#There's something fascinating about them

[maintitle]

By the by, Final Fantasy VIII deserves more respect JUST for the fact that you can take that first disc and hold it up to literally any other multi-disc Square PS1 game, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a better contained story within it.

One of the things about art is that working within the confines of what you have can create some of the most unique experiences possible, and having to use multiple discs for games WAS a constraint that in and of itself could be art. The first disc of FFVIII is the one time I can think of where that format they were forced into actually added A LOT to the story, because within the scope of one disc you learn the setting, the characters, their struggles and best and worst characteristics, and are given a plot hook powerful enough to drive the rest of the story. Add to that an EXCELLENT last few sequences and a jaw-dropping cliffhanger, and I truly believe that disc can't be touched.

It's a stunning experience, and to this day the only disc of any multi-disc game where I remember EXACTLY where it starts and ends, and everything that happens in between. THAT'S an achievement, and I truly think it's the only time it's ever happened with these kinds of games.

[umblrspectrum]

getting in that spooky spirit

[chaoticke-rambles]

I’m interested in how both Charles and Edwin treat the whole idea of being “detectives.”  Obviously, they are detectives.  They have formed a detective agency, they run cases, it’s their whole thing; it’s how they spend their afterlives.  But it’s more than just that.

They both take the detective work very seriously.  Edwin comes off, generally, as more serious than Charles about it, with his little asides about being a “proper” detective and the methodical ways he likes to do things, but Charles is clearly into it, too.  And sometimes it feels so clearly like they’re playing at the idea of being detectives that it’s almost like a game or a roleplay for them.  They want to be (and are) detectives, but they are two teenage boys who have styled themselves after the idea of being detectives.  Then there are moments where this “performance” of detective work begins to break down.

For Edwin, this happens earlier in the season.  In the first episode, he admits that the detective work matters because he needs it, emotionally, to matter.  His and Charles’s cases didn’t get solved, no one cared.  He needs someone to care.  That’s his investment in being a detective; its more than just a game for him.  When the Cat King casts his truth spell, this is only built upon.  He says he does the detective work, too, because he wants to stay out of hell.  For a while, though, I was trying to find Charles’s investment.  Yeah, his case was also written off when he died, but didn’t seem as upset about that as Edwin.  On the first watchthrough, I wondered if Charles’s investment in the detective work was simply because Edwin was invested.

Then there’s episode 4, when Charles beats the Night Nurse, and part of the speech he yells at her is about being a detective.  I think that’s when it started to click for me that there was something deeper going on with him, too, about the detective work specifically.  Charles is upset he died, he never came to terms with it.  I wonder if part of the reason he’s so invested in being a detective is because it gives him a sense of purpose and impact that he misses from being alive.  He could never stop the things he wanted to stop, never protect the people he wanted to protect, but at least he has this, with Edwin.  At least they are detectives, and Charles can feel needed, feel like his life didn’t end so early for no reason at all.  

I think a lot about the concept of ghosts having unfinished business and how that might apply to both Charles and Edwin, and I think that the detective agency, despite how it sometimes comes off as playacting, is deeply tied to both of their psyches.  Edwin needs the detective agency to feel like there was a point to everything that happened to him.  That maybe no one cared he disappeared, and maybe he ended up in hell, but it wasn’t for nothing.  They can try to keep it from happening to anyone again.  And Charles?  Well, he needs the detective agency because there was no point to what happened to him.  He shouldn’t have died, and he’s not ready to move on to an afterlife.  He needs to feel like he’s needed, like there’s something he can do.  If it hadn’t been a detective agency these two formed, it would have been something else because they had too many deep-rooted issues that have been sublimated into the agency itself.

[cup-o-stars]

Last part for old GF sketches

(Actually, most of these aren't old at all, but their average is brought down by the last picture, which I drew back in August and kept forgetting to post)

[partfae]

this has probably been pointed out before, but i love this parallel between Celebrimbor and Tar-Miríel in season 2 so much.

[justafewberries]

effie is a more interesting character because she doesn’t rebel

[lightgamble]

DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN | 1.01

You know, it's funny, I... I know you're lying. I'm just not sure who to, me or yourself.

[merakiui]

Newest manga chapter is a flashback! Octavinelle as kids! Aaaaah so cuuuute!

We are so blessed for another amazing update hehe. <3 beneath the cut for spoilers~

So smol,,,,, so precious. 🥺🥺🥺 baby tako!!!!!

AND THE EELS… these creatures…… I just know they were a handful,,, absolute menaces even as fry.

