#fuckin. death and rebirth

[go-to-the-mirror]

REJECT HUMANITY EMBRACE TRANSGENDERISM

[poisonousquinzel]

thinking about just how likely it is that Batman was the only person Harley told about having suicidal thoughts whilst in Arkham in Detective Comics #831

"I was seriously considering hanging sheets from the light in my cell and doing the maximum checkout when I heard this voice..."

Detective Comics #831

and how he knew when she strapped that bomb to herself in Batman (2016) #100 that he had to go after her because she was going let herself die in an attempt to end Joker's rampage for good but that she refused to physically do it because he didn't want to her Kill him and he told her that so she's found a middle ground

"We don't need to end it this way. He needs to be locked back up."

that she'd rather die than keep living with his presence in the world haunting her, haunting Them.

That if he did choose Joker, she wasn't going to disarm the bomb herself.

"Honey. You're talking to the wrong girl if you think he's not dangerous locked up in Arkham. It's like I said. That's not good enough for me. Not anymore."

the way he yells for her as she leaves.

"You're only going to get to one of us in time, Bats. Who's it going to be?"

"Harley!"

the way the two men stare at each other in the way they have so many times before, in those moments when Joker stayed or prioritized their fight over her. the way he knew Joker loved the thrill of it all and thought it was funny, thought there was No way Batman would leave him and that this game had to end as according to the rules. And that Batman would do so, he would follow the rules and save him. The way he immediately assumed Batman would choose him, choose his life and choose to stay and disarm the bomb.

And how Batman didn't do that. How Batman walked away from him, leaving him to die or escape or whatever, because He was choosing Harley and her safety and prioritizing her life over him.

The way he stared him in the eyes before choosing the woman Joker had always left to die over him. The way that it was always Him, it was never a question if he would choose Batman over her, but when faced with that type of scenario, Joker is the one that gets left behind to die.

The way she literally woke up in the hospital instead of them having a scene just outside after he removed it. because she didn't intend to live in one of the two options. the way the bomb probably did go off to some capacity because you don't just end up in the hospital knocked out for a week.

Him saying that he's glad she's okay, after everything they've been through, this war and Everything else. and the way he didn't brush off her concern

"I'm glad you're okay."

"Are you?"

"I had to bury my father again today. I did it with my family."

i just, i can't,,,,, i cant

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

i want ike to be in three houses

for science

[diejager]

how does a (monster AU) phoenix! reader sound? ...I kinda imagine 141 (except price) getting a heart attack when reader takes a bullet and bursts into flames and then a heap of ash, and then (im pulling a harry potter description of pheonix but its ur choice) the most ugly bird or something pokes their head out of the ashes and they're like '...oh'.

I remember watching Fawkes burning and turning to ash before he popped his head out. So adorable.

Ashes Cw: burning, death, rebirth, tell me if I missed any.

Ghost knew when someone was lying, able to sniff out a liar within a mile. Your dimmer smile, shorter laughter and exhaiusted expression, nothing seemed to make your days better than a warm bump of tea once or twice a day to sooth the ache in your bones and the strain in your muscles. He’d approach you with a clear mind, wanting to get to the bottom of your sickness, why you’d occasionally cough, voice weak and breathy until it cracked. You told him you were fine, that it was just the weather affecting you, but he’d seen this kind of sickness before, a cold that sunk into the bones and clogged every sinuses with intent —sick and vulnerable.

He wasn’t alone in this thought, Alejandro and Gaz shared similar doubts, coming forth to Price with their fears rather than sneaking around like he did, but Price had waved them off, telling them that it was a seasonal thing, you got sick from time to time and rose back from it as if death failed to catch you. This did not seem like something simple and mundane, Ghost could see death follow you like it followed him, it was ever present, so much so that Alejandro and Horangi - the two with the weakest nose out of the four - could smell it ooze off you like a dark miasma plaguing your body.

It seemed as if the both of you shared something that the others weren’t privy to, a low whisper in the dark that they failed to catch or the secret you shared through confidentiality higher than even a colonel. The captain knew you before you joined them, forming a tight connection through past trauma and fuck ups. Perhaps that’s why Price seemed almost chipper about your saddening state.

It seemed that Ghost was kept in as much darkness as the rest, the higher ups had kept it hidden from him, from König and from Alejandro who should’ve had the jurisdiction to have access to your documents. Especially after seeing you burst into flames after being shot in the neck by a surviving sniper (Ghost was quick to shoot him down), body gone in a coud of ash and dusted feathers. He panicked, but he wasn’t the only one to rush towards what remained of you. Despite their panicked mumbles and frantic thoughts, Price had reassured them that it was normal, that you were still alive —all they had to do was wait a few seconds for you to reappear.

Appear you did, a small, ashen head, beak the length of a child’s thumb, small ad brittle, big, rounded eyes blinked at them, narrowed in confusion until you called, a tiny croon from a chick’s throat. You shuffled your way through the mess, featherless wings flapping as you hopped towards Price, who quickly met you half way, picking you up with one nimble swoop.

“Look at you,” Price cooed, pressing his thumb to your forehead, feeling the soft, newly grown feathers that glowed white, “About time you burned, yeah?”

“Fuckin’ hell,” it was the only thing he could answer with when his mind was building up these theories, every little thought in his head went to understand what and how you were made. It was as close as Soap’s Steamin’ bloody Jesus or König’s dumbfounded Was.

“Is that why you told us not to worry, Captain?” Gaz’s ability to think clearly in adrenaline-inducing moments was a blessing, able to restrain his unending thoughts to connect two together and conjure up a sentence - a few words, a mumble or a plea - to understand whatever happened to you. “What happened?”

Price let out a deep rumble, a laugh from his belly, deep and amused, a striking contrast to their worried frowns. He handled you softly, petting and pinching at the young feathers growing on you while he turned you around, showing them how Price held you with such careful ease and soothing smile. Ghost doubted that Price didn’t have any prior experience in caring for you, seeing how loving he was with you —like a lover caring for his sickened, or a dragon guarding his treasure, Ghost wasn’t sure which one was right.

“Hunter’s a phoenix, “ he smiled softly, eyes gleaming with too much glee, a silent laugh at their sudden bewilderment, approaching you slowly to admire you themselves. “They burst to flames every three years or so, the last one was around five years ago- long overdue for a reset.”

Soap and Horangi were the first to attempt to touch you, the excited dog and the curious feline, tentatively poking at you with a finger until you pecked it, annoyed by their incessant jabbing. You let out a shrill cry from your throat, small and hilariously fierce for something so small and fragile. You crawled to the ends of Price’s fingers, wings flapping to urge them to pick you up instead of pointing a finger and cooing at you as if you were an exotic animal. You somewhat were —exotic, that is.

“A wee thang, aye, Cap?” Soap awed, cradling you in his palms, you weighted so little, as light as a feather on Gaz’s wing.

“Ugly as a rat too,” Horangi snickered, making light of the situation that had made their hearts stop.

You screeched, shaking your head wildly at him, his shoulders bobbing while you showed how offended you felt by acting out, an angry, little chick putting on a show of aggression and courage. His dark thoughts receded, Ghost’s fears and demons falling back into the depths of his mind when his eyes met your beady ones, round and doe-eyed, your age shining through the innocence of a newly-hatched. It made him wonder how you’d look once your feathers grew out, would you be as majestic as the stories portrayed phoenix did, with your great wings and great strength, feathers bathed in the sun’s warm embrace and tipped with the power of undying flames of power. Phoenixes were seen as symbols of immortality, resurrection —of life and death. Untouchable by death and favoured by life, you would live in a cycle of ashes and flames, embers cracking until it softened to flickers, a soft, gentle flame ready to yield to nature.

