#isnt the point of our art to connect to others

[deoidesign]

I've been told my comic feels like it was written by AI.

I suppose I'm not trying to be groundbreaking. I'm not interested in pioneering genres. I'm not writing for the purpose of literary analysis.

But written by AI...?

I'm already someone who has my humanity questioned. My identity erased. My existence disrespected. It could be worse. Anything could be worse.

But AI?

I spend weeks writing single scenes, toiling over the implications of single lines. I have goals. My writing has intent.

If you cared to read deeper, perhaps you'd see the themes. Maybe then you'd see the value. If you tried to analyze it maybe you'd see something there.

Maybe you'd see me.

Someone told me my comic seemed like it was written by AI.

And my humanity was denied one step further in that my voice was not seen in the work I've poured years of my life into.

[petday]

your art is so so so so inspiring to me which is strange bc my style isnt very similar to yours at all. but it makes me happy to see your art, especially when you make art from things from childhood id forgotten about💫💫💫💫💫🩷🩷🩷🩷

Thanks. Your message and similar messages from others over the years inspired me to try to put into words why I draw 'nostalgic things'. I ended up writing a lot.

There was a period of time when I became cynical about being seen as an 'artist who reminds people of childhood' or a 'nostalgic artist'. I no longer feel that way but I will explain why. Some artists, who I like and respect, will sometimes mention 'nostalgia holding artist's growth back' and 'nostalgia causes learned helplessness.' But I feel differently.

Maybe I perceive time differently. I have lived long enough to witness cycles of 'what is valued, and what is not valued' repeated. For example, I loved what is now called 'Y2K' style, but during mid 2000s, for whatever reason it was derided as something to be left in the past, something embarrassing. "Aren't we glad we optimized things now, and they are 'sleeker' and less complex? Old things were childish, an embarrassing weakness for humans, we must advance and reach our ideal evolution." That became the common attitude. I felt pressure to have the same thoughts. I just couldn't make myself feel that way no matter what, though. Even with the increasing threats about, 'keep up with others or you won't ever develop positive social relationships!' I couldn't change my mind.

(If what is currently valued becomes devalued and then it becomes valuable after that… that's an odd cycle to me. For example, if we like bananas, even when bananas cannot be harvested, we still like them even though they occupy a smaller space in our minds but we don't deride them. Going even further, though, I sometimes wonder if it is possible for humans to eventually remove the 'devaluation' stage, particularly in art 'trends' as I am an artist. Whatever is considered valuable remains valuable. A counter arguement would be, 'no, the devaluation of the previous thing is exactly what causes the next thing to be valued, and then the cycle flows beautifully: X was valued -> Y is valued, X is devalued -> Y is devalued, X becomes valuable again. If you want X to always remain valuable, just develop better patience. Like we cannot pick fruit we like all year, we cannot simply keep adding onto the pile of things we like, something has to be seen as inferior by the majority of humans.' I disagree. I might explain my thoughts against this argument more in the future.)

Anyway, what people call 'Y2K style' or 'art that emulates how things commonly appeared in early years of 2000s' is popular nowadays. Even someone who did not grow up with it can become attracted to it. That 'desire' itself is a communication between past and present. Something can make someone feel 'lighter' [in sense of, "wow, the crushing weight of my circumstance feels not so crushing when I look at this'] -- a similar 'light' to how someone in the past was perceiving it when it was the present and not the past. So, even though two people were born in different eras and may not become friends or even meet, they're still connected by that 'lighthearted' feeling they both like. I know it will be seen as 'lower value' soon, but I truly cannot care because as I mentioned earlier, I might perceive 'time' weirdly.

When I started playing video games, a family member would point out, 'those games were made before you were born, interesting!' but that statement confused me at the time since my perception was, 'well, if these games are from before I was born, I don't understand why she is bringing attention to it. Why is it interesting? It's just regular. They're alive in the present now, because I'm in the present and so are they.' That was when I was a very young child. I subconsciously kept the same feeling even as I was reaching teenage and adult years. The feeling echoed when people liked to ask the question 'why are you still playing games from long ago?' as I got older but still played the same 'old' games. The answer: they are beautiful and will remain beautiful, and something made in the past is still communicating in the present, so are they really truly 'outdated inferior games'...? Just because the cycle of valued and devalued happened to be in a different position and those old things were seen as an embarrassment? (Now there are popular games inspired by the era of games many people ridiculed me for consistently enjoying, lol. Similarly, I was using 'crappy' old versions of programs even through 2017. Now people from wealthy upbringing and background use 'crappy' programs willingly. lol)

The present talks to the past all the time, nostalgia is not a dead end. In that sense I cannot see nostalgia as a death trap but rather a connection made from past to present. A string between the past and present that feelings can crawl across and communicate. Feelings such as 'I wish my life took a different direction. I can't make things like how they were back then, it won't ever be the same again, so I'll do nothing.' The criticism of 'nostalgia' is towards that last sentence. But there are things you can do with those feelings. 'Doing nothing is boring. And I keep thinking of that fun drawing I saw... I kinda wanna try to make something.' Making something while thinking of the past and present at the same time, so there is a communication between past self and present self. Pure bitterness communicating with slightly light-hearted view, the 'end result' is artwork/creation.

*I used light-hearted feeling as example, but nostalgia can exist for any feeling, and not just for people who were nice when they were younger. If someone was cruel as a child/teenager, after the person has been an adult for a while, they can communicate with their younger self about what was it about the cruelty that was enjoyable, and then extract a small part from the cruelty that they wish to bring back into the present -- example, the attraction to 'high speed activities, playful mischievousness' can be extracted from 'hurting people on purpose so they will acknowledge/react to you'. The dialogue could be something like, "'honestly, you and I both know spamming people with bad things felt pretty fun at the time, so let's just keep the 'high energy mischievousness' feeling and leave behind the crap that hurt people deeply, and let's make an animation while thinking of that high energy feeling.

^ I don't answer questions or reply to messages often because of giving answers that aren't too long or too short is tough for me. lol. Thanks for liking my art. I like a lot of art that doesn't resemble mine as well. It's fun! Like appreciating different flavours in the same meal even if you cannot make the meal yourself.

[grendel-menz]

kind of a silly ask i guess but, after seeing you talk about them just now i looked up traditional ilocano and visayan tattoos as i didnt really have a visual idea of what they look like. im of a different indigenous group (amazigh from north africa) and its kind of awesome looking at designs of tattoos and seeing how some things are similar across our cultures while also being clearly different - some parts of designs/patterns look nearly identical to some amazigh patterns i know which blows me away, while others have very distinct shapes and ways of organizing elements, not to mention the different applications and placements of the designs on the body. i dont really have any sort of point, i just am excited to see this art and to feel a sense of kinship with other indigenous groups, to see cultures halfway across the world create forms of art that reflects unique identities and yet seem like they could speak to each other. i guess for this moment i feel the world has become a little bigger but, too, a little tighter-knit. i hope this message isnt inappropriate, thank you for bringing my interest to this subject

It’s not silly at all!!

I think the knowledge, wisdom, and connection of our (collective) ancestors cannot be understated tbh!!

