#but the vast majority of me does not regret it

[lazycowboynerd]

I watched 3/4 of Stranger Things Season 1 for the first time until 4am. I regret nothing

[emmliches]

my canon end for emm//rich is mortality.

i do wish the game would've explore the choices more and the possible downsides to lichdom because, as it stands, they don't present any negatives.

1) though they touch upon this if you choose lichdom, they should've presented this issue beforehand: outliving you. worse: outliving everyone. emm//rich clearly has a deep capacity to love and to care. has he considered an eternity of losing everyone? will he force himself to never get close again in order to avoid mourning? 2) self-identity. you gain immorality, but you lose your body and your face. will you still see yourself as "you"? 3) will he still retain his humanity a hundred years down the line? two hundred? a thousand? how do you hold on to that humanity when you yourself gave it away, are largely secluded from the human population, and possibly bar yourself from further human relationships?

i dislike how the game presents it as "you can't have lichdom by reviving man//fred, because it implies you won't be able to handle the loss of others", and while that does make sense, it falls apart because choosing lichdom means being afraid of his own mortality. is being afraid of others dying unacceptable, but being afraid of dying yourself, and running away, okay?

i'm of the opinion that foregoing lichdom is a sign of growth for emm//rich. he never loses his fear, but he's grown enough to live with it, and choosing lichdom to me feels too easy in that you're encouraging him to run away. choosing lichdom can be interesting in that he obtained what he thought he always wanted only to learn that it isn't what he wants, especially when he sees everyone else aging or dying around him, but i like to think of that more as speculation and an interesting think piece than my canon ending.

[pinktinselmonstrosity]

GOOD NEWS the expensive pair of jeans i impulse-bought last week (bc my current jeans make me actually angry to wear) don't fit me, so i can return them and get a refund 😊

[tiercel]

W/ all the reactionary talk regarding trans peoples bodies and shit i would love to see repubs and tεrves reactions to all the fascinating body modifications that exist for aesthetic and fetish purposes

[whompthatsucker1981]

you said you think gay sex cats is the new duchamp's fountain. i dont disagree and i kinda see what you mean already but please elaborate

it was a silly and tongue in cheek way to say that a lot of people are getting mad about it in a way that implies reactionary views on art, and that there's no way to say gay sex cats isn't art that wouldn't also imply that the fountain isn't art. a funny meme image is a funny meme image, but it is also funny to overthink and recontextualize them as art.

and the reaction makes the comparison even more apt. neural net generated artworks are anonymized mass produced images, vast majority having no artistic pretension or meaningful content such as a thomas kinkade painting. gay sex cats was made with no intent to be art, but the discourse it has with audience reaction and its appropriation in derivative works make it so. why is gay sex cats not art if people talking about it negatively allow it to be called art? is art only things you find beautiful and valuable? if so, what is value and beauty, and how do you draw the line? if gay sex cats was still ai generated but had more "aesthetic qualities" would it be art? if someone copies the original image by hand with all its ai generated faults where is the value generated? does the original still have no merit of its own, even after appropriation as a digital ready-made?

but the main reason as to why gay sex cats is comparable to the fountain still is because it made a lot of people with bad takes on art really really mad. and that the pissed off tags wouldn't look out of place as reaction to modern art in the 1920s. art is a flat circle

EDIT: well. putting an addendum because in retrospect more people took either or both the op and image in face value and much more self serious than ever intended. a lot of people understood the tone i was getting at, and i still stand by the questionings i added on, but still for clarification. the original comparison is not serious. it's self evidently ridiculous to compare a meme image to a historically significant artwork, the comparison was only drawn because they were both controversial to an audience, who reacted denying their status as respectively as an image and as art, and that it was funny that the negative reaction people had to the original image explicitly denied its status as art, even if the meme never had pretension to be art, so it was funny to draw a comparison and iterate on that.

i did think it was valid to bring in questionings about art and meaning because that's the reaction i saw most and wanted to make people think about the whys, and that also i do not think it's valid to base your dislike on ai art on either grounds of questioning its position and value as artwork, or even as a question of ip theft. regular degular handmade art can be soulless, repetitive, thoughtless, derivative, unethical, open and blatant theft, and much more, and that does not make it any less of an artwork. neural nets are tools that generate images by statistic correlation through human input.

the unambiguous issue with neural nets in art is its use as a tool by capital, to threaten already underpaid and overworked working artists and to keep their labor hostage under threat of total automation. in hindsight i regretted not adding the paragraph above as it was a way in which people could either misinterpret or assume things about me, but hindsight is hindsight and there's no way to predict how posts would blow up. so shrugs. i had written more posts in my blog that elaborated on that because asks would bot stop coming. and i think my takeaway is that people will reblog anything with a funny image without reading the words around it, or even closely looking at the image.

[last-flight-of-fancy]

Started thinking about Riku-Kairi parallels and symbolism wrt the ending of kh2 so please hold while i get needlessly verbose about it-

specifically it started with this gif

and ofc adhd is as adhd does and started going down the rabbit hole of connecting the dots.

The act of reaching out a hand/hand holding is a recurring thing in kh, the vast majority of which is chock full of meaning and symbolism, and this is no exception. This is the culmination of The Hero's Journey part of Sora's tale, the return home, and the heartfelt reunion between long-seperated friends. fun fact the heroine's journey follows the hero's journey for the first third or so before continuing on. kinda like how kh continued on long after things seemed to be 'resolved'. weekly plug to look up Howler's Heroine's Journey essays if you haven't yet

The angle from which I am viewing this scene right now is in regards to ofc Riku, and his own iconic pose that we see the first time in the intro to kh1 (and many, many times since)

And this is where my riku-kairi-are-inverted-parallels-to-each-other brain starts barking like a dog because oughghghghggh same pose opposite side completely different body language- AHG.