Taglist: @craxy-person @crowbird @dead-cipher @iwannabealocalcryptid @iizx7y @mxtokko @yeetusspagheetus @capricorn-anon @perfectus-in-morte @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @tallmanlover @distracteddragoness @vxnilla-hxrddrugs @konigsblog @havoc973 @angelcakes-22 @cassiecasluciluce @ramadiiiisme @ramblingsofachaoticthinker @ki-cant-spel @im-making-an-effort @love-dove-noora @jinxxangel13 @daisychainsinknots @0alk0msan @mul-pi @danielle143

[tianasficrecs168]

Sasunaru fic recs

Fair warning, right off the bat: some of these are really fuckin old. Like fanfiction.net old. But I can't not include them, bc the me from way back then really liked them.

The quality gets better and better the further down you go, so. Take it or leave it I guess lol

Anyway, the drill (you know it):

A black dot • means it’s a one-shot, if it doesn't have one, it's got more than one chapter

WolfieNLazuli: - "Avoidance" (Naruto/Sasuke) • In which Sasuke dances around the issue of his feelings as Sakura and Naruto watch on in perplexity.

Attanih88: - “Pyretos” (Naruto/Sasuke) • Sasuke came to stand closer. Naruto watched him, taking in the easy strides and the way Sasuke’s face remained devoid of expression as he took in Naruto’s wounds.

Dawnstruck: - “Cultivate your hunger” (Naruto/Sasuke) • After six days, Sasuke wakes up. Naruto doesn't.

Michelerene: - “The Divine Glitch” (Naruto/Sasuke) There are reasons why two people can't be together. Separated by oceans, by wars, by family feuds. Try being the Angel of Death. Romeo and Juliet were lucky. 

Blackkat: - “Stormborn” (Naruto/Sasuke) Flashes of an unknown past haunt Naruto, entwining his steps with those of a former life no longer content to stay forgotten. There's a voice on the wind and another lifetime in his head, and it’s time for Uzushio’s Storm God to rise once more. (The soul of a city is a hard thing to kill. Uzushio is still aware, still waiting. And now, with the rebirth of her greatest Kage, it’s time to call her people home.)

Applecrumbledore: “Prairie Town” (Naruto/Sasuke) • The auto shop mechanic knocked the kickstand of his motorcycle down with the heel of his sneaker. He had pale blond eyelashes and a full mouth, wrinkled white t-shirt tight around his arms, jeans over big thighs. No edges. Loud in both volume and presence. Sasuke fidgeted with his hands inside his pockets.

Winterdesu: - “40m2” (Naruto/Sasuke) • Naruto and Sasuke cohabitate. "What happens now?" Sasuke wondered aloud. Naruto laughed - the sound clear and warm like sun-drenched crystals. He gestured widely at the unfurnished flat with a flourish. “We move in,” and pointed at the pile of furniture and boxes still unmoved from their place at the door. "Let's fill this place up, Sasuke."

Sieges: - “Beyond Grating Bones” (Sasuke/Naruto) Sasuke doesn't emerge from his fight with Itachi unscathed, or even alive. Revived as an Edo Tensei, he finds the second chance he never wanted, the answers he never got, and the peace he didn't know he needed.

Frogsterz: - “Coming home” (Naruto/Sasuke) • “Do you not have a fridge?” Sasuke asks, bewildered. And it didn’t have a fridge. Or a bedframe. Or a mirror in the bathroom. Or— “Naruto, how do you live like this?” (Sasuke makes it his mission to find Naruto a proper home. Naruto already has one; it just tends to come and go.)

[l0stfoster]

For Cursed Tulsa AU: aksjsjak there are soo many things I want to ask about but first I am SO intrigued by Dally in this AU. So like him seeing ghosts is from his mom and I'm assuming he couldn't see them before he got shot/was rescued so was him 'dying' kind of like the catalyst for him unlocking that power? Did his mom ever tell him about the ghosts and he just thought she was hallucinating or did she never even try to bring that up? Does he know that his powers are from his mom or did he just wake up and was like "I guess that just happens now"?

AND THE AFTERMATH OF HIM JUST. SEEING THEM NOW.

Do the ghosts ever try to interact with him? Can they even? Since he apparently saw the Curtis parents and his mom so like did they try to speak to him ever? Or was it more just ominous staring?

And speaking of which - I'm pretty sure Dally isn't telling anyone about what he's been seeing. Is it just because he doesn't know how to bring it up or does he even understand exactly what's going on? Will he ever tell them? Or is this a secret he's taking to his grave?

Sorry for rambling lmao (expect more of this in the future) but all of this is genuinely SO INTERESTING AHH

Absolutely keep rambling Lunar I love these

His near death experience and sort of ‘rebirth’ was the reason his ghost seeing stuff finally unlocked, yes— however, that’s more in a manner of he finally became aware of it.

He assumed she was just hallucinating, and she never told him about it, both in a selfish way and in an attempt to protect him. Her thought was that if he didn’t know, then he couldn’t possibly channel it— the only issue is that if he had been seeing the ghost since he was a boy, it would’ve driven him down the same path of psychosis and mental unease she had experienced. While his mother had been able to see it since she was young, Dally’s mind had sort of blocked out the whole thing as it was due to how she behaved in correspondence to what she could see. To an extend, he’s always been able to see ghosts, but in the same way he’d blocked the Curtis’ out, his mind blocked the ghosts. It was only after actually encountering Death that this subconscious barrier shattered.

It takes a few weeks of living with it and one really bad hangover after drinking to try and block it out before he knew how to for there to be that oh moment. His mom wasn’t fuckin’ insane, she was seeing ghosts— and he’s doing the same thing she was doing, drinking to ignore it.

The ghosts are aware that he can see them once he acknowledges or reacts to them, after all if he didn’t give them the light of day, it’d just seem like another human overlooking them due to not seeing spirits. They can’t physically interact in most cases, beyond toying with items and things of that sort. The few he does interact with he has sort of ‘befriended’,, but it’s mostly just ones tied to spots that he can walk by, ask if they’d seen anyone from the gang, get an answer, and keep going.

The Curtis parents didn’t really get a chance to try and speak to him, all they’d really manage was his name or something else of a similar nature before he’d panic and block them out. His mom didn’t speak when he saw her, she just watched. Stared at him with dead eyes as he stared back in horror.

Y’know, he never knew that she died.

Dally hasn’t told anyone yet, but I think if anyone were to find out willingly first it either be Johnny or Two. Johnny’s the boy of death, he’d have to know something about seeing all of this. Two’s his best friend, he knows he can trust him.

..I think the person who would find out despite Dally’s unwillingness is Paul. Witches are pretty spiritually tied, are they not? And he’s not stupid, he’s heard about spiritual medium related things; Dally sticks out like a sore thumb when you know what signs to look for. He just won’t bring it up, since it’s.. yknow. Dally

[questionable-chnt-hc]

i have a fuckin theory so here we go

the world in chnt wasnt always this messed up. sydneys dream with the ants and blue sky was CLEARLY a repressed memory, even though the world was his version of “wrong.” Now I think that jed bringing sydney back to life was the cause. there obviously HAD to be some semblance of magic prior to sydney’s resurrection (which, additionally i say took 3 days for jesus parallels, anyway) because 1. jed knew how to do it. and 2. we are told natsume has been learning to astral project from a young age. Sydney being brought back cracked the world in some way that let magic and this weirdness through from wherever it was before. I ALSO think peoples memories have been altered into thinking the weirdness is normal because of how fundamentally changing the rebirth was.

TLDR: Sydney’s death and resurrection broke the fabric of reality and caused the weirdness, and people’s memories were altered to believe this is normal.

