#anyway i lost my train of thought

[brawlmetaknight]

nah but meta knight being one of the smaller kirby characters and taking down foes quadruple his size only makes it more impressive. i will never make fun of u king. at least not for your height

[sordidseraphim]

Explaining to my mother that, yes, buying the box set of Supernatural season 4 was a necessary purchase because of the deleted scene in The Rapture where Dean is wearing just boxers and a T-shirt. Now why would I pass that up to save the four crisp american dollars I spent on it at my local thrift store? (This is also me bragging about finding it at my local thrift store for a crisp 4 American dollars).

[bookshelfpassageway]

one of these days i'm writing some kind of essay about lost media and humanity's need to solve loose ends. people only care about it because its lost. people only know its lost because somebody cared about it. it's such an achingly beautiful concept. it's such a horrifying fate. it's about mortality and the traitor that is memory and about love. its about the human spirit and a new kind of folklore. all forms of media preservation are a race against the deprecation and physical decomposition of their storage medium. i hope there's a heaven for art.

[spinjitsuburst]

why aren’t there more concepts around the overlord being absolutely terrifying. horror-movie level eldritch being. the embodiment of DARKNESS and EVIL ITSELF should be a terrifying entity not only psychologically but also physically

[shannonsketches]

Why is the anime so weird, it's not even the same series dude?? It's like,

Anime:

GOKU: I have a great idea to bring peace to the universe, and my leadership and compassion alone will unite us all. I have No Flaws and am A True Relatable Everyman :)

VEGETA: NO! I AM THE BEST AND I WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS UNTIL I AM RECOGNIZED AS SUCH!!!!

Manga:

GOKU: Vegeta what's cornmeal made of? I know it's what the corn eats, but what's it made of? VEGETA: Hey Kakarot let's play the quiet game until one of us dies.

[pup-pee]

hi i did it

srry don i cut u out i rlly didnt want 2 draw 2 adults ;;

[sluckythewizard]

[PUT INTO PLACE, TIED DOWN AND ARRANGED, AND IS NEVER THE SAME, AGAIN.]<-listen to my favorite songs. VAMPIRES ARE WONDERFUL ARENT THEY. THE FLESH IS SO MUCH MORE DURABLE. SO MUCH STRETCHIER THAN HUMANS. THE STRESS DOESNT KILL A VAMPIRE THE SAME WAY IT DOES A HUMAN. YOU CAN TAKE THEM APART THREAD BY THREAD AND LEAVE THEM WIDE AWAKE WITHOUT WORRY OF THE BRAINMATTER SPOILING UNDER VINEGARY AGONY.

[dukeofthomas]

My understanding of Jason Todd's age;

Jason dies when he's 15, 4 months before his 16th birthday. He is dead for any number of time; it doesn't count towards his age.

He's resurrected; he is in a coma for 1 year, then catatonic for another. He is then put into a Lazarus Pit. (These 2 years are practically useless, as he doesn't remember them and they contribute very little to the story. They could be condensed to 2 months and it would change basically nothing.)

He trains for about a year. You can then give him 1-12 months of prep and planning time before his debut as the Red Hood, and the story of UT(R)H, at which point he would be mentally 16-17, physically 18-19, and it would be (--) years after his birth.

[erineas]

Being in a relationship with more than one version of the same skeleton should be a bit clashing sometimes. Especially if their personalities go different ways.

Imagine your sleep schedule is a mess and you just go to bed awfully late one night. You know you're bound to wake up past noon the next day, but you're too tired to care. There's nothing important to worry about tomorrow, anyways.

Hopefully, the one that finds you first is someone like Classic Sans, probably sent by Papyrus to pick you up for breakfast since he would be sleeping too if given the opportunity. He would see you there, hiding behind a comfy cocoon of your sheets, and would climb next to you to resume his napping in your company.

You two would happily nap the hours away if it wasn't for your next skeleton to appear.

Someone like Swapfell Sans would burst the door open (careful enough to not be too loud to startle you or to snap it from it's hinges, for that matter), probably thinking you were already awake. It's a surprise he didn't check on you earlier since he's the type of guy to be up and about at the very same hour you went to sleep, but he still didn't wait until noon to give you your 'good morning' kiss before going on his day.

