#am i making any sense? it's like 1 am

[aenhanse]

something i find interesting, having watched atsv and read dark tomorrow pretty much back to back, is how the two stories approach the concept of a miguel that is past a certain breaking point.

in dark tomorrow he basically gets his spider-man no more moment after losing his brother and fiancee. the events leave him resenting the superhero side of his life, questioning if it was ever worth it if it cost him the people he loves and throwing that side away completely for years. though he can't really help wanting to help others once he started doing so as s-man so instead he loses himself in trying to get alchemax to become a force for good, a way to help everyone in need. and it's all just miguel trying to ignore the guilt and trauma that festered for like five years as he continues to just exist as a shell of a spider-man he was

and then atsv has kinda an opposite of this in a way that after losing his 'daughter' he throws away the miguel side of himself spending every hour of every day as a shell of the spider-man he shouldn't be. we obviously don't have details of his backstory in the movie so i'm just reaching here to comics for help, but if its anything like what happens in the 1992 run, and i'd love nothing more for it to be so, i find it fascinating how he shifts into a version of himself that resembles what he fought against way more than what he's learned and was pushed to become the more time he was spider-man. it's almost like he reverted in a way and was pushed just enough to the side to become that ever watching presence that enforces its rules over what it deems an anomaly. he tries to convince himself it's for the greater good, refuses the thought that he might be in the wrong, because at his core miguel still wants to help people but i don't think he realizes yet just how much he's lost himself there.

both stories have him lose his way but in a completely different matter while still making sense for him to end up either way. and it's what i love seeing when writers push characters over that ledge, a familiarity with just enough there to let you know there's something off, something that tells you they wouldn't act that way in other circumstances but because they were put there it becomes a believable exploration of a character reaching their breaking point (asm back in black my most beloved example of this done well). and then there is a question of how to bring them back from that brink

both versions of miguel still have lyla, a semblance of that life before everything went to shit persisting. but she's not enough and what is needed there is a fresh perspective and the mig from the book gets that in form of anya, reminding him what being a hero means and giving him that little bit of hope that there is something more than even more tragedy waiting around the corner. and i can only guess that atsv miguel might get that harsh reminder from miles, then i'll have two nickels

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[wardingshout]

Zelda goes mushroom girl

[ganondoodle]

(Original art) Xaror, any pronouns, species (?), age (?)

short summary about them; they act as both an antagonist and an ally since they are only really interested in what they want or whats fun to them, they are immortal and call themselves 'death itself' since they have a special connection to souls (being the only one able to communicate with them) and the ability to seperate souls from their bodies in such a way that nothing can harm the soul afterwards their main goal is to .. bother and disturb the 'celestials'*, which they hate, as much as they can, breaking into their palace, freeing prisoners, destroying research, destroying the place, and most importantly, making as many souls unusable to them as possible-

they dont want to destroy the celestials though, they cant fight them anyway and this game of doing 'good' only with the goal of annoying them is their most treasured activity, so Xaror doesnt intend to stop them from killing or hurting anyone, only from harvesting what they are actually after (though Xaror doesnt actually care as little as they think they do about people, and has a soft spot for demons)

most of their appearance is later into the story; Zaphira (the empress) had been in coma and the medical facility she was treated in was destroyed by Shargon (orange eyed demon who acts as her bodyguard for the first part) in an attempt to save her from her estranged relatives taking over her country after they heard of her decline in health, she is believed dead but washes up on the shore of the mountain Xaror resides at years later (it has a reason, too much to write here) and they slowly nurse her back to health, the reason they give for it is that they found their first encounter very fun, thats all (is it?)