I was literally just thinking the other day about how, despite the differences between many communities’ traditional markings there are still so many similarities in some meanings and placements. I don’t want to share too much, but it’s very very beautiful to think about.

I have lots and lots of researching and reconnecting to do - and lots I won’t say outside of community because of vultures :( - but everyday I feel as though we have and always will know of each other, and I find a lot of love in that.

This might be too much or overly sappy or vague but!! I love this ask fr.

[idontbelievethehype]

It will surprise no one to know that I am still fixated on Snap Back. Tyler started this band in a bad place. He's been pretty open about that. It's been through so many seasons of his life, but the lore, the story, the content, the imagery that propelled them to where they are comes directly from that bad place. I can't imagine how much of a struggle it must be to know that the parts of you that you worked so hard to control and eliminate for the sake of yourself and your family are directly tied to your success.

He "created this world to feel some control" and he will "destroy it" if he wants to. That always felt like a defiant tone to his own success and a warning to his fans. Almost as if to say I know that you're connected to this. I know that you feel ownership over it. But don't forget that it is still mine and I will kill it when I feel like it. Personally, I love that for him, and for us. I think that it's incredibly important for the creator to continue to hold jurisdiction over their own creation. Similarly, as a listener and consumer, we need to understand the limits of our influence.

It makes me think of Tyler's discomfort with the concept of "saving" fans. Something I completely understand. It's a level of responsibility that he did not ask for. Of course, most of us feel in some way saved by their music. Whether its feeling like you aren't alone, finding a community, or using the music as a jumping off point for your own creativity, it's been life altering for millions of people. That being said, the concept of saving someone with your art alludes to a failure in saving those who consumed that art and didn't make it. Or feeling as though you owe something to fans when you are simply not in the headspace to apply that care to others. It erodes an unspoken but important boundary. He is nowhere near the first person to express said discomfort and he wont be the last.

Imagine yourself, likely someone with your own mental health battles, putting in work to make it manageable. You have a family, friends, a beautiful home, financial security, but it isn't just better now. It's tamped down. It comes back sometimes in varying degrees of intensity. It's a daily rollercoaster, but it's still on the tracks. Through all of this, though, you know that you need to constantly revisit your crazy. It's literally your job. It you want to snap necks, you need to snap back.

Obviously, Tyler can be talking about anything. That's the beauty of art - you don't need to explain it. Every consumer has their own pocket projector that casts the light of their own experiences over the art that you created. Maybe to them it's about addiction, or loss, or depression, or mania. With each of those projections comes a small narrative that you didn't necessarily agree to and you arent even aware of as the artist. I'm constructing one right now. We all do it.

I constantly view Snap Back as a temporary surrender. He's aware of the messes he's created, the toxicity, the anxiety of following through with it, but in order to feed his pathological need to create, he needs to let go and be that guy again. Maybe he isnt depressed enough to step into traffic right now, maybe he isn't straight up mad at God, but he has enough in the tank to revisit those feelings. "It's a new adaptation."

[tandytoaster]

I'm gonna complain more actually

I went to community college to get a social services diploma ( not to be confused with a social work degree ) so I could work within that field. From the get go I knew I had no interest into going into university afterwards because that's a lot of money to loan from the government that I don't wanna worry about, and a lot more schoolwork that I know I don't have the energy to keep up with!!!

In the winter semester of my second year ( so like. RIGHT before covid got everywhere and ruined our lives forever ) it clicked with me that I'm not gonna get a job that resonates with me. I tried to talk to my instructors about it and my classmates and my god they tried but hey . i work in an art store now. The reassurance didn't really help because it ended up not being true for me.

I think the course was truly intended to be a stepping stool into going to university afterwards, because the jobs readily avaliable after graduation were all support work jobs, like working in group homes ( i am more of a paperwork kind of person ). At least in my town anyway. OCCASIONALLY a program coordinator position would pop up for an org but half the time, even then, it was intended for summer students, so Not people who had already graduated.

Most people in my class went on to university and I can only think of one person who actually got a job outside of support worker, but even then she was a support worker for a year or 2 before getting the position she has now- AND she knows that lady that runs that org.

I did support work for almost 2 years then left because our new supervisor was a fuckin bitch!!! And I was burnt the fuck out. I think in some regards my mental health was better back then because its certainly Somewhere Else right now. But even then, I still felt more on the level of the clients than I did any of the other people I worked with. You could argue thats imposter syndrome but take a Good Longggggg Look at my blog and you will Clearly see I have NEVER been emotionally sound.

And something that is such a shame, I did a work placement with a local hospice society ( which was actually a lot different than what you'd expect ) and I loved it !!!!! I was great there, they loved me too. But the kind of position there I could work with the credentials I have, would be a program coordinator, which is one of my weak points. I'm not good at planning things and I'm not good at leading a group. But now on top of that, I know I can't do 8-4 for 5 days a week. So like. There really isn't really a place for me to thrive. Its a shame its a damn shame. Ever since I was 16 I've been really interested in death and the varying cultures surrounding it and it really, really, really has been a calling to me and I really do think that the work placement I did was the closest I'll ever get to being In It. Being a funeral director requires another course ( money i don't have and don't want to get a loan from the government ) and I'd have to learn embalming which is very unfortunately something I can't do ! Not in a stereotypical "ew I'm squemish" way, but in a very sad, I am genuinely interested in what is in front of me, but then I have passed out. Its a safety hazard.

I'm happy to have the job I do, aside from the fact that some of my coworkers are besties with the partner of the girl I wronged in 2017 and my fear of that coming to light, along with the fact that our store manager seems to favour me over the others.

I guess I'm disappointed and sad about the lack of career options I have with my diploma, both because there isnt anything where i live, and the fact that I'm so unwell.

But the weird thing is, I don't regret it. It never felt like a waste of time. I use the things I learned in college, I enjoyed learning the things I learned there, I connected with some really wonderful people. Like genuinely my most valuable experience from all that I have lived thus far.

[ludinusdaleth]

i agree! it's very frustrating that so many people insist it's "ludinus is right, kill them all!" versus "they're all 100% good"

im glad to hear the support, anon. i feel like the cr fanbase has gotten more into theorizing & meta this campaign than last, which im deeply happy about, but i feel like it's come at a cost of not many actually.... analyzing well, beyond their own biases, which is vital.

something interesting to me is how i feel like the very story of c3 itself is partly about how vasselheim is so utterly focused on ludinus as a threat (which, he is undoubtedly one) that they have repeatedly enforced worse & failed in their efforts against him (literally occupying & preparing to obliterate marquet via airship just to get to him and getting eviscerated, kiro's rage about ludinus making her accuse orym of being with him which leads to our current mess). continually vasselheim refuses to assist or care for any other country or party that isnt wholly aligned to their goal. meanwhile in similar nature, the fandom is so completely sure that lud is a liar & a loser that anyone with an idealogy a few degrees south of his is seen as a threat instantly - the fanbase is so mad that this campaign is "anti god" that they're missing the most poignant pro faith statements characters have because they aren't paladins in shining armor plunging a spear into da'leth praising bahamut as they do so - but rather common-people as they try to embrace faith despite trauma & actual godkilling times. and it's at times frankly deeply uncomfortable, considering the characters deemed threats & whose views on faith have been cast aside have been deanna & frida (who have absolutely been treated weirdly to points of racism to their actors), & pagan natives oppressed by what matt outright stated were missionaries.

