#even more of a trashfire

[symphonyofsilence]

Okay, serious question, now that Netflix has fucked TUA up so royally by cutting it short, what are they going to do with the time and budget they "saved"?

Because it's definitely not going to any other of their projects because they do it to EVERY- SINGLE- ONE of them!

[schalotte]

honestly i don't know if spotify stats are that accurate bc there's one hyperpop song i listened to on repeat to the point where i resigned to my fate and accepted it'd be in my top 5 and it's like. my 30th most played song which i jist don't think is true

[butcharyastark]

oop is eleanor abt to have to choose bc her new toxic boytoy is gonna hurt her old toxic boytoy?

[pretend-i-don-t-exist]

on a qijiuyuan streak so far um hm so consider the flavor of sy fully believing that he's just a substitute for who yqy really loves (sj) and doing his best to fulfill the role

maybe it's a courtship for political purposes and so sy is aware that there wouldn't be any genuine romance here, but he is hoping for at least friendship??? he does want to save yqy bc his original ending in pidw is just too tragic... and also full of plot holes and plot armor.

though it gets obvious real quick that yqy is head over heels in love with sqq. nothing sy says or does will dissuade yqy from loving the scum villain. the thing is, it is also obvious to sy that sqq abhors yqy, except that it's less of a disdainful kind of hate and more like hurt? sy is so confused. he's cursing airplane out every time he gets stuck with both peak lords during a tea session.

when he does unlock qijiu's tragic backstory, he goes ??? wtf is this tragedy airplane, why didn't you put this in pidw it would've been so much better!!! more thought-provoking!!! also everything makes so much more sense now. and so he sets out to right the misunderstandings and miscommunication (he does like yqy and sqq, even as the scum villain, deserves an explanation and/or closure)

on sj's side he's fucking pissed that this pale impostor of him is going around taking advantage of the guilt yqy feels over him. he spitefully brings down sy's reputation, bc he's possessive over his qi-ge even though yqy isn't his qi-ge anymore... and he can tell that yqy is not really in love with the impostor, anyway.

yqy is just going !!! bc on one hand he feels delighted that sj does still feel something for him, even if it's just possessiveness from the past... and also sy is genuinely kind and good and yqy has longed for such warmth before, but it always feels wrong when he thinks of everything he's done and failed to do... if it were any other time, he may have grown to love sy, but it's not meant to be.

fuckers think they're playing 4d chess with each other (well, shen yuan's part is more like uh poker but yeah) but like. they're so stupid i love them so much i can't wait to write more chaotic trashfire aus of them save me

[jellytheteawolf]

Yunbing blast

Reference

Random doodles under cut (cw gender bend, suggestive borderline nsfw??)

Been really into masc for masc yunbing yuri. Inspired by 小红薯67E919C7 on xhs, who draws a lot of yunbing yuri. Lowkey saved me

CW SUGGESTIVE!! Nsfw implied!! I have no idea what to do with this. Can I even share it anywhere..

Aftermath

Anyways new gods reborn is kind of ass /affectionate. I say this with all the love in my heart. Literally the entire last 10-15 mins of the film I was just repeating "this is so ass" under my breath.

There were a lot of really nice points that couldn't form anything cohesive. The movie sort of lost it's impact/direction after they deviated from class inequality to lyx's identity crisis HELP. Like yea I get it's supposed to set him up as a typical hero so him believing he was a 灾星 would like. "Hit" more ig. But it just falls flat. It's just there as a prop with no visible emotional weight

I can say that for almost anything tbh like su junzhu, hell even all the ppl that got hurt it just felt like OK. That happened. They were all just pieces to prop up hero lyx without deeply investigating why. Why does he want to help ppl? Well bc hes a hero that's what he does. Well now it's shallow circular logic help. I do like the acknowledgment of nezha's inherent/unintentional cruelty though, when hed disappear everytime lyx tried to help ppl, since i feel many 洗白了他

