#that episode was cool though

[raddestrose]

OHH IS IT THAT ONE GALRA BATTLE ROYALE THING??

I thought that was later

we starting out spooky though

with that music

Did everyone forget that Lotor LITERALLY has a hypnotizer in his team? Does NOBODY remember that.

OH MY GOD MATT NO

youll make a fool of yourself and make an enemy out of Lance

Bro kicked in the HD feature

They DO NOT understand how cows work, and that’s alright

They probably didn’t have those on Altea, so yeah

Oh god Lance is going ti traumatize them by milking Kaltaneker

HOOOO NOOOO one of Lotor’s girls are against him, this isn’t good

YOOOOO

He just killed one of his friends

yeah, they’re friends

YEESH

Zarkon is NOT getting a father’s day card this year

[goosesartblog]

“close your eyes, evbo” or whatever she said

[umblrspectrum]

hi heres art so you pay attention to me now go read the tags

[egophiliac]

I have never been more concerned for a JP update from your art than I am seeing a Cheka knowing the context of Leona’s dream.

My bois ok right?????? My sweet nephews ok right??????

well

uhhhh

I'm sure the real one is fine :)

[mellohiizz]

dropping off some of my unstable universe art because im going insane and we got 3 episodes in like one week?? below is just some sketches i dont feel like finishing but you guys can have them too i guess

[greenofrain]

*praying before bed* dear will campos please let Trudy Alpha kill Tucker by the end of the season let her go apeshit and do some horrific robot shit to him let the amalgam of his wives be his undoing amen

[coolsvilleprincess]

Be goth, solve crime.

Birthing this Scooby Doo specific blog with fanart for Be Cool because I needed to draw their goth fits, they were simply too much of a vibe to not tbh

[skrunksthatwunk]

thinking about how eiji's a pole vaulter and how ash talks about eiji "flying" and how eiji's associated with bird imagery and how eiji's free (unlike ash) and how eiji comes in on a plane and leaves on a plane and how ash cannot fly, ash cannot be free, how nyc is ash's prison, and how ash is the leopard who dies climbing the mountain, unable to live at such elevation, how he was trying to reach the sky and be free but was always stuck to the earth, how he chose to die instead of climbing back down, how he chose to die where he could see the sky and hope and freedom almost like a bird with eiji's letter right in front of him rather than letting everything go wrong and ruin it once again, how eiji's a failed pole vaulter anyway, how a bad fall ruined his career and grounded him (physically and emotionally), how it took flying to america and meeting ash and needing to save him and skip for him to try flying again, how he landed hard and harsh and still the thought of that escape compelled ash to protect eiji at all costs because if he could fly that means something to him, even if he doesn't think he can fly, how eiji is the manifestation of his hope and how when he breaks and asks eiji to stay with him a while he folds himself over his legs and weighs him down and traps him and grounds him, how ash fights like hell to keep eiji alive not because he thinks he can be like him (hopeful, flying, innocent), but because he makes him forget the gravity of his situation, and so he can see eiji fly again. how he wants to see him escape. how eiji is a bird and ash is a wildcat and how ash never once saw eiji as prey. how eiji never saw ash as a predator. how it is eiji's naivete that first endears ash to him, how it is his freedom and flight and removal from darkness and his ability to leave that darkness that really roots eiji in ash's blood as something essential to him keeping on living in this hell of nyc. how it is that distance from the violence and that hope for the future that ash chooses to surround himself in as he dies. how ash dies in a dream because he feels more than anything that he can't fly like eiji, that he can never leave. how his violence is a part of him and will be forever, how it weighs him down. how he wants to enjoy the view from the mountainside rather than looking up from the ground below. as if they can both fly. as if he is with him up there and not grounded. eye-to-eye with what he can't have, seeing eiji's homeland: the sky. how he dies trying to reach the top because he couldn't take retreating and trying again. how ash, tired and tired and tired and convinced it will go on forever if he crawls back down the mountain, chooses to close his life deluged in eiji, in eiji's insistence that they can fly together, in eiji's hope for him and for them, in eiji's beautiful dream. how ash dies without trying to realize that dream. how ash, in dying, destroys it.

[kitamars]

enmi gintoki…………… orz

[yo-yo-yoshiko]

Anytime characters swap bodies I always think about which of our silly little guys gets a break from their usual trash bod/brain.