And this matches their character arcs (as well as their respective combined arcs with sora) to a T as well. Riku's pose is the first we see, way back in kh1, and his hand is as much a taunt as it is an offer. Very befitting his relationship to sora in that game, which was coloured by a forged rivalry and intense jealousy (to quote the ultimania; Complicated Feelings) of/for sora.

(it is also notable that to date this gesture has yet to be resolved. the closest they've gotten is when sora grasped Riku's hand in kh2 on finding him- albeit in Ansem's visage.

Symbolically this is Sora attempting to accept the gesture, but this time it is Riku who fails to meet him halfway, too deep in guilt and regret to feel worthy of it. his hand is turned downwards, limp and unresisting.

And again in DDD when Riku grabs sora's hand/wrist in an attempt to wake him from his nightmares, but this time sora isn't capable of reciprocating. like two ships passing in the night, always reaching but never quite meeting)

(this one isn't quite as strong in the visual symbolism specific to the Riku Pose, but i did think it bore mentioning)

to return to the first gif however, for Kairi her posture is much less stiff, leaning forward with palpable releif at Sora's return. Honestly the fact that she holds out her left hand (which as far as i know is not her dominant hand) marks this as a very deliberate choice to parallel her as opposite to riku. and much like the rest of kh2's ending, it FEELS like a culmination, a completion of their arcs.... and most certainly isnt.

Which i mean to say, it's a mid-point. And the reason I say this is because of one little thing.

The seashell charm.

There's a sort of irony here in that the charm that was meant to reunite them in this moment is also symbolically like a wedge between them. A heartfelt and meaningful gesture, don't get me wrong! i love this scene and the genuine emotions within, but i do love chewing on the way this gains a slightly different meaning in the greater context of later story beats; specifically that of kh3.

With how pointed and direct the parallel is between kairi and riku in these scenes, it did make me pause for a moment thinking about kh3. i know we've all seen a thousand and one analysis' of the paopu scene at this point, but forgive me as i must do so again under this specific lens.

'how does the paopu scene relate to the hand extended gesture at all?' i hear you ask, and on the visual surface not much. it has more to do with sora and kairi's relationship arc through the games and, of course, the lingering loose thread that was the cave drawing.

The paopu scene is a touching recreation of that cave drawing, one enacted by a pair of kids who didn't know if they would live to see another sunset. It's also probably the most symbollically dense thing in all of kh and that is saying something so I'm going to try and keep my observations limited to just what is relevant to this post- and that would be the way that the paopu scene is a direct continuation of Kairi's 'you're home' gesture in kh2.

shooting stars are also a common recurring symbol in kh, and that's the symbol that ties these two scene's together. if kh1 is two disparate stars each trying to reach the other (the cave drawing, the seashell charm, the way their hands are seperated at the end of kh1), and the end of kh2 is that of the stars finally meeting (the single seashell star charm pressed between their palms), then the paopu scene is that of the stars passing each other by and beginning their own journey's anew (two stars held by crossed arms, each now holding a small piece of the other (bitten fruit) to show that their meeting may have been brief but it was meaningful)

it is in this way that kh3 quietly and tenderly closes out sora and kairi's combined arc, as two unlikely friends who then drift apart again, shining brightly for the shared experiance, Remind mostly serves to support that finality, tying up the last couple loose ends between them, and leaving the two far more comfortable with each other than they ever were while that arc was still ongoing (which i read as them no longer being uncertain as to what their relationship is; that of friends, and not whatever so many others around them had pushed and assumed)

(seriously look at how much more comfortable they are with each other the second the pressure to be something they're not is off. the awkwardness is completely gone i love it)

All of this is ofc still in parallel to Riku, who boasts no such star imagery (instead he has the iconic Heart of KH itself), and in fact while he symbollically continues to reach out to sora, physically he has completely refrained from doing so at all- in fact most examples of the Gesture in kh are deliberately invoked by other characters in order to bring riku to mind in some way (and often more for the players benifit than sora's)

axel in CoM,

(i have given up on tumblr gif search)

YMX in DDD,

which then immidiately cuts to riku in kh1 just to make it as blatant as possible that yes the reference is intentional (i guess CoM was too subtle somehow so they had to make sure this time)

and even Riku himself to Namine at the end of kh3, representing Repliku's final wishes in a funny sort of symbolism oroboros.)

and it's not a coincidence that the completion of that connection provides definitive closure to the arcs in question; that of namine to repliku, but also a little bit to riku himself. namine still has a role to play, but that role (i think) is more or less exclusive to her relationship with sora. namine and riku's relationship arc, background as it is, is complete, and now both are connected primarily through their incomplete arcs with sora.

(which makes the way that sora and kairi's example in kh2 is a complete outlier really interesting tbh. smth smth thinking your relationship is one thing and if it was that thing then yes that would have been the end, but it wasn't that thing and thus it wasn't the end smth smth comphet metaphor smth)

which brings us back to how riku himself hasn't really reached out to sora directly since kh1, the act that set off both of their journey's. The reasons for that are many- guilt, fear, a certainty that sora will not reach back and that he doesn't deserve it anyway- but despite that the Gesture is still subtly affirmed as being Riku's over and over again, never quite letting the audience forget it... because eventually this bit of symbolism so consistently portrayed throughout the series will reach its own conclusion, starting how it began with one deuteragonist reaching out to the other, and this time the other reaching back to complete the gesture.

[evilminji]

Know what's been haunting me? And my Yandere loving brain?

What if... an SI-OC? Fffffucked UP™?

Like? STRAIGHT up "....Oh No. I have? GRAVELY miscalculated."? Cause? And I'm probably wrong here, or forgetting nuisances, but? Dooku? Left the order and began his Fall? NOT because he disagreed with the vast majority of Jedi philosophy... but?

Because of what the Jedi had BECOME.

Senate attack dogs. Indentured servants. Following NOT the Force or their Orders Mandate, but a mere GOVERMANT. Politicians. Straight into ruin and slaughter no less! It was vile. Corrupt. A perversion and degradation of HIS beloved Jedi Order.