Anygays I feel the movie could've felt so much more emotionally real if they capitalized (no pun intended) more on the themes of class inequality/the absurd extreme gap between the rich and poor. Like yea if they did that it'd probably never be made and get censored everywhere but 💀 all the elements/vibes were there!! The 1920s jazz vibes with kasha dressed like a flapper with cn elements (qipao), the retro hong kong and old shanghai beijing old money aura. Perfect setting design to make the inequality idea work

Then they tossed it all for lyx's identity crisis and have it resolved by affirming him in a stereotypically masculine affirmation way like oughh damsel to save, ur a hero yayy like ok. Might be biased bc I want to see de san and lyx beat the shit out of each other. Not that pathetic fight where de san got murked in like 1 min tops 😭 also at the end when he's like 法宝拿了 I cringed so hard omg can you not get anymore 直男

Ao guang and swk/macaque had really good designs though, especially swk. His attitude and character design is so memorable, honestly the entire movie was worth it to see him in motion.

Ik it sounds like I'm hard shitting on the movie (a little) but I really am fond of it. It's trashfire but it's my favorite trashfire /lhj if yunbing were yuri it would've made everything better

[random-autie-fangirl]

I wrote this thing complaining about some Krusie shippers tendency to misgender Kris ages ago, after seeing something really annoying and shitty on the Krusie discord.

To be honest, as much as I love Krusie, I can only really like it anymore unless Kris is portrayed as explicity non-binary.

Like when people use they/them pronouns for Kris, give them an enby flag pin or even make a little caption on their post saying krusie's gay or something, i'm just like!!! hell yeah! But like when there isnt those little gender signifers for Kris, I kinda feel the need to through their blog to check that the poster actually accepts Kris as non-binary.

Because looking at the Krusie posts made by people who think Kris is a boy, they're often really OOC, with Kris being a stereotypical boring self insert straight guy and Susie being a stereotypical uwu blushy tsundere or it's weirdly sexualized (they're teenagers, guys) or it bashes Noelle (often in quite a lesbophobic way) or Kris is portrayed as super masculine and Susie is portrayed as hyper feminine in a way that evidently neither of them are in canon.

Of course I'm opposed on a more technical level too, Krusie just can't simply be straight, because Kris just is not and can not be a boy, but there's every other shit thing that comes with it just to add to the stupidity, and now I can't trust any Krusie fic or art unless I unambiguously know the creator portrays Krusie as queer.

Because the thing is the queer Krusie is not only near on always properly respectful and actually in character, it's funny and plausible and cute and shows that they actually have real chemistry and work well together (platonically or romantically of course) when portrayed as they really are in canon, dumb rebellious adorable teen gremlins that would probably see committing petty crimes and eating moss together as the height of romance. Not to mention that it's always hard to tell if Kris is crushing on Susie or just thinks really highly of her but like we do know Susie literally seems to be Kris's favourite person in the world right now (And honestly quite a bit of Krusie content portrays it as something that toes the line between platonic and romantic, which is especially cool) and it just pains me that the actual, queer, canonical Krusie is often really really good but it's just always overshowed by the absolute trashfire dungheap that is Straight Krusie(tm).

[wisteria-lodge]

What are your thoughts on Lily Evans? For being the whole reason the books happen, she gets surprisingly little insight into her.

And I do think that's the point. For Harry, she is more of a cosmic force than a person. She's like gravity. Her sacrifice is this single huge thing that will always protect him and connect him to her, even though he never really learns everything about her. This lets Lily be the perfect, tragic everywoman, and lets Harry explore the tragedy of never really being able to know a parent.

(Like - I think it's very interesting that the *films* give us a lot more specific details about her than the books do. Slughorn's whole "Francis the Fish" anecdote, Lupin reminiscing about her, the detail that she was close with Lupin. Movie specific. The way the books treat Lily as this ever-present benevolent force is honestly pretty literary.)

