#can't believe I'm doing this lmao

[empty-movement]

Chiho Saito's Illustration Collection artbook is the highest-quality visual media in the Utenaverse. Oversized, single-sided, heavy pages with extremely high quality printing. It is the first artbook I ever scanned.

In 2001, the average screen resolution was 800x600, and I delivered a 1250px wide collection that for a while, took $60 A MONTH to host, because no normal website was hosting images of this ludicrous size. It took my scanner almost an hour to capture a third of each page. I spent months piecing the scans together in Photoshop. It was one of my first true Utena labors of love, and the result is that for decades, these copies have been the definitive copies of Chiho Saito's artwork on the internet. For a very long time, even kinda now, if you see these images, they're probably my scans.

But decades have passed, and I've never been happy with these results, because they couldn't capture the fine details, the paint spills, the sketch beneath poking out, the brilliant use of gradients of dark color to pop the image but drive me insane. What I am finishing up now is a true, archival copy of the artbook. One that delivers such high resolution, that these can print posters larger than the originals, and thanks to some truly brilliant descreening tech, (Thank you Sattva) I've been able to dig up fine details in the work that the printing obscured, but undeniably included.

It's been over 20 years, and it shows. 1250px? Nah, my archive copies are 15,000px wide. I can't wait to finish this and share it with the world. <3

[starheirxero]

The boys are back in town (to kill you!!)

Still versions under the cut!

Here's V1 Bloodmoon, 👇

And here's V2 Bloodmoon! 👇

[markantonys]

THE WHEEL OF TIME Season 2 Behind the Scenes: "The Tower of Falme"

[mirensiart]

Linked Universe Au where everything is the same but Spirit never joined them cause he was too hyperfocused on fixing his train to notice the ominous portal opening right next to him and when he did turn around the portal was already gone

Linked universe au where everything is the same but Chain (my link oc) never joins cause he tried going through the portal but it wouldn't let Key (zelda oc) through and since key&chain are chained he can't not cross without her, so the portal just ends up spitting him out after 2 hours of trying to cross without success

Basically linked universe au where wind is literally the only adult timeline link who understood the assignment

[florenzismind]

People have been baffled by Great immediately trusting Thyme over his brother but it makes sense to me (in the context of Thyme's "mission" at least)?

One of the first things we get to see as an audience is Great sitting far away from his family when they're eating dinner. It's a visual symbol in itself - Korn sits with his father, Great isolates himself from them.

Yes, Great seems to be closer to his brother, he clearly trusted him enough to seek him out when he had his first "vision" (or however you want to call them lmao) but Korn immediately dismissed it as Great being high or drunk and didn't take him seriously (I can't exactly fault him for that to be fair but to Great, it was pretty traumatic experience).

Then he meets Thyme at the hospital and sees them having intimate and loving sex. He doesn't see the cold, clinical version of Thyme, not for long anyway. Honestly, I think this vision is the only reason why Great even indulged any of Thyme's awkward flirting in the first place.

Then those following things happen: Thyme saves him, awkwardly flirts with him again. Worries about him and seeks him out and while he's joking about the visions at first he does take Great seriously and talks to his doctor friend immediately. They have a cute date and Great even allows himself to be vulnerable again. He gets visions of them holding hands, gently kissing.

Great is clearly very lonely and there's this person that cares about him in this awkward yet gentle way AND he even has visions of the future confirming that they'll be together in one way or another? What is there not to trust?

In the last week's episode he called Thyme first after his hospital vision, not Korn. He only called Korn after he couldn't reach Thyme which honestly was the first indicator on who he depends on NOW.

Now still people rightfully say "well that's his brother, why trust this man he's known for like a month?".

I think it has everything to do with Korn falling deeper and deeper into the shady part of the family business. Korn is literally moving further away from Great's (and Thyme's) shades of grey to his father's "darkness". Korn IS new to this. He' not comfortable with violence at all though he seems to further lose himself in this task to please his father and Great SEES that.

