#I don't know what coheres here.

[blackwaxidol]

Uncomfortable infection.

[glorious-spoon]

i know we all laugh (mostly fondly) about the paper-thin plots in porn that only exist to make the sex happen, but i was reading some old stargate fic over the weekend, and i really think we're sleeping on the paper-thin hurt/comfort plot that only exists to force the characters to FEEL THINGS.

like, is this scenario realistic? no. does it make any rational sense? no. does it provide a built-in excuse for a character to collapse, bloody and disoriented, into the arms of his beloved/friend/partner? obviously, that's the whole point of this exercise.

i love it. it's my favorite thing in the world.

[blueskittlesart]

*sigh* thoughts on Nintendo's botw/totk timeline shenanigans and tomfoolery?

tbh. my maybe-unpopular opinion is that the timeline is only important when a game's place on the timeline seriously informs the way their narrative progresses. the problem is that before botw we almost NEVER got games where it didn't matter. it matters for skyward sword because it's the beginning, and it matters for tp/ww/alttp (and their respective sequels) because the choices the hero of time makes explicitly inform the narrative of those games in one way or another. it matters which timeline we're in for those games because these cycles we're seeing are close enough to oot's cycle that they're still feeling the effects of his choices. botw, however, takes place at minimum 10 thousand years after oot, so its place on the timeline actually functionally means nothing. botw is completely divorced from the hero of time & his story, so what he does is a nonissue in the context of botw link and zelda's story. thus, which timeline botw happens in is a nonissue. honestly I kind of liked the idea that it happened in all of them. i think there's a cool idea of inevitability that can be played with there. but the point is that the timeline exists to enhance and fill in the lore of games that need it, and botw/totk don't really need it because the devs finally realized they could make a game without the hero of time in it.

[meyerlansky]

i'm very 👀 about what bucky's family situation looks like, actually. historically, his dad died in nov '42, so he's only six months out from it at the start of the show, but it never really comes up—he doesn't flinch or offer anything back when gale talks about his dad, which... maybe he had a good relationship with his dad, so he doesn't have anything to offer. but he doesn't look at gale like he's surprised at cleven sr being a bad dad the way i'd expect a character with a fairly happy, uneventful home life to react to "my dad left me sleeping on benches"-level bad parenting. and if he DID have a shitty relationship with his dad, that's the perfect moment to empathize and bond over it. but he doesn't take it.

and then we get the revelation that he doesn't get any letters in the stalag. obviously he's not getting romantic letters, but one of the other guys mentions a letter he got is from his mom, with equivalent relief and comfort to gale's reaction to marge's letters. in so doing the show establishes that letters from family presumably count for the conversation the bucks have wrt having someone to get letters from. bucky's mom is still around. why doesn't he at least get letters from her? he's got two sisters, historically—one's three years older and the other's six years younger. both ages that wouldn't exactly hinder sending letters to your POW brother. but nothing.

initially i was gonna say i have trouble believing that bucky—who wears every emotion he has plain on his face, who's so stupidly easy to read that everyone thinks they know exactly what's going on with him in every scene, and who has a hugely visible downward spiral when his preferred options for coping with STUPENDOUS AND COMPOUNDING traumas are taken away from him—either:

has so solidly processed his dad's recent death inside six months that he doesn't need to externalize any reaction to it, or

is somehow better at keeping the details of how he feels about his family close to his chest than he is about basically every other feeling he's ever had

and it's still possible that his relationship with his family is simply unremarkable and there's nothing deeper to it. or that he had a bad relationship with his dad, but not any worse than your average "my dad and i didn't get along great" kind of deal, not cleven-level bad. but... i dunno, man, i have trouble buying THAT, more than i have trouble buying that the situation is deeper than bucky lets show.

