I can’t believe I went through all of Season 2 assuming Nina was the stand-in for Crowley when you actually pay attention it’s so CLEAR that she’s Aziraphale. I was tricked by her spiky, sarcastic, cynical outer shell and lulled into a false sense of security by Maggie’s bubbly optimism and wholesome goodness, because on the surface they reflect the ineffable husbands perfectly, in their personalities, their aesthetics, even many of their actions and morals. but not, and this is the real key, when it comes to their “relationship”. but those first impressions really had me damn fooled. 

I missed the blatantness of Nina’s “we’re just friends. actually we’re not friends. we barely know each other.” the same thing Aziraphale said in season 1.  the way he still struggles to quantify their friendship when Nina asks. Nina’s sarcasm when Crowley asks about rain and awnings because it worked for him (we all know it LMAO). hell, that whole convo the girls have in the rain is so AziraCrow (“I know. I’m not your type” “...You have no idea” hits so much harder the second time, help meeeee.) “Lindsay” maybe being symbolic of Heaven and Aziraphale’s toxic relationship with them and their abuse? (the handwritten text messages in red pen make me think of angry notes on paperwork, anyone else?) because Crowley has never actually cared about what Hell thinks of him, just not getting into trouble (or him or Aziraphale getting hurt). Maggie is always chasing Nina. NINA NEVER GOES IN THE RECORD STORE. Just like Crowley always goes to the bookstore, to Aziraphale, Zira NEVER WENT TO THE FLAT (apart from The Swap but that doesn’t count imo). Crowley has always chased Zira, not the other way around. Always there to rescue him, always going to him for company, always relying on their shared connection, always US. OUR SIDE. All through season one, he comes to Zira every time to work together, never trying to work alongside Hell in any way that isn’t to save their skins or Earth, while Zira hides things from Crowley because he STILL thinks Heaven is ultimately good and will do the right thing if he can just show them. fix it from the inside. 

Maggie working up the courage to finally say something, to put herself out there, while Nina is utterly oblivious and then when she does realise Maggie has feelings, becoming standoffish, putting up that barrier, fighting it, denying it, ITS SO CROWLEY AND AZIRAPHALE IN THAT ORDER. the way I was fooled into thinking Nina’s trust issues are Crowley because he does have trust issues ofc he does BUT Crowley has ALWAYS TRUSTED AZIRAPHALE. has always relied on him. has always been hurt when Aziraphale doesn’t immediately reciprocate the way he expects (the holy water request, the bandstand, the “off in the stars” etc). he’s always the one putting himself forward. Aziraphale has always been the one to second guess everything, to fight their connection, their similarities, their friendship. the girls really made me think it was going to be okay when they sat Crowley down, even as my inner sirens were going haywire about Metatron interfering, they were telling Crowley he just needs to open up and it’ll all work out BUT HE’S ALREADY AT THAT POINT. he may not say it, and by gosh is that part of their damn problem, but he’s always SHOWN IT. he’s not Nina who needs time to heal and recover from her broken trust, he’s always been Maggie believing it doesn’t matter, they’ll end up together in the end anyway AND I WALKED RIGHT INTO THE TRAP THAT THIS MEANT THEY WERE GOING TO BE OKAYYYYYYYYYYY

Hogwarts Houses and BSD

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR BOTH THE MANGA AND THE ANIME!

I've been sitting at my desk for a while trying to figure out which Hogwarts house Akutagawa would be in and I cannot believe I've been so blind. I did that one Hogwarts house test that everyone knows and loves for Akutagawa and got Slytherin. Slytherin. It's so obvious. And not because he's 'evil' or 'violent'. It's because of his so-called 'ambition'. Ambition is defined as: "a strong desire to do or achieve something" by Google. Is that not so Akutagawa?? His desire to be recognised and to be seen as someone of importance to Dazai and those around him is so so strong. It's his biggest need/want in the world. THATS what makes him so much a Slytherin.

In the test (which I'll link at the end) it says that Slytherins "struggle with the idea of worth and whether or not they have done enough to deserve the things they want". Akutagawa doesn't see himself as worthy for anything. He does not see himself worthy of Dazai's praise, of Gin's sibling love, of Atsushi's respect or worry. He constantly tries to do more and more things for others so he may be worthy of everything. When he sacrificed himself for Atsushi in chapter 88 he did it to save Atsushi as he believes that Atsushi is worth life more than he is. He did because Atsushi is worth more to him than he is to himself. He wants to be enough, he wants to be WORTHY of Atsushis trust and loyalty. Be that in battle together or as partners.