He was proud and filled with grief, isolated. Palpatine chose well.

But! He was ALSO a Master Jedi with DECADES of Mastery under his belt. You do not become that with out clear vision of what you want. Who you ARE. And Dooku? Very CLEARLY planned on winning. Killing Sidious and taking his place. An unfortunate necessity, really. In his Grand Plan™.

Too?

Start over, obviously.

Instead of just leaving and starting a NORMAL Religious Schism, building a temple on Serrano, and publicly calling his old Council members lil bitchs. Slap fighting in the town square, as is traditional. Maybe sending pass aggressive notes back and forth in the hands of increasingly spoiled Padawan, because OUR temple at least FEEDS these POOR WAIFS. Etc etc?

Dude went the SITH route. Of... you know... "kill everybody".

Bit extreme. Just saying.

However! Dooku? Not well! In fact, DEEPLY unhinged and masterfully hiding it! Because he is, in fact, a MASTER jedi! And know how to fucking DO THAT. So that slow creep of Deepyly Crazy? No one sees it. Gives ya time to miss the countdown to Boom, as it were.

Which leads to our dearly beloved SI. She? Is a well meaning IDIOT. She can't help it. It's the Force, man. All that feel good juice, clogging up her brain! Making her? Optimistic! Vaguely perky! Wanting to see the GOOD in people!!!

Disturbing, she knows. But it is what it is.

And MASTER Dooku? Feels? Stern but warm. Stalwart. Like one of those ancient trees or great temples in a quite moment. Old and powerful, not necessarily KIND, but certainly not UNKIND. Just... fussy, you know? Proper. Collected and self contained. Doesn't like messy and dirty and needless noise.

So... what's an itty bitty Crecheling to do? To stop this Respected Master from falling? Well... Yoda seems to think "babies" works? And SHE is Baby...

Better scrub down so I'm EXTRA not "why are all children so... sticky?" and make my self look as presentable as possible. Then? Plan: Stalk the Respected Master Dooku Like A Duckling is a GO~! Yoda finds this INSTANTLY hilarious. Starts feeding her insider information (One of his many, later Great Regrets).

Dooku likes THIS tea. Meditates in THIS garden. Ask him about THIS subject, no one listens to him rant about it, he'll enjoy lecturing you about it for HOURS. She actually learns quite a lot! Man's a good teacher. And SHE? Is a dutiful, polite, thoughtful, shining young paragon example of what he feels the Jedi SHOULD be.

She LISTENS. Unlike his foolish peers. She tries to better herself, day by day, instead of running around screaming and playing in mud. Asks after etiquette from the courts he's traveled too, so she does not offend in the future. Does not react with blind disgust to questions others would deem heretical!

Instead? SHE comes from a JEDI place of approach with compassion and consultation of the Force. What creates the most GOOD? How can we strive for the kindest, most ethical, most equal social possible? What brings the universe the most Light? Where do OUR duties end and the duties of OTHERS begin, and when is it time to call them on their failings, should there be any?

It is? Delightful~ if he were not already committed to his path, he would seriously consider taking her on as a Padawn. Like the Granddaughter he never had. In FACT? He is conflicted. While he does not wish to lose the bright little light he has become so accustomed too? He should probably do what is best for her.

He IS leaving after all. Eventually. Perhaps after Qui-Gon finally knights his own padawn. He can convince the man to come with him. A talk between them has been so very, very long overdue. And the man is like a son to him. Young Obi-Wan is a fine young Jedi. Upstanding and collected, could use a bit of tempering. Outrageous flirt. It would be hilarious.

It's a good plan.... right up until it isn't.

Until the Council's BLINDNESS lead his SON to dying alone. For Sidious little games. And the place in HIS chosen lineage is USURPED by some WHINY SAND COVERED BRAT who can not CONTROL himself! No. NO.

Absolutely Not.

As far as HE is concerned? HIS lineage? Goes him, Qui-gon, Obi-Wan, and then SI-OC. No Sand Brat. Is he spiraling? Oh yes. Has been for a while. But now? NOW someone just kicked out a major support beam. The building is a'shaking. SI-OC is worried. Knows this could make or break his Fall.

Doesn't realize that ship has sailed LONG before she arrived.

Jedi Master's do not Fall over night. It is the slow erosion that kills them. Death by ten thousand cuts. He was already thousands deep. Bleeding and bleeding, beyond her abilities to heal. Yoda could have changed things. He is a Master. But a mere Crecheling? An untrained child? No. She stood no chance.

Does not realize that, as she stands in the heart of the storm. The center of the bear trap. As composed Master Dooku grieves and rages, hair disheveled and robes a mess. No, he can not come to the comm right now. No, he is not taking visitors, thank you. Please, Master Dooku. Please! Drink some tea? Eat? Something. Anything. I beg you.

It is a focal point. An anchor to cling to, in that great Fall. As SI-OC fusses with blankets and music that might help, pressing her small and fragile light against his shields like a comforting weight. As though trying to protect him from the pain. As though ANYTHING could protect him.

Sits with him, in remembrance.

Comes with him, to the funeral.... where stands the sand brat. At HER Master's side. As though enough has not been stolen. How dare he? How dare THEY? To allow this!? Hatred festers. Rage. The mania that Darkness brings. He sees now. Ooooo ho ho, does he now see.

The Order has become Rotten. It cannot be saved. The Jedi have lost their way.

The old must be purged... and they must begin again.

It's all so CLEAR now. So simple. The path forward. Its so obvious now, HE is not leaving, oh no, THEY are leaving. It would be madness to leave a vulnerable Crecheling in such unfettered corruption. Exposed to the nonexistent mercies of Sidious and his ilk. Not to mention, Force knows what filth they'd attempt to stuff in her head behind his back!

Knight Kenobi is an adult. Can comport himself and defend his person. SI-OC can not. She is just a youngling. Should have BARELY been a padawn. But... things have changed.