[teehee-vibes]

Finally started listening to Riptide, new hyperfixation just dropped

[smile-files]

nickel and balloon stuff from spring on the breakfast!!! i'm keeping in mind that in the previous episode, both of them were under the impression that their friendship wasn't real...

in a way, ii3 balloon is a lot like late ii3 cabby. of course, balloon did something indisputably immoral (manipulate and exploit others), and cabby only did something thought to be immoral (keep and use files about her fellow contestants) -- but both did something wrong and had to subsequently undergo a disproportionate amount of abuse and malignment for it, ending up with them being apologetic and submissive to avoid any chance of being framed as bad again. the biggest difference is that cabby has internalized the guilt others have attributed to her, while balloon largely hasn't -- he understands the concept of rolling with the punches for the sake of keeping good connections, but he doesn't believe he deserves it.

nickel brushes off ii2 a LOT this episode. to rid himself of his guilt regarding that time, he necessarily has to delegitimize the hatred he felt towards balloon then, thus also ridding balloon of his guilt. he expresses this all vaguely, choosing to remember ii2 fondly and saying off-hand that its baggage should be laughed off -- implying that balloon has been forgiven. reasonably, balloon is happy that nickel seems to actually believe he's changed for the better, so initially this makes him happy.

of course, though, it becomes clear that nickel just wants to shove his own actions under the rug, and balloon reasonably gets pissed off. nickel treated balloon and suitcase like complete garbage in ii2, and balloon clearly hasn't forgotten that.

"it keeps things easy." it keeps things easy to roll with the punches, to endure nickel's abuse and accept his sudden friendship. note, also, that nickel is still placing the blame on balloon: he's saying that balloon didn't want to "make things better", as if nickel and balloon ever having a rift was entirely balloon's fault, and his problem to fix.

and as we can see, nickel still hasn't fully forgiven balloon for ii1. as i've discussed before, nickel seems to secretly feel incredible guilt about how he treated balloon in ii2 (which is why he goes to such lengths to repress the whole memory of it) -- but that guilt is about the way in which he expressed his disdain and distrust of balloon, not those opinions themselves, nor the motivations for them. this is all very interesting, then -- if he still believes balloon can't change from his old, bad self, why did nickel start being friends with him at all?

i think a large part of it is his projection onto balloon. nickel sees himself in balloon: someone who screwed up big-time and isn't able to become a better person after that (according to nickel). we tend to gravitate to people similar to us, after all. i wouldn't be surprised if nickel was also trying to overcompensate for his hostility towards balloon in ii2 by being very friendly with him in ii3, thereby helping him forget that he was ever hostile to him at all.

the most fascinating thing to me about balloon and nickel's relationship is how impersonal it is for balloon. he seems to value what nickel's affection represents rather than nickel himself -- and it represents that he's been forgiven. anyone who saw balloon and nickel's conflict in ii2, which was a product of balloon's nastiness in ii1 and nickel's subsequent inability to forgive that nastiness, would likely come to accept balloon and forgive him themselves if they then saw nickel being friendly with him -- because nickel is the epitome of the ii contestants' anger at him, and nickel of all people (seemingly) forgiving him would imply that he's really changed. the relationship is almost entirely a symbol in that regard. i don't think balloon has much residual guilt about is actions in ii1 -- he feels like he's adequately addressed them and changed -- but nickel having a positive relationship would be helpful in affirming that stance and proving to himself that he really has changed.

i wouldn't say it's cruel of balloon to keep this relationship going on under that pretense, but it is backhanded, and it helps explain why he was ever willing to accept nickel's friendliness unchallenged. he wanted his crimes to finally be laid to rest once and for all, and keeping nickel on good terms with him would let that happen. people would finally shut up about it. up until now, nickel wasn't explicitly denying his past cruelty towards balloon anyway, so balloon would be able to ignore that he neglected to ever bring it up; now, though, nickel is denying not only what he did to balloon but also to suitcase, which balloon is not able to tolerate. now that he's confronted nickel about that though, nickel snaps back with his condemnation of what balloon did in ii1, thereby uprooting the social stasis balloon had been able to maintain precisely because nickel refused to bring anything up before. in a way, then, balloon is purposefully shoving the past under the rug, just like nickel is.

