#i just feel kinda sick

[perrieedwards]

i feel like people are skimming over the uk riots in a way that makes me want to tear my hair out. muslims in the uk are in active danger. immigrants in the uk are in active danger. refugees in the uk are in active danger. people of colour in the uk are in active danger. asian communities in the uk are in active danger. black communities in the uk are in active danger.

there are massive far right riots throughout the country right now and people like fucking elon musk and nigel farage are inciting it and still have a platform to speak. people have used three young girls deaths, people's genuine grief in southport, to try and gain traction for their own racist bullshit and it's working.

a lot of refugee charities have been forced to close leaving many people without support, homes, funding, food, etc. if you aren't able to donate please consider sending a message via the conversation over borders campaign! it will send a hopeful, welcoming letter to a refugee in the uk. there is also a guide to staying safe here.

please do your own research and donate to refugee charities, anti-islamophobia charities, mosques who are trying to rebuild after being destroyed, counter protesters, here are some i've heard positive things about but the list is extensive; southport strong together (support for the southport victims and their families), southport mosque rebuilding, riot repair fund, middlesbrough vulnerable residents, nasir mosque rebuilding, hull help for refugees, bristol welcomes migrants,

[oars]

[wardingshout]

Little visit

[shepscapades]

A quick recap, since we… learned a few things?

[sainz100]

2024 Brazilian GP | x

[bellwethers]

GURIFISU

[buttercupshands]

I started drawing this next day after I finished Act 6

13 or so days and it's finished!

Main things are traditional and Loop's body was edited digitally after

Unedited it looks like this

I've been torn on how to do Loop's body for the entirety of lining, also

A bit sad the main lines are visible only as a wip, most of this thing is literally just a ton of sharp lines

I think it's also my first day of drawing, Loop is just a sketch here (feat. my leg)

I even finished the beans before it so they were a moral support, because if you let me things like this take a year

[babyblankyerror]

Stanford angry with his twin until he sees him and it doesn't look like his twin. No, Stanley is supposed to be his twin and that means he's supposed to look like him not...not all sunken cheeks and stomach and scars and... Well, this.

[astralzeraphias]

“he was mentally ill. this monster was a- was a sick fantasy. a product of his dementia.”

“…i saw it too. does that make me disturbed? demented? does… that make me sick too?”

[lunarharp]

scribbly scrappoes -_-

[the-shrimp-alchemist]

Anyone else think Ed and Ling should've been a little more. I dunno. Drenched in blood during this arc? :)c (for the sake of the blood showing up on their dark clothing let's just say there's So Much Of It)

I didn't draw this for October 3rd btw, but now's as good a day to post as any!

Bonus, by the time they emerge:

dramatic reveal ruined, more at 11

[ra-vio]

this blog is 11 years old now 🎉

I drew the siblings ever to celebrate as usual

[skitskatdacat63]

"Memories of This Life" - Il Capitano(x)

[scificrows]

Okay, my brain refuses to think about anything other than Murderbot, so I looked at every use of the word "friend[s]" in TMBD and... created some pie charts. Normal human activities.

Some Thoughts™ I had while putting this together (under the cut):

In All Systems Red, Murderbot notes that the PresAux crew are all close friends (twice! and goes on to explain their internal relationships which I think is very cute). This is pretty much the only use of 'friends' in ASR, except for when Murderbot says that SecUnits can't be friends with each other.

It seems that this may be one of the first times Murderbot has ever really been around a group of friends before? Murderbot notes that this is not the norm for its contracts and admits that the fact that they are all friends and the way they interact with each other make it actually enjoy that contract (before!!!! the hostile attack, so it already enjoys this contract before they start seeing it as a person etc ghghhhh). [Inference: Friendship seems enjoyable.]

The first character that calls Murderbot its friend is ART in Artificial Condition. Murderbot immediately refutes this (and then goes on to call ART its friend to its clients for the rest of the book). [Inference: Maybe ART is Murderbot's friend. And maybe that is... agreeable]

Rogue Protocol has more than twice as many instances of the word 'friend' as any of the other novellas. Why? Miki. Friendship and its implications for non-humans are a central theme because Miki is friends with everyone. Murderbot initially scoffs at the notion that Miki and Miki's humans are friends. At the end of the book, after witnessing how desperately Don Abene tried to stop Miki from trying to save them, and her grief after its death, Murderbot has to admit that she had in fact been Miki's friend. [Inference: Humans can be friends with bots and can sincerely care about them]

In Exit Strategy, Murderbot tentatively uses the word "friends" for its humans for the first time (several times actually). It questions whether it can actually call them its friends or not and later realizes that it had been afraid what admitting that the humans are its friends would do to it. At the end of the book, Mensah tells Murderbot the PresAux crew are its friends, which is the first time a human has directly said that to it (at least on-page). [Inference: Humans can and want to be Murderbot's friends]

In Network Effect, Murderbot seems to be more habituated to the word 'friend', confidently calling ART and Ratthi its friends, like it is no longer just trying the concept on unsure if it fits. There are many instances in which other characters refer to MB as ART's friend or the other way around and Murderbot's humans refer to Murderbot as their friend several times. Generally, there seems to be less hesitancy, because yes, all of them are Murderbot's friends, why wouldn't they be. [Inference: SecUnits can have friends. This SecUnit has friends. They care about it a lot.]

