Ever After High Themed Adoptables - The Wizard Of Oz Batch!

Something I think about a lot is how Dutch managed to turn Arthur into this perfect and dependable killer/enforcer.. Like, I know Dutch basically saved him and therefore could use Arthur's gratefulness as a manipulative tool, but still - how did he manage to shape a teenage Arthur so precisely into what he needed him to be? (I never really questioned this before, but I've been working with/teaching teenagers lately and it's so fucking hard to get them to do basically ANYTHING??)

(part 2) I guess what I’m trying to get at is: Teenagers are so different from children, and I think teaching/influencing them is a LOT harder? (let alone shaping them into violent right-hand thugs, looking at you Dutch) Or maybe teenage Arthur was already like that so Dutch just had to use that rather than change or manipulate him? I just find it so hard to believe this whole thing worked out as well as it did…(I meant to ask for your thoughts on this but instead I just rambled, I’m so sorry)~~~~~~~~~~No need to apologize, Nonny.  <3  If I remember the phrase right, Arthur is described in his official bio at the point Dutch and Hosea took him in as “the life of a criminal is all he’s ever known”, “living on the streets ever since losing his parents at an early age”, and “particularly angry and damaged”/”seemingly a lost cause who responded well to some structure and mentoring”.We also know he barely remembers his mother, he watched his father die, his dad was a criminal, and he remembers his father with absolutely no fondness.  We see he’s overly anxious to please Dutch, to the point all Dutch has to do is issue a casual challenge implying Arthur’s doubting him or not measuring up, and Arthur scrambles frantically to fix that.  So what I’m thinking we have here is a kid who grew up suffering both psychological and physical abuse from his father, who was probably forced into learning criminal talents early (pickpocketing, in my headcanon).  He learned very young that he had no worth as a person, and the only value he had was to produce results.  He seems to have loathed his father so I doubt he worried about winning Lyle’s love, but he recognized that succeeding meant approval, at least insofar as probably being abused less.His father dies.  Arthur’s left living on the streets for several years, probably in a big city that he could so utterly disappear.  The message that he has no worth is further reinforced.  He’s alone, scared, fighting to survive, and there’s no Sister Calderon or anyone else to save him or tell him he’s worth saving.  Given the need to fight for food, sleeping space, safety, etc. against other street kids, he certainly lived in an environment of heightened aggression and anger and violence here.  He’s living the life of Dutch’s social Darwinism: the (violently) strong survive, the weak perish.So you’ve got a kid with shitty self-image, a history of abuse, and a lot of capacity for anger and violence.  Then Dutch and Hosea take him in at fourteen and things change.  He’s given a place to belong.  Clothes that fit and aren’t ragged.  A safe place to sleep.  Enough food to eat.  He learns to read and write.And Dutch isn’t hitting him, so Arthur assumes this new father figure is how it’s supposed to be.  But he’s missing the other facet: the psychological abuse.  The same produce results or you’re worthless to me mentality he likely got from his father, but Dutch is far cleverer than Lyle Morgan in it.  He gaslights.  He manipulates. He alternately flatters and praises, and then insults and questions, so that Arthur’s left always hungry for earning that love and approval again.You’ve got a pissed off teenager, and given Arthur’s got plenty of sarcasm I imagine he was, as I have Hosea put it fondly, “a smart mouthed little shit”.  But he’s also a scared boy who’s been repeatedly taught he’s dispensable trash.  He’s started to like this life he has and its comforts and security compared to the bleak hell he had before, started to become comfortable in it.  He’s terrified that if he screws up, if he gives Dutch reason to not value him anymore, he’ll be thrown away again.  So yeah, he’s going to jump through every hoop Dutch presents him eagerly, and even be trying to anticipate the man’s needs and wants if possible.  Because in his mind his place in this family, his continued survival, absolutely depends on this man still finding value in him.  The question of having worth as an intrinsic right as a human being doesn’t even register with him.  All he can see is constantly proving his having external value.  So he doesn’t have the luxury of typical teenage defiance and sometimes telling his self-proclaimed dad to go get fucked as part of the pursuit of discovering and asserting his own identity.  Because honestly, Arthur doesn’t have much in the way of his own identity.Given the emotional damage he’d already suffered, and the fact he’s being further abused and taken advantage of, that’s the status quo for the next 22 years.  Arthur doesn’t ever really get the chance to grow beyond that blind loyalty and eagerness to please and be regarded as valuable, and really form his own identity and principles, until the 1899 crisis forces him to do so.So if Dutch wants to teach Arthur to shoot, wants him to learn to rob a stagecoach, wants him to go teach someone a “lesson” with his fists?  It’s absolutely “Yes, Dad, I’ve got this.”  Anything at all to make Dutch happy and make himself more valuable to the man.  He’ll work until he drops to become the best man for the job, the one Dutch absolutely can’t do without.  If he protests at all, it’s a token grumble, but he’ll give in readily and go do it, because he prides himself on being able to get the job done.  Dutch clearly only values his brutal and violent skills–it’s Hosea who encourages other things in Arthur.I also think this is part of why Dutch openly favored and identified more with John as his clear “golden boy” while relegating Arthur to being the gang workhorse.  Arthur’s snarky defiance largely died down and transformed into awkward gratitude and absolute loyalty when he realized he could stay.  John stayed something of a cocky brat.  Arthur is far more versatile and useful, but Dutch enjoys John’s “unbroken spirit”–so long as he doesn’t question too much.

