#she's a very good character

[marnz]

speaking of valley book,

 i keep struggling with wanting tyler to be likeable before catching myself and being like, who cares? truly, who cares. i think one of my main cautions about this project (once i figured out what i was writing) was i and society in general spend a lot of time thinking about men who are violent. frankly we spend a lot of time justifying it. i think this is done to give us the illusion of agency, of control. if we understand why it happened we can avoid it, etc. it’s my job to think about why my characters do what they do! characters need to have complex motivations, even if they swear up and down their motivations are the opposite of what they truly are. you cannot have people just doing things! so for tyler i understand why he is the way he is and why he’s doing what he’s doing (for me it’s often a backwards discovery process).

but in no way am i writing a redemption arc. i am not interested in redemption, as a whole. the project of redemption makes me uneasy, i suppose, because it’s categorizing people as good or bad and giving them little check marks on their way to being Good. i like redemption arcs in like...TV. Person of Interest has a banger redemption arc for Root. arguably Jamie is in the middle of his redemption arc on Ted Lasso. both are very compelling to me. But i don’t really love them in books. books have a different job. and while i love to see people change, i love that complicated process as development of character. but what even is good and what even is bad! is good good or is good likeable? can you give me a character who does stuff and give me a coherent depiction of their headspace and their reasoning? i am more interested in this than surfing through good and evil. i’m not sure this makes sense. when i was writing my fantasy series, i wanted to consciously stay away from good and evil because fantasy has this ludicrous tradition of like. The Forces of Darkness, etc. instead i just made the entire thing about politics, which is arguably where real evil hangs out.

anyway i think there’s a way to depict character development and change in books without labeling it As A Redemptive Arc. labeling it flattens it. i am not sure this makes sense, i am just thinking out loud about why redemption arcs are a little weird to me. maybe it’s because i am very easily won over by characters expressing emotion even if they work for The Forces of Darkness or whatever. of course there’s an important message that we all suck and are all capable of doing horrible things and we’re also all capable of doing good things...

maybe it is because (for me) redemption implies humanity. it implies empathy. and it implies them having to do things and reach a certain point before being given dignity. which i don’t think...is fair..they shouldn’t have to be redeemed for this to happen...anyway. if you read that, sorry, let me know what you think. i’m just vibing and thinking aloud

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

License to Kitty.

[isaacz]

buncha of doodles of them

[sparrowlucero]

this is the iconic dinosaur horror jurassic park wishes it was

[nattikay]

[civetside]

the doodles i doodled while i listened to the nona audio book babay! (plus my favorite pyrrha dve quotes)

[scarymonsters-andsupercreeps]

Y’all seemed to like my concept where the kids went on a mission with Gyomei! Here’s a little comic!

(Original post)

[torchstelechos]

I love that Isabeau is the one to bring up the "what do we do if you die" conversation cause its a very good insight to his character at the very start of the game. Isabeau is practical, smart, and loves everyone dearly and wants to know how to help them when shit goes sideways. He's the one to ask about Bonnie too, which is a delightful read on how he thinks because everyone else shuts that down instantly as a "That wont happen and cant happen" but we see later in the game it can happen which is such a startling thing for a game to do but justifies the foreshadowing of Bonnie can die what do we do if that happens? Isabeau, despite everything, is also the one who gets to the heart of the matter even if its not something must people are willing to talk about. All without it being part of his friendquest, thats just him naturally. Which! Says so much about him and how he is! His character when its not about his relationship with Siffrin is a very intriguing thing because it feels like a very classic hard intellectual stance that's been softened after many years of learning to better communicate healthily with others. A reflection, if you will, of Odile but in a very drastic direction. I find him fascinating and I also want to scoop his brains out and study them under a microscope to see all his little brain thoughts.

[pallanophblargh]

The annual ballpoint pallanoph in celebration of clinging to this rocky sphere for one more year (despite appearances) was delayed by a few days. Oops! I’m not dead, just growing older.

Art is still hard, but this runs on autopilot sometimes. And sometimes, that’s enough.

[arcanegifs]

Happy Mother's Day to our Arcane Moms ♡

[bacchuschucklefuck]

dreaming abt sophomore year class swap bard!riz

[taxinealkaloids]

horrible children who are. so so mean to each other

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The squad of all time has arrived on scene.