The test also says how "Slytherins are tied to wanting, craving" and that is just SO Akutagawa. I mean every action he does, every thought he thinks, they're all tied to wanting/craving something. It also says at the end that their advice for Slytherins is that they see that they have "already earned love, because you never had to earn it in the first place". Akutagawa struggles with this and the whole idea that he is worthy by just being him. He doesn't need to do anything for anyone else.

But yeah that's my small mini-rant abt Akutagwa. Here's the link for the quiz:

i like think about machete's death as a culmination of his paranoia and eventual cruelty and vasco as the single ray of light loving him up through the end. even through as terrible as he becomes, the thought of vasco's heart being with him even as he chokes on his own blood as the one thing that he could hold on to. what is it to love something you know is vile, and to mourn their loss regardless. i could drink the tragedy like wine

.

Vettonso x Similar Helmets

SV Germany 2012 x FA Monaco 2013: Gold & Dark Red

I think a lot about Vettonso and their mutual relationship witn gold. They're both golden boys, they're both seen lit gold by the sunshine on many podiums throughout the years, both have worn golden boots, and as you can see here: both have worn golden helmets. The parallels in these particular helmets makes me feel insane. Both are: gold with dark red accents, both have their birthplace's coat of arms(Bergstraße and Asturias), both have team animal motifs, and both have symbols to represent their two championships(You by now know the signifigance of the ones on Fernando's helmet, but I think the ones on Seb's are actually a callback to his Formula BMW days when he used to put the smiley stickers on his car for every win.)

And did you know both of these helmets were designed by the same helmet design company? Yep, both of these are JMD helmets. I know JMD helmets are/were pretty popular, but still, there's something to me about Fernando commissioning the same designer that Seb has been using since he was a literal child. Parallels, am I right?

SV Japan 2010 x FA Japan 2023: White with Black & Red

Haha I remember @protocolseben and I discussing this a bit back in September when Fernando's helmet dropped. I honestly think Seb is such an innovator and trailblazer in terms of helmet design, and you can see his influence in helmet design as recently as this past season. I'm not sure if he was the first ever driver to don a matte white helmet with red accents as a representation of the Japanese flag, but it certainly envoked him in my mind when I saw Fernando's!!

I think Fernando's is pretty similar to all of Seb's 2010-2012 Japan helmets but I like this one the most so! I think if Seb wasn't restrained by the Red Bull logo, he def wouldv'e put the red circle where Nando put his so I think Fernando did a really good job, even if unintentionally, at emulating Seb's sense of design.

SV Singapore 2012 x FA Singapore 2012: Sparkly!

Like I said in the one above, it's crazy how much Seb influenced helmet design. He was pretty much the pioneer of sparkly helmets for Singapore, right? It drives me absolutely insane that there's actually pictures of them together in such similar designed helmets. It's kinda funny actually that even though they're pretty deep in the championship fight at this point, and Seb just got one up on Fernando; Fernando is wearing a helmet that is a direct influence from Seb!!! Is that not insane???

Also, Fernando trying to be camp with trying the now in vogue sparkly Singapore helmet, and Seb accidentally completely blew him out of the water with his outrageous light up LED constellation helmet. But god yeah....to have pics of them in matching helmets from this era particuarly makes me emotional ;;;

SV Hungary 2021 x FA 2022: Pink with Dark Blue

I really could've picked any of Seb's 2021 helmets, but I thought this one matched the best with Fernando's main 2021 helmet(with the color pallet.) Also one thing, it's crazy how much control BWT has as a sponsor, I don't think I've ever seen another sponsor go so hard at having a chokehold on individuality. I like that we got pink liveries and pink helmets, but I don't think they should have that much control.

I'm almost kinda sad there wasn't any Miami GP in 2021, because I think that was the only unique helmet Fernando had in 2022. But these match pretty well! Pretty in pink!! It's crazy that their parallels in the 2020s are ongoing even before Fernando actually takes over Seb's seat. Thanks BWT I guess?

SV Abu Dhabi 2022 x FA Abu Dhabi 2022: Fernando's Seb Tribute Helmet

AND HERE WE HAVE THE PIÈCE DE RÉSISTANCE!!! The ultimate conclusion, it literally couldn't get better than this!! This is still unbelievable, like how is this an actual thing that happened!? Fernando intentionally branding his helmet, the only symbol of individuality in F1, with his rival's flag colors, HIS FLAG!!!!! Not to mention the literal "Vettono Best Moments" collage he posted alongside it....and the hand-holding....and everything that happened with them at Abu Dhabi 2022....

