sharky

she/her || little guy writing fanfiction and doing art sometimes || ADAM DRIVER MY BELOVED.

[sharky-starz]

I'm opening commissions!! I'm starting art full time so while I'm working on product and designs for my shop, I'm opening up commissions on my brand new shiny CARRDDDD!! It comes with socials and everything oh it's so much fun- Anyway!

SharkyStarz' Carrd

Sharky's links, socials and commission information

[sharky-starz]

STOP SHIPPING SILVER WITH WOMEN UNDER FRICKING 25, MANS IS A FRICKING FATHER LIKE AT LEAST MAKE HER MID TWENTIES, LATE TWENTIES OMG-

[sharky-starz]

is 'dad bod' a shape?

[redstonedust]

a week into artfight i would like to give out the following reminders: it is okay if you thought you were going to participate but ended up not having time. it is fine if you started out enthused and then lost steam. you do not owe anyone revenges. you are not 'behind' and you are not letting anybody down. it is a silly little game for fun. do not forget this.

[sharky-starz]

yk someday, I wanna take all my favorite completed fics from ao3, i'm gonna download them, and i'm going to print them into actual books. NOT TO RESELL OR ANYTHING! /gen Like just for me to have at home! And I wanna make art for the covers and stuff,,

Because one) I love reading physical books!! Like, If I could read my favorite fanfics as physical books I WOULD READ THEM ALL THE TIMEEEE!!

but also two) ....I feel like,, it would REALLY make the authors day, yk? Like, Ik writers and artists feel so special when others consume what they create and love them, and I feel like if I could do a whole pretty book binding thing with their fanfics, it would tell them just how much them and their fanfics mean to ME! LIKE. FANFIC AUTHORS ARE SO BRRRRRKSJFKSKFKSKDS ACK-

I genuinely cannot articulate how much i love fanfic authors who write to their hearts content and allow US to take a gander at it qwq

[boglove]

this is how i prefer to interpret aaron in mcd

[sharky-starz]

yk- maybe, sometimes, I dont wanna be professional... i dont wanna be consistent... I just wanna be whimsical. Why can't I be whimsical?

[sharky-starz]

how do i say dilf but make people understand that i mean it in the cleanest way possible CUZ LIKE SOMETIEMS ITS THE ONLY WORD THAT FEELS APPROPRIATE BUT I NEED PEOPLE TO KNOW I DONT MEAN IT LIKE THAT

[theevilfishywizard]

Despite what people may lead you to believe, Garroth is kind. He's not always nice, but he's kind. It's a core trait of his character. Its what makes him fall out of favor with his father, its why he never saw zenix’s betrayal coming, its why he snuck away in O'Khasis to find his mother. Its fucked him over time and time again but Garroth would not be Garroth if he didnt care so much.

[terriblechickenhousebuilder]

regarding my last reblog. realised that the one time both aphmau and garroth let themselves have something they wanted (aaron, freedom from o'khasis), their decisions had massive, lasting consequences on the world around them (and subsequently the narrative).

aphmau allowing herself to be with aaron caused him to see her struggles deeper than anyone else did, and he sacrificed himself to give her "what she wanted"; aaron became shad's vessel and made him much more powerful.

garroth's freedom from o'khasis/the marriage treaty put phoenix drop in danger so many times (zane and alexis, the war with scaleswind, etc) and really could have put most of ru'aun at risk because of the threat of war between o'khasis and scaleswind

as lords/heirs they're taught to want what's best for their people—to do what's best for them. so when they do something that's self-indulgant and doesn't fall in line with what's best for their people and that action has a negative domino effect, it makes sense that they'd second-guess ever allowing themselves the things they want, or if they're even allowed to want anything at all

[abagelleftontheroadside]

Gene and Dante are a very fascinating case of Nature Vs Nurture. Especially considering both MCD versions of them and the MyStreet versions.

