6-7 moon teenager with someone almost the age of her mentor (a little younger). people try to use the excuse "oh but they're cats" and "the age gap isnt that bad" but even the recent books acknowledge with frostpaw and splashtail, that a warrior and apprentice dating is WEIRD. tbf oots was released in the early 2000s, but the fact that canonically speaking the age gap is seen as a teenager and adult relationship gives me the ick. it really puzzles me to see people get on ships like dustfern and bramblesquirrel (both of which i hate btw) for their age gaps but come up with every excuse in the books to defend tigerdove. its not even just the age gap too, again, their relationship has consisted of tigerheart manipulating and grooming dovepaw to do what he wants. in the first two books (esp the second book of oots) dovepaw is presented as someone who got attached to the cats from the journey and doesnt necessarily understand why they must act like they shouldnt exist anymore due to the borders. this is something that tigerheart LEARNS and actively takes advantage of when dovepaw questions why hes at their borders (tldr its dark forest stuff). he shifts the topic and then goes on about the journey and how he felt that they almost became friends, and that if they were in the same clan things would be easier. this may not seem like a big deal, but this goes on for the rest of their interactions whenever tiger needs to pressure her to do something she doesnt want (meeting up, trusting him, etc.) He realizes that the subject of different borders resonates with her and uses it to his advantage whenever he wants something out of her. This can especially be seen in the next book, “Night Whispers”, which kickstarted their relationship. Dovepaw accidentally ran into ShadowClan territory while hunting, and Tigerheart happens to find her there. Once again, he gives her a speech about borders being meaningless, before asking her to meet up with him before the ShadowClan patrol catches them. There’s also other examples in later books where he coerces her into meeting up or trusting him since “that’s what friends are for” or even later in that book, where he manipulates her into using Ivypaw as a captive for herbs. 

When you take this into account, plus him as a full grown warrior, starting a romantic relationship with a barely apprenticed Dovepaw who is shown as having a childish/ immature perception on romance/mates (such as her argument with Ivypaw and claiming that she should “find her own mate”), Tigerdove feels very much like grooming to me. According to the dictionary definition grooming is, “the action of attempting to form a relationship with a child or young person, with the intention of sexually assaulting them”. Of course, in this case, since it’s a young adult book, it’s to form a romantic relationship, which could also be another goal of grooming. Groomers tend to display manipulative behaviors towards the victims in order to coerce them into trusting them more. Whether that be through compliments, gifts, trying to resonate with them or make them feel special. They tend to try to get them to keep and “share” secrets, which is another tactic they utilize both to isolate the victim and to get them to feel more comfortable. 

A lot of behaviors that Tigerheart displays towards Dovepaw falls under this, including the examples I mentioned. There are a couple of other comments that he makes which come off as creepy such as Dovepaw “being his favorite sister”, which as I established, is something a groomer would say in order to make the victim feel as though they’re special and garner their trust. Which is especially the case when you note that he makes that comment in reference to Dovepaw asking about his ties to Ivypaw, which he actively lies about, and quickly reassures her that there’s nothing going on. 

This tactic of manipulation, where he either makes her feel special, or even love bombs and dissuade her from standing up for herself, doesn’t stop when she’s an apprentice. It continues when she’s a warrior, and is constantly used throughout OOTS and “Tigerheart’s Shadow”. At one point in the series, Dovewing and Tigerheart get into an argument about Dawnpelt wrongfully accusing Jayfeather of murder. When Tigerheart defends his sister, Dovewing stands up for Jayfeather, which prompts Tigerheart to try and manipulate her out of the conversation. He jumps straight to talking about how much he loved and missed her, and guilts her by asking why they had to argue like this, and why they couldn’t just “meet like before”. As for Tigerheart's Shadow, he actively goes against what she wants (to raise her kits outside the clan) and actively pressures and guilts her into coming back, before she finally relents. He doesn't care about what SHE wants, it's always about him. Whether it be secretly meeting up, or in The Last Hope, he tries to pressure her to date him again (which she FINALLY refuses and scolds him for thinking about his own needs when they're right before a final battle. as she should). It's especially upsetting in the newest book that tigerheart seems to be the only think at the center of her character. when she argues with ivypool, it's less about the two sister's interpersonal conflicts and more about her and tigerheart's relationship. which...feels like a lot of missed potential to me? i want them to argue, i want dovewing to stand up to herself against ivypool, but why does the entire conflict have to revolve around him? why can't dovewing have her own thoughts and feelings without it tying back to her awful husband?