(more lore under the cut bc this is already so long .. im trying to keep it short q-q ......... this is stuff i have been working on since i was a kid so uh, some things might be cheesy but i cant change them anymore ..)

just to get some basics out of the way; theres three worlds, the celestials palace, human world and demon world, each are their own planet connected via different gateways

*celestials (possibly not final name, loosely based on angels) are the last remaining "survivors" of their planets demise, when their world died the most powerful among them cannibalized the weaker to sustain themselves until there were only less than 10 left, who each turned into different beings from it and dont resemble their own people much anymore, they built a palace from what was left on their world that protects them from space as its atmosphere collapsed shortly after- however they still needed something to live off; they discover the human world and are delighted to find rather short lived people with powerful souls, the best kind of sustenance for them (now), they aim to herd them like cattle, but a problem arose when it turned out another world has long been in contact with the human world; demons

demons are semi immortal creatures that act as protectors for their world, protection they extended, more or less secretely, to the human world ensuring them a long and secure life- the celestials need them to die at their whim though (demons are few in numbers, hard to kill and rarely have offspring, not an ideal target); as they worked out a plan on how to get rid of demons one of the celestials, Xanthriel (time) grew somewhat fond of people as they spent alot of time in the human world to observe and research them; in the end turning on their own completely, but losing the fight against Uriel (knowledge)

Xanthriel was supposed to be executed for their betrayal, but it doesnt work, instead they are splintered into many parts after a lot of struggle, most body, memory and most strength is one part (ending up as motionless forever bleeding corpse kept locked up in the palace), the rest is some time later gathered together and reforms as a seperate, weak mockery of them, they embody Xanthriels emotion- Xaror, without memory, strangely cut to pieces (hence all the missing limbs and broken halo) but driven by an unstoppable desire to disturb the celestials (they live seperate long enough to each become their own person, at some point Xaror discovers Xanthriels body after all and they merge back together, though as they are now two, Xanthriel only takes over once directly after merging, stays silent for a long time and lets Xaror be themselves, only later revealing that they are there at all .. hiding perhaps- i rarely have specific ideas for voices, but Xanthriels is like, like coarse rocks being violently rubbed against each other, less voice more noise)

(also, the celestials use Xanthriels blood from the day of their execution to create a plague that nearly wipes out all demons, only the youngest of them survived, effectively robbing them of everything, culture, history, knowledge etc- as demons rarely have children, like a complete restart of their society, they disappeared from the human world, and over time being largely forgotten as actually existing- the celestials wanted them all gone however, so they kept kidnapping them to try and find somethign that would work similarly against the young ones too (and then in general, bc the only usable blood of Xanthriel was from the day of their fall, and that has long since been used up) one of the young ones was Shargon, he was the only one still alive from his group

(also, the celestials use Xanthriels blood from the day of their execution to create a plague that nearly wipes out all demons, only the youngest of them survived, effectively robbing them of everything, culture, history, knowledge etc- as demons rarely have children, like a complete restart of their society, they disappeared from the human world, and over time being largely forgotten as actually existing- the celestials wanted them all gone however, so they kept kidnapping them to try and find somethign that would work similarly against the young ones too (and then in general, bc the only usable blood of Xanthriel was from the day of their fall, and that has long since been used up) one of the young ones was Shargon, he was the only one still alive from his group (he wasnt the strongest or special, he was jsut the last in the row and always got the lowest dosage) when Xaror found them in yet another break in into the palace and got him back to the demon world .. where he was promptly blamed for the others that were taken and treated like a pretender/fake/spy bc what he got put through changed his eye color (something that demons cannot change in any form) to one that does not exist among 'real' demons (orange ... notice the inner color of Xarors broken halo? :) ), some even suggesting killing him, but none of them were brave enough to do it (they were all kids still) .. except Eadrya (the big blue-ish one, largely regarded as the strongest demon alive) but Shargon managed to escape, and since then lived largely in isolation- this is part of why he is so hated, and why he starts to spend so much time in the human world after rediscovering the pathway there)

[simptasia]

LOST: Season One

[lloydfrontera]

i will always find the relationship between javier and the fronteras endlessly fascinating and compelling especially because of the way it's shaped by the required narrative of the original novel versus what we see of them as people through the plot of tged. let me explain.

the thing about javier is that. he's not. a person when we first meet him. he's supposed to be a character. he's just about to go through his tragic backstory so he can then go on to be the hero of 'the knight of blood and iron'. this is what javier is. all his life before that is really nothing more than a footnote. the fronteras themselves are nothing more than extras that die in the very beginning of his story.

