#rin starts it a lot

[erigold13261]

Something stupid but I love the idea of Rin and Purl fighting about what love means. Rin being a true romantic and thinking there is a true love while Purl is completely cynical and saying true love is trash and it's really all about the physicality of the relationship.

Really just two opposing ideologies that cause a lot of fights between the two of them.

[ab-rinart]

How do you handle sexual dimorphism in sangheili? How do females physically differ from males, if at all?

Females do differ from the males, but only by a little bit. Sangheili don’t have much in the way of sexual dimorphism and can be fairly difficult to tell the difference between the two sexes. Female Sangheili are generally described to be slimmer and slightly shorter than the males are.

Some more fun facts about Sangheili women;

Osoona within the Covenant were sometimes female due to their smaller frames. Osoona were basically spies and having a smaller/lighter frame would often give female Sangheili in the field an advantage. Osoona was also one of the very few positions in the Covenant that somewhat openly allowed Sangheili women to join the Covenant military (combat oriented positions specifically) as, previously, they were not allowed to. Female Sangheili were often left on their birth worlds where they rarely left planet side. They remained there to care for young, train them, care from the keep itself, manage politics and served as a last ditch effort defense system should their home worlds, like Sanghelios, ever experience an invasion. It wasn’t until Rtas ‘Vadum came across Tul ‘Juran in battle that Rtas decided to convince Thel ‘Vadam to allow women into the military of Swords of Sanghelios. Before this, outside of Osoona, Sangheili women in the military were an extreme rarity, even now they’re still a rather uncommon occurrence.

These images are the only canon visuals we have of a Sangheili woman, Tul ‘Juran, Scion of her keep. The other Elite in the images is Rtas and the other being is a San ‘Shyuum Prelate I forgot the name of. Tul ‘Juran and Rtas are to thank for Sangheili women getting slightly more recognition within their military ranks.

I’m also going to add that the depiction of a female Sangheili in Legends, while the story is canon, the art style absolutely is not and the Halo Online project was incredibly stylized and later, abandoned. But that project does depict both male and female options of Sangheili there too.

[mayasaura]

I'm seeing a lot of people afraid that Kabru is going to make fun of Laios, bully Laios, or turn around to mock Laios behind his back, and that's understandable. Especially since he did lie to Laios by pretending to like his omlette right after the Toshiro nightmare scenario of pent-up resentment.

But guys. Kabru hasn't actually done any of that yet. The bullying or mocking? It isn't there. Kabru has done some wild stuff. He contemplated killing Laios to get out of an awkward social situation. He thinks Laios' interest in monsters might make him dangerous in the future. But at the point we're at in the anime, he has never once secretly mocked Laios, undermined Laios to someone else, or thought of Laios as a person he can't respect. If that's how Kabru is secretly thinking about Laios, he hasn't shown his hand yet.

It does seem like that's where he might be going, with his fake ass bitch encouragement about eating monsters and inscrutable motivations. I totally get feeling anxious or defensive about the potential, but if you let that anxiety fill in the gaps of what we don't yet know about Kabru's feelings and intentions, you might end up missing a lot.

Or you might be right, and I just want people to wait until he actually does the thing to condemn him for it. I'm not gonna tell you where this is going.*

*Unless you're anxious enough about it to want me to, in which case my dms are open.

[jays-therapist]

I don't know if this a hot take or not but I really disagree with the idea that Yukio is jealous of Rin's power and physical strength? Rather, I think it's Rin's emotional strength that Yukio envies.

I have a lot to say about this lmao, so I'm just gonna put it all under the cut that way people who don't want to read this long ass analysis don't have to. Also, manga spoilers.

Blue Exorcist is a fun shonen manga because it measures strength outside of just "how hard can i punch this dude." Often, when characters talk about getting strong, they're talking about wanting to be mentally resilient; they want the ability to persevere, to be independent and face their fears/emotional turmoil on their own. Shiemi is a good example of this, I think. She constantly talks about being strong, but usually in the context of naviagting the world after living so long in isolation, and struggling to support her friends. Yes, she wants to get physically stronger, but at the core, she just genuinely wants to have a strong spirit (like a weed), and to be emotionally strong enough to help carry her friends' burdens.

