a smol, artistic, weird, queer, mini weeb, gaming, food loving, concert enjoying, traveling, nerdy trash panda 🌈 love being an evil jeffums 🦈 live. laugh. love markiplier ♥️
most noticably, his repetitive circling motion with his thumb over his empty knife holster (which he often touches for reassurance in a kind of muscle-memory reaching for a weapon that isn't there)
then his light tracing of the map, brushing his fingers over it to situate himself, and just the delicate way he handles everything in general, like he's trying hard not to damage anything (he's very physical/visual, he also uses his hands when gesturing directions)
when he finds the Eden pendant he ties it around his wrist to keep it secure, but he also holds it enclosed in his palm. he keeps it tight in his fist under his thumb. part reverence part anchor to home
and when he's stressed he makes fists and fidgets with his hands / the pendant. he also bows his head to it in his hand like he's praying or hoping it'll bring him luck like a talisman
Some spoilers for Virtual Insanities latest chapters!
Rather fond of the fics that just put these two through more hell, so ofc I’m loving Virtual Insanity by @bronzeplates rn
I’ll honestly probably do more drawings like this for the fic as chapters come out cause it’s pretty fun. Plus, Art Fight is wrapping up and I’ll have bit more freedom with what I spend my time drawing.
I also have a few sketches in the works of my own designs so I’ll be posting those sometime soon as well!!
@dessathealien goes at lenght about a theory here regarding the Seedling and how it nulls whatever bargain Simon and the Pinhole God had struck when he encountered the Light. and I had a thought to expand on that theory.
Timestamp 01:25:30
Timestamp 02:00:06
I realized that these two scenes very likely depict the same event: the Seedling becoming the Blood Tree through contact with the Void's blood ocean. The only difference is that one was aborted before completion, and the other managed to reach fruition (pun intended).
Now we would assume it was the Pinhole God that rewinded stuff and put Simon back where he last found the skeleton, sub fixed (mostly) and his body intact. And I do think it was the intention of the Pinhole God to do that anyway, BUT! I think that sudden jump out of the Void and back in the skeleton coordinates was the Seedling hijacking the deal.
The Eel initially strikes the deal with Simon, "We will see the answer together, and you will live, and we will be free", and the Pinhole God shakes on it later. But like was pointed out, the Seedling features notably during Simon plotting out the travel tot he Light and then during the initial encounter with the Light. Nobody shook the deal with the Seedling, but it was a part of the deal, and now that it was able, it decided to make its move.
"But Pardal, how do you know the Seedling even had that kind of power?" Well because it does it again after the Void!
Timestamp 01:59:54
While the sub is getting flooded, just moments before the Seedling and Simon finally explode the Eel's head off, we get a quick scene of the last photo taken before the screen goes dark. Looking at the full image, we can see the Eel's mouth already getting tangled up with roots and vines. Again, this is BEFORE the sub fully explodes! Meaning the Seedling was already taking over the sub!
Therefore I posit it wasn't the Pinhole God pinning Simon to the sub walls, it was the Seedling. It intended to claim Simon from the start. I don't think it's a mistake his arm gets stuck because it's his left arm that made contact, the arm with the Seedling tied to it. We even see the vein/vines grow outwardly from around his wrist!
Timestamp 01:55:54
When the arm was lost, it's plan was slowed down because it had only taken his arm rather the whole of Simon. Once it had enough energy or power or influence on the surrounding blood (idk man), it finally reached out to Simon and boom, Blood Tree.
No wonder the Eel accused Simon of "changing everything", crying "what did you do?!" at him. The sub was alive, and this was new. This is not the norm. Even after what I assume was months, if not years, the SM-8 laid on the ocean mostly inert and unchanged. By that measure, one can even guess this was the Seedling's doing as well
It has not only seen Simon's affection to the sub and his trust in it, the Seedling itself was a target of his gentleness and faith. Why wouldn't it fight back to get him first before the mutations turned him into the Shadowman? Why wouldn't it take over the sub and bring it to life?
Which leads me to think just how much of the mutations on the sub were actually the Pinhole God's doing, and how much was the Seedling's influence. The vein/vines are definitely the Seedling's, but the blisters and boils around the hull don't match it, rather matching some of the camera pictures of the ocean floor and tunnel walls.
It's kind of funny, that Simon wasn't the only one racing against the clock, but the Seedling and Pinhole God too.
'so, I don't think .. you're from here.. this universe i mean.'
'and what gave that away, Ryland?'
I WAS SO EXCITED TO MAKE THIS DELETED SCENE INTO AN EDIT but i had to pause due to my health and wanted to share what I've done hopefully I will come back and finish it but for now enjoy! the video itself with some audio (nothing fancy) will be on my twt tomorrow! (user aexphr) <33
Can we not berate Mark into talking about Ryan Gosling or BloodyMary? He is not obligated to talk about a celebrity that he has not met personally just because his character is in a crackship.
I absolutely adore BloodyMary with all my heart. There are just a lot of people out there who are struggling to separate the actor from the character, and are starting to think that Simon x Grace (or any of the other crossover ships like DiscoDoll and JazzHands for example) = Mark x Ryan, when it doesn’t.
Both are married. Both are married to women.
Simon is not Markiplier, and Ryland Grace is not Ryan Gosling.
Just because Mark is aware of BloodyMary, doesn’t mean we get to boil his 3 years of hard work on Iron Lung down to a crossover ship.
yeah that's right, ROCKY is the #1 simon apologist. bet you didn't see that coming. ok nvm you probably did, but yeah whatever. we'll get more into it in the next pages
Ok this took me a while. Im super nervous to post this lowkey, please go easy on me I tried super hard to make it a proper comic. if i decide Ill continue on because my old bloodymary comic idea will mash beautifully with this. thank you <3
This is a harrowing scene, despite being so short.
I'm slowly beginning to add to my personal headcanon that Simon just... Does This™ when he hits his stress limit. He checks out for a while, unmoving, mission forgotten, flinching at hallucinations, staring at the floor, gone.
I am on board the "Simon wasn't mentally sound to begin with" train. I wonder if he did this kind of thing on Eden when things got to be too much.
