#i guess? i mean not really but sorta

[mithidria]

how am i supposed to go on with my day as if high card didn’t just drop an amazing finale, make me experience every emotion ever, tease the black knight, and then dip

[grajek-uliczny]

I'm trying to get consistent out there but im getting lost in the early middle ages art so it's kind of rough with time managment but hey! I've started drawing yet another techno fanart

ALSO! thanks all of you ppl who said nice words abt previous one (and all the bisexual coments) <3 <3 <3 Yall motivated me

[bittasol]

clarazz are so strong if i was (vaguely in love with and) slightly possessive of my best friend and the whole world was obsessed with him (like i was) id crash out 😭

[im-smart-i-swear]

can you remember being born? were you born at all

[le-agent-egg]

Fuck you (V3s your Trigger Happy Havocs)

It’s protag time

I’ll do the other guys eventually teehee

Repost cause tumblr nuked the quality for some reason

[tothefiniteyou]

one day i'd like to properly tackle the real root of raph and leo fights because i so often pull my hair at some of the mischaracterizations (especially towards raph). i don't want it to turn into this "media literacy/comprehension" battle though, because i truly feel like it's just a way to be like "i know better than you, im the correct one here". it's just not very productive, frankly.

all the same, it's odd how blown out of proportion some of their fights are, or how it so often boils down to this fight for leadership. like sure, maybe a bit, but the real issue is their similarities, not the role itself.

leo can be a prideful asshole (-said affectionately. he's my favorite i swear) and constantly needs control. he just weaponizes his title rather than be vulnerable and really talk about his fears because it's easier. leadership = one in charge in his mind because he was raised that way. it's like crossing his fingers and praying the leader card gets them to shut up and listen to him even though he knows it won't. but what, you want him to actually communicate?? his feelings?? no way... it's easier to fall back on the authority he thinks he has. which is a rough cycle if you think about it, because he's afraid of being vulnerable both because he's the leader and because he's the older brother.

(as a side note, this is such a teenage thing to do, as someone recently out of the teen stage. he basically throws a tantrum when he doesn't get his way and that is so real of him at times. it's hard feeling like you're the only one taking something seriously, especially when your responsibilities are just. more. of course it's his anxieties fueling it and making him kind of brash at times, but as shown in 2003 with post exodus, leo seems unable to voice what's going on in his head so he acts out in "raph-like ways").

as for raph, he's the same way, except it's his anger that acts as a crutch for him. in both the original series and later iterations, he's always best understood that the world hates them. it hates them, and they're all they have in the world. they can only count on each other (..and those eventually adopted into the family).

i'll always love the issue of april and the sea woman who was one of the last of her kind because it was the first time she really understood raph's anger. she didn't say anything, but it made her feel lonely herself. raph had been pushing her and casey away because they truly don't get it and never will. they have so many humans they can learn to love or get along with, but raph only has his brothers. just like the merpeople.

anyways, back on track. raph needs instant solutions, and as one trained to fight to protect, he sees this as the easiest one. he didn't grow up with leo's role as leader, nor his brother's personality and perspective. he doesn't want to be leader because he resents all that it stands for (read: the one to stop him from quick, easy justice).

to raph, pacifism won't get them anywhere, and that's part of his impulsiveness. instant solution is making sure the enemy can't harm again - but it's not that simple. not to leo, who always falls back on worst-case scenarios.

he's had it drilled into his head that a leader is always the one to make the right call, and i think it fed his ego a bit. not in a bad way necessarily, just. in a misguided, impressionable kid way. he has to prepare for everything to live up to expectations.

in the original comics, when they return to new york, there's a point where raph almost gets killed by the shredder because he thinks leo is too scared to "finish the job". it's one of their most emotional fights, and to be honest, i think raph was right. leo was scared. but so was raph, because he knew the shredder could do the things he had done to leo to any one of them again at any point in time. he had to get rid of the threat against his family.

to him, it's that simple. he knows the dangers that come from their line of work, but it's like he forgets how mortal they truly are.

so, in essence, im saying it's a more complex matter than just "i think you're a bad leader" or "you're pissing me off". make no mistake, he does do things to intentionally make leo upset/mad, but it's more because they both think they're in the right and disagree with their methods of protecting the family. it is a rivalry, but i wouldn't say it's about the leadership position.

this isn't to tear down rise or anything because i do like rise! (clarifying this part because i don't want it to seem like i'm comparing or saying one does it better than the other). and i agree that it is probably the healthiest depiction of raph and leo fights. however, i think the way and reason they fight in rise is more similar to other iterations than it appears at first glance. it's just that the roles have been reversed a tad and the approach with the entire topic is different. that's what keeps things interesting and the franchise alive!

