#sorry V for not being in this one

[seraphont]

comic sillies - how did you even get this number

[moeblob]

North and Simon: (shaking hands on killing Simon potentially)

[kitnita]

leaving the postgame to see an old friend —  DAL vs BOS   — 10.24.24 

[xdeewolfx]

tried replaying some tales but the game just didnt want to let me pick anything during one of the quicktime events </3 so i made art about it

[slavhew]

fun fact the word "dirk" sounds exactly like the root of the croatian verb "drkati" which means to jack off

get the dirk brush here

[conkers-thecosy]

Hullo to my fellow fandom creators.

How you guys doing? Good? Good.

I just wanted to drop you a little note to say I hope you’re all having fun out here. Because fun is what it’s all about, right? Fun and excitement and hobbies and interests and all that good stuff!

While I’ve been wandering about in my little corner here at tumblr dot com, I gotta tell you, it can be so easy to get discouraged sometimes. Like SO easy. And I dunno folks, I guess I just wanted to remind you (and me!) that when we create stuff for our fandoms, it’s for fun! Because we love it! Because we love making it! We love sharing it! We love the source material and the characters and the world-building and all that other neat stuff!

Sometimes we all need a little reminder, I find. Because sometimes people don’t like what we’re making. Sometimes they’ll be rude or complain and make demands about how fandom "cOnTeNt” (yuck) should be made (double yuck) and act kind of entitled about it. And idk, that gets kind of disheartening. Especially when you’re pouring all your heart and soul into what you’re making, simply for the love of it.

So! Yeah I just wanted to check in with you folks because I’m seeing a lot of that weird entitlement in various fandoms lately, and from one creator to another, I wanted to just say -if I may wax poetic for a moment here- nuts to those people. Nuts to ‘em. NUTS, I TELL YOU.

Not everyone is going to like the stuff you make, and that's okay. The important thing is to remember that their opinions have nothing to do with you or me or anyone else making art or fics or edits or whatever our little hearts desire. Just because what you're making doesn't tick someone else's personal boxes doesn't mean that what you're making is wrong or bad!

If people want specific stuff in fandom, they can make it. If they don’t like what we’re making, they can move on - that's fine. If they want to publicly whine about it and try to make it everyone else's problem, that's their baggage and we don't have to take any of that on board. It’s no reflection on you if someone wants to demand that their own specific tastes be met, rather than actually taking part in the community in a positive way. Because we’re here for fun, aren’t we.

Are you having fun? Good. That’s all that matters.

Go make something cool and fun, and have a great day!

Love you!

[torra-and-the-toons]

Ok, I’ve been thinking about this request for a while, but have been putting it off.

Could you do a drawing based off the episode L.O.C.K.D.O.W.N? It’s one of my favorites and the vampire designs are generally cool and deserve more attention!

Anyway, enjoy 😋

I'll be honest, the Vampires weird me out but only because of the spanking aspect (and the fact they had to spank a grown man to change back like excuse me??) Their designs are cool as hell though. If they existed without the spanking aspect, they wouldn't weird me out as much.

This might not be quite what you had in mind, but one of my coworkers told me a funny pun that I thought I could use for this very request.

I like to think it's the real reason they were so determined to change back lmao.

[milkbreadtoast]

looking back at the yjh webtoon screencaps i have saved and giggling... hes so cute... moe... my pookie ^___^ 🥰🥰 poor little meow meow woof woo- *eliminated where i stand*

also these poses are sooooo... 꺄아악🖤🫣🫣🫣🫣

[pumpkinrootbeer]

Eugene was truly the best boyfriend. saw his girlfriend get broken up with, and immediately had a revenge glow up. Imagine being Cassandra seeing your ex girlfriend's boyfriend and he's wearing a golden choker with the just deepest v neck known to man, the world's sluttiest gloves, and a thigh garter. I'd have to give up then and there.

[butwhatifidothis]

(regarding the Fort Merceus scene)

"Claude doesn't know as much about the Seiros faith because he's an outsider" thanks for ignoring the entire point of Claude's route just to insist he doesn't grow as a character

Ohhh wait, no, it's not that he's not knowledgeable, it's just him definitely lying! Because disagreements? Regarding tenets of a religion? Impossible! Claude must be feigning ignorance and lying because that's all he does as a character! He's tricking the diligent Lorenz into thinking things that aren't true, because Church Bad and Claude would never tell the truth!

[huginsmemory]

Trigun and Christianity

In lieu of trigun Stampedes choice to make Wolfwood an undertaker instead of a priest (to, well, my disappointment), I thought it might be interesting to look at some of the Christian themes in Trigun, and then also look at why they might have decided to choose for Wolfwood to be a undertaker then a preist, and a potential reason to why Trigun has these Christian themes. Also, btw, this is chock full of manga spoilers so, beware!