Korn doesn't have time for him anymore. He doesn't smile. He's doing some unknown business for his father that he can't say anything about. And he tells Great directly, this is important. He can't mess this up. But Great already knows by then what he's talking about. He's talking about holding another person hostage. Pleasing his father is more important to Korn than another person's life.

And Great's been forced by the universe (or maybe his own brain we don't know yet lmao) to actually make THE decision he wants to make. To not let the woman die. To protect Dome. He used his chances to do the right thing. He's witnessed people in his life being capable of killing someone else. People who maybe were a little bit shitty but he never thought they were capable of that.

Now there's this man who saves people for a living, who makes him feel loved, protected and cared for, telling Great that his parents are the reason for his parents dying. Great's parents that mean nothing but pain and loneliness to him. And he sees his brother trying to painfully please his father to the point of completely abandoning his moral compass.

The universe is constantly telling him to trust Thyme. Thyme will bring you love, the feeling you're seeking. Your brother, meanwhile, only tries to become this perfect puppet for their parents.

Great asked Korn to explain what kind of business he's doing. Korn answered him: it's incredibly important and he can't mess up. Great could've made Korn choose between him and his dad's business but he didn't. Yes, he "messed" it up but he didn't force Korn to choose.

Not yet anyway. This will become much more painful when Korn will actually have to choose and either fall deeper into the worst version of himself or try to become the man that Tonkla once idolized and Great once trusted.

[nachosncheezies]

In defense of late-canon x files (including the revivals)

I was thinking about this poll after I commented on it, and I kinda want to be brave and say more.

Short answer to the poll's question before I go any further: If you're a new fan and a sensitive sort who thinks you'll struggle with your blorbos Really Going Through It and you really need a happy ending, I suggest you stop at the end of season 8. Do not pass go, do not look at spoilers. Disregard this post entirely, close the internet, and go look at something that makes you happy. (Also fuck every part of society that characterizes sensitivity as inherently weak and bad and some kind of personal failing, you are valid.)

That said, "quality" as a concept is entirely subjective, and the question of whether or not there's a decline in quality for any story is wholly subjective, too. In the case of x files? I'm not convinced there is a decline. I am going to be upfront that I haven't yet watched past season 8, though I am almost completely spoiled on events after that - and the reason I haven't watched yet is not because of how I know events are going to unfold, but simply because I don't want it to end!!! Ohh, the tension between "I CAN'T WAIT!!!" and "Nooo don't be over D:"

When I first came to txf fandom on tumblr and gradually became spoiled about what happens in late canon though, I was often left uncomfortable and tbh kinda queasy about it. As I said in my comment on the poll, the hate for especially the revival and IWTB, or to a lesser extent even seasons 8 & 9, is very well documented. But! There are other takes to be found here on tumblr if you figure out where to look, and my feelings have changed!

The thing is, I have yet to find myself in any fandom where there isn't a vocal subset of fans who dislike the story after a certain point. I am not joking when I say that no one hates the things they love as passionately as sci-fi and fantasy fans. In my experience, it often hinges on the extent to which a viewer has strong notions on where they would like the characters to end up. In particular with series where shipping is a dominant component for the bulk of a fandom, I have almost universally found that there comes some turning point in the story where "let them be happy you cowards" is the dominant view, and things that compromise the attainment of a degree of romantic stability and/or domesticity are, to many fans, annoying at best and despicable at worst. But! As one tagset on the linked poll said:

and I think for any fandom, that last tag especially is so so so important. (I think that's harder for people watching a weekly series live, bc you have so much time to analyze and speculate and dream before the next breadcrumb drops, but I digress.)

So why am I saying this and how do I apply it to x files? Well, I eventually found that there are also a subset of fans who find redeeming things right up to the very end and actually quite like the whole thing! The things that I had seen people rage and ventpost so much about honestly never quite sounded to me as "out of character" or "untrue to the story" etc as those same ventposts made them sound. And I've discovered I'm not the only one who felt that way. Do I love that the spooky squad had to go through all of those things? No, those poor guys D: Life is hard and they have been through so much trauma. But do those events and their choices make sense to me in light of everything that came before? Yes! And I honestly can't wait to see them fight to overcome those things, breaking, healing, always learning, always growing, always getting better.

