#it was originally just supposed to be me and one friend. so. this was not the plan

[chrisery-business]

my biggest issue with the httyd live action-and just about any live action reboot is that it seems that the live action adaptations are being made to make the original “better”? like, so many people talk about a live action spiderverse, a live action hercules, a live action PRINCE OF EGYPT (dont piss me OFF.)-like animation is a beautiful work of art, and for some reason putting real people and cgi in it is supposed to be an “upgrade”? im probably being that friend that’s too woke or whatever, but i just think it’s so disrespectful to act like something that takes so much time and effort and energy is immediately considered as lower because it is animated. animation is beautiful, and it is one of the most heartfelt art forms there are, and erasing that for the sake of a cash grab is downright degrading to animation as a medium.

[bluebeads-art]

2024 November 21st

INTO THE LAKE WITH YOU, MUD CHILD

My part of a retroactive art trade with @anxiousapplepie ! "Retroactive" because I was already drawing this before we agreed to make it part of a trade, heheh.

I read this post about their Role!Swap AU, and, like, multiverse shenanigans? Check. Characters goofing off and having fun? Check. Several opportunities for slapstick humor? Check. Conclusion: I really wanted to draw it. Physical comedy is my specialty. :p

This thing is kinda all over the place composition wise (looking at you, relative sizes of speech bubbles) because there is Too Much going on in these panels and I Did Not plan ahead of time, lmao. This was supposed to be doodlier than it ended up being, so as a growing pain it's a funny jumble of consistency. One of these days I'll be able to doodle without getting carried away. 😂

More rambling and close-ups under the cut

This interaction in particular is what nudged me over the edge to draw this whole thing. I don't know what Fighter Mirabelle's malfunction is when it comes to the Siffrins, but it lets me make Sif the butt of a joke again, so yeehaw! His hat being catapulted out of frame made me laugh when I was thinking of what to do with the composition-complicating hat in question.

Also my personal take is Siffrin is 100% having the time of their life here. Making new(?) friends? Being involved in a fun group activity? Well worth inhaling some puddle water and having to go jump in The Lake to wash the mud off later.

Bonnie being so furious they changed art styles wasn't in my original plan, but I'm so glad I thought of it on a whim because it made me laugh Every Time I looked at their face. 😂

Time taken on this whole thing was 42 hours and 50 minutes. AND. I KNOW THAT SOUNDS BAD. IF YOU KNOW I'M TRYING TO SPEED UP MY ART PROCESS. But this project gets a special pass. This was the farthest out of my art comfort zone I've been in a while! 13 (mostly) full-body characters at various complicated angles, 2 backgrounds, learning to use CSP's perspective rulers, effects I'm not used to like water splashes, etc etc. I made progress on speeding up sketching & line art as well! Some of the lines you see are just extremely cleaned up sketch. I was able to let myself fudge things more too. For example, Mira's dress is a very "dude just trust me" simplification because I don't know how the clothes folds would work at that angle. ^^;;

So while there's still a handful of things I'm not happy with, it's worth it for the learning experience and perfectionism-busting progress! Also for the sake of drawing silliness, of course.

Oh, lastly; the KO sprite is the one from in-game, so it was made by insertdisc5 and not me.

[in-uthenera-we-wait]

It's been a few days since I completed the Veilguard and I am going feral about the dynamics between Mythal, Solas and Lavellan...

It's just a bittersweet kind of pain when I think of them and I want to get my thoughts out before I am overwhelmed by them. Also, this post took way longer than expected to write!

Detailed deep-dive under the cut (to avoid spoilers)

Colour-coded because my brain is weird like that!

Also this is a loooooong post... you have been warned!

On Mythal:

It is clear right from the start (of when we discover the memories of the Dread Wolf) that Mythal is an integral part of who Solas was... Or should I say, who Fen'Harel was/is.

Solas, as a spirit had no desire to take a body and took one for the love of Mythal.

And when I say love, I do not see it as something purely romantic... It goes above and beyond that and not always in the right way.

She sought to mould him into someone she could use. She saw it as Benevolence (the attribute that her spirit is supposed to represent), but I think her purpose had been corrupted even then, even before Solas gets his body at her behest.

The reason I believe it's so is because, true Benevolence doesn't discriminate and denotes a desire to do good for others. Compassion is that desire enacted.

