#i'm doing it for jean tbh

[changingtidesandtimesss]

Officially taking AFTG/TSC art requests if anyone is interested! <3

[justworthlessreblogs]

scattered thoughts on kirapika 2

part 2 of my great kirapika rant. this one is shorter but i'm still putting it under a read more

the series tries to argue that rio's sole motivation for going evil was jealously but i disagree (to an extent) because that is a 12 or 13 year old alone in an unfamiliar city without any support system (i mean. it's just straight up canon that he and ciel started to drift apart during this time, he doesn't really seem to have had as much of a bond with jean-pierre as ciel does, he probably didn't interact with anyone else, and i think it's pretty telling that at some point he started exclusively working on his stuff in their attic instead of jean-pierre's workshop). jealously was absolutely a factor, yes, but he was also incredibly isolated and emotionally vulnerable (something we know noir specifically preys on). mentioned this to my beta once and he said that noir sounds like a textbook cult leader

in the end, rio and ciel just feel very... incomplete, as characters. like they get setup for arcs that never happen, but the show insists that they did.

ciel: i've said this before, but to me ciel is the sort of character who needs a broken pedestal. because when we meet her, she's already got everything. she's perfect in every way. and then you start seeing the cracks, tiny little flaws that sneak through. because ciel *is* flawed. she's selfish, she's shortsighted, she's got a tendency to only think about herself. she can't comprehend why ichika's "simple" sweets have so much kirakiraru even though they're not as fancy as her sweets. and i love it. i was so hyped for seeing how her intro was going to turn out while watching her introductory arc, because they had so much to work with.

the problem with ciel as a character is that she needs a moment of reckoning, but she never gets it. she comes very, very close in 23, but it's immediately undercut by the fact that she isn't the one who gets herself out of her slump (it's rio and ichika who do) and she gets rewarded despite doing nothing to really earn the reward. ciel just wallows around, then rio makes the waffles and makes her feel better, but it's ciel who gets to become a cure? it's just... disappointing. things just fall into her lap, and others do the work for her, but she gets to reap the reward. when watching 23 for the first time i thought that it really felt like set up for *rio's* debut as a cure, and i still stand by that. it's the apex of his redemption arc, the episode where he gets his big emotional realization and resolves to become a better person. and while as previously mentioned they try to give ciel something like that, it falls flat because she never does any of the emotional work.

and then after 23 ciel is just... there. it feels like the writers don't really know what to do with her character arc since its primary focus is her relationship with her brother, but they just put him in a coma for 16 episodes. and so ciel just kinda Exists. none of her episodes during this stretch are all that interesting except for 26 and that's because she's got really good chemistry with bibury - but they don't even really take advantage of that, either, because bibury disappears from the plot again until 32 and remains in the background after that! the implication in 26 that ciel has developed a bit of a savior complex based on her interactions with bibury is really interesting too, but once again they don't really do anything with it after that. ciel offers bibury a home and that's about it.

"but justie, you said that ciel gets to define herself as a character! why are you complaining about how aimless she is?" and yeah that's fair, i did. but when i say that ciel gets define herself i mean that more in accomplishments. because ciel has a *lot* of accomplishments, to the point where it gets a little ridiculous. she's perfect at literally everything except sometimes she mixes up her idioms in japanese, and that's a character trait that shows up so little that i usually forget it even exists. and they don't do anything with this perfection, either, unlike yukari. ciel's perfect because she just is.

anyways. ciel kinda floats along for a while, and then 41 happens, and they try to tell me that ciel's grown and changed and become a really great person, except i don't buy it because she's still saying thoughtless stuff at the literal emotional climax. and it frustrates me, because i can see her potential character arc - but the writers refuse to commit to it. at the end of the show, ciel is the same exact person she was at the start, except now she's got fancy precure powers too.

