Matthias!! I hate drawing him:D!!!!

telling myself i can't start another tdwt rewrite but dear god do i want to write one focusing on alejandro and courtney in this weird situationship thats a lot more nuanced than just alejandro manipulating courtney and her falling for it. like theyre best friends they dont trust each other theyre the same person they dont know anything about the other one theres a mutual attraction theyre pining for other people theyre codependent they dont care about each other theyre platonic soulmates like i just want to do a deep dive into how messy that relationship couldve been building off of their friendship that exists in my head except the line between romantic and platonic is so fucking blurred they have no idea what they are to the other person

I know mahiru is often seen as not smart (his official stats from the guidebook give him a 2 out of 10 for tactics and I think the mental stat is more about mental stability?) and sure he's not a tactical genius like mikuni or touma (both have 10/10 in tactics) but mahiru is extremely socially/emotionally intelligent, which is an intelligence often overlooked in favour of "classic" intelligence (like being good at math or things like chess).

But unlike other characters mahiru knows when to stand his ground and when to lay low and change a person's view slowly over time.

Misono wasn't on his side in the beginning, even saying mahiru could be his servant when mahiru agreed to work with him, but mahiru quickly picked up on the fact that misono was lonely and offered to be his friend. Now misono trusts him completely and recognizes that mahiru's strength lies in gaining allies.

Shuhei openly hated vampires and treated them as things and mahiru responded by humanizing them, listing examples of vampires acting just like normal people, laying the first stone for shuhei to stop wanting to kill all vampires.

He was the one who proposed the idea that tsubaki would come to rescue lilac because tsubaki sees his subclass as family and he was right.

Neither lawless nor licht were overly impressed by him when they first met him, but by the time he asks them to rescue tsurugi especially lawless is one of his biggest supporters.

In C3 he understood that he wasn't going to be able to move if he opposed them and joined them instead, allowing him and the other eves to meet. He also correctly concluded that getting tsurugi on their side was key because he was central to C3's/touma's plans and in the end it saved his life and allowed him to stop touma.

Mahiru consistently trying to protect tsubaki's subclass might also come in handy soon. They might not like C3, but both lilac and sakuya can vouch for mahiru as a person they can trust not to kill them and to aid them in stopping tsubaki from destroying himself.

And stopping tsubaki by convincing him to stop is perfectly logical. A servamp can't be killed as far as we know. Combat only gets you so far. If C3 want to create a lasting co-existence between vampires and humans getting both sides to stop killing each other and to learn to forgive is the only way.

Trying to solve this conflict through conversation and not violence is neither shortsighted nor childish, it's the only reasonable solution.

I have no base for this, but Halsin seems like the type who would settle in the middle of the group with fruits (that he likely foraged) and little wooden bowl in tow and just start cutting them unprompted and offering them to everyone else.

tdov was like a week ago already but I just wanna say when I came over to vacation slash help my sworn brother move flat he told me, "ever since you said you wanted to get top surgery I've been thinking about it. it's straight up number two on my bucket list"

Okay so NO ONE JUDGE ME OVER HERE. But I've been reading some chethan fics... And I've had some thoughts. (Obviously, spoilers for Scream VI).

It really just happened by accident, there was that fic that popped up on the Avatar ao3 page someone wrote of the Avatar characters reacting to Scream VI, like an alternate version of Spider. In that fic I don't believe Ethan is ghostface, but I don't remember fully.

So I had known in passing people shipped Ethan and Chad, and I got curious as to their Ethan isn't ghostface versions, because as I said in a post recently that movie was held up by fantastic action scenes and great ideas, and dragged down by some weak ghostface reveals. Especially when compared to how strong the reveals were in Scream (2022). Anyways, I found some really interesting stuff on there, fics where Ethan is not ghostface but Quinn and his dad are, making it like a massive betrayal, and usually the dad and Richie were super abusive to Ethan and what not. I find that kinda interesting as a plot, it makes it like ghostface Richie was his tormentor for decades before he ever was to the core four, but he's still a suspect and they still can't trust him fully. I don't know, I think it makes it more complex and better motivations for the killers, the screenwriters really should've let me give them notes on the script before they started filming. All irrelevant, really, because Ethan's character was actually a dirty filthy murderer, but still. Could've been used better.