Now, back to Yukio.

The biggest reoccuring theme in Yukio's jealousy is how he puts his brother on a pedestal, while constantly downplaying every good thing about himself (they both do this lol). You'll see this a lot in the examples I bring up.

There are four scenes I really want to focus on when discussing just how Yukio defines strength: his flashback in Chapter 29, his inner monologue in Chapter 37, his suicide attempt in Chapter 93, and That Time He Shot Rin in the Head in Chapter 96.

In Chapter 29, Yukio has this five-page montage of flashbacks, depicting specific moments where he felt both admiration and envy for Rin. And each of these moments highlight Rin's empathy, his care-free behavior, his kindness, his ability to inspire others, his desire to protect his little brother. Not his habit of setting things on fire.

This is important because Yukio fundamentally believes that he is not a good person. He believes he is not kind, selfless, or brave. When he, as a child, cries because he can't adopt a puppy he wanted, he's envious that Rin is just happy to see the puppy in a nice home. When his brother rushes to save him from bullies, Yukio's upset that he couldn't do it on his own, that his brother feels he is so weak he can't even take care of himself.

From Yukio's perspective, these are examples of Rin either outshining him inherently or looking down on him. No matter how strong Yukio gets, he will never not be able to feel bad for himself when the puppy is given to a different family. He will never be able to prove to his brother that he can do things on his own. He was born with this weakness and he can't seem to kill it. He can't win, and he hates it.

In Chapter 37, after defeating the Kraken, Yukio and Rin have a little heart-to-heart. Here, we see Yukio's true feelings towards Rin's claims of "surpassing him", which is that Rin already does. Yukio feels that if anyone needs to surpass anyone, it's him. He will always come up short where it counts, whenever he needs to let things go or be more empathetic. Yukio is strong of body, but weak of spirit.

So, with this in mind, when Yukio falls to his knees in Chapter 93 and says, "I was weak, and I couldn't get any stronger," he doesn't mean, "damn. wish i could've harnessed the demon power in my eyes to blow shit up." No, he's admitting defeat. He tried so hard to be strong, both physically and mentally but especially mentally, and he failed. He couldn't carry burdens like his father and brother could, like his friends could. He was cruel and cowardly. He hurt people he loved, and as long as he continues to live, he will keep hurting the people he loves.

What is strength to Yukio? It's resilience. It's taking risks. It's independence. It's Rin.

(Or at least, how Yukio sees Rin. As I've said before, he likes to put Rin on a pedestal.)

In contrast, weakness is cowering. It's waiting for someone else to solve the problem. It's hurting good people who haven't faulted you. It's Yukio.

That leads us to Chapter 96, and this---

This is kind of the crux of it all. Yukio is suffocating on his own perceived weakness and seeking to escape it. Here, Yukio is burning every bridge (the fact that this is literally taking place on a bridge is pretty ironic) that could possibly allow him to return to the Order to ensure he does what he needs to do. To be strong, he needs to be independent. To be independent, he needs to be alone. He can't let his brother solve all of his problems anymore.

So, like. Yeah. In conclusion, I think Yukio is heavily inspired by his brother's strength of character, just as much as he feels abased by it, and that's why his ideas of strength steer closer to broader concepts like bravery and self-determination rather than "let's hit the gym and summon Satan." He uses physical strength as a mask to conceal his perceived emotional weakness.

[sakasakiii]

Thank the Valars ur back!!!💖💖💖 But if you need your rest, take them and have time! Remember we'll all support you always no matter what!😇until you post another i will wait patiently..... I am so thankful to you since I read the silm after i saw all ur amazing works.

