#i'm not gonna get into my whole philosophy about it because i don't want to come across as too aggressive when you're new here

[gamebunny-advance]

Hello there! I loved your redraw of the R.O.B. & Watch artwork you did! I would love to see a remastered version or more content of the Gyromite and Stack-Up cast that you drew a few years ago in the future! :) I feel like that they don't get enough love.

First, thanks a bunch for the compliment~ It's been a long time since I've drawn them, so I'm glad that I can still make something cute with 'em~

Second, are you talking about this one?

(It's so old, I was still sketching on a white canvas...)

Tbh, I'm not really inspired by this piece enough to want to redraw them again >_<; My interests currently lie elsewhere, so it's very unlikely that I'll "naturally" be in the mood to draw them any time soon. I'm sorry U_U.

That said, I dunno if you've looked at my blog lately, but you might want to check out this post if you're interested in making a formal request.

Of course, if you don't want to wait for that, and/or want something more substantial than a doodle, then we can discuss a commission privately.

[notthestarwar]

God I'm legit screaming thinking about my reply to this comment again tho

Like. Such an interesting aspect of the clones is that they did have their childhoods taken from them. It isn't the same as a species that develops at double the speed of humans! Cause they ARE humans. Which absolutely does not mean that they are adult sized children. They are adults. They think like adults. They are developmentally, physically and psychologically adults: but they are not the people they would have been, people with a whole well adjusted childhood behind them.

Which I think is frankly a fascinating thing to explore. It's a great metaphor. When looking at things like: if anyone bothered to ask, could they have consented to their place in the army? Which. Yes. On an individual basis they absolutely could. They are adults, they deserve the autonomy to make that decision and have it accepted, even if the choice they make isn't necessarily the one that another sentient with a different childhood might have made in their position. They can consent. But is it informed consent? Well no. They've kinda been brainwashed. Ethically, you're on unsteady territory there in asking them to choose when you know what their answer is going to be. Does that mean you shouldn't ask? Hell no! Of course you should ask. Does that mean you shouldn't accept their decision? Of course not! They're adults and it's their life.

The only way to approach this ethically would be to give them all the information beforehand and hope that they're as informed as possible. But really. Whatever you do, it isn't really right. The ethical thing is for noone to be in this position in the first place. This isn't ethical unless the clones did have childhoods and were not programmed to WANT to die for the republic and you don't have to ask them under those circumstances, because you've conscripted your army in a normal way.

Anyway my comment (and the fic) kinda went about this in looking at things from a Jedi perspective. Mace is asking. What the fuck do you do in that circumstance? Army has been raised and created in a horrible way, you had no idea and couldn't stop it and now they're being delivered to you. How do you do right by them? You can't! Certainly not as Jedi. Theyre in a ethical trap. They can only try their best but whatever they do, they are promoting the fucked up system that put these men in that position in the first place. Even if they could walk away from the republic (highly debatable) You either leave them to fend for themselves knowing there will be a huge loss of life, or you go in to war alongside them, hoping that in doing so you can smooth the way for them. Hoping that you'll figure out how to free them soon. Hoping that you can save as many of their lives as possible.

Like wow. Terrible situation to be in for anyone. No way you're getting out of that one without betraying them in some way. But for the jedi? Who rely on a philosophy that promotes the importance of all sentient life, to stop them falling and pretty much losing themselves to a mystic power that's gonna do all it can to turn them in to a time bomb, destroying themselves and hurting as many ppl as possible on the way out. Like I can't think of a less conflicting ethical dilemma for them to find themselves in. The war destroys the Jedi. If Palpatine was patient he wouldn't have needed order 66. They were never getting out of that alive. The war broke them, it was in complete opposition to their philosophy and they were tearing themselves apart from the inside.

Anyway this is my comment:

"It is!!! I think this is such a key way that its really hard for anyone to do right by them and be fair. They are adults, it wouldn't be fair to force them in to the life of a child. Or to patronise them. But in the same hand, they shouldn't be adults, something was taken from them and it's not fair to just ignore the fact that their childhoods were stolen from them. They aren't the people they'd be if they got to live those childhoods, but they aren't children either. They think like adults, they feel like adults; but adults that grew in to adults without the learning potential that a proper childhood provides.

It's an extreme, but it's an extreme of an issue that's unfortunately common irl. As an adult whose childhood didn't give you what what you needed, you are innately aware that you lost something that you can never get back. You can make the most out of who you are now, but without a time machine, you'll never have the childhood you should have had. And that, I think is something that Jaster himself is very aware of. When Mace tells him this, he knows the weight of it and he immediately knows that for the clones, it's so much worse.

Like I don't think it should be understated that the whole situation with the clones and the Jedi being asked to lead them was like perfect Jedi torture. It's a complete moral quandary and every way betrays their philosophy. The clones were slaves. They were born to be soldiers, trained from birth, their entire lives built around this war they didn't choose. But it was all they knew. They were indoctrinated in to that life from birth. Had the Jedi found a way to free them, I honestly think the vast majority of the clones would have been offended. They had been raised to believe their life's meaning was to fight for the jedi. They wanted to. It may not have been an informed decision, but, they did want it.

And that's when you really come in to difficulty with, these are adults that should be children. Because it isn't fair to tell another adult that they are wrong to want what they want and that they only want that because they don't have the experience to realise its a bad option. You can't be like 'I know what's best for you'. They are just as much of an adult as you. They are just as capable of thinking things through as you are. But in the same hand, had the clones been born in to a different life, would they still want to be soldiers? Probably not! But they are already adults by this point, their brains are developed, they can't get that childhood back. So to say 'I know that's what you want but it's only because your lack of childhood made you incapable of seeing what's right for you' would be humongously fucked up. There really isn't a way for the Jedi on the council to approach them that doesn't betray at least a part of what the clones are and I think that's important to address."

I do think it's a really interesting thing to chew on and a lot of the debate I see around it in my eyes misses the point completely. There isn't a right answer. There was never going to be a right answer. This didn't happen accidentally. Palpatine set it up to cause as much damage as possible. The clones were born betrayed and the Jedi, were fated to play a part in that, whatever they did. There was no way out.

[sirjuggles]

Things My Partner Knows About The Locked Tomb Through Osmosis

I am an unrepentant and annoying TLT fanboy, to the point where my partner has sworn to never read the books on principle (for this I respect them). However, given that I never shut up about these miserable books, they have picked up quite a bit of knowledge about them purely through my rants. With that in mind, I asked them to describe to me everything they think they know about The Locked Tomb (notes in italics are mine)

There are characters named Gideon, Nona, and… something like… Pacifica Sales Bonecruncher of the West? I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be Harrow's full name and title.

It's a scifi-fantasy world in a necromancy space realm 

There's… 10 kingdoms that are all part of an Empire? Or maybe houses? But they're part of a monarchy? 

The ruling classes of each of the realms gets summoned by God because they want to play a Hunger Games thing to find their… new God child? 

It's not a God child like he's gonna adopt them… it's like rebirthing them into a new god? They will also become God? 

Each one of the realms has a special quirk about them, something that's their specialty. Like, one realm are accountants. Shockingly accurate.

Gideon and Pacifica’s realm are like cool goth themed? More goth than the others. Extra-goth.

Oh there's a person named… Electra? They have long blonde hair and kickin curves and they're really hot? Everyone likes them? I'm pretty sure this is a conflation of Alecto and Corona as seen through reblogged fanart.

Personal philosophy aside rant: The whole necromancy-as-center of-an-empire thing… I find it kinda rude? I don't like the idea of people and their remains being used as a resource/tool. Like, I don't like using people as interchangeable cogs in a machine under someone else's control, both in life or in death. It doesn't seem consensual or respectful. In death your obligations should be released. 

I think Gideon has a big hero’s death while trying to save Pacifica, and then their… souls mingle? And then after that Pacific has Gideon-flavored intrusive thoughts? And I'm not sure if it actually is Gideon or just, like… the same as if you stare at the sun and get the after image burnt into your cornea. This isn't wrong, but I'm almost certain part of this is actually my ramblings about Baru Cormorant leaking through.

Is reincarnation or resurrection a thing? I feel like it should be in a necromancy setting. 

DIRECT QUOTE: “Is there a Jesus allegory in here? I feel like there is. Wait... Is Gideon Jesus?” Folks, upon hearing these words casually spoken out loud by someone with no knowledge of context, I straight up left my body.

God is just a chill dude. He's just a guy making pancakes, and occasionally he'll go “How's that whole Hunger Games thing going? You want a snack? I'm just gonna be over here.”

God was wanted by aliens or something? There's something bigger going on with entropy or heat death or the Discworld auditors and it's a problem for God and that's why he's doing the whole Hunger Games thing. 

I think God used to be not a God and that's why he's such a chill dude. And then there was a problem and everything was dying so he did something and necromancied everything and that's why he's God now and also why things are so weird? 

One of the groups from the houses was two annoying siblings who split from the party and died really quickly. 

Gideon is big and bulky and has short red hair. 

[whatswexceles]

I’m really tired.

This is I guess my big long official response to everything that's going on in the rainworld fandom

Since Tuesday I've been recording all my thoughts about this whole thing daily. This is something of a consolidation of all of that plus more. the original abridged version will be posted in a reblog.

I’d like to preface this with a few things

Firstly: This is a criticism of people’s ideas and philosophies. Not them as a person. I don’t despise anyone involved really either, I’m still friends with people on both “sides” of this dispute. I’ll try my best to avoid name dropping regardless

Secondly: if you DARE to harass anyone involved in this you are worse than everyone I’m talking about here

Third: I know there’s lots of misinformation floating around on this and I know I alone can’t clear it all out of my judgments. So if you spot anything I say that is blatantly wrong, I encourage you to tell me. Same goes for criticism, if you disagree with anything i say I wouldn’t mind being told RESPECTFULLY. If you just start attacking me I won’t really bother. I do want to have a conversation here

A few days ago, it came out that the single piece of evidence used to harass the biggest and most influential rain world artists off the internet was faked and spread with little thought or effort. And people have been scared that misinformation will be spread about them, or they’ll make a mistake and get harassed for it. Myself and my friends included.

