#i mean i talk about those as well

[artharakka]

Detail from a Middle Llehian fresco depicting the sea goddess Maare rising the wind from the crimson morning sea, so that the birds may lift the sun to the skies.

Style testing cultural art style for a story project I've rotated for a while. I've posted some character art of that to my Patreon, but I've been planning to slowly start posting the oldest ones here as well. This was originally a ttrpg setting, but since I've made it a setting to rotate and plan without secrecy with my sibling, it doesn't have to be behind the scenes material only anymore.

[gingerswagfreckles]

Not really loving how my post about the left's love affair with eugenics and blood and soil ideology framed as "decolonization" got coopted into another "wait it's all Christianity??" "It always has been" post." Y'all are sticking your heads in the sand if you think this is a problem with "cultural Christianity." This is the exact same pattern we saw play out in the 1979 Iranian revolution and much of this ideology was coopted from the Nazis by the Soviets and reframed as progressive. This is not an issue with Western "cultural Christianity" and it would be great if Jumblr could stop engaging in the same "there's actually one secret root cause of every problem in the world and if we get rid of it we will have utopia" thing that antisemites have been using against Jews for 2000 years.

[isabelguerra]

I always make an effort to look at paranatural through the ~2013 era lens it was conceptualized from, back when it was at it’s most subversive, in tandem alongside its contemporary lens. Because thats what Paranatural was, for those who aren’t aware — paranatural played off of & against the common shonen & cartoon tropes and character expectations that were prevalent in that age: the wise and just mentor, the prejudiced bully, the action girl implemented to pushback against sexism + the subversion of the action girl, the excited rare skilled selfless battleprone protagonist, etc.

most new fans will likely see the comic and take it at face value — why shouldn’t they? — when in reality there’s so much more of a dialogue happening underneath the hood. There is so much underlying, forgotten context that makes paranatural, paranatural

[feroluce]

I know we mostly only get little hints of them throughout, but I really loved this interaction between these two? Like. I already talked about it from Dan Heng's side over here. But! I'm dying over this part about Boothill, and just how much he trusts and feels he can rely on Dan Heng!!

"Note," he says, about his casual identity theft fjkdlsajlk

Because when we first arrive on Penacony, March 7th and the Trailblazer are confused about the check in details. But Dan Heng caught on immediately.

It's stated multiple times in multiple ways: Galaxy Rangers generally work alone. Boothill is helping out Rappa because he owes her a favor, and shortly afterwards, he returns to his own Hunt. He coordinates with Robin and March 7th because he comes across them by happenstance. Dan Heng is the only person that Boothill purposely reaches out to, and he does it in a way that only Dan Heng would figure out.

And it works! Even though they aren't able to actually contact each other, Boothill's secret note left for Dan Heng is the first sign to him that something is amiss in Penacony, and to stay on guard. And it's only when Rappa says she's with Boothill that Dan Heng decides to truly trust her and lend her a hand.

The "sweet and melodious words" part is killing me fjkdlsjakfdja

Without the Nameless' aid, the Galaxy Rangers probably wouldn't have gotten nearly as far as they did. It was a group project. It took the combined effort of a lot of people. But it started here with these two! And even without being able to see or speak to each other, Boothill and Dan Heng somehow still manage to work together and make all of this happen! Off nothing but their belief in each other alone!!

When something big is going down, there is no one Boothill wants on his side more than Dan Heng, and that's just so!! SO!!! OUGH

[buttercupshands]

I've been thinking a lot lately

ref to the quote under the cut

under the cut for maybe some people that would like to try and guess *shruggs*

[inkedinserendipity]

ALSO also because this just occurred to me and made me emotional…thinking about the parallels between dr mensah and iris…both realizing murderbot was nearby and beginning to hope they could be rescued…..murderbot as a source of faith and confidence for its friends and it has no idea………..

[risingsunfish]

lilina sweetie ily but you’re trippin

On Bluesky

[chainsawctopus]

You, me, and our loss of autonomy.