his MOTHER doesn't even write to him. and we don't find this out until he's been stalag'd for over a year. so he... does actually keep it pretty close to his chest. more importantly, he keeps it close to his chest when it's something he could use to strengthen his relationship with gale. that doesn't really fit with the read of bucky as an open book looking for anything he can get from gale. like... it doesn't fit with that read of him at all.

it feels way more likely to me that there's Bad Shit there, and that that Bad Shit extends beyond bucky's relationship with his dad, into his relationship with his mom and even into coloring his relationship with his now-adult sisters. something like being kicked out, or disowned, or bucky deliberately going no-contact. and that's interesting on its own—what could he possibly have done to lose his entire family like that? my personal guess is he got caught with a boy and got kicked out over it, but it could be hetero slutting around too; it could be the drinking or the gambling or not going to school or his parents just fucking suck absolute ass, or any number of things that aren't Picturesque Rural Wisconsin Family appropriate

but also. i'm really fascinated by the sense of... isolation, i guess? that this confers on him as a character. he's such a loud, eye-catching presence In The Moment, and i wonder how long it takes the people around him to realize that he only seems to exist In The Moment, and doesn't have a past he's anchored in enough to discuss it even with the people he's closest to.

like how long does it take gale to realize he's spilled his guts about his dad to bucky, in a way that very clearly carries some level of "i'm letting you see something no one else has seen" feeling with it... and he got nothing back of equivalent weight wrt bucky's family, not just in that conversation but at any point that we see on screen? months? years? does gale EVER realize bucky's hidden/neglected to share his past even after gale's given bucky his?

[dusty-siltstrider]

Surely this is a safe place to say this

Random thought while struggling to find references for this fucking outfit THIS ACT 2/3 ACADEMY(?) UNIFORM IS FUGLY I'M GONNA SAY IT

The fuck is this mess. What is it. Why does it have like 5 layers. wtf is his tie tucked into. The color scheme. Vertical stripes. Tf are those weird strappy buckles for. What are the reflective bits. Is it a reflective vest. For all the forklifts driving around ofc. The only saving grace of this outfit is that it exists on Viktor's body and that elevates it from a 1/10 to a 2/10.

Is this specifically Viktor's wardrobe or is it an Academy uniform cuz it's a lot different from what he and Jayce wear in Act 1 (and they're not really involved with the academy in later acts iirc I guess but I'm in no logical state here)

Look at that. Comfy. Practical. Scholarly. A dress shirt and a thin vest. The kinda shit you can wear while hunched over at a desk for 15 hours straight. Easy to cosplay. Shit I wear this on the regular already.

Why'd they give him a goddamn sleeveless silver surfer ass parka later on. I hate the vest. Why it look like that. Is so fucking bulky. That shit looks heavy. My boy gonna melt in any decent summer. I worked up a sweat and a sore neck just looking at it. Spent 20 minutes trying to figure out the fucking act 2/3 fit for cosplay and drawing purposes and I'm like 90% sure he's wearing three separate tops not including the vest. Viktor if this is your own style and not like obligatory businesswear then this ain't it (you're still stunning ofc)

(im very sorry im rather drunk and have been spending too much time thinking about this)

[minthological]

i think they should be even more insane. as a treat

[ghostyclay]

Currently OBSESSED with evil x, my favorite tropes are:

1. Hes not evil. Hes trying to be, but he really sucks at it

2. Hes the scapegoat. The forgotten brother. Hes the one who always got blamed for everything and never had a support system. He became the thing they were scared of out of self defense, out of desperation. He never had a choice. He never wanted this. But at least hes the one getting hurt and blamed for everything, not his brother. (or, alternatively: hes so angry at his brother for getting everything evil x ever wanted to have)

[dransnake]

Luxlight Ghost

It would appear that you have downloaded a mysterious entity onto your computer. Don't worry, he's harmless. At least in this current state. As long as you treat him with kindness, he will be content to exist on your desktop. Content warning: This ghost may contain references to death, murder, and nightmares. Viewer discretion is advised.

