#but those are just my two cents

[merle-bookdragon]

okay the longer I think about it (and also see on tumblr that I am not alone with this opinion at the moment) the less scared I am to just say that I do not hope callowmoore becomes a thing anymore. I simply don't think it makes sense anymore and that really just developed in the last two episodes. before that, I was really all for the possibility.

[symphonyofsilence]

Let the poor man rest.

[once-upon-the-earth]

this fandom talks so much about how hard the final fifteen and its aftermath was/is for crowley and im not gonna deny that it was but. try seeing the whole thing from aziraphales perspective for a sec. Because it is so so so heartbreaking. i know its hard bc we dont really know whats going on there with the metatron and threats and things that were cut out but lets take it at face value and try to imagine what hes feeling.

He knows another apocalypse is coming. He wants himself and Crowley to be safe; he's always wanted them to be safe from the very beginning. Its why he's so unsure of the arrangement for so long ("If Hell finds out they wont just be angry. they'll destroy you!"). Even when he and Crowley are finally "safe", they know theres more coming and theyre just waiting, anticipating, until Jim happens. They panick, everything gets very chaotic but clears up without either of them seriously hurt, luckily. Aziraphale is still reeling with adrenaline when the Metatron takes him outside. He's definitely thinking "alright, just this, get him off my back and then I can get back to ignoring them until the next apocalypse." But suddenly, Heaven is offering him a way to stop that next apocalypse NOW - and even better, Crowley will be safe the entire way through! They'll both be angels, safe, on the same side and save the world!

(also the fact that heaven, whove been talking down to him his entire life, are now acting like they respect him. I dont think he entirely falls for it but that would feel good to anybody, whether he suspects its fake or not.)

Crowley says no. Crowley refuses, angrily, confesses, in the worst moment while theres thousands of other things running through Aziraphale's mind and now he has to deal with this too, years, millennia of unspoken things slapping him in the face in an already incredibly vulnerable moment. Crowley talks of running away again and leaving the world behind. Aziraphale tries again - he needs Crowley for this, he cant do this alone, neither the entire task of saving the world nor the simple act of going back there. Crowley kisses him, doesnt even want to accept Aziraphale's forgiveness for not helping him - leaves.

Aziraphale definitely has some sort of plan, going up there. But he will also be arriving in Heaven, cold white lights, cold faces over pale clothing judging his every move and have to juggle both responsibilities and his own, undercover plans, all this without any help and nobody to talk to. You remember how he ate an entire ox the first time he tasted food? He's still got Crowley's taste on his lips and an empty stomach. And he doesn't even entirely understand why Crowley rejected him because Crowley's always helped him before. It's their game. He gets himself into situations, Crowley rescues him and they never say a word about how theyre feeling. And now Crowley broke the rules, refused, and kissed him and Aziraphale cant even talk to anyone about it because who would listen and anyways, he needs to get to a meeting about killing everything on the world he was put on to protect.

[galacticlamps]

ok I have A Lot of thoughts about the staircase confession (well really about Edwin's whole character arc, but all roads lead to rome) but for now I just wanna say that, yes, I was bracing myself for something to go terribly wrong when I first watched it, and yes, part of me was initially worried its placement might be an uncharacteristically foolish choice made in the name of Drama or Pacing or Making a Compelling Episode of Television but at the expense of narrative sense--

But I wanna say that having taken all that into account, and watched it play out, and sat with it - and honestly become rather transfixed by it - I really think it's a beautifully crafted moment and truly the only way that arc could've arrived at such a satisfying conclusion.

And if I had to pinpoint why I not only buy it but also have come to really treasure it, I'd have to put it down to the fact that it genuinely is a confession, and nothing else.

That moment is an announcement of what Edwin has come to understand about himself, but because it takes the form of a character admitting romantic feelings for such a close friend, I think it can be very easy, when writing that kind of thing, to imbue it with other elements like a plea or a request or even the start of a new relationship that, intentionally or not, would change the shape of the moment and can quickly overshadow what a huge deal the telling is all on its own. But that's not the case here. Since it is only a confession, unaccompanied by anything else, and since we see afterward how it was enough, evidently, to fix the strangeness that had grown between him & Charles, we're forced to understand that it was never Edwin's feelings that were actually making things difficult for him - it was not being able to tell Charles about them. 'Terrified' as he's been of this, Edwin learns that his feelings don't need to either disappear completely or be totally reciprocated in order for him to be able to return to the peace, stability, and security of the relationship with which he defines his existence - and the scale of that relief a) tells us a hell of a lot about Edwin as a character and b) totally justifies the way his declaration just bursts out of him at what would otherwise be such a poorly chosen moment, in my opinion.