To start it off... trigun is actually... pretty heavy on Christian themes. Fuck man, the main character is basically an angel, and in one of the first volumes they literally describe the plants as something divine (although they are later declared to be something humans made... But nevertheless the very clear imagery is there). Also what features very strongly is pacifism and the themes of unconditional love; Vash's refusal to kill coming from believing that going forward, anyone can change, even when he is literally being harmed or attempted to be killed by others. These themes of pacifism and unconditional love are very Christian, and Vash's actions very much centre him as a Jesus-like character. In fact, even the way that he (and knives) was born, a virgin birth, also could be seen as an allusion, as well as the way that he holds a physical form as a human while being more than human- Jesus being considered a 'son of man' while also being the son of God; ie, something in-between, something both divine and human. Knives as well is written in that angelic and divine light, although he is done so in a dark opposite of Vash, with an emphasis on his 'divinity' for imagery as he is obsessed with it. Interestingly, contrast to Knives, Vash, who goes around as a human, is multiple times called a Devil for his reputation, although he is the one that actually is virtuous... This in a way also alludes to him as a Jesus-like figure, as that Jesus was ultimately sought after by the authorities and in some places hated and even driven away by people.

12 disciples

As well, Nightow is pretty blatant that the gung ho guns, of which there are 12, is a allusion to the 12 disciples; hell, Wolfwood calls them straight up disciples when he is at Jeneora Rock. One might argue that then whether that posits Knives as a Jesus figure as that they follow Knives directions, or if one would consider Vash to be the Jesus figure, as the 12 literally seek out, and 'follow' Vash, and of which one of them literally betrays (although, technically, Wolfwoods betrayal goes both ways). However, I don't think that argument is really one that matters, as it's more of the aesthetic of Christianity that Nightow likes in this matter, not the philosophical implications.

As well, as mentioned above, Wolfwood is very Judas-coded; he gets close to Vash, only to inevitably betray him and deliver him up to his fate, while clearly being torn up about it. Vash is not surprised at all when Wolfwood tells him that he was one of the gung ho guns, and you get the sense that he knew about it all along, and knew exactly what he was walking into. Yet he still loves and forgives Wolfwood for all of it. Which... is exactly the same thing that occurs between Judas and Jesus, Jesus willingly going with Judas even though he knew what lay before him.

Wolfwood

As well, quite obviously adding to the heavy Christian themes of trigun, is that Wolfwood calls himself a priest. Although indeed it's part of his front, it's clear Wolfwood in the manga is religious, challenging and calling upon God in response to seeing the Knives born, and his response to the fifth moon incidence where he questions if it was the hand of God (which, actually, is caused by Vash's hand... again alluding to the 'divinity' of Vash and Knives). This clear religious affiliation continues through the series, such as when he is rescuing Vash from Knives, and even praying while he is on the ship with the people that helped vash.

Wolfwood also throughout the series is very clearly is morally wraught with guilt over his choices and sins... Something that's very Catholic/Christian. Hell, the fact that the punisher, the insignia of his murderous profession, is a literal heavy cross that Wolfwood carries with him, is poetic irony; he's literally carrying around the embodiment of his sins and his guilt from his profession and choices, which weighs both heavily on his physical body but also him emotionally. Wolfwood's guilt over his sins and choices comes to its climax when he's about to die when rescuing Vash from Knives, after betraying him; where he questions whether he can be forgiven for what he has done and whether he was wrong, and in response Vash saves him, declaring that he is not wrong; not wrong to go against orders, leaving his vocation of being a murderer behind, in trying to save Vash and moving forward. In declaring Wolfwood that he was not wrong, what Vash (heavily implied divine, Jesus-like character) is declaring is that Wolfwood can be forgiven for his sins, is already forgiven for his betrayal (unconditional love, anyone?), and that Wolfwood can change, that his past doesn't define him, because his future is also a blank ticket.

As well, this is followed up later by Wolfwoods confession to Vash that he hates killing:

The confession and the way he phrases it- seeing all humans as his brethren (although, in this sense he may be speaking tangentially about Livio) is something that also has Christian overtones. (Also, the way that they mention Vash sees the whole of humans as his relatives, also ties into that; except personally I'd argue that's more of a Indigenous view then a Christian, but theres plenty of things that overlap with other theologies and philosophies within the manga that aren't just characteristics of Christianity).