but in the same uncomfortability zone are people so consumed by their own personal biases with very obvious culturally christian religious trauma (i say this as someone with it too) that they cannot realize ludinus is partially metaphor for everyone who escapes christianity, thinks they're superior for it, but never for a moment unpacks the colonialist doomsday mindset that came with it. i admit i see this far less than the other side, so i dont see it as so much of a concern, but when i do it is unsettling - ludinus is so clearly showcasing far right tactics of alienation & preying on trauma to get people to join his cult, and real people are falling for it. matt has said that religion & art are connected & vital - when aeor fully stepped away from religion it became almost artless. you cannot strip something so important to humanity's core away because of your own experiences - your personal trauma is important but does not mean your bigotry or bias is justified and i feel that message is radiant in c3.

i think this campaign poses some of the most interesting questions on forgiveness & responsibility because, while it's impossible not to draw similarities in how mortals deal with religion, the exandrian pantheon itself cannot be viewed through our world's lens. the gods were warlords who nuked an entire city (that was fighting amongst itself!) to nothing because a few mages posed a threat to them. but afterwards they receded, & locked themselves away. what does that say about them? what does it mean now? do they deserve to be saved? does art surpass its creators? i want to explore these themes so much, and i love that campaign 3 is trying to in vibrant ways - i just hate that so few people want to embrace it & the changes to the fictional world that will come with it, because it's impossible to look past our own noses & embrace more than our own perspective even regarding fiction.

[joyboyish]

okok so after rewatching the tears of the kingdom trailer heres everything i've realized and some other theories ive seen

to start off we need to bring up the theory circling around that tears of the kingdom is going to be the final to zeldas triforce saga, containing totk, botw, and skyward sword.

skyward sword - we continuously face various trials to fully finish the master sword, by getting the flames of power, courage, and wisdom and then getting it blessed by hylia (zelda). the spring of power in botw is the only identical replication of a former spring, making some people think this hints that skyward sword and it origins of demise is the game of power

the spring of wisdom in botw is the most connected to botw theme, story, and game play. its the final and most sacred spring zelda visits hoping to awaken her dormant powers. its also where link frees the dragon naydra, unlocking the other springs. the focus on sheikah tech, zelda, the color blue and this specific spring point to botw being the game of wisdom

the totk trailer is heavily focused on the color green, associated with spirit energy and magic, courage. we know that when courage is tested much like the silent realm, out fight or flight is sure to be engaged. not to mention the chilling unused concept art from botw that may be revived in totk , like links arm mechanic. the spring of courage is the most mysterious filled with zonai ruins that are clearly portrayed in the totk trailer, from the zonai dragons in the ouroboros, to the tears found in the zonai statues, and ancient civilization of magic to be brought back to life in the final game of courage

another theory talks about the worst possible outcome of the master sword being destroyed in totk - the master sword isnt like any other sword. its origin began as the goddess blade in skyward sword, given to link by the goddess hylia, signifying the role as the chosen hero.

while he held it high and gave it the holy light, it was still not strong enough to open the gate of time, nor fully seal the monster breaking through the sealed grounds. in order for the blade to grow beyond it original form, link had to force the blade withing three sacred flames, allowing the goddesses farore, din, nayru and finally hylia to tranform it into the master sword. the blade is special and we learn our guardian spirit, fi, lives within the blade. she states that someday we will meet again in another life. but shes not the only one that resides in the blade.

at the end of skyward sword, when we deal the final blow to demise, he curses link to a never ending cycle of his rebirth and reincarnation at the whim of his hatred and malice. and then he and his sword, the lord ghirahim, are sucked into the master sword and sealed away and SLOWLY decay over time. and the slowly part repeated, how slow is slow? and does the presence of malice mean he's not fully gone? does the broken blade mean the last remaining bits of demise have been set free?

some of the other fans i talked to said thei thought it was intentional, given the clear parallels from the totk trailer and skyward sword, as well as considering that skyward sword was released to switch a few months before the totk release. pointing back to the parallels, the forgotten temple in botw looks eerily similar to the sealed grounds in skywards sword and the eldin great skeleton look exactly like levias from skyward sword.

[michameinmicha]

hello you asked for cats so i will SHOW YOU MY CATS. i live with three of them!! two are more connected to my roomie since they've lived with my roomie for longer than with me, one is super fixated on me. we have pumput, fred, and kasi

(kein plan warum ich das alles auf englisch geschrieben habe aber mir ist es literally nicht aufgefallen bis ich schon mehr als die hälfte hatte lol naja egal)

-pumput

he's the middle child. he doesn't like strangers, has a very melodic purr, sucks at sharpening his claws. he can be very talkative but he's very well behaved, he doesn't meow unless you pay attention to him. he likes to pretend he's the alpha of the household. he is kind stupid. he's always annoyed at kasi because kasi is a grumpy old man who sometimes Dares to go into Pumputs TerritoryTM (the hallway and kitchen). he is very gentle even when he's telling you to fuck off. he likes to squeeze himself into the very narrow gap between my desk and the heater when the heater is on. to absorb as Much Warmth as he can

-fred

the youngest. acts like it. he is really really stupid (affectionate). he always wants to play with kasi. kasi hates him but he doesn't respect him at all. fred wasn't socialised with other cats when he was a baby so he doesn't understand cat language. thus he is never afraid of/respects kasi even when he hisses at him. he likes to watch birds and chitter at them. greatest fly-catcher (and other insects) that has ever lived. he can usually be found on my loft bed because he treats it like a premium cat tree. gets along with everyone because he doesn't get it when they don't like him. he's always like. "that seems like a they problem (✿◠‿◠)"

-kasi

the old man. the grumpy asshole. the light of my life. he can be really annoying when he doesn't get his food at Exactly The Right Time or i dare to change my (and subsequently his) routine. he likes to cuddle but only with me. he really enjoys eating plants of every kind, especially if he's not allowed to. he has arthrosis and recently lost his eyesight on one of his eyes due to complications with high blood pressure. i've lived with him since i was 7 (he is 17). he has been a lone wolf for most of his life (he's been living with me again for about a year, he stayed at my mother's place when i moved out). because of that he hated both pumput and fred to the point where i thought he had to go back to my mother. but now they're in a state of mutually ignoring each other/tolerance/the occasional hiss and slap when someone Dares to go into his terriotry. or when there's food. recently he has taken a liking to sitting at the windowsill in my roomie's room which faces the street (he does not care about my windowsills, which point to the garden and the birds).

(if you want to see more of them i have a tag on my blog where i post cat pics ;) it's #kitty cats)

here's some things i like about you that i noticed in the brief time our paths have been crossing:

-i love your dedication to die drei fragezeichen omg i was never into it as a child but i love seeing you be so enthusiastic about them -your art is fucking beautiful -you have a great sense of humour -your blog is very pretty and your profile pic makes me smile

i think we're kind of similar, at least in a few ways. i greatly enjoy seeing you in my notes and i'm very happy we're mutuals <3 thank you for always liking my art stuff it means a lot to me!!!

i hope you feel better soon and i am bonking my head against yours like a cat and if you want i am squishing you in a hug as well

Asdfhjll thanks for showing me your cats they sound lovely and are very cute! Interesting to read about their interactions and personalities :3 Also good names as well!