My goal in this specific essay-post-ramble-thing is to give my thoughts and to write about how I believe to move forward In a way where that doesn't hurt people further, because I honestly don't hold a grudge against anyone who has spoken out against pansear or unwillingly spread misinformation in an attempt to help, or even people who wrote harmful stuff while angry or emotional.

There is, however, one individual who I will not spare sympathy for. I’ll get to them later.

Something I don't see being talked about that much is that misinformation about pansear and the shipping container have been spread since the initial post made calling out SC. The claim was thrown around that “SC is full of zoophiles and groomer defenders” which needless to say, is extremely false. Not only did nobody in the server know of the allegations until they went public (no hypothetical groomer defender would even know of a groomer to be defended), SC also had one of the strictest “no NSFW/suggestive material” rules of most servers I'm in. it was so strict that deez nuts jokes were off limits.

Was this a purposeful attempt to cause a harrasment campaign or just emotions clouding judgment? The answer doesn't really matter because this sentiment was doubled down on and hurt a lot of people, including myself

Why am I bringing this up? Because this misinformation had a similar, smaller effect to what we’re seeing now. People affiliated with SC were worried that they were going to be harassed for being affiliated with something everyone disliked. Today there are dozens of examples of people being worried about being harassed because someone might not like them and might spread misinformation. Let's hope this time we prevent this from going even further…

But, If it does. If the methods used to persecute pansear become the norm, then that hurts everyone, including the people spreading it. To quote myself from the past:

“…looking at how pansear was being nitpicked for problematic behavior, It just looks like the start of a cycle… …because if you foster a following that finds faults in normal behavior, what do you think will happen as soon as *you* make a mistake, or even a mistake you already made gets dug up. well then you’re gonna get nitpicked to oblivion. If You set the norm to be needless criticism that's what will be employed at your trial. People will try to erase your impact.”

A common sentiment I see being thrown around is that “although the main piece of evidence turned out to be faked, pansear is still deplorable because [X]” and while I personally think pansear has made their fair share of mistakes, a lot of things people put in that X factor is just… silly and can be chalked up to either coping mechanisms, panic attacks or just normal people mistakes. And every time I see that there's always a question in the back of my mind: “Is this an echo chamber?” And I'm inclined to say yes, but I also recognize I'm not exactly an authority when it comes to this, so I’ll leave it up to reader interpretation.

There's one specific person that I have a few choice words for, and that is the person who made the fake image that started this whole damned thing. And although we don’t know who you are, I know you are deprived enough to be reading this. I hope you don’t have a good ending, I hope you don’t have a bad ending either, I hope you’re FORGOTTEN, I hope nobody ever utters your name again. I hope you never leave the swamps of irrelevance. I hope you can see the people you’ve hurt thrive more than you ever will.

With the trash out of the way, how do we even move forward? my hope is that we can do it with forgiveness. Not all apologies need to be accepted but we should at least extend our sympathy to each other, it’ll be easier for all of us if we do. We should think about what we all did correctly and what we didn’t, and how to do better next time. We should think about how we all got taken advantage of with this misinformation and how to prove evidence next time. Does it even matter if pansear was deplorable or not when we’ll all likely never see them again? Can we all work on setting our grudges to the side? If we don't like someone we can just not interact with them.

Us as a community have a responsibility to think through all this and figure out our priorities moving forward. We all have a responsibility to coexist with each other. We all have a responsibility to treat everyone with the benefit of the doubt.

I think I speak for everyone in this whole situation when I say that we are ALL tired of this

[spinjitsuburst]

ramble about ur favs i wanna hear abt ur thoughts -zaptrap

HAN’S INFODUMPING ABOUT JAY... START!!!!

so like sgdkdhdkdhd I say Jay and Lloyd are my “favorites” but honestly it’s so hard to pick favorites out of this skittles squad like I love EVERY character for a variety of different reasons. I was going to also infodump about Lloyd but then I started talking about Prime Empire and then this post got. Long. So. it's just Jay I may infodump about Lloyd another day especially since I'm very Conduit Brained Rn but yea yea!

this is long so i'm putting most of it under the cut so y'all don't kill me for making a huge long post

I considered putting Zane and Sora on here as well since I’d also consider them my “favs” but like this is already gonna be. A lot of. Infodumping (also i typed THIS part before I even started and decided not to yell about Lloyd because this already got long enough). Maybe I’ll make a separate post for those two hmm hmm much to consider but for now MY (technically) FAVORITE NINJAGO CHARACTER: JAY WALKER

THE SPARKPLUG WHO INVADED MY BRAIN LIKE A PARASITE

so hey his name is a pun this makes me laugh ridiculously hard every time I remember he is named. After a misdemeanor HSKSHDKFH

Jay is such an interesting case of a character for me because I started out the show not liking him. Which is. Stares at my entire account I think my feelings have changed somewhat

Jay starts out as an asshole I don’t think anyone can disagree with me there (although honestly they’re all assholes in early ninjago they bullied a ten year old and left him dangling several feet off the ground) but over the course of the show you can see him start developing into a much more interesting character. He goes from being so insecure he's faking everything about himself to someone who knows who he is and is so genuine about it

now yea we could argue about whether his character was too uwu-ified post-season 10 but this is the FUN HAN POST SO WE'RE NOT GONNA TALK ABOUT THAT the point is you can SEE the growth that Jay has gone through and I am going to show you that growth through what I call

✨ The Skybound to Prime Empire Effect ✨

I AM SO PASSIONATE ABOUT THE IDEA THAT PRIME EMPIRE WAS WRITTEN TO BE A DIRECT PARALLEL OF SKYBOUND AND WAS CENTERED ON SHOWING HOW THE NINJA ESPECIALLY JAY HAVE GROWN THROUGHOUT THE SEASON

when season 12 rolls around we are at the point in Jay's development where he is CONFIDENT in who he is. He's a fun-loving jokester with the power of lightning and the drive to help people whenever he can. He uses jokes and humor to help alleviate tension and get people through whatever's happening. And when on his own what does he do?

BECOME AN ENTERTAINER BABEY

i like to think jay's club in prime empire was a safe haven for anyone stuck in the game who figured out hey. we Can't Leave and felt freaked about it. Also Jay would generally try and spread the word that hey something ISN'T RIGHT HERE which would lead people to want to stay with him

(totally plugging my friend's fic but this kind of thing is explored in would you like to enter prime empire by @finn-m-corvex y'all should check it out cool cool)

also the prime empire shorts which i watched all of in the midst of typing this video cuz i love them go watch them please please please jay was publically fighting the red visors which I imagine may have raised some red flags for some players

THIS SOMEHOW TURNED INTO PRIME EMPIRE INFODUMPING LMAO ANYWAYS Jay's confident! He becomes an entertainer because it's who he knows he is! And it's something that will get people hyped and having fun, which is very in-character for Jay to do! He uses those kinds of things to mask the Bad Things going on and get people remembering what's good

I've talked about this sort of thing before but that's Jay's whole philosophy as early as season 9! Which is a DIRECT contrast to how he views it in season 6, as Nadakhan puts it scarily accurately

"You make jokes to mask the fact that you're afraid"

(i was gonna grab a screenshot for that like i did with the hunted scene but netflix has bloCKED THE ABILITY TO TAKE SCREENSHOTS THE WAY I USED TO and i don't have them already and i'm too lazy to grab them from elsewhere so alas trust me he says it)

making jokes to hide your fear and using humor to remind yourself of what's good and coping with the bad are two VERY different outlooks on it

so I think this outlook is what drives him to make this glamrock persona in the first place - this is a bad situation, one he's in with other civilians, and what better way to keep him and themself safe until the others get there than throwing a big performance at a safe place!

also it's just so gender okay I want to look like Superstar Rockin' Jay so badly

it's also interesting to see his outlook on his parents change over time! In season six he finds out Ed and Edna aren't his birth parents and feels upset about it, not understanding why his birth parents would've abandoned him. In season twelve, that outlook changing is EXACTLY why Jay's able to get through to Unagami

"I was abandoned by my parents, too!... I never understood why, and I never had the chance to even ask. But I always hoped there was a good reason. What if there's a reason?"

(again curse you netflix i wanted SCREENSHOTS whatever whatever)

It's this scene that gets Unagami to calm down long enough for Milton Dyer to get there, and presumably is what stops him from just. Flattening him and Jay like a pancake.

to piggyback off of this i absolutely adore how Unagami and Jay consider each other adopted brothers in that one book I still haven't read and I hope he's in Dragons Rising at some point Unagami is my favorite "villain" (no longer a villain) in the whole show he deserves more screentime

like this is where i found out about this and it's plagued my mind ever since. i need to read. this book just for them

SO YEA OKAY Prime Empire is "Who is Jay as a Person Post-Skybound" to me also it opens up so many fascinating things about Jay. I rest my case

so backpedaling a little bit. JAY CARES SO MUCH ABOUT HIS PARENTS GUYS IT'S SO SOFT AND I'M sobs

like yea the first episode with Ed and Edna in it has Jay avoiding them like the plague but this gets explained very easily when you remember he was bullied for his home life before he became a ninja. It makes a lot more sense why he wouldn't want them around his new friends, assuming they'd react the same way. Also how was he supposed to know literally all the rest of the groups parents were either dead, presumed dead, or had a toxic relationship with their kid lmao

(Cole calling his mom kills me. Cole's mom is dead. I know they probably just didn't think that far ahead when writing the dialogue but it's so funny mans pretended to call his dead mom to get on Jay for not appreciating his parents iconic behavior)

anyways literally every episode Ed and Edna are central to (except like the one in skybound) Jay stops at nothing to protect his parents and it means the absolute world to me he's so much like them!! They raised an inventive little nerd and he will stop at nothing to make sure they're safe and it's. It's SO IMPORTANT TO ME OKAY

ALSO this is an excuse to clip my favorite piece of dialogue possibly in the entire show. Except Netflix won't let me now. So you just get the text dialogue

Jay's just fallen from the sky with a messed up eye and is incredibly distraught that all his friends are captured. And his dad just. The woRLD IS FALLING APART AND HE'S EATIN' SOUP-

Ed i love you

anyways

anways anyways this just turned into me rambling about prime empire and then Ed and Edna and a lot of disjointed other stuff but thank you for this opportunity i was going to also ramble about lloyd but i put this post in a word count and

yea i think that's enough for a tumblr post anyways! If anyone wants any like. More logically thought out and direct thoughts about characters feel free to send me asks this was fun thank u @zaptrap for this opportunity to scream about jay

[jq37]

Descendants: The Rise of Red is kind of a bizarre movie to talk about critically because, imo, it almost doesn't make sense to talk about it in the usual terms of good vs bad or enjoyable vs not enjoyable when the way more obvious tension is finished vs unfinished.

