#love reading additions to my stuff

[theshadowrealmitself]

My taxes are finally done

[bisexualcherdegre]

Marvel Rivals: Duelist MAGIK

[marclef]

Quick question; so there have been instances where we have seen Eyhm speak (certain art, in Monster she speaks a little) but I'm curious, if she can speak, does she just choose not to speak often? Or is there another reason?

she is able to speak a bit, yes! mostly fairly short sentences, she's not the best with words, think of her as having the same speaking abilities as a 4-5 year old child! so no big, difficult words, but she can talk a bit more if she's comfortable enough! she speaks in normal words about as often as just making simple cat noises, no real reason, usually it's just easier to not talk if she doesn't need to.

(some dumb, silly art from a while back as an example 😅)

but, here's a cute fact for you, she does have nicknames for a few of her friends!

Peppino: Peppy! (easier to say, really!)

Fake Peppino: Fakey! (also what Noisette calls him, which is why he likes that name!) Noise/Noisette: Mr./Mrs. Bunny! (she thinks Noise looks like a bunny just as much as Noisette does!)

[ruvviks]

Following the chilling conclusion of All That's Left's first season, Mac and Layla and their friends find themselves scattered across a divided Los Angeles a year after their successful return to town. Matrix Corp has taken control— "With humanity's best interest in mind"— but with our protagonists' knowledge of Opportunity's destruction and Houston's unexpected fall, they know better than to trust the corporation and its near military-sized security force. Closed district gates separate them from one another and a new threat lurks just outside the city's walls— but resistance is on the rise, and it is only a matter of time before truth comes out. [SEASON ONE HERE]

taglist (opt in/out)

@shellibisshe, @florbelles, @ncytiri, @roseeway, @stars-of-the-heart;

@lestatlioncunt, @katsigian, @radioactiveshitstorm, @estevnys, @adelaidedrubman;

@celticwoman, @rindemption, @carlosoliveiraa, @noirapocalypto, @dickytwister;

@killerspinal, @euryalex, @ri-a-rose, @velocitic, @thedeadthree;

@kanos, @swordcoasts, @ordinarymaine, @claudiawolf, @strafethesesinners

[all-thestories-aretrue]

Here are the Thoughts™️I promised @discordkittenterumi

This post is a much longer follow to this post from last night as I was listening to episode 60.

This post is also in conversation with with something @peppedstep mentioned about Neil’s loyalty to the coterie, which I touch on briefly.

Everything sort of solidified in my brain after finishing 60 at like 2 am last night.

In 60, we see Neil wake up in a strange place with Weathers and Amara with him. The last thing he remembers is running from his sire which seems to be several days ago.

Neil also does not remember much of Baghdad (which is a whole separate post that is coming. I have many thoughts about Nara and Neil in that situation).

He routinely has panic attacks, some of which lead to dissociation. For example, before his trial in 37 and 38, we see him go catatonic when he realizes his haven is under attack. Dissociation is not usually something that happens to someone once and then never again. It’s a coping mechanism, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to say it’s something he experiences, perhaps not regularly, but with some sort of frequency.

In addition, many of his rituals require his mind to be separated from his body, and we know kalif also impacts his cognitive function as also seen in Baghdad. He has the capability of astral projecting which leaves his body behind, defenseless. The ritual with the bull in 6, he had others stay nearby just in case something were to happen. The second time he completes the ritual, Johnny escorts him.

Neil is often dependent on the people around him to keep him safe, and we see him repeatedly look to others for their judgement before he makes a decision on his own. He looks to Nara to trust Jubair, and he looks to Amara to trust Catherine and this mission. In these two cases in particular, he’s forced to rely on others’ assessments of the situation because he cannot make his own. In addition, relies on Britta and Miles to defend him in court while Johnny and Wynn take care of his haven. He also places an immense amount of trust in the coterie and their decisions, generally speaking.