and this shapes the way their relationship is meant to be like. because they need to strike the right balance of them being close enough where it's justified for javier to be so loyal to arcos that he refuses to take any master after his death but not so close that javier feels the responsibility or has the authority to take over the estate after their deaths or even remain there at all to help in any way he can. for the sake of the narrative javier isn't allowed to really be a part of the frontera family despite being basically raised by them, because that would interfere with the plot destiny has set up for him.

and if that were it, that would be fine, no one would really pay that much attention to it because why would they. the only things that matters is that they kept javier alive, they were close to him in some regard and now they're dead. that's all that was needed from them for tkobai.

but then. lloyd happens. and he immediately derails the plot and saves the fronteras from death and javier from having to become an errant knight and now everyone is alive and free to continue their own lives and then we get to know arcos and marbella, not as just tragic extras of javier's story but as actual people with their own thoughts and feelings and. what we get to know about them doesn't quite track with their previous actions.

the arcos and marbella we get to know in tged?? they basically adopt lloyd as their son. lloyd. an adult stranger who replaced their son, kept the truth from them for years and who then came back looking nothing like their own kid. and they still love him and accept him as their child. by all accounts they straight up give him their family name, centuries later he's still known as lloyd frontera and nothing else.

this is the kind of people they are. the kind of people who would welcome a stranger into their family because he's kind and good and he's trying his best.

but you mean to tell me that these are the same people who took in a five year old orphan into their home and then just. kept him around. not really being a part of their family. they just raised him for 15 years and then took his oath as a knight and that was it. they don't even call him by his name. he's always 'sir asrahan'.

it doesn't make sense!! that doesn't track with the kind of people they are in tged! except it totally does if you remember they were never meant to be more than just extras. they were never meant to be more than some kind people javier is very distraught to lose but not enough to fall apart for.

that being said. there are a couple explanations that could be given in universe to explain why javier was never made a frontera, despite being taken in by them.

one is that they simply weren't allowed to adopt him. like someone in the replies of this post mentioned, some countries could be pretty strict about who nobles were allowed to adopt. maybe in the magentano kingdom it's the same and the fronteras couldn't legally make javier their child and so could only take him in as a ward or something similar.

or maybe they didn't want to take away one of the very few things javier has left of his family. he was a really small child when his parents were killed, he once mentions he doesn't even really remember his father, just a memory of waiting up for him late at night and that's it. he never really speaks of them nor does he seem to have a deeper connection or longing for them. by the time we meet him, all he has left of them is his name really. maybe when they took him in neither arcos nor marbella wanted to take away one of javier's last remains of his family by making him take their name.

or perhaps they thought adopting javier would cause them more harm than good. after all. they did have a little bastard of a son who took offense at the very existence of javier, despite javier just being *checks notes* a five year old orphan they picked up from the streets so he wouldn't starve or freeze to death. can you imagine the nightmare it would've been if javier had actually been adopted and not just taken in. if og lloyd had not only been forced to share a home but also his own name with him. it wouldn't have been pretty! and the one to pay for it would've certainly been javier! so maybe they thought the risk was simply too high. maybe they thought not giving him their name was a price worth paying to keep the peace at their home.

or maybe they simply didn't think it was their place. maybe they didn't want to make javier uncomfortable or force him into a relationship with them that he didn't want. maybe they wanted to wait until the loss was a little less recent, until the pain had had time to settle into something more manageable and then they just. missed the timing. maybe by the time they realized it was already too late and walls had formed between them that they didn't know how to take down.

in any case i simply don't believe that arcos and marbella are the kind of people to take in a child, raise him his whole life and then just. not feel anything deeper than fondness for him. it doesn't make sense from what we actually get to see of them.

i don't think their relationship with javier is that of parents with a child, but i also don't think it's as distant as what it looks like at first glance. personally i think it must be a mix of,,, habit, formalities and the awkwardness of a missed opportunity hanging between them that doesn't let them be as close as they would otherwise be. like. they all wish they could be something more, they wish the distance was a little shorter, they wish the walls between them could come down but they simply aren't sure how to do that anymore. they don't know if they missed their one chance and this is all that's left.

i don't know!! i just!! it's fascinating to me and i think about it far too much for it to be healthy!! halp!!