Wait it would be so fucking cool if they did this

[tomboyyyaoi]

FUCKING

VAMERY NATION HOW ARE WE FUCKING DOING

STRYFEWOOD NATION I HOPE UR ALL ALIVE AND WELL TOO

wolfwood's "he's way out of your league" comment THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTINGGGG

speaking of: NO THE GIRLS ARE ACTUALLY FIGHTING THAT SCENE RULED

VASHS HAIR THE BLACK JACKET OUUUUUFUCKFUCKFUCK

nai willfully burning himself alive to try and get vashs fucking. Evil Rubiks Cube or whatever was so RAW we getting the rebirthing scene in s2??????

"when everything calms down ill settle by their side again" "im vash the stampede" BYE IM MICROWAVING MYSELF

ANGEL ARM ANGEL ARM WE GOT 2/3 GUNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

vash humming his little song... "it comes to me." and he does it for comfort.... ouh my god.

ZAZIE ACTUALLY FREAKING OUT A BIT LOL I LOVE THEM

well shit man ig that guy from ep1 (chuck lee?) is fucking dead rip bozo

vash and knives' relationship will be the fucking death of me im going to die

i fucking need s2 immediately i want it so bad its literally so fuckin happening we won we fucking won

oh my GOD the timeskip. meryl serving mini butch realness. MILLY. ERIKS. THE INSURANCE SOCIETY. LINA.

meryl regularly visiting july.... the picture she left there..... holy fucking shit im gnna kms...

HER PRACTICING CALLING MILLY NEWBIE.... OH MY GOD OH MY GODDDDDD IM WAILING

vash wincing when lina calls him eriks.... idk im thinkin he remembers more than hes letting on maybe oughh idk idk idkidkidk

also him playing the key on the piano.... like hes so close to remembering. he knows its familiar but he doesnt remember. s2 gnna kill me

oh my god also the "thank you meryl. i heard your voice too." at the beginning of the ep. vamery nation how are we fucking feeling im going to start gnawing shit

CHRONICA POST CREDITS...

GUYS I CANR STRESS ENOUGH.... CHRONICA POST CREDITS WE HEAR HER FUCKING VOICE THE GUY CALLS HER CHRONICA WERE GETTING CHRONICA..... IM GOING TO BLOW UP

oh my god oh my fucking god i literally need s2 in my hands rn theyve confirmed it theyve fucking confirmed s2 we are getting it its happening im gnna fucking die

WE MAY NOT HAVE A TIMEFRAME. IT MAY BE MONTHS IT MAY BE A COUPLE YEARS. BUT S2 IS HAPPENING. GODSPEED EVERYPONY. UNTIL THEN. I FUCKING LOVE YOU ALL.

[pen-and-umbra]

It freaks me out that people fuckin revered Sephiroth while he was killing Wutaians, but when it were people in Nieblheim, he is suddenly a mass murderer?? like wtf. Those folks in Nibelheim effing KISSED the ground he walked on, wanting pics for posterity, to dine with him and whatnot. Um, helllooo?? You praised the guy for being good at his work, you considered hima goddamn hero BECAUSE he was a trained killer..but as soon as he turned on them they took off rose-tinted glasses and went OOOOH HE'S A MURDERER. Well guess what, he was and you were fine with it

I get what you're saying, and you make a reasonable point. For certain, there is an aspect of in-universe double standards being applied to Sephiroth and, by extension, the ShinRA and Wutai conflict. However, the way you phrased your idea is a touch crude, and it may mislead readers into thinking that you believe Nibelheim's inhabitants had it coming. So, as a preface, let me state unequivocally that they did not. They did not deserve it, regardless of how hypocritical or ignorant their ideas may have been. Now with that out of the way...

People in Nibelheim, Midgar, and pretty much anywhere ShinRA had established its turf saw Sephiroth as this larger-than-life hero who turned the tide of the Wutaian campaign (which, by the by, was a fabrication contrived to bolster ShinRA's recruiting numbers). It never occurred to the typical citizen that “being a war hero” entailed — directly or indirectly — murdering or otherwise harming people, potentially including civilians as collateral damage. Regular citizens, just like Nibelheim residents, in places just like Nibelheim. The difference was that the violence was happening off-screen and elsewhere. On Wutai's land — under false pretenses meant to conceal ShinRA's true goal of establishing an economic & power supply hegemony... Point being, it didn't involve them. The townpeople seemed utterly unaware of anything. Children like Cloud and Zack were transfixed by the romanticized notions of SOLDIER and war glory. Heck, even little Tifa during her water tower date with Cloud goes “SOLDIERs are heroes, heroes save people”. So when Sephiroth razes Nibelheim, people call him a monster, despite the fact that this is something they were okay with being done to *others*. Wutai, Rhadore—you name it. They regarded Sephiroth as if he were a celebrity, despite the fact that his trade and status as a Wutai war hero involved death and efficient destruction.

I suppose it is a testament to both Shinra's propaganda machine and the way society operates. An everyman is complacent and self-absorbed, relying heavily on the comfort of routine. It's very easy to cultivate a "us vs. them" and "rules for thee and not for me" mentality when you provide every gift of civilization, including jobs, amenities, and power supply, as well as exert control over the media to disseminate a favorable angle (all of which ShinRA is involved in). People in Midgar were certain of Wutai espionage machinations because Wutai was appointed as The Enemy, so to an average Joe ShinRA had every right to eliminate hostile foreign elements and their supposed allies, such as Avalanche. After all, ShinRA is the benefactor, Wutai is treacherous, and combat zone is far away, so who cares what happens there?

The same teenage Sephiroth appeared to struggle with reconciling killing Rhadoran youth and the elderly, and when Glenn questioned him, he reverted to spouting propaganda pieces supplied to him by ShinRA. Only after this does he begin to display signs of uncertainty in his actions, which Glenn notices. Or take Zack in Crisis Core for instance. It does not seem to register with him that by bombing Angeal's and Genesis' hometown ShinRA is pulling up a dirty black-op (and Rebirth further underscores that cover-ups were a regular ShinRA response, fake Nibelheim or Corel cleansing being such examples). He doesn't begin to seriously question their modus operandi until much later.

So to quote Barret, “screw ShinRA for deceiving honest folk” by brainwashing them and conditioning people to see the company as a sole source of good. Regardless of the ignorance and double standards that ShinRA city folk might have shown regarding Wutai and the nature of Sephiroth’s trade, Nibelheim is still a tragedy, and these people needn't have died. Just like people in Wutai needn't have died for ShinRA's lofty goals. That said, the way SE portrayed the average folk attitude is true to life and quite reflective of society. People care about whatever media tells them to care about and repeat whatever narrative is drilled into them. That's how it works.

👋 @pen-and-umbra

[queer-quester]

okay so here are my hybrid headcanons for Pearl and Gem because I can't get the fuckin things out of my head:

Pearl is a hare hybrid primarily but also a deific shapeshifter for various reasons. Gem is a kitsune. They are both trickster spirits.

honestly I ended up writing so much more than I intended to explain my reasoning but I stand by it xD

TW: Self harm adjacent autocannibalism, cannibalistic urges, animal death, general violence.

Pearl:

Hare- The hare has a strong association with the moon in religion and mythology. You can even see the shape of a hare in the moon. It's associated with luck and rebirth, it's a strong and fast animal, and in a lot of mythology/folklore it is a trickster too. Visually I like a hare for Pearl, the colour of it isn't too far from her hair (heheh, the hair of a hare) and the long ears would perfectly mirror the long feathered antenna people will often draw her with as a moth hybrid. The Hare is a survivor, and will make a safe home for itself.

But I also really like her situationally as a moth hybrid and as a wolf hybrid, so she has shapeshifter abilities.