we can't forget, though, that nickel has his own complex about fearing that he's incapable of change and incapable of forming positive, genuine relationships with people. balloon is essentially revealing that, in a way, he wasn't really friends with nickel -- at least not in the way nickel wished and fooled himself into thinking they were. if balloon truly were friends with nickel like that, then that would mean that balloon had forgiven him for his cruelty in ii2, and perhaps that he really has changed... but no. balloon hasn't forgiven him. why should he? nickel never apologized -- and given how he never apologized, it's impossible that he could've changed anyway: nickel doesn't want to apologize because that means addressing his guilt and allowing himself to feel it. he wants the forgiveness to be handed to him on a silver platter, without him having to do all of the painful work, and he's incredibly upset when it isn't. he wants to not be a bad person, but in order to do that, he has to feel like one, and he really doesn't want to. he hates who he was and doesn't want to associate with it at all.

(note how it's the suitcase robot who says "you can say sorry" when nickel says that nothing can be done about making things better...)

there's clearly an immeasurable amount of resentment these two have been harboring for each other throughout this season, which they'd only been hiding for the sake of fooling themselves into thinking they've changed (nickel) or thinking that others think they've changed (balloon). and now that they've let themselves explode with anger, partly related to the lies they'd been telling themselves falling apart, they yell at each other and balloon drops nickel down a hole!

ah, balloon and nickel's relationship... it's bizarre, it's toxic, it's convoluted, it's shady, and it's incredibly sad. i'm glad i'm revisiting ii3, especially this episode -- i used to be utterly baffled by nickel's writing, particularly in spring on the breakfast, but now it makes complete sense to me. also, i used to think balloon was entirely the victim in this relationship, while now i know that he has his own faults and own baggage in that regard. it's weird -- they hate each other, but at the same time they're dying to be liked by one another. god i love these freaks...

[koszmarnybudyn]

They were right this would make a pretty sick cover.

[egophiliac]

GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY, THE NEXT BOOK 7 UPDATE FOR THE JP SERVER IS SET FOR MARCH 1ST.

HOW WE FEELIN LADS!?!?!

AHHHHHHHH NOOO I'M NOT READY, I thought we'd be getting the fourth anniversary first and then Sebek's birthday and then maybe some more episode 7, I didn't -- I didn't think it'd be Friday --

oh god and they're rerunning the story cards, they didn't say this was the final part but it feels like...maybe the penultimate chapter? could the end of episode 7 finally be looming in the distance?! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO

[rosenbergamot]

“The snails like you?” Gem’s bewildered voice knocks him out of his building trance. He turns to her, then looks down at the snail that’s standing at his feet. It’s beady little eyes stare up at him. One could say they’re filled with love and admiration, but Grian is not that person. 

“I… guess?” He reaches down and pats it on its shell. His hand comes back thick with slime. His nostrils flare. “I dunno, they just keep coming back to me? I haven’t really given them anything.”

Gem puts her hands on her hips, stares down at the snail. She looks just about ready to punt it across the bay. It’s just a snail, though! “These stupid things have been eating my builds ever since I got here, and look at you! They love you! What are you doing that I’m not?”

“Fishing an exorbitant amount?” He tries. 

She throws her hands in the air. The snail begins to slowly turn to her. “No, I do that too! I’ve been doing that since I got here! I swear, you’ve just got a snail spirit or something, because I haven’t known anyone else whose builds they don’t eat.” 

The snail has reached her and begins to chew on her boots. He watches as its slime dissolves the leather at her toe. He looks down at his hand and notes that his skin isn’t dissolving. 

Huh. That’s weird. 

She shakes it off and huffs, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “Tell me what you did!” 

“Gem, I seriously have no idea. I-I’ve just been fishing!” The snail slides towards him and starts to crawl up his leg. There’s a slight tingle where it touches. He reaches down and pats it again. “I think maybe they just like what I’ve got going on here. Isn’t that right, snail?”

No response, just beady lifeless eyes. 

“Ugh.” Realistically, he agrees with everything she’s saying and has no qualms with her getting this angry. Because of this, he doesn’t know what to say. There really is no reason these silly things like him so much. It’s just as confusing for him as it is for her. 

The snail is now climbing up his back and staining his sweater with slime. “Next thing I know, you’re going to turn into a snail and start eating my stuff!”

