#neither of them want the responsibility
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in yet another universe, it comes down to them to stop the Apocalypse
Inevitably I turn everything into a FFXIV AU (and I have definitely given this one way too much thought).
They were both blessedcursed with the Echo at the same time. But do they want to be Warriors of Light? That remains to be seen.
Aziraphale is a Lalafell because every single Lalafell ever is either the bestest cinnamon roll that must be cherished or an absolute bastard. Sometimes both. Usually both.
Crowley is a Duskwight Elezen (hence the slightly ashy skin tone). I wasn’t sure at first whether to put him as Au’Ra for the reptile factor, but in the end I went Duskwight Elezen because:
Maximum weird lanky Wet Cat Kinda Guy vibes
Elezen means I can also put him in Ishgard for the Elf Catholicism
He has slit pupil eyes in this because it's pretty of An Incident with dragon blood.
#good omens#ffxiv#ffxiv au#aziraphale#crowley#aziraphalalafell#I have way more thoughts on this AU haha#it started out really stupid and then here we are#if people care maybe I'll make more stuff with those thoughts#people including myself#also crowley definitely cheats every time they toss for tank#neither of them want the responsibility
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I think Aventio and Screwtio shippers shouldn't fight. After all, Ratio has two hands!
That's right. Two hands.
One for his chalk.
One for his codex.
Both of which he's holding in an embarrassed death grip as they chat away with each other about him.
#I'm on to something here#screwtio#aventio#hsr aventurine#veritas ratio#dr ratio#screwllum#hsr#honkai star rail#now as a disclaimer I'm not personally a huge fan of aventio#exclusively because i think they are so SO much funnier as gay friends#but something about combining the two clicks really well to me#Aventurine and Screwllum would be pretty fantastic metamours i think#they'd have a lot of fun playing off each other#but also Screwllum being there to dispute Aventurine's doubts over whether or not Ratio cares as a verified outside perspective#listing off shit like upticks in heartrate pupil dialation etc on top of being like#he talks about you fondly he knows your favorite things i can personally attest that you are very evidently important to him#stuff Aventurine can't easily write off when coming from not only an outside perspective but also a literal Genius#and on the flip side Aventurine would finally have someone other than Ratio and the Trailblazer he can talk to with relative ease#someone who has also been through a frankly incredibly traumatizing historical event#someone who is also under constant pressure to perform a certain way#someone who has gained wealth and power at the cost of carrying responsibilities on his shoulders and never being truly free#appearing free to anyone who glances but neither of them really are#Screwllum seemingly able to freely pursue whatever research he wants but ultimately permanently shackled with his titles#and public pressure to be the perfect poised representative for all of inorganic kind#forever treading the line of being both a desirable ally and a sufficient threat that you wouldn't want to cross him#and similarly Aventurine stuck in his cycle that he feels only death can free him from of gambling with his life on the line#because the IPC basically owns him#because let's be honest Jade's offer was just a lifetime labor contract he couldn't refuse#granted the illusion of freedom through gaining money and power but never truly free
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Having this half formed thought about how Buck will do anything to save a relationship except fight for it and Eddie will fight for ones he doesn’t even want just so he doesn’t fail at them and let the other person down.
#firefighting being the one exception for buck#he’s just waiting to be left and tries to ask for as little as possible to stave it off as long as he can#and eddie feeling like it’s his responsibility to make things work#and make it work by himself really#neither of them actually do the give and take thing with their significant others#and so imagining buck standing up to say i want this and i will have the hard conversations with you and build it with you to eddie#and eddie saying your wants and needs are not a burden#i can hold you up#we can hold each other up#ugh#buddie#thought spiral
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oooh please someday tell us what you think of GOT
oh, no, it's my fatal weakness! it's [checks notes] literally just the bare modicum of temptation! okay you got me.
SO. in order to tell what's wrong with game of thrones you kind of have to have read the books, because the books are the reason the show goes off the rails. i actually blame the showrunners relatively little in proportion to GRRM for how bad the show was (which I'm not gonna rehash here because if you're interested in GOT in any capacity you've already seen that horse flogged to death). people debate when GOT "got bad" in terms of writing, but regardless of when you think it dropped off, everyone agrees the quality declined sharply in season 8, and to a certain extent, season 7. these are the seasons that are more or less entirely spun from whole cloth, because season 7 marks the beginning of what will, if we ever see it, be the Winds of Winter storyline. it's the first part that isn't based on a book by George R.R. Martin. it's said that he gave the showrunners plot outlines, but we don't know how detailed they were, or how much the writers diverged from the blueprint — and honestly, considering the cumulative changes made to the story by that point, some stark divergence would have been required. (there's a reason for this. i'll get there in a sec.)
so far, i'm not saying anything all that original. a lot of people recognized how bad the show got as soon as they ran out of Book to adapt. (I think it's kind of weird that they agreed to make a show about an unfinished series in the first place — did GRRM figure that this was his one shot at a really good HBO adaptation, and forego misgivings about his ability to write two full books in however many years it took to adapt? did he think they would wait for him? did he not care that the series would eventually spoil his magnum opus, which he's spent the last three decades of his life writing? perplexing.) but the more interesting question is why the show got bad once it ran out of Book, because in my mind, that's not a given. a lot of great shows depart from the books they were based on. fanfiction does exactly that, all the time! if you have good writers who understand the characters they're working with, departure means a different story, not a worse one. now, the natural reply would be to say that the writers of GOT just aren't good, or at least aren't good at the things that make for great television, and that's why they needed the books as a structure, but I don't think that's true or fair, either. books and television are very different things. the pacing of a book is totally different from the pacing of a television show, and even an episodic book like ASOIAF is going to need a lot of work before it's remotely watchable as a series. bad writers cannot make great series of television, regardless of how good their source material is. sure, they didn't invent the characters of tyrion lannister and daenerys targaryen, but they sure as hell understood story structure well enough to write a damn compelling season of TV about them!