Because, more than any other movie I've ever seen, it does *not* read as a full movie. And I don't mean in a "this movie has a cliffhanger" kind of way. The Empire Strikes Back and Across the Spiderverse fit that description. They end on big dramatic cliffhangers that point to a resolution in the third installment.

But Rise of Red just sets all this stuff up and then...ends without concluding anything. It doesn't feel like the first movie in a trilogy (or duology). It feels like the first act of a two-act musical. It very specifically reminds me of the end of the first act of Into the Woods where all the main characters sing the song Ever After about how they all fixed their problems with magic and nothing bad will ever happen to them again and then the narrator ominously says "To be continued" before the curtain drops. But in Into the Woods you know there's a second act and this movie wasn't sold as the first act of a bigger story. Like sure, it has the, "You didn't think this was the end" tag at the end like all the other movies, but those movies were complete, self-contained stories even though they had sequels. This was NOT a full story. It's half of one story.

Like, if we're supposed to take this as a full story, there are so many bizarre choices:

Why did they make sure to mention that Cinderella and Charming fell in love at the ball at the top if it wasn't meant to set up Back to the Future style, "Oh no, I accidentally got my mom banned from the ball so she's not gonna fall in love with Dad and I won't be born" shenanigans?

Why did Maddox very pointedly have that bit about "you could lose your mom completely" if that was never going to come into play? Red never did anything to endanger Bridget or endanger her own birth so it doesn't make sense as a warning in that way.

Why was there all this focus on this Carrie on prom night moment for Bridget if we LITERALLY NEVER SAW CASTLECOMING? Why dance around this moment and talk about it all cloak and dagger with no specificity if they weren't building up to some big reveal that it wasn't as straightforward as it seemed? And like, they leaned in HARD with making Bridget the nicest, sweetest, cotton candy princess as a teen so I need WAY more than, "She got pranked by known bullies she's been enduring with a smile very handily up to this point" to buy that she went from that to "murderous dictator". And even if she did become murderous, I find it insanely hard to believe that she'd include her best and only friend on the list of people she wants to suffer unless there was a betrayal. I find it INSANE that there wasn't a falling out scene at any point in this movie with how thickly they were laying on the admiration and camaraderie.

(Note: And adult Cinderella def has guilty vibes re: the Queen at orientation. Which I know I'm not imagining because it's literally spelled out in the Jr Novelization!)

Before the time travel element of the movie started, I thought they were going for something like they go to the past and realize that Bridget was bullied not by the VKs but by the spoiled royals, and Ella ends up joining in the bullying once she gets with Charming, betraying Bridget and justifying her whole "Love Ain't It" philosophy. Or Ella ditching her at the last minute to be with Charming meaning she has to deal with the monster prank alone and it was the being alone rather than the prank itself that hurt her (though that is NOT a good enough reason to go all off with their heads on your subjects). The fact that, as far as we know right now, it literally was just a relatively mild and reversible prank that caused all of this is just, such flat storytelling, you know?

But! All of this makes way more sense if this is meant to be the first act of a single contained story. And I don't wanna be all "Pepe Silvia, secret good 4th episode of Sherlock" about this but I did see this picture:

Which seems to indicate that this was written as a Part One. Which, if so, idk why they wouldn't advertise it that way but whatever. The point is, if that's the case then it means that we're potentially in bad pacing territory rather than straight up bad storytelling territory. Because this isn't a bad place to be halfway through your story:

The heroes, warned that time travel is dangerous, have gone back in time to change the heart of a brutal tyrant before she can stage a coup. They seemingly succeed in their mission and when they come home, everything is great! But then, the side effects of time travel start to catch up with them. Chloe realizes that, in breaking the vase, she prevented her mother from going to the ball and falling in love with her dad (who was conspicuously absent from the final scene btw) which means she's starting to be forgotten and erased from the timeline. And Red realizes that though this new version of her mom is as sweet and kind as the teen she once met, she's a complete stranger to her (fulfilling the Hatter's warning that she could lose her mom completely). So they have to go back in time once more to make sure the Ella and Charming fall in love again, perhaps at the cost of whatever bad thing that happened to Bridget happening again and bringing back the original version of her future self. But, now with more context of how her mom became that way, Red can now talk to her mother and persuade her to give people another chance.

Boom, that gives us time to go back and hit everything we haven't yet hit. We can pay off the time travel tropes that were set up but not explored. We can go to Castlecoming which feels so obviously set up to be the centerpiece of this story (like, come on, Back to the Future literally does the school dance thing. This is Time Travel Storytelling 101). We can actually get info about what the prank was and why it affected Bridget so completely.

(Note: This is a side thing but it really strikes me as so crazy that Bridget would so SUCH a big 180 here. Like, I know the Queen of Hearts is a silly, goofy, campy villain, but she straight up murders people and there's no way to get around that if we're taking her out of the surreal story she comes from and putting her in a (comparatively) grounded story. If I wasn't doing a betrayal plot, I would make the twist that the spell that turned Bridget into a "monster" didn't just have a physical effect, it had a mental effect and it magically twisted her personality to be the way it is now. So they broke the physical half of the curse, but neglected the other half and it's been festering the whole time, turning her as evil as she was sweet. Because like, a simple physical transformation isn't that big of a deal to have such heavy security--Bridget made cupcakes with a transformative effect and that was totally fine. I'm not saying that that's what's gonna be the case. I just think it would be an explanation that makes sense for why she changed so crazy much that makes more sense than a simple prank or even a betrayal. Her mom wasn't even evil! How did she go from zero to murder without even an evil mom to push her onto the path? But I'm super digressing right now.)

(Note #2: OK, one last thing. The trap on the book presumably would have hit the VK's and trapped them in Merlin's office regardless of what Chloe and Red did, right? That's like, net zero influence on the timeline. I genuinely can't tell if that's a straight up plot hole or set up to be like, "Oh no. Actually when she said that she was turned into a monster in front of everyone it was meant in a less literal way." Like she was just made to look bad and that was the real thing that pushed her over the edge. Like idk. It really feels like the only thing they really did that would change the timeline was get Ella banned from the dance and presumably out of the way where she couldn't hurt Bridget. OK NOW I'm done.)

Anyway, my point is that this is not how I would have structured my movie and I think this was a super weird way to go into the second era of Descendants movies, but they can still tell a complete story if that's their plan. I'm genuinely really curious to see if this pans out to be a fairly competently told story that just happens to be split over two movies or a complete fumbling of the narrative bag because it could really be either at this point and it's fascinating to me.

[flowers-of-io]

I *can* tell you why Neztea: When his brother Set cut him up into pieces after killing him, Osiris' wife Isis assembled all the pieces and wrapped his body up, enabling him to return to life.

I *can't* tell you why it was Mithrax and us collecting the bits of Nezarec instead of Saint. I *can't* tell you why it was bits of Nezzy in the canopic jars instead of bits of Osiris himself.

I *can* tell you we went through the whole song and dance of Osiris being functionally dead and then functionally revived, as tedious as it may have been, simply because that's the myth of Osiris and that's what Bungie does.

Full disclosure: I'm still perplexed about why it was Nez brew as well, but I personally call as of yet unclear Savathûn shenanigans. One of the biggest motifs associated with her specifically is tea and teacups. Don't believe me? Go do a search on ishtar. Saint's got his suspicious mystery teacup. You know what bone china is made from? Literal bones.

(There's also the Calix Summus emblem, which once again points us back towards the hive and their alchemy and nezzy (with the pyramid line thingy coming out of the cup). Calix = cup, but calix also = calx, one of the products of calcination (if that doesn't ring a bell, look back at the context of the calcified fragments). Summus here probably means something like key or paramount, so... the most importantest cup. Check out the secondary part of them emblem! That's a syzygy!)

If I sound like a lunatic, well... that's fine. The fun thing about Destiny lore is that it *does* reward you for putting in legwork to understand the mythologies and theologies and philosophies it draws from, even if you sound like a maniac to most people.

If you're really curious and want to figure out what happened or is going to happen with Osiris, I'd start looking into the history of Osirian cults and their practices. You might find absolutely fuck all, but you might also find something interesting. I'd do it myself, but I'm balls deep in Hive names and writing systems for the foreseeable future. Oh, and keep an eye on Saint. I'm still not convinced he's gonna make it all the way to the end based on what we know about the story of the phoenix and the turtle dove pigeon

Last thing: If a garden grows in both directions and that garden is a metaphor for the story told in a parable, then the story probably requires as much tending in the past as it does the present.

Good luck, I love you, have fun, pirate books if you have to, and keep your third eye wide fucking open.

(A reply to this post)

First of all, I'm so sorry for missing this message somehow. I've been having issues with not getting (or overlooking?) notifications about new asks and it's driving me a little mad by now.

(Putting the rest under a read more, because it's A LOT)

Second of all, I feel so stupid lmao. Of COURSE it's the Osiris myth eh? I genuinely didn't make the connection AT ALL, despite noticing the damn canoptic jars and being like, huh, interesting! And then my brain didn't follow on it ever. What probably threw me off is what you mention, the fact it was Misraaks and us, and not Saint, collecting the pieces, and that these weren't even Osiris' pieces to begin with. And besides, he wasn't even dead.

