#is this worth fandom tagging

[desire-mona]

there is something so 90s jimmy fallon about lawrence kutner

[hinamie]

i'm exactly as normal about him as I thought I'd be

[thevioletcaptain]

i genuinely don't care how good a piece of ai generated art or writing looks on the surface. i don't care if it emulates brush strokes and metaphor in a way indistinguishable from those created by a person.

it is not the product of thoughtful creation. it offers no insights into the creator's life or viewpoint. it has no connection to a moment in time or a place or an attitude. it has no perspective. it has no value.

it's empty, it's hollow, and it exists only to generate clicks (and by extension, ad revenue.)

it's just another revolting symptom of the disease that is late stage capitalism, and it fucking sucks.

[the-great-papyru]

i think the thing a lot of papyrus takes get wrong is that they forget that, among other things, papyrus is funny. in my experience writing papyrus, i often find the most funny line is the most in-character one. an unfunny papyrus doesn’t ever feel like an accurate papyrus to me. it’s more than part of the game, it’s part of his character. and disregarding that is what messes up a lot of otherwise good impressions of him.

[mariyekos]

Okay to reblog to help sample size!

[crabsnpersimmons]

"Your heart was in the right place. Don't blame your earnestness and efforts for their lack of understanding—the right people will appreciate your heart."

EDIT: i mention this in the tags already, but please don't copy my vent tags in your reblogs. thanks for understanding.

[syn4k]

seriously though, Alan Becker's Animator vs. Animation series is fucking legendary and for good reason. don't let the fact that all the characters are stick figures delude you into thinking it's a joke. AvA and its spinoff series, AvM (Animation vs. Minecraft) are both well written, complex stories with well-rounded characters and complex arcs that take themselves completely seriously and are also masterclasses in 2d and later 3d animation.

both series include original soundtracks mainly composed by Scott Buckley and they now have a full team of professional animators working on them, even though the project was started by just one guy (Alan). despite having zero lines of dialogue, they clearly and masterfully characterize every single character that's involved by depicting their body language and actions alone. there is love and dedication poured into all of these projects and it shines through in every second of playtime.

also, these feature some of the most jaw dropping choreography and visual effects in fight scenes that ive ever seen in 2d animation ever. the one in AvA s2 alone is higher quality than most fight scenes in almost all modern professionally made movies, in my opinion. alan and his team consistently push the boundaries of what can be done with animation both visually and conceptually and they never fucking miss. like ever. this shit goes so hard

in conclusion: just trust me on this one

[stealingyourbones]

Out of all of the people The Ghost King Phantom expected to relate to, it definitely wasn’t the scrawny red headed photographer of the Daily Planet. Jimmy Olsen has gotten so many temporary superpowers over his time being Superman’s friend. Hell, he once gained a 4th dimensional being’s reality warping abilities when he was given said dimensional being’s powers during a fight. Sure there’s a dozen or so heroes with the same amount of powers he has, but none as suddenly granted to them as a all powerful god that can relate to a teenager.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Happy Valentine's Day! (and this blog's first post anniversary!)

[evilvvithin]

[mossdogs]

last prom

[edelgarfield]

i love shadowgast, i think their journey together learning how to be better people & healing is beautiful.

but nothing annoys me more than when Caleb gets all the credit for Essek's redemption arc, or when Essek's relationship with Caleb is automatically placed on a pedestal above his friendship with the rest of the Mighty Nein.

because it is straight up untrue. it wasn't even Caleb that did most of the legwork reaching out to Essek, it was Jester. Yes, their magic lessons, and Caleb's understanding went a long way towards showing Essek that he could change, but Jester was the one who consistently and repeatedly reached out to him. I am of the firm belief that without Jester, the Mighty Nein would never have gotten past Essek's initial standoffishness.

And furthermore, Caleb was Essek's friend first. I don't think it's ever been confirmed, but IMO most of Essek's initial attraction to Caleb was 1) academic 2) performative, and any genuine physical or romantic attraction didn't start developing until post-reveal. I'm not even convinced Essek was romantically interested in Caleb, or at least able to identify it as such, by the END of the campaign. Essek values Caleb primarily as a friend and any romance on top of that is a bonus.

Essek's relationship with Caleb is not inherently more important than his friendship with the rest of the Mighty Nein just because they're dating. He loves all of them, and expresses that multiple times at the end of CR2. It was their friendship that changed him, not his interest in Caleb. Caleb values the Mighty Nein's friendship more than whatever budding romance he had with Essek. Essek's entire life doesn't, nor should it revolve around Caleb! Caleb is an important part, yes, but he values and needs the love he receives from the rest of the Mighty Nein just as much.

