#dynamic illusion

[forgettable-au]

I am impatient about posting these so I'm just gonna show one as a sneak peek heheh

It's just some practice drawings but I looove how they turned out because I made them all with just the lasso fill tool :D

It was so fun,,, I have a BUNCH of them but I should post that some other day

[aroanthy]

i love how fraught and complicated discourse around various utena characters ‘dying’ is when anthy is literally stabbed to death eternally by a million swords imbued with human hatred. and then utena gets stabbed to death by them also. like. ‘death’ is incredibly interesting in rgu because most of the time it’s this ambiguous figurative thing that has interesting implications re: ohtori as a closed-off world one can escape. we are all trapped in our coffins. mamiya is the only named character with a grave. nemuro memorial hall functions as one all the same. ruka is implied to have died in the hospital— was he dead all along? who was the boy we saw for these two episodes? is this dead boy the same boy, or is this just another coincidence from the shadow girls, cutting like a knife? it’s heavily implied that akio and anthy murder kanae by poisoning her, adding to the previous implication that they were poisoning mr ohtori too, but there are no perceptible consequences of this. kanae’s absence is not felt. she’s fed an apple slice. what happens to the bodies? we know what happened to the 100 boys, but what about everyone else? and so on and so forth. ‘death’ is a tricky thing in utena, i think it’s constantly functioning on figurative and literal levels in very different ways for very different purposes. dios died. dios was dying. dios didn’t die. he grew up. etc etc

[moistvonlipwig]

underrated creepy aspect to the s5 fresley relationship is that neither of them remember wesley stealing the baby, getting kicked out of the gang, any of that stuff. wes does remember being with lilah (qv "you're welcome") but he certainly doesn't remember how or why. they literally are hollow cardboard cutouts of themselves. they've had their insides scooped out. even if you ship them why would you want them to be together like this........

[howifeltabouthim]

'Whoever you have worked me up to be, you must let that person go. She doesn't exist.'

Jenn Lyons, from The Ruin of Kings

[chodzacaparodia]

Wait wait wait is Barou kinda concerned about Nagi??

Notice his change? He says he's not as annoying as before? Did he kind of… care??

Of course, later he treats him with typical King Barou's harshness, but isn't that somehow his motivation speech?

After all, Nagi in a similar way (of course in a much gentler way compared to Barou, but still very cold), he treated Reo and Bachir, which later contributed to the change of these guys:

In both cases, after Nagi's words, both Reo and Bachira found motivation to try even harder.

And now, Barou treated Nagi in a similar way. He communicated in the same way that Nagi had used before. With words which could change a person.

I hope that Barou's words will trigger Nagi and allow him to find the motivation again.

[dceasesd]

i’ve been on a dick&jason kick lately their dynamic is truly unmatched like no one else compares

[dykedvonte]

thinking abt what you said with house viewing Benny as a son and I’m obsessed. Like. The man spent most of his life before the war presumably alone, and then after the bombs fell he was alone again, save for AI he himself devised. Then he decides to pull in some Tribes, and one kid shows promise! So sure, treat him well, train him, groom him to be his protege, then next thing you know UH OH he’s got developing paternal feelings towards this guy. Wanting some semblance of a family when the time has long since passed, yet fostering that feeling all the same seems so accurate for him. Benny meanwhile only views him as a boss, and not a particularly good one at that. makes me wonder how House must’ve felt when he found out about Bennys plans

I view it as House blames only himself for this, cause he kind of does in canon (strap in this is a long one).

When reflecting on the issue of Benny, House chastises himself first and foremost for not acting quickly enough when it comes to priming Benny. He describes Benny as being ambitious, ruthless and capable; compliments coming from a man like House. House has an ego and while he is logical enough to understand there was never any evidence Benny saw him as a father-figure, he lacks the humility to admit he let his own views on his relationship with Benny blind him to the activities happening behind the scenes.

