#*the first post is still incomplete

[anewp0tat0]

late as per usual, but this was April's theme back at the Black Butler Animo: (video)games!

I chose a game that not so many people know but still is my favorite game so far(I mean sure I haven't played so many but whatever) so yea, I'm gonna chose it as an AU. the dialogue is pretty weird cause I'm trying to cram exposition in there lol, but whatever, hope the art's fine atleast.

*ciel speaking*

*sebastian, then ciel speaking*

*ciel speaking*

[adwox]

hello tumblr enjoy these scratchy wips of THEM….

[wereh0gz]

You ever start getting a bit emotional thinking abt the concept of one of your own ocs. Bc yeah

[diablitocachudo]

Ok ok ok I have to talk

I read The perks of being a Villainess when scanlation groups where calling it Isnt being a Villainess better and dropped the novel right around the turtle stuff happens and recently read the Manwha because why not? I was curious like absolutely CURIOUS to see what they did with the couple's outfit from the Flower of the Year part.

And man let me tell you they did a DESERVICE to MY favorite moment of the whole thing like man what is this atrocity???

I know I KNOW IT this is the style popular with the medium and everything, the art it self is quite nice and pretty. But bro what manwha is this?? Did we read the same novel?? Did the translation group I read everything from made a mistake with the description????

Im going to include screens from the translations I read at the time because I genuinly need to know if they are wrong.

The first description used for the whole thing is already quite stricking and clearly defines the theme for the night. An angel and a Devil. And most importantly they let the woman in the relationship look something other than pure and innocent! Thats the main thing that got me hooked on this whole thing and it was the contrast and how would all of this work to make publicity for the statement piece of this look The pink diamond, the only one of its kind in the whole country.

There are a lot of things to point out just here but let me start with the one that took me out of it the most and that's Debora's dress description.

Its quite simple, a bright light purple satin dress, loose and with no embelishments whatsoever on it. Right there the manwha already lost me there is an excesive, almost overwhelming, use of lace, textures and patterns in the design. I can feel my hearing failing me from how much noise there is in this design. The whole point of the dress is to bring out the pink diamond and make it the indisputable center of attention of the complete ensemble!!

This is already personal theory but if I had a necklace I wanted to show off my first instinct is to get my hair out of the way so I imagined that Debora here would go for a gathered hair style that keeps everything out of the way to show off the diamond and well the long neck must have been a lot of help here!

Talking about theories I dont remember if they mentioned this later but, the red makeup with the light purple dress makes me think that Debora may have commissioned the dress thinking about the diamond and later may have found out that the light shade made her look too sweet ie bulliable so adding the red makeup may have been a desperate move on her side to make herself look more menacing. 🤔

Moving out of my theories and into the Diamond my god the diamond THE Pink Diamond THE only one of its kind in the WHOLE country!! Just why? Why is Isidor wearing an even bigger pink diamond than Debora?? For a second I even thought I misremembered and Isidor was the one who actually wore the diamond during the event but no! The novel is clear on this! This is the necklace worn BY Princess Debora not Isidor!! Another petveev of mine is that there are more colored diamond in the manwha when the Pink Diamond was the first colored diamond introduced to the market via magic manipulation here are some examples

Are this examples nickpicky and petty? Yes. Like "man that isn't a diamond thats an amethyst" or "that is just a ruby chillax bro". I KNOW!!! But can you at least hold back on the super shiny clipstudio diamond materials just this time around? Please just to make the moment special?? Phillap's in particular's really pisses me off right after the one they gave Isidor because that one looks way more impressive than the actual Pink Diamond in the manwha.

Well at least they got the shape right.

And Isidor lets talk about him for a while ok? He is the center piece of this look and the reason why it works so well here are some descriptioms of him.

Light Pink and like a "Cupid of Myth" quite the strong descriptors. And I do like how Isidor looks even if the shades used seem to be a bit too strong for my light pink standards. Specially with that cravat like what is that man?

But when compared to other men in the manwha.

Yeah the difference doesnt feel that impactful to me. How is that supposed to be "little shine"? Again I have only read unofficial translations so maybe im the one in the worng so who knows?

I just honestly dont know what happened here my guess is that the artist had to work fast and couldnt make the proper verifications I know because sometimes I also decide to trust my memory when it comes to details but well there isnt anything we can do about it now.

I do plan on drawing a more novel accurate look later since it really peeves me to see how they left everything in the manwha. I alreay have the desigb all planned and sketched up!

Just keep in mind that I will take some liberties with my design ☝️☝️im planning on making it in my own style after all.

So I will see to it that it is posted!!!