Mythal's benevolence was conditional. Her benevolence came at the cost of suffering for the Titans. So, there was a sliver of selfishness to her purpose. This isn't necessarily bad but this means that she is no longer truly what her Spirit was supposed to depict, not completely. And this sliver of selfishness is what permeates the entire relationship she has with Solas.

We, as the player, have only ever seen Mythal either through the very rosy lens of the Elvhen who worshipped her very much like the way Solas does, or through Flemeth. The latter is no longer the Mythal that Solas knew. She is a fragment of the original who has gained the wisdom and experience of millennia through the hosts she inhabited.

The truest depiction of what Mythal must really have been like is the fragment we encounter in the Crossroads. She honestly, isn't as likeable as Flemeth/Morrigan was/is.

She is openly haughty, expecting her petitioners to convince her of the dangers to the world outside, and sounds almost bitter that her most ardent devotee hasn't visited her once since she was killed and the remnant of her essence was extracted from the dagger to reside in the Crossroads. She faults Solas to an extent for her fate, and clearly doesn't hold him as beholden as he does her.

So, it felt weird to me that she would be so willing to release him from her service, even more so if you had to fight her for the fragment (as I had to).

The only way I can see her being moved to help convince Solas (especially if we fought her in her dragon form) is that she was observing the world outside the crossroads when she is in Rook's possession, the way Rook interacted with Solas, and even more so the way the Inquisitor speaks of her friend/vhenan.

On Solas:

Solas... the man, the myth, the legend! Where do I even begin to unravel the mess that he is!

Originally, a spirit of Wisdom, tied to Mythal in a way that has him put through the thumbscrews of War and Strife, so much so that I see his transformation into Pride as something like a callus that forms over skin that has been rubbed a few times too many.

His love for Mythal was the start of his doom, and right there, his purpose was changed from Wisdom. Because, wisdom would have remained a Spirit.

Now, the nature of that love is up for debate. Again, I don't see it as something that is purely romantic. Though, I think the way he feels for her is different from the way Mythal feels about him. There is more devotion on his side. He says that he will follow wherever she goes and takes on a physical form for her.

And then, slowly, one step after another, he strays away from the path of wisdom - crafting the Lyrium dagger, making the Titans tranquil, allowing the other Evanuris to claim godhood, letting Mythal persuade him to each of these steps, his regrets have her face.

Remember the following dialog he has with the Inquisitor after they drink from the Well of Sorrows? When he asks them how they will ensure the Inquisition doesn't fail, and when the following dialogue ensues...

Let me present you with evidence on how much he was hurt by that.

INQUISITOR: I trust my friends.

SOLAS: I know that mistake well enough to carve the angles of her face from memory.

We had already posited that the 'her' in the dialogue above was about Mythal. But back then, we had assumed it was because of the trust Mythal had in the evanuris that caused her death. What if it wasn't so? What if he was speaking of the trust HE had in HER?! He trusted Mythal to stand by him as he had stood by her. And she had failed him.

It could be that this is after her death, but something tells me this was before. Because Felassan's response to Mythal not joining them would be different if it was because she was dead.

So, we've established just how hung up he is about Mythal, because he has this vision of hers that might not even be true. He views her through the lens of adoration and worship that ends up putting her on a pedestal rather than view her as the flawed person she is. He could never be truly free unless he sets aside these feelings he has for her.

I also found it interesting that he has refused to visit the fragment of Mythal that was stuck to the dagger when she was killed. That fragment is the truest version of his friend as she was when she died. He refuses to acknowlege Flemeth and even Morrigan as Mythal.

Even in the end, it is this fragment of Mythal that he knows and remembers that releases him from her service. Because he wouldn't accept it from anyone else!

And with that established, let's move to the final part of this triptych.

The Inquisitor is a tricky one to analyse because they can be so many different things depending on the player. But for this essay, I will be focussing on Lavellan who romanced Solas and sought to change his heart.

On the Inquisitor:

She is everything that Solas believes is wrong with the veiled world his actions resulted in. A shadow of his people, tranquils with no connection to the Fade (especially true if Lavellan is not a mage). He also begins to believe that the anchor is what makes her who she is. That has to be the case, because any other explanation would make his future plans questionable!

