#I'm just really disappointed at myself

[polarisbibliotheque]

Little update ^^

Well, well, who'd've known, yours truly is reckless and got Covid "-.-

I blame Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard and my constant love for going to concerts after such a long time in this godforsaken lockdown :)

(my Dante side is showing)

Anyways, I'm isolated in my room now. I'm making this lil' update so I can tell you people: do take care of yourselves - but if you are in a risk group, take care of yourselves in double, please.

A year ago, my sister and my dad got Covid - they felt almost nothing. They just got really grumpy and locked in their rooms, waiting for the day of their sweet, sweet freedom. Apart from that, they felt only like a mild flu, nothing much.

As some of you know, I've an autoimmune liver disease - which puts me in risk group. I could barely get up yesterday - I slept the whole day, got up at 7 p.m, had fever the whole day and through the night, couldn't eat without feeling miserable and slept until 2 p.m today. My whole body hurts, my head also hurts really bad, I couldn't properly work on my artist tasks for the week, and I am so so so tired I think I'm gonna faint sometimes.

But worry not, I'm already feeling a little better today. I think the worst day was yesterday. Hopefully by next week I'll already be ok regarding this.

I'm just writing all this because seriously, we all react differently. I was so scared to get Covid and everyone kept telling me like "oh, it's ok, don't worry, if you get it you'll feel like a flu and in 2 days you're good" - I've been feeling like this for 4 days now. I'm really sick and miserable.

Point being: my reactions to this are VERY different than everyone else's and I'm not being too over the top when I'm still wearing masks and taking care of myself when going out.

Don't let anyone make you feel bad for taking care of your health too. It's better to look like a weirdo than being sick like this, trust me ;)

My mom, in the other hand, is taking relentless care of me and is the one single being in this household to seem not to get sick. I say she's like Highlander, nothing can touch her.

Seriously. The woman ate a dead oyster in her youth and only felt a little sick in a flight home. She is the toughest being I've ever seen in my whole life. She got an Extreme Unction from a priest who thought she was going to die when she was like 12 years old and, lo and behold, the woman persevered.

Greek half-immortal heroes know nothing compared to my mom.

I do think Eva is pretty much like her in that department, no demonic or human disease could touch her

All in all, everything is fine. I'll take this isolation time to draw like a mad-woman, be more serious when studying languages, learning to play the guitar properly and writing more stuff to you guys.

I'll keep you all posted! And remember TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES DESPITE WHAT THE WORLD THINKS OF IT!

[vaguely-concerned]

having seen at least the rough outlines of all the romances now I have to say that I think emmrich's is probably objectively the best in terms of coherence and completeness of story arc (with the understanding that ultimately the 'best' romance is whichever one makes YOUR heart sing anyway so objectivity is a silly thing to claim that way, it just felt like it's the arc with the most well-paced focused content and the least dangling threads)... but lucanis' is my favourite haha. just. the whole kneeling before your beloved full of reverence but without any of the distance that usually implies??? his complete undramatic certainty and calm in every scene with rook after this, having spent the whole game caught between fear and longing???? mr. lives in a pantry but it says nothing about my psyche don't worry about it it's purely for tactical reasons that I keep myself contained in a small dark room not entirely unlike a cell, love among the parsnips -- finally coming to rook in their room and it's so comfortable and comforting???? after all the times rook supports and comforts him through the game he's finally able to return the same to them when they need it while being so calm and steady and it's so fucking sweet and feels so effortless and with no price attached?????? he basically assigns himself the role of your bodyguard and he WILL stab a god over it??????????????? the turn to protector (which was in his heart all along longing to get out and find a place) of it all????? he sounds like he's found himself unexpectedly stumbling into such a soul-lightening state of revelatory existential relief, full on 'you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves' mary oliver style, and he goes and he shares that with rook and protectively envelops them in it when they're hurting??????????????????????????? hello for the maker's sake hello can anyone hear me?????

[arttsuka]

Based on somewhat real events

I spent way too much time drawing this...

But yeah, Ford finally saying thank you

A continuation (kinda)

[amygdalae]

My mom going back to college and getting her degree at 51 is inspiring to me but not in the way she wants because it's making me go ooobh I've got plenty of time

[vii-doodles]

My DTIYS entry for @/maddie.fingerpaints on Instagram ❤️

[waspgrave]

anyway it's such a classic dragon age game experience to go 'ahhh you know i had fun with that game and am gonna play it repeatedly and love every aspect of it possible, but with the intention of headcanon'ing and filling in the gaps in my brain and fanfic and fanart until it becomes The Perfect Media. to me'

[normasshearer]

THIRTEEN HORROR FILMS THAT SCARED TF OUT OF ME

tag rules: select 13 horror films that at one point in time terrified the hell out of you (gifs optional)

i was tagged by @slayerbuffy thank you so much charlie!! <3

tagging @genes-tierney @stardewsvalley @rachmcadams @anthonysperkins if you want to! also tagging anyone who wants to do this!