Lunar Moth- I think of her as a skybling to Grian, not incidentally but intentionally. He loves his sister, he wishes for her to fly with him, to be able to follow no matter how high he perches. He is a watcher- of a sort, a deserter who regrets that choice but is still burdened with the weight of power nevertheless. He sees her, sees the wish to follow him ever higher than even her strongest leaps. He sees that potential of flight in her, and it becomes reality. She is his sister by choice but he sees the bond so it is true, and if they are related should they not both have inherited some of the same power? Her wings breathe into existence when he is present, in reality or even just in thought, and the patterns on her wings look like eyes. The view from up high is better than the ground and there is a tower she has shared with BigB, a cautious alliance strengthened by their mutual exploration of the desire to watch that has been calling to them both for a long time. For one due to the bond of a sibling, for another due to some whisps of something creeping in as he poked and prodded at other worlds. Her wings will now often unfurl around all other avians, she will join them in the sky, see all below, and try to touch the moon above that feels like home.

Wolf- I think this form developed as a defence mechanism. Something unlocked perhaps through the touch of divinity she inherited with Grian and has since nurtured and grown. Hares are associated with rebirth and she does that often. Santa Perla. Power from death and sacrifice, and love for her, because Pearl is loved. Except when she isn't. Except when loneliness crawls in and that divinity and rebirth turn sour. Alone, rejected, cold. Up in her tower looking down, seeing the joy of the others. Her wolf is her friend, her only friend. Tilly is brave and strong and her teeth are sharp. Tilly is obedient to and gentle with her, but she is not prey. Tilly is a wolf and a predator and will carve up and eat whatever and whoever she must to survive. Pearl adores and envies her, she feeds Tilly the flesh of the dead and thinks of Cleo, beloved by Scott and a friend to her too once, and she envies Cleo and Tilly both. She yearns to feed on the dead that stole her soulbound from her, to consume whatever made them enough where she was not. She builds a pack of her own but it's not enough. Her dog is still dying. She is a trickster but that's not enough anymore either. Not for this. How does prey become a predator? The loneliness is eating at her but she is faster, the first prey that she consumes as a wolf must be herself. Call it a ritual, call it divinity turning on itself. Whatever you call it it is bloody and internal and when the transformation is complete her teeth are sharp and so are her eyes, seeing all her old friends through a haze of red. She still loves the moon.

I think her wolf retreats when she feels safe and loved once more, long hare ears returning with a cheerful twitch, moth wings wrapping comfortingly around her. But what is done cannot be undone. Werewolf is the closest word but her beloved moon could never be the trigger for that horrific shift. A defence mechanism then. The red haze and the sharpened canines creeping in when needed. Santa Perla will sacrifice everything for those she loves, but if there is no one to love she will love herself, and do what she must to survive.

Gem:

General Reasoning-

I just cannot see Gem as a deer. The imagery and art is beautiful, I understand the associations, I just don't see it. The grace and nobility I see, but there is no sense of skittishness in that woman. She will stare down that which wishes to eat her and it will find her victorious. Also let's be honest CC Gem ain't as fond of the deer associations/design anymore either. I liked the fox hybrid headcanons, visually speaking it works so well with her red hair, but I have grown up with foxes living in my back garden all my life, I can't see Gem as something so mundane to be honest. A kitsune though? similar themes but more powerful. Mythic, and a real emphasis on the trickster nature which feels right. God-like powers that grow as she does, and a powerful friend and guardian as well as a trickster. They are also specifically known to be bewitching, and Gem has incredible social skills and ability to influence others, a lot of what she does in Secret Life and Among Us proves that.

Extra details-

I headcanon that the reason she originally presented as/ is still often is seen as a deer is because of her trickster spirit nature. She wished for people to see her as something different than she was, both to be perceived as less of a threat but also because it amused her in the early days. Now most of her friends are aware of her true nature, and her power, but she still occasionally will appear as a deer out of nostalgia. I also like to think she gains a new tail for each season of hermitcraft she's in and, as a kitsune, her divine abilities are what allow her to travel between worlds/SMPs, each of her tails forming a bridge to a separate SMP from hermitcraft for her. I've seen a lot about there being multiple 'types' of kitsune, and tbh I'm not sure if that's actually true or something pushed by modern fictional interpretations. I suspect it's the latter based on limited research, but I like the concept and I'm gonna roll with it a bit anyway to say that I think Gem takes on different kitsune 'types' to suit her environment/ series/ current SMP. For hermitcraft 10 she's an ocean kitsune for example.

Shiny Duo Dynamic:

I am a casual shipper of c!Pearl and c!Gem so obviously that has some influence, but even non romantically I think their dynamic is fascinating, and I really love how it works out with my head canons for them.

The most obvious point being that they're both trickster spirits, creatures that, in their associated folklore, tend to play the role of the clever creature that usually talks it's way out of being eaten, or into eating something else. Not to be a stereotypical gay but consumption as a metaphor/ expression of love and obsession is super fascinating I think. Hare!Pearl being chased and played with by Kitsune!Gem only to potentially turn around, shifting into a wolf herself, is really fun to think about, and there are a lot of parallels with that to their interactions, especially with Secret Life and now Wild Life.

Two trickster spirits, messing with each other, in a thrilling and occasionally violent cycle of eat or be eaten, each trying to outwit the other. What forms would Pearl take most around Gem, the hare chased by the hungry fox Kitsune? Or the hound wolf on the hunt? chasing after Gem in turn. Perhaps neither, perhaps she would flit around on moth wings, whispers of her divinity brushing against Gem's as they both continue to grow in power.

I've definitely spent waaay too long thinking about this for someone who almost certainly ain't gonna do any writing or drawing about it xD

0 notes

[cat-mermaid]

still can't believe rainworld, a gorgeous and incredible game that came out almost 7 years ago and was ignored/forgotten almost instantly because of the eyewatering difficulty/no handholding on what to do, has suddenly gotten so much fucking CONTENT!!!!

out of the blue last year it got a huge DLC update, this last fucking week it got a massive mod release called "Drought" and fucking TODAY it gets another fucking DLC announcement?!?!

I thought downpour was really really thorough on the lore of the world of the game, it goes through what seems like the twilight years of whats left of rainworld's original civilization and explores the relationships of the AI that have been left behind to rot

but now there gonna be more lore?! I mean it when I say rainworld has one of the most original alien civilizations I've ever seen. whats amazing about it isn't the creatures you're fighting, its the ruins and remains and all the mystical shit

the slugcats you play as are like ants crawling around on top of this abandoned rich and fascinating culture, interacting with incredible massive biological super computers, bumbling deep into the earth where there is a sea of.... reality? Somthing that can only be perceived as liquid by us 3 dimensional creatures, but is actually the means to exit from this reality and the cycle of death and rebirth?

I'd love to type up my theorys on this game but we'd be here all fuckin day, but trust me, this game gives you a lot to think about

just playing it to the end feels like you've had a borderline religious experience, but just like the simple slugcat, you have no way to grasp the full meaning or significance of what happened

i fucking love this game

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

Just want to add to your mv x er madness that I think the Millicent questline would also be an extremely impactful one for both Arthur and John (if they could even survive to do it). Just the thought of another young girl that is cursed by forces out of her control. Dying. They would attempt to aid her in a heartbeat after talking to Gowry. Then later trying to take control over her life and learn about her mother only to be turned on for some predestined ascension and rebirth. One she did not choose. That would hit pretty hard I think. Then her pulling out the needle in the end...There would be no argument about killing Gowry in the end if they find out his part in that.

