#maybe its nothign

[beaulesbian]

wano & egghead spoilers (up to current chapter 1108)

there's some interesting connection between the eyes of zunesha, luffy/joyboy and the iron giant on egghead

in the zou arc with zunesha's first introductions, each time they were on the page their eyes were big black holes, seemingly empty or hollow:

in wano arc, when zunesha got the first feeling that joyboy could appear, and was on the way to wano, their depiction was in inverse - which could still mean hollow black eyes and lighter color body, but in the shadows:

and then, when it seemed luffy died, his own eyes were very similar - black and hollow, dead and still, like zunesha's.

(this similarity especially here between them is very interesting (dead and still), and i hope we learn more about the 'crime' zunesha did, if i remember correctly, around 900years ago? and what exactly was their punishment, beside to wander around the world forever, and who were they in relation to joyboy..)

UNTIL !! luffy came back to life! not only as luffy, but with something of joyboy's spirit alongside him and unlocking/awakening his gear 5 of the sun god nika devil fruit. zunesha's eyes began almost glowing. bright and light (with hope and sun!):

and in this panel above was also another interesting thing - since then for a few panels/pages, we didn't see luffy's eyes - he had them covered, first with his hair, then even with his hand! (so much that the pose also ended up on his new bounty poster):

(when i first read it, it made me think as if he was getting used to the light/sun again after a long time, and had to shield them to protect them)

it feels that maybe the focus somehow shifted from his usually determined eyes - to his smile when he's fighting in gear 5, to give even more emphasis on him bringing laughter, joy and freedom to the people he's fighting for, so much that many times he's having his eyes closed or covered, even on egghead:

(there's still many panels where they eyes aren't covered, but it's even more curious when they are, especially on purpose, like with that bubble text above^)

even this last page of 1108, first we get to see a very intense look of luffy/nika being serious, angry and even terrifying with his power to grip both saturn and kizaru at once, and then a huge smile with eyes of similar intensity as saturn, still with something terrifying in that expression:

now with the zunesha and another connection - the iron giant on egghead.

when luffy went into gear 5 against kizaru, for few pages he was fighting in his giant form, and two times in those chapters it goes to focus right on the iron giant, who's eyes started to glow, as if he was waking up, as if he started to come back to life:

(again, looks really similar to zunesha)

i really want to see what exactly is connecting them, these beings over 900years old (with the iron giant even attacking marijoa 200years ago) very possibly it's the feeling of joyboy's presence, so i hope there could be more exposition on who exactly joyboy was.

--

and then there's another connection with different looking eyes, and that's of the gorosei/five elders, in their awakened devil fruit state:

and especially, since he's been there more than the others, with saturn having these eyes when he gets very angry. (glowing? fire? poison - as there was mention the ushi-oni he's based on do have poison, and in the new chapter it was also mentioned that he's covered in poison.):

(I'm very curious how this will be animated/what colors. if it's gonna be differenciated from those of zunesha/iron giant/luffy, or if they will keep these similarities. i always love to find how luffy can resemble someone he opposes (kaido & big mom especially) bc he might be chaotic/having fun and be selfish, but never in the way his enemies are. he's always looking after the people who were kind to him/helped him, and doesn't want anyone to suffer. so it's always great to see how he use their similarities against his opponents to bring them down and win).

how is that saying, eyes are the window to the soul?

in the eye of the hurricane? or-

"the D will always cause another storm?"

[dykedvonte]

I think any fix-it mouthwashing au has to have the mandatory scenes of Curly either being able to blink again or speaking for the first time.

[ganondoodle]

saw a few posts talking about ganondorf and while i dont want to uh .. risk having to argue with strangers ... i cant shut up entirely (you know me)

(in my opinion that is probably missing alot or just not as well read as a lot of others since i really just say what i feel instead of knowing what im talking about-)

its kinda hard to really talk about him bc hes so .... steeped into tired old stereotypes and harmful tropes with intentionally so little else, if anything, that you almost always end up playing into them if you just take what canon tells you (and alot of people love defending it too :/ )

to what degree is it really his character and what is literally just some things that were decided he does to make it clear hes the one note evil guy, to justify whatever horror is done to him and overshadow/bury what anyone else has done, to not think about maybe he had a point bc look how much bad stuff he does! if you made him fight for the freedom/sovereignity of his own people against an oppressive hyrule he would be in the right- so ACTUALLY he opresses them violently and selfishly even WORSE and then wants to murder everyone tm that dont bow to him bc thats what evil people do! and hyrule is justified in taking them over in turn bc their rule wont opress them :)