So if you're wondering "where does it go wrong"... well, I'm a completionist, as many people who've answered that post are, but also my personal opinion is that I don't think it does go wrong. If you're new and interested in exploring why I've gone from "vaguely queasy" to "excited" about the whole thing, or want to maybe balance out the impressions you're getting about the later seasons before deciding whether or not you want to see the whole thing, I'll put a few blog names in the comments.

Final admission: even once I started feeling a little more confident in the possibility that "actually ok maybe I'm not crazy, maybe this all kind of is in character and does make sense", there was one big plot point that I was NOT looking forward to and I thought I would never be comfortable about. In hindsight, I think my discomfort came from the negative responses being SO seemingly universal that I hadn't stopped to let myself truly consider other possible interpretations on that point. (I mean my initial instinct when I first read about it was, why are we mad about this?? CSM is literally the most unreliable narrator in history???? it's obviously fake news?????? this must be either a fever dream someone's having or it's a misdirection ploy against whatever shadowy forces might still be lurking?????????????? but for whatever reason I guess I had halfway written that off.) Happily, just last month there's a new post-s11 novel out, and although reviews for the book as a whole are mixed, it seems to have laid the groundwork for resolving that plot issue in a way I think most fans would be broadly happy with. If you're interested in being spoiled about that and seeing how, I recommend searching #perihelion on @agent-troi who liveblogged reading it with receipts, scroll back chronological-style to the first post on the subject and see how it unfolded. (And never forget that Dana Katherine Scully is the queen of denial as a coping mechanism lol)

Everyone's mileage will vary. Each person can feel however they want! But for anyone new, I wanted you to know that the very many ventposts you might be seeing are not all there is to this show or its fandom. Some of us love it despite - or even because of - all the things that went "wrong". I think we just don't talk about it as much.

[butterflysonnets]

yes i'm rooting for m*leven breakup because byler is neat but mostly? i'm rooting for m*leven breakup for the sake of el and mike.

to me, their romance was always a puppy love born out of a combination of social pressures, naïve curiosity, and a lack of true understanding regarding intimacy and romantic love and what it really is. it was real in that they do truly, deeply care about each other and they are close friends, maybe even shared an attraction, but a maturing romance is so much more than that. they've grown up and out of being boyfriend/girlfriend, and that's okay! i think television/film needs to show more often that most of us don't have definite "soulmates" or first childhood loves that we spend our whole lives with. it doesn't mean these relationships meant nothing and didn't impact us, it just means they've run their course and that something else is in the cards, and this is part of life!

i've always felt el was at her best and most confident self when broken up with mike, discovering who she was and what she liked alongside another girl her age instead of just relying on mike for mentorship on how to live in the real world. she deserves more of an opportunity to find herself, her autonomy, and her independence, and to love who she is, and she's made it clear she's felt insecure in the relationship with mike because she isn't being loved and understood the way she wants, needs, and deserves from someone who is her partner.

also, it's okay if mike doesn't love her in "the way he should". he is not obligated to love her romantically and stay in a relationship with her just because she's a girl, because she "needed someone", or because he cares about her a lot. he shouldn't be pressured into a romance if it's not truly coming from his heart. he deserves freedom to find out and honour who he is, too, instead of just staying in his non-functional first relationship — one he got into as a child, essentially — and defining himself that way because it's what's expected when a boy and a girl are close. he loves her in some way, yes, but it's okay if he doesn't feel comfortable or secure being her boyfriend anymore, for whatever reason that is. he's felt insecure too, and that's valid and it matters.

they are their own people and are steadily growing and changing every day. they need time to figure out who those people are, and it's become clear (at least in my opinion) that those people aren't meant to be a couple at this stage.

they deserve freedom. they deserve to grow up and be authentic to themselves and not feel like they need to lie for the sake of a relationship. they deserve to move on from this version of their relationship that isn't making them happy and rekindle the best part of their bond: their strong, beautiful friendship. they don't have to be a couple if it doesn't make them stronger and better and happier people.

i think it would be healthy and wonderful for a show, especially one consumed frequently by young adults, to show a relationship starting, progressing, and ending on good terms in this way. sometimes things don't work out, and that is okay.