hes attack

Imagine if you got wrongfully stuck in the world's worst, most psychologically torturous solitary confinement prison on complete accident without anybody knowing you ended up there and being completely unable to ask for help or even see yourself and the only reason you escaped is because of an accident that you're not even given a moment to process cause now you need to fulfill your entire life's mission only to fail and realize everything you've ever been told is a lie and you have no time to process that either since you need to take down your world's biggest villain and even after that you have to go back to pretending like it never happened and you have no idea how or even who to talk about it to because you've never been given the space to be genuinely emotionally vulnerable with anyone wouldn't that be fucked up or what

A batch of Chibis I made last year (quite literally), as a complement to Raye Rodriguez's first and second batch. This one centered about boys.

This batch was made before Raye drew Mandrake and Parnell, so my interpretation differs, altho Mandrake's clothes got modified from the original 2024 piece to match Raye's

(Do not repost)

Vampires are sleek demons for good times

(some say the van der linde gang is run by the devil himself, hard to find and harder to kill, with an appetite bigger than us all combined)

this is their dynamic. to me

daring: we can’t lose because we have this! *points to chest*

dexter: we have heart?

daring: heart? no. me. i’m pointing at myself. i’m going to win this for us.

I was talking to my mutual about Cole when I had a surge of Thoughts so per usual you all have to hear them now. I was considering a couple things, namely his development and place as the "strong guy" on the team and his masculinity (and how it presents in the show vs in fanon).

Cole's pretty often typecast as the gruff strong guy in a lot of fan-media (from fanfics to fanart etc) which isn't wrong because he was like that, especially within the early seasons. The way he spoke, the way he acted, his place as a sort of leading force. In season three you even see him in that stupid lumberjack fit (said affectionately), it's all very traditionally masculine. Which fits his whole Strong and Big guy of the team role (the five man band archetypes etc etc). However, it's interesting to say because at his core, he's very emotional and very driven by a strong sense of internal compassion (with a canonical affinity to children). Which obviously none of that is opposed to masculinity but these traits begin to show more as the gruffness pulls back. The first real example of that I think is in ToE with his fight with Jay. I don't read him as being invested in their fighting the same way Jay was. Jay was fueled by insecurity and a very strong sense of jealousy and possessiveness. Cole? I think he was just reacting to Jay's aggression, which didn't put Nya in a better position but it is a difference. 

So when their match rolls around, he's the first one to realize what they're doing is stupid and give in. He reaches out emotionally to Jay. However, Jays still is a friend so that is easy to write off as a symptom of friendship. And then following ToE we have possession and DOTD which I think are where he really begins to develop, and have the strongest examples of what I'm getting at. I'm going out on a limb and saying that I really see his prior gruffness as a sort of armor, to be good enough for the team (insert that one Wu note of him staying up late before missions) and also there his whole rebellious streak against his father trying to force him to be someone he's not. (Note: I wouldn't be surprised if how Lou raised him really had a impact on all this) Then, we get to Possession and both his self worth and self image are shook badly by literally dying. He outright says he's not a ninja anymore, which I think he based a lot of who he was on (<- which is why struggling with it hit so hard).