But god, after years of incidentally making parallel helmet designs, Fernando decided to officially tie the knot of the red string of fate, and make a helmet directly referencing Seb's. I think it's funny because as I said with two of the previously mentioned ones, those Fernando designs are pretty much inspired by Seb's, and here he is openly making one directly inspired by Seb. I don't really have words for how this actually makes me feel because it's just. Yeah. The most open and clear declaration of love and respect and admiration one could ever make. TO ME.

Okay but if this is Ezra

Then I can't help but laugh and cry. Cause we can see the man throw his weapon away? I can't tell if it's some sort of rifle or a stick or just something long, but he tosses it the moment Sabine starts to choke him. Like he chucks that shit a foot away. Almost like he's trying to not seem threatening, while also not moving or trying to attack her?

So who wants to bet that this is Ezra, he notices and recognises her helmet, and puts his defenses down and without thinking just goes up to her like "Sabine :D"

Forgetting or not thinking about how it's been like a decade, and he's wearing a disguise, and that he is now nearly thirty now and the last time they saw one another he was only eighteen/nineteen, so Sabine just attacks him.

He tries to talk to her, not wanting to fight or hurt her, but she ends up dragging and choking him across the floor or trying to pull him down.

What if he has to either kick her legs out from under her or he uses the force to grab his lightsaber to free himself because she can't understand him as he's choking?

What if Sabine pulls him with her and sends him flying back into the side of the ship she's in front of, or trying to pin him to the floor?

What if we get Sabine being so angry that she doesn't care about what her trying to say, why he isn't fighting back, and just trying to talk to her?

What if she is just so sick and tired of people stopping her, taunting her, using Ezra against her that she doesn't want to talk anymore?

Until she hears him cough out a familiar "Sabine!"

And she just stops because she knows that voice.

Cue the man flipping them over, or cutting the cable, or just breaking through the rage rolling off her in waves with a single sentence: "It's me!"

The new live-action ATLA looks amazing, incredible, already such an improvement over the movie. But I really hope they don't neglect the lighthearted atmosphere and comedic elements of the original show. I'm okay with a grittier, slightly darker tone because that's just natural for a live action adaptation, but LET ZUKO BE A DUMBASS and LET TOPH BE PETTY and LET AANG BE FUN-LOVING and LET SOKKA BE THE COMEDIC RELIEF

Like it's okay to aim for a different mood, just not to the point where everyone's grim and depressed and ooc

Pixie had to be put down yesterday and it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced, she was such a special gentle little girl and I’m going to miss her so fucking much it’s hard to really comprehend right now. I’m so thankful I got to spend 20 years of my life with her, which is basically as far back as I can really remember – love her more than I can say

not sure if i'll post more or less art over the next while, depends on how i cope with it but heads up either way.

much love, give your pets a kiss for me

hey, you know how sometimes in video games the armor pieces giving you the best stats don't match & you end up with a super mismatched outfit but you're also basically invincible?

anyway,

hi hello, @kraeuterhexchen and I have created something really adorable and we hope you'll like it because we had so much fun creating it all and yeah, pls let us know what you think 🥺👉👈

fic written by yours truly, the original story idea and STUNNING illustrations by @kraeuterhexchen 💖

summary:

Olli is a med school student struggling to make ends meet. He's not going back to the burger place (the smell of sizzling minced meat patties still made him want to vomit) and Joonas' suggestion is out of the question (Olli still wants to make his mum proud), so he becomes a children's party entertainer, because anyone can learn a few silly magic tricks to amaze a bunch of sugar-high kids, right? Well, not quite, but he does manage to amaze someone though...

Starring Olli as an amateur magician, Aleksi as the man of his dreams, Joonas as the amazing friend he always is, and Johnny as a DILF (literally).

Axl Low is so fucking important to me like yes it's frustrating seeing the discrepancy between his damage and ability to convert compared to other characters but like even if he did actually suck (which to be clear he does not no matter how much I complain lol) I could not let him go. This is the guy of all time to me. Can you imagine how great the world would be if everyone was a little more like Axl Low? This guy has had so much fucked up unfair shit happen to him and all he has ever done was The Right Thing. He never got rewarded for being the world's nicest man and he just didn't care. Never became bitter never decided "Fuck this and all of you I have time powers so I'm gonna do whatever I want." This man spent so much of the series trying to get back to his girlfriend and his own timeline after being forcibly removed from it by events out of his control and the second he finds a way he makes the fucking impossible choice of "Cant do it cause it'd erase this timeline" I am SICK!! That is INSANE! He just kept doing shit he felt was right and he had a smile on for the vast majority of it. I cannot get over how strong he is. To suffer so much and just not let it change who you are at your core that is so fucking - I can't even think of a word to describe that. I wish I had half the strength and positivity of Axl Low I will just have to settle for my hands on a controller breathing life into the funny British man on my screen. Not even the only Gear character that does shit like this. Many such cases. I'm smelling the fucking game.

