#In both senses of the phrase

[inumbrapugnabimus-maybe]

*slams fist on the table* HE’S A LEGEND

[capn-twitchery]

congrats to grace on breaking new ground and bucking the victorian arctic explorer stereotype by just being a kind of lame guy

[humblemooncat]

Have a scruffy boy. He'll be growing out a lil beard for SB (and maybe beyond, we'll see) so I'm messing with it now so he can have it when I get there. <3

It looks very nice on him tbh. I wasn't expecting infamous baby face Miqo face 3 to look good with a beard, but here we are.

I also messed with his freckles and baked them into his face texture so they look more natural, and more in-line with his body freckles.

[bloodpen-to-paper]

I'm calling it; Super Mario Bros movie sequel has Wario and Waluigi as the antagonists, something about their relationship will highlight an issue Mario and Luigi have with theirs causing a wedge between the latter two. The whole movie is about this issue (something to do with Luigi being in Mario's shadow and needing to find independence and learning to be braver or something). Daisy comes in and she helps Luigi with his journey to find his sense of self confidence separate from Mario (Daisy is very assertive and bold, this will foil with Luigi's cowardly and fearful nature in a way that gets him character development). He falls in love with her bold and brash nature, though this needs time to develop so nothing will come of Luigi's feelings yet and it'll just be him simping, however because of the setup in the first movie the romance that will happen will be with Mario and Peach. Peach gets a backstory and an identity crisis when she learns where she's from (people have been speculating she's from space or something), and Mario helps her get through that by reminding her about all the wonderful things she has done and how she's a girboss and these things are being said in a way that very much suggests that Mario catches feelings for her and it'll happen at least 3 times where he says shit like this and they both blush and look away before the end of the movie. On Mario's end, Peach helps him realize that Luigi needs to learn to take care of himself and that Mario needs to learn to live his life not being Luigi's protector 24/7, which he will do by prioritizing a romance with Peach and there's gonna be some really cheesy line about it somehow that reveals his feelings to her that you'll see coming from a mile away because its fucking Illumination they literally invented the word predictable oh my fucking god.

Also Yoshi.

[mainalias]

thinking about compiling screenshots of golden/silver age batman exclusively calling dick his ward to combat the allegations that it was “initially a father-child relationship”

[fumifooms]

Makima, devils and self-fulfillment

Dumping some Makima and CSM thoughts after a part 1 binge bc I think about her forever and ever. I’m sure I’m forgetting some devil lore, feel free to correct what i get wrong/what’s been confirmed. On the table of contents there’s why & how Makima got fixated on Chainsaw, her revealing liking for the country mouse and discussion of her nature & emotions & desires. Was the scorpion doomed to be a scorpion?

The most of this post was thought of during a conversation with @saccharineomens and I don’t think it makes sense to jump into the spiral it sent me on without first laying down the interesting groundwork theorizing she did:

"Thinking about how makima herself wants to be deified. I wonder whether she recognizes the difference between Love As Worship and the love that Aki, Power, and Denji had. She says she wants to help humanity by having Chainsawman eat the “bad” devils, but why does she want to help humans? Because she was ordered to by the Prime Minister? No, her drive seems much more personal than that, it seems like she teamed up with the PM for contractual reasons. (In the most recent chapters we see governmental members wanting certain devils to be eaten, too. What was Makima’s relationship with them? She’s too independent to just follow THEIR orders, she’s Control.)

So is she wanting to better humanity for the accolades, or out of the goodness of her heart? She sees the big picture. She sees any small sacrifice as worth it for the end result, and she’s ruthless. Perhaps she thinks that a more sedate human race would be easier to control? But Makima doesn’t loathe humanity. She never acts like she sees all humans as lesser. She loves humanity’s creations, like good food and movies. She just wants Good Things all the time

She says she prefers the country mouse BUT adds a story where she helps exterminate country mice like vermin. She likes the simplicity yet rejects the idea of being simple. Makima the complex individual you are"

~

The story itself seems to prefr the country mouse. Well- it strikes a balance, shows that a risk to live good & fully can be very worth it, but still that stability over ambition is preferable, proning having a simple happy life over fame, a simple job instead of a dangerous one, etc etc. And I do find Makima’s answer on this so so interesting, she prefers the country mouse, but this preference isn’t out of affection or sympathy but because of how relaxing it feels to exterminate them when they cause problems.