BUT ANYWAYS, the point of this is to say; has there really been no Scream AU Avatar fic? Like it seems to me like that shit is just sitting here waiting to be made. Like, half of you all are just Jack Champion fangirls so you have seen both. Idk, I read a couple chethan fics and the character fanon-Ethan has morphed into is really kinda Spider coded, so it writes itself. I can tell you the plot easy, right now.

Askbox time

Assuming that Nobby has seen Edward in preservation (post 1963 rebuild) (I think it was '63), what are his opinions on Edward being rebuilt into something not-so-Furness?

tl;dr: Nobby's just glad Edward is still alive, thank you — though he knows he has to pretend to give a damn about this sort of thing

The Awdry’s explanation for Edward does not come down to a single rebuild but to numerous modifications over the past, erm (checks notes) century or so. Some of these rebuilds would have been more extensive than others but it’s not clear to me that the one after the crankpin failure would have been one where they made the biggest alterations to his design.

I am sure that some significant rebuilding took place between 1920 and 1941. So Nobby already saw the beginnings of the Edwardification of 34 before he left Barrow. 

Life is change. Most of Nobby’s own working career was before Mr Pettigrew brought standardisation to the F.R., he knows how it goes. 

And, like, look, Nobby knows that when visitors come and say anything along the lines of oh if only so-and-so was still in their original form (and they do mention the Edward case to him of course, quite a lot), his job is to make vague sympathetic noises and to be sure to sound genial rather than biting if he observes that the world already has a preserved Sharp and Stewart passenger engine, you can go visit him any time, oh yes, I’m told the Dutch take very good care of him...

Incidentally, Nobby was sceptical about the project to rebuild 20 to his original form. May have kinda definitely been polite, diplomatic conversations with earnest representatives of the newly-formed Furness Railway Trust that boiled down to Nobby being like ‘Ya can’t bring back the past, shit don’t work like that’ and the FRT blokes being like ‘lol wut, nah bro, if you throw enough money at it you totally can — relax, we’ll show you.’

(At the risk of spoilers… the attitude of both parties proved justified in the end.) 

the higher-ups (and Yaga) immediately trying to leverage Gojo & Ieri's absence to put Yuuta on the roster??? God that's such a stark moment. Thank god Nanami and Gojo saw through that one immediately, because Yuuta wants to justify his own survival so badly he would've fallen straight into it.

That whole scene, with Yuuta immediately jumping on the opportunity to help people even though something is Extremely Wrong with him and he's on the brink of physical collapse--this boy is selfless to the point of self destruction and I am chewing the drywall about it. I love him so much.

If only he was able to summon his newly found homicidal rage in defense of himself, the higher-ups would no longer be a problem. Alas, this boy is Extremely Unwell.

(Sea Glass Gardens is absolutely incredible and i am obsessed with it in a way that is totally and 100% normal. I'm so normal about it, trust me <3 )

The thing about Yuuta is that he really is prime to be taken advantage of right now and the higher ups know it. They had him try to kill himself for them--they know that there's a window of opportunity that they can use to get him under their thumb and avoid The Problem of Gojo, which is, namely, having a human weapon who you cannot fully control. Gojo nailed it from the beginning: they want a magic gatling gun with no personality or free will. They learned their lesson with Gojo and are trying to rob Yuuta of his agency before he learns how to protect himself.

And Yaga's part in that scene really was meant to kind of emphasize how, even with the best intention's, he just doesn't work to protect the kids. Like. everything he said was technically true, and he meant it with the best of intentions. He's the guy who has to think of everyone's needs. he has to manage this crisis. he's got a lot of people hurt badly who just came out of a war, and a lot of people going into fights with some very aggravated curses spawning without sufficient manpower to address the danger and no healer to save them if they cut it a little too close. He didn't have the intention of manipulating or sacrificing Yuuta, but he was aware that it would come to his detriment and risk.

