#that he just really inhabits the character in a way that sticks out to me

[story-and-song]

finally going back to watching the 2nd season of unsleeping city and man. idk what it is about the way lou plays kingston brown but he’s such a comfort. one good conversation with kingston brown would solve everything that’s ever been wrong with me i think

[thankskenpenders]

IDW's Knuckles 30th Anniversary special

I'm still working on finishing Shadow Generations and writing up a big thing about it (yes, yes, it's taken me a month to finish a four hour game, I know), but in the meantime we've got another new Classic era comic out from IDW! Let's talk about that.

The last Classic era release we got was the Fang miniseries earlier this year, which I mostly enjoyed but also found a bit underwhelming. It felt like we were getting diminishing returns with the Classic comics. Ian seemed to be struggling to make the Classic era feel fresh within Sega's current restrictions for that branch of the brand, a branch that by its very nature discourages experimentation and new ideas in a way that the ever-evolving Modern era doesn't. He was mostly just playing the hits, sticking the currently permitted Classic era characters next to each other in straightforward one-off adventures and letting the art team do their thing. We were getting the Ian who was happy to simply be able to take these toys out of the toy box. Again, these comics have been fine, and the art's always a treat, but the novelty of simply seeing a comic with the old character designs was wearing off for me when the stories didn't have as much meat as Ian's (or Evan's) excellent Modern era work.

And then along comes this Knuckles 30th Anniversary special, which is by far my favorite Classic Sonic comic Ian's written for IDW.

...I can't really talk about why it's so good without getting into spoilers, though. The short version is that it's a really nice little story about Knuckles and another character from the games, who's used as a great foil for him... except the solicit didn't even say which character it is, so I'm hesitant to say here. But if you're a fan of Knuckles, you should definitely just go read this. It's great. This one's mandatory reading to me.

And with that out of the way, let's dig deeper and get into the spoilers.

The spoiler zone

After an opening that very blatantly homages Tyson Hesse's old Knuckles comic (yes, the very same one that helped inspire the name of this blog), Knuckles realizes that Angel Island has drifted near the Northstar Islands from Sonic Superstars, and decides that the Master Emerald must be giving him a mission to train the archipelago's own resident guardian.

Yes, this isn't just a Knuckles comic. It's a Knuckles and Trip comic!

I was really delighted by this. I like Trip a lot, and it's nice to get this chance to expand upon her as a character. I think this is her first speaking role, even? I'm glad to see her stick around, and I'm glad to see her appear in the comics so soon, especially since we're still waiting for the mainline comics to incorporate Sage. She's still clumsy and fairly timid, like in the game, but without the looming thread of Eggman she gets to let loose a little. She's very exuberant and expressive and playful, especially thanks to Aaron Hammerstrom's fantastic art throughout the issue (complemented with inks by Rik Mack and colors by Valentina Pinto). It makes sense why she gets along so well with Amy. I hope we get to see those two interact more in the future!

Anyway, so Knuckles shows up on the Northstar Islands after contemplating his lot in life, and realizes that he and Trip have a lot in common. She's not as strong or confident as him, but they're both the last of their kind, these lone guardians of these ancient magical gemstones. He's showing up under the pretense of training her, but you can tell it's nice for him to have a kindred spirit, someone who might be able to really get him.

And then Trip's like... wait, you think I'm the last of my kind?

Yes, the Northstar Islands have actually been inhabited by a whole civilization of sungazers like Trip the whole time! We just didn't see them in the game because, y'know. Eggman was attacking. So Trip told everyone to find shelter and hide from the Badniks. (This actually makes a lot of sense, since you pass by this very village in Speed Jungle Zone. Somebody's gotta maintain those straw roofs and light those torches, and I can't imagine Trip managing all that upkeep herself.)

This also includes a grandfather for Trip, who's been training her as the archipelago's new guardian. Naturally, this has led to some speculation from fans about the old "mandates." In the wake of the Penders lawsuits and Archie's reboot, Sega declared that the comics could no longer create comic-original relatives for the game characters. Has that changed now?

Well, I'm hesitant to read too much into this. For one, as Ian has tried to drill into peoples' heads for years now, the so-called "mandates" aren't a set of concrete commandments from Sega, they just have some general guidelines for the brand, some of which have more wiggle room than others and some of which have changed over time. There's also the simple fact that Sega is working way more closely with the team at IDW, and that people like Ian and Evan are literally on the official Sonic lore team now. Ian can presumably work with the lore team and Sega to figure out Trip's family, and then go and work what they've decided on into a comic, so it's entirely possible Trip's grandpa isn't considered a comic-original character so much as he's a character conceptualized at Sega who just happens to have appeared in an IDW comic before anything else. The lines are a lot blurrier now with all this cross-pollination, compared to the Archie days when it was a separate creative team and a separate canon.

But, again, I don't want to speculate too heavily about what goes on behind the scenes. Regardless, Ian was able to use this comic to expand upon the world of the games and the characters that inhabit it, and I love it for that. It's the first of these Classic comics that feels like truly mandatory reading for the way it builds upon the games. These days we so rarely get to see communities like this in the Sonic world with their own cultures. It's not like we know anything about "hedgehog culture" or whatever. So this is a nice change of pace. The Northstar Islands feel totally different now that I know they've actually been inhabited the whole time, and knowing that Trip is part of an active community with their own history and customs puts a whole new spin on her as a character.

It also makes her a great foil for Knuckles here. He showed up on the island thinking he'd have a lot to teach Trip as someone who's got more life experience as a lone guardian, only to realize his assumptions about her life were completely wrong. Trip brags to her grandpa that Knuckles is gonna train her, but he quickly realizes he doesn't have much to teach her. She may be kind of cowardly, but she knows her way around the island, she can think on her feet, and she can handle herself well enough in a fight, in her own slapstick way.

He doesn't say as much, but you can tell Knuckles is embarrassed about all this. This clumsy kid is showing him up, even though she won't even really listen to his advice! He's also, perhaps, a bit jealous. It's not like he had a grandfather to train him in the ways of being a guardian. (Not in this continuity, anyway.) He doesn't get a whole village of echidnas to teach him about his heritage. He doesn't get fancy ceremonial armor. It's just him, a big green rock, and his two fists. He thought he had this whole guardian thing figured out, and he'd be able to give a kindred spirit like Trip some advice, but it turns out she's lived a whole different life, making him question if he even knows what he's doing. He quickly gets fed up with both Trip and himself, blowing up at her a little.

After reflecting a bit, Knuckles goes back to Trip and comes clean. He doesn't really know how to train her, because no one ever trained him. He figured things out on his own. If he had anyone there to raise him, they've been gone since he was too young to remember. He just knows he has to protect the Master Emerald. That's it. It's a pretty vulnerable moment for Knuckles, one where his dissatisfaction with his life comes to the surface.

Still, Trip sees things differently. He may be used to the fact that he lives on a giant floating island powered by a giant magic emerald, but she thinks that's, like, the coolest thing in the world. HER islands don't fly! And while Knuckles might wish he had someone to train him, Trip thinks that Knuckles becoming such a fearsome fighter all on his own, without even armor to protect him, makes him super awesome and admirable. With both of them feeling better, Trip takes Knuckles to Golden Capital to talk about her heritage as a guardian of the Northstar Islands a bit more, and Knuckles tells her that he thinks she'll be a great guardian before he heads home, once again feeling pretty good about himself.

While this is a pretty straightforward little story about how the grass is always greener on the other side, it's a very effective and sweet one that I enjoyed reading a ton. Aside from the fun of learning more about Trip and the Northstar Islands, it's just a great showcase for Knuckles. (It's definitely a way better showcase for him than his Paramount+ show, as much as I took sick pleasure in that show's baffling creative decisions.) There are also some fun details about his life in here, such as the fact that Sonic, Tails, and Amy have taken camping trips to hang out with him on Angel Island, and the fact that he trained Amy in using her hammer better.

It's just real good, and it feels like the most meaningful addition to The Canon out of any of these Classic era comics Ian's written. We're still gonna be getting more in the future, so hopefully this is a sign that Ian and the lore team have found that happy middle ground where they can keep the Classic comics familiar and nostalgic while also being able to branch out and expand upon things.

Speaking of future comics!

Coming attractions

The end of this issue confirms some things that are in the works for IDW Sonic. For one, we're getting a Chaotix 30th Anniversary special next year. Neat! They also mention some kind of Shadow one-shot dropping following the movie, however fans seem split on whether this is referring to a new story or just the "Best of Shadow" compilation one-shot that's coming out next month. So don't get your hopes up about that in case it's the latter, I guess.

And while we're still waiting for issue #75 of the main series, the IDW team is already thinking all the way ahead to #100, which should drop sometime during the 35th anniversary of the franchise in 2026. Clearly the team's still confident about the longevity of IDW Sonic and excited for the future. And I am, too! Bring on #75!