So here's the 2 questions:

Is Gene's evil bitchass behavior his Nature or Nurture?

Is Dante naturally a good person?

In MyStreet, their mother seems incredibly sweet. Almost painfully nice, from my memory of it. So how exactly did Gene turn out to be such a shitbag? On one hand, he's just like that. But is he? Later on in MyStreet he's a much kinder guy, and has clearly worked on himself and feels genuinely remorseful for what he did. So if it is Nurture, then getting away from his parents helped? Or on the other hand, forces in his life such as friends or family stepped in and gave him a reality check. If it's Nature, then is his nature bad? Good? Forever changing? Humans arent simple, after all

In MCD, he's a right bastard. If it's Nature, then he was born evil, deceitful, and selfish (and petty af). But if Gene is a good person in MyStreet by his Nature, then doesn't that mean MCD Gene would be too? So lets look at his Nurture. We could go with his parents. If theyre like in MyStreet, his mother is either negligent, oblivious, or just lets him get away with plenty. (Idk what his father situation is, shrug.) Or, it could be the realization of his powers. Realizing he has a cheat code to everything. Realizing that he's more powerful than anyone. And also maybe everyone's constant praise gave him a complex. And ofc he mightve lost the concept of consequences in his mind due to his power.So was MCD Gene born a piece of shit, or did he get nurtured into one by others, or did he let himself become one?

Then there's Dante

Ofc we could just say that writing MyStreet Dante as a playboy asshole is a stroke of shitty writing that nuked his character, but A. thats unproductive (well, in this post it is...), and B. nothin we can do to change it.

We're taking canon as canon rn and interpreting

SOOO

MCD Dante is genuinely a great person. Yes he's made mistakes but he's just human. He has insane loyalty and is incredibly determined to get the fucking job done. Connections are dear to him.

In my opinion, this stems from his Nurture. From his trauma. He lost everyone, literally everyone. So ofc connections and loyalty are things he holds above all else now. (And the guilt of "failing" Gene?? Idk) But lets think about the other side. Maybe he's just a naturally loyal and kind person.

Cue MyStreet Dante

He literally dated 2 girls at once

He's confident, cocky, selfish. Is this his Nature? Was MCD Dante a naturally selfish person, and selflessness was branded into him by fear? I dont think so, but it is an interesting hypothetical.

So going with this, MyStreet Dante is a product of his Nurture. Which, I'm pretty sure, Jess has said! (Tho I think she went way too far but that's another post-) Continuing, what changed? What's the difference for the Dantes?

Gene

That bitch

Dante doesn't have the horrific conscious of his brother's (justified) death on his plate. But I don't think that actually is the big difference. Rather, Gene being ALIVE, just there, as Dante grows up, is what did it. I mean Travis (or Laurance??) says in PDH that Gene is a bad influence on Dante. So in MyStreet, not only does Dante have a longer exposure to Gene, MyStreet Gene has NO memory powers to make himself a respectable figure to look up to, like MCD Dante had.

ITS THE POWERS, MAN

THE CORE OF THIS

THE POWERS

Basically, MCD Gene (before his death) was a seemingly stand up guy, instilling Dante with good morals. Nurture. MyStreet Gene was a bitch while Dante was growing up, instilling Dante with bad ideals, and Dante was around him for much longer than MCD Dante was.

But again, isn't Dante just kind in Nature?

I think Dante is a good person, naturally. But he isn't a nice person, or sweet. He can be selfish, rough around the edges, very stupid too

Loyalty was instilled through trauma and desperation (MCD)

His disgusting disregard for women soaked up from Gene (MyStreet)

(Btw not blaming Dante's actions all on Gene. He's his own person and made his own bad choices.)