so but then: what gives? i actually do think it's a problem with the books! the show starts out as very faithful to the early books (namely, A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings) to the point that most plotlines are copied beat-for-beat. the story is constructed a little differently, and it's definitely condensed, but the meat is still there. and not surprisingly, the early books in ASOIAF are very tightly written. for how long they are, you wouldn't expect it, but on every page of those books, the plot is racing. you can practically watch george trying to beat the fucking clock. and he does! useful context here is that he originally thought GOT was going to be a trilogy, and so the scope of most threads in the first book or two would have been much smaller. it also helps that the first three books are in some respects self-contained stories. the first book is a mystery, the second and third are espionage and war dramas — and they're kept tight in order to serve those respective plots.
the trouble begins with A Feast for Crows, and arguably A Storm of Swords, because GRRM starts multiplying plotlines and treating the series as a story, rather than each individual book. he also massively underestimated the number of pages it would take him to get through certain plot beats — an assumption whose foundation is unclear, because from a reader's standpoint, there is a fucke tonne of shit in Feast and Dance that's spurious. I'm not talking about Brienne's Riverlands storyline (which I adore thematically but speaking honestly should have been its own novella, not a part of Feast proper). I'm talking about whole chapters where Tyrion is sitting on his ass in the river, just talking to people. (will I eat crow about this if these pay off in hugely satisfying ways in Winds or Dream? oh, totally. my brothers, i will gorge myself on sweet sweet corvid. i will wear a dunce cap in the square, and gleefully, if these turn out to not have been wastes of time. the fact that i am writing this means i am willing to stake a non-negligible amount of pride on the prediction that that will not happen). I'm talking about scenes where the characters stare at each other and talk idly about things that have already happened while the author describes things we already have seen in excruciating detail. i'm talking about threads that, while forgivable in a different novel, are unforgivable in this one, because you are neglecting your main characters and their story. and don't tell me you think that a day-by-day account tyrion's river cruise is necessary to telling his story, because in the count of monte cristo, the main guy disappears for nine years and comes hurtling back into the story as a vengeful aristocrat! and while time jumps like that don't work for everything, they certainly do work if what you're talking about isn't a major story thread!
now put aside whether or not all these meandering, unconcluded threads are enjoyable to read (as, in fairness, they often are!). think about them as if you're a tv showrunner. these bad boys are your worst nightmare. because while you know the author put them in for a reason, you haven't read the conclusion to the arc, so you don't know what that reason is. and even if the author tells you in broad strokes how things are going to end for any particular character (and this is a big "if," because GRRM's whole style is that he lets plots "develop as he goes," so I'm not actually convinced that he does have endings written out for most major characters), that still doesn't help you get them from point A (meandering storyline) to point B (actual conclusion). oh, and by the way, you have under a year to write this full season of television, while GRRM has been thinking about how to end the books for at least 10. all of this means you have to basically call an audible on whether or not certain arcs are going to pay off, and, if they are, whether they make for good television, and hence are worth writing. and you have to do that for every. single. unfinished. story. in the books.
here's an example: in the books, Quentin Martell goes on a quest to marry Daenerys and gain a dragon. many chapters are spent detailing this quest. spoiler alert: he fails, and he gets charbroiled by dragons. GRRM includes this plot to set up the actions of House Martell in Winds, but the problem is that we don't know what House Martell does in Winds, because (see above) the book DNE. So, although we can reliably bet that the showrunners understand (1) Daenerys is coming to Westeros with her 3 fantasy nukes, and (2) at some point they're gonna have to deal with the invasion of frozombies from Canada, that DOESN'T mean they necessarily know exactly what's going to happen to Dorne, or House Martell. i mean, fuck! we don't even know if Martin knows what's going to happen to Dorne or House Martell, because he's said he's the kind of writer who doesn't set shit out beforehand! so for every "Cersei defaults on millions of dragons in loans from the notorious Bank of Nobody Fucks With Us, assumes this will have no repercussions for her reign or Westerosi politics in general" plotline — which might as well have a big glaring THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT stamp on top of the chapter heading — you have Arianne Martell trying to do a coup/parent trap switcheroo with Myrcella, or Euron the Goffick Antichrist, or Faegon Targaryen and JonCon preparing a Blackfyre restoration, or anything else that might pan out — but might not! And while that uncertainty about what's important to the "overall story" might be a realistic way of depicting human beings in a world ruled by chance and not Destiny, it makes for much better reading than viewing, because Game of Thrones as a fantasy television series was based on the first three books, which are much more traditional "there is a plot and main characters and you can generally tell who they are" kind of book. I see Feast and Dance as a kind of soft reboot for the series in this respect, because they recenter the story around a much larger cast and cast a much broader net in terms of which characters "deserve" narrative attention.
but if you're making a season of television, you can't do that, because you've already set up the basic premise and pacing of your story, and you can't suddenly pivot into a long-form tone poem about the horrors of war. so you have to cut something. but what are you gonna cut? bear in mind that you can't just Forget About Dorne, or the Iron Islands, or the Vale, or the North, or pretty much any region of the story, because it's all interconnected, but to fit in everything from the books would require pacing of the sort that no reasonable audience would ever tolerate. and bear in mind that the later books sprout a lot more of these baby-plots that could go somewhere, but also might end up being secondary or tertiary to the "main story," which, at the end of the day, is about dragons and ice zombies and the rot at the heart of the feudal power system glorified in classical fantasy. that's the story that you as the showrunner absolutely must give them an end to, and that's the story that should be your priority 1.
