#thank u i will try 2 :’)

[suntails]

stalemate

[gemsalive]

re: that HEFTY siffrin sweep on id5’s isat favourite blorbos poll — this might sound silly but i do actually think it’s kinda fascinating that isat, as a game so inseparably steeped in (for lack of a better way to describe it) queer fandom culture, managed to so completely sidestep the common Fandom Phenomenon that i suspect was behind the poll in the first place by creating a main character that is also overwhelmingly the fan favourite character for once.

obviously there are any number of factors we could point at to explain the extent to which siffrin nomiddlenames nolastnames manages to grab people and absolutely not let go, but personally i think one of the most interesting ones to consider is the one specific to the medium — that is, how siffrin subverts the “silent blank slate video game protagonist” archetype in such a way that happens to be primo brainrot breeding grounds.

like, when a video game dev makes a silent protagonist it’s usually a bid to maximize immersion by closing the aesthetic distance between player and character as much as possible, right? which is especially true of rpg video games — players find connection in the generic, as that is what gives you the freedom of motion to insert yourself into the story in whatever unique shape suits you best. you are your character and your character is you.

(as ever, post ran long. yall know the drill. tossin in a quick header pic before thoughts on blank slates & blorboification continue under the cut)

and then you’ve got siffrin, who is expressly pointed out to be the taciturn type; who when initially giving the player exposition about their journey so far doesn’t seem to hint at a life or history or even really any motivations outside the journey; whose every thought and action is narrated in second person so as to keep tracing and re-tracing the connection between him and you.

even their design — all darkless and shapeless, bundled up in that big cloak, as if an invitation for you to fill it in with whatever lets you relate to them most! at this point they are their own character for sure, but they also have enough very clear parallels going on with the silent protagonist archetype to feel more than accidental.

of course, as you keep playing you start to recognize that his blankness is much, much more than just a grab at immersion; his apparent lack of backstory, itself a fundamental piece of backstory. this is where he flips dramatically in the player’s perception from “generic vessel for story delivery” to “thoroughly multidimensional character trapped within endless torment nexus custom-built to target and exacerbate all his very specific worst traits rooted in very specific traumas”.

yknow, the good stuff !

but by then you have also been playing enough to be feeling the effects of the thing isat’s design does best of all. i’m talkin bout that ludonarrative lockstep baby. every piece of isat’s gameplay is designed to make you feel what siffrin is feeling — you understand by now that he is not a stand-in for you, but all the same you share in his frustration, his grief, his rare moments of joy and the subsequent heart-in-your-shoes devastation when that joy is inevitably poisoned — and through it all, the desperate grasping for anything new — all as if they were every bit your own.

so in this way the connection is maintained, even if you were someone for whom siffrin’s particular traits & struggles might not otherwise cause you relate to them at all if you had encountered them elsewhere, in a setting where you weren’t actively controlling them as a player. siffrin still gets to carry all the “just like me fr” impact of the blank slate protagonist in the tropes he embodies and in the game mechanics’ design, while totally free to evolve completely into his own character and keep you relating to closely them all the same. now toss back in the fact that said traits & struggles very much ARE of a flavour that a great many people Would Tend To Relate To and just like that you’ve got a perfect storm cookin.

too individual and compellingly written to be an empty vessel for plot delivery. too closely connected with the player’s emotional state to be a story observed impassively from the outside. he has 92 mental illnesses and for the low low price of free u can give him yours to carry too. nobody is doin it like him. congratulations on your well-deserved nose sniffrin nomiddlenames nolastnames <3

[javierduffy]

silly drawover because i missed them :]

[missingmelody]

Gardening

[cometshift]

I am kinda curious now what was Mx Blackrock’s reaction to Subspace’s being poisoned by Medkit

thank you for the interesting ask! her reaction wasnt great

[stellar-collective]

//minor blood, spoilers for all three games

short IEYTD animatic i made to the song My Favorite Part by PEABOD! took me like five days and i think it turned out pretty good :)

[lyhil]

VSArtParty - September Here's this month's artparty portraits - it was nice to see everyone in the crowded lil Grotto! Azilab - @scourgeblooms Kyrr Wraithsight - @jynxghoststep Pepiya - @hawkepockets

[moonshynecybin]

i know you’re busy but whenever you have time i’d love to hear your thoughts on the relationship between the academy boys and marc post reunion !