There's quite a mix of symbolism in the whole thing here, overall? Nezarec is the Nightmares guy, which makes sense in terms of him being the cure for a guy stuck in a coma--but this acknowledges Osiris' status as *asleep*, not dead, which then throws off the whole myth thing. And remember that one piece of Nezarec is, or is in, the Delicate Tomb--and that gun is very long-time nuclear waste warnings-coded, y'know, the whole "This is not a place of honour" thing. "The danger within is repulsive to us" is as far as you could go referencing to "What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us" while not quoting it verbatim. (And also the Delicate Tomb states "within" because the danger--Nezarec--is literally inside the gun.) The name of the catalyst quest, The Form of the Danger, is a direct quote.

What interests me is the thought process Misraaks and Eido must've gone through to arrive at the conclusion that they should brew this ancient corpse and serve it as tea, but okay, let's suspend our disbelief and say they just studied the remains for a long time (which they did) and within the context of Nezarec being the Nightmares dude, it made some sense.

It's also really funny of Savathûn making *that* the cure for the coma, and very 5D chess for her. She could have reasonably assumed the Witness would go looking for Nezarec's remains when shit hit the fan, in order to have its powerful Disciple back; though how it wanted to revive him I'm not sure, seeing as it was the Traveler's laser beam that inadvertently did the job. But then of course we Guardians would try to stop it, and most likely succeeded, and once Nez's remains were in our hands, we'd obviously study them. And so we'd find the cure. It's so brilliant and so, so unserious.

And yeah, her and tea!!! I'm not sure how to connect Saint's teacup (if you mean the one from Quintessence) here, but "Dûl Incaru serves you poison in a fine tea set of Ahamkara bone" from Truth to Power is iconic. *Ahamkara* bone china!!

You're also so big brained about Calix Summus because I literally didn't know this emblem existed. (For the record, it was included in the January 2024 Prime Gaming bundle.) And yeah if we interpret the graphic as planets and orbits, that is indeed a syzygy... And yeah. Calcified fragments. Gosh this rabbit hole runs so deep.

Bro I NEED to know about what you're cooking regarding Hive names and writing systems!!!!! Your brain is so big and I want to pick it about everything lol.

Oh, I never interpreted the garden growing in both directions as a metaphor for the story told in a parable, but rather the paracausal forces' ability to change past and future + the Black Garden being a four-dimensional thing where space is time, but. BUT. The thing about parables and myths is they bend time, in a way. They connect the past to the present, and so by extension the future. Time there is always circular; they keep happening over and over, regardless of linear history. They aren't physically *real*, but they are true. (Also paging @svedupelle here bc I know he'll be interested.)

Thank you!!! My third eye is so open it's like half of my forehead now.

[fortheloveofarchons]

My opinions on Sunday from Honkai: Star Rail

C.W. Contains spoilers after the 2.2 Honkai: Star Rail Trailblazer Quest + theories and lore

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I kinda agree with his philosophies and thinking... to some extent...

Okay hear me out!!!

We all know by now that Sunday's whole motive is to protect everyone and ensure that they won't have to suffer anymore (like when he states that he wants everyone to have seven rest days). I can empathise with his character so much, as someone who (as ridiculous and cowardly as it sounds) is afraid to face the harsh realities of life. I mean, even if he's set as a villain, he is as gentle and empathetic as his sister Robin, just that they both express it differently.

Seeing the cutscenes of him and Robin from their past to the present was just so immersive, because Sunday brings up some very demoralizing and harsh situations that he faced back then, and we, the audience, can understand and relate to struggling to cope with his disappointment, frustration, grief, and anger - all while often having little to no power to change things.

From the way Sunday is acting, he seems more like a traumatised parental figure (as we've seen the reason why Robin has to wear excessive neck accessories due to her being shot) who cannot let go and provide his care and safe environment for his loved ones.

Moreover, his ideologies felt surreal as I myself would take that path since I can relate to his trauma and ideals (and also as someone who has a sibling too)

His viewpoint is understandable, but...

Taking away the basic right of an individual's free will for safety is always a controversial issue.

As Himeko once called out Sunday, she states that he's just going to trap everyone in a bird cage through eternal slumber, which robs them their freedom and agency.

Plus, from what Robin said, if Sunday's plan worked, he's going to hurt himself too. Because Sunday will be in charge of everything and everyone, he won't even have time to rest, causing his body and mind to be exhausted to the bone (maybe possible cause his mind and body to corrode cause he needs to rest at one point)

Moreover, Firefly made a good point disapproving Sunday's point that he should not assume just because someone is weak doesn't mean that they should automatically escape to fantasy. It is up to you to be strong so you can fly into the sky, and that not everyone who is weak should be weak.

I remember someone commenting on Youtube stating that Sunday protects Robin so much, that Sunday doesn't even know how to protect himself for facing the outside world. It's kind of ironic considering that Sunday is supposed to be the protective, influential type of characters in Penacony, yet he barely knows how to fly. Robin, however, took the opportunity to spread her philosophies of Harmony and influence others in reality.

In conclusion, Sunday has the right idea, it's just that he has a terrible execution. But I know that there are some people who don't mind, I've been on Instagram to see a lot of people agreeing with his views... yes I'm talking about all those sunday stans cause I've seen a lot from them

(I ain't complaining plz we need more Sunday content!!!)

I mean-- in reality I wouldn't agree; but in this story, I would agree with him. (if we don't consider my simping and bias because that has the most influence)

Honestly, I'm hoping he gets a redemption arc because I really love him (I personally wouldn't mind if Sunday gets the Wanderer treatment from Genshin Impact if it means that Sunday will be playable), and hoping that he is really alive (as stated by the leakers that Sunday has a bunch of specific codes and emotion codes that's exclusive to playable characters).

That said, may we Sunday havers have more Sunday content and playable Sunday in the future!!! I'm gonna write a fic for Sunday so stay tuned!!

Let me know what you guys think of Sunday! Do you think he'll get redeemed? Playable? Alive?

PETITION TO MAKE EVERYDAY SUNDAYYY!!!!!!

[dirtytransmasc]

What’s a Spider au you have that you feel is underrated and always wanted to talk about more?

my tsu'tey adopts spider au, it didn't take to my page as well as I would have liked it to. (I'm just gonna jot down whatever I think about, with little to no organization, just thoughts)

I just love it so much cause its the unlikely, grumpy, human-hating dad and his very human, ball of sunshine, son. plus, I'm disabled, I made tsu'tey disabled, and its just satisfying writing him, this man consumed by his own grief and self hatred coming around to the fact that the world is still turning, the suns still glowing, life isn't pointless, all because of this little child he can't get rid of. I see tsu'tey, had he survived, becoming a cruel recluse, not wanting to interact with anyone, wanting to hole up somewhere with his self pity as he wished he had just died, but instead he was stripped of everything and allowed to live. but now he has this little kid who loves him and couldn't live without him, who drags him out of his shell with his tiny little hands, forcing him to live after years of just barely surviving.

first tsu'tey just barely allows him around, not having the energy to push him away, but then he realizes he's one of the few people who gives the child any attention, and even in his prick state, can't cast the child aside to be alone. then he becomes a sort of mentor, teaching spider to be one with his spirit, his na'vi spirit bottled up in a human body. he was the one who taught spider the ways of eywa and The People, how to shoot a bow, how to hunt, how to sing and partake in the village's customs, how to fight. spider becomes a little tsu'tey, and tsu'tey becomes a whole new version of himself. tsu'tey himself finds he is much less burdened by hate and anger once he truly takes to spider, he's happier, he has a purpose again.

both are able to act almost in unison, knowing each other's habits, spider practically copying his dad, tsu'tey leaning into spider's personal spins on said copying. both are creatures of spontaneous habit, they do just about the same thing every day, might mix it up here and there, but not by much. they end up spending more time quietly enjoying one another's company, finishing each other's tasks, sentences when they do talk. its almost uncanny how similar they are, throwing other's off around them.

its not like they don't talk, its just that basic things go unsaid, tsu'tey doesn't need to ask for spider to pass his bow when they go out hunting or to stand behind him during conflict around the village. spider doesn't need tsu'tey to praise him, the look in his eyes is more than enough (though he always does), he doesn't need to ask his dad for a hug, he just knows, he doesn't need to tell him which way to go when he's tracking, they just read each other's bodies and went with the flow. that's truly what makes them so odd to be around, the perfect ebb and flow of either person, especially one na'vi and one human.

their lack of need to communicate basic things, leaves room for all sorts of conversation. stories, philosophy, songs, random info dumping from spider, lessons from tsu'tey. they love to debate the meaning of eywa's stories, the intention she has for the people, the state of the village and its leaders. not only are they warriors, but they are shit talkers, ex-olo'eyktan and ex-'son' of the now-chief, its a potent mix. spider picks up tsu'tey's love/hate relationship with just about everything that has to do with the village; he loves its dearly, would die for it, for jake and neytiri and the kids, but their is this shield of animosity, of deserved distaste, if only ever so mild. he has his qualms, but they never outweigh the love in his heart. in short, they are both a massive pain in the ass for jake, always yelling at him or critiquing how he does things, generally just being annoying. (jake needs them to go on a hunting trip or something, cause the level of criticism he gets is ridiculous, and he needs a break)

spider is still friends with the sully kids, but he is much more deeply ingrained in the village, as the unofficial son of the unofficial right-hand man of the chief. kiri is still his person, lo'ak is still his best friend, tuk is his partner in crime and unofficial little sister, neteyam is still like an older brother figure watching over him when he is with the sully kids. but spider is friends with most of the village kids, particularly tarsem, tsu'tey's younger brother.

the two grew up next to one another, tsu'tey introduced them shortly after spider wormed his way into the older mans heart, as he needed someone to tire the little one out when he couldn't keep. tarsem took to the little thing quickly, dubbing him his little brother, that is until he saw how tsu'tey looked at the boy with pride, then he started calling him his nephew.

within a year or two of taking spider under his wing he started taking the kid up to the lab himself, instead of meeting the scientist halfway. he would tuck the kid in, tell him stories, make sure he was soundly asleep and even then he would sit and watch, running big blue fingers through his whispy blonde hair, finding a smile on his face when the kid latches to his hand. norm has had to make sure he's wearing his mask on more than one occasion because the warrior has fallen asleep with the boy curled up in his side. he basically takes up all care of the boy, managing his curfew, meals, training, most of his education, and whatever else norm and max squabble to him about. its not hard, spider eats anything you put in front of him, takes pride in his lessons and training (cause who wouldn't want to be trained by tsu'tey, he holds it above all his friends heads), he loves when just about anyone messes with his hair, and overall he just likes being with his dad, so he never has much of an argument to anything he says. so spider is almost completely independent from the other humans at hellsgate or even the sully family.

