#that itself means something
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missing pieces
#interview with the vampire#iwtv#armand#the vampire armand#artists on tumblr#drawings#if you really squint about it this is devil's minion. by which i mean that was the initial intention but it didn't really work out that way#i keep trying to say something else but the thing speaks for itself. look at it. stop letting me near characters with identity issues
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“Mistakes on mistakes until” ch 69 spoilers below!
Ahahahahahahah here I go again
Mistakes on mistakes until until I can draw Jazz with my eyes closed
I woke up, checked my phone, woke up for real and decided that whatever plans I had for this day yeah no they can wait a little bit kfkgnfk
Also. Consider listening this while reading. Or don't who am I to tell you what to do~
#maccadam#transformers#Jazz#Meister#Starscream#L I S T E N#I THINK#The “Jazz” is a hologram and “Meister” is the Real Jazz#because yeah It totally makes sense. Soundwave touched Meister so Meister must be real. And Hound could just create the hologram of Jazz#but....b u t#I can't stop thinking that there's might be something more#like...Hound wasn't exactly wery well hidden. For the love of god STArScream saw him and talked about him#and we all know than Soundwave is a fucking all seeing eye of Sauron when it comes to watching suspicious activity#I...fuckin...listen ok#Meister's plan with second Jazz is so damn clever bc it would literally show to Soundwave how Jazz and Meister can stand in the same room#but I can't help but feel that Sounders is inevitably going to discover Hound and unlike Starscream he surely knows what Hounds “thing” is#or maybe I'm just paranoid. .#maybe Jazz..I mean Meister knows something I don't#i mean duh of course he does#augh I need to stop before by brain spins itself to shreds#This fic made me overthink every detail with double intensity haha#Also. ALSO. We might see the confrontation between Meister and Jazz I feel. we might. it makes me want to giggle for some reson kgkgkg#fic fanart#momu fanart
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This is a brand new science for me, and I love it. The language of luck. 'Cause what is a coincidence but a form of accident? Two things bumping together unexpectedly. Like you and me.
#dwedit#doctor who#usertennant#userteri#userveronika#miatendos#userdiana#usertreena#ruby sunday#fifteenth doctor#maestro#*#originally this was just going to be ruby + snow and then it devolved from there#memories changing... being brought into the present..... some connection to the ancient one. luck coincidences connections.#the doctor describes the legion as a 'pantheon'; a group of gods. and so far they're all personifications#the toymaker is 'a living game'; maestro is 'the essence of music itself'; henry arbinger = harbinger and acts as prelude to the gods#then 'the one who waits' is perhaps... time? death?#and 'the oldest one'... that could mean a lot of things#my first thought was that the oldest one would be death since the finale is called 'the empire of death'. alternatively: life.#but if you connect it back to ruby: luck coincidences connections. so far that's been her whole thing. so maybe something related to that#then again we're only on ep 2 of 8 so... anyway. idk what any of this means but. thinking thoughts!!!#worth noting: if the snow is a warning it starts snowing in the tardis during the scan. it reveals her genetic id/species/age#but not her nucleotide composition. whatever tf that is. and it only gets to 75% complete before it pans away. but it does finish scanning#and in canon 6+ months pass between the end of ep 1 and the beginning of ep 2 so... presumably the doctor has SEEN those results. fwiw.
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("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)
#svsss#bingqiu#luo binghe#shen qingqiu#lbh#sqq#i've been working through the series of unfortunate events and somehow that series has paired really nicely with svsss#the themes of cycling violence and what's justified and what isn't and what can possibly be done differently#and how trying to bring love and honour into the midst of it really changes nothing but also changes everything#it's just *chef's kiss*#i don't know how i can quite do my thoughts justice but i've spent the past few weeks quietly going between the two series (and mdzs and tg#as well if we're being honest they all hit similar questions and themes) and just reveling in the pain and ambiguity of it#everything is interconnected and it means you can never know what trauma and pain and necessity has shaped a person#each story goes too far back to ever ever EVER possibly see the full extent of it#at that level even communication itself is nearly impossible.#and because of that it's almost impossible to change anything. beat yourself apart and the outcome is the same#and yet ATTEMPTING to change things ATTEMPTING to do the kind thing the honourable thing is absolutely critical#because while you can change nothing you also have the capacity to change EVERYTHING#aaaaaaah i don't even know what i'm saying#but i read the beatrice letters today and the love letter just. killed me.#(obviously i cherrypicked some lines because it's three pages long but those ones felt right)#''i love you like a corpse loves a vulture's beak'' i just. can't get over that line.#to be completely changed. altered. destroyed. redeemed. purified. desecrated. reduced to nothing yet entirely necessary for another's life.#what a FUCKING line#anyway i was either going to blow up from thinking about it or else i had to exorcise it via art from an entirely different series#i've already done svsss and discworld why not throw a series of unfortunate events into the mix#i'll be honest folks i did not expect svsss to be the mxtx series that would fuck me up the most about the main ship#bingqiu is something else. i don't even know how to begin to approach my feelings on it. impossibility and necessity all at once#bizarre#my art
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It's interesting (if often frustrating) to see the renewed Orc Discourse after the last few episodes of ROP. I've seen arguments that orcs have to be personifications of evil rather than people as such or else the ethics of our heroes' approach to them becomes much more fraught. Tolkien's work, as written, seems an odd choice to me for not wrangling with difficult questions, and of course, more diehard fans are going to immediately bring up Shagrat and Gorbag.