Ps. I made this tumblr account to send❤❤❤❤to u and ur works. People like u always make my day! I wish I can draw and make headcannons like u! 😢 I think ill have to stop since the ps shhouldnt be longer than the tezt above(idk what they call that... I am EFL so i think im forgivable😎)

hiiiii!!! thank you for all your encouraging words and for taking the time to send in such kind messages ahhhh 🥺 im really honoured you like the stuff i put out! i have a lot of fun drawing them, and learning other people enjoy it too really gives motivation to all my doodles 🙇‍♀️ also you read the silm after finding my work?? 😭💖 that's very high praise but u are far too kind! the tolkien community here on tumblr is such a wonderful place with so many talented creators and amazing content, so i hope you continue to explore and enjoy your time!!!

i must send this back to you, because people like you make my day as well ❤❤❤ And don't give up!!! anyone can draw and make headcanons so long as they have an idea of what they wanna do-- that's the fun and freedom of fanwork, isn't it! i hope one day to see you putting your stuff out there as well... ehehee... 🥳

i'm also very happy you like the Asian-themed clothes in my artwork! i really do enjoy studying historical and traditional clothes, and i hope to keep incorporating them into my designs over time. since you asked for makalaure, here is a little doodle of him and maedhros in hanbok :DDD

i wanted to practice studying some more traditional styles, so i did a few other sketches of Maglor in various styles of historical East Asian styles + idril, nerdanel, and aredhel to model some female clothes hehe....

thanks again for your wonderful support bc it's really made my day, and hey!!! im super guilty of rambling too much in all my posts so honestly, write as much as you want in the P.S.s because word limits are a goofy concept 😎 all the best with ur EFL studies friend-- u can do it!!! fighting!!!! 💪 and have a wonderful rest of your day!

[basileusdraws]

More misc moments from in game :')

[everyryuujisuguro]

[zhongrin]

the way you can just see where i taped the nail picks orz....... (other hand's thumb for comparison)

li come kiss it better ;<

[mewwile]

Considering checking out Dungeon Meshi due to a recent post of yours. Maybe the manga too. Are you interested in sharing advice/opinions about the best way to get started?

Oooh yes! I'd say personally the best way is to start with the anime on Netflix (or by whatever Alternative Sites because fuck Netflix, tho I don't know any atm), which (the first season) ends on Thursday. Theyve done some cool stuff with some scenes that make them more impactful, and didn't have to cut too much out! Afterwards, I use (with adblockers ofc) mangadex as a website to read the manga. The names will be really weird at first and the genders of some later characters are obscure (ryoko kui loves unusual names that are a bit hard for translators to understand, and the official English translation took a while to be made and cement proper full names though eventually the scanlations line up) but it's such a good read!

[dykeandballs]

ive been so offline lately i started wilting (guy who was only off of tumblr)

[cangrellesteponme]

hhhhhhhhhh now i want to talk about fandom and 'girlboss' characters and my beloved grelle but. idk if i have the energy for that discussion

[quietlyblooms]

honestly speaking, the idea of going back to my dorverold multimuse stresses me out bc i think i would just want to start over? and make rin the main muse like i always should have done, but i dunno. it felt like work trying to get people invested in her before, and i just!! don't particularly want to deal with that again. which is sad to say, but it is what it is. i'm happy enough being able to just incorporate aspects of that lore into chiyo's modern fantasy verses for now. maybe in the future i'll commit to putting in the work for rin and her story.

[batsplat]

Oh rewatching Naruto to pick up languages sounds fun!

Naruto infuriates me so so much. I could go from 0 to 60 from a random Naruto post. There was a base a good foundation. Great character designs who could have grown and developed so well. We could have had so much nuance and issues addressed. Just slivers of brilliance and then trash. The whole students who faced war and pain go on to become teachers who do the same without empathy (there are days where Kakashi makes me scream in rage) My face when they introduced Kaguya as the big bad behind Madara. I won't even touch Naruto, Sasuke & Itachi.

But the akatsuki, oh loved every one of their stories.

You mentioned web novels and I flashed to the trenches of MTL. I do think the Chinese ones provide such delicious angst though. They don't hesitate. At all. To take the dark turns. The enemies to lovers trope in those are TRULY enemies. The pain is PAIN. but the redemption is worth it too. Yuwu by meatbun was the last one I read and that was heavy.

yeah, it is!! unfortunately the studio responsible for the dubbing... massively had to scale back production for war-related reasons, so the naruto dub does tail off shortly before shippuden. but well, they did dub a hell of a lot of detective conan episodes because apparently that's a major hit (rightly so!!)