so you do a hack and slash job, and you mortar over whatever you cut out with storylines that you cook up yourself, but you can't go too far afield, because you still need all the characters more or less in place for the final showdown. so you pinch here and push credulity there, and you do your best to put the characters in more or less the same place they would have been if you kept the original, but on a shorter timeframe. and is it as good as the first seasons? of course not! because the material that you have is not suited to TV like the first seasons are. and not only that, but you are now working with source material that is actively fighting your attempt to constrain a linear and well-paced narrative on it. the text that you're working with changed structure when you weren't looking, and now you have to find some way to shanghai this new sprawling behemoth of a Thing into a television show. oh, and by the way, don't think that the (living) author of the source material will be any help with this, because even though he's got years of experience working in television writing, he doesn't actually know how all of these threads will tie together, which is possibly the reason that the next book has taken over 8 years (now 13 and counting) to write. oh and also, your showrunners are sick of this (in fairness, very difficult) job and they want to go write for star wars instead, so they've refused the extra time the studio offered them for pre-production and pushed through a bunch of first-draft scripts, creating a crunch culture of the type that spawns entirely avoidable mistakes, like, say, some poor set designer leaving a starbucks cup in frame.
anyway, that's what I think went wrong with game of thrones.
#using the tags as a footnote system here but in order:#1. quentin MAY not be dead according to some theories but in the text he is a charred corpse#2. arianne is great and i love her but to be honest. my girl is kinda dumb. just 2 b real.#3. faegon is totally a blackfyre i think it's so obvious it may well be text at this point#it's almost r+l = j level man like it's kind of just reading comprehension at this point#4. relatedly there are some characters i think GRRM has endings picked out for and some i think he specifically does NOT#i think stannis melisandre jon and daenerys all will end up the same. jon and dany war crimes => murder/banishment arc is just classic GRRM#but i think jon's reasoning will be different and it'll be better-written.#im sorry but babygirl shireen IS getting flambeed. in response stannis will commit epic battle suicide killing all boltons i hope#brienne will live but in some tragic 'stay awhile horatio' capacity. likely she will try to die defending her liege and fail#faegon will die there's zero chance blackfyres win ever#now jaime/cersei I do NOT think he knows. my brothers in christ i don't think this motherfucker knows who the valonqar is!!#same with tyrion i think that the author in GRRM wants to do a nasty corruption arc + kill him off but the person in him loves him too much#sansa i have no goddamn idea what's going to happen. we just don't know enough about the northern conspiracy to tell#w/ arya i think he has... ideas. i don't think she's going to sail off to Explore i am almost certain that the show doing that was a cover#because the actual idea he gave them was unsavory or nonviable for some reason. bc like.#why would arya leave bran and jon and sansa? the family she's just spent her whole life fighting to come back to and avenge?#this is suspicious this does not feel like arya this does not feel right#bran will not be king or if he is it'll be in a VERY different way not the dumbfuck 'let's vote' bullshit#i personally think bran is going to go full corruption arc and become possessed by the 3 eyed raven. but that could be a pipe dream#the thing is he's way too OP in the show so the books have to nerf him and i think GRRM is still trying to work out#a way to actually do that.#i don't think he told them what happened with littlefinger or sansa. i think sansa's story is vaguely similar#(stark restoration through the female line etc)#but the queen in the north shit is way too contrived frankly. and selfishly i hope she gets something different#being a monarch in ASOIAF is not a happy ending. we know this from the moment we meet robert baratheon in AGOT#and we learn exactly what GRRM thinks of the people who 'win' these endless wars of succession#and they are not heroes#they are not celebrated#and they are neither safe nor happy
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You hear a commotion outside, days after halloween had already passed...
You hear the door creak open...
VISUAL CALCULUS - It's not like the house is our permanent residence, anyways. We live in the void of a headspace. HAND/EYE COORDINATION - Yeah, this is just a convenient depiction that one of the Concepts made. Anyway, catch, Crowny!
#making a comic response was truly overambitious hgkjg i was supposed to either draw this really well or draw it really fast#and whoops i did neither hgkj... for reference revi sent this like 5 days ago so this is on me for being late im sorry :'] <333#anyway REVI THIS IS SO FUNNY HGKJG LIKE I THOUGHT JUST ECHEM GOING TO ASK FOR TREATS WAS FUNNY BUT /THE BACKGROUND/ KGJGKJ KILLING ME#i hope i interpreted the egging correctly hgkjg volition and authority sprinting up is HILARIOUS I AM SO FOND OF THIS WHOLE SCENE HKGJG#i hope i did your skill designs justice even if its messy :'] <33 i want to draw them actually when i can since i LOVE your designs <33#the viscal diagram showing how to land an egg perfectly in volition's hand is so fucking funny to me hgkjg#the bag of skittles is actually skill-tles and they look like skill orbs :3 hjgkljg this is all so silly <33 thank you Revi!!!#volta transmissions#voliart#esprit: Revi#general skills#im sooo sleepy so if i forgot to tag something i'll get to it tomorrow hgkjg
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wow...... MANY artists take requests randomly. this isn't the original anon, I just saw your post&was blown away by how rude it was. this anon wasn't even rude. artists are always putting out informationals with like guides on how to speak to them&it's the so egotistical&rude&controlling. I literally won't commission random artists anymore&only my close friends bc of these rules that change artist to artist&don't apply to everyone. anon asked you a simple question&was extremely nice about it&you chose to be an asshole in response. y'all act like you're training rabid dogs or something. just, say no, don't answer, or block the anon. like I can't figure out what ticked you off so much about that. talking to ppl like shit won't help them. it will just make people afraid to speak to you at all. anyways lol you're losing a follower&a fan. maybe let your anger out at the gym or something before you take it out on someone asking an innocent question. they truly probably thought "the worst they could say is no" &you proved them wrong. exactly the reason I no longer commission art from artists who aren't my close friends. my anxiety is too high to deal with the anger&your need to control how other people talk to you(even when it's not mean&they're just asking an innocent question).