[callixton]

it actually sucks so fucking bad that one of my incompletes is in this theatre history class bc i actually love theatre history and learning about it. but these classes are so badly structured and taught that my brain now refuses to associate anything going on with them with actually learning abt a thing i like

[gyuswhore]

what if i told you guys you were standing on the bones of a bts blog that never happened

[semiotomatics]

welp

[leofrith]

quickly, who's gonna explain to all these writers that in order for their "subtext" to actually qualify as subtext they need to have evidence that supports it WITHIN THE TEXT

[whatapictureisworth]

.

[mothervvoid]

ok for the ao3 wrapped post, i have so many questions for you :] but you don't have to answer them if you're busy 🧡

7, 10, 11, 12, 29

ao3 wrapped questions

luckily for you my semester just ended so i've got PLENTY of time to answer all of your questions my friend

7. If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most?

oooh i'd say it's probably a tie between Lovejoy and The Oh Hellos!

10. What work was the quickest to write?

i'd say it's a tie between parallel 6 and mom, i'm tired. both of them took MAYBE an hour and both of them were the result of me thinking for a little too long while trying to wake up in the morning.

11. What work took you the longest to write?

all of my current wips

i wanna say,, poisoned at the roots or i wanna hear it's alright. ik it looks like theres a huge gap between my last whumptober fic and bite the apple but thats bcos i spent most of the month not writing lmao.

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

i'd sayyyy probably 3? that i actively care about. i start of a lot of fics that i never end up finishing, HOWEVER, i've got a crackship fic im working on, i've got the konoha revolution/obito lives au i just started and the zombie au fic i'm determined to finish now that i've started it. i might finish that last one before the year ends, it rlly depends on how much i wanna drag my feet (+ i had a spat of writer's block during november + it was the last couple of weeks of the semester so i didn't have time to write most of the month sjfhdjs)

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

this is. the hardest question you could have asked me asfdgfjghf

But before he goes—before he really goes, he would give Kakashi something. An eye, both eyes, everything. He would give him everything, everything he had, everything he was. Like he did before. It wouldn’t last forever, this curse would break eventually—but hopefully it would be enough to win.

One last hurrah.

Because Hatake Kakashi was his friend.

[ from parallel 6 ]

[occudo]

An incomplete list of TMA fics I adore

-beacuse of this ask

(If you liked the fics I previously recommended/made fanart for, I think you'll gonna like these as well, but you know, read the tags, know what you are going into)

Yesterday is Here by CirrusGrey @cirrus-grey

Time Travel Fix-it! Slow burn! So good! So much sass from future!Jon- I doubt I have to introduce anyone this amazing author, but if you somehow missed them till now, this is your time! I highly recommend all of their other fics as well, for example one of a more recent one, The Stranger I Know Best is also a lovely read.

enthralling by Prim_the_Amazing @primtheamazing

Vampire!Martin!! I have no words of how much I love this concept, this story, everything about this. I think I'm going to repeat myself through this list, but I also recommend everything else they've written!

to fill... my heart with music? by godshaper @godshaper so their Martin and Jon design are different from mine, also they made a way better art for this- but still, I wanted to include this really good fic in this list.

Do It All Anew by inkfingers_mcgee or @crit20art

You know the feeling when you read a book that makes you cry, and after that you recommend it to your friend? Well- there is no reason I mentioned this, I'm just so normal about this fic. Or any other fic from inkfingers_mcgee... like Strange Manner of what I made another fanart way back. Also, check out their art!

Anyway, here is Aamal- she is not going to cause emotional damage.

And they were sidekicks (oh my god, they were sidekicks) by arthureameslove @arthureameslove

A lighthearted series where Jon and Martin are sidekicks of supervillains- it's just a really fun fic, also recommend everyting from this author - I previously draw fanart here for an other fic of theirs Like a Lighthouse, Call Me Home

neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well by saintbleeding @saintbleeding

To quote the aurthour: "Post-divorce Jon and Martin in a wedding-based romcom" It's such a comfort read, also has a Tim/Sasha wedding, and lots of cameos! I realised most of these authors I made fanarts for before- like this one for some kind of miraculous bind, this one is oneshot and a bit more serious in tone.

Give Me the Words by rakel @rakel-on-ao3

"Jon and Martin try to make the most of a bad situation in the Scottish Highlands. The situation is worse than they realised." You know that one post about wanting to write PWP, but it keeps turning into character study? Well, this one comes to my mind each time I see that.

i wanna find a home (i wanna share it with you) by heartshapedguy @transgenderboobs

So what would have happened if instead of the cot (tm), Jon offered Martin his own flat to stay? There is no way it's going to change their relationship, right? Such a good read, if you want some fluff, I highly recommend it!