[inkedinserendipity]

rereading system collapse is so funny because murderbot's humans (and its asshole research transport) are like. illogically protective of it. some variation of this interaction happens like four times in fifty pages:

murderbot, standing around and stalling, having a mental breakdown: come on murderbot you gotta be better than this you can't just be having [redacted] do your JOB

ratthi/iris, who know this, distracting it: do those hatches look weird to you? those hatches look weird to me. murderbot, based on your thousands of hours of media consumption, do those hatches look weird to you?

and then to make it worse, feat. poor tarik:

tarik, on a high-stakes mission spearheaded by a secunit who is sending absolutely zero information back to the rest of the crew: ? status update?

iris/ratthi/art-drone, pulling out knives (/bombs): hey tarik? can you leave our murderbot alone? that's our specialest little secunit? it's got anxiety and it's doing its best so fuck off?

and then they start verbally stabbing him.

the amount of glee these scenes give me. i genuinely forgot how quickly they all rally around murderbot. and then there was that scene where murderbot went oh no, was tarik security, i don't want to take his job, and art-drone was like that was NOT his job he was NOT security and actually fuck that guy and YOU are security for my crew and if anything ever happened to you i would BOMB A PLANET

[martianbugsbunny]

how did I not see it before it is absolutely UNHINGED behavior for Stone to draw that foam art of him and Robotnik with hearts on ROBOTNIK'S LATTE unless he feels a hundred percent flipping secure in doing so???? like there is an implication there

[fatedroses]

More than just the Demon.

[jinlin-at-the-moon]

i dont know how to Articulate my thoughts abt this but like. im deeply fucking surprised i haven't seen any 3zun fics where it would fully lean into jin guangyao's severe parental issues. like maybe im just too svssspilled (its totally me being too svssspilled thanks 'i wouldnt abort you' sqq) so the freudian angle analysis comes way too easily to me for it to be normal but like. someone else has gotta be seeing this shit right. rancid desire for approval meng yao couldn't get from his father specifically was already deeply seeped into his relationship with nie mingjue from the start. sideyes lan xichen and raises an eyebrow. "the child desires to kill its father for it is in competition for its mother's affection", huh? shit kind of writes itself and my primary reason for even considering this angle is that jin infamously committed actual incest and later also kicked out his half brother for trying to flirt with him guangyao would absolutely hate it

[mamawasatesttube]

tim kon cassie trio on the mind today. not a love triangle, not a polycule, but a secret third thing (when a gay man, a lesbian, and their pet bisexual freak love each other very much...)

[howlsofbloodhounds]

I’d imagine that color’s probably the first time killer has had the experience of caring if someone stays or not. And not just that, the very first time he’s wanted someone to stay (with him), and be around him—the first time another’s presence around him hasn’t felt intruding and invasive.

[sympathytea]

mild s2 spoilers im mostly talking about how the diamond swords are characterized

Alright I keep having thoughts bro. these swords.

Ferre being characterized as quiet and preferring not to talk? semiverbal perhaps? Julie's whole infodump during the s1 finale makes me think shes probably knee deep into the lore of this world and is an immediate hazard for spontaneous rambles. love that for her Do I even need to explain MinuteTech? His whole thing in the animation where he doesn't really know what hes supposed to do with Evbo, and then the whole acting strategically rather than emotionally and not getting Evbo's joke (according to Evbo himself who. probably did that just to make himself feel better) also "This will cost me precisely 3.2 percent of my lifespan." SIR.

Wemmbu is..a bit trickier but in my heart probably has something similar to what Evbo is currently experiencing? Maybe? He goes through the video journal HQ searching frantically for Evbo but other than that not much for me to go off of? I have plans for him though. And Evbo! Dear god how does he keep getting more unwell the more we see him? First off the guy literally claims to hear voices offhandedly (or at the very least, implied) at one point along with the whole. Trauma avoidance shit that he expresses in bow civ. Like hes probably not doing so hot after not just the Tabi betrayal, not just the prison and whatever happened between episode 4 and 5, but the reveal that shes going to hunt down all the other eternal weapons and he's the only one that's gonna be stopping her? Because the other diamond swords are staying put to guard their home and he's probably feeling isolated? He mentions that he regards them as family and also notably asks MinuteTech to buy the water bucket for him when hes too low. Despite him being very capable of respawning still i would assume.... What happened offscreen for him to do this? "retail therapy" bro no you need. regular therapy. wholeheartedly. like dear god man im sorry that you bear these burdens please be with your family

[transxfiles]

thinking a lot about the phenomenon of celebrities going through their "baby gay" phase in the spotlight. idk i know it's funny to joke about jojo siwa and "gay pop" etc etc and there's so much valid criticism there. but i also think there's something to be said about how pop culture forces queer people out of the closet which means that if celebrities try to work through their baby gay phase on their own they're considered "traitors" or "liars" or "queerbaiting" etc etc for trying to keep their sexuality private, but if they decide to come out as soon as they know "what they are" they become cringe in the eye of the public bc they're still figuring out what it means to be queer. idk. like even with chappell roan, i know she's a pop culture darling rn and i adore her. but sometimes she says stuff in interviews that feels so baby gay and i have to remind myself that she's just. a young person who is in the spotlight and figuring herself out still. and even with the jojo siwa thing like. again obv she sounds so ignorant when she talks about wanting to "invent gay pop" but it's also like. god. figuring my gender/sexuality business out was stressful enough when i was sitting alone in my bathroom at age 13. i cannot imagine growing up in the spotlight with hundreds of cameras and millions of eyes on me. and then having to be my "cringe" newly out queer self to the masses. idk lots to chew on. i've just been thinking about this a lot recently.