But that means. That because Lily is purposefully vaguely written, she gets defined by her place in the narrative and her relationship with the people in her life. So Petunia, Severus, James. Which MEANS that people with strong opinions about those characters are going to characterize Lily to *fit.* Severus was a sad, manipulated woobie? Well, then Lily was too harsh to him and never should have married his bully. Severus is a obsessive stalkery incel? Lily is a girlboss who kicked him to the curb. James is a trashfire who you ship with Sirius or Regulus? Lily is a goddess who is too good for him. James is cute and snarky and Harry 2.0? Lily is... probably an author/reader insert. Hermione got hit (gets hit) with MAJOR reader insert syndrome, which I completely understand. She's the only central girl and a relatable conduit who can date... whoever you're into. Harry, Ron, Draco, Severus. I imagine that Lily gets that times a million, being the *only* central girl in the Marauder era. So you get Jilly, Lillypad, Jillypad. Do people ship her with Regulus?

If I were to write her... I think "model minority" vibes makes sense. She's a muggleborn, from a poor background (which is something we know her sister struggles with.) Slughorn (with his pro-pureblood prejudice) thinks she was fantastic. I think Lily probably felt the pressure to be EXTRA good, in a Hermione kind of way. She's also the "special one" in her family, which Petunia resents her for. So I'm thinking at home she's the Golden Child? Which is a ego-boosting, but also stressful place to be, because failure isn't really an option.

I don't think I'm meant to pair the Petunia/Vernon "marrying up" vibes with Lily/James, but if I'm getting all psychological about Lily, I probably would. James DOES represent wealth and security, after going from one situation where she's got shaky societal footing... to ANOTHER situation where she's got shaky societal footing. Only difference is now she can make potions. Severus ingratiated himself with the Slytherin purebloods as a survival tactic, and Lily probably did the same thing with the Gryffindor purebloods. The difference is she's not willing to put up with as much bad behavior as Severus is (but like... she's willing to put up with *some.* The Marauders canonically got pretty brutal.)

Also, Severus is kinda a snarky bastard, and so was Sirius. James was a bit more jock flavored, but she got along well with all of them. She herself probably has a bit of a wicked streak, I don't think any of those people would have hung out with someone who was just sweetness and light all the time. Also, we know how important it is to JKR to be "not like other girls" and like... Lily is her ideal girl, so...

I also 100% get sports couple vibes from Lily and James. I mean, baby Harry is flying around on a baby broomstick. Lily's 100% got a sports jersey that she wears around the house, and she and James make a big deal about Game Day. But really, there's not much specific about her I can extrapolate from the books.

(This meta also does a really nice job of going into how ultimately Lily is a mirror, in a fascinating kind of way.)

[adragonsfriend]

Serious question:

Why is there not a single fic on ao3 tagged "Barriss Offee & Letta Turmond"? I'm aware the Wrong Jedi Arc is a trashfire in significant ways, but there is so much room for some soft fixing of canon in exploring that relationship. And I don't mean fixing as in "fix-its" (though there could totally be overlaps)--there's so much room there to give Barriss a comprehensible character arc, explore her guilt, isolation, desperation for a solution that drives her right into the arms of someone using her skills and access to commit violence that only ends up trapping her even deeper in guilt and isolation, in denial of her own responsibility for the people who died in her attack and just how deeply ineffective it was as a form of protest.

Hell, the guilt of killing Letta herself to avoid being caught is part of the trap Barriss closes on herself. The fact Letta didn't realize Barriss would be desperate enough to kill her is intoxicating. Can you imagine the late night talks the two of them had after Letta's husband went to bed, Barriss spilling her guts to Letta, who's almost as good a listener as Master Luminara, but has so much more time to listen? Can you see the more and more overt nudges, turning this communally raised healer who feels helpless in a war, into someone who thinks she is alone in her objection, and that violence is the only way to express that?

Can't you see the Barriss Offee & Letta Turmond?

[invidioso-dogma]

My man is complete. Another Knight of the Flame to join the Chamber of Purity.

Look at him. He is all nice and shiny and full of deamon killing vibes.

Look at him next to his bro. His buddy oh pal.

Look at his staff.

Look at the fabric. It took me 4 hours to finish.

Look at them together.

The skull would have said hi but its shy. Maybe next time.

Look at the fabric when it was still a wip.

No this post is not done yet.

I need to vent.

Because the orange and the yellow had been such a pain in my concave posterior I need a separate section on this post to adequetly describe my pain.