its like a game of trying to one up whatever hyrule did with something more bad tm bc otherwise it gets hard to justify killing him over and over

im not saying hes not allowed to be prideful, selfish or violent of whatever, but you gotta know that all of that IS one of those ways that is supposed to make it clear how evil tm the desert guy is; it doesnt matter what hyrule has done bc look! ganondorf is so much worse! and im sure hyrule had their reasons :)

hes never actually allowed to interact with his own people, hes isolated/alienated from them and their culture constantly, hes their king yet he .... violently takes over "free" gerudo villages (what? what for?? what does "free" even mean? they werent following him? their king?? were they .. allied with hyrule, who are good tm, which means they were living in paradise aka "free"? (bc they are good ones tm bc they rejected their evil one in a hundred year man king ruling violently over only women .. *cough*)), yet hes never seen fighting alongside his own people (the most is them .. silently serving him in what, one scene??) and then he drops them the second he has evil MONSTERS to fight for him instead and orders them to kill every living thing or something bc thats obviously evil, he doesnt even care about his own people! how evil! why would he do that? idk, hes the sole, selfish violent evil man opressing his own people, who are all women! that what they do! and WE need to free them from HIM (and they should be thankful to us for it and try to attone for ever having birthed him in the first place) (or he is the reason tm why they suffered/were wiped out and he is literally the sole survivor of his people, bc he doesnt care about ANYONE but himself)

i dont mean he has to be a goody two shoes character (you can be an ass and still do good/be in the right btw) bc more often than not what that actually means is being allied with hyrule bc those are the designated good guys and being on their side makes you automatically good (eugh) but do you rly want to just ... play along with all the propaganda?

imo, aside from being obviously racist, thats also so boring? does selfish, violent evil man king with no people (bc hes not part of them or fighting for them, hes always presented as the worse oppressor) and nothing else to him that only wants to murder bc ... idk evil? sound interesting to you? (to the point that the ONLY time we were shown literally any sort of vunerabillity, end of ww, that theres people trying to argue he was trying to to manipulate you even there?? what for? why? are you trying to reject literally the one glimpse we are allowed into his perspective qoq)

why do alot of people reject the idea so much to consider he actually cared about them, how maybe that prideful and selfish look is just a facade, or even a fabrication? violence that had to be met with violence, not for any sort of selfish reasons, but for his people and was met with a fight he could not win yet kept fighting on, perhaps losing himself more and more in the process, or a lie told so often that it became reality, if someone has nothign left to lose, if all was taken from them, maybe even blamed on them, why not play into what you where made out to be, you cant convince them otherwise anyway its the reason hes never shown to have done a single nice thing, never seen non angry/smug smiling, how he has no one at his side unless he forced them, how he is not allowed to be human even a little bit, never shown being anything but a boring ass trope personified, hes less a character and more a big bundle of racist tropes that fights you at the end (sorry) while looking epic so trying to meaningfully analyze him just by what we are told and shown in canon will always fall kinda flat or end up playing righ into every shitty trope

that is my opinion :I

[b4kuch1n]

pre-holiday leave crumbs

[beeduoo]

would u try

[lion-buddy]

being the resident nezuko liker is such a challenge sometimes

[the-acid-pear]

grumbling and groaning and grinding teeth as i analyze a character and his backstory despite not liking it at all because maybe there's something to be found by acknowledging canon

[lunar-wandering]

my review of that one calvin klein commerical women are freaking out over is in. ...is this what straight women like???

your honour, there wasn't even any blood. 0 stars.

[aropride]

polite ways to say "sorry this isnt fully done i,m at my limit"

[yongseungkim]

.

[fzrticv]

okay I lovee this epsiode, it was so good

[charlottedabookworm]

Ok, now I've got to ask: how would you write that Eos in Pegasus crossover?

i think-

i think it would depend on what type of story i was trying to tell

am i writing fic about the stargate crew meeting eos? am i writing a fic about the people of eos meeting stargate, and the universe beyond that? is it a full fusion? if eos is in pegasus, how haven't they already been culled to near extinction? do they have stories of the wraith?

but- i think maybe the story i'd tell is that eos is a planet on the distant edges of the pegasus galaxy

once upon a time, long before lucis, long before even solheim, it was... probably a planet of the ancients. maybe a research facility, maybe they lived in harmony, who knows? the ancients are twats but eos had to get it's gate somehow anyway

the wraith already existed when the ancients flee, near ten thousand years ago from canon. the wraith are why they fled after all. so, once upon a time, the people of eos had stories of the monsters in the night, the creatures who stole away their children adn their loved ones to eat them. daemons, they were called by the people of eos all those years ago

eos forgot this, after the ancients left

(how could they not, when their gate became nothign more than a monument? how could they not, when the controls that powered the shield around their whole planet were long forgotten?)

