#idk maybe i'm wrong. anyway.

[hellooobees]

I can't stop thinking about how the show sets up selfishness and selflessness as two sides of the same coin. How do you walk the line between making sure your loved ones can achieve their own dreams even if it means hurting yourself, and hurting your loved ones because you're hurting yourself for their sake?

It all goes back to Thame putting up his wish on the orange tree that he'll make all of the other members' dreams come true. Thame, who agrees to a shitty contract and works himself to the bone and makes it completely his burden to prove that Mars is a good investment for the company. Thame, who is made to believe that that very act of love and sacrifice is only debilitating his friends' dreams and the only way to keep his original promise is to leave.

We see Thame essentially being back at square one in this episode. He has to leave and go to Korea alone so the people he loves can achieve their dreams. But so much has changed since then. Thame had found hope, that he could simultaneously keep his promise and be selfish to want both his band and his partner. He's once again been working himself to the bone, giving up all of his time and attention between the band and Po, because his tiredness is such a small price to pay to turn that dream into reality. Why wouldn't he gladly take on all of that tiredness and more?

But despite all of the groundbreaking things he's achieved and everything he's given of himself, it doesn't work. His friends break down around him possibly reigniting the same insecurities from earlier that he worked so hard to ensure wouldn't come to pass. His boyfriend breaks up with him despite Thame promising to take on all of the burden and tiredness to make it work. He's being forced to leave everyone behind and he's being left behind too.

That flip from Thame being convinced that the best thing for him to do would be to leave for everyone else's sake, to the rest of Mars and Po being convinced that the best thing for them to do is to step back for Thame's sake is so so important to me. It's not just Thame who made making his friends' dreams come true into his own dream. The rest of Mars and Po did the same thing with Thame's dream. But how does it all work when the sacrifices you're willing to make for the dreams of your loved ones are at the cost of their happiness because they're at the cost of your own?

Thame's effort didn't go to waste. We see all of that effort manifesting in how it opens doors for the other members and Po so much more easily now. But it's also true that at the base of those new successes lie the shattered hopes of that shared dream between them.

The show sets up the question of whether the person who's leaving others behind feels hurt, and we see so many iterations of it. We see Earn leaving behind the person who was an instrumental part of his success without a second thought. We see Thame giving himself up and leaving for the band's sake. We see Jun leave twice, the first so that his friend would for once think of himself and his own success instead of letting the others drag him away from it, and the second when he's sure that his friend can be what the person that he cares for deserves. We see Pepper being completely willing to leave if the two biggest parts of his life cannot exist together and we see Gam actually leaving when it proves to be true. And we see Po leave because he cannot let himself become an obstacle in Thame's path and make all of their efforts come to waste. If that's the price to pay so that the people they love can have what they want then so be it, right? Their sacrifices are insignificant in the face of that.

But what happens when all those sacrifices still aren't enough? When the cost becomes too huge to bear?

[cluescorner]

The Council of Optimuses: Pleasant, generally positive, they exiled Bayverse a while ago but they still check in once in a while to make sure he's ok/out of curiosity, Earthspark enables One's 'I can fix him' delusion to the point that Prime is falling into it too, IDW does NOT want to add to the delusion pile so he shuts up, Cyberverse kinda doesn't want to be at this meeting it feels too much like a party, IDW keeps making calls to somebody but he won't tell anyone who, they used to have 'bring your Bumblebee to work day' but Skybound had a breakdown over it so they can't do that anymore, everybody is suspicious of Skybound's new arm but the only person who actually brought it up was Bayverse whose solution was 'kill him' so now everybody thinks they are getting paranoid and should maybe start seeing a therapist (they should start seeing therapists, but they ARE right about the arm).

