#i haven't done a tag like this in a while

[isthatbloodonhisshirt]

So apparently I haven't been active on Tumblr for a year, which just goes to show how fast time can go when things are crazy ahaha, sorry?

I just went through my whole dash back a whole year (I am OCD, it had to be done or I'd explode, and don't ask how long it took, the answer is too long. Positive note though, Tumblr does let you go back that far, it just freezes every 5 seconds and makes your browser weep).

Anyway, all this to say I am going to be responding to asks for the next little bit, but I don't want to like, bombard people with asks so I'm going to space them out in the queue along with art and whatnot. Anyone who doesn't want to see responses to asks can blacklist "Blood's yakkity yaks."

Also because I loaded my queue up back a year, I might have accidentally crossed wires on some things that belong on my other blogs, so if I messed up and put non TW stuff on here that's not tagged "Not TW," it means it was an accident and feel free to let me know. (Also please tell me if I reblogged AI art, I noticed a few while going through my dash but some might have slipped through the cracks given how many things I was staring at the whole time I did this).

Moral of the story: If you have OCD and have to go back to the last thing you saw on your dash, do not ignore your dash for a year because you will suffer.

- Blood

[art-is-kayos]

Manager and their Knight.

[pyralart]

Just finished the two next pages!

And because you're my favorite pals here on Tumblr, you get a little extra in advance, as a treat

I'm sure nothing bad is going to happen watsoever

[skrunksthatwunk]

other half

redraw screenshots taken from this post i made a while back ignore that i forgot to actually link it for like an entire day

[kittybroker]

General update post:

Nothing is really changing right now but if posts have been slow due to stuff going on irl. I'm finding myself able to get to less and less tagged posts at the moment. A large chunk are posts I've already seen, and even without that I'm getting them in far faster than I can get posts out.

Likewise, it's getting harder to keep submissions open for longer periods of time as it gets more and more asks quicker than before. I am also very tired with outside stuff ongoing and have been missing scheduled posts fairly regularly.

I'll still try to get to as many as I can but it can take time and I can't get to everything. I'm hoping to sort out the intro post with an FAQ and a few other bits of useful information but it might be a bit before I can get anything sorted there.

It's been suggested before that I get other people on to help, and I haven't really wanted to do that. I stand by that decision but the blog has continued to grow pretty consistent for the last eight months or so, with no real sign of it seeming to slow down. I recall when I started I was somehow getting 20 posts out a day but right now queue is set for 12 and I suspect I'm only getting about 10 out. No idea how I did it then but there's only so many cats I can evaluate before my brain turns to slush.

As a note, please don't tag me into or send in more than about two posts at a time. There's just too many coming in and I'll probably just chose the best if you do (I notice and then forget later anyways).

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

season 1 episode 13 thoughts

A SCULLY EPISODE!!!! i was overjoyed and then i felt deep and immeasurable grief as the minutes went by.

she wants to leave her christmas tree up all year <3 she's a good cook <3 her dad calls her starbuck <3

but her dad is being avoidant! he didn't even say i love you when he left!

! dana scully lore reveal ! her dad lowkey sucks!!!

and then he IMMEDIATELY DIED right after! that is sick and twisted. why do they make my girl endure such pain.

the next note i made for the episode was "omg windows you have to crank!" which was a brief moment of levity among the Sorrow. except even the guy doing the said window cranking was kidnapped right after. still, the novelty of it all!

when scully came into work even though her dad had just died... we see mulder call her "dana" for the first time... she was visibly taken aback by this... and mumbled her name back to herself... my heart was melting out of my body

and when i thought i was going to already collapse from the "dana" moment, he tells her she should take some time for herself and then. softly cups her cheek. and strokes it with his thumb. holy fuck i nearly sobbed. it was the softest thing i have ever seen. what the hell man.

he has this instinctive need to touch her. to use his touch to keep her safe or bring her comfort. it will be psychoanalyzed at a later date from me but for now, know i am noticing the motifs.

(also, when he finally left his office, we see that he kept the hat from the alien obsessed guy in episode 10... good to know this is a man who takes souvenirs. take him to the zoo and see what he comes back with)

so then we cutscene to her dad's funeral and we learn that her father was in the navy- perhaps this is why he is unduly harsh. and then we got ANOTHER scene that beat my heart into a pulp: scully turning to her mom and asking "was he proud of me?" her mom waits for a beat and says "he was your father". HEY! THAT'S NOT AN ANSWER!!!!!!!!!

