#The Heart That Never Waits

[hinamie]

domain expansion

[handledwithgloves]

*miniature version of ur bff spawns before you*

[egophiliac]

IT'S BUNNY TIME EVERYBODY

(feat. Dilla)

(bugle accompaniment by Yuu)

[gunsatthaphan]

#free.

[mylittleredgirl]

i will always love the original version of the deep space nine theme song best, but i do understand why they put more zip to it in the later seasons. breathtaking musical composition, but yeah it's kinda slow for an action/adventure tv theme song, so if you're already remaking the opening sequence to add the defiant, go ahead and punch it up. good idea, good execution.

fully hilarious though that enterprise tried to do the same thing ten years later, because as memeable as faith of the heart is the Skip Intro era, it's really hard to overstate how much vitriol people had about the theme song in real time. i will say that fandom history overstates this a little because it wasn't universally treated as a sin against god, there were at least twelve diehard trekkies out there (including me) who looked at this gorgeous intro sequence paired with a mediocre cover of a rod stewart song and went "hmm. weird choice, but you make a good point, i would like to have strength of the soul and reach any star."

but the star trek fans who like being mad about star trek were frothing at the mouth. it wasn't just silly and bad this was the rallying point for how enterprise was an affront to star trek. they were NOT going to take it lying down, they had torches they had pitchforks, they were nailing a list of grievances to the church door and THE FUCKING THEME SONG HAS LYRICS was thesis #1.

(followed by "why are the vulcans jerks :(" and an itemized list of every single canon inconsistency)

so it is so, so fucking funny to imagine the network meeting that must have taken place sometime in late season two when they were bleeding audience numbers and UPN started making the worst previews of all time ("tune in for next week's SPECIAL ENTERPRISE EVENT: ✨Canamar✨!") (the previews also spoiled the ending of every episode for months, like they weren't just bad they were actively damaging) (it was soooo so hard to have a good time as an enterprise fan in 2003).

so this meeting happens and they go okay. we know what to do here. first up. put "star trek" back in the name (it was just "enterprise" for the first two seasons to "attract a new audience"). next. is there a way we can make this about 9/11. great great good job. can we put jolene in a different catsuit? and then some intern whose job it is to monitor the forums on television without pity timidly reminds them about the torches and pitchforks and they're like oh yeah we should remix the theme song! and the intern is like WHEW so should i book an orchestra for like an hour to do an instrumental version of the closing credits and then bermaga or some clown at UPN is like no no no you're not getting it. the lyrics aren't the problem. they just don't understand our vision because there weren't enough bongos.

[clickety-clacker]

Been seeing so many cool Clickies on my dashboard since getting into GGG, I just had to take the time to draw a few of them- plus, it was a bit of a challenge to try new styles. A lot of these guys were also super influential to how I draw and even think about Click Clack on my own time, so you should definitely check them out! Names below the cut cus it got long heehoo

Top left: @malartsorte

Top middle (holding papers): @scribblelimbo

Top right: @wishgraanted

Leftmost middle: @beastwhimsy

Middle (peace sign!): @sootnuki

Rightmost middle: @molabuddy

Bottom left: @pespillo

Bottom middle: @artuurle

Bottom right: @modmad

I know I said it already, but all of yall are super cool and I had a lot of fun challenging myself to make this! Keep on being awesome 👍

[airenyah]

The four of you have worked together before, but never in the same series, is that correct? How was it when you learned that the four of you would be playing the main characters of the series?

BONUS: everyone's reaction

[mediumgayitalian]

i keep seeing sad posts talking about "may castellan making sandwiches every day waiting in hopes that her son will return" and.

guys.

there is no hope for may castellan. she is not waiting at the door with lunch and a tentative smile, waiting for him to come home even though he didn't yesterday, or yesterday, or yesterday, or yesterday. "in hopes" implies that there will come a day when that hope fades. in hopes implies she knows the odds are bad. in hopes implies reality will eventually catch up to her.

there is no hope for may castellan.

she is not waiting in hopes for her son to return. she is preparing, day after day after day (after day after day after day after day after) for the inevitability that luke will return to her. she does not know he is dead. she does not understand he is gone. she does not realize that time has passed; to her luke is nine, still. to her she is still placidly awaiting to return of a fourth grader. luke is not nineteen and betraying his camp. he is not twenty and housing a titan. he is not twenty one and watching his friends get slaughtered in an arena, twenty-two and forcing his sister to hold up the sky, twenty three and realizing, soul shuddering in his chest, that he has made a mistake he can never take back, that he can never undo what he has done.