The Council of Megatrons: They are having a great time even if it looks horrible from the outside looking in, Prime constantly wants to fight IDW for his spot as the strongest Megatron but IDW is not about that, they tried to kick out Earthspark but he somehow keeps getting in (IDW leaves the door open), One has like 5 devils on his shoulder telling him to escalate and two fallen angels who are desperately trying to get across that maybe total destruction isn't the move, IDW is trying to hide his redemption arc in order to keep the situation under control (only Earthspark is aware of it, though Skybound has his suspicions), Cyberverse always tries to kill the others to take over their universes and it's the highlight of everybody's month, Bayverse is mocked for being killed by Optimus but secretly everybody is kinda jealous about it (Prime especially), one time an unidentified Starscream (it was Animated) broke in and it was on sight (he got away because every Megatron wanted to be the one who killed him and they fought each other over it), IDW keeps taking calls from somebody but he won't tell anyone who, Skybound can listen in on his Optimus's meetings due to being his arm and reports back, there is an ongoing debate about whether Galvatrons should be included.

Inspired by @jyang030107 's art of ES and IDW Megs advising their One counterpart.

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

not enough discussion about the gavins' complicated relationship with feminine-coded/beauty products, i don't think.

[blenselche]

Finntress wedding?

i can only ever see farmworld HW getting tied down so

[itspileofgoodthings]

one of my favorite things about pride and prejudice is that in the last third of the book Elizabeth’s internal monologue about Darcy is her admitting that she’s in love with him but also putting all sorts of qualifications around that statement that kind of ...tamp down the level of emotion (the “feelings, if not as tender as Jane’s for Bingley, at least as just” line, even the whole thing about her and Darcy being well-matched objectively speaking) and as soon as she’s engaged you get the unbridled joy in the narrative about her own joy, cc: “I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.” 

[revenantghost]

Alright. I really didn't want to make this post, but it's one week before the next Trigun "deluxe edition" drops (Oct. 8th), and Dark Horse hasn't addressed the plethora of printing and text issues despite the very loud response on social media and the reviews on storefronts. If you don't want them to keep making cheap cash grabs and want a quality release, consider canceling your order.

I know all of us who missed the first print run are desperate for this manga--me too! Of course you don't have to listen to me, I'm some just guy on the internet. It's just, to me, the corporate greed of this is upsetting. The basic ask is that they do a quality check and proofread. That's it. They already knew the peeling gold on most copies was an issue, and they had the rights to change the text to add ellipses and sfx/translation notes.

Regardless of any discount, it's $50 MSRP for this, and I just feel like Nightow and his work deserve better. I don't know if we'll ever get that with Dark Horse, but I would hate myself if I didn't try.

[noxious-fennec]

It's pomegranate season :)

A redraw of this piece from around a year ago

[oopsallmabari]

i know that this is 1. incorrect and 2. based on my very limited illario knowledge but in my soul. in my soul b/w him and lucanis illario is older such that he's perceived as 'burnout disaster older sibling that everyone is disappointed by'. older sibling that has ambitions that go unrecognized and unappreciated

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

Holy shit Ajax is so close to figuring it out!! Zhongli is lucky that he grabbed the guy who knew he wasn’t human with the radio but at the same time. Dude. Least subtle string of events ever

ajax is indeed close to getting it, but i'm not sure this situation in particular was like- unsubtle? ajax only clocked it in as weird bc 1) he knows he's not human 2) he's realized zhongli just does not know the names of some things and 3) he's realized there's a good chance zhongli has never interacted with most technology and is just (somehow) apparently winging it but like, from a non-ajax pov, nothing about this sequence would've been necesarily weird. zhongli never stated he doesn't know what a walkietalkie is, ajax just (correctly) assumed that bit. he said "i've never used one of these before"; that's not a weird thing to say. you have an oldschool radio and you can't figure it out so you pass it over and say hey yeah never used one of these before. that's not weird. people don't assume you don't know what a radio is from that, this is just ajax' brain firing at all these things bc he already knows zhongli isn't human and not knowing how to use a military-grade walkitalkie- unless i'm missing something, that's not- weird. is it? is it weird to not know how to use a military grade handheld radio? yeah this version of teyvat probably had an equivalent to our motorolas before they got smartphones and yeah czl is in that age range but like still. if someone told me they don't know how to use an, again, military grade walkietalkie, i wouldn't be werided out by it. i can handle a motorola but i've never held a cop's walkietalkie so idk

maybe i'm wrong on that last bit tho who knows

[lyxchen]