He would wake you right then and there, complaining about how you shouldn't waste a productive day. He actually doesn't care if you use it to be productive or not, that's just his way to help you fix your schedule. And after all this time dating him, you know he means well.

From then on, your tired mind would have two options: leave the bed and fight the grogginess until you're functional again (and wait for him to sleep together at a decent hour) or fall right back into dreamland with the still sleeping skeleton in your arms.

Whatever you choose, if they're not to fight each other, you know someone will try to convince you to change your mind.

[the-good-luck-anomaly]

[LINK THAT LEADS TO THE RULES OF THE INTERNET]

[boyslit]

made the mistake of looking for an official image reference for drawing Lulu and got fucking sledgehammered by the amount of results hating on her

like ok i get it she's not your sweet submissive loving uwu waifu maybe some of us LIKE that she's a traumatized bitch queen and you Lulu haters would not survive the long winters of Moonbrook

[seasononesam]

this point has been argued before but I think scenes like this just further prove that when sam looks surprised at dean for knowing or doing something "nerdy" or doing something less masculine fellas is it gay to drink cucumber water it's less about sam disrespecting dean and more about him being frustrated/amused that dean does the same thing he'll give sam shit for.

[viric-dreams]

Tamaas (eventually Tamara)

Addressed as: Madam* (she/her)

Age: 23

Height: 5’0”

Occupation:

Main Skills: Shadowy, Watchful

Prominent Quirks: Melancholy

Closest to: The Urchins

*it's a form of address that feels strange compared to its Varchaasi equivalent, but she no longer has any claim to that title.

Backstory below the cut:

She never questioned her life, much like she never questioned her love for Mihir and her native Varchas. One rarely has to when all is well and life is easy.

She doesn’t understand why her brother did not share this contentedness. Fraternal twins, they were ever-close, sharing everything, but his interest in the Jewel-Turbaned Youth and his fanciful club was something that she simply could not get her mind around. The rest of the family paid it no mind—they’re harmless anyway. Let him have his fun.

She doesn’t know what it was that stopped her from retiring to bed that one fateful evening, a nagging in the back of her head that something was off. When she stepped back out into the yellow evening lamplight, a familiar shape slipping down the streets confirmed her intuition. Her brother made it as far as the Mirrored Gate before she clamped her hand around his wrist. Was he mirror-mad? What could he possibly be thinking? Who would want to leave the light, and to set sail on a steamer with a Tamaas captain he’d only met that morning? She’d argued with him, begging him to see sense, until they were both shouting. Deep in their quarrel, she’d barely noticed the shape in the mirror pressed up against his back until it was too late. It struck and he screamed, jerking to the side. Hand still latched around his arm, she slipped in turn, down the slope beyond the gate and both of their lives ended in an instant.

She’d later piece together what had happened from The Sympathetic Captain, most of her memories a blur, and Mihir knows, she’d had enough time on that ship to play her retelling back in her head in endless combinations. Before her brother had even met the ground, before his head had hit stone and his heart had stopped beating, he was Tamaas. As was she, not a fraction of a second later. The Captain had heard the commotion and was not far from the bottom of the cliff. She had insisted that the Captain take them both, that no one in the city would help them anymore. She had to get him to the next port where he could recover.

How his body had disappeared a day later, on a ship miles from the coast, was not one the Captain could answer, no matter how much she raged, how many objects in the cabin she smashed in her fugue. The Captain could only offer a sympathetic ear and a cup of tea.

When the ship finally docked in London she disappeared into the darkness, too ashamed of her grief to say goodbye. Her life was over, but somehow she would have to keep living, Tamaas or otherwise.

[tricksterlatte]

I've always been fascinated by fandom history, and I know I'm not the only one. It's interesting to see how fans of pop culture can create a culture of their own, and in the modern age of social media and the internet in general, that culture is as widespread as ever. Unfortunately, that also means downsides are becoming bigger as this culture becomes widespread, and it's saddening to watch, maybe even concerning.

