#kinda combination of the games and anime you get the point

[alienate-it]

Have some Cynthia having to deal with the Pokémon sinnoh league, specifically with Flint and Volkner

[an-albino-pinetree]

A friend requested that I combine BOTH Freakshow TADC AUs

@hootbon ‘s Freakshow AU Jax

and

And my version of @kookydoodleky ‘s Freakshow AU Jax

anyways- we got this freak, and I kinda went ham n’ got carried away with my ideas for him, even if they really have nothing to do with either AU—

UNDER THE CUT you will find my bullshit ✨ WARNINGS: Potentially disturbing/triggering content mentions, dark horror elements, discussion of mild torture, injury, blood, sadistic tendency, knives, cuts, bruises, all that fun stuff that I like but some people don’t and that’s okay sdjhjh

Character and game route mechanic bullet points ✨🎡 (Boy howdy do I love myself a horror visual novel weeee!) :

Blending the two AUs was easy, all it had to be, was the mythical circus animals, from Kooky’s AU, but if they were severely mistreated.

-The Jackalope’s clown costume barely fits him anymore, and if one of the bells punched through his ears, for atheistic purposes by the ringmaster, catches on something, the wounds reopen, and they start to bleed again. This happens often.

-The physical pain and mental suffering, being a part of this circus has caused its attractions, has affected each one in a drastically different way.

The Jackalope:

-The Jackalope is a sadist.

-The Jackalope has eaten people.

-The Jackalope’s ear is bent due to a mild deformity

-The Jackalope has a strong obsession with games. Particularly card games.

-The Jackalope carries a deck of cards in his overalls pocket.

-In-Game, regardless of what dialogue choices you pick for The Jackalope, he will ask you if you want to play cards, at the end of every conversation.

-Do not take him up on his offer.

-He will ask you every time you interact with him. He may get increasingly pushy about the invite, but you will never be forced into a game.

-A strange rule of respect he won’t change? Worried his urgency to get you to play, will give away sinister intentions? We might never know the true reason.

-Although he will play fairly (until he starts to lose) he is brag-worthy good, and there are painful, sadistic, prices to pay, if you lose to him.

-He won’t kill you. It being “over” is not fun to him. But he will do just about anything that won’t kill you.

- He will also let you run away, after a few rounds/a few losing punishments, and will be surprised yet thrilled, if you choose to return to him for another game. (You need to do this to unlock a special ending and achievement)

Card Punishment Levels:

-If he’s damaging your body, he likes you. In his twisted head, that’s light punishment.

-If he’s damaging your hands in any way (aka, the things you need to play cards with him, and do just about any other life task easily, but that doesn’t mean as much to him) you’ve done something to make him really dislike you.

In-Game Violence Warnings and Injury Descriptions:

Knives

Cutting

Blood

Bruises

Broken bones

Wrist injury

Hand injury

Severing of fingers

Biting

Biting off fingers

Burning

[REDACTED]

[crab-people-overlord]

Re: Post-COVID Stan and his Job, a Kind-Of Defense:

Soooo I know a lot of folks aren’t too happy about the fixed/final timeline’s Stan’s future job in the Space Force, and I get it. But I’d like to argue that it isn’t as far off base for his character as many folks give credit for. I’m not saying it’s the perfect job for him, but it’s not completely off-base, and I really do think the creators gave careful consideration to his job here.

Before I explain, first let me say that I do understand some of the frustrations and wish they would do some type of episode about the Space Force with Stan as a kid to establish his interest in it, or at the very least in a government job. It’s not like Stan hasn’t been to space before or had Space themed episodes (pinewood derby being a very underrated episode), but the Space Force is such a ridiculous concept that it could be a funny episode and parody and could help the ending of Post-Covid feel more well-rounded. They could have an episode where Stan has to get rid of the Space Jail his dad had created and dealing with the Space Cops or some shit like that.

I’ve seen some discourse asking why Stan couldn’t have been a musician or a vet due to his love of animals. To answer that - I think it’s very realistic that Stan didn’t end up a musician. I’m just going to leave it at that. Most people don’t make it in the music industry, and I really don’t think Stan would take it that seriously as an adult to try to navigate that. He’s not that naturally passionate. I think he’d more likely keep it as a hobby. It’s just the reality of things (though I think a fic in that direction would be valid and interesting. Lmk any fic recs for that).

As far as being a vet goes - look, I love animal lover Stan, but let’s think this through logically. He loves animals, and it’s adorable. But that’s exactly why he would HATE being a vet. It’s canon that Stan doesn’t do well with blood, and it’s canon that Stan does not do well with animals being in pain. Being a vet literally combines those two things together that Stan viscerally hates. He’d love being able to be around animals, sure, but he would hate having to perform surgeries/see animals suffer. It would deepen his depression, and he would be too queasy to handle it according to canon. Again, it’s one thing to see this in a fic and I think that would be cute. But in a canon episode? That would make no sense and would be contradictory to several established character points.

So if being a vet or a musician are off the table, where does that leave us? What are some of Stan’s strengths, or some things we know about him that would translate well into the professional field?

Well, we know he loves board games (this is not a one-off from an episode, there are SO many instances of Stan and his complicated board games, whether they being showcased in the background of his bedroom, or him playing them)- and these are not surface-level board games like Settlers of Catan (which I can totally see him looking down on as a ‘way too easy and therefore boring game’). We’re talking about games that take grown adults years to master, let alone learn the complex rules. Not sure how many of you have delved into these types of games he likes, but some of those games are almost like learning a whole new language, and the amount of strategizing you do in the types of games he likes is very high (and we know that Stan can strategize/think quickly on his feet well).

His skills in board games translate into how he navigates the world pretty well. We also know that he shows high critical thinking skills (sometimes to the point of being too critical. Him being diagnosed a ‘cynical asshole’ by a doctor wasn’t just because of the depression- he kinda always has been one to an extent, even before that episode) and very easily sees through bullshit. He also is very adaptable with natural leader skills and is good at adjusting to his environment physically, so I have no doubt that he would be able to learn about, say, working a spaceship.

Basically, a lot of Stan’s strengths that I think are often slept on in the fandom overall are all the things that would translate quite well into some type of military or government intel analyst role. The ridiculousness of the Space Force also aligns with the ridiculousness of South Park in general 100% (there’s so much satire potential there). It also just went well with the political climate of the time the episode aired.

Fun fact: according to his uniform, he appears to be a Chief Master Sergent, which is the second highest enlisted rank possible. He also has an insane amount of awards on his uniform.

One of Stan’s weaknesses is that he has a lack of motivation. I can absolutely see him being unsure of what to do in life but not wanting to be like his dad and joining the military to help at least give him guidance/something to make of himself in his life when he lacks the motivation/structure to think of something himself. And then I can see it evolving from there as he joins the military/how it adapts to his own natural skills. I also think he would secretly like the status he would gain from ranking high up.

Btw this is kinda off topic but I completely head-canon that Craig also works in the Space Force with Stan. Also, Stan is not short (look to the screenshots). . Looks to be the tallest of the main four, followed by Kyle, Kenny, then Cartman who is quite short.

[anarchy-and-piglins]

We know CC techno is basically an SCP at this point. Like I can vaguely recall his face, kinda. That got me thinking of actual SCP techno. Maybe he’s the host to a parasitic SCP (blood god) or maybe there are two of them combined (him + blood god) or maybe just him. Something that makes him only vaguely memorable. There was a young man covered in blood at the bus stop.

What did he look like? Hmm, couldn’t tell you. I think he said something at some point. What was he wearing? I don’t know, but he was wearing something.

The SCP foundation is looking for this creature that causes security cameras to fizz and leaves trails of blood that match no known dna. They don’t even know if it’s human. No one can catch this anomaly. Dr. Phil of the Foundation is put on the case. Meanwhile, he takes the new intern, whose name he can’t quite seem to remember (it was tech something right? It was an odd name certainly. Dr. Phil’s degree in ancient history told him it was in old one.) is helping him track the Scp down. The new intern is weird, admittedly, but Dr. Phil’s other inter, Ranboo is also very odd, so he’s a veteran that this kind of thing.

Also, he keeps finding odd bloop stains on the new interns clothes. Concerning, but best not to ask too many questions at the Foundation.

I like the idea of the Blood God being an SCP with parasitic tendencies and Techno being the guy who it attaches itself to. Since it's in line with my dsmp headcanons (ie. Techno himself not being the Blood God but merely a conduit).

The Blood God would be SCP-(insert random number) and Techno is designated by the foundation as SCP-(insert same random number)-A. Though, aside from the parasitic god, he's literally just some guy. He gets taken into custody by the foundation both for his own safety and that of others.

When containment procedures are met, interacting with Techno is not dangerous and actually pretty chill. On the contrary, the Blood God gets agitated when its host is agitated, so keeping Techno safe and sound is actually paramount. He has a bed, gets fed well, and the head scientist (a Dr. Philza Craft) is free to interact with him to offer companionship, sometimes letting his interns interact with Techno also.

Containment procedures are pretty simple:

No blood should ever be within 15 feet of Techno, unless he spilled it himself. This includes blood samples or dried blood.