But at the end of the day, Dante is a good person, naturally, in his core. So in MyStreet, he eventually begins learning his lesson and improving himself, in Season 2. And proceeds to be an afterthought seasons 4-6 so ig we'll never know how his character arc is going (i doubt hes getting content in seasons 7-8)

Conclusion

No shit it's a mix of both

That's how people work

(Also i get weird vibes from their mom hope thats not a hot take?? Or a warm take idk)

[bouquet-of-existentialism]

dante could have left phoenix drop SO easily.

he was a new guard, he was probably still a teenager. phoenix drop was the first village he served - but after a while he didn't even have anything to stay for.

He could have abandoned his post in search of his brother.

He could have moved his family somewhere safer and more developed.

He probably could have done more good and helped more people somewhere else.

But he stayed, because he knew what it was like to be left behind. He didn't want anyone or anything to be forgotten about like he was.

He stayed so Aphmau would have something to come back to - for probably more than five times as long as he'd even known her in the first place.

[sharky-starz]

DANTE MY FRICKING KING OMG-

i never knew how much i would love mcd dante, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN

[xerith-42]

A Genuine Look At Aaron's Sacrifice

I promise this post is not a joke. It's just long.

It's been ten years since season 2 episode 81 dropped. I personally wasn't around when the episode premiered, but I had some opinions about it when I did watch it, and in honor of its anniversary I decided to watch it again. Specifically I wanted to watch it with fresh eyes, as if I had never had an opinion on this episode to see how it would change.

And we all know how I am, I had to analyze it and pontificate on the state of the fandom. As I do. Unlike my last post in this style, I'm going to be analyzing the episode scene by scene to paint a picutre of how this episode reads to me now, years after I first experienced it.

Right off the bat this episode was buttering me up by having Katelyn content, and it involves her grief over Jeffory. It's moments like these that I love, and the very genuine friendship that Katelyn and Aphmau has is incredibly sweet. Getting to see Katelyn be weak and express her vulnerability when it comes to her grief and anger is always very interesting, and the conversation they have is quite bleak, yet meaningful.

And then Travis crashes in and flirts with Katelyn in the worst way imaginable, drops his dumb guy act to be heart wrenchingly sincere, only to correct himself to being the loyal guard he always has been, only to get punched for saying something stupid. I love him. I'm not even being objective I just love him. This is like a perfect MCD Travis scene, if I were to point to a scene that's the distillation of why I love this stupid white haired twink it would be this one.

So far the character writing in this episode has been on point and actually kind of funny. Maybe that's just my bias for Katelyn and Travis but I really love this first scene. It even has Jury of Nine lore that's kind of consistent, what isn't there to love?

And then in the middle of this very lovely conversation that's been going on for… half the episode?? That doesn't matter, just as Aphmau remembers that she should care about the plot of Minecraft Diaries, there's a faint drone in the background that turns into a large explosion. Of course every character reacts to it, but it is Aphmau who decides to run in to investigate while Travis looks after an injured Katelyn.

A soft piano plays over Aphmau and Levin as they approach the explosion site, and a cello begins to play a very particular motif as Garroth is shown to the viewer in the crater that remains. Said motif is called Distant Lands, a piece from the Final Fantasy 11 soundtrack, and was also prominently featured during the scene where Aaron proposes to Aphmau in MyStreet. This song is meant to represent the love that Aaron and Aphmau have across timelines, yet this version of it is somber and mournful as Garroth holds Aaron's bandana.

Aphmau is elated, all the worry leaving her for just a moment because she can hug Garroth again, because she's spent too long missing him. There are tears in her voice from the moment she sees him, I cannot emphasize how happy Aphmau is to see Garroth again. She really loves him. Her delight is halted when she sees the bandana in Garroth's hand.

Boom, flashback! Did that scare ya? Probably not, but this is just my excuse to talk about how oddly paced this episode is. It's twelve minutes long, but six of those minutes are spent on that scene with Katelyn, Travis, and Aphmau all talking about their feelings and lore. That's already putting a bit of a damper on the ability for the following moments to really be given a lot of time, but maybe that will be to this episodes advantage. I've seen Jesson execute their best scene in a minute and a half, so maybe this episode won't have many problems.