[artharakka]

Beautiful, But Broken

[drenched-in-sunlight]

saying this as respectfully as possible but. Do not put fandom content creators on a pedestal. We are also just fans contributing to a community just as you are. We have boundary on our own work and that’s it. What I say is not and should not be considered sth the whole fandom should listen to. I’m just a normal ass person ranting about things on my blog. If it does not have a fandom tag for others to engage in, do not make it out to be me trying to start fights or addressing the whole community. Because it’s not.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, my art, my lore talk, is biased. I’ve never tried to hide that I view Marika a certain way and will always develop my theory following that base assumption.

Aside from translation stuffs and pointing out in-game items, everything else I say you can look at it, agree or disagree, and move on to form your own opinions. Just because I draw stuffs doesn’t mean you get to saddle me with responsibilities about managing fandom expectations. What the hell? I’m a fan artist, I’m the last person who you should look at for “leaderism” (?) WHAT?

I can and will be a hater in my own space, like I know sometimes other artists will just post their stuffs and not engage too heavily with fandom, and for a while I did try to do that here (because I’m already a dramatic ass on twitter), that’s just not me though.

You will get art and you will get my opinions as well.

[barblaz-arts]

Fellow Chaggie shipper, here and I wanted to ask you a question. Could you please do an analysis post on the Chaggie argument from Hello Rosie. I know this will sound weird but I can't get over the level of icy anger Charlie had towards Vaggie or how despite everything going on, Charlie is more hurt from Vaggie not being honest with her. Just angst all around.

Oh yeah sure I'd love to!

I'm not sure there's a lot I can say about that argument that isn't already super obvious, so I wanna talk about Charlie's anger because of something my brother said as we watched episode 7. He loved that episode apparently because "When they're separated, it's even more obvious that Charlie is the one who's more quick to lose her cool." Which, looking back, is actually true!(To an extent)

Vaggie and Charlie are both quite quick to anger. Charlie is just better at hiding it because she's a chronic people pleaser. Although Charlie wouldn't immediately show her anger at a person being a jerk to her specifically, she's immediately summoning fire and brimstone over anyone who hurts/insults her friends or the cause she's fighting for.

Love this lil bit in "You Didn't Know". How Vaggie is the one telling Charlie to calm down, as if she knows what's about to happen. She knows that if she doesn't at least try to reel in her girl Charlie would be spitting literal fire at a goddamn seraphim.

It would seem like such a surprising role reversal, but if you look at all the times Charlie would lose it whenever Vaggie's not there to tell her "babe, chill", then it makes sense.

But then when their fallout happens, Charlie's short temper is even more apparent. She calls Alastor an asshole to his face even though she considered choosing his support over her father's. She openly glares and rolls her eyes at Rosie when she jokes that her and Alastor look like an item even though she still kept things cordial with Valentino after he licked her arm. She flips the bird at some old lady even though she didn't take visible offense at all the demons that inserted their crude and rude selves in "Happy Day in Hell." While she was cold and subdued even when upset with Vaggie, she was explosive and in ur face when she was pissed at everyone else.

Vaggie reigned in both the girl in Charlie who dreams a little too big and the demon who's waiting to lash out in flames. It really makes me wonder if there's a difference in the kind of person Charlie used to be before Vaggie. Before she had friends to be angry on behalf of and a person to calm her down. And then, in the wake of their argument, Charlie is left with a lot of anger that is easy to ignite.

But I love love love that despite all that anger, Charlie can't bring herself to deny that she loves Vaggie with all of her hurt heart.

This little moment is one of my favorite parts in the series. My brother mentioned that this episode and episode three were his favorites because he liked the beats the dialogues followed. So he looked back--

(the man literally paused the episode to check the opening credits of ep 7 and 3. I was a little annoyed because I just wanted my Chaggie dammit! We'd make terrible youtube reactors with all the pausing and discussing mid-episode that we do...)

--and was satisfied to see that it was written by the same person, Ariel Ladensohn. Apparently she's in a sapphic relationship too and projected her own experiences whenever she wrote Vaggie and Charlie, and it must have paid off because the moments she wrote with them felt so real.

Charlie expressing her fear that even Vaggie's support and love could also be part of the lies she told was understandable considering the betrayal she felt. But immediately following that she goes "Oh that's a horrible to thing to think!" which I love even more. Even when she's understandably mad she thinks about how Vaggie would feel over Charlie thinking that of her. Because although Vaggie lied about who she is, Vaggie was always sincere about how she felt for Charlie. Vaggie's past may have been a lie, but the things she did for, to, and on behalf of Charlie were very real and held dear in Charlie's heart.

I dont have anything smart to say to conclude this. Sorry, I'm not even sure where I went here. Let's all just appreciate the smile Charlie has on her face when she thinks about Vaggie even when she's under a lot of stress I guess.