But then, she walks into his life, curious and bright, kind and caring, asking him questions with an open heart! The first thing she does is assure him she would protect him from prosecution. She changes everything!

He tries to justify his feelings for her by assuming that the anchor has changed her. But nope! She shoots that down as well. She is truly herself, with or without the anchor. A rare and marvelous spirit.

Lavellan sees him for who he truly yearns to be seen as. Wisdom. She seeks to understand him and asks nothing in return. She is ready to help him whenever he asks for it, and even when he doesn't. She tells him he does not need to mourn alone, when his spirit friend passes!

His one true fear: Dying Alone... and she allays it by promising to be with him, no questions asked.

He almost decides to give it all up and stay with her... as just Solas. To be with the one true person who truly saw him beyond the cool and collected mask he wears. But he doesn't... In another world perhaps but not this one.

And so, he leaves her in the end, because his regrets are too much to be set aside so easily. He also sees bringing down the veil as an act of self-sacrifice, now more necessary than ever because this would mean She would live on happily in a world where his mistakes don't exist anymore. Also, he doesn't want her to see what he would become.

But she perseveres. Every time he pulls away, she reaches out. The parallels between the Solas/Mythal and Lavellan/Solas relationship is just *Chef's kiss*!

She represents Hope for me. And I'd say, she is true to her purpose that way. Even when things don't go the way she wishes it did, she still hopes. Her Hope springs eternal. And that is what saves her, Solas and the entirety of Thedas!

So, towards the end, her Hope burns bright against his Regret. But he is unable to see it until he sets his own regrets aside. And for that to happen, he needed Mythal to release him.

Mythal was his past. But Lavellan is his eternal future. It was up to him to move from one to the other.

Once he was free from that bondage, he could look towards Hope.

Only then could he truly see it... that she had seen him as he truly was, and she loved him... that she loves him still.

In the end, her love did endure, and how!

'Var lath vir Suledin' indeed!

[dee-the-red-witch]

Trans Day of Remembrance

(originally posted up over here) I'm so not ready for today. In the wake the elections, with full knowledge of everything that's coming, it makes today's Day of Rememberance hit even harder, just knowing that future ones have a strong likelihood of being so much worse.

But at the same time, here I am writing this anyways, which feels like such an act in impostor syndrome. I didn't lose anyone this last year, happily enough, despite the fact that over 20 trans women were lost to violence in the US alone so far this year, and an estimated 350 worldwide. Almost one a day in a community this small, and you know someone who lost someone. But I'm writing this column anyways, because I know folks expect me to Have A Take. Because writers are supposed to. Because the world at large tends to not go for our art, our happiness, our joys, or our celebrations, but they always line right up to consume our pain, our trauma, our grief, or our anger.

And no, reader, that's not an accusation I'm levelling at you. Not yet, anyways. But when you're two main national event days are the day where we remember our dead and the day when we make ourselves as visible as possible, under the threat of this new administration, it's how it definitely feels from this side of things. We wanted to be seen as people, as human. Instead we got to see a campaign that spent a third of their funds attacking and targeting us get willingly voted into office. So yes, all the anger and grief and fear from that, just two weeks later, gets thrown into today as well.

I don't have a roll of the dead to list for you, may their memories be a blessing. I'll likely be hearing that tonight at the event I'm going to for today. And if you're cis, I don't want you joining in our grief as we mourn our dead and wait for worse to come. I want you remembering us while we're still alive, before we become another statistic or headline. Remember us best by helping us to live, by supporting us in a world gone even more hostile, like all you subscribers currently do, for which I'm very thankful.

But above all of that, remember this- we're people, just like you. We chose to live as who we are and we shouldn't be punished or hated for that. Remember us for our joys in finding ourselves. Remember us in our lives, interacting and sharing with you. Remember us as friends, family, lovers, partners, and just people. That's all I ask.

[springcourthighlady]

Briar watches Caedin run around the courtyard with the ducks, his imagination running just as wildly. She turns towards Tamlin as he speaks, nodding at the right moments.

"I don't regret it either. Frankly, it was nice to feel...wanted. For a few brief moments. Like I wasn't a ghost. A lot of the times I still feel like one..."

Her eyes search his. "I didn't mean to crowd you. It was clearly a wrong attempt at comfort. I should've realized sooner." She looks at the trees swaying in the breeze.