Peppedstep mentioned that family is important to Neil, the coterie is important to Neil. He consistently revolves around the idea of keeping them together and spending their final nights together. I agree, but to add another layer to that, Neil trusts everyone in the coterie, and as has often been discussed, trust is an extremely rare commodity for Kindred, and in some cases doesn’t exist at all. What Neil has with the coterie almost seems to be unprecedented given the general picture of the Camarilla and Kindred society the audience is presented with. He knows these people will protect him and/or his body when he is unable to.

I would imagine, without them, his quality of life would be diminished, and all it would take is one mistake, one bad episode, for him to meet final death or another horrible fate, especially considering his abilities. It was a stroke of luck that Amara and Weathers picked Neil up.

His drug use, mental health issues, and magical abilities all work closely together to form a complex web of memory loss and a distrust of his own opinions. Even further, I would argue that his memory loss contributes to his lack of a sense of identity.

I believe it’s been mentioned a few times that Neil doesn’t really have a strong sense of identity (I am not going to sort through all 60 episodes to find those sources though, sorry! I do think it might have been brought up at the party when Fester was preparing him?), and that’s proven by how he talks about his worth early on when Wynn confronts him after the bull ritual. He, and I am paraphrasing here, believes he is useful because he can provide the coterie with knowledge. Later on, he mentions that Miles kept him around because of his specific abilities which again, his worth is tied up in his usefulness to people.

This mentality is compounded by his early history with his sire. In 51 or 52 (I can’t remember which and I’m not going to look it up), it’s described that Neil looks at his sire the way one might look at an abusive parent. Neil is absolutely terrified of this person even now. Based on Neil’s nonconfrontational personality, some of his coping mechanisms in the face of this abuse could easily be making himself small, agreeing with his sire, etc. leading to the people-pleasing nature we see in Neil now. Peppedstep also posited that Neil could have been Embraced to be made in his sire’s image. We know he is a loner, we know he has visions, and maybe he also feels the need for family in his own demented way. Regardless of if that is true, Neil’s sire had a massive effect on who Neil became as a Kindred and without question would influence his sense of identity. If Peppedsteps’s theory is true, then Neil’s sire would have stripped away any sense of who he was to remake him in his image.

TLDR: Neil has memory loss from a combination of drug use, mental health issues, and magical abilities which make him reliant on others for his safety in certain circumstances and further exacerbate his lack of a sense of identity.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[kyouka-supremacy]

Thoughts on akutagawa being drawn with no highlights in his eyes, hair, coat, or on rashomon,,,like everything is drawn pure black? I like when he's drawn a little bit like not-human--contrasts real well with Atsushi's dilemma of being a tiger, personally thinking. Also like when he's drawn like a void. Little bit like the cryptid creachur he is. I think you wrote something about it in the tags on panels in his introduction in the Manga. I like to think other characters also see him the way we see him so his void ass scares the fuck out of others too. Man's skeevin and tweakin even in his design

I'm OBSESSED with Akutagawa's design. Look at him. This is what he looks like on a white background:

And this is what he looks like on a black background:

It's BRILLIANT. He literally disappears in the black. He's the ultimate monster. In his appearance, he embodies what above all is most scary for the human psyche: the darkness, the unknown. The way Harukawa took advantage of the the art rule of never using pure black by breaking it in the most clever way! No light gets reflected on him, because his form absorbs everything– is absolute darkness. Visually, his figure itself is Rashomon eating everything it encounters, and it's genius.

He is so nightmare coded. I love his big, inscrutable eyes that look like two voids, two black holes. I love how oftentimes you can't tell where Rashomon ends and where he starts, I love how sick and unhealthy he looks. I love how he looks scruffy like an abandoned dog. I love how young he looks– way younger than he is. It gives the impression of a ghost, someone who was killed before growing up and is now stuck with his young appearance no matter how many centuries pass.