SI-OC fall asleep, comfortable and certain she is perfectly safe, in MASTER Dooku's apartments. Just another Tea Time and obscure Force Philosophy lecture. Maybe some hands-on etiquette lessons. There are many, MANY different ways to take tea. And... man... the room is so cozy. Always so comfortable and tastefully inviting. Warm an... an snoozy... feelin... *thunk of a small child falling over, dead to the world*

Drugged? Sleep suggestion? Soothing bedtime tea? Yes. Yes, he did. She stood literally negative chances. He scoops up HIS granddaughter and leaves droids to pack the rest. Tucks her under his cloak. No one thinks to even check. Who would? He is trusted. Respected. It is well known how he dotes upon the child. Old age has softened him, some jest.

The dangers of attachment indeed. But it is not HIM who is in danger. It is HER who his attachment endangers. Because he can not let go. WILL NOT. Because it can crossed from caring to obsessive. Possessive. To mine, mine, mine.

Children are not property. Not toys or trophies. Teddy bears to squeeze until your hurt stops. They are living, breathing, entities in their own right. Which is something a JEDI would be able to accept. The SITH? No. No, see, his Great-grandpadawn is HIS. This is HIS family. HIS Jedi order. HIS plan to "fix" everything.

She done fucked up.

She wakes up on a ship to Serrano with COUNT Dooku.

His... his eyes turn Interesting Colors now. Ha ha... she is... staying Very Calm. It is REALLY important to stay VERY calm. No sudden movements. We Do Not startle the Darksider! Eeeeeeverones FRIENDS here! R-Right?

Oh of course. Nothing to be worried about, dear. You're just going to his Manor until the NEW temple is finished. (Neat. Terrifying. So, SO many horrifying parts of that sentence). And SI-OC? Pulls the good ol "never argue with the crazy person with a gun" technique. Smile and Nod! Mmmmhmmm! G-great! Can't wait!

(Oh god, help me)

War breaks out. She's on THE Separatist planet. But not? Before crazy grandpa? Has hired bounty hunters to find him force sensitive kids. You know, for the NEW Jedi order. Because we're all pretending here. Smile and nod, fellow hostages. For the love of the Force, smile and nod.

She's not entirely even certain half these children were from families that WANTED to give them up. It makes her sick to think about.

She still has to have Tea Time. Because she, a child, is the HEAD of the New Order. And he has decades of Jedi knowledge to impart. Also? Lonely and fixating. We're a happy family. Because I say so and have hostages. That's why you love you, don't you dear? *SI-OC with a wide, terrified hostage smile* mmmmhmm!

The Jedi? Have figured out what happened. Crecheling mysteriously disappeared at the same time a Count Dooku? They originally thought she tried to follow him. Got lost or grabbed by slavers. But now... NOW? Oh Force they know they horrifying truth. The Darksider stole a CHILD.

Everyone remembers SI-OC. She was the sweet little duckling. Well behaved and polite. A kind child. Worried for Count Dooku. And now look at what's happened?! The CIS is trotting out the "head" or their "new order" and it's their lost Crecheling. Now a teenager. Terror in her eyes and a fixed jedi smile.

The Creche Masters have to be physically dragged away from stealth ships. (They're just going to talk! They're jUST GOING TO TAL-!!!) Plo Koon is fucking HELPING and that's NOT helpful! No, your commander do NOT have "a point"! You can not do just a "little bit" of murder as "a treat"!

A certain Quinlan Vos? Never heard of him, of course, rocks up to this New Order with a smoothie. Has betrayed the OLD order and the Republic. Definitely for realisies and not because he's here to spy! Heeeeey, kiddo. How you holding up?

Answer? Oh THANK GOD, AN ADULT JEDI! Halp! Followed by gross sobbing. So... you know... not GREAT. Wouldn't recommend it.

But! The INTEL. Sweet holy shit, kid. Chips. Palpatine. Dooku behind the Clones. Everything ELSE she's quietly been noting down. Uuuuh, yeah. Yeah that WILL be... real useful.... Holy shit. No, seriously, give him a second. Just like that? Huh. Didn't even have to convince you. Wow. Okay.

Well then! Let's fuck over some Sith!

How the Shadows go about it? Probably very action movie and nail biting. High octane. Sweet big budget cgi effects. They get the De-chipped clones involved. Fox gets to finally, FINALLY shoot his boss. Never a happier man. He deserves it.

But that's not important. What IS? Is Quinlan Vos? Showing up to the Temple, with a burger and smelling strongly of smoke, and like.... over 450 force sensitive younglings, teenage and below. And probably a litter of tookas. Because what? Were they supposed to LEAVE them?

She takes One(1) step into the temple and gets hit with like? Three generations of Guilt Complexes. Man Pain. Yoda, Obi-Wan, AND Anikin? Mother FUCKER, you were 9! What were you supposed to DO? Bite him?! You literally JUST GOT HERE. *SI-OC has used Logic against Skywalker Guilt... it is not very effective!*

When? When will she be freeeeeeee? Cannon Yoda had the right idea.

She should go hide in a fucking SWAMP.

@babbling-babull @legitimatesatanspawn @spidori @lolottes @hypewinter @mayfay @hdgnj

[iamfuckingsorry]

Managed to get another friend into murderbot, which means it's re-read time again...

This time the thing that hits the hardest is mb constantly questioning itself when it wants to protect whatever nice friendly humans it encounters. Like so often it instinctively does whatever is needed to protect a human, then it goes "ugh why do I even want to do this, these are not my clients and this is not my job anymore, I should just focus on finding the data I wanna find here", then in the vast majority of cases it sticks with the humans anyway. It's great. It's mostly in the first few books, since later on it gets back to its own or ART's humans which clearly it would genuinely die for with no regrets or hesitation - but it happens a decent amount in those first few books, when it genuinely should feel no sense of responsibility but it kinda still does. It's like a constant battle of "is that just my conditioning and decades of terrifying punishment if any humans get hurt, or is it so deeply embedded in my code it's an essential part of who I am as a person, or is that just me choosing to act on my own free will because they're nice and they don't deserve to die," but also it's so extremely casual and in true murderbot fashion treated as just an irritating thing to deal with or (preferably) ignore until it's possible to go back to watching media, it's great.