"Lucien told me a few of the stories about your life. So I don't expect you to heal too fast from those betrayals. I wish people were not so quick to turn. Unfortunately, people treat trust as some fleeting thing and not as it is--something heavy and precious to be closely guarded and tended to."

Her eyes soften as the sun catches them. "For the record, I haven't betrayed anyone in my life."

She smiles over at the playing boy. "Not even my dead friend. Which is why I am here. I could never have lived with knowing I didn't keep my promise to protect Caedin."

Her gaze finds his once more. "Our lives seem infinite now. I know they aren't, but to me as a former human...thousands of years was unthinkable. My point is...we have time. You have time. And if and when you ever feel ready, I'll be around. As a confidante, as a friend or anything else you choose. Hearts are fragile. They require precision and tenderness to heal. The more they're fractured, the longer it takes."

Her hand twitches to take his, but she folds them in her lap. "I suppose I see hearts like glass. They start or crystal clear. Pure. Every loss or betrayal chips away at it until it shatters into colored pieces. Sometimes, with some people, there's too many pieces to put back together and they remain in their misery. And for others, the ones that are more willful, their hearts can be turned into a beautiful and unique mosaic--a support system being the glue--until they end up more glorious than they had been originally."

Her lips twitch into a small smirk as ahe sees his expression. "I'll stop talking now."

This Life is Sweeter Than Fiction (ft. @springcourthighlady)

Daylight folded through the narrow window in the room of the inn and warmed Tamlin’s face, urging him to wake. He wasn’t a morning person. Given his proclivity to stay up late into the night, waking up was not exactly his favorite thing. He was used to waking up to a cold bed and sore body, pained from a night of thrashing through his nightmares alone. Instead, this morning, he woke to the gentle breath of a female on his neck.

Still sleepy, his dreams had a hold on him, and he remembered the early days before the mountain — before all hell rained upon his court, before he’d lost his faith in himself, and in love. Yet, he woke further and the body next his own did not line up with memory, only emotion.

The way he’d danced around the lines with Briar last night was not far from Tamlin’s mind as he woke. Mornings? Those, he didn’t like. Morning affection? Oh, how sweet it was to taste.

Still, the High Lord pushed a reminder of his boundaries into his view, forcing away the rose tinted glasses.

Sleeping together was different than sleeping together.

He carefully climbed from the bed and pulled the blankets back up to Briar’s shoulder. A shower would do him some good, but they did not need more temptation. Still, she tended to panic when he disappeared. Tamlin pursed his lips and entered the bathing room, locking it twice, magically and manually.

The cold water dripped down from the pipes and once again settled him back into a stern sense of reality. They had a purpose here. This wasn’t a vacation…nor a honeymoon. It was a rescue. At least one of them needed to keep their head on straight.

He pulled his clothes on and wrapped a towel around his long hair, leaving the bathroom with a toothbrush. Sure — he could use magic to power through these tasks; but apparently he needed to get better at being human. That meant brushing his teeth with a small, infernal, tickly device.

By the time he turned around the privacy screen and into the room, Briar was awake.

Well. She said she wanted him to practice being human.

He furrowed his brows, with a teasing smile. “Hush. High Lords have dental hygiene too.”

[themyscirah]

Complaining abt Suicide Squad yet again but the fact that they have Waller exposing the alien community to space racist attacks and talking abt how she got to her position through deceit and being a terrible person and stuff is just. Ahsfiwueh JUST SAY YOU DONT KNOW WALLER.

Anyways literally the 3rd mission of the Squad ever (and the first framed as smth Waller picked and not orders from above) was the Squad discrediting and stopping a rogue vigilante who was only arresting POC and funneling white people into white supremacy groups (of which he was the most prominent member) in SUICIDE SQUAD #4. and it's explicitly framed as this mission being personal for Waller that she's hiding from the government bc its illegal like. Guys. Please why are we having her incite (space bc comics) racist attacks now

Also the whole "Amanda got her position through deceit and being a terrible person" NO. she KEPT her position through being shitty and playing complicated political games!!! She wasn't always that way like there is a difference and it is IMPORTANT ppl PLEASEEEE. In Secret Origins #14 we learn Amanda's backstory and she used to be a normal, caring person! Like even after she entered into working in government and politics she wasn't automatically morally bankrupt like please people. She was originally given control of the Squad by Reagan (*sigh* 80s comics...) to distract and get rid of her because she was so successful at pushing progressive social policy in Congress. Acting like she's this static pillar of evil is such a waste of her character and so fucking uninteresting and disrespectful to her arc it drives me MAD.