[direwombat]

listen. i'm always happy whenever someone leaves a comment because they enjoy my writing. whether it's a quick "love it!" or a longer dissection of whatever they've read, it warms my heart that they took the time out of their day, however brief, to let me know that they liked my work. i don't consider myself entitled to receive comments for posting my work, which makes every single one i get a gift!

but comments like these (particularly ones that come from profiles that haven't posted fic and are aggregates of bookmarks*) really do leave a bad taste in my mouth:

so, let me spell some things out for anyone who may be unaware:

I don't write for you.

I write for myself.

I am writing fic for free in the little spare time i have.

You are not entitled to my (or anyone else's) work

i haven't posted fic to ao3 since literally january of this year. i also wish i were posting fic more frequently, trust me. the only thing worse than writing is not writing. but asking "where's the rest????" and "part 2????" only activates my spite response to not post. you'll get updates to fics when you get updates. writing fanfiction is a hobby for me. i do it for fun. but i also take my craft (writing) very seriously. i want to write a good, compelling story and i take great care in the writing process. it's laborious to begin with, and on top of that, i am a meticulous planner. it takes me much longer to write a fic than it does for you to read it -- yes, even for the short ones and smutfics!

it's the famous "pick two: high quality, cheap, and fast", and unfortunately for all of us, if you want my "not bad"-writing and have it also remain free, then you're gonna have to be patient.

*i'm not saying that this is an incorrect way to use ao3. if you're using ao3 as a place to keep track of the fics you like, that's a valid way to use the site, and not what i'm mad about. it's the entitlement.

[s-ephiroth]

not to start anything mean intended because i'm not that kind of person, but

i can't for the life of me understand people who claim to be sephiroth fans/have sephiroth based ships and go on and slap a capitalized "proship dni" somewhere in their bios/profiles

never understood this and never will, (for reasons i shall elaborate below) though i may get the potential reasons for it and just... it absolutely baffles me how misused the term proship is

that word literally means "in favor of shipping", that's what the "pro" part of the word is for. it doesn't mean you have to necessarily ship every ship that exists ever (that would be 1. insane and 2. not very feasible), just that you understand people will have different ships, you respect that others' preferences exist and mind your lane

it is basic fandom etiquette, it's literally old school "your kink is not my kink and that's ok". it's blocking folks with ships you dislike (notp) instead of trying to regulate what people do with narrative tools (characters) in a fictional space

sometimes other people are eating shrimp and you're allergic to shrimp. it doesn't mean the other people are immoral for eating shrimp

some people use proship to mean "problematic ship" (aka ships with dark thematics that wouldn't be ok irl) when 1. it doesn't mean that, and 2. you can dislike a thing without misusing a word

no, someone who's proshipper won't force you to ship their ship you may dislike, if you're wondering. that's not what the word implies at all

enter sephiroth

oh, you know him. sephiroth who took part in a genocide when young. sephiroth who took part in a war and very likely killed people. sephiroth who got betrayed by humanity so much that he chooses to torch down a small village and choose to become cosmic horror instead and haunt a twink

this is not a wholesome character!

like, i do believe that sephiroth has the potential to be cute/do good/work well as a slice of life protagonist if you frame him just right, but by canon definition, where he goes, someone dies

he's not fully good and not fully evil, he's a morally grey character reacting to the only life he knows and having multiple instances of terrible decisions. he's a victim as much as he's propagating evil

he's a very complex character and loving his character is understanding that not all that does or that happens to him is ideal. and that's ok, his very birth/conception alone is full of dark/taboo themes

and see, here's what i don't get: people who use "proship dni" in their bios, aside from the obvious performative flavor to that, (it's the internet! a sign won't stop people who are particularly mean!!) presumably don't want to interact with one or more of the following:

- people who ship anything in general (if going by the literal definition of the word)

- people who ship anything with dark/"problematic" thematics (by going by the misconception of the word meaning "problematic ship")

- people with a different ship that would be a notp or people who aren't into yumeshipping (oc/self insert x canon) (i'm not gonna get into my horror stories from twitter about this one but it exists, i was attacked once for trying to run a sc event)

if it's for the first reason, fair, but why only list one side of the discourse instead of just putting you're not into shipping? it feels like trying to bait people into a fight

the second is the one that baffles me the most. any ship you put sephiroth in has potential to have dark thematics, because sephiroth, as a shipping component, brings all these dark themes into it. unless you're redoing his whole life from scratch, he'll still have the history of having killed people, having fought a war, having been experimented on from pre-birth, etc. and if you have to redo this character's whole life to avoid dealing with his thematics entirely... do you even like him at all? are people who enjoy dark thematics forbidden from engaging with potentially wholesome thematics as well?