my thoughts have grown and evolved and changed on this over time... like the first time i got this question was directly post valencia 2023 and bez was like. in the press all mad and pecco was on top of the world and cele's collarbone was intact and mig was like. not podcasting and franky was pre marquez brothers putting him into the recovery position after that bad crash and perhaps saving his life in the soap opera sense and luca was on a DUCATI. overall things have SHIFTED!!! and for better and for worse as the last yearish has gone by, its become less like. abstraction based on the vr46 boys general personalities and relationship to vale + his baggage and more seeing pecco and marc being put on weird little couches together by their boss and bez hopefully being on the other side of that sexuality crisis/LEAVING the nest and marc and alex helping franky in a moment of need and luca AT honda rn now staring down santi hernandez longingly across the garage like its a whole new world... theyre all interacting with marc as a PEER rather than daddy’s horrible little evil ex boyfriend who burned his house down, which is an interesting little space to live in as they bring their specific baggage into this reconciliation imo

SOOOO taking all of this into account, i think its awkward and fraught and funnyyyy and full of all the little spikes that growing pains consist of, but its also like. unique and individual, rather than collective. now theyre all adults in their mid to late 20s-- theyre their own people more than ever, interacting with their coworker, who a few of them have had the opportunity to get to know in new and (not always positively) transformative ways. a few of them have even gotten to know THEMSELVES in new and transformative ways. and i think the (admittedly VERY fun lmao) idea that marc sort of. integrating into this community is something thats inherently hostile is the LESS interesting option to me.... bc it isnt just academy v marc its like. luca and pecco and franky and bez and even mig and cele all bringing their specific and wonderful character dynamics to the reconciliation table along WITH marc and all the reasons he might have to have weird feelings about THEM... and thats FUN...

[knifebaby3000]

baby let me rattle that snake with my venom! 🐍💘

[raayllum]

The creators once posted sometime after S7 concluded that they had considered giving Karim a redemption arc before deciding that having him die making one last poorly thought-out power grab would be a more satisfying conclusion for his arc. I have no complaints about Karim being irredeemable, but how do you think making him beyond redemption is a better choice for the overall story?

Karim is one of my favourite characters in the show, and going forward into S6/S7 I wasn't entirely sure which way his character arc was going to land. I'd expected him to win in S6 (so that he could free Kim'Dael) and so that he'd have further parallels to Ezran (S4/S5 meta on that here). This was mostly due to me expecting Karim to foil and be a contrast to other characters — Callum, Viren, Ezran, Janai — as his primary narrative role.

For Callum & Ezran, it was as brother-mages (Callum) who'd betray the other (over Runaan) whenever that plot point came around. For Viren, Karim was following his path politically and was usurper. For Janai, ridden with uncertainty and doubt, Karim was impulsive and all too certain.

However, it was evident that the brothers would reconcile (they did), that Viren had cinched a continuing atonement arc (already in s4, then outright in s5 — which, afterwards is when the bulk of the linked meta was written), and that Janai would ultimately reclaim/remain being queen of her people.

So where would that leave Karim?

An important note I think, then, is that TDP has never preached complete pacifism. It has always, routinely, framed violence as a last resort but still a resort, and that figuring out what is worth violence vs what isn't is a crucial, difficult, but occasionally achievable process. Ezran is the most pacifistic character by far, and he still has a huge attempted "people I (would've) murdered" body count after all.

So I'd argue that TDP's stance isn't so much as "people can always change" so much as it is "you have to be real damn sure that a person Won't choose to change before you kill them". And even then, it acknowledges that stopping a person from doing active harm in that moment even unto death/murder (S3 Viren with Rayla; S7 Aaravos with the archdragons) is not an exclusively bad thing, either.

Life is precious. Life is valuable. We take it, but we do not take it lightly.

What then, is 'irredeemable' in TDP? To put it simply, there's not much: you can kill someone, or kill someone's beloved family member, or orchestrate a war, or gaslight/deceive people, or burn people alive, or repeatedly use dark magic or consume your own flesh, or all of the above, and still be considered Redeemable within TDP depending on 1) why you did any of the above regarding the Circumstances and/or 2) if you changed afterwards.

That doesn't mean you're going to get endless passes, not every character can have the same arc for both time, variety, and personality, but most characters (Kasef, Viren, Claudia, even Aaravos) have at least the seed of potential to make better/other choices.