As someone who's aro/ace-spectrum and has little to no interest in romance, every time I see Essek's relationship to the Mighty Nein reduced to his relationship with Caleb, it feels like a slap in the face. It validates my deepest fear that I'm just an accessory in my friends' lives, and that no matter how much I love them or what I do for them, I'm inevitably going to be discarded when someone they want to date comes along.

People will watch 500+ hours of a show that emphasizes over and over the importance of friendship and platonic love then turn around and reduce it to romance alone.

[hinamie]

a tribute to celebrate the finale of the manga that has meant so much to me these past few years

[the-patrex]

blaming @p1neapplerum and @sneakertin for this one.

[tumblezwei]

You know, when it comes to the whole debacle over the amount of mlm fanfic vs wlw fanfic, sometimes I'm like "maybe we are the problem. Maybe people saying g we should just create more instead of complaining have a point."

And then I come across someone saying, unironically, "men are just more interesting." Just. Outright. And it provides me a nice reminder that no, I and others like me are not the problem.

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

On Kurapika's Self-Imposed Isolation

While I recognize that probably everything I'm about to say is going to be super obvious, I just wanted to briefly touch on Kurapika's self-isolation, and the reason behind his not picking up his phone or exchanging anything more than clipped words and business after Yorknew.

I think the obvious answer is that Kurapika doesn't want his friends in harms way, or to be used as a bargaining tool against him. This is an understandable and probably accurate conclusion. After all, Gon and Killua did get taken hostage, and Kurapika was forced to negotiate an exchange. Chrollo picked up on Kurapika's "weakness" right away - that he values his friends' safety before his revenge. Fortunately for Kurapika in this situation, Pakunoda was a whole lot more similar to him than he would've cared to admit, as she placed a value on Chrollo's life even though everyone in the Spider was intended to be replaceable. So, now that he's been through Gon and Killua having potentially gotten killed or seriously hurt, and Chrollo knows that he has a soft spot for them, it does make sense that he would try to push them away for their safety and for the sake of not having an exploitable "weakness" in future. He may also not want to burden them more when they have their own lives to live - he does slip off without telling Gon and Killua for the sake of not distracting them from Nen training, after all.

Except that he already tried all this earlier in Yorknew arc. He tried to tell them they shouldn't get involved, and they all agreed that the risks were massive - but his friends agreed to undergo the risks anyways to help him. Kurapika was even grateful for it - "I have been blessed with good friends."

So, for him to push them away solely for this reason after the fact, knowing that this was very much a likely situation to happen, is a little odd to me. Kurapika knows full well that Leorio would be frustrated, Killua would be offended and Gon would worry. So, I think there's a little more to it than that, and I actually would venture to say that "keeping his friends out of danger" is more a secondary reason for his actions - one that would come across as more of a reasonable excuse to others.

The primary reason is likely a lot more selfish than that. Kurapika has to ensure his mission comes first. And unfortunately, he is fully aware that his path and choice in abilities is deeply self-destructive.

Kurapika needs to make sure that he doesn't have exploitable weaknesses, sure, but he also just as much needs to purposefully worsen his headspace - and he can't do that with those three around.

Think back, what are the happiest moments we see from Kurapika in the series? The one that comes to mind first, and the one I'm sure most of us will think of immediately, is this:

[ID: A screenshot from the 2011 anime adaptation. Kurapika smiles - he looks at ease. End ID.]

It's one of the sweetest scenes of the series imo, right before the whole group is reunited for the first time since the Zoldyck Family arc, and it's even more notable because it comes immediately on the tail end of this...

[ID: Three panels from HxH Chapter 101. Kurapika removes his contacts over the sink. His expression is distant. End ID.]

...and this...

[ID: A panel from HxH Chapter 101. A close up of Kurapika's vacant and furious expression, his eyes wide and dangerous as he says "It might as well be you." Though the art is in black and white, it's apparent his eyes have gone scarlet. End ID.]

...and this.

[ID: A panel from HxH Chapter 101. A distant Kurapika speaks on the phone on a rooftop at night, the cityscape of Yorknew around him dark, but speckled with lights and stars. He says "The Spiders are dead." His face is not visible to the reader. End ID.]

This is, up to this point in the series, Kurapika at his lowest. In contrast to Gon, who is happy to hear that the Spiders are dead already because now Kurapika can focus solely on finding his peoples' eyes, Kurapika... is clearly not happy - and that's because killing the Spiders himself isn't just revenge. It's penance. It's survivor's guilt. Kurapika's powers, which Izunavi even comments sound much like he is chaining himself in the process of chaining his enemies, are oh-so-beautifully prophecied to destroy him - and Kurapika was aware of this from the moment he set off down this path of revenge.