Redemption via acts

There's also a theme of redemption via acts, which both Wolfwood and Vash lean into heavily as a result of guilt from their 'sins', something that is very... Well, again, Christian, especially Catholic. Vash, from being unable to stop Knives and having obliterated July and just his and knives general existence, and Wolfwood from his profession, and so they both struggle with immense feelings of guilt. As a result both are very self-sacrificing; Vash very obviously so throughout the series, and Wolfwood in a quieter way, in choosing to continue to work to protect the orphanage, even though he desperately wants to escape the life he leads and hates killing people. They both don't believe they deserve to be loved because of the weight of their sins, and so they redeem themselves the only way they know how by self-sacrifice; this literally causing Wolfwoods death as he didn't reach our to Vash for help, and is evident in the way Legato looks at Vash at the end and realizes he sees a man that only sees himself as a tool and hates himself. This belief of Vash's that he doesn't deserve love/nice things is something that is also interesting, because he so aggressively pushes the 'blank ticket of the future', ie, unconditional love, while clearly being unable to apply it to himself.

Tldr: the point is, Trigun is very heavily Christian themed, both in aesthetic and philosophy, and the characterization of both Vash and Wolfwood reflect that. The show is rampant with such Christian philosophical themes as unconditional love, sin and guilt, confessions, forgiveness and redemption through self-sacrifice; for aesthetic ones, well, literal 'angels' as main characters, Wolfwood being a priest and carrying a cross, the 12 gung ho guns as 12 disciples.

Wolfwood as an Undertaker

Since Trigun is so heavily Christian themed, it makes it... well, a bit of a strange choice to pull the fact that Wolfwood is a preist out, since him as a preist further emphasizes the moral quandries within the story and the themes of sins/guilt/forgiveness and unconditional love. However, as one other post here on tumblr mentioned, stampede as an iteration of trigun is more directed towards a more modern and Japanese audience, some of which can be seen with the revamp of the character designs to make them more relatable, and I think they mentioned some specific character traits with Meryl. This re-vamping, especially one specifically for a Japanese audience might explain why Wolfwood becomes a undertaker instead of being a Christian priest. Nightow in the back panels in the manga is clearly is very enthralled with American culture- and his knowledge and love of the American genres shows pretty strongly in the themes and the setting for Trigun. In fact, the 1998 anime was better recieved in the west then in Japan, and a possible likelihood for it's higher popularity within the Americas is going to be directly because of the western audience being more familiar with the Western genre, as well as specifically, the Christian themes within the show (since western countries cultures are Christian based, even if one wasn't raised religious). As well, compared to the other typical gunslinging space western anime, Cowboy bebop, Trigun contains more Christian themes, which would make it less relatable, and less popular to the Japanese audience (of course there are many other differences in the shows, so I would be reluctant to chalk it up to just the religious themes in trigun- hell, Cowboy Bebop makes some great criticisms of capitalism that is not present in Trigun). Circling back to them revamping the show, if they are trying to make it more relatable to a Japanese audience, then removing more overly American influences, such as one of the characters literally being a Christian priest, would fit that bill quite well.

Trigun and Christianity... Why?

Also, I personally think that Nightow didn't exactly mean to make a story that is really heavily Christian themed. My sneaking suspicion from reading chapter 0, is the Nightow thought that writing a western with a main character gunslinger that is a pacifist would be a fun and interesting prospect, and then when he began to elaborate on it, he began to pull in more western (both cultural and genre wise) themes and aesthetics into the story, resulting in something that is very heavily Christian themed in the end.

EDIT: it's been raised to my attention by the lovely @trigum, that it says in the wikipedia on Nightow that he was raised buddhist and converted to Catholicism, although there is no source for that information. If so, this would, well, very obviously explain why Trigun is so heavy on Christian themes and negates the paragraph above. I'm not giving him enough credit then, my apologies Nightow!

EDIT 2:

Edit 3 (Feb 3): made a somewhat part 2, specifically looking at the phrase the 'bride of Christ'.

[lichtbrenger]

charlie and empathy

I’ve seen some thoughts about Charlie floating around (always love to read them, everyone has unique thoughts, namaste 🙏) and there seems to be a lot of discussion about Charlie having little actual empathy for the people around her and I don’t know if that is a fair assessment based on what we’ve been shown so far.

Long one so I’m putting it in the read more <3

The idea that Charlie has strong feelings of sympathy without feeling empathy kind of befuddles me, because the jury's still out on what sympathy actually is when compared to empathy. The most intuitive answer would be to separate them by saying sympathy is feeling for someone and empathy is feeling with someone. I wrote out a whole thing about this (that empathy does not directly motivate helping behavior like sympathy does and that empathy can lead to personal distress (a self-oriented reaction of distress to another’s suffering)) BUT I don’t think that’s the point I want to make here 😸 hihi. So I’m solely going to focus on the thought that Charlie has low empathy.

If we look at Charlie and the way she expresses empathy (which, if psychometrically sound is seen as multifaceted in nature; usually cognitive, affective and somatic (sliding scales referred to as CASES)) the only thing she seems to be lacking is cognitive empathy.

