#and also the whole concept just isnt interesting to me at all so

[xlugger]

^that too. BH may have come up w/ the original idea, but one man cannot write/animate/voice act/orchestrate an entire show in a reasonable time frame AND have it be TV quality.

DP has flaws, but they're ones I can look past. (most of the good stuff is fandom created anyway)

still thinking abt whatever the FUCK that anon was on, like

DP almost NEVER gets official merch, and when it does it always looks ugly af. and since Nick owns the property and not BH, he makes a solid 0$ on it.

Also like, the best parts of DP are all the parts he didn't touch? the show's style was developed by Stephen Silver, and it's almost universally agreed S3 (the one Butch wrote) was the worst season by FAR. only thing he'd even VAUGELY profit off of is views on his 10 years later series, but the art's ugly/off model as shit and half the ideas are nonsensical and don't fit into canon well/are ooc for the charas.

idk much about HP but??? did you know anything b4 barging into my inbox?

[aq2003]

oh btw i get even more why brennan (like me) clocked sophomore year fabian as fucked up and sad even if some of the other pcs were like "what are you talking about dude" . it's because the basic core theses of fabian and leiland eftbk as characters are actually pretty similar

[playingonedchess]

is it just me who finds the kissing as part of romantic fanfics like confession scenes totally boring and anticlimatic. like it usually feels like a scapeout, cant think of what to put there so just resolve it like that. it just isnt compelling writing when it uses that as a device, it isnt narratively satisfying, lacks interesting tension and actually well thought out romance as a concept

[arolesbianism]

Bro I'm losing my god damn mind and I haven't even messed around with the new gameplay shit like at all. Ive spent the past like 5 hours just reading and looking at shit I haven't even played the damn video game

[waywardsalt]

deciding to write bellum in a context beyond and different from what he's shown in in ph is kinda. something. because there's not a whole lot to him and there seems to be an intense focus on having things be 'in character' so it creates the interesting dilemma of. what even is 'in character' for bellum in the first place and are the conclusions i draw about him based off the little bit we get in game things that can be considered 'in character' or w/e, or is (almost) anything fair game since i'm working off of a list of concepts and actions rather than an actual written character

[senblades]

I've had a realisation,

So, we all like to dunk on Akechi for having a stupid plan- which, well, yeah; but I think that a lot of people (whether they like Akechi's character or not) tend to miss the point:

That being, that the holes we all poke in his plan; "Why didn't he just kill Shido at the start?" "There's no way he'd live/be free after that," "His plan to ruin Shido's reputation would never work," are actually far more revealing as to Akechi's priorities, than they are of him just being 'stupid'.

For starters, "there's no way he'd live/be free after that." -as a fandom I think we've all already come to the conclusion that Akechi's regard for his own life is spotty at best. I wouldn't necessarily say that he wants to die by the time of the third semester, which really just adds to the tragedy of the whole situation, but I digress. Point is, the kid needs therapy, moving on.

"His plan to ruin Shido's reputation would never work," Ah, now this is where I think some cultural differences start to come in to play- I won't say much, since I'm relatively uninformed, but by the sounds of it, revealing that Shido has an illegitemate child is actually the kind of thing that would make a lot of people raise their eyebrows. And, more importantly, the kind of thing that would really throw his "easy election win" into some serious jeapordy. (AND, it's never exactly stated that "revealing himself as an illegitemate child" was Akechi's tactic to ruin Shido- more of a "hey, Shido, guess who it was that ruined you, you piece of shit?"- which, well, more on that mindset later)

Next, "Why didn't he just kill Shido from the start?" This is where I think a lot of people get tripped up. To my memory, there is not a single point in the engine room where Akechi says that killing Shido is the cornerstone of his plan (localisation differences notwithstanding. I'm sure someone will come yell at me (/lh) if this is the case). Now, to be fair, Akechi in the engine room is really just him giving a very desperate powerpoint while he sharpens his sword- so I don't doubt that he's skimming over a couple points. But, you'd think that Akechi would remember to mention that if that really was his main goal.

Okay, so Akechi doesn't want to kill Shido. Cool, follow-up question, "Why didn't he just give Shido a pshychotic breakdown from the start?" That's the kind of thing that would have ruined Shido's reputation, too, right? And, it would have been before he would have had the means to try and cover it up. Well, finally, I can get to my point:

Akechi needs Shido's disgrace to be loud, because he needs everyone else to care, too. Akechi's revenge isnt just against the man who left him and his mother for dead, but also against the society that continued to leave him for dead, again and again; the society that only lauded him as something special if he slapped some pretty wallpaper over the past he had absolutely no control over.