(who wouldn't be proud of scully? i'm taking names. write them down)

when interrogating the death row psychic mulder once again said "i want to believe" and i once again wrote in my episode notes "HE SAID THE LINE!"

interesting that this is an episode where scully believes and mulder doesn't, almost immediately from the beginning of the episode. but the psychic says stuff her dad would say and therefore she gets emotionally invested even though mulder says it's nonsense, and that this guy is setting them a trap because mulder got him put on death row. and when she listens to the psychic's clue and find evidence at an abandoned warehouse, mulder yells at her for putting herself in danger. to which she said:

"i thought you'd be pleased i opened myself to extreme possibilities"

scully i am REACHING through the screen and telling you i'm proud of you in case no one ever did that before

(and MAYBE mulder yelling at her for putting herself in danger because he thinks he needs to protect her WAS deeply satisfying but still. read the room my king)

(also revealed in this scene: mulder is a jimi hendrix fan. i am tucking this knowledge in my pocket and storing it safely)

then the psychic decided to reveal some of her personal memories and we learn she stole a cigarette when she was 14 and she thought it was disgusting but she wanting to do something they would disapprove of. and she was so scared but so excited. are you kidding me? are you absolutely kidding me. the need to rebel from an assigned role in which she feels she MUST be perfect has haunted her from a young age, and when she finally did something her parents really disprove of- joined the FBI instead of working as a doctor- she's met with rejection. so now we know she's had this terrible need to do what pleases those she loves and to break that is a rush from its inherent moral Wrongness. the isolation of being the Good Child who does what She's Told vs. the isolation of being the Less Good Child who loses their parent's approval. that terrible ache of knowing you once pleased them and now you don't. the conditional nature of affection. ohhhhh good lord.

later mulder gets shot and scully thinks the psychic lured him into a trap which leads to her screaming at him (like SERIOUSLY screaming) that if mulder dies, she'll kill the psychic herself. now this was especially crazy because we have only at this point seen her yell once before which was in episode 8, but this was 10x that intensity. also wild for revealing that she will kill anyone who hurts mulder. once again i say holy FUCK.

mulder is wheeled in to the hospital and still telling her not to believe him, says that he's luring her into another trap. at this point i was yelling "TELL MULDER HE KNEW ABOUT YOUR DAD!" but she was too deep in the grief to bring it up

(throughout the entire episode she is hallucinating her dad in places he isn't, which is arguably far more impactful than just seeing her cry)

when the psychic reveals the location of the murderer and they go to check it out, scully straight up shoots the suspect. she is NOT playing around, y'all. i think this is the first time we see her shoot someone, which is already a lot to unpack. but then she doesn't follow the killer because the psychic had warned her against it and in this way he saves her life.

then she says thank you to the psychic, who says "come to my execution and i'll give your father's message to you" and she DOESN'T GO. mulder asks her why, because now he seems to think that psychic dude really WAS telling the truth, and she no longer does:

"why can't you believe?" "because i'm scared"

she's scared!! she's scared to believe. she's scared to know what is out there and she seemed scared to know what her father had to say. isn't there enough uncertainty in this world ruled by facts and science? what could the possibilities be like beyond that? why believe in what you cannot control? she says she knew what he would say because "he's my father". is that enough for her? or was she too frightened to hear that he wasn't proud of her?

overall i've said "holy fuck" like a LOT during this recap and i truly feel that those are the only words i have for the situation. getting to see more scully lore was EXACTLY what i was hoping for and i'm so pleased but also so so so sad. like she keeps her christmas tree up and she's a good cook and she has this terrible need for her father's approval that he won't give and then he goes and dies. i need about 10 beach episodes to make up for the sadness here. chris carter i'm in ur walls.

[getvalentined]

咲さんの橋 (1986)

A group of young girls wake up in a strange place, and come to the horrifying realization that there's only one way to "escape."

Saki's Bridge is a mid-80s psychological horror OVA produced by now-defunct Go For A Punch! Studios, known for the creation of several short one-off animated features. One of the most unique features of Saki's Bridge is the absence of a soundtrack; due to the volume of characters, the team chose to direct the minimal funding allotted to the film toward hiring highly skilled voice actors to portray each one in a distinct and recognizable way rather than paying for the composition or licensing of any music. The intense voice acting placed against a backdrop of low, ambient sound effects lends the film one of the eeriest vibes in Japanese media.

