#He needs to be appreciated completely

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

(Accidentally mis-clicked enter on my last ask. Here's the full "ask")

What he says...

VS What I read...

("us" as in him and WWX, not the spider just to be clear)

They should make an adaptation called 'The Unfiltered', where Lan Wangji says exactly what's on his mind.

[nanihirunkits]

WE ARE | EP16

[what-am-i-doing-in-this-fandom]

STOP I'm thinking about the part in Gravity Falls where Stan shows up with freshly bought (stolen) light bulbs only to see Ford screwing a new one in surrounded by family.

And OH my GOD. AGH.

Stan gets a little (ir)rationally upset about this because... It's.. Guys,,,

Stan perceives it as Ford once again easily receiving the praise and love of their family when he had to fight tooth and nail to receive even half of it.... I'm not well ✋😔

[kit-screams-into-the-future]

oh, how you drive me crazy!!

[vigilskept]

i just want to say i saw your tags and i do agree with most of them!! i just think we also cannot overlook the role of racism in that, because of how many of those people who walked away with more attachment to assan than davrin talk about that exact sacrifice. it is a recurring problem in the dragon age fandom that many other players do not LOOK for depth in Black characters, then complain about its absence. So I am much less generous about it personally! But thank you for your thoughts, they were interesting to read. (Sending as an ask cause I don't want to reblog and make a whole post about it in case anyone gets aggressive, feel free to answer me privately if you want too at all - no worries about doing so! But I made the post partially because of my major frustration with how racist a lot of people were being about davrin and that choice, so it was something I took into consideration while writing the thing up)

i do know what you mean, fandom has been terrible with reading any depth into characters of colour in this franchise... there's a tendency to assume they have no more complexity than whatever image of themselves they're projecting outward (see: zev, bela, vivienne)

and based a lot of the discourse around wyll in bg3 over the last couple of years, i don't think we've seen much change in fandom when it comes to this. it's still a big issue, and that kind of bias (consciously or not) factors into how a lot of people have been interpreting davrin's character/arc for sure

i just think that the writing also plays into this a little

that first scene where you welcome him into the lighthouse struck me as particularly off because davrin's literally just lost two friends in the wardens before joining us and we don't even get the option to ask him how he's feeling. the whole conversation is about assan, the grey wardens and the griffons

now assan's isolation from his siblings is being deliberately paralleled with davrin's isolation from his clan (and now the wardens), but on it's face this conversation comes off as though rook is more interested in the griffons than in davrin. especially when you compare it with the other early-game lighthouse conversations! just 1 more dialogue where you actually get to check in on davrin could've mitigated that, if only a little

the heart of davrin's quest isn't buried between a dozen layers of metaphor or anything, it's not hard to find the parallels with assan when you put some time/thought into it. but the writing elsewhere in veilguard is so unsubtle, and the opportunities to talk to davrin directly about himself are so much fewer that it becomes much easier to write off his character than the other companions...

[kacievvbbbb]

Honestly despite my feelings about how the last arc of MHA went down I really love Deku and his story.

I just feel like a lot of the time we get these protagonists whose whole philosophy is it doesn’t matter what you were born as everyone can achieve greatness. But then the series goes on and it turns out that actually it DOES matter because the protagonist has this really great lineage and these really great powers you can only have through birth they were actually born born, predestined if you will, to do this.

But MHA actually sticks to its guns. Midoriya wasn’t revealed to have some great connection to all might that the universe had put in place. He wasn’t defended from some great lineage that makes him uniquely suited to this. Hell All for one didn’t even turn out to be his father, there was no hidden powerful quirk he was always meant to have. He was just Midoriya Izuku a boy who was in the right place at the right time and simply decided to act while the world did nothing. And that’s what really made him a hero.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I believe him a bit more when he goes anybody can be a hero if you just decide to act

[dennisboobs]

beloved autism creature

[fluffydice]

Hairo is a feminist in spirit because he’s very vocal about equality for everyone, but I’m not sure if he’d call himself one simply for the fact that I don’t think he really recognizes gender stereotypes? It’s not so much as the ideas of chivalry Kuboyasu has so much as that he thinks that he should be doing his best to look out for everyone period.

[another-clive-blog]

HOW HAVE I NEVER NOTICED THIS

LAYTON USES TU FOR FUTURE LUKE BUT SWITCHES TO VOUS THE SECOND CLIVE'S IDENTITY IS REVEALED.

Tu and vous both mean you but Tu implies closeness : in the entirety of Unwound Future, Layton only ever uses Tu with Flora, the Lukes and Claire

[mirensiart]

Been thinking about this xenoblade chronicles 1 scene all day tbh

The way he just grabs shulk's entire face with his one hand and then lifts him up and throws him

His iconic line "your blade, it did not cut deep enough" alluring to both shulk's and vanea's words not reaching him and to prove the damage the monado did was virtually nothing

The way he grabs the monado, a sword made specifically to kill his people, and takes it out of his shoulder

Vanea's entire speech here is also so good, since it drives the point that everyone wants peace and for the mechonis and bionis to get along, with egil being the sole machina still wanting revenge and going through extreme lengths to get it

THE MUSIC !!!!!!!!