#☕.txt #txt #some of these are snippets of my essay i wrote on the two in a fit of rage after seeing tigerheartstar fans attack harestar fans #i might share it with the world if i care to one day #dove revolving her character around tiger is unfortunately why i dont care for her canon character because it feels mostly shallow #however it isnt the poor girl's fault just the erins' incapability of writing women but thats a talk for another day #if i were to rewrite the books (which i have some ideas on) i would definitely get rid of this god awful relationship #warriors #warrior cats #tigerheart #dovewing #tigerheartstar #tigerstar #tigerdove #warior cats

[itsjustpoopeh]

now they're trying to say Tommy's comment about closet space was basically outing Buck 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

bestie have you ever met straight people? they're kind of dumb

that was just funny sorry

#911 abc #tommy kinard #you can dislike characters without twisting yourself up to make them Problematic™️ #but its not really about that is it #its about making other people Wrong and Problematic for not agreeing with you #the flailing from one made up issue to another is fascinating in a way #mostly just weird af tho

[screwpinecaprice]

It’s been nine years since Steven Universe premiered! 🥺💕

*And shout out to those supported me through Patreon!*

#Steven Universe 9th anniversary #ah it's been nine years! #So I thought: WOW I actually drew and colored multiple characters in a single image under three hours! Surely I can drew another with only s #lightly refined details and designs I didn't have to come up myself under a day! #And of course I ended up drawing the sketch alone over three days. lmao #Steven Universe #Steven Universe fanart #Garnet SU #Pearl SU #Steven Quartz Universe #Amethyst SU #Greg Universe #Connie Maheswaran #Lion SU #my shiz #patreon #I really liked a lot of episodes in season one. Mostly because of how malleable the characters are in the animations #Looking at season 1 Lion. His proportions then was pretty neat looking. I'm going to start drawing him like that.

[veinsfullofstars]

❄️ Memories of winter ❄️

(ID: Kirby series fanart, Childhood Friends AU, featuring young Dedede, Meta, Para Dee, and Bow Dee engaging in various winter-themed activities and scenarios. DDD wears a burgundy full-body coat with fuzzy white puffball buttons and cuffs, a red-and-orange-striped scarf, and a red knitted cap with another white puffball on the end. Meta wears a purple-and-lilac-striped scarf patterned in simple dark bat shapes and a pair of knitted purple wing cozies. Para wears a green-and-brown plaid scarf and a pair of pale-green earmuffs with a white band alongside his glasses. Bow wears only a pair of white earmuffs with a light-blue band alongside her trademark bow. More detailed descriptions below the cut. END ID.)

Part 1 (you're here!) | Part 2

Finally managed to bang this out despite the weeks-long pain of driveway shoveling. A pox on this season, I say. At least the kiddos are having fun - look at them. Precious beans.

Sketches started btw 11/23 and 01/24, render started 01/08/24, finished 01/21/24. NOTE: This was originally posted on my deleted account on 01/29/24.

—

Image descriptions (from top to bottom):

-The kids all packed together on a wooded sled going fast downhill toward the viewer’s left. Meta up front leaning into the wind with a look of excited wonder on his face, Para sitting beside him with his hands covering his face in fright, DDD behind them holding onto the sled and squinting hard against the wind, Bow behind him holding onto his shoulder and waving her free hand in the air in joyful exhilaration.

-DDD and Meta iceskating towards the viewer’s right (each wearing a pair of brown skates with gold clasps and silver blades). DDD has fallen flat on his face (in his signature head-slide pose), and Meta glances over at him as he skates past, a look of concern on his face, his scarf trailing out behind him.

-Bow on a snowboard (the deck patterned in long swooping lines almost like waves in various shades of teal), soaring up through the air towards the viewer’s left, her feet planted firmly, one hand gripping the board, the other tossed back behind her, her expression determined.

-A snowball fight between Meta and Bow on one team (background) and Para and DDD on the other (foreground), each hiding behind a wall of packed snow. DDD startles, arms held out and eyes comically wide, as a snowball - tossed by Bow - hits him right in the back of the head. Para (sitting beside him) glances up from where he is making more snowballs. Behind them, Meta climbs on top of his team’s fort, a snowball the size of his own body held over his head, his eyes a pair of ultra-instinct diamonds as he prepares to throw.

-Para trying out a set of skis (the decks lime-green, the shoes brown with gold clasps, the poles dark-green with lime-green handles). He looks very unsteady on his feet, holding the poles out wide as he trembles, frowning down through his lime-green ski mask. He says in a speech bubble, “P-Pizza… French fry…”

-Meta standing neutrally, wearing his scarf and wing cozies along with DDD’s knitted cap, his breath visible beside him in a small puff.