Good lordt
Mate, I said "no hard feelings just letting you know this ask came across as rude" after we had a bit of a giggle about how funny it is that they hadn't stumbled upon the specific kind of fanart they wanted to see when IMO it's extremely common in the fandom, and then pointed them to another artist who had already drawn what they wanted to see.
"Don't ask/hint at artists to draw you things for free" is not being rude or demanding or egotistical, it's just a firm boundary. It's not a minefield to navigate, and artists who accept random requests usually say so somewhere in their bio/about. I also think blocking the poor anon would've been way more harsh and unnecessary than letting them know how their behaviour was perceived, cuz if they keep doing it, some other artist is going to be way meaner about it.
#I'm really not trying to be mean here. but I think you saw yourself in that anon and are taking this personally#like I wasn't even angry! if you felt my response was unnecessary and don't want to follow me any more then I get that#but you're acting like I fully unleashed on them and I really didn't#I know it feels from your POV like my response was inconsiderate but my POV is that it's minorly inconsiderate-#of artists' time not to check if they currently take requests before asking for one. Neither their question nor my response were huge deals#original anon if you're out there I'm genuinely not angry at you. If you message me again I'd be happy to link you more trans zoro art#and if you frame this sort of thingas a question like 'have you ever drawn/seen XYZ art?' you're more likely to get a rly positive response#and start a discussion and possibly even bag some new art out of it lol! my advice is to trick us like with cheese under a box trap
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a quick summary of mianite season 1 episode 6
#apollo's tag#mcyt#mianite#keys' art#undescribed#theyre literally like those kids who got in trouble but neither of them want to be responsible for it so they just blame each other#i love it#tom and tucker are besties yes However they would also sell each others soul for one corn chip#and do not hesitate to toss each other under the bus at the slightest sign of trouble. friendship at its finest!
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any thoughts on how once again zelda was robbed of her agency because her "father figure" didn't listen to her? even if rauru was kinder to her than her father. and that she had sonia who was patient and loving for a little while before she died (just like her mother). i know rauru apologizes for his hubris but still, i wish we saw zelda be upset about it. and even if zelda was such a big part of the quest she still literally sacrificed her humanity once again because of someone else's mistake- because rauru literally didn't listen to the girl from the future that warned you that shit was going to go down. o know nintendo just loves putting zelda inside crystals and stones but i wish we got something better. even if it was her decision to become a dragon... did she have any other choice? it really just feels like they robbed her of agency again just like botw and the games before
i've been trying to figure out how to answer this one. because there are two ways i could analyze this plot point, either from a writer's perspective or an in-story perspective, but neither of those lead to me fully agreeing with your interpretation? I think there's definitely something to be said about zelda consistently being pushed aside in these games, but. well. ok let's get into it ig
from a writer's perspective, I do honestly have quite a bit of sympathy for the zelda devs as they attempt to navigate the modern political landscape with these games. The cyclical lore, though canonized relatively recently, holds them to a standard of consistency in their games in terms of certain key elements. one of those key elements is that there has to be a princess, and that princess must somehow be the main macguffin of the game. The player must chase her, and the end goal of the game must be to reunite the player and the princess. In 1986 this was an incredibly easy sell. women didn't need to be characters. players were content with saving a 2-dimensional princess whose only purpose was to tell them "good job!" at the end. but as society advances, that princess becomes a much more difficult character to write while adhering to the established overarching canon. (as a side note: i don't necessarily believe that the writers SHOULD be held to the standards of that canon. I think deviating from it in certain areas would be a good change of pace. but i also recognize that deviations from the formula are widely hated by the loz playerbase and that they're trying to make money off these games, so we're working under the established rule that the formula must be at least loosely adhered to.) Modern fans want a princess who is a person, who has agency and makes decisions and struggles in the same way the hero does. but modern fans ALSO want a game that follows the established rules of the canon. so we need a princess who is a real character but who can ALSO serve as a macguffin within the narrative, something that is inherently somewhat objectifying.
the two games that i think do the best job writing a princess with agency are skyward sword and botw (based on your ask, our opinions differ there lol. hear me out) in both games, we have a framing event which seperates zelda and link, but in both games, that separation was ZELDA'S CHOICE. skyward sword zelda runs away from link out of fear of hurting him. botw zelda chooses to return to the castle alone to allow link the time he needs to heal. sksw kinda fumbled later on by having ghirahim kidnap her anyway, but. i said BEST not PERFECT. botw zelda I think is the better example because, with the context of the memories, she's arguably MORE of a character than link is. we see her struggles, her breakdowns, her imperfection, specifically we see her struggle with her lack of agency within the context of the game itself. when she steps in front of link in the final memory, and when she chooses to return to the castle, those are some of the first choices we see her make almost completely free of outside influence; a RECLAMATION of her agency (within the narrative) after years of having it stripped from her. from an objective viewer's standpoint, this writing decision still means she is absent from 90% of the game and that she has little control over her actions for the duration of the player's journey. however I think this is just about the best they could have done to create a princess with agency and a real character arc while still keeping the macguffin formula intact--you're not really SAVING zelda in botw. SHE is the one that is saving YOU; when you wake up on the plateau with no memories, too weak to fight bokoblins, let alone calamity ganon. the reason you are allowed to train and heal in early-game botw is because SHE is in the castle holding ganon back, protecting YOU. When you enter the final fight, you're not rescuing zelda, you're relieving her of her duty. taking over the work she's been doing for the past hundred years. in the final hour, you both work in tandem to defeat ganon. while this isn't a PERFECT example of a female character with agency and narrative weight, i think it's a pretty good one, especially in the context of save-the-princess games like loz.