rio: rio gets an incomplete arc more in the sense that he literally isn't around to complete it. i'll die on the hill that the coma was the worst thing the show could've done. because all of rio's development that he'd been getting vanishes after 23, and while 41 tries to develop him more it falls flat for me because in my opinion it's too little, too late. they waste his last chance for development on a generic "redeemed villain feels bad about what they did" plot, and they don't even have fun with it! as i've already mentioned in the other post after the coma rio just becomes kind of a shell of himself. a lot of interesting things set up during the first half of the series vanish because we only get to have one episode with him and they waste it on "oh i feel bad about my crimes" and they don't even do it well because just like ciel in 23 rio doesn't get to sort out his own shit. he's the one being framed, he's the one being targeted, he's the one who wanted to run away - but it's ciel who confronts elisio, because ciel is the precure and the precure has to be the one to confront the villain, and rio just stands there uselessly in the background even though his arc is supposed to be about how he's not useless and can measure up to his sister. the underlying message of the arc we do get is just. depressing. rio struggles, and struggles, and tries so fucking hard, but no matter what he does he's still second best to ciel. and for a show like precure, "you'll never be good enough so you should just give up and accept your place in the background" is really, really bleak. he needs a confidence arc the way ciel needs a broken pedestal arc, and he never gets it, and his really interesting dynamics with characters - ichika and yukari specifically - vanish into the wind, because the writers decided the coma was a better option instead of exploring them. in my opinion, 41 should have been episode 24, or 25, or somewhere in that range. because it feels like the behavior of both ciel and rio would fit a lot better there. patching up their relationship is the beginning, not the ending. there's still a lot of development to be done. you can't just tell me that everything's fine now.

i think cure parfait could've worked, but the way it happens in canon just is Not It

this one is tangentially related but i'm putting it in here anyways: i also think cure pekorin could've worked if we'd actually gotten some setup for it. like yeah 38 was an episode that happened and she gets focus in 7 as well but i feel like pekorin as a character just mostly exists in the background. and then suddenly bam she's a precure despite never really showing any drive to be one or do that sort of thing. even removing all my biases i still think that for the sake of the narrative alone rio would've been a much better fit because he already had that motivation and it would've been a nice cap on his redemption arc imo, but if pekorin was given actual setup and foreshadowing aside from getting a human form in 38 i think it would've gone a lot better

[shorlinesorrows]

just got the time to start the sunshine court and I'm Vibrating out of my skin

[talentforlying]

my favorite fashonista, ft. a rare sighting of loungewear + hair with no gel in it. (dollmaker)

[hereforyourdispleasure]

This has been circling my brain for days but Darian as Jean Valjean, Adrian as Javert, musical track Confrontation, yes

[reinedeslys-central]

more for this nico-dealing-after-blood-of-olympus fic:

it's just like his brain is somehow - offline. Not willing to help him string up the words to this sentence that's sitting on his tongue. The disrespect.

He's still got to power through, though, and now he's just been standing here at the table for a good ten seconds without saying anything, gods, Will must feel so awkward trying to politely ignore Nico standing behind him. What to say, what to say, need to provide a functional human first(-ish) impression on the conversation -

Will bends his head further over the book he's reading, which seems to have a diagram on it. He shifts his neck to look at it from another angle, just enough for Nico to see the page's title: "Cross-sections of the Circulatory System".

Oh, so - a biology textbook. Cool, cool, that makes sense, since Will's the head camp medic, so maybe -

Before he can stop himself, he blurts out - "The, uh, the medulla oblongata controls parasympathetic ventilation, like, coughing and sneezing and stuff." Or - is that even correct? Damn, what if Will's going to make fun of him for getting it wrong, maybe he should try another one -

"..The pancreas secretes sodium bicarbonate, lipase, protease, and amylase into the small intestine to help with digestion." There, that works for a conversation starter. Will should definitely know about that since he lectured Nico about his starch intake last week in the infirmary.

("I don't care if they're all carbs, di Angelo, at this point you just need to eat, I don't give a pegasus' ass whether it's all carbs and fats -" - which, whatever. )

It takes him a moment to realise Will hasn't said anything back. In fact, he's barely even moved, only enough to squint at his textbook from a new angle. Clearly the most self-aware guy in the room, this guy.

He tries again. Can't have people calling him un-persistent, or whatever.

"So, the, lumen of the vein is larger than the artery, right? Since they have thinner walls?" Oh, curse me. His own insults to that zoom around his brain like a sledgehammer on nectar. And for all his embarrassment, what does he get? Nothing. Solace is still sitting, thumbing through the pages like he hasn't heard anything.

So much for Reyna making his promise to try having friends, and so much for Solace dumping out on him for pushing people away. If he's going to ignore him, and not even tell him why like - like someone who'd promised to be honest with him, then he can just catch up with his textbook in private and not have to deal with Nico's awkward conversation starters or help in the infirmary again.

Fuck it. He stomps away, shaking out his fringe and angrily pressing his thumb into the indent of his initials in his sword's hilt.

