#so i live vicariously through people that do

[nevesmose]

For all that I like Bloodborne a lot in general, my experience of actually playing it is this:

[theythemmer]

save me tattooed dan save me

(non tattooed version bc Arms and also this entire piece was inspired by this tweet x so i should probs make the top easier to see)

[somegrumpynerd]

Random hcs that have been on my mind for the past couple days: now in doodle format!

Text for each drawing written out under the cut in case it's not clear or anyone wants to translate it!

(1) <- Somehow soft?? <-Sometimes makes a comforting hum/rumble <-Holding for support

(2) <-Walks so quietly everywhere he goes <-Is about to meet god

(3) <-Can't see well in the dark (no eyelights) <-Can't help himself

(4) <-Thinks Color will turn Killer against him and convince him to run away

(5) <-Thinks Nightmare is using them all for the negativity and has brainwashed Killer into liking it

(6) <-Thinks if he runs and jumps at Cross as fast as he can Cross will lift him and it'll look so cool

[adaedellta]

Epic the musical soulmate au

Where nothing changes but all the words make you a lot sadder

I’ve been on a soulmates AU kick recently and thinking about the Ithaca Saga so imagine a first words tattooed on your body trope with young Odysseus and Penelope and he’s a little intuitive having heard of Penelope and thinking she’s so cool then he sees her and gets this feeling she’s the one

Maybe it’s an Athena’s pupil thing maybe they’re such a perfect match for each other that he can feel it in his bones but he has this almost tangible cord pulling him towards her

But he’s there tryna wingman for Menelaus, talks to Tyndareus abt the oath idea and when the king responds well he maybe quietly implies he’s set his sights on Penelope, and maybe Helen and Penelope are somewhere nearby just close enough to hear Odysseus’ pitch but not so close they hear his goals(I can’t find a solid source online for their first meeting so I’m making stuff up) and after, penelope is intrigued by him and he’s somewhere close and she comments something like “he chooses his words well” to Helen. and he’s like stupid smart, trying to impress her, even his subconscious is focused on her and he hears and says something like “it’d take a fool to be insolent in your presence” to her

and it clicks in her head immediately that those are her words and without any shock or question she just says “you’re mine”

And they’re so sickeningly in love, they call back to their words often, he’ll say “I’d be a fool to___” and she’ll repeat “you’re mine” and almost never call him his name favoring lovey nicknames like “my love” and “my dear”

And when he goes off to war she says “you’ll come home to me, you’re mine” and he says “It’d take a fool not to return to your presence”

Then things go south, but through his journey it’s all he thinks, that he has a promise to keep. When he loses his crew, when he faces and befriends Circe, hears his fallen brethren and family in the underworld, the sirens song having an almost “I’m yours” tone as opposed to “you’re mine”, he evades Scylla, he makes Zeus’ choice, all thinking “it would take a fool not to return to your presence”

And calypso, she doesn’t have the words of a soulmate. it’s a fate confined to humanity, from when Zeus split mortals in two and forced their souls to be forever reaching to connect the puzzle til they finally unite. But she knows what they are. And just like her using his sleep-spoken trauma against him, calling back to his dead friends and family, she repeats “you’re mine” in love in paradise even dipping into “my dear” and “my love” despite his unending denial of her affections. It puts even more emphasis on his already rightful aggression and pain at what should only be said by Penelope

Then “I plan to put an end to all the foolishness” in dangerous he already wasn’t going to let anything stop him but now he’s willing to do straight up anything (and he does) to get home. He has a firm belief. he would rather be savage and merciless than be foolish because in his eyes there is nothing worse.

And when he becomes monstrous, how will he sleep at night??? “NEXT TO HIS WIFE” we all say in unison.

That’s not even mentioning Penelope, she spent 10 years pushing back the suitors, because Odysseus is coming home, she knows her husband, he is no fool. He will come back to her. She will not let anything go, and she will keep what is hers. The suitors all having an approach of having her turning their already flat chances into the negatives, especially Antinous’ threats in hold them down all having a message of taking from her where to be with Penelope is to give her all of yourself so she can do the same in turn.

And he absolutely fucks shit up, the suitors and their threats, the harm they’ve dealt to his family, the way they continue to try nothing but take what’s Penelope’s, what’s his. Their foolishness will not be tolerated. The actions they’ve taken to his wife, to his son, the greatest creation their love has ever made, they didn’t stand a chance against the guy who just fought god and won.

