#i got a little side-tracked

[pixelins]

[anewp0tat0]

lil doodle to end the week

[perpetuallyscreamingbird]

Today on ideas that have been rattling around my brain, there's something in The Moment Of Clarity and Happily Ever After being parallels of each other.

Okay hear me out, I know they're fundamentally two very different routes but like. Think about it. Both of them are results of choosing to stay in the cabin with your chapter 2 Princess- and there's very different reasons to stay with The Nightmare vs staying with The Damsel, but ultimately it's the same. You refuse to move it forward, and you stay in the cabin.

Both very much explore why what The Narrators doing is... well intention but kinda sucks. I mean that's explicitly stated in Happily Ever After, but it's also still there in MOC.

Happily Ever After is the idea that if change and decay were to stop entirely in a perfect world, eventually everybody would be miserable because there would be no growth, no change, no challenge. Even if its nice, even if it's comfortable, it's not real. Not in the way The Narrator wants it to be.

The Moment Of Clarity is an idea I've seen floated about a lot in the fandom - the fact that perfect, eternal now wouldn't be the reality for a lot of people. Not everyone would be in a good situation when change dies. And without change, when you're in an awful situation, how do you get out?

You dont. You stay trapped with Your Nightmare. Forever. And like, The Narrator doesn't recognise this as another consequence of his actions because it's not what he wanted. Why would he see this and see his own decisions playing out in real time? But its another path of the same choice: stay with your Nightmare, stay with your Damsel.

Stay in the cabin.

[queenburd]

it's not going to let me rest until i write about it, so tonight I want to talk about the TSP2 Expo in Ultra Deluxe, and why it's a thing at all, and what it means about the Narrator, and how deeply self-conscious he is.

The Expo is, and I say this without exaggeration, the Narrator's deep, desperate need to respond to the audience and the reviews from the Skip button ending. They say he's not funny; he makes "a whole lot of gags". He's still reactionary, he makes all of this in response to (and in my mind, in the downtime during) the Skip button, and it's the first thing you can find right after the game resets from the Skip button.

He's not over it.

TSPUD in general is in a big way about the relationship between an artist and their audience. (i swear on my life i've written those words before...) it's about how a creator can and does create for themself but does, on a real level, yearn for an audience to understand and appreciate, while also being scared that people wont get it, and also being scared about "needing" a reaction to begin with.

Create for oneself, sure, but you still want people to like the thing you made. You want them to experience it, this thing you put so much time into. You want them to laugh at the jokes, that's why the jokes are there, and you hope they hit right.

Elements of that have always been in TSP but they're at the forefront of TSPUD and especially all the Expo stuff. Even while the Narrator, in Skip button rants, berates the audience for wanting jokes and gags and bits to distract them, he immediately wants to please. He's yearning to be understood, and he thinks if he can just give the people what they want, then surely they'll find the meaning in his work.

And then there's that darn Bucket. And while the Bucket feels like, at times, a stand-in for the Narrator or a way for him to project, it's easier for me to see him trying to frame Stanley's bond to the Bucket as a parallel to his bond to Stanley, instead of the other way around.

Stanley is the thing that is here in this world and story to comfort the Narrator. But Stanley is also the thing that can crush the Narrator's spirit.

In the Press Conference Ending, Stanley's bold new approach to story-telling gets him lauded, gets him praise. In the Bucket version, he tries to make the Bucket understand him through other people understanding him, and it fails. It scans as the Narrator desperately trying to reach out to Stanley, even as he tries to get adoration from an audience. Stanley only has eyes for the Bucket in the Apartment ending; in the end, the Narrator only has Stanley for company, and he on some level wants Stanley to appreciate him. He asks for feedback in the Games ending. And while nothing will ever really make him happy, there, he still asks.

In the end, Stanley's the only audience that really matters. He wants Stanley to like the things he makes.

"Why did I create Stanley? Was I lonely?"

He was. And the audience he's looking for isn't one he can interact with.

TSPUD is about a creator's relationship with an audience, hoping they will play the game, and like the game, and understand the game, so that they'll keep playing. And the game "ends" when the creator says "okay. I think I'm ready to try something new. for real this time!"

And then he gets pulled right back, because the audience response is just so uproarious. How can you move on from a thing that did, on some level, garner you success? Shouldn't you just stick with the thing that made you successful? But how do you make it better, when it felt like a complete work?

When do you get to move on? When do you make that choice? Will the audience understand? Will they follow you? Or do they just want more of the same?

The answer isn't simple.

[lovesodeepandwideandwell]

It's crazy how I can be like "I'm having a depressive episode" until I'm with the right people and then it's like oh no I'm ok actually

[kacievvbbbb]

I think it’s interesting how as time goes on Zoro kind of becomes more and more like mihawk in some ways whether that’s just because if you spend time with someone for 2 years you’re bound to pick up their habits or a deliberate attempt to emulate him is a conversation for another time. And Mihawk and Zoro where already pretty similar at the start so it’s a little hard to notice now.