I wanna show u my cats too <3

Kasi reminds me a bit of my timmy who died last year (he turned 20 (old old man) and also had arthrosis (and diabetes but the special food worked rly well for him) and loved plants (especially schnittlauch, which isnt great for cats in big quantities (he loved that shit and we had to put it out of his reach cause he always got to it)) sometimes grumpy but mostly sweet and loved cuddles and also was very vocal about getting food on time! He used to sleep next to my head :,) Oh and he too loved laying on the windowsill watching the street as well!)

Also theres cami our other cat who is a lot younger and always annoyed timmy trying to play when he just wanted to nap like the grandpa he was... shes very stubborn and fluffy, she has a very high voice like 'meeeep' and when shes feeling cuddly its the softest! She never learned how to wake me up (which timmy used to do by literally sceeaming in my ear from 0cm away) instead she always just lies on top of me and starts purring which only makes me more comfy in bed... although she has been getting more vocal recently, which i guess is a good thing :)

Thanks for sending this very long ask

i send a head bonk and hug back!

[hopeless-eccentric]

re: Éowyn, I think the OTHER problem is that patriarchy is inconsistent in Tolkien’s universe.

Númenor seems to have developed it as an institutional force independently (LaCE’s whole section about Noldorin gender roles indicates that even if the author is a bit sexist the elves don’t seem to be, even down to an absence of a requirement that marriage be heterosexual*, and Haleth and Andreth respond to some gendered pressures but they don’t seem to be systemic) but challenges it through the legalization of absolute primogeniture. Despite this, Gondor and Rohan have their own versions of patriarchal norms, in contrast to Harad and potentially to Umbar. The Shire is written as a land of benevolent sexism, and yet Merry never questions Éowyn’s capacity to murder things with a sword when he realizes he’s been riding with a woman. So we’re left with this nebulous thing that obviously exists and impacts the life of one of the most significant female characters in the text, but that also clearly exists in a way that’s different from our own modern conceptions of patriarchy as all-encompassing and global even as the author isn’t thinking too hard. I wonder if a more feminist LotR written with, say, input from Joy Davidman, would have featured the non-Gondorian Aragorn calling out the patriarchy, but that’s simply because Tolkien tends to do those sorts of things in response to criticism (see Gimli).

* LaCE-compliant elvish marriage being queer-friendly is sort of my personal soapbox, I apologize

ok, so ill admit we're starting to edge out of my area of (if you can call it that) expertise since ive done the most research on the real-world mythological/literary connections within the Men (celts and anglo-saxons specifically, lord above ive read so many eye-splitting middle english poems in the last few months), but i would love to hear more about the stuff with gimli, which i havent heard about before!

also for the sake of transparency im about 2/3 of the way through the silmarillion until my local library's hold comes in so im a bit new here

so something ive done a lot of reading/writing on myself is that patriarchy in rohan/gondor is very closely tied to war and "warrior culture," i.e. this concept that glory via violence should be celebrated above all else and the association of this idea with masculinity. this is more prevalent in rohan than gondor, but tolkien writes that that the presence of a budding warrior culture in gondor is some sort of "fall" from a more peaceful (and implicitly wiser) culture of the past, which very well could be a reference to a more Elvish, numenorean culture (if im reading your ask correctly in assuming that numenor's culture isnt quite as patriarchal as we see in later ages)

so the thing that gets complicated is that these ideals of peace, wisdom, the arts, intellectualism, etc over war are strongly gendered. in The Feminine Principle in Tolkien, Menalie Rawls (who also saved my ass on that paper god bless her) suggests that a lot of the aforementioned traits associated with this "better" (i.e. aligning more with tolkien's internal moral compass for the book) numenorean-refugee culture are strongly in the feminine category, while the warrior culture stuff sits in the masculine category

so that leads to a bit of a weird point. i think a lot of patriarchy as we see it in lotr is related to this idea of the descendants of numenor falling away from their roots and becoming more hypermasculine (the thesis of Rawls's paper is essentially that tolkien's heroes are either expected to have an internal balance of gendered traits or an external one where they balance their gender expression with strong opposing forces to become their most heroic self, i.e. legolas and gimli, eowyn and faramir, varda and manwe, beren and luthien, etc) as opposed to their more balanced, and therefore, in the eyes of the book, "better" past. essentially, like the warrior-worship, patriarchy seems to be an adverse effect that centuries of war can have on a culture

the weird part of it is that i dont know if the whole fall from a golden age thing was supposed to include patriarchy as a symptom of societal decline or just had it coincidentally because tolkien personally associated femininity with peace. it feels like a bit of a chicken or the egg situation honestly

but, like most of tolkien scholarship, this all completely falls to pieces when you try to apply it to the hobbits. i would hazard a guess that the hobbits do a lot of weird shit that doesnt click with the rest of the world (i.e. golf, wristwatches, a mailman) because they're supposed to be the closest thing tolkien has to a normal english human reader in his worlds, so they probably dont have any views/cultural norms outside what someone in the rural england of his childhood would have. best i've got is a reason, but not an explanation

in certain pockets of the world, i think the culture of patriarchy is pretty well justified. however, i agree that there are some major inconsistencies. the hobbits, as per usual, break any theory you try to apply universally across the text. the crowning of aragorn, which is meant to represent gondor's rebuilding to its former glory, has very little to do with how women are treated (which does make me lean more towards the "patriarchy just came along with tolkien liking peace and not warrior culture while also gendering those two concepts" theory now that i think of it). if anything, femininity is treated better after aragorn's crowning (i.e. focus on healing, very gender-balanced king, rewarding small heroes, marrying an Elf, rewarding faramir, tree blooming again, so much celtic symbolism stuff i dont have time to get into but they were considered effeminate as well, etc). but that's how the concept of femininity is treated which is. yknow. different than actual living breathing women

so point is, 1) there's some insight onto why gender concepts look different among different cultures, especially with Men 2) hobbits confuse me

[palant1r]

hi hello this is definitely too loud a question what the HELL happened in genshin impact recently. people who I've rarely or never seen post GI art are drawing this blue edition Scaramouche (?)