and the third is just hypocritical pettiness, really. you're not morally superior for shipping sephiroth with yourself or your oc or a different character that you prefer over some other character. sephiroth is still sephiroth, regardless of who he's with. he'll still do sephiroth things, whether positive or negative. you can dislike other ships without being morally performative about things. you can have notps!! you can dislike a ship for hitting you with the wrong vibes or because you like that other ship better

but in the end it all just boils down to it having the same vibes as antis using ao3: you're making use of the most proship thing out there is and saying proshippers shouldn't interact with you

i don't get it

[leoremin]

Im so pissed

I've been obsessed with Jekyll and Hyde for like 2 years and I'm just now finding out through TUMBLR OF ALL PLACES THAT HENRY JEKYLL IS A BITCH ASS LIAR!!!! LIKE NO HE CANNOT JUST-- FFS!!!

I'm just now coming to terms that it's an "unreliable narrator" kind of story and I've read this shit like 8 times...

[lunabug2004]

You said that according to you there is a way to make Mileven stay together and have all the characters have a good arc at the end of the show. Could you develop that? cause in my opinion if Mike's arc is about falling in love , changing his personality after meeting a girl and at the end being the protective paladin to "fix" his bad behaviour then it's really bad writing (coming from a straight person)

I'm going to be completely honest here, which I hope is what you want lol, I do think I say this (sans the "good arcs" part bc I don't think I've ever said that there's a way to make Mileven happen where all the characters have good arcs) to more-or-less make myself feel better bc I have so much Byler doubt (& Mike love) so yeah, take this as you will, this is just what my brain has come up with as an arc(?) I could mostly cope with. I mean, there's a reason I put "(mostly) happy" but yes, I'll try to expand.

I love Mike and I have a feeling I will continue to love Mike whether Mileven or Byler is endgame. This is purely because I do not believe Mike is a bad person or bad character just bc he's made some bad decisions/said some things he (canonically) regrets. I don't think Mike would be a protective paladin to simply "fix" his "bad behavior". While I do agree that this wouldn't be the best writing choice, I think, in-context, he would be trying his best to keep everyone he loves alive. He is an extremely traumatized teenage boy whose biggest fear is losing those he loves. He has been smack-dab in the middle of the action until s4. Finn Wolfhard himself has said Mike is depressed and pushing everyone away bc of it.

Anyways, all of this to say that I don't think it'd be too farfetched to say all of his "bad behavior" is simply untreated trauma symptoms. And yes, you could say something about other characters being traumatized and them not acting like Mike, but trauma, and this is a fact, effects everyone differently. One person may lean into their life before going through said trauma, like Will in s3, while another may block it out, like it's shown with El in s4, and another may completely change themselves while being stuck in a loop of wanting those he loves close to him but also wanting to keep them at a distance bc he is so terrified of losing them. Dr. Owens even says in s2 that a sign of PTSD is change in personality and lashing out, which we see both in Mike. Plus all the parallels bt him and Max in s4, it's safe to say this boy is struggling mentally.

I do think it would make sense, when we finally get Mike's POV in s5, for a lot of his controversial moments to be fueled by his mental health struggle. Now, do I think this is an excuse? Not necessarily, but it does make sense, and as far as I know, anytime Mike's actively made anyone upset he's apologetic (like I said earlier, lashing out). I believe that if the show solely focuses on Mike's mental health issues, then Mileven wouldn't be out of the question.

I do want to add that this is not how I want the story to go, I would much rather his story go the Byler route, but I've said before that his character is not solely dependent on either Byler or Mileven, and I still stand by that. He should not simply be seen as a 'romantic interest' character bc he is more than that and he has his own problems (that we aren't necessarily shown) that have nothing to do with who he's in a romantic relationship with.

Now, again, this is probably mostly just something I've convinced myself I'd be alright with, but I am aware that this in and of itself would be boring and not very good writing. I also do not know, in this case, what would happen on the Byler side of things, this why I say "(mostly)". I am fully a Byler shipper and would prefer Byler endgame to anything really, but I'm a Mike-stan first and foremost.

Sorry if this wasn't too clear, I feel like I just rambled and repeated myself a lot. Thanks for the ask, though! And pls if you or anyone else has questions about anything I said, pls ask me! Trust me, I know this isn't foolproof and I'm probably just dumb 😂

TLDR: I think it's possible they could go more towards untreated PTSD and trauma/mental health related route for Mike in a way that would make Mileven possible. Doesn't mean I'd think it's necessarily good writing, but I could see it going that way.

[pastelaspirations]

So, u h.