as for totk, you put a lot of emphasis on rauru not believing zelda and taking action immediately, which, again, from an objective standpoint, i understand. but even when we're writing characters with social implications in mind, those character's actions still need to... make sense. Rauru was a king ruling over what he believed to be a perfectly peaceful kingdom. zelda literally fell out of the sky, landed in front of him, claimed to be his long-lost granddaughter, and then told him that some random ruler of a fringe faction in the desert was going to murder him and he had to get the jump on it by killing him first. the ruler which this girl is trying to convince rauru to wage an unprompted war on has the power to disguise himself as other people. no one in their right mind would immediately take the girl at her word. war is not something any leader should jump into without proper research and consideration, and to rauru's credit, he DIDN'T ever outright dismiss zelda. he believed her when she said she was from the future, he allowed her to work with him and he took her warnings as seriously as he could without any further proof. but he could not wage an unprompted war on ganondorf. that's just genuinely not practical, especially for a king who values peace among his people as much as rauru seems to. as soon as ganondorf DID attack, giving rauru confirmation that zelda's accounts of the future were real, he began making preparations to confront him. remember that zelda didn't KNOW that rauru and sonia were going to be casualties of the war--she didn't make the connection between rauru's arm in the future and rauru the king until AFTER sonia's death, when rauru made the decision to attack ganondorf directly. I think the imprisoning war and the casualties of it were less an issue of zelda being denied agency and more an issue of no one, including zelda, having full context for the events as they were unfolding. if zelda had KNOWN that sonia and rauru were going to die from the beginning and was still unable to prevent it that would be a different issue, but she didn't. none of them did.
I think another thing worth pointing out with rauru and his death irt zelda is that rauru is clearly written specifically as a foil to rhoam. this is evident in how he treats both zelda and link, with a constant kindness and understanding which is clearly opposite to rhoam's dismissiveness and disappointment. consider rhoam's death and the circumstances surrounding it. He died because, in zelda's eyes, she was unable to do her duty; the one thing he constantly berated her for. Rhoam's death solidified zelda's belief that she was a failure, a belief which she KNEW rhoam held as well. his death was doubly traumatic to her because she knew he died believing it was her fault. Now contrast that to the circumstances surrounding rauru's death. Rauru CHOSE to die despite zelda's warnings, because he wanted zelda and his kingdom to live. rauru's death was not agency-stripping for zelda; in fact, it functioned almost as an admission that he believed her capable of continuing to live in his place. With him gone, the fate of the kingdom fell to her and the sages. he KNEW that he would die and still went into that battle confidently, trusting zelda to make the right decisions once he was gone. where rhoam believed zelda incapable of doing ANYTHING without link, rauru trusted zelda COMPLETELY with the fate of his kingdom. several details in totk confirm that when rauru died there was no plan for zelda to draconify, that all happened after rauru was gone. it was HER plan, the plan which rauru trusted her to come up with once he was gone. and I think it's also worth noting that zelda's sacrifice with the draconification parallels rauru's!! Rauru gives up his life trusting the sages and his people to be able to continue his work in his place. Zelda gives up her physical form trusting link and the sages in the future to be able to figure out what to do and find her. these games in general have this recurring theme but totk specifically is all about love and trust and reliance on others. zelda relies on link, link relies on zelda, they both rely on the champions and the sages and rauru and sonia and they all rely each other. reliance on others isn't lack of agency, it's a constant choice they make, and that choice is the thing which allows them to triumph.
The draconification itself is something i view similarly to zelda's sacrifice in botw--a choice she makes which, symbolically & within the confines of the narrative, is a demonstration of her reclaimed agency and places her at the center of the narrative, but which ALSO removes her from much of the player's experience and robs her of any overt presence or decisionmaking within the gameplay. again, I think this is a solution to the macguffin-with-agency dilemma, and it's probably one of the better solutions they could have come up with. Would I have liked to see a game where zelda is more present within the actual gameplay? yes, but I also understand that at this point the writers aren't quite willing to deviate that much from their formula. the alternative within the confines of this story would be to let zelda DIE in the past, removing her from gameplay ENTIRELY, which is an infinitely worse option in my opinion. draconification allowed her to be present, centered the narrative around her, and allowed the writers to reiterate the game's theme of trust and teamwork when she assists the player in the final battle, which i think was a REALLY great choice, narratively speaking.
In any case, I don't think it's right to say that zelda was completely robbed of her agency in botw and totk. Agency doesn't always mean that she's unburdened and constantly present, it means she's given the freedom to make her own choices and that her choices are realistically written with HER in mind, not just the male characters around her, and I think botw/totk do a pretty good job of writing her and her choices realistically and with nuance.
#as a note i do think that loz still has a LONG way to go in terms of defining female characters by their relationships with men#and i acknowledge that a lot of zelda's choices within these games are STILL made irt male characters like her father link rauru etc#BUT i still don't think it's fair to act like shes been completely stripped and reduced to a damsel because.. she hasn't.#she's a very nuanced depiction of a girl who is used to being dismissed and ignored and powerless#her initial response to that powerlessness in botw was to reject everyone. she got loud and mean and she tried to do everything alone#and she discovered that that wasn't the right way to get what she wanted. it didnt make her happy and it didn't win her anyones approval#what DID work for her was learning to rely on the people around her and work with them. she found solace in teamwork and family#which is why in the final battle she and link fight TOGETHER against ganon. neither of them can do it alone but they can together#the same thing applies to totk. she continues her own journey by finding others like her who understand her powers and can teach her#so by the time she DOES end up alone she has been given the confidence and skillset to figure out what she has to do#you get it. you understand what im saying#asks#totk spoilers#zelda analysis
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ACTUALLY back to my Lilo & Stitch MP100 comparisons, since I usually make Arataka's sister so much older than him, I see them as having a kind of Nani and Lilo dynamic—
Arataka: Why don't you sell me and buy a rabbit instead!?