In the flashback we see Aaron awake in the house he and Aphmau cohabitate in, Aphmau and Lilith fast asleep on their bed. Aaron stares at Aphmau for a moment, considering her sleeping form, before kissing her and moving to leave. This is the first time that Aaron has voluntarily shown Aphmau explicitly romantic affection when the narrative was watching. Theoretically you could interpret a lot of their scenes as platonic, and the only other one fades to black before it gets explicit. This is the narrative affirming that Aaron does love Aphmau in case there was any doubt in your mind.

As he tries to go Lilith awakes and calls for her father. Aaron assures her that Aphmau will care for her, and leaves with the relic fragment in hand. I find it interesting that as Aaron is leaving the island and traveling to the portal, he pulls on his hood and bandana, the disguse he used for so many years to hide how much pain he was in. The disguise he wore after he lost his first life now being used to hide him as he actively leaves the new life he has.

He leaves the forest of the island in silence, but when the scene fades back in on him approaching the portal, a familair song plays. A segment of the song Dancing Mad from Final Fantasy 6. The very song that played the last time someone went to the Irene Dimension, immediately priming the viewer for what may happen. It also primes the viewer to think back on every attempt to get through this portal earlier in the season.

That Zoey had to sacrifice the equivalent of a life, that she and Emmalyn were relieved Aphmau didn't die when she tried to open it. Opening this rift between realms takes the amount of power contained in a single human life, and as the song blares and we see Aaron staring at the divine fragment, before pulling out the uhhh… (frantic googling noises) Realm Breaker! And even if you don't remember the lore as well as you thought you did, it's not hard to put together what's happening.

The ear shattering toll of the bell fills the space and we waste precious seconds of the episode just marveling at how good the build of Irene's Temple is. The shots change smoothly to show the battle between Zane and Garroth. All of these things are the hallmark of Diaries at it's best, and I mean it. The opening of the episode is so innocuous, so much what we're used to in the average episode, the tonal and quality change is so drastic yet built on tonal changes of seasons past to work really well. The improved editing and use of soundtrack are immediate signifiers to the viewers that things are getting serious, and are used to great effect here.

No wonder people thought this was an April Fool's joke. But the only fool here is Zane, who in the moment of his seeming victory, is thwarted by Aaron saving Garroth's life and breaking apart the realm barrier with a goofy ass editing effect. Funniest part of the episode. Probably.

Now. I want to dig deep into the dialogue that takes place between Zane and Aaron here, because I find Aaron's mentality in this moment to be absolutely fascinating, and completely understated. Zane asks if Aaron is here to get revenge, and he answers no. What he is doing now is not for him, it is so that way the woman he loves and his daughter may be allowed to live with the man who can really care for them.

When Zane says that Aaron's plan will kill them both, Aaron's response is so telling of how he views his own life.

"Good."

Aaron is not a person who puts value on his individual life. Maybe he was at some point, but tragedy struck and we only know the man it created. It created a man who does not act as though he were even a person, more a force of the universe. He's disengaged from his own life and any value it can have outside of ensuring nobody else has to suffer like he did at the hands of Zane Ro'Meave. And in this moment he would seemingly be playing into that, right?

But in season 2, Aphmau makes Aaron consider his own humanity again. She dares to ask him to open his heart to the world, to the things you can only experience if you let others care for you. By the time we reach this point, Aaron has found his humanity again. He has found reasons, multiple reasons, to keep fighting for another day. He has friends (?), and people he cares about, a family, and a growing community. He has a life again.

Yet through all of this, Aaron does not quite see himself as human still. Sure, he may be appreciating his life for its own value, but he also knows what his real greatest value is. Aaron, both in the narrative and out of it, is a replacement for Garroth. He knows that part of why he's even close to Aphmau is because she's trying to fill the Garroth shaped void in her life, and he happens to tick enough boxes. I believe Aaron is aware of the fact that no matter how great of a man he could be, Garroth would be better for Aphmau.