GOD, FUCKIN... YEAH...

they'd be so fucking pissed about the worship, i think. i mean, everything about the situation, but it's the fact that she's infested with this thing that is slowly destroying her and causing her so much agony and they want to prolong it. they think it's holy. that hurts them both SO badly in different ways, i think. the second they hear about that they're like oh we NEED to get her out of there.

i can't decide if they would be sympathetic towards or suspicious of gowry. like, on the one hand, the guy seems to be... trapped in his home? maybe? and claims to be her father, or as close to one as she has, and seems to worry after her and, outwardly, be much more motivated towards her safety than any of the rot worshippers do. but. there's just. there's just Something about him.

god, also, his dialogue after millicent visits and leaves the shack. "Please make certain that little Millicent goes unharmed. Like her mother, she has the stuff to be a great warrior, but commands only one arm, and is yet preciously young." how much further can we twist the fucking emotional knife into arthur here. she's so young and small and fragile and has suffered so much and won't you keep her safe? won't you promise? please? please?

and the end of the questline... the overwhelming sense of failure. wanting to honor her choice and not force her onto anyone's path of fucking godhood but torn against the knowledge that the only other path she can choose is death. that she'll die either way, in some capacity. they tried so hard and in the end all they did is give her some different kind of final suffering.

i feel like arthur would ignore the risk of rot, just to hold her as she died. if that's the only thing left he can do.

also they totally cheese o'neil into the rot geysers right there's no way they fight that dude fair and square

[traggalicious]

Iiiii did it againnnn (made a new character) (she’s cool as hell tho so it’s fine right)

She’s a half-elf drow (who was a necromancer), and *was* pretty fuckin good at it. So good, that when she died. She refused to do so. She was like “ermm stfu myrkul i aint listenin to you now i’ve been fuckin w/ u my whole life i will not stop at death.” Kinda funny, local sorcerer refuses to fucking die. So now she’s possessing her own corpse. Out of sheer will.

Now, you may ask "trag, why is she Ivl 1 if she was a good enough necromancer to literally refuse death?' GOOD QUESTION.

The answer is: one: she got tadpoled ): we all know being tadpoled fucks shit up, as seen in the case of Gale and Wyll and basically everyone

Two: basically her body is fuelling her spirit and her spirit is fuelling her body in a fucked up mutualistic relationship. Her body relies on her magical energy to yk, not decay on the spot (tho it is slowly decaying, adding to the urgency of getting a cure for the tadpole and getting her magic back to its og level). And her spirit needs a vessel.

Plus, the connection b/n body and soul is a bit fucked so her soul is basically a bunch of raw magic inhabiting a human container. Ain’t that great (:

Also also: now she’s a Wild Magic Sorcerer. For fun. And bc again: shit’s fucked. Thank u for attending my ted talk

Her name currently is Ceridwen, after the Celtic deity of rebirth, but also considering naming her Athenios which is a feminine variation of Adonis. Idk tell me which u like more (if u want). SO HERE’S WHAT SHE LOOKS LIKE BABEY‼️ (Image and more under the cut)

SO.

Yeah obviously she’s kinda pale (for a half-drow) and the face paint is to distract from the bad circulation (which she still has circulation and stuff but biological processes are slow). She’s missing an eye (which would look red but there’s no option for that so idk maybe she has a tiny scrying eye replacement that’d b cool as hell). Her other eye is a dark blue and her hair is reddish brown bc google says that shit happens after death. Also! Her pupil is supposed to be white. But again, no option for that. Anyway, I love her, tell me what u think (:

Love youuuu

[turtlemagnum]

ok, gonna try my hand at compiling my thoughts on fist of the north star first. here goes nothing! warning, this post is gonna be Long, open the read more at your own peril.

i think the best way to go about this might be roughly chronologically, so i'll start at the start. i think it's interesting how very early on, the conceit is "there is but one practitioner of hokuto shinken and but one practitioner of nanto seiken, and they are sworn to never fight lest the world fall into Chaos..." and that degrades very quickly past the first arc. i will say that overall, the shin arc is a very fun, enjoyable and relatively quick watch, with mostly interesting fights, decent character designs and a mostly compelling narrative. i think one of the standout parts, to me, was when shin was actually defending yuria from his former goons while they tried to revolt. it definitely added a certain texture to shin's character where he had previously been just 100% straightforwardly the bad guy, instead of being 99% that. also there's the devil rebirth fight and that time ken killed The Entire United States Military in the same episode that he punched a wrecking ball so hard that it shattered like a christmas ornament. now that i think about it, the leader guy of the former US military was actually probably the first time we see nanto seiken used by someone who isn't shin, and i remember it being kind of a big deal that shin had violated their sacred traditions to such an extent, y'know? how quickly that went out the window

something that's been consistently good in the series was the music. the fight music, the ambient stuff, and especially the openings. all 3 of the openings are S tier, but i will say they never quite top ai wo torimodose, it's just that fucking bombastic and fun, y'know? at the same time i wouldn't stab somebody for thinking silent survivor or TOUGH BOY are better, they're all fuckin great even if in different ways at time. honestly i'm mostly surprised that an anime from back then had more than one opening, much less 3. from what i can tell that shit wasn't nearly as common back then as it was today, so i think it speaks to how deeply popular the series was back in its heyday. hell, OG dragon ball got just one and im pretty sure DBZ barely got two. i hope one day i'll be able to make music as stellar as the hnk soundtrack, really.

something that bugged me about early fist of the north star is how every fucking woman looked like yuria, just sometimes with different hair. this definitely got better as the series went on, and i have no idea if this was a problem in the manga too, but by god is it glaring. thankfully that seems to clear up ironically after mamiya is introduced, who is explicitly portrayed to be the spitting image of yuria. i think the first time i noticed that women finally look like unique people and Not Just Yuria was that one martial artist who fought with roses and shit. side note but i genuinely loved her design, the show got really sexist about her being a Femoid who fights but setting aside that i really loved her. i should learn to draw her. anyways, i like how the series improved over time in that regard, at the very least

one of my biggest problems in the series starts with shin's death. i remember when shin first died and he burst out crying, i had assumed it was just a fucked up manipulation tactic like the yuria doll, but apparently we the audience were expected to take it seriously? and like, this began a longrunning trend of a villain being like, absolutely irredeemably evil, like puppy crusher machine, baby eating, torment nexus evil, and then at the end they're all like "i just wanted 2 play on de play groundt...." and we're expected to take that seriously???? like, i'm all for moral nuance and complexity, and there are times where this whole shtick was done more tolerably than others, but in my opinion they never actually redeem somebody in a way that's satisfying. a redemption arc has to be, y'know, a fucking arc. and even if you're trying to do a redemption = death thing, the thing that makes that trope work is that they die doing something, y'know, actually good???? the reason anakin's redemption worked (aside from actually being foreshadowed pretty blatantly) was because he actually saved lukes life and died in the process. he did a good thing and died because of it. meanwhile shin, he still fought ken right up until the end and acted like nothing was out of the ordinary until he was literally seconds from dying. at least raoh had it built up to a little bit, like jesus fucking christ.

now, i will say that the arc from roughly jagi's introduction to the first fight with raoh is the best fist of the north star gets. if you're thinking about watching the show but don't wanna commit to 150ish episodes, i'd recommend watching from the beginning right up until the end of the first raoh fight. i feel like that's still be a pretty compelling 50 or so episodes, and it has literally all the best bits within it. honestly kinda sad that the show peaks approximately 1/3 of the way through it, but what can you do. anyways, enough backhanded compliments; jagi is probably the best all around villain in this series. he's an absolute bastard, he's one of the first characters in the entire show to just straight up pull a normal gun on people, and he inspires one of the most cathartic moments in the entire show. this is around when we first get into like, the soap opera shit, right? first it's a bit contrived but still cool as hell that rei is a new nanto seiken practitioner, aside from That One Scene he fills the deuteragonist role pretty nicely and is honestly the gold standard by which the rest of the series' guys can be judged off of. he's no ein or juza, but to be fair basically nobody is.