[kmbrlei]

04. GERMINATION

OF THUNDER & LIGHTNING | 01. BOUQUET | 02. BLOOM | 03. BUD | 04. GERMINATION

In a world where pop media meets military power, an employee meets Magni for the first time, again.

(Side comic to Of Thunder and Lightning)

[hellsquills]

"Are you suggesting that I get my football prowess from fucking my wife?!" (x)

requested by: @your-dead-european-ancestor

Endless SFTH gifs [ 1 / ?? ]

[ktyekmrf30]

Kidnap The Series (2024) + text posts (9/?)

[14dayswithyou]

This is probably very far-fetched and a result of me overthinking it but i have a theory that Leon is secretly a yandere. So here's my little investigation :3

Piece of evidence number 1: I vaguely remember you saying something like "who said Ren is the only yandere in the game?" Or something along those lines, in an older post.

Piece of evidence number 2: In a post from june with some Leon crumbs you said: "When he was younger, Leon almost got into a fight because the weird kid in the grade below him tried to give you a ring on the playground. But Leon shut the whole ordeal down really quick because you promised to marry him first. Did you forget?" And that's just giving me yandere vibes

(Moving onto crackpot theories cause this is just me over analyzing jokes you made)

Piece of evidence number 3: You mentioned Leon, Theo and Jae would wear matching among us costumes for halloween, and Leon would be the imposter. Which made me think he might actually be an imposter lol

Piece of evidence number 4: This post was all non-canon and a joke but i'm still going to mention it. That one ask about Ren messing around with Angel's bedsheets, your response was "Who's gonna tell em about what Leon does in the bathroom during your sleepovers?? ^^"

Okay that's all i have ! Hope you have a good day !!

✦゜ANSWERED: I'm gonna need you to be a bit more quiet.................

[scolop98]

Turns out I have too many thoughts to put this in a comment and honestly it was a matter of time before I made a post about these two.

Okay so: AMC's Pantheon. Season one episode one. Cary and Renee are playing out their whole "pretending to be in an abusive relationship" shtick. We the audience find out that this is a ruse after their shouting match at dinner, when they meet up in the garage.

Everything about this exchange—their dialogue and poses, the smirk on Renee’s face, the casualness of it all—read like flirting to me. That, combined with the general reveal that they'd been faking an abusive marriage—not to mention how Renee immediately slides back into The Role after Cary leaves—had me HOOKED. AND it was our first hint that something was seriously and abnormally wrong (= very interesting) with Caspian's life/the Keyes family, so my initial interest in Caspian's subplot was heavily tied to Renee and Cary's dynamic.

Then we get to episodes two and three... and they absolutely hate each other.

(context: first video is after he shoves her to the ground in front of their "son" and his "girlfriend" in ep2. second video, from ep3, they are picking out the hammer that (spoilers) will be used to break her arm later that night)

Every interaction is clipped dialogue and frosty glares and the bare minimum effort spent to make sure you and your coworker aren't going to step on each other's toes. At least on Renee's side—sometimes Cary seems like he's trying to connect with Renee (ex: after they meet "Hannah" for the "first" time), and sometimes he just seems pissed at her (ex: buying out the hammer) (which is understandable, she's the worst. she is such an asshole and I love her for that)

And then we get to end of episode three: The Hammer Scene

Where Renee breaks her own arm because Cary is "too pussy to do it himself" (not an actual quote), and Cary breaks down in tears after leaving Caspian. When Cary shows that despite participating in this ethical nightmare, he's enough of a decent human being to not want to break his coworker's arm and also genuinely cares about the surrogate son he's raised for the last 17 years; and when Renee shows that she is 110% committed to whatever this still-ambiguous, evil-shadowy-tech-corp-backed Truman Show gambit is that she's dedicated the last 17 years of her life to.

