#and I still love them for some reason

[xan-the-emo-trans-man]

“First love this, first love that”

Yeah well what about your second love?

[rika-mortis]

Headcanon: Deep down they both want to be their fairy godparent/godkid again after losing them, but don't believe they deserve each other and feel like they aren't worthy to be their companion anymore

They both need counseling and therapy as a whole package

[buttercupshands]

So.

Act 5, huh?

Oh, and that.

"You can start breakdown now."

Finished the game couple of days ago and had some thoughts I needed to process a little. Like. Yes.

So anyway I actually didn't plan this and just wanted to redraw some sprites to just make sure I understand how to draw Siffrin correctly (still working on that!)

What did I learn from this? How fun it it to draw on a canvas that literally doesn't let you draw with colors without some layer cheating when necessary. Never tried it.

The beans. Sleeping beans.

Basically what happens when you want to sleep AND draw. Draw characters sleeping on your behalf.

Doesn't help, but at least it's cute.

I have no idea what was going on in my mind as I drew this. Feels like a fever dream of 'I want to sleep' at 4 am and 'Hm...' of thinking random things

Also that phone craft sign. Still too funny to imagine. I had to.

[beaulesbian]

"The world should have protected you, but you have been asked to protect it. What an honor. What an injustice." - NADDPOD, Bahumia campaign ep. 97 (x)

[800db-cloud]

i’ve been wanting to do this since day one

[hauntingofhouses]

Very interesting to me that a certain subset of the BES fandom's favourite iterations of Mizu and Akemi are seemingly rooted in the facades they have projected towards the world, and are not accurate representations of their true selves.

And I see this is especially the case with Mizu, where fanon likes to paint her as this dominant, hyper-masculine, smirking Cool GuyTM who's going to give you her strap. And this idea of Mizu is often based on the image of her wearing her glasses, and optionally, with her cloak and big, wide-brimmed kasa.

And what's interesting about this, to me, is that fanon is seemingly falling for her deliberate disguise. Because the glasses (with the optional combination of cloak and hat) represent Mizu's suppression of her true self. She is playing a role.

Take this scene of Mizu in the brothel in Episode 4 for example. Here, not only is Mizu wearing her glasses to symbolise the mask she is wearing, but she is purposely acting like some suave and cocky gentleman, intimidating, calm, in control. Her voice is even deeper than usual, like what we hear in her first scene while facing off with Hachiman the Flesh-Trader in Episode 1.

This act that Mizu puts on is an embodiment of masculine showboating, which is highly effective against weak and insecure men like Hachi, but also against women like those who tried to seduce her at the Shindo House.

And that brings me to how Mizu's mask is actually a direct parallel to Akemi's mask in this very same scene.

Here, Akemi is also putting up an act, playing up her naivety and demure girlishness, using her high-pitched lilted voice, complimenting Mizu and trying to make small talk, all so she can seduce and lure Mizu in to drink the drugged cup of sake.

So what I find so interesting and funny about this scene, characters within it, and the subsequent fandom interpretations of both, is that everyone seems to literally be falling for the mask that Mizu and Akemi are putting up to conceal their identities, guard themselves from the world, and get what they want.

It's also a little frustrating because the fanon seems to twist what actually makes Mizu and Akemi's dynamic so interesting by flattening it completely. Because both here and throughout the story, Mizu and Akemi's entire relationship and treatment of each other is solely built off of masks, assumptions, and misconceptions.

Akemi believes Mizu is a selfish, cocky male samurai who destroyed her ex-fiance's career and life, and who abandoned her to let her get dragged away by her father's guards and forcibly married off to a man she didn't know. on the other hand, Mizu believes Akemi is bratty, naive princess who constantly needs saving and who can't make her own decisions.

These misconceptions are even evident in the framing of their first impressions of each other, both of which unfold in these slow-motion POV shots.

Mizu's first impression of Akemi is that of a beautiful, untouchable princess in a cage. Swirling string music in the background.

Akemi's first impression of Mizu is of a mysterious, stoic "demon" samurai who stole her fiance's scarf. Tense music and the sound of ocean waves in the background.