Aaron, seeing himself more as a force than a person, believes that rather than it being his destiny to kill Zane, it is now his purpose to save Garroth.

Zane took away Aaron's wife and child, and Aaron removed himself from the narrative in response and decided to become a force instead of a person. Garroth allows Aaron the choice to leave his wife and child so that he can remove himself from the narrative as a force of positive change instead of negative change, still not viewing himself fully as a person, but valuing what part he can now play greater than his original purpose.

As an ending to Aaron's character arc, this scene is incredible. Genuinely. It perfectly mirrors itself to come to a beautiful conclusion.

There's just… a few problems. Let's get through the rest of the episode before we talk about those.

Okay so once Aaron blows up and acts like he don't know nobody, we flash back to the present where Garroth presumably told Aphmau a fraction of the story the audience got in the same amount of time it took for us to learn everything else. Upon fully realizing what this crater means, what Garroth's return means, Aphmau proves to Aaron that he was wrong.

When Aphmau learns that Aaron is dead, she lets out a cry of grief that still gets to me ten years later. It's shorter than I remember, but it is still poignant and hits me right in the heart. Aaron may have only thought he was a replacement for Garroth, and maybe he was. But Aphmau loved Garroth. Is it a surprise thst she would fall for her replacement? And even if she doesn't see him that way, even if Aphmau doesn't realize she's let Aaron take the part in her life Garroth used to have, she loves Aaron.

A lot of people to this day still don't get why Aphmau cared so much about him, why she was seemingly more grief stricken over him rather than anyone else in her life who died. For one, death didn't have a real tangible meaning in this series until Episode 91 of the first season, and not a lot of people close to Aphmau died after that. There's a lot of near death, but never death she has to contend with. And for two, Aphmau loved him because she loves everyone. She cares about everyone, to her own detriment, all the time.

Aphmau pours her heart and soul into her relationships, she builds soul bonds with people she's just met, and she knows Aaron better than any person alive. In the moment of contending with his death Aphmau has to feel the pain of losing her friend, her lover, her mentor, and the crushing weight of being the only person to properly carry his memory all at once. What else could she do in the face of it all but scream for the life she loved so dearly?

All and all, this episode is really great actually. I was worried about the pacing at first, but I don't think it's actually a problem. Aaron's whole sacrifice only takes half the episode, and it is weirdly shoved into the middle of the season, but I kind of like that. It's very unexpected, inexplicable, and a nice shake up for season 2. Irene knows the season needed it. There's just… those few problems I mentioned earlier.

Let's adress the biggest thing that contributed to initial reactions of this episode: they released it on April Fools Day 2016. It is super common for Youtubers to do elaborate April Fool's videos with zero disclosure that the video is a joke until days later. This episode could have been an elaborate prank and none of us knew it. What an absolutely bizarre decision to make for an episode where you plan to kill one of the major characters this season. Like. I know they had a content schedule that they were adhering to, but would it have killed them to upload this on April 2nd? Then at least fans huffing the April Fool's copium would have less of a supply.

If this episode were an elaborate prank and the story didn't do this I think it would've been the funniest thing Jess and Jason ever did. I mean imagine making an entire full fledged episode of your web series with the quality expected from a series finale in the middle of your season just to prank your viewers into thinking you killed one of the main characters. That would've been fucking hilarious, and quite a few people thought that's what they were doing. But days passed and it became clear that this was no joke, this was just when the episode aired. The rest of the season continued on with Aaron's death being pivotol to it's plot and characters. This was no joke, even if you might ave tried to convince yourself it was.