[angeliteeyes]

I seriously need to play Honkai impact 3rd. Cause Welt is from that universe, and I'd love for a reader to also be from their and meet the astral express during the Xiaofu arc or penacony. If you wanna do this as a prompy, the reader is a close friend of Welts, basically a platonic life partner and gremlinfriend, and well reader went missing in the Honkai impact world and they suddenly get reunited with Welt. It's BFF reunion time!!! Also, I'd love if the reader was basically like an adult March/Stelle mix personality wise. It's why Welt is so used to handling the type of stuff they both say and do

Oooo I tried really hard to get into HI3 like a year ago but the combat/character-building system just didn't click for me. I would love to see more of papa welt tho 🥺🥺🥺 here you go

Platonic Welt + Long Lost Friend Reader Headcanons

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

- It was during his time as an animator that you and he first crossed paths. While he took care of the manual labor part of creation, you were much more involved in the imaginative side of things. And boy did you have a strong imagination. Always the one spouting out the wildest of concepts and running around like a puppy full of energy, sticking their nose in everyone's business.

- In a way, you're a large part of why his inner child remains so alive to this day. As much trouble as you brought to the workspace, you doubled it in joy and excitement. The kids loved your work too, your ability to understand their senses of humor—easy, since yours is so similar—kicking in and helping the company earn that sweet, sweet dough.

- When you went missing, a piece of him left with you. Yet at the same time, he knew that if he let himself sink into despair, that'd be a disgrace to everything your life represented. And so, he made it his life mission to never give in to such nihilistic ideologies, as well as honor your passion for animation every chance he got while roaming the galaxy.

- Little did he know that eventually, you two would cross paths once again in that very same galaxy. You had managed to take refuge within the walls of the Xianzhou Luofu, blending in quite well with the other long-life species inhabiting it. So well, in fact, that he nearly completely missed you. If it weren't for your job handing out flyers on the streets, it's possible you two may have never even reunited.

- He may have missed you at first, but the moment you called out and he turned towards your direction, he knew. From the unique tone of your voice to the way your eyes widen—first in awestruck recognition, then in joy at the sight of him—everything just screams you. Not an alternative reality version of you, actually you. The one who made goofy jokes all the time, yet got serious when deadlines rolled close and he needed an assistant. The one who pulled all-nighters with him, even if the rest of the team had gone home hours ago. The one he'd long since accepted only seeing in the shadows of in his newer companions; and yet here you are, in the flesh and right in front of him.

- Stoic as he often is, even he sheds some tears at the situation. Having you back unlocks parts of himself that he'd had to bury, simply due to the nature of having nobody to share them with. Prepare for him to use his mimicking powers to recreate the first show your studio released, excitedly going frame by frame with you. His nerdy nature really creeps out of the shadows here.

- Seeing you two together, the rest of the Astral Express start catching glimpses of what his younger self must've been like. It's strange, really. With your energy and penchant for innocent mischief, Welt should by all means get worn out and tired of it all. And yet, a soft, warm glow exudes from him as he looks fondly at you talking, always giving you the time to ramble your heart out. Have they ever seen him smile this much before?

- Don't let his typical calm demeanor fool you. Especially after your disappearing act, his protective instincts toward you go into high gear, and no amount of reassurance will bring them down. He'd always worried about your safety even back in the day, offering to help you out at every chance he got. But now? If anyone's even just a tad too rowdy for his liking while he's walking with you somewhere, he'll instinctively place himself in between you two like a shield. Even if you try to convince him that you're alright and to tone it down, he's just... too scared of you leaving him again. So please stay safe, for his sake as well as yours.

[cursedtrans]

April Fool's Event

For being a silly little event that's extremely funny, the circumstances of this really do have some interesting new insights into characters and helps reinstate a lot of things. Spoilers under cut, plus a bit of liveblogging.

Rodion's insistence on staying in Meursalt's body is definitely her wanting to be special and high up on the ladder. Really reinstates her desire for standing out.

Hong Lu's casualness really does point to two-in one from @lu-is-not-ok being canon. He's absolutely the sinner most comfortable with this. Even the line "Am I speaking in a weird way?" points to me as whoever's inhabiting Hong Lu's body not knowing the way they speak is indicative of them and them alone!

Considering that Ahab is a person who is always featured holding a pipe, it makes sense that Ishmael has a very strong reaction to Gregor having a cigarette in her body's mouth, since I think her primary goal is to avoid becoming her own worst enemy.

Gregor really does have a level of respect for certain sinners, as seen by the contrast between him not smoking like Ryoshu does in someone else's body, but actively mocking Outis while she's out of her element.

Obviously Ryoshu being extremely protective of the unsheathing of her blade is indicative that it has some relation to her past, and her overall buried emotions. Nice to see it explicitly provoked by Hong Lu though.

Faust's Gessellschaft being connected to her body is definitely interesting, and these two lines in particular HEAVILY point to her future character arc in my eyes, and how I think Child In A Flask is HER abnormality.

Yi Sang really does not want to stir the bus or people within it. Outis' outbursts really goes against the companionship he seeks to foster within the group.

Outis' training of Yi Sang using her voice is definitely interesting. It points to her holding him in high regard, such as her dismissing sending the weakest sinner in checkup (him) to die, even if just for him being in control of her body.

Something about Meursalt's way of referring to Kkomi's stitch marks as indicative of 'serious combat experience' is extremely sweet and feels like he's cared FOR children before. It's the sort of play along that one often does to help with fantasies.

As much as one can write it off as just a dream, and I don't even think it REALLY happened, the mention of stars and Charon's comments and the actual physical gift from Charon/Kkomi point me towards it having a lot more significant symbolic and narrative meaning (and pointing towards the stars having a lot of power in PMoon hint hint nudge nudge).

Overall this was really fun! Points to a lot of future developments, and makes me very curious for how a certain few sinners' pasts and futures will play out (especially Meursalt. That play-along line is going to stick with me like glue.). I really recommend looking into it personally and seeing what details stick out to you about each Sinner, because it really does feel like this is an important event to keep in mind.

[tawked]

It bums me out that no Batman / TMNT crossover will ever give me what I want, because the versions of these characters I actually want to see interact don't really exist in the cultural consciousness now. I want this hyperspecific thing and to see it I'd have to write a fanfiction nobody wants to read lol.

I want end of the Eastman and Laird original 1984 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics Master Splinter specifically to interact with "my Robins are my soldiers in my war on crime" loser Frank Miller and peak Jeph Loeb Batman specifically.

Master Splinter was originally commentary on the kind of fatherhood presented in Frank Miller's comics. Most specifically Daredevil's Stick yes, but Frank Miller repeats those notes more directly with Batman (and famously, fucks up his own meme with All Star lol). That is, this kind of emotionally distant, unexpressive, toxic father you are desperate to impress, but who struggles to show real emotions and mostly communicates with you through expectations, discipline and clumsy emotional moments. A very 1980s kind of dad. Y'know,

So!

1984 Splinter very explicitly raises the turtles for his war of revenge against the Shredder / The Foot, just as Stick raises Matt as a replacement not-quite-father for a war against The Hand, and as Batman raises an assortment of Robins and Batgirls for his war against the concept of crime.

Except Splinter and the boys are allowed to sit in that concept and develop for a decade.

Batman and Daredevil are sort of retconned or refocused away from this concept again and again. So many different Batman exist that the Frank Miller Batman is lost in the hustle. See, Batman needs to be marketable as a hero and as part of a very different kind of comic book product, maintaining his marketability means never quite allowing him to become impossible to root for. In wrestling terms, Batman is a face that plays in heel tropes, but you're never allowed to take him to the point where he's really all the way a heel. Batman specifically has always, or at least since 1954, been read subtextually as in conversation with the concept of child abuse, and playing too hard into "Robins and soldiers" would of course invite that reading, so it's something writers and editors (most notably Denny O'Neil as editor) tiptoe up to, then run away from, like

The same is debatably true of Splinter, but turtles is a by-and-for comic fans, post-Marvel situation. That is to say, the people handling the franchise know a reboot MUST be a clean break or you'll end up in a Post-Crisis or Flashpoint or whatever situation, or the nightmare of inconsistency that Marvel can spiral into.

Hence:

You can never mistake the Splinters. Splinter in fact becomes an immediate visual indicator that this turtles run is totally divorced, set in a different reality from, other turtles incarnations.