Lucky Stars by magnetarmadda @magnetarmadda

Martin has a lovely family (except his mother) but still, he needs a fake boyfriend, and Jon comes to the rescue. It's one of the first fics I remember reading after I finished the series. It is such a comfort read of mine~

(+enjoy a rare tall Jon from me)

There are so many more fics that also deserve the spotlight, these are just the ones I read multiple times and/or didn't made fanarts for before. If you find something here you like, give them some love! Kudos and comments! They deserve it. (Also, just an extra disclamier some of these are PWP or rated T- just mind the tags)

I tried to link and tag everything, I hope it works.

[astronicht]

Okay I'm almost done with Fellowship, here's an incomplete list of shit I noticed and thought was buck fucking wild on my first ever read-thru: medieval edition.

In literally the second line of the book, Tolkien implies that Bilbo Baggins wrote a story which was preserved alongside the in-universe version of the Mabinogion (aka the best-known collection of Welsh myths; I promise this is batshit). This is because The Hobbit has been preserved, in Tolkien's AU version of our world, in a "selection of the Red Book of Westmarch" (Prologue, Concerning Hobbits). If you're a medievalist and you see something called "The Red Book of" or "The Black Book of" etc it's a Thing. In this case, a cheeky reference to the Red Book of Hergest (Llyfr Coch Hergest). There are a few Red Books, but only Hergest has stories).

not a medieval thing but i did not expect one common theory among hobbits for the death of Frodo's parents to be A RUMORED MURDER-SUICIDE.

At the beginning of the book a few hobbits report seeing a moving elm tree up on the moors, heading west (thru or past the Shire). I mentioned this in another post, but another rule: if you see an elm tree, that's a Girl Tree. In Norse creation myth, the first people were carved from driftwood by the gods. Their names were Askr (Ash, as in the tree), the first man, and Embla (debated, but likely elm tree), the first woman. A lot of ppl have I think guessed that that was an ent-wife, but like. Literally that was a GIRL. TREE.

Medieval thing: I used to read the runes on the covers of The Hobbit and LOTR for fun when I worked in a bookshop. There's a mix of Old Norse (viking) and Old English runes in use, but all the ones I've noticed so far are real and readable if you know runes.

Tom Bombadil makes perfect sense if you once spent months of your life researching the early medieval art of galdor, which was the use of poems or songs to do a form of word-magic, often incorporating gibberish. If you think maybe Tolkien did not base the entirety of Fellowship so far around learning and using galdor and thus the power of words and stories, that is fine I cannot force you. He did personally translate "galdor" in Beowulf as "spell" (spell, amusingly, used to mean "story"). And also he named an elf Galdor. Like he very much did name an elf Galdor.

Tom Bombadil in fact does galdor from the moment we meet him. He arrives and fights the evil galdor (song) of the willow tree ("old gray willow-man, he's a mighty singer"), which is singing the hobbits to sleep and possibly eating them, with a galdor (song) of his own. Then he wanders off still singing, incorporating gibberish. I think it was at this point that I started clawing my face.

THEN Tom Bombadil makes perfect sense if you've read the description of the scop's songs in Beowulf (Beowulf again, but hey, Tolkien did famously a. translate it b. write a fanfiction about it called Sellic Spell where he gave Beowulf an arguably homoerotic Best Friend). The scop (pronounched shop) is a poet who sings about deeds on earth, but also by profession must know how to sing the song or tell the story of how the cosmos itself came to be. The wise-singer who knows the deep lore of the early universe is a standard trope in Old English literature, not just Beowulf! Anyway Tom Bombadil takes everyone home and tells them THE ENTIRE STORY OF ALL THE AGES OF THE EARTH BACKWARDS UNTIL JUST BEFORE THE MOMENT OF CREATION, THE BIG BANG ITSELF and then Frodo Baggins falls asleep.

Tom Bombadil knows about plate tectonics

This is sort of a lie, Tom Bombadil describes the oceans of old being in a different place, which works as a standard visual of Old English creation, which being Christian followed vaguely Genesis lines, and vaguely Christian Genesis involves a lot of water. TOLKIEN knew about plate tectonics though.

Actually I just checked whether Tolkien knew about plate tectonics because I know the advent of plate tectonics theory took forever bc people HATED it and Alfred Wegener suffered for like 50 years. So! actually while Tolkien was writing LOTR, the scientific community was literally still not sure plate tectonics existed. Tom Bombadil knew tho.

Remember that next time you (a geologist) are forced to look at the Middle Earth map.