Looking at it like this does a lot of things:

First, it really amps up the whole "the PT's justice and Akechi's justice foil each other". Akechi's revenge is also a vehichle for revolution, since it is, in essence: "Look! Look at the man who you lauded as a saviour! Look at me, the man who brought him down. Aren't we both disgusting, in your eyes? Take a look at yourselves. Aren't we all the same?"

That leads pretty nicely into Akechi as a pawn for Yaldabaoth, too. Akechi wants to make sure he and Shido go out with a bang, and leave a shitshow in their wake. That's prime God of Control real estate! It's also prime "metaphor for Ruin" real estate; you get the point.

And, finally, an interesting point comes from all of this. That being, that, well- the only reason that Akechi's plan wasn't going to work, is that he placed too much stock in the idea that Shido has any concept of loyalty or gratitude. Shido, as we all know, is an absolute piece of shit- and still, Akechi had believed that maybe, just maybe, his father would feel bad for being terrible to his son.

(I'm not going to go on too big of a tangent, but that is an interesting insight into Akechi's idea of Justice, and into what his personas might represent. Contradiction, as ever, is the name of the game, and Akechi simultaneously believes that there's no way to get anywhere in life without force and violence, and that there is also a fundemantal truth of what is good and fair within human hearts)

The message of this, I'm pretty sure, is not: "Akechi failed because of that lingering belief in humanity" (wouldn't that be one hell of a heel-turn lmao), but rather: "Akechi, with his distorted (ha) priorities, was never going to be happy in any quest for vengeance, even if his plan succeeded entirely"

tl;dr, Akechi needs therapy. Wait- Maruki, no! Not that kind of therapy!

[leon-on-the-froggy-chair]

rambling in the tags like a madman

Leon stans be like "Leon Kennedy would never🥰" "Leon Kennedy would treat me right🥰🥰" when this man's average lines are "women🙄" and "following a lady's lead just isn't my style" and "maybe you're not heartless after all" to a woman who's saved his life 27473 times

[thelesbiansuperjesus]

bro i'm tired of seeing the most brainrot takes on arcane, especially relating to vi like "erm... she's a cop now... thats problematic...😥"

holy fucking shit thats actually like the whole point. like the whole point of her character is to show the bending of morals that can happen in a person under certain circumstances, and in this case the circumstances are that her sister is a legit terrorist. (im also not anti jinx btw i luv her too)

also, she isn't fucking real. applying the same ethics to fictional characters that we do to real life people is never a good way to process media. and liking vi as a character does not automatically mean you love cops. christ. like am i crazy? is this not common sense?

also, i feel like with the reveal that she's an enforcer, people just automatically forgot all the character development that she went through the entire show, like she obviously does not just automatically become #1 enforcer/piltover lover.

christ, look at her and tell me that's the face of someone who's absolutely pumped to be an enforcer. like have we all just forgotten who vi is as a character? and if you are genuinely clutching your pearls over the fact that vi is an enforcer now, i'm sorry to say that you just don't know league lore cuz this was always gonna happen. like she's a cop in the damn game i don't know what you expected.

also, arcane has always been explicitly very anti-police brutality/ anti- oppression in it's themes. i mean, it isn't spoon fed to you, and it doesn't portray everything as black and white, just how nothing is black and white in real life, but it is very good at getting these themes across. do yall genuinely think it has thrown that all away and is now a super pro establishment alt right copoganda? NO! obviously not! and that isnt what vi as a character is here to represent.

also i saw some rando on here dissing vi, and then said that SILCO is a better person?! and dont get me wrong, i fucking love silco, he's so cool to watch and is an endlessly interesting character, but are we as a society really gonna pretend that the drug lord who floods poor neighborhoods with drugs for is own personal gain is the morally superior character? sometimes i feel like you guys did not learn basic reading comprehension. like these are very simple concepts to grasp i'm afraid.

ok im done thanks 4 reading :) i had to rant a little lol

[ikealoki]

old order headshots + headcanons because hell yeah

i dont really have a hc for soren but the idea od him being missing is so interesting. its confirmed that ivor (and harper?) were on a mission to find him but obviously havent. the easiest answer is he went back to the end, but thats obvious meaning he/they probably looked there and he clearly isnt since they havent found him. so where the hell is he? theres no chance that hes in the portal network because of jesse being in posession of the flint and steel and hed have to way to get around without it, but considering hes a master builder and knew where ivors lab and enchantments are maybe he made his own?? i dunno. but its interesting. i wish that if there ever is a season 3 (highly doubt) we’ll get some closure on him. the only reason he wasnt in s2 is because the team said they wanted new characters, but considering how sparse soren was i feel like it couldve worked. but like i said i really want to know where he actually went and how his books got everywhere, its a fun concept.