1984 Splinter as a distinct character was allowed to inhabit this concept of a bad revenge war on injustice dad for a decade or so, and his Robins, the turtles, matured to have their own complex understandings of their childhood, ie. Donatello simply maturing away from Splinter's concept of his future while still loving his dad, Leonardo's Cyclops like faith, Raphael's "they hurt us so we must hurt them" cycle of revenge approach, blah blah blah. At one point, Splinter "loses" his sons, has a major crises of faith, and is compelled by a spooky rat god to eat another rat, thus violating his Buddhist principles, symbolizing that he must compromise in order to survive both as an individual and within family with the turtles.

Batman never has that kind of moment. He's just slowly edited away from it. We don't revisit Batman punching Dick in the way we revisit Splinter raising his babies for war.

I don't want to see 2003, 2012 or ROTTMNT Splinter interact with Batman because I don't care. They have nothing interesting to say to each other. 2003 and 2012 would just be like, "consider being a better father because you suck at it," and ROTTMNT Splinter would be like "lol I pretend I don't know my sons' names as like a weird affection thing, bro you should do that with the Robins it'd really piss them off."

I want to see specifically late arc 1984 Splinter, at the point where the turtles have begun maturing into their own people and forming complex opinions about Splinter's raising them to be weapons, interact specifically with Frank Miller edgy "Robins as soldiers" Batman, and for 1984 Splinter to be like listen bro I've been where you are and trust me the kids are not alright, you need to chill out.

Anyway I really think Batman fans should read some turtles personally lol. As a franchise, turtles comics are such rad commentaries on comics tropes like this, while being actual stories in their own right.

[pyjamaart]

Zeti Family Portrait (keep reading for my awesome zeti lore dump)

I promised a Zeti lore dump and today I'm finally here to deliver. As I've said on an earlier post, Sega forgot to give these six any lore or motivation, so I took matters into my own hands.

Last thursday (which is now actually 3 thursdays ago, because I forgot to post this, lol), as I was getting my highly anticipated Zavok tattoo, my tattoo artist asked what made Zavok turn to a life of crime and evildoing and if he had a tragic backstory that made him act this way. And all I could answer was "No, he's just evil. Lol." (She also asked me to find a cool video clip of Zavok that she can put in the video she took of the tattoo process, but finding something cool is really hard when your only source is freaking Sonic Lost World….)

In my head, he does have a tragic backstory, but in that moment, I had to stick to the canon facts. And while I love characters that are just assholes for the fun of it, I think the Zetis really deserve some cool backstory as well. So here I go.

First things first, the Lost Hex in general. Are these six the only Zetis living there? Do any other Zetis exist at all? Where did Dr. Eggman get his information about this "Lost World"? (See what I did there?)

This is where the headcanons start. I think there used to be humans living on the Lost Hex. Not many, but a few who discovered the floating planet and decided to stay there, thinking it was an uninhabited landmass. It was not. They soon learned about the Zeti, who were, admittedly, not the nicest of neighbors to have around. And so the fighting started.

As the fights continued to become more brutal, the humans, who were at a great disadvantage against the Zetis enormous strength, were about to give up, until one of them, by sheer coincidence, decided to chisel a musical instrument out of a Zeti horn they had found lying on the ground. Which they soon discovered had the power to turn the mighty warriors completely defenseless through the power of bad music.

The Zetis were caught completely off guard by this, since they had already thought themselves the victors. Soon, most of them were caught and their horns crafted into more of these obscene instruments, which the humans started calling "conches" due to their peculiar shape.

This is where the Deadly Six finally come in. Not the ones we know, but the original Deadly Six, led by Master Zik. Made up of the strongest warriors their race had to offer, they managed to chase off the humans using clever tactics that wouldn't get them anywhere near their musical instruments. Not without casualties though, as Master Zik was the only survivor of their group.

After their close victory over the humans, the remaining Zeti decided to split up (some even leaving the Lost Hex), while Master Zik decided to stay right where he was and rebuild the Deadly Six, to make sure there would be future warriors who were ready to fight once again, should the need arise. He took in some of the orphans who had lost their guardians during the fight with the humans. Five of them.

So while Master Zik trains up his army of children to be the next defenders of the Lost Hex, the human survivors train up their very own "Zeti Hunters" to someday take their revenge…

My headcanon is that Dr. Eggman got the conch he has in the game from one of these guys. Maybe he accidentally stumbled across one of their forums and got veeeeery interested when someone mentioned a whole planet that was inhabited by crazy strong monsters who are easy enough to control by playing a little bit of music.

The number six seems to be quite important on the Lost Hex, thinking about it. Hexagons everywhere, the Deadly Six… What are the Zetis anyway? I've seen some manuals describe them as aliens, though I don't believe that. They're supposed to be based on Japanese Oni, which seems more plausible than the alien thing, as they share some similarities to the traditional Oni: Imposing horns, sharp claws, impressive strength and their inclination to violence.

They're not quite as vicious as the average Oni, though. (Well, maybe Zazz…)

Then there's their weird magnetic field manipulation shenanigans. Did they always have this power and only discovered they could control robots when Eggman came to the Lost Hex? I don't think there were any robots on the Lost Hex before Eggman got there. (But since this is the Sonic franchise we're talking about, maybe the humans 100 years ago already had robots with them, lol.) What a random power to give to characters who apparently lived on an undiscovered planet for hundreds of years with no machines to manipulate. Though I did read that Onis were sometimes depicted with lightning powers, so maybe that's why. Wait wait wait…… They do shoot lightning projectiles in the game, right?? Okay, it all makes sense now.

Making up an edgy backstory for the Zetis doesn't change the fact that they're assholes, by the way. This is something I should definitely mention. And while they're not completely beyond redemption (I'd say they're on the same level as Bowser, who also goes karting with his adversaries), they're probably really hard to get along with. They barely get along with each other, much less Sonic and his friends.

Okay, now for the fun part. Speaking of Sonic and his friends… It probably won't shock you if I told you I was a very big supporter of shipping Zeena and Rouge. They probably met at the Olympic Games and have been hanging out ever since then. Most people would make them hate each other, since they're both sassy, fierce women, but I hate pitting bad bitches against each other if I could make them kiss instead. I was about to draw fanart of these two, but I couldn't figure out how to draw Rouge, lol (And I kinda ran out of time. I also wanted to draw Zazz in his punk rock outfit…). Someday, I'll draw swagful yuri of them, I promise.

That reminds me, I also mentioned on one of my last posts that I wanted to write more about their relationships. My headcanon really burns down to "Let's all be in a polyamorous relationship and not tell Master Zik", just because I think it would be funny as fuck.

But I think that in general, they tend to get along pretty okay, aside from the occasional brawl when they do get pissed off at each other. I saw some people mention that one panel from the IDW comics where Zazz says something along the lines of "Zavok has done much worse" after getting beat up by Espio, which a lot of people interpreted as Zavok being abusive towards his fellow Zetis. But I honestly think it's just a Zeti thing to beat each other up from time to time, lol. Secretly, they all love each other.

I imagine Zavok would try to act cold and calculating most of the time so as to not let down Ziks very high expectations in him. (I imagine he has a whole complex about that, where he tries to never show anyone any weakness, not even his family, which, you know, is super healthy) But if someone from his pack was in trouble, he would raise hell for them.

Anyway, I think getting him pregnant would fix him. (I hope no one read this far) I'm serious. I get that this would make him even more similar to Bowser, but who give a shit, this is my post. I'm gonna start coming up with Zeti fanchildren.

Anyway, that's it. Thanks for coming to my Zeti talk.

[ravelqueen]

One thing that is actually super interesting - character wise is how stark the difference between Angel and Angelus is when compared to Spike and be-souled Spike.

Angelus and Angel might as well be two completely different people - the way they act, react and conceptualise the world around them is honestly completely opposite.

Meanwhile, besouled Spike is a lot more aware of his past actions and isn't interested in killing humans for sport etc, but in the way he interacts with the world around him, he's actually still very similar - he's snarky and sarcastic, romantic yet cynical etc.

It's extra funny when you consider that probably this was never supposed to be a Deep Philosophical Ponderance Of The Nature Of A Soul

In my opinion this came out of happenstance: a writing choice forced on the Buffy team, based on when in the narrative it happened.

Angelus was always set up to be this enormous threat, this absolute monster tormenting Buffy, while Angel was supposed to be this fairytale first romance of a wonderful older boyfriend - the dichotomy was probably decided upon before /in season 1.

Spike on the other hand was never planned to get a soul - he wasn't even supposed to stick around longer than the 2nd season! However, the ensoulment made sense with the progression of the story/character if the writers wanted to adhere to the rules of the universe they set up namely:

Vampires are Evil Demons, inhabiting the body of the human before them, and most importantly they are irredeemable and incapable of true human affection. This is extremely important lore in that universe, because Buffy kills a lot of vampires - in the later seasons they aren't even really a major threat and more background ash. If you suddenly introduce the idea that Actually vampires can be fully redeemed, your main characters has been just murdering Possibly Good People willy-nilly for several seasons

Unfortunately, at this point in the narrative, Spike might as well have been ensouled already - he was acting altruistically, out of love (self-reported) and was mostly just helping our heroes, with motivations unrelated to villainous impulses

So really the writers had to give him a motivation to go and get his soul (the writing choices on how he gets there Being Bad notwithstanding).