And then, going back to that scene of them together in Episode 4, both Mizu and Akemi continue to fool each other and hold these assumptions of each other, and they both feed into it, as both are purposely acting within the suppressive roles society binds them to in order to achieve their goals within the means they are allowed (Akemi playing the part of a subservient woman; Mizu playing the part of a dominant man).

But then, for once in both their lives, neither of their usual tactics work.

Akemi is trying to use flattery and seduction on Mizu, but Mizu sees right through it, knowing that Akemi is just trying to manipulate and harm her. Rather than give in to Akemi's tactics, Mizu plays with Akemi's emotions by alluding to Taigen's death, before pinning her down, and then when she starts crying, Mizu just rolls her eyes and tells her to shut up.

On the opposite end, when Mizu tries to use brute force and intimidation, Akemi also sees right through it, not falling for it, and instead says this:

"Under your mask, you're not the killer you pretend to be."

Nonetheless, despite the fact that they see a little bit through each other's masks, they both still hold their presumptions of each other until the very end of the season, with Akemi seeing Mizu as an obnoxious samurai swooping in to save the day, and Mizu seeing Akemi as a damsel in distress.

And what I find a bit irksome is that the fandom also resorts to flattening them to these tropes as well.

Because Mizu is not some cool, smooth-talking samurai with a big dick sword as Akemi (and the fandom) might believe. All of that is the facade she puts up and nothing more. In reality, Mizu is an angry, confused and lonely child, and a masterful artist, who is struggling against her own self-hatred. Master Eiji, her father figure who knows her best, knows this.

And Akemi, on the other hand, is not some girly, sweet, vain and spoiled princess as Mizu might believe. Instead she has never cared for frivolous things like fashion, love or looks, instead favouring poetry and strategy games instead, and has always only cared about her own independence. Seki, her father figure who knows her best, knows this.

But neither is she some authoritative dominatrix, though this is part of her new persona that she is trying to project to get what she wants. Because while Akemi is willful, outspoken, intelligent and authoritative, she can still be naive! She is still often unsure and needs to have her hand held through things, as she is still learning and growing into her full potential. Her new parental/guardian figure, Madame Kaji, knows this as well.

So with all that being said, now that we know that Mizu and Akemi are essentially wearing masks and putting up fronts throughout the show, what would a representation of Mizu's and Akemi's true selves actually look like? Easy. It's in their hair.

This shot on the left is the only time we see Mizu with her hair completely down. In this scene, she's being berated by Mama, and her guard is completely down, she has no weapon, and is no longer wearing any mask, as this is after she showed Mikio "all of herself" and tried to take off the mask of a subservient housewife. Thus, here, she is sad, vulnerable, and feeling small (emphasised further by the framing of the scene). This is a perfect encapsulation of what Mizu is on the inside, underneath all the layers of revenge-obsession and the walls she's put around herself.

In contrast, the only time we Akemi with her hair fully down, she is completely alone in the bath, and this scene takes place after being scorned by her father and left weeping at his feet. But despite all that, Akemi is headstrong, determined, taking the reigns of her life as she makes the choice to run away, but even that choice is reflective of her youthful naivety. She even gets scolded by Seki shortly after this in the next scene, because though she wants to be independent, she still hasn't completely learned to be. Not yet. Regardless, her decisiveness and moment of self-empowerment is emphasised by the framing of the scene, where her face takes up the majority of the shot, and she stares seriously into the middle distance.

To conclude, I wish popular fanon would stop mischaracterising these two, and flattening them into tropes and stereotypes (ie. masculine badass swordsman Mizu and feminine alluring queen but also girly swooning damsel Akemi), all of which just seems... reductive. It also irks me when Akemi is merely upheld as a love interest and romantic device for Mizu and nothing more, when she is literally Mizu's narrative foil (takes far more narrative precedence over romantic interest) and the deuteragonist of this show. She is her own person. That is literally the theme of her entire character and arc.