I'm not even done with Tom Bombadil but I'm stopping here tonight. Plate tectonics got me. There's a great early (but almost high!) medieval treatise on cosmology and also volcanoes and i wonder if tolkien read it. oh my god. i'm going to bed.

edit: part II

[velvees-archive]

At 20 years old, Miles Edgeworth’s only mentor tells him never to step foot into his opponent’s territory lest he fail to crush them in court. 4 years later, Edgeworth enters Defendant Lobby No. 1 to warn opposing counsel Phoenix Wright about Redd White’s decisive testimony.

Some post-AAI1 reflections + how Phoenix unravels Miles from the very moment they meet again.

After playing through the original trilogy, up to 4-2 on Apollo Justice, and all of Ace Attorney Investigations 1, I couldn’t help but jot down my (admittedly incomplete) thoughts about Phoenix and Edgeworth’s relationship, especially as it pertains to Miles’ “unraveling,” or his departure from von Karma’s teachings.

We already know von Karma had no love for Edgeworth. Crushing the late Gregory Edgeworth’s legacy under the guise of mentoring his son (and eventually ruining his career at its peak) was von Karma’s last act of hatred towards the departed.

From Miles’ perspective, however, von Karma was an accomplished teacher to whom he owed his gratitude and career’s success. This is important because Edgeworth’s actions are fundamentally motivated by his desire to express his “gratitude,” repay debts, and honor legacies.

His debt to von Karma compels him to strive for the perfection his mentor obsesses over. Achieving perfection takes the form of absorbing von Karma’s teachings, among them the AAI1 screenshot from earlier: only face your opponent in court, and make sure you crush them when you do it.

We know for a fact that the “demon prosecutor” internalizes von Karma’s teachings. He follows them to a T.

So, following 15 years of indoctrination, 4 years of putting the von Karma creed into practice, and an entire childhood AND early adulthood’s worth of gratitude, you’d THINK Edgeworth wouldn’t dare dishonor him…

Until he does, by coming to the defendant lobby to speak to his “enemy.”

Prior to playing AAI1, I thought the impetus for Edgeworth’s character development was 1-3, wherein he reevaluated the facts of the case and helped Phoenix get Dee Vasquez a guilty verdict. I still think 1-3 was the first time he consciously acknowledged the possibility (keyword: possibility) that his prosecutorial upbringing wasn’t..sound…(lmao!)

But with this AAI1 von Karma and Bratworth interaction, I now believe it was 1-2—with Edgeworth subconsciously disregarding his mentor’s teachings and Phoenix acting as the catalyst—that shows us when he first strayed from the path of a Von Karma.

An aside: Do I think AAI1 Bratworth was perfectly characterized? Not at all; he’s much too noble for that era of his life, though I don’t think it affects my case.

Edgeworth is a man full of contradictions. He comes to the defendant lobby to tell Phoenix his case is hopeless, though he has no obligation to disclose—nor has he ever set a precedent of disclosing—decisive witnesses’ information to his opponents.

He tells Phoenix he’ll do anything to get a guilty verdict, yet he warns the defense that his witness’s testimony will be considered infallible, prompting the player (Phoenix) to dissect the following testimonies with more care.

He tells Phoenix not to expect any special treatment from him, yet his very presence in the defendant’s lobby is in direct opposition to his respected mentor’s wishes.

It takes just one appearance from Phoenix for the filaments of von Karma’s indoctrination to unravel. 4 years into his career, Edgeworth has met many attorneys—most notably, Mia Fey—who embody Phoenix’s faith in his clients, yet none could shake his foundations like Phoenix Wright.

Edgeworth may have not been ready to turn a new leaf upon his first encounter with Phoenix, but the fact that a loose thread from his childhood (that’s emblematic of his innocence, his dreams, and dare I say his father’s drive) ultimately leads to his unraveling is poetry if I’ve ever seen it.

TL;DR Phoenix deconstructs Edgeworth like he was born to do so. The moment Phoenix decided to chase after him, Edgeworth had already lost.

[purplealmonds]

This is my tribute to the late Technoblade. I'm well over a week late to the anniversary of his passing, but I think it was worth the wait. I wanted to get this right.

The story I want to tell is of time's passage after his passing, and the set dressing of this space is a symbolic amalgamation of various aspects of his life depicting that concept.

I have a lot more to say about this painting - three pages just for the symbolism alone. If you're interested, please let me know and I'll share my analysis on a separate post! Edit: I caved. Aight, prepare for a massive info dump below the cut!

DISCLAIMERS:

Although I put a lot of research into this piece, my knowledge is likely flawed and incomplete. If I missed or misinterpreted a reference, it’s because I’m new to the Technoblade community. If I got a symbolism thing wrong, it’s because I relied on Google search for answers. I fact checked where I could. And with this analysis, I hope I can clear up any misinterpretations! 