Order satisfies her. Her order satisfies her. She likes the action of rooting out disorder. Maybe this is the devil part, like how Power especially wants blood and drinking it, I feel there’s an itch to every devil, and for Makima it’s a very rigid world view/morality/standards & making things follow her rules and submit to her order.

And maybe this is why she’s attached to humans too, why she felt it was worth it to stick with the government- because devils are chaotic by nature (it’s a whole plot point that hell is essentially a free-for-all battleground for example), meanwhile humans are the species that universally rule Earth with systems they invented and instilled. They made then enforced rules, complex and intricate webs of them. She feels alienated amongst devils but she understands the humans’ need for an orderly organised society, and now she wants to be part of it. Control and conquest require social dynamics after all, requires civilizations or groups. War is chaotic while peace is, well, peaceful— Makima resents her sisters for being death, famine and war, things that throw the world in such chaos. She wants a world of perfect order, no matter how much collateral damage there will be if the end result is control.

This is even more interesting if you consider that yes, Makima is untouchable of her own design, she deifies herself with her omnipresent amount of control and the sway over others that she seeks and encourages— There is this urge to dehumanize her for it, that yes, she is the devil of control and that means she was never going to be any different, have any more feeling be any less uncanny. And I love part 2 so much for this, because it shows us the war devil and the famine devil and we see how frankly uncharismatic with poor self-discipline they are, Nayuta too, and it helps us realize just how much Makima’s success was self-made.

She admires Chainsaw Devil, the Hero of Hell, because he had his own code and his own rules and he made Hell, the chaos pit, submit to them unfailingly. Wherever he goes he decides what he does and what happens to the people he encounters but does so consistently, he has his mechanism and his rules that he always obeys, and he fulfills them every time. It’s still a mystery the why of Chainsaw Devil’s behavior back then and how it works exactly, maybe Pochita left hell because he was tired of these rules he lived by like chains, but still, he was a servant to his code. Makima would have been glad being killed and eaten by Chainsaw Devil because it’d have been becoming part of his design, his conquest, his domination, she’d have been part of that —his— order. Through her death she would be shaping his world and be part of a conqueror’s making history. Like how she appreciates the country mice that die for the sake of order. Like how sacrifices must be made to herself, like listing the name of every person whose life was lost to the Gun Devil— All for the ~greater good~, for her vision for the world. Conquest always thinks its reasons are justified.

And she does mention with the country mice thing that she goes out to a friend’s farm every year! She has a human friend?? That she visits yearly and she genuinely likes it?? Ultimately she lives a busy city life because of her goal and drive and her urge & satisfaction with overseeing shaping the world herself, but part of her, like so many characters including Angel and Aki and Reze, wishes she could live a slow peaceful country life. Moviegoing and dogs and mice in a farm- Wouldn’t it be so much simpler if Makima could find fulfillment and happiness in being a farmer, in keeping control of her own farm, getting satisfaction from exterminating vermin and expertly getting everything right, the right crops grown at the right time on the right soil? Here, too, in a way it’s trying to have full control of an ecosystem, but her goals would be easier to achieve and better, without ceaseless sacrifice or much pressure. But Makima wants grandiosity and her goal does matter to her on a fundamental and moral level, she does think she knows what’s best for the world, and with the power to change it why wouldn’t she strive to? Visiting the farm is just a break, just something she does in fall to help out and just in time to see the vermin extermination. It calms her, then it’s back to actual work.