(the ancients isolated eos as an experiment)

(it saved them, in the end)

the ancients left and eventually the civilisation of solheim fell and lucis rose in its ashes and the scourge, discovered when some unknowning travellers visited a small island that had buildings made of clear stone and brought countless riches back to the mainland with them, spreads

it mutates

(as ancient experiments so often do)

they mutate

the creatures born are called daemons, after the monsters they told their children about at night, a myth older than memory

bahamut, ramuh - the astrals, all of them, (ascended, all of them) stare, some in horror and some in fascination. they debate on what to do. they are not supposed to interfere

they do anyway

(eos is, perhaps, worse off for it)

time passes. ardyn and somnus are born. a betrayal. a monster born of ancient experimentation. a bloodline gifted from ancient experimentation

time passes

canon approaches

the astrals, the ascended, they are still not supposed to interfere . they are supposed to be distant, recorders of history, detatched. except they have watched this planet for two thousand years now, daring not to rejoin the others for fear of their first interference being noticed. they are supposed to be above the mortals below them

eos is dying

bahamut is certain in his plan. with it, eos will be saved. the survivors can rebuild. and, with ardyn adn noctis and lunafreya sacrificed at the labratory alter, well. they can finally return to the other ascended as all proof of their interference would have passed

bahamut is certain

the other astrals are... less so

they are worshipped here (like the ori and they flinch from the comparison, flinch from the power it gives them) and their people beg them for aid and they-

bahamut is certain

(bahamut is drunk on worship, he becomes less and less the man they knew with each day, just as ifrit had before they had been forced to intefere and they-)

they interfere

ships are guided to that small island with its laboratory. the notes on the scourge are conveniently written there in Sol, a language only their scholars would know but still one translatable

a new path is found

(bahamut rages-)

they interfere

(the gate is unearthed)

they interfere

(the block, the disconnect that had removed it from the rest fo the pegasus system, fades away)

the stargate lights up in the centre of a field in lucis, in an eos that is scourge free if not daemon free, and the man who happens to see it is a man old enough to remember when daemons were myth

to remember the stories of world travellers told to him by his father, by his grandmother, passed down from century to century until there was no one left to tell them

(atlantis' system flickers, releasing a hidden file, a hidden address)

the stargate lights up. AR1 steps through

Ardyn Lucis Caelum meets them when they do

[ganondoodle]

so guess what they released more interviews and i think given what a writing shitshow totk was and what they have been saying in all these interviews is actually painting a really bad picture; i dont have the time, nor the energy to go over every detail

but they were commenting on people wanting the more linear format back and aonuma himself basically said that he thinks people who feel like that do so only bc of nostalgia and "Why do you want to go back to a type of game where you're more limited or more restricted in the types of things or ways you can play?"

what .. the fuck, more freedom DOESNT automatically mean better??? like ... restriction can be a GOOD thing just as tooo much freedom can be BAD?? like in totk??? are you fukcing shitting me- what the hell are games even for then, has he had an awakening to the fact that he actually just loves sandbox games without realizing it???? im not playing fucking zelda for a sandbox, especially not when its advertised as a somethign else

its pretty clear that they want to keep this format going with everything they say there, ... maybe it really is over huh

also i hate how they kept talking around answering anything about story/lore; they go asked how ganondorf even connects to ganon since theres nothign about it in game, and all they got out was welllll we dont wanna say anything bc its up to the player; about every question you got the answer of "make somethign up yourself" which is just ... its really clear they dont actually care but dont want to say everything is meaningless actually, so they try to be vague about it and with doing that really just confirm they didnt think about it and they dont care- so no lore actually matters, nothing thats been said or established has any meaning bc they will get rid of it the second it crosses paths with their new -more freedom equals better- philosophy, they say its bc they want you to be "free" to think up anything but apparently dont realize that when there are no rules, no consistent lore or anything that it ROBS it, it stops having meaning, its fun to connect dots only when there are rules you need to work with and dots to connect in the first place, when you have an established world with its restrictions it drives you to think more creatively about things- but when there are no rules?? its fucking boring!! thats what it is!!