I feel like I'm digging myself deep into a hole and finding nothing, trying to figure out more about In-ho's family

[camellcat]

stray thought but why didn’t they just let giles die in spiral? like... other than make buffy miserable what does he even do in the later seasons? I feel like it would've been better to just let him go out on a good note than waste away as a character

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Chapter 110 is 13 pages long welcome to hell!!! so in a lot of ways this is just more fuel for a theory that I've had for a few weeks now, that's only gotten stronger with each recent season 5 episode, which is that the last episode of the season is gonna end on 110, and that Asagiri/Harukawa and Bones have been collaborating to make this happen, specifically because it's a major turning point that would be the only good place to end the season on.

When we started getting especially long chapters again (like from 25-35ish pages, with the exception of 107.5, the last two being some of the longest we've ever had), at first I just assumed that Asagiri/Harukawa got freed up from some other obligations they'd been having to cause the extremely short/half chapters, like promotional stuff for the anime/Beast movie, or working on light novels. But then 109 happened, with the "supposed" death of Dazai, and heavy emphasis at the end on how literally everyone is at their lowest point right now, and I got to thinking. 11 episodes is a strangely specific number for an anime season -- why not 12, or 13, or even 10, like you'd usually see? Why have we gotten suddenly gotten two 35 page chapters out of nowhere, that's almost unheard of at this point? They're both beautiful chapters, don't get me wrong (as always), and maybe A/H simply just didn't want to cut them in halves because they felt like the full emotional impact wouldn't hit/that there were no good cutoff points in them, but you can't deny that it's surprising, after all the shorter chapters we've been getting. Why has the anime been going at such insanely breakneck pacing for the most part ever since around the Sunday Tragedy chapters, even more so than it has in the past? So much so that it feels dangerously close to overtaking the manga?

Well, maybe, just maybe, it's because..... Asagiri decided a long time ago that whatever happens in 110 is the only point that feels "season finale"-worthy enough, in an arc that still isn't anywhere close to being completely wrapped up, and so both the manga and the anime have been specifically coordinated to reach that part within 2 and a half weeks of each other?

I've seen a lot of people now think season 5 will end with 109, and as much as my sadistic side would find that hilarious, I honestly don't think they'd do that and realistically don't want it to happen; it'd be so cruel to cliffhanger the anime for years like that, and just doesn't feel like a season cliffhanger BSD would do, a series that is ultimately hopeful and uplifting. Seasons 2 and 3 had a positive, conclusive ending; the only reasons seasons 1 and 4 didn't was because they're technically not really full seasons of their own, and are more like the first cour of another "season" that also came out that same year (seasons 1 and 2 both aired in 2016, so they're more like one big season, and seasons 4 and 5 have both aired this year, so they're also more like one big season, again taking into account how episodes 12 and 50 are not satisfying finales like episodes 24, 37, and hypothetically, 61, are). I really can't see season 5 ending with Dazai and Fukuzawa's supposed deaths, Sigma being unconscious and maybe close to death, Atsushi being vulnerable and limbless again, everyone we love still vampires, and the entire world being basically doomed; that's just too depressing and not like BSD at all. However, having said that, if it doesn't end there, there really isn't any good place to end the season before that, either, that feels in any way satisfying or like a finale at all. And so, to me, that only leaves after 109: chapter 110.

I think things are really gonna turn around next chapter. Like I said, everyone is at their lowest point right now, it cannot possibly get any worse, the framing of Dazai, Fukuzawa, and sskk at the end of 109 is telling us that; this is the time for the heroes to finally start winning again, with Aya being so close to pulling out the sword, and for all the thematic reasons other people have talked about to death that I don't need to go into here again. This upcoming chapter being so short again makes a part of me wary of 110 being "the one", so to speak, I won't lie, but at the same time, it's very possible that it needs to be that short because that's all the final episode of the season will be able to reasonably fit in, since it's already gonna be VERY close if they do make it all the way to 109. And at the end of the day, I don't doubt at all that Asagiri and Harukawa can make these the most monumental and game-changing mere 13 pages ever if they wanted to; a chapter does not at all need to be extremely long in order to be an important and impactful one, even if short ones we've gotten in the past haven't felt the most important.