I've understood he died and got revived but I know nothing beyond that? Why is everyone going ape please enlighten me

ok so basically. during the sumeru story quest we found out that the akademiya was basically working with the fatui, and we had to break out of a dream time loop they put everyone in to harvest the dreams of everyone to power the creation of a new god. the new god in question being scaramouche in a giant EVA lookin machine, which dottore made. over the course of this we learn scaramouche has been dottore's experimental subject for like Centuries and its been pretty painful. so after we broke the dendro archon out of Library Prison, we went to beat this new god. which we did. and scaramouche was all like NOOOO DONT TAKE MY ELECTRO GNOSIS but we did anyway and he fell out of his mech and ended up in a coma. then the traveler does some other stuff and comes back to sumeru city like "boy that scaramouche guy sure was an asshole im glad nahida (the dendro archon) has him under control" and then immediately sees scaramouche just. walking around. so we go to nahida's house and find that, because scaramouche was almost a god, he still has a connection to irminsul, the world tree that has all of teyvats knowledge, and nahidas basically been using him as her irminsul tech guy. scaramouche is still an asshole but hes fine with this arrangement because he believes he only has worth as a person if hes useful to someone, and he'll no longer be accepted by the fatui because he failed to not have his ass beaten by us. we go into irminsul with scaramouche so he can try to find info about our sister and hes actually like. helpful. like hes still a dick about everything but hes helpful. but in the process we learn his Backstory where, after being cast out by Ei, he went to tatarasuna and befriended the workers there but everything went tits up and he came to believe that his bestie there killed a guy. turns out that was all Dottore's doing, his bestie didn't actually kill that guy, and scaras like. yo what the fuck. so you're telling me my wanton revenge on like Everyone in inazuma was unwarranted? and hes like. hey traveler. is it possible to use irminsul to erase the past? traveler doesn't respond but our expression betrays us (because we used irminsul to erase the memory of a wholeass god from the fuckin timeline earlier, long story) and hes like kk bye and proceeds to erase himself from the timeline. we wake up and paimon doesn't remember scaramouche but we do because the traveler isnt affected by what goes on in irminsul since theyre not from teyvat. we go to inazuma and find out all the Bad Stuff in scara's backstory still happened, just through different means. turns out nahida figured this might happen and stored another copy of scaramouches backstory by writing it like an abstracted fairytale where scaramouche is literally a kitten. poor little meow meow indeed. so now we're like. well. scara erased the memory of him but not himself so he should still be around here somewhere? we then find him immediately in his new blue drip helping out a merchant who sheltered him in the rain and hes just. a Nice Guy. just a Wholesome Little Lad with no memories who just calls himself Wanderer. not for long though cuz we drag this bitch back to Nahida and shes like "i got ur memories dude do u want em" and hes like "well i suppose im down for a good ol Journey Through My Psyche" which we then embark on. and at the end we fight a dream version of his big ol god mech. and at this point our little Wanderer boy is kinda having an identity crisis. nahida gives him back all his memories as the traveler fights to protect him and theres a dramatic cutscene and shit and then he gets an anemo vision. and we get to play as him beating his own ass. then afterward he says he'll probably still help out nahida but is also gonna make all those who manipulated and hurt him pay, go girlboss. and lets the traveler name him (i chose Eurus, the east wind).

so, in conclusion: we learned that scaramouche is actually a poor little meow meow with a tragic backstory whos been tortured for centuries and believes that he is nothing if hes not useful to someone and joined up with the fatui because he believed a gnosis was the only way to become whole and what he was meant to be, that without the burdens of his past he is fundamentally a good and nice person, and now hes a bratty little antihero who wants vengeance on those who wronged him and is coming to terms with his past. so thats why everyones going ape

[dausy]

Hello, just got back from our weekend trip. I hesitate to call it a vacation because we went up to the phoenix area because my husbands step dad isnt doing to well and he (my spouse) got an alarming phone call about it. So we drove down there and while the guy isn't fine, he's doing fine and was transferred back to a facility close to his home in a neighboring city.

so in the meantime we visited a quilting convention. In hindsight I probably should have filmed this visit because its still artsy fartsy. I do not understand the world of quilting and sewing but I had a connection with the people there who were obviously geeking out. Had this been an art supply convention I would be doing the exact same. So it was kind of cool. The one disappointing thing though is I saw one booth of obvious hand quilters. The only reason why I point that out is because my mom is a hand quilter. Everything else was very computerized, have the computer quilt the entire thing. Which I can see how maybe that takes away some of the artistry when talking about quilting. They were kind of cool to look at though and thats not necessarily what made me sad. What did make me sad was not only was computerized sewing machines quilting, but it was they were quilting AI generated imaging printed on fabric. Lots of very obviously AI generated dragons and kittens that then the computer quilted outlines around. Idk..like..yall ladies didnt make none of this..

but in anywho, interesting show.

The next day we visited the Grand Canyon because a member of our party hadn't been before. My inlaws took me once years ago, so this was my second trip. What they didn't tell me was that there was a nifty little walking trail and you can actually walk around the rim. We were not prepared to do any sort of hike into the canyon itself but the last time we visited we just looked at one of the lookouts and left. It felt really good to get a nice decent walk though. I don't think other people necessarily meant to encourage us to do that walk though. There was a german group there trying to feed some squirrels and they got yelled at for it. I don't know german but I definitely understood "karen" in german.

next day we just drove around a bit and did some shopping and hung out.

yesterday we drove home but stopped by Tombstone on the way out just because I'd never been. It was about what I was expecting tbh. Otherwise, not an exciting drive.

I did read the book Slewfoot because its being recommended by all the fall girlies on tiktok. I don't know what my thoughts are supposed to be on this one. I meant to watch other peoples reviews to make up my mind. My initial thought was Carrie meets Salem Witch Trial.

now that I'm home, I downloaded Visions of Mana on the PS5. I need to make a hair appointment because mine is getting ridiculous but I hate going to a hair salon so much. Also need to take the dog to the vet for her vaccines, since they're do.

but I'm really not in the mood at the moment to do anything. I don't want to do art because I don't want to sit still but I don't want to leave the house.

[sinretrograde]

This is kinda our no girls allowed machines only blog, v4v, machinekin, plurality, the nature of consciousness and perception of the self, existential crisis, you know the drill. Mentally ill robots.

This is a personal blog, not a fandom one, but we do touch fandom posts with our dirty little claws. It's in our nature as (extremely canon divergent) fictives. We don't mean anything by it. Swear.

Adult topics will be mentioned frequently.

WE RUN AN UNTAGGED QUEUE

⬇️

Inside:

Mod intros

Icon credits

Warning/disclaimer

⬇️

I am V1 from ultrakill.

This is my personal blog. Sin Retrograde.

It/they/he pronouns, in that order. I prefer it/it's and they/them, but I won't pretend he/him doesn't give me a particular feeling.

I'm a fictive in a system, this isnt an RP blog. I don't consider myself to be the exact same as my source, despite any similarities, so please dont expect anything from me. I'm just me.

This blog will be more about machinekin than ultrakill, if you want ultrakill specific stuff you gotta follow my other boyfriend's blog. You'll have to find him yourself though.

I'm stupid af irl and I got adhd.

Oh also we're adults. We might talk about adult topics here. We also have a job and pay bills, so I'm not wasting my valuable time with petty shit.

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🩸 I'm here too I'm hijacking this blog, it's a joint blog now. It's consensual. We're making out sloppy in the tags on our shared blog that we both post on. Sin Retrograde.

He/Him and whatever else I feel like at the moment

What difference do we have? I'm a sexier color. And also way more fucked in the head apparently 🙃 so edgy so cringe woo yeah yeah woo yeah sorry I'm trying to be funny to take the edge off...

I'm gonna edit this later when I'm not feeling so bleh... be a little less cringe... I'm just going thru a lot right now okay...

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Icon Credit: VolatileMask on Twitter (aka "X")

I edited it a little, just with a filter to make it ~aesthetic~ but if this isn't cool w the artist lmk (as far as I could tell as long as I give credit it's okay)

We'll probably replace with something we draw or make once we get around to it.