I don't discuss these things to be preachy, especially considering how I've fallen into several of these pitfalls before, and have perpetuated some of this behavior in the past. To say otherwise would make me a hypocrite and a liar, and I firmly believe this goes for most people in any fandom. I was just thinking about this recently, and how a lot of the biggest stressors in what should be our stress relief really can be pinned mostly into a few central talking points, which I would love to discuss to know if I'm not just going crazy here

The concept of Big Name Fan has evolved into a position of authority on fandom, which does not fall to anyone regarding subjectivity. No one in a fandom is an authority except the creators themselves, who have every right to stay away from the fandoms they have birthed.

Popularity in general being conflated to intellectual authority as well, especially on websites with public stats, particularly following counts. The algorithm is no benevolent god, but people will sometimes see someone with 30k followers and think they are correct on a minor non-issue that has spiraled into discourse, especially when compared to someone with 30 followers. This also is just...a bummer when fanon evolves into perceived canon, and newcomers to the fandom can't post even innocuous meta or headcanons without it being perceived as morally/intellectually incorrect.

Monetization of fanworks, but especially zines, have led to a hypercompetitive atmosphere that only escalates the bitterness and resentment. This is not a universal problem, but many zines across all fandoms habitually accept the same artists and writers, or diminish the value of fanfic due to the limitations of physical printing. The application process has devolved into such a disheartening debacle for a majority of people I see, and the way it is often framed as "your work just wasn't good enough" when it's really about what the mods deem mass marketable will destroy just about anyone's self-esteem after repetitive rejections, and will give some frequent zine runners a false sense of final say over the community (not usually, but it can happen).

The level of distrust for anyone new attempting to start a fan project is just so depressing nowadays (and this one we sadly can blame on a few people by name, but the ones who have sent this issue spiraling still don't care and that just sucks. I feel horrible for everyone who has been tricked).

Somehow comment and anonymous asks have gone backwards from "don't feed the trolls" to "suck it up, at least you're getting comments." I have seen some of these comments people have been told to suck up. It's not okay in general. It's particularly gross when it's an anonymous hate message unrelated to the fanworks themselves, perhaps born out of resentment or bearing an ulterior motive. And some will even attack and defame character due to identity. It's not subtle. It's not okay. People should absolutely be dunked on for this, and I gotta say I'm sick of unsolicited concrit being enforced as positive either. If they didn't ask, don't give it. There's a reason a lot of fic writers some people adore suddenly go ghost, and they can't even talk about it.

Don't like, don't read has been discarded in favor of don't like, tell others don't read and also don't write. Transformative works don't have to fit into a canon or even in character mold. That's why they're transformative! It's a different type of artistic expression. If you don't like it, chances are good it simply wasn't meant for you. It's not bad. Don't shame others, god especially not for non-issues such as a t/b preference or a different gender hc, preferred haircuts, types of animal you imagine them as in another lifetime, I could list literally anything here and I bet there has been a fandom fight over it.

Exclusive yet publicly advertised community Discords that will bar you from invite if you're not one of the cool kids. I have unfortunately fallen into this trap before, and refuse to ever enable or endorse that behavior ever again. This isn't about friend groups either, it's about fandom-dedicated servers that flaunt themselves as a VIP club instead of what they are: a friend group. I also don't even know how to broach the subject of private accounts that turn into fandom tea accounts with dozens if not hundreds of followers, only for people to be angry if someone isn't exactly okay with horrific stuff being said in general, let alone about their mutuals or friends.

I know none of this will likely ever change, and tbh i'm so tired of it all, but...does anyone else know what I mean? I'm stressed out whenever I try to enjoy myself, because popularity and a strange business mindset is steadily taking over fandom spaces. I'm not saying people should stop trying to make stuff that sells, or that people universally do any of this, but fandom is evolving into a thing I'm not sure is good. idk anymore

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

Triage: Initial Thoughts

Hello! Venus back at it again with the 4-5 AM theory time! This time we’re looking at Shidou’s second MV, Triage! 

I’m going to be going through my various thoughts on everything as usual, going point by point to analyze each thing. I’ll be referencing Triage, his first MV Throwdown, and the always-fast audio drama translation by @onigiriico​! 