What the fuck is going on with w&n pyrrole orange abd azo yellow medium?

Like for the realzies as the kids say. I try to thin them down, they thin fine. And after a minute of them being left untouched and unbothered they begin to clump up.

I had to take this much out of the tube until I found paint that didn't have the consistency of dirt.

And at first things where fine until they began repeating bad old habbits like I didn't sqeeze the orange and yellow life out of those tubes 5 minutes ago.

So I improved.

Mixed in with glazing medium.

The paint told me to eat dirt cause it ain't gonna behave.

Mixed in with fluid medium.

The painy told me to eat [redacted] cause it ain't gonne bend to my demands.

So you know what?

I decided to turn around and tell it to bend over cause I ain't gonne give up that easily.

And the plan was for me to leave a decent glob of paint on the side thin a tiny piece of it on a different section of the palette and then apply the thinned paint immediatly before I guess the ghost of painting past comes and plays a trick on me again.

It worked.

But.

*goes very quickly to check the price of those tubes*

26€ for the pyrrole orange

18€ for the azo yellow medium

I won't even bother doing the math. Personally in my humble trashfire opinion I think that when a paint costs this much I shouldn't have to go through those painting gymnastics.

And you might say.

Wow. You are taking it way too personally bro. Calm your negative posterior and sit down.

And I will say no. Because I had to improvise on the fly and scrape off paint clumps from my mini and the blending was almost ruined four times because the paint gained the consistency of a dehydrated husk.

🧘‍♂️

Imma calm myself now.

My boy came out well. The trials and tribulations were part of the journey.

The patience cultivation is needed because the future projects will be far more intense.

[ilikekidsshows]

The weird things from "they still use the same plot/characteristic from PV/beta era" is the fact that there's a lot of good things that they could keep in the current canon but decided to scrap it for whatever reason. Namely :

Fu being Marinette's grandfather : This is a better reason why he choose Marinette as a guardian as it is something that passed down through generation than whatever favoritism without backing the current canon do.

Félix isn't choosen by Fu : This is also a good reason why Fu is adamant to meet him or never even trying to connect let alone teach him anything. Adrien being Fu's choosen just mean he's being abandoned for no reason.

Cat Noir and Ladybug BOTH has cool moves : never understand why is this scraped because in beta/PV they seems to be equal in term of distributing power, at least.

Those are things that I could name above my head without looking up at the wiki, I'm sure there's more too. But it does make me wondered, mong all the things they decided to keep, why it must be the one that make the dynamic looks worse??

Also they said Felix is evil because he tried to take advantage of ladybug so does that mean, by that logic, Marinette is also evil because she always take advantage of everyone around her? (Ironically, like Lila did, because a lot of Mari stan keep saying Lila lies isn't as harmless because she want to take advantage of people around her)

---

I actually just said something relating to this today to by bro. I said that the Miraculous writers are just such boring writers that the trashfire they're turning this show into doesn't even have the grace to be interestingly awful. The only bad writing decisions that make me feel anything are the ones where they turn the show into a domestic abuser's manifesto or disrespect disabled people and that's just because I'm morally outraged that this kind of twisted content is being put into a show for small children. Of course the Miraculous writers throw out their more interesting ideas and stick with the bad ones; they're boring.

I've said it on the blog before, that every time the writers tackle an idea that should be interesting, they do the most boring take on it possible. Any fanfic or fancomic or fan animatic tackling Cat Blanc is more impactful and interesting than what they did with the idea, a throwaway episode that barely got referenced until it was an excuse to sideline who the episode was about. Any fandom take on an Akumatized Marinette would have been more interesting than the Goddess of the Multiverse one-hit-KO machine the Paris special gave us. There's a reason the fandom was obsessed with the idea of "Princess Justice" that they teased in 'Ladybug', it would have been an actual Akumatization and interesting.

