#so like. it's complicated. it's layered.

[deoidesign]

Ray of sunshine

(pre-launch page for their comic)

[chiarrara]

I think the saddest thing about Mary's character is that she didn't understand why she was rejected by stack before the start of the movie. her desire to shed her white identity, and her obliviousness to the freedom and privilege she actually held in society made her blind to the reality everyone else was living under.

like she felt slighted, she felt wronged, she felt disrespected, and she felt she had the right to feel that way and express her displeasure. and in a vacuum she does. in the narrow lens of just the interpersonal relationship between the two of them she does. but she has the freedom to narrow that lens and operate in that vacuum while he does not.

and she seems unwilling or incapable of considering the outside factors that create an inescapable context for their relationship and for his decisions. you fucked me, you fell asleep on my chest, you snuck out without saying anything, you left me here to marry a white man. but what else was he supposed to do? she wants to be with him, but that's a much bigger ask for him than it is for her and I don't see her understanding that at all.

i can't get past the panic that came over me when she walked straight up to him in that train station like nothing bad could come of it. then minutes later you've got slim telling the story of his friend being lynched for, among other things, some made up story about raping a white woman. those two scenes sit right next to each other, in direct proximity.

but like, it is complicated! it's unclear how young either of them were before he left. what we do know is that she's grown *now* and that's put in juxtaposition to how she was before. and regardless, the way he behaved was hurtful to her. that's a theme present in both smoke and stack's relationships (though how it's dealt with by annie is very, very different). but you can't just villanize her for misstepping, for being ignorant, because she's not fully wrong, and the movie doesn't try to do that. it just shows you what is and how messy and painful it all is. so then you have to ask, who's really to blame for Mary's pain here? who's to blame for Stack's treatment of her in the context of the world he lives in that she so wants to deny? and then the answer becomes clear.

and it's the same answer to so many of uncomfortable truths the movie holds up right next to each other, these dualities that seem to be in conlict but all stem from the same thing when you follow them down to the root

[watermelonsloth]

Hiruzen and Danzo are more complicated than people give them credit for

It says it all in the title.

Hiruzen and Danzo are among the most hated characters in all of Naruto, and I’m not entirely removed from that crowd of haters. They’re probably among the easiest characters you can argue are just bad people. Or, at minimum, people who did horrendous, unjustifiable things (or allowed them to happen in Hiruzen’s case). However, I think that because people hate them so much, no one wants to take a closer look at their characters and the more complicated/human reasons why they make the choices they do.

Hiruzen is spineless and that’s a hill I’ll die on, but he’s spineless in one of these most sympathetic and realistic ways I’ve seen depicted in media. Specifically, he’s the walking talking representation of the fallibility of compassion. Hiruzen cares about so many people so deeply that he would rather stand by and let people get hurt than to hurt them himself. He ignores the fact Danzo keeps trying to kill him because he knows he’ll likely have to execute him as retribution and he doesn’t want to kill his best friend, he turns a blind eye to Orochimaru’s dark side because he doesn’t want to fight/kill his student, Tsunade isn’t labeled a rogue ninja because he doesn’t want to put a bounty on his student/mentor’s granddaughter’s head, he let the Hizashi situation and Uchiha Massacre happen because he didn’t want to risk subjecting his people to the horrors of war that he experienced, and he died because he couldn’t bring himself to go all out against his mentors (even if they were reanimated and emotionless versions) or student.

I’m not defending Hiruzen’s actions or lack thereof. Obviously, this is a deeply flawed way to go about life, especially as a leader of a country where you have to regularly make difficult trolly-problem decisions. But Hiruzen is meant to be a deeply flawed individual. He’s like the family of an abuser that refuses to properly step in to stop the abuse because they love the abuser and don’t want to face the idea that the abuser is a bad person. I’m not saying Hiruzen is a good person or in the right, I’m just saying he’s realistic.

If Hiruzen is “the few over the many”, then Danzo is “the many over the few” with a sprinkle of “the ends always justify the means”. Danzo is, at his core, someone who is always trying to do what’s best for the village. He turned Hanzo against the Akatsuki to keep the group from gaining too much power and becoming another threat to Konoha (keeping in mind that Amegakure is adjacent to the Land of Fire), he pushed for the Uchiha Massacre to keep a civil war from breaking out, he killed the messenger toad to keep Naruto away from Konoha and the nine tails out of Pain’s grasp. He created ROOT to make sure that Konoha had a back up fighting force that was highly trained, wouldn’t turn against the village, and were willing to do what even ninja wouldn’t. Even Danzo’s choice to essentially turn on the village by trying to kill Hiruzen was motivated by him trying to do what he thought was best for the village. After all, he knew better than anyone how bad of a Hokage Hiruzen was.

