[You Do Not Recognize The Bodies In The Water!!]

The human form, 'watcher' form, and the true form of grian. Very much inspired by this post by @mwapollo. Not too sure about the last one since it doesn't look remotely like grian. I wanted to try fractals and what not to make it seem even weirder, but I dont have that much skill. Imagining Mumbo interacting with my take on grian's true watcher form makes me giggle.

And this barely scratches the surface of what he’s been put through at the hand of not only antis but parasocial fans, ex friends, abusive ex partners, and just the internet at large. Will defend this man til the day I die, he deserves so much better.

Cast bronze (Living, 1980–82) & cast aluminium (Survival, 1983–85) from the Plaques series by Jenny Holzer

Just to put a lot of my posts and beliefs about Light Yagami's character in one post (headcanons not included):

• He does not do anything for purely moral reasons. The reason he started killing criminals was because he was curious, and then afterward his "crusade" was built from panic and spite. He thought using the Death Note was going to kill him, so he decided to take everyone he considered a threat to society down with him—that way he would still be good. He would still be remembered. If he can't live, then criminals don't deserve to either. The weight loss and the insomnia shown in the manga, were more likely results of a fear of dying than moral stress.

• Then Light discovers he won't die. This negates part of the spite, but not the need for a moral justification to keep himself "good". He no longer needs to be a martyr, so instead he's chosen to become a God.

• During this week and half of time, Light goes from being a bored, lonely, listless teenager disgusted with the world because it's not how his father taught him it should be, disgusted because if he can manage perfection why can't the rest of the world—to a boy with a new friend and a new mission that gives him purpose. Something interesting. If the world can't be perfect on its own, he'll have to help it. The world needs his help, making him its "savior".

• In comes L. It is no longer about Kira, no longer about saving the world from itself, even if he might tell himself it is—it's about the game. Kira was a fun pastime, yes, but L has made things so much more interesting. (Light and Ryuk are actually wildly similar in several ways it's just not immediately obvious). This game is more fun, too, because this time he has an opponent—one not so nebulous as "the criminals of the world", who offered no challenge. Light is still justifying his actions through a lens of morality, because he has to, but they're beginning to run rather thin.

• Both the broadcast and the obvious taunts to L through changing Kira's killing methods supports the above. "You're too stupid, L. If you were just a little smarter, we could've had some fun." Drawing L in was to progress their game, not Kira's goals. If Light truly only cared about Kira's vision, Kira's new world, Kira's righteous justice; then he wouldn't have continued to play the game after the broadcast. There was no way for L to find him without Light drawing him in—the Death Note is literally the perfect murder weapon. Light knew this, he just ignored it because he wanted to play.

• In the same vein: Yotsuba Light doesn't know he's playing the game. He's forgotten that there even is a game, and so he sees L as someone who's been duped, who either isn't as intelligent as he's been made out to seem, or someone who's being purposefully cruel just because he can. Either way, to Yotsuba Light, L's threat level has only increased, because Light no longer has any sort of weapon to go against him with. He can't even wield his own innocence against him, because his innocence is not certain. Even to himself. Yotsuba Light knows that he has to play along with L's plays of friendship and morality in order to secure his freedom, but he does not respect L or like him. At least, not until near the end, where they're closing in on Higuchi. Where his freedom seems closer....and yet he sees his own, true innocence as more tenuous than ever. Notably, even when Light feels positively towards L there, he still does not share his suspicions about himself with him. His own life still takes precedence over any sort of justice or morality he might have, because Yotsuba Light is still Light. And Light will always put his own self-interests first.

• After killing L, something interesting happens. Because the game ends, but Kira is still left. And Light was willing to take risks and make wild plans in his game with L, but Kira's goals always, always came after his own life. And when only Kira's goals are left, Light stops taking those big, potentially lethal risks. (i.e. bomb desk trap, killing Raye Penber in person by handing him pages of the Death Note, killing Naomi Misora in person right in front of the police station, writing Higuchi's name while sitting right beside L with the murder weapon literally in his hand, etc. etc.). Winning the game was worth dying for—Kira's ideals are not. Or, to put it even more simply: His pride is worth dying for, but his morals are not. Five years after his victory against L, he's presented with another game, but instead of feeling fearful and excited as he did with L, Light is angry. Arrogant and angry. Because this isn't a game to these opponents, as it was to L—they're playing against each other, and Light is merely a piece in it. This game is not like his game with L; it's more like his "game" with the criminals of the world. One with no true challenge, just another defense of Kira's world—worth winning, but not worth dying for.