-The kids all lying on the snow making snow angels (top-down view, DDD on bottom, Meta on left, Bow on top, Para on right). DDD laughs with his eyes closed as he drags his arms and feet through the snow in wide arcs. Meta grins happily behind his scarf as he does the same. Bow excitedly flails her little arms and feet through the snow as fast as she can, spraying snow everywhere. Para - caught in her wake - curls slightly away from Bow and blocks the snow with his hand, one eye closed, smiling despite himself.

-DDD sitting with his arms held out as his friends all cuddle close to him for warmth - Para draped over his right side (viewer’s left), Bow peeking out from behind his left shoulder, Meta lying against his left side (viewer’s right) - all looking quite content save for DDD himself, who looks only slightly annoyed. Squiggly lines radiate out from him to indicate body heat, while an arrow points at him with the text “Living Space Heater”.

-DDD, Meta, and Para all enjoying mugs of hot cocoa, each piled high with swirls of cream, wisps of steam curling off of them. DDD holds one mug for himself (pale-yellow with a light-blue snowflake design) and hands out another for Meta (light-blue with a pale-yellow snowflake design). Meta reaches for it excitedly, eyes wide and sparkling, his little hands waving and his wings flared out behind him, straining in their cozies. Beside him, Para sits with his own mug (light-green with a pale-red snowflake design), holding it in both hands and smiling contentedly.

-The kids making snowpeople. On the left, DDD stands before a snowman vaguely modeled after himself (with rocks for the eyes, mouth, and buttons, three twigs on top for his plumage, and a fish-patterned scarf - presumably Bow’s - around its neck), grinning cockily and mimicking its pose with one hand on his hip, the other held up in a flex. Para stands beside him with an armful of extra sticks, looking very unimpressed with an ellipsis over his head. On the right, Meta leans on one foot with his back to the viewer, working on a snowman that looks somewhat like Galacta Knight (with twigs shoved in to represent his horns and the cross visor of his mask, and mounds of snow in back to represent wings). In the foreground, Bow sits stubbornly half-buried in a pile of snow, shivering, a drop of snot hanging from her face.

#veins art #veins ocs #veins fanart #fanart #kirby series #kirby #king dedede #meta knight #original character #oc #kirby oc #my ocs #para dee #bow dee #AU #childhood friends au #winter #page composition my behated -_- #good news - I kept DDD squint after all #any opportunity to use the Dededeathpose - I will take it #Meta didn't start the snowball fight but he Will finish it #*Chowder voice* body heeeeeat #fun fact - one of Bow's moms made Meta those wing cozies; they're a little restricting (not flying in 'em) but they do keep him extra warm #contrast that with Bow who will do everything in her power to NOT wear her winter gear EVER (much to her parents' frustration) #DDD (ever the enabler) dared Bow to see how long she could stay buried in snow #(mostly to keep her from preemptively destroying their snowmen) #spoiler alert - she got sick and they all got in trouble for it; she still brags about winning the dare tho #another fun fact - I based Meta's scarf design off of the inner tube he uses in KRtDLDx :D #veinsfullofstars

[tac-bat]

Blood cw under the keep reading

just a head cannon I have on how Sah has the crack in their mask in game, and their scar in my hc :)

#I always imagine the twins had a very big rift in their younger years #mostly feuled by their own insecurity's and jealousy for one another #it's not pretty but thats what i love about my interpretations of their characters #i also imagine this incident happened when they were younger if that wasn't obvious #sky: cotl #sky cotl fanart #sky: children of the light #sky elders #sky cotl #skyblr #sky children of the light #valley elders #valley twins #samekh #sahmek #sky cotl art #thatskygame #tac art

[noswordinourlake]

Pastels your War God 💙

#can lang jue #love between fairy and devil #lbfad #changheng #clj fanart #lbfad fanart #changheng was another character that i was initial sort of ambivalent about and then ended up being #very sobbing on the floor towards mostly bc he has SO many feelings and is making SO many Bad Life Decisions about them #caught a crush one time and backflipped off a cliff about it. relatable #anyway i am back! got COVID and it made my arthritis The Worst but hopefully I'm back in business now #my art

[lord-squiggletits]

I need to reread the comics again to have specific arguments/evidence for this, but like

I feel a bit like I could've been sympathetic to the way other Cybertronian colonies view Cybertron, if it weren't for the fact that at least several of them (as in, ones that get notable dialogue/screen time) are so low-key self-righteous?