I adore everything about these chapter 33 pages. The way he initially appears as just a single black shape, hardly resembling a human. His crunched, unnatural stance. The staggering. The way you can feel with your senses the thick and sticky blood. The top picture is the left page of the manga, so just imagine the visual impact of turning the page to be hit with an almost full-black page- it's meant to impress, it's meant to shake. The way he's one with the darkness: no textures on him, only white making out his outlines. The way you can't tell where his coat ends. His left arm hanging numb, limp, lifeless, inhuman. The spurts of blood on his face. His smile, how you won't notice it at first and how that makes it all the more disquieting; its juxtaposition with the violence that surrounds him and that he is the cause of. The way he covers his face, the impressions of hiding and looming. His face being split, which only adds to the horror elements. Akutagawa's character design as a whole is an ode to the gothic and grotesque.

And then this. Hello??????????????? The progression from how Akutagawa used to be to the last time we saw him alive is astonishing. It's upsetting. It really makes me wanna cry from a technical execution standpoint alone (imagine from a plot related standpoint). All the black is now replaced with predominant white, everywhere. His shirt is white and candid and pure, emphasizing contrast with the splash of blood in a way that almost results sickening. The blood on him is his this time. His face looks rounder, and healthier, and he overall looks more mature. His smile is sincere and genuine, it's light, it's affectionate. This scene is the culmination of Akutagawa's character both visually and thematically: the monster, Akutagawa, too, can be good, and arguably had good within him since the very start. Does it really matter if he lives after this? His character already developed to be the best version of himself‚ and this panel here is the proof.

Further readings: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

[xcziel]

has anybody else thought about how jk could easily manage sofia's parts of slow dance or is it just me?

[significant-narratives]

is william nylander a leo rising or anything like that? I feel like he’s leo-adjacent

alas we do not have a birth time for willy (at least, not that i know of) so i can’t say for certain. i am however willing to walk with you on this path as a bit of a thought experiment! also this got really long, sorry i have chronic Can’t Shut The Fuck Up disease

now, a few disclaimers before we get started:

1) i generally don’t love trying to guess rising signs — this isn’t a judgement on anyone who does, i just find it particularly difficult to do lol. so take everything i say here with a grain of salt

2) i subscribe to the belief that a rising does influence/color the rest of an individual’s chart, so keep that in mind as we delve into this.

3) i am by no means an expert when it comes to astrology and don’t claim to be, and i do pull from various sources when needed to supplement my own knowledge. i am here to have a good time and that’s all! if you have any questions about the sources i use feel free to ask.

okay with that out of the way. willy as a leo rising is interesting! if we look at what such a placement would entail we can see a lot of ‘willy-like’ traits: there’s the courage, confidence and protectiveness associated with any leo placement. high charisma, extroversion, directness. as an ascendant the ‘fixed energy’ of leo tends to manifest in a need to achieve success and stability, and then maintain it. body awareness is another one — understanding how you look and move through space (usually linked to a strong sense of personal style).

(more of a side note, but in terms of physical characteristics, leo risings are often described as tall and broad shouldered, with expressive eyes and strong bone structure. i don’t place as much weight on this aspect of a rising sign, but it’s interesting!)

so, from all this, you could make a strong case for willy being a leo rising! however there’s one crucial thing that isn’t clicking for me: an individual’s rising sign tends to be linked with a public mask / a lens through which they see reality. and i don’t think the way willy presents himself to the public, or what glimpses we’ve seen of his worldview, is quite aligned with leo rising energy specifically.

his white knuckle grip on his ‘i am Chill and Calm and Going With The Flow’ attitude is a little out of line with how leo energy tends to manifest (imo). like one thing about a leo — what you see tends to be what you get and they’re not ashamed to show you that. they’re not (in my experience) all too concerned with persona-building or shielding themselves from being seen. they’re picky about who they give their time and energy to, sure, but like. that’s not quite the same thing. you feel me?