A bell must be provided for Techno to ring every few hours.

Once a month, Techno must spill blood as a sacrifice to the Blood God. Animals suffice, but humans are better. The amount of blood needed to sate the Blood God can be variable and depends on how agitated it is.

Strategy games such as risk, chess, competitive video games, etc should be provided. Games that Techno can 'win' in seem to keep the Blood God calm for longer and lower the amount of blood needed for a sacrifice.

Techno is functionally immortal (doesn't age and seems incapable of bleeding out, despite feeling the pain of any inflicted wound). Attacking him or trying to harm him usually ends terribly for the attacker. They did a lot of tests at first - also to figure out the containment procedures. But Dr. Philza currently doesn't allow tests anymore, they were both too distressing for Techno and too costly in Class-D subjects.

Killing Techno would be possible, but since the Blood God would just attach itself to another mortal, it's more interesting for the foundation to keep Techno locked up.

[lovelykil]

Killua hcs for a s/o who works at a book store that sells manga and anime stuff and games? (There’s a place similar to that at the mall I like) but keeps getting hit on by customers (nothing bad just like innocent flirting since they don’t know she’s taken)

also I know you don’t rlly write for killua anymore so feel free to ignore this! 💥 have a nice day

headcanons─

: ➛killua

hc; reader who works at the book store that gets hit on

note; PAUSE I love the book store 😔😔 I will not be ignoring this

the silverette comes and visits you every so often at your job whether with gon or just himself.

he likes to look around, slowly wandering to where you're at. He'll maybe fuck around and switch some books cause he's an asshole

he only does this to get your attention though and you always catch him in the act with that mischievous grin painted on his face. His unique hair isn't something you see everyday so it's very easy to spot him.

you're handling a customer, trying to scan their manga and a few pieces of merch from that anime series whilst watching him intently.

you shake your head at the boy with an unphased look, putting the customer's items into the bag. Killua from afar, smirks and quietly walks away from the scene. He grabs a random manga from a shelf before sitting somewhere close to the register.

you sigh, it wasn't an extremely annoyed one just a 'my gosh this boy' one if that makes sense

when you sigh it triggers the customer in front, he quickly notices and says something.

"oh what's the matter? Is the manga I picked not to your liking?" The man grabs his wallet. Your attention was brought back to your working space quickly, you let out a light chuckle with a head shake.

"no no, I adore Death Note, it's just a.. long day I guess." The guy nods as he finds his card to pay. He hands you the card and you take it to slip it in the device.

"I understand Mondays are crucial." He laughs which makes you smile at the accuracy of his statement.

you slip the plastic out and hand him back the card, "seems like you get it." You once again smile, a polite and gentle one as you hand him his bag. He smiles back, reaching for his bag.

"you have a nice smile you know that?" His compliment throws you off for a moment considering Killua was just a few feet away, it was such an innocent thing to say but coming from a man.. it might make kil get the wrong idea.

you laugh nervously, covering your mouth. "uh thanks." He takes his bag and nods before leaving though he studies your face once more. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see your boyfriend flipping through some random manga, you take a breath.

maybe he didn't hear that.

"can I buy you coffee sometime? There's that Cafe down the street if you know what I'm talking about." He points in the direction of the Cafe. Your eyes grow wide at his proposal, unaware of what to say next.

your eyes immediately fall onto the ground to reply. "uhmm I'm not sure, ahaha.." suddenly the floor looks exquisite today.

the guy talks some more, trying to persuade you otherwise until you eventually get another customer and he is forced to part away.

after your shift is done you breathe in and then sigh, making your way to blue eyes. Though he wasn't in his spot anymore but now in your personal space.

"you have a nice smileee, huh??"

"OH KILLUA jeez!" You jump back, obviously startled at his presence appearing in front of you so quickly. He stands with his arms tucked with an irritated facial expression.

long ass intro 😭🙏🏾 but anyway

I wouldn't say he's jealous but rather annoyed? Or maybe a combination of both.

annoyed because who do those people think they is flirting with his gf like.. 😒

and jealous because you're HIS, and he's kinda afraid someone will sweep you off your feet, and as soon as he knows it you've found someone else.

so to avoid this from happening he usually lingers around the register, you know usually annoyed killua stuff

when your break comes though you make sure to bring him to a secluded space, away from the public eyes to showerr him with kisses and words that make his face flush. Since he doesn't really do public affection you usually do this when he comes to visit.

"you know you can't stare down the customers when they open their mouths to say something." You smile, grazing your thumb along his cheek.

"at least I didn't do what I did last time." He sticks out his tongue as you remember. "Throw a book at them? Yeah I guess.." You snicker, pulling a piece of his hair to twirl around.

"have I improved or what?" He asks, grinning in the moment as you mess with his hair.

"killua you threw a gojo pen at a guy last we-"

"have I IMPROVED or WHAT"

[finisnihil]

Do you have any jingluo rambles or headcanons :3

I'd like to know more ☺️

Oh hi thanks for the ask! I don't typically talk about my more fanon ideas because I usually like to do analysis/theories of the canon material, so most of the time I write my headcanons and stuff into my fics or whatnot but! I'm totally happy to talk about some of them!

-More so a theory I'll die on the hill of but I do think Luocha is an Emanator, I have a post explaining my evidence here! It's not the most fleshed out because it was one of my first posts on here but yeah!

-One of my big Luocha headcanons is the flowers blooming out of his hair according to his emotions. He's considered an Abomination of Yaoshi, a term only really used for Mara-struck, and the Mara-struck typically have mutations of like ginkgo brances/leaves growing from their bodies. I think it'd make sense if Luocha also displayed Mara symptoms in his own weird way!

-I like to think Luocha can kinda "eat/digest" Mara. To me, Mara reads like a weird combination of rabies and chronic wasting disease. Vultures are a favorite bird of mine and they have extremely strong stomach acid, strong enough to digest rabies. They help manage the spread of rabies because of this and I can see Luocha's body functioning a similar way with Mara. Something percieved as scary or gross (Emanator of the Abundance/a scavenger that eats predominantly dead animals) but being essential to the managing of a healthy ecosystem because they perform a thankless task.

-Jing Yuan has crows feet. Even though the Xianzhou people don't really age past a certain point and their bodies stay that way no matter what (see: Dan Shu and her explanation of disabilities on the Xianzhou which is incredibly interesting) he is 721-ish years old and he smiles a lot. I think it'd be sweet to see evidence of that, that despite everything he still can smile so much it leaves little lines of joys in his face.

-Jing Yuan to me is more of an acts of service guy (His being General shows his love for the Luofu because taking care of its people is the ultimate act of service). I think Jingliu was also more of an acts of service person because to her fighting was all she lived for, for a while, so her showing love is wielding her sword for somebody (like wielding it against Baiheng to free her). I think that's a way Jing Yuan kinda embodies her yaknow? As for Luocha, he's more a quality time person. He's a traveler who doesn't really have anywhere permanent to call home so he likes to soak up as much time with the people he loves as he can before he's forced to move on again. He also likes receiving gifts because they're momentos of those people he can carry with him.

-I think Luocha would like to garden but he's never had a permanent place to do so, so when they get together he just takes over Jing Yuan's garden (which is suffering due to Jing Yuan's busy schedule) and rules it with an iron fist. The neighbors are jealous.

-I saw this post propose that Jing Yuan might be half Foxian and I really love that idea so that's something I like to chew on

-Both Luocha and Jing Yuan are strategic people and Luocha is one of the few people who have successfully outsmarted Jing Yuan so I imagine their enrichment is playing strategic games together. Western chess (my beloved), General's chess, Go, etc. I imagine Luocha is better at western chess and Jing Yuan at Go and General's chess, simply bc those were the games they were raised with.

-Luocha runs cold and Jing Yuan runs hot. Adding to that, if Luocha is an Emanator, he's probably stuck in this pseudo-death limbo so I imagine he's cooler to the touch. Meanwhile, Jing Yuan is very alive and pretty active, therefore warmer to the touch. Jing Yuan likes to nap resting on Luocha because it's like having a cool pillow and Luocha likes it because Warm. He would also like to tease Jing Yuan by putting his cold hands on the back of his neck or something and make Jing Yuan jump due to not expecting it.

-Being General is a demanding and exhausting job. I can imagine Jing Yuan doesn't really spend a lot of time on self-care in that aspect. He has a planet-ship to run after all so he probably doesn't care too much about what shampoo or soap he uses. Luocha is appalled and uses his connections as a merchant to acquire quality stuff (some of which is better for foxian hair types) to systematically switch out when Jing Yuan isn't paying attention. Jing Yuan obviously notices but he doesn't particularly care, later noticing his skin is less dry and his hair is way softer and healthier.

-Jing Yuan can cook but it's a 50/50 on if it actually ends up eatable. His job can be tiring and I imagine sometimes he's just too dead tired to stay awake and the food burns or whatever. After him and Luocha get together, Luocha will cook or he'll check on the food for him.