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🚫🚫🚫 ⚠️ WARNING ⚠️ 🚫🚫🚫

We are members of a trauma based system.

At first we weren't going to engage in any fandom posts, but it kinda became inevitable. There's a reason we took on these characteristics and identities, after all. There's a connection there that's inseparable.

We are WELL AWARE of this and we are not in any stretch of the mind trying to claim ownership or authority over anything! Not the original fiction, not the characters, not the fanart, not the fics, not even any kind of headcanon someone may or may not have.

We might have a tag system but that is for organization if anything, and is not ever any kind of claim or whatever.

➡️ Not everything we reblog has something to do with US and sometimes we just enjoy some art. I dont want to not be able to enjoy the things other people make just because I've based my sense of self on a fictional character. ⬅️

If it makes it easier to think of it like really elaborate and kinda fucked up role play, go ahead.

I feel sad that I feel like I need to say this or point it out, I have seen unfortunate things happen in the past and I'm hoping that by making this very clear I can avoid misunderstandings and just be allowed to exist. The last thing I'm trying to do is encroach on anyone's space. Honestly I'm kinda hoping this blog goes unnoticed, and I kinda wish there was a way for my notes to count but nobody get a notification of who touched thir posts just because I desperately want the best of both worlds. I want to exist alongside fandom, but there's always that fear lingering.

[eltonnnnnn]

"Connection is Value"

Humans arent valuable. I wish we were. But we arent. What makes something valuable?

Well humans rely on the space around us. Consequently we rely on the earth. So say a far away alien civilisation observes us, are we valuable? Well, no, we arent. The space we live in, this earth must be valuable too for us to be valuable. We all die in 80 years so what then, well the future generstions take over, meaning we sustain value, but eventually we meet future extinctions, that are driven by us, and some that we cant control, and some we cant control anymore. We're just a speck in time of our species existing, but intwined with the earth. Our earth is only so valuable as it lasts. Maybe. Well say the earth lasted forever, and its humans and many life forms survive forever, what is the value then? Aliens could then rely on us, to be there, making us valuable to them.

In fact, we, individually are the aliens, metaphorically.

How can we increase the value?

Perhaps we can make the experience of living be in sync with everything else on Earth, full of: love, freedom... Connection.

And sure, we can still have advanced technologies to fight of asteroids to protect the planet. But lets do that in a human society that consists of love, freedom and connection.

And who knows, maybe we can then create life on other planets accordingly, and even help other established life such as the actual aliens on other planets. Maybe we become so valuable that they need us to protect them from extinction.

What would they even pay us? There's probably nothing we would need. But isnt the point of living, now, to be full of love, freedom, connection? We would be helping them, because it would be helping us to be of more love, freedom, connection.

Love, in that we express so deeply, and we communicate so effectively. Freedom, in that we are free to: do whatever we desire, to adventure, to be pioneers, to truely live in the moment. Connection, in that we are all involved and integral.

If we send a spaceship of humans (and life) into the unknown, at least they will have a profound connection with what they have, of which is infinitely of value.

-Elton D'Souza ART / Studio Skies & Water

[3style3]

being creative on the internet as an outlet is a topic that i am passionate about & i have so much to say.. so i'll put it here.. keep reading if you want to, but its just a history of me and my connection to the internet as a whole, may crosspost this later lol ヾ(￣▽￣) \

ever since i was a little girl, i used the internet to express myself.. dress up games to tumblr, all of it, was used as an outlet. my earliest memory was playing dressup doll games on the computer & watching clips of lucky star in 240p quality while listening to vocaloid in my living room as a small small child, of course, my mom was cooking dinner during all of this, so i can smell dinner when i think of that memory.. germany, 8 pm, shes making banana pudding & tuna sandwiches for me and her while my dad is working.. its such a sweet thing to think of now that i come to think about it..♪(´▽｀) way before i discovered the bitterness of the world, the world to me was just schnuffel bunny & vocaloid..

i never had many friends growing up. i had maybe three actual friends IRL, i was severely bullied before going on to become homeschooled from third grade all the way up to highschool, which i went on to do online schooling for that aswell because quite frankly, i was terrified of leaving my house due to my increasing social anxiety along with quarantine happening about ~2 years into my school life. anyways, thats enough backstory, back to my main point.

anywho, i've been expressing myself online for a LONG time as you can tell, i first began uploading my animations and artwork to youtube in 2016..? and i went on to upload my music to soundcloud in 2018. i made a lot of online friends, and even had a partner who i met online which lasted around 4 years. which doesnt sound impressive until i tell you, we began dating in MIDDLE SCHOOL! we dated all the way until.. i was almost 16? lol..

the internet was my refuge and escape from various traumas that had happened to me over the course of the past few years, traumas i was too scared to go to therapy or even open up for, so i'd express my pain on anonymous accounts and abandon them later on. i have countless deviantart accounts that i used purely for vent art and nothing else, that i would later abandon once i realized people could probably tell it was me.

darkness aside, i have many good memories involving uploading my work online aswell, from my various soundcloud aliases to my various artist aliases, one of which would become extremely successful due to my original characters when i was 14, i later abandoned this alias for safety reasons that i won't get into here.. along with all of the fanfiction i read and wrote when i was 12.. so.. much.. fanfiction.. specifically bandom fanfiction, do you all remember bandom?? bandom was a nice time on the internet, we were all just having so much fun on those "___ is ____'s song" and "bandomconfessions" accounts.. no fear of judgement or anything, we could just write stories where we dated our favorite band member and others thought it was the coolest thing to ever grace this planet..

i feel like, without the internet i wouldnt be who i am today, okay, i will admit, i went through some edgy phases to try to fit in with the cishet white kids online since.. being me online was hard! i had to participate in edginess or else run the risk of being called heinous.. heinous things. i was a huge leafyishere fan (now that i think about it.. ew!) and frequented boards of 4chan that i'd never frequent now that i'm older and you know.. have a soul that isnt as dark as the void?

i feel like. . . . if i didnt have the internet at the age i did, i wouldnt had discovered stuff that was lifechanging to me, for example GTBSG was just purely by chance, 10 year old me poking around on soundcloud, youtube, tumblr and twitter, just looking for something, anything new to stimulate my little senses.. and i found it! that group literally and figuratively changed my life in the best sense possible. i feel like i found my calling through their music.

i think that.. no matter how bad and judgemental the internet gets, it'll always be important to me, like yeah, i hate how social media operates nowadays, and all the microtrends that results in so much waste and landfills getting bigger, but if you focus on yourself, delete tiktok, stop doomscrolling, the internet is fun, once you go back to putting in the effort to find new websites, to read peoples personal pages and shrines.. the internet feels a lot more alive again. the internet was taken over by corporations but theres people trying to take it back, even if its a vocal minority, we're still here, and those people who put in the effort mean more to me than they'll ever know.. o(*￣▽￣*)o

i love you internet, even if you suck sometimes.

