#actually don't remember how long ago

[sinkingtime]

Do you want a Frozen seeequeel?♫

Sequel to the first movie, that is. I was dissatisfied by the second. It's not even that bad, really, it just didn't work for me as a sequel to the older one. And then, as Voldemort once said, I had a clever idea.

We start by sidelining Anna.

According to standard musical theatrical analysis, by which I mean Sideways on youtube, a good musical starts with an important song and dance. From the first scene, from the first frame if the mandatory logos allow. This serves two purposes.

The first is to tell the audience that this will be a musical, and they need to adjust their disbelief accordingly. That's basically served automatically, by its very existance.

The second is to introduce the setting. The status quo that our hero must defend, or try to change, or otherwise exist in.

So my movie would start with both sisters singing as they walk out of the castle, through the city, carrying picknic basquets. The song is about how great things are and how happy they are. No actual reference to the first movie, except maybe a single line by Elsa saying things are good "now".

As they go by, various random townspeople join in, for just a line, mostly about how prosperous the city is and how much they all love their queen. Also, the city is covered in snow, but a charming winter day, nothing catastrophic. Everybody but Elsa is wearing winter clothes; this is normal for this land.

Also through the town are various ice sculptures, of animals and people. Only noble beasts, so falcons, guard dogs, majestic horses, etc. The ladies are in elegant dresses, the men are in either armor or uniform. At some point, but not necessarily during this song, we should see Elsa manifest a new one out of nowhere, in a space that seemed empty enough to take some decoration.

The sisters reach Kristoff and he joins them, at first minorly like another random townsperson, but he starts singing more, and Anna is the one that falls back into just accompanying them. At some point he takes her basket to carry.

I also want something I don't have the musical background to describe: Elsa and Kristoff don't sound well together. They're out of tune, or harmony, or something. Not enough for the song not to be good, Anna sounds well with both and she always gets at least a single line between each of their transitions, but if you took her out and let them sing together the song would not be good.

And furthermore, this without Anna's performance changing in any way between them; if you edited it to swap her lines around, the lyrics may become nonsense, but the music still works. Because she's not intentionally mediating between them, she happens to legitimately be what they have in common.

So the three reach their picknic spot, the song comes to an end, and the last line is Kristoff's. "Anna, will you marry me?". Camera closes in on Elsa's face, frozen in shock. We hear Anna agreeing enthusiastically, generic celebratory noises from both of them, and Elsa's eye twitches once. Title card.

The first half-to-two-thirds of the movie will be taken up by wedding preparations. It is to be the event of the century. Lots of logistical difficulties, and also small bits of some supernatural emergency. I don't know exactly what that should be, it doesn't really matter, except for three things.

As it escalates, it needs to be able to create the kind of chaos that leads to the final act.

It is not Elsa's fault. It's ok if she briefly thinks it is, but that should be quickly disproven.

There isn't anything nefarious. Nature itself, some mystical creature(s), something like that.

Elsa is distressed by the wedding, but still determined to make it be good. Anytime someone asks if she's ok, she just tells them that "everything needs to be PERFECT!". Lots of other people are also stressed by their part in the event, so this is plausible.

At some point she needs to almost panic, take a moment to control herself, whispering "don't let them see", before going to talk to someone about something.

Kristoff helpfully offers to just not do that, have a normal people wedding, but Anna tells him they can't. They already announced it to all the neighbouring kingdoms. They can be married in secret before, if he wants, but they'll still need to do the big party afterwards; it's part of her princess-y duties. And now his. So they both get back to organizing whatever has been asigned to them.

Also, this may be a little dark, but I like it. At some point someone, possibly Anna but it could be a random townsperson, needs to deliver a message to the queen. So they turn towards the coldest-looking part of the immediate environment and say it, possibly prefacing with a "please tell her majesty-". After all is said, we follow a little gust of wind, which flies through town until it reaches Elsa. She pauses to listen to nothing, for the correct amount of time that the message took, then she nods and starts walking that way.

