#sure just don't make it obvious

[homielander]

shiv's motivations for voting to pass the gojo deal are so layered and i don't think they should be dismissed in favour of any one interpretation. shiv desperately grabbed on to a lifeline for her relationship with tom. shiv was the deciding vote and she couldn't bear to hold the crown only for a moment just to place it atop her brother's head. shiv knew she would have more influence as wife of CEO rather than sister of CEO. shiv absolutely hated seeing kendall crystallize into logan before her eyes, especially when he made roman bleed ("and if we did kill him we get to go to bed") -- succession has always been about siblings so of course she tried to free her brothers before her child. shiv still thinks she can raise her child with all the material benefits of being the daughter of waystar CEO while doing better by her, whatever that means. and all of those things are true

[pondhue]

thinking about how in s6 ep10 rick fell back so hard all bc his grandson that he cares for dearly called him boring.

how his thought process was "oh he thinks i'm boring so i'm not interesting. meaning i really have nothing of use to contribute anymore if not even my grandson can be entertained by me. did i ever contribute anything useful? i don't have control over how im perceived like i thought i did bc my grandson called me boring. my daughters are pissed at me, my granddaughter is likely tired of me, i've inconvenienced jerry bc i see myself in him (i think jerry is who rick was before he lost his og wife and daughter). for how long did morty feel like that??". how he was genuinely hurt that morty blatantly dismissed his feedback like that AND insulted him, and the insult actually had truth to it. which he knew. which probably hurt more.

how he then made an "idealized" version of himself to take care of his family that he believed would be able to provide them things he feels that he would never be able to give them and then isolated himself after that and knew nobody would notice and decided to pitch a tent in his own head.

how the fact that it resulted in rick spiraling and hyperfocusing (again) on avenging his dead wife and prioritizing that over everything else so much because at least he has control in how he feels in that situation. bc self isolation along with sitting in his own grief, shame, regret, and anger are what's familiar to him the most. how he is fully aware he could (and probably would) die in chasing prime and didn't care bc he probably thought his family wouldn't actually care if he died either, right? all because his grandson called him boring.

just thinking about that.

[starrywangxian]

when i first joined the link click fandom (which was like a week ago - hello) i was confused why there was a "shiguang" tag bc that's just the first word of the chinese name for it 时光 which means time (i'm a noob at mandarin - i'm only hsk 1 bare with me T^T) but then i found out it was cheng xiaoshi and lu guang's ship name (i saw someone call it their yaoi tag which i personally love)

which is another thing bc cxs's name in characters is 程小时。程 is just his surname (which sure will have a meaning - my surname has a meaning even - but as it's just his surname so i'm going to ignore it), 小 means small and together with 时 means hour (时 is linked to time so literally small time i guess?)

and you'll never guess what i'm about to say now (/s) bc lg's name in characters is 陆光。someone who's better at chinese than me can say what it means with certainty but my chinese dictionary tells me that 光 means light (like 太阳光 which means sunlight) as an a noun and "all gone", "used up" and "nothing left" as a verb... (also bright as an adjective - 光闪闪 means shiny or gleaming) and may i just remind you that season 1 episode 11 is called 帶着光的人 (the episode was called pinnacle of light in english)!!!

now this is where i'm 100% letting the chinese-speaking community come for me bc i'm being a little silly but if you put their names together (we get time literally: 时光) but if 时 refers to time and 光 refers to things being "all gone" or "used up" etc. then time is all gone...

edit: i was corrected! (rightly so lmao)

[dotpyenji]

happy bisexual day to those who celebrate

[nyoclosmom]

hey

so

ik it's been a hot minute

but i just had to make sure of this

we all agree that sharon died bc she didn't put one of her hairs into the potion, not bc she had two cups of wine, right?

right?

[moregraceful]

It feels like getting pulled underwater—the sharp sideways tug, the slight drag of resistance, then falling, falling, till the waves close over his head. But Logan can breathe when he rights himself again, even if the light has a watery filter to it and the voices have a distant echo. // Sometimes Logan gets a glimpse of guys who've been long gone from the teal, clustered at the far end of the bench or sitting in the box across the ice. He heard Jason's voice in the hallway loud and clear, that infectious laugh. And he could have sworn he saw Raffi fucking Torres getting out of a car in the players' lot. Something tells him not to look up the rosters.