And then what everyone has been waiting on for the entire musical the absolute masterpiece that is would you fall in love with me again will never not be heart wrenching. He’s not just asking her if she could look past all he did, fall in love with the man he’s become. He doesn’t know if he still deserves her, if he’s too far gone to be worthy, He’s asking “am I still yours”

And she’s as cunning as ever, even after every year they spent apart she will always know exactly how to push his buttons, how to set him off, how to force him to convey his desperation for her, and hell she’s from Sparta of course she’s gonna be into him after all that. The second he turns his back in shame she’s probably twirling her hair and fanning her face knowing what he did all to keep his promise and return to her. And she gives him the reassurance that he needs, tricks him into proving that no measure of distance and time could ever take away or change what they have, and for the first time in 20 years he hears her say “you’re mine” and it shatters any apprehensions and self doubt because he’s still Penelopes.

And overall it changes literally nothing about the plot or the storyline and only serves to make things a hundred percent more sad and angsty

and I’ve had this eating away at my brain all through a piercing appointment and shopping with my mom and sibling all day I can finally rest now that it’s escaped my head

[virsancte]

just straight up copying grandpa in her big girl chair, crazy

[crows-of-buckets]

I kinda wanna make a post rambling about some of my non fandom OCS however. My plot for them is sooo scattered it's insane

[labotor]

recent 3d projects! two silly little d&d fellers - Seamore Lagoon 🌊 & Sardow The Stupendous... aka Grankle the goblin wizard 🧙

[verisimilar-entropy]

Wistfully thinks of Spellwind, I should make a headcanons up to ep 31 list its just my equivalent of like Skyrim or lotr where theres so much going on and so dense but god damn one of my favorite episodes was when two of my favorite characters became trees and the entire experience was like...they were tripping on shrooms but also one with the shrooms? Its like episode 8

and I love the dms orc captain that hates going on land and is there for the in between transportation from sea to sea land to land ferryman (not really I feel like its mostly hard to narrate and have a character at the same time) I just love captain buttocks' (yeah I'm pretty sure thats his name) humor and how him and djett ('jet') were closer in the beginning

I love ty and varsha together but I also ship smith with them as time went on, I can't tell who I want to joke as the third smith and varsha are friends to lovers, ty and varsha are irritated assholes to lovers, smith is just a jaded old fuck that loves his morons (he respects varsha a lot and thinks ty is an entertaining idiot)

Varsha and Djett are siblings they love each other like family and share different spells and potions and knowledge of interest notes

I feel like the only person really thinking too deeply about this tabletop story and wanted to drop a few lines of appreciation, I like listening to it to go to sleep since its so slow paced and gently spoken and the music and sound efx is so sweet

[bibiana112]

What if I become a hachijo tohya stan account am I allowed to have ryukishis self-insert as my blog theme I'm starting to think I want that one yeah the recluse writer who has won every prize and honor except a basic participation medal mean old witch of theathergoing uhum gimme

[trashlie]

Shinae the Light vs Yui the Shadow

This post heavily discusses episode 138 but also pulls from 170, 179, and 180 and discusses things up to 214, but nothing from the FP epsiodes! 

Earlier today I read this post and it got me thinking a LOT - and trust me that I’m going to ramble about something else shortly outside of this lol - regarding shadows and lighting!

One of the episodes that most deliberately plays with lighting and shadows in a very in your face way is episode 138, where Shinae speaks to Rand about wanting to renegotiate her contract. It’s an interesting episode, because Shinae is met with another side of Rand than the man (the father) who was trying to help Nol. This version of him shuts her down immediately and informs her that he has no jurisdiction over her contract.

As readers, we can deduce that he is speaking this way because Yui is around and he cannot divulge any bit of knowledge that he has been working with Shinae, that there is any sense of relationship there. But also, he isn’t lying in that he can do nothing about her contract. Interestingly, he is in the light where she is in the shadow. He’s not the focus of this moment, but I find that very interesting regardless - Rand is unable to help because he doesn’t have that power. They aren’t on equal footing here. One is in the dark, one has the power of illumination - he knows more intimately than Shinae who and what Yui is.

But my thought is not about Rand but rather Shinae and Yui.

Throughout their conversation, Shinae is in the shadow. She is part of Yui’s trap, in a pit she cannot crawl out of. Yui wields power over her both in the sense of her employer and also as a person who has played with her as prey. Yui, too, is in the shadow. While some light casts on her, she faces away from it and it doesn’t reach her face.

I’ve wondered a lot about Yui and what her situation is, why she is the kind of person she is. I don’t think she’s without reasons - I just think we don’t know enough about her to really know yet. One of the popular theories is that of the Mukoyoshi Theory - that is, that a Japanese family with no male heirs will “adopt” the husband of (one of) their daughter, who will take their last name, rather than she take his. In this case, Yui comes from a Japanese family with a family business and it is deducible that there is no male heir. Hansuke’s family name is Shishido - not Hirahara, which means he’s related by his aunt (and Yui has mentioned her before to him). Rand, who we know is not Japanese, married into the Hirahara family and adopted their name and became a part of their family. Thus, his affair with Nessa is even more of a blight - he has a duty to the Hirahara family. It is his responsibility to not mar their name and upkeep their prestige.