gabriel!!! i dont know why he doesnt get more love hes amazing. but id like to think he lives near beacon town, not near enough to know about the admin shit but near enough to where jesse could get to him if hes needed without it being a whole ass journey. i think hed like to be more involved but feels too much guilt about the old order’s actions and feels like a fraud despite the fact that he is actually capable.

ellie my beloved. i understand any and all soregaard shipping but i like to think of them as having a sibling dynamic, like ellegaard has the older sister role whos exhausted by his “quirks” but will defend him with her life if anyone was judgemental. nerd club!!! also i feel like theres like a really intricate baroque style painting of her somewhere, maybe soren made it and its tucked away somewhere in his base. i know thats oddly specific. but it just feels right.

magnus!! (this is the one im most proud of)

i dont have many thoughts about him but i think hes bald on purpose. like his hair is too much of a fire hazard and his paranoia drives him to shave it off, even though he has his stupid ass fishbowl helmet its his way of staying on guard.

ivor!! this one isnt actually done because the filed corrupted while i eas working on it :( so i just did final editing on a separate application after screenshotting what i could

but as for hcs id like to think if he ever did/does find soren that hed encourage his work with endermen after learning what he was really doing. maybe making enchantments or potions to help him work among the endermen more freely or things like that. id ljke to imagine thered be an instance where jesse would have to go to the end for something and among the end cities theres a little cottage style structure and ivor and soren are just in there sharing their recent adventures over tea or slow dancing to one of sorens records. theyre in love JUST TRUST ME PLEA

and thats it! if u want to use any for anything feel free jusg credit meeee @ ikealoki 🗿

[txttletale]

can you elaborate on the reasons ? what criticisms do you disagree with?

criticisms i disagree with:

"they character assassinated jane" amiguita there was no character to assisnate.

"they character assassinated dirk" dirk is at his most interesting and likeable ever and is just about the only redeeming thing about these

"they were just written to spite the fans" if true tht would have been Epic, and Based. but they very obviously werent

"its too violent and sexual for cheap shock humour" did you. read homestuck, the web comic? what were you Expecting... also like it or not the sexual content isnt just random or gratuitous it is obviously trying to be a conclusion to the whoel coming-of-age theme of homestuck as a work.

"so-and-so is out of character" homestuck characters are malleable little dolls that can be rearranged to suit the narrative at a whim. this is true about all fictional characters ofc but it is like explicitly textually metaphysically true in homestuck

my criticisms:

the heavy-handed political messaging is fucking tedious and awful and so profoundly of its time in a bad way. its clearly a reaction to trump but it doesnt have anything interesting to say about him or fascism or racism or anything, really, except, um. Cheeto in the white house?. the whole Evil Jane plot is too stupid and contrived for the sake of the satire to take seriously but also its awful satire written by liberals who think fascism as invented in 2016 by the orange man

god can we fucking talk about how fucking embarassing the obama shit is. jesus fucking christ. for a start it's a callback to a running jhoke in homestuck that is straight up just super racist. and they decide to pivot from the joke being 'its funny that theres a black president', which is good, but they pivot it to 'obama seems so heroic and magical now that we're stuck with the Orange Man', which, admittedly, is better than Being Racist, but also sucks shit. he killed people amiguitas.

'post-canon' is cheap bullshit. like, the work makes a big deal about tryng to talk about What Canon Is, without ever acknowledging the concept of, like, IP law. claiming to just be a non-canon continuation like any other when it's made by people with the Official Exclusive Legal Rights just feels hollow and detooths any liberatory/deconstructive potential there. unironically my opinion of it would go up like tenfold if it had been actually published in AO3 instead of just joking about it.

in general i think that all of the attempt to deconstruct fiction or storytelling is rooted in a really weird and flawed model of storytelling. a lot of it seems to be taking an extremely long route to writing something bad on purpose and then saying 'see, if you wrote something like this, it would be bad'. Okay. i like deconstructive collapsing narrative shit in e.g. if on a winter's night a traveller because i think calvino has trenchant and interesting insights about literature and storytelling. i do think hussie also has those but they essentially dropped and explored all of them in homestuck and the epilogues just seem like an attempt to connect ohomstuck's disparate and contradictory approaches to Narrative into one overarching schemata and then crtiique that schemata, which i think is a doomed project that results in little of interest to me.