Whether or not they are or ever could be reciprocated, Edwin's feelings are definitively proven not to be the problem here - only his potential choice to bottle it up - his repression - is. And where that repression had once been mainly involuntary, a product of what he'd been through, now that he's got this new awareness of himself, if he still fails to admit what he's found either to himself or to the one person he's so unambiguously close with, then that repression will be by his own choice and actions.

And he won't do that. Among other things, he's coming into this scene having just (unknowingly) absolved the soul of his own school bully and accidental killer by pointing out a fact that is every bit as central to his self-discovery as anything about his sexuality or his attraction to Charles is: the idea that "If you punish yourself, everywhere becomes Hell"

So narratively speaking, of course it makes sense that Edwin literally cannot get out of Hell until he stops punishing himself - and right now, the thing that's torturing him is something he has control over. It's not who he is or what he feels, but what he chooses to do with those feelings that's hurting him, and he's even already made the conscious choice to tell Charles about them, he was just interrupted. But now that they're back together and he's literally in the middle of an attempt to escape Hell, there is absolutely no way he can so much as stop for breath without telling Charles the truth. Even the stopping for breath is so loaded - because they're ghosts, they don't need to breathe, but also they're in Hell, so the one thing they can feel is pain, however nonsensical. And Edwin certainly is in pain. But whether he knows what he's about to do or not when he says he 'just needs a tick,' a breather is absolutely not what's gonna give him enough relief to keep climbing - it's fixing that other hurt, though, that will.

Like everything else in that scene, there's a lot of layers to him promising Charles "You don't have to feel the same way, I just needed you to know" - but I don't think that means it isn't also true on a surface level. It's the act of telling Charles that matters so much more than whatever follows it, and while that might have gone unnoticed if anything else major had happened in the same conversation, now we're forced to acknowledge its staggering and singular importance for what it is. The moment is well-earned and properly built up to, but until we see it happen in all its wonderful simplicity, and we see the aftermath (or lack thereof, even), we couldn't properly anticipate how much of a weight off Edwin's shoulders merely getting to share the truth with Charles was going to be, why he couldn't wait for a better, safer opportunity before giving in to that desire, or how badly he needed to say it and nothing else - and I really, really love the weight that act of just being honest, seen, and known is given in their story/relationship.

[roukabi]

I feel like when it comes to the Dusthide debate, a lot of people seem to misinterpret the main point of Ancients as both a game element and a product.

A big part of Flight Rising is dress-up. While users can argue on what the sole draw of FR is (dragons themselves, breeding, the Dominance system, etc), it's generally agreed that the dress-up aspect is one with a lot of care and resources put into it, and is therefore very important to site gameplay. Dress-up keeps getting updated with new apparel, and if there is to be a new dragon breed, it needs every piece of apparel re-drawn on it. This takes time. A lot of time. Gaps between dragons (now known as Moderns) stretch for years at a time.

Ancients were initially created as a way to fill in these time gaps between Moderns, and the easiest way to do that was to release dragons without apparel. However, this is a game that puts a lot of emphasis on dragon dress-up. Imagine if Obelisks were released without any coded apparel. You'd just have a naked dragon missing a huge element of the game, and for most players, there's no fun in that.

This is where the second point of Ancients comes in: because the appeal of clothing is gone, there has to be some kind of compromise. So... if Ancients can't wear apparel, then they are no longer restrained by the requirements for apparel (1 head/4 legs/2 wings)...

which means that they can break the modern mold freely! You can have a dragon with no legs, or six. Or with two heads, or no head. And now that you don't have to worry about apparel clipping, the tertiary genes can go wild! There is room for customization that apparel can't fulfill - you could give it extra wings, or a jellyfish head, or giant tree horns, or you could give it nothing at all as tertiary genes are optional, and it wouldn't matter because there's no apparel to be drawn around it!