[elvyn]

One of my fav genshin ships

[professorjirt]

I’ve discovered my favorite genre of Bagginshield art is where Thorin is a lovesick idiot who is Losing It and Bilbo is unbothered or oblivious to Thorin’s suffering LMAO

[cozylittleartblog]

hey. hey anon? youa re. so right,

[cheerioskid]

more hermits i enjoy watching but don't draw that often

[turtleblogatlast]

No but like every time I think about Splinter and what he had to go through just to keep the boys alive, my heart hurts for him so badly. Is he perfect? No not at all, but none of them are and by god does he love his sons.

The fact that all of them are alive, and grew to thrive despite the circumstances surrounding them is a testament of how much Splinter loves his boys. He raised four babies following the most traumatic time of his life, all alone with nothing but the sewers to house them (to hide them.) I feel like he’s not given the credit he deserves for all he’s done.

And I get that it’s easy to hold up his flaws and faults when it comes to parenting, I myself like looking into them because flawed characters are super interesting and said flaws make them more realistic and engaging, but he tries, and again, so many others would have given up on the boys or failed along the way but Splinter didn’t.

He’s their father, for all his faults he did his damndest to make sure they survived.

[nenoname]

Details in Stan's letter that still haunt me

(how long will I continue thinking about a two page letter that's technically not even that long because Stan's handwriting is fricking large? .....you don't need to worry about that.)

The bro code only shows up in the Lost Journal pages, and to me Stan's message feels like it purposely echoes Ford's "miss you" in the college photo (and for some reason the message doesn't appear in the website version of the photo?) ....or alternatively Stan simply noticed how distressed Ford was about this entire thing and wanted to support him in a way so he can be sappy but without the kids knowing, or both!

Stan's claim about the Oregon lottery contradicts what the Lost Legends website said about Tate McGucket's ability to predict the winning numbers!! ...but also breaking into the Lottery HQ is definitely a very Stan thing to do and it's not the first time small gags have been retconned

Despite spending most of his letter nonchalantly destroying him, the taunt about ripping a dollar bill in half is the only part where Stan is directly responding to Bill. Maybe it's the two of them having similar ways of thinking but it's rather specific considering Bill taunts the reader about it...

And after Bill spends an entire book calling Ford Sixer despite normally using a pretty wide range of nicknames for him, Stan then spends his letter mainly referring to Ford as Sixer, even though post-Weirdmageddon he tends to use a mix of nicknames. And it's not like he'd gotten to see Bill himself for long, let alone see him steal that childhood nickname (that is only used twice in the actual show btw!). Did Ford tell him what happened or...?

With all this and the website's "still on your mind" message, what I'm getting at is my tinfoil hat theory of Stan somehow seeing some of the pages the irl readers saw, even when it should be personalised to the specific reader, and he's been lying about it for some reason. Considering that the book flat out doesn't make an attempt at convincing Soos, I find it a stretch that whatever Bill was telling Stan via the book was an attempt to convince him either.

Wouldn't be the first time Stan's skimmed through a book and lied about what it meant to him.

(...Now I kinda wanna see a story about the family reading their versions of the book and making fun of it while Stan is improvising every single one of his pages and blatantly ignoring Bill's attempts to mock and taunt him)

But also I'm fascinated by the letters that only showed up on the website (aka the Soos+Wendy+McGucket+Pacifica ones). I'm assuming that Mabel had stuck them on after Stan's letter... but they were basically eaten by the book itself because seeing Stan's letter kick-started Bill's breakdown which takes up the rest of the book

[secrescaryat]

// pentiment spoilers (implied ig but still there)

more of these because i was inspired

[buttercupshands]

Halloween Siffrin!! A vampire one too!!

My mind started thinking about isat while listening to hi3 7.0 trailer and so this idea stuck until I was home

Timelapse under the cut

I was struggling to choose if I'll add music or not, but too tired to re-edit you get the music version, it's ISAT OST music by Studio Thumpy Puppy Floor 2 to be specific

[moltensmusings]

Finally managed to gif the single most earth shatteringly important Arkos moment.

The quality isn't great but when I tell you I think about this regularly I mean it.

[nibbelraz]

When your brother wants to betray the powerful demon king you both work for but you know that's NOT going to end well so you try to convince him not to do it but he's also seen those LUSTFUL gazes you do to said demon and calls you out