-I've been pinging around the idea of Jing Yuan having narcolepsy

[ganondoodle]

Hello 👋

Swallowing my nerves at last to send you an ask! I was just wondering, what inspires your designs? Are their inspirations in stuff like movies or games? Or just things you come up with yourself?

i .. honestly its kinda hard to tell, sometimes i just randomly think of something, like some detail, or color combination and try to incorporate that into a design somehow; it can come from anywhere, like the color scheme of a pithaya/dragonfruit is something i have been wanting to make a design with for ages but havent come up with anything good in all those years ;O;

im a very easily fascinated by color, espeically in nature, like sometimes i just stop and stare at something like i froze in time bc i just woooooooooooooah color! i probably look like a weirdo doing that though

its really hard to pinpoint anything specifically, the most is probably .. other artists? i guess? which always makes me nervous bc my memory is shit in most areas of life and i worry myself to pieces whether i unintentionally "stole" an idea and just dont remember and think it was my own, it goes further that sometimes i see something that makes me want to draw a similar concept but dont bc i dont want to 'steal' even if that couldnt be further from my intention (have been accused of that before ..)

that said for my ocs specifically .. most are rather old and have just kinda evolved out of their awkward first iterations (shargons first iteration was a hauro-howl- copy that was really just some human covered in feathers .. another oc was once a hellboy copy but in green- havent drawn nor redeisgn them in ages lol), the biggest inspirations for them is a mix of animals, bonus if you dont see them often- im a big shark, whale and sea creatures in general nerd so i tend to take from them as a priority but always trying to be less directly animal and mostly just .. features that work together

Eadrya is one of the newer OCs- i started to write but then looked at my folders and oh they are from 2017 .., i even made a design timeline for them how much they, and my art, have changed back in 2020, so thats also way outdated now lol (they apparently started as a whale .. thing? its like a pokemon evolution lol)

this is them now (i like this sketch still, though shargons design is now also outdated lmao)

this ones from early 2023 so also outdated now but you get the point

for demons i try to be a bit more wild on shapes and colors while still adhering to the rules of how they work (humanoid form, demon form, animalistic, one element each and more or less made to fit that, 4 arms is very common, look to be bost scary and wild but also something that would make you stop in tracks and stare in awe and fear if you crossed paths)

often times designs just kinda .. happen, i have maybe the idea ok i wanna make something with a white and red pattern also moose or those big horned cows are cool and kinda scary so maybe sth akin to that (though this one is technically a redesign too- its also pretty much entirely different)

for non demons but still non human i go for a much more restrained design, mainly inspired directly by an animal and giving the color scheme a good spin, plus adding unconventional body shapes, like ki'ita is also a good example, her old idea was just orca anthro pirate and just by making the white green instead in her most recent redesign already adds that little spin to it

that can have its pitfalls though, as i often fall into the big arm small head small legs scheme over and over xD

alot of it is trial and error, deciding on the colors can take me hours bc im always searching for my little rule of having one contrast color that shows up in very few places to draw attention to it (like with Eadrya its those bright yellow eyes and thingy at their tail)

and that is all about myy own ocs, when its fandom stuff it works kinda similar though, either in the connections i wanna draw or just thinking it further- like how deities in destiny work also just kinda .. happened like an ever derailing train

like for demise i was at first really just im gonna give him horns bc horns are cool and he got those on the starting mural in the game- so how his hair work? well maybe it isnt hair actually and just unbound energy, im making him a deity too and fit hylias design to his so, yeah, then so how does it work, ok he gotta have a skeleton still, but what if his entire actual body is made up of pure magical energy with its core in the ribcage? with the core in the ribcage >:3c and the scales you see are just like cooled down lava as an armor bc his thing is fire and earth !! the normal blood? is a thin layer of skin imiated from mortals to keep the scales together and flexible so if he ACTUALLY gets hurt hed bleed magic that looks more like lava and any normal blood you see is just the armor- so why does he have a skeleton still instead of being just energy? maybe its gotta be bound to something OH and what if all of the deities started as mortals like a mirror to the trio later on and the gods cannot have direct influence to the worlds so they needed a right hand that is neither god nor mortal but both by killing a mortal by whatever their element will be (demise burned, hylia drowned etc) and their skeleton and spirit is kept but put into a body of magic- OH what if their spirit core is like almost piloting their bodies like a mech in a way bc if youd look close youd see that every strand of magic is actual a hand of their spirit so it makes it more weird and other bc hed be able to reach out with thousands of burning claws of all shapes and sizes like the beheaded forest god at the end of mononoke- SO if hed lose and arm or something all those strands would untangle and rearrange his bones back together-OH MY GOD the whole armor idea works so well for ghirahims dark armor so what if demise had two swords once and lost one and since has forged an armor similar to his own for ghirahim out fo fear of losing him t---

and that all is a process that happens over several weeks and months not rarely while i am drawing something mindlessly and suddendly *have a thought* and omg that makes so much sense-

so "what" inspires my designs? an ever derailing train of thought about making cool thick monsters that arent the evil thing to get rid of for once? cool color schemes? idk it just kinda happens??

[grandmother-goblin]

And another thing I kinda miss about Early Access Wyll was one of his implied flaws: his drinking (potentially alcoholism).

There were two scenes in Early Access that kinda pointed out that Wyll might have had a bit of a problem (one of them might still be available in some form, but I haven’t seen it in a while so I’m not sure). Or, at the very least, turned to alcohol when things piled up.

1. The Wyvern Whiskey scene: I LOVED this scene! It was the first time the player got to see Wyll’s Blade of Frontiers mask really crack. Just him, sitting on the ground, drinking really strong booze straight from the bottle. I want to say this scene occurred after either dealing with Fezzrak or Spike, but I can’t remember.

2. The tiefling party: if Tav turns him down romantically, he tells them to go have fun and that he’s got a “tankard keeping him company” (I think there is still some version of this in the game?). Which, on its own, the dialogue doesn’t seem like much, but in combination with the Wyvern Whiskey scene, I was kinda like “uhhhh Wyll? You okay?”

Then, of course, with his idle camp animation where he always had a drink in his hand, it made it kind of easy to assume he might have a little problem.

Idk, I found that part of his character really interesting (maybe because I related to it due to my own experiences) and some part of my brain is still like “yep, when Wyll gets stressed, he goes for the booze”.

Anyways, I loved that Wyll had a really strong, obvious, flaw like that and part of me kind of misses it. I love Full Release Wyll, don’t get me wrong, but I remember the Wyvern Whiskey scene being one of the first things that really made my brain start rotating him around in my head lol.

(This is totally not serious rambling. Ignore meeeeee)

[hajihiko]

Ahhh, I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense, but I'm curious to know what changed Hajime/Izuru's mind in the universe your art takes place in? Like, what made him go from not caring about anything because everything was boring and meaningless, to trying to enjoy life?

I don't really remember what it was in the anime, but it was probably hope. And like, that makes sense if you think about it, considering that's the definition of hope, but hope doesn't usually just happen like that, you know? Especially not to someone who probably had never felt it since the whole Ultimate Hope thing (ironically). In my mind, it's hard to imagine what it could have been, considering nothing ever phased him. I know that whatever gave him hope doesn't have to be that deep, because that's how it is sometimes, but I was wondering what you think it could have been (or more importantly, what you consider it to be in your art)!

Also, this is kinda unrelated, but I find it so cool how much your art makes me really think about the characters. It's amazing how you're able to really see how you've fleshed out the characters through you art, and honestly, you are probably one of my favourite artists because of it.

But anyway, sorry about this long and random rant 😭 Idk why I spend my time analyzing the character and point of view of fictional characters, but I guess sometimes the ADHD brain goes brrrrrr.

Thank you for sharing your art; I hope have a great day or night!

depends on the universe! But I'll assume you mean my general post-game stuff.

I've said it somewhere before so if it's old bread to you bear with me, but basically, it was a genuine dedication to face the big horrible awful feelings that come with trauma and life in general, and also the brain boost of getting to skip the slow growing part even for just a while.

My idea is that Izuru and Hajime are not two separate identities, rather, an amnesiac and horribly traumatized boy was given a moniker he didn't care to accept or deny. It's not like he had any other name to go by. That was Izuru Kamukura.

The brain has these neural pathways of how it responds to things, and his all got burnt out so he could respond with an appropriate talent each time. As a very simplified example, someone might respon to threat with the Flight response, because it worked in a dire situation and the brain decided "that saved us, this is how we will respond from now on".

Hajime, in the game, gets a sudden bump out of those pathways, enabling him to feel things properly and be fully present in his life. Thematically, the big Super Sayian moment is him deciding to not fall into old, but true and tried, brain patterns, and instead taking on the horrific experience of being human, with all the messy Emotions and Failures that comes with it.

When he wakes up from the game, he still struggles, but the artificial boost from his old thinking as well as a conscious, strenuous, painful effort to not repress himself anymore but instead face the things that he did and were done to him, make him able to carve himself into a new Him.

Not the same, in the sense that WHO could say they're the same as they were before a simulated murder game that revealed that you were a killing machine terrorist and so were your friends. But the same as in, he's Hajime Hinata and he decides what exactly that means. To want is an emotion, and he wants to become someone who can experience life fully, and chasing that single feeling of Want opens up the doors to everything else. You might've heard this before but "before you change, you have to want to change".