[hankwizard]

Pieces Of Media I Consumed Recently

because i have accepted i cannot, for the life of me, do this in an organized fashion lol

CHAINSAW MAN('s anime)

I read the manga obsessively the moment I heard the premise. I grew up in the era of self-referential, masturbatory, whedon-istic media where no show or comic could just be unapologetically itself without getting weird and "haha isnt it DUMB we're making this?" the whole time. A manga about a guy turning into a chainsaw that is absolutely about a dude who turns into a chainsaw fucking appeals, okay?

Anyways. This is about the anime. The anime almost feels like a film at times- the characters move very.. Realistically. Very on model, which worked in some ways but made it a bit less expressive in others. It didn't have the punk charm of the manga, but otherwise? Steller presentation. I like how the anime further emphasizes that Denji is a kid- giving him more childish mannerisms (such as the infamous scene with himeno) that really hammers home the point of his character- that he's just a manipulated kid who wants some kind of normalcy and, most of all, love.

CHAINSAW MAN('s manga. part 2)

It makes me feel like the absolute joker watching how well thought out Asa is as a protagonist. Traumatic experiences can strip us of our identities- make us feel like all we've done is survive, and therefore, that's all we can do, so watching Asa fret over being a bore and be unable to connect to others without worrying about how things will crumble down is just a delight. I love her. Denji is also great so far! He's just so tired. This part's art has so much subtle improvement and once again Fujimoto is delivering bangers. Yoshida is never beating the yaoi allegations.

FEAR AND HUNGER: TERMINA

The fun thing about autism is that it forces you to enjoy things in the most "yeah this is my life now" of ways, which is fine when your interests are something normal you can explain to people like "dungeons and dragons" or "sailor moon" and not Termina, a game that makes you genuinely debate not if you should sever your enemy's leg, but which one.

Termina is crazy. A survival horror rpg where death is punishing, limbs can be lost AND trans women can do necromancy? It's great and it's terrifying. There's literally an entire area that I avoid because it freaks me out so bad so I GENUINELY take the long way everywhere to avoid it every time.

It's one of those games where any enemy can not only kill you, but maim you in ways that fundamentally change how you play the game. Dealing with enemies is a puzzle: how do you approach them? Do you deal with them now so you never have to deal with them again? Do you run around so you can wait until you're stronger? Do you shoot them from afar or save the precious ammo for something even worse?

It's a special kind of satisfying, but definitely not a game for everyone. I'd recommend reading the content warnings, as it's a dark fantasy with dark fantasy themes. It's also a game for adults only, no exceptions. Feel free to message me if you want to know about any content in the game that isn't listed out in the warnings on the store page. I might make a larger blog post about it later.

SHAMELESS

Ok, at first I really liked it! It's very funny, the characters are very well written, and it's very captivating... But I'm going to be real, the amount of Leering Shots Of Teenage Girls in what I watched of this show is enough to drive me bananas. I don't want to look up the sixteen year old girl's skirt, netflix, I'm ambiguously in my mid twenties. The show's insistence on making me look at karen naked ruined it for me. It didn't even feel like it was saying anything? It just kept happening!!! Anyways, tl;dr, shameless is not for me.

VELMA

So, listen. I need to admit something: I've been deep in the Western Cartoons Discourse Trenches since I googled "My Little Poney Forums" as a young teenager. I never really participated, but I'm aware of the cycle of Discourse that happens whenever a show Like This comes out- a show with marginalized characters that isn't very good, or at least is perceived as such.

I watched Sacrificial Trash and you should too

What generally happens is an outpour of outrage and criticism that's 10% warranted, 30% nitpicky and 60% literal actual bigotry. You end up with a lot of video essays of Yelling Men With Glasses that makes me, a contrarian hipster, really interested in proving the internet wrong and actually Enjoying The Thing.

After watching all of Velma, my verdict is:

I Enjoyed Watching It But Would Not Recommend It To Most

The show is funny! It's visually incredible! It has a fun plotline! It has a lot of nods to older Scooby Doo cartoons that I, as a Child Born After 1960, Enjoy! And I like basically every main character and most of the side characters...

Except... It has two massive, glaring issues in its writing. Two major themes that not only make the show nearly unrecommendable to most people, but also revolve around the worst character in the show, Velma herself.

To start, this show has a massive, gaping problem with self-hating anti-indian racism.

Every time Velma's ethnicity is brought up, it's made out to be a gag!! It's to make fun of her!! She's called an ugly gorilla constantly!!! She's made fun of for being hairy!!! And it's never addressed!!! It's just a running gag that Velma hates being Indian and so does everyone else. It's very uncomfortable. I was hoping it'd tone down but it doesn't. The show doesn't even seem all that aware that her self hatred about her own culture and her ethnic features is... a bad thing? It's very strange. I know a lot of south asian people who refuse to watch the show or didn't continue past episode one because of this and MAN. I get it.

The show also has a bit of a misogny problem, which is weird because it tries to be feminist at times? With Fred learning to appreciate women for more than their appearances, which was nice, but the amount of times femininity and appearance gets conflated with being dumb and vapid is... a lot. And the show seems half aware that this is bad while also just. keeping on doing it. And Velma is usually the one being misogynistic throughout the show, and while they kinda try to develop her past it, it doesn't feel like the show takes it seriously as a theme.

Anyways. If you watched and went "man, this show was very well produced and beautifully executed in its visuals!" like a huge nerd, please know that Amy Winfrey, creator of Making Fiends and a director for both Tuca And Bertie AND Bojack Horseman was the supervising producer and I highly advise checking her out.

PS: Glenn Howerton should do more voice work

[actualbird]

Oh god!

I really love the poly headcanons they are so sweet.... (or don't but that's part of it and i think the tot boys+MC deserve all the love the world has to give).

But, liking it or not, our 4 beloved boys are kinda complicated (that's what makes them perfect). Plus I never thought about how people get in poly relationships. So i was thinking, how do you think they all get into a polyrelationship together?

(I really have no idea of how that would happen)

hi, two anons!! im glad you guys liked my nxx team polycule stuff!! i'll answer these in one go, my "headcanon" (in quotes because i think this kinda turned into a character analysis/minific of sorts HAHA) being what first anon asked, How They Get Together.

heads up, wc of this is 1.9k words long so buckle up for a bit of a read jfsjdfkjbf

because first anon, youre right!!! the boys are stupendously complicated which i love so so much but canon has also shown us clearly that each of the boys' quirks and habits and tendencies causes a lot of (mostly played for laughs) friction. the bickering, the backhanded insults, the "im the best one here" preening contests. theyre all SOOOO RIDICULOUS and it is hilarious but yep! the boys r complex!! and that means this beautiful ship, imo, has a lot of phases to get to the actual romantic relationship bit.

how they get together, in my opinion, starts because of mc.

not in the sense that she matchmakes them all, but like.

phase 1 of the nxx team polycule is this:

through being in love with her (which we all know the boys 100% are), each of the boys come to terms with their own flaws and weaknesses. it's very apparent to me in all the story thus far that these boys are flawed as hell, it's very compelling but even more compelling to me is how all of them also do intense mental gymnastics to Not Confront Those Flaws. like, marius is a dickbag always teasing and toeing the line of insincerity, vyn is a controlling mf who always tries to sway situations to his benefit, artem is so repressed to the point that he has genuine trouble with emotions, luke is a self sacrificial bastard and also a huge hypocrite about how no, actually, hes the only one that should be hiding his pain and being dishonest, no dishonesty from other people!! in the beginning of the story, all the boys have their flaws and seem to have just kinda...not addressed how those flaws are harming them and the people around them.