[marcelineuntitled]

i like this one a lot :)))

[dragon-spaghetti]

Only the real ones remember these two 😭 they were both in dire need of a revamp so!!! New designs for the sonadow kids ✨

(Please click for better quality!!)

[torra-and-the-toons]

His face is very cat-like to me idk

[sensitiveheartless]

...K this is going to sound completely out of the blue, but this has been haunting me today —

[fudgecake-charlie]

[hellolulu]

Zoro and Luffy live action said Zolu truthers aren't wrong and I said thanks

[sojourner-between-worlds]

I normally don't vague post about other people (and I'm not really here, even) but someone in the tag suggested that Jack would make a better Team Leader than Yusei and it made me realize something, in part, about why people think that Yusei is boring.

tl;dr: Yusei isn't boring; he was written as the MC in the wrong genre.

See, Shonen protagonists typically have the following personality traits: loud, brash, hot-headed, sometimes abrasive. Yusei is none of those things, and Jack is ALL of them. Which, I'm sure, is what led that person to say that Jack would make the better leader and what leads so many people (who are mostly only fans of Shonen anime) to say that Yusei is boring. He doesn't fit their expectations of what a Shonen protag is supposed to look like, therefore he's boring.

But the thing is, if you popped him into, say, a Slice of Life, he'd be perfectly at home (well...except for the Trademark YGO Hair anyway) and well-loved by the fan base. I can say this with fair certainty because I've at least never seen anyone say that Natsume Takashi (Natsume's Book of Friends) is boring in any way, and honestly the two of them have very similar temperaments. The difference is, obviously, the genre of their respective stories.

Slice of Life allows for its protags to be softer-spoken, more reserved; Shonen often does not.

It's time people stopped saying that Yusei is boring and just admit that they like loud, brash characters as opposed to quiet ones, and that Yusei just doesn't fit what they expect from a Shonen protagonist.

He's not boring; he was just written for the wrong genre.

[littleeyesofpallas]

Oh hey i bumped into another old as dirt thing i made in google images. didn't even know this was one still being passed around in some places. It's supposed to be all the established families with at least two known characters.

Although someone in the like 8 year old reddit thread it was posted to did point out that I missed Jidanbo and Jirobo, which I'm honestly shocked I'd have forgotten considering how much I love to not shut up about the gate guardians. They also pointed out that I didn't include Koganehiko and Shiroganehiko, but technically their relationship is never specified. I mean, it seems obvious that they'd be brothers, but they could be unrelated, and neither is ever given a family name. Also the Saiyuki characters they're based on are also not technically related.

For a brief moment i didn't even recognize it was my work --even as I made note of how similar the sensibilities in formatting were-- until i got distinct flashbacks of clipping out the random faceless nameless family members of orihime and jackie and yukio, and of counting each implied iteration of the Nemuri project, and counting blanks for ukitake's barely mentioned siblings

This serves not purpose to anyone really but I took the opportunity to update things a little.

The Ikkanzaka bros as mentioned

I mistakenly had Isshin as a cousin to the main branch Shibas.

I had neglected that Sui-Feng's brothers' graves had been shown in her flashback.

I did specifically order all siblings youngest to oldest when reading right to left, bottom to top, but i went in and labeled the Nemus since a bunch were just identical cell clusters.

I put the faceless body of Giriko's dead dad i there under the grandpas.

Also I tossed in the wolf kids from the We Do kNot Always Love You LN because why not.

oh and i added Chika Shihouin since he obviously wasn't around back then

[zincfingermotif]

semi-organized thoughts on angel arm activation, plant biology, and vash in general

transcript + extras under the cut

ANGEL ARM ACTIVATION

(Based on the event colloquially known as the “Fifth Moon Incident”)

1.

Catalyst is uncovered, exposing it to light

Chain reaction begins which starts energy conducting through the chamber and into the arm

2. Primary Stage

Catalyst chamber (gun) begins to be enveloped into hand

Gun and hand/arm can still vaguely be made out

3. Secondary Stage

Gun is fully enveloped and can no longer be seen

Shape of the Angel Arm starts to form

4. Tertiary Stage

The Angel Arm is fully formed

Neither the arm nor the gun’s shape can be seen

The activation process cannot be stopped after this point

5.

The Angel Arm splits fully in four places and elongates, revealing the new core

Senses (sight, hearing, etc) are enhanced to a painful degree

6.

A field of light and force is emitted that can be seen/felt from far away

Mild destruction of the surrounding area starts

7.

The Angel Arm fires, with an involuntary wave of regeneration energy as recoil

Reopening of old wounds and extreme hair growth can occur

8.