[sandsoftide]

Haven’t seen enough people talking about why timebomb and specifically ekko also suffered from arcane s2 being bad. Spoilers and crit

I’ll say more in depth later when I have gone back and revisited it with a clearer head and let me make it entirely clear I LIKE timebomb in concept. Much like caitvi. Like I see the vision I just don’t like a lot of the creative choices

Ekko in s1 was a REVOLUTIONARY he built the firelights w his own two hands and was sort of a foil to jinx and silco, he hated them but he wasn’t going to roll over to piltover either. He wanted independence but not through exploitation. He was a leader and a caretaker and mature beyond his years bc he was forced to be. And he hates Jinx bc she reminds him of that trauma and he’s betrayed by what she became like there’s SO much there look at it

In s2 he goes “hm my tree is being weird” and then gets sucked into the timey wimey thing and disappears for a whole act and the firelights aren’t even MENTIONED (and ik he wasn’t a major character in s1 either but like, he was still important and relevant to the plot throughout bc of the firelights?)

Then he gets sucked into this au portal (cool concept and cool execution) and falls in love with powder or whatever. And she ISNT JINX. SHE IS NOT THE JINX WE KNOW BC JINX IN MAIN TIMELINE IS FULLY BUILT FROM HER EXPERIENCES AND TRAUMA AND MENTAL ILLNESS. Like what Jayce said to viktor that’s part of her whether it hurts her or not. Her trauma doesn’t define her but it’s a part of her! And then all of a sudden Ekko’s sad bc he misses jinx (who iirc last time he met they had the whole I hate you and I miss you talk and they fought and both thought the other dead or whatever?) and then he’s talking her off the ledge even though he has absolutely no reason to! Because he DOESNT KNOW HER he knows literally nothing she’s done since s1 finale!!! Even the “jinx as a symbol for revolution” stuff from act 1 that went nowhere he would know NOTHING ABOUT bc he basically immediately went to Jayce? And they never did the revolutionary jinx stuff that was implied w the flag waving either so there’s no connection there either

Like a full episode was spent developing timebomb and it was interesting but also contributed nothing bc that is not jinx. She just feels like a mpdg and he doesn’t feel like ekko bc he needs to be in love w her for the plot? So they do absolutely nothing interesting they could for timebomb and still make it the entirety of ekko’s plot while tossing out the firelights and the zaun v. Piltover plotline as a whole

i mean again its hard to say bc this is right. objectively. like the stuff w timebomb was objectively well written. i just feel like it doesnt give ekko the space to be his own character outside of the ship? my point isnt that the stuff was poorly written i actually enjoyed it a lot and i think they did a good job w it i just also feel like it does ekko a disservice to have that be his only plotline and how it doesnt feel like it connects to his character in s1

i feel similarly about other plots in s2, like mel's. like yes this is good stuff! i love seeing mel in the spotlight the black rose magic stuff is interesting in a vacuum but also its totally separate from the interesting thematic roles in s1 that dealt with AGAIN THE CLASS CONFLICT AND POLITICS and dropping that for something different feels. like its a disservice to the characters, i guess?

also by having the timebomb development take place primarily in an au with powder and NOT jinx we dont really get to see jinx's thoughts at all. it feels like a repeat of s1 where someone is trying to save POWDER and not jinx, they dont see her as who she is now but rather who she was or could have been. which couldve been interesting to explore but they clearly werent interested in that ANYWAYS

[honeytonedhottie]

for rest and relaxation⋆.ೃ࿔*:･🎐

GIVE YOURSELF TIME ;

give yourself time to rest and relax and focus entirely on yourself and feeling better. choose a specified amount of time to just rest. this frees up time for inner work, healing etc. during that time identify the "why" to which u feel the way that you do.

identifying the issue helps you, after the rest and relaxation, to understand what it is that u need to focus on the most. therefore u can formulate goals suited to deal with the issue. set some ground rules before you start your resting period so that then your not going to be moving backwards on your goals.

