#and guess i'll tag them too

[tricos-here]

was gonna try and get back into the groove of drawing only for my wrist to kick the bucket so here's some wips/sketches

[aroaceleovaldez]

I was reading a post about CoTG and I realized: Rick has seemingly started to write every character pairing with the exact same dynamic, and he's not good at writing that dynamic and it doesn't make sense for 90% of the characters he writes it for.

It's that very specific dynamic of one half of the pair who is almost aggressive to the other party - "teasing" them constantly/insulting them, affectionately punching/judo flipping/maiming/etc, seemingly almost always exasperated with the other - and said other party usually just accepts this treatment or blanketly views it fondly, and may generally be framed as more incompetent than their partner and a little bit of a doormat (particularly relating to being insulted/teased/etc by their partner).

We start seeing this dynamic in HoO with Percy and Annabeth, as a sort of semi-inconsistent twist on their rivals-to-friends-to-lovers dynamic from the first series. Then the dynamic pattern develops further with Leo and Calypso. Then Magnus and Alex. Then Nico and Will, particularly in TSATS. And now in CoTG, it's Percy and Annabeth again but even more in this direction.

I know people have talked about Nico and Will's relationship over the series rapidly being shoehorned into Percabeth Two™, and it's extremely apparent in TSATS that Rick's doing it on purpose (including directly quoting Percabeth scenes but minorly tweaking them to be Solangelo). But recognizing it as an overarching trend in Rick's later books honestly reminds me a lot of how Rick started trying to apply the "Percy Formula" so-to-speak to nearly every protagonist in HoO (and then try to replicate similar character archetypes with Magnus and Apollo's narrations - moreso Magnus in being jaded and sarcastic, very much trying to be first series Percy. He only sounds unique because Rick failed at making him Percy 2. Apollo is more akin to later-series Percy characterization of being goofy and incompetent. Apollo [and Zeus] even got retconned to give Apollo a more similar backstory to Percy's). Rick seems to have decided that he thinks the audience wants this specific dynamic but 10 times over, except he's not good at writing it the first time because it's a bastardization of the time he did a different thing okay.

And Rick also seems aware of that too! Because he retconned Calypso and Leo at the end of TOA, probably because he realized how absolutely awful it was reading when they were written with that dynamic of Calypso just functionally hating Leo and constantly being aggressive towards him! The only time Rick's actually made the dynamic even semi-successful was with Magnus and Alex, because it actually fits within their characters, their dynamics with each other, and their environment. Alex beheading Magnus on the regular works out fine because there are no repercussions to that in Valhalla, Magnus will be fine, so it does genuinely come off as humorous. And Alex has been effectively established to be abrasive at times but have her genuine feelings shine through regularly, and that meshes well with Magnus' jaded-and-aloof-but-quietly-very-empathetic character. And Magnus has been established to, yes, not be great at combat, particularly compared to Alex. They are the only time that flavor of dynamic in that form was effective and cohesive.

Percabeth is no longer rivals-to-friends-to-lovers badasses on equal levels with shaky pasts who finally found some form of permanence with one another. Now it's super smart doting and affectionately aggressive girlfriend and her silly goofy 50%-of-the-time incompetent boyfriend who she judo flips/pushes off cliffs/etc - but affectionately~! Solangelo is trying to riff off of the early series "Poseidon & Athena are enemies" dynamic that Percabeth had but with Apollo & Hades being "opposites" but learning to accept each other, except it ends up with Will just coming off as a huge asshole and Nico being retconned to a complete doormat about it - when prior to that those characterizations would be completely contrary to their established characters (even just from TOA!). Calypso in HoO gets retconned from her PJO characterization to being snooty and aggressive, and Leo's false persona gets merged into his just normal personality except he just also becomes a doormat but more goofy than Nico with occasional haha-dark/depression-humor! Which Nico also got. Which was also a bastardized Percy trait that got redistributed.

It's exhausting. Rick write more than one relationship dynamic you can do it I promise

[marc--chilton]

i think hoffstrahm is like. THE funniest saw ship. one is fucking insane and the other is a serial killer

[snarkspawn]

some KoD/Spirealm sketches

[revvethasmythh]

Reminded again, as I periodically am, that there's a fair number of people in the fandom that think of Nott the Brave and Veth Brenatto as two different characters, and not fundamentally the same woman. In the absolute literal sense, this is false: Nott the Brave, returned to the body of her choice and using her real name once again, is absolutely precisely the same person she was before Caleb cast Transmogrification on her. This is, incidentally, one of her main sources of angst towards the end of the campaign! A part of Nott must have both feared (and, in some ways, hoped) that when she was changed back into a halfling, she would also be a different person. That the person she became traveling with the Nein would be an easy identity to shed, which she may have hoped for because it would be easier to fit herself back into her home life with Yeza and Luc--and because it would be easier to say goodbye to the Nein if that were the case. And she feared it because she liked this person she became, no matter how transgressive society would label her for it. And she loved the Nein and didn't want those feelings to be altered.