A lot of people oversimplify Danzo into “the selfish, corrupt asshole”—and while I can agree that he’s selfish and corrupt, he’s selfish and corrupt in very specific ways. The corruption is the most obvious and easiest to explain. Danzo is willing to do anything he thinks will benefit the village; that includes working with bad people and using backhanded tactics. As for his selfishness, it stems from one specific thing: Tobirama telling Hiruzen to become Hokage over him.

For a while I was confused why Danzo got a flashback flashbacked to this scene before he died. Now, I think I’ve settled on it being because the scene was at the core of Danzo’s character and greatest character flaws because it was also his greatest regret. It’s pretty clear that Danzo wants to become Hokage and it’s implied that he’s had this dream for a long while. However, Tobirama—his mentor, the former Hokage, and one of the people to define what it meant to be Hokage—chose Hiruzen over him. Because Hiruzen was willing to sacrifice himself for his comrades while Danzo, who knew he should’ve done the same, was too cowardly to offer himself up.

Then he never really grows out of that cowardice. Instead, he looks down on Hiruzen to cope with his own sense of inferiority, gives himself body modifications to become a stronger ninja more capable of defending the village, and obtains as much political power as he can. He remains a coward who prefers letting other people take the fall over fighting his own battles (setting up Hanzo to fight the Akatsuki, asking Orochimaru to kill Hiruzen, ordering Itachi to kill the Uchiha clan, etc.) right up until he uselessly “sacrifices” himself right before he was going to die anyways.

Most of Danzo’s selfish actions come down to him not being able to accept his failure at becoming Hokage while also refusing to learn from his mentor’s final lesson.

I honestly think that Naruto has some of the best representation of bad people simply because it consistently acknowledges two things about bad people: 1. People who do bad things usually do them because they grew up being taught that doing bad things were okay or necessary to survive (being abused, societal normalization, never being punished, early exposure to things like domestic violence, etc.) and 2. Even if they don’t necessarily think they’re good people, the large majority of people don’t think they’re bad or evil. Both Hiruzen and Danzo were raised by a generation haunted by war only to be thrust into two world wars themselves (one at a young age and one when they were older). This left them both traumatized and willing to do anything to avoid experiencing it again. And even if they acknowledge that they’ve made mistakes, they still don’t (seem to) see themselves as bad people, only people who are committing the lesser of two evils.

[vaguely-concerned]

so. lucanis' trinkets are whetstones. davrin's trinkets are whittling knives, the item descriptions of which note the need to be sharpened frequently. coincidence??? oh-ho-ho. some people might indeed think that, but I'm not so sure.

(I am imagining a very charming scenario post-burying the hatchet after Weisshaupt where davrin is like '*looks down at figure he's carving while rook is busy talking to someone annoying and important or whatever, looks at too-dull whittling knife, looks at lucanis sitting next to him, swallows pride, sighs* ...lucanis can I borrow your whetstone for a moment 🥺👉👈 I forgot mine at home'. and I think lucanis has enough little shit energy left in that relationship to maybe ask to hear the magic word, warden, and then let's see, but that's only to get to hear davrin say 'lmao go fuck yourself lucanis' with beginning real affection. and then he's like 'of course you can. if we can get spite to stop playing with it for five minutes, at least'. and rook returns to a scene of unexpected peace and co-operation and spirited and exhaustingly in-depth conversations about the best knife sharpening techniques. assan has been eating sawdust while no one was paying attention and is going to throw up within the hour but no one has been stabbed or even threatened with it and we must take our wins where we can find them in this messed up twice-blighted world)

[brokenrefraction]

FINALLY POSTING THIS STUPID YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

he's an imp who got fused with a subspace tripmine and now basically works like one and harvests souls to eat them to feed himself he's an exploiter who mostly annoys people in classic games (his favourite one being SFOTH), playing casual at first but then pulling subspace mines and other nefarious tricks at people

[bayetea]

I think that something to keep in mind about hazel is that in her first life sammy was the only person in the world who has shown her kindness. her mom was only ever nice to her when she was providing her with income. hazel is living in a society that considers her race subhuman and even members of her own community hate her because of the rumors about marie. she isn't just ostracized at school she's explicitly stated to have experienced violent bullying from other kids and yet she still protects them from being harmed by her cursed gems. she was neglected and abused by her mother and she still gives up elysium so that marie doesn't have to suffer in the afterlife. the very first time hazel retaliated against abuse was when she fought back against gaea - and her retaliation got her killed. her character is so effusively kind in a world full of hatred and injustice because she knows that she can't let herself succumb to bitterness like her mother