So in short. What enabled him to get Hopeful so to speak was the combination of a brain kick (you could call that a metaphor for outside help), and a concrete decision to try to do the difficult but right thing. Sounds kind of boring maybe, but everything else comes later - like his interest and care for his friends, an enjoyment of philosophy and the arts, a pleasure from being useful and helpful, a serenity from accepting things as they are, and a thrill that comes with strong genuine emotion (from my own life, sometimes a single moment of !!!! can carry you on for months).

Yes the whole thing is a metaphor for getting better with mental health stuff. It's personal to me okay 😂

(also I like the idea from Miggys fic that his human connections override the apathy and distance so as long as he's around the people he loves he can hold onto what keeps him going)

I love thinking about and building on characters too! Spending tons of time inspecting them like a specimen 🤝 people (and therefore characters) are very interesting to me so I just like rolling them around my brain. Thank you for your interest and kind words!

[castkorb]

You said you were playing the first FT game and now im kinda interested in getting it myself (if it goes on sale). Can you give me some thoughts on it when your a decent bit through it? Thanks

Okee~! Long post ahead

I'll be fully bluntly honest the main (and mostly only) reason I bought it was because Sting and Rogue are playable characters lmao

I'm like halfway there, I haven't advanced much into the story after unlocking stingue as I spend more time running around with the sillies instead of actually progresing into the game but alas

Reviewing what I've played: it's a mediocre game, but like I was expecting that already so it didn't come as a surprise

Story-wise you play throughout the games and tartaros arcs, with like half of the scenes missing because not all the characters appearing in the arc have rendered models so they just, skipped their parts. A few exceptions exist only in dialogue–not even voiced dialogue by the way, just the square of text ☠– so yeah don't expect an amazing adaptation of the story

(By the way you know those fully rendered, movie-like cutscenes these games usually have? You would expect important moments in the story to have this style of cutscenes right, such as idk the games finale, or future Rogue's defeat or fuck idk the main character's fights right

Unsurprisingly and kind of funny, only scenes featuring the girls have these type of cutscenes, making sure to have a full shot of their boobs in the process, I love this series !)

What I'm personally enjoying the most: the side quests. All of the playable characters have their own story quests and the progression system involves ranking up the guild by doing comissions in which your team gains friendship points that level up and unlock more side stories between them.

Essentially you have at least 3 side quests with every combination of two characters plus their own separate story quests

This leads to lots of interactions between characters and lots of silly moments that I personally enjoyed a lot, they added good depth to a lot of the relationships and honeslty I'm just a huge fan of little extra bits that exist outside of the main story and characters that usually don't interact doing so. (There's an entire side quest of Rogue being jealous of Sting spending too much time on Fairy Tail fyi, as a bonus <3)

Combat-wise it's cool, if not a little long with attack animations that you can't skip, the mechanic of doing unison raids with any pair of characters you like was dope, lots of other ways of making combined attacks and lots of upgrades available if you like to grind like me

There's also the photo mode, because what is the point of any game if I can't take silly pictures whenever I want. This is the first game I've played that allows you to just, put all the characters in one frame and pose them however you like, usually it's like 4 at most but here you can just pile everyone in there lmao

Idk if you're interested in any DLCs, I know there's a couple that add more playable characters such as Lyon, Levy, Lisanna and idk who else I haven't bought those, I did buy the set of Sting and Rogue's skins, obviously. They're cheap but it's three separate skins per each playable character (I had to buy six in total) whatever you consider worth it ig. There's a free recolor of each characters' regular suits which are cool, but nothing to cry about

Like I said before, I knew this game was overall not good but these two bitches have me in a chokehold and I knew I'd buy it at some point, I was dissapointed by some stuff but meh, I'm used to getting dissapointed by this series anyways

Summarized: Is it a good game? No, am I guiltily enjoying it? Absolutely

[izzy-the-chaotic-gremlin]

Hello I have some fellers for y'all to meet

MEET SMG 8 AND SMG 2, cus cuz why not let's add on to this little bandwagon of eights we got :]

This is SMG 8 ⤴️

And this is SMG 2 ⤴️

Rants about them under cut!

Let's do 8 first!

She is extremely short, like 3 ft and a half kinda short

She is extremely energetic and kind of chaotic

She is the meme guardian of animation memes! And yes I'm talking about the kind that we all went through a phase constantly watching when we were seven

Using the ink pen that she has across her back she can draw anything, and those drawings can come to life aka anything she draws becomes reality

She has a pet Smurgle, here I put an image below so you all know what I'm talking about

She is on par with Mario's level of power but she doesn't use said power because she doesn't want to hurt anybody, she she does use her power is to cause chaos with her friends though >:]

She's a regular at SMG3's restaurant

She is extremely creative plus she has ADHD, and combining that she can practically make anything as long as her mind is up to it

She's good friends with Tori and Boopkins

She is surprisingly dirty minded, she's also the one to always initiate the kiss or the one to push her partner up against the wall and kiss them >:] she's also the one to suggest the dirty times in bed *wink wink*

She is a DemiGirl and lesbian

She is biologicaly male, and no she has not had bottom surgery cus she wants to have babies at some point in her life, also because, and I quote this from 8 themself "its makes me more cunty"

Her pod looks like this

oh dear God what am I doing

Hears some extra details

Her hat design ⤴️

The design of her eyes ⤴️

My head cannon relationships that she has with the other 8's

@bear-boi-5 Smg8 : honest to God she views him as an older brother figure / Uncle figure, also I headcanon that she will sit there and stand in front of him jumping on her heels and grabbing at the air a above her saying "up up!" Over and over until he finally snaps and picks her up, oftentimes she'll climb on his shoulders and just kind of ride around

@strange0-0storm Smg8 : honest to God she imprinted upon him like a baby duck, she will literally just follow him around everywhere he goes, what I'm trying to say is she really looks up to him and she just really really likes him in general, he's also a older brother / Uncle figure for her PS he's the funcle aka fun unkle :]

@mrfellsans Smg8 : she just observes him from afar like he's a creature that must be studied for science and research, she does like him though shes just not too sure about him

Ok let's do 2 now!

She's also pretty short like around like 4 ft tall

She is extremely protective of 8, like if you dare lay a finger on it she will make you say nighty night for a couple of days lafmo

Do you surprisingly strong physically, like the girl has flipping abs and everything

She has a black belt in karate

She has multiple tattoos that are unseen the eye, the only ones that you can see are the ones that go up her arm around the back of her shoulders and down to the other arm (aka the snake one)

Her tail works like an extra hand

She usually keeps her eyes closed like Falin for Dungeon Meshie, she does open them though when she is feeling a strong emotion or just surprised angry aor scared

Have yall ever seen The owl House? If you haven't or if you have two's magic works exactly like how that characters in TOH's works! She does the whole circle in the air thing as well (reference photos so you get the idea of it) also pls go watch The Owl House if you haven't seen it, its really good :]

She's the mean guardian of really old and timeless means, like the whole IS THAT THE BIET OF 87? and BUT THATS JUST A THEORY, A GAME THEORY! She also deals with TV show and movie meams like Cursed cat Alastor and this random ass screenshot for movies that get made into memes

She has a heavy Russian accent

She knows fluent Russian, German, and Japanese

She is female and lesbian

She calls 8 親愛なる and 私の愛 (親愛なる translates to my dear and 私の愛 translates to my love)

She has a pet cursed cat Alastor aka this thing

(oh Lord)

She is a year older than SMG 3 and SMG 4

She's also regular at SMG 3's Cafe

She has a crush on SMG 8 :]

She is super sleep deprived due to her staying up and making theories on games and movies, or just staying up all night watching Mat Pat lafmo

Her pod looks like this

Extra details on her (I'll add the rest later in a diff post)

Her eye design ⤴️

My head cannon relationships that she has with the other 8's

@bear-boi-5 Smg8 : she doesn't trust him at all, the only reason that he's allowed around SMG 8 is because 8 likes him too much for 2 to safely take them out, but if 8 dare lay even a finger on SMG 8 SMG 2 will imady make him say nighty night for a couple days

@strange0-0storm Smg8 : eh shes alright with him, I mean she doesn't fully trust him but it's not to the level of Bear-Boi's 8

@mrfellsans Smg8 : she likes him and considers him a good acquaintance :]

[matenrou-fan]

Beel, Levi and Asmo with chubby! fem! s/o who have low self-esteem

Was fighting thoughts about ordering delivery for fast food and then a sudden idea came to my mind...! (p.s. I lost the fight)

Femreader, fluff, hurt/comfort, Asmo being mischievous a little bit;;

-He has no idea why you think about yourself so low and can't believe he actually loves you.

-Beel is so big, like, really big. And you love him, don't you? Then why did you think he couldn't feel the same passion for you?

-If you have a tummy it just means you are eating well. And that he has something to squeeze and kiss, as much as your thick thighs too.

-Don't you dare to try diets or something. Beel doesn't mind if it was because of some health problems or something, but if you just tell him that you want to lose weight because you feel ugly, he will stop you.

-He may not be that good with words but he will try to explain to you how much he loves you and that's real happiness not in your figure but in your heart. So you can be pretty and beautiful in any form and shape, the main point is confidence and he's willing to help you work with that.