But she didn't change. Veth Brenatto is Nott the Brave and Nott the Brave is Veth Brenatto. This was always the point. That's why it's an anagram. It's just that when she's Veth Brenatto again, she is much more focused on the why of what she's doing. Why am I still with the Nein? Why am I still adventuring? Why do I have this reticence to return home to my family? Why don't I long for that quiet, domestic life the way I once did? Her emotional journey becomes intensely personal, sometimes subtly/quietly told, and wholly about what kind of future she wants for herself and how her choice could affect those around her. Her two families become anchor points pulling her in different directions and she has to deal with that. Which is a different story than what she was telling when she was still Nott the Brave. Nott's story was much simpler--I am a goblin and I hate it and I would like to be a halfling again. I would like to be able to be with my family again. It's straightforward and it's achieved! But that's not where it ends, because she still needs to figure out a real, functional future for herself once her goal has been achieved.

All this to say, I think when people say they prefer Nott over Veth, it's important to remember that you are reacting to a certain story arc for the character, not an entirely different character. It may also pay to ask yourselves why you think they're so different. Was "Nott" funnier than "Veth" to you? Does her ability to serve as comic relief fundamentally change whether you like her or not? Did you appreciate "Nott's" themes more than "Veth's"? Or did you even notice the themes being explored in Veth's later game at all?

[skellagirl]

Gordon/Barney/Alyx is really really funny to me conceptually bc it's like, two hot geniuses in their 20s who look at the 40-something smartass who hangs around and go 'yeah that guy. we both want him carnally'

[hyakunana]

Episode 41: The Jet-Black Shogun

[midnightcaptions]

Soul and Maka tho 👀

I love them a normal amount. I wonder why I ship them. Gee, it couldn't be any number of these little things.

bickers like an old married couple, compares a partner exchange/breakup to infidelity. "Cool men don't cheat." literally the narrator: "Maka, and her partner and weapon, Soul Eater-"

dies for her. dies for her. dies for him.

bonus: breaks her fall

(this post keeps going, i'm putting the rest under a readmore)

Staying at the bedside while in recovery. The babies.

Couple's Therapy lmao

Domestic as all be.

Didn't have to have a special little dance to form a gameplan! Didn't have to dress up for it to enter the black room!

Trusted him to be her lifeline to pull her out of the depths of madness. So he pulled her out of the depths of madness.

"It's always there for me. This is my Soul Eater's soul!"

"The sound of his soul. All his emotions, they're flowing from him straight into me. What I'm sensing is…faith, and confidence. This is our foundation. This is our courage!" ok baby stop being so sappy ugh ♥I'm well aware synchronizing is essential to a solid resonance, but they went HARD on this. Soul went hard on this, to stand a chance in this fight. He did this for her.

THIS???? Saving him from certain death and/or madness?? She ventured literally DEEP inside his soul to bring him back from the brink.

If Soul's courage is for Maka, of course she'd have the key! PRECIOUS. Key to his heart chest! Yaaasss

Goes even deeper into his soul, to retrieve that petrified little piece of him he's locked away in the lockbox.

Because none of this is meaningful or intimate as heck, nooooope.

[azurityarts]

oh god why are there 2000 of you now

Sorry for the lack of posts recently; life's been really busy and hectic and classes starting back up have not made that easier ><

To all the new folks who've found this blog, welcome! I do the art thing sometimes - I should probably be making this formal and proper but it's past midnight and I just can't rn lol

but uh. tradition is tradition (except I can't be bothered to make a proper description or ruleset) - throw your pmd ocs at me or something and might maybe possibly draw them if I have time LOL

[cirrus-draws]

nearl utena paletteswap. is this anything

......wait, hold on...

[me-sploh-rada-imas]

sa mnom se igraju oni [x]

[saphira-approves]

Something something professional artist jargon something something insert art knowledge here—whatever I want to talk about the book covers

So you’ve got Eragon, with a 3/4 portrait of Saphira; she’s giving a benevolent side eye with almost a Mona Lisa smile, she’s got that gleam in her eye, she’s looking at you but not head on—listen, this was the whole reason I picked up the book in the first place when I was eleven, she was so clearly full of life and personality and I just really wanted to meet her. It’s a really good glimpse of her character before even opening the book. She’s engaging you, but also maybe judging you a little bit, and she has a lot of thoughts but she’s going to keep them to herself for right now, thank you.