anyways like, that cathartic moment i was talking about. it was just after jagi admitted to ken, taunting him with the fact that he's actually the reason shin kidnapped yuria, and he's the reason yuria died. this, alongside the "actually the main character has 3 secret brothers that we just havent mentioned until now, and theyre ALSO hokuto shinken practitioners" is very like. soap opera/bad fanfic-y, right? but it works because in execution, it's still pulled off well, and we're still nowhere near the bullshit horizon we'd skyrocket past by the end of the series. so, when ken's finally killing jagi, there's a moment where he says something to the effect of "this is for yuria, and...." and you just know what he's about to say next, but he hesitates, and when he finally says it it's so damn satisfying, "and for me!" and the thing is that it's a deeply compelling moment for a variety of reasons.

so, the thing with fist of the north star is that, in a lot of ways, it's very analogous to a superman story where the question is almost never "will the main character lose this fight" because he's so insanely fucking broken, right? the real question is, "will this character protect those he cares about in time", that's where the tension comes from, and it comes from the fact that he is in fact a hero. that's how you write a compelling overpowered protagonist, you give him either people to love or just a love and respect for all life in general and so that always gives you stakes. i get that to a lot of people, the question of "will ken save this nameless chicken farmer?" isn't a very compelling one. but to me, it is, because he cares so deeply about it that i start caring about it. in the words of aphex twin, "i care because you do".

so, the thing is up until now ken is a very selfless character. it's to such an exaggerated degree that it becomes fairly evident that he has very little regard for his own safety or wellbeing. in the first arc, aside from helping whoever he happens across he's motivated exclusively by rescuing yuria. every fight he has up to this point isn't even for himself, really, and there's something almost sad about that. he doesn't allow himself to have needs. so it's actually very satisfying to see this strong, principled man admit that he has in fact been hurt, and that he's not just doing good for those around him but for himself as well. and it's a very natural character progression that you don't even realize is happening but also makes complete sense. there's something deeply compelling to me about a man so devoted to helping others that he has to actively learn how to live for himself, y'know? i feel like that's a relatable struggle to a lot of people, really

i will say i have one gripe about the jagi fight, and it's that it's almost perfect except for the fact that jagi dies laughing. at first it's seeming like he's gonna die in agonizing misery like he deserves, and it's satisfying well up until the point he starts to laugh on the way out. and like, i understand why it was done that way, and i'm pretty sure it was meant to be haunting, but it honestly just felt like it undercut an otherwise great moment, y'know? i want that motherfucker suffering god damnit, its what he deserves.

there's not much to say about the arc up until the first raoh fight, really. toki is really fucking cool, i love me my apocalypse karate jesus boy, and the fight with that uighur guy was really good setting aside the weird racial thing of having a character that's of a certain ethnicity and just naming them that ethnicity. like, imagine if there was just a guy in a show named Jew, and he's canonically supposed to be jewish but it's never really addressed, like that'd be weird right

i will say, the raoh fight was fucking precious, easily the best part of the entire series. it has this amazing and complex rhythm to it, where every character who tries to fight raoh ends up trying their own self sacrificial bullshit move only to be thwarted by the next guy, until there's essentially like 3 or 4 different fights going on at the same time. it's also nice seeing ken get straight up hard countered for once, like straight up he gets just as fucked up as raoh does and it makes raoh that much cooler of a villain. up to this point, ken is like, essentially invincible. he's basically post apocalypse aikido jesus, poking people so hard that their disabilities are cured and punching people so hard that their entire bodies explode like he's got the bloody mess perk. so to see someone even break even with him is a damn impressive thing, it instantly establishes your villain credentials y'know?

the thing about raoh is that i love him, very much, but i very much hate how he was handled near the end. the fights with him after the first one are very eh, the penultimate one is close to satisfying but then there's that whole "and then he randomly got away with yuria and now he's gone!!!" bullshit, and i get what the final one was going for and it's kind of built up to but i still didn't exactly like it, y'know? for what it's worth, raoh's redemption arc was probably the most well set up in the entire series, but it still wasn't actually y'know. good. like, the way we're introduced to him is by him being Ken-Oh, King of Fists, and he's this fucking tyrant who recruits people to be his slaves by giving them the ultimatum of "willingly brand yourself as my property and then be my slave for the rest of your short life or get burnt to death", and we're shown that his goons are inches away from burning lin, a literal baby child, to death. and we're supposed to just buy that he's actually not that bad at the end???

like, something i wish this series would just fucking do would be to have their villains just fucking own their villainy right up till the end. they do it before the end!!! one of the first bits with shin has him literally monologuing about how cool & good it is to be evil before busting out one of the greatest evil laughs i've ever heard from a voice actor in any media ever. the best villains are pretty consistently That kind of evil, like the kind of evil that'd make the average disney executive go "hey maybe we can chill a bit out here real quick", and that'd be wonderful if they were unrepentant about it!! it feels really forced!!! imagine if like, frieza, before the bitter end, went all "hmm, maybe i do regret blowing up planets and spending my days being space hitler...." that wouldn't've fucking worked!!! there is, in fact, such an intense degree of evil in fiction that it just doesn't make sense for them to immediately go "hmm yeah i'm a good guy now. right before i die. how about that :)". it's deeply unsatisfying every fucking time, like my god

there's something to be said about the queer coding in this show. i remember in one of the earlier episodes, there was this bear dressed as a BDSM cop and his two goons were scantily clad twinks, and internally i went "haha that's kinda gay" before he straight up kisses random dudes before he kills them. and it hit me like "oh. he IS gay..." and it's like. i don't think that's even the gayest thing in the series, really. there's that one scene where two fang clan dudes are checking out rei and the one with the binoculars is like "woah, this guy's real pretty!" and the other dude is all "well, not as pretty as me right bro???". and then there's just yuda, in general. relatively uninteresting villain, but him dying in rei's arms admitting that his motivation in trying to kill him was that he was the only other man who he found beautiful, like. i don't think there's a heterosexual way to interpret that, really! and that's even setting aside the hideous makeup he's always in! and that's not even mentioning yuria's brother wanting to "see what she(yuria) saw in him (ken)" and as a consequence, wanting to die by his hands. also ein is a bisexual icon who canonically thinks ken has a pretty face and i love that for him

the next bit after yuda was, i believe, souther and shu. now, i think souther might've been the only villain to outright defeat ken up to this point, and i think there's something that could've been interesting about that if souther just wasn't like, aggressively fucking boring. i think he's also the introduction to ki blasts, so that's cool, but the most interesting bits about the souther arc were the bits with shu. shu was a homie, very speedwagon-esque in terms of vibes if not functionality, i liked watching him at work. i will say that shu was probably the point where nanto seiken was wearing out its welcome, we're at like 4 or 5 guys whose main deal was nanto seiken and their entire fighting style could essentially boil down to "cut em into bits" and the only real variation was the shape of the bits people were cut into. i think this might've been the prevailing attitude at the time too, because they definitely pivot away from nanto seiken after this in favor of other, usually dumber martial arts

i will say that this series is, usually, very good about respecting character deaths. with one piss stained exception, characters pretty much always die and stay dead forever, meanwhile i feel like in series less committed to death mattering would've still had toki or rei around by the end of it. the exception is, of course, yuria. it was to give yuria and ken a happy ending, at least for a little while, and honestly while i kinda hate the concept the execution was still fairly competent so i didn't outright dislike it overall. i think it's stupid and retcon-y and at times feels like yet another excuse to make shin seem like less of a bad guy, but it still felt nice to know that yuria got the spend the last few years of her life with the man she loved

i liked ryuga for what he was, mostly just because he wasn't yet another fucking nanto seiken user. he's probably about on par with the elemental guys that'd go on to die to raoh, juza excluded. which brings me to, the man who is tied for Best Boy, juza of the clouds! i.e., my current profile pic. i like juza. he's probably the best thing to come from the series post the Peak arc of jagi to raoh. one of my first criticisms of the characters in this show was something to the effect of "look, if you're a handsome, muscular guy who's also ungodly fucking powerful in terms of martial arts in a world where martial arts is fucking magic, And you're in a post apocalypse? all i'm saying is that you could have basically any girl you wanted CONSENSUALLY, like seriously shin just ditch yuria and build yourself a harem of all the women that look exactly like her". and juza did exactly that, and i love him for it. i'd like to think i'd be like juza, in his universe, not quite the top of the totem pole in terms of raw power but still well above every normal person, saving women from being abused and letting them join my harem if they want, living in a fucking castle with a pool/bathing house? that's the dream, man. that's the fucking dream.