I doubt that House was as aware as he makes out about what Benny was doing, he knew early on but certainly not early enough to stop Benny from hacking and obtaining a securitron along with getting the chip in the first place. I take it he was distracted by all the possibilities he was calculating of Vegas' success and growth with him steering and Benny as the new figure head, not because of any normal affection for Benny but the admiration of his capabilities. It's to be noted that House believed menial incentives (likely caps, booze, basic needs, etc..) were enough to keep Benny tame like the other Chairmen but, as evidenced by the Omertas and Mortimer in the WGS, this is not enough when it comes to more driven Vegas citizens. This implies he still undervalued Benny and created a space in which Benny felt the need to rebel.

House in my eyes is not sentimental in the traditional sense. I can imagine his pride was severely scorned as someone he certainly deemed dumber than him was, albeit only for a little, able to out-gambit him. It would definitely hit home seeing how his brother also betrayed him but I feel like that's why he's so apathetic when he tells the Courier to do as they see fit with Benny. I doubt the way he terrorized his brother brought him any emotional satisfaction other than a "Now who's in charge!" ego boost. Putting that same emotional intensity towards Benny isn't worth it because who does it benefit? Wasted time, wasted planning, and most importantly wasted potential are all he gets from continuing to be hands-on with Benny. I say the closest example is not being able to throw out old toys due to the memories attached but knowing it's necessary as they are broken or just taking up space for new ones, and then asking someone else to do it so you don't need to get caught up in the feelings of throwing something you put so much effort into. It's not Benny House cares about in my mind, not in a way that sounds healthy to any non-emotionally constipated individual, but what he could've represented for him, which is why he so quickly offers the same position to the Courier.

As for Benny's view on all of this, it was a long time coming. Benny didn't and doesn't believe House is a completely shitty boss. He admires what he's been shown and admits House knows how to run the strip, but disagrees with the directions. Ideologically, House is an anarcho-capitalist while Benny is just an anarchist. House wants to run the strip to profit, though money is not what he's concerned with being rich with anymore. Benny wants a free state that he wishes to become a place for the people, except for the Chairmen who would be on top (I like to remind people that Benny's motives were selfish but not for personal gain/power as was it for the people he actually saw as family). Benny was never looking for a father but a future. He was not interested in being adopted, or having the chairmen adopted, as bigger names still overshadowed in House's legacy.

Truly, it's easiest to summarize as House feeling strongly and thinking positively enough of Benny to start incorporating him into the future of Vegas (a huge honor actually) while Benny was so disillusioned by House's ego and indifference that he thought the only way Vegas could be the future is with House gone.

[acourtofquestions]

The Cadres dynamics in Chapter 57:

"Courtesy of the Lord of Anielle."

Lorcan gave him a look that said he knew Rowan was full of shit, but began efficiently donning the armor, Gavriel doing the same.

Whether the soldiers around them marked that armor, whether Chaol recognized it, no one said a word.

Lorcan indeed muttered, "Someone better tell her to stop primping and get here."

Rowan snarled in warning.

Fenrys unslung the bow across his back and nocked an arrow into place. Rowan kept his own bow strapped across his back, the quiver untouched, Gavriel and Lorcan doing the same. No need to waste them on a few soldiers when their aim might be needed with far worse targets later in the day. But one of them had to be noted felling soldiers. For whatever it would do to rally their spirits.

And Fenrys, as fine an archer as Rowan, he'd admit, would do just fine.

Rowan followed the line of Fenrys's arrowhead to where he'd marked one of the bearers of a siege ladder. "Make it impressive," he muttered.

"Mind your own business," Fenrys muttered.

Lorcan said to one of them "Save your breath for the battle, not the gods."

Rowan shot him a look, but the man, gaping at Lorcan, quieted.

"Someone better say something inspiring," Fenrys said through gritted teeth, firing another arrow. "Or these men are going to piss themselves in a minute." For a minute was all they had left, as the first siege tower inched closer.

"You've got the pretty face," Lorcan retorted. "You'd do a better job of it."

"It's too late for speeches," Rowan cut in before Fenrys could reply. "Better to show them what we can do."