Ancients are supposed to be a trade-off. There's no selling point to a dragon without clothing on the Dragons With Clothing Game, but there is a selling point to a dragon with, say, 13 legs, no wings and no tail. It doesn't wear apparel, because it physically can't, and it makes use of this function in creative ways. The inability to wear apparel is justified by the Ancient's unique proportions.

And this is where the criticisms for Dusthides and other 'basic' Ancients stems from: if your Ancient dragon is just the 1 head/4 legs/2 wings setup, then is it really an Ancient or a Modern you can't dress up? You could have the wildest, gaudiest, 15-limb tertiary gene on a Dusthide and it wouldn't matter, because tertiaries are optional and aren't a permanent part of the dragon that would inhibit the usage of apparel.

If a dragon doesn't have a justifiable reason to not wear apparel, then there's no reason for it being an Ancient.

No amount of linebreaking tertiaries will be able to hide the fact that some dragons seem to be created only for the first, initial purpose: just to tide people over until a better, 'real' dragon is created.

And that's just disappointing.

[scarewulf]

I think one of the biggest sort-of unpopular opinions I have when it comes to being an artist is that, unless they are used in moderation, using things like references, tracing, and other little tips and tricks to help you will actually hinder you at some point if you use them too much

If you rely too much on these tools you will eventually lose the confidence and the ability to use your artistic know-how to fill in the gaps yourself....and those "gaps" could be anything from proportions and anatomy to things like dynamics and even coming up with an idea for a drawing in the first place

Using too many pinterest images for your poses will at some point result in stiff art, and unless you already know how to manipulate it in your own style (the ones who do this already know how to fill in the gaps when it comes to anatomy), drawing 1:1 from a reference pose will just make your stuff look a bit boring most of the time. If you use 3D poser programs and you trace those poses all the time so you feel more comfortable with them, then at some point, again, your stuff is just going to feel stiff and a bit boring

At some point an artist has to know how to draw a hand without a reference. At some point an artist has to learn how to draw an arm without a reference. The same goes with the rest of the body, and the same goes with posing as well

[legionofpotatoes]

okay I don't want to shit on other people directly so here's my take on that linguistic wrinkle in veilguard

this is about the words nonbinary and transgender being used in the game. and us being upset that more "prettied up" fantasy variants aren't used in their stead, especially when the Qun has its own terms etc.

This is a silly issue I think but ultimately I am not sure why local in-lore colloquialisms can't coexist with today's standardized language. Dragon Age does and always has used "man" and "woman" in Thedas without fully substituting those. To me personally it's a pleasant new step in normalizing and codifying these terms in media while acknowledging cultural customs in appropriate contexts of the story. Ultimately the diegetic linguistic expression in Dragon Age is anglicized, always has been, and adopting its extremely localized in-world cultural substitutions for an entire real-life gender identity would be the insensitive, orientalist, otherizing approach. Or am I an idiot about this?

[hirakiyois]

this isn't criticism or anything but every time a thai show has a storyline with undoubtedly shitty parents and that specific brand of not-quite-redemption, the division of viewer bases from asia and not-asia becomes so clear it's like a sociological study is released into the wild

[vraisetzen]

on nanami

sometimes i forget that a healthy part of the fandom hasn't read the manga, and that nanami's death actually came as a shock to some this week.

which is warranted, given that nanami is one of JJK's better written characters – a rare breath of fresh air, maturity, and warmth in a story that often speed-runs character development.

but i've also seen people bringing up this tweet, expressing a bitterness at gege for killing nanami when he initially intended to let him off with losing an arm:

now, don't get me wrong – gege has had his fair share of bad writing moments (more to come in future seasons when we finally get to the culling games and, uhm... you'll see).

what he meant by a "character taking their own life" referred to the natural end of a character's narrative.

nanami was introduced in JJK as an opposite to gojo – he's aloof, he's too serious, and he just wants to knock off work on time. but as we come to know, nanami also has a softer side to him – one that instinctively protects and cares for the young jujutsu sorcerers, as a result of his traumatic past after the death of his best friend.

and in the story, nanami served as yuji's mentor. he defined, for yuji, what it meant to be a sorcerer, and more importantly – a young jujutsushi.

