#Clarity Series

[audiart]

Cyn post-series gets her own body after Uzi's had enough deadpan commentary from her. She's a Solver user as it's the only way her OS is operational and it helps with her limb functions, she really doesn't like using or relying on it though.

The way I see it, AS users don't unlock the fleshy tail/wing bits unless they're badly overheating (kinda last resort like Material Collection) so as long as she stays topped up she's fine!

Her relationships with the DDs and Uzi are understandably strained but slowly they're getting to know the real Cyn. Lizzy 'kidnaps' her for sleepovers often, she's the first real friend from the colony :D

[pharawee]

[thatrandomblogsays]

Annabeth: it’s been five years and Chiron has STILL never let me go on a quest

12 year old me: omg that’s so unfair

Adult me: cause you’re A BABY

[clarityroses]

teehee

[newyorkthegoldenage]

A fan at Yankee Stadium during the 1951 World Series. Obviously a Dodger fan, but giving a Bronx cheer anyway!

Photo: Ed Clarity for the NY Daily News via Getty Images/Fine Art America

[sweetpupii]

i don't mean to say this in a "omg I'm so her lol XDD I'm so crazyyy" way, I hate that, I mean it in a "holy shit that's accurate" way. ( it also won't make sense bc I'm having trouble remembering some things about the series )

I genuinely love how jinx is written in arcane because they made aspects of her mental illness so real.

and I'm not talking just from her deep, deep depression in season 2 act 3 ( I think ); I'm talking about how she was clearly very unstable since she was a child. hitting herself while crying and destroying the stuff she was proud of after realizing that it wasn't enough for others. the hurt of being told by the person she trust the most that she's not ready yet, the way it confirmed what mylo said about her being a jinx and messing everything up.

she, in her own innocence and want of proving herself, willingly climbed up the building she knew vander and the others were at.

then, after all that happened, one might thing she's used to hallucinations—by the way she talks to them like they're actually there, but no. you can't fully get used to it. you can see it by the way she has to stop and try her best to push it aside and not be affected by the stuff she hears and sees because it makes her unable to think on her own.

sometimes it gets so hard to understand they're not real. I mean, you know that it's in your head but why does it feel so real? why am I hearing their voice like they're sitting right next to me? why does it make me feel like this?

I also like that they make the hallucinations sound like actual hallucinations. in my case it also sounds like memories sometimes and not just the aggressive, hateful whispers most movies represent them as. it's not always a voice telling you to kill yourself !!

you can see them progressively get more and more overwhelming as her life gets worse while finding out stuff that brings back painful stuff from the past. mylo who was simply a voice now is also fully visual. hunting her down on every thought.

and don't get me started on the psychotic episodes.

season two was just WOAH.

the way you can feel the emptiness just by looking at her eyes is amazing. you can see and feel how numb she is and how she stops trying.

her life seemed to start getting better. she had vander, vi, isha and even sevika had a better relationship with her but like everything in her life it all went to shit.

doesn't matter how but she's always finding a way to give up. even at the cell she's starving herself to death, scratching on her skin and then attempting on her life like she has probably done countless times.

I wanna clarify that self harm is not only about physically damaging yourself, is also about putting yourself through triggering stuff on purpose or staying in a place you know hurts you. forcing something with someone who only makes you miserable might also count.

I felt it so deep in my heart when she tells vi that she can stop worrying now, that she shouldn't feel guilty and be happy. her expression alone shows you how she's also carrying the blame for many things, if not all that happened.

seeing suicide as the only way to stop being a burden and keep causing trouble is such a real thing to have in my mind and it made me bawl my eyes out.

at the end when she finally understands that she's the only one than can break the cycle, just like silco ( or well, her mind ) told her, you can see peace on her face that you can't see in any other moment. after all she went through she was able to know that maybe it's not that they don't want her near or she's burden, maybe she's the one who wants to cut ties and live another life away from the past and all the things that hunt her down constantly.

a new beginning that she saw impossible.

[strqyr]

as much as i love 'war' as a song, i do kinda wish the fight between team rwby and the ace-ops was presented more as a tragedy(?) rather than as a moment of ass kicking. ya know, like qrow vs clover was; it doesn't have to be this way, and as an audience you shouldn't want it to be this way, they should be allies, friends, etc, and maybe there was a way to prevent it from ending this way, but it was not the road taken.

obviously it would require for there to be more interactions between team rwby and the ace-ops beforehand in positive light; not only in terms of training—with team rwby taking the advice they get from these more experienced huntsmen and huntresses to heart—, but also on more personal level, but overall, as the fight is, it just feels tonally... off. it's mostly masked by the banger of a song—and the soundtrack in general—that plays in the background, but it's just... with salem in the horizon, i don't think a fight between allies should make me feel hyped in the moment.

i don't know if this is the best way to phrase this to really get across what i'm trying to say, but again, comparing team rwby vs the ace-ops with qrow vs clover, because of the difference in tone, the latter feels like it has more depth to it; that these characters are taken more seriously, while with team rwby it's like... as long as they look cool, it's fine, ya know?

but i want more than that. i want the same depth, the same seriousness for team rwby as other characters get in similar situations. but at times, it feels like the writing is either too unwilling, too afraid, or just too uncaring to do so.