—

OVERVIEW:

There’s lots of imagery to unpack so I’ll try parsing it in a structured manner. Let’s first examine it holistically. 

The story I want to tell here is of time’s passage after Technoblade’s passing. As such,the set dressing of this space is a symbolic amalgamation of that concept.

Prominently featured are the various medical equipments - a nod to the grim reality of his cancer. But let’s not linger upon that aspect of his story.

Of equal importance are the more mundane objects - his gaming setup, the couch and pillow which Floof sat upon in that one photo, the plethora of paraphernalia of branded merchandise, and references to his exploits in Minecraft. These are relics and mementos of his legacy.

All of these elements intermingle in flooded, lushly overgrown room looking out to a rose-tinted exterior. Is it dawn? Dusk? I’ll leave that interpretation up to the viewers.  

The third and final component is the plant life representing his community -us. We beautify this metaphorical space with where it was once laden with tragedy. Yet, despite these riotous blooms, we never quite encroach on the bed - the empty space left behind by him.

—

SET DRESSING:

Much care was taken in selecting the blossoms and placing them in symbolically significant locations.  And this neatly transitions us into the analysis individual details.

Foreground: 

In the foreground, ivy crawls through a lamp and white clovers thrive atop a pile of pillboxes. The lamp base, once a shining bronze-like finish, is heavily tarnished. The lampshade is overgrown with moss and ivy. Even if the greenery has yet to damage the electric wiring, the damp surely has finished the job. Even if the bulb is replaced, the body is too far gone. The light’s never coming on again. 

I was initially put out that my painstakingly 3D modeled pillboxes became entirely obscured, but I think it works in favor of the piece’s overarching theme: the beautiful wilds overtaking a space that once reeked of the desperate fight to prolong life. 

White clover blossoms meaning “thinking of you” is paired with the ivy meaning “everlasting devotion”.  It’s an apt combination. It has been over a year since his passing, and we still remember and carry on his legacy. 

Nestled amongst the foliage is Techno’s compass. It was once used to hunt him down in the Dream SMP. But now, it’s an odd comfort. Even though he’s no longer with us, he’s still somewhere far, far away– or is he? The original idea was for the needle to point heavenwards, but it is currently pointing…sideways?  I’ll get to the reasoning a bit later. 

The Flood:

Moving deeper into the space, we hit the floodwaters. These once turbulent currents are now tranquil enough to nourish this verdant place. The thriving plant life hides much of this darkness. It is beautiful, hopeful, even. But always bittersweet, because everything that grows here is laced with an old sorrow.

White lotus rise from the murky depths. That is us, overcoming our grief. Breaching the surface, we gain a new vantage point to contemplate this loss. Perhaps we can also find a more comforting perspective of it.

Submerged amongst the blossoms is a rusted oxygen machine. I wanted to decorate the machine with stickers, much like one would personalize a plaster cast for a broken limb. It is deliberate that the “Technoblade Never Dies” sticker is in shadow, while the “So Long, Nerds" is in light. 

Immediately to the right was meant to be a box of assorted Technoblade apparel.  But then I flooded the space for narrative reasons, rendering that idea unusable. I eventually converted it into a Welch’s Fruit Snacks box, because apparently Technoblade liked them? It’s one of the shallower references here but it is what it is.

And finally, there is a little cameo floating somewhere in the waters. An Easter egg, if you will. I wonder if you can find it? 

Furnishings from Home:

I found the couch and Technoblade’s gaming setup during my trawl through the Technoblade Reddit page for reference photos. Balancing this space full of impersonal medical equipment with more personalized belongings is grounding. These areas insert familiarity in this strange environment.

Gaming Setup:

The gaming setup is bare bones - just the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. There was no space to add more iconic elements like his Blue Yeti microphone or the steering wheel from that Minecraft challenge. Hanging above but heavily obscured by overgrowth are two framed pictures of Technoblade’s cabin and a potato minion. It is a blink-and-you-miss-it detail, placed in a dim space and requiring close examining to notice. Without the context of the rest of this environment, it is easily mistaken as generic set dressing. 

That’s the point, though. This was a space where he streamed and created videos much beloved by his community. This space was the means of creation, not the creations themselves. Without the creator at the helm, this setup becomes insignificant. Does one dote over the easel on which paintings were created, or the paintings themselves? So now it sits in darkness, a footnote of Technoblade’s legacy. 