There should be more music, of course. Anna's is directly about the organizing of the event, probably with a large chorus of townspeople and outside contractors. Some early visitor could get another telling us how beautiful this kingdom is. Kristoff goes to deliver the invitation to the trolls, who have something along the lines of "I knew it!". Olaf probably has something naive and charmingly misinformed about married life.

Elsa gets the important one (this is her movie). It's about how she just reconnected with her sister, and now she's going to lose her and be alone again. She's resigned, not complaining; she's done it before and she can do it again. Naturally I have no music to give you, but I do know the title: "Ever after was so short".

Kristoff is the only one who actually understands how the queen feels. I kinda want him to accidentally eavesdrop on her song, but also not; it would be the simplest way to convey that he gets it, but it may also imply the music is more diegetic than it should be. I don't know.

Anyways, he tries to arrange to speak with both sisters at once, to clear things up on that. But by this point everybody has already noticed the supernatural complication, they're all determined to not let it interrupt the ceremony, so everybody is busy dealing with their respective part. More visitors come in.

That's when the disaster escalates. The city is actually torn asunder, most buildings collapsed, trapping the people. Elsa and Kristoff are knocked far away, into the forest; she was trying to figure out that menace, he was following her to try and have that conversation.

In town, all the ice statues come to life and rush to the people's defense. Everybody is surprised, but not much; this is part of why Elsa is a great queen. Or a great patron goddess, at least. A captain of the city watch starts giving them orders, not quite sure if he can, but they obey; they recognize him as a legitimate agent of their creator. So he coordinates the search-and-rescue. Maybe we see some artisan patching up a "wounded" statue, with ice and snow.

At this point she learns or figures out how to deal with the magic. Maybe he relays a cryptic clue the trolls gave him. However the solution works, she needs his help; or at least she needs some help, and he's the only one around. So they head off to do it, with a song about how they will save the day.

Except he says "we" and she only says "I". This is the one song that it's ok if it doesn't sound good, specifically because those two don't match properly. They also don't coordinate for the actual solution, and fail. She crumbles down to cry and blame herself.

This is the part I said may be a bit too dark. He screams that she always does this. That they know, because of her creepy government surveillance powers, that she knew Hans was coming, but she just let him kill her. Always looking for a cause for which to sacrifice herself.

(He's wrong, she's been developing that trick in response to having been ambushed that one time, but she shouldn't have the composture to correct him, or at least not now.)

He further tells her that he's not surprised Anna never told her, they're both very alike in that regard, but she still sometimes wakes up crying, having nightmares about that day. She starts to blame herself, but he interrupts again. He told her precisely so she would stop trying to put all blame on herself, and accept some help.

He finally tells her what he had wanted to talk about, though he hoped Anna would be here. Should they cancel the wedding? She's outraged, asking how dare he hurt her sister like that. But he says he doesn't want to hurt either of them. They were all happy before, they can just go back to that. No doubt she would agree, if Elsa had ever deigned to just explain how she feels.

She still tries to refuse; Anna's happiness is more important. He naysays that. They will be family. All of them are important. That's basically the whole core of the movie, Elsa must learn she's not losing a sister, she's gaining a brother. After she's finally convinced they get up, gather themselves, and go save the day again. They have one more chance, which presumably will be a little harder now for some reason.

This would also be a reprise of the "save the day" song, but sung right this time. That's why it was okay if the first time wasn't so pleasant, the eventual soundrack collection can just have this version.

They do indeed fix the whatever-needed-fixing. Over in the city, all the ice statues resume being just statues. After a moment of confusion, the people understand that this means the crisis is over, and start cheering. And carrying them back to their places.

Elsa and Kristoff enter the ruins of the city, triumphantly, welcomed by the entire people, Anna at the front. She rushes to hug her sister, they both thank each other for being okay. Then she goes to kiss her fiancé.

Before they finish, Elsa raises on an ice plathform that wasn't there before, to announce that she now declares these two wed, before all these witnesses. They both try to convince her not to, this ceremony was ruined, but she shushes them. Too late, royal decree. The people are already cheering. The end.

