#hearts: surrounding me

[ashtonsunshine]

via Ashton's instagram story. 24th January 2024

[crinkle-eyed-boo]

Louis Tomlinson truly astounds me because he 100% doesn’t have to be this public about his grief and yet here he is, continuing to share it with everyone.

[kimtaegis]

may you find happiness there, may all your hopes all turn out right! ↳ for @magicshop 🌸

cr. dwellingsouls, atoz v; insp.

[toby-du-coeur]

despite everything, it's still you

tommy

newt

[edenprime]

I despise Kai Leng and his pathetic faux foil role in ME3 so much. It would've been so much better if it had been the Virmire victim and honestly- it would've made the Cerberus storyline so much better. It would've turned "Shepard becomes an idiot every time some guy with a sword appears" into "Shepard is blindsided by seeing their friend back from the dead". It also works with the foils dynamic and more:

Both brought back by Cerberus. Shows Shepard the other side of the coin - how they could've been if Cerberus had actually messed with their head. Shepard also makes some comments about themselves that make it look, in a way, like they do have some lingering doubts at the very least about coming back. When you look at the Shepard VI and they ask if they are really like that, when they ask EDI if they are transhuman or cyborg, when they refuse to talk about the clone situation every time it's brought up on the DLC, when they keep comparing the clone to themselves... I know we have the child dreams as our show of Shepards PTSD, but this could've added another layer to it.

"And for every soldier you [the reapers] add, your enemy loses two: the one you converted, and his buddy on the other side who can't pull the trigger on a friend." -> we could see this! Javik aludes to the same, but we never see it on screen. It's just a hypothetical, the only people who become indoctrinated are villains, Cerberus, or their allies. This would've shown that, it would've been some cool foreshadowing. As it is, it's just a loose end.

Shepard spat in Cerberus eye when they left, especially if they destroyed the Collector base. Using the resuscitated and indoctrinated friend against them would've been an incredible way of spitting back at them. It would've been an amazing show of power. It could've demonstrated that Shepard wasn't the first, that Cerberus was already experimenting with life and death even before the success of the Lazarus project.

It gives more credibility to TIM's claims that he can control the reapers, and it's a nice setup to the reveal of what's actually going on in Horizon and Sanctuary.

And even then, no Kai Leng and no Virmire victim would've been better than Kai Leng. Everything stays the same but that plot-armored jackass doesn't exist. Cerberus attempts a coup with regular agents, they steal the data from thessia with regular agents, they show up as regular agents on Horizon, etc. Because Leng doesn't work at all in the story. He doesn't.

Regardless of how well it was executed, the entire Cerberus plot line is supposed to be a "coming full circle" moment from me1. We had the indoctrinated Saren leading the indoctrinated geth (synthetic) in me1. We have the indoctrinated TIM leading indoctrinated humans (organics) in me3. We end up with a "showdown" between saren/TIM in which depending on how persuasive we were during our previous talks, they (now deformed by reaper tech) shoot themselves in the head.

Where does Kai Leng fit into all of this? He doesn't! He's just... there. He's got no room in the story.

[neversetyoufree]

Sometimes I do feel almost overwhelmed with how much I like VnC. It's so magic that there happens to be a series out there filled to the brim with the exact sorts characters, story beats, and themes that I love most, and it happens to be constructed in exactly the way that I find most satisfying to write about and examine and dwell within.

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 2 - The World That Never Was

[teathattast]

i wanted to see the world in color

through your eyes and through your mind

i think that i like to sit and wonder

through the night, i think i might

[stuckinapril]

i literally have the bestest friends ever. like of all time

[pegasusdrawnchariots]

Odysseus' reintegration into the world bound by mortal limitations foregrounds both his age and the distance he has traveled. The shipwrecked sailor who manages to crawl ashore naked on Scheria, bereft of companions, possessions, any token of identity — of all but the bare ember of vitality (cf. 5.488-90 — a lonely spark in a pile of ashes) — meets the young Nausikaa, whose life (like that of Telemachus) is just opening to the possibilities before her. The scene in which Odysseus, awakened by sounds that evoke in him fears of hostile men, faces instead a group of teenage girls playing ball, is both comic and poignant as it measures the difference between their expectations and stages of experience. Later, as he is challenged to compete in an athletic contest, Odysseus acknowledges the toll that age and journeying inevitably take. This is not, then, the epic of the beautiful death (one way to read the Iliad (e.g., see Vernant 1991: 50-74)) but the epic of timeworn, embraceable life.