I think those months after her birthday when she was abducted to alaska are genuinely the absolute worst of her life specifically because she lost sammy, and his absence etched a crater-sized hole in her chest where his kindness once was. she can't get that from anyone else anymore. the alaskans don't welcome her and pluto can't reach her there and her mother is dying slowly right before her in an evil plot to destroy the world that she feels complicit in. genuinely her only option in this situation had always been to run away so that she couldn't be used as a pawn anymore, which she considered during those horrifying months but couldn't because gaea would retaliate against her mother. so hazel does what she always does: allows herself to suffer for people who have treated her poorly

and this post isn't about frank or percy but I think that this is something to contextualize as it relates to frazel and the percy&hazel dynamic. the foundation of her relationship with them is simply the mutual kindness and trust that they're able to develop in such a short time because they very quickly recognize the good inside of each other. hazel puts herself in harm's way to save frank and percy numerous times and it isn't one-sided like things were in her past life, they emphatically do the same for her as well. frank and percy show her how they care for her in ways that are so earnest and vehement (frank saying "we're not going to let you die again," percy saying "we're not letting anything happen to you", etc). as characters for whom the past is a source of conflict one way or another (hazel's blackouts and intense feelings of guilt over gaea, percy breaking down over his lost memories and getting triggered by things that conflict with his understanding of the world i.e. the evil centaurs, frank redeeming his ancestor's besmirched legacy and figuring out how to use the family gift), they readily offer kindness and understanding in the present without asking each other to suffer for it

and this is especially true of frank: by accessing hazel's blackouts and experiencing the events of her past life, he is sharing her heaviest traumas and burdens so that she doesn't have to experience them all alone. this burden-sharing is transitory; frank gives her his firewood, which is literally his life - and his life is the thing that finally grounds her. his life anchors hazel so that she doesn't get blackouts anymore (and he forfeits the weight of his heaviest burden to a person he can trust to take care of him). this thread of frank preventing hazel from being overtaken by adversaries of her past continues numerous times throughout son of neptune, most significantly when he shapeshifts for the very first time to save her from alcyoneus and when he comes up with the plan that gives hazel the chance to finally defeat her old enemy - and that's when she kisses him for the very first time. I consider this the very essence of their romance: reciprocation. it's not "you make me whole", it's "I love you and trust you to care for me as I care for you", it's "in being with you, I discover new depths within myself", it's "knowing you has given me the strength to grow"

so that's basically my favorite thing about son of neptune and I think a lot of people forget how intense the emotions in that book managed to get. it's not the most popular pjo novel but I don't think any other book in the franchise has evidenced how deeply three people who have literally just met (frank only knew her for 3 weeks pre-son) can touch each other's hearts by virtue of simply being kind to each other. like those boys LOVE hazel and think she's a wonderful person and express that repeatedly and I think that's just so sweet because she finally gets to have this in her second life. she really deserves to be cherished like that <- my longwinded way of saying that hazel was the gem all along, just like her mom finally realized in her last words before they died

[serenashido]

shipping renkaza fucking sucks because you either get people who hate real enemies to lovers and call it toxic or pr*ship because they actually are enemies who want to kill each other instead of friends who bicker sometimes (these people are the weakest link and will not survive the winter)

or you get people who do ship it but only in the gooner dumbing-it-down-to-hardcore-porn way where they romanticize and get off to abuse and r*pe (these people are just gross sick individuals and i hope they go extinct)

and the few people who do see the emotional depth in the homoerotic minutes renkaza spent together and the potential in that for top tier doomed yaoi are few and far in between and i rarely find good fics that aren't just insanely ooc porn

[sugarcarnation]

society isn’t ready for this take i fear but actually kouyou is also not a mother figure

[capricioussun]

I was trying really hard to be normal abt that platonic reader fic but I can't bc I can't ever be normal n not angsty abt anything

That being said I think uf Papyrus has SUCH a difficult relationship to socializing and the way he’s perceived. Underground, half the monsters didn't take him seriously and the other half were scared witless of him, and even those who knew he was more bark than bite knew better than to let that determine how they approached him because of Sans and Undyne, too.

And underground that was good. It was good to be feared or respected or at the very least left alone. It was part of his and Sans whole bit to keep themselves safe and in the kings good graces (as much as they ever could be). A tenuous balancing act that kept them safe because their choices were safe or dead, there wasn't room for considering things like happiness or quality of life.

And then surfacing and all the complicated joys and grievances that came with it. The prejudice, the uncertainty, the incredible possibilities and opportunities.

Humans are stronger than monsters. If one human child can decimate them so easily I can't imagine what kind of threat an adult would appear as, and not only that by they hold all the political power as well. Monsters are playing by their rules to achieve any sort of place on the surface.

Not just their political rules but their social ones too now, and I can't imagine a Papyrus that doesn't struggle immensely even with social cues and rules they've grown up with, let alone entirely new ones introduced with tremendous consequences behind them.

And then stick that Papyrus in one of the highest ranking positions in charge of handling monsterkind's future on the surface. I cannot even begin to imagine how intimidating that would be.