[kirbyddd]

between Dread continuing from a game on GBA (and really every game prior to that too) and Prime 4 continuing from 2 games on GameCube and Original DS, Metroid has the longest narrative endurance of any multi-creator series I've ever seen. Threads left in stasis decades ago when the series was shelved picked right back up once development resumes—an entire generation of developers later—like nothing ever happened

[zeravmeta]

Dragons Rioting isnt trying to be anything deeper than it actually is but i really do think that it understands its own genre inspirations more than those actually trying to be serious so it ends up just being incredibly entertaining and a lot more memorable than its contemporaries

[chemdisaster]

i need need need joel to win the life series at some point please i need to angst him so bad

just imagine. joel, so focused on the simple, human things in the game, both denying that it is a game and at the same time playing like it's one in the hopes that maybe if he does, it won't matter, won't have the power to hurt him - joel, winning and seeing the beyond with his very own eyes. seeing what's there at the end of it all, after everyone dies and the blood seeps into the soil. what's there after all the bases are burnt and the jokes and bits are forgotten, gone with the rising smoke of explosions. joel, understanding how little everything truly matters, but not in the way he thought. understanding both the gravity and the insignificance of their existence. understanding that nothing matters, and everything does.

joel, the epitome of "ignorance is bliss" and "what i can't see won't hurt me" in everything he does, witnessing more than he should, shouldering the burden of knowledge and ultimately being undone by it all.

[applestorms]

i was just gonna leave this as a comment, but my response started spiraling sooooo. guess i'm makin' this a full on post lol =3=" uhh anyways, responding to @skyborneveggie's tags on this post:

#really good analysis #always here for high-functioning depression light takes #i want to add; while Light is better at reading & manipulating people in the moment he also tends to overlook some things in the long run #because of his superiority complex #like his father volunteering for the eyes in matsuda's place #and matsuda in the ending. As much as i like to think of matsuda as wholesome- #-i do think if light played his cards right he could have manipulated him over to kira's side #but he didn't because he didn't think matsuda was important in the grand scheme of things

very good points!! about matsuda in particular— it’s interesting in retrospect how consistently he’s set up as a side character, particularly with how he is almost always immediately pushed off to the side despite that. like, alongside soichiro, he’s really the first member of the JTF we see pre-lind l. tailor (in the anime, anyway. in the manga it’s a bit more ambiguous, though matsuda definitely shows up to mention KIRA bringing the crime rate down in ch.3, still quite early).

he’s always the one counterpoint within the group, playing devil's advocate in a way with how he brings up the pro-KIRA side of things, yet as you say light underestimates him So consistently that he even ends up evolving into a full on joke/shakespearean fool character by yotsuba, which is really what makes his actions in the end so incredibly significant.

i distinctly remember reading that section where aizawa & mogi are getting more deeply involved with near and, in the case of aizawa in particular, are starting to genuinely consider the possibility that light might be KIRA, and just getting sooooooo so SO goddamn suspicious of what matsuda was doing. this was in part because i already had some spoilers about the ending, specifically about matsuda shooting him, but goddamn do his actions start looking suspicious when you begin taking him seriously as a threat. like, while aizawa is starting to live through his own psychological horror novel come to life, realizing that the innocent kid & strong leader he's been taking care of & following all this time might actually have been the fucking serial murderer they've been after for literal Years, here's what matsuda is up to in the background:

(light's face here. fuckin freak LMFAO)

(this one is particularly notable to me as it shows that even aizawa underestimates him— it's not just light, it's the whole damn team. even ryuk joined in earlier.)