He giggles. The snail sits on the top of his head like a hat. It’s ridiculously cold. “Come now, Gem, you know I wouldn’t go for your base. I’d go over there and eat Scar’s stuff.”

The tension drops from her shoulders. She rolls her eyes, smiling a bit now. “Yeah, that’s only natural. Well, don’t let me keep you from your snail shenanigans! But I swear I’ll get to the bottom of this!” She waggles her finger at him playfully. 

The snail falls off of his head as he nods. “I’ll hold you to that!”

He watches her hop across the water back to her lighthouse. His back is tingling from where the slime met his skin. It feels like he’s been dunked in mucous. Ugh. He needs to go have a shower. 

Later that night while he’s cleaning up, Grian stares into his bathroom mirror. Something has been feeling off. His back has started to itch. It feels like something is crawling underneath his skin. He wants to check his back to make sure nothing is wrong, but there’s a heavy feeling of dread that overtakes him whenever he thinks about it.

Indisputably, that must mean something is wrong. 

Still, he manages to steel his nerves and turn so he can see it in the foggy mirror. 

The first thing he notices is how red his skin has gotten. It looks like it’s raised a bit, as if a foreign object has been shoved underneath the surface and is trying to escape. He turns more fully, allowing himself to see all of his back.

The raised skin is in the shape of a spiral, bigger towards the outside. It spans the entirety of his back, sucks up his shoulder blades, dwarfs his waist. 

He flexes, noting the dull ache that comes with the movement. Curious. It looks a little bit like a snail shell. 

Huh. 

[not-equippedforthis]

really love characters who have varied panic responses. kirk stating himself that he does not panic outright, externally, not in high-stress dangerous situations, but instead becomes tense and level like a wound string, on-guard: mostly because his role as captain necessitates that he maintain level rationality even when facing potential death as his training as 'the guy who tells you what to do when shit hits the fan' requires, but also because his childhood experiences taught him early that drowning in the desperate haziness of panic won't help you survive. especially as kirk already follows his intuition so deeply. he learned to grasp and contort the feeling. spock is the main person who represses his emotions, of course, but kirk does it to those deep-set, personal ones (this includes how he doesn't reveal anything truly personal about himself willingly 90% of the time, only what others already know/shallow anecdotes) in a much more subtle way that's really interesting to me. certified expert at avoiding the subject as long as he isnt caught out on the lie. professional bluffer.

in terms of past or parents we dont know much!!! hes known as the heart-on-his-sleeve guy!!! like yes he yells, he gets irritated, excited, hes a whirlwind of quick-thinking and plans and intuition, he goes out of his way to connect with his crew and shows it, when he puts on a little act or bluff he puts his heart into it and clearly enjoys the dramatics so much, at times he wears his heart on his sleeve, he laughs openly and is honest to spock about what he means to him, he's very sun-coded to me in a burning, passionate way, always intertwined with the stars and seeking them out, but when it comes to genuine deep-set turmoil? we dont actually know all that much about him??? hes so full of emotion and character (i love fics where spock characterises jim's mind/bond as a whirl of colour and sensations, hes a quick thinker!!! intuitive!! lively!!!) and yet its still so outwardly surface level. tarsus iv gets mentioned like twice? so especially here where kirk gets briefly jumpscared by the creature, because like:

its subtle but his eyes. his eyesss!!!!! kirk commands with his emotions but there's always some sort of level of control to it, or he transforms them into something that spurs on others or uses them to ascertain a goal: seeing unguarded fear/distress in his eyes even if its faint and brief (in this instance) makes me go insane every single time. like!!! its such a small moment!!! he isnt even panicking!!! really, he just got jumpscared!!! its insignificant!!!!!!! but seeing a two-second flash of actual, naked apprehension is just...oughhh,,,,,,,,,

oh god, and dont even get me started on the galileo seven episode where he assumes a tense level-headedness throughout the whole thing, irritated and apprehensive but not panicking, making sure he maintains intelligent rationality, even when he has to leave them behind, but when spock and the crew are confirmed safe and the bridge is occupied the camera pans to him and his eyes look like they're fucking watering and he's so achingly relieved. don't even talk to me. im. fuck.

he shows so so much but at the same time reveals so little.