H O W. HOW, I ASK. ALL I DO IS POST ART ONCE IN A BLUE MOON AND MAKE REALLY CURSED REBLOGS. LIKE, I'M SO VERY GLAD YOU'RE HERE, BUT I CAN'T UNDERSTAND HOW OR WHY YOU'RE HERE-

I also like. Make really angsty, ungodly long fanfics that I do absolutely nothing to promote on this dumpster fire of a blog, but that's besides the point- ANYWAY. HAVE SOME REALLY SKETCHY DOODLES THAT I DID TO THANK YA MAD LADS ;_;

Thank ya, thank ya, you absolute mad lads. I will uh... continue to do what I do. Thank you for joining the ride, even though it's less of a ride and more that I found an abandoned theme park ride and decided to ride it as a prolonged death wish and you inexplicably strapped yourself in next to me with the moldy seatbelt-

[kikuism]

lol. lmao even

[remyfire]

When the writer agonies hit.

[nanamis-bigtie]

anyway hi, i'm trying to stay as away from jjk fandom as possible after chapter 269 leak shitshow, to not let it ruin my experience with manga ending more than it already did, but sometimes something ends up in front of me, so i probably won't stop myself from yapping here and there :')

[dailydemonspotlight]

Camazotz - Day 63

Race: Raptor

ATMA Avatar of Bat

Alignment: Dark-Law

July 3rd, 2024

I've been playing Digital Devil Saga lately, and combined with my erratic mood swings, what else would be more fitting for today's DDS than a blood-draining bat who leaves those in its wake feeling hollow? This also marks the second demon in a row to originate from South American mythology, though this one is its own can of worms- or, maybe, bucket of blood...? No, that's stupid. Regardless, though, today's Demon of the Day is a curious fellow originating from very specific Mayan cults, and a personal favorite of mine- Guatemala's own lord of the night, patron of giant vampire bats, and a terrifying blood-sucking deity, Camazotz!

A lot relating to Camazotz is hard to dig into, let alone digest- purportedly worshipped as a central deity in ancient Mayan culture, this great-winged bat appears scantly, yet its influence cannot go understated. This is made even more confusing by evident conflation between Camazotz and a completely different concept, that of 'The Camazotz,' a race of giant bats found in the underworld in the Polpol Vuh, a chronicle going into the creation myth of humanity itself in Mayan mythology. As is purported in it, the Camazotz weren't actually a single, unified deity, and instead were an entire separate race of giant bats found in the Mayan afterlife, known as Xibalba.

People also often purport that this race may have been a mythological explanation for the extinct, but then-present giant race of vampire bats called Desmodus draculae. This, of course, makes things a mite more complicated- the death bat may have been conflated with recollections regarding a completely separate bat god that is left unnamed, as there is evidence of worship to a single, unified bat deity in ancient Mayan culture. Camazotz itself is also purported as being a single, great bat spirit in the underworld, not quite a god but still immensely powerful in its own right. And, well, let's get into that.

The main appearance of the Camazotz comes in the Polpol Vuh, as is to be expected, and they have quite an interesting role- in one of the trials the two protagonists, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, have to survive during their expedition into Xibalba, they're challenged with staying the night in Zotzilaha- the House of Bats. The legend tells of how they had hid away within their blowguns to last the night, but eventually, perturbed by the lack of the wings flapping from the bats outside, one of the brothers dared to stick his head out. This is when Camazotz, who was watching, striked. In an instant, the brother was decapitated, and his head used as a ball for the deities to use in their next ballgame. As morbidly hilarious as this story is, it does give us some insight into Camazotz's role- as a spirit of the night, he clearly showed both trickery and strength.

Of course, this origin is hard to pinpoint, and I'm honestly unsure as to if there was a single Camazotz or an entire race of them who were attacking the brothers, as a lot of things surrounding this great vampire bat are frustratingly murky. Of course, as it comes down to a lot of the time with these demon spotlights, a lot is left up in the air due to the loss of primary sources through history, but with the connection to the long-dead Desmodus draculae species of vampire bats, it's possible to come to several interesting conclusions. There are even beliefs that the traditional blood sacrifices that the Mayans were known for were partly inspired by Camazotz, but that's a rabbit hole I'll leave you to dig into.

Now, as for how Camazotz is depicted in the series, the design has grown on me a lot. While originally seeming to just be a giant bat with sickles, the strange, wrapping hands, the ornaments, and the skulls all paint it in a uniquely Mayan light that I'm really quite fond of. Of course, it also appears in Digital Devil Saga, but frankly I'm not quite sure what to make of a lot of ATMA avatars, and Camazotz is no real exception. As much as I love DDS, the avatars definitely need to grow on me a bit more for me to really appreciate them.

Overall, though, the design works wonders, and I really do enjoy it. Too bad the sprite compression in SMT IV makes it almost completely incomprehensible, but... well, alas, that's what happens to games on the 3DS.