and please don't take this the wrong way!! it's not directed at anyone or anything in particular, but rather something i've thought about a ton. you don't have to take my word as gospel or anything, im just a person saying words akvkksc. i think depictions of them as angry idiots are fun as well because, hey. they're siblings, and siblings will fight about anything even when they're in the wrong. especially when they know they are wrong. so write whatever and be free. the hair-pulling line was definitely more about mischaracterization in a generalized sense

[alaskan-wallflower]

sometimes i forget that people on here don’t know i’m visually impaired/legally blind, or that that’s even a thing with people with albinism (i’m actually like…blind. not in the “oh haha i’m like a bat, i can’t see the board!”, it’s the “i’m never going to be able to get a drivers license unless it’s extremely, extremely limited to daytime and two lane highways only, needs an iep, can’t read less than size 24 font without squinting, reads braille because my eyes get tired, can’t see snow/rainfall, can’t see 3d, can barely see my keyboard” kind of way) so when i try to make a blind joke it doesn’t hit as hard as it does if you know me irl. sigh.

[entropyvoid]

I find it really funny how the horny art people have been drawing of Sunday seems to have done a complete 180 since his release. Like, beforehand, he was this incredibly controlling antagonist in charge of shit and trying to enforce the Order on a whole ass planet, so a lot of the suggestive art people were drawing reflected that, as soon as he gets knocked off his perch people get handed him in magic thorny angel bondage with his wings as a blindfold and also he’s crying and is just standing in the middle of the battlefield like this

Never seen like a whole ass fandom totally pivot like that lmao. Even the way I keep seeing people draw him, like face and body structure-wise, has shifted noticably on a larger scale. Ngl it’s kind of fascinating to watch everyone twinkify this dude in real time

[captainsparklefingers]

If Shadow dies in Sonic 3, I'm gonna be pretty darn sangry. I had to live through the end of SA2 once already, I'd rather not go through it again with the added trauma of that being on the big screen in HD.

(this isn't a spoiler, I have no idea what's gonna happen, I just remember how the game this movie is drawing heavy inspiration from ended and I am Concerned™.)

[songtwo]

guys i think it’s time i come clean. i accidentally cheated on my bf for like 2 seconds last week at a party while my friend was throwing up in the bathroom and her friend was holding her hair and i was there for emotional support and suddenly she turned to me and held my hair and kissed me 😭 all this while he was waiting outside and my friend was still throwing up

[isogenderskitty]

tw suicide mention

this is extremely dark, but like... hear me out. what would steph even do with herself if she had ended up killing pete? she has no family to go home to, no clear aspirations... and i'm sure she doesn't even want to think about the possibility of someday getting over pete and finding someone else. i can't get the idea out of my head that she would've just... hung around long enough to see the lords in black make good on their end of the deal, and then... created a parallel to romeo & juliet, if you catch my drift.

[tangledinink]

; w ; i said i was gonna be productive and get stuff done today but then i got overwhelmed and took a three hour nap and im not sure if its too late to take adderall or not

[bmpmp3]

sometimes when i talk about race in media, in the back of my head im like "aaaghhhh am i just stating the obvious like im sure i just look like the annoying mixed race guy who just discovered water is wet or some shit" BUT THEN i remember that like. for most white people this stuff doesnt even cross their minds. like i forget. like this just isnt in their brains at all....

[presiding]

What is your favourite thing about Billie Lurk?

(Answers are obvious possibly but i love when people talk about her👍)

thanks for the ask!! YEAH ME TOO I love when people talk about Billie! I can't say I have a favourite thing specifically, but I can explain why she's my fav. apologies for not taking this qn literally, but -

short answer: she’s really cool

& you can stop reading there, or, for the maybe 2 mutuals who might have time to read this my thoughts on her as a character, her meta, and her character as raw potential...

long answer:

i considered making this entire thing a gush so you could read a gush about Billie. but, part of what draws me to her is that she’s not always well written, and in fandom she’s underrated for a literal protagonist.

since you ask...

billie is a cool character

when I played Dh2 (hadn't played Dh1), I was excited to see a black woman with disabilities who was captaining a massive ship by herself. wow.

then I discovered Billie’s backstory with Deirdre, the way she responded to that, then having to survive while living on the run, and her bisexuality. as well as her history with daud & delilah. fascinating!