John Miles Foley, A Companion to Ancient Epic, 2005.

[shepscapades]

yalls asks and tags got me so excited and jittery im shaking like a small pathetic chihuahua /pos DLKFGJDF i'm gonna play dynaball until my brain normalizes but yalls kind words and reactions and questions are litearlly the WORLD to me tysm, please feel free to send more questions! i have so many good ones to answer over the next few days!!

[sassygaykuja]

best part of mdzs is meeting lan zhan for the first time and he's strange and cool and doesn't talk much and i initially chalked his weird ethereal vibes up to being something innate to the lan clan and the juniors just weren't there yet, and then you meet his brother and he's just a completely normal guy

[tetzoro]

the day the earth stood still is the day i felt your presence leave it, and then every day after that.

[winteriron-trash]

rdj the (whitewashed) electric boogaloo

This is a reminder to everyone who's excited about RDJ's casting as Doctor Doom that this casting is whitewashing. Victor Von Doom is a Romani character and has been a Romani character since his introduction in the 1960s. (Fantastic Four Annual #2 [1964]) Not only that, but his Roma identity and the persecution he and his family faced due to it is integral to his character, it is what forms his identity. (Books of Doom by Ed Brubaker) Even if on the off chance this casting is meant to not be Victor but instead be some variant of Tony or whomever else becoming Doctor Doom, it is damaging to the character to rob him of that important cultural background. Doctor Doom does not exist without that history. Fans have been pushing hard to cast Doom as a Romani actor for years, especially since the MCU has whitewashed other Romani characters. (Wanda, Pietro, etc) This casting is not a celebration moment, it's fucking heartbreaking that the MCU repeatedly ignores the important and nuanced cultural backstories of characters.

I know I can't change anybody's mind on whether or not you want to be excited about RDJ's return to the MCU. But I do think at the very least you should be mad that the MCU is baiting us all and destroying nuanced and interesting characters for the sake of self-referential easter eggs and nostalgia bait. Because that's what it is. Feel how you'd like to feel about RDJ's return, but personally, this is soul-sucking. I had such a deep love for the MCU as a teenager, it was obviously something incredibly formative to me, especially Tony Stark. This isn't recreating what I fell in love with the MCU for. This is turning a well-planned and artistic storyline of adaptations into cheap cash grabs and fan service. Because, I think we're past the point of being able to call the MCU an adaptation of anything. They can use existing characters' names and powers, but to say they're being properly adapted is laughable.

This is not an adaptation of Doctor Doom. This is RDJ the Electric Boogaloo because Marvel's fear of losing the interest of dedicated MCU fans overrides their willingness to tell stories that are genuine to the characters. I don't know what there is to be excited about that. The MCU has lost its authenticity and aside from a few projects, feels heartless. Every movie is a copy of a copy. This announcement isn't something celebratory, it feels like a death knell of a cinematic universe that's so desperate to cling to relevancy it's resorting to nostalgia for a character/actor who hasn't even been dead for a decade. We're not getting anything new, we're just rinsing and repeating the same song and dance.

I get it. I love Tony Stark, his death destroyed me and I to this day, rue the ending he got in Endgame. It misunderstood his arc and it robbed him of a satisfying conclusion. But the solution to that isn't dragging the corpse out of the grave five years later to whitewash an existing character with rich and interesting nuance, just to forcibly tie his existence in the MCU to Tony. Whether he is a variant or not. Why would you want someone else's fave's legacy to be destroyed simply so your fave's legacy can go on? Hell, if we were really all so hellbent on the return of RDJ and/or Tony to the MCU, we have the multiverse for a reason. There were other ways to do it that didn't whitewash and ruin someone else. This just. Isn't something to be happy about.

[yappacadaver]

Crazy wild shit man

[bonefall]

My birthday was a couple days ago, and I got to see my bio dad for the first time in a while. He surprised me with the fact that I have a little half-sister, whom I've never met and who was adopted about two years back. So, I wondered if any situations in BB mimic this or have a theme of "secret siblings" or "secret family"? Sorry if this is a weird ask; this blog is honestly just such a cool little place and I love the way you approach the subject matter and take the flawed misogynistic foundation of the WC books and make them so much better (JUSTICE FOR BUMBLE!!!). I've also learned a lot about healthy and unhealthy relationships here and am really glad for your deep dives on Squilf and Bramble. Thanks, Bones!