-"S/o.. i.. I really love you.." - it was kinda hard to talk so intimate without getting embarrassed but Beel threw away his shyness, knowing that you need some comfort right now. - "I love you and your appearance the way it is, because you are already perfect and without any flaws.. Like a big Cheeseburger…"

-He wants you to be healthy and happy, and there's nothing better than a big portion of your favorite meal, don't you think? So now he will take you with him in cafes more often, he hopes eating together will be less nerving for you.

-Will try to compliment you more, especially about your appearance. Despite it looking like all he thinks about is food, he's pretty attentive and always notices when you buy a new skirt or get a new haircut.

-"You look so.. um.. tasty in this dress.." - Beel gets closer to you and takes your hands, smiling happily with a little blush on his cheeks. - "And the way you smell is so.. delicious.."

-Well maybe he's a little bit awkward but he's trying his best! After all, he just wants to always support and help you..!

-He doesn't care how much you weigh, for him you're still so small that he can easily lift you up with one arm. See? That means you are not that fat, so don't worry, darling..!

-You may be sad because in all that anime he watches so many pretty girls with such unrealistic thin waists.. How can he look at you and feel something after seeing so many pretty fictional characters and so many beautiful cosplayers..?

-When you tell him about this he will get shocked. How can you think like that?? After all that love and care he put in you?? It's not fair..!

-"Since when do you start thinking like a normie, caring about your weight and everything?! The real otaku's mind has thoughts only about new games and shows..!" - he scoffs, but then looks at you with a worried expression - "Come on, there's no one who will be cooler than you.. Even Ruri-chan says that personality is more important than appearance, but you're great in both ways, so why do you care??"

-He's really surprised how someone so precious and cute can have low self-esteem. If someone will combine all his waifus the result still will be not that adorable and stunning like you..!

-He absolutely loves your big thighs, as he can lie on them while playing on his phone. It's much more comfortable and warm than his pillow so don't you dare try to get rid of these plump squishy things..!

-Levi will try to find some anime about cooking or some that includes plus size characters, so you will feel better. When you are so sad his heart hurts more than when he died right as the boss got like 1 hp left in his favorite game.

-Also.. What did you say about all these cosplayers? He now makes you a great outfit so he can prove to you how much more beautiful you will look in cosplay than all these people..!

-"Here..! Try this!" - he drag you to his room and show you a dress that looks as if it would be worn by some magical girl like Sailor moon. - "Come on, you will look hella cute in this..! After all, it's my work, and I always pay attention to all details, don't you see?"

-Will make one of your photos like his avatar in social media as he really can't stop admiring your beautiful form here.

-Levi will use any opportunity to show you his love, maybe sometimes not with the real words but through text as he's too embarrassed to say something like that out loud but still.. Despite he hates when Asmo doing this, just for you, he will add extra hearts in the end <3

-Honey.. From all people on this planet.. you…?!

-He's stunned. Speechless. Will probably give you a side eye for a moment. Come on, baby, beauty loves confidence, and if you keep being so shy about yourself you will never shine bright..!

-If you will avoid him because you are afraid that you're not worth his attention, the attention of the most beautiful, skinny, precious demon in Devildom, then he has no choice but to annoy you everyday.

-Expect a bunch of text from him with millions of sweet words about your cute appearance and breathtaking figure. Also will shower you with presents, from small lipstick to a whole outfit.

-"S/o..! Oh, my precious charming goodness, here you are!" - he gets closer and, before you have time to react, pepper all your face in small quick kisses. - "Are you sad again about your figure? Stop it, there's no one who has such a mesmerizing and beautiful body as you have..! And I'm willing to show you how truthful my words of love are in any way you want me to, darling..!♡"

-He's a pro in fashion! And he knows how to enhance the beauty of his little beloved girl, finding the right clothes that suit your stunning look.

-So yeah, Asmo will take you with him to all the shops now. He thinks that if you refresh your wardrobe a little then you will also refresh your mind. You will be able to look at yourself from his view and realize just how much potential you have.

-"Hurry up, there's at least five stores that I wanted to show you..!" - he takes your arms and leads you through the streets - "You know, shopping always helps me forget about everything, so come on, let's enjoy our little date today, hehe..!"

-There's no one who will outshine Asmo in beauty. Well, at least among demons. Cause among people there's no one who will outshine you, and he will repeat it to you until you will remember it, darling.

[takami-takami]

More venting, sowry. Actually embarassing to be doing this with this pfp, bye. Interact (like button) if you read.

Trauma, grief, sui threats, animal harm, abuse (not going to label it. Just assume it's in there). This is kinda long. It's honestly just a trauma dump but I'm just tired of holding it inside. Anyways.

Hiiiiii i'm so fucking stressed ^-^ Re: the situation with my dadddd. ^-^

Uragh. There was a huge argument last night. It's very harrowing living in this house. One day, you spend 2 hours talking someone through "dude this is literally wrong" and they're just... Chipper. Smiling into the phone, "uh, yeah. I know? Why do you think I did it?"

They detail to you exactly how much they want another person to hurt, to suffer, over a slight against them. Over "disrespect." You spend careful effort not to tell them how their actions made the other person cry, in case they find sick satisfaction in that. You listen to them detail the way they feel absolutely no remorse because they are incapable of such remorse. They only cry when recounting their own pain. They never cry for another. When another person cries that's sport, that's "games."

And a few days later, he's smiling asking you how you're doing. And everyone else is "trying" with him. I don't blame them, it's self protection.

Honestly. I think part of the problem here is that I'm just describing This week. Instead of a lifetime. You know?

Because I've sat through my dad telling me how people are pawns. Faceless. I've watched him boast with glee about how manipulative he is, how he wears the title "master manipulator" with pride. How he's the smartest person, how he's above everyone else. Don't mistake this as praise for him. In one of the hundreds of times he's talked to me about this he got six times seven wrong.

But anyways. I've seen how his face morphs into a smile slowly, crawling up his face as he gets me upset.

I'll give an example. One of the many times he basically tried to kill himself in front of us or said he was going to, he explained that the reason why is because he's personally experienced grief, and that's why he chose to do it as a punishment. Specifically so that we could feel the overwhelming experience of pain and anguish. He likes that kind of shit. Makes him feel all vindicated, ya know?

But he provides for us, cuz he cares about us or whatever. I mean, we're "extensions of him and he owns us" and all, if I'm being cynical; but he definitely is capable of love. At least, love the emotion, not the action. The problem lies in that he is physically incapable of feeling empathy, remorse, or guilt. Not having empathy itself is fine, by the way, like tons of people don't have empathy and are perfectly chill people but the problem lies in that he really doesn't have that "off" switch to stop him from doing sadistic things. It's a really bad combination.

I mean I guess there's fear. Of god, of being a bad person, of being like his father. I honestly don't know what's holding him together at this point.

It's just... A lot. Dealing with someone like this as your dad. But things are "better" now. Right? He just terrorizes mom now. He just picks fights now. It's not like "before." When he threatened to slice my pet rabbit up. When he threatened to [redacted] me. When he did something to me I don't want to talk about that I read is actually a war crime. Torture. You know? Stuff like that.

I feel... So much disgust in my body. I feel so much rage and shame. I don't even know why I'm posting this. But anyways.

It'd be an insult to call this "my story" or whatevs because it's nothing like that. I'm just... Tired. I thought I'd be happier not talking about what happened but I'm not. I probably won't feel any happier saying this either. But who knows.

I haven't been able to do my schoolwork. I'm supposed to get it done by tomorrow. I have to leave wednesday for my trip. Haven't done shit all day.

[djsherriff-responses]

Personal opinions and general character design critique regarding the Nymphs from Rayman (spoiler: they all suffer from having same face/body syndrome and the designers being too horny to consider other design elements)

Betilla: I feel her origins redesign was a downgrade from her whimsical style in the first game, but I also do understand why they wanted to change her, as origins was meant as a reboot of the franchise and they wanted Rayman to be the only limbless in the Glade of Dreams. But since origins ended up not being a series reboot (with its plot only existing in code) and Rayman having skins/costumes who are meant to be different limbless characters anyways , changing Betilla drastically was already meaningless in the long run , much less the choice to make her be a basic hot nymph

Outside of it being impossible to Google her name in front of family , I personally don’t mind how she looks in Origins as the red hair contrasts really nicely with the greens, if you really wanna push some symbolism imagery here you can make arguments the red + green is meant to be reminiscent of flowers or berries. Ultimately though it is just a green bikini outfit with thigh highs and the only real connection to her role as the nymph of the forest/jungle area of the game is the colours, and maybe the odd stitch work pattern

Which is a bit of shame as you can easily replace the blue stars of her old design with an actual star-ish looking flower called Bletilla (literally one letter off from her actual name) or other flora

I don’t think the issue was they wanted to give Betilla a redesign that had sex appeal , I just think they went in the wrong direction with it. Considering that she played a large role in the old educational games and she was a sort of mentor figure to Rayman (if not just straight up his mother depending on one’s headcanons), they could’ve given Betilla a personality and sex appeal by making her a hot teacher type character (who may or may not count as a milf), hell give her signs of age like small wrinkles to really get the point across she’s older than most of the player characters, and she’s aged like spicy fine wine

