#so don't actually do it in real life

[number1villainstan]

Chisaki slows to a stop as the wall behind him lights up, four-year-old Eri turning to watch. He knows how this goes--he knows how to behave, how to listen, after years of trying to run and trying to study these strange shadow girls. And there are their shadows now, hush, Eri, the play is starting--

"Extra, extra, extra!"

"There's a dead baby bird on the side of the road! Oh dear poor thing, who could have done this to you?"

"Detective Vulture on the case! It seems that what we have here is a baby cowbird!"

"Cowbirds? Those birds that lay their eggs in other birds' nests?"

"Cor-rect! Which would mean that this little cowbird probably died when the momma of the nest its egg was laid in pushed it out to protect her own babies!"

"What a terrible momma! That poor chick was totally innocent!"

"Not at all! Would you want a parasitic baby in your nest, gobbling up all the food for your babies, pushing your own chicks out of the nest itself? That momma was perfectly justified!"

"Are you saying this is all the baby's fault??"

"Well, it certainly wasn't the momma's!"

"Then whose fault was it, mister detective?"

"The cowbird parents'," Chisaki says, squeezing Eri's hand with his own. "For abandoning their child."

--and the wall behind him loses its spotlight as the play ends.

[ohitslen]

Average university experience

[marypsue]

Man, it's cool and all if you see a metaphor for marginalisation in the monstrous, and if you want the power fantasy of 'what if you could just eat anybody who threatened you/pissed you off'. Me too.

However, as soon as you start saying 'no, these monsters are a 1:1 on Specific Marginalised Group, and you have to treat them in the fiction like they are directly representative of real human members of the marginalised group', BUT you also, in the fiction, make them hurt/kill/eat humans? And then try to shame me, your audience, for noticing or engaging with the bit where they kill people, because you made them directly representative of a real-world marginalised group? You have lost me, and also, I think, the plot.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[constelationprize]

Thinking many many thoughts about how Jean was Riko's partner for a YEAR and was still rooming with Goon #3. Because that was how unwilling Riko was to let go of Kevin. And how that implies that Jean was placed as his partner both because of the practicality of Kevin being gone AND as a punishment for letting him go in the first place. Being partners with Jean could actually slow Riko down depending on how often he's hurt (because I don't think Riko was all that exempt from the rules to the point where his partner's performance would completely not matter) and he was still placed there. Riko was just THAT angry at him over Kevin's escape. And all the while he was keeping Kevin's side of room like an altar, even back when he didn't even think Kevin could PLAY, because of an injury he caused.

[hildegardladyofbones]

One of the best things about Disco Elysium by far is that it does not fear ugly women. The world is full of ugly men, but ugly women are so hard to come by.

[artkaninchenbau]

Egghead chibs lesgooo ✌️✨ [Shop]

[meownotgood]

he's here....

[time-is-restored]

anyone else thinking about how us crows canonically reacted to that diorama in the aquarium? like. imagine being q!phil, desparately trying to convince himself that none of this is happening and his dreams are just dreams... while all of the crows surrounding you are going NUTS

vocalising, ruffling their feathers, flapping their wings - immediately and viscerally reacting to all of the trappings of endlantis and the king.

im just. can you even imagine trying to process that. imagine ur kid wakes up and can't see any of the shit that's driving you + ur entire murder to hysterics, even when they're all Clearly reacting to... something in the aquarium. imagine phil trying to say he's fine and that he just needs air while the crows are fucking RIOTING.

we knew + were shouting abt the king and endlantis LONG before q!phil was able to acknowledge it. and the dissonance of that is just,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, OGH!

[hamofjustice]

nemona feels like an obscure blorbo instead of the main rival character from the latest pokemon game because to get to her really good content from people who really get it, you first have to wade through the ocean of yandere pervert obsessive stalker annoying punchable bimbo amazon goddess interpretations of...

... a neurodivergent and possibly disabled high schooler who's desperately trying to make any friends or get any support from her rich neglectful family - while everyone in her school is jealous of their own imagined version of a privileged asshole version of her they made up - who deeply and platonically loves and supports the one new kid who agreed to take the time to get to know and respect her and her special interest without having to hold back her true self

unlike her, it's not great!

kinda feels like she has the same problem in our world that she does in hers.