spider is still blessed (by eywa, basically, pandora snow white), child of eywa (she nags him, like a mom, constantly), and hella fucking strong (cause boys gotta keep up). so tsu'tey is always caught marveling at the boy; watching him pull back a bow the size of himself, watching him romp and play with the most ferocious of creatures, have close-knit bonds with the giants of the forest, so divinely connected to eywa, speaking of her as if she was truly his mother, connecting to her in ways he had never seen before. spider was his special boy through and through, and he thanked eywa for him each and every day; that boy is the reason he lived, the reason he kept waking up each day, the reason he smiled again, the reason he continued in believing in the goodwill of the Great Mother again.

spider worries for tsu'tey a lot, despite how strong he is, he's still forever scarred by the injuries he sustained in battle. his dad is almost always in some amount of pain, his lungs are forever weak, his ability to bond and connect with his pali and ikran greatly diminished by the pain and fog that plagued him. the first few years, especially before he started to truly take care of himself, he would often collapse, coughing up blood, as his body protested being pushed past its limit. even as tsu'tey accepted his limits, doing his best to stay in good shape for spider's well-being, he still worried. he always tries to support his dad, taking up lots of village chores and insisting on cutting back on hunts or training when he's having a bad day, making up poor excuses when tsu'tey asks why. as he got older he accepted that this was just how life was going to be for his dad, how it would most likely not get any better, but as a young child he softened feared he was going to lose him. he would sleep with his ear to his dads chest, listening to the strong beat of his heart, assuring himself he was still there. he would beg him through tears not to leave him too, making tsu'tey's heart ache. now that he's older he is far less worried about him dying, much more worried about losing him to his own mind, again. tsu'tey isn't unaware of his child worry, but no matter how hard he tries, what he says or does, spider won't let him lift that burden from his shoulders. they're both stubborn, sometimes he loves that about his boys, and other times it's quite the opposite.

when tsu'tey is having a bad night, particularly with his lungs, spider will drag him up to hells gate, so he's forced to use his respirator, and have movie nights with him. its just an excused to pile all the blankets and pillows he can find onto the shitty matress in the media room and sleep in his dads arms, knowing that if anything happens, norm and max are only a shout away. plus, its kinda funny watching tsu'tey get all teary-eyed over earth films.

tsu'tey visits sylwanin a lot, and he always dresses spider as if he is their son, the son they never got to have. once spider finds a way to connect with The Great Mother, through her roots, he visits her as well. spider begins to treat her as his mom and she treats him like her son. they're a little family, even if separated by the veil between life and death.

I can't think of anything else about them, at the moment, but i would totally take asks for this au if anyone wants to know anything else.

[penpenpenchant]

The Sunday Ramble

Hello. I'm pen, and today im going to ramble about Sunday. If you dislike him, please get off my page. I cannot stress this enough.

So, why do I like Sunday?

short answer: he tickles my brain.

Long Answer:

As a character, he's super compelling to me because of 3 things: his design, his backstory, and his personality.

I enjoy both of his designs for a lot of reasons.

Old Design rant:

I think the eyes hidden throughout his design is such a neat detail because you don't see it a lot, and because I like to think that he had like a bunch of them that could kinda see (eventually ill do a redesign with the eyes). I also just think it looks really nice to wear. Like. I'd be cozy asf. Also, i do think he looks dashing.

New design rant:

Along his waist and legs there are these like thorns, yk? i think its kinda two things - jesus parallel, but also to kinda like. maybe symbolize the fact that he tried to trap everyone in ena's dream, and now hes the one trapped, kinda? also, maybe its because its like. a new cage, so to speak, cuz like wherever hes going is still not going to be enough - the night is still to short, after all- he is decked out in blues and whites and yellows and purples - white is typically associated with purity and priests, which make sense, but something about white also tends to symbolize youthfulness and naive/naivety and if i was designing a character like sunday, i would put him in so much white too so...yellow is like. most associated with like. happiness and hope, but also caution and im not going to say too much but i do hope if they are doing color symbolizism its the like. hope angle b/c i dont want to go thru another wanderer patch monent - blues can be either like. calm and reassurances but it can also be depression so. yk. - purples r like. spirituality which makes sense- also their the color of the nonbinary pride flag so im gonna die happy- also, note the like. chord (the lil like bars i think) design around his neck, which is kinda a call back to robin and yes i am going to be crying of this for DAYS.- also his pose 1 .) HPLY FUCK HIS WAIST??? 😋 DUCKING YUMMY sorry 2.) hes like reaching up to the fether but hes still unsure and hes still hesitant about like a lot of it and i wonder if he isnt like. super hesitant about like. what his path will take him on b/c like. his "path" was severed by the trailblazer, his ideals and hopes where kinda like a convo like "yes we uunderstand you want to protect the weak, but your equality isnt fair and jt isnt good to force onto others" and now he needs to walk a new path and idk what other people feel when they have to go thru big life changes but thats scary!! and ur unsure of urself the whole tome!! b/c like!! its TERRIFYING and yes maybe i need to get disgnosed but ive known that for a while and maybe its me wanting toproject but i think that he can be scared too

(i would also like to mention that i am no like. analyst, so if these are wrong they wrong. i just like him)

His backstory:

Holy. Lord. I could not stop CRYING. Maybe it's because he was just a kid when stuff started happening that never should have happened, maybe it's because every star rail update has made me cry, but holy. I was a mess, yall. Just a mess.

Secondly, I think his philosophy is Interesting too: It's kind of like a mix between order and harmony and idk man i just fuck with it. Do i think he went a little extreme? Yes. FUCK YES. Do i completely understand his character? no. But do i find his entire philosophy (which side note, halfway remind me of the beatitudes (the meek shall inherit the earth, yadda yadda) conpelling? YEAH.

Also, fuck gopher wood. All my homies hate him.

Personality!!

First, because i thibk ill forget to mention it: i am a "Sunday has OCD" truther. I forget if its canon...

Do i think he goes a lil too hard with everything? yes. However, i think you can tell through his conversation with Aventurine that he needs this or else his life will fall apart.

(Secondly, i do want to make clear that i dont support his actions. I think i may come off that way. Also, i hope that if they do ever meet again, Sunday will apologize for that stuff(/gen) he did and then they can kiss about it(/j)

I also just like his personality, i donr have the words to explain it.

HEADCANON TIME

Eyes: I think he has a fuck ton of them, and they can kinda partially see but its all like shadowy. I think he also literally had eyes in the back of his head.

Wings: I studided birds for him. I think that he does also gave waist wings.

i am so convinced that this man should be a stellaron hunter. I need him to meet blade. lord bless sunren (or avenday... or argenday..... or sunheng.... im insane ik)

Art!!

This is my art. i am not an artist.

yes i did trace the base.

okay love yalls

[chaosheadspace]

For the writer asks, for Library Boys!

2. How'd you get the idea, what kicked this off?

24. How did you celebrate finishing?

25-27 I would love to hear some favorite lines, details, and lore

28. Write a summary for it but badly

Hi TJ, thank you so much for asking! I apologise beforehand, this is almost 2.5K :)

2. How'd you get the idea, what kicked this off?

Originally, @notallsandmen asked me if I would write another enemies to lovers fic after Ill-advised things. By that time I had written a library sex scene for @staroftheendless's smut prompts (yes, the very one where Hob has Dream against the shelf, at least part of that). And I just couldn't stop developing headcanons about them in this AU, how they'd look, what they'd be like, what their background looks like.

I am very much a pantser, and in the beginning the plot was clear to me up to where Dream loses Orpheus and Hob tries to console him. Everything after that was loose points I was trying to connect. I remember having written most of it up until that point and the last chapter and thinking, "not much left now, I think I can start posting". Lol.

Everything that happens between those two points came to me after that, all of Hob's backstory (I struggled with that, he's been kinda hazy in my head), the very thorough dip into the mental illness theme (the bulletpoint in my brain sounded something like "make Murphy feel better and figure out what it is exactly—and see where it took me, two fights, a sex scene and a whole chapter focused on it), Orpheus's journey. This is precisely why I don't like outlining—I do better without. The pacing might be shot to hell, but tbh I don't care about that very much, I care about having put down all I wanted you to see, all I wanted you to know about these two.

24. How did you celebrate finishing?

By taking a break, by finishing the blanket that came with the fic (lol) and by going "I don't think they're all that happy yet" and writing a bunch for the sequel. I'm also gonna commission some art from my Christmas money this year (don't know who yet, but I've got a few scenes I'd like to see).

25-27 I would love to hear some favorite lines, details, and lore

Biggest fun fact that hasn't found it's way into readers focus (hopefully "yet"), is that Matthew is Jessamy's younger brother. At the very start I had a plan about Hob and Murphy being oblivious about that and them getting into a big fight only for those two getting them back together via shenanigans. But then Murphy demanded therapy, and Orpheus demanded screen time, and Hob begged for backstory, and suddenly it didn't fit anymore, tone wise. I'm hoping to fit more Matthew into the sequel.

Favourite lines is rather…uh… I mean, it's 90K 😬

I loved writing them kiss, every single time.

The opening to chapter five holds a special place in my heart (the description of campus on the day of the summer festival), as does the poor philosophy faculty member that keeps calling the stacks for books (this is really not how it works lol). A lot of what happens in non-Dreamling plot is taken from my personal experience. A lot of it happened to me, or to my coworkers. The library I picture them working at is the library I did my apprenticeship in. (I also detest Gorgonzola.) There really are people every year accidentally ordering a cart full of bound journals because they thought they'd get single issues. I always loved doing those and brining them up personally to see the face of the person that ordered them. Was worth the three quarters of an hour of work before and after every time. What I did not include is the small railway system we had. There were little waggons to put the books into, and they'd bring the books upstairs via rails on the ceiling. It's one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life.