Conclusion: The Murderbot Diaries tell the story of a construct that does not seem to consider the possibility of friendship for itself and is fine with that - until it accidentally starts caring a little too much and suddenly more and more people annex it as a friend (ew) to the point where it can no longer deny that this is happening and has to begrudgingly admit that yes, it has friends now and maybe that is actually not a bad thing.

[somehhuuuhh]

Chubby killer :p

[lordgeneralsix]

i would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on isterik so if you wanted to ramble..... <3

you're probably gonna regret asking unless you actually enjoy hearing my incoherent thoughts but regardless I am holding your hands so tight rn thank you for asking<3

I have a lot of thoughts about them and I'll try to untangle some of them here .. I guess I'll just start w the obvious and say I feel like watering down isterik to "toxic bc Istvan groomed erik" is a pretty dismissive way to talk about such a raw and volatile display of love. people are once again doing what they did with hansry and trying to understand their relationship through a modern lens when it's not that simple, especially since we're missing a lot of information from two very unreliable narrators. I'm not saying istvan didn't foster an unhealthy relationship with erik by taking him in, caring for him like a father would, and being intimate as lovers - he absolutely did. i'm just honestly bored of the discussions around Problematic relationships starting and ending with "that's toxic" as if Bad People aren't capable of loving just as deeply as anyone else especially if their circumstances are a bit... unusual. I mean, why do people do anything? to live and love, right? and no im not saying it's all okay bc they love each other, it's still bad but both can coexist.

it's interesting that we hear different accounts from both on how they met - istvan found erik during a raid and took him in, but we don't know the details. we don't know what situation erik was in, why istvan was so drawn to him, or hell, if maybe erik killed his own parents instead and istvan is just saying that to protect him. this is the story we hear from istvan, but we get two different recountings from erik. one is in kcd1 where he tells henry point blank that istvan killed his parents and he's stronger than his parents ever were, but then in kcd2 he calls henry a liar about istvan killing his parents. this confused me when I first heard it bc I could've sworn he was aware, so I thought maybe it was a retcon. all well and good I guess, but I thought,, well what if it isn't? as far as I'm aware nothing else has been retconned, so why would this be?

so I try to think of it a different way, just to see if that would even work. maybe it might be a key inconsistency of erik's mental state, showing how he's still trying to grapple what the fuck happened that day. I mean, it's hard to recall all the details of a traumatic event, right? especially if it happens to you so young. maybe erik has no recollection of what really happened and trusts what istvan told him. or he knows and he just doesn't need to justify anything to anyone, especially not to henry. maybe in the first game, since istvan is still alive, he plays up the hardened bandit face and says "yeah, istvan killed my parents in cold blood - know that he doesn't fuck around", but after he dies, well, we've seen him. he's thrown into a rage that will eventually consume him. his entire reason for fighting is gone, and henry bringing up something he tried so hard to ignore... well, yeah, id be pissed too.

again... I'm just speculating. in the end it could just be a retcon and I'm going insane over such a minor detail, oh well. we just don't have enough information to make a conclusion, but I guess that's the point. it's like they both said, we don't understand their relationship and we never will.

moving on from that.... since you were so kind to ask I'm gonna throw in a bit of rare lore about myself to kinda connect why isterik is like the light of god to me - in my own writing I try to explore a wide variety of relationships and character behaviours, almost anything goes really because I do believe fiction should be a safe space for writers to explore concepts without it being reflective of them as people.. some of the best stories I've been lucky to experience have been generally pretty dark, unafraid to explore beyond the boundaries of what we're comfortable with,, because well, it's real. and why not. isterik reminds me of one relationship I have - similarly a relationship that can't easily be defined because of the parties' roles in society, the circumstances of their meeting, and of course as two men. so, my understanding of this relationship does stem from my own experience writing these kinds of relationships, which in turn stems from my observations of people around me.