Cognitive empathy allows us to understand and interpret emotions more analytically. This is sometimes also called empathic accuracy.

Cognitive empathy is more like a skill, a skill Charlie never got to work on. Charlie has lived her whole life in uhm, hell, where people don’t respond well to genuine feelings of empathy/sympathy from others. Charlie has tried and failed again and again in reaching out to people, and these experiences haven’t provided her with a reason why. A lot of people point to the Angel Dust Situation as a moment where Charlie shows that she’s not empathetic, but I don’t actually think that’s what’s going on there. Charlie seems to have a lot of empathy for Angel is this episode, she is however completely unequipped. Everything takes her by surprise, her emotions are intense and she doesn’t understand the stakes of Angel’s situation when she first tries to help. This doesn’t means she’s unempathetic, this means she’s in over her head. She doesn’t have a lot of experience with people actually wanting/ needing her help and she hasn’t had any experience in Angel’s scene. She fumbles, but a lack of empathy isn’t the issue. Her feelings aren’t wrong in these very complicated moments.  

I’ve also seen people discuss Charlie's relationship with Vaggie and with that I feel like people forget that Charlie knew nothing about Vaggie’s life before her until the meeting in heaven. We don’t know what Vaggie told her, but I doubt she told Charlie about her trauma or hangups surrounding coming down every year to slaughter her people. Charlie has no real reason to think Vaggie isn’t her equal, her partner, capable of handling the same things she does especially since that’s probably exactly what Vaggie wants her to think. Charlie trusts her and doesn’t have a reason to think she’s not being forthcoming. Again, naivete, maybe; a lack of empathy, I don’t think so. I also think that, while we as the viewer may recover quite quickly from the shock of Vaggie being an ex-exorcist, Charlie is allowed to give it a little more time. She’s been lied to (in quite a big way) by the one person who has stood by her and she trusted unconditionally. She’s known her for years (I assume) and there are certain patterns of thought and behavior that just wear into a relationship, and you can’t expect someone to snap out of that all of the sudden. Charlie realizing Vaggie has her own specific demons and what that entails for their relationship is going to take time, I think it would take time for anyone.

Tldr; I don’t think Charlie suffers from a lack of empathy, she suffers from a lack of practice and positive experiences, mostly. She’s ill equipped in some instances, and purposefully left in the dark in others.

[naivety]

okay i need feedback from the autism mentall illness website um. this is going to read like an AITA post. brother vs half-sister (who are currently my dependents do to their own individual disabilities + ptsd/depression) spat i will skim the details on but i'm worried my sister will discount my take since i'm not autistic myself so. am i crazy to call it ableist to look at an autistic person (23) who is clearly going through it dealing w long term depression, a world that doesn't give a shit abt him, unemployment, very self-isolated and burnt out barely leaving his room because the world is an ableist dumpster fire with zero opportunities for him, and then bring up childhood abuse he's suffered and his diagnosis as reasonable factors on top of this to worry he'll [checks notes] abuse my cat just to hurt me or even worse have a breakdown and kill me and his other sibling in a violent episode, a train of thought i probably wouldn't even be having were he not [checks notes] mad at me for the first time in my life?

like i don't have any other read on this kind of fear-based characterization other than ableism. like those are very real things in his life but she never points out any current violent behavior, of which there are none, only the one (1) instance of him lashing out when he was like 14 and Officially Diagnosed Low Empathy she thinks is a concern and Hateful Looks toward her since he stopped getting along with her, that's it. i tried explaining to her why i, someone who's lived w him his entire life, can vouch for how unlikely he is to do anything like that, especially when it's again not based on anything he's actually currently doing except for isolating in a way that is much more indicative of him potentially being a danger to himself than anyone else, and being cold towards her specifically, and i thought she had let it go, but when i brought it up off-hand in a conversation tangentially related, she continued to defend and justify her Concern about the potential directions his behavior could lead to because [checks notes] other people in similar situations have lashed out and killed their entire families according to. true crime books or videos she's watched on youtube as far as i'm aware. ignoring the fact that her and i have had the same or Worse childhood abuse and have acted similarly isolated in the past, or for her literally just as currently as him, and she's not expressed any worry past or present about either of us doing anything like that, in my opinion obviously because i haven't cut her off due to our differences like he decided to. like am i big sibling biased because this is pissing me off so bad.

[yuseirra]

they used to be so soft

[deus-ex-mona]

real talk: lxl should continue to explore romance fantasy concepts in their songs. it’s clearly working for them~

[phoenixtakaramono]

Thoughts about The Boys (TV) ending at S5

In my humble opinion, Billy Butcher and Homelander deserve to have their final dance together—in Hell.