Wells is so good at exploring that line, I just love the books so much.

[meanbossart]

[gen] Do you regret becoming popular? In the sense that people mischaracterise your character to be a certain way that he isn't? As you develop him as a character, does it ever bother you that people reduce him to a strict set of traits based on earlier representations before that development happened? I'm curious to know your thoughts!

Maybe I'm too forgiving (nah) but little if not nothing of what I see I really qualify as "mischaracterization" - this is a blog, not a consistent work of writing or visual story-telling like a book or a movie. People might see one comic or drawing and assume x and y - and that's totally understandable and fine. The vast, vast majority of people I interact with are more than anything just curious about it and what the """canonical""" counterpart to their interpretation is. And I love that!

Also, I'm no stranger to the ancient practice of condensing a character down to their weirdest traits for the sake of a good punchline. And I love a good punchline, so I don't mind that either. I cackle every time someone describes my huge scarred up dude as "Babygirl" LOL

The only thing that bothers me is when people misunderstanding my intentions with the Orin storyline I concocted and then turn that into assumptions about me personally, but those are rare and far-between.

If there's two things I resent are A) my art was in a very transitional stage when the butt-grab comic got big, so I just wish It looked more in line with my current style 😂 and B) Chatting with people got a lot harder! I feel bad that I don't just reply to every since ask I get, but If I did that's all I would do. And my DMs are pretty much a lost cause.

Otherwise this has been really fun so far, it's been an immensely creatively fulfilling experience and I don't even know how to express how mind-blowing people's support and excitement toward my work has been.

[plounce]

the thing is. ryne was not suicide ideating solely because thancred was a bad guardian to her. that was a mindset she had literally as long as she can remember, one that was beaten into her by ran'jit and vauthry telling her that she would be better off dead. thancred (due to his trauma + emotional constipation + daughter-based trolley problem) does not manage to heal this mindset in her by the time we meet them in 5.0 (to be frank this would be an uphill battle for most caretakers, even ones who don't have the significant enotional shortcomings thancred has), but what does allow her to stand up to ran'jit is the freedom thancred provided her. she isn't sure if she deserves to live, but she wants to live in the world that she has traveled in. she doesn't want to be put back in that cell. she doesn't know if she's perfect, if she's the "best" minfilia, but she wants to see the world and live as part of it, even if it's scary, even if she hates herself and thinks she's worthless. she wants to see the sky and the trees and to help the people she loves. certain parts of ryne's arc hit me really hard (as someone who was a suicide-ideating teenage girl, and is now... no longer a teenage girl) and this sort of... "incomplete" personal resolution works for me. she managed to scrape out the smallest handhold of wanting to live, but it's enough. it's enough to keep her from giving up on her life. the smallest handhold is enough to hold onto, always. that's the miracle. "to live is to suffer", to quote hydaelyn, but "wanting to see what tomorrow will bring," to quote gaia, is enough. the vast majority of people who attempt regret it, and are glad they failed/didn't go through. you don't need to be convinced your life has worth in order to keep living. this got off-track and a bit personal hahaha, but she's my daughtermelon and her story hits hard. im glad she's happy and thriving, and so is thancred (another person who hates themself and wants to die but refuses to do anything but survive), and so is ryne.

[lucysarah-c]

How would Levi react to his s/o getting their period? Like, would he know a little about it or would he be completely clueless? (He has to have helped Isabel in the Underground at least once?? But they could've also been malnourished, so I don't know) Would he try to help in any way? Also, behind the walls, do you think they had pads? I think they probably used like those fabric products (menstrual belt + reusable pads).

Post war I think his s/o would be introduced to pads if they ever get their period.

P.S. this is very on theme with the recent tampons/pads news. (not to spread more panic, like, more research needs to be done, so if anyone freaks out just do what I do - panic at 50% lol)

Hi! How are you?

Oh, I think Levi is far from clueless about periods. I've written multiple one-shots about it. In the manga "A Choice with No Regrets," Levi finds Isabel as a little girl and raises her himself. I hardly doubt that Levi was clueless or wasn't the one who guided her through it the best he could. Because of this, I think Levi is well-informed about periods.

Plus, as I've mentioned before, Levi is a very straightforward, blunt man. He knows women, or at least the vast majority of them, get their periods—it's natural, it's biology. He simply takes it for what it is: men get their dicks hard, women get their periods. This man will take what life gives and simply work with it. He'll be chill and ask her if she needs anything.

And if she feels a bit ashamed about it, he'll say, "Tch, your body is your body. It's the same body that I like. If men get disgusted or ashamed of what a normal woman's body does, then they don't like women," and carry on.

About the pads. Look, hun, not even Isayama knew what he wanted to do with the clothes and the period of time that clothes inside and outside the walls should refer to. It's all over the place during the entire story, and as someone who loves historical fashion, it's annoying how inconsistent it is. So, my best advice about the pads, etc., is you do you. If you want them to have pads, tampons, etc., do it. If you want them to have a more historical type, do it. But honestly, there's no way I could say, "this is what they would wear," because the clothes they wear inside and outside the walls make absolutely no sense in terms of fabric, fashion, and limitations. So, once again, you do you.

And about the news that came out—as a scientist myself—look, don't mind it, that's my best advice. There will always be something that may help or harm you during your life, which is later found out to be bad or good for you. Some can't wear menstrual cups, me included, for example, and some don't want to. You know what's well-known to kill you? Stress. So don't mind it.

Have a nice day!

[oltammefru]

To Theresa, Kal'tsit sort of represents the vastness and wonder of the world, the fact that she can do so much and be part of so much and yet not be tied down by it.