I loved this part:

He can suddenly see right through the thick layer of animosity like glass, and underneath it is a beaten, bloody, hurt thing."

And this one, because it's my Murphy, condensed into a paragraph, in all his confusion and hurt and love:

It feels good to have someone's attention on him, regardless of the kind. Murphy sometimes thinks he shouldn't encourage Hob's temper like that, should maybe apologise, and on his most lonely, sleepless nights he fantasises guiltily about making amends and asking Hob out. But what would Hob gain from that? Murphy has failed at marriage, the most long-term emotional commitment there is. And there is also Orpheus. Murphy loves him more than anything, but he knows that most single people consider children from previous, failed marriages baggage. It's the last thing Murphy wants for Orpheus, to feel secondary because of a relationship.

I also loved writing Orpheus deciding to go with Calliope, just because of how raw it is, and how true it feels. As a patchwork family kid myself, while not having been in the exact situation, I feel very deeply about all of this, and exploring why someone would let their child go, and why someone would encourage them to go, helped me tremendously.

This part I love because it shows the security that Hob gives Murphy even back when they were on bad terms, and just how wrong Murphy is and how deep his self-deception goes:

He starts to taunt Hob again. It's easy, so easy to fall back into it, almost as if they never stopped. Murphy carefully sharpens his tongue again and tries it out on Hob's thick skin. It feels safe. Neither of them mentions the closet and the hugs and Murphy's tears, and he is grateful. It's not real. This is.

This part is a feeling I have very often about emotionally charged situations bc I'm shit at them (the "oh fuck, the jig is up" feeling):

This is it, he realises, this is going to resolve things one way or another. Suddenly Hob wishes Dream had called in sick for a day longer, or two, or had stopped him two days ago when he'd walked out of his office. He can't stand it. He can't face it, either. But he must.

I'm also very proud of this, because it's the turning point of the whole story and I think I executed it rather well. It's the most revised part of the whole story, and the one that took the longest, writing wise:

"Wait wait wait," Hob interrupts him and all blood leaves his face. "What's this about deserving? Did you—Have you used me to punish yourself because you don't think you deserve basic kindness?!" He is so tense that he feels his muscles might spring out of his skin, so angry that he thinks his blood might boil out of his ears. And then. And then all the tension melts out of Dream as he sees him getting angry, relief etched into his face and rimming his eyes with red, and something in Hob breaks. This is the part of Hob he is used to. This is the Hob he knows and is comfortable with. Shame and grief so profound it settles in his bones creeps up from his toes and into his heart. He doesn't want that. He wants, needs it to be different. "Oh love," he says, voice thick with sorrow, and sits down next to Morpheus on his kitchen bench, taking his hands into his own. "Oh darling, no."

I'm throwing this one in, too, because I think I was really fucking funny:

The only positive effect this information has on Hob is that it makes his erection wilt like a candle in front of a blowtorch.

I also loved doing the phone screenshots of their texts with the secret emoji story from the evening before that played out during the phone call chapter, but I don't think anyone picked up on that. It was fun regardless, a nice little easter egg.

I am skimming the story for this and am only on chapter 16. I think I have to reign myself in a bit. Chapter 16 is also kind of a companion chapter to ch13 (where they get their shit together) in terms of emotional intensity. While in chapter 13 they had to painfully try and pull themselves together, to be honest and open even if it hurt, chapter 16 is the culmination of the new start they made for themselves, a little bit of "what if we hadn't been like that from the start" but better, because of course they have been like that, and imo dropping a weight like that lets people fly higher. A tender start would have been sweet and nothing else, but here they're conscious of quite a few of each other's flaws, and know the other is earnestly trying to put the work in, and that makes it as delicious as an overripe peach eaten over the sink, sticky and ecstatic and glorious.

This:

The giggle Hob has been suppressing bubbles up his throat, and he moves quickly to tap his index finger to the soft wet redness. Scandalised, Murphy pulls his head back, smacking his lips. "Bah," he says, taken aback. "Who does that?" "I do," Hob says, still giggling. "Worked, didn't it?" "You," Murphy proclaims, swaying back to him and holding onto his hips, "are the worst." And then he licks a long, wet stripe up the side of Hob's face.

I just love their silly. They need the silly. Even if I forget, they demand it themselves.

All the house/home metaphors I did for Murphy's life, and the sea metaphors I did for his mental health journey.

Also proud that I managed to still keep them real and make them fight and make up and not have them be happy lovey doves all the time (which may seem surprising considering all I put them through, but still). I wanted to be conscious of making their relationship equal, to not have Hob carry Murphy's issues but have him lean on him, too (although he's certainly the stronger one of them, emotionally. Carrying wise, I mean.), to have them give and take in equal measure.

There was also a short snippet of Hob meeting Jessamy, that would originally go into chapter 20. But it didn't fit the tone, and the chapter did better what I wanted from it without it, so it got cut. Generally speaking, there's very little scenes that got cut. I don't care about pacing that much, and even less if a scene is necessary or not. If it's something I want to tell, I'm gonna include it. But there's a few that took the story in a direction that I didn't like, and that I wrote quite early on, that didn't fit the story as it progressed. (notably, for the sequel, Orpheus finding a dog while playing with his best friend and Hob and Murphy adopting it.)

This one, for me, is the best sentence from the recovery chapter:

He needs—no, he wants to take it into his own hands, so that his happiness stops being a thing that other people need to give him."

(I also asked notallsandmen if the sex scene at the end is over the top, and they told me that not only is Murphy on antidepressants, he's also in love, and at that point I threw caution out the window and decided they can as happy and as schmoopy as I want them to be.)

Chapter 22 was entirely unplanned. At one point I realised that while readers have an approximation of Murphy's past, Hob still has no idea what happened :D

I also loved doing the Christmas chapter. I put a lot of thought in what celebrations like this might look for Orpheus as a kid of two cultures. I think some traditions would have been quite important to Calliope, not because I picture her as particularly religious, but because I think she would have liked to keep them while living in England. And I think Murphy would have agreed with her, because he wanted her to be happy, and I don't think that he's got particularly happy memories associated with family celebrations until Calliope, and he might even have seen it as a way to break away from his own family and his own past, just like his marriage in general had been. So the abundance of greek Christmas traditions is very much on purpose.

I also love any and all interactions between Hob and Orpheus.

This one, because it always makes me cry, even when rereading my own story:

“Hello, little sparrow.” He’s sure that his relief bleeds through into his tone, softening his voice to a sweet, velvety caress. Orpheus makes an indefinable sound at the endearment. “You've called every day for a week,” he says, unsure. “I did,” Murphy assents. “Thank you for speaking to me today. I missed you.”

Also loved reusing this one, even if it might be too sugary:

“D’you think it'll work out?” He finally says. “All of it?” Turning his head slightly, Murphy kisses Hob's temple, his cheek, his neck. “We try,” he says, gently. “We try and try, and sometimes that means we fail. But Hob, it also means that more often than not, we make it work.”

I also love the last chapter and the conclusion to bits, but sometimes I worry that it might feel like a haphazardly slapped on bandaid to some readers (which it it very much not. It's another testament to both of their stellar decision making, and it will come to bite them in the ass :D).

This turned into a very long and convoluted ramble, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.

28. Write a summary for it but badly

I cannot decide, so you're getting all of them (yes, I crowdsourced):

Library 4.0: parkour edition

Dr. D. M. Olympiou's and R. Gadlings guide on how to regulate your behaviour in library spaces using real life negative examples, now with annex detailing the consequences for your private life

'In which library assistant Hob finds himself the prime subject of new subject librarian Dream Olympiou's study onwhether you're being checked out of the library or checked out at the library.' (courtesy of @sleepsonfutons)

Two insecure idiots fuck around and find out…that they’re actually really good together (courtesy of @edgedancer77)

Surrounded by idiots: The four types of human behaviour and how to effectively fumble all of them when it comes to your hot but asshole coworker (based on: Surrounded by Idiots: The Four Types of Human Behavior and How to Effectively Communicate with Each in Business (and in Life))

How to hatefuck your way into better mental health (courtesy of @reallyintoscience)

[dee-the-red-witch]

hi so. i'm sorry if you feel like this is something you've talked about too much but i'm genuinely having a hard time understanding- what's the issue with femboys? or is it a finnster-specific issue...? idk i can see how it's an issue of like. performing femininity but not really accepting what womanhood really means but what makes it different from drag in that case? or am i going in the wrong direction trying to understand? i have amab as well as afab ppl in my life that identify as femboys and use it as a loosely-nonbinary term but i also know a couple femboys that are. hm. probably eggs leaning on the term that's less "scary" when it comes to confronting gender, is it about that....?

sorry if this is exhausting for you to discuss i'm just confused and trying to understand

Ok, keep in mind, this is a nonny. Which means I need to treat this with the intent that it's bait. Because that's what fucking happens a lot to folks. So I'm picking my words. 1. Show me where I said I have a problem with femboys in general. Because honestly? No problem with the identity. No problem with the concept. Same with drag, same with Crossdressers, same with sissys. They're all just as valid. What I have a problem with is when people specifically use and abuse things like F1nn5ter's (last I checked, still using he/him pronouns, so that's what I'm using here) use of trap content. Content that gets trans women beaten, abused, exiled, ostracized, and killed on a daily basis to make profit, and does it scot free of any societal penalty, partly because of a massive supporting userbase and fame, and partly because he wasn't out about being a trans woman yet. That right there is where my problem is. People can and should explore, play with, perform, exist in femininity however and whenever they want, but the problem is ONE GROUP OF US KEEPS GETTING PUNISHED FOR IT while the others see far less, if ever. So again, no problem with the femboy identity or femboys in general, but oh yeah, big problems with the difference in treatment. 2. I'm also gonna ask this in return- why am *I* your expert on this subject? Because this happens to so many trans women- we're out, we get seen enough to be noticed, and suddenly we're supposed to be the pillars of the community, delivering Julia Serrano level philosophy, flawless looks, opinions, and knowledge? There's lots of other folks to ask this kind of thing about, why go to the terminally weird, 46-year-old, *OUT AND TRANSITIONING FOR LESS THAN THREE YEARS STILL* writer, artist, leatherworker, and tattooist, who's still VERY clearly in the process of dealing with her own self identification and a lot of past and present trauma, and think I'm going to be the one who's going to give you the perfect answer for this? (lbr, again, so many trans women get quizzed like this, then publicly crucified for saying the slightly wrong thing- see that bit about bait again? because oh yeah, this tactic, intentional or otherwise, has been seen a LOT this year.) Because honestly, there isn't a perfect answer. It's yet another messy human subject because all of us are messy to some extent to begin with. It's never going to have perfect sense or logic. I honestly don't think that it should. Perfect answers tend to not encompass being human answers very well at the same time.