so if he did have a leo rising… i feel like in theory we wouldn’t see a lot of willy’s tendency to keep things very close to his chest and generally not Feel Things In Public. like, think about it. how much do we actually know about william nylander. and how much of what we know came from him. half of the off season content we get that features him comes from alex’s gf’s insta! he’s out here posting pictures of lizards and aesthetic topless photos. it took him eight years and finally securing his place in toronto for the foreseeable future for him to be willing to get even a Little vulnerable with the press and admit just how important toronto is to him, how strongly he’s put down roots here. again you could argue this protective quality is a point in favour of a leo rising placement… but he is also a taurus sun… also is this a good time to say i don’t feel like i’m picking up on that ‘leo rising energy’ trickling down into the rest of his chart? i feel like with a leo rising you’d see a very different manifestation of his gemini venus or libra moon, for example, but that’s just speculation on my part.

it’s also possible the general ‘leo adjacent’ energy you’ve mentioned picking up from him is that gemini venus / aries mars combo of his (i will hold my tongue and not say the word that i’m thinking in my head rn).

tl;dr my verdict on willy having a leo rising: it’s possible but not my favourite choice for him personally! to me i’ve always felt like he gave off water rising energy… (op are you saying this because you are a taurus sun scorpio rising you ask. to which i will say: no comment <3)

[themyscirah]

Ok game time which 3 series would you just DIE to get a run on ? I'm talking full creative control, can be as a writer or an artist + plotter if that suits your vibe best

My 3 are

Suicide Squad

Wonder Woman

Green Lantern Corps/Green Lanterns

(in that order)

[riiviir]

hey guys so I just started reading Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott and OMG AHSBNSBSBSNSNBSHZHSHDBFHGGHFHGRJ2KSHSBSNSK AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I LOVE THINKING ABOUT THE RELATIVITY BETWEEN DIMENSIONS!!!!!!

[kitausuret]

the world does not need another silly one shot from me about the Venom Symbiote's time in captivity with the Fantastic Four but if I'm going to fixate on one page in one comic by god I'm going to do something with that

I just think it would be sweet if in Reed Richards' desperate attempts to communicate with the Symbiote he tried to like, teach it Morse code, and he asks it, "do you have a name? is there something you were called, some designation you were given? something unique to you?"

And the symbiote taps back after a long moment the closest thing to a human translation of the only thing it can think might fit what Reed is referring to: "DEATH"

And Reed is all at once filled with a kind of overwhelming sadness, because what kind of life has this alien lived that it was called only "Death" by those it encountered? What kind of symbiosis had it experienced, if any at all?

But then he manages to collect himself, and he tells his guest that well, we'll just have to come up with a better designation than that, won't we? He probably tells it about how Sue, his own partner, is the one who gave him the name the world knows him by, "Mister Fantastic", and that he hopes the symbiote, too, can find a name it can be proud of.

Everyone needs a name, after all.

[neversetyoufree]

What are your thoughts about Vanijeanne and Dominoé? A lot of people think that they’re forced and have no chemistry whatsoever, especially with Vanijeanne. As a Vanoé shipper, I don’t really mind Vanijeanne but I see a lot of people who are annoyed at that ship. Could you give your perspective on this discourse?

Y'know anon, generally speaking my opinion on anything that can be labeled "shipping discourse" is "I am an adult woman with a job and thus physically incapable of caring about this." It takes a lot for me to find other people's shipping habits actively annoying, as I mostly just. ignore and/or block anything that I'm personally not into.

My personal thoughts on shipping are also colored by the fact that I have a somewhat uncommon relationship to the concept. My engagement with fandom has become extremely focused on analysis rather than transformation in the past few years. I am much more hung up on focusing on canon and canon only than I think a lot of other people are. My opinion on Vnc ships is mostly defined by "do I think they're attracted to each other in canon?" which I realize is not how everyone else picks their favorite romances.