Over the credits we see images, in a different art style of course, alternately of Elsa directing the reconstruction efforts, and of Anna and Kristoff visiting various places during their honeymoon. The final still image is of both of them returning, being welcomed by the queen and the crowd behind her. Probably all set to an instrumental cover of the opening song.

And one more thing. I don't particularly care about "gay Elsa" either way, but for the message of this movie to work it's important to make absolutely clear that her newfound bond with Kristoff is as siblings, and specifically nonincestuous siblings, thank-you-very-much. So for that reason, I would go ahead and make that canon.

Sometime in the wedding preparations, a messager is relaying to her answers by various neighbouring kingdoms. The kings of <some place> ask to politely inquire if she has given any thought to marrying herself. "...do they have a daughter?" "A son, your majesty." "Then, no".

[unhinged-snake-jaw]

patroclus in tsoa:

oh... i accidentally killed sarpedon??? i'm not built for violence, really. that's achilles. i guess he's always protecting me... i love him, i can't make myself argue with him— i'm so in love with him i don't know to be angry at him. ever.

patroclus in the iliad:

*invents gamer's rage by killing clysonysmus*

{kill count: so high that homer's just listing names at one point}

*kills sarpedon and then KILLS ANYBODY WHO TRIES TO TAKE HIS BODY* (the dead man's father ended up intervening i believe)

"hey patroclus... you're crying like a girl what's wrong??" "what's wrong? what's wrong??? what's wrong is yOU MOTHERFU—"

*knocks hector's charioteer onto the floor with a stone that fucking kills him* 10/10 my guy that was a perfect dive!! trojans seem awfully good at diving out of their chariots, don't you think??

"on my own? i would have killed TWENTY hectors, and you know that."

[vargaslovinghours]

And never let you go ♥

Bonus without the overspill lighting:

[spotaus]

Boy, it's been... a while 😭 anyways here, take this stylized redraw of Red <3

Bonus goofy af wips <3

I was lucky Art Ghost was cooperating today cuz frankly that pose being made of like 4 lines was wild even for me 😭

[mtreebeardiles]

IDEK

So, okay, I decided I'd try my hand at some...well. Mshakarian, because the Shepard that came through was a dude, so. Yeah. Idk. For all I give Garrus crap I do like him as a character and figured, hey, why not write some of the dynamic I'd like to see?

And then this happened.

Note: i have never done the Garrus romance, so idk how it happens in canon.

“Like what you see, Vakarian?”

Garrus imagined the commander had meant the question to be sarcastic, but Shepard had never been very good at instilling much bite into his words, his tone. Vestiges of the golden boy he’d been and might be again, one day, when they were far away from this time, this place, from these cruel choices they had to make. From whatever it was Jack had found in those files that had caused such a stir of tension in the air, winding tighter and tighter that it was no wonder Shepard had started to break.

Still, the Turian considered an answer. 

He hadn’t seen him, before, not really: a realization that had crept up on him little by little, chipping away at the things he thought he knew about Commander Adrien Shepard. Classic good looks, as he understood it, thick dark hair and kind brown eyes set under heavy brows. Clean shaven, or at least that’s how he’d kept himself back on the SR-1, laugh lines starting to form around a mouth made for smiling. 

But now his cheeks and chin were shadowed by a patchwork of stubble, and his lips were bitten and chapped, and there was no hint of those lines — just the new ones, the too-straight surgical scars, glowing softly red against lightly brown skin, constant reminders of the sort of loss Garrus could only rudimentarily understand. 

But there was still that kindness in his eyes, somewhere beneath the exhaustion and the sleepless nights, and maybe there was a fair amount more despair in the set of the man’s shoulders, an air of desperation coiling muscles tense and tight, but at least Adrien kept his chin up. Watching, waiting, almost defiant, sensing, maybe, that Garrus was going to give an answer, but fuck he seemed so, so fragile all at once. 

Horizon had hurt him. The meeting with Anderson had hurt him. He’d watched as the commander had haltingly requested a reversal of his KIA status at the Citadel, a haunting quiet surrounding him, the sort befitting a man who seemed more than half ghost these days. 

He saw the cracks clearer now, the fault lines of history reaching deep, but even so…

Even so. 

The man Shepard was at his core was still there. 