No need to let anyone think the Fates are playing favourites, because clearly Nico's in a league of his own with them. Even better, they must love him so much, because right at that moment, when he's suddenly, too irrationally angry to think about where he's going, he trips over a side table and goes careening headfirst into the shelf by the window.

Ah, merde.

"Hey, are you al- wait, Nico? What are you doing here, man? You okay?"

...And of course that's what finally makes Solace wake up from his biology-induced lotus casino haze.

As Solace bounds over, ostensibly to do his whole why-aren't-you-taking-care-of-yourself-better-nico-listen-to-me-I'm-a-doctor-so-I-know-best-and-you-don't routine, Nico resists the urge to melt into the wall, literally. Why did he tell Reyna he'd try making friends? Look where it gets him. Why, of all people, did he have to say he'd try hanging out with Solace of all people when Reyna demanded he give her some actual names to back up his promises?

- ..stupidi ragazzi carini con i loro stupidi sorrisi e le loro stupide lamentele e la loro mancanza di consapevolezza spaziale perché los tre Moirai sono così per me, mamma? perché, dei, perché....

Solace hauls him up halfway into his arms and starts asking him random questions, like:

"What's your name?" Rude, didn't he just call Nico from across the room?

"Okay, okay, cool, I deserved that one, can you tell me what day it is?" How is Nico supposed to answer that. He barely knows what day it is on a good day, he just follows camp schedule through osmosis most of the time, asking random campers what the strategies for the next capture the flag game are to get a gauge on how far away it is -

"Shit, c'mon man, help me out here, what were you looking for in the library anyway? I didn't know you were the reading type - " Which, again, rude? Does Nico not look like the reading type? Is it the black and silver? Does he not look smart enough or something? Hazel's a literal whiz, and Solace knows that, so it can't be a Hades thing.

"Come on, Nico, talk to me. You know why you came to the library, right? Can you at least tell me that?"

To talk to you, dumbass! Because you're ignoring me! Like I'm only worth your time when I'm a patient!

But it's not like he can just say that, because that would be weird. Joy of joys, Solace is getting even closer now, what the hell is going on?

"Uh - listen, don't freak out, maybe I'm freaking out, it's okay, stay calm, I'm calm, I literally do this every day, uh, can you just look straight at me, di Angelo? Need to get a good look at your eyes, figure out how bad we're dealin' here -" and he starts leaning in even closer what the literal fuck -

Is this Nico's punishment for insulting the Fates? Because, damn.

Also, because Nico's brain loves him, it abandons him once more in his time of need, forcing him to let out the weirdest squeak he's absolutely going to deny he ever made. He feels his cheeks warm, and jerks an inch away in a weird full-body shake like Frank sometimes does after returning to his human form.

Gods, what a nightmare. He lifts his hands up to cover his burning face and discreetly look for the nearest shadow when he notices Solace's ashen face, freezing.

Before he can get a real, human word out, Solace is suddenly stepping forward and cradling the back of Nico's head in a ridiculously warm hand while the other cards through his hair.

What the fuck. What the absolute fuck. He would say it feels like his soul is leaving his body if he didn't already know exactly how that felt. His eyes go wide as he wheezes, trying to stammer out a demand for Solace to fucking explain himself, taking liberties with his person -

Solace steps back, clearly confused. "No huge bumps, alright.. maybe shock?" His eyes widen again, as if he's just now noticing the state he's left Nico in.

"Shit, shit, it looks like shock, dilated pupils, difficulty breathing, hold on, di Angelo, let's get you to the infirmary - " Uh, absolutely not? 'Di Angelo' has had enough of the infirmary for a lifetime, grazie mille, Dr. Solace. There isn't even anything wrong with him this time! He's not the one asking weird questions and doing weird things this time.

Without any further thought, he turns around and starts fighting his way out of Solace's grip. If his favourite doctor's shocked cursing is anything to go by, it's the first time a patient's actively tried to escape his tender mercies.

Scratch that. Solace's arms tighten around his waist and the ensuing scuffle makes it clear this is not his first time. Shit, Nico might actually lose this one.

"Sunoffa- Nico! I'm trying to help, calm down!" Like hell you are, Solace. Let me the fuck go (so I can run away and wallow with the nymphs) and maybe then we'll talk.

He redoubles his efforts while pivoting to avoid the lamp on the table next to them.