and I do love that honestly. can't give warhorse enough credit for making their characters so believable. what fascinates me about isterik is that they very obviously love each other and treat each other as equals. its obvious that istvan isn't using erik. he doesn't try to hide how much he cares for him.. why would he beg for erik's life instead of his? istvan has been playing the theatrical villain this whole time, but the moment his right hand man is threatened, he breaks. i've briefly mentioned this before but its unnerving how he begs for erik's life. this game once again shows you how your enemies are just as capable of love and fear whether you like it or not, they're people too.

erik is more than some pawn. if istvan wanted to, he could easily replace him. but erik isn't disposable. istvan saw something familiar within erik and only he could drag it out - he built erik up and protected him the way he wished someone would've done for him after his parents were killed by the turks. he was alone and suffered god knows how long until he finally gained some semblance of control in his life, and then he taught erik to never let anyone take that control away... but who was the one who did that to him in the first place? is he talking to erik or himself? istvan himself has a lot of issues, but if you look past his mad rambling there really is some truth to it (a whole other thing to get into on my istvan analysis... somewhere in the future)

along w that i don't believe erik is entirely some helpless thing that doesn't understand what kind of situation he's in. the tragic thing is he was, but that boy is long dead and buried (and something I won't ever forget is how we see a glimpse of erik being normal through godwin's eyes... horse racing? really? that entire sequence was uncomfortable, erik is completely void of emotion, aside from rage of course, I honestly don't believe all of this was istvan's doing. something must've already been wrong with him, which could explain why istvan kept him and fed that hatred). at the same time, I don't believe erik is any worse than istvan, at least not when he's alive (like i found it interesting that when erik freed istvan, he begged him to flee when istvan wanted to kill henry.. idk how to explain, i feel like istvan was the reason he was even able to 'control' his anger. another thing i need to think on more).

istvan is clearly the one pulling the strings of everyone around him - the enabler - while erik is the muscle (no I'm not saying he's not smart but he's not capable of being manipulative like istvan, check their respective roles in society). he won't last long without istvan. his guiding light is gone. istvan and erik make each other stronger (better for them, worse for us), they fight for each other and for their place in the world - just like henry and hans do. they're really not so different, it's true. henry goes to great lengths to avenge his parents, believing it is the righteous thing to do, but so does erik. they were both horribly wronged and will fight to get that control back no matter the cost. they are products of war, extensions of their lords to be used and discarded. they're lucky if anyone cares about them at all in the end. and this is what istvan was trying to protect erik from and warn henry about. they're the same, but morality separates them in their ultimately selfish actions.

morality. that's the difference. hanush said this exactly in the first game - if i recall correctly, that their honour is what separates them from the common bandit. henry and hans believe in honour, it's what stops them from going too far even if they feel otherwise it in their hearts. henry especially can act on these darker thoughts - taking his revenge too far by taking his anger out on his allies and treating his enemies as subhuman... but isterik aren't caught up about imaginary concepts of mortality and honour, or especially in istvan's case, he doesn't fear god. they revel in their daily routine of pillaging and killing those they deem lesser, a threat. more importantly, they're doing it together (cute date ideas or whatever). anyone who threatens the other is in for a world of pain - I mean of course, no one would let their loved ones be threatened, but to the degree to which istvan and erik will go for each other is what most people would consider extreme. istvan was willing to let his hostages be violated just at the mere thought of erik being harmed, erik is hellbent on skinning henry and by extension hans.. and anyone who gets in his way.... which is why I do expect him to be in kcd3 if it happens, probably not as a major antagonist, but like how henry hunted istvan, erik will hunt henry. i don't see erik's story ending well, whatever he ends up doing to henry or even hans. his entire reason for living was taken from him, he'll burn the world and himself with it because that's the kind of person he is (which yk.... as a tragedy enjoyer.... evil emoji).

despite people thinking in terms of extremes with them, i do think they are capable of being normal with each other.. i mean, we've seen it. how tender istvan became when he said goodbye to erik. how erik was hesitant yet calm in his presence. so much left unsaid, we can't even begin to understand what was taken from erik that night. i wonder how long he stayed at istvan's grave after burying him, how often he went back to talk to him or just sit in silence. maybe he never went back at all. im normal about them. and i will be very normal about kcd3.

so anyway tl;dr I'm incredibly biased and I love when love is so so messy and passionate. they do not need a redemption arc or any kind of justification on Why This Relationship Is Ok Actually or why people who enjoy it are also bad people or whatever juvenile discourse people r having. they're unapologetically fucked up and I love them for it. they don't need to change people need to expand their minds and find enlightenment through isterik. or something

but who knows maybe I'm entirely wrong, this is just rambling off the top of my head bc its 2am now and I'm definitely missing a lot that would usually go in a more well thought out post but... I'll get around to that at some point lol. I would love to hear your thoughts as well or if anyone else feels like discussing this further . go crazy with my blessing