We still don't know what two of the power-up potions do. We know nothing about the Order of the Guardians. The hero team didn't get any fleshing out before almost ten years into the show's run in season 6. And the reason for this is very simple; the writers just aren't interested in doing anything interesting with Miraculous and its cast. They're utterly unengaged from anything that isn't about propping up Marinette or how Marinette feels about other people's problems. The characters aren't allowed to have lives outside of Marinette, because anything they have going on requires Marinette's thoughts and feelings on it. Of course the writers aren't building the world or actually justifying the writing and Marinette's special treatment. She's Marinette Astruc, the most important, most special girl in the universe of Miraculous so of course she gets all the special treatment and gets to talk smack about the partner who's pulling her spotted butt out of the fire in every single finale and premiere and the one time he isn't, she loses like a chump.

The writers consistently squander any interesting idea they might have for the sake of cheap drama and a shallow girlboss narrative.

[thenixkat]

No, but like literally, I didn't hate any of the Justice League International comics I'd read (they were meanspirited and bigoted but I didn't particularly hate them) until I actually did fucking research on the characters I was reading them for and its like it clicked to me that the JLI/JLA comics are fucking garbage.

(Like yes, they're also shit cause of all the bigoted shit in the writing but like that's the general baseline in mainstream Usono superhero comics, its harder to find ones that arent bigoted trash)

But realizing that characters like Ted Kord and Booster Gold whole ass just had their characterizations mangled all to fuck to the point that they are blatently not the same characters as their pre-JLI incarnations and dont even come across as heroic at all just really made it click that the JLI comics are an absolute trashfire.

Just between how meanspirited and gods awful the attempts at humor are, how more racist than baseline DC comics it is with the brownface shit, the mangling of chartacterization, and just how fucking flippantly mean the writers were to teh fans who had issues with the way they were handling characters? I hate the Justice League International (and their extensions and spinnoffs) comics. I'd put them among the worst comics I've read ever and that's damming given I've read hundreds of issues of comics just in the past year.

[altocat]

in three body problems ,the author believes that brainwash can solve everything if one isn't enough then brainwash until it branded in ppl .

So why Shinra brainwash sephiroth until he complied

I mean, Sephiroth has likely been brainwashed since childhood but even then, it didn't fully seem to stick. Sephiroth appears to be pretty aware of how unethical Shinra is and even has moments where he goes against the system in both First Soldier and Crisis Core. So he's not COMPLETELY brainwashed. More like reluctantly compliant.

Considering how dangerous Sephiroth is, Shinra would want him indoctrinated pretty hard. And they have the advantage there because Sephiroth never got the chance to enlist--he was BORN there. They are his legal guardians. They control his entire narrative and have been doing so before he was even conceived. So I think they would want to brainwash him as much as possible in order to keep things running smoothly.

Like I said before, I don't think Sephiroth was ever brainwashed to the point where he bought into Shinra's nonsense. His will and sense of compassion overruled Shinra's trashfire brand of thinking. But they DID seem to succeed in resigning him to his duties. Probably some sort of learned helplessness conditioning from Hojo. Sephiroth speaks of survival a great deal in his speech in front of Glenn. They likely molded his thinking into believing it was life or death if he didn't side with him. Add to that Shinra's guardian status and...this is the only "family" he's ever really known or had. They have authority over him. They are the only thing that is consistently familiar. Thus, he remains loyal to them.

[chaifootsteps]

I've been saving my dethroning moment entry for the moment Stol1tz actually hook up, but I'm getting the feeling they're still not going to have an actual conversation by the season finale and that it might not even happen next episode

honestly Viv's writing of Stol1tz is both too rushed and too slow. it feels rushed when they get lovey dovey because we barely see what they like about each other and it feels too slow at the same time because it's all the show cares about but they keep repeating the same arguments/beats with each other, so it's a total drag

I'll wait it out one more month just to see, but unless the next episode is a total trashfire where Stolas turns around and snaps at Blitzo for ruining his life and costing him Via (when he is equally responsible and chose to lend out his book for sex and willingly volunteered to take the rap for it) I'm feeling like the nadir of the season for me is still Apology Tour. the only thing close to comparable in mastermind was Andre accusing Blitzo of being the one to abuse Stolas (and Stella implying the same thing in a private convo; even she doesn't judge Stolas at all for using the book to get sex??? what???? what????)