in many ways, he wrote and defined the moral compass that yuji would lean on subsequently in the story.

i wouldn't go as far as to make this post a "why nanami had to die" – but i would also like to make it clear that nanami's role in the story besides being a board-certified dilf™️ is to root both the readers and yuji in the realities of being a jujutsu sorcerer.

and for mahito – his thematic opposite, someone with a complete disregard and disrespect for humanity – to kill nanami, while allowing nanami to pass on his final words to yuji...

he is not only resolving the conflict he has within himself – because he is able to die with the knowledge that yuji will not be "cursed", that yuji will continue as a jujutsu sorcerer with the right moralities, capable of facing the demons nanami once tried to run away from as a teen.

so, no, gege did not get carried away with killing nanami, as some have opined. nanami's narrative – as a character saddled by the burdens of being a sorcerer, who escaped from his responsibilities as a teen only to return, and to pass them on to a young boy who also has too much to shoulder – simply came to a close. x

[samgiddings]

Yes, people who don’t take it personally when you don’t reply are great, but like, we all understand that that’s a grain of salt thing, right? Like if you ghost your friend back-to-back-to-back when they reach out to you, they’re going to eventually give up. We know that, right?

If you don’t reply multiple consecutive times when someone messages you trying to have a conversation (not just sending a random thought/meme/something casual), you are ghosting that person, and it’s not on them to keep using their energy to reach out to you.

(AND before you come for me just know I say this as someone who is a notoriously bad texter, and who is super bad for remembering to reply to texts.)

[joinmeinjoy]

TW!!: slightly disturbing image in one of the frames - its just Dream being a big ol ball of spook though!!

inspired by the sandman server - ENDLESS PHOTOGRAPH WEIRD and Hob is taking it as a personal challenge

[wispscribbles]

hi i just discovered your beautiful art so i obviously needed to scroll down your whole blog to catch up on everything you posted haha

i just wanted to say that i got way too emotional after reading that post of yours regarding mw3 and your mental health… on one hand i’m so sorry that you felt that way, but on the other i feel it with my whole heart

ghoap content especially for me helped me these past few months with my mental health in ways i would never have expected, it was my solace and inspiration, i started working out too and got back into drawing, got a lot better at it as well!

but unfortunately i get way too fixated on fictional stuff and there comes a time that my brain switches up and connects the things i liked and comforted me with things that make me extremely uncomfortable and stressed out, especially if i fall down a fandom rabbit hole that i would never have searched up, beacuse i know myself, i know my limits and triggers but i feel like i’m not a part of the fandom if i don’t like and interact with every single headcanon, art and ship

these past days i was really down because of that, and the things i read (why did i do that???) and now when i think of ghoap i think of that stuff and im scared that i alienated myself from the one thing that made me happy

but discovering your art and with that your post reminded me that im not alone in these feelings, even if it’s not the same exactly, and i wanted to thank you, for sharing your thoughts that time i guess haha <33

((sorry for rambling))

Long reply under 'keep reading' !! CW: talk of triggers and MCD

Always feel free to ramble my way!!! How nice you could find some comfort in my art and ghoap stuff. Especially in my mw3 post. I've been considering deleting it a few times, but hearing it maybe helped to read in some way makes me happy I left it up.

I get where you're coming from - I very much use these fictional characters as a safe space, but ppl view them very differently. There's room for it all, "don't like, don't interact" is very much a policy I agree with. It's important to mute words and be aware of your own triggers as you browse stuff in this fandom, because there's such a wide variety of stuff out there. You do NOT have to interact and agree with every thought people have on this ship, that's impossible and super stressful. There's plenty of stuff and headcanons I don't vibe with. There are no 'requirements' that you have to meet in order to enjoy fiction.

It's part of why I enjoy ghoap - that their dynamic resonates and has sparked so much creativity and outlets for so many - but it also means there's gonna be a lot of stuff u don't necessarily agree with or feel comfortable with. For example, a lot of folks use the MCD in mw3 as a way to explore grief, which I think is really cool, but on a bad day that could potentially get my brain in a bad headspace, so I only check out that art and those fics when I feel okay. There's also a bunch of stuff I'd never want to interact with, and that’s fine !!