• Light's pride is more important to him than anything. He needs to be able to take pride in himself and his actions. Pride comes before everything else, before Kira, before family, before L, even before his own desires and physical health. He does not enjoy killing—he just turned it into something he could be proud of. Into another mastering of craft. Light is not particularly sadistic, he's just spiteful. He'll only take pleasure in someone's suffering if they make someone else suffer first, especially if that someone is him. Attacking his pride would count as making him suffer, because that's the most important thing in the world to him. Even though Light also values his life incredibly highly, attempting to kill him wouldn't invoke as much hell-hot wrath as attempting to humiliate him would. And Light will always get even. Always. He does not forgive and forget.

• He believes every lie he tells himself. Every. Lie. He is a Good Man. He is Good Son. He is a Savior. He is Better. He is NOT Evil, he is Good. He's incredibly adept at not only fooling other people, but fooling himself. Even if he's vaguely aware of the truth, he'll take great pains to make sure that truth never comes to light—because it would crush him.

• Light does not take his own desires into account. If he likes or wants something that contradicts with the perfect image he's crafted, he purges it from his mind. Makes excuses for why he doesn't need it, or even convinces himself very thoroughly that he didn't even want it in the first place. If it's not something he can be proud of (or convince himself to be proud of), he doesn't allow himself to desire it.

• Light sees everyone as beneath him (family notwithstanding, Light loves his family deeply), and while it's a pyramid scale of how far beneath him they are, it's not actually ranked by things like gender, sexuality, race—it's ranked by morality and intelligence. The more intelligent and moral you are, the higher up you are on the scale. Light feeling hostile towards someone does not always mean he sees them as further down beneath him; with L and Misa specifically, it means that they're a threat. Light tends to only see people near the top of the intelligence pyramid as threats; evidenced by him dismissing Matsuda completely even with the knowledge that Matsuda was a marksmen, and yet him immediately setting out to kill Naomi when he found out she figured out one of Kira's secrets. With Takada and Mikami, he treats them exactly the same as each other because they're both on the same level of the scale—and he didn't hesitate to get rid of either of them. (Or try to get rid of, in Mikami's case). Everyone is either a tool, a threat, a criminal, a citizen, or family to him. People to use (tool, criminal), people to serve and/or placate (citizen, family), and people to eliminate (threat, criminal). Everyone falls into at least one of these categories for him.

• Light Yagami is a tragic character. And he's a tragic character because he refuses to believe he's part of a tragedy. He would rather swallow broken glass than be considered a victim of anything.

This is going to be a long ask, I just wanted to share my feelings about Eli and how other show helped me understand his character better.

I honestly really felt for Eli, one of the major reasons I have such sympathy for him and why he ended up becoming my favorite character is because while I was reading the books I was watching an adult swim

Series called Moral Orel, it’s about a kid living on a very abusive and religious environment, I just developed such sympathy and respect for the main character Orel 1/6

hi Anon! I’m copy-pasting all your other asks here so I can answer them all together (and since the post is quite long):

2/8 That character just reminded me a lot of Eli or more like Eli reminded me of Orel, both boys grew on fundamentalist households, and their dads were physically abusive towards them wherever their fathers did something they deemed as “bad”, while their moms although they weren’t bad per-se they didn’t helped their sons, both Eli and Orel used their faith to get through those situations and both only wanted to do the right thing (they also both died and thought god was the one to bring them back)

3/8 But while one used their faith to justify their horrible actions under the false belief they were doing god’s work, the other was able to raise above the abuse thanks to the guidance of a few people and partly because of his own faith becoming a much better person in the process, this is silly because no one knows or talks about Moral Orel, but I found incredible how it’s main protagonist Orel Puppington helped me understand and sympathize with a character I wouldn’t have had liked otherwise (Eli ever)

4/8 it’s also funny because I have seen threads where few people talked about the show and one of the most interesting topics to discuss were the following quashing:

What would have happened or what kind of person could Orel have had become if he didn’t have the tiny support system that he had?