RESTFUL MOVING ;

when u rest its important to not just sit at 0%. what i mean by that is always do at least a little something. when u make it a habit to just give 0% and do absolutely nothing, you'll find that things that u worked for will start to deteriorate and ur health both mentally and physically will be worse then when u started which isnt the point of rest at ALL.

im not saying that while ur resting and relaxing you have to be doing a whole workout or running x amount of miles. what im saying is that whilst resting do 1% of that. an example of restful moving could be...

dance when u wake up - i saw this in a tiktok and basically the logic behind this is that when ur dancing ur giving your body freedom and fluidity that translates to ur brain as well. so that then ur not so stiff and rigid and it improves ur mood.

DURING THE ROT ;

something that i find interesting to do is that while ur rotting, document it and write out what u do/did while rotting. that way when ur done with ur rest and relaxation you can look back and see what u did. doing so can also help u see what u needed or easily identify what was wrong/what sent u into rot.

ways i spend my resting time : setting aside time to think, write in my journal. spending time girlblogging, working on projects and formulating ideas. spending quality time with my dog. watching shows that i have on my watch list. reading lots and lots of books, manga etc. taking frequent naps and writing down the dreams that i've had. doom-scrolling on tiktok. watching true crime video essays.

AFTER THE ROT ;

if you haven't read my post the feel better formula, i rly recommend that u do so that then u can see the how to get out of that rot. but if u haven't read the post i'll quickly go over the points here.

listening to music and dancing

listen to songs that give you dopamine and just songs that you'd feel comfortable dancing to. in the feel better formula post i mentioned that twice gives me lots of dopamine so whenever i need some i listen to their songs.

practicing self care

getting ready everyday has been a game changer for me. even if ur not going out after ur rot just get ready as though you were. get into some cute clothes, practice self care, do ur makeup

a nice long journalling session

my journalling routine is update my diary 2x a week and do a shadow work session 1x a week. but for my longer journaling sessions i'll do an extended shadow work session and journal and get out whatevers on my mind onto paper.

(self care activity + something that engages ur mind + REAL rest + movement + hobby = feeling better).

SOME WAYS TO RELAX ;

sound bath ; sound healing is something that’s been interesting to learn about for me. so the concept of a sound bath is just relaxing and bathing yourself in sound frequencies as a way to relieve stress, healing, and general wellness. 

how i like to do it, is i’ll just look up “sound bath” on youtube and while im stretching or just laying down i’ll listen to it and it’s so soothing! or i listen to these subliminals by i want it i got it and they have frequencies in them so i do that as well. 

at home spa day ; reference this post bcuz it gives a little at home spa day routine.

[bulbabutt]

if i can be corny for a second i wanna talk about the greatest strengths of the 2003 tmnt series and why it speaks to me (esp as a queer person)

so i might have alluded to this before, but let me say it outright: each show is definitely a product of its time, and the ideals of whatever generation its from. whether talking about the humour, the story, the dialogue etc, its always important to remember that these shows will always come off in a way due to the generation theyre from. and thats not a bad thing! it just means its important to think about them from that perspective.

2003 is a show of my generation growing up, and a thing about that era that maybe some people younger than me wont understand is there is so much more language commonly available to describe yourself now than there was then. you can take this in any context; mental health, sexuality, gender identity, or even just the ability to describe your relationships with more (idk if this will be the right word) therapist language.

in 03 we have a family unit of splinter and his sons, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. we have a splinter who hasnt opened up to his sons about the trauma hes experienced, but not in a way of shutting them out, simply because it isnt their responsibility to know as they are teenagers. he tells them of the mutagen that created them, but not of his past with his master yoshi, who he calls father when by himself, but never around his sons which is just an interesting concept to think about.

(i do not intent this next sentence as ragging on the two shows after this when i say it, simply from a character standpoint) this is the splinter who completely doesnt make his problems his sons problems, but he also is very willing to tell them the truth when he knows they're ready. this is is the most idyllic version of splitner out of all of them, even when comparing to his mirage counterpart (who hes the most based on) due to that splinter raising them to be ninja specifically to make them fight shredder. this one is just their father who loves them and wants to keep them safe the best way he can, and he was never a human in the first place to even know how to be that. so this whole family dynamic starts with him, and the way he raised his sons reflects his parenting.

so, the setting and year this show is made is 2003. something very relatable here is how there isnt a lot of language for the personality quirks of the turtles. there's so much evidence here for mikey having adhd, his brothers will say things like "why doesnt mikey have to help?" and the answer is "well, he'd be bored. and whats worse, mikey not helping or mikey being bored?" its this beautiful moment of, "hey, we know its not fair, but thats how mikey is, and its better for everyone if we just respect that thats how he is" mikey cant keep his hands off stuff, they know this they dont yell at him for behaving that way, they just stop him. this coding feels the most specific, but like i said. its 2003. we dont have the words to describe what this is yet, and if we do its not common knowledge.