In capitalism, even the one at the very top of the ladder is ultimately alienated from others and often unsatisfied by their lifestyle, always wanting more and more power because surely that’s the extra edge they must be missing to be content— like how Makima thinks she wants to dominate Chainsaw Devil instead of being his equal. And she says it herself too, she likes humans the way humans like dogs…….. And she keeps so many dogs :( Makima prefers the country mice because they’re calming to root out, maybe because she usually mainly deals with city mice. It’s very easy to equate humans to the mice in this allegory because it’s pretty direct and she’s already likened humans to lesser animals compared to her. She’s self-isolating by design for her design but she still craves relationships and contentment, and the dogs are the embodiment or her want for bonds and occasional simplicity because there is no possible ulterior motive, no way they tie back into her wider plan. They’re her personal life— something that feels so alien when speaking about Makima. Personality and individuality and likes and preferences and friends they visit every year. She likes how easily she can train a dog and how they become putty in her hands, at her beck and call, how much they love her and how much she enjoys their love. How simple and straightforward and easy it is. She keeps them because she likes being loved by them and loving them, and she’s gotten and raised so many. A conqueror always wants more and more and more, is never satisfied.

Devils and agency

Like Power the blood devil wanting blood and having a fixation on drinking it like with Denji’s, or how it was shocking that the violence devil was pretty tame and nice and how he himself theorized it was because he was a fiend and possessing a human body… There’s something to be said about nature vs nurture with the devils. The way they reincarnate and always embody their fear makes it seem categorically like nature, that they always always end up fulfilling the role they were named after and born to fill… Outside influence they’re helpless but to conform with. Like the humans accepting their spot in the social ladder and the shittiness of their living conditions and job under capitalism. Makima craved being equals with someone despite being the control/conquest devil, Angel Devil despite claiming to be a devil who likes to see humans dying was haunted by their deaths and wanted to avoid ones like Aki’s. The Ghost Devil being ironically haunted by Himeno, seemingly helping Aki in her memory out of… Lasting affection? Or maybe it was less about being haunted itself and more about it recognizing how Himeno haunted Aki, and acknowledging that, with the memento, paying her respect to the ghost of her. It’s Angel Devil’s devil nature that makes him like human suffering, so then is it his angel nature too to still care about their deaths? Is there truth to this or is that just personality, just our confirmation bias haunting every part of their identity like it might in their own view of themselves too? We do know different reincarnations of devils do have different personalities after all.

Yoru, war devil, is the most interesting one when talking about the nature vs nurture debate with devils. There is how through her we see the perhaps the most the consequences of a devil stopping being feared— we see a horseman for a concept as universal and horrifying as war be reduced to some bird who needs a contract with a human to have any power even just on the situation when meeting Asa. And through the story we get to know her better, and it becomes clear that her goal is fueled in good part by simply wanting to be remembered and respected through fear. Liked, validated, seen a powerful. But what is more isolating than war? Or control? We also see Nayuta accepting others’ house rules. If part 1 shows perhaps the futility of running away from the truth, with Denji’s memory, with escapist coping mechanisms, with passivity and denial under a corrupt system and with abusive relationships- running away from your own feelings and from the reality of things and from all that you are, more complex than simply human or devil or both or neither— part 2 builds upon the theme of cult of personalities, the chainsaw church, etc. The apocalypse is coming, but this celebrity superhero might save us all, or doom us all uh, dunno. The hero of hell reliving the cycle of pressure from responsibilities and expectations, maybe the part will end with Denji running away like Pochita did~

But yes, on the reverse, I think Famine is a very interesting example of how a devil’s namesake may be more innate than coerced by circumstances. One would think that a famine devil would only like inflicting famine upon others, not being famished itself, but Famine has a bottomless stomach that can never, ever be satisfied, sated. I struggle to find a psychological explanation for this, except that maybe instead of her being hungry it’s her feeling empty when she’s not eating, tasting and having that high sensory experience that releases serotonin in humans, sort of like drugs? But I do take this as a step towards the compulsion theory overall, feels like a reach in the consistency otherwise. And compulsion does not mean it’s something that they like nor that it’s something that they fight against, pretty neutral, just a nature that nudges you towards one path. Maybe it’s even just their go-to for entertainment. Maybe it’s the only thing that makes them feel right and whole. But still the debate remains, what is it, a compulsion or an urge or an itch or an active desire or a conscious chosen want? Does it change anything in practice?