[thatneoncrisis]

my sabbatical from homestuck has been really interesting in terms of like. the fandom racism i encounter and how i think about it now. like duh i was a teenager the entire time homestuck was the only thing i thought about literally ages 13-18.

but uh in dealing with the locked tomb i dont have to get hit with a mallet made of passive antiblack rhetoric 30% of the time i engage with it. because there are zero fucking black people in that story. and thats not a good or bad thing there is no obligation to include them. i think people get hung up on a nebulous platonic ideal of representation where every single minority gets equal screentime fiction.

tlt doesnt have black people the way it doesnt really have like, nonbinary people. it has that one priest in book one who didnt say a goddamn word, a character in book three who actively preferred she/her bc they/them was their job title, and a boy and a girl who merged into a new person. none of these examples are like, exciting ore meaningful explorations of genderqueerness (paul could be Something in book 4 but im not handing out points to a book that doesnt exist yet and its still ostensibly a cis boy and cis girl merging to become another Thing)

anyway uh its been nice not having to like idk. contend with the expected level of weirdness about black people that was commonplace of online art from the early 2010s in this new space. the discussion about the role of race in those books will probably never have characters as egregious as gamzee or hic which is nice you dont have to reconcile the insanely mean spirited nature of their existence as concocted by an irony poisoned white guy thats neat

[sableeira]

there is something about magic systems that borrow from a specific craft that makes them so special. Maybe it’s because they feel more tangible and it’s very easy to get swept away by the passion for the craft that is clearly written on every page.

Whether it’s the art based magic system in Witch Hat Atelier. Or the translation based magic system in Babel. Or the alchemy/chemistry based magic system in Fullmetal Alchemist.

The relation to a specific craft makes the characters passion for their magic feel so personal and relatable. Because there is magic in art, in translation, in chemistry and any other craft that people partake in. The magic system becomes a love letter towards creation and everyone who creates and there is nothing world building wise that could be more charming.

[dehautdesert]

Another thing I liked is how Laurent's trauma is handled, because usually when a character has a Secretly Traumatic Backstory there's some kind of annoyingly maudlin scene about it. Either they get into some kind of big conflict with the love interest and are forced to explain themselves so they don't get judged or dumped, or the love interest intrudes on a vulnerable moment and sees them being abused or somehow handling the consequences of that abuse, or they are explained the circumstances by a benevolent third party, and this changes their view of the abused character because now they're god's poorest meow meow and I just fucking hate it every time.

Like, this is why I stopped reading this type of story: because the amount of crowding and backing into a corner and privacy violation that happens to abused characters in order to coax them into opening up about it and reassure them that they're okay is so annoying. I feel like I've been psychologyposting on main too much lately, so I might explain later why I feel this way or I might not but in any case I hate it.

I love that this book is the literal opposite of that, that Damen not only doesn't crowd Laurent and insist that he open up, but that Damen ensuring space and privacy and time to calm down for Laurent when he's overwhelmed is repeatedly portrayed as an act of friendship and caring and love (that Laurent later reciprocates, because they both lose their heads when something pushes their buttons and understand this about each other).

I also love how Damen doesn't fall in love with Laurent because Laurent is sad and fucked up, or because he's so brave to have put up with the abuse, or because Damen too is sad like Laurent (I'm physically restraining myself from going off on a rant about how shared trauma is hardly ever a good foundation for a relationship): no, he falls in love with Laurent because he's whip-smart, and a good leader, and funny, and tender once he opens up, and a lateral thinker, and a man of integrity who keeps his promises and pays back his debts (and because he's pretty and blonde and good at sporty shit that Damen likes). Some of these things may have been shaped by the awful shit that happened to Laurent, as they were also probably shaped by his station or his education or his body type or any other circumstance of his life, but it's refreshing to have a character who went through awful shit but who also has other things going on for him that make him loveable instead of being completely defined by his trauma. And even when Damen finds out, the way he thinks about Laurent literally doesn't change at all - the things he likes about Laurent are still seen in the same light as always, Laurent's personality as a whole is still the same, even his attitude towards what Laurent did to him when they first met doesn't change much (as we see in the short story epilogue). And even this last bit is really cool because Laurent is never stripped of his agency or made out into some sort of helpless victim currently, both of which would probably mortify him with how much he's trying to establish that he's not at any opportunity.

And I also like how it's not necessary for Laurent to tell Damen about it in order for them to be close, nor does Damen push him into it. And everyone else seems to agree that it's Laurent's story to tell when and how he wants it told, except for the villain of the piece, who reveals it in the most awful way possible. This is particularly important because Damen spends three books grabbing everyone in Laurent's life by the shoulders and shaking them and going, "Why do you care about this guy??? Have you noticed that he's kind of an ashole?? Why are you loyal to him?? Why???" and no one ever says anything, because they're protective of Laurent and don't want to take away his agency or privacy because it's his fucking story to tell. Even after Damen finds out, we don't see him mention it and he probably lets Laurent open up or not on his own terms, as he does with everything else that doesn't directly concern him. Even though we've seen through Laurent's dialogue time and time again that he's probably conceptualizing it in some fucked up ways in his own head and needs yet to realize that he's not some kind of twisted pervert for what happened to him, crowding him about it before he's ready won't accomplish much.