We could do a whole think piece about this, and it really gets into my thoughts on Rand and Yui’s relationship, but to sum it up: it is clear that Yui wants to be the one in control, but must defer to Rand, and that she resents it. This is HER family business. I think she wishes that she was the one in control, and that she could wield that control without having to go through Rand. Yui harbors resentment for a patriarchal society in which she wields no power. There’s a lot to read into re: the way she wields her femininity as a tool, but that’s a whole other post. The point is: Yui resents that she does not have the power she thinks she deserves, the power that she’s capable of, and that fully plays into Shinae.

But, for the sake of this post at this time, it’s essentially that Yui, too, exists in the dark, in the shadows. She can only run this company through others - through her marriage to Rand, through Kousuke, the sole heir. But as powerful and intimidating as she is, she, too, is trapped. She, too, is relegated to the darkness, because it is only from the shadows that she can operate. Yui wears a constant mask, always putting on the front of a concerned mother, a feeble frail lady, a sweet simpering maternal woman. The real Yui lives in the shadows. She’s not allowed to freely be the person she wants to be, she puts on a front for society, for the patriarchy, for the sake of being able to move in the shadows.

Shinae’s objective is to escape the shadow, the prison, the dark. She longs to escape poverty, she longs to escape the prison she turned herself into, she longs to escape the job in which she feels unsafe, the contract that she signed, the agreement she made under false premises. She longs to escape Yui’s reach. And while she can’t escape most of those yet, she still works towards the light. unlike Yui, who has accepted that she belongs to and operates in the shadows and pulls people into them with her, Shinae strives for the light at all times. She wants to be a better daughter, a better friend. She strives to be able to help out her father and create a better life for them. And especially since the black and white formal, Shinae’s inclination towards the right side, the side of light, has grown stronger.

It’s not a bad vs good kind of thing so much as Shinae chooses to work honestly. She’s trying to address the things that scare her - the insecurity she felt about Maya and Rika’s friendship, the quiet plaguing fear that maybe Minhyuk also just tolerated her. She’s had difficult conversations with her father, she has had difficult conversations with her friends. Instead of shirking into the shadows, Shinae moves towards enlightenment. Even if things end, isn’t it better for them to end on good terms, with understanding? Even if she gets hurt, isn’t it better than she gets hurt being honest, than never progress at all? Even if she fails, isn’t it better to make effort than live with regret?

Shinae leaving Yui by way of the light is pointed. Yui’s goal is to pull everyone down with her. If she lives in the shadows, so, too, must everyone else. And the thing about this scene is - I think Yui means it, genuinely. She has a very different way of seeing the world than Shinae and even much of us as readers. Shinae believes in working hard; Yui understands that privilege and connections are more powerful. Yui can see in Shinae the makings of a strong, powerful woman - but power doesn’t have to look one way. For Yui, power is controlling those around her, especially the ones who are meant to have power over her. In a world where men are the all-power, Yui feels powerful when she can manipulate and push them around.

But when she tells Shinae she doesn’t want her to make the “wrong choices” I believe her. It’s just... what does Yui consider to be the wrong choices? Much in the same way that so much of ILY changes based on whose perspective you view it through re: Nol and Kousuke, we the same of Shinae and Yui. Yui is a woman who knows how to make the world yield to you, how to get what you want out of it.

This is a whole other tangent, but because I’m trying to validate my Yui views lol, I believe this is part of what Yui has done with Meg and Alyssa. In fact, I feel like Yui has absolutely treated Meg and her obsession with Kousuke as a joke - what woman demeans herself in such a way for a man? It’s the complete opposite of Yui’s power. Men yield to HER, not the other way around. Is Alyssa a test of her will, to see how much she will bend before she can break? Does Yui hope to find a hidden spine in her, someone who will eventually push back? I think that’s why she has shifted to Shinae - she has the fight and the spirit that Yui wants to mold. Shinae is strong and faces her fears. But she also stands for the complete opposite of Yui, which makes her a fun challenge.

As Shinae moves into the light and leaves Yui to the shadows, Yui makes an attempt to pull her back into them. Or maybe, rather, she’s planted the seed? It’s an ominous moment, Yui’s certainty that there will be a time when Shinae will go running to her, will want her help, her step up in the world. But at this moment, Yui is unsuccessful. Though Shinae cannot renegotiate her contract like she wanted, she still makes the choice to deny Yui’s offering. She will continue her path in the light. She refuses to let Yui pull her down into her shadows.

As much as we view this story as a game of chess between the white and dark side, so much of it gets told through the shadows and the light. Who else spends his time illustrated in the shadows, existing outside of peoples’ view, wearing a mask out in the light? Nol is one of Yui’s prey - he’s learning how to stand on his own feet as himself, but so much of his imagery has been enshrouded in shadows, a victim of Yui for so long that he’s forgotten how to make his way out of the dark, until now.