This is my entry to the 2024 Ghost Jam hosted by @ukagakadreamteam! This is the first ghost I've ever created by myself, so please pardon any bugs that you may encounter.

Github Download

[souenkun]

Also, while I'm rereading: did seiji meet taki before he was named the clan head (since he said he went "on behalf of his father", and didn't say directly that he went as the matoba clan head) or after (since it could also mean that he did went there as the matoba clan head, just that he was honoring his father's past connection)? And does that mean the eye-eater youkai left the horrible scar after he became the clan head, which happened before he met natsume and after he met taki on her grandpa's sixth death anniversary?

[supernovaa-remnant]

your post-canon utah AU makes me want to eat drywall i love them so much 😭

they mean so much to me 😭💕

oughhhh I wish my thoughts about the au weren't so incoherent 99% of the time so that I could talk about it more

it's just so... the sheer size of the world is so much bigger than the smp. this world has billions of people. yet here they are, c!dream and c!wilbur, in some random town in utah. they're the only familiar face in this giant world. (technically there are other members of the smp in this world, but it's not like c!dream and c!wilbur know this).

they don't really talk about their shared history, but it still inhabits the space around them. c!wilbur wakes to cold sheets every morning, but it doesn't change the fact that c!dream sleeps in the same bed as him every night. c!wilbur hated the fact that there was such a blatant reminder of the smp in his house. he hated when c!dream left for a week. c!dream didn't initially want to stay with c!wilbur. but, as far as he knows, there's not another familiar face in this whole entire world.

c!wilbur is in therapy by time c!dream arrives. it takes months for him to even bring up the mere idea of c!dream trying therapy. they start leaning on each other. they start caring about each other. c!wilbur hates himself for how much he wants c!dream. c!dream just wants c!wilbur to wash away the pain he doesn't admit is there. c!wilbur is practically drowning in guilt when he looks at what c!dream's become. a part of c!dream resents c!wilbur. a part of c!wilbur resents c!dream. they don't talk about it until they do. eventually, eventually they try couple's group therapy.

things get better. then they get worse. and then they get so much better.

at some point, much later, c!dream looks at c!wilbur—once again complaining about the people who don't know how to use the traffic circle even though c!wilbur can't even drive—and he thinks, I love you. at some point, c!wilbur looks at c!dream—sweat causing his hair to stick to his forehead, swollen lips tugged into a smirk—and he thinks, I love you.

they want each other—they crave each other—and c!wilbur hates himself for it. then they care about each other, and it makes c!dream want to snarl and bare his teeth. then they love each other, and they realize that they love this soft, domestic epilogue that they stumbled into years ago.

it gets better. they heal. they don't talk about everything until they do, and then those hurts get better, too. and some days it still feels like they don't really deserve this peace they've found, but they love it anyway.

and they have friends. friends who give them christmas gifts and invite them to new year's parties. friends who laugh with them and bring them baked goods.

eventually they stumble across more people from the smp. it's not fine until it is. which is kinda the big thing with this au. it eventually gets better.

[chimerafeathers]

there's an essay jumbled up in my brain about dunmeshi's beginning and how clever and deceptive it is as a sleight-of-hand trick that distracts the audience from the depth and scope of the worldbuilding and foreshadowing that's being set up the entire time by dangling zany characters and wacky dishes and biology fun facts in front of us, and how that serves to catch invested viewers off guard when those elements come to the forefront, but also how it works against it with other viewers wanting "more" and not seeing it because the plot bait isn't laid out up front