and yeah character development in naruto was... well, look, it was never good, but eventually it REALLY became a mess. what you can say in defence of the pre-shippuden stuff is that it has some fairly clear themes and coming-of-age plot threads of like,, naruto gradually being accepted by the village, finding his own place within this community, making friends... I mean it was always a little bit threadbare because you don't really get the sense there's all that much naruto has to develop, except maybe 'accepting himself and calming down a bit', because from the framing of the show it's really just the world around him that has to change. (alternatively it's framed as basically fine that he needs to actively fight the village to be accepted which!! no!!) but that's getting in the weeds. it's fine. they don't have to reinvent the wheel, the basic character premise is all right

but then by the time to get to shippuden, the arc is... naruto learning about the horrors of hard choices? or something. I guess. also not giving up on sasuke, which really is his major driving motivation in shippuden beyond 'not getting his monster sucked out of his body', but the narrative never really takes a stance on the sasuke question, which?? it's your central conflict, you've got to take a stance on it!! like, is him never giving up on sasuke good because it shows his pure soul and power of friendship and how he knows this traumatised child soldier isn't beyond redemption, or is it bad because he's delusional and not paying enough attention to all of sasuke's victims and it keeps distracting him from this existential threat? we don't know!! it's not resolved! it's kind of resolved in that sasuke did come back to the good side, which you'd think would mean the narrative feels naruto was right, but then on the other hand naruto was really only very tenuously involved in this 'redemptive' process. they got to the point where literally everyone was telling him to finally drop the sasuke quest and then the narrative just... moves on. never resolves it!! so as a result of the whole plot becoming such a. mess. leading up to the final war arc, kishimoto kinda forgot to give his main emotional and thematic and character tension of the series a satisfying ending

the whole point of the sasuke character was... going through a lot of trauma when you are young and losing stuff you remember having can kinda fuck you up and send you down an ultimately self-destructive path of hatred and bitterness and close you down to forming new attachments. so sasuke functions as one of naruto's many shadow selves in the series (the other major ones being gaara and pain) about how naruto just escaped that path, but it's always a fairly thin line and naruto could also be consumed by bitterness if he isn't careful. and also naruto's got a saviour complex because he feels like the only one who can get all the bad boys and he empathises to a painful extent with them, so saving sasuke is also about like. confronting the monster within and needing to believe there's hope for sasuke still because that also means there's hope for naruto. which is all FINE, ignoring execution I do think that's a perfectly solid premise for your shounen protagonist arc. but then the itachi twist is... well, it's a lot!! it steamrolls a lot of this arc if you think about it for two seconds too long! like it's interesting and I don't HATE hate it but it does also just Fundamentally Change the moral logic of the naruto universe in a way the narrative never reckons with! because if itachi was following his village's orders in slaughtering their entire clan, then... well, sasuke is right! his revolutionary cause is broadly justified, even if it comes from a place of loss and trauma! the uchiha WERE right to think konoha couldn't be trusted! it's an unjustifiable crime! suddenly the entire calculus of sasuke being consumed by revenge changes, because unless your stance is that 'all revenge is bad' (clearly not true in ninja world), that is pretty much as justifiable a revenge quest as you can get!

at which point. you just get to this weird place where the politics of naruto-verse become kinda fucked, because the only reason why konoha is 'good' is for some vibes-based 'well, the status quo is fundamentally preferable' argument. chaos reigned before the villages, so The Village needs to be preserved at all costs! and it's kinda... look, I don't want to over-examine the politics of the naruto-verse, but I do think it's a bit of an issue if your 'it's wrong to judge outsiders and especially innocent children for stuff outside of their control' story becomes a 'well the institutions of power have a few Bad Actors but the real villains will always be those traumatised by the institutions of the state who attempt to change the status quo' story. when I was a teen reading shippuden the first time, I was introduced to the 'uchiha's are doomed to a curse of hatred where unless they're super careful they're genetically locked into becoming the baddies' stuff and was like 'oh yeah what this is leading to is a big lesson about how this kind of thinking that demonises an entire population is exactly as misguided as the villagers being mean to naruto' because apparently I was an idiot who thought this story was going in a thematically coherent direction. in the end, the stance of the whole narrative is basically 'yeah the curse of hatred is a thing, the uchiha ARE all kinda genetically predisposed to losing themselves to hatred', which? please stop? think about what your story is saying!! this is a bad bad message!!