From the way Theresa writes this (in a really flowery and romantic sort of way), this seems like an aspect of Kal'tsit which she greatly envies, how Kal'tsit has done so much and seen so much and is still unfettered. Perhaps it was only a dream of hers that she would never get to experience, but I get the impression that deep down she wanted to be able to witness the vastness of the world and see all the sights of the world that Kal'tsit had told her about, and have the same sort of freedom that Kal'tsit had, and she specifically wanted to do it "alongside you (Kal'tsit)."

Meanwhile, Kal'tsit is in some sense a deeply lonely person. She feels that she has no place that she can call home, and she feels that she has "none of the same kind."

I get the impression that Kal'tsit is similarly sort of envious of what Theresa has, that she has a place to call home, that she has close ties and responsibilities to the people of Kazdel, and she has a family that she is close to.

For Theresa, I sort of interpret that much of the ties and connection to her home she had was a sort of burden for her. Perhaps not necessarily in the sense that she actively regretted having all these things that tied her down, but more in the sense that, given her personality and ideals, they would ultimately and inevitably lead to her death. The Black Crown and the entire weight of Sarkaz history that comes with it (for which it is implied that eventually the crown will cause its holder to become overtaken by like the collective anger of previous Sarkaz). This, combined with her duties and her desire to avoid as much death as possible, led her to decide to pass the crown onto "not a Sarkaz" Amiya and face her death with a smile, in order to bring about peace.

For Kal'tsit and Theresa, both of them saw what they desired in each other, but ultimately, Theresa's life ended in tragedy, and as much as both of them tried to provide to the other what they wanted, neither of them really got what they wanted in the end. (Except for brief glimpses of it through the other. Perhaps that would have to be enough.) Theresa, although her goals were to unite Kazdel and furthermore all the other nations of Terra under one banner, and to see what the rest of the world was like, she was never able to experience a life outside of Kazdel. Similarly, although Theresa had tried to provide a place for Kal'tsit that she could call home, she never really thought of Kazdel or Rhodes Island or anywhere else as a place she could call home after Theresa's death (although this is sort of changing with the way the current story is going.)

One of the things about this that intrigues me the most is that the Kal'tsit/Theresa dynamic is a sort of reversal of how the Sarkaz are often framed in story!:

It's mentioned in quite few places that Kal'tsit has "special feelings" for the Sarkaz. There's quite a few reasons for why this is, a major one has to do with how the Sarkaz are often framed as "rootless people"; their homeland has been destroyed over and over, many of them have been forced to leave Kazdel, and because of this she feels a sense of kinship with the Sarkaz, because she has a similar sort of rootlessness.

The way that a Walk in the Dust seems to frame it, in some ways, the Sarkaz still have it better than Kal'tsit does. One of the ways in which AWITD examines its theme of "homeland" is that basically every character interrogates the concept of one's home or homeland in some way, and what it means to them. Old Isin is searching for the lost glory of his homeland, everywhere the Emperor's Blade stands is the dominion of Ursus, the Sarkaz mercenaries think of Kazdel as they die, the Duke thinks of his motherland Ursus as he dies etc. In explicit contrast to all of this is Kal'tsit, who has no place she calls home at all. The way AWITD frames it, the Sarkaz mercenaries may have never been to Kazdel, but they still have somewhere they consider home. Kazdel might be a "nation of rootless people", but it is still a physically existing, (mostly) extant nation, and it still has people to belong to it and consider it their home, but Kal'tsit, she has nothing, nothing at all.

In contrast to Kal'tsit, Theresa defies the concept of Sarkaz rootlessness. What ultimately caused her death was that she was too weighed down by her ties to the Sarkaz and the weight of thousands of years of Sarkaz history burdening her down. No matter how much she might have wanted to run away and see the world, or how much she daydreamed about otherwise, there was nothing else she could do but face her end at the hands of her own people with a smile.

[mysteryshoptls]

R Azul Ashengrotto - Beach Wear Voice Lines

Due to event restrictions, Groovy related lines are locked until the event has been cleared. I will update once these are unlocked. Login line has been captured. Beach Wear Azul does not have a vignette.

Summon Line: Innovative inspiration arises from unexpected circumstances. Perhaps it is precisely because we are on an uninhabited island that I may be able to conjure up new business ideas.

Groooovy!!: Laying out on the beach to watch the sunset is actually rather lovely, isn't it?

Home: Let us sally forth towards the beach.

Home Idle 1: The water around this island is unbelievably delightful. The water is warm and there are no predators. It is a far cry from my hometown.

Home Idle 2: We opened a book, and were transported to an unknown world, hm. There could be high demand for something like this, so I'd like to study it further once we return.

Home Idle 3: Ace-san's cheerfulness is incredibly astounding. I never expected there to be any human that would be this excited about the beach.

Home Idle - Login: Stitch truly is a strange creature. He's highly intelligent and small in stature, yet quite powerful. ...His occasional destructive tendencies is a major fault of his, however.

Home Tap 1: A suit would absolutely be out of place on a beach. A casual attire like this is much more appropriate for lounging along the seashore.

Home Tap 2: If I were to describe the Coral Sea in one word, it would be "vast." If you ever decide to visit for a vacation, you may come to regret it.

Home Tap 3: Jack-san has a very dependable nose. I myself would never be able to sniff out the whereabouts of fruit like he does.

Home Tap 4: We must maintain a close watch over Floyd's mood. If, for any reason, he tires of procuring provisions, it will affect our own subsistence.

Home Tap 5: What could you possibly... ...Oh, it's you. I thought it may have been Stitch-san coming to pester me once again.

Requested by Anonymous.