"You fucking menace," Solace hisses, and if that hidden loss of cool makes Nico grin, well, what's a skull scarf for. Not every day you get to make Sir Doctor Extraordinaire stop being all sunshiney for a day.

Solace finally growls and stops fighting him. "Alright, you win! Hey, can't you stop aggravating your injuries for once?" Which. Wait, what injury? Nico's in perfect health!

"- and like, wartime's one thing, normal camp is another. Do you seriously not respect your body at all? Come on, you haven't even argued it! D'you seriously hate the infirmary that much? Are we a joke to you? You haven't even said anything since you hit your head and - " Nico lets the rest of Will's rant fly over him as he stills, and his mind goes, oh. Oh, this is hilarious. Okay, well, all he's gotta do to correct Will's little misconception is to say something then, right?

He opens up his mouth to cut Will off when he lands on his burning blue eyes and realises, belatedly, that Will's warm arms are still ever-so-gently and firmly cradling his waist, curling around the coarse fabric of his Camp Half-Blood tee.

As his brain goes offline for the the third and hopefully final time, Nico bemoans his existence and prepares himself to blurt out:

"The kidneys are where erythrocytes go to die."

Oh, Dei miei. That's not even right. "Well, no, I mean, the kidneys are where erythropoietin is produced, when the medulla oblongata detects a lack of oxygen in the body, which stimulates the growth of more red blood cells in the bone marrow..."

At least Will's shut up now, which is great. Nico can already feel the headache brewing from his ranting. Instead of backing off, however, Will absentmindedly adjusts his grip on Nico's waist and cocks his head to the side.

"...Did you come to the library to ask me to help you with your biology homework? Because, and I really mean no offense, buddy, but I kinda thought you were a year-round camper. Where'd you find the time to study AP Bio?"

Nico gives up and melts to the floor, ignoring Will's cries to groan and repeatedly thunk his head into the thankfully carpeted floor. This is how Nico dies. He prays for his father to open up the ground and bring him down to the palace for a visit. Will's still struggling to pull him up off the floor (if he's going to chase after him, he can deal with having to catch him, damnit), but only one thought is playing through Nico's mind.

Oh, I'm never going to live this one down, am I?

same fic different scene 0 - prologue-ish

[cheadarchesse]

Maybe I'm autistic, but I don't understand how people can wear pants all day every day??? I can't wear leggings for work, so my options are pants or dress/skirt.

I wore pants for the last two days in a row, was planning to do it again today and felt a wave of dread. Guess I'll wear a big ol skirt so I'm not constantly aware of fabric against my legs

Yes I get misgendered this way, but I get misgendered anyway so I don't see a point in trying to fight it

[dhampiravidi]

simp post for the day: rock + punk + goth

me: men with black nail polish + tattoos + ruffled hair...

me:

me: enby folks & WOMEN with black nail polish + tattoos + ruffled hair...oh, fuck--

[pierswife]

I miss my wife, Tails

I miss her a lot

[sunderberry]

anyway thinking about diluc ships for real

[monstrsball]

front woman kanoka,,, do you see my vision.

[hipstercabbage]

not a big shirt little pants gay nor a little shirt big pants gay but a secret third thing: big shirt big pants gay

[dandelion-wings]

OKAY I burned another ten fragile resin on Ridge Watch and have... not a perfect set for Eula by any means, but at least one that should work for her on main stats. (And we'll see how the substats roll, I guess!) I'm incredibly sick of playing Ridge Watch; when I started burning fragile resin on it two weeks ago I had 106 and now I have 40, so that's 66 fragile resin, or 99 runs of it since I always condense, on top of spending all my daily resin on it (aside from weekly trounce domains) since I hit max BP three weeks ago. So I am calling this set Good Enough! And if I want to go back later for more attempts, I'll wait until I don't feel tremendous ennui at the very thought.

[boneless-mika]

I am going to a convention in the summer and I'll be there three days and arrive in the afternoon of day 1 but want to bring three cosplays so

[autumnrory]

looking at a cute pair of boots is just like who the fuck has calves that tiny

[musicrunsthroughmysoul]

The only problem with making gifsets of Fanny's performances from the Beat-Club is that the editing of the film was chaotic as fuck so we never get to focus on one singular band member for more than 3 seconds at a time which, okay yeah, is actually fine for gifs, BUT NOT FOR MATCHING UP THE FOOTAGE TO THE LYRICS BEING SUNG? AHHHHHH, I am really not enjoying that.