Oh, I've abandoned all hope for the two of them ever having a real, meaningful conversation. If Apology Tour -- which was the time for them to have said conversation -- was what Viv's ideas of them talking it out looks like, I hope they never do.

I'm convinced the rest of the series is just going to be them fucking, insulting each other, and in between, pretending they're soul mates and that all the fighting and abuse that happened a minute ago didn't actually happen.

[randomnameless]

Typing the previous post got me thinking about Rhea's mindset during the sack of Garreg Mach :

Given how she leaves "everyone" in Billy's hands, I'm pretty sure in SS, VW and AM, Rhea intended to, uh, not survive here (or maybe be relic'd).

The "I will not allow another Red Canyon tragedy to happen there" could refer to two things : Rhea doesn't want humans (in this situation, the imperial army) to slaughter the people she came to see as her family (or at least grew close to) in her new home

and

Rhea survived the Red Canyon, can the "I will not allow another red canyon" mean that, this time, she won't survive this?

Aka, she'll throw away her life away, this time, to make sure everyone escapes?

:(

We don't know what exactly happened in Zanado, if Rhea's sibs sacrificed themselves to buy her enough time to run away, or acted as decoys, or anything else, but from her various words and actions, Rhea seems to have some survivor guilt thing going on.

But when Billy isn't here, Rhea doesn't accept to "die" just yet, in Nopes, she accepts to do so in Trashfire because she feels like it's her duty to protect Fodlan and its inhabitants, and whatever happens will happen as Sothis wills it (lel).

In Tru Piss though?

Rhea can be put, again, in the shoes of being the last surviving Nabatean from her newest home and, uh, she doesn't take it well.

Ditto in SB and I guess in all of Nopes' routes, but at least she still has her family and loved ones with her - even if losing Seteth is a big no to her (to the point of being a game over condition in AG's chapter 4 iirc!) and if he passes away, a NPC comments on her grief (we don't see her, but I guess she still has Flayn so it's different from Tru Piss?).

In a way, I see Rhea's completed character arc - with Billy - as someone who doesn't think her life is only meant to bring Sothis back to Fodlan or to be her proxy anymore, but finally moves on, aka, tries to live without this burden and the anguish it brings.

Fodlan being the verse it is, we can never know if Rhea would ever move away from her mother on her own (aka without Billy but only with her fam and friends), and in the non SS routes, if she survives, it's either to lose people close to her again or, in a way, live through the Tragedy of the Red Canyon, again.

(She figs away to the place she still has nightmares about in AM or she dies off-screen in VW bcs her existence and history might make people think twice about Claude's goals).

Assuming "bringing Sothis back/be her proxy meanwhile" is an extreme coping mechanism she adopted after Zanado, Rhea in this cutscene (+ the ones where she eats missiles) displays her grief in the rawest way possible : "Sothis returned, so this time I can finally die to protect people".

She puts, more or less, the same shit before the final battle of Trashfire, accepting to die to fulfil her duty as Sothis' proxy, aka, protecting Fodlan and its inhabitants.

It's only in a roundabout way and discovered through the worst S-Support that Rhea somehow admits she feels remorseful because, despite everything, she wants to live.

(but only if Billy wants to marry her bcs player privilege is like that!)

[genericpuff]

Omg hiiii, I absolutely love Rekindled! You're so talented, and the story you're making for Persephone is so intriguing! A lot more than whatever trashfire Lore Olympus has become.

That being said, what was the moment you stopped liking LO Persephone? Have you always disliked her, or was it gradual? Or just a specific moment that made you go "yeaaaaah.. she's not it ;-;"

(And bonus question if I can ask, but how do you draw hands?? I hate them with a passion, but unfortunately hands are pretty necessary T^T)

aahhh thank you so much!!!

honestly, I was a pretty big fan of LO up until the trial arc. Like, you've all seen me hate this comic with a fiery passion, but the only reason I'm able to do that is because before I hated this comic, I loooved this comic. I'd literally be counting down the hours until new updates, I loved the art, and I was too smitten by the appeal of the series to notice its writing problems, I just loved the romantic drama and the H x P ship, and yes, I loved Persephone, I loved her design, her personality, and I felt so 'seen' by her struggles, both with her trying to pave a path for herself and the SA plotline. I was even (regrettably) one of those people who would lurk in the antiLO tags and think "wow, these people are dumb, can't they see how brilliantly written this is ?? they're nitpicking!"