how people getting frustrated with the characters "not taking things seriously" is mirrored and refuted in the confrontation between Laios and Shuro. how the characters' attitudes aren't just a result of shallow low-stakes "comedy rules" where nothing matters, but are an extension of their personalities (Laios's nonstandard expression of emotions being offputting even to people he knows) and the world and social environment (adventurers being desensitized to death and injury because resurrection magic is commonplace). the way the party refers to "saving Falin" instead of "retrieving Falin's corpse," indicating that they still see her with full personhood, and how that phrasing leads to some readers/viewers believing that Falin is alive in the dragon's stomach, conscious of being slowly digested while the party carelessly fucks around "wasting time." how the weird tonal dissonance makes sense in-universe and yet is deliberately challenged more and more the deeper the party goes

all the character building and pieces of lore slowly weaving together the shape of the larger world, laying the groundwork for the major themes that will surface later. so much is right there in the "low-stakes" early episodes if you know what you're looking for (or pass the perception checks).

it can be so satisfying to see new viewers/readers pick up on the clues even in the earliest "simple" episodes, or notice new things and make connections yourself....and it can also be frustrating to see people dismiss oddities and dissonance as shallow or bad writing because they don't expect a "cooking anime" to have depth like that. why try to question and understand and peel back the layers when you don't expect there to be any layers?

why can't laios take things seriously for once?

[aceyanaheim]

My real Christmas present was Athena coming back for this saga anyways ty Jorge

[esteemed-excellency]

ok i'm almost done with the new firmament chapter, i have So Many thoughts 👀

[transannabeth]

not to be Dramatic but i need hollywood to stop having the characters who live in the woods away from society who are seen as having a simpler way of life dancing tinikling in like half a scene

it's only happened twice but it's pissing me off

[hvtmessxpress]

I finished kiseki: dear to me last week and chen yi and ai di have me in a chokehold. No one I know has watched it so I'm gonna word vomit here lol.

I was honestly really surprised at how differently I view chen yi and ai di than most other people here and on twitter. Most people are really sympathetic to ai di, which is valid, but I think we're missing chen yi's pov in all this?

Starting with the birthday thing. The whole thing is a breakdown of communication. Was it ever really specified that they'd spend each birthday alone? I think it's very possible that chen yi also felt rejected by ai di's refusal to attend the boss's birthday party for them every year. Now, that doesn't negate the fact that he could have spent time with ai di after, or gotten him gifts.

I'm also not sure chen yi actually had a crush on the boss. It's very possible, and that was ai di's understanding, but it may not be true. To me, getting an extremely similar tattoo isn't a sign of liking someone, but instead a sign of wanting to BE that person. Chen yi may be confused, but to me, all signs point to him wanting to be the person his boss is. Like zerui said, there is a difference between love and admiration and it's unclear if chen yi could tell the difference

Another thing people forget about is that, for years chen yi had just thought of ai di as his little brother. I believe that there was some very real panic on chen yi's end when he realized his feelings were changing. I've read posts about how people thing chen yi kissing ai di in ep6 as him using ai di as a substitute and i'm like ????. Like y'all, chen yi know who he's kissing. Mans probably had a breakdown after that bc he's realizing that subconsciously, he doesn't see ai di as his annoying little brother anymore. And then he repressed that and tried to act like everything was fine (which it really wasn't). He probably thought his possessiveness over ai di was completely normal before all this.

All of their problems boil down to a complete and utter lack of communication. It's apparent that ai di did everything in his power to hide his feelings for chen yi, so how was he supposed to know? Also ai di leaving after what happened in ep9 is completely absurd to me. Esepcially with that note. Like you were so convinced one thing was going to happen you didn't leave space for any other possibility. I understand ai di was 18 then, and that's 100% 18 year old behavior but still.

We get a lot more of ai di's pov than chen yi's, which is likely why public opinion skews towards him, but I really do feel like there's more to the story than the feelings and opinions of such an unreliable narrator.

[lightbulb-warning]

a thing that you hang over the cot of a baby is called a "mobile"

THAT'S THE BITCH- thank youuuuu!! :D!!

92.5 calendar years ago, marcel duchamp in alexander calder's art studio, pointing at the thingy that moves: "yo this thingy that moves sure is mobile. "