[schrodingerseurydice]

odysseus the moment when, for the first time in 20 years, nobody is trying to kill him: whelp, guess it's time to kms

[starscreamingg]

Detroit Become Human and why does this game decide that the problem in society is individual people treating androids poorly because those androids are choking them out of the workforce and NOT the corporations and governments who deliberately designed the androids to do this

[murdockhawkeye]

this is *maybe* a bit of a stretch but i still find interesting to think about? don't know if i have everything right

but

i feel like with the elemental opposite duos - emma & rikki, cleo & bella - you could reasonably say their arcs'd mirror each other in a way

like

emma and rikki have issues with responsibility/expectations but on opposite ends of the spectrum

emma was a gifted child, everyone had high expectations for her and she tried to meet those expectations the best she could. she’s responsible emma, who makes sure everyone is looked after, and everyone “knew” was going to become a top athlete, because look at all those trophies on her shelf

and then rikki on the other hand, was alone for “her own good.” she admitted to elliot that no one really liked her growing up, so when somebody did, it made her feel weird and she pushed them away. she stayed away from other people, made sure they never had any expectations of her

they both avoided disappointing others, by going to opposite extreme lengths

and then they overcame these issues, with emma facing a sudden change in her life (becoming a mermaid) that meant she had to give up her swimming dreams and disappoint the people in her life (that had to suck for her, honestly.) she had to come to terms with that - but then, she also found a whole new world that she’d never have been a part of, if things had gone the way she planned

and as for rikki - her biggest change wasn't the tail, but becoming friends with emma and cleo. had she'd her way and zane’d never gotten cleo stuck on that boat, she’d never become friends with them. rikki had to learn the hurdles of friendship and of keeping them, like when she mistook the different kinds of fish, when cleo and emma didn't support her relationship with zane, etc. they had their issues - but in the end, they were there for rikki, and rikki was there for them back. she'd have never gotten that kind of solidarity, had things gone the way she thought it would

and then there’s cleo and bella

bella - unfortunately, didn’t have much in terms of development, since the writers prioritized will’s relationship with her over expanding her character background+ for some reason ??

so i'm just mostly going to talk about cleo here first - but i'll get to bella in a second

cleo by s3 is a very confident and self-assured person; but she didn't start out that way. she was insecure, somewhat naive. she grew up overshadowed by her two best friends, the both of them being gifted in their own rights - emma, the young up and rising athlete, and lewis the science genius, they were sure to go places. cleo, on the other hand, was overlooked. she didn't have much going for her - except for adequate grades and a love of the marine life that was hindered by her fear of water

and then cleo became a *literal* mermaid. either she was going to avoid it or overcome it. in the end, she didn't just overcome her fear of water, but she also took a risk by taking that job at the marine park, where she'd be working right by the marine animals. she let her fear control her before, and she wasn't going to let it stop her from wanting to pursue things anymore

(funny, she started out with a fear of water, then became a mermaid. she struggled with her grades, then became a science genius)

bella, much like cleo - had her own issues when it came to the kind of attention she got, but the other way around. her first appearance, she was being catcalled. same ep, nate is drooling over her. they've made her beauty a point throughout s3. even cleo and rikki's brought it up. it. could not have been easy for her to deal with that, especially with her secret in mind

seeing that, even with the different issues when it came to attention, i think they'd still have had the same feelings about it. a younger bella, probably would've been similarly insecure/anxious as cleo had been - until she learned to be more sure about herself and grew into the bella we know and love today

(we should've gotten way more lore and background about bella, agh)

tldr; emma and rikki have same feelings but opposite reactions (people pleasing and people avoiding.) cleo and bella opposite situations but same feelings (overshadowed and center of attention)

yk, rikki was right in a way i think about the "universal law," but like, more about keeping in balance and not about trios. emma and rikki balance each other out, cleo and bella were *meant* to balance each other out. but in s2, bella wasn't there - charlotte was

do i blame the antagonizing of charlotte and cleo's out of characterness on the writers, or do i blame it on some magical semi-canon mermaid universal law about balance

blaming it on a mermaid universal law sounds more fun, and could have interesting implications. (though the writing grates me, still)

[fallen-mario-bros-au]

Aight just a warning I'm pretty new to Tumblr and I'm DEFINITELY new to making AUs so I'm pretty nervous to post anything here but I figured I'd just rip the band-aid off.