With this in mind, Viren's atonement/redemption arc being almost exclusively about his interpersonal relationships > his global political wrongdoing makes the answer abundantly clear as to what TDP thinks is unforgivable if you don't come back from it: forsaking your loved ones.

This does not mean abandoning them, or even standing / fighting against them. It doesn't even necessarily mean killing or trying to kill them!

It means seeing them as JUST the enemy or JUST a thing. Just an obstacle or barrier in your way, or a tool to use for your own ends.

This is, notably, when ultimately dooms Aaravos in S7. He forgets about his child (Sir Sparklepuff) till it catches him off guard. He does not fathom that Avizandum's love for his mate and child could be stronger than Aaravos' control over him. And it is this forgetfulness, this 'twisting' of love into something else, that Terry lampshades as well: "Maybe this started out as a story of love, but along the way it got twisted. He isn't doing anything for love. He's doing it out of revenge" when it comes to personal love, and Runaan when it comes to other matters: "I remember I fought you. I tried to kill you! How could I?" / "I was a peacemaker, a twisted peacemaker, I suppose [...] but I am not dead. I am alive. I have a family I love."

Much like Kasef is 'punished' narratively for his impulsivity and penchant towards violence, providing a contrast for our young heroes and proof that not every young person will make the same choices they did, Karim is a cautionary sign of what happens if you forsake your loved ones — and you do not recover it.

There's a reason that despite walking Viren's path in so many ways, Karim does not recover the same way Viren did, because Viren re-learned how to see his children as people, not objects. Not heirs or spell parts or assets.

Karim became so concerned with seeing others — his family members, his loved ones — as symbols (things), he lost sight of everything else. He got so swept up in seeing Janai as a queen, and then a false queen who was in his way, that he couldn't see her clearly as his sister anymore, and this eventually extended to everyone / everything else in his life, including himself (viewing himself as a martyr, a true king, a flame to remake the world through).

This is also why the broyals reconciliation is through the lens of "we're brothers and we need each other" and has nothing to do about being king or high mage. Those are their jobs and especially for Ezran are important parts of themselves, but it's still just parts, not the whole. It also helps indicate that Claudia and Soren at the end of 7x09, who clearly do still hold love for each other, are not as broken as Janai (who retained love) and Karim (who did not). None of them ever lost love like the way Karim did. There's a lot throughout arc 2 about how steadily he got there, which may be worth a meta someday, but who knows.

The actual manner of death — Karim swaggering in arrogant and puny as ever, severely overestimating his power and leverage, with consistent focus on his hands (his red glove, holding 'fate' between his fingertips with the sun seed) being little more than a red smear in Aaravos' hand is also some deliciously chewy symbolism and an ultimate slap in the face (deservedly so) to his own ideals of grandeur.

Is there an interesting story to explore of Miyana, or something else, being a catalyst for Karim changing? Sure! But I think Miyana and her children's situation — as well as her potential dynamic with Janai and Amaya — is infinitely more interesting given his absence, as well as allowing Karim to occupy a more unique part of the narrative with his thematic explorations. He's a fantastic character foil and character in his own right, and I think he embodied everything they set out to do like, absurdly exceedingly well.

So short form answer: yes! I'm inclined to agree that it's a more satisfying ending tbh, especially with his writing in 7x03 onwards! I do miss him dearly, though. I miss him every day.

[oh-no-its-bird]

did any of your hatake ocs ever bite through their lips or tongues as kids? with all them fangs and teeths and being young uncoordinated children i imagine it could have happened, possibly

OMG HI OC ASK HOW EXCITING !!! I just saw this actually sorry for replying so late but

YES ALL THE TIME!

I am pointing at Hiro specifically, who has an issue where his one fang is way longer than the other. When he was a kid, he had an extra long time learning how to eat without making a mess, talk without lisping, and just constantly be cutting into his lower lip. (And also he has the WORST time whistling, which is fun bc later down the line he turns the Hatake's howling sound attack into basically a whistling machine gun attack.)

His lower lip probably has some sort of scarring from it, but you can't really see it just from how the tooth pokes out to cover it.