And because of all of this earlier, devils being self-fulfilling prophecies with their role is not in unsignificant part nurture, because doing their atrocities is how they stay remembered— feared, powerful, known— hell and devils are a very isolating place and breed after all, and we do see devils can want companionship. Existentially, it’s their purpose and how they justify their place in the world, in the terrifyingly vast and unknowable cosmos.

We still know so little of what makes Chainsaw Devil so special, why his carnage is so self-controlled. Despite a chainsaw maybe being possibly one of the most "nature" thing you can be— a tool to cut things, a human tool that can be helpful for many things, something to be wielding by another at their judgement on what they decide, but mainly something to cut, a tool suited for carnage, to hurt and to destroy. A blade with a toothed chain, spinning around and around and around endlessly on the same road at the same pace. Such a…. Innately circular concept. And yet the Chainsaw Devil is his own, not driven by an urge or by chaos but his very own brand of order, his own unique assigned purpose, a "if you call i’ll come running to help" policy equalizing everyone. He chooses to withhold his destruction and interference otherwise, and then he chooses to be used. If it’s a choice, of course.

Maybe this is what inspired Makima so much, that Chainsaw Devil could decide what to make of himself despite expectations or innate role. Because even Hell he decided & managed to subjugate under his will and whim, with a precise vision and process. When Chainsaw Devil acts like Denji or is defeated, Makima clicks her tongue and loses her admiration and respect. Makima admired and liked Chainsaw Devil, but only as long as he matched her great image of him in her mind, as long as he followed he rules for what she thinks he should be like. She admired him for his unrivaled self-made success, but once he stepped out of that to truly embody self-fulfillment and agency, disappearing from hell to live on his own road at the beat of his own drum… Well. Surely that was a mistake she has to correct. However their second battle ends, the better conqueror will have prevailed and she’s happy about that, all in the spirit of domination and subjugation.

Imo Makima’s biggest tool, similarly capitalism’s most helpful effect for its own purposes, is complacency. Resignation and passivity helps uphold the system and go along the flow of the will of the people in power. Aki and Reze go along with orders even when knowing their job is trash, etc. In Angel Devil especially we see him go along with the flow uncaring about anyhing, and we discover it was in part due to Makima taking away memories that motivated him. If every devil decides this is just how things are and how things should be that’s what they’ll continue to be and do mindlessly, not pursuing a better life like Chainsaw Devil and Denj and not seeking to change the world like Makima. I think even Makima veils herself to a lot of things, she doesn’t like to think deeply about some things, like her desire for connection, or how making bad movies disappear is strenuous and unsustainable and requiring sacrifices at best— how her judgement is as subjective as anyone else. How liking the country mouse and her friend back at the farm and her dogs could be not devoid of sentimality. Wanting bad movies erased is her one biggest show of selfishness, of pettiness and individuality, it’s about her tastes, simple as. About how she can have tastes, and cry seeing a scene of people hug, and want things that aren’t logical, her ideology and mind twisted into a pretzel to avoid acknowledging that she doesn’t live and breathe purely for the mission she’s made a single-minded robot out of herself to accomplish. Nayuta is assertive and selfish and loud, Makima is manipulative and strategically both for her goals and for coping hollow.

Everything in her plans and goals she says is for the greater good, necessary evil, manufactured happiness the way she’ll have decided for people— and that’s the thing isn’t it, like with War, it’s the crack that shows it was all truly about herself after all. Her self-made deification still had the flaw that a self made it. Makima is not omniscient, and it’s not Chainsaw Devil the not-so-fellow-kindred-soul conqueror who gets the best of her, but a city mouse, a dog, someone she would have never thought to respect, Denji.

[good-beansdraws]

Making a full post for my Fuuta Ballet AU because I actually had more thoughts about it hehe (Ballerina Girl)

+ a version of the au that's more general to the whole cast, with Es as the protag here!

As mentioned in the art, he’s exactly the same as canon except his life now revolves around dance. He’s in a very cliquey company (The Dark Pas de Trois?), surrounded by friends who are very similar-minded. Even though they're not in dance competitions specifically, they're constantly striving for better reviews/reputations than the neighboring companies. Fuuta struggles with stage fright, but doesn't let on to the others -- he just pushes through every time.