But then the trial arc happened which involved writing a plot that didn't put the romance front and center anymore - now that Rachel had to actually write something complex and logic-driven, the blinders started to fall off and I went wait... maybe Rachel doesn't know what she's doing. Persephone choosing her own lawyer? And it's Hades, one of the judges? Why are they suddenly establishing Thanatos as Hades' adoptive son? I'm not a lawyer, but I know that's not how any of this works and it really tipped me off that something was amiss, that Persephone was having all of her solutions conveniently handed to her on a platter and all of the other characters were suddenly being made to look like assholes just to make Hades and Persephone the heroes.

And then... Eris happened.

See, one of the things I loved most in the story was Persephone's character arc concerning the Act of Wrath. I write stories about characters with dark "personas" all of the time. So it was something I had frame of reference for, I really loved the premise of Persephone earning her name through this act of violence and while it was dashed with the opening of S2 revealing it was "all an accident", I was excited to see how the trial arc would bring about new information and confirm who was telling the truth about what "really happened" with the Act of Wrath. If the courtroom drama wasn't gonna be realistic, I could at least hope for some good 'OBJECTION!' reveal that would finally put to rest once and for all what really happened, and maybe Kore would finally embrace this 'dark side' she had.

So for the actual twist to suddenly reveal itself as... 'actually, this one goddess we've never mentioned before blessed you with wrath. why? idk she just did. anyways she's the reason you have wrath and that's what made you commit the act of wrath. problem solved.'

And that was where the twisting of 'faith' happened. When I went through the subconscious realization of , "Oh no, Rachel doesn't know what she's doing and it took me this long to notice. Oh no, maybe those antiLO freaks had a point-"

That said, there was a glimmer of hope in the midseason finale. Persephone was sentenced to remain in the Mortal Realm to carry out her mother's duties and I thought, "great! This will be Persephone's Rocky moment! She'll have to prove herself without the help of Demeter or Hades! This is gonna be awesome!!" During the hiatus, I was VERY excited to see where the story was going, I still had so much hope and I figured the mishandling of the trial arc was just a bump in the road. The series was still good, it was just going through a rough patch, these things happen.

And then it came back and it all went downhill from there. There was a 10 year time skip with very little insight as to what happened. Minthe and Daphne were just suddenly back to normal. They were referencing some food shortage or terrible event that happened during Persephone's reign that they never explained in explicit detail. And now, all of a sudden, Persephone was just returning to the Underworld, where Kronos had suddenly taken over. I had cautious optimism but throughout it, I was really seeing the cracks that were already forming opening wide. A lot of what I had to say wasn't positive anymore, I literally couldn't understand what the reasoning was behind these writing decisions and I couldn't find myself rooting for Persephone anymore, everything just seemed to convenient and easy for her to make her seem like the "strong and confident" character the comic claimed her to be.

The S2 finale was my breaking point and I think it was for a lot of other people too. That was pretty much where my 'transformation' from passionate stan to passionate critic happened, and it happened alongside the creation of the UnpopularLoreOlympus subreddit which would become my new 'home' within the community. After seeing how much the story had gone downhill, it made me realize in hindsight just how awful and one-note Persephone is, how she really never cared about anyone but herself and Hades, how her mother did, actually, have a point about her being practically groomed into a relationship with a billionaire slave driver, how she was very intentionally drawn to look like a child in ways I couldn't believe I had never noticed before, the list of "awakenings" goes on. And it sucked! It sucked to have that realization that the thing I loved wasn't just imperfect, but incredibly problematic in its writing and art choices. And just like when I loved the comic, I couldn't just let go of it, I had to understand to some degree why this happened.