now, that's setting aside juza's whole "wanting to fuck his sister" thing. like, to be fair, yuria's his half sister, but seriously dude what the fuck is it with everyone in this show and yuria. ken and all 3 of his brothers were into her, juza was into her, shin was into her, if there is a man in this show and he knows yuria there's like an 80% chance that he wants her. what's the fucking appeal? like yeah, she's pretty, sure, but so are all the women in this show!!! personally i'd rather date like, a martial artist lady who could actually defend herself, but that could just be me. well, that's like the only thing wrong about juza to me, and honestly while that's a pretty significant flaw you can still say he's literally one thing away from being flawless, so that's pretty cool. god i love him

now's about when we get into hokuto no ken 2, where the main difference is that lin and bat are actually useful now and i'm pretty sure lin wants to fuck kenshiro now, which still weirds me the fuck out. my other favorite character in this show, ein, is the most american fucker on earth. like literally he wears an american flag suit, has blonde hair and blue eyes, is a fucking bounty hunter, and literally rides around on a killdozer driven by what i'm pretty sure is a slave. literally cannot get more american than that, i just hope that the slave guy is like a former bandit or something. little known fact about me, one of my biggest turn ons in a piece of fiction is when a character is a bounty hunter. something about bounty hunters just fuckin gets my brain goin, y'know? i remember when i played the GTA online bounty hunter quests, they were straight up some of the most fun i've had with GTAV and i still think i'd enjoy playing a game where that's the main mechanic. also, at first glance he's a wife guy, but it turns out he's a loving father which makes him even better. it's even acknowledged in universe that he's cool as hell!!! i love him dearly

viceroy jakoh is a decent villain. he's enjoyable to see die, at least. we also meet falco, who's a homie, and honestly i think it's pretty badass that he's a canonically disabled character who's shown to be strong and capable and yet is still clearly held back by his disability. he's a bit like a proto edward elric, in that regard. honestly one of the most sharp inhale inducing scenes of the show was when jakoh swept his prosthetic out from under him and then proceeded to beat the shit out of him, frankly that was an egregious way to make a villain hateable and it was honestly very effective in that regard. gento koken is ok i guess. at least it's not nanto seiken. honestly that whole "celestial emperor" thing felt rather contrived, but eh.

ok so, around this point in the show is when one of its worst aspects really starts to become apparent. so like, it starts out relatively normally when ken is shown to have a few brothers that we didnt know about. it's not that absurd, it makes some amount of sense, the hokuto brothers remain some of the best characters in the entire fucking show. and now all of a sudden, yuria has a brother we didnt know about, and a half brother, and now we meet raoh and ken's biological bigger brothers and after a certain point it just feels like bad self insert fanfic, y'know? and that's what kaioh is to me, it feels like somebody thought raoh was cool and thought "heh, what if i made my own OC that's raoh but even BIGGER and STRONGER and MORE EVIL", like that's what kaioh feels like to me. and then ken's bio brother is just ok, i already forgot his name despite it not being that long since i watched the final arc

but the thing is that kaioh is just like, arguably the most cartoonishly evil villain out of the entire fucking series, seemingly completely unrepentant, literally regularly talks about existing in the "Dark World", straight up kills his own sister just to make ken's brother wanna kill ken, the dude is just bitter and evil the whole way down, so when he pulls that "i just want 2 play on the played ground" bullshit it rings especially hollow even by the standards of the show. god, fuck kaioh, he's just poorly executed overall

the biggest part of hnk2 that i actually liked was shachi. i liked how he was essentially a stupid kid that lucked into being taught unearthly powers basically on par with hokuto shinken, and as such got a big head over it even though at his core he was still a good kid. hokuto ryuken sure felt fuckin contrived, it kinda felt like the writer(s?) noticed how the hokuto brothers were some of the best, most interesting characters in in the original series, and were just like "yeah let's do that but again", and while i guess it doesn't not work it also doesn't work all that well either. hokuto ryuken sounds cool though, even if "north star lapis lazuli fist" doesn't.

another thing i liked about the last parts of the show were that, while definitely not martial art wizards, bat and lin were still deeply competent fighters and put up a consistently good fight against Real Fucking Fighters, which you really wouldn't expect from bat's cowardly ass growing up. i will say that i always thought lin would make a good successor to hokuto shinken, but that might just be wishful thinking. there is a quite prevalent undercurrent of misogyny in this series, and while i understand that it wasn't exactly uncommon in the 80s, i gotta say that i still feel like they could've done better. i dunno

all of this is to say that i liked fist of the north star, very very much. i'm not sure i could recommend it without a laundry list of caveats and disclaimers, but i will say that if my interminable bitching hasn't put you off of it, it's probably for you. it's got a lot of good fights, it scratches that little kid part of your brain that thinks it's so cool to see a guy get kicked in the dick so hard that his entire body explodes, it has great music and mostly competent writing. if you think about it too hard, you will cry, so don't do that, just go along for buronson's wild ride and fuckin enjoy yourself. i probably wouldn't recommend it to someone who's not like, already an anime fan and already likes shonen though. it feels very of its genre, if that makes sense. which i guess it should, given how foundational to shonen in its modern forms as it was

[captain-maws]

my (probably not great) explanation for how i think karma/rebirth/ascension in rain world works

hello internet welcome to gay theory. are you confused about how rain world’s karma system works? great, me too! wtf is going on! don’t worry i have a theory as to how it works.

look at my funny diagram

my theory sorta builds on the theory that the world in rw is infinitely layered. there is a “surface world” above and beneath every world. you can sort of think of them as separate timelines, dimensions, etc. the reason i interpret it like this is because of a specific lore pearl--in one of the subterranean pearls, moon says this:

"If you leave a stone on the ground, and come back some time later, it's covered in dust. This happens everywhere, and over several lifetimes of creatures such as you, the ground slowly builds upwards.

So why doesn't the ground collide with the sky? Because far down, under the very very old layers of the earth, the rock is being dissolved or removed. The entity which does this is known as the Void Sea.

If you drill far enough into the earth you begin encountering a substance called Void Fluid. The deeper you go, the less rock and more Void Fluid. It's believed that there is a point where the rock completely gives way - below that would be the Void Sea.

When that stone you placed on the ground has finally done its time in the sediments, it meets the Void Fluid and is dissolved, leaving the physical world."

