the bit that gets me about when Punz revived Dream was that it was so, SO similar to the set-up of Nov 16th. as someone who was there and remembered how good that felt I absolutely felt the switch coming because tonally it was absolutely the same as Tubbo making his speech and everyone hanging out, taking the festival decorations down. making plans for the future. and then Punz lead them down into that staircase that suddenly turned into blackstone and I loved that detail too - blackstone, the block everyone associates with the final control room and the prison and Not Good Things, which they pointed out in the moment! it's like the s3 era fanservice stuff with Wilbur's skin and such: knowing the references we'd recognise. and then Tommy breaks a block and it's an exact mirror of this little moment on Nov 16th where Niki breaks part of the grandstand and finds it's packed with tnt. exactly the same. then they run for their lives

uhhh thoughts on alabasta ratman sleep-deprived and weed fueled ace vs peak chad energy fuckboy prime wano ace?? like which one do you prefer, do you have any thoughts if he’d treat/think of luffy any different? in these two periods of his life?

(also ugh I adore both and there’s something special about alabasta ace who went after luffy to drum island, made sure everyone knew he would be waiting for luffy in alabasta, then went and sat there for 10 days with no other purpose but to wait for luffy. bc he just wanted to see him so so much. brocon alabasta ace is uhhhgggghh insane vibes but. there’s also something about wano graciously giving everyone big tits and a healthy layer of fat tissue on top of all that muscle. also the fact that portgas d “i hate when little children follow me around” ace willingly befriended and took care of tama. also promised her the same thing he promised luffy. idkidkidk I just like to think luffy was on ace’s mind 90% of the time, wherever he went, and he often just thought about him bc a lot of thinks reminded him of luffy. like things luffy would like, things he’d like to eat, things he’d find funny etc)

I thought this would be easy to answer but then I had like a whole essay typed up in my head. so. thank you for this ask, I have a lot of feelings about it apparently. 😂😂

they really do feel like 2 different characters, maybe bc Oda was still firming up the details of marineford/wano when Ace first appeared in alabasta? In any case it's always fun seeing which "version" of him fans lean into in fanart/fic/headcanons hahaha. like do they make him more scrungly and sleazy (but maybe also secretly doting)? you got yourself a greasy Ace fan. do they make him all upstanding and softly affectionate and soulful? wano ace wano ace wano ace

(a lot more rambling from here)

I have to admit...... and I'm ashamed to say it............... but I was only half-aware of Ace in Alabasta—like at that point, he was just another "wacky cool shounen guy" to me. It took Marineford breaking my brain down to its component parts and rearranging them for my full Ace brainrot to set in, and at that point he was closer to Ethereal Fridged Wife wano Ace, so I'd probably go with that one? God I do need to rewatch Alabasta tho, I feel like it'd be such a trip of fawning over greasy ratman Ace this time around ahahahah

I think it took until Marineford for me to really latch onto Ace bc it was outwardly like: Alabasta Ace: I'm cool Marineford Ace: I'm cool [ironic][hiding INTENSE self-worth issues]

I agree with everything you said though... I love wrinkly, wrung-out-to-dry Alabasta Ace and his devil-may-care coolness. His vibes of being just a bit more of a rebel than any of the Strawhats even, the thing that makes people cast him as a guitarist or artist in modern AUs. that fuckin,,,,, crouch/perching thing he does,,,, The WAITING... he's so understated with his devotion, like, this panel??

he's trying to be so cool and older brother-y but really he just wants his little brother to visit him sometimes!!! he waited for luffy for 10 days when he's been prioritizing this mission over everything else, even being with his other found-family crew, and I just!!! sigh

"any thoughts if he’d treat/think of luffy any different" I so agree that Wano Ace is pre-Whitebeard Ace, meaning that even though he's presenting himself as independent and a leader/captain, there's a part of him that's still very angry and searching for acceptance. And yesss, bc of that he was probably holding his memories of Luffy so close all the time, seeing his brother who loves him in the innocent, trusting kid he helps, and unable to stop bragging about his brave little brother to the brash, impressive club-weilding guy he runs into.