An additional thought I've had, though this is much more crack territory than all this already is, is that since we know from Anime Expo that a Stormbringer movie at some point is highly likely (judging from Asagiri's reaction when someone brought it up), it's possible that chapter 110 and thus the final episode will involve the long-anticipated return of Verlaine and/or Adam, or at least some other major reference to Stormbringer, that would naturally and smoothly lead into a Stormbringer movie to explain things to people who haven't read the novel. It would make a lot of sense, especially since the s4 OP has the Old World sign behind Chuuya, which might be a hint that this has been in the works ever since seasons 4/5 were first in planning with Asagiri. We also know that Dazai and Chuuya's voice actors apparently struggled to record their lines together this season, which probably relates to 101 and possibly 109, but it could be 110 too.... I could be very wrong, as I'm no expert on this kind of thing, but I kinda doubt they would bring Chuuya's actor in for just the vampire growls, and Asagiri placing heavy emphasis on Chuuya's importance this season in that one interview gives me the impression that he's talking about much more than just 101/109. But that's the least solid evidence I have, that's just mostly based on vibes I get.

So basically, I think a lot of factors -- the unusual episode count, how close the anime is to catching up to the manga with three whole episodes left, the seemingly arbitrary recent chapter lengths, and the climactic events of 109 -- can tell us that 110 might be a very, VERY big deal. Again, there's of course no way this arc is anywhere near close to being finished, with so much left to address and resolve, but since it is currently incomplete in the manga, unlike the previously adapted arcs, if the anime was going to adapt it at all, they'd have to find a place that feels satisfying enough to end this season, knowing there won't be more anime for a long time after this, and so I think they specifically planned for that, from both Bones' and A/H's sides. 10 episodes might not have been enough to reach that point, but 12 or 13 might have been too many it wouldn't have been if Bones actually decided to slow down and let the story breathe the way it needs to, but this post isn't meant to criticize the anime, so maybe 11 was just right. And maybe Asagiri and Harukawa specifically pushed to make recent chapters longer than usual, in order to make sure that the manga reached the story content in 110 the monthly release right before season 5 was to end.

Is this just copium? Absolutely. Am I going to look like an absolute clown in two days when this post ages like milk? Probably. But the evidence is There, so let me just enjoy my delusions until Sunday, okay 🥂🫡

[sodafrog13]

i think some people have too much audacity on this website, is all i'll say

[eggsistential-breakdown]

quick and loose (24 hours and counting) thing i tried to finish before move-in i'm calling it here i was defeated 😔 let's see if i can finish it before classes actually start (no) featurnig partial view of my krita setup (default) god be with ye all i need to be doing last minute packing in five-odd hours and then i will not sleep for four entire months god be with y'all

[thoughtspeaker]

I made another art

I attempted to play around a bit with perspective, but I'm not sure how well that worked.

Transparent version as well, though I don't really know how well that's going to do, considering the sword goes further than the image(an intentional detail, but one that may make the transparent background not work as well nonetheless)

[jessicas-pi]

Ben has kind of been having the worst day of his life, what with the dying and all.

It’s a marked improvement when he’s tramping through the forests of Takodana and a familiar voice demands, “Would you believe me if I told you Palpatine was my grandfather?”

He turns around.

Stares.

Rey stands ten feet away, her blaster pointed at him, a challenge in her eyes.

“Would you believe me if I told you Han Solo was my father?” he says, answering the question with a question.

“Yes,” she says, lowering the blaster.

“Well, that answers that,” he replies, turning off his lightsaber.

The silence stretches on.

Takodana is unpleasantly hot.

Why did he ever think wearing all-black was a suitable fashion choice?

Rey falters, apparently not having planned what to say if she got this far. “I suppose this is where we save the galaxy.”

“I suppose so,” he agrees. “To Exogol, then?”

“Have you got the Wayfinder already?” she asks, raising an eyebrow in surprise.

“Picked it up on the way here.”

“Ah. That simplifies things.” She holsters her blaster and sets off at a brisk pace, adding as she brushes past him: “And try not to die this time. It was so inconvenient.”

“You died first,” he mutters.