He’d seen it when the man had intervened with the Quarian on the station, seen it in drawing firm lines with Zaeed on Zorya. Seen it with Jack after she hit the button on the bomb, with Tali when she’d learned of her father’s death. For all Adrien was torn to tatters, he always found more to give. 

And here, maybe, in some small way, maybe Garrus could give a little back. 

“Yeah,” he murmured, stepping into the other man’s space. He gently tugged the bottle of booze from his fingers and set it on the side table. “Yeah, Adri. I do.” 

Those fathomless eyes seemed to track from one to the other of Garrus’s, and Adrien’s exhale was shaky. 

“Yeah?”

He really has no idea, Garrus thought as he stepped closer, the effect he has. 

Or maybe he did, and that was part of the problem.

And maybe that problem was partially on Garrus, too — for always engaging with the hero and not the man beneath the armor. For resorting to platitudes of service, to denigrations of duty, for comparing and contrasting and building his admiration into a pedestal Adrien had never asked for. 

A pedestal, Garrus was rapidly understanding, that had isolated his friend rather than offering any real support. 

No more of that, Garrus thought, and his heart seemed to skip in his chest as he brought his hand up, cradling that scruffy cheek, watching as Adri’s eyes fluttered shut and the tension seemed to bleed from his shoulders. Felt it as he relaxed against him, his soft, smooth skin so wonderful and strange against Garrus’s mouth as he pressed a kiss to his forehead. 

“Yeah. I see you, Adri.” And maybe his own breath was a little shaky as he felt Adri’s arms slip around him. Welcoming him. 

“I see you,” he murmured. “And I promise I’ll always try to keep seeing you.” 

A shudder and the other man leaned into him, and Garrus drew his talons carefully through those thick curls as his free hand moved to the commander’s back. Bracing. Supporting. Being there. 

Always. 

And maybe it wasn't the same as Adrien's interference back on the Citadel, blocking Garrus from making another huge mistake. But maybe that wasn't the point -- maybe it wasn't the size of the gesture that mattered, but rather that the gesture be made at all. To show up, and listen, and see, just see the man before him for who he really was. Flawed, broken, but so, so fucking earnest, so stubborn and determined, so…

So wonderfully, painfully human. 

A strange expression, he'd always thought, whenever humans would say it -- 'I'm only human.' A redundancy, he'd thought, but now… now he thought maybe he understood. 

It was a matter of perspective, an acknowledgment of one's limits -- not an offering of excuses. An honesty, an admission to the truth that fit so well with another of those human idioms. 

"What's that your people say again?" Garrus asked, brushing a kiss to Adri's hair this time. Despite the alcohol on his breath, his hair still smelled of citrus. "'No man is alone on an island?'"

"'No man is an island,'" Adrien murmured, and Garrus thought he could feel the smile starting to form on the commander's face, pressed as it was against the softer skin of Garrus's neck. 

"Yeah," he hummed in agreement, giving him a little squeeze. "That one. We're all an island, uh… together. So more of a continent, really." A huff of laughter, and Garrus's mandibles twitched in approval. "Listen, the point is there's a beach there somewhere, and what better place to sit and rest for a little while?"

"Are you saying you're the beach in this metaphor?" And it was such a relief to hear that hint of teasing back in the commander's voice. 

"Palm trees and all," he replied solemnly. He cocked his head, considering. "Grunt's the volcano."

"I'd've thought Jack was the volcano. Or Zaeed."

"Zaeed is also a volcano, but like, a dormant one."

"Definitely wasn't very dormant back on Zorya," Adrien muttered. 

"But he did wait a good twenty years for that revenge, so, I mean, I'm still correct." 

Adrien was laughing against him at this point, and Garrus wrapped both arms firmly around him. 

"The point is," he went on after a moment. "I'm here for you, Adri."

"I know," Adrien whispered softly, pulling back to look up at him. And he knew it was just a reprieve, a moment to catch their breath, and that the shitstorm that was their collective lives still raged on outside this slice of time and space. 

But maybe the moment mattered anyway. 