[sincerealev]

Thank you @milksteakkk for giving me an excuse to talk about them too 🕺🏻

Here goes:

Alana is a lesbian, and Jared is gay. Mlm 🤝 wlw solidarity

The way Alana discovered she was a lesbian is that she was watching a movie with Julie Andrews and then she was just hit with the realization

→ (Yes she had/has a crush on Julie Andrews, especially in The Sound Of Music)

Honestly, I think she'd enjoy vintage musical movies

Jared probably had a celebrity crush on Keanu Reeves at one point. I thought of this just now and it just made sense to me

Jared is the shortest of the friend group. Like, 5'5

→ Alana is slightly taller than him, like 5'6 or 5'7 (and then Evan is taller than her, like 5'9, for reference)

Jared's wardrobe is a mess, in the way that generally every morning he'll just put on whatever he finds first in his closet, doesn't take time to meticulously choose clothes that match

→ His favorite shirt is one that has a picture of a bowling ball knocking some bowling pins, and in comic sans it just says "bowling" underneath

Alana is the opposite, of course. She chooses her outfit of the day the night prior

Honestly, she's very grandmacore

→ She lives with her grandma too (yes, I know in canon she said her grandma died, but also, everyone has two sets of grandparents so shhh,,)

Jared collects stuff like miniature dinosaur figures or rocks. And also has a vast collection of comics, from vintage comics to the newest ones

Alana loves baking, when she's not busy with school work and such. Almost every week she'll come to school with baggies of cookies, or a Tupperware with cake to share with her friends :-)

She volunteers in a local library

Jared is kind of lazy, or more like distracted when it comes to school, but he also doesn't slack. He always ends up doing his assignments, studying for tests, and getting good grades (but the majority of the time he leaves stuff for the day before, which he regrets everytime)

When he's bored in class Jared will color in the squares in a notebook page with pencil

As patient and calm as she is, Alana can visibly get angry if you get in her nerves (this refers to Jared most of the time). She's good at controlling her anger though

→ Both Alana and Jared bicker a lot, honestly. It's kind of funny to see

Jared has three pairs of glasses. One of them are prescription sunglasses, which he uses to feel cool

For college, Jared studied software engineering or computer science

As for Alana, maybe she studied law or something to become a lawyer maybe?

→ I thought of that just now because I feel like she's very good at debating, and she's very neat and organized in everything she does, loves public speaking, uses logical reasoning all the time... Y'know. Tell me what you think :0

I think that's enough hcs or this will get very long. What do you guys think 🕺🏻

Here's a drawing of them (ft. Evan) me and my gf @devildarling08 made :-) (it's from a boarding school AU we made together)

[genderfeel]

im so sorry you missed out on nick cartell because that man is phenomenal

i liked rehberger's suicide though (fly system issues(?) nonwithstanding i just got a railing hop lmao) would you wanna talk more about that? i like seeing other peoples perspectives but its okay if not!

oh to clarify i have seen nick cartell once before in 2023, so i haven’t missed out at all. huge fan for obvious reasons—dude is top tier. and omg sorry you had a jump malfunction. i had a beast transformation malfunction when i saw batb live and they had to stop and start over 😭😭

but honestly it’s hard for me to untangle my issues with specific suicide performances from my issues with how the suicide as a musical number is written so i’ll break the two out and try to talk about them separately and i’m so so sorry this is so long but i have to fully explain myself and the floodgates are open

it’s also hard to articulate how i prefer actors to take the suicide without audio so i would reference this recording of clarke to see what i mean (ty claire 🥹). my issues with rehberger’s suicide are actually pretty common in the average javert performance, so i wouldn’t say he’s an outlier in that regard

there’s a tendency to play javert angry in general, but i think this is a mistake particularly because it sets up the suicide for failure. playing javert as wooden in most of his interactions is (to me) the most in-character you can get. he can be cunty or whatever but i think getting across the idea that this guy has never let himself feel anything in his life is the goal. adding maliciousness into it muddies the waters here, because what you need with javert is contrast between his inner and outer world

both stars and the suicide are windows into javert having first a crack of emotion and then a full-on break. if you don’t get that contrast, the explosion at the beginning of the suicide loses all impact. the second part of this contrast comes between the first verse and the rest of the song. obviously there are an infinite number of interesting ways to play it, but there needs to be some kind of shift at that point that makes you feel for this man for probably the first time. like, oh man this guy actually can feel things and it’s all coming too fast and hard. i need genuine emotion here to connect with. and there are soooo many emotions to play here. javert should be feeling simultaneous anger, fear, confusion, love, admiration, regret, etc. that’s what makes the piece so varied in how you can play it but also so difficult because you’re juggling all these things, but the song does allow for a lot of creativity in this regard imo

(also needs to be said but stars is written like a love song and should be played at least in part that way. bringing some of the romantic tone from stars into suicide in the way javert sings is fully essential to making this work to me, but this is suchhhh a specific thing i’m looking for. i think i’ve seen this show too much maybe)

rehberger unfortunately played it angry all the way through, never pausing to really consider all the other emotions he should be struggling through. i need to see him thinking. just didn’t get that at all from what i saw. which sucks, but i think it’s a standard way to play it because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the character. i also feel spoiled by clarke’s performance, which genuinely makes the best use of the number i’ve ever heard. it’s genuinely the most difficult number in the show to get tonally correct, but i think the way the song is also just prevents it from ever feeling “right”

so. the suicide in general. i would say musically (lyrics are a whole other rabbit hole i don’t care about right now) i think it’s wonderful right up until the final verse. the vast majority of les mis adaptions, musical included, do what i consider to be a tasteless way to depict suicide, fully on-screen and preoccupied with screaming or crying or splashing (and head cracking. hi 2012) and general spectacle. the musical digs into this and has him yelling all the way down along with silly flailing. i laugh at it like every time which is like obviously not the tone to hit here. it’s tasteless as a suicide scene and doesn’t align with the book’s very deliberately quiet and “off-screen” approach that makes it so haunting

my ideal re-staging of this scene would have javert finish the song as-is (if a little quieter near the end) and then have the orchestra go dead silent as he gets up on the railing and quietly jumps out of sight. also it’s less technically taxing and expensive to produce, which is what some productions avoid by just having him shoot himself (which i don’t actually hate entirely. could be interesting staging but maybe not the best thematically) but that’s all just a pipe dream anyway lol. there are many things i would change about this musical but i’ll take what i can get

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #2 – He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan

I’ve had this sitting on my bookshelf since it came out but, as so often happens, having it just laying around meant it faded to the background whenever I was deciding what to read next. Not the worst case of that (there’s a lovely of Cyteen that’s been sitting on my dresser and shaming me for at least a year now), but certainly long enough for me to regret it.