basically, kishimoto needed to ignore all this ninja war stuff - you needed some kind of vaguely satisfying conclusion to THAT story and all the other stuff can sort itself out. I don't even massively care what stance you end up taking on sasuke as long as you take one!! I mean ultimately I suppose I'd prefer naruto being able to save sasuke, but also y'know convince me on whatever you want, just do SOMETHING with it rather than like. the endless war arc. that simply would not end. it just became too convoluted!! super easy and common flaw for long running series to fall prey to, but still! fix it! obviously there's a few other glaring issues here like 'clearly if you've got a trio then you need your third main character to also play a role in this central conflict', where they just. extremely fluffed it with sakura. I have zero problem with a lot of her early characterisation like her being mean to naruto or having a crush on sasuke, she's a young girl it's FINE. but obviously the power-scaling of this series ends up being like,, inherently sexist, and they progressively ruin all of naruto's underdog charm by not only making the monster inside him a clear upside (given using the nine tailed fox came with diminishing costs and he got control over it... way too easily) but also ensuring he too has a deeply significant bloodline lineage with the uzumaki's. his dad minato has underdog appeal because he didn't come from a significant family!! not naruto! and I'm fond enough of minato and kushina that even though I hate this retcon for thematic reasons, I can't hate hate them, I think they're cute, but!! at a certain stage you need to figure out how you're going to somehow remain true to the starting point of your story

and figure out what to do with sakura - on paper you'd think she'd be the mediator between naruto and sasuke in their extreme stances, but you don't actually need a mediator because naruto is already completely pro-sasuke!! and had a more significant relationship with him than sakura did from basically the start, like there is nothing about sasuke that sakura knows and naruto doesn't. (there are very obvious implications for which of these characters should have been given a romantic ending, but let's not even get into that.) and obviously they were never going to do this in their shounen power fantasy, but it should have been sakura to embody the ultimate underdog power fantasy - because narratively she's actually the only underdog left. she's konoha's will of fire personified, she's the one who can function as a narrative stand-in for the village with all its fighting spirit and nominal egalitarianism and prejudices and flaws. it's fine if shippuden is mostly operating on different thematic ground than the first bit of the series, though you do still need to take a stance on the sasuke question... which means it should obviously have been sakura, as practically the first character in the series to judge both naruto and sasuke and make up her mind on both of them, to be symbolically granted the power to Give Them A Chance and ensure they're both not doomed to the monsters within by bringing about change to the structures that demonised and isolated them in the first place. I'm not asking for socialist utopias in my ninja worldbuilding, but if you're going to introduce 'the state ordered the deuteragonist's brother to do a genocide on his entire family' as a major plot point, you do have to find SOME kind of resolution to it idk. and the fact sakura was like?? knocked out during the naruto and sasuke fight at the end?? genuine insanity. zero interest in the third most important character in the whole story. what was the plan. I have thought for many years about what is wrong with that series and what I would fix and I will spend many more doing so

[frootbyethefoot]

she had to reach a boiling point eventually

[ID: a digital drawing showing rin yamaoka from dead by daylight at various points in her life, and afterlife. the first image of rin shows her as a young woman, with long black hair. she is wearing a long black dress, black fingerless gloves, and a skull bag with a transgender pride pin on it. her right hand is gripping the side of her stomach, while her other hand grips her arm. she is staring towards the camera uncomfortably. the background is yellow, with small waves around rin.

the second image shows her, again as a young woman in a waitress outfit. she is wearing a short sleeve button up, a bow, a black skirt, a name tag, and a skull hairpin. she is in the exact same pose as the previous rin, only this time staring towards the camera with disdain. the background is orange, and again, has small, spikier waves around rin.

the third image shows rin as a ghost, still wearing her waitress outfit from the previous image, as well as the same pose. she is crying, and looks furious. the background is red, and has spikes around rin.

the background behind all the rins is pure black. END ID/]

[rinisdrawing]

fated by the stars of space and time

[ab-rinart]

If y’all wanna ask my OCs questions kinda like an ask blog or there’s any sort of interest in it, y’all are more than welcome to. I can maybe make a list of them somewhere too.