Commissioned @impmakesart to make a painting based on the Sharks' Cali Fin hype reel + the flip side by frausorge. Imp was amazing to work with and I could not be more emotional about this piece and so, so pleased with how it turned out!! 🙇🏻‍♂️🙇🏻‍♂️ Commission him here. Thank you Imp!

[parsleysagerosemarytimemachine]

It was Anthy all along; it was always her.

So I was picking raspberries and listening to another Utena rewatch/analysis podcast this morning (as one does), and had a revelation that blew my mind, something I hadn't put the pieces together before...

(spoilers below the cut because there's no way to talk about it without talking about all of it)

So they were reading the opening fairy tale on the podcast, the prince giving the ring to Utena, and this is what came to me:

We've always known that the prince is an illusion. Whatever Dios was, or represents, by the time they could meet Utena in childhood (in whatever sense time exists), there is no person there. To the extent that real things exist outside of Ohtori, I'd always read this as a projection of Akio, a facade of princeliness he puts on while trying to find another person who might be able to win his dueling game for him. After all, he's the one who claims to be a prince, to have been a prince, wanting to reclaim the power of Dios. He is the prince that Touga and Saionji knew, when they biked together to the church and saw Utena hiding in a coffin.

But we also know that who Utena saw in the church was Anthy, a little girl, hurting, that she couldn't help but reach out to.

And why should Akio be there? He has his world in Ohtori that he can't imagine leaving. He sends Anthy to do his work for him, borrowing the power of the Rose Bride since he no longer has the power of the Prince. We know Anthy goes into the world (as Miki and Kozue's new stepmother). We know Anthy is an illusion (you know *hand gestures at everything*, but also specifically Mamiya). Why shouldn't Utena have seen a shining eternal thing, a miracle, the power to revolutionize the world, and remember it as a prince? Why shouldn't she have accepted a ring from the Rose Bride, a promise that if she remains noble and true that they will meet again, and decide that she will be the prince for this bride herself?

And was it a good idea? To follow an illusion that doesn't exist? To be manipulated into a game she can't win? (To reach out a hand to someone caught in a trap?)

Dios has always been Anthy, for Utena.

[apostacism]

maybe i should make an aeducan... it's the only way i can ever see myself restoring the anvil of the void

[seyaryminamoto]

Fic-to-Art #42: Hotaru, Mari and Zi

This month, our prompt was children, specifically our next gen kiddos in Gladiator. Surprising very few people, this little trio got the win, even though another trio (Yue's kids!) were really close runner-ups! It's a lot more interesting to write kid characters than I ever expected, even in a story as dark as what I work on. The dynamics between these three will be lots of fun to write someday, I know it! But for now, we get to enjoy a glimpse of them together in art form, with Mari having given the three of them makeovers with all those ponytails and pigtails and what have you x'D

I really hope you guys enjoy this piece, it was a lot of fun to work on <3 they're adorable cousins and it's always wonderful to think of how their eventual bond will be undisputable proof that their world is healing for good, after all the efforts of their respective parents.

If you'd like to be part of the creative process behind these pieces, a $1 pledge makes you eligible for voting and suggesting prompts, as well as reading Gladiator snippets 6 days before the new chapter releases!

[loufuckers]

i will not participate in the discourse but once again, i think some people would really enjoy watching interview with the vampire or lost or hannibal if what they want is to over analyse facial expressions and make theories about body language and what that look from three seasons ago means instead of weewoo procedural #384772 on air this week that is as straightforward as shows come where you're supposed to take most everything happening onscreen at face value

[godisasimp]

Guys do any of you know what the hell is the drawing on the dorm card.

[landgraabbed]

second and final batch of 2t4 sims for my wife's thing hehe

[callanee]

Look, I get why people are upset, but uh, as someone whose BEEN the First Queer Partner™ before, Tommy's break up with Buck here does actually make sense.

I've kinda been of the opinion that Tommy shouldn't be End Game for Buck, even tho personally I really enjoyed their relationship (same way I felt about Abby coincidentally lmao) because like. I'm so tired of the whole character A stays forever and madly in love with the first queer person they end up with. And I feel like, especially when done with a bi character, can kind of end up weird, like they're just saying they're basically gay or worse, only gay for character B.

And because I think they both deserve better in the longterm (and that if they were really invested in keeping Tommy around long term his racism should've been addressed, I get it had been a long time but it had literally personally affected 2 of the most important people in Buck's life).