[icewindandboringhorror]

I occasionally wish to reach out to old friends/acquaintances I haven't spoken to since high school/some other even earlier time in my life, but I have SOOO little social energy even for required tasks (like making dr phone calls or etc), I never have any leftover for extra ones, and it would be very odd to message someone I haven't spoken to in like 5 years out of the blue but then take 4 entire months to respond back lol.. My natural curiosity with nostalgia/collecting details of the past/etc. (literally if I were born a little earlier I would definitely do scrapbooking or something lol) is very strong, but, alas, not strong enough to beat out the Social Issues Demons apparently

[illegiblehandwriting1]

fyi i swear something's going on w/ legend, neither he nor wars are emotionless i promise, they're both just mentally ill but in different ways. leg sees problem. ignores feelings. fixes problem. (can't fix the problem.) wars sees problem. saw problem wrong. realizes what he did. wants to take it back. (can't take it back.) Also if y'all are disappointed about their arcs, sorry? i guess? point isn't them though, the point is that it's an aftermath story. If i can stuff in more bonus themes within the theme then that's a huge plus (emotionally repressed explorer leg, wwI vet wars yeet)

anyhoo bear with me, Things are Happening. Setup is occurring. and Hylia fans I swear I won't insult her forever, she's actually pretty chill.

writing hard. halp

[sisterdivinium]

Finding "the meaning" to a show that could have had up to five or seven seasons but was cancelled after the second is somewhat like trying to understand a novel composed of seventy chapters by having read only twenty — there is a whole wealth of information which we do not possess that could alter our reading of any given element or of the entire thing in itself.

Still, there are always patterns that weave a story into a cohesive unit and they can help us to better grope in darkness towards comprehension. One such pattern in Warrior Nun appears to be how the consequences to mistakes, "sins" or evil deeds committed by characters manifest.

Basic storytelling usually requires characters to act on something so that complications or resolutions may arise from their choices and move the plot forwards. In Warrior Nun, many of these actions are quite tragic in nature: Suzanne's arrogance and pride lead to the death of her Mother Superion; Vincent's allegiance to the higher power he believed Adriel to be inspired him to kill Shannon; Ava's flight from the Cat's Cradle ends up damning Lilith as she is mortally wounded and taken away by a tarask... All of these events have negative outcomes and heavy repercussions on all characters directly or indirectly involved. Something changes permanently because of them, be it in the world around them or within the characters themselves.

And yet, it would seem that all of these dark deeds not only move the story forwards but might also have overall positive results. We would have had no protagonist without Ava — and she would arguably never have received the halo to begin with had she not been murdered. What's more, on a personal scale, the horrifying crime she suffers is, in the end, the very thing that allows her a second chance in life, a new life.

An act of outside evil permits Ava to grow and develop, shows her a path she would not otherwise have found. Without her own season in some sort of hell, Lilith would not have been able to advance towards other ways of being and understanding beyond her very strict limitations. Vincent and Suzanne would not have embarked on their own journeys of enlightenment without having caused the pain they are responsible for.

Beatrice might have been paying for someone else's mistakes, but she, too, is given the chance to grow into herself through it. The afflictions that torment these characters advance the overall plot, but they also advance them, as individuals, as long as they are willing to learn and keep going despite the calamities large and small that they are faced with. Beatrice keeps going after parental rejection, Mary keeps going after losing Shannon, Jillian keeps going after losing her son (in part through her own actions, adding insult to injury)... Trouble and the adaptation that follows it, if one is open enough to learn from the experience, motivates the characters, propels them forward, teaches them.

The problem of evil has occupied the minds of many a thinker throughout the ages, given how the very existence of it, evil, might call into question that of God (a good, omniscient, omnipotent one, anyway). A common way of justifying suffering (and also God), then, is by claiming, as Saint Augustine, that "God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist".

Now, it would be rather ridiculous to say of Warrior Nun that it follows in Leibniz's footsteps, also because this philosopher, expanding on the augustinian concept, attempted to defend the goodness of a real God with his "best of all possible worlds" while all we have is... Well, whatever/whoever Reya is.

But there seems to be an inclination towards some sort of optimism as a worldview nonetheless.