Nostalgia Corner:

On the other end, we have the sold out Youtooz plushies and the Agro Pig plush from the recent merch drop sat atop the couch.  If you look closely, you’ll see a Skeppy coin leaning against one of the plushies. Behind the couch is a shelf. A generic shelf, but the important bits here are the sellout bell, Youtube plaque, and vinyl figurines. 

This corner of the room is nostalgic and soft. Everything is bathed in rosy pink light, and it is filled with things that are comfortingly familiar. All across the world, people in his community have these pieces of merch to remember him by. 

The red poppies that also grow here have multiple meanings. It represents the battle - one against sarcoma - which was fought here. It symbolizes death, but also resilience in the face of grueling conditions. It is said that they grow in former battlefields where of fallen warriors. I believe of all the flowers here, this one best represents Technoblade.

The Hanging Mobile:

Strung up above it is a rather last minute addition to the environment - a hanging mobile fabricated from totems representing each member of the Sleepy Bois Inc. friend group. First and foremost is Technoblade’s iconic MCC crown, aptly placed at the top. Although it is untouched by the greenery, the gold and jewelry are somewhat muted and tarnished by time.

This is not the case for the objects below. TommyInnit’s music disc shines iridiscent green and purple - Cat and Mellohi merged into one. To is right is a sky-blue guitar pick with the LoveJoy logo engraved onto it for Wilbur Soot. And finally, below it all is Philza’s Friendship Emerald - sparkling and refracting light - with Elytra feathers fastened at the bottom. They, suspended and isolated from everything, maintain a pristine vibrancy which strongly contrasts against everything else in this space. 

IV Stand:

Next to the computer setup is the IV stand. It sustains life which is incapable of continuing on without intervention. The butterfly milkweed growing on it, in contrast, says “let me go.” The latter, overtaking the tangle of tubes and powered off patient monitor, is victorious. The hooks stand rusted, and the IV bag empty from disuse.

Sat atop the patient monitor but almost blending into the walls is a pig figurine featured in Dream’s latest music video. It stands on a high perch, yet is unassuming as to direct focus on Technoblade, or rather, his absence. 

Hanging from the wired basket is an air freshener tag. If you look on the official website, this is one of the only products which has what I can only call interesting flavor text. Most are merely descriptions and specs of the product. To quote it verbatim:

“Yes, this is a real product. And no, this ‘air freshener’ has no discernible fragrance. ‘Why’ you ask? Because Mr. Technodad and our team agreed this was exactly the sort of air freshener Alex would have found hilarious.”

As morbid as it sounds, I feel like this air freshener tag would not have existed before Technoblade’s passing. It is so unlike any other merchandise I’ve seen in any other branded merchandise store. It’s like an inside joke, secretly shared within the descriptions for the world to eventually discover. 

Window:

Unlit candles line the window sill - the aftermath of a candlelight vigil. It is a versatile symbol. It raises awareness of a disease or illness. It pays tribute the dead. Judging from the melted wax dribbling down the candle shafts and the wall below (the opacity was reduced so it looks less like bloodstains), this has been done many times over. But there is so much more candle to burn, representing the people still continuing this ceremony, albeit in the privacy of their own homes.

Above the candles are some broken blinds. When grieving, it would have been so easy for Mr. Technodad to hide away from the world in his grief. It’s understandable, to give into that primal urge to flee from prying eyes when he’s at his most vulnerable. He had the difficult task of reading out his son’s final farewell to us. This barrier between him and us dismantled by this gesture so we can remember Technoblade together. 

Coincidentally, the window frame itself somewhat resembles the kitchen window featured in Technoblade and Technodad's cooking videos. Completely unintentional on my end, but fitting in a way since in both those videos they're pulling back the metaphorical curtains for the audience to peer into a small aspect of their private lives.

To the right of the window is a nondescript clock, forever stopped at the 6:30 as a nod to the date when the "So Long, Nerds" video was published. The minute hand is accidentally left out removed to signify that time will no longer move forward for Technoblade. In contrast, the rest of the world - represented by this space - continues to grow and change around his absence.

A wind chime hangs just outside the window. It is said that the soothing sounds produced by them is a healing balm during tumultuous times. Where there is wind there is stirred up emotions, but it is motionless on this calm, breezeless day. A rare respite, where remembrance overrides grief. 

On a more amusing note, there is an interesting looking moth perched on the window glass. Upon closer inspection, the wing pattern may look somewhat familiar. In Chinese culture, when a huge moth visiting your home is the embodiment of your recently deceased loved one checking on you. Remember the compass in the foreground? Well, here’s why it is pointed sideways instead of upwards. This idea came up rather organically during a VC session in the R/Technoblade Discord server. My handful of viewers and myself affectionately dubbed this doofy looking moth TechnoMoff!