The story is a direct sequel to She Who Became The Sun, a low fantasy retelling of the fall of the Yuan Dynasty and the ascension of Zhu Yuanzhang to the imperial throne – though in this universe the ‘real’ Zhu Yuanzhang died a starving peasant child, and his sister assumed his identity and his destiny of greatness, willing to do anything and everything it takes to force the world into alignment with it. The book starts with her having lost her right hand, and only gets more emphatic about making her prove it from there.

Aside from Zhu, the narration’s split between several different points of view that fill out the struggle for the future of China. The book honestly does a better job with multiple POVs than the vast majority of epic fantasy I’ve read – every one is a thematic mirror of Zhu on one level or another, and every one has an arc dedicated to the book’s twin fascinations of what it means to be willing to do anything to achieve what you want on one hand, and gender nonconformity and queerness in an intensely patriarchal traditional society on the other.

The actual plot of the story is almost episodic – Zhu encounters some new obstacle on her way to victoriously marching to the Mongol capital at Dadu that can’t be defeated with the blunt force she has available, and she and some collection of the supporting cast goes on an insane adventure to snatch victory regardless. Then every so often there’s a cutaway to Wang Baoxiang (who, among all the other POVs, is easily the one that comes closest to deuteragonist status) scheming his way through imperial court politics in Dadu in his incredibly operatic and self-degrading scheme for revenge on his dead brother. The plots start affecting each other quite early, but I’m pretty sure it’s only in the last twenty pages or so that the two of them actually meet face to face (it is in fact a minor plot point that Wang can’t recognize Zhu when he sees her). It all manages to feel like it’s capturing a whole swathe of political intrigue beyond any one person’s understanding and feel fairly well plotted and cohesive as it comes together. Not that there aren’t plenty of points where you have to just run with it and not push back at what the book’s telling you but nowhere where it’s serious or blatant enough to actually be an issue.

I’m not sure it’s a complaint per se, but one thing that did take some adjusting to is just how, melodramatic I suppose? All the POVs in the book feel very profoundly and effusively, and also have absolutely zero awareness or understanding of their own emotions. This is particularly acute with Wang and Madame Zhang, but in every case there’s just a lot of characters being driven by emotions too large to be contained within them. It kind of feels like a musical, in that respect (but absolutely no other, to be clear).

Anyways, this is a book with absolutely massive amounts of Gender in it. With like, literally one exception, every POV is to some great extent defined by struggling against their position in the gender system of medieval China, and all the issues doing so their entire lives has left them with (Zhu is far and away the most healthy and well-adjusted about this.) Importantly, being oppressed and marginalized for being a woman/effeminate man/eunuch is in no way edifying or ennobling – it’s mostly left everyone involved deeply damaged and full of coping mechanisms that serve them poorly and everyone around them far worse. There’s basically no mention of even the idea of solidarity among the oppressed here – Madame Zhang tortures, mutilates and kills her own maids and her husbands’ consorts whenever necessary, Wang operatic revenge plot involves befriending and seducing a queer prince knowing it will get him killed in the end, Ouyang hates how effeminate his body is and deals with this by becoming a pathological misogynist – even Zhu doesn’t spare much to think about the cause of woman’s liberation beyond herself and her wife.Given the state of a lot of modern genre lit I honestly found this rather refreshing.

As both cause and consequence of the choice of POVs, the book has a rather interesting relationship with normative masculinity. There’s, as far as I can tell, exactly two examples of successful heroic/virtuous normative masculinity in the book – General Zhang and the Grand Councillor of the Yuan – and despite both being really incredibly competent and fearsome on the battlefield and legitimately selfless and honorable, both end up condemned as traitors to their respective lieges (both indolent, vicious, and generally contemptible men without anything in the way of redeeming features, themselves) and dying unpleasantly after being outmanoeuvred in court intrigue. Victory in the end goes not to those who are cherished by their society but the ones who are overlooked and brutalized by it but are willing and able to do whatever it takes and use anything and everything they can to claw their way to the top despite it.

Speaking of – the overriding throughline of the story is what it means to be willing to do anything to achieve your life’s ambition. Being willing to endure pain and suffering goes without saying, and while the book does put its leads through the physical ringer, that’s not really what it’s interested in. Are you willing to spend the lives of those who trust and rely upon you? Sacrifice those you love, or ask them to die for you? Betray those who have only ever shown you kindness? Are you willing to degrade and humiliate yourself, or lie and betray your own hard-won and precarious identity? And once you’ve done all that, and finally achieved your heart’s desire – well, are you really sure it was all worth it? Three cases out of four in the book, at least, ended up regretting it in the end.

This is a book that’s very concerned with sex and sexuality but, like, very nearly exclusively in offputting or unpleasant ways. There’s something like a dozen sex scenes (okay, ‘scenes with sex in them’ is probably the less misleading description. If you come looking for porn you’ll be disappointed) in the book and of them I believe exactly one that you could characterize as enthusiastically consensual and mutually enjoyable. Maybe three, if you count the incredibly toxic relationship which boils down to asking for help dong self-harm and it turns into a sadomasochist thing. Which never becomes/is never understood as sexual by the people engaging in it but describing it is definitely the closest the book gets to erotica. In any event, just somewhat surprising to see so much sex paired with so little romance, relative to most modern stuff I’ve read. Ties into how alienated literally everyone is from their bodies, I suppose.

Also I really don’t know enough about the historical memory of the early Ming dynasty to know whether all the stuff about how Zhu knows what it’s like to be nothing and how she’ll reorder the world to care for everyone is supposed to read as really darkly ironic or not.