Alright, let’s do this!

Shidou’s kids died immediately, but his wife had a chance to live.

I’m basically just going to give a quick play by play of what I think happened in the video.

Surprise, Shidou has kids! And a wife, but we figured that already. They’re all very cute and all until they fade out like ghosts pretty early on. Before that happens, though, I think that, chronologically, the opening sequence of Shidou walking with some groceries happens first.

He’s just going about his day, walking around, having a great time. He’s intending to take stuff back to his family and cook dinner or whatever he usually does that we see in the cute scenes.

Then, though, he gets a phone call. He answers it (this is the untranslated “Kirisaki desu” part; please let us know if you find a full translation of what he says on the call there!) and we move on to the next scene. However, later, at 1:57, we hear the line die. I think that this is probably Shidou getting a phone call from the hospital. He sounds casual in his initial response because he probably assumes it’s work related, but once he hears what happened, he drops the line and immediately heads over.

I think Shidou’s kids must have died immediately because of Throwdown. Throwdown has absolutely no references to his kids (though he does mention liking children and stuff like that in his first audio drama, which now kinda stings) and, were he also trying to save them, I’m sure there would’ve been at least some references. 

I think it’s far more likely that, whatever happened, both his kids died immediately, but his wife was in a condition where he could still try to save her. That’s when Throwdown occurs. Shidou probably focused intensely on trying to save his wife as a way to cope with the death of his children. Then, after his wife officially died, it really hit him that he had nothing left, and he was forced to process it. That’s when he started feeling all the guilt and wishing for death. 

This isn’t really relevant, but my best bet is a car crash. It seems like a likely and viable way that his kids could’ve died instantly while the wife could’ve kept living. As a minor note on that, he’s also walking back with groceries, which could indicate that someone else (the rest of his family) might’ve had a car. I don’t remember if Shidou mentions anything about driving or anything like that at any time, but if I had to call a method of death right now, that’s what I’d go for.

NOTE: I do want to disclaim this by saying it’s also possible that one of his kids was the flower person in Throwdown. He gives a receipt to one of his kids, so that could make some sense. I need to go back and compare the flower person in Throwdown with the people in Shidou’s family now that they have appearances. I also need to reread his first audio drama; he says something about it being fitting that Es is judging him, which could check out if his crime relates to trying to save his kid instead. If I am wrong and it was one of his kids that he was trying to save, then everything about what I’m saying still checks out; just swap everything I say about his wife with one of the kids.

Shidou purposefully showed us the least forgivable parts of his crime in Throwdown.

Looking back on it, Shidou painted himself in an awful light in Throwdown, and I’m sure it was intentional. After all, he was trying to get us to give him a guilty verdict. If you say that a prisoner like Muu might have been altering what part of her story we received in order to get her desired verdict in the first round (innocent), Shidou could absolutely do the same thing with a guilty verdict.

He doesn’t show us any of the context of his loved ones and how much he loved them; that was all stuff we had to read between the lines of. We see him butchering plant after plant only to end in horrific failure without ever seeing him succeed at anything surgical. (He still should’ve hypothetically been saving lives while doing all of this; it’s not like he was ONLY killing people.) 

He even shows us the horrified reactions of the loved ones of patients he killed. I can only imagine that he would do that if he was trying to spark a negative reaction in us.

In contrast, this MV is very straightforwardly showing how the day he lost his family went for Shidou and directly examines what verdict Shidou wants (more on this later). I think, therefore, that this is probably a much more honest view of the situation than Throwdown, at least in terms of how Shidou perceives the truth. 

Shidou is constantly plagued by the guilt of what happened.

The simplest way to explain this is with this image: 

When showing Shidou’s family turning to ghosts, he views the man that he used to be as dying with them. Shidou, as he was, is dead. Still, what happened clearly still impacts him. That’s pretty obvious, but I’m talking down to the details. He mentions kids and liking them in both of his audio dramas. Further, take this lovely image: 

Pancakes. Shidou made pancakes for his kids. In BOTH Minigrams 3 (Pancake) and 24 (Pancake: a Second Trial) Shidou is directly shown talking about pancakes and their relation to children. He really wants Amane, the young child, to try some. It seems like he used to make pancakes for his kids before they died. He’s very clearly not recovered in any sense. That’s not surprising, but it’s still something to point out.