And also, I'm not an expert. Nor should I have to be one. Especially when in my usual fields, I get to charge 50-100 bucks an hour for consulting, and here, I'll be lucky if you kick five bucks in my paypal or gfm in exchange for this. That said, nonny, hope you have a good night. Keep in mind this whole #2 section? Is rhetorical. I'm not expecting a dialogue or reply, and I don't really want one, at least not one with a greyface and shades. If you want to talk more? come off anon.

[coralpolyp]

I'm not dead!

Hey look here's a redraw of the really terrible bit of digital art I did for last year's Mar13 day as proof! Apparently I didn't even finish the first one on time! Yikes!

I'm well aware that it's been a minute or two since I last posted anything on here or on AO3 - to be more precise, it's been since Splatoon 1 died and I wrote that 8000 word depressing thing - I don't know why 8000 words always seems to be my sweet spot, but it's good to know that I have one. That being said, and with Side Order: Dark Side Mix currently MIA, I thought it'd be a good idea to to have what it is that I'm doing right now on-record in some capacity, for the one or two people who were wondering.

The next few weeks are exam season, so I don't think it's going to be smooth sailing per se, but Dark Side Mix will be completed. After running into a snag with the opening act - namely with the fact that it sucks - I started reworking the entire fic from top to bottom under a new name...and then I lost motivation to do that because perfectionism set in, and I haven't really touched it in a little while.

In the time that I've been away from it, I feel like I've become increasingly aware of how that perfectionism negatively effects me and my work - namely the fact that very little of it actually exists. I mean, sure, people seem to like the stuff that does exist, but there isn't much, and a lot of things are unfinished - usually because I placed too much value on the potential of "the idea", and spent so long labouring over the start of it that by the 10,000 word mark I had realised the flaws of the idea and lost interest in it.

I can't help thinking that's a bit lame. Every other writer has 100s and thousands of words of terrible amateur works they can go back to and laugh at, before they created the masterpieces they're known for now, and my story is that I just kinda show up every once in a while.

I think there's a real beauty to that - creating for the sake of creation, with no fucks given. Maybe this isn't the finest example, but I finally started listening to My Dad Wrote a Porno recently and...I mean... the sheer lack of fucks given is well and truly a gift that keeps on giving. Same goes for Philosophy of the World. Or SMG4 back in like 2014. Or old Eddsworld stuff. There's just a certain carefree joy (or existential dread in the case of the Shaggs) to it all that you never get anywhere else. It's like the difference between a 30 second gesture drawing and 6 hours of carefully-deliberated-over anatomy.

All that is to say - Dark Side Mix is a fundamentally flawed story. It is not high art, it never will be. I should probably just get it out there in it's entirety for the world to see in the time I have available to write, and then move on to the next "brilliant-idea"-that's-actually-just-ok. Nobody likes an "idea guy" - what good is it to spend one's entire life going around saying "I never finished this story, but it was great in my head, and the bit that you can actually read was alright too,"? Creativity should be about getting in there, making a mess, and having fun - let fanfiction be fanfiction, with that being addressed to nobody but myself, because nobody else needed to hear it.

Oh, also, another reason for my absence besides creative block and exams - I'm getting into comics! That, and practising my art fundamentals a whole bunch - I don't think my drawabox is particularly interesting to look at, so I haven't exactly been posting it. I've decided that I want to try giving an idea I had for what would've been another depressing Squid Sister 8000-worder the comic treatment, although you shouldn't expect to see that anytime soon, considering how long it's gonna take, and the fact that I would want to release something like that in no more than two parts.

[ace-oreos]

Dar Reads Lady Knight: Ch. 3

Finally back at it! This chapter covers a lot of ground considering it's fairly short, so I will probably have more to say than I did for the first two. As usual, commentary/favorite quotes are below the cut.

Love the Alanna and Neal moment on page 49... the whole "good question, next question" conversation. It would be super cool if we got a little short story of Neal's time as Alanna's squire. I can only imagine what that was like given their personalities.

"He said last night you're a bear for vegetables - Sir Nealan, that is" (pg. 50). Tobe's only been with Kel for a short time and Neal is already teaching him well, haha.

Cleon makes his entrance. I have to be honest, I'm happy with the decision Kel makes re: Cleon. She doesn't feel the same way she once did, and she knows it wouldn't be fair to either of them to try to continue the romance, Cleon's impending marriage aside. I was never a huge fan of Kel/Cleon, but I was glad Kel got to enjoy a healthy relationship while it lasted, considering how some of Alanna's relationships went.

"She didn't want Cleon as a lover now, of that she was sure. There was work to be done. She wanted no lovers until she had settled the Nothing Man's account" (pg 51). Not gonna lie, I really, really like these lines. There is work to be done, and devotion to duty has been the foundation of Kel's philosophy since day one.

I should note that I don't dislike Cleon as a character. He's doing the honorable thing by marrying someone in order to provide for the people he's responsible for as lord of Kennan.

I love the scene when Tobe asks Kel why she's crying, and her explanation: "It's not the war, Tobe. I've been shot at. I can bear it. I'm crying because my friend is unhappy and everything is changing." First of all, relatable. Second, I love the respect that already exists between Tobe and Kel - his first reaction isn't to make fun of her, but to sympathize.

Kel asking Duke Baird how he can still go and do his duty even after seeing the brutality of war firsthand makes me feel things. And his response that all he can do is his best. Ugh. Feels.

Baird asking Kel to keep an eye on Neal if they are assigned to the same post alsdkfj. Kel and Neal friendship 2kforever.

Owen's back! Gotta love Owen. The way he tries to be as formal as Wyldon trained him to be while still being irrepressibly Owen is so funny. What a gremlin.

Poor Kel, being worried that Wyldon doesn't trust her ability as a knight after all. If I were in her position, I'd probably feel the same about the possibility of getting a "safe" assignment. Especially since she knows that people will say she's not cut out to be a knight if she's not out on the front lines.

Kel and Wyldon's dynamic. Amazing. Wyldon has come so far since First Test, and Kel is willing to see that. I think anyone else would hold a grudge against Wyldon for the way he treated Kel if they were in her shoes, but she's willing to see past that.

Kel's going to do her duty if it kills her. This girl. I wish I could properly express what she means to me.

Mistress Fanche makes her entrance when Wyldon is showing Kel the refugees. Considering what she's been through, I don't think it would be fair to dislike her for her attitude.

"[Wyldon]'s happy, she realized, stunned. Training us - that was his duty. But he didn't like it. He's comfortable here, in the dirt and the cold, with people to defend" (pg. 70). I wonder if Kel realizes how similar she and Wyldon are when it comes to duty. She'll do whatever he orders, even if she privately disagrees or dislikes it, but at the end of the day she's happiest when there's hard work to be done.

The Kel and Owen moment at the end of the chapter. Kel's right - Owen is growing up well. They are 100% ride or die, and I am here for it. When Owen says he would do anything to help her, he means it. Kel hasn't had a lot of experience with that so far, what with several of her peers trying to sabotage her during her days as a page, so I imagine Owen's genuine loyalty must mean the world to her.

[herrscherofmagic]

A look at the past & future of Honkai design: Simplicity vs. Complexity (Part 1)

Link to the YouTube channel of the person whose thumbnail I yoinked off of Google Images for this; it was the best image of the new Hyperion that I could easily find which is why I used it for this.

TL;DR:

Original Honkai Impact 3rd designs tended towards large, simply shapes that gave battlesuits (and other stuff) a strong "mecha" vibe. Many newer designs are trending towards more complex designs that do away with these simple and recognizable shapes, instead using more overlapping textures and ornamentation to create detail. Some designs balance the two, using large and relatively simple shapes that still carry enough detail to stand out as newer while still keeping the original vibes.

Because of this, I think there's gonna be a very clear visual split between Part 1 designs and the APHO+Part 2 designs because of this split between simplicity & complexity, and some Part 1 designs feel off because they stray too far from the original design motifs, making them feel out of place even if they're still good designs on their own.

~

I've been thinking a lot about the design philosophy of Honkai Impact 3rd for quite a while now. As someone interested in concept art and illustration and who's played video games for more than 3/4ths of their whole lifespan.

And obviously I'm not alone in this, given how often I've seen discussion of Honkai's character design. Whether it was the march of the pastel battlesuits or the techwear of the part 2 cast or the upcoming Garuda Fu Hua battlesuit, many people have had many opinions both positive and negative.

But I've wanted to do a sort of "deep-dive" for a while now, because I think HI3rd is a really interesting case where we can see the co-existence of (sometimes drastically) different designs made years apart from one another. It's normal for the style of a franchise to grow and change with time- my personal example is Halo, with obvious differences between Halo CE, Halo 3, and Halo 4 in mind. But typically that has been done over the release of different games over many years, not so much in consecutive releases within the same game. HI3rd's not alone in this regard, of course :)

I don't want to label anything as "bad" or "good". I can like or dislike something, and that's my personal opinion. Of course I COULD try to label designs as bad or good, but I'd want to back that up with serious analysis and get the opinions of other players, and that's way too much effort for a reddit post. Instead, I want to present some different designs in Honkai and share my thoughts, so others can feel free to agree, disagree, elaborate, etc. More of a matter of casual discussion rather than trying to present some solid theory, I guess you could say?

What I will say is I intend to label designs based on whether (or how) they fit into HI3rd's aesthetic(s), so that's the main point- not so much whether an individual design is good or not.