Betrayals reveal truth and grant knowledge (Vincent's culminates with the coming of Adriel, which allows us to know of the threat of a "Holy War" and thus prepare for it; Kristian's gives Jillian much needed insight, William's lights up the fuse for the fight to be taken more seriously...), crimes committed willingly or not open the way for Ava (Suzanne's killing of her Mother Superion causes the loss of the halo, which is transferred to Shannon, whose death opens the gates for Ava to walk through after being herself murdered by sister Frances)... The magnitude of these positive outcomes is perhaps not "balanced" when compared to the evil that brings them about, but there is still something to take out of the catastrophe.

However tragic the tones of a given event, the show itself appears to shun the predetermination that makes tragedy as a genre; if everything is connected, here it at least appears to not necessarily drag everyone into their horrible dooms.

What's more is that this lurking "optimism" matches really well with our own protagonist's personality.

And it makes perfect sense that Ava would do the best she could with whatever she is given.

Life for her, in the conditions she experienced after the accident, would have been unbearable without some sort of positive outlook on life. However deadpan, the joking and the "obscene gestures" and whatever other forms of goofing around beside Diego are a way of turning a portion of the situation in her own favour. Proverbial eggs have, after all, already been broken right and left — might as well make an omelette of whatever remains.

Humour is just another way of looking at the bright side of something, or, at the every least, of mitigating the utter horror it might bring. If the show allows for moments of lightness, if it lets us laugh, if it takes us through a perilous voyage which still bears ripe, succulent fruit instead of the rot of pessimism and its necessary contempt for humanity, it is because Ava herself sees things in this way. It isn't gratuitous or naïve in this case, but a true survival strategy, especially as it is confronted with the morbidity of Catholicism.

Here is a religion that soothes its faithful with the promise of reward in the afterlife — how else does one charge into battle against the unknown, risking one's own death along with that of one's sisters, without the balm of believing that we shall all meet again eventually, "in this life or the next"? How else does one come to terms with the ugliness and the pain of this existence if not by looking forward to a paradise perfect enough to make all trials and tribulations here worth it?

True nihilism would have annihilated Ava. Her present perspective is what avoided the abyss.

And there is nothing Panglossian to her attitude or what the show might imply by giving us her view on things. This isn't about "the best of all possible worlds", but of making the best of whatever situation we're in, of taking what we have and doing something with it, something good, something of ourselves. It isn't God making good out of evil, but our choices.

Killing innocent people and feeling no remorse will never be the best someone can aspire to do. Sister Frances, cardinal William, Adriel all learn this the hard way.

Those who do their best find that, somehow, they can move on from whatever it was that paralysed them. Ava, most of all, knows what it is to be stuck, frozen in place; she can never be the character who refuses to grow, even through pain, lest she condemns her spirit to the same fate her body is all too familiarised with. Those around her wise enough to let themselves be touched by her, by the dynamic power she carries, walk forth with her and live.

It says very little about "God" that Warrior Nun should adopt its heroine's views and seem "optimistic" as it progresses — but it speaks volumes about the values it presents for pondering, of the inspiration its protagonists provide, and of the multiple reasons why this is a story unlike most others.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

(genderly) chill as hell if i was only ever glimpsed / detected like this

[sysig]

Last man standing (Patreon)

[simstoyourdismay]

oc evolution tag

choose an oc and show their progression from earliest to latest

thank you to @mobwhim for tagging me yayaya ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧

picking my lovely theodore for this because he’s changed the most by far (aka he’s always been butt fuck ugly and i couldn’t fix it for the longest time.. i love him though my facially challenged king)

i've seen a bunch of people do this so i tag anyone else who would like to join ^_^

[xisanamii]

liu wei featuring his homie (gay) and homie (platonic)

[angelscorpses]

when we're talking about shipping but they end up bringing in some romantic shit; what shipping mostly consists of

[machidielontheway]

Eating cherries and feeling like summer

[barkingangelbaby]

venting so much i ran out of tags lmao

[angered-box]

yknow realizing my family was super fucking mean to me for no reason before i turned 18