HOWEVER, they really really couldn't pull the same move with Spike that they did with Angel re: his 180 degree personality switch simply because the audience liked non-soul Spike. They enjoyed the personality and character that had been crafted for the last 5 seasons, so changing him too much would have with almost complete certainty been met with negative reactions .

Which is why I assume they decided to simply soften parts of his personality, make him stop wanting to kill humans and called it a day on his other less-than-cuddly personality traits.

Which leads us to question on why two people in the same circumstances turned out so wildly different ESPECIALLY since William seemed Basically Alright when he's human.

Does that mean that Angel is fundamentally a worse person, only held back by the morality of his soul? Or that he was fundamentally a much more virtuous man and therefore the loss of his goodness had a larger impact, as removing those parts took away more of what he used to be?

That William was a lot more acerbic and mean deep down and therefore not too different? Or that actually William lost way less of his morality/capacity for empathy when he turned because Something and that led him to doing less awful things that would lead to a personality change??

Those are such interesting questions that somehow the show never addresses (as far as I know? comics people?) aside from Angel Being Mad that Spike got over his angst so quickly and it's just hilarious to me that if I'm right this basically was never meant to be that deep and simply just a byproduct of What The Fuck To Do With Spike

[mothswritingeye]

So I have prophetic dreams. The way they go is I have a dream as a little kid and think nothing of it, and then have that same dream years later and realize “wait, that dream that I first had several years ago references a thing that only came out recently”. The dreams are mostly nonsense, but they do reference characters/locations/people that I only learned about recently.

Three examples of said dreams to prove that I’m not just making stuff up:

1: I end up in a copy of my old middle school that has a game like super smash bros ultimate, and I have to fight master hand (although the game is wrongly referred to as super smash bros brawl). I first had this dream before I went to middle school, before I met a teacher featured in the dream, before I knew the super smash bros franchise existed, before I knew of characters featured in that game (hero and master hand), before super smash bros was even revealed, and possibly before super smash bros brawl came out, although I’m not sure on that last part as I’ve never played that game before.

2: The five dragonets from the wings of fire series discovering a different continent and meeting a dragon named Rappa. I first had this dream before I knew about the wings of fire series, before they decided to introduce a second then-unknown continent, and before a character from an unrelated video game Honkai star rail was revealed named Rappa. Honkai star rail also didn’t exist back then, maybe not even Honkai impact third, and I didn’t know about Mihoyo or their other games.

3: I have to go to an alternate dimension to occupy members of the president’s security’s bodies to get him to a specific location. When I first had this dream, Obama was president, and I thought my brain had just made up a president. The president featured in my dream was Joe Biden, who I didn’t know existed when I first had this dream. We have to go through a high school in the quest to occupy the security’s bodies, and two students look significantly like Janis and Damien from the original mean girls movie, which I’ve never watched and didn’t know existed until recently. After a certain point, the president and a non-descript friend that’s helping me with this plot is depicted as a stick figure, specifically the one from animator v animation, which is a series I have never watched and have only seen one screenshot of very recently. When we first start occupying the security’s bodies, I’m holding a water for elephants plushie that was only produced for the recent musical, that only debuted earlier this year, that I saw less then two weeks ago and that I brought. (Proof I brought the plushie below). I also didn’t know about the book or movie until I saw the musical very recently. The members of the security team whose bodies me and the friend inhabit are also characters from dragon ball, an anime/manga that I didn’t know about until a few years ago, after I had the dream, and I’ve never watched or read dragon ball. (I think the characters are vegeta and goku, but I really wouldn’t know).

Proof I have the water for elephants plushie:

So you might be wondering, why exactly am I telling you this? Well, recently I had a dream about Angel and Husk from Hazbin hotel that I first had several years ago, and there was a specific shot that I believe may end up in a song in season two, as well as being confirmation (we could guess this, but still) that Husk is getting a love song with Angel.

(The text says:

they fall from reality

Husk is singing

He rows right

Note: Body swapping hijinks?)

(I would also like to advise you to take the body swapping stuff with an ENTIRE PITCHER of salt. I think that has a less then one percent chance of actually getting in the show)

I’m aware that only I have tangible proof that these dreams are prophetic, but I want to post this now so if the shot ends up in the actual episode I can say ‘I told you so’ and hopefully use this post as proof I have prophetic dreams.

[mothmanssweetsucculentass]

Jason The Toymaker Headcanons

The grind never stops fr fr. Sorry for disappearing I had summer classes and then a certain triangle demon from a kid’s show is took up most of my attention and creativity, and now I’m in regular classes and silly goofy video games have taken up my attention and creativity when I’m not slaving over my art projects for school. Teehee. Oops!

Jason has been another underrated character in this fandom imo, and I especially love love love LOVE characters who just get so obsessed with shit. I can’t remember if it was canon or fanon about him, but I love the fact he gets so possessive of his friends to the point where he kills the competition. And also the friend. Because the best friend to have is one you have complete control over, right?

Anyways.

Cis man? WRONG.

Like you’re gonna look at Jason and tell me that motherfucker has only ever used he/him pronouns? Bro is an eccentric Toymaker ffs

Jason uses any pronouns. Even the ones that don’t exist. Bro collects that shit like Pokemon cards

Hey remember LJ? Yeah Jason made him

I mean hello??? Sentient toy clown? That’s right up Jason’s alley

Jason has also made other clown characters, like Candy Pop

Jason is also one of the few inhabitants that straight up doesn’t need to eat food. Ever

Much like Nina, no one’s really sure what he is, they just know its immortal like everyone else and insanely hard to kill

Most people also avoid them or go out of their way to not get emotionally close to him for super obvious reasons

Like. They’ve all seen her workshop. Every week he comes back with a new human he’s lied to and whisked off their feet with some bullshit fantasy and within the next few days they’ve made a doll of the poor guy

Jason technically isn’t even allowed to do that, humans aren’t allowed to know of the existence of the manor or Slenderman or literally anything that goes on there, but does Jason care? Absolutely not

Slenderman tried getting on her ass about it once, and by some miracle Jason was able to talk themselves out of punishment

Besides making morbid people dolls, Jason of course also makes random other toys. Almost all of them are sentient or are able to think and comprehend speech

Jason uses Mr. Glutton (the snake) as not only a chair, but a garbage disposal as well. Need to get rid of body parts? Give to the snake. It’s like a black hole in there

So y’know how Anne and Eyeless Jack are the go-to doctors of the residency? Jason is the fix it guy for anything that’s not biological

Torn clothing? Jason can sew it up for ya

Gun/chainsaw/mechanical weapon is jammed? Jason has a fix for it

Broken trinket from your room? Jason somehow has already made an exact copy of it for this specific occasion

You could count on one hand the things Jason doesn’t know how to fix

And still despite being the repairperson no one usually sticks around long enough to chat

You’d think with how delusionally clingy this mf is that it would be a problem but surprisingly no

There’s a reason why xe specifically only targets humans

Like? Humans as a species are so easy to manipulate? And are leagues more fun to torture and scare than her fellow serial killer roommates

Similarly to how the others make bets on what weird item Helen can use as a murder weapon, they also make bets on how fast Jason’s next victim gets dollified

So far the record is a single day because somehow one girl had the balls to pull an 80s horror protagonist and stabbed Jason with their own fabric shears

She didn’t get far. Obviously. What’d you expect from an entire mansion crawling with murderous entities. LJ accidentally clotheslined the girl while reaching between doorways for something

Everyone on the third floor then got to bear witness to Jason dragging her back to his workshop by her ankles. Using the same fabric shears. The carpet is still stained from how much she bled. I’m pretty sure one of her fingernails is still lodged in the wall, too

While they don’t share a studio/workshop, Jason and Helen often use a lot of the same crafting materials. They have a mutual relationship where if one of them goes out, they return with something both of them ran out of recently

Beyond that they literally never speak to each other, and they both like it that way

Jason is way too eccentric for Helen to be able to stomach for longer than an hour, and Helen is too particular with so many different things that it gets on Jason’s nerves

One of the few people that does stick around Jason often is Ann

Obviously there’s the underlying factor that Ann literally owes her current life to Jason, but even outside of that stipulation, Ann finds them pleasant to hang around

Unlike Jason’s other doll experiments and creations, Ann is the only one that came with sentience already attached. Saved Jason the hassle of having to create an entire consciousness network from scratch

Like damn, vengeance is one hell of a powerful force, enough so that once Ann was put back together by Jason, she was up and functioning practically immediately

The two aren’t inseparable per se, and definitely don’t see each other as anything more than friends (Ann moreso than Jason), but you can often find them in the same room interacting

Jason, like many of the others, adore Sally to an unnerving degree. It seems as if everyone, no matter how much they dislike kids or ghosts or humans or whatever else Sally counts as, feels a supernaturally strong urge to protect the kid. Jason is one of the few seen with her constantly

Yeah go figure the Toymaker likes to appease the child

But seriously it’s a little freaky how Sally has this effect on so many people. Someone should look into that

While it’s one of the most recent additions to the household, Jason is one of the oldest entities within the group.