It happened because Persephone was always being written as a one-note, easy to project onto self-insert character. A Wattpad protagonist. Not an actual representation of the Goddess of Spring, but a blank slate for the creator and the fans to imagine themselves as purely for the power fantasy of hooking up with a rich and abusive guy.

That was when I made my first piece of LO art intended to be an 'edit' - a redraw of Persephone's rebirth as the Dread Queen from the S2 finale, an ode to the Persephone I was hoping to see but never got. The rest from there is history.

I know I'm being SUPER dramatic about it but this was literally how it felt to go through the realization that this comic - and its characters - wasn't as good as I thought it was, and I think that's a sentiment that's shared by a lot of the 'haters' in this community. LO was a big part of my life and even some of my friendships with people, so when it went downhill, it felt like such a hit to the gut. It's still a big part of my life, albeit in the opposite direction, but I still wonder sometimes over the "what ifs", what if the series hadn't turned out this way? What if I had never realized its flaws? Rekindled is basically a love letter to those what ifs, satisfying the feelings I never got to keep with LO, and giving me a reason to count down the hours on Saturday nights again. I'm glad it's made that same impact for others, too <3

[inktr0vert]

hi! i just saw your recent ask from Birdie about commissions. i wanted to 1) tell you how proud it made me feel to see you be so candid about your mental health & 2) echo her sentiment that i would love to commission a piece from you someday if you were ever in the headspace to do so. you are so incredibly talented.

in the same way that i’ve spent thousands of dollars on art in the form of tattoos, your art is beautiful and valuable enough to spend money on. i’m not saying this to try to, like, persuade you to ever take commissions. i just felt the need to verbally express how floored i am by your art. my tattoo artist occasionally needs to be shaken/reminded how incredible she is sometimes, and i feel like you can just never hear it enough, especially when you’re struggling.

i profoundly relate to your struggles with bipolar/simply just existing. i see you. & i just wanted to be another voice temporarily speaking over the deafening bad thoughts in your mind.

if you ever want to scream into the abyss at a bipolar stranger on the internet, my DMs are always open 🖤

i hope you’re having a good day

Hi there :)

1--I am tired of feeling ashamed for being me. Fuck shame. I think that's why I still act like I'm 13--that's the last time I felt unashamed of everything I am. So I'm done feeling bad for who I am. *I* think I'm pretty fucking cool. So does my husband and my beautiful kiddo. So yeah. Fuck shame <3

In regards towards my mental health vs shame, I had an epiphany:

There is nothing wrong with me.

And the world is wrong for telling me otherwise.

We are all different. And that's not always a bad thing.

2--With all of this self-discovery shit, I'm realizing that I am worthy of so much more than I let myself believe. That I have allowed others to convince me that I am a nuisance, that I am incompetent, that I do not deserve love, praise, or that I shouldn't even be allowed to exist. By the by, someone telling you that you aren't worthy of being alive feels pretty shitty. Don't let those people in your life. Run away. Run away and warn the others, jesus fucking christ.

ANWAYS. I think I may work towards commissions.

I always thought it sounded fun, tried it out, but I pressure myself too much--what if they don't like it? what if they don't want to pay that much? what if my art is trashfire kindling and everyone that's ever complimented my art is a dirty dirty liar that wants to see me fall flat on my face?

And most importantly: What if it's not perfect? What if the eyes are off, or the anatomy is 'wrong', or it's not the EXACT thing I pictured it to be in my mind?

Newer motto (still under construction): Fuck perfectionism. What a stupid cage to lock yourself into. Working on unshackling myself. Have been KINDLY (*this is important) reminding myself whenever my thoughts head down that path to redirect back towards the joyous parts of creativity. And it's been going pretty good. Slow, but making progress.

So yeah! Rambling coming to a close. Thank you for being another positive voice in my head to help fight away the void that other's have created. And for being that for a fellow tattoo artist as well <3

I think I should create a discord group called "screaming into the void" and invite all of you wonderful humans that have invited me for private sessions to join. We can all caterwaul into the abyss together XD

I hope you are having a good day as well. Be kind to yourself <3