But like, there's an awkward imbalance when you're in a relationship like that, where one of you is settling into your queerness and the other's queerness is already well rooted. And for the Buck, it's exciting! It's thrilling! You're learning all of these new things about yourself and doing it without someone you didn't even know you could have!

And for the Tommy, it's fun and it's hot, and there's something endearing and nostalgic about getting to help someone you care about along that journey, and it's really stressful. Because you're the first. And you know how important that First relationship was for you and how much damage and/or beauty it brought into your life, and how much it changed you. It feels like a lot of responsibility. And ultimately, you know it's going to end, because most of the time, you just don't get it right the first try.

So yeah, I think Tommy probably made the right call for himself. He saw Buck rushing in too fast, because he's excited and impulsive, and not because he's actually In Love with him, and said "Oh wait, I know where this is going".

And on Buck's end, he was literally about to make the same mistake he did with Abby. I mean. That feels like a pretty explicit parallel from the writing team.

[shannonallaround]

After pondering on it for several days, I have officially decided I did not like the direction of KFP4 and have banished it from my brain. It is no longer canon. KFP4? What's that? Don't know what you're talking about.

[the-mononoke-facade]

One of these days I'm going to figure out when 瞳 (hitomi) is supposed to be referring to someone's eyes and when it's supposed to be referring to someone's pupils, because slitted/narrowed eyes and slitted pupils have two different connotations, did you narrow your eyes or do you have cat eyes? This is important information okay

[dreadark]

Originium Arts Assimilation

it’s this thing

(joke)

you can assume it’s a measure of how well someone can use Originium Arts, and as far as I can tell it’s an innate biological characteristic that can’t be improved by training. however it can change, usually by how Oripathy improves most Infected’s ability to use Arts (though not always, as with Earthspirit and Astesia)

most operators have a Normal/Standard rating. usually casters and other Arts users will have an Excellent/Outstanding rating. and then Amiya has a mysterious ■■ rating, and Rosmontis has...something else

(Arknights’s physical exam ratings are Flawed < Normal < Standard < Excellent < Outstanding)

so the “Flawed” rating is notable here. in fact you can broadly separate all* the operators with that into having a connection to Feranmut or Seaborn

Feranmut

Feranmut obviously have some kind of powers, but are noted to specifically not be Originium Arts. as Closure says, “[Dusk] has 'no connection' to Originium whatsoever”

Nian, Dusk, Ling: they’re fragments of Sui, self-explanatory

Kjera: an incarnation of Kjeragandr, self-explanatory

Surtr: ...this one’s more complicated

Invitation to Wine has this bit:

suspiciously specifically mentioning ancient Sarkaz swords

Surtr’s sword is noted to be the source of her power, since she doesn’t use any Originium Arts, and the sword somehow also prevents her Oripathy from worsening Surtr has a condition where she has a bunch of memories that aren’t her own, so much so that she can’t even recall what her own memories are anymore. which sounds pretty similar to what started happening with Lee after he picked up the goblet with part of the second Sui brother in it

conclusion: there’s a Feranmut dwelling in the sword, and since Surtr picked it up she’s been affected by it

though unlike Lee and the Sui brother, this one doesn’t seem to be intentionally taking her over? they’re friends :)

at least that’s what I’ll roll with until they give Surtr an event in 2025. aha...

Seaborn

for this one I’ll be using Seaborn and Sea Terror interchangeably, everyone just calls them all Seaborn anyway and there’s a few references to CN-only stuff, considering Highmore

Skadi, Specter, Gladiia: the Abyssal Hunters are revealed to be created by Aegir(nation) by somehow combining Aegir(people) with Seaborn

Gladiia’s a lead on this project, but Skadi didn’t seem to know about being part Seaborn until the events of Under Tides

Specter is unique among these since she’s also infected. she was injected with enough Originium to kill a town, but her Seaborn blood lets her resist Oripathy so she didn’t immediately explode  this also means despite being infected, she can’t use Arts at all as Gladiia’s profile puts it, they’re “insulated” from Originium (I’d guess she wouldn’t get infected normally either)