Like hello bro was around in the late 1800s, Jason has peepaw bragging rights

With that comes the stipulation that Jason hates modern technology. The newest thing they own is a sewing machine from the 70s

I think it’s pretty obvious that because of his peepaw status, + the fact Jason thrives off unhealthy obsessive friendships, a lot of the younger residents hate her, and vice versa

Is friends/close with: Sally, Ann, Nina, and LJ

Is neutral about: Jane, EJ, Kagekao, Helen, and Slenderman

Doesn’t get along with/hates: BEN/Ben, Jeff, Clockwork, Puppeteer, Liu, Masky, and Hoody

Ben is practically the antithesis of Jason. Modern tech manipulator vs old fashioned old timey manipulator

If those two somehow end up in the same room it’s ON SIGHT

Nina and Jason are constantly bitching and gossiping about anything and everything under the sun. Somehow someone who’s besties with Jason’s rival is also besties with Jason. Nina is just that talented, apparently

Ofc they also bond over fashion. Who do you think makes most of Nina’s batshit insane wardrobe pieces?

Puppeteer annoys the hell out of Jason. That, and he keeps trying to steal and manipulate all the dolls Jason makes. Rude.

Jason is the only one allowed to destroy xer own work. If it catches you fucking with any of the dolls, thrown away or otherwise, you can kiss your existence goodbye because Jason will make it her life’s mission to see to it you never have peace again

Tries not to be in their true/corrupted form too often considering how rotted his arms get in that state. The skin flakes off and everything, and it’s really inconvenient when you’re trying to work on fine craftsmanship and your own rotten black flesh keeps falling into your paint or some shit

Not exactly the easiest thing to control though. The more emotionally volatile Jason is, the more likely you’re gonna see him at his worst

[homestuck-fanauthor-coalition]

The Homestuck Fan Author Coalition's January 2025 Competition was a split competition with a side for explicit fics, and a side for non-explicit fics. The prompt "Bard" meant that all participants had to write a fanfiction based on a song or album. Participants had one month to write any fic they liked based on this prompt, and votes were done to determine the awards.

All Non-Explicit Fic Submissions and Awards

A Girl Named Yiffy by @meowloudly15

A story about a girl with all odds against her.

Winner of the Davepeta^2 Award for Most Creative Interpretation of Lyrics Winner of the Dave Award for Best Use of Diegetic Music

they don't believe in the ghosts or forms you take by lugome

Sollux and Karkat go ghost-hunting.

Winner of the Roxy Award for First Fic Winner of the Lil Cal Award for Best in Horror

find your yesterday in your tomorrow by lugome

When Vriska Serket ends up on an universe where everyone who didn't make it to Earth C is there and vice-verse, she'll have to face a difficult decision.

Winner of the Roxy Award for First Fic Winner of the Calliope Award for Most Interesting Headcanon/AU

i'm made be He, despised by They by shudder

The universe wants to see its inhabitants in pain.

you should come with me to the end of the world (without telling your family or any of your friends) by bralsra

Terezi has to juggle three relationships and several friendships. Her partners have to deal with her. Mind the tags!

Winner of the Vriska Award for Best in Drama

i don't want to be afraid (when father time ticks in the hour) by bralsra

in which roxy is stuck in a house with dirk, jane and jake.

Winner of the Lil Cal Award for Best in Horror

F.E.A.R by @27thfirefly

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

- John Malkovich

Your name is JANE CROCKER, and you’ve been feeling a little nervy lately.

Winner of the Black Queen Award for Best in Character-Driven

I've Been Waiting, Waiting by @tehstripe

Jade is put on a ship for her own protection in the midst of an inter-galactic war. All she can do is wait.

Winner of the Nepeta Award for Best in Romance

if you stick with the program, maybe one day you'll be (more than a machine learning how to please) by @simsandchesscrossover

My name is CDOCRS01, which is short for Cognitive Development and Offensive Capability Robotic Structure, but Jake calls me Brobot. In appearance, I am a sixteen-year-old boy of average height and weight, which means that I am 70 inches tall and weigh 145 pounds. In actuality, I am seven months old.

Winner of the Equius Award for Best in Action Winner of the White Queen Award for Best in Plot-Driven

Before The Breakdown by @simsandchesscrossover

After Trickster Mode, Roxy thinks.

Made My Way to LA by @justficsnthings

“We had a plan… Move out of that town…” He whispers

Drowning Lessons by @jellysmudge

You steal from convenience stores together; the mania invades your blood, a virus spreading through your system, replacing you until all that’s left is your aching chest, and intensity of want. It consumes you easily, and you think it may consume her, too. The two of you were never really people, anyways.

Winner of the Eridan Award for Best in Angst

Soap by @wellofhavoc

Eridan and Sollux are the final trolls living on a satellite in orbit around their new planet- a bright place neither of them long to explore.

The power system is overheating.

The Prideful Pink Princess and Her Servant of Evil by @aeroargonic

Dirk's job has always been to look after his twin sister. And he intends to fulfill it. Even as she becomes the princess of the kingdom of Derse, he stands by her side. For better or for worse.

Winner of the White Queen Award for Best in Plot-Driven

I think I understand you, but I don't by @aeroargonic

"I just wanna get you high tonight."

Jane, Jake, a crumbling relationship, and one last good night together.

The Flame of a Revolution by @achilles--hell

A look into the wayward vagabond's revolutionary origins via lyricfic.

Would You Fall In Love With Me Again? by @achilles--hell

Rose reunites with Kanaya after the events of the meat timeline.

I Am Selfish, I Am Wrong by @shadow-wasser

Eridan did something very wrong, then paid the price. Is it enough? Will he ever be accepted back into his team? And will he ever tell Karkat how very pale he feels?

Look, I Love You but You Really Fucked Me over Big Time by @toxicchamomile

A series of pesterlogs over the course of six months.

war is over (and we are beginning) by @cosmiccaesura

The first morning after creating a new universe, twelve people wake up to the dawn of a new day.

Winner of the Caliborn Award for Best in Canon-Compliance Winner of the Davebot Award for Best Use of Non-Diegetic Music

No Leverage / No Pleasure by @thoughts-of-a-scoundrel

Your name is Dirk Strider. You are sixteen years old. You’re currently on a date of sorts, slaying skeletons and whatnot, only most of the actual slaying is over now.

Most Days We Watch Our Best Friends Die by @princevaping11-11

A little bit of what I think Davesprite and his Rose were up to during those 4 months.

My dawn by @not-someone-who-matters

Your name is CALIBORN. And you won.

Coming Home by @starlit-bawka

Your name is Dirk Strider, and you’ve been waiting your whole life for this moment.

......

Jane Crocker is suddenly feeling very uncertain.

Or: Dirk is a solo-flight astronaut on his first trip out to orbit. Jane is his launch director.

Winner of the Alpha Bro Award for Best Indirect Lyrical Inspiration

red flags by @tehstripe

John's on a blind date that's going really well! But there's just this one red flag…

Winner of the Gamzee Award for Best in Comedy

i recovered from this by @neapolitangirl

It's the First Annual Resistance Fundraiser and you can't wait for Rose Maryam-Lalonde's interview!

Winner of the Dave Award for Best Use of Diegetic Music

[vickyvicarious]

There were even such books of reference as the London Directory, the "Red" and "Blue" books, Whitaker's Almanac, the Army and Navy Lists, and—it somehow gladdened my heart to see it—the Law List.

Me at first: I am getting cute aggression stop!

Me now: Wait, what if Dracula is studying the Law List in order to find ways around the system like what legal strings must be pulled to enter an inhabited house uninvited.

Well, he is still deeply adorable. Baby Solicitor comforted to see Law in the wild. I love it just as much now.