We’re skipping Eldest for right now because I have a point to make. Shush.

For Brisingr, we get a perfect side portrait of Glaedr, the grumpy old man. He’s not even side-eyeing the viewer like Saphira does; he is eyes forward, goal-oriented, noble and regal and, unless you’re worth his time, not really going to bother with you because he has Important Business to attend to. He is The Last of the pre-Fall dragons, his Rider is The Last of the pre-Fall Riders, he represents a bygone era that will never fully be resurrected, but can still inspire the present to fight for the future; he is no longer fully his own dragon, but a Relic, a Memory, a Symbol. He’s not anxious about it the way Eragon or Saphira might be; he has grieved for a century, he couldn’t be anxious about it if he tried. But he knows that keeping his integrity intact is important, and so this is how he presents himself: Noble. Regal. The Survivor. The Last.

Fírnen graces the cover of Inheritance, bookending the original series by almost perfectly mirroring Saphira—and seriously, it is so satisfying to line the books up with these two at the ends. Though he’s got a 3/4 profile like Saphira, Fírnen is much more reserved. No Mona Lisa smile, no mischievous gleam in his eye; he simply looks at you, and you look back, and you wonder what he’s thinking. He is, in fact, a lot like Arya—anyone who’s read the previous three books up to that point and hasn’t been spoiled for the ending might be able to guess, just from this portrait, who the final egg would hatch for. It’s also a perfect expression for the Final Book, with the fate of Alagaësia and the dragons hanging in the balance: what world does this mysterious dragon emerge into? A war-torn apocalypse? A hard-won victory? What does his future entail, and thus, what do the futures of our favorite characters entail? You ask him so many questions, but all he will ever do is stare deep into your soul with his somber, too-knowing gaze.

And now for the main event:

My beautiful precious son, the red-scaled Thorn, staring you down from the covers of both Eldest and Murtagh. I have loved the cover of the second book ever since I first picked it up, and my appreciation has only grown with time; needless to say I was very excited when the Murtagh cover dropped, and I got to see both of my favorite characters in one place. For both of these, Thorn takes the same stance: a full-frontal combative position, looking You, The Viewer directly in the eye, daring you to judge him, daring you to get in his way. I’ve always had my own opinions about what lay behind this show of force, and the context we get in Murtagh does not disappoint. He may be terrifying, he may be the scourge of the war, but underneath all that, Thorn is terrified. He’s traumatized, he’s claustrophobic, his body is too big for his age; he is painfully young still, and yet treated like a dragon ten times his age because that’s how he looks. He’s also sweet, and playful, and cares so much about his Rider, and wants desperately to keep Murtagh safe and happy. Just like Murtagh, he hides all of that—the fear and the softness both—behind a visage of ferocity, playing into the fears and preconceived notions people have of him, warning enemies away so they can’t get too close to what will actually hurt him. He dares you to try. He’s terrified you will try. He will fight tooth and nail if you do try.

[wildwood-faun]

Thinking about how Susanna Clarke takes the idea of lost knowledge and plays with it from the very beginning of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. From Norrell's (implied) culled books, to the aged magician whose "voice was rather weak and no one had leisure just then to discover what he was saying" (ah but the Narrator remembers his passion), to later events in the book, where knowledge thought lost can be recovered in a variety of ways. Of course, the major lost knowledge is magic itself, but not all examples are explicity magical. Clarke reminds us of how easy it is for knowledge to get lost - perhaps it only ever existed in the mind of one person who is long dead, perhaps a small community held the knowledge but failed to pass it on, perhaps it was written down but later destroyed - and then she offers us a tantalising glimpse of a world where it is possible to recover at least some of it.

[foundationsofdecay]

Okay, I've finally made a list of most of my Sleep Token lore and analysis posts! Divided by categories under the cut, with improvised titles and brief descriptions for each.

Posts are listed in reverse-chronological order per category, except for crossovers.

The catch-all hashtag for these is #aqua's offerings, in case you prefer to look through them that way.

Longer Form Posts:

Duck Into Deep Blue Safety - Comparing the composition of Drag Me Under, Atlantic, and Fall For Me as to how solos are used to describe physical isolation, separation, and the spectrum bridging spiritual wholeness and estrangement.

Show Me What Wounds You've Got - On begging, emotional vulnerability, and our agency as audience and character.