THE DUST IS VERY IMPORTANT. IT’S OFFHANDEDLY MENTIONED BUT IT’S IMPORTANT HERE’S WHY: it’s never explained where this dust comes from. supposedly, it comes from the sky. but how? infinitely layered world baby

how it works is that the matter that the void sea in the above surface world is dissolved and becomes dust, which then rains down onto the below surface world. but you can’t just fly up into the void sea, the devs have said the ancients have been to space iirc. the dust comes from an opening in the sky, only perceivable when encountering echoes, because echoes reside in a different realm (but not a different world, more on that in a bit).

now ik you’re saying “okay BUT what abt the whole death and rebirth thing???” im getting to that.

when slugcat, or any other creature dies, they begin perceiving the world from a slugcat on another layer. all of the layers are identical, so when waking up after dying, everything looks the same, so it’s easy to think that you just. died and then woke back up, when really, you’re on a different surface world/layer. it ties into the buddhist concept of there being no single central self.

but what about those who ascend? well take a look at my next funny diagram

*i do want to mention that the top right corner’s text is outdated. i don’t think they’re reborn as their self from their previous existence, rather they’re born into the life/body of another creature depending on karma. they could be reborn as the same species or something new.

so in using the void sea to achieve ascension, it's a sort of false ascension. those who do manage to ascend via the void sea only end up reborn in a new layer. so while the material body is gone from the living realm, the soul isn't. ascension via the void sea is thus just another part of the cycle, since you’re effectively just moving in-between spiritual realms. true ascension means that every instance of yourself from each layer joins into one single, central self, and that central self is crossed out. once that central self dies, it has nowhere to transfer the soul, thus achieving true ascension and breaking the cycle.

and how does one go about doing that? uh. i don’t fuckin know. adopt a The Saint Rain World.

feel free to lmk what u think :>!! hopefully i explained this well enough

[fagmolloy]

i'm NOT putting this on my astro substack that i have irl people following. so it's going here. yeehaw

i've been reading more evolutionary astrology books lately and the timing is......................... interesting wrt experiencing black moon lilith transits -> uranus/asc transits. it was triggered in july (lilith's ingress into my libra 8th house: a queer healing gathering) then became fully operational following the august aquarius full moon (conjunct my natal uranus in 12th: seeing my abuser again).

black moon lilith in my chart is clearly a trauma signature. considering the mythological/cultural context of lilith being a figure outcasted, demonized for being sexually liberated (and other goddesses that demetra george associates bml with like persephone), the fact that she's in my 8th house, and that the last lilith eclipse activated her again—it becomes fairly obvious, to me anyway, what she is. lilith in my chart represents the shadow of shame. and other astrologers would likely be kinder about how she operates in my chart, but when i see where she's placed and how she's placed it's clear to me that sexuality = taboo = shame = secrets = trauma = death/rebirth. a libra 8th house ruled by venus in my 3rd, co-present with saturn. the foundations of these secrets inform the structure of my consciousness, my values, my relational dynamics. (how terribly profound. how terribly awful).

the other day when the sun was conjunct my natal lilith, i ended up spending the day with a friend and we had a huge debrief/vent session about the ways that scars from CSA—particularly incest CSA—completely warp, damage, eviscerate your fucking world sometimes. it takes a really, really fucking long time to come to terms with things. and just when you think you're over it—you've processed it—you'll uncover something new. you discover a new way that it affects you. and it feels like the wound opens up all over again.

never mind how your family may react. never mind the ways in which they may fail you, before and now.

there are not enough "helpers" in this world equipped to deal with our stories, because our experiences are apparently so god-awful that they have to dismiss us to protect themselves. the shame is not only within us for being victimized, but it's embedded within the systems that are supposed to help us: mental health services, inadequate. social services, inadequate. medical services, inadequate. and being forced to carry those systemic failures as a child?

even as an adult, who is that child—unfathomable. to imagine it happening to anyone else. i once went to counselling and she avoided discussing post-traumatic stress at all costs, despite the fact that i was suffering from dissociation at the time. there was a complete failure to engage with the totality of my life because it was "too much". anyone who should have seen what was happening, excluding my family—educators who are meant to detect these things, physicians who should be able to detect these things—not a single fuckin one could hold space or say a thing. that's insane.

as a helper confined within the parameters of these systems, trying to help other survivors—it gets triggering. it gets frustrating. to want to be able to use our experiences to help others process their own shit, but we can't even do that because we're bound by the colonial structures of systems we fuckin work within, too. by the time people get to us they've already experienced harm by these systems. by the time people get to us they don't want to re-engage with these systems because they're exhausted. disenchanted. profoundly hurt.

(it can be helpful to experience triggers in this sense, because it activates a kind of primal rage against institutional failures. and these are at the very least things that i can share with people who are trying to affect change, and it can be implemented within my own code of conduct as a helper. but still. holy fuck).

_______

the ingress of planets into libra this year, as well as lilith's ingress into libra, corresponds in terms of timing and the initiation of hypersexuality. the difference between this phase and other phases i've been in lies in the fact that it's

1. been an opportunity to explore reclamation of sexual desire, which is something i couldn't do previously out of shame/fear/repression/repulsion and

2. the shame/repulsion/compulsive part of the hypersexuality is less operational (meaning i haven't been quiet about what i'm experiencing: i'm not downplaying the ways in which my history have involvement with current exploration and processing, but i'm also accepting that i am allowed to express facets of my sexuality, given that it's a safe space for everyone involved).

there's still elements of this where i'm like... embarrassed, i think. i'm saying, feeling, portraying some really sexual things online. which is normalized, i think, especially in fandom spaces (and obviously encouraged in the current fandom space i'm occupying), but it isn't always something i've been comfortable to do.

i joke about the ways that i cope through a certain character—a persephone-like archetype himself—but when it really comes down to it, i suppose it isn't that funny how much i relate to him. it's too meaningful to be a joke. i love him, unfortunately, because i see myself in him, and it's easier to love a character than love myself. you already know what it is.

there's also the fact that i'm being open with my friends about the ways that this phase is affecting and changing me (because thank god, i have friends who are trauma-informed/can hold space for me even when i'm stuttering and struggling to convey some of the worse things). there's still a part of me suspended in disbelief that i am letting anyone see this unfold as it's happening, because it feels as though the worst parts of me are spilling out.

it's still a relief, though. to spill out. rejection sensitivity is a nightmare always, but to have the "worst" parts of myself seen and tolerated... that is a win, for me.

i think the spilling out is where uranus comes in. mark jones writes about the role that archetypal uranus plays in trauma—something i would have *never* clocked on my own, as so much of modern astrology is inundated with uranus as a revolutionary, a change-maker, a disruptor. he points out that uranus corresponds with subtle mental/memory body, and the deeper state of unconscious that can be "brought towards conscious awareness through the attention and focus of the individual as part of the process of individuation". uranus hit my natal jupiter/asc in july, which is when i was at a healing gathering where i unintentionally released a LOT of shame around things like Having a body. Being seen. (it's funny what being in safe spaces/community can like, do for you). Attraction to other people. The potential of being desired and feeling safe about being desired. he writes, "we are not alone, and although that idea may be quite hard to connect with under duress, we are all held by this larger field...this insight forms the basis of the recovery from trauma through a holding environment." and that's what that gathering facilitated, i think. a holding environment for some of my worst fears to be gently held.

and uranus is transiting my 3rd house of cognition, communication. close friends, extended relatives. my neighbourhood. social media. so these are the people and places and spaces where the holding environment to process the shame within the body (ASC) exists.

not all of the shame can be released obviously, because that would be miraculous. as part of the retrograde uranus will be transiting jupiter/asc between oct 27th -> nov 6th, and then once again next april (which, btw, so many meaningful transits, especially final hitting retrograde transits, are happening in my chart in april 2025. cannot fathom what this could possibly mean).

so clearly there are going to be other facets/dimensions to self that will be realized, especially when i experience the exact lilith return around late december.

anyway. i'm also thinking about how the plutonic symbolism in my chart references a need to talk, profess, in public spaces. like a sagittarian archetype. it's actually embarrassing how the true compulsive part of this process is the need to tell anyone. i suppose that's what happens when you spend a better part of your life holding onto pain.