another example is in the classic episode where raphael meets casey jones. raphael is sparring with mikey, and he lashes out and nearly kills mikey. everyone reacts to this by getting him to stop, and no one is more upset than raphael himself. they all tell him to go get some air, which he does. theres no moment of any of them screaming at him for losing his temper, its very clear that they all know he's going to do that himself. and he does go get some air. they all know thats what he needs. he goes and meets casey jones, another hot head, and raph has to help coach this hot head on his anger. when he comes back at the end of the episode after having let out that aggression, he apologizes and no one is upset with him. there's a very clear understanding among his family that he cannot help it, but the best thing they can do is give him his space when he needs it. watching this from a 2023 perspective (20 years later) im sure we could analyze this as a few things going on with raph, my mind comes to autism but at the end of the day it doesnt matter why he behaves like this, the point is that he does and the best thing his family does is just...help him. which they do. and they never hold it against him.

when leo is going through his ptsd arc hes at his closest to raph as a character, the show draws a lot of parallels (like having him go let out some aggression with casey) and we get to see the dynamic in reverse. in "i, monster" (the rat king episode) leo is losing it, taking on rat king alone and not wanting to let up. raphael is actively holding his brothers back when they say "we shouldnt leave him to fight alone", raphael says "if leo gets in trouble i'm the first one in there, but right now it looks like leo's got more than one monster to work out of his system" raph doesn't exactly know what leos going through, but he recognizes it. he knows he needs to fight alone, so raph lets him. its only when the building collapses and leo is no longer in a safe position that he says "leo lets go", which leo wordlessly agrees with and actually listens.

this is what i think is the best part of these guys, the unconditional understanding they have for the way they are. we still have our "raphs a big hot head" "mikeys annoying" jokes, but they feel like genuine good natured sibling ribbing because they know each other on that level.

and to go back to the fact that this show is set in 2003, there's something so specific about the way mikey constantly makes references to liking women's clothing, to being fine with feminine language, and to being open about being the pretty turtle who "has that effect on minds of men" speaks to me as a queer person. this could easily be intended as homophobic jokes and probably is, because again.... its the mid 2000s, thats very much what media was like, thats what the jokes were. especially with the girly screams mikey does being one of the first jokes of this nature.

but theres something that happens in season 4, where an alien is attacking mikey, and donnie rushes in and says "hey, thats my sibling" that sticks out. and it happens again in fast forward. when talking to the dark turtles leo says "you and your brothers" "me and my siblings"

because of the way this family unit just understands each other without ever having a conversation about things, it feels like its not a joke. theres some kind of affirmation happening here. even if it seems like i could be reading into it too much, its specific! and it keeps happening!

and by the end of the show, when mikey says he wants to be maid of honour, even if that line in the media itself was intended to be a joke, no one in their family treats it like one. of course mikey is the maid of honour, he asked to be one! the only real offence taken is when april says bride's maid, to which he is offended because hes so much more important than that!

so from a story standpoint, this show doesnt have the intricate complexities and butting heads of latter iterations, there isnt much relationship growth to be had (in fact once we get to around season 5 the flanderization of the characters kind of begins and it loses some of the more complexities) but thats because its just not the focus of the story! the story is more about what they go through together, and thats fine! thats what our shows kind of were at the time. not saying there isnt any relationship growth, but its very much not the focus because these turtles? they already understand each other in a healthy way.

so to me, these guys are kind of the most wholesome family unit

[mythalism]

I cackled at your post lamenting PR disaster after *that* Mythal screen, ngl XD

Super curious to hear your thoughts on qunari specific line with Mythal in Crossroads, where she claims to still love Solas. (in fact, that both of them still do). Also the fact that the foil to their relationship there seems to be motherly love is…messy. Their whole situationship is.

it on EIP Gaming youtube channel

i did see this though i wasnt able to watch the full vid at the time, i just watched it now. someone else also asked me my thoughts on this in my inbox so ill just answer this one, but i think its so funny that people are asking me about it hehehe. i wasnt surprised by it at all i think it makes perfect sense. of course she loved solas and of course she still does. just because she loves him doesnt mean shes not an absolute freak. it doesnt mean her love isnt literally poisonous. its still love, but shes a corrupted spirit. she loves being a god and the power over other people it gives her. shes not like other girls. shes a freak, shes a weirdo. anyway. my point is that i think shes right when she says that "we" (both rook and us as the audience) genuinely cannot understand the bond they had because their immortality would have made it something unrecognizable to us. shes being racist when she says it but idk why anyone would expect her to be anything but racist. however i think the sentiment when turned towards the audience is true. they were spirits together. they have known each other for an incomprehensible amount of time. we will never be able to understand the extent of their devotion even if it was ultimately ruinous. you can love someone and still abuse and manipulate them.