(and of course, my absolute favorite example. the contrast between their expressions alone here is absolutely golden all on its own, but matsuda's heartfelt "don't worry, light!! i'll never betray you!!!" in comparison to THIS only makes it all the more juicy:

like, light doesn't even bother responding to him until he's got a goddamn bullet in his hand. he just sits there confident in the expectation that matsuda will lick his soles like a dog. jesus fucking christ.)

anyways, as i was saying: he's mostly just doing a bunch of dumb shit, making silly jokes in the background, fucking around with ryuk and being written off as an idiot by most characters, especially light but again also aizawa and ryuk. AND YET. he is Always hanging around over light's shoulder, lurking somewhere behind him in almost ever panel he shows up in, perfectly innocent to the point where it's can almost be more off-putting than if he were outwardly, actively questionable. like, this panel in particular, and i mean goddamn, just look at it again:

it hits So Hard in retrospect, not just because matusda is the one to shoot light in the end, possibly being his cause of death had ryuk not stepped in when he did, but also because it's true. as incredibly fucking suspicious as this panel may seem if you are armed with the knowledge that matsuda does, eventually, end up being the one to shoot light, it's equally easy to write it off as normal dumbass matsuda behavior because that is Exactly What It Is. and you would be right!! matsuda is trusting of light to a fault— when he eventually breaks, it is Not due to his own betrayal. it's the evidence of light's. and not just of his manipulation of the task force, for years and years and years on end— it's soichiro's death specifically that finally makes matsuda lose his faith in him.

the idea that light could've manipulated matsuda over to KIRA's side had he just tried a little harder is fascinating, but i think i can also understand why he didn't exert any more effort— it was kinda unnecessary. for basically the entire story, from the moment matsuda is formally introduced, to the minute light breaks and admits he's actually KIRA, matsuda is one particularly dedicated conversation away from being a full-on KIRA supporter— or so light believes, anyway. and he's probably not that far off.

really, i'm of the opinion that it's matsuda's existence as this KIRA-sympathetic figure in the task force in the first place that causes light to believe so strongly that he could eventually convert the entire JTF over to the side of KIRA— possibly even saving all of them their lives in the process. like, as i've said before, for all that light monologues about how he's Definitely Going To Kill The Task Force, Don't Worry, I Can And Will Do It When I Have To, he. never actually does it. instead, light goes through all the trouble of keeping the JTF strung along behind him for more than half a decade following L's death, holding on to all of these strings of his former life even when they are almost undoubtedly more of a pain than they're worth. unable to kill his father, unable to kill misa, unable to kill matsuda— even when he directly tries to.

i forget which post this was on, but i believe someone pointed out before that potentially a major part of light's grief following soichiro's death comes from the fact that he springs a shock on him at the last minute before passing: soichiro never stopped suspecting his son. when he sees light's lifespan above his head his first thought is to be relieved, because the question he's held at the back of his mind for Years has finally been undoubtedly assuaged. light is desperate to believe up until the end that he can make the world truly and genuinely pro-KIRA; his final actions in the moments of clarity before he starts begging at ryuk's feet for his life involve an enthusiastic speech as he makes one final bid at converting the JTF and SPK to join him and believe in his vision of Justice.

and yet. he never quite gets mastuda.

never bothered? or never could? perhaps a bit of both, but it's a fascinating character progression nonetheless, and easily one of the most interesting arcs in the series. poor, poor mastuda, indeed.

sidenote: this is a somewhat half baked thought, but i can't help but make a somewhat minor connection between light's treatment of matsuda and his treatment of misa, as well as his relationship with takada. like, let's think through the list of his main (human) supporters throughout the series, the ones who end up taking on the title of KIRA themselves: in the first half, misa, in the second, takada & mikami. if we add matsuda to this list, we get two mirroring pairs: misa & matsuda for the front half of the series, takada & mikami for the latter.

light's treatment of each of these pairs is quite different, despite the fact that they all essentially fulfill the same purpose to him: misa & mikami act as KIRA's eyes, killing those light is unable/unwilling to himself, while takada & matsuda fill the role of KIRA's spokesperson, albeit to very different audiences. thus each half of each pair executes a different side of KIRA's ideology: misa & mikami the practical side, becoming killers themselves, and takada & matsuda the persuasive side, pointing out the positive influences KIRA's actions have had on the population to The People and the rest of the task force respectively.

it's not quite as simple as i've laid out here, of course— tadaka eventually ends up killing before she dies at light's hand herself, misa lives as light's partner until she loses her memories and never quite recovers, mikami becomes quite static, just playing at a killer for Appearances, until his actions eventually end up accidentally betraying light and leading to his downfall. yet it still seems notable to me that despite light treating takada & mikami noticeably better for the majority of the time that he's working with them, those two are the ones who eventually end up dead, betrayed and betrayer respectively. yet, in the case of misa & matsuda... for all that light degrades them and treats them like shit, those two are the ones that get to live on past him while remaining stubbornly loyal until the end, until light's own actions twist back and smack him in the head.