Anehito: At least a rabbit would behave better than you!
Arataka: Go ahead! Then you'll be happy because it'll be smarter than me TOO!
Anehito: And quieter!!
Arataka: You'll like it 'cause it's STINKY like YOU!
Anehito: GO TO YOUR ROOM!
Arataka: I'M ALREADY IN MY ROOM!
•
Anehito: Arataka, you open this door this instant!
Arataka: Go away...
Anehito: Arataka we don't have time for this!
Arataka, laying face down on the floor: Leave me alone to die.
Anehito: You are SO finished when I get in there! I'm gonna stuff you into the blender, push puree, bake you into a pie and then FEED IT TO THE SOCIAL WORKER!
—and then of course the soft moments too 👉👈🥺🥰
#reigen siblings#reigen arataka#reigen anehito#<- again thats not a real character i just made her name up#mob psycho 100#i was reminded of this based of copy's art#big sis reigen having to parent because their actual parents arent around for arataka#both of them hating it#but also both of them developing this weird system of feeling an immense amount of guilt towards the other and trying to be family with the#one person in the family LEFT that gives a shit about them#idk i hc anehito having a normal-er relationship with their parents but as she gets older she starts to see everything thats wrong with them#ESPECIALLY when it comes to arataka bc he was an accident they never wanted and they treat him as such#arataka hates her for being the golden child and anehito hates him for forcing responsibility on her at a fairly young age#but they both know that thats kinda....neither of their faults really :')#so sometimes they get to be soft#their spite for their parents just has to align time spaces first
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eldest daughter syndrome really do be kicking my ass tbh
#i just find it like so unfair yknow#im the only one who works in myhouse and full time#but i come home and the house isnt clean and i tidy up and sort everything out and tidy the kitchen anf living room after dinner and put#my sister to bed and yk if there was no one else to do these things id understand but#i have 5 brothers all of whom are adults and they dont lift a finger#its not as if any of them work bec they dont and neither does my dad#and im so so so exhausted yk? bec not everything is my job or responsibility#and i keep blaming other things for me getting sick but yknow what maybe i just dont rest enough#and the other day i was upset bec i'd had a tough day at work and i felt unwell and i cleaned up everything after dinner and my brother#said i didnt have a right to be upset bec i “chose” this. like as if i chose to work full time nd do all the chores for a family of 9#and it just really upsets me bec no one sees an issue with it and im so mad at my mom at rhe same time#constant therapy sessions w her bec shes mad at my dad and wants someone to vent at and then he does the same abt her and my brothers#and im so tired yknow just sososos tired bec she'll complain abt how they dont do anything but then she wont ensure they do either#its just empty complaints whereas she thrust responsibility on me when i was 9 and yet my brothers are 18+ - all but one that is and they#cant even do their own laundry bec she just..... did everything for them all the time but now is mad that they cant do anything.#like yes i know my dad is a failure of a husband and a father i expected that i'll never be a good enough daughter for him and that the onl#thing he has to say about me is that im bringing shame on our family despite everything ive done but come on#im just tired and upset#its hard not to see yourself as a robot or machine when theres little room to be anything else.#and even on a day like today when i dont feel well it never stops and i just keep doing#im sad i want a hug from my gangster bf#oh god i am sorry pls do not perceive me for this#and yk what#thats why i cant stand when people are nice to me bec all i can think of is#i havent done anything to deserve this? i should have to give something in return#or if not#theres something this person must want because why else would they be nice to me when i havent done anything for them#i cannot fathom the concept that someone just wants me because its me#its literally just not possible why would anyone fo that for me
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#long talk in tags incoming i guess#i don't understand why people keep following me when everything i do is complaining lately#and not about dnp per se. but about how the work is done and how their team *coughs* martyn *coughs* is handling stuff#i'm just looking at all this mess and i can't agree with basically anything#everything goes against my beliefs when it comes to work organisation. customer focus and etc.#and i'm trying SO hard to mildly help for free. and i'm just getting ignored. but that's like.. basic fixing and shit#any decent company would do it and say thank you for noticing and letting us know#but not irl merch lmao#and it all feels and looks like a massive joke#and i'm so so tired to basically pay for existence of this mess#i'm rethinking a lot of tour related decisions i made. and i know the reason i made them was about travelling more than the show itself#so i don't completely regret it#i'm just so tired of being spat in the face (figuratively speaking) over and over again#and tired of no one taking their job seriously ffs#neither martyn nor dnp nor their fucking editors#and i'm doing all that not for attention or whatever. but because I really care for the words to be correct and for the fucking text..#.. to be in the middle. like idc about the credit or WHO i need to ask for it to be fixed. i just want it to be fixed#so it looks good and how it should look#like. it's not that hard to put a little care into the things you do and getting paid for#I don't understand how it became so normalized. how being a bad manager is okay if you work with a fanbase and you're a 'small company'#a small company who has more than enough money to hire people to check things btw. if only anyone cared#i'm just so so tired of caring. because apparently it's not something everyone else does.#and i can let it slide when it comes to dnp. they are not being literally hired to do it. but others..... yeah#today was a moment when i thought 'that's a perfect opportunity to leave. enough.'#but the tour is in 1.5 months and i have tickets so i can't leave lmao#what kind of joke that is? oh and i know i'm fully responsible for this mild breakdown#personal
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with the year coming to a close, i hope that anyone who's reflecting about how the year went remembers to be kind and fair to themselves with how you evaluate the year as a whole.