But yeah whether unconsciously or consciously Zoro is becoming a bit more like Mihawk and it’s interesting to think that while this means maturing in some ways (he’s swordsmanship for one but he’s also just quieter much more assured of himself) it also means deaging in some others.

Despite their significant age gap and general dispositions, when it comes down to it Zoro is just a lot more emotionally mature and developed than Mihawk is. And a big part of why is because he found something larger than himself to devote his life too, hell Mihawk himself even kind of acknowledges this when he agrees to take Zoro on as a student when Zoro begs for the sake of his captain and crew. He acknowledges that putting aside his own ego and dreams for the sake of someone else isn’t something he can do and sees it as a fault in himself and a strength in Zoro.

Mihawk may be outwardly mature and his skills defiently did not stagnant but I’d wager that Mentally Mihawk is still stuck at the same age he was when he took over the title of world’s strongest swordsman. Honestly maybe even younger. And it isn’t until training Zoro, letting Perona stay with him, for probably the first time in his life taking charge of lives outside his own did he finally unarrest his development.

If Zoro is purposely trying to emulate Hawkeyes, which it wouldn’t be a surprise if he was that’s who he’s trying to be Afterall, then it would honestly set him back emotionally because fundamentally as he is now Mihawk’s attitude doesn’t work in a crew. It’s too singular, too abrasive. And while that abrasiveness can be useful in Zoro’s role as Luffy’s first mate sometimes it makes him a little too callous a little too apathetic, like with his disregard for Luffy’s sadness over vegapunk.

But Zoro has his crew to temper that, they are honestly just too ridiculous to ever stay serious around. And try as he might to hide it Zoro is also just a silly dude who likes to be horrifically petty with his opponents. And zoro still has so much fire in him, so much he has too prove and so much he wants to protect to ever really fall into Mihawk’s apathy. Zoro has Luffy who even after they reach their dreams will probably still continue to turn the world upside down forever keeping Zoro in some kind of trouble and his life interesting.

Zoro can’t be Mihawk because even Mihawk can’t be Mihawk anymore. Being with crossguild and crossing with the Red hair pirates and the strawhats is going to change him, it has too. if Mihawk is going to live after losing his title he’s probably gonna have to become a little bit more like Zoro.

[canisalbus]

I say this in the best way, but your characters feel like they're from an obscure but really good piece of media, and you feel like the artist who always draws the two main characters as ghay lovers

.

[palespawn]

[astral-schools]

enjoy your stay!

[helpwanted-queerversion]

Nico di Angelo is immortal. Even after his body dies his soul will live forever in his father's home.

The only peace he will know is when he sneaks into Elysium to see his old friends. He will work for Hades, his spirit always looking for others.

He spoke to ghosts in his life and he will continue in his death. With the absence of life he becomes a slave to his nature.

He will remain trapped in his father's palace, and no matter how welcoming the god is Nico will long to see the stars.

It won't be all bad; he'll see his friends when he visits heaven. He won't get to stay and thats what's bad.

Nico yearned for heaven all his life, constantly fighting the voice in his mind that told him he needed to be better in order the enter it. He knows no matter what he does he'll never have a place there.

Being immortal is a horrible thing, Nico only realized this when he became immortal himself. Hades' ambassador no longer a title, but a curse.

Nico's soul will live forever, his ghost stuck at the age he was happiest, and he will not be able to go above the earth, or to Elysium. He finds himself relating to his father in ways he never imagined.

[welcometogrouchland]

IMPORTANT UPDATE FOR BATMAN AND ROBIN (2023) FANS!!!...he eat a burger [ID in alt]

(taken from Nicola Cizmesija's insta, who's on art for B&R issues #5 and #6)

[plan-3-tmars]

just finished reading dungeon meshi (I will never recover) so take some sleepy thistle panels I collected

[moeblob]

ok now I'm p sure no one remembers me drawing for this game bc I think everyone who I talked to about it left the tumbles but. hello, have some Lost Dimension fanart in 2023.

[pen-papers]

Accidentally clicking QUIT instead on CONTINUE after finally reaching the top of Death Mountain in OOT

Remembering that there's the secret path back to Goron city through the Lost Woods

[xiuminuwu]

Posting some new cc today🤩🤪

[wow-an-unfunny-joke]

I don’t like hanahaki disease for the same reason I don’t like soulmates. It removes the choice. All the love and feelings feel instantly dampened by the lack of choice. I mean I get that with hanahaki disease there is technically a choice, but “love me back or I’ll die” isn’t really a choice, and the other options aren’t much better either

“Either you love me back or I loose the ability to love/ loose all my feelings for you/ forget about you entirely”

“Love me back or I’ll live with this chronic illness forever”

These aren’t good alternatives, if still feels forced and one sided