[catherine-sketches]

Think with me here: it makes sense for a non-book reader?

If it does than the writers were successful in telling a story (if it’s good or bad it’s up to your tastes)

Why is there no food on the city if they can get food from the Reach by land?

The medieval transport of goods by sea vs by land is vastly different (the sea is faster and allows the food to arrive less spoiled) and we see and are told that food IS arriving but is being sent mostly to the palace (hello Criston cleaning your sword with a good lemon while the common people have to deal with spoiled food)

Why they riot in favor of Rhaenyra when she and her faction is the reason for the blockade and their hunger just because she gave some food?

Because starvation does not make you rational. Your royals that you grew up being told are closer to gods than men are warring with each other and you are collateral damage.

You are starving. There is the few fish you can get in the bay but is not enough for a whole city. The prices are skyrocketing because of scarcity and the dragons eat the sheep that you have

The royals didn’t give much of a shit before and now that they are at war they give even less of a shit now

Until the boats

For the starving, any food is worth it

Look how Rhaenyra is generous! Even in the middle of war she thinks of us! (Mysaria was really cunning here)

They throw fish guts at the dowager queen, the only part of the fish they can’t eat

Or maybe it’s a whole fish. Maybe the euphoria of having food finally made someone in the street careless enough to throw food away

After all, Rhaenyra is there to provide what is one single fish?

Why would the people think Meleys head is a bad omen when she killed hundreds of them?

If you see something as a god or god like thanks to years of the Targaryen “exceptionalism doctrine” being feed to you from birth as you live in their backyard, a dragon killing people is just an action of the gods. As the Stranger takes so does the dragons, it’s the natural order of things. People are born, it rains, the sun sets and rises at the same time every day and the giant fire made flesh creatures that fly over your city every day and eat your cows and sheep whole in one gulp have killed someone.

But to strip that creature of it’s divinity and to parede its head around…

You have to think about this as a religious or superstitious person. The head of god is being dragged down the street. This god that gives (the years were Meleys was a protector of the city as the dragon of Princess Alyssa and the years Rhaenys lived in Kingslanding) and takes (the dragon pit incident) is now revealed to be meat

Meat

Not divinity given flesh

Meat

You are hungry, the royal family feasts and their dragons are meat

The head of Meleys is a ill omen because it plants a seed.

You can’t do anything if your gods feast while you starve. They are gods.

But the Targaryens are no longer gods to the people of Kingslanding

The are meat

Just like the rest of them

[mediumsizedpidegon]

Imagine: you are Idril and you hate your cousin viscerally and this hate is later justified in every way possible. He is a monster and a traitor and as unlike your belovéd aunt as possible. And he dies, and he does not come to the Halls of Mandos and does not reembody. Perhaps you are horrible for thinking this: but you are glad. You are glad he is gone and unable to return. He was a nightmare who crawled into your stainless city and tore it down when it was least expected. He made your father love him, and then he betrayed him, and you will never forgive nor forget it. Now there is no way he can hurt you, your husband, your son, your people– and there is no one he can betray.

and then your aunt reembodies.

Your aunt reembodies and yes, she died for that monster, but she was blameless for she was forced to marry evil and birth evil and love evil. But now she's reborn without those cobwebs of enchantment and you are prepared for her grief and rage over having been controlled. She will not be the same. But she will be back, at long last.

Except. she comes back and none of these things happen.

She doesn't care that her son is evil and treacherous, more his father's son than hers. She doesn't care. She grieves for your city and in the next breath she wishes for her son's return. So you love your aunt and your aunt loves the creature of your nightmares– the betrayer that nearly killed your son and brought your home to ruin. So you love your aunt but she does not listen when you tell her to let her son go because she never saw–

and so your aunt leaves. and it feels like betrayal. like your cousin ruining your family further from beyond the grave.

she still visits, but no one in the family knows where she lives. She is strange– both the steely eyed aunt you remember and yet sometimes she looks like she has never seen you before. you try to break the enchantment that she must be under to keep looking for your Marred cousin, but there is nothing for you to find. all your trying does is send her into a rage the likes you have only seen once before: when she dragged your father away from following your mother in death for your sake.

you love your aunt, and most days, you are sure your aunt loves you.

but you cannot understand her, and in this you have lost her as surely as when she died.