luke castellan to his mother is a child who has not yet lost all his baby teeth. the cookies she makes for him are soft, because she remembers that. he still leaves the crust behind on his sandwiches. he has scrapes on his elbows and dirt on his nose. he flinches before he hugs her. he spends a lot of time outside, but he comes home before dark.

may castellan's tragedy is not that she is penelope waiting for odysseus to one day return and we know that he will not. may castellan's tragedy is that she does not understand her hero has left at all. may castellan's tragedy is that she will never understand, and she will continue to age, and continue to deteriorate, and one day she will die and she will spend eternity walking the dying poplar fields, whittled down to the memory of something missing from her.

there is no hope for may castellan.

[a2zillustration]

Does croissant and gale get married in your story?

It's certainly something they plan to do!

But not just yet.

🥐 Croissant Adventures Masterpost 🥐

[beif0ngs]

I’m done pretending you’re my sister, you’re not. You killed her. I’m not gonna let you stain her memory anymore.

Then stop me. ‘Cause no matter what I do, I just can’t seem to die.

[heartorbit]

we get a little silly

[otaku553]

I got a haircut today and I’m so giddy about it,,,, it is so difficult to explain to my mom why I feel so giddy about the undercut sideburns I got

[golvio]

I think the reason why the Utena finale always kills me is because that sweet, helpful, selfless little girl who gave her life for her brother without hesitation, even if she didn’t understand what that actually would mean for her for the rest of eternity, had been in that coffin the whole time.

Anthy insists that she’s soiled and ruined because of her abuse at Akio’s hands, and she genuinely believes it. She sees herself as a wreckage of that past innocent self, who lived when things were Better and died when they stopped being Better, and now what’s left is unsalvageable junk. A “fallen woman,” only capable of acting selfishly and cynically in the service of a man who no longer loves her, who deserves to be hurt again and again for her impurity and her foolishness in clinging to him, who cannot survive in the world outside.

And yet, upon waking up, the very first thing her “true,” unguarded self does is scream at Utena to run, to save herself, to leave her behind.

That selfless little girl never left, not even when she grew up into a jaded, tired young adult. She was always there. All the swords in the world couldn’t kill her. Akio couldn’t kill her. Not even Anthy herself could kill her, not with all the denial and repression and magic in the world.

And in the end, that little girl finally experienced the unconditional love she’d always been hoping for, the kind she’d always deserved but never received from the one she’d sacrificed herself for. And that tiniest glimpse of real love and real happiness was enough to help her escape from the prison she’d been trapped in her whole life, join hands with that tired and jaded old witch who’d spent what felt like eternity trying to bury her, and walk free.

All girls are like the Rose Bride, sure. Some boys are, too. Touga shared enough of Anthy’s trauma at Akio’s hands that he eventually got a sword pulled from his own chest, even if he was forbidden from wearing the bridal outfit because a boy wearing a suitable gown for the role would be against the Ohtori Academy dress code. However, the flipside of that is that if there’s hope for even the most hated little girl in the whole world, there’s also hope for the rest of us.

[bird-inacage]

The Heart Killers EP7: The Boat Scene 'Do you want to jump or do you want to fall?'

So yep, joke's on me. I was so wrong about how this scene may unfold and the episode in general. Credit to Jojo for keeping me on my toes. I wanted to dedicate a post to this, both for the fantastic performances but also the great character beats here.

BISON'S RESOLVE FOR REVENGE

I kept wondering just how resolute Bison would be. I thought that if he saw how upset Kant was about him getting hurt, he may waver. But it actually seemed to have the opposite effect.

Bison is understandably livid at Kant. I think a portion of that rage is intensified because it's with himself. The betrayal cuts deeper due to his own negligence. He should have known better, and Fadel warned him as such. As the confrontation unfolds, Bison's steely resolve veers towards agitation and restlessness. A twitch. An itch beneath the skin. An almost defiant urgency to squash any margin for hesitancy or doubt - that the sooner this is over with, the less risk there is for him to have second thoughts. Khao does a wonderful job of trickling out only the tiniest of hairline cracks in that resolve, to keep us guessing.