(As a side note, this is why I'm really hoping we see Gon and Kurapika interact again after the Chimera Ant arc - while Gon has always been pretty attentive to Kurapika's emotional state, in Yorknew, he lacks a true understanding of why Kurapika would go so far... but as of now, he understands rage fueled by guilt and grief all too well. I know we're all rooting for Leorio to reach Kurapika, but barring that, I really think Gon could get through to him - after all, they are similar in several ways, and I find it fairly apparent that Gon reminds Kurapika of Pairo.)

But back to the main point here - I do suspect Kurapika expects (if not wants) his revenge mission to destroy him. I think a lot of times, we forget just how young Kurapika is, and how much his character is dictated by honour, and the abandonment of it.

Certainly, he can and will go against his principles for the sake of his mission... yet, almost paradoxically, he's bound to his promise to his fallen clan; a promise to avenge them made in anger.

But Kurapika... doesn't come across as a naturally angry person to me at all.

He seems like the stoic, vengeful type on his initial introduction... and then we get his panic at Gon's recklessness

[ID: A panel from HxH Chapter 2. Kurapika and Leorio wear matching expressions of panic in front of Gon, calling him out for his recklessness. End ID.]

...and his near-immediate forgiveness of Leorio after getting the first inkling of his character - of someone who cares just as fiercely as he does.

And after that point? Almost all through the Hunter Exam? Kurapika smiles so readily at them. He's sharp and funny. He mediates at times, but is stubbornly prideful in others. He's very amused by his friends' antics, and it really does seem like he starts to enjoy himself, with them. And, more than that, he counters Leorio's initial impression of him as an independent loner - on several occasions. He decides to follow Gon because Gon intrigues him. Asides from Gon, it is Kurapika who is the most unwilling to fight each other at the bottom of Trick Tower. Kurapika who makes the first move to team up with Leorio, even though that arrangement benefits Leorio much more than it does him. Kurapika who refuses to abandon Leorio to his fate in the cave, and who checks on Gon after noticing his bad mood. Who was furious enough watching him get beat down by Hanzo that his eyes went scarlet for the first and only instance outside of Spider mentions and Emperor Time. Who quite readily detoured to help rescue Killua.

[ID: Three screenshots from the 2011 adaptation Hunter Exam arc. In the first, Kurapika smiles at a sleeping Leorio. In the second, Kurapika stifles laughter as he pretends he's asleep. In the third, Kurapika has an open-mouthed smile as he acquires the airship tickets for them, Leorio and Gon standing behind him. End ID.]

Look at him! He's so bright! So happy!

...too happy. Too happy to do what he promised himself he would do. And that's his biggest fear, isn't it. Without his rage... what is he left with?

[ID: A panel from HxH chapter 2. A close up of Kurapika's eye as he says "I do not fear death. What I fear is that my rage will one day fade away." End ID.]

Kurapika is far, far less mired in anger when he's with his friends. I actually dare to say that at certain points, he was able to go for lengths of time without thinking much about it - alternating between almost forgetting in one instance and being hit like a sledgehammer on exposure to a reminder in the next. This violent swing is... actually the beginnings of the natural process of healing from loss and trauma. But to Kurapika, who's made a promise to his people's memories, this is not a relief. This is betrayal.

I think that actually scares him, that he can almost picture it. A life beyond his guilt. That he, too, could learn to be happy, even after unimaginable loss.

And so, as Kurapika continues his mission offscreen, finding more and more gruesome reminders of the cruelty inflicted on his people and losing more and more pieces of himself in the process (in his own words, no less), he prioritizes his responsibility to them, and pushes away his distractions. He cannot be a soul at peace until his work is done; he must be in turmoil. He pushes people away who he cares for, and binds himself, and keeps his people's eyes on him, quite literally, because respite, for him, is unacceptable. Perhaps that guilty part of him even hopes, by the end of this, that his soul will be so unrecognizable as to be fundamentally unsalvageable. But the truth of the matter is, or at least what comes across to me, is that Kurapika cares much more fiercely than he hates. He knows what matters most. And for as long as he does, he still hasn't truly lost himself.

[ID: A panel from HxH chapter 350. Kurapika looks down at baby Woble with a gentle, yet complicated expression. The inking is somewhat softer. End ID.]

Kurapika's soul is kind, really. And it wants to heal - but for the sake of his mission, he needs it damaged and bleeding. And so, he forces himself to exist in that pain. All alone.

[ID: A panel from HxH Chapter 344. Kurapika, dressed in a black suit, sits with his back to the reader, looking down at a photo in his hand. He is slumped a little before the church vigil he has prepared, all his clan's eyes lined up in their jars and honoured with flowers and candles. He thinks to himself "There is no home for me to return to... and nobody to welcome me back. I have nothing left." End ID.]