as for rook randomly bringing up fucking SHATHANN (no shade to miss shathann, i actually thought she was very interesting and the highlight of taash's storyline and that their relationship was compelling).... rook is a loser and an idiot and this is just them acting in congruence with their overall characterization as a loser and an idiot. if anything it actually proves mythal's point that rook cannot understand their relationship when they randomly start bringing up shathann and taash. dumbass fucking thing to say. i think its extremely reductive and literally just makes rook look so stupid. solas and mythals relationship is complex because they COMMITTED WAR CRIMES TOGETHER. it is so incomparable to taash and shathann having a very relatable and typical teenager/mom conflict over taash's identity and finding themselves. meanwhile solas and mythal were literally creating a bioweapon. anyway.

the mother implication doesnt actually bother me LOL. ive been saying the vibes are oedipal since before this game came out. again, we cannot understand it. people say things like "mother/son" and i even throw around "oedipal" and "freudian" but genuinely the ancient elves had such different conceptions of relationships due to both their immortality but also their origin at spirits that there is really nothing comparable. they did not have families and they probably had very different ideas of romantic relationships. this is something i really wish the game had explored more lol add it to the list! we just get glimpses of how they cared about each other. piecing together the 20,000 years is impossible. i believe it was intended that way. we are supposed to struggle to quantify it. i doubt they themselves could label the nature of their relationship if they tried. "love" is the closest word that exists.

as for mythal agreeing to help because she loves him? yeah. of course. im not surprised it works. she loves him, whatever the fuck that means to her. she also has a miserable lonely existence. yes she used him as a tool but he cannot function as a tool to her anymore, not in her sorry state, and so she is able to see him as a man and thus let him go. though maybe shes bamboozling everyone, morrigythal is about to pull her out of that statue again in da5 and pull one over on us, and she released his ass just to get him off the chessboard so she can get her reckoning. a girl can hope

[mediacircuspod]

AJ Crowley vs Forgiveness

I need to talk about Crowley for a minute so buckle up or move on.

"It’s not so bad once you get used to it” from Season 1 Episode 1 and an early chapter of the book is something of a throwaway joke. But being damned isn't much of a joke to Crowley, even if he makes jokes to cover it up.

The first thing to understand is that damnation doesn’t end after Crowley either saunters vaguely downwards or is dropped into a burning pile of sulfur(conflicting accounts from the demon himself). Being damned is a continuous state of being AND something that could very well happen to him again. 

He was too ambitious for heaven—too curious. Something that he now knows is distinctly not a heavenly virtue. It’s just that those traits are also not virtues in hell either. And on top of that—he’s good. 

Which in his particular role, is an extremely dangerous thing to be. So he isn’t good, and he isn’t nice and he doesn’t feel trite things like empathy or love. Except that he knows intrinsically that all of that is utter bullshit. And if anyone who isn’t Aziraphale realizes this, he doesn’t really know what falling from hell would be like, but he doesn't want to be the first. 

Another thing to remember is that Crowley doesn’t understand why he was cast out. He understands that it was the questions, that it was his ambition to try and suggest improvements, but he can’t understand why. And the shame of that being yet another question is not lost on him.

The resentment there that has festered for millennia is understandable and expected and HES RIGHT TO FEEL IT. And it’s the reason why he has such a negative reaction to the concept of “forgiveness” but has a relatively amicable relationship with apologies. And I know this is going to sound crazy after nearly 400 words, but this is the actual concept I want to dissect.

Because Aziraphale’s “I forgive you”s of the past have never gotten a good response, but they’ve also never gotten a “don’t bother”. Aziraphale uses that phrase specifically against Crowley when he needs to put distance between them. When he knows that Crowley is right. And Crowley knows that Aziraphale uses that phrase for exactly that purpose because they have being playing their parts for thousands of years. And he’s always been willing to wait in the past. The dance begins with Crowley challenging Aziraphale with something tempting. 

The Great plan is dumb. What if we just left together? You’re being dumb. (I need to link that one Tumblr post that inspired this, just look at this.) Here.