i think perhaps part of the reason why light never ends up converting matsuda is not just his own ego blowing Shit outta proportion and assuming that matsuda will either very easily convert/is too much of a dumb liability to even bother with, but also light's own discomfort with having followers at all. like, it really takes him that full time skip to get fully on board with the idea that people will Submit to KIRA, despite the fact that he logically must know how necessary that is. light wants the recognition and love and commitment of other people, but he doesn't necessarily want the responsibility of their own stupid actions— a sentiment perhaps reflected in how easily he kills criminals, seeing their "evil" as something to be Purged, an annoyance just as much as a liability for the happiness of the Good, Pure People of the world.

as i've outlined before, misa is the main person who's enthusiastic submission consistently gets on light's nerves and icks him the fuck out, but i can't help but wonder if this same reaction applies at least in part to his distaste of matsuda. it's easier to get away from matsuda at least, considering he doesn't have to play the Good, Heterosexual Boyfriend around him, but that doesn't mean it isn't still somewhat present either. this also gets interesting if you start considering lawlight dynamics during yotsuba as well, and L's similar (if somewhat more overt, even) dislike of matsuda during that era BUT. that'll perhaps have to wait until another essay lolol =3=

[clarity2electricboogaloo]

The “WHAT IS LOVE? BABY DON’T HURT ME” caught me so off guard. That wasn’t very “tragic Hephaestus life story” of the mechanics god but like slay or whatever

[urhouseisnthauntedurjustlonely]

i have been trying figure out who ted spankoffski reminds me of since the day tgwdlm came out and i finally got it

joe from sewage from parks & rec

[veinsfullofstars]

Idea that bandanna dee reminds dedede of Box Dee

Hm… I’m assuming you meant to say Bow Dee, anon? If so, then I can kinda see why you’d think that.

While I wouldn’t call it a one-to-one comparison (Bow is a bit more impulsive and abrasive, while Bandee can be nervous and kind-hearted to a fault), there are definitely some parallels you can draw between them: the energetic personality, the love of adventure, the courage to stand up to danger despite the odds, etc. Dedede doesn’t get to see Bow as often in the future - busy with their duties aboard the Halberd after earning the title of Sailor Dee - but I think he’d still pick up on these similarities regardless, having grown up with one and practically helped raise the other (or so he boasts).

On one hand, it’s probably nostalgic for him to see glimpses of his old friends in the young spearwielder - smart and skilled (and a little skittish) like his father, brave and joyful (and a little reckless) like his godparent. It’s like little reminders of his youth, the adventures had and memories made, living on in the next generation.

But, on the other hand, he might feel a pang of dread. “Oh great - now there’s two of them.”

Sketch started and finished 04/24/24. | Childhood Friends AU Masterpost

[clarityroses]

Percy Jackson art dump :3

Bonus of me trying to figure out Leah’s eye shape

[thebroccolination]

SERIES VS. COUPLE

Do your favorite BL couples match your favorite BL series?

I feel like this must be a phenomenon, so I want to see what other people's lists look like. \:D/

These are mine. I'm very proud.

Voila:

TOP 3 SERIES: Be My Favorite, SOTUS, Until We Meet Again TOP 3 COUPLES: WinTeam, KongArt, KawiPi

Because, like, we judge series and character based on different criteria, right?

Be My Favorite shot to the top of my list by episode eight last year because the writing was immaculate (Waa took extra time to really hone the script, and it shows!), the directing is phenomenal (the behind-the-scenes footage and interviews show how much influence Waa had in bringing out the best in everyone), the premise is right up my alley (subjective, but y'know, favorites lists are subjective by nature), etc. etc. etc. It's just all-around an incredibly well-crafted show, so it's sitting pretty cozy up there at the top.

But!

When I think about couples, WinTeam and KongArt are firmly first and second.

WinTeam have been my favorite BL couple from Day ONE, and no one's even remotely challenged them since even though Between Us is somewhere around #5 or #6 on my list (depending on how much of the series I choose to selectively forget).

And KongArt? We saw them grow from age 19/20 to, like, 26/27? (I haven't math'd the years in a while, but the Our Skyy episode is definitely set during their late twenties.) Experiencing that much development for a BL couple is rare, and their relationship is portayed so beautifully.

So, y'know, both lists are completely subjective and don't always have anything to do with quality or whatever. WinTeam are my favorite couple because Win's my favorite character archetype and Team is a sassy traumatized gremlin, and Be My Favorite is my favorite series because holy shit I love gay time travel and it's the only series I've seen that's treated leitmotifs seriously.

SO TELL ME YOURS. \:D/