Anyways like. POV Hiro is 5 years old and just bit into his lip for the 7th time that day and has to ask for a new bandaid

There's a bit of a variety in fang shapes in the clan too, like— you have Hiro, with his one fang too big. Then Haruka had a bit of a double set of fangs, the one normal extra big canines but then the teeth around that are also extra sharp. Then Tetsuo, who is half Hoshigaki, all of his back teeth are also sharp, along with his canines. Then Tsuki used to have the normal Hatake set of fangs but after his whole thing with the spiral demon, his lower teeth are now all fang shaped along with his canines. Man went missing for 2 years and came back with plastic surgery ig

In general tho, I think Hatake kids have an awful time with their fangs— though that thought goes for any clan with sharp teeth. Especially in the transition period of getting their adult teeth.

POV you lose one baby fang and start growing in your adult fang but now your mouth feels all unbalanced because suddenly you have just one really big sharp tooth in there

Usually with animals baby teeth are sharper, right? I think that stands for them too. Small, sharp baby fangs and big, clunky, hard to get used to adult fangs.... ough...

Ok but now I just want a fic about a kid Kakashi after losing his dad having his baby teeth start falling out and he suddenly has to deal with having clumsy adult fangs and no one he can ask about them

,,,,

Writing that down on a sticky note and pasting it to the pile of sticky note reminders of things to include in Chasing Shadows

[javierduffy]

sketchbook sillies

[honkshoo-zzz]

i didn’t wanna draw more saxwell,,,.,, but the parasites wanted to draw more saxwell.,…,…….

anyways go read my saxwell fic Don’t Go on AO3 :)

[shaadowmilkcookie]

I love ur oc

OIJSNFKDL;ALKFJNG'DKNJLHG????????????????????????????????????????? OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MY GOD OH MY GOD HELLOOOOO PRETTTY LITTLE BLUE PRINCE HWO I HATE. SO DEARLY. SO MUHC. right in my inbox... oh my gawd.. oHHH MY GAWD u draw him so nice it makes me MAD bc he does not DESERVE this. 5 billion nukes to his location!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[marciliedonato]

Dandadan girl summerrr 💅👽🏃🏼‍♀️💨🐈

[residentialsinyomakai]

Yokai to Human Form Tidbit

Ok so there's human designs/ forms for Caspian's yokai friends 1, for fun, and 2, cause there's some situations where it's convenient/just better to have some in human forms (EX: Whisper coming to Caspian's choir concerts and conferences bc his parents are. fairly absent). Everyone has their own opinions on it and stuff and in this post I'ma talk about Baddinyan's!!

So fun little fact he does Not Like being human. This is mostly for body dysphoria adjacent feelings, like all of a sudden he has different hair, no fur, different ear placement, etc. The 'phantom limb' thing tends to happen with his tails, too, which is trippy and kinda uncomfortable. He also hates that a lot of his senses are dulled. smell, hearing, sight (especially in the dark), it makes everything feel kinda hazy and causes him to be a lot more stressed about everything.

Idk maybe I just think it's kinda funny to see a character thrown into a whole new form and reasonably be like. what. the hell this sucks. His easygoing (nice way of me saying his lazy ahh) and usually pretty chill/surprisingly level-headed mood is def worsened when he's constantly feeling skin that doesn't technically belong to him. A form he shouldn't really have.

As a result, he's oftentimes irritable and anxious in this form, with some days being better than others. He typically avoids having to use it unless he needs to though, and refuses to take his glasses off for anything. Has to be bribed with a Chocobar to enma forbid go out in public. He's also less used to it than most due to his extreme aversion to it. He just hates it and everything is physically gross and cloudy and nothing's in the right place and he can't explain why.

Badude, on the other hand, doesn't mind being human! It feels more similar to his body than it does for Baddinyan, and is kind of a fun change of pace every now and then. He's Baddinyan's like. closest friend besides Caspian in this AU, so he's typically who's convincing him to not kill everyone in the room and/or take off the stupid leaf in public lol. Their convos can sometimes go like

"C'mon, it's just until we get outta the store. Don't get your non-existent tails in a twist-"

"Shut up and do nyot remind me right nyeow."

"(Oh it's like. that kind of day whoopsies) Mbmb, we can ditch these nerds and go look at the candy isle or somethin' for a bit..?"

He stinks at comforting people or anything like that but tries. Sometimes. idiots

I'm working on references, but all I have to say about their designs for now is vitiligo Black-Mexican Baddinyan and Mexican-Japanese Badude CANON!!! See you for now! :) Have a radtastical day out there, don't implode or get rocks thrown into your inbox!! (again for some of you...)