Venturing further beyond the windows, ferns grow with wild abandon. They represent eternal youth, and from a certain point of view, he will remain youthful forever at the age of 23. He lives on through us carrying on his legacy and spreading his story. 

Everything outside is tinged with pink. After someone dies, we start seeing them less as a person and more as a legacy. It is the natural course of things to start seeing the deceased through rose-tinted lenses - hence the artificially pink hue of the outside contrasting with the more grounded color palette of the inside. 

Bed:

And now we circle back to the centerpiece of this entire composition: the bed and the things that surround it. 

In front of the bed is an over-bed table with a single object: an incense bowl filled to the brim with burnt sticks of incense. A simple shrine for Technoblade. In Chinese culture, we light incense at the altar to honor our loved ones. We may live separate lives and not cross paths often, but we all come together to leave our marks through this ritual. It is proof that he is still very much loved and missed by us all.

The bariatric bed frame is typically seen in hospitals. It allows the patient to comfortably sit up or recline without expending valuable energy. Encased in this frame is something more personal - the mattress and cushions which Technoblade laid upon in his photo with the Youtube plaque. Their unique patterning is a foil for the impersonal receptacle it is caged in. It is spotlit by the window light, emphasizing its emptiness. Not a single blossom dares to encroach upon this space, because to do so would be to erase the space where Technoblade last resided. Like I mentioned before, this is story is about the space around him as much as it is about him. 

Cradling this bed frame are several flowers. Rosemary and forget-me-not’s for remembrance. Appropriate, given its proximity to the bed. Morning glories, for resilience. That’s us, again. For a while, we meander and spread in the upper walls of this space, avoiding the floodwaters which symbolize grief. But eventually, we gather the strength to meander down to the bed, where grief was the strongest.

—

CONCLUSION:

There is that cheesy quote from that one Marvel TV show – “What is grief, but love persevering?” While this reframes our perception of dealing with loss, grief is not some thing that should linger. The absence of grief does not equate to the lack of love. Instead, I would like you to consider this: remembrance is love persevering. And with our combined perseverance, Technoblade will never truly die. 

[anistarrose]

Imagine, for a moment, that your internet just stopped loading images one day. Your dash might look pretty different (and less usable), but at least you can still make posts — whether about your internet situation, or about completely unrelated topics.

Now, imagine that one or more of your posts blew up, to the tune of hundreds if not thousands of notes. Imagine people started adding images to your posts.

Imagine your post circulating almost entirely in the form with four or five images attached, and with everyone in the notes laughing about those images — except you, who started the post in the first place, who can't even see those images because you're trapped in Tumblr's loading gradient hellscape.

You're excluded from any further conversations on your own post, because someone added a mystery image with the caption "don't leave this in the tags," but you have no idea which set of tags it is, and can't tell if it's one of the good takes from the tags or one of the horrible takes from the tags. You're excluded from the Tumblr users playing with JPEGs like dolls. You can try to guess the contents of the images based on people's reactions, but it's hard. And no one adding images even seems to notice the irony.

This is, of course, a real problem plaguing Tumblr users with regularly slow internet. And it's also a huge, insidious problem plaguing blind and low vision people who rely on either screen readers, or image descriptions in combination with enlarged text on their device.

People with disabilities around comprehending images, people who have images (or gifs) disabled due to photosensitivity, and many others are also affected.

If you add an image to a post without either alt text, an in-post image description, or even both for maximal inclusivity, you don't know if OP — or the person whose tags you're peer reviewing, or whose reply you're screenshotting — will actually be able to see it. From their perspective, you might just be shoving a mystery rectangle in their face, expecting them to be able to guess — or responding to them without them being able to know.

Imagine being on the receiving end of that expectation constantly. Imagine how isolating that must feel.

We need, collectively, to stop making assumptions that everyone we interact with online will be able to access, physically see, and mentally process images. The assumption that disabled people are vanishingly rare and statistically shouldn't really need to be considered is an assumption of structural and/or implicit ableism.

Write image descriptions. Write image descriptions for every image you post, if you're able — but if you have limited energy, or you're still learning, you should at least start trying your absolute best to describe images you add to other people's posts. If you're starting a conversation, even an online conversation, you should make your best effort to be accessible.

So: Write IDs, especially if they're as simple as just text, like screenshotted tags (link to guide). Write IDs even if you think the best ID you can write is too short, or too incomplete (link to post explaining why even "bad" IDs help).

Write IDs in general (link to a huge compilation of guides). Challenge ableist assumptions and inaccessibility.