Like I am NOT saying Waller is all sunshine and rainbows, she fucking SUCKS (said w love <3) but like there's a human being there. It's a progression, she has a character arc like please, DC, please!!! They've fucked up Waller so bad and made her so opaque and uninteresting she can't even be the protagonist of her own story for fucks sake!

Like I don't know how many times I have to scream it until DC hears me or remembers but WALLER IS THE MAIN CHARACTER OF SUICIDE SQUAD. ITS HER BOOK. yet right now she's a cutout to be used as the villain wherever the writers please. Even in her book we get none of her perspective really displayed, no exploration of her thoughts with any kind of understanding of the role she traditionally has played and was made to play in the story.

[mochiiniko]

day 4: old cocole art dump because its about time i posted these 💀

essay in the tags youve been warned lmao

[tricoufamily]

a current day nils and a 90s college student nils who's way too intense about his internship walk into a bar

[casual-praxis]

Update!

I let my roommate borrow the manga and she just got done reading it yesterday. I pestered her with questions for a bit to get her general vibe on the story, and she said she liked it.

She took a few pictures of her favorite moments and most of them were just silly zoomed-out shots like when the Colors were all in the boat (and not colored in) and the scene where all of them almost fall into lava (she thought it was funny that Green and Vio had X's in their eyes, "I like that Green and Vio are just dead." <- things the Dunkin employees probably weren't expecting to hear from the only customers in the store at the time).

Vio is her favorite of the Colors since he seems to move the plot forward the most (debatable). She mentioned being surprised that Vio wasn't the one to tell Shadow he could be a hero too (with it instead being Zelda who tells him that), but afterward we got into a discussion over if Vio even saw Shadow as a person during his betrayal arc, or if Shadow would have even believed Vio had he been the one to say that. It culminated in us agreeing that Vio has some wonky morals lmao. Did not even try to stop Shadow from burning down a mountainside.

I thought she might like Green most honestly (besides being her favorite color, Green also gets shit done), but her consensus on him was that he was "just Link". To which I mentioned he seemed anxious a lot, and that just spiraled into a running joke for the rest of the conversation. She was excited about a potential Green-Vio team up during the Tower of Winds, but we got sidetracked so I don't actually know why beyond "they seem to get the most stuff done". That may have just been the reason.

She didn't really state an opinion on either Blue or Red, but she did point out to me that Red's "lesson" he learned while separated from the others was legit the opposite of what they were supposed to be learning. Or at the very least the phrasing was lmao. Teamwork was the goal, but Red's takeaway was "I need to be more self-reliant and not depend on others." Which I get means "I have to carry my own weight" and not "I won't rely on teamwork", but it's still kind of funny.

I want to look further into Red's comment, but this isn't the place for that haha.

When I asked how she felt about Shadow she said she liked him but wasn't actually clear on if he died. I explained that it's kinda up in the air, since he seems to be in the original Links shadow by the end, but apparently the thing that confused her was the bouns non-canon comics at the end. Shadow liking the internet was something she enjoyed.

She also noticed the mixup between Green and Vio in one of the bonus comics, which tells me she was able to identify who was who by the end of it. I gave her some pointers early on, but it was while she was still in the first chapter, and not all the differences had been established yet (ie sleeve colors, eye designs, etc).

Final notes:

She did pick up the Vidow vibes. She's not a shippy type of person, but she did notice the cues lol.

She also messaged me when she got to the Vaati fight just to say "no peeking".

She was flabbergasted when Red lost his sword so early. "Yea, it's actually just the Three Swords," - me, trying to avoid spoiling shit.

Despite not being mentioned much, Blue was appreciated for being the only one with visible character growth and in general being a powerhouse.

"Look at him, he's got anxiety," - us, every time Green popped up in conversation.

I'm happy I have someone irl I can ramble about this series to now. Usually I just yap into the void until the topic changes lmao. No one ever has any context. Now I just have to drag the rest of my friends into the Four Sword fixation and we'll be golden.