But yeah, also that's an alarming idea, and something I 100% would believe. Something I don't think Dracula often gets enough credit for is how innovative he is about the rules of vampirism in this book. He absolutely does some rules-lawyering of his own, and in fact his entire plan is dependent on a pretty clever move with the whole if I surround myself in my native soil then I'll be fine to cross running water trick. And he also is pretty good at thinking of backup plans and contingencies. He eventually has a bunch of those here in the castle with Jonathan, such as:

Jonathan is locked in so he can't get out

He doesn't know the exact way back even if he did

While he's lost in the wood wolves could hunt him down before he found friendly people, if he did escape

Dracula's impersonation of him turns the locals against him if he did get to them, past the wolves, lost in the woods, through the locked doors

Also no one at home will know what happened to him because of his dictated letters and Dracula's impersonation, suggesting an entirely different timeline/location for him vanishing

And all of this layers well with other goals, such as isolating and emotionally torturing Jonathan. Stuff like his multiple lawyers/homes for his multiple dirt boxes to be stashed are also really clever. Dracula can make a good plan... given enough time/control over a situation. But he consistently underestimates his opponents, because he believes he is so innately superior to them. In doing so, he leaves gaps, opportunities they can take advantage of without him even realizing (sticking to the Jonathan example: his diary, some of his more extreme snooping, the final escape. Or later on, a fantastic example is Mina turning his attack on her against him, both choosing to spy back on him, and figuring things out from his triumphant evil monologue).

He also gets impatient and stubborn. I've mentioned before how he could have played the entire Lucy situation much smarter had he been more patient/less outraged at people here figuring out a way to temporarily hold him off. And when things go wrong, he's not great at pivoting in any kind of subtle/clever way. He defaults to anger, force, shows of power. And again, that can be used against him.

Sorry, I got totally away from your point. Yes, I agree, he'd try. And it would be completely in-character for him to overlook that actual lawyers might be able to out-maneuver him in such an area, and he'd get stupid-mad should they mess up some plan by doing so. That could be a fun thing to incorporate into some kind of AU (where Lucy survives: imagine if Mrs. Westenra's lawyer insisted on putting in some kind of clause that she kept the house at least until her marriage was finalized) (preventing Mina's attacks/saving Renfield: if the lawyer characters put together the stuff with Lucy and looked into the legal documents for the asylum, maybe putting some document together that changed the wording to restrict his access unless only Seward invited him in, or Renfield's invitation only went for the main asylum, not Jack's private rooms, or whatever).

[intothetlkverse]

Decided to challenge myself by drawing every single TLK character out there, up until this point in time, and post it here. You can see the finished project on my main account, though I figured to post it on my tumblr just show I could proudly show off my work and a few of my head canons.

Here's all the rodents, plus lagomorphs, across TLG/K:

First are the jerboas; Tupp/Thupi(body-Nyanja) the lesser Egyptian jerboa from "Journey of Memories" and Jerboa/Impuku(rodent-Zulu) the long-eared jerboa from "The Call of the Drongo". Right between them is a springhare we see from the TLK book "A Wild Night Out". In the book where Simba and Nala sneak out at night to explore and find an aardvark, a porcupine, and a springhare before heading back home. This discovery has unfortunately made me have to do back and retroactively add some more characters, though at least it is nice to get some animals in proper TLK style for a change, though I kinda feel a bit sheepish for not realizing that TLK has done springhares before I did my revamped beavers into them. Anyways, meet Bazara(spring-Hausa).

Next are the mice, including the first one we see in TLK, the striped grass mouse Scar plays with I've named Eku(mouse-Yoruba), Nobi/Inabi(grapes-Hausa) the spiny mouse from "Good Mousekeeping" who is an albino African spiny mouse who gets bullies by a trio of elephants before he learns to stick up for himself, and lastly the female four-striped grass mouse we see also in "The Call of the Drongo" I've decided to name Lishe(nutrition). Not much to say about them, though my headcanon is that Eku is actually one of Zazu's partners, having gotten close to him during Zazu's rib cage imprisonment, and kept him informed about current events while also trying to help him escape by gnawing on the bones time to time.

Following with TLG rodents, which make up the majority of this list, we have Tafu/Tafiya(journey) the scaley-tailed flying squirrel from "The Accidental Avalanche". As far as gliding rodents go, I really like his simplistic design and kept it pretty much the same. Additionally for flying squirrels we have Piper/Pyp(pipe-Afrikkans) from "Saskatchewan Catch", a flying squirrel who gets help from Timon and Pumbaa to find herself a mate in exchange for some hard-to-reach tree beetles, though ditch them on their deal once she finds her mate. Not much to say about her story wise, though design-wise I did think the purply-grey colors were alright, though no lipstick, scarves, or updos that make Pricilla Presley weep in envy, though I can justify the beauty-mark.

Also for squirrels we have the the Teds, Ithendi(heel-Xhosa) and Kitendo(act), now a pair of ground squirrels, which just look like prairie dogs to me, from "You Ghana Join the Club". These brothers and their family decided to hog the resources of a certain area in the Oasis, though thankfully and rather painfully got their comeuppance by peeving off one of the local lions. Again, not much to say, though I think I did a good job of sneaking in some pink and blue elements into their designs, though I had to do quite a bit of redesigning, since the first draft came out looking like evil Care Bears.

Next are the porcupines, all pains in the neck with all their individually drawn quills, where we have the African-crested present with Mama Binturong-now-Civet's lackey Smun/Sumai(high). At some point in time the Forest was a pleasant place, where the inhabitants freely interacted with each other and freely shared the resources around, even inviting new folks to live in the community. However one of them, a malicious civet, took advantage of everyone's naivete and generosity, instead hogging all the resources including their precious medicinal tuliza, and threatening anyone who tried to get in her way, as well as making the price to get even just a blossom of tuliza unobtainable at worse and back-breaking at minimum. Sumai and his prickle were unfortunately casualties in this that only worsened the problem. They were so young when they lost their parents to an easily preventable disease that could've been stopped with the tuliza, but they were denied it and ended losing their lives, and leaving their children alone and vulnerable. Acting as the doting 'mama' figure, she took in the orphaned porcupines, acting as the poor doctor who was unable to save their parents due to everyone wanting the tuliza and taking it from her, leaving none for her to give to save them. Over time she successfully convinced them that the other inhabitants of the forest were to blame, wanting to hog all the tuliza for themselves and did not care about trampling over or taking out others to achieve that. Slowly she grew her army of porcupines, heavily dependent on her and unable to realize the harm she had caused, to neither them or their communities, by controlling the flow of tuliza, so caught up in their devotion and false belief of misplaced blame. By the time they return back to the forest after failing to get revenge on Bunga, they find that the forest has flourished in their time away, the tuliza and resourced are now being shared and cultivated as originally, and to boot the inhabitants have grown more of a spine. Mama Civet has grown frail and ill with age and a few porcupines were injured during the fight. The forest inhabitants are still resentful, but merciful enough to allow them to remain in their old area and use what they are given to recover, but they will now be required to work for the community and their tuliza, and the second they step out of line, they're out. Over time some of the other porcupines begin to see the community for how it truly was and begin to question how they were raised and acted before, whole Sumai remains almost fanatically devoted and serving to his ailing, crippled foster mother, now refusing to even get up and demanding quantities of food and tuliza served right to her, succumbing to sloth and addiction. Sumai can only painfully watch as she slowly keeps on digging a hole she can't climb out of, while his brethren try to help him move on.

So yeah, decided to give Smun's prickle a backstory with orphans, dependency, abuse, and addiction. I imagine tuliza, while it does seem to have calming/pain-relieving aspects, too much or condensed quantities can be addicting, though I believe by the time Bunga meets Mama for the first time and he finds her hogging all the tuliza, the effects have mostly worn out and she needs a higher, more concentrated dose to feel the effects, hence why she stole Makini's tuliza, hoping it was a more stronger version... I think I need to stop watching MLP's Breaking Bad/Poison Joke.

Back in the Pridelands we have Male Porcupine/Nungu(porcupine) and his sons; the Porcupine Brothers; Chembe(quill) and Sindano(needle). Nungu is a single dad of two that tries really hard to raise his sons up right, though between a certain honey badger bouncing him like a ball, being chased by curious giraffe calves, and having fruit dropped on him, the poor guy just needs a break.

From "Prickly Problems" we have Spike/Karu(spike), a porcupine that accidently spikes Simba, only to regret it after he realizes that the cub meant him no harm. Fortunately Simba does recover and they do make up in the end, though I personally don't like how he looks like a North American porcupine in the book.

Last of the porcupines is Zungura(poke), featured in, but never mentioned by name in the TLK book "A Wild Night Out", where she does meet Simba and Nala when Simba accidently steps on one of her shed quills. I find it a bit coincidental that I put her next to a porcupine that actively stuck Simba with quills, though thankfully African-crested porcupines are smooth quills instead of barbed like the North American variants, so while still extremely painful to get stuck, are much easier to pull out. I know this from experience, though I will say this, African-crested porcupines are like big guinea pigs. Give them something like a nut of piece of sweet potato and they will hunker down, grab the food, and start munching on it, they are so adorable.