The issue is the higher ups. They don't give a shit about the people in their workforce. They should be the ones doing whatever it takes to solve this crisis and save their people--and if that means giving up on their machinations? They should have already done it. It's their responsibility.

They just don't care. They want Okkotsu Yuuta under their thumb, and their society hemorrhaging is treated like an opportunity, not a dire problem to be solved. They don't care if half a dozen of their own people need to die to do it. Hell, it's better if they do die--they can put it straight on Okkotsu for not being willing to sacrifice himself, when they should have been making whatever promises they had to in order to make this work.

Gojo's done this before, is the thing. He was Yuuta, a long time ago. Nanami was right there watching it happen. They both know what the higher ups do: They let society get to a crisis level and put all the responsibility on you to save it. they let you maneuver yourself into a vulnerable position as a result, and then they use it as leverage to put their goddamn boot on your neck.

The thing is that Gojo adopting megumi all those years ago really did put them into a crisis state. the zenin pitched the mother of all bitch fits trying to secure his unconditional return, and they were a huge percentage of jujutsu society's labor force and resource pools. instead of the higher ups managing the problem at all, they took advantage of the situation and shoved more and more of its weight and responsibility onto gojo, until he was dropping off his own kid at his abusers' compound thinking it was the only compromise that could resolve things. megumi paid the price for gojo not calling bullshit, and right now, with him in a hospital bed? gojo's less willing to repeat mistakes than ever.

he knows that they're going to use the safety and suffering of everyone else as the leverage against him, and he knows that as terrible as it is, he cannot blink first. He's played this game before, and he knows that the only way to get the higher ups to back off on something like this is to dig in your heels.

I think what happened to Megumi all those years ago and how bad it got before they put a stop to it is something that haunts all three of them. When they first started raising him, they were very young, and they were very broken, and they loved him very, very much. He was their little boy, and he was never the same after the Zenin. They were supposed to protect him, and they didn't, and not a single one of them has forgiven themselves for that.

Megumi was sort of sacrificed for the greater good when he was a kid. None of them thought that that was what they were doing when it happened, but that's what happened. His happiness, safety, and wellbeing were sacrificed to pacify the Zenin and make it easier on everyone else.

Megumi and Tsumiki had to become their non-negotiables after. They had to become the things they refused to compromise on. The Zenin would take miles and miles if you gave them a millimeter, let alone an inch.

Gojo didn't think he was compromising them when he left them on their own to deal with Geto's war. They were disgustingly self-sufficient kids. They had been alone for longer stretches of time when they were practically toddlers--they should have been fine on their own for a couple of weeks.

But they were still his kids, and he still left them alone for everyone else's sake, and now his kid is blind and half dead in a hospital bed. It's like being punched in the face by old mistakes.

So they're off the roster completely, all of them. And they're not compromising an inch on what their focus is, and they're not letting anything happen to any of the other kids in their care.

It's terrible that their coworkers are suffering, but it wouldn't be happening if the Zenin hadn't fucked with Gojo Satoru's kid, of all the goddamn people. It wouldn't be happening if the higher ups would actually do their job and start managing shit.

And if they use Yuuta as an anxiety riddled bandaid on the bullet hole in their society? Then they'd be sacrificing him the way they sacrificed Megumi all those years ago. And they have never been less willing to do that.

I'm so so glad you like the story! Thank you for talking with me!

Do you think that -in the inevitable MK vs. his friends confrontation- Mei will accidentally seriously hurt him with the Samadhi fire? 🤔

Since strong emotions can cause it to run haywire, and there is nothing that would make her more afraid than having to fight her best friend.

There is NO way that they are completely done with the Samadhi fire. (Unless she lost it?? Subodhi did say she 'once' wielded it. So not anymore???)

But yeah- I bet it would come back into play during the MK/Mei battle. Especially if LBD mistook MK‘s destiny for her own. (Since that one vision she showed made it look like MK was burning before the world exploded. And she wanted everything he ended up having; the staff, his own powers, the Samadhi fire -indirectly, and well, a new title that implies destruction on a reality shattering scale.)