If a Man Falls, and Nobody's There to Hear Him... - An addition-by-reblog to this post by @melit0n about Fall For Me, continuing the exploration of silence and vocals and the implications of Vessel's isolation and actions in the song.

So He Gets To Die A Saint - Martyrdom and the desire to save and be saved, but the uncertainty of who is saving who, and to what end.

Something Was Between You and I My Dear - Musings on the theory posited by @a-s-levynn that separates Vessel as his masked self and as his unmasked self into two separate characters, and what that means for a potential reading of the events of the trilogy, particularly its ending.

I Would Turn Into A Stranger In An Instant if I Could - A deep dive into DYWTYLM with themes of identity loss and the effects of a long-term yet one-sided relationship.

Flood Me Like Atlantic - An examination of the metaphor of being dragged into and under someone's love throughout the course of the discography, and how it reflects in the shifting characterization of both Vessel and the character being sung about.

Would You Invite Me In Again? - A look at cycles of union and disconnect, of love as a melding of body and soul in addition to a rending of body and soul, and the cyclical nature of this dichotomy, primarily through the lens of Drag Me Under and Blood Sport.

So Let's Play - A look into how the language of games and winners and losers is used and evolves throughout their discography.

With My Love as Your Garden - Exploring the lyrics regarding flowers and gardens, of upkeep and of fire, and how it relates to the relationship between Vessel and his lover, described here as Sleep.

Welcome Me In, Deep Into You - Side-by-side examination of Vore and Drag Me Under and their language as it pertains to consumption and consummation, and the respective tones those carry.

Drag Me Under AGAAAAAIN - An addendum to my second Sleep Token x TDH crossover post (linked further below) that brings Drag Me Under into the fold of Atlantic and Telomeres, as requested by @moonchild-in-blue. Elaborates further on the entwining of Vessel and Sleep, of their love and the idea of inevitability.

Duet - Proposing and elaborating on the concept of the song Give being a duet between Vessel and Sleep with alternating POVs.

Other Other Eye - A look at Ascensionism, particularly the lines regarding eyes and attention and conflicting desire. [note: written very early into my posting theory/analysis, somewhat outdated]

Catching a Falling Knife - Using the metaphor of "catching a falling knife" and the general stock market as lens to examine the power dynamics between Vessel and Sleep.

Mini Musings:

Rain Can't Wash Away the Tar on the Inside - Consideration of the lyrics implying Vessel has been trapped by tar and subsumed in it both from the outside and from within.

Keep an Eye on the Road - A quick talk about visuals of crashing cars and mentions of various roadways, and being trapped in untenable situations.

The Vicious Cycle - Cycles and the breaking thereof within the discography.

My Puppet Queen - The dehumanizing language used towards Vessel, specifically as a toy or object.

Glitches in the Code - Considers Vessel as a literal algorithm, and how that reflects in his vocals and degeneration throughout the narrative and what it would say about his relationship with Sleep.

Mirror Talk - Notes on mirrors and both outer and inner reflections.

Are You Watching Me? - Different ways eyes are described as it relates to prey and predation, and Vessel struggling with human nature and humanity.

A Different Harbor - Musing on the peculiar use and otherwise of language regarding boats, harbors, and anchors.

You Want Someone To Be - Concept post about a more literal take on lovers entwined, to both want to become the other, and the loss of understanding of what it means to be yourself without them.

Crossovers:

TDH x Sleep Token #1 - Love as a crashing wave, questions of fate, choosing love despite the clear doomed nature, using The Dear Hunter's Waves as a frame of reference.

TDH x Sleep Token #2 - Uses The Dear Hunter's Vital Vessels Vindicate as a lens to provide a different perspective through which to examine Vessel, death, and what it means to choke and suffocate underwater.

[r0zzk1ll]

ensign/lieutenant junior grade samanthan rutherford lower decks is a data/geordi la forge love child hit post

[pa-pa-plasma]

you just made the scientific discovery of the century & you want to tell everyone & your kids are first on that list but you can't find them. you manage to get a hold of your daughter & she says everything is fine but her voice gets tight when you try to mention your work & she sucks in a breath & says she won't keep you from it any longer than she already has & doesn't say bye as she hangs up the phone. you have a sinking feeling in your gut & you really want to get back to what you were doing but. something's wrong. where are your kids. why was your daughter not surprised when you told her. why was she so quick to hang up on you. your husband has the same type of mind & that's probably why neither of you can ignore this odd turn of events & so you decide to track them down. the research can wait. after all, the spook got away somehow afterwards. it's not like you have anything to go through but data & recordings.