I’m attempting to get my roommates into the Four Sword fandom.

One of them already thinks Zelda as a series is pretty cool, though she doesn’t know much about it. The other one is uninterested.

Will be sharing my manga with the first roommate. I’ll let y’all know how that goes.

[ccbatman]

actually so evil how much of hal's internal world gets obliterated with the rewriting of his relationships with jessica and martin.

[hella1975]

11pm in manchester airport plane landed at 10pm after being DELAYED AND ANNOYING AND EVERYTHING WRONG WITH RYANAIR for over an hour. when is my train home from this godforsaken city you ask? 5am. good job im stuck in arrivals where there are no coffee shops or even regular charging ports haha. so glad to be spending the next six hours sat by the squeaky baggage claim machine. thank god my mum was sympathetic about it right haha… right????

[wormy-worm]

ok u know what maybe if the world isn't ready for sunrazer post that means that the world IS ready for Amoveous siblings post. This is Milo and Enho and theyre my DARLINGS and i love them SO MUCH. i have. SOOOOOOOO many thoughts abt them but after the previous post massacre i do not really feel like typing all of that xoxo love <3

[starlooove]

‘Au Damian steals his siblings bc Damian doesn’t value them enough’ Damian doesn’t owe these niggas shit

[orcelito]

Ok I'm thinking about kabuto backstory again and thinking about how unfair and fucked up it all is like

> be Danzo

> threaten local orphanage mother into returning to being a spy (by threatening the kids there)

> force them to send One Kid too because he "lost a man" while obtaining the intel he's threatening her to spy over (the kid is Kabuto, who volunteered bc he overheard them threatening the mother over this) (Danzo knows he overheard)

> train kabuto to be a spy while orphanage mother is off on her long spy job as well

> bait spy mom with the promise of keeping kabuto safe to keep her agreeing to work with you

> decide they both are too good at their jobs (????) Of being spies (that work for you?????)(they've been loyal this whole time????) So they're too dangerous and both need to die

> keep mom and kid away from each other as kid grows up

> literally DOCTOR FAKE PHOTOS of the kid growing up to make it seem like he looks totally different now???? So she won't recognize him?????

> give her the assassination assignment of killing the Real Kabuto (who she won't recognize) so they'll kill each other

> whoops, Kabuto survived and killed her instead, oh well at least Orochimaru's watching him now

I'm just like. How fucked up is it to threaten these people into working as spies for you "for the good of Konoha", and then decide that these people (who have given NO INDICATION of intending to betray Konoha) are too good at being spies and thus Too Dangerous and should be killed for it. But no he can't just kill them in a normal way. He had to manufacture an entire scenario so that they'd kill EACH OTHER while making the mom not recognize him (with the express purpose of breaking the kid's spirit) like BROOOOOO I know you ordered the whole Uchiha clan to be massacred (conducting genocide for the sake of 'peace') actually now that I think about it he ordered this of itachi. Ordered him to kill his own family. Of course Danzo would get off on making a mother and son kill each other "for the good of Konoha" he's almost fucking cartoon villain level of horrible past the point of logic EXCEPT there really are people this awful that have existed. Plenty of them. And they have also justified it as being "for the good of [nation]" like that's the Thing, he's a war hungry nationalist that has decided He Knows Best so he's going to fuck up SO many people's lives, up to and including his own damn citizens!!!! And this bitch thinks he deserves to be kage?!?!?! Fucking Hiruzen letting him run wild like this. He knew Danzo was stealing children and indoctrinating them into a murder cult (where, keep in mind, he purposefully raises kids in pairs so they view each other as family AND THEN ORDERS THEM TO KILL EACH OTHER)(AGAIN!!!! with the family killing, what is his PROBLEM) but Hiruzen just let it fucking happen. Spineless fucking piece of shit. He fucked Naruto up he fucked Orochimaru up he fucked up Royally with Danzo like come ONNNNNNNNNN

Rattling the bars of my cage rn at how awful Danzo is and how he was able to just. DO THIS???? I know the bitch is dead but he's not dead enough. Give me the glock.

[guinevereslancelot]

just wrapped the first christmas present of the year ❤️

[tonariofjananda]

What’s she listening to?

WIP, prolly gonna line and color this in later but I like how this looks so far c: