#just for completely different reasons

[hurtcomforted]

tony fans years after endgame: pls bring him back :( we miss him

steve fans years after endgame: what the fuck! that fucking sucked! fix this!

[duckapus]

Michigan Spletzer and the Gilded City

When she finds out that the Yiga are on the trail of a dangerous Garo artifact that was lost to the ages, Marcy asks her brother and some of his friends for help in retrieving it before it falls into Welony's hands. This results in an Indiana Jones parody starring her, Meggy, Mario, Luigi, Lil Coding and Bob, with Meggy in the leading role due to apparently being a semi-famous treasure hunter before she met Mario. She doesn't like bringing it up since she left that life for a reason. Between Meggy falling into old habits, Marcy being Marcy, and Mario being Mario, this trip ain't gonna be easy to get through even before you take the actual villains and cursed, abandoned city into account.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[wu-does-art]

coming out as a "Will snores obnoxiously loud" and "Nico breaths so quietly you can barely tell hes alive" truther

[phibsies]

he finally stopped fumbling but at what cost

[tachvintlogic]

Humans are Weird: Offloading tasks to Bacteria

Alien A: So your waste has bacteria in it.

Human: Yes.

Alien A: Inherently.

Human: Yes.

Alien A: Why?

Human: Because I have bacteria in my gut.

Alien A: And you're not sick?

Human: No, they're supposed to be there. They help digest tough materials we can't break down ourselves.

Alien A: You don't just do that yourself?

Human: No, we just let them do it for us. Most vertebrates on Earth have them, or at least I don't know if any don't. They already know how to digest that stuff, so why not let them help out?

Alien A: But what if they make you sick?

Human: It's fine as long as they're not somewhere they're not supposed to be. Do you not have helpful organisms living in you?

Alien A: No! That's weird.

Alien B: What's weird?

Alien A: Offloading digestion to bacteria.

Human: No it's not. They're perfectly suited for it.

Alien B: And for getting rid of bad bacteria.

Human: You have them too?

Alien B: Yeah, but not for digestion. To guard against parasites. They're the parasites of parasites.

Human: They kinda help with invaders in the gut, but that's mostly the immune system's job. Do you have an immune system? Besides the bacteria.

Alien B: No, not really.

Alien A: What!?

Human: Really? So if you don't have anything to reign them in?

Alien B: They govern themselves. It works alright.

Human: But if they stop doing their job right, you're fucked.

Alien B: And if your immune system stops doing its job, you're fucked.

Human: Touché.

Alien C: ...I'm confused.

Alien B: By what?

Alien C: These bacteria. You're talking about them like they're separate from you.

Human: Well, yeah they are separate from me.

Alien C: But they're living things that live in your body.

Alien B: I don't get what's confusing.

Alien A: Because they're parasites you haven't realized are parasites.

Alien C: No. It's... how are you distinguishing between yourself and these bacteria? How do you define yourself in a way that excludes them?

Human: They come from outside?

Alien B: Wait, you're not born with yours?

Human: No, we just kind of pick them up as we go along.

Alien B: Oh, my species doesn't do that. That would be far too risky.

Human: Yeah, you'd probably need a lot more control over what your bacteria ecosystem looks like.

Alien C: But how are they separate from you you?

Human: Well, all the cells that make up me all originate from a single stem cell with the instructions to make me—you guys use DNA right?

Alien B: We use nucleotides but different ones.

Alien A: My translator is telling me that you code your instructions in a way that is exclusive to certain single-celled organisms on my planet.

Alien C: I use DNA.

Humans: Okay, good. So my cells have my DNA and the bacteria ecosystem is all different species of bacteria with their own DNA and lineages that aren't affiliated with my origin cell, so they're separate from me.

Alien B: Yeah, that's basically how it is.

Alien C: So, you don't start as a collection of cells, all with their own DNA and DNA lineages that specialize into different systems with different jobs?

Human: Wait, so you're a colony of a bunch of organisms that become your organ systems?

Alien C: By your definition of "organism," yes.

Alien A: Okay, but can we all agree that the fact human waste needs to be sterilized is weird?

Human: No.

Alien B: Yes.

Alien C: Actually... My equivalent to a stomach reproduces on its own in addition to reproducing with the rest of me, so you will need to sterilize the spores in my poop.

Human: Woah, that's so cool!

Alien A: I'm just going to sterilize everyone's waste just in case.

[astranauticus]

Director of the False Last Act

[deimcs]

VILLAGE OF HAVEN / 9:41 DRAGON

[solstrix]

TORADEEN NATION RISE UP!!!

[liketheinferno2]

These aren't full ref sheets but I was trying to take some clear pictures of Hephaistos for later art reasons and then got side tracked doing all of the Pandaemonium bosses so here they are in order. Also for anyone following who doesn't play FFXIV and knows it as the catgirl game, enjoy this instead? VISUAL SPOILERS obviously.

Asphodelos

Warder of the Condemned: Erichthonios

Mythic Creation: The Hippokampos

Mythic Creation: The Phoinix

(+ familiars)

Hemitheos: Hesperos

(+ sexy fanfic redesign by Nemjiji)

To be brutally honest I never really liked either of these designs compared to every other Hemitheos we get, I think the really brutal black and red of the Phoinix is weakened by gold accents, but I still am always down for gay vampire surf rock. The Savage version kind of looks like Ultimalius as well if you've played XVI.

Abyssos

Mythic Creation: Proto-Carbuncle

Hrgrhhgrhrgrh

Hemitheos: Hegemone

^ My favourite detail on this is you can see the parasite's outlines in her robes and in her legs, then right through the eye holes on the mask to wrap around the torso. I'm convinced this version of Hegemone is functionally an ant being piloted by a cordyceps infection.

Hemitheos: Agdistis

She's very big

Perfect Imperfection: Hephaistos

I'm probably biased by Abyssos being the first raid I was there for day of release but these really are all fantastic. It's also when the story abandons all pretense of not being (at least partly) about family abuse and is loudly using the body horror and shackle motifs to talk about that. It's great. Hephaistos specifically is constantly bulging and twisting in and out of different forms like a highly unstable chimera and the more I look at these the more I notice parts that just should not be there. He's giving everything.

As for the Savage design It's a hard thing to rate as such but my favourite part is the veins that grow down from the eyeholes in his mask like bloody tears.

Thanks Abyssos I love you

Anabaseios

Mythic Creation: Kokytos

Dæmoniac Dungeon: Pandæmonium

It's really hard to communicate how huge this nasty tumor crab I zoomed out as far as physically possible in the game engine and subsequently ended up at a goofy angle staring up his nose.

Ephemeral Justice: Themis

Best boy. The double ended lance and second pair of arms are fantastic for this character.

Theos: Athena

In.. almost every final fantasy adventure you're fighting the real villain not at the very end but a little beforehand, the big iconic end boss is often more a metaphorical figure representing everything wrong with that first person's ideals. Athena cut out the middle man and became her own JENOVA.

I do like the moth angel, especially the hollow body full of dubious orbs, but with her eyes closed all the time it gives off the impression of this not even being the true body but some kind of anglerfish lure in the shape of a fairy... which might be true because this exists:

I really really love her twitchy anemone feelers and how the moth body ends up grafted to the rest of it waist down.

Anyway there's the gang I did not specifically intend for this to be design reviews I just wanted to have clear photos because when you actually see them in game there's other things to focus on. In hindsight I can appreciate more the theming of each tier and then the series as a whole, but my only (extremely obvious) observation for now is that every character Athena had a personal hold over is decorated in chains somehow and so I should have seen the Hegemone thing coming lmao. Heph and Aggy are still my favourites I don't think that's changing any time soon. I'm also noticing that Anabaseios is now just old enough for random DF parties to fuck up severely and I find that fun so I'm going to go fight the crab mansion now.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Thinking about "So Long, London" as one does and the "I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free" which is devastating enough on its own as a succinct shorthand of saying "I gave you some of my most formative years thinking we were committed to the same life plans together" (as in building a family life together) but with ~everything~ can also be a statement of her entrusting him with her youthful hopes and dreams and joy and earnestness only for it all to be cast aside and not returned (and at worst, weaponized).

[giddlygoat]

TRADITIONAL TOAD GARB PEACH LETS GOOOOOOOO

[makiswirl]

can i just say. and this is probably a niche hill to die on. that i am so gobsmacked every time someone vaguely hints at the idea that jotaro doesn't care meaningfully for the other crusaders, usually particularly kakyoin and joseph, when those two actually tend to be the ones he reacts to being hurt the hardest

like he cares for his loved ones!!!! that literally plays into his character motives in every single part he shows up in!!! stop lying to me!!!!!!!

[sourscratched]

some bloodkeep doodles (part 1)

[wherevenusholdssomeofficespace]

Linda Flynn-Fletcher

I think Linda Flynn-Fletcher is potentially one of the most misunderstood characters in the show.

It think comes from a natural enough place. Her role in the show is of course, to act as the potential threat to their summers of fun. While they boys never see her as a threat, narratively she's the big bad. If she sees it, its game over.

Here's the thing though. She's a not a bad mom. Her children LOVE her. Similarly to how Phineas and Ferb absolutely adore Candace and would do nearly anything she asked, Phineas, Ferb and Candace all love and respect their mother and don't disobey her. Now a bit of this is clearly Linda being a more permissive parent, but any rules that Linda has Phineas and Ferb never do anything to disobey their mother. While I wouldn't be surprised if there were one or two instances where Candace disobeyed her mother willfully, the closest I can think off off hand is Candace not doing a bunch of chores that she was supposed to do. Really, the fact that all her kids love her, shows how much all her kids feel loved in their household. And I think that's super important. Candace wrote a song about how much she feels loved by her mom, even if her mom is dismissive of Candace. But she still goes with Candace to see what the boys are up to even if she doesn't believe it. She sets boundaries on how often Candace can bust the boys sure. But she hasn't forbidden Candace from doing it altogether. Nor does she punish Candace for presumably lying?

At MOST Linda will say something like: "let's get you out of the sun" after a failed bust. The worst of it I think is probably the time Linda made her promise not to try or suffer the Pharaohs curse. Which, was just some guy in a Pharaoh costume telling Candace curse you. Linda goes out of her way to read books to try and deal with her daughter. She and Candace still clearly hold a lot of affection for each other and do spend a decent amount of mother daughter time together. Linda gives books to her daughter, tries to direct her to other activities, and finds her sleep busting cute, and sometimes goes out of her way to do activities her daughter wants to do with her. All things considered Linda is REALLY patient about Candace's busting. Could she be doing more to get to the bottom of why Candace is presumably acting out? Sure. But Doofensmirtz could also be doing a better job of listening to his daughter and not insulting her (or do we not remember why Vanessa wears earbuds around the house) but we all call him a really good dad.

A LOT of shows have kids hiding a secret from a parent for one reason of another. But while the crux of the show rests on Linda not knowing what her sons are doing, its not because its a secret. The boys aren't hiding it from her. The boys genuinely believe she knows. Lawrence genuinely believes she knows. Candace is the only one in the family who really grasps the situation.

Linda's ignorance, her disbelief of the wild shenanigans that her children get into is easily mistakable for normality. For representing the oppressive day to day. The same thematic antagonist as school. A mom who wants whats best for her kids, and thinks that whats best for them is them being normal, without realizing what's really best for them. After all why else we saw what would happen if she found out in Quantum Boogaloo. But the fact of the matter is aside from that one future (which also featured an effectively evil leader in Doofensmirtz, and therefore implies more factors at play than just Doofensmirtz and Linda's characters), we don't really know how it would play out in the long term. Future Linda even just kinda moves on after discovering the truth.

Linda is exactly like her kids. She just does the same things on a less physics breaking scale. The woman has like 37 different hobbies. She takes a cooking class, donated an art sculpture, is part of a jazz group. She has a background in astrophysics. She was a pop star. She won a meatloaf contest. She takes french lessons. The fact that Linda has several hobbies is part of the reason the formula works at all. Linda is constantly trying new things which gets her out of the house, while her sons are trying their own new things. Her absence is what prompts Candace to have to go looking for her. Also, What Do It Do when the moment Linda gets put in Candace's position she acts the exact same way.

Also it's why she and Lawrence are so compatible. They have a lot of weird hobbies they spend together. She likes Lawrence's history references. They watch car racing together. They went spelunking together. They go bowling regularly enough to have equipment. She has played the bagpipes while Lawrence danced (which sidenote: do you think she taught Candace how to play the bagpipes?).

Not to mention her extended family. Think about it. Her mom was a competitive roller derby skater who once bit a skate and shook it like a dog with a chew toy and pulls elaborate pranks with her identical twin. Really she's a lot like Candace with her aggressive passion. Her dad apparently won a balloon race, but tells the story in the most straightforward way possible, sometimes very oblivious, but is overall a lot like Phineas. Her sister is an adrenaline junky. And back to Quantum Boogaloo for a minute: Her granddaughter is just like Candace, Grown up Candace is a lot like Linda. Do you not see the implications!!?!?!? LIKE???? DO YOU NOT REALIZE THAT LINDA WAS PROBABLY A LOT LIKE CANDACE AND PHINEAS WHEN SHE WAS YOUNGER?!!?! YOU THINK IT SKIPPED A GENERATION OR SOMETHING???

Do you think Linda used to complain about Tiana??? Do you think Linda thought her family was weird and was embarrassed by them??? Do you think Linda ever called herself the only mature/normal member of her family?? LIKE CANDACE DOES????

Anyway, Linda is just like her family. Sure, she is RELATIVELY more normal, but that's relative, and probably simply because the universe bends itself around to keep her from knowing. Linda literally cannot find out about the real nature of her universe. Linda is just a grown up version of her children, seeking to make the most of each day, but within the bounds the universe has set upon her, both as an adult woman and mother, but also in the laws of physics expected of her. But she still makes the most of her life. You don't have to build a roller coaster to make the most of each day and all that.

I think if Linda is representing anything its that even parents can have rich fulfilling lives. Where they make the most out of each day. Having fun with your life doesn't stop with adulthood. Even if you have more responsibilities doesn't mean you can't have fun? Sure childhood is something you can't get back but growing up isn't inherently bad either?

[veveisveryuncool]

almost there