There's so much at play, so much stress, so many expectations, he’s already had experience playing at being untouchable, but god, it's so different now, too, because he has to be strong, unshakable, but he can't be intimidating and untrustworthy. He has to inspire confidence, not fear, he has to be professional and diplomatic, but stubborn enough to get the job done. And it's not just his and Sans' lives on the line anymore.

Even with everyone else's help it's just...insane really thinking about how difficult it would be on Papyrus post surfacing and acting as Ambassador. His people are scared and cagey, but hopeful and at their most vulnerable, and now they're looking to him to pave the path ahead. Steel enough to forge the way, malleable enough to cushion against rough waters, but always sturdy enough to handle it all.

I'd imagine even without those pressures, even if he didn't become the ambassador, there would still be so much difficulty in changing his outlook on how he’s meant to appear to others. Striking fear into the hearts of others isn't really the goal anymore but it's been so long he’s not really sure what else he can be.

He’s been shaped this way by his world. Sharp and rigid, necessary when needed but unlike his guard armor he can't take it off. It doesn't protect him anymore. As a matter of fact, it hampers him.

Fear means safety but it also means distance. Loneliness. Bad first impressions and a lot of complex feelings when just his appearance alone is enough to make a stranger cross the street rather than risk walking past him.

So yeah I think whenever he meets ppl like Frisk who r just kinda immediately like 'umm. Ur my friend now we're having soft tacos for dinner' he is SO unprepared, and SO uncertain, but it's not fear so it's not safe but it's not like that anymore, right? It's okay to be liked. It's okay to be likable. Right?

And then that's it own whole cans of worms because uh oh! Looks like you don't actually know how to do that, do you! You've spent so long wearing that mask you don't know what's underneath it anymore. All the while having to try and gauge if it's safe to take it off yet, and not knowing what you'll find if you do.

[redrobin-detective]

Something I wonder about Simon and Betty's relationship is how long they were together before the whole crown ordeal. But they were engaged, you say. My aunt (in)famously met my uncle and had a ring on her finger in 8 weeks. We've seen that both Betty and Simon were both weird outcasts, crazy determined and a pinch insane. I would not be surprised if they decided they'd met their one true love and got engaged super quick.

My point being, Betty's shifting to revolve around Simon and Simon's rose colored glasses of their relationship feels very much like New Love. They're people who love each other and love being a couple but still haven't quite figured out how to coexist together, as two people in a partnership. I feel like if they'd known each other longer, lived together longer, some of the issues we're seeing would have probably self resolved.

I don't think their relationship is toxic nor is it totally perfect. It's two lonely, most likely neurodivergent people in a relatively early relationship still figuring out how it works. Everything that happened afterwards: the crown, the seperation, the time travel, the magic/madness/sadness just exemplified issues they had both as individuals and as a couple.

[thesinglelogbridge]

Saw this image of Cheng Yi from behind the scenes of fox spirit matchmaker and entered a fugue state until I made this he's a perfect sufferer

[alistair-blackwood]

kabru's relationship with his eyes makes for suuuuuch a fantastic trans allegory (an aspect of your body alienating you from your community, being compelled to understand the perspective of someone who also has a complicated relationship with their body in the hopes that you'll better understand your own, people straight up misunderstanding biology) it makes me kind of insane because now I feel like I can't dig into any complicated feelings he might have about his body in relation to his gender without feeling like im just ... double dipping?? like fifjpejgh ryoko kui straight up already told that story in a way that exquisitely fucks??

[bluebellwrenart]

Dr. Claire Anderson, CIA Clinical Psychologist/Department Neuropsychologist, Soviet & Psych Consultant AKA Svetlana Andreyeva, (Former) KGB Field Operative, "Operatsiya Novaya Amerika" AKA Russell Adler's (sort of) Ex-Wife

I was going to redraw my Bell/Nadia and Mikhail along with Kyrill and post them all as a batch, but I was really happy with how Claire turned out, so I decided to post her on her own. It's what she deserved. I accidentally got obsessed with her.

[vulture-jack]

i feel like my culture does funerals wrong. I don't want a quiet and respectful funeral where people get in line to whisper condolences. Its never been helpful to me as a family member in my mourning process no matter how close or how long I'm standing by the casket. Any shows of genuine emotion are loud and distracting and awkward or even criticized. Like I just don't know who its FOR, if we question why we do what we do, if it gives us what we need, if we might be better off asking ourselves that and trying different things.

im really dreading tomorrow. its going to be a long day.

[kibibarel]

hi i'm watching a good response to a bad YouTube video but the guy doing it isn't defending my blorbo valiantly enough. saying that Lusamine's motivation is "just vanity" is kind of like saying Moby Dick is about a whale. it's like......you're not wrong. but also i'm pretty sure there's other stuff in there also

[fuckinart]

getting back into spray painting for the summer. strawhat's jollyroger is next