Her design in the first game is adorable while giving her the vibes of a mature fairy god mother type mentor, but I don’t think it would work in the more modern Rayman games without some updated tweaks. It is pretty though and does has more personality than her origins design, and the other nymphs for that matter

Holly: I like that there’s some actual details on her and some colour variation compared to her sisters, even if she’s 3 out of 6 nymphs whose main colour is some shade of blue

Besides giving her an outfit that isn’t a skirt and bra, I think her design could better reflect that her domain is the desert of dijiridoos by having some musical elements to her design. It’s kinda odd her tattoos/body paint (which do look good on her and her skin tone) don’t reference musical notes at least, wasted opportunity there

I have this issue with Edith and Annetta as well, but I’m a bit confused about why dead animals seems like a popular fashion choice for these ladies , especially since (in the origins game) none of the nymphs are shown as fighters (not saying they’re incapable, the game just doesn’t show them as such) and we’re not giving lore hints about it? I’ll talk more on this issue when I get to the other two , but it’s odd that Holly’s domain is populated by birds and she’s wearing a bird skull

Was it a nightmare and she kill it? Is it a beloved pet and she couldn’t part with them even after death? 🤷‍♀️

I can’t really think of any alternatives for her or the other two animal hat sisters atm, but at least it’s looks badass even if it doesn’t do much personality wise, so points for looking cool at least

Edith: Edith I think is the worst design of the sisters , hands down, no competition. I mean , what is there to really say about her? “Oh we have a level based around a combination of spicy food and ice drinks with dragon butlers , how should we design this chick?”

“Just put her in red with a lizard hat”

Almost nothing about her design reflects her domain besides that she’s blonde and wears red , and that’s only half of the domain she’s meant to be part off. Her outfit pattern could’ve at least have some reference to the ice levels, or give her literally anything to connect her to those ice levels

I also don’t like how her hair is styled, the colour is fine but the shape looks ugly

Incredibly morbid Edith walks around with a dead butler on her head, especially considering the final boss/king of her level is also a dragon. Unlike Holly and Annetta, I can’t even give Edith credit for looking cool because it’s just more red on a very red and bland design

…… do you think Edith uses her corpse hat as a hand puppet?

Annetta: While I think it’s a weird choice to have nymphs of nature walk around with corpse head gear (much less ones of their domain’s general population) I think Annetta is the most justified of the nymph sisters to be wearing a hat made of a dead animal

Considering that her domain has a notable fishing population and she’s already dressed in fish scales, Annetta wearing a fish skull does actually contribute to showing the lore of her as a character and her connection to her domain. Unlike Holly and Edith , I don’t need to come up with some theory about their fashion choices when Annetta’s reflects already existing lore in origins (what little of it at least)

I personally do think the outfit looks ugly and plain uncomfortable, but I will give this design some credit for having one of the more visually detailed designs by virtue of her scales alone, and it actually makes sense for the nymph whose domain is the literal ocean to be in a skimpy outfit, even if her shell bra has to be glued on to her boobs

Unlike Edith’s outfit colour which is just red, Annetta’s has various shades of blues and teals that are reminiscent of the sea. It’s pretty I like it

Helena: Much like Edith there’s not that much to say here but what I can say is mostly positive

Helena’s a pretty standard design of “blonde chick in cool blues with white fluff details” and yeah that’s generic usually, but here I really like her. I think it’s how the fur and cloth looks textured along how her hair front is styled that makes her incredibly cute to me

Yeah, Helena is a simple but cute character design

Weird that a mountain nymph who has to live through cold weather wears a skimpy outfit with her bare thighs out , but I’m gonna assume that’s because she , much like her sisters, was designed to be sexy first and given aesthetics after they made the body model

Fée de la Mort/VooDoo Mama/Big Mama: As cool as she looks, when compared to both her monster form and the other nymphs , you can tell she wasn’t planned to be one of them, especially when you look up Mamma Hite

I bring that up because while Fee has a good design, she is also a visual metaphor that reflects Origins’ identity: a failed series reboot whose plot was scrapped in favour of goofy extremism (or sex appeal in the nymphs case)

So about Fee’s actual design: I personally don’t like the pink used on her and would’ve liked her Nymph form to reflect the monster form besides the hair

probs to the fact she’s the only nymph with her own pose which already gives her a lot of personality , but the combination of her tattoos, bone jewellery and her baggy looking eyes really sells the fact she’s from the land of the livid dead and thus sticks out amongst the other fairies, even if you ignored the bat wings she has

visually she does work as a undead fairy of the underworld who likes to rock and roll, so job well done with that

I kinda do wish they stuck with the frog though

[morgan-the-lonely-brick]

Hiii~~ coming onto this blog to do Terror propaganda. Follow my terror sideblog @leadandblood , this is just my main. That said:

Welcome to The Terror (2018)!

Here are things that I love about the first season that might convince you to watch it too (without spoilers)

The fandom is absolutely amazing!!!! I have never had such wonderful comments and tags under posts. And they're all really talented and just wonderful

Gay love.

So much gay love oh my god everyone is gay-

Heck, there's even straight love if you're into that

Old men <3

Absolute angels and absolute demons, that are SO fun to watch

The show knows it's characters incredibly well

They are well developed and act believably in all instances i can think of

If what they do doesn't make sense in the moment it's gonna later

"Here's a guy. Now lets find out how many fucked up things can happen to him before he goes insane or khs"

Representation! Gays, amputees and POC

The main main cast is mostly white men but when there's someone else it has significance to the story or bears a deeper meaning

The visuals are stunning

Amazing camera work

The sound design!!!! Oh my god!!! It's so gooood!!!

Insane paralels game. You won't even notice some of them, but they make sense once you do

The love and care that went into this show is incredible

Very rewarding upon rewatch - different views on scenes and characters and such

You will be finding new details for several rewatches (im on my 6th and still finding stuff)

THE ACTING OH MY GOD THE ACTING

Jared Harris - and his insane ability to portray any combination of emotions with one expression

Tobias Menzies and his goddamn microexpressions

Just to name a few, but honestly they're all amazing

They're also very nice to look at

Prepare to get hurt in the most creative ways possible - it KNOWS how to hurt you and it's... Kinda satisfying

Whump galore!! Emotional and physical. Comfort and no comfort. Just take your pick

It's finished, so they can't fuck it up anymore lmao

The sheer horror of being stuck in the arctic with little to no food and everything wanting to kill you /pos

Things that might turn you away

The sheer horror of being stuck in the arctic with little to no food and everything wanting to kill you /neg

Racist characters. it's the 1800s :///

Death. Oh god there's so much death

Oh you have a favourite character? Well, he dies :/

It is a tragedy through and through.

When you think it can't get any worse, yes it can

So many side characters that you'll be learning their names for the next few days to come

They're 95% white men that look the same when you start out

Bad things happen to animals :(

There's quite a lot of gore... Open skulls, deep wounds, amputation, disease, burning to death, mauling, i could go on

At one point alcoholism and suicide

There will be poems

Overall just a really really great show, i am in love with it

[batsplat]

aliens’ aesthetic ranking

let's take it as read I have no taste. I also barely know what the word aesthetics means. I'm including a broad range of attributes like recognisable symbols, liveries + helmets, distinctiveness... recurring motifs, brand consistency, general vibes. what sponsors they happened to have and how they looked. personal bugbears like on-track recognisability (?). amount of variability. fun

1. valentino

this list does mostly reflect the philosophy of 'more is better'. pure maximalism. I also don't really care as much about whether things look 'good' or 'bad' but whether they are funny to me personally. valentino kind of clinches the first spot by default because he is just unambiguously doing the most. I'll say it: I like the yellow. I like the muted nice yellow he used to feature more and I like the fluorescent eyesore. it's bright and vivid and iconic and just kind of fun. AND it generally made him very easy to spot on the track, which is SUCH a plus point to me given how many races I've watched with him in them. it's probably for the best that in his actual career, valentino was generally shackled to having another base colour for him to then put yellow highlights on (rather than going full yellow) - and obviously the best combination here was all the yamaha stuff. objectively pleasing

he's gone through a lot of different eras and has a lot of different Bits. haircuts, symbolism, styling, fonts. (note: hair is something I am only mentioning with valentino because quite frankly it's not worth bringing up for any of the others, except maybe jorge. the other ones just kinda have 'generic men's haircuts' for the most part.) the rossifumi thing was cute, the lesbian era was strong, I like when he got plot significant haircuts (2003 brno hair dyeing which the commentators speculated were mind games, 2004 complete change-up of his look with the substantive curls, 2008 'time to get serious' buzz cut). 'the doctor' styling also personally works for me and the colourful font is fun. a lot of his styling until about the mid noughties was very children's cartoon in a way that didn't ALWAYS appeal to me but like. I love the Muchness of it. I love when valentino had two horrendously clashing shades of yellow during his nastro azurro honda days. the dumb 'WLF' stuff, with the W to escape sanction. baby's first counterculture. I love the turtles!! like the misano 2015 fish, there's just that slight self-effacing irony of you know... with the turtle, he's associating himself with a slow animal and it's got a cute story attached and he's got that dumb tattoo, it's all just got a fun vibe to it. all these stickers he's got on his bike with all his different lil symbols. there's an adolescent charm to a lot of valentino's branding that just adds to his appeal, like I want to roll my eyes over it in a vaguely fond way