I'm personally quite vanilla and a sucker for exploring the softer, more domestic aspects of these characters. It's what brings me joy. I know there are parts of this fandom who don’t vibe with what I make at all, and would call it untrue to the characters. Some creators enjoy exploring the more violent or toxic sides to the source material. That's just how it is, we all need different things from fiction. As long as we're capable of chilling in our respective sandboxes, then all's good.

But if you're like me, and enjoy the softer things, then definitely be aware and careful while exploring this ship and fandom. I've seen takes on these characters that are so far removed from how I view them, that they're basically the complete opposite, and it can leave a very bad taste, especially if you're the type to hinge your safe space on fiction.

Just... be mindful of yourself and your potential triggers, be respectful and don't interact with things that make you uncomfortable to the point of feeling unsafe. Shape your own online experience to your best ability.

Hope you're doing okay and still find joy in ghoap <3

[angelsdean]

i'll be honest, i truly do not understand when people get all up in arms whenever anyone involved with spn describes cas's love for dean as beyond the human understanding of love, as if there haven't been posts made on here for years by fans literally describing cas's love for dean / destiel's love as akin to worship, a powerful force greater than god, cosmic, all encompassing, profound, etc etc. i thought the outrage was silly when jensen expressed the idea of cas's love being more than romantic back in denver con 2021 and i think it's silly now with these bedlund tweets. not to mention being more than and beyond something imo means it encompasses the romantic AND more. it's romantic, it's platonic, it's cosmic, it's worship, it's everything. and i think that's beautiful. and yes, it's exactly what their love is. a huge profound force that changed the narrative, that wasn't meant to be there, that kept breaking through anyway.

and i understand what people are saying about this language being used for a queer ship etc etc, but like, there's nothing inherently wrong or negating their love in saying that it's a greater love. if anything i think it's saying, hey, see these two? yea their love is bigger than what we can even comprehend. idk i'm just going to continue to take these statements in good faith. and also, until the reboot happens, they can't really say more about destiel beyond the bounds of the confession. jensen, bedlund, misha, etc can't speak to dean's feelings, for instance, or confirm anything one way or another, because if those feelings are a major plot point to be explored and acknowledged in the continuation then to speak about them now with any kind of definitive statement would be spoiling / jumping the gun, and it's not their place to make those statements yet, if we are indeed going to see more of dean and cas's story in the future (which i mean, at this point based on their statements about the reboot it's really a When not If situation).

[mydaylight]

I understand why some people might view Zhen Huan's ending as bleak, but in my opinion "bittersweet" is better word for it. Zhen Huan can never recover all the beloved people she lost over the course of the show, but she was able to avenge herself against Yongzheng and Yixiu, safeguard her children, and ultimately become the Empress Dowager. Now she gets to watch her son live a carefree life, has ensured the continuation of Yunli's line, and is able to hang out with her friends (and her sister, Yurao is still alive) and just focus on raising her kids and enjoying her status. The last we see of Zhen Huan is taking a nap, a representation of the the fact she can finally rest after the tumultuous life she has led so far. This is how we leave Zhen Huan for the last time - with the comforting notion she has finally found some peace. And this is how I'd like to imagine Zhen Huan's future life as looking like.

(Also Hongyan is living at Yunli's former residence Ninghui Hall, and the "Coupling Joy" flowers that originally were gifted to Yunli by Kangxi were moved to their original place there too)

[sysig]

Coming in to play! (Patreon)

[zeb-z]

Roier saying actually he’s my son and Jaiden’s, you’re his step father, after Cellbit said Bobby was his son in his heart, like yeah. Yeah. I can’t speak for if it’s a cultural thing or personal, or any sort of intricacies like that I’m woefully unaware to be clear, but like. They married after Bobby died. He was there in his life sure but not quite as a father. He didn’t raise Bobby like Roier did, like Jaiden did. He cared, and he could have been if given more time, but Bobby died. Bobby was loved by his parents and died before Cellbit became anything of the sort. Doesn’t mean Bobby doesn’t love Cellbit, doesn’t mean he can’t be a father like figure, he’s just. Step father. They married after Bobby died. Jaiden was present and was loving and raised Bobby alongside Roier. They were his parents. Cellbit is loved and is part of the family and is happily married to Roier but like. That title can’t be given, not without Bobby able to agree. Not without Bobby being alive.