They visit a company rehearsing Nutcracker, and one of the snowflake dancers does something problematic backstage. Fuuta blasts him on social media for it, gaining popularity for his own account/dance company. Auditions and things go a bit smoother for them now that they’re internet famous.

There’s a scandal with the dancer playing the demon sorcerer Rothbart in Swan Lake, and Fuuta catches it on film. The video goes viral, once again boosting Fuuta’s popularity and ego. He’s praised as both a hero and talented performer. His friends are also soaring with this newfound fame.

Then, he catches a young background dancer in Sleeping Beauty doing something he deems worthy of a callout. He exposes her all over his social media. Rather than the usual social backlash, the girl is harassed in person. A crowd takes things too far, and an accident results in an injury that ends her career just as it was beginning. She will never dance again.

Facing his suspicious friends (and overcome with his own guilt), Fuuta flees the company. He plans on quitting dance for the rest of his life as well. Instead, he gets a mysterious invitation to the Milgram Dance Academy. He's never heard of them before, and the internet doesn't turn up much on them. Left with few other choices, he shows up for the first lesson.

The first thing that strikes him is it's a boarding school. He must live there and follow their rules in order to attend. They take his phone and restrict outside contact, much to his horror. The school solely focused on the arts -- no competitions, no big shows. There are three major shows they are planning, but Fuuta couldn't find any venues/tickets/advertisements, despite mention of a "global audience". The program is rigorous, and the instructor decides at the end of each semester if their final performance passes or fails.

The only thing more concerning than the sudden restriction of his phone is the strange group of residents he'll be spending his next few years with. His instructor is a mere child, no more than fifteen and very cryptic about their past training. His other classmates range in age and personality. He starts off dancing just as confident as usual, trying to show up the other students and make a strong first impression.

However, he fails the first semester. The grade list is made public to the whole academy, and Fuuta finds himself the subject of watching eyes and condescending whispers. Becoming sensitive to prying stares and audiences, he falls back into his usual stage fright. He endures (emotional) attacks from the passed students, although in his distraction he screws up some cues and gets injured.

Regarding the actual choreography -- as much as I love the classic shows (I mean, just look how cute he is as the nutcracker ;-;) my brain has been going brrrrr picturing ballet adaptations of the mvs... 🎹 / 🎹 / 🎹 / 🎹

[skenpiel]

i think if you say let people enjoy things you should also be saying Let people not enjoy things. let people enjoy things is of course a slogan used primarily to try and urge people to not harass or bully others for their harmless interests. but sometimes i see someone hate on something trivial and someone responds by saying let people enjoy things And generally speaking i think if someone else disliking someone is enough to make you feel like youre being bullied personally maybe youre not enjoying it all that much. i guess all in all youre allowed to like harmless things but people are also allowed to hate harmless things for no reason. sometimes you just dont like something and i dont think you should let that stop you from doing things you like

[seveneyesoup]

can i just say. i’m sick of showrunner discourse. like every few months it seems like people draw their lines and dig their trenches and every time it’s the same handful of points and episodes brought up to prove that their favorite showrunner is Good And Progressive and that their least favorite is Wrong And Bigoted and like. all of those episodes exist. they’re all real episodes of doctor who, and the sooner we can look at the good and the bad in doctor who, the sooner we can get somewhere actually worth being regarding discussion of politics on the show

[transmasccofee]

this scene is ruining my life at first I didn’t get it but now I get it and Aughdhyfhfheujfuejfjjfjfnv

[sarellathesphinx]

Both square enix and other players can take the idea that Cait has his own personality and sense of will separate from Reeve from my mummified hands

[starbuck]

best quotes from the historical presentation i attended tonight:

“John was, I guess, somewhat normal. It’s hard to say.”

“That is one of his claims to fame. He is still alive.”