Anyway, xenoblade chronicles 1 is my favorite game ever, egil is THE antagonist of all time

[reachexceedinggrasp]

Danny 'I don't do weird' Pink frustrates me as a character, because I'm honestly not sure whether he was supposed to have an arc or not.

His primary role is as a foil for Clara's arc and, in aid of that, as a mirror to the Doctor. A solider with survivor's guilt and a man of action who can't stand by when people need help etc., in some ways he and the Doctor have a lot in common, but he's also a very grounded and circumspect personality versus the Doctor's being fantastical and adventurous. Danny isn't curious and doesn't want to pursue new things or experiences, instead he wants to be fully present with and grateful for what he already has. The Doctor is incorrigibly curious and always interested in new things.

Danny is someone who desires nothing more than an ordinary life, and looks for beauty and satisfaction in the normal things and people around him. He wants his world to be small and quiet, he values the mundane things others might take for granted. He's normal, patient, dependable, simple, honest, etc. His reaction to trauma hasn't been to disavow the things which lead him to that event, or to seek out stimulation to avoid thinking about it, it's to be thoughtful and cautious and somewhat rigid so he can always apply the mindset and skills he retained from before he was traumatised.

He's very firm and unbending in his worldview and in his self-image. He doesn't seem to ever reassess people once he's decided what he thinks of them. He's not unreasonable or unwilling to compromise, he is in fact maybe too reasonable, but he is implastic. He's extremely even-tempered except for around his identity as a soldier, which he's prickly about, but still pretty quick to let it go as long as he's not being deliberately antagonised.

So anyway Danny represents this other path, and this opposite response to the horror of war and making a catastrophic mistake, but he never learns, he never grows and he and Clara are never much on the same wavelength about anything. He's supposed to be stability, the things she 'should' want, the 'person she's supposed to like', the safe choice, the presentable life which Clara feels like she has to have. He's orderly and ordinary and that's what she wants from him. She has to control her image, her future, and her options.

And their simple relationship, once it exists, functions well as the contrast to her complicated and tumultuous relationship with the Doctor while the companion power dynamic is being dismantled and rebuilt so they can be emotional equals. But like, the set up is confusingly executed.

Listen- they have zero chemistry, they have nothing to talk about and have to resort to talking about work, every conversation goes instantly off the rails, they rub each other the wrong way, there is never any reason for them to keep reconciling and trying again to connect. Like. You are not hitting it off! and keep offending each other bc you're not compatible! Quit!!

Clara is forcing it, that makes complete sense with what she's going through, she's trying to take control of her life and her emotions, trying to prove to herself she's not pining for the Doctor and at the mercy of his whims for her life to be full and complete. She doesn't want to need him or to be dependant on him. She doesn't want to be the heartbroken sadsack whom he abandoned at Christmas or who will take whatever scraps he'll throw her. She wants to control his position in her life and control how she feels about him. Hence her assigning him a specific day and confining their adventures on her own terms. She's trying to keep the Doctor compartmentalised. Having an Appropriate Human Relationship means she's successfully put the Doctor in his box (lol) and neutralised the chaotic power of her feelings for him. I mean, obviously not, but that's what she tells herself.

But what is Danny doing? Why does he keep pursuing this when it's so clearly not a good match?

Again in Listen, and much more so The Caretaker, Danny illustrates that he does not know who Clara is, he's wildly wrong about her and what she's like, and he's very high handed about it as well. He's convinced that the Doctor is taking advantage of her, that the Doctor is domineering in their relationship, that she is not a person who wants to be put into challenging or dangerous positions, that the Doctor is pushing her to takes risks and become a leader where that's not her nature. None of this is true. Clara was always a decisive, assertive, strongly driven person who seeks out new experiences and naturally assumes a leadership role any time that's necessary; she relishes being challenged and facing the unknown. Her blow up with the Doctor wasn't about him 'pushing her too far', it was about him failing to support her when she needed him and condescending to her as a human rather than treating her with the intimacy and equity their bond and history together demands. It's personal and it's about their emotional relationship. It's not about making hard choices, it's about having to make hard choices without her partner being honest with and emotionally available to her.

Clara was always an adventurous person, willing to be spontaneous as long as it's on her terms, and excited by the prospect of authority and responsibility. The danger and challenge isn't an unfortunate side effect or a risk she has to take to see amazing sights, it's part of the appeal. She lied to Danny by omission when she said she went off in the box to 'see wonders', not just because the real reason is that she's in love with Doctor, but also because she doesn't just want to be a tourist. She wants to get involved and save people, she wants things to sometimes go pear shaped. She enjoys and craves that part of it too.

Danny is also wildly wrong about the Doctor, but this is understandable and would be fine except that he's never corrected? He never learns better? What's the point?