Also relevant (to me specifically) is that this scene is sandwiched directly between David and Ellen's breakup scenes, which are some of my favorite moments in season one and the primary reason why David/Ellen is my favorite Pantheon ship. The contrast between David and Ellen's dynamic (we both agree it's healthier to not get back together, but that doesn't mean we can't still banter about old memories) & my reaction to them (WOW is it obvious these two used to be married, instant OTP) compared to Renee and Cary's power hour (i.e. performing the most jaw-dropping, unexpected plot twist in the show up to that point) did something irreversible to my brain chemistry and single-handedly kickstarted my interest in "incredibly divorced animated parents with convoluted relationship histories" ships.

In hindsight, the tone shift in Cary and Renee's interactions in the first three episodes was probably just bad continuity or one of those "characterization was not fully fleshed out when we made the first episode" situations. Aside from the first episode, literally all their scenes in season one make it obvious that Renee and Cary were in a purely professional fake marriage and were NOT friends. Renee can’t stand Cary, and he’s incredibly frustrated with her half the time. While their garage banter did an incredible job as a Reveal Scene, it's also a clear outlier in terms of how Renee and Cary's relationship is written.

I wasn’t really thinking about any of that during my first watch of Pantheon. I was thinking: "flirty coworkers in a morally fucked up job" + "clearly pissed at each other" = "hate-to-love-you ship dynamic," and then I was thinking "HOLY SHIT SHE JUST BROKE HER OWN ARM" and could not stop rotating this family in my mind. I did notice that the garage scene didn't match their later characterization, but instead of thinking about the bad writing I kept rotating the potential of that dynamic in my mind.

Later S1 developments such as "Renee sees Cary and shoots him on sight" and "now that I've put you in this hospital bed I will gloat about everything (I think) you've lost, and also we still have to pretend to be married," and "we are in different states and still jump at the first chance to throw each other under the bus, which unintentionally reads as obsession with each other" did nothing to dissuade this train of thought, mind you.

So to synthesize all this: Cary and Renee are very clearly not in any sort of romantic/sexual/emotional relationship. Renee dislikes Cary at best, and all of Cary's post-episode-one moments of concern/sympathy toward Renee can be framed through this flashback sequence:

Cary, exasperated: "And… we're gonna be working together for awhile […] Let's. Try and make it pleasant. Deal?"

Cary (reasonably) wants to get along with the coworker he's going to spend the next 17 years of his life with, even (especially) if she's an asshole.

But that plot-critical-but-OOC moment in episode one wired my brain to think about these two being close enough to banter, and through that filter their dynamic in the rest of the season looked a lot like those sexually-charged, obsessive mortal enemy dynamics that enemies-to-lovers and hero/villain shippers thrive on. Not to mention the fact that these two have lived the last 17 years in the same house and might've been sleeping in the same bed for several years to keep up appearances (I know that everyone's favorite fake-marriage duo don't sleep in the same room but TwiYor don't have to keep their fake marriage a secret from their child). It is very, very easy for me to imagine an AU where Cary and Renee would have hate sex sometimes, and I feel like it would have practically zero butterflies on the outcome of the plot. Or alternatively, imagine if they were genuinely in a relationship while raising Caspian and how insanely toxic it would be—especially since their platonic, professional canon relationship is already incredibly unbalanced in terms of emotional labour.

And the fact that one of their most emotionally charged, status quo-changing, plot-relevant scenes was paired and directly contrasted with the most emotionally charged, character arc-relevant scene of my favorite Pantheon ship (David x Ellen) in what rapidly became my favorite sequence of season? Meant I was constantly reminded of this ship (Cary x Renee) whenever I thought about why I loved this show.