Mizuki, Highmore: also Aegir+Seaborn hybrids, but created by the Church of the Deep 

the process is probably different somehow; both the Hunters and these two have enhanced strength and are insulated from Originium, but the Hunters have their characteristic red eyes+white hair, while Mizuki/Highmore are more integrated into the Seaborn “hivemind” (at least that’s the cult’s goal)

these two were coincidentally both created by the same bishop Cicero, but he considers Mizuki a perfect creation while Highmore is a failure. probably because Mizuki accepted his Seaborn side and his way of thinking pretty much aligns with them, but Highmore rejected it and ended up turning into [the IS3 boss]

so being “imperfect” she has visible Seaborn cells on her arm, while Mizuki looks entirely like an ordinary Aegir

(probably shouldn’t get too into this before she’s in global but I just really like Highmore...)

oh and Mizuki’s abilities to cause hallucinations aren’t Originium Arts, but somehow a biological thing

Andreana: now here’s the slightly less straightforward case

she’s part of the Abyssal Hunter faction, but she doesn’t know the other Hunters. she’s similarly unable to use Originium Arts, but while she’s stronger than the average person she’s nowhere near Skadi’s superhuman strength

a drop of ink vs an inkwell you can just take that pretty literally I think; Andreana just has a lot less Seaborn in her, so the associated traits she has aren’t as strong

as for how she got this way, there’s a few allusions to her being experimented on when she was a kid. in her module she remembers “someone wrapped in the smell of the sea, a robed Iberian” being involved, which is almost definitely a member of the Church of the Deep

conclusion: she’s one of the cult’s earlier experiments with combining Aegir and Seaborn

Gladiia’s operator record reveals the cult does experiments on Aegir who come to their churches for medical assistance, so I’d guess her mother took her to them when she was young and this ended up happening so...why is she classified as an Abyssal Hunter, when Mizuki and Highmore who are also Aegir-Seaborn hybrids created by the cult aren’t?

because of gameplay. now she can buff the other Hunters and receive their buffs ...that’s it, there’s nothing to suggest she's actually related to Aegir’s “Abyssal Hunter” project. she doesn’t even have the white hair/red eyes

until HG finally remembers she exists and gives her a story to contradict this, maybe. but I’d be happy with her existing at all...

*exceptions

Matterhorn

I mentioned it before but I really have no clue. he’s just like that

Deepcolor

as finally confirmed by her operator record, she is part-Seaborn just like the others (though she wasn’t even experimented on by Aegir or the cult...a Herald just gave her a “gift” directly, so that’s something. the two Heralds we know of are First to Talk and Endspeaker for reference.)

and since she is, she should have a “Flawed” rating here

so there’s 2 possible explanations for this discrepancy:

one, she’s a launch character they didn’t bother expanding on properly for 3.5 years. so they might not have had all this in mind at all when initially creating her

or two, she bsed her way through the operator exam and somehow tricked the tested into thinking she was using Originium Arts instead of.. whatever powers she has(??) they do make a point of how her casting method is weird and no one else can understand it, so

I’m inclined to go with the first one just because of how much they mention her skill with originium but Deepcolor is still so mysterious so who knows...

**wanted to mention the Blood Originium-Crystal Density of everyone but couldn’t find a good place to mention it, so it’s here now. wish I could put a readmore in a readmore

if you look through most uninfected operator profiles, the average is about 0.12-0.14 u/L

Dusk/Ling/Kjera all have 0.00 (Nian probably does too but she’s avoided physicals)

Surtr, despite being infected only has 0.10 u/L I assume she got infected before getting the sword, and it’s either keeping the progression of her Oripathy at bay or maybe even treating it

Gladiia has 0.011... Originium doesn’t exist in the sea though, so it could be because she only came up to land recently

Skadi has 0.013, which actually decreases to 0.012 in her alt. ignoring the special circumstances of her alt, I think her Seaborn cells might be “cleaning” the originium in her blood? 

Specter has 0.31 which increases to 0.34 in her alt. pretty standard numbers for an infected, but the progress of her Oripathy is notedly slower

Mizuki has 0.07 and Highmore has 0.08. these are lower than average, but not as low as Skadi/Gladiia, probably because these two aren’t from Aegir we don’t have a physical of before their transformation, but my guess is the same as Skadi’s; their Seaborn cells are decreasing this value

Andreana has 0.12, which is...totally normal I guess the tiny Seaborn part of her only fucked up her ability to use Arts but didn’t give her any resistance to this. RIP