Not weird at all! I really like exploring all the little nooks and crannies of complicated familial dynamics. I think one of the untapped strengths of WC (that the writers seem to be unaware of) is how their MASSIVE cast allows them to present all sorts of unique dynamics. So I like to pick up on it, since they don't.

For secret siblings...

I'm pretty heavily leaning towards Ambermoon being adopted by Wildfur, as a surrogacy. Something feels correct about it. Especially since Icecloud is getting retooled into a post-Battle of the True Eclipse birth, and a major supporting character in AVoS-era stories as a friend of Alderheart.

Thinking about it, I should zoom in and expand this. Maybe have Icecloud, somehow, acquire forbidden knowledge that would invalidate the Queen’s Rights and he (transman) struggles with if he's going to use it to expose his parents as an excuse to help Ambermoon.

(Especially since Ambermoon and Icecloud are basically nothing alike. Amber is independent, bold, and vain. Ice is jessie pinkman big-hearted, disorganized, and deceptively meek if you look past his "chill" demeanor)

But that's wip-- there's also Breezepelt and the Three, who are going to have an actual friendship. In particular I can't unsee Breeze and Lion having a deep one. I know I commit the Cardinal Sin of borderline himbo-ifying Lionblaze in BB, but I can't help it.

Hollyleaf ended up nabbing a bunch of his most violent roles to make her villainous descent smoother narratively, so BB!Lionblaze's story ends up being more focused on Ashfur's abuse, comic relief with cats in other Clans (something that the very serious Jay and Holly have a hard time providing), and the emotional fallout of the big reveal and Bramblestar's turn on them. Breezepelt slots neatly into that.

They were friends. Lionblaze's whole life came down around the reveal, everyone looking at him and his siblings differently, like they're suddenly something terrible. Why can't we find a silver lining, Breezepelt? Why can't we call ourselves brothers if the whole world is going to do it anyway? So much is changing, but THIS doesn't have to, we will take their weapon and turn it to armor, my ally, my friend, my brother.

(and when Breezepelt is lashing out at the three because of the Dark Forest's influence, Lionblaze is there, taking the blows and trying not to give in to the impulse to send him flying with a single paw)

There's also Harespring and Kestrelflight of WindClan and Owlclaw of ShadowClan. All of them are from a single litter between Whitewater and Mudclaw. She was going to raise the three of them alone as ShadowClan cats, but when the sire was smote, Whitewater felt they were cursed.

She was able to give the oldest two to their bio-uncle, Torear, but the weather was so bad that day and the runt was so sickly and small that it surely would have killed him. I don't think Owlclaw ever finds out why his mother always treated him with suspicion, but it did mess him up horribly.

Over in BB!DOTC, Thunder Storm is getting more half-siblings earlier. Clear Sky and Falling Feather had two daughters-- Pale Sky and Tiger Sky.

I want to explore the way that the various stages of Clear Sky's life acted on his kids. How any little curiosity Thunder Storm had about the life he might have had if he wasn't abandoned is crushed by seeing kittens who weren't. How Clear's favoritism of his oldest child set the trio against each other from the start. How this idea of "love" is toxic yet intoxicating.

It feels good to be the golden child. The power it gives you over his sycophants is satisfying. To know you, and you alone, have what someone else craves. Problem is, that's conditional, and it's cruel.

What Thunder Storm learns from his time with his biodad is that Clear Sky is not his father at all. He's taught him exactly what he DOESN'T want to be. There may be similarities-- in temperament, in physical prowess (though BB!Thunder is three-legged, he's still ripped), in taste and senses. But Thunder Storm's father is Shaded Flower.

(BB!Gray Wing died in the first book, rescuing Shaded Flower from being trampled by a horse. Xey're a patron of wisdom, Shaded Moss is taking the role of fatherhood to Thunder)

His sister is Rainswept Flower. His mom is Bright Storm. If there was a bond he could have had with Tiger Sky and Pale Sky, it dies simply and cruelly on the knife they used to cut each other out.

Pale might have wanted to mend it, she was the gentler one. But she dies in the First Battle along with her mother. Tiger Sky is too stubborn to accept any help, should Thunderstar offer it, and Thunderstar isn't in the business of begging for others to like him.

Naturally I'm lowkey obsessed with them lmao. I need to make a BB!DOTC overviewww