I suppose my take on DomiNoé is that I don't ship them, but mostly that's just not really the context in which I think about their relationship. My read on canon is that Domi's crush on Noé is unrequited. I don't think he's shown evidence of being attracted to her, and I also think it would really undermine the amusement park arc's thematic beats if it turned out Domi's jealousy of Jeanne was "justified." I wrote way more about this previously.

I love Domi and Noé's relationship. I find it tragic and fascinating, and there's a lot of love between them. Given the physical/blood aspect of their whole thing, they're like, super close friends with benefits in which one of the friends is madly in love with the other. And also the one that's in love is deeply traumatized and mentally ill and obsessed with not being a burden to the other guy. And the one that's not in love is compulsively unable to recognize both the crush and the trauma. I could write about their weird-ass bullshit forever. How could you say they don't have chemistry?

However, I'm aware that "I think Noé's feelings are platonic and I love digging into their tragic dysfunction" isn't generally what a person means when they say they "ship" DomiNoé. So like, I dunno man. My relationship to their whole thing is kinda separate from the concept of shipping. I'm just here to watch the toxic drama.

And on the VaniJeanne end it's like. Their relationship is a whole complicated can of worms that I cannot begin to get into properly in this post. They're toxic they're in love they're doomed to fail they're each other's parallels. Whether I "ship" them depends heavily on your definition of ship.

Do I want the series to end declaring Vanitas and Jeanne as true love and Vnc's one true couple? No. Do I seek out fanworks about their relationship? Generally no. Do I think their canon relationship is healthy or all unambiguous romance? No. But do I find their whole thing really fascinating? Absolutely.

VaniJeanne is a relationship that starts with an extremely non-consensual kiss. That instance of assault is then followed by multiple scenes of Vanitas goading Jeanne into yet more physical intimacy/sexual contact that she very much claims on the surface not to want. And that, kids, is what we might call sexual harassment and coercion. That is not a foundation that you can build a healthy relationship on.

Furthermore, I will admit that I find it really unsettling when a certain small subset of VaniJeanne fans cannot admit that the non-consensual scenes between them are what they are. Back when the anime was first airing, I saw a lot of people new to the series start talking about how much they shipped them after episode three, when their only romantic interaction was the forced kiss. And I suppose that's my most discourse-y opinion about this whole thing, because I do not like people who cannot tell when something is meant to be a depiction of assault.

I realize that Mochijun abruptly changes tones to comedy during/right after the kiss, but still. I do think uncritically romanticizing that moment speaks to a pretty striking lack of media comprehension. The entire point of that scene (the hostage plan, the kiss, the dhams' commentary, etc) is the reveal that Vanitas is a freaky little asshole (affectionate).

However! Their relationship doesn't stay purely in this realm of exclusively non-consent. They evolve during the date and Gévaudan, and as of my writing this (hello post-57 hiatus), their whole thing has gotten more complex. I think Jeanne is getting a lot out of having Vanitas there for her at this point, and Vanitas is starting to treat her more like a person rather than a prop to bounce his trauma responses off of. I can't say much more about it because I frankly just haven't unpacked everything from more recent VaniJeanne yet. I haven't worked out what to make of it besides that it's compelling and bizarre.

Anyway, if you want my more specific thoughts on VaniJeanne stuff, you can read more about why I think Vanitas kissed her in the first place and why I think the violation of consent motif kinda works for Jeanne and her story. The lack of consent itself is absolutely serving a purpose in both their stories.

VaniJeanne are two deeply damaged people using one another to cope with their respective traumas and illnesses, and it's wild and fascinating and very often (though not always) unhealthy as hell. I don't think "forced" is at all the right word to describe their whole thing. But at the same time, I do find uncritical romanticization of their more questionable moments eyebrow-raising at best.