Finally DOTD comes up and I think we see the strongest example of where his compassion really become a core trait. It's his fight with Yang. He had no reason to reach out to him, to be honest he had the right not to, but he did and it worked! He didn't get out of DOTD in the end with brute force, he got out of it with emotional support (his team showing up), a stubborn adherence to his moral code, and reaching out to Yang with empathy. From that point on, I think he's softer and more prone to being emotional, it's like there was a very real shift. To circle back to Jay, because I think he makes for a good comparison, he does not develop like that post ToE. Actually, the issues carying from s3 (though, they do exist prior just not as starkly) all the way to Skybound where it gets violently (literally) addressed. Jay fans can probably say it better than me but the season is about his insecurity and treatment of Nya and there's a reason both Nadakhan and Cliff are like that (read: they're parallels). It's just interesting because both Cole and Jay have issues with self worth and image but they present and develop very differently. 

There's also the fanon aspect with those two that's really funny. I think everyone's aware of the infamous fanon-bruise, the 2010s-yaoification. Uwu Jay, Big Strong Man Cole, and how weirdly racist it is. It's just funny to note because the issues projected onto Cole in fanon are ones Jay has, like, in the show. Cole's the more emotional and compassionate one of the two, but because of the strong guy role, it gets flipped around in fanon. Going by the 'traditional' (read: toxic) masculine standards, in terms of personality and character, I think Jay more closely aligns. It reminds me of this post I saw once, it was of Hunted where Jay was making the plane (?) and Cole was with baby Wu. It called Jay the 'mom' and Cole the 'dad' which I find kind of funny because if you look at it through that hetero-normative lense, it really should be the other way around. Cole's the one caring for the baby pretty consistently, Jay's the one making a machine and Working. Did Jay just get called the 'mom' there because people think of him as smaller and weaker and therefore more feminine? Did Cole get called the dad just because he's strong and considered bigger? It's interesting. Fanon does Cole really dirty sometimes.

To get back on topic of Cole's narrative development, then we get to MOTM (like a bajillion years later which no I'm not complaining except I am). Cole's characterization in MOTM is so fucking good. MOTM does a fantastic job at tying together several of his strings. It ties in Lilly, his self esteem, his staunch morality, affinity towards leadership, and compassion into one, pretty bow. MOTM puts Cole back into a leading role, and it gives him several groups to reach out to (Vania, the munce and geckle, the uppily). It draws back the insecurity present in him, letting it show again to be addressed. It even ties in his relationship to Wu in a really lovely way to me. MOTM is the season where Cole finds who he is, his identity and his place as his mothers son.

Speaking of that, I have a very strong love for male characters who exemplify who their mothers were and what they taught them. The scenes with Lilly really put his entire character into a different perspective. At the start he was this tough kid fresh off grief and pressurized so strongly by his dad and himself and he goes through loops and hurdles of strength and identity and by the end he finds himself exactly where he needs to be. Where he's the strongest and it's in his mothers footsteps, as someone both emotional and strong. It's a really lovely character arc to take him on, and though I haven't watched DR, I've heard they continue that on. 

Anyways, consider it positive masculinity, consider it anything else. I just had a lot of thoughts to share and hope I don't sound too 'reading-too-deep' about it. Bye bye Kar ramble over.

I love to headcanon that compared to people like his sister or Percy that Jason’s anger is very calm.

Very controlled.

That Jason rarely ever raises his voice nor does he really yell. But even without that you can feel how pissed off he is.

And that terrifies people because for one Jason is a pretty chill guy all things considered. It takes a lot to get him angry.

So if you’re already there you’ve majorly fucked up and there’s no helping you.

And two, when the Big 3 get mad they resemble their parents. Thalia is her father’s storm. Percy is his father’s raging sea.

And Jason’s no different for while he looks like his mother. It’s when he’s angry that he resembles his father.

And I like to think Jupiter’s rage is distinctive from Zeus’s.

That Jupiters rage is that of a king standing over his court. Looking at the peasant before him and calmly asking them for a reason to not execute them.

Jason’s rage is the clouds covering the sun. It’s the wind picking up and the crackle of electricity across the sky. It’s all the signs of a brewing storm that grant a sense of unease.

It’s a warning that you’ve gone too far.

Because even when he’s angry there’s a level of restraint to Jason’s temperament. A sense of decorum, because even now he holds himself to his principles and rules.

And for Jason who’s outwardly so bright that he could resemble sunshine. Jason who seemingly lacks the jagged edges of Percy’s smirk and Thalia’s glare.

When Jason gets angry you notice the way it shifts his entire demeanour. The moment he goes from Jason to Praetor Grace.

No one’s ever seen the brunt of Jason’s rage and frankly no one ever wants too.