she’s an outsider who has so much to lose, and knows what it's like to lose everything - having lost everything not once but three times - but nevertheless speaks truth to power. she's so brave! she went and helped Emily & Corvo and she must have known they might kill her! plus, she’s smart, she’s funny, she gets shit done, she’s gorgeous.

but... the meta

mild critique of fandom & arkane incoming.

skip this bit if you want - you've been warned twice now - jump to tired Hayao Miyazaki and read from there if you'd like my thoughts on writing her.

i thought Death of the Outsider was going to be amazing and then... well. *sad trombone* i've written about that before so i won't keep banging on. i figured others must be disappointed too, so I joined a few fandom spaces in hopes of finding camaraderie.

most people with complaints about DotO didn’t like how the Outsider and Daud were handled. which is valid & I agree. but it seemed like most paid no attention to Billie; when people talk about her it’s with respect to Daud, as opposed to in her own right. you could argue for fandom misogyny because people don’t talk about adult Emily Kaldwin that much either, but in Billie's case, it’s misogynoir (compare & contrast with the popularity of thomas, particularly the popularity of thomas portrayed as a white man for no particular reason that i've been able to discern - i keep asking around, is it in the books???).

i think this is a LOT better now than it used to be, which is fantastic. or perhaps i have found the correct echo-chamber? ha.

ultimately, The Fandom is a fraction of the entire picture, and not even the important bit since The Fandom is not who these games are made for. you can't make money relying on only your hardcore fans even if all of them spent a fortune on merch, this is true for any AAA game.

while it's true that Billie is underrated from a fandom perspective - but Billie as an underwritten protagonist is squarely Arkane’s fault.

it was reasonable when she was a side character - the lack of info in Dh2 makes perfect sense (if anything there was more lore in Dh2 which is kind of wild)-

- but as a protagonist in Death of the Outsider?

.... there’s lousy writing, and there’s whatever is going on with Billie Lurk, a black woman who mostly exists as a foil or saviour for light-skinned characters. In her own game there’s barely any of her own lore except where it's relevant to saving two dudes.

lore hints at, but barely touches on what race means in the Dh universe (xenophobia is stronger in Dh1; separate essay i guess), but Arkane has patted themselves on the back for portraying non-white characters, which feels like the same thing as the aesthetic of diversity we're seeing in advertising currently because it’s in marketing trend guides. it's self-congratulatory and it's a missed opportunity for deeper storytelling.

you can see an example of diversity at its most shallow in the way that Billie’s written: there’s little engagement with her as an entire person with history & wants & preferences, and the world she walks through in that game feels like it has nothing to do with her. you could make a case for alienation as a theme, but then, how do you handle the titular premise of 'Dishonored' without ever letting Billie make changes in an environment without a chaos system? it's disappointing from that angle too.

in my opinion, whatever it's worth, it was an accident Arkane created such an awesome character - they needed someone to betray daud. congrats billie.

all this said, it makes her an underdog as far as characters to enjoy & create art & stories for. it's nice to find so many like-minded, switched on people! <3

billie's character potential

she’s got a wealth of unexplored lore, being deeply intertwined with both Karnaca & Dunwall’s fates & criminal underbellies, as well as her connections to the witches & whalers, and three Empresses.

she’s lived a few distinct lifetimes and in the games we get to meet her at two peaks (KoD & DotO) & a low (Dh2 as Meagan).

her voice is very distinct, her dry & often dark humour is entertaining & fun to write. her perspective is really interesting - she’s had the widest variety of void-powers of anyone canonically, and she’s also lived through the highest highs and lowest lows.

she's got everything going for her :) i couldn't really pick a fav thing!

[the-pea-and-the-sun]

trying to figure out how fucking old dende is and why he looks the exact same age as when gohan is 5 as when he's 11 (or 9?? or 12 or 13?? fuck this show) and them remembered if i really wanna hard sci-fi this shit i gotta account for the fact that namek probably has different gravity and so space-time relativity has to be accounted for. goddamnit. also they're all experiencing weird gravities like all the time?? like am i wrong or should vegeta not be rapid aging relative to everything going on outside with all that 10000 gravity shit hes doing?? for some reason im willing to handwave space travel (bcz i mean. we GOTTA get dende on earth im willing to break physics for that) but i am less willing to handwave this. or like. its interesting to think abt i guess. like imagine having a crush on a boy approximately your age and then going a few months without seeing him and then when u see him again he's aged like five years and is like twice your height. also he's like blonde and shit. that parts not relevant i guess

[astranauticus]

oh lol i forgot to post this robit sketches! because i have one (1) bit and im sure as hell gonna commit to it apparently