Forcing Kant to jump could also be a test for remorse. 'If I tell you to jump, will you do it or will you fight back or even beg for mercy?' If Bison wanted Kant dead, he could have done it already. We see him consider all the brutal ways he could do so. And yet the one he chooses is actually the least hands on. Watching Kant enact his own demise seems to be a testament to something Bison wants an answer to: a confession perhaps. 'Are you sorry for what you did? Do you regret it? Do you feel bad for me? Was it worth it?' and most importantly 'Do you love me? Did you ever love me?' When someone hurts us, we often want them to admit to their wrongdoing. To take responsibility for the damage they've caused as it gives validation to our pain.

Kant is debilitated by fear, but he's also resigned to his guilt. It's been chasing him this entire time. So he doesn't deny or rebuff what Bison's saying. Doesn't try to deflect or swerve like he's done before now. Neither does he put up a fight for his life. He displays a bedded in helplessness, an acceptance that something you saw coming has finally caught up to you.

When Kant does jump, it seems to take Bison a second to register what's happened. The fact that Kant doesn't come back up. The realisation that Kant may actually drown and die. And he panics.

KANT LAID BARE

(This is my cue to gush about First's acting). I loved his choice of line delivery in this scene. How quietly he speaks. How small, tired, broken and subdued this makes Kant appear. It's such an unexpected but phenomenal choice. It provides a complete 180 to Kant's usual brand of flirty showmanship. That's isn't to say that version of Kant is entirely false but he's definitely been playing up the 'perfect boyfriend' bit. To be as smooth and charming as possible, and to say all the right things to win Bison's heart. This is the first time Bison is seeing Kant stripped of all that bravado. And what's left underneath? Just a man whose desperately afraid.

The sheer terror that First portrays here is so layered and visceral. He doesn't just capture that primal fear of death, but there's so much more you can read into outside of the little he does say. Underlying all that physical and mental torment is trauma, a childlike desperation that renders him completely at a loss.

He didn't have a choice when Chris threatened him to become a pawn. He didn't have a choice when it came to choosing between his brother or Bison. He didn't have a choice to walk away. And now he doesn't have a choice in how Bison wants his revenge. I've talked about the loss of control and agency with these two characters quite a bit, but this is the epitome of having your autonomy entirely stripped from you. Kant is both paralysed by his fear of drowning, but also by his guilt and knowing that he brought this on himself - having sealed his fate when he agreed to the job in the first place.

"I promise when you wake up, the version of me you'll see is the real me." What happens when you strip a person of all their defences? You get down to their rawest form. And now we're seeing it.

Thank god the pair reconcile next week, because this was absolutely agonising to sit through. Firstkhao have done it again, but did we really expect any less?

You can keep tabs on bird-inacage’s BL meta directory for my other long-form posts around The Heart Killers, which I’ll be updating in real time as the show airs.

[princesshair]

happy 31st birthday niall! love you ♡

[yuwuta]

Your thing about katsuki losing his shit when u don’t answer his calls is hilarious to me bc he definitely would and since that’s just roommates that implies that when you’re actually like together he’d be so much worse (And eren does this too I can’t help but bring him up)

he takes it so so seriously it’s comical. ever since katsuki started at ua, he’s acted like he’s your government assigned bodyguard, too. and through all the attacks and shit that happened while he was in school, he really doesn’t take any chances, so he needs you to pick up the damn phone when he calls. you guys only became roommates because he was one missed call away from having a heart attack, please he does not play around when it comes to you. showing up to your place of employment at 2pm in full hero gear and dirt on his face because he called you thrice between 11am and 1:32pm and texted twice and you still didn’t answer so he’s coming to check up on you himself.

missing a call from him while you’re on way home from work bc you were underground on the subway, and not even realizing until you open the door and there’s katsuki standing in the entryway with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face and looks to your phone sticking out of your bag, taps on it, and dramatically goes “oh, so it does work!” to which you roll your eyes, and earn a poke to the nose and katsuki grumbling, “answer when i call, dummy,”’ before going back to the kitchen to finish dinner. he’s such a brat about it (and the only reason he didn’t go collect you from the train station out of panic is because you two have each other’s locations now—in an effort to stop dynamight from interrupting your work meetings).

when you two finally start dating, honestly it calms a bit. naturally, you’re spending more time together, and less virtual communication is needed. his panic really only sets in when there’s an attack or a villain on the run. he calls you before and after missions—sometimes he calls during them, he’s got to make sure that you’re okay, that you’re safe, that he can come back to you when it’s all said and done. all his friends say he’s whipped but katsuki really couldn’t care less, he needs you to be there. and let the record show, that when you call him first, he always comes running