Like, idk... there's a lot of criticism of Cybertronians because they're so "warlike" and how their obsession with violence and vengeance is just dragging the whole galaxy down with them, but uh. The Autobot-Decepticon war was basically a product of societal ills bubbling over for like 6 million years beforehand and then finally boiling over into a 4 million year war that lasted as long as it did because the people involved had immense social/psychological trauma from being "raised" in an oppressive society.

So when the colonists come in being all 'omg you people are so violent and uncivilized why don't you just like, stop fighting' it kind of pissed me off a little bit as a reader/person like. Idk the colonists really came into this society of people full of massive amounts of trauma where even before the war society was super oppressive and no one has any experience of living "normal" lives unaffected by violence and bigotry. And the colonists were like "ummm wow why don't you guys just??? stop fighting???." Like idk it wasn't EVERY SINGLE MOMENT, in fact I think that when it was played for laughs it's quite a funny "fridge horror" type element. It was just annoying because like.... IDK???? It's just really annoying to watch a bunch of people who lived relatively sheltered lives on their own planets come to a different planet full of traumatized people and be like "omg why are you people so fucked up" IDK BRO MAYBE BECAUSE THEIR SOCIETY WAS OPPRESSIVE AND THEY LIVED THROUGH A LIFELONG WAR???

It also doesn't help that the colonies were literally founded based on imperialism and conquest so like, it's fucking rich to hear colonists scolding Cybertronians for their violence ruining the whole galaxy while literally sitting on planets that their Primes colonized from others. The hypocrisy of this is briefly mentioned in Unicron (literally the FINAL STORY OF THE SERIES) but like, that's basically the only time Cybertronian characters are given a reprieve of sympathy from other characters in universe and it's so tiresome.

I've talked to other people who didn't like the colonists and thought they basically (narratively speaking) existed just to shit on the existing characters, and it's actually really easy for me to sympathize with/outright agree with that assessment of the story considering how much of exRID/OP seems to be preoccupied with "Cybertron/the Primes/Optimus sucks" with very few reprieves for anything positive happening and even fewer chances for characters to get to explain themselves and experience a little bit of justice? Like, as the audience, it's just very frustrating to see the characters you spent hundreds of issues keeping up with get shit on by a bunch of "literally-who"s and then not really get a chance to ever defend themselves, either by literally defending themselves in conversation or having some sort of narrative thing happening that vindicates them at least symbolically

#squiggposting #paused work to muse about this which i prolly shouldn't have lol #oh well i'll still get stuff done #like idk an example of this is how pyra criticized OP for using religion to manipulate people #(lets just ignore how she said she would teach OP but never actually did) #but in the story there's never any sort of confrontation where pyra learns about history or talks with OP #and OP gets to be like. yeah on my planet primes fucking sucked and i'm the only one trying to redeem their image #also ive been fighting an endless war that lasted 4 mil years in which me being a shining figurehead was basically #the sole motivating force keeping my army from just collectively succumbing to endless despair #and i also had to use this shining figurehead image i had to keep the opposing army from genociding a bunch of organics #like not once does OP get to express his side of things he's basically just shit upon endlessly by other characters as he keeps doing plot #i feel like i had another example but i can't recall who/what was involved lmao #like idk it's not just that barber's writing is depressing and dark and edgy. i LIKE stories that do that kind of thing #it's just that it feels a bit as if the story is ENDLESSLY depressing and dark and edgy with almost no reprieve #as if it's mostly presenting the flaws of the characters with no chance for them to justify or redeem themselves #idk i feel like there was another better point/example i was gonna make but i can't remember it #like idk i guess a dark depressing story would've been better if the characters at least got to defend themselves #bc as is it basically feels like they (esp OP) get shit on endlessly and never once get to express anything about it #so like. they get shit on in universe. but also as the reader since there's never a contradicting viewpoint or the character defending them #it's as if you're supposed to take this one-sided criticism of them at face value and it just doesn't seem fair AS THE READER #if i read about OP getting shit on by some people and defended by others and also him expressing his opinion on himself #then that just feels like a normal fair narrative where i get to take sides #but if it's just OP being shit on and he hardly expresses much about it #then it feels like i as the reader am expected to agree with the portrayal being shown? #but in reality the portrayal just feels negative and unfair and one sided to me #and why the fuck do i want to read a story that's just the characters i know and like on an endless shame parade #also shout out to 'literally who' aka slide calling OP 'literally fascist' lmao #one of the most cringe moments of the entire comic. wait no. i can think of a more cringe Slide Moment #when unicron is about to destroy the planet and trypticon is getting shot and dying(?) in the background #and the story decides to pause and focus on Slide so she can monologue about how evil and tyrannical OP is