Triage takes place almost entirely before and after Throwdown.

That sounds a little confusing, but all I mean is that Throwdown is completely isolated from this MV. Some parts of this MV happen before the events of Throwdown; those are the ones featuring Shidou’s wife and kids, as well as the ones where he simply looks younger. The other parts are clearly looking back at the same time frame, but are from Shidou’s present perspective, here in Milgram. Those are the ones where he reflects on his verdict or directly addresses what verdict he wants.

Most directly, I think the part at 2:14 indicates this. Shidou, looking back on the death he caused (knives in the pomegranates and other food, dead flowers, receipts from the surgeries that we also saw in Throwdown), says “I want to be INNOCENT / I want to live.” That’s him, in the Milgram prison, right now, coming to terms with the fact that he actually, genuinely wants to live right now.

In the audio drama, he’s clearly conflicted. He still says that he wants to die, that he wants to atone for his sins and that dying is the only way he can make it up to the people he killed. He also, though, says that, at least for right now, he wants to live. Futa and especially Mahiru are on death’s door, and there’s no telling what other injury might occur. He believes he’s essential to saving lives within the Milgram prison (and I think he’s 100% right).

He even directly references this in the song lyrics, talking about “extracting the fang.” The fang is clearly Kotoko, given that Milgram has referred to the damage Kotoko does with fang imagery before and given that that’s what he’s currently healing. He has to be the one to save them because he’s the only one who can; as a result, to save lives, he has to care about his life right now. While he’s still unsure of what final verdict he wants, he knows that he needs to stay alive, at least going into trial 3.

VOTE: INNOCENT

Personally, this one’s a no-brainer. Es theorizes in the audio drama that Shidou only harvested organs from braindead patients, and though he never outright confirms it, based on his responses, it seems to me like that’s true. That means his crime isn’t as severe as we initially thought it was.

Additionally, he’s right; he is indispensable to us right now. He outright says in the audio drama that if he stops giving Mahiru care, she’ll die, whether or not anything else happens to her. That basically tells us that voting Shidou guilty means Mahiru dies. That’s not good, and I’d rather avoid prisoner death when we think it’s possible.

I also just don’t think it’s smart to change verdicts on him here. If we decide that, after all is said and done, we can’t forgive Shidou, we should do that with the third verdict. Here, we want to leave both options open. Right now, Shidou is torn between wanting to live and wanting to die. If we switch to guilty, we’ll ruin any chance he has at recovering a will to live and a will to atone through any means other than death. If we want to preserve the option of forgiving him in the end, I think we have to forgive him here. We can debate whether his actions were forgivable or not in the last round.

[wickedlarkspur]

GOOD OMENS SEASON 2 SPOILERS

(not a lot but still spoilers)

one things that i found really interesting about good omens season 2 is that we got to see aziraphale and crowley interacting before crowley’s fall. cause i always assumed (and i feel like most people did) that crowley was the on to fall in love first since he fell in love on the wall in eden but after watching the scene of them interacting as angels i believe that aziraphale was the one to fall first (he might not been aware of it however). the main reason is just like aziraphale’s behaviour when talking to crowley in heaven screams talking to my crush behaviour. like they’ve never really talked before and aziraphale is all smiley and lights up when crowley says it’s gorgeous thinking he’s talking about him and aziraphale gets really worried when crowley starts to ask questions. in contrast to this crowley seems really indifferent to aziraphale during this conversation like he’s just another angel coming for a check up. and i think you can see hints of aziraphale liking crowley on the wall in eden as well. which i initially interpreted as aziraphale being nervous because he was talking to a demon, which i still think is part of it, but there’s this one part where crowley says something and aziraphale starts laughing before really hearing it which i think is him being charmed by crowley just as he was before crowley fell but then realising what crowley said he stops laughing which i think is partly just that but also him remembering that crowleys a demon now so he’s “evil”

anyways maybe aziraphale fell (in love) first. just a fun thought