i think there are definitely times when life throws things that are... Not So Great at you. whether if it's some external circumstance that surprised you, or maybe your mentality wasn't at it's best. i wish for anyone who's encountered those kinds of challenges to be able to triumph over them and be able to say that they got through it.
heck, it might still be a work in progress even though you've kept chipping away at it, and that's ok! the results will show themselves eventually as you work through it! and i hope that we can all remember to be patient with ourselves as we go through these processes (learning, healing, etc.), because damn, it can be frustrating when you feel like you're "not there yet."
knowing that life can be rough at times, i think it's unfair to yourself (and others) to discount and downplay any progress you've made this year- whether if it's something that you did for the first time, or maybe you came to a new understanding and insight that you didn't have in the previous year.
it's not to say that you should undermine the validity of your experience with hardship, but to take the time to remind yourself what makes life worth living. to recall what moments were the most satisfying to you- and use it to strengthen your resolve for the next year and beyond. no amount of hardship will ever take away from the fact that you deserve to have hope that things will get better.
i hope that looking back on the year, you don't leave out the things you cherish. that you can remember the good that came this year. whether if the small victories are things like meeting someone new, trying something out for the first time, or making some strides in a long-term project/obligation...!
i wish everyone a happy new year! may it be prosperous, and that your life can move in a direction that's close to what you want out of life. you're all going to do great! remember to congratulate yourself for what you did well! despite everything, you're still here, and that's wonderful. never forget that!
#lizzy speaks#hello everyone. i know that there are *checks calendar* still 20 days left of december and 2023#but i've had a lot of strong emotions and feelings i've had to sort through as i've been thinking about how 2023 went for me#so a lot of what i've written here comes from the perspective of someone in their early 20s#it's like... a crash and burn from when you were a teenager thinking that you know everything#and realizing how big the world is and how many responsibilities there are#all while a feeling of overwhelm looms over as you try to sift your way through the world and adjust your understanding of it#for me i've definitely had an underlying thought that 'you should have your shit together by now why aren't you there yet'#and it's! not motivating! at all! to think that way. and it's made me more than ever want to be a friend to myself. to extend a patient-#kind voice to myself that reminds me that others are also trying to navigate these feelings and to accept that i'm not going to have an-#instantaneous understanding of how one goes about adulthood. and neither will they. even if they look 'put together.'#like... these people have also undergone similar stresses and along the way figured out how to navigate through that space#and personally i've found peace in knowing that there are people who are older than me. trusting that they've dealt with these things too i#some shape or form and that them living... being here.. is proof that we shall be fine in the end and that we will move past what plagues-#our mind. there's definitely been some... anger i've had this year that. school didnt teach me these things or skills!! i was so mad lol#but hey if we are little guys who are living on planet earth for the first time we shouldn't condemn ourselves to an unrealistic standard-#of going through life and being able to instantly do everything 'correctly' and know how everything works#i'm still working on improving that patience... and also trying to put in the work to understand these things.#in the midst of a very tough week for me i was tempted to say that 'nothing happened this year it was not productive'#but then i was like. that's. objectively not true if you just look at other things. also theres worth in life outside of 'productivity'#...i think i passed 20 tags at this point. but like. my favorite thing about 2023 was meeting so many cool awesome people!#who would've known that funny lil squid game could bring so many connections and friendships i cherish!#thank you so much! for being a part of my life and changing me for the better! for giving me many fond memories!#and i'm very grateful to anyone who supported me and my art this year... for sticking around even though i wished i could do more#it means the world to me knowing that there's proof that i exist and have touched someone's life in a positive way! thank you! truly!#ANYWAY. happy early new year. i hope everyone can nourish a friend in their head that extends acceptance and patience to themselves#as we try and make sense of the world together. there will be things that we don't understand yet! but one day we will! and it'll be like#wow! look how far i came! i'm okay! i'm alive! yipee! thank you for reading this post i made to get my feelings out! have a nice day!
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THANK YOU for explaining the Louis/Armand fight with such clarity. Like obviously Armand has the ultimate power over the relationships here and the way he behaves in this episode is world class terrible, we can all see that, but I feel like I've been going crazy when people are softening Louis's words as light banter while Armand responding somewhat in kind is framed as malicious suicide baiting.
It's not my take but I would understand if people were approaching this as "Armand sucks so bad and technically can leave whenever so I give 0 fucks what Louis does or says to him," but "Louis was just being mean" doesn't track for me. He is at this point in his life using regularly enough that Armand's first response when he gets vicious is a bitter "here comes the drugs." He's used to this. Addiction is a complicated and terrible disease but Louis is Armand's partner, for whatever reason, apparently (big caveat) of his own volition and he responds to Armand being upset about his cycle of risky drug use and insincere apologies with a "you're boring and smothering" speech before turning on a dime to "cringe of you to be a victimized. it's given you a real victim mentality" when Armand says he's boring too. It's legitimately reprehensible behaviour! And that's fine. I will continue making heart eyes at him whenever he appears on screen undeterred.