Orel had three very important persons in his life very much like Eli, who guided him towards the right path, one of them who was his grandfather which was supposed to die from illness, this also reminded me of how Eli lost his family.

5/8 Another interesting questions would be what would have happened if Ore had internalized all the indoctrination that was been fed to him side he was little? on the thread some answered the question by mentioning and theorizing that due the upbringing he had, Due the the toxic patterns he was exposed to and because of the religious zealotism he was raised in they could see him become something akin to a serial killer who killed because he thought he was “saving” the victims.

6/8 This made made me realize even more how similar this characters were, on personalities, upbringing and in relationships, now I headcanon that Eli is something like a bad end Au of what Orel could have had become on the worst possible scenario, thankfully this wasn’t the case and he was able to break the cycle of abuse that was going on his family, by being able to remain a good person and becoming a much better person, husband and father than his own father ever was, sadly the same cannot be said for Eli and there is something very tragic about this.

7/8 When I first read Vicious I didn’t like Eli, but boy my opinion on him changed completely after reading vengeful, it surprises me almost all of the fandom (a tiny one on that) seems to still hate him.

8/8 Now that you mention it, I hated Serena, it was mainly because she attempted to kill Sydney, and how she manipulated pepole, like something felt very personal about it and I just disliked her for it, I can kind of understand why (I mean Eli tried to kill her) but I also hated she basically raped him and no one bated an eye, only tv tropes seem to semi acknowledge what Serena did to Eli. but never outright says it just says that their relationship was mutually toxic.

I had never heard of this tv series (from what i’ve understood after a quick research it’s basically a US an adult stop-motion animated series), but I’m glad it helped empathize with Eli more, especially because from what you’re telling me these characters do share a lot of similarities. 

Eli is a character that I loved from basically page one, even before knowing his backstory, because Victor’s storytelling was so obviously biased that I just couldn’t help waiting for Eli’s point of view and voice in Vicious. So I never disliked him, he was my favorite character in Vicious and my attachment towards him became stronger and stronger throughout my reading of Vengeful (which made the ending just more painful :) ). I wouldn’t say that he uses religion to ‘justify’ his actions tho, more that his beliefs and trauma propel him to act the way he does (and the difference is slight, I recognize, but ‘justifying’ an action implies a process of rationalization ex post which I don’t think happens in Eli’s case, or at least it happens, but religion also plays its past ex ante [I hope my thought is clear but I’m afraid it might not read so lmao]).

The thing you said about support systems and what can happen to people when left alone is incredibly true and it’s something I think about a lot when looking at my favorite characters and characters in general, which is one of the main reasons why I so strongly resent the ‘heroes are better than the villains because they have loved ones’ (because it seems to idk punish certain people for the simple reason that they don’t have people who love them. which isn’t great, considering the implications). Of course you can write a compelling narrative with this trope you just have to be careful imho. But yeah I definitely agree with you that sometimes this can make a difference in a character’s development and growth.

I cannot say I ‘hate’ Serena, but I honestly don’t like her and I wouldn’t be able to properly explain the exact reasons why I don’t, but surely one of the mean reasons is what she did to Eli, which I agree isn’t talked abut nearly enough in the fandom. I agree that she raped him, because she used her power to make him want to sleep with her (which is rape, objectively speaking). The fandom is strange silent regarding this aspect but given the burning hatred everyone and their moms feels towards Eli (which is weird tbh, especially given how much everyone seems to love Victor and thinks him as a better person than Eli when they are at the very least equally awful) it is not surprising. I have endless bones to pick with Eli’s treatment by the fandom and this is just one of them (along with almost everyone calling him a psychopath when... he really isn’t?)

These asks were really interesting! If you want to chat more I’m here, I hope you have a nice day!

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

Lockland evervale makes me go crazy

Daily commute. Headphones in

"You'd let me die. Wouldn't You?"

The gala scene lives rent free in my head. Kudos to anyone if they can recognize which part of the fight this is from.