And the story itself backs all this by never being maudlin about it even though it's obvious what happened pretty early on (I figured it out really early, I remember suspecting it almost immediately and being dead sure of it by the Ancel scene in the garden); it kind of elipses around it, gives hints and parallels to other characters in similar circumstances, has Laurent say incoherent shit that makes sense in context, has other characters hint at it, but with Laurent being one of the central characters it's cool that the story gives him that respect and doesn't wallow in the tragedy of it all.

[yourhighness6]

It's funny to me when people insist that "ATLA was really feminist" as if there wasn't really only one feminist message which was the very generic "girls can fight too" spiel that every 2000s show had going on whenever they briefly tried to jump on the feminism bandwagon or whatever

[dreamersdwell]

Dark enchantress cookie redesign

[dykedvonte]

Why do you think did Curly let Jimmy go before the crash? I've seen the theory Curly briefly thought about crashing too but didn't expect Jimmy to go through with it

I generally believe it was shock and a bit of denial.

It’s the sort of thing where Curly knew Jimmy enough to know he blows up at things but he never would’ve expected him to go through with something so crazy. He gives Jimmy way too much benefit. It’s just his nature and the dynamics he has with Jimmy. They have a stable relationship as friends but it’s stabilized by the unhealthy toxic aspects that keep him in it. He’s like this with Anya, taking the gun is something he really shouldn’t have kept off the record, so is Swansea’s feigned hostility toward Daisuke. He doesn’t want to get people in trouble and doesn’t want to believe anyone would cause trouble other than to themselves. He’s a very lenient man.

I think the words were hollow in his head. Said but not really meant like all the times Jimmy lashes out and says something cruel to him or others. He never means it, if he did why would he still be Curly’s friend? Curly’s head wasn’t in the right space in that moment, he just got through panicking with Anya and if the sound design is anything to go by, was panicked and preoccupied going to confront Jimmy. I mean, the flash of the warning signs before he runs back are identical to the dissociative episode of sort he has when going to talk to Jimmy to do his Psyc eval.

There is this sort of assumption in fanon that Curly was the idealic person for the job and simply failed. None of them were the idealic people to be there, it’s Curly’s entire concern with the ladder he chose. I see more interpretations of him being purposefully ignorant where I see him as just always looking the wrong way or not in a place where he can see it. There’s something different about seeing something than being told about it in the human mind. It may just be the psych student in me but Curly def has some sort of cognitive dissonance just like Jimmy but when it comes to his role as a Captain vs who he is.

They blur in his head to where if you ask him if he was acting as a Captain or a friend or himself to his crew he couldn’t answer. Not with confidence even if he did. There are many times we see that Curly himself is not in the right headspace to lead the Tulpar and that’s outside of anything with Jimmy. He’s spacey, he’s not sleeping, he’s deeply unhappy with himself and life. It’s why there’s believability he crashed the ship. Maybe the others saw it, or maybe Jimmy heard enough of it to spin it in a way that made Curly seem suicidally depressed.

So the tdlr is I think it wasn’t so much letting Jimmy go, more so not seeing the severity of what he was allowing to transpire. In his mind it’s just another one of Jimmy’s bluffs, cruel words, off words but just words. Jimmy rarely ever acts, why would he now? Maybe he’s never seen it because Jimmy hides those actions? Either way, he just never thought he’d really do it.

[piko-chan-plus]

Natsu meeting Kageyama and learning that gay people exist and asking a bunch of questions

"Wait so can you kiss if you are two guys or does it not work? Can you show me?"

"WAIT BUT HOW AM I GONNA BE AN AUNT. YOU BETTER MAKE PEACE WITH THE STORK SO I CAN HAVE A NEPHEW OR A NIECE"

"So when do you get told if you are gay or not? 1st year of highschool?"

"Wait so if Niichan has a boyfriend that makes him the girlfriend, no?"

"I heard that Ma-chan's (some kindergarten friend) sister is gay too, do you know her?"

[twinstxrs]

thinking about kageyama’s “it’s the setter’s job to break the wall in front of the spiker” in reference to how kenma sponsoring hinata while he’s in brazil and onwards is effectively doing that on a financial level. once a setter always a setter.