#who was right and who was wrong is not my favourite approach to art even when all the characters aren't all#self obsessed serial killers but Louis is not in the right here! he's just not in a position of power#which yes. if you have it you're stuck with it you have to wield it responsibly#armand has neither the talent not inclination so that won't be happening#but if you look at what louis does with a person he's in a position of power over#it amounts to a) charisma bomb#b) get mad and violently attack him when he says something he doesn't like#c) swoop in and give him a big affirming talk about how he's actually special and worthy#i think that speech was sincere and moving#i am a danlou appreciator. i want them to experience true friendship and maybe fuck about it. still. two things can be true at once.#incidentally you know what's boring. it's addicts calling their loved ones boring when they object to their behaviour#that was pedestrian if precisely calibrated and delivered with verve (emmy for jacob when)#the daddy vamp spiel now that was special. top shelf#press says iwtv#interview with the vampire#all of this said when i see what he does to my claudia i may well be back here like u should have been meaner louis#why didn't you bring up how his human parents also sold him#that's great material#cw: sa#cw: abuse
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A.J Pollard’s biography on Edward IV was so cringe lol (generic; minor but frustrating inaccuracies; intensely judgmental at times and oddly dismissive at others while never considering the broader context; entirely diminished and trivialized Elizabeth Woodville as both queen and wife of his main subject in the name of "defending" her; created a false dichotomy between Edward and Henry VII’s styles of ruling and lauded the latter at the former’s expense even though Henry literally followed Edward’s example for the very things Pollard was criticizing Edward for; had a downright nonsensical and thoroughly misleading conclusion about Edward’s legacy & Richard’s usurpation that was based entirely on hindsight, Pollard's own assumptions, and the complete downplaying Richard’s agency and actions to emphasize what Pollard wrongly and misleadingly claimed were Edward's so-called 'failings', etc, etc)
I wanted to buy his book on Henry V but after reading this shitshow and the synopsis of that book, im guessing it's going to be 10x worse, so...no thanks
#history media#this was written months ago im posting it to get it out of my drafts#it wasn't necessarily BAD. it was generic and readable. but it was very disappointing and misleading and its conclusion was just nonsense#listen I have no patience for the dumbfuck idea that edward somehow had the ultimate responsibility for his own son's deposition because#of his 'policies' during his reign. like I said it's based fully on hindsight and entirely devoid of actual context. it's bafflingly stupid#literally everyone expected Edward V to succeed his father and 'both hoped for and expected' (Croyland's own words) a successful reign#Edward V's deposition was richard and solely Richard's fault lol this should not be difficult to understand#the reason Richard's usurpation was possible in the first place was bcause everyone expected E5 to succeed and didn't expect Richard#do to what he did. nothing would have happened without his initiative and decisions. it had nothing to do with Edward's 'policies'#Edward's policies were fine. henry vii - who pollard vaunts to no end - literally *followed* them#and claiming that he failed to unite England under the Yorkist dynasty is just plain stupid#buddy if he truly failed at that then neither Richard III nor Henry VII would have thrones lol. both emphasized continuity with#him when aiming for the throne. like the whole point of 1483-85 was that it was a conflict WITHIN the 'Yorkist' dynasty#it was not an external threat against it.#'his legacy failed' his legacy didn't fail his brother destroyed it (while also presenting himself as his heir because logic what's logic?)#henry's victory was very much the triumph of his legacy (a claimant chosen by his supporters as the husband of his daughter)#like this is really not my interpretation it is literally what happened#i'm not trying to glorify e4 but his son did inherit the throne in a more advantageous circumstances than any other minor king of england#and frankly than most other adult kings. dumping blame on Edward's literal corpse rather than acknowledge Richard's agency is so tasteless#the problem isn't that edward made a mistake in trusting his brother. many other kings including Henry V also trusted theirs.#the problem is that his brother was willing to break that trust in a way that was unprecedented and broke all political norms of that age#ie: Richard's usurpation occurred because of Richard who re-ignited conflict to make himself king. please drill this into your head#also btw this illogical 'interpretation' is based entirely on Charles Ross' hatred and derision towards Elizabeth Woodville and her family#if you agree with this inteterpretation you agree with his vilification of them 🤷🏻♀️#anyway if you want a better interpretation that's actually analytical and looks a relevant rather than a flawed retrospective perspective#i would recommend rosemary horrox's 'richard iii: a study of service' and david horspool's 'richard iii: a ruler and his reputation'#anyway one last time: STOP downplaying Richard's agency and actions. historians who do this are stupid and embarrassing. bye.#(i should really post horspool's glorious takedown of ross and Pollard huh? it was very entertaining to read)
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tech developers who change user interfaces just for the sake of changing them please pay me $10000 per change you'd like to make
#i'll still be annoyed but i'll be less annoyed#this annoyance brought to you by the settings menu for my computer no longer having a tile option for literally no reason#except possibly to more aesthetically match the mobile settings page#which ALSO has no reason not to have a tile option#anyway neither one of them should be Locked In to a single option for this and i hate it#and ACTIVELY REMOVING the option to change between list mode and tile mode on my DESKTOP COMPUTER is grounds for me to bite someone#anyway tech developers stop trying to make computers phones challenge#the life and times of a less than responsible adult#i just wanted to download my audiobooks man that's all i wanted. why do i have to deal with This now.
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Aaaaaaaaa just did the cazador mission and it was amazing, started off like I couldn't wait to kill his ass and then it just proceeded to get so sad and tense and emotional and ughh
That was honestly one of the most memorable experiences I've ever seen in a video game, hands down. And a choice that was both somehow easy and hard 😫
so unfair but deep down I love that
#baldur's gate 3 spoilers#baldur's gate 3#bg3#bg3 spoilers#Astarion#and man what a shitty combo of options tbh#he didnt ascend but honestly neither option felt good#i hate and love how gray it kind of is? although maybe its not really that gray#i mean killing 7000 undead just for him to live without fear is arguably not that bad since they were already vampires#but at the same time they're just like him so it's a pretty terrible place to be in#i let them all live and Astarion seemed okay with not ascending#next time though I'll let him do it#i just want him to be able to feel the sun 😭😭😭#also the Sebastian stuff was kind of a bummer. felt so bad for Astarion#i had Karlach with me and i loved her response afterwards she's so proud lol#also god damn i know everyone praises the voice acting in this game but it was seriously so good in that last scene#pk plays bg3
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