The arm fuses back together and returns to its original state with some scarring

9.

An unconsciousness state lasting anywhere from 1 week to 6 months begins

Levels of Activation

0%  →

10% (Episode 24)   → (Episode 25)

50%  → Lost July (*Elizabeth vision), Fifth Moon Incident

100% (Episode 26)  →

What happened here?

Having two opposing Angel Arms meant that most of the after-effects canceled each other out.

Plant Biology and Bulb Structure

Taking Inspiration from...

Cyanobacteria (Cylindrospermum):

First organisms to produce oxygen on Earth, like the Plants were a major source of oxygen on the Planet after the crash

Often extremophiles, which includes desert environments

Used in agriculture for nitrogen fixation (basically free fertilizer), possibly how geo-Plants function

Hydras (Hydra vulgaris):

Extraordinary regeneration ability

Functionally immortal in stable environments

→ With the help of a Plant bulb, Knives was able to recover the portion of his body that was destroyed in Lost July.

A Selection of Plant Facts...

Can perform photosynthesis using pigments similar to carotenoids, phycobilin, and phycoerythrin

Found mostly in cells on the surface of their bodies

Have very slow metabolisms unless under stress conditions or unique circumstances

Rapidly mutate to adapt in unstable environments

Outdoors Model (Inepril)

Support and interface structure to core

Intake and outflow tubing

Maintenance platform

Control room typically in here

Plant

Liquid-filled core, semi-permeable to sunlight

Indoors Model (Flying Ship)

Miscellaneous (???)

Vash and Plant Comparison

← Similar hairline →

← Similar physique →

← Longer than average legs →

→ Knives's body type is closer to an Industrial Plant after spending an extended period of time in a bulb.

Wandering Plant (Vash the Stampede)

Industrial Plant (Soleil, Plant 2 of the Flying Ship)

Clothing Discussion

Exhausted and heavily injured, Vash was discovered wandering the desert by the Flying Ship crew.

The most severe of the injuries were on the left side of his chest, so the clothes made for him while recovering were designed to be put on with one arm (his right). This was coincidentally beneficial in the future.

The coat is fastened with rows of snaps, and the tails of the coat can be torn off in case of emergencies. (Generally, not all at once though.)

This outfit allows for more freedom of movement, which complements his level of flexibility. It also helps with escaping from the many, many dangerous situations he gets into.

The majority of Vash's outfit under his coat functions as compression gear to help with recovery and mitigation of the pain of all the injuries he's gotten over time.

For example, the design of his top allows for different levels of compression and support on either side of his chest.

Even with all this gear, some pain does occasionally slip through, particularly in the arms, back, and knees.

Extras

Starting with the fun ones, which are mostly bits of information I wasn’t quite sure on putting into the lore or not.

Fun facts with Vash and Meryl or its alternate title: “What I was doing instead of studying for my Molecular Biology final” (may not be 100% scientifically accurate)

Saw an article talking about an art exhibit of a chandelier made up of glass filled with algae to purify the air (though the purification was primarily converting excess carbon dioxide to oxygen and not anything else)

Trying to imagine Vash’s daily getting dressed routine

Okay, now for the serious part. I feel a bit strange classifying this as an extra because that has a lighthearted connotation, but it wasn’t really something I could represent through drawing. Discussion of heavy mental health stuff ahead...

Much later on in this speculation project, I began to consider the possibility of Vash having some sort of obsessive-compulsive tendencies. This whole train of thought started when I saw someone’s art of Vash with cleaning -related compulsions (self harm warning as per OP’s tags), or at least that’s how I interpreted the comic when I first saw it. As someone who experiences something mildly similar to this on rare occasion (though the thought process behind it is much different), it really stuck in my mind personally.

To take what that person said in a slightly different direction, I think Vash could have some washing/cleaning-related compulsions in regards to his “everyone he touches dies” assertion. It is unfortunately kind of true because of his long life and tendency to be in dangerous situations, but I can imagine it getting folded into an obsessive-compulsive cycle over time. He touches someone or someone touches him, that thought enters his mind, he goes to wash himself in response or obsess over the thought if not able to, and then so much of the time that person will get hurt, reinforcing the cycle.  

Having the Angel Arms get activated outside of his control probably induced a lot of anxiety and obsession over harm into Vash as well, especially when he was forced to go against his no-killing thing because of Legato.

And that’s the end. If you made it all the way here, thanks for reading!