when you discard all rules i wont care to get invested into anything bc i know it will not be considered again, be done away with without any reason and wont have influence on coming or previous games ... bc there are no rules, anything is possible and everything can be changed any second, so nothing matters

(they also talked about the many viral videos of those very few dedicated people that make godzilla mechs in totk and how happy they are about that- i get that to some extent, but the way they kept talkign about it really just felt like it confirmed my suspicion that that whole mechanic was mainly implemented to let people do that since that gets shared around en masse making it seem like that is why people enjoy it while neither the game nor the narrative are build around it in any way ..)

it just makes all the time i spend thinking, feeling and theorizing about zelda like a true waste of time, bc nothing matters and there are no rules-

i am someone who greatly enjoys working with and around established lore/rules, its fun to me to recontextulize things by being smart or creative with it all without breaking anything or as little as possible of the established things!

if i wanted to do just do anything i want I COULD HAVE ALREADY DONE THAT bc theres nothing actually stopping anyone to just make up what they want! i DONT need canon to lose all rules for that??!!

maybe ill have to make myself believe the franchise ended with botw on a good note ... ono

[viktormaru]

reasons why i hate zed comic

starting with the personalities, they did shen REAL dirty by making him impulsive and violent when hes the literal opposite of that as trying to be the Eye of Twilight (whose whole thing is suppressing emotions), and it just feels bad to see him like that for, what riot hsa excused as, ~something cooler to see for the audience as a comic media~

Like, I get that his appeal is actually that hes struggling with it, but in the comic it just looks like hes stupid, and not someone who`s been at it for years now bcs hes desperate to fill in his father's shoes bcs its what he thinks he HAS to do...

AND THEN ZED.... DEAR GOD ZED..... Zed used to be this counterpoint to tradionalism with a maquiavelic twist to it. Bcs the context of his desires was Noxus invading Ionia and the kinkou doing NOTHING TO HELP bcs itd go against their teachings... like zed decides that a search for power no matter what is justified if in the end it protects his interests, like his homeland. And thats what made the whole friends to enemies arc from shen and zed so cool bcs with how poorly Shen's dad handled the Jhin fiasco as well... They get eachother, Shen kinda agrees with zed maybe, but he cant commit to that idea at all, he looks for answers in tradionalism

BUT BY MAKING IT SO ZED NEVER REALLY BETRAYED THE KINKOU ORDER AND WAS ACTUALLY JUST OBEYING SHEN'S DAD BCS THAT OLD FUCK WENT COO COO CRAY CRAY IT TAKES AWAY ALL OF ZED AGENCY AND MOTIVATIONS, HES JUST A GUY FOLLOWING ORDER WITH NO GUUUUUUUTSSSSSSSSSSSSS

like no morals no ideals nothign hes just doing what shens dad wants until he thinks even shens dad is not doing it right and kills him, but its too little too late!! zed is completely hollow

its soooo baaad.... cause the little short story of them uniting (which the comic FUCKING RUINS btw) is sooo cool and interesting and tense.... like shen and zed feel like two halves of a whole, or like there cant be one without the other in how they act or see the world idk idk

and jhin is the source of their trauma and the final nail that connects them truly, so if they can find common ground there....

but naah the comic is just weird and exhagerated just bcs its marvel I guess??? NOT to mention!! the sudden constant need for them to be like "ur my bro bro ur like the brotherst brother i have ever brothered bro" and shen gets a wife??? that zed FUCKS SO SHE WONT MARRY HIM??? OR SOMETHING BCS HE DOESNT CARE ABT HER thats gay as shit whats up with the bro thing then (this is half a joke btw (i would reread the comic to make my complaints clearer but i hate it so bad i cant do it by myself) )

and pulling the bro thing in the same comic of having kayn and akali flirt, I have to gag

theres a few snipets of their childhoos together which are cute i guess

and zed is shown to be a good master to kayn, more aking to a father even, which i really love and am glad is canon, but the rest, just put in the trash

the jhins looked fantastic though hes so silly i love him im hitting him nonstop with my flip flops

Oh and they confirmed shen was a red head which was something i advocated for super hard for so long before the comic came out i felt like it was amde for me

edit: also many of the panels looked ugly as shit

[electricpurrs]

god it is so difficult. it was hard before but now its harder than ever and i know why and i know its not good for anyone but i dont know what to do cause nothign works. ends up maybe being a freelance artist online isnt a good way to make ends meet. but here i am

[jacob-in-taiwan]

August 7 - Return to Taipei, Tea Ceremony, and Final Dinner

Today was a very bittersweet day. On one hand I’m excited to be going back home soon. I’ve spent more than four weeks away before, but since I go to school so close to where I live it doesn’t feel the same. I miss my family and friends, and all the other luxeries that come with being at home. But on the other hand, I’ve had the greatest experience in my life being in Taiwan. I’ll talk more on that later. 