Next is the pika we see at the Tree of Life that Mama Binturong/Civet bullies after they try to give her some tuliza. His name is Ponya(heal) and he often helps Nirmala by finding and gathering supplies for her, as does the rest of his group. So while doing research for this, I incidentally discovered that the pika, which I originally thought was a rodent, is actually a lagomorph, aka related to rabbits/hares, who are also not rodents. But come on, we kind of do associate them with these smaller critters, so this sheet is now rodents + lagomorphs. I did reuse the model from the last time I made him, though I also added the little mouthful of grass you see pikas with. Seriously, if you're having a bad day, look up 'pikas with flowers', it so sweet, you'll feel better. I have them here in Colorado, and while I don't see them all that often, I sure am glad I do have them here, though I did learn while drawing them that apparently there are some in Asia too, so that's neat.

So starting off with the hares we have the TLG ones, including the young female hare/Sungura(hare/rabbit) who is a scrub hare, and the red rock hares with Masikio(ears) and his sister Sikiliza(listen). And lastly... the ones from the Timon and Pumbaa Show... the three-fingered jackalope/Gaidi(bandit) who is now a scrub hare.... and horrifying Rabbit/Hofu(fear), and neutered as much as possible from their show counterparts and for good reason, please trust me on this. Best I can say is that I did y'all a favor by turning mister nightmare away from y'all.

[p1nk-matter]

(hxh) PHANTOM TROUPE // KURTA CLAN theory

...debunking PT did it

So let me preface this by saying this was 100% inspired by a tiktok comment in a hxh phantom troupe's religious symbolism video back in 2021 (:/). The person who commented made such an impact I screenshotted their comments which unfortunately are not in correct order and messaged them this year (i just know they think im weird) but they never responded. I'd give their @ but its their government name (I take it) so msg me for deets. All credit goes to them as I'm just polishing and tidying these thoughts.

First op talks about Meteor City, a junkyard city inhabited by outcasts. People who live there do not exist on any official records and are treated horribly from the outside, people are taken from Meteor City for crimes, prostitution, slavery and no one's doing a thing to stop it. People go outside and face racism, like the one guy accused of a crime he didnt commit and when the truth is shown no one does anything (think op meant The Bum Incident, vol 11, Chapter 102). These people get no justice, they're just used and this is where the duality of Chrollo comes in, he is a demon to the outside world because he is challenging the gods but also a Jesus figure for the underprivileged Meteor City. Even his reverse St Peters Cross on his jacket means that he feels unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as Jesus. Thats his way of saying he doesnt see himself as worthy of savior. His priority is the Troupe so they can together be seen to the outside world, they are literally a troupe of phantoms, trying to be recognized. This is why when he asks Neon if she believes in ghosts and she says no, she is the oppressor that doesn't understand the one hurt.

If you read the story with this idea in mind you start to observe that the Troupe only attacks people hazardous for the City (mafia, ants) or when they want revenge for one of them killed so its weird they are presented in a positive almost heroic light. Only exception that sticks out to the story? Kurta massacre.

The og commenter wondered why it was that the Troupe was always presented in a positive light. We've known the Phantom Troupe does acts of good alongside the bad but we also haven't seen anything entirely "evil" commited by any of them yet. Most of the legends surrounding them are hearsay. And though they could have easily killed Gon and Killua, they don't, twice. Also, Uvogin when taken by mafia/Kurapika says if freed, they wouldn't hurt them as they are not the target.

Op comments on how narrative should be filtered as its being commented via Gon- a non objective source, they claim that the 1st arc feels like a kid show whereas chimera arc feels dark, thats not to say it is actually like that but as Gon's perspective changes so does the narration. At first when innocent people die, he doesnt really care but in chimera we need a narrator to explain as Gon is too biased at that point. Regarding the massacre we only have Kurapika's word but what we are being told/shown about the Troupe is different. The characters talk about the Kurta massacre, how horrible and brutal it was but the narrative is keen and favors the Troupe, it paints them in a favorable light and why should the narrative do that, they don't become better people like the Ants after all.

From the moment they appear on screen, the narrative wants us to see them as underprivileged, both in York New and in the ship, even when they're fighting in Meteor City, they're fighting for injustice or when somebody hurts them. Then why justify their actions everytime they appear on screen if they massacred the Kurta Clan? If they are responsible for this why make them the underprivileged representation? Both Kurta and Troupe says the op are ostracized by the outside and seen less from people.

Say they did it. 3 ideas were proposed as to why.

1. for the eyes (Chrollo likes the eyes, like Hisoka said but Hisoka is a liar and also Chrollo has never shown interest in the show for them. For someone who steals things he likes, why make an exception and murder here?)

2. for money (that's not correct, we are told multiple times they don't care about it, neither money nor fame, they want to be recognized by the world but how would that work by killing a clan that's been hidden for 100 years, they dont get anything out of it.)

3. for revenge: Revenge for what? Kurta are a peaceful clan that hide for years. We know the Troupe left a note that is the motto of Meteor City (I'm adding here what op referred to: "we reject no one so take nothing from us"). Op says note means they serve justice to their city, when someone takes things away from them so what did Kurta take? From the thematic and narrative point they are not set up to have done it, op thinks thats 100% intentional.

Like said above, BOTH have the thematic of oppression from the outside world, they are a commodity for the rich and powerful (gods) but why is Phantom Troupe put in the light of both, the oppressor and the oppressed? Why would an oppressed group oppress another one for NO good reason? The Troupe doesn't kill innocent people if not necessary, they do NOT care about money or fame and the revenge aspect doesnt work because the Kurta were isolated from the outside.

If we look back at the York New Arc they never state the massacre, they simply suggest it and of course from a Kurapika POV they are guilty but if you look again you have to ask..are they really?

☆

this took ages for me to coherently formulate and ik it goes back and forth but bless op's heart because it changed my perspective completely (more than any yt analysis found online) !

[wannabelilybriscoe]

2024 In Review!

Thank you for the tag, @leavesthatarebrown! <3

I only have two stories and I only started writing halfway through the year! But I'm going to take this opportunity to indulgently ramble about my two stories because I love them both very much. Under the cut for anyone who happens to be interested.

June - December

A Song For the End of the World

So, I'd gotten back into HP fanfiction earlier in the year, after a long time away from being actively in the fandom (we're talking ohhhh ~15 years). Turns out, many people wrote many truly fantastic stories while I was "away," not to mention the treasure trove of older stories that I'd missed because I was a tween back when I first started reading fanfiction! Who knew!

After reading so many gorgeous, poignant, fun, and hard-hitting stories, including a whole whack of really creative AUs featuring the Marauders, I found myself kinda sorta wishing that I could write one of my own. I used to write fiction a lot when I was younger but only ever short stories. Then, university and my twenties happened and put creative writing other than poetry on the back-burner (poetry has been a constant throughout my entire life). But I've always wanted to write a novel! I just didn't think I was the type of person who could write a long story.

Anyway, I was in an extra slumpy place creatively, and aching to feel connected to my old self again (hence getting back into HP fanfiction in the first place). So I thought...fuck it! I've done a bunch of other really hard shit in the last decade. Why can't I just write a stupid fanfic for the pure fun of it, and use it as a sandbox to learn how to write a multi-chapter story? Just to prove to myself that I CAN?

So I started brainstorming what would be the most fun for me to write i.e. what I would be intrinsically motivated to stick with. That's how I landed on:

Zombies! I love zombie movies. Zombies are fun! The genre never takes itself too seriously, but creates a lot of opportunities for interesting character dynamics and explorations into the human psyche. Plus, a lot of opportunity for action-packed, cinematic scenes!

Set in the 70s because I find that era interesting from a pop culture and political milieu.

Remus POV because he's my favourite and I thought he would be the easiest brain for me to inhabit (but I later enjoyed exploring other POVs, I think I just needed to build up my confidence in Remus's head first).

I wanted it to be EPIC. Like a TV show with a couple of seasons. Lots of characters. Multiple plot reveals. Something of a scale I'd never done before.

I wanted it to be a queer coming-of-age story because I love those stories, and stories about found family, friendship, and learning to be brave in the face of insurmountable obstacles.

Then I made a list of cool and/or funny things to add in. I decided that nothing would be too ridiculous for this story because the name of the game is fun. Those things included:

Ample 70s music references

A priest with a flamethrower (can't tell you why, I just loved the visual)

Zombie dog!

An apocalyptic roadtrip

A romantic scene on a tower ledge

A cult with a classic 70s cult leader

Zombie rats!

A Commer van

A chainsaw (hmmmmmm)

And the very final scene, which I won't spoil, but which I've had in my head since the first week of writing this story.

But as I wrote and wrote, I started to tease out different themes I wanted to explore, and different characters I wanted to introduce and inhabit.