To start with, I'd like to talk about the simplicity vs. complexity of Honkai designs because I personally feel like this is the biggest problem I have with HI3rd, outside of story issues that is. Not because of designs being "good" or "bad", but because I feel like Mihoyo has been moving towards a new design philosophy that's different from what I loved most about HI3rd when I first started.

I opened with the comparison of Hyperion because I think it's a perfect example of this concept, and if we can understand what the difference is with Hyperion then I think it'd be more apparent with battlesuits as well. I also have another image that highlights some of the biggest differences between the two models:

I had mixed feelings about the reveal of the "new and upgraded" Hyperion during the moon arc. It's a neat design I'll admit, but I felt like it deviated a lot from the original Hyperion, not as a difference in fidelity and detail but rather as a difference in the fundamental design of the ship.

What I like so much about the original Hyperion is, as you might have guessed by now: its simplicity. Hyperion was comprised of much larger, blockier shapes with more clear silhouettes. It's actually the same reason I love the design of Halo's UNSC frigates, funnily enough. I'm a huge sci-fi fan and I absolutely adore spacecraft and vehicle design, so I really appreciated the design of Hyperion cause to me it felt very original.

The new Hyperion retains most of the same characteristics, and it's still recognizable as a version of Hyperion. But it bothers me just how much the design was changed. Many of the simple shapes of the design were broken up into smaller parts or almost totally changed, like the cannon going from a sleek polygonal barrel to a spikey... thing.

To me, it feels like Hyperion was redesigned with the idea of trying to make it more "futuristic" or "tech-y", or perhaps it was even designed with some retro anime motifs in mind like the Space Battleship Yamato. But it seems as though this was done by adding many objects that broke up the original silhouette, as well as inventing lots of new detail instead of adding details to complement what was already there. The shape of the winglets was greatly changed; the vent-like structures were totally changed; the barrel was completely changed; most noticeably, the bridge was drastically changed.

The new Hyperion model is technically "better" in terms of fidelity and the amount of detail it has, no doubt about it. But I think changing the fundamental shapes of Hyperion so much really hurts the charm of the original design, to the point that I was actually quite disappointed to see that Mihoyo used the new Hyperion design in the CG of the Captainverse Hyperion farm event. It seems as though Mihoyo wants to consider this as the new default impression of Hyperion, and not a special one-off thing from the moon arc.

I think this can be seen across other aspects of the game, too. In general Mihoyo has moved away from simple designs and towards complex designs, and I think there's been a lot of hits and a lot of misses with this.

For instance, I'd like to compare the three Herrscher Kiana battlesuits: HoV, HoFS, and HoFi.

There's a clear trend of an increase in complexity across the three battlesuits. HoV's design uses fewer and larger shapes, HoFS adds more and smaller shapes, and then HoFi is almost totally devoid of any large clear shapes.

To me, this is what distinguishes a battlesuit that "feels like Honkai" from one that doesn't.

Everyone starts the game in Chapter 1, and most long-time players have spent more time with older battlesuits than newer ones simply because they were playing the game before these newer battlesuits were even released. I think it's safe to say that even though HoFi is the grand "Kiana in her greatest form" battlesuit, most players will still have seen HoV's design more often because of the years that it's been around, and its prevalence in story content.

Most of those older designs were rooted more heavily in the mecha vibes early Honkai had. For instance, even though HoV is obviously not wearing a mecha battlesuit, the large blocky shapes are still reminiscent of armor, two examples being the large frames on her wings and the large white pad-things(?) on her sides. There's other obvious cases like White Comet being a skin-tight battlesuit which used glowy energy bits for its attacks, but I use the example of HoV because it shows that HI3rd was fully capable of creating battlesuits within the mecha theme without being limited to literal "mecha" designs. HoV's battlesuit is far from mecha in its nature, yet still fits perfectly with that aesthetic.

HoFi has pretty much none of that, though. It's a pretty design for sure, but it's also nearly completely divorced from that original aesthetic. There's few easily-recognizable shapes on her design, with the (very little) clothing she wears being almost entirely detail and ornamentation. It definitely fits the "Princess Kiana" or "Goddess Kiana" theme in isolation, but I don't think it delivers on that theme in the context of Honkai Impact 3rd.

Yet look at HoFS. HoFS definitely has more detail than HoV. Yet there are still lots of large blank areas that define clear forms; for instance, the armor on HoFS' waist. It's reminiscent of that of HoV while still adding more detail. This gives that same effect of a slight mecha vibe. It's still an appealing design and it still feels more modern than HoV, but it also manages to retain much of the same design language.

That being said, I have to admit I ADORE the Honkai wings that HoFi has, though I wish they were a little higher in the air. That's one thing that I think Mihoyo absolutely nailed with HoFi, and I wish more of that aesthetic was kept in the rest of her design.

What's also interesting is that (in my opinion) neither of the other two main Herrscher Trio designs suffer from this. For instance, consider Mei's battlesuits:

I've included Lighting Empress as a reminder that old =/= good. I'd like to make it clear that just because it's an "original" battlesuit doesn't mean it's a good one. I said before that I didn't want to label stuff as good or bad but this is a clear exception and I hope y'all can understand why, lol

We can certainly argue about whether HoO Mei's design really fits the image of Raiden Mei. It's a vast departure from her other battlesuits when it comes to her palette, for better or for worse. I didn't like it at first but it has grown on me, and I think part of that is because of that concept of simplicity vs. complexity.

HoO has way, way more detail than the other two Herrscher Mei battlesuits, no doubt about it. But it also retains many large and recognizable shapes. Nothing on this battlesuit is bulky like HoT or other older battlesuits, but it still gives off the feeling of being armor despite being so thin. Much of the detail is created not by overlapping layers of ornamentation and texture, but rather by using intricate shapes with clear silhouettes and light detail inside that outline.

And HoTr is obviously a mecha design, so I don't think we need to elaborate on that one :)

The point is that it's absolutely possible to make detailed and beautiful battlesuits without getting rid of the original shape language that HI3rd was built on. HoFS is a bit dated now but still much newer than HoV, yet it keeps the vibes. HoO is also far newer, yet it still fits the theme of battlesuit. HoFi, though... not so much.

Finally, I want to talk about the elephant in the room: the Part 2 character designs.

Once again, here's the link to the YouTube video by Matt Is Playing, where I pulled this image from!

Much like HoFi, there's very little trace of the OG Honkai mecha aesthetic in these battlesuits. It's not to say that they are inherently bad because of that* , but it doesn't quite feel like "Honkai Impact 3rd".

*except Dream Seeker, I'm sorry but what the heck is going on there???

But the thing is that this design philosophy isn't even new. In fact, it's years old by now... because we see this in APHO.

For a long time now, APHO has had battlesuits that tip-toe on the very edge of the original Honkai aesthetic. So the designs of Part 2 aren't actually some new and drastic shift in Mihoyo's design philosophy- rather, it's reinforcing a design philosophy that was introduced with APHO.

These new characters all feel out of place if we compare them to the original battlesuits. They don't use the same simple forms, instead using dense and overlapping details. But if we compare them to the APHO cast, they fit right in. We can argue about the merits of the new character designs in other terms, but I think these discussions have to keep in mind this context.

I'd say the APHO designs work well in the setting of APHO because they're following the same aesthetic. As we enter Part 2 and once we see more of the story and setting of Part 2, it's very possible that these new character designs will feel more natural and more like "Honkai Impact 3rd".

But it's a different Honkai Impact 3rd.

This is why I think the idea of "simplicity vs. complexity" is so important to understanding Honkai Impact 3rd's designs. I think Mihoyo might be trying to emphasize two different phases of Honkai through this design philosophy. These are going to be two very different halves to the same game, with the designs of Part 2 possibly becoming as distant from Part 1's designs as Part 1 is from HSR.

You have the OG mecha action vibes from the good ole St. Freya days, and we have the sleek tech-wear of the era of exploring Mars, world-hopping in the Sea of Quanta, and fighting literal aliens.

For better or for worse? Only time will tell.

As a bonus, I'd like to include some extra comparisons, though I won't be adding any more analysis. It's more about having extra examples to keep in mind. Also, I think these ideas can apply to enemies and weapons as well, but that's a larger discussion I'm not yet ready for so that will come in a follow-up later on!

[attleboy]

Why do u draw?

oooooooo [rubs hands together] a fun one that probably isn't that deep but i'm going to take way too seriously!

so the short answer is fun, but i can never just say one sentence and be done with it soooo i elaborated and wrote a whole essay below. sorry not sorry

anyway if you didn't want my origin story no shame in that, it's not gonna be on the quiz, just keep scrolling :P

to cover all my bases let me start from the beginning and work my way forward...

i think pretty much all kids draw at least a little just because they can, but the thing that really inspired me to take art seriously was the great abundance of cat animations on youtube in the early 2010s... warrior cats amvs mostly, but also artists like bani the kitty and splashkittyartist! you can really see these inspirations in my early digital art hehehe (see below by attle b. age 8)

from then until about age 14 art was just... my thing? i did it pretty much everyday, probably couldn't have imagined life without it... i think back then my motivations were more inline with your typical social media artist motivations... get better, be seen, and maybe make a career out of it? never made it that far though because ehhhh life has different plans i guess

i fell into an art slump in the middle of high school for a variety of personal reasons i won't get into, and as such i had to give up my dreams of creating art as a job

as sad as that was in the moment, it forced me to change my outlook on the whole ordeal in a way that i think was ultimately healthier for me.

that brought me to where i am now! since i have no goals beyond keeping at it as a hobby, i do it simply because i enjoy the process, the product, and i feel like it lets me connect with my interests in a way i otherwise couldn't.

it's a fun way to express love for the things i care about, and while i still enjoy honing my skills i don't feel the same pressure to be perfect that i used to which is really freeing!!

so in that sense it's intrinsic motivation that makes me draw what i draw... however, the amount of art i put out and the polish i give it is definitely motivated by the eyes i have on me... while i'd still be drawing the same things if no one was watching, i would not be putting nearly as much effort into it, nor would i be doing it as regularly, so i do thank you guys for keeping me on track there <3

that's it i think? i could get into the philosophy of it, but i'll spare you that... okay thank you for letting me yap!!! ^-^