[tacagen]

hunter zolomon, what in the ever loving fuck is going on in your head.

i absolutely fucking love the way he spent so much time working with thawne, had access to every single bit of info in the museum's archives, claims to be an even better flash expert than thawne, SURELY has to KNOW how much of a time altering genius he is from numerous examples (and i doubt any of the 2 epic cringefails are now known to anyone but thawne himself) but still questions eobard's intellectual abilities even more than me here.

hunter. bestie. please name one single thing you were right about besides the clown. please

[fr3ckl3z]

I fucking hate this guy I need to draw him in compromising positions

[compacflt]

i'm so curious: what's your favorite thing you've written? something that makes you nod and go, "yeah, that's it right there. i did that." just the best combination of words you've ever churned out in your personal opinion. it makes you proud just Thinking about it. could be a sentence, a paragraph, etc.

very cute ask anon, thank you. im going to assume for your benefit that you mean specifically my icemav writing—obviously I write outside of top gun and am very proud of that stuff but it wouldn’t make sense out of context.

There’s a lot of more recent stuff that I’m extremely extremely proud of on a technical level, but I’m prouder of this paragraph below on a deeper more existential level.

This paragraph was one of the first parts of WWGATTAI i ever wrote—august 12, i think, well before I had fully realized the characters’ voices or their attitudes towards life/each other; I only had about 5k written of what is now a 300k+ project (at the time of writing this paragraph i wanted it to be 10k max) and had no real outline, didn’t know who or what I was dealing with, hadnt seen TGM in two months, had done no research (so it’s not at all politically/militarily accurate or anything, why the FUCK is ice going to fucking GUAM)—and STILL this wound up being my favorite paragraph in the entire fucking series. not to suck my own dick or anything. I’m STILL so proud of this paragraph, 9 months and 275k+ words later, even though i Absolutely Would Not write it this way now.

[lunarrosette]

My mutual @writertyozzie123 asked for me to expand so now I will

Nark still wouldn’t work in a non forgotten realms world! This isn’t like some sort of dramatic doomed gays that they are to me in canon they’re mostly just not compatible. This is also taking from the angle of just how all the kids were in ep 1 so the way to the soccer game pre-any development that happens in the podcast and not assuming they’d follow similar arcs in just everyday life. So we’re using Nick Close characterization ONLY! But obvs still including characterization from the podcast bc that’s what we get so like this is what I believe they’d be like in a no forgotten realms world, so if u disagree fair enough!

Basically it boils down to me that lark in confrontational and nick is avoidant. Lark shown to take most issues head on unless he is certain he would fail and even then he doesn’t typically run away from or avoid them but instead uses whatever he has to give himself leverage. He’s smart and a little cunning and an instigator and a little shit! Nick has issues with avoidance especially emotionally. He typically distracts himself to avoid his issues or makes “white” lies to “fix” whatever issue he’s in. (Like the battle axe and wanting to ditch the other dads [which is why there quotations over white bc what not an insignificant lie]) And Nick is a people pleaser but he’s a cool people pleaser ya know bc he’s trying to make his dad think he’s cool. Basically, Lark would be a chaotic little shit and would probably annoy Nick but (in this hypothetical where they are dating so Nick is being a people pleaser to Lark) he would act like it’s nothing and never talk abt this issue, unless it came to a head. And when Lark catches Nick in a lie he will directly confront Nick who would likely avoid this or lie in a way that would “make lark happy” but lark would probably keep prodding at this issue until Nick snaps. Like two magnets pushing away! Basically they have major communication issues!! To me it’s like two people who are fine but both have shit they need to work on but they are just not compatible for each other

However Nicholas Foster and Lark!? They could work a little better? Most bc of the nature of the origin of Nicholas’s people pleasing he doesn’t care much abt social coolness but coolness to his dad which would lend itself more likely for a break away (like a teenage rebellious phase) from this and lark being this weird smart chaotic kid Nicholas has known for years (and who was a dickhead) and is a kid Nicholas knows and could be someone that could be a “bad influence” and maybe someday an actual friend. Basically they’re a little more likely to be compatible bc Nicholas does feel as much of a social pressure in school as nick so it would be easier for Nicholas to break out of people pleasing as unlike nick he’d be less scared of losing like all of his friends bc he’s no longer cool bc he was never cool