[phagodyke]

ALSOOO thinking abt this bit in ntn... the obvious revulsion ianthe has for the realisation that palamedes was right + she IS irreversibly part naberius + her immediate abandonment of naberius' body in response.... the whole thing reeks of denial like rest in peace to the sandy foundations she built her performative sense of self on but this wave is inevitable girl!! you can't uneat what you've already digested

[welcometogrouchland]

ik how you feel about huntlow, but how about gus and matholomule for the ship asks?

[ID: an ask from @treehouseandmushrooms that reads "gustholomule :-)". End ID]

The people want to hear my thoughts on gustholomule apparently!! My rating is A!

Because, like. Gustholomule is objectively the funniest ship in the show. Objectively. This is mostly because Matt is the funniest character on the show, but together with Gus he's. So funny. It should be a crackship. It should have no basis together and it should not have the amount of untapped potential and meaning it does. BUT IT DOES!! I am not apart of the subset of fans dedicated to analysing them as characters and their relationships but I do often watch from afar and I will say that thematically, aesthetically, mechanically, these two are like. Made for each other in such a way that I'm baffled it probably isn't intentional.

Construction and illusions, pragmatism and artistry, "stooge" and "clown", rogue and bard, the scrappy little opportunistic chihuahua of a boy that is mattholomule becoming a better person thanks to the sincere and silly, anxious and kind kid that is Gus. Also I can't get over my personal HC of Matt getting involved in the future democratic politics of the boiling isles (HE WAS A GOOD LEADER IN FTF! LET HIM BE PRESIDENT OF MORE THAN A SCHOOL CLUB WHEN HE'S OLDER) and the shows foreshadowing of Gus maybe being an ambassador to the human realm as an adult. Imagine two of the most powerful political leaders in your island nation used to be the most cringe insane preteen boys on the boiling isles. What do you even do with that information

Anyway, if any couple gets a last minute bone tossed to them in the finale, whether it be a split second reunion, a small feature in a montage, or a throw-away line during a timeskip scene, I fully believe it should be gustholomule. They deserve it

[nohara-rin-dot-mp3]

did i ever end up elaborating on that one team minato cannibalism comic

[iwonderwh0]

Hankcon (not established, but the forming one), but Hank, who is no longer suicidal slowly starts to realise just by how much Connor is stronger than him and Connor who keeps presenting friendly and at times intentionally goofy around Hank while being internally overwhelmed by all the new emotions building up inside him with each passing day, fighting with two urges, in which one is to comprehend himself as an artificial but alive being and other - to hide and mask out all the artificial aspects of his being from Hank to keep the illusion of him being just *enough* of a human to think of like one. But the illusion is slowly slipping away no matter how much effort is put to postpone in, the world around them keeps reminding them of their differences in the most brutal ways impossible to ignore, when each new case about androids raises a bunch of new questions for Hank to ask and for Connor to figure out the kind of answers that would read between the lines as "I'm not like this" or "It's not how it looks like" and the ones that are sometimes just ignored completely to avoid this furrowed concerned expression on Hank's face that Connor made his mission to never provoke, not by his own presence at least.

[mothboiwrites]

my favorite type of toxic dynamic in media is when on the surface it's a uneven power dynamic and one of the characters is essentially collared and bound by the other but when you look close, the collar is a breakaway and the leash strap is a shackle.

[deadrlngers]

no but thinking of violante's manic state following her murder of ruven and that sick game of association-replacement played by gortash where he acts just like ruven did, picks up some of his behaviours and mannerisms and speech patterns he specifically used with violante and that he knows of well bc he observed and studied them interact, so that he can fill up the now empty spot left by ruven's death.