My view is that post the Embrace Your Destiny special, they resealed the Samadhi Fire (unsure if Mei still has her piece with her or if they successfully resealed it into 3 rings this time). We at the very least know she doesn't have it in s4 (MK has to save her in 4x01, she's worried about losing her sword in 4x05 which she didn't need with the Samadhi Fire in EYD, the Subodhi quote you mentioned). But, I don't think Mei using the Samadhi Fire again is completely out of the question. There are things that have come back that I never expected to be acknowledged again (The 1x01 seal being the same as the 4x01 and 4x14 flower fruit mountain seal was a huge shocker for me).

So the Samadhi Fire coming back into play with the MK/Mei battle? That would work super well! Especially with the way characters tend to reach for power and endanger their loved ones. It's a huge risk to take again, but if they feel they don't have any other choice it's something we know they're willing to resort to.

something i really really like about ray and isabella's relationship is that ray is never expected to forgive her at the end. it makes sense that the younger kids would all forgive her after she used her position to help them in the return to gracefield because at the end of the day, she raised them in a warm and nurturing environment and did truly love them. ray didn't really get that same treatment though.

im sure ray's feelings about her at the end are complicated to say the least, he understands the horrifying position she had been in since she was 12 and probably relates to that at least a little bit. i like the way he tells her to get over it and come to the human world with them because if he couldn't use death as a way out, he definitely wasn't going to let her do it. (this would have been much more impactful if she didn't proceed to die anyway a little later on but. gently pushes that aside <3)

i don't really think ray's 'no one is holding any grudges' line necessarily means he forgave her though? the kids know that the sisters are all victims of a horribly abusive and oppressive system, and none of them are going to hold that against them even if some can't bring themselves to forgive them for whatever personal reasons. in ray's case specifically as a victim of abuse, i do not think he owes isabella anything. it was the system that forced isabella to raise children for the farm or face death, but her actions against ray specifically were her own, and he has every right to feel a little differently about her because of that.

kill the trope of characters forgiving abusive family members because 'they had no choice'/'they're still family' give me more ray 'i know you were hurt deeply by things beyond your control but that doesn't excuse the pain you caused me' tpn <3

me, in a video game: *chooses the bad option* NPCs: good god! how can you say that? you don't mean that! me, who's been consistently choosing these options since the start of the game: -_-

i worked on this for, like, at least four hours last night and i'm still nowhere near done or happy with it, but here's a little checkpoint on where i've gotten with the tamino sim i wanted to make 😔

omg i spent the whole day cleaning my entire apartment because my family was coming to visit and 1) so so so happy my adhd is being medicated now it's literally changing my life and 2) i FINALLLY got through to my dad about how he probably has ADHD too!!!!! he finally said Yeah i think i might have adhd. and my mom was like Me too (we've had this talk privately before, she knows she has adhd too lol) And my brother is literally transferring to a different school because he can't concentrate and isn't disciplined at his current uni. adhd family.

so. coyle.

Here's a simple art of Zhao turning his back to Ozai scene.

https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/108411738

This was meant to be posted together with it's parallel scene because *insert "poetic cinema" meme* but due to reasons I don't believe I'd be able to finish the other piece any time soon.

Also revisiting the chapter made me realize Ozai's hair should look more disbehaved than that. 😂

OOOOOOH, DANG!

That's one hell of a portrayal of that scene, love the way you worked with the lighting, makes it feel very dramatic (and it was indeed very dramatic, haha). And maybe Ozai's hair could be messier, but that it's messy altogether is VERY rare in Diva Lord x'D so I think his chaotic state of mind at this stage is conveyed perfectly here!

I'm really loving your Ozai art <3 his character arc in Part 3 is a rollercoaster that evokes sooo many fucked up emotions in me every single time I have to write him, as it should be when writing a guy like him, I'd dare say. He's complicated, he's messy, and I really thrive in portraying that because of how much work you can get done with a character like this. Seeing you making so much art about him really makes me think he's hitting the right spot as a complicated & complex character for more people than just myself, and nothing makes a writer happier than evoking other people's creations with their work! Thank you very much!!! <3

asta.

darling.

dearest.

beloved.

get this man AWAY from me.