And finally, desperately, This is what you’re giving up. Because Crowley doesn’t actually think it will work. He may hope it does. But he has played his part for long enough to know exactly what Aziraphale’s next line will be. And it still devastates him. And well, it’s his decision to be done waiting for Aziraphale to catch up. Being “too fast” has been his insecurity for too long, and he’s done slowing down just so Aziraphale can try and forgive him. He still doesn’t know why what he is, is wrong. 

(He isn’t)(I mean he certainly makes some unhealthy choices, and he isn’t exactly completely in the right, but he’s NOT wrong.)(Running away together ISNT the right move, but it is the more romantic one so take that as you will.)

The part that makes my brain buzz is that this aversion to forgiveness does not apply to apologies. Specifically it does not apply to the phrase “I was wrong” or "you were right" or the little dance.

This. Is. Interesting.

He doesn’t have a problem with apologizing, and he doesn’t have a problem accepting apologies from Aziraphale if that wonderful scene is to be taken at face value. The fact that the 1941 apology dance wasn’t shown is actually a crime, and you can’t convince me otherwise. And I think this is specifically because he’s not actually averse to forgiveness on the whole. It’s the idea that he needs forgiveness for simply being who he is that actually bothers him. And well. I guess he was tired of Aziraphale pretending that the concept had merit, too. 

For four years he's had the freedom to be exactly who he is without the fear of damnation even if he still has the baggage that went along with the first time it happened to him. And even though Aziraphale doesn't realize it, he's asking Crowley to do something impossible for him. He's asking Crowley to admit that he needs forgiveness, and come back to heaven.

Aziraphale assumes that Crowley would not only want that, but that being with Aziraphale would make it even better. But what the angel has actually done, is give Crowley's deepest insecurity wings. And given him a reason to step away from their millennia long dance.

Because Crowley has finally, finally, finally, found something that he can't give up for Aziraphale. It's extremely poetic that that thing happens to be himself.

And okay now I’m done. I’m gonna go scream into a void.

[enden-k]

hey! i absolute love your art and specially your ocs. i don't know if anyone asked you already and i apologize if you already answered this but i was wondering how did you came up with vika and saran's dynamic? i find them really interesting and appealing to see and i wanted to know your thoughts on how they came to be. sorry if i didn't make much sense, hope you have a good day!

oh its just a dynamic i really enjoy (mutual obsession; intense, extreme, true love to the point of consumption in any way; anything but "normal" (for a lack of better word, i hate this word) love) but dont rlly see bc of ppl either making everything extremely vanilla and pure bc theyre afraid most of the time, or the constant noncon/one persons obsession w another whos scared/doesnt want it in comics and i dont like the one and the other thing

i dont want them to force themselves on the other but i dont want clinically pure romance either. i need them both to be crazy as shit, to be obsessed with other and the other wanting it too

theres also some other stuff i dont really wanna get into. lets just say, im interested in looking into love itself and imagining how it is. its safe and not scary when i study it through art and not irl. bc i think if i (or maybe anyone else whos not uhh. like me) would experience a fraction of sarans or vikas love, i would actually go insane(r) from intensity lol

i kinda like mutual obsession/a level of possessiveness; i like not the cutesy, cozy simmer of affection beneath your skin but the full blown, all consuming love eating you whole; i like the need to be the only thing in your beloveds gaze and mind; i like that intensity of love, it makes you want to crawl inside your beloveds body to fully quench your need to be close them; the need to consume them to keep them as close to you as possible; i dont want power imbalance but both of them on the same level and same intensity of love. i want them both to give and to take. its so hard to put in words and i can only hope i can bring it across w them properly

anw yeah. when i started writing amygdala out, my plan was to make a lovestory like i already said before since i usually dont do lovestories when it comes to original works (i tend to do horror/dark fantasy/comedies); its just, its a lovestory in my way, ultimate love how i perceive it

i love gross or eerie things behind a pretty and/or seductive/erotic layer; the beauty of horror and unusual things and over it all, smth pure and innocent (be it by looks or concept. in this case, its vika and their love)

i think amygdala isnt only a lovestory between saran and vika but also a lovestory in the sense of things i just really love (mutual obsession and deep true love, consumption, ghosts, tentacles im not even joking, horror,....)

tl;dr: man i love octopus

sorry this got so long and i feel like i dissociated somewhere in the middle of it so im sorry if this makes no sense, doesnt answer anything or if im jumping around. literally going insaner than i already am over my own characters here wahh