In Death in Heaven Danny goes out still wrong about the Doctor, still condemning him cruelly and unfairly while knowing nothing about him. He had a point with some of his original rant, there was actual insight there, but it's buried in assumptions and bitterness and then Danny keeps tripling down on the assumption. The one which doesn't understand that the very thing he's shitting on the Doctor for (being willing to lead and make hard choices that must be made in order to save people) is something the Doctor has in common with Clara. And always has. The Doctor didn't change her or push her into that, that's who she's always been.

What is the point of Danny calling him a blood-soaked general and mocking him, calling him an officer as a pejorative again, and again because the Doctor is trying to save the planet. Like, memory check, that's what Danny is mad about. The Doctor doing everything in his power to save literal billions of lives. Doing it for no reason, out of altruism. Doing it while always trying very hard not to fight or kill anyone. Doing it even at enormous spiritual cost to himself.

I don't understand how we're meant to find Danny sympathetic in that moment, because he comes off like a complete dickhead. And it's all the more frustrating because in the intervening episodes Danny has been eminently reasonable. As I've discussed before, we're exhaustively shown that Danny is 100% okay with what Clara claims is going on, that he doesn't want to get in the way of her friendship with the Doctor, that if it really were only the relationship she's pretending it is, there would be no conflict. He's the one who encourages her to make up with him after Kill the Moon! He tells her to go on travelling and it's fine!

Even when he discovers she's been lying to him and cavorting with the Doctor behind his back (again despite him telling her it was fine with him!), he's calm about it and repeats for the millionth time that all he wants from her is honesty. The truth. Which is the one thing she can't give him because Clara knows their entire relationship is built on the lie, they're only together because of the lie. The truth is, as Moffatt said, that Danny never stood a chance. There is a conflict between the two relationships and she's always going to choose the Doctor.

And that does come out, she gives the whole speech to Danny, not knowing it's him, finally being honest. And he seems unsurprised by it, which makes sense because on some level he definitely always knew ('do you love him?' 'no' 'really had enough of the lies'), but then nothing comes of that. Clara just soldiers on, going right back to pretending this relationship wasn't a façade doomed from the start, and Danny allows her to pretend. He goes off on the Doctor, but not in a way the Doctor actually deserves at all, and just sweeps her confession under the carpet. Letting her get away with it again. True to form, I guess! he always did. But shouldn't we make progress?

And it's like... I hate that he dies on that note. It feels like he dies in denial. I guess you could argue it contributes to his decision to not come back, but that feels like a disservice to the character. Saving the kid is important to Danny, it allows him to atone for his greatest mistake, but he didn't need to change or grow to accomplish that and it doesn't provide any closure to his actual role in the narrative, which was as Clara's foil. Clara is off the hook, free to go on lying to herself about their relationship. It's not addressed in Last Christmas, either, it's only barely hinted at.

[raionmimi]

Hi! I simply wanted to say that tour Symweaver stuff is beautiful, and also, What do you Think about "Sunflower" (by Post Malone and Swae Lee) as the theme song of these two? I think it's perfect for them!

I'm so sorry but the song is hardwired into my brain to think "that's the Miles Spiderverse song" to think of anything else 😭 I'm glad you're able to pull Symweaver out of it! I do enjoy listening to songs with ships in mind when I'm drawing, so I'll try to revisit it with them in mind

It's a common shippy song, but I really enjoy "From the Start" by Laufey for Symweaver because I love the idea that either they both of them thought their feelings were unrequited until they were adults, or that Lifeweaver was always aware of her feelings and just let her vibe until she was comfortable expressing it

[steampunk-raven]

do you ever think about the fact that han mi was *at most* 13 when her mom was killed?

do you ever think about the fact that there's a non-zero chance han got her first period while hiding with her parents, given her general age range was the average time people first start menstruating?

do you ever think about the fact that, if she did get her first period, her parents likely wouldn't have enough resources to help her through it? They wouldn't have been expecting her to get it, not like how han's mother would have (probably) prepared enough supplies for herself.

do you ever think about the fact han mi's mother died buying tampons?

do you think she blames herself?

[forcebookish]

damn remember when ichigo went full hollow and orihime was terrified of him but when ulquiorra, someone she has only known as a hollow and kidnapped her by threatening to murder all her friends and spent her whole imprisonment intimidating her, asked her if she was afraid of him she said she wasn't

🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃

LIKE WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THAT????????

[akkivee]

had an epiphany the other day that in track 5, ichiro’s past came to haunt him and caused harm to his beloved older figure who looked out for him and ichiro was on a war path for revenge

which is exactly what kuukou went thru in fools gold and idk how to feel about it tbh lmao

[moeblob]

So based on a true story (then I went to my car and cried because someone apologized to me).

I thought I vented and whined in tags but I don't see them and I'm too tired to type it all out. Just know a few days ago I tried to avoid being in customer pathing, a customer then backed up to let another customer have some space, aaaaand the backing up happened right into my trolley at work. He then made a comment about how it was painful and I needed to be more careful. Today he apologized and said he felt bad enough about it even if I didn't remember him (I very much remember the incident but my facial recognition is in the negatives).