meanwhile I feel like Alabasta Ace is actually more mellowed-out in his feelings toward Luffy, in a way? like idk, maybe—I might be completely off—but he's more secure in himself and his attachment to Luffy... or at least he tells himself he is. I just feel like that explains why he's shown to be so openly brag-y about Luffy in his Wano days, but seems way more laidback in Alabasta, haha (but the brocon devotion is still there, just better-hidden, lmaoooo) (and it gets ripped to the forefront during Marineford—he's forced to confront all that fear and attachment when he sees Luffy hurtling through the air toward him AH)

god tho. wano ace. wano ace and this gif

the things. the things i want to do to this man. the morals i would abandon. unspeakable.

and this???? him??????????????? sunkissed angel backlit like the once-in-a-lifetime love interest in a twee indie film???

yeah I... in summary, I feel like I have 60/40 preference for Wano Ace over Alabasta Ace, but really it's that mix of all those qualities that I like to bring in when i can.

(my secret third answer is Marineford Ace. the blorbo who started it all, lmao)

went back to the sketchbooks around when i was going through yyh for the first time in 2019 and found a pile of near-yearly sticky note updates about my relationship with the series next to my first yyh doodles, a page full of kuwabaras. thought it'd be fun to share

+ more thoughts and old yyh art below

(it's crazy i didn't find any kurama-centric pages for months bc i think he's the one i doodled in the margins of class notes and stuff the most. his hair's pwetty and he gives me the least trouble outta any of the main 4)

something i noticed while skimming the two sketchbooks i took these from was how mean i was to myself at the time about my art. i guess it hit me more because i don't really spend hours going through my old sketchbooks over and over to track my progress and growth like i used to quite often. i guess it was only a little after when my self esteem was lowest (8th grade, tale as old as time), but... idk. i knew back then that i'd grown a lot in the few years since i started drawing more seriously (that's why i looked through my art so much), but like... i guess that never translated into being nice to myself about it. i ended up going back through about ten more sketchbooks to find more yyh art, and in the coming years i'm glad to say that negativity in the margins went away. hell yeah

but even so, my love for yyh was a constant and effusive thing, as it is now. it's probably the oldest of my current media interests. i watched myself get into rgg and develop my ocs and watched others fade in and out, watched my style loop back on itself and go all over the place, passed by pages of writing about crushes and album releases and gender discoveries and my grandparents dying, all surrounded by little drawings of the characters i love. including kuwabara in a maid dress right next to my dead grandma grief rambling that one time (no i'm not kidding. my grandma died in like late 2020 and the page where i poured my heart out after finding out she was gone just trying to process everything had one with catboy maid dress kuwabara directly opposite it, who i'd drawn like the evening before she died in her sleep. he killed my grandma from like 100 miles away he was that powerful. that wasn't even the last time i drew him like that and i don't even care about catboys or maid dresses much. i think it was just a bigger meme and he was the guy i most associated with cats. i put that man in a situation and he fucking got her because the book couldn't contain him. some victor frankenstein shit. anyway)

i took about 150 pictures, most with multiple sketches. i decided not to add any more though bc 1) i posted some of them on old accounts but i don't remember which ones, and tbh i value my anonymity a little too much 2) All Of The Pictures Turned Out Bad in ways i don't feel like getting into but just trust me it's like 6 layers of fucked up illegible image bullshit 3) i found it hard to narrow it down to things i felt were indicative of the development or interesting or anything like that. idk. i figured it was an interesting exercise for me and it probably wouldn't really mean anything to anyone else. and that's ok :) it was nice anyway. i mostly mention it to be like Oh My God i've drawn these guys a lot and i STILL don't know what i'm doing... :| it's fun

however i did transcribe the notes i left:

7/9/19: yo it's been less than a week & i'm on ep. 80 wtf i love this show

8/14/20: 1/2way thru my 3rd watch (first dub, first [with older sibling]) & honestly still love it & kuwabara being the first one i drew makes me happy