[palskippah]

Basically the magma drawing but it's the bros?? I just drew them and then their parents taking pictures, I didn't mean to copy myself alsdkasd

Anyways- BABY BROS

-They had their hats from when they were very young, and even though their mama wasn't very fond of them she still sews their initials in them pipipi

-Also, an idea I had a while ago but I never drew is that papa Mario took them to buy clothes with his brother (Arthur?? I'm gonna call him Arturo aksdj) and they had the full intention and orders from mama Mario to buy the twins matching dresses for a holiday party or smth, but they saw little baby overalls on sale and also hats AND also shirts and they were like- no way, we have to buy that, look how cheap yet good quality it is! They'd be idiots to not take the sale.

>So then mama Mario is like- ...? Where are the dresses?? 🤨

>And papa Mario says- These were on sale, my love!! 🤑 while both him and Arturo hold the babies in their arms, showing her their new little outfits for the christmas party (they're perfect bc they're green and red and also they're such good quality they actually keep wearing them until they no longer fit)

-Maybe their dad keeps buying the same color for each baby? Or he takes advantage of the christmas sales, so each year for a few months Luigi and Mario wear green and red, respectively.

>Mama Mario thinks they could switch which baby wears each color, but papa Mario says it's better that way so they can tell which one is which (which has mama Mario laughing to his face bc the babies are fraternal twins and it's not very hard to tell which one is which c'mon Carlo)

-Yeah their dad's name is gonna be Carlo in my mind bc that's the italian form of Charles, and for funsies what if their mom's name is Martina :y

-Also I don't care how it actually is, I'll say that Arturo is Carlo's brother and Uncle Tony (Antonio) is Martina's brother bc what do you mean all the relatives come from the dad's side?? Also, aunt Marie is still aunt Marie, love her. And the nonno is still Carlo and Arturo's dad ajskdja

-Carlo and Martina were the firsts to have babies and the uncles made fun of them bc they got too mushy sometimes with Mario and Luigi, like always trying to take pictures of them or being excessively congratulating when they did anything and stuff (also maybe they were kinda young parents or smth, having the twins not very long after they got married). When Arturo and Marie have their own baby Carlo (and also Mario and Luigi, who are like eleven and totally up to be annoying to their uncle) make fun of him if he's too mushy with his baby too.

[leham-n-daavocado]

Just finished the third season of Bridgerton (it was an incredibly frustrating watch)...People have said that Penelope is named as such because of her nickname Pen and her being a writer... but has anyone thought of the reference to the Odyssey and Penelope being the wife of Odysseus? You know, she had to be loyal for 20 years while Odysseus gallivanted across the globe and was distracted/cheating on her Circe? I feel like it goes with the whole Polin narrative too. She's the one who had to wait for him to get a clue. And if you've read the Penguin version of the Odyssey, you know everyone is like omg! Odysseus, so amazing, the sacker of cities etc. Which parallels Colin's "glow up". Totally think it's more of a literary reference since the two of them are writers...

[the-kinning-hour]

Considering he (at least in my own beliefs) grew up/lived impoverished, on the streets, I feel the need to point out just how likely it is that Mk1 Shang Tsung is just straight up illiterate.

I believe that Shang at the very least, with no one to actually teach him how to read, just came up with his own assumptions for how letters/symbols sound based on how people read signs or bottles around him. The small arrangement of words he can write with accuracy are those without silent letters, or that can be guessed phonetically based on simple syllables.

That said, he does write his own notes to himself, but they are genuinely illegible to other people. I mean, he was just making assumptions about which letter, if any at all, made “th” sounds or what the hell makes a “fff” sound because it’s F, but also P, but maybe it’s H? Why are people reading it that way? Why do multiple letters make one sound? What the fuck even is an X?

He never expected to have to show anyone else his writing anyway, so he basically has his own written language that often includes pictograms, shapes or literally made-up words or symbols sometimes for words that his human tongue just couldn’t pronounce. His words and language, written or not, came from whoever was around him. Be it a Zaterran, with their own language, or a visitor from far away lands who spoke his language but with a different dialect, or a Tarkatan who simply has a lisp because they have no lips.