Shinae has the ability to bring him out of the shadow, to give him the eventual courage to exist outside of the shadows, to allow himself to enjoy the light. Every time he turns away, he finds himself drawn back in. Every moment he’s angled himself away from her in effort to stay where he thinks he belongs, to skulk in the dark, he still ends up moving towards her.

And every time that Nol choose to go towards Shinae, he moves towards the light.

Like literally lol. In the pool, he basked there in the dark, willing to finally throw in the towel accept that peace, but because of Shinae, because of his penance, he chose to move towards the light once again. Maybe he thought it would be for the last time, but we’ve seen better.

Shinae guides him back out of the shadows.

And that brings us to my next post: how Shinae is the true adversary of Yui. 

Really, go read @denjidomination​’s post! It’s got me going off on a whole different tangent than I planned to this week, but I think I’ll be able to get to it before the next update. I’ve said for so long now that Shinae is very likely meant to help bridge Nol and Kousuke, but I think more than that, Shinae is the guiding light for them - that in very different ways, both Nol and Kousuke exist in the shadows and are imprisoned by their circumstances and experiences, and Shinae, I think, is the one who will be able to help them fight back against that darkness. I don’t mean this in a “She will save/fix them” kind of way as much as her presence in their lives, what she means to them, will help them to move from that which holds them down. 

But I have a headache so I have to work on that another time lol 

[vamptastic]

truly dgaf about traumadumping i do sometimes experience empathy (like, in the crying over a sad story form) but it probably won't go off unless you have an incredibly tragic story are visibly emoting and i already really like you. so it doesn't really stress me out. people talk about fucked up things in cavalier and humorous ways it's how we deal with things. i am not really emotionally phased by discussing most fucked up or personal things in my own life expect for one or two topics that will make me immediately break down, so like who am i to judge. also learning things about people is fun.

[animationismycomfort]

guys what if and hear me out instead of Donnie having a crush on April they just have a weird fascination with humans

[coconutcows]

Unpopular opinion but I don’t think you could actually pay me enough to care about Fionna and Cake (the characters not the mini series, im digging all the Simon stuff there)

[ranger-kellyn]

told myself to take a break from getaway car so i don't burn myself out like i did last year, and of course my brain wanted to go think about my scarlet/violet fic, sooo have some rambling below the read more

like. one of my ideas has always been that i want juliana specifically to have quaxly not just bc he's my favorite starter in that region, but because it turns into quaquaval, a pokemon that is supposed to be known for its dancing abilities. i like to think they're a pokemon that only needs to see a dance once or twice before they've got it memorized.

i love the idea that a huge part of juliana's overall character arc is admitting to herself how much she wants to learn how to dance in some way because of course she happened to pick the pokemon that loves to dance. so she's basically learning alongside her pokemon throughout his evolution stages, mutually gaining more confidence until he's a fully grown quaquaval.

and!! not just him, but probably the three friends as well! it may not be something any of them are really interested in to begin with, but juliana and quaquaval make it a ton of fun. she probably even takes the time to learn an individual dance of some kind with each of them, and is the first to drag anyone to any festivals happening in the cities and towns.

(bc i am who i am) nemona's the first friend juliana ends up dancing with. while juliana quickly realizes how much quaxly likes music, nemona is the one who tells her about how he's going to turn into a pokemon that loves to dance. she mostly just enjoys having fun with them and learning whatever juliana is into. something that really helps juliana come out of her shell, which leads her to opening up to arven and penny around the same time

not 100% sure of styles apart yet but i mean...penny's has to be some nerd dance lol. i also kinda love the idea of arven learning a very formal spanish style dance with them.

idk i just want the core pillars of this story to be something along the lines of, music, song, food, and dance are all forms of love and connection and can be healing and--- AH i just want them to have time to really develop as a friend group throughout the treasure hunt.

[shittingdaisies]

anyone know what we're supposed to do when aot ends

[yaminerua]

God I wish I could play my original gen 3 cartridges again;;;; gens 1 and 2 are at least covered by the virtual console releases on the DS so even tho I can’t play my old cartridges bc they’re too old to work or lost as is the case for my gen 2 games, I can at least play them in some way in an actual handheld form

but my gen 3 games are all also dead but there’s no way to play them that isn’t using an emulator and I just don’t get why they won’t officially rerelease them all on the switch and make them readily available again like they have with other old gameboy games. I love the remakes and all but sometimes you just want to play the old school originals for that nostalgic flavour you know?

I’m sure there are people in town I could probably find who would be able to fix up my old cartridges so that they work again but I’m like irrationally nervous about handing them over bc I don’t want anything to accidentally happen to them lmao.

anyway pokemon company please give me a virtual console style re-release of RSE and FRLG;;; I’m on my hands and knees begging