I had plans for the turtle tots this week, but then I scratched my eye somehow and can't see, so... sorry y'all I went with one that didn't require much new linework. The toddlies will be back next week.

IT HAS EVERYTHING:

a retcon so breathtakingly insane that it transcends the concepts of "good" and "bad"

the most sinister remix of gasolina by daddy yankee conceivable

jason momoa playing a villain with all the nuance and gravitas of an extra in The Birdcage (1996)

the vatican gets blown up a little bit

a "celebrity" cameo so awkward that it could melt the faces off of those with delicate constitutions

john "i'm not a 'regular' uncle i'm a 'cool' uncle" cena (accidentally reveals his crush on marky mark to a 10-year old)

genuinely incredible explosion and fire graphics

michelle rodriguez and charlize theron get weird together in antarctica

rita moreno is there

the worst crime this fandom ever committed was forgetting about the original lang ying. mxtx did not write an impoverished, grief-stricken man carrying his dead baby on his back for days just to find him a decent resting place, a man who acts as a tragic mirror to xie lian’s own wealth and the personification of the futility of his good intentions, a wholly sympathetic character who takes up the mantle of yong’an rebel general to take down the useless xianle royalty, a man whose motivations are so pure that in another story he would be the protagonist, who even after he assured yong’an’s victory and was established as king himself, never got what he wanted bc all he wanted was his dead wife and child back, who denied xie lian his unrighteous vengeance bc he was already dead and dying, only for the entirety of the tgcf fandom to never talk about him again

y'all i can't with this fuckass group project holy shit just let me do everything by myself i can't take this anymore

wip wednesday :D

tagged by @mrs-theirin; tysm quill!! tagging @arklay @steelport @aartyom @malefiicarum @rosebarsoap @kirnet @shadowglens @narshadda @lavinet @druidgroves @swordcoasts @calenhads @brujah @nuclearstorms @florbelles @shepardgf @devilbrakers @jillvalcntines @morvaris @kymal @risingsh0t @solasan @lvllns @rosykims @aelyosos and you!!!!

have a depressing oddly interpreted take on the taint affecting alistair and rowena 😘

The taint came for his hands first.

A side effect of days spent clutching a sword and shield no doubt. His veins went fast, running black and blue overnight. He didn't like looking at them, but Rowena traced them over every night. Hardened bones were next. Protruding metacarpals and thinned knuckles and a noticeable creak in the mornings. Then the pain began. The ache. Days where his joints stiffened to stone, where a grasp clenched too tight refused to come undone, where splaying fingers to their fullest extent proved too much.

Rowena often caught him staring at his hands in the corner of her eye. Busy hands, curious hands, hands made to fidget and gesture and move above all else, now immobile. His worry token went untouched for months, as did many of the things he loved to hold. Flowers in the garden. The mabari's paws. Rowena.

There was a time when Alistair couldn't keep his hands off of her. Affection of the physical kind was a bright and shiny concept and it took time for him to adjust. Rowena could touch him anywhere, after all. It came easy to her, the affection, the initiation. His cheek, his chin, his collarbone--anywhere would do. Eventually, he came to reciprocate. Tentatively at first, as if asking for permission, but confidence came with the security of her affection. Touch became a comfort. A hand around her waist, on her jaw, in her hair. Anywhere would do.

It couldn't have been more different now. He shied away when she reached for his arm to hold, twitched when she kissed his neck in the mornings. Evening baths became sparser until they no longer existed at all, and this Rowena could hardly bear--facing this truth that the old rituals had died, so she clung to the last of them.

No amount of massage relieved the pain, but Rowena would be damned if she didn't try. Nightly, he let her take his hands in her own.

It was a relief each time to see that despite the Taint, Alistair's hands were still his own, broad and square-fingered and devastatingly gentle. Calloused on the underside and scarred by his earliest days with a blade, too young and eager to know any better. And those nights by the firelight, nights where she took his palm in her hands and massaged the ache away, she could see that Alistair's hands were still freckled, just barely. The sun could still shine on him and leave honeyed kisses against his skin and this was one thing the taint could never take. No darkspawn could take the sun.

The night she realized this, she wept silently. She'd stopped him before he could speak, pressed his freckled hand to her cheek before he could pull away, and whispered, "Bathe with me."

Months later, the taint came for her.

For Rowena, it was her vision and it was swift. [reduntant fix this queen lol]

SCARED BEING A DRAG MONSTER WILL FIX YOU?! YOU SHOULD BE