Anyways that's how a tiny bit of inconsistent characterization in pantheon's first episode turned these awful fake parents into my second favorite Pantheon OTP - not in the sense of "I think these characters should be together," but more like a "can you imagine how much worse their lives would've been if they were in an on-and-off situationship at any point in the last 18 years" that I constantly rotated in my mind for weeks after finishing season one. I hope my first attempt at a proper tumblr analysis essay was coherent, I wrote it between midnight and 3 AM. As a bonus, have this edit of them that I made last summer for a "toxic/complicated/disorienting relationships" MEP

The song is Tainted Love, covered by Milky Chance and originally by Soft Cell

Also, to clear up any confusion: just because I think Renee is The Worst and an Awful Human Being does not mean I don't like her as a character. I like her character a lot more than Cary actually. She's not blorbo material but she IS "I love to hate this character" material. She's the centerpiece of the entire fucked up Keyes Family Dynamic! From an audience perspective, she acts as The Face of Logorhythm's clone plot, given how she has more screen time and direct interactions with Caspian than Cary or Julius Pope in S1, and she's so intricately tied to Caspian's "what the fuck is wrong with my life" investigations. She's an asshole, but she's a complex, interesting asshole with plot relevance, screen time, and more personality than Julius Pope, and I loved watching how she and Caspian play off each other and how that changes over time. also she's a fucked-up and evil woman and idk i find that compelling in a fictional character, sue me.

[ozonecologne]

.

[unicornpopcorn14]

omg so like, Dazai and the shipping container incident with him getting shipped overseas got me thinking... (I am super late to reading it 😭)

Chuuya, unaware of what happened in the moment because he had been sent overseas himself for an international mission, and he had to go out and scout a foreign shipyard for illegal weapon shipments.

AT THE SAME TIME, he conveniently receives a message forward by Mori to be on the lookout for one of their own agents because a Port Mafia member had been taken hostage around the location Chuuya was in.

Chuuya's ??? because why hadn't he been notified that someone was also either on the same mission as him or had managed to be such a bumbling fool that they got caught by foreign enemies. ANYWAY, he keeps an eye out for anything suspicious while still working on his own mission when he sees a particular area of the shipyard had been surrounded by armed foreign criminals, so he's ready to go bust some ass when they all swing the shipping container doors open and barge in to see Dazai there.

Chuuya just facepalms himself in disbelief because he can't believe Dazai followed him all the way to another country (even though it was totally coincidental) but also, he's not even surprised that Dazai managed to get himself caught by the enemy. Again.

They kick some enemy ass and Dazai gets shipped back home on the next plane back to Yokohama, and Chuuya overhears Dazai complaining to Mori on the phone: "What about my home?!"

Omggg you read my silly shipping container fic hehe *hidesss* /silly

Thank you so much for this omg <333 I genuinely cackled. There really is no end with the shipping container shenanigans huh jknfjew

Lmao Mori telling him to be on the lookout for an agent without specifying that it's DAZAI so Chuuya can take this seriously pffff

I can imagine Chuuya's shocked then angry as heck face when he spots Dazai like,,, he'd probably do a double take at first being like "is that really who I think it is?" and it quickly turns to "Fuck it is who I think it is..."

Dazai would be adamant that that was part of his plan (when it really wasn't) and complain that Chuuya's ruined it and it is somehow Chuuya's fault that he has no home now fjsbfkjebaf

Which will earn him a (justified) kick to the head 😭😭

[robotsandramblings]

lmao yeah actually she is thinking about other men 🤷💀

[seventh-district]

Sam: "Look at me. Hey- look at me a second. I know. I know you're tough. I know how strong you are. You have every right to be proud of that. But being able to handle somethin' doesn't mean you should have to. Least of all when I'm right here trying to help. Please let me help. If not for you then for me, because I don't like knowin' you're hurtin', especially when there's somethin' I can do about it."

Me, shaking my head, fighting back literal tears: "B-but it's gonna give you another headache!"