plus he had a bunch of banger liveries and special helmets, that weren't part of his consistent 'aesthetic' per se but did just add to his general vibe and charm. I think probably my favourite very valentino-esque special liveries are valencia 2003 (incidentally the best the yellow has ever worked with the repsol orange), assen 2007, and catalunya 2008. for the special helmets, my personal faves off the top of my head are... mugello 2011 eyeball, misano 2020 viagra, mugello 2008 scream, mugello 2010 joker, misano 2013 'wish you were here', misano 2015 shark, misano 2010 clock. it's a good set

and I like the sun and the moon stuff!! cute bit of basic symbolism, it's fun and it's spawned a lot of lovely designs over the years. I don't MASSIVELY mind the minimalism that's crept into the picture here with some of these: I can admit that some of the simpler designs are quite nice... shout out to 2007 where you can kinda get into fun symbolism territory depending on whose perspective is foregrounded in photos

ymbolism goes brr. valentino also had a similar design around 2018-19 which was quite nice and classy, the black yamaha of 2019 worked well with it. but generally speaking I do prefer when the sun and the moon were a bit less minimalist and had more stuff going on, especially when they had faces. mostly a thing in his 125cc-250cc days, early 500cc. also no faces but one of the nicest sun + moon designs is what he was sporting in phillip island 2007

anyway. look. we could stick with this one for a while because obviously valentino had so so so much going on aesthetic-wise. I haven't even mentioned him doing his semi-regular doctor drag, how various celebrations played into his wider aesthetic sense, the chicken thing... there's a lot to get into here, way more than with the others, so I'm cutting myself off here for a general assessment. the whole aesthetic's recognisable + distinctive, there's a bunch of different fun recurring motifs, but there's also enough diversity of looks to keep things fresh. obviously they don't all work for me... I don't actually mind the ones that are just aggressively poor taste, like for instance the current vr46 livery makes me laugh every time I see it, I dislike valentino's output more when it's just a bit drab. 2002 'just some guy' era was kinda painful, the yellow plus repsol just... did not really work and he looked like Just Some Guy. also, while casey's little 'yellow has CORRUPTED the BRAND' bit is obviously silly, I will agree with him that the ducati era just did not work for valentino on any level. I don't even like the shade of the ducati back then, like it's just not red enough. troubling haircut situation. but to me those are the two main rough patches. I am pro buzz cut and I am pro sleazy sideburns and I am pro clashing shades of yellow. it's all good

2. jorge

given my previous position on maximalism, it shouldn't be a surprise that second place goes to the rider who has been doing the second most aesthetically. obviously this also existed in this fun space where it was... kinda inspired by valentino, kinda not... is he copying valentino or doing his own thing... trying to establish his own identity... I also unironically adore that a fair share of the jorge stuff makes a part of my soul cringe. I am thinking first and foremost of 'lorenzo's land', which I adore mainly because of how determinedly he stuck with that schtick over the years. look at him claiming his territory. dumbass

I feel similarly about the jump he does on the podiums, though I will say I am continually impressed how much elevation he achieved without ever fucking up the landing. I have to say I reckon I would have fallen off the podium at least once, not least because I can imagine riding a motorcycle for fifty minutes doesn't do great things for your sense of balance when you're walking again

the other big thing he had going on was the x-fuera thing, as is visible on the lorenzo's land logo and many of his helmets. I really like this!! it's original, it's a way of paying homage to his first victory (where he overtook the other riders 'around the outside', aka por fuera). my only mild quibble is I think it would've been good for him to... uh, how do I put this delicately. he should've overtaken more riders around the outside. like it's tough to do in motogp (though ironically the best overtake he's ever been involved in is casey overtaking him around the outside at laguna 2011) but idk. just my personal note. 2003 was a long time ago

then there's the glorious time in which chupa chups was sponsoring him (came back in 2019 for one more go) as the big sponsor on his helmet AND he was always sucking on a lollipop on podiums. which just added so so so much to his annoying brat energy and is infinitely superior to everyone having to hold those bloody energy drink cans these days. this to me is where capitalism peaked

another motif that's quite nice is the shark one which... this might have just been because he switched to a helmet company literally called 'shark' in 2016. though there was something quite nice and fitting about it, given that... I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think the first time anyone associated jorge with sharks was when valentino did his misano 2015 helmet design portraying jorge as the big bad shark? so as a fan of that particular dynamic, obviously I think it's very cute jorge leaned into this. then again, the shark was never a massive part of his branding, otherwise acosta presumably wouldn't have been so ready to nick it

in general, obviously jorge was another rider who like valentino took his branding very seriously - partly of course precisely because he'd watched how much valentino got out of it. he liked his symbolism, he associated a lot of meaning with replacing his '48' with the '99' in 2009, he put plenty of thought into this stuff. the lorenzo's land thing was part of him getting more into the spirit of celebrations generally in 2007, proper set pieces in the valentino mould. now obviously we're not going to go through those here, just like with valentino, but I do want to give a shout out to jorge's thing for body doubles. idk how I'd describe the 'aesthetics' of this beyond 'we don't have time to unpick all that', but it is a bit of a motif 2 me

and then, of course, there's the whole angel/devil thing he had going on. like the sun/moon stuff for valentino, this is all very basic dualism, the competitor who's both a good and a bad guy, bastard on track etc etc but like... it works, it's quite flexible, it's a nice design with the 99, no complaints. I also like that he changed it up for 2017 and was willing to have a bit of an aesthetic switch up when the time was right *squints at certain names further down this list* when he went for a two devils approach and ditched the angel

and the last thing I want to give him a shout out for - being a yamaha rider who decided in 2008 that he was going to have a highlight colour and that highlight colour was going to be Red. this counts as aesthetics to me.... I like his 2009 era asymmetric red/white shin area padding, but what I like most about it is that it is visibly very different from yellow. it means that despite jorge and valentino regularly fighting on the track (I mean not really given what the alien era was like but pretend they did) and riding for the same team, they were easily distinguishable at all times. it makes a difference!! good job for both of them!! hall of shame here goes to sete/valentino, who in 2004-05 rode for completely different manufacturers and were somehow still a nightmare to distinguish (even funnier because vale's 2004 literal teammate had a red livery). there's been plenty of teammates who are way too tricky to tell apart and we're heading for that situation again this year. but valentino and jorge were truly the platonic ideal for being easily distinguishable teammates. bless them

3. marc

confession time: I don't really like the repsol honda colours. I mean, first off, I think it suffers from overexposure. the liveries from like... 2003 to 2023 fundamentally look too similar to each other. maybe this is unfair because I don't judge yamaha from going from 'blue' in 2003 to 'still blue' now, but those liveries have changed more over the years!! google 2004 yamaha, 2010 yamaha and 2020 yamaha, like they've stagnated a bit in recent years but generally there's way more willingness to try out some different stuff. even ducati, whose only concept is 'what if a bike were red', has managed to change things up more. with honda... it's just that particular combination of orange and white and slightly darker orange that I have seen too much of by now. you'll note that I included valentino's 2003 valencia livery above, which to me is a glimpse into a better, kinder timeline where honda allowed itself to explore alternative ideas for what one can do with the colour orange. now I imagine repsol didn't want too much change for brand integrity reasons, but quite frankly I do not care. change your fucking livery, you guys win WAY too much to be this creatively bankrupt. also, would it kill you to rustle up a special livery? they genuinely did a great job when they had a gun to their head last year silverstone (albeit by reworking a livery from back when they had interesting liveries) so apparently it's possible. come on

the reason I bring this up here is that marc's aesthetics have been so synonymous with honda for so long that like... when I close my eyes and picture 'marc marquez aesthetic', I do see a respol honda bike. which in a way isn't ideal because obviously there are quite a lot of other honda riders, including literally every other rider on this list. but like... he was synonymous with the brand for a long while there. so it is worth mentioning that I don't particularly like the brand. I have nothing against orange, I think orange is a perfectly nice colour. I am sick of seeing repsol orange. it also doesn't help that marc's OTHER brand he's synonymous with is RED BULL which is like... listen, I don't HATE the red bull branding per se, I regularly see photos of laguna seca where it's got the bulls painted in big on things in the background and I go 'huh that actually looks quite good'. but this is another one where in motorsports, I think we've all seen more than enough red bull branding. and (prior to this year) it's just so bloody prominent on all of marc's stuff

obviously the main thing marc has got going for him in terms of recognisable symbolism is the ant thing. he's also got a thunder-related nickname but like... he's never really leaned into it as far as I can remember, so it's a bit of a dud to me. the ant stuff is nice!! it's got the same basic appeal as the turtle thing in terms of 'imagine if a non-threatening thing were actually winning everything'. it plays into marc's whole thing of emphasising how short he is, which I always found kinda funny given he spent much of his premier class stint with the one teammate he was decisively taller than. and also like... there's really only one alien who has more than two cm on him, plus he's taller than dovi. but it's still His Thing and I support riders having Things. when you google 'marc marquez ant', you get this --