To start the day we first had to leave Tainan. Another early checkout time and we were back on the bus. From Tainan to Taipei its about three hours, but we made a few stops along the way so it took a bit longer. Thats not a problem though. By now everyone in our group is so close and we enjoy being around eachother so much that a long drive just means more time to hang out. We spent it chatting and singing kareoke. Eventually we stopped for lunch at what I think is the coolest rest stop ever. It had a land bridge that went over the highway. Maybe to locals its just another stop along the way but I was really impressed. 

Eventually we made it to Taipei, and it felt great to be back. I personally really enjoyed Kaohsiung, and Tainan as well even though we were only there for a few days. However, nothign can compare to Taipei. Being in a big and busy city like that is just a different experience thats so hard to find elsewhere. Despite being gone for two weeks I felt right at home and could immedietely recongize what part of town we were in. Our first stop back was a tea ceremony. Looking back and reflecting on the trip its been really cool to see how tea ceremonies differ by region. How the north differs from the south, or even how the one today was different from the one in Jiufen or Yaoyue.

Since it took so long to get to Taipei we didn’t have any other activites planned after the tea ceremony other than dinner. I’m really happy we were able to all have one last dinner together as a group. Everyone on the trip was friends with eachother, but we didn’t always see eachother outside the planned activities, so it was really nice that I could see everyone at least one more time. At dinner we also made sure to give Peter all his gifts. We got him a thank you card and we all signed his gator flag he carried around. Additionally, we also decided to personally make Peter a photobook. I dont remember whose idea it was to give Peter a gift from the students, but we all agreed that we should do something nice for Peter. He was such a great tour guide and friend all trip, so it was the least we could do for him.

After that the trip was offically done. I said goodbye to a few people, but not all. Some people had bought so much stuff on the trip that they ran out of space in their suitcases, so they had to go out and buy bags. It was me, Brev, Jasmine, Faith, Jack, Austin, and Andy. We tried looking for luggage stores nearby, but eventually decided to just go to Ximen. That way we could buy bags but also have a little fun on our last night out. I had a great time walking around one of the first places I ever went in Taiwan. 

We got back to the hotel semi-late but the night didn’t end yet. To be fair, I don’t think anyone wanted it to. I had an extra day, but most people flew out the next morning, so they wanted to savor every last second they had in Taiwan. The guys all got together to do something we grew to love, playing card games. Ever since we got trapped in Yilan, playing card games was such a great way we would hang out. We’ve played a couple different games, but our favorite was a game called cambio. We played it in Yilan, Taitung, Kaohsiung, and Taipei. Almost every city we went to. For me, playing these games was extra special. The first day I was in Taiwan I landed at four in the morning, but wasn’t able to check in until three in the afternoon. I had other people with me, and after a couple hours of exploring we crashed in the common area on the fifteenth floor. One of the ways we decided to pass time that day was playing cards. So here I am, a whole month later with a life-changing experience behind me, ending my trip the way it started. I’m a sentimental person, so that was special for me. 

And that was it. After the games we went to bed. I woke up the next morning to say goodbye to the people who were leaving with Peter and after that I had my whole extra day to do whatever. I decided to continue the theme from last night and end the way I started. First I would go to the places I found the coolest to take them in one last time. Then I would travel the same route and see the same things I did on the very first morning when me and my plane buddies wander the city aimlessly. As I walked through the city I couldn’t help but smile. I was so clueless and lost the first time I walked that route, but now I felt right at home. I reminesced on all the amazing memories I made, and I know I’ll hold onto the closley for the rest of my life. One day I will be back in Taiwan. I don’t know when, but I will be back one day to reexplore this country I fell in love with. I want to thank Yeh Laoshi and Chief Redstone for putting together such an amazing program and providing me with the opportunity to have such a life-changing experience. I want to thank Terry for his amazing work getting us everywhere we needed. I want to especially thank Peter for being not just an amazing tour guide, but genuine great person and friend. And of course I want to thank any other person who had any kind of effect or interaction with this trip. As I’m writing this I’m currently already back in the states, flying from San Francsico to Orlando. School starts soon, and it will be back to normal life. But I am not the same person I was before the trip, and I glad that I’m not. I had an amazing experience and made amazing friends, and I can’t wait to see them all again. 

Thank you.