One of the biggest things I'm learning from writing this story is to trust the process. Before writing this, I thought I had to have every little piece of the plot figured out at the get-go. It always left me with analysis paralysis. But now I'm learning that while you need to have the broad strokes planned to give you direction, a lot of the parts of the plot that make the story engaging and memorable are discovered along the way. How can I begin to explain how freeing that realization was for me? I've rewritten my plot outline about four times. Although, the funny thing is, whenever I find myself second-guessing a plot point, I seem to end up circling back to my initial idea anyway.

Does all this mean that parts of the story are clunky and in need of refinement? Hell yeah. If I was going to even consider trying to get something published traditionally, I would need to put it through so many rounds of edits. But this is my hobby story about Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, and I'm sharing it as I go. So, I'm choosing to not feel bad about things like going back and making edits to past chapters after they're published if it serves the final product. And I'm choosing to not cut scenes I've included simply for my own self-indulgence, even if it makes things ramble a little. It's imperfect but it's full of joy and heart (and angst and irreverent violence).

December

The Road to Love Is Covered in Ice and Slush

If ASFTEOTW is long for the sake of long, The Road to Love is short for the sake of short. I've read a bunch of tight, punchy romcoms that were just brilliantly executed. I wanted to see if I could do the same. Also, things are at a heavy point in my zombie story and I needed a little brain break. I've been having a blast writing horror but I wanted some silly, light comedy during the holidays!

I decided to set it in Toronto because I've wanted to write a story set in Toronto for a long time. I was born in Toronto and have lived in and around it my entire life. Some of my most formative years were spent living in the west end of the city.

I set it in the present day at a startup because I've lived it, and I knew all the ridiculousness that could be packed into a story with that setting. My goal was to make the plot uncomplicated, as a counterpoint to the zombie story, because that one has required a lot of research and planning. Basically, I approached this story as a rapid-fire project that would hopefully flow easily. I'm happy to say that it did! I've enjoyed writing it immensely.

It's a love letter to my home city. I've fully romanticized Toronto because I think the city deserves it. And it's been so lovely to see people commenting that my story has made them want to visit! It’s also officially the first multi-chapter story I’ve ever finished!!!

Fanfiction is so fun! I've met so many lovely, creative people in the last six months. I've learned SO MUCH about writing fiction! Thank you thank you thank you if you've been reading my stories, and especially if you've been leaving likes and comments. I think one day I WILL write an original novel. I know I'm capable now! But for the time being, I'm enjoying playing in the fanfic sandbox.

(I don't know who to tag because seems like most of my moots have done this already....so if you haven't, consider this an open tag!)

[daresplaining]

opinions on the red fist saga? :0

Resoundingly negative, unfortunately. I actually only just read it, because I was having a rough time with it while the issues were coming out and so decided to put it off until I was in a better headspace for it (or until I saw a preview for an issue that excited me and gave me the motivation to catch up, which is what happened with next week's anthology issue).

As I said, I disliked this story very much, so if you aren't interested in hearing me rant (perfectly fine! I wouldn't blame you!), read no further. I really hope you liked it. I really don't want to get you down if you did. This whole run was just the epitome of Not For Me.

Ahem.

The "Red Fist Saga" is, in my opinion, a flimsy "Shadowland" knock-off, centered around the abrasive, moralizing religious zealot who has been inhabiting Matt Murdock's body for the past few years. Elektra Natchios, an incredibly complex character whom I love dearly, had her backstory savaged to remove its autonomy and complexity (that's a rant for another post...) and exists in this story as an accessory to this Matt look-alike and as a handy target of his moralizing (at one point he comes to the revelation that this recent journey she has been on has been worthwhile because it was all about God saving her from her wicked ways!!, at which point I may have blacked out from rage for a few seconds). Matt and Elektra GET MARRIED, and the implications of this massive shift in their relationship are not explored at all. And phew...the less said about Sam Chung's single scene, the better. As was true throughout Zdarsky's entire run, Matt speaks and thinks in this story like he is reading a prepared speech at all times, making grand-yet-hollow pronouncements about the nature of good and evil. He doesn't sound like a real person, but rather like a robot that has been fed a steady diet of religious texts, along with a few surface-level social/systemic reform concepts. His personality consists of being alternately sad, angry, and making lofty proclamations about "fighting evil in the service of God's plan", and I just have no emotional investment in that. I'm not Catholic (and neither, until recently, was Matt Murdock, making this whole thing profoundly weird).

There were some cool elements to this story. I'm a huge Stick fan and I'm thrilled that he is finally back from the dead after all these years. I love Stilt-Man. I love Speed Demon (for some real Speed Demon goodness, go read Superior Foes of Spider-Man, one of my favorite comics of all time). Foggy had a few good panels. I got to read Milla's name; always a treat. Kirsten didn't actually die. Mike was...mentioned (I've already griped about his death; I won't do it again here). The twist that Foggy and Stick were actually already dead was effective and very cool and I didn't see it coming at all, so I will give full credit for that. And I'm someone who genuinely does enjoy Hand shenanigans. I love that stuff when it's done well. But the degree to which I could not stand this new Matt and did not care what happened to him or what he was doing, plus the fact that I had seen all of these plot points executed already, and better, by previous Daredevil teams, meant that this story was just a protracted slog through painful writing, past scene after scene that could have been so much better in the hands of a different creative team or centered around a version of Matt Murdock who was actually a compelling protagonist.

[iamfuckingsorry]

Sorry guys, another DE rant incoming. This one's not even on any specific topic, just some feelings about the game that I need to get out.

So, the game absolutely fucking killed me. I intentionally didn't play the entire thing at once to give myself time to process and it still fucking killed me. And by killed I mean I had to take crying breaks at work hiding in the bathroom. Like literally unable to go through a day at work without coming this close to a breakdown. And there's other compounding factors for that, sure, but still.

And it's like... It's a chilling social commentary with too many layers for its own good. The main character is a walking bundle of current and past issues mixed with the consequences of extremely messed-up past actions. The main support character has the best of intentions but is heavily flawed himself. Everyone else in the story is fucked up, really every single fucking thing is fucked up, yet the game itself keeps giving you these little snippets of hope. All the side quests where you can make a difference to someone. Deep conversations. Kim smiling. Realizing the people you originally thought were massive assholes were just hurting. The goddamn stick insect.

You are a violent and irrepressible miracle.

Something beautiful is going to happen.

In the dark times, should the stars also go out?

Streets and sodium lights, the sky, the world. You're still alive.

You still have some years. You still have some hope.

The only way to load the dice is to keep on fighting.

Kim being so hopelessly in love with Revachol even though he's been treated like shit by the city's inhabitants.

Harry being so hopelessly in love with Revachol, too, even though he can't even remember her.

The world is shit, but there's still all these little things that make it worth living.

And I'd... really love for that to be my take away. I would really, really fucking love that. But somehow, I can't.

Because no matter how much good you do preventing an absolute bloodbath in Martinaise, changes are coming, and they aren't good changes. The wheels are already in motion and they cannot be stopped, no matter how vigilant Harry is, no matter how much Revachol loves him.

22 years after Harry wakes up, Revachol's getting nuked to pieces.

Some 5 years after that, the entire world as we know it is getting swallowed by the pale.

Kim Kitsuragi will not live to see 70.

(Honestly, this is the line that kills me the most. He deserves to grow old, to look at his life and be happy with what he's done with it, at peace and fully accepted by everyone including himself for the first time in his life. And instead he's getting killed in a pointless conflict that will usher in the end of the world, or if he won't get killed then, he's getting nuked to death. Kim Kitsuragi will not live to see 70.)

Anyway. I know that that's part of the point. Horrible things are inevitable but that doesn't mean life isn't worth living and good things aren't worth fighting for. You can still fight the inevitable darkness while you're here, you should still fight the inevitable darkness while you're here, you need to fight the inevitable darkness while you're still here because if you don't, then what are you living for? And if not you, then who? If you lose your last sliver of hope, then you lose everything. Yes, life is terrible and terrifying, but life is also so, so, so beautiful.

And even when life is shit, it's all just part of a cycle. Sometimes bad things need to happen in order for the good ones to be able to come back again. One day I'll return to your side. After death, life again. After the pale, the world again. The good connected to the bad, intertwined so tightly they cannot be separated in any meaningful way.

And I think I'm starting to get there, I really do. After the pale, the world again. Even in the darkest of times there is always hope of a brighter future. After the pale, the world again. After death, life again. Un jour je serai de retour près de toi. The only way to load the dice is to keep on fighting. The stars will never go out, not even in the darkest of times.

But instead I just... I close my eyes and I think of Revachol herself begging Harry to save her, and I think of her burning, and I think of Kim not living to see 70.

And I want to cry.