FIRST POST HYPE!! :D

Anyways I love Mario and I love Undertale and I NEEDED TO COMBINE THEM LEGALLY so I decided to make an au about it! Dunno if I'm actually going to do anything serious with this, I mostly just want to imagine cute shenanigans with my favorite characters and whatnot, but who knows? Maybe I'll actually try to give this a proper plot

So here's the basic info:

- Mario and Luigi, in the midst of trying to chase down Bowser, who has just kidnapped the princess again, somehow wind up far away from the Mushroom Kingdom and on Mt. Ebott. Where, of course, they fall into the underground.

- All the monsters are pretty much their canon counterparts (at least, my best interpretation of them 💀)

- Mario ends up discovering he has the power to reset/load/save/etc, but Luigi does not. This is because Mario has the most determination to get out of here and save the princess

- Toriel isn't quite as overprotective of them as she would be if they were a literal child like Frisk, but she is still very motherly towards them because it's just kinda who she is. She would probably be concerned about them potentially attacking the monsters so she might make them promise not to hurt anyone. I still don't think she would want them to leave because Asgore would take their souls

- Honestly mostly this is just an excuse for the Mario Bros and the Skelebros to hang out XD

- the thing that is really interesting is that Mario and Luigi are not 1, but 2 humans, which means only one of their souls would be needed to break the barrier. This ends up becoming a real issue but I could see it being resolved in a few ways.

1. one of the bros self sacrifices so the underground goes free (much to the dismay of the other, and also my heart would break haha)

2. They decide to just stay in the underground instead of going home (but they would be pretty sad about it because oh no their kingdom is still in danger

3. ??? IDK tbh

- Since Mario can load saves, he's just constantly in this angsty cycle of trying to keep his bro from getting killed off ;;

- Not sure if Mario could keep the resets secret for long since Flowey would taunt them about it, but he definitely would be pretty closed off about it, especially to Luigi. He does NOT want Luigi to know about the horrible things he's seen

-ofc cut to Luigi being confused as heck as to why Mario seems to already know what's going to happen.

- they have cute sweaters because I said so

- not sure how omega fight would work, but either way Mario would have to fight to save both of them (probably all by himself :c)

- I want them to eventually do true pacifist but IDK how it would work so I'm not gonna think about it too hard rn

- Mario and Undyne having a friendly rivalry about who's the most heroic

- sans trying to convince them they could just stay in the underground and they're like "no we have to save the tiny mushroom people" and he's like "ur just like my bro fr"

- monster speculation about the purpose of mustaches

- It would be kinda funny if they had the firebrand and thunderhand since... Like... Humans aren't supposed to be able to do magic

- "are you sure you're humans? You're so small"

- *confused Italian noises*

Also here's some assorted doodles (I know the quality sucks 😭)

[blueskittlesart]

cold fruit in a hot kitchen (so i had this great watermelon last weekend)

[undead-moth]

I know I've been on about this for a while now and I'm being a hater but you're telling me SydCarmy was "always meant to be platonic" even though there are two seasons of writing making use of tried-and-true explicitly romantic tropes, themes and writing signals, and SydLuca is going to be romantic because...he was nice to her on screen for a few minutes?

I don't even care if people ship SydLuca, or if they just prefer it, but you can't honestly tell me that you believe Carmy was always meant to be a friend but Luca is an obvious love interest.

Just because Syd and Carmy haven't kissed or confessed their love to each other doesn't mean that isn't very obviously the direction this show is going. The Bear has already shown you who is endgame. It has shown you every episode of the show so far.

Honestly I really don't think The Bear fanbase understands this show or cares about these characters or the story being told here, which is unfortunate because this show is shockingly well-written in comparison to most shows right now, and we should be so grateful for it but all we're doing is complaining that the writers led us on by not making a ship canon fast enough. It's just. Sad.