[scalefeathers]

It’s not a great look, for sure, but it seems to be more a problem with the Society than with Omeluum; based on what we see, they have a somewhat skewed view of morality, and I get the impression they take the Prime Directive pretty seriously. Interfering in someone else’s research is probably pretty taboo, even if you find it morally objectionable. (And if it’s anything like real life academia, the process for raising objections is probably pretty bureaucratic and ultimately toothless; I imagine the most you can do is write a strongly worded letter and and wait till you can skewer their results in peer review).

:readmore:

If anything, I consider Omeluum less culpable than the other members, because it’s basically living in and studying an alien culture, which from its perspective has Blue and Orange morality it may not feel qualified to judge. It probably looks to Blurg, and maybe other SoB members, to help it understand what is and isn’t considered ‘moral’ in this culture. It also seems to have a somewhat detached perspective on the suffering of others; not one born of malice, but just a lack of understanding of what that actually means; for example, when it is unable to suppress the effects of your tadpole, it says something about how (and I’m paraphrasing here) it’s sorry that it couldn’t help you, but assures you it will do a thorough post-mortem analysis should your condition continue to progress. This attitude seems sociopathic, and in the clinical sense it is, but it’s sociopathy born of a failure to fully comprehend the emotions of others, not of narcissism or malice.

That said, Omeluum does seem to have a certain degree of morality; I get the impression that it parted ways with its lich partner on moral grounds (ie wanting to promote life, or at least study it, rather than end it); and in the Iron Throne mission, it shows a concern for the other prisoners and a lack of concern for its own self-preservation that seems distinctly un-illithid. Also if you kill Spaw in the myconid colony, it and Blurg won’t get involved, but if you start slaughtering myconids en masse, they will, so evidently the Prime Directive only goes so far.

All that said, it’s hard to know what exactly B&O think of their colleague’s experiment, or how aware they even are of it, because you never get the chance to ask them. From a Doylian perspective, idek if the writers considered allowing these quests to interact to such an extent; the different questlines may even have been written by completely separate people, and no one considered how one might impact the player’s view of the other. Given the sheer number of moving parts in this game, I’m hesitant to draw too many conclusions about a couple of minor characters based on a questline they’re not directly involved in. But this is all speculation, of course, so take it with a grain of salt (or a whole pinch).

(This last point is potentially triggering, so please check the post tags and feel free to skip it if you think it’s going to upset you. It’s also pretty tangential to the point of the post, but op mentioned Mengele and my hand slipped.)

I think if we’re looking for real-world comparisons, the whole gith egg experiment seems less Mengelian and more a combination of the Little Albert experiment from the 1920s (basically ‘lets take this human baby and see if we can condition him to fear something babies aren’t usually afraid of’) and 19th century colonial race ‘science’ (the whole ‘kill the Indian to save the man’ idea). I’m not coming at this from a moral relativism perspective; I think both of these things are morally horrific (and in the second instance, blatantly genocidal). For purposes of this conversation, though I think it’s worth noting that these examples were not considered morally objectionable by the dominant culture at the time they occurred, while Nazi ‘experiments’ were (rightly) considered horrific by pretty much everyone as soon as they came to light. And while the Nazis may have claimed that their ‘experiments’ were done in the name of science, it seems pretty clear that what they were claiming as ‘science’ was really just a cover for an excuse to torture people. (Which is not to say the colonial policies weren’t also used as an excuse to torture people, but I don’t think that was universally the case, comforting though it would be to think that it was; such a belief lets us separate ourselves from those committing the atrocities rather than acknowledging how much we have in common with them.)

None of this makes a lick of difference as to whether any of these experiments or policies were morally justified or defensible (they are disgusting and shameful) or whether the people responsible should be exempt from judgment (they should not). But I do think there were different motivations in the people conducting and facilitating these things, which is what I think op’s post is about (ie, what does a person’s participation in or at least tacit acceptance of such actions say about their motivations and attitudes).

Tl;dr: Omeluum is a Vulcan, game development is hard, and some of history’s worst atrocities were committed by people who genuinely believed they were doing the right thing (which I personally think is much more distressing than the idea that they were all amoral monsters).

I'm starting to wonder if Omeluum is actually any better than the Emperor or if it just finds itself in a position where its best bet for freedom happens to align more closely with conventional humanoid morality. It works with the Society of Brilliance, an organization that plans to study behavioral psychology by kidnapping a baby and torturing them from birth to adulthood. And that's just what the Society is willing to share with outsiders! Omeluum must know about this plan, and it's more than a little bit fucked up that it views this as a moral advancement from the historical behavior of Illithid. Just a reformed slaver dabbling in a bit of Mengele shit with the same racial group it previously held as slaves. I guess.

Omeluum is, at best, a bit smarter than the Emperor.