At the end of the day, like I said, I just don't know if "do you ship them?" is the best lens to ask this question through. I probably don't, by most people's definition, since I'm cheering for endgame Vanoé, but that doesn't mean their relationship isn't interesting as hell. And even I have to admit that I find some of VaniJeanne's later and fluffier moments genuinely sweet and fun.

VaniJeanne and DomiNoé aren't my preferred picks for endgame romances, and I don't personally tend to seek them out in fanworks. And at least in DomiNoé's case, I don't think canon supports a mutual romance. But that doesn't mean I find their relationships annoying or have anything inherently against people who have them as their preferred ships. I think talking about VaniJeanne responsibly takes a bit of care and nuance, given how much their relationship deals with the violation of autonomy and consent, but that doesn't mean I'm, like, against people shipping them.

They're the closest VnC currently has to an official couple, and I am, as established, obsessed with canon. By definition I cannot disregard them.

Also, like I said at the beginning, I tend to just block anyone that I see with a particularly bad take and then move on with my life. Aside from being a bit startled when I occasionally come across, like, some real weird pro-vanijeanne-assault youtube comments or whatever, I devote very little mental space to "shipping discourse"

[hongluboobs]

popping off so hard for new Hong Lu id because it can mean so many things if you think too much about this guy and also are incapable of separating Hong Lu from his book counterpart in any way

also he’s silly and cute and this is our first Hong Lu id 000 we’ve had in 6 months, as well as his first non season 000 :)

[pokimoko]

5, 10, 20, and 25 for fic in review ask thing!!!

5. What ships captured your heart?

I am a gen writer through and through, so it's a very rare thing to see me writing a ship-focused fic. That said, I really enjoyed the pairing of Karlach and Astarion this year, though I wouldn't say I shipped them necessarily in a romantic sense. The fic I wrote that had them together had their relationship tagged '(it's fairly ambigious; is it romantic? queerplatonic? platonic? yes), (the love and devotion is there regardless)' which I think basically sums up how I view them (and also how aromantic I am about shipping 😅).

I also liked Billford, but in a strictly 'oh yeah they're super divorced, they are never getting back together' kind of way. Not sure if that counts as shipping, but hey, it's definitely counts as something.

10. What fic was the most satisfying to write?

I would have to say either 'The Poetics of Space' (Gravity Falls) or 'On Waxen Wings We Soar, In Spite of Inevitable Ends' (Baldur's Gate 3). They were the two fics I was the most happiest with this year, not only regarding the quality of the writing itself and the themes they explored (the constance of change not only in the world but also ourselves, and finding joy in and making peace with the time you have left), but also how they tied everything together in their conclusions. Both of them equally made me feel a 'wow..I did that' feeling of accomplishment when I finished them, so yeah, they both were absolutely the most satisfying to write.

20. Share your funniest line.

Being more of angst-based writer kinda limits my collection of comedic lines (even my more comedic story this year was extremely angsty), but there was one line I wrote this year that got a couple comments about it making the reader laugh, so I'll go with that one (because if two people found it funny, surely it must be, right):

“You try fixing an interdimensional portal for thirty years without learning physics," (Stanley) said. "I know what quarks are now. Do you know how much I hate knowing what quarks are.”

25. How did you recharge between fics?

Usually I'd spend the first few days after finishing a fic trying to figure out the what the heck to do with the spare time I had previously allocated to writing said fic, and then once I figured that out (and had yet to be overcome with the urge to write something else), I'd probably watch a TV show, read a book, play video games, and do some art. I'm boring like that.

Send me a number!

[cigarettes-and-black-eyeliner]

WHYYY did my mother have kids with my father if she can barely stand his ass (i can't stand him much either) and whenever she's insulting and berating us she finds a way to compare us to him in a negative way. I mean I get that at first he was nice and whatever but MAYBE she should have thought about it more before having me considering she had only known my father for a few months (like. not even a year and she's like "i wanna have a baby!!!")

[undefeatednils]

Stuff in tags, don't want y'all to read an essay.