-- which I quite like but also... does he ever actually use this? has he ever worn anything with this logo? I would support it if he did, but also this seems more of a fan thing than it does a marc thing. which to me is a shame. but in the spirit of brand integrity, I do support the actual ant helmets he's sported over the years. generally quite classy with colours that compliment the horrendously familiar repsol colours well

idk I don't have much to say about these. they look nice. I don't need every rider to go all in on the cutesy cartoon style, though I wish marc did SOME other stuff with the whole ant thing. like it is quite a basic ant. at first glance that could easily be a spider

I do have a bone to pick with some of his other helmet designs. first off, as a rule I don't like his american helmets

again this might just be a lack of taste thing, but I find all of these quite... you know. they're fine. they're helmets. to me they look quite messy in quite uninteresting ways. generic. you're in america so you've got a bunch of stars on your helmet. yay

the catalunya helmet situation is way better:

though it does have to be said. the divorce drama did also generally cause a bit of a hit on marc's helmet quality post-2015. for one thing, I do not want to see multiple years listed next to a special helmet. come up with a new one!! power up is particularly egregious here because the design was just never that interesting, like it looks like just another sponsor logo

the gresini era I have no real thoughts about because in all honesty I've never massively vibed with this era of gresini liveries in terms of colour, but I like what they do (or did, apparently) with the red stripes forming continuity between rider and bike. and that worked with marc's preference for the colour red for his highlights. crucially I could usually tell quite easily where he was on the track, which I'm generally a fan of and will very much end this season

which. speaking of. I can and will judge marc for what he's gone for with this entire red-on-red situation with his number and helmet --

-- first of all. it's kind of boring. second of all it's a bit of a visibility nightmare. pecco at least has gone for a black number on his bike (deeply necessary given how '63' and '93' are already way too similar) but that's like... it's still going to be exhausting, especially if they've both gone for vaguely reddish helmets. I would've put it into their contracts they need to have completely different helmet colours, make one of them wear green for all I care. idk at this point, just choose a different colour that isn't red. choose the bloody repsol orange to reverse what you were doing back at honda, pay tribute to your roots or some shit. this is too much red. I appreciated the red testing leathers in a sort of 'well this is horrendously tacky' way - very much cheap porn vibes which suits marc well. but this is not that red. this is just... ducati red, it's also all quite dark and threatens to be drab. get a brighter highlight colour. looking forward to a lot of squinting at race starts this year

4. dani

we are getting into the 'what aesthetic' part of the ranking. I have already made my feelings on the whole repsol colour situation clear, and unfortunately for dani.... he was at that team for his entire stint as a full-time motogp rider. thirteen years of essentially identical liveries. the only fun livery during that time I can remember is aragon 2011

casey disliked this livery btw. we'll get to him in a moment

dani grabbing fourth place in this list is basically solely down to his 'little samurai' branding bailing him out. it's something he kept returning to in his career so it very much qualifies as a recurring motif, he does a celebration with a sword, he talks about how much he'd like to have swords in interviews... it's got a long history, he's already been doing some variation of it since his lower class title-winning days (very cute shirts with the lil guy with the sword).... he's got the recognisable branding that is featured on his pit board, on merch, on helmets. it's his thing!! I'm pro having a thing. also obviously the 'little' thing, in a way he's so synonymous with his height that it IS a big part of his like... brand. he's short, that's his thing. but he's also dangerous. hence the samurai

and ofc he's talked about the nickname in interviews, why he wants to adopt the 'spirit' of the samurai, general affinity for japanese culture which is just a bit of a thing in motogp - the weeb sport - so he's also talked about that stuff... I also liked this helmet, just quite nicely designed

another critique I have to get off my chest... given the remarkably small number of times marc and dani had any sort of on-track confrontation, at the end of the day it ended up being kinda irrelevant.... but real hall of shame territory for both of them to have white numbers and no heavy use of highlight colours. every single year. (this is also why I don't understand why marc is so committed to a red number NOW, like you didn't even have one during your honda years.) at least casey's number was in a different colour - though an actual highlight colour would have also made that teammate pairing easier to distinguish - but the marc and dani situation was just egregious. you look the same

um. not much more to say than that. nothing offensively bad going on with dani's branding and again, I am very pro him having a Thing. I am also pro the thing. but it's also just the one thing and apart from that, he really was mostly associated with those repsol honda colours. which, as we've established, simply always look the same. shame

5. casey

ah, casey. well. the best thing you can say in casey's defence is that he wasn't really trying. he kinda just rejected the idea of that sort of outreach work. above the idea of recognisable branding. it's like the thing where he was kinda baffled by the idea of europeans 'celebrating' their 'victories'... he just didn't really like engaging with the commercial elements of the sport, which extended to not doing much on the symbolism front

casey's one bit of consistent branding can be summed up as 'left his home country at age fourteen and yearns after a simpler, less stressful time that he expresses in this extremely generic, non-specific patriotism'. it's like a way of expressing he's perma-homesick - for a country he has in reality acquired a lot of distance to. the only australian stuff that actually gets included in the branding is 1) the australian flag, and 2) kangaroos

this is a four year old's understanding of australia. it's extremely vague and regionally non-specific - compare and contrast to marc and especially valentino's deep connection to and identification with their home town. there you have an actual sense of PLACE that forms the bedrock of any patriotic affiliation, rather than a generic link to a massive landmass. australia is a big country and yet casey's just kind of stuck associating with the whole thing. as far as I can tell from his autobiography, it's also fair to say kangaroos did not play a particularly prominent role in his childhood. it's as if he's saying his one character trait is 'australian' - particularly dumb given he wasn't the only australian rider on the grid (cf vermeulen who has basically zero australian branding but did model himself after his BRITISH racing hero) and australia had another very recent premier class champion (some bloke called doohan who apparently won five of the things)

to some extent it's normal that when you're living in a place where you know almost nobody of the same nationality, suddenly your nationality becomes a way more salient trait. but obviously casey's biography and psychology has made this rather extreme, where defining himself against the europeans he had so many issues with was a big priority. which is reflected in his branding. unfortunately it is also very boring. the colours 'red white and blue' have thanks to historical british overenthusiasm found their way onto rather a lot of flags - which means that if I saw his helmet without context, 'australian' probably isn't even where my mind would go first. I don't necessarily mind the design of his helmets and his number, but I also just don't have particularly strong feelings about them either way. the kangaroo in the logo is cute enough I suppose, but it's also the only thing he's doing with the kangaroo

in casey's ducati era, not only was he blessed with generally quite nice looking bikes in quite nice looking colours, but he also got pretty lucky with the aesthetics of his sponsors. obviously I'm a big fan of the alice eye popping up regularly on both team kits and around circuits, but I also like whatever sponsor the barcode-type stripes belong to. they pop up on casey's caps too. and in general... I mean, he just sort of hit the aesthetic jackpot with the valentino rivalry. I haven't ranked him up for this because it's so completely not his own doing... or, I mean, I suppose it kinda is given he was probably the only guy who would've been in a championship fight on the red bike. in any case, you do just have to say this was aesthetically kinda peak as far as rivalries go

in general, aesthetically casey was the beneficiary of circumstance. the valentino rivalry just Looked Good because having a red team and a blue team is kind of ideal, and valentino's busier aesthetic contrasted quite nicely with casey's simpler faring. valentino was also tossing out descriptors like 'god' and 'devil' and 'demon' in casey's direction with reasonable regularity - which, while never obviously getting integrated into any branding, to Me contributes to the Vibe. you've got valentino's sun/moon stuff happening in casey's vicinity, you've got the nicely placed alice eyes adding a certain je ne sais quoi to some photos

am I allowed to mention valentino's name on casey's 2007 championship shirt as one of casey's heroes? important aesthetics In My Opinion. I'd also be remiss not to mention casey's favourite livery, the 2009 phillip island one. I'm gonna be honest, when I first saw this one I was kinda like. it's fine. not sure what the fuss is about. partly because I feel noughties motogp had a few too many white special liveries, so it just kinda felt like One More of those. but I suppose it is the nicest of those liveries, I do like it, it's nice and classy and I'm glad casey loved it ig. off the bike and on the podium celebrations, the white leathers with red highlights really do look quite lovely

though, as previously mentioned, he disliked the fun cute aragon 2011 livery. because he needs to be forcibly reconnected with his sense of whimsy. which brings us to the repsol honda era... a vibes collapse in many ways, across the premier class really. 2011 is a bad casey year - I mean, it's a good casey year in that he won a lot and was generally happy, but it's a bad casey year in that it's in some ways his dullest season in the premier class. (excepting jerez, which was deeply necessary to inject some narrative juice into proceedings.) and this vibes-shortage is reflected in his aesthetics. again, I think at this point my feelings on the respol honda liveries are fairly clear, but it did just take something from the ducati casey charm... also he was flirting with too much facial hair in both those years, making him susceptible to Just Some Guy-territory. the kindest thing I can say is that his gloves in 2012 were quite nice