7/28/21: i'm watching it w/ [younger sibling] now! 4th(ish) watch, 2nd time through the dub, which is so much better than the sub really elevates the text. we're at the semifinals of the DT, which means this is technically my 5th time through yyh up until that point but eh semantics anyway i still love & obsess over yyh! <3

1/14/24 (present day): hey, i'm rewatching yyh for the.. idk 5th or 6th time. still love it & never stopped. now i'm writing fic & drawing & posting about it. i have friends i talk to about it. [both siblings] have seen it. so much has changed, and so little, but it made me sad seeing how much i insulted my own art. i love you 2019 me. god knows you needed it

[+ this drawing]:

anyway. forever fornever. if you even care

alright i've seen arcane twice through now, here are my opinion patch notes:

jayce is hilarious i can't believe fandom hates him so much lmao... arcane boldly asks, what if steve rogers shot a child, and i think that's very fun and sexy of them

fr though i do think jayce is one of the more interesting characters precisely because he's -- well partly because i feel like he realized he's bisexual two days ago and is making it everyone's problem, which is already great. but also because watching the square-jawed hero complex guy make a series of terrible decisions and go mad with power is a satisfying thing to witness. the story seems very aware jayce is doing a bunch of fucked up stuff, and i appreciate that. unhinged bisexual rights

i was also more into the political drama once i was following it closer. i think it's handled with relative subtlety most of the time and i like that! i hope it stays that way in s2, please god. also how tf does the council work, are people appointed? i guess? based on status/wealth? it certainly doesn't seem to be a democracy.

also i love ambessa. can't wait to see more of her.

i feel like mel's writing is... kind of underbaked. her words and her actions don't always correspond (eg "i've never been able to give back!" says the single richest person in a city with severe wealth disparity who has been in political power for a decade). i don't say any of this to drag mel, because i'm very interested in who i think she is/could be, but i find it hard to decipher if this is nuanced writing or just the story not really knowing what it's doing with her -- i guess we'll see what s2 does. i'm still pretty confident she'll survive the finale, not so much because i think she'll survive the entire show (doubtful imo) but because i think if they're going to kill mel she'll get a solo death episode and the finale/fallout of jinx's bomb has too much else going on. fingers crossed anyway, lol, i think it'd be shitty if she's just dead now before they did much with her

i understand like 25% more of what happened with viktor and happy fun ball but ... still not a lot. lmao. i don't mind them keeping it vague i guess but i hope future sequences are less outright confusing to me. why did it eat sky? why did it change his hand? was that on purpose? we never saw him having issues with his hand, right? who knows.

still love that dinner scene with jinx/silco/vi. as i was watching with @firstofoctober i was saying how great it is that everyone in the scene is saying stuff they genuinely believe even if that stuff isn't factually true. i know there's Discourse over how genuine silco was being but i really do think all evidence points to him meaning it/believing what he's saying, even if *we* know vi isn't going to betray powder, etc. likewise vi obviously means it when she says she loves jinx and they're still sisters etc... but i really don't think she has a proper grasp of who jinx is now, she's projecting baby powder and expecting she can flip a switch. it's good and sad and i like it a lot.

coming out less flatteringly on rewatch:

ep 1 is so boringgggggggggg these are so many characters and i only have to care about two of them

caitvi moves at breakneck pace lol. slow down ladies it's been 72 hours tops

heimerdinger is just terrible on rewatch imo lmao he literally never does anything to help anyone or anything. i'm pretty sure jayce only deposed him for being mean to viktor, but he was still right. i GET that his whole thing is being immortal and blah blah but like what if: some guy with no perspective on human existence wasn't ruling a city full of mostly-humans. depose him again jayce.

and my least popular opinion: caitlyn i just... i tried man. i dunno. i mean she's nice and stuff... katie leung is funny sometimes. i just feel like she is so uncomplicated compared to literally every other character, with the least compelling arc. and i think the story treats her with real kiddie gloves too, which i find grating. everyone else fucks up and makes mistakes and is punished narratively for it, but caitlyn is always right bc she is a nice good cop. okay. whatever.