But to be honest, the biggest problem with this episode is that you wanted something else. I mean you as in the person reading this now, but also you ten years ago, or however long it was when you saw this scene. The biggest problem with this episode is that you wanted something else from it. You didn't want Aarmau, you shipped Garmau or Laurmau (or Zoeymau if you're enlightened), and then that didn't happen. Laurance wasn't even in this episode.

You wanted Garroth to come back, but you didn't want Aarmau to be confirmed. You wanted someone to sacrifice themselves as the season had been foreshadowing, but you wanted the foreshadowing to be more specific than it was. You wanted something else. But you didn't get that something else, did you?

No. You got this. You got canon Aarmau, you got Aaron dying in every universe jokes, you got Garroth back in the narrative but no plan for his place in it. I'm not saying that I personally like all or any of these things, or that I even liked them when I first experienced them. Because I didn't.

But I can say that now, as an adult with a far more trained brain for critical analysis, a lot of people's complaints with this storyline don't have anything to do with how satisfying it is for Aaron, or any other characters, or the narrative, or even if the scene itself works. The complaint isn't always about what happened, so much of it is about what didn't happen. What could have happened. Very little appreciation is given to what is there now.

Perhaps I can have a kinder view of this episode only because of the years. Only because I have spent so long grappling with its place in the canon of MCD, and how that canon has impacted my life. And I have both accepted it as gospel as well as tarnished it's very existence. It is this variety of interpretations and understanding that lets me love this story as much as I do.

Aaron is a character who's story I have told from so many perspectives, most not his own. He is deeply fascinating to me for a lot of the ideas he has, even if I'm willing to admit their execution can leave a lot to be desired. But even if the build up was rough, this is a good payoff to his character. If you give Aaron a real chance, set aside your one sided grudge with him, and really look at him as a character, he's very interesting.

I'm sorry that you wanted something different. I'm sorry the story didn't turn out the way it was promised to you. Most stories are like that.

But it's been ten years. If you're still mad that Aaron "got in the way" of your otp being endgame, move on. If you're mad at Aaron for the fact that the writing of season 2 got worse, that's ridiculous. He is a character, not the writer of the show, even if he is a poorly disguised self insert of one of the authors. Don't equate beef with the writers to beef with the characters.

And if you hate this episode because you watched it recently and saw it as the worst episode of the series for completely unrelated reasons to shipping nonsense and think I'm a hack fraud, feel free to let me know in the reblogs, it's always fun to debate.

Happy April Fool's day, try not to explode on your way out.

[sharky-starz]

I feel like i just went on a fricking JOURNEY bro- (i mean i did, but i went on the journey AGAIN) holy frick

[cureofthenonesense]

“Mystreet lobotomized garroth, garroth is just comic relief in mystreet—“

HOW ABOUT HE’S FINALLY FEELING JOY AND WHIMSY.

[sharky-starz]

does anybody ever get the urge to create something and it gets so intense that you just- wanna cry?

like. whether you art creative block or not, you ever just get the extremely intense urge to create something that it hurts

I think it's something only storytellers might understand... artists and writers. Cuz it's like- I don't wanna make something HUGE AND TREMENDOUS yk? I wanna make something that like.... becomes just as special to one person as something's are to me.

I wanna tell so many stories, and I want them to be someone's special thing, even if they're the only person who likes it!! There are so many things that i love, that are so important to me, and idc who else does or doesn't like them; THOSE things have contributed so much to my existence...

THATS the kind of thing I wanna make. Just for one person...

and sometimes, i get really in my head about it because im running out of time to do that. So many things take so much time and there are already so many storytellers out there actually succeeding...

sometimes i wanna cry because I feel like maybe i was born too late. Maybe i just missed the bus to be a storyteller. Yk? it's...eugh.

Does anybody know what im talking about or am i just,, unrealistic akfbskdks

[peggydoodles]

Lupin & Laetitia + looking at each other like that ;u;

[thegoodwitchynki]

I finally got to watch Lupin iii the first this weekend, I had no idea it was an Indiana Jones movie