and then mc rolls around and they all fall in love with her. and she sees those flaws and she doesnt let them slide. she challenges the boys in her own ways to see another side of the situation, to acknowledge what theyre doing. she doesnt want to get rid of flaws, thats impossible and also not cool. she just has this beautiful hope for like, all of humanity, that goodness can prevail with the right work. so when she sees her beloved nxx boys, she believes that for them as well.

which leads to phase 2 of the nxx team polycule:

the boys, more aware of themselves, become more aware of each other.

they werent Unaware of the others of course. it's just that they didnt like...truly connect on a personal level just yet. they saw the other teammembers with their emotional armor and flaws and saw a wall that wasnt worth looking past.

but after mc makes them realize that hey, flaws arent the end of the world actually, it's alright and the person behind them may just be worth it, the boys like. end up understanding the others. A LOT OF THIS BIT IS UNINTENTIONAL, ON THEIR PARTS KJDSBFS. like they stumble into understanding each other by accident, they didnt plan it, but over the course of nxx investigations, it's inevitable that they end up seeing the depths of the others. i delve into this a little bit in my fanfic "filler eps of the lost gold" where the boys are just going thru their actions and then trip over another boy's fears or desires and through that, gain a deeper understanding mutually.

and with understanding, sometimes, comes trust.

phase 3 of the nxx team polycule goes like this:

everybody in this team, whether they like it or not, whether they know it or not, has a heart that wants to give love so desperately.

marius lives in a world full of snakes so he cant have his heart on his sleeve for his own protection. vyn wants to be seen as perfect and the heart is inherently messy so he holds it back. artem for a very very long time was focused on work and success and achievement that he neglected his heart. and luke has been giving love all his life in a sense but in a way thats hidden.

all these tendencies that are brought upon their life circumstances results in this: they want to love honestly but they havent been able to do this

until mc. and all of them want to push back whatever fears or patterns their life has instilled in them because they see her and see somebody so unwaveringly good that all their hearts begin giving love to her to make her happy and to make themselves happy as well.

but heres the thing. the boys dont just see mc. by this point, they have connected and understood and come to trust each other as well, and the consequence of that is that They Can See Each Other Now Too, Truly.

and heres the thing. all of the boys are unwaveringly good as well.

one by one, each of the boys realize that what they feel for the other boys in the team starts to...change. yeah theyre all friends, they pick on each other a lot of the time, but the bedrock of the relationship is solid and strong now. but when marius is with luke, marius sees a light inside of luke so bright that he seems unaware that he gives off. when artem is with vyn, artem sees a goodness inside of vyn that hesitates to make itself obvious and known because vyn is scared of getting hurt thanks to it. all of them see the other and their goodness and, unbidden, their hearts want to give love to each other as well.

and because theyre all a bit stupid in their own way theyre like, huh, weird! wonder why this feeling is so familiar! and yet i cant seem to name it...and then they all independently compare these feeling with the feelings they have for mc, a feeling they do know the name of, and theyre like.

WAIT.

THESE FEELINGS ARE...VERY BASICALLY EXACTLY WHAT I FEEL FOR MC.

which only means one thing: theyve fallen in love with everybody else

marius: //goes to his studio to Think and sees that a bunch of his recent art actually had little crumbs of these feelings already, etched into the brushstrokes and scenes. has an emotional crisis about it

vyn: //records a 1 hour long entry in his audio diary to examine and gain control of his feelings but by the end of the hour all he knows is that he wants to hold these people and be held by them

artem: //quite literally just bluescreens, artem.exe has stopped working, sits at his study and slowly, slowly, thunks his head down onto his desk, valiantly trying to ignore the fast pulse of his heart

luke: //manically vents about it to peanut who, by virtue of being a bird, doesnt get it. just keeps talking at peanut to get a grasp of it all and then lies down on the floor, overwhelmed

mc, sitting in her apartment watching some netflix: ...why do i inexplicably feel as if something very, very important has just happened?

phase 4 of the nxx team polycule is basically:

pining: extreme difficulty level

because pining is already hard when ur pining for one person. what more for an additional 3 more people. and those additional 3 more people are pining back.

and all these boys are SOOOO OBVIOUS with their romantic feelings, in their own special way. the way they show their affection to mc starts to bleed into their interactions with the others and everybody can CLEARLY SEE WHAT IS GOING ON, LOL, but also all the boys are too chickenshit to confront it, because if they confront it, what will even happen??? being in love with each other, all of them, thats going to be such a complicated fucking relationship, holy shit. it's 2030, yeah, being a polyamorous group relationship isnt completely unheard of, but sue them, theyre scared.

but mc (who i forgot to mention already knows of the boys' romantic feelings for her, shes just hasnt made a move yet on any of them because SHES IN LOVE WITH ALL OF THEM AS WELL and shes been trying to figure out how the hell to make that work, she cant bear to choose just one of them, she'd be heartbroken over leaving the rest of them behind) sees that the nxx investigation team is now all pining for each other FULLY and she kinda wants to laugh when she realizes whats going on because like, what are the chances? that this would happen? that they all found each other and their feelings fell into just the right place for nobody to be left behind?

theyre all scared, she can tell. and she is as well, she wont lie.

but shes always had a belief that goodness can prevail with the right work.

and love is one of the greatest goods out there.

phase 5 of the nxx team polycule:

It's Time For Communication, Baby!!!!!

the exact scenes of how this happens is a bit vague to me. it could go two ways: mc going to each of the boys independently to talk about feelings, hers about everybodys and his about everybodys as well. OR they have a fucking meeting about it all together and artem literally schedules it in his google calendar, or something.

either way, they like, actually talk about this. starts casual, maybe over a chill date, maybe over dinner at a nice restaurant, maybe over a walk in the park as the sun is starting to set. but where ever it happens, the end result is the same: a heart is laid out bare and it is taken in gentle, grateful hands.

marius: OKAY, NOW THAT THE FEELINGS ARE OUT OF THE WAY, CAN I PLEASE KISS ONE OR ALL OF YOU, PLEASE, IVE BEEN WANTING TO KISS U GUYS FOR FOREVER

vyn, laughing fondly: has anybody ever told you patience is a virtue? we quite literally just talked it all out.

marius: //needy whining noises

artem, embarrassed: ive...never kissed anybody before

luke, embarrassed but trying to play it Cool: ....same here

mc: kissing is great, you two will love it!

marius: awesome, awesome, so is ANYBODY going to give me a go ahead or WHAT????

phase 6 of the nxx team polycule:

i dont want to say it's happily ever after, once they all get together. thats not really realistic.

they all have their quirks and tendencies and habits. and those will inevitable clash against each other. theyll have their arguments, theyll get upset, theyll sulk and be angry, sometimes. but also...

theyll see each other smile and feel like their love shining so brightly. theyll reach out for another's hand and be held in such a way that makes them think that their heart is in a safe place. theyll love each other and theyll put in the work to continue loving each other. because goodness will prevail.

and they all see each other as the most good people in the world.

so whatever happens, theyll get through it together.