I’m not really going anywhere with this but I think it’d just be funny to imagine like, Kitana and Mileena looking for any notes on Shang’s Tarkat cure that he may have left behind anywhere, or the Earthrealm champions scavenging for hints as to where he may go next, and they find his writing. And for a moment they believe they could’ve made progress. But it actually just looks like someone keysmashed in writing with emojis included.

Everyone assumes he’s writing in some secret genius code, maybe to communicate with other evil bad villains or whatever, but no. He is just illiterate.

[imaginethathaikyuu]

because im curious

[cerealmonster15]

haikaveh... save me haikaveh...

i KNOW it's been talked about to death but. the haikaveh research project. it literally haunts my mind. i cannot get over the implications. alhaitham going through his school life as someone that most people dont even really know about because he keeps to himself and doesn't socialize, with kaveh being the one exception to that, finding his way into his life as his Best Friend, and then leading to alhaithams one and only time he participated in a research topic. his bio says he only ever did ONE joint project!!! one!!! the one with kaveh his best friend and i think also his only friend at the time!!!! and then it ended in not only the project falling apart but also alhaithams only friendship. kavehs best friendship. they were each others closest person. they had no family around - alhaithams parents having died when he was young and his grandmother dying before he joined the akademiya, and kaveh's dad dying when he was young and his mom having moved to fontaine. like even if you dont look at it through a romantic lens it's still undeniable how important they were [and are] to each other..........

i'm getting off track but my point is very specifically for alhaitham, the one time he got close to someone, made a friend, even agreed to join one(1) group project ever, it ended in disaster. it led him into a fight so bad that his one and only friend said he regretted that friendship!!!! it was so bad alhaitham left the project and he and kaveh didnt speak for ages until they just happened to run into each other again at the tavern!!!!! like obviously it has to be incredibly awful for both of them but i just think how this probably had alhaitham in the cynical mindset that friendships and collaborations like that might just never work out for him because the one time he let someone into his life, it blew up on him and he was all alone again. even though alhaitham never seems to care much if people dont like him, that clearly cant still apply to someone he was exceptionally close to. like if he didnt care he woudlnt have been the one to take his name off the project and mutually not speak to kaveh...... kavehs words are the ones that hit the most significantly to alhaitham.......... kaveh is said/implied to have had at least some other friends while at school / people knew who he was, but not so much alhaitham. people didnt know him and the ones that did just knew he didnt socialize/he was not easy to get along with. he only had kaveh and then, for a while, he lost him too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[konjkitkatty]

god there is something just so perfectly pleasant about planet wisp’s music (no not the colors ultimate remixes, i think we all have collectively agreed that the remixes are bad. objectively bad. bad remixes. doesn’t fit planet wisp at all.)

there is something so ear-gratingly wonderful playing through what is supposed to be a lush, heavily forested environment with calm piano music, but just as immediately as your eyes are greeted with the landscape being suffocated by mechanical engineering, the serene piano is suffocated by a wicked bass line that slowly builds on itself and overwhelms the more serene instruments until its melody is warped just as the landscape is- warped into something eggman prefers- and i think that is just fucking beautiful storytelling that i’m not nearly eloquent enough to fully explain. It just works. sonic colors, you weren’t the best sonic game by a long shot but you gave me planet wisp and i thank you.

[aeolianblues]

I'm not an extrovert. At all. In everyday life, I'm a yapper, sure, but I need someone to first assure me I am okay to yap, so I don't start conversations, even when I really want to join in sometimes! It's just the social anxiety acting up. God knows where from and why I lose a lot of my inhibitions when it comes to talking to people about music. I don't know where the confidence has suddenly sprung from. I've made a crazy amount of friends in musical circles, either just talking to people about common music or (since it is after all in music circles) talking to bands about their own music. I let out a sigh of relief any time an interaction goes well, because in truth it's going against my every instinct. I wish I could do that in everyday life

[oozeandgoo-art]

had an odd dream that i was reading a comic book. sketched a couple of the pages i could remember.

[dopemonkshit]

i'm gonna need some people to just admit they are not fans of fantasy/sci fi and to stop watching/reviewing said genres

[lunarharp]

tsukigumi..