If you haven't read LOTR recently, Shagrat and Gorbag are two orcs who briefly have a conversation about how they're being screwed over by Sauron but have no other real options, about their opinions of mistakes that have been made, that they think Sauron himself has made one, but it's not safe to discuss because Sauron has spies in their own ranks. They reminisce about better times when they had more freedom and fantasize about a future when they can go elsewhere and set up a small-scale banditry operation rather than being involved in this huge-scale war. Eventually, however, they end up turning on each other.
Basically any time that someone brings up the "humanity" of this conversation, someone else will point out that they're still bad people. They're not at all guilty about what they're part of. They just resent the dangers to themselves, the pressure from above, failures of competence, the surveillance they're under, and their lack of realistic alternative options. The dream of another life mentioned in the conversation is still one of preying on innocent people, just on a much smaller and more immediate scale, etc.
I think this misses the reason it keeps getting brought up, though. The point is not that Shagrat and Gorbag are good people. The point is that they are people.
There's something very normal and recognizable about their resentment of their superiors, their fears of reprisal and betrayal that ultimately are realized, their dislike of this kind of industrial war machine that erases their individual work and contributions, the tinge of wistfulness in their hope of escape into a different kind of life. Their dialect is deliberately "common"—and there's a lot more to say about that and the fact that it's another commoner, Sam, who outwits them—but one of the main effects is to make them sound familiar and ordinary. And it's interesting that one of the points they specifically raise is that they're not going to get better treatment from "the good guys" so they can't defect, either.
This is self-interested, yes, but it's not the self-interest of some mystical being or spirit or whatnot, but of people.
Tolkien's later remarks tend to back this up. He said that female orcs do exist, but are rarely seen in the story because the characters only interact with the all-male warrior class of orcs. Whatever female orcs "do," it isn't going to war. Maybe they do a lot of the agricultural work that is apparently happening in distant parts of Mordor, maybe they are chiefly responsible for young orcs, maybe both and/or something else, we don't know. But we know they're out there and we know that they reproduce sexually and we know that they're not part of the orcish warrior class.
Regardless of all the problems with this, the idea that orcs have a gender-restricted warrior class at all and we're just not seeing any of their other classes because of where the story is set doesn't sound like automatons of evil. It sounds like an actual culture of people that we only see along the fringes.
And this whole matter of "but if they're people, we have to think about ethics, so they can't be people" is a weird circular argument that cannot account for what's in LOTR or for much of what Tolkien said afterwards. Yes, he struggled with The Problem of Orcs and how to reconcile it with his world building and his ethical system, but "maybe they're not people" is ultimately not a workable solution as far as LOTR goes and can't even account for much of the later evolution of his ideas, including explicit statements in his letters.
And in the end, the real response that comes to mind to that circular argument is "maybe you should think about ethics more."
#i had a whole 'nother tangent that i split off into a separate draft#but i've been thinking about why the 'but shagrat and gorbag are still BAD people' thing seems so inane and missing the point#but yeah. i feel like people desperately want to find some justification in tolkien (and elsewhere) for the idea#that doing something wrong to a person will become doing something right if you can find someone who 'deserves it'#and that literally anything can be justified if someone has been defined as a valid target (i.e. less than a person)#(you see this a lot in the whole twitter main character of the day thing - the idea that the problem is directing the firehose#against the wrong person by mistake rather than the firehose itself)#but it's super weird for a novel built on a metaphor about how using the tools of evil for a good end or against existential enemies#is fundamentally corrupting and only further props up what it's meant to oppose#and i mean... the character most like tolkien literally says he could not morally justify lying to an orc and rejects the ring#it's not exactly a deeply buried theme of the book#anghraine babbles#long post#anghraine rants#legendarium fanwank#legendarium blogging#shagrat#gorbag#tv: lotr#jrr tolkien
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Yuuji's ''I'm going to die with him'' from the start of the series to ''Sukuna, Come back and live with me '' at the end is, honestly, very beautiful.
"Let's try again one more time Sukuna, but this time, without cursing anyone. Even if no one else accepts you, I'll live with you" do you understand what's going on here? This is Yuuji attempting to connect with Sukuna, to show a certain compassion that is entirely alien to Sukuna. To the way he delicately lifts Sukuna's remains, with such carefulness, as if holding the remains of a precious loved one, Yuuji tries to show Sukuna "love". The same "love" that has been teased to us this entire series, that who is it that will show it to Sukuna, teach him of it.
This is the same Yuuji, who, at the beginning of the series held absolute disdain towards Sukuna, and always looked at him with much accusatory contempt and mistrust. At that point, He truly did think of Sukuna as nothing more than a "curse". The same "curse" Sukuna calls himself one last time as the last embers of his soul fade in Yuuji's hands.
But this time, Yuuji has a troubled look in his eyes.
As if he disagreed with him.
This is the look of someone, who is looking at the Humanity Sukuna does not believe exists within himself.
Humanity that Sukuna denies himself.
That Sukuna is not a curse, but a human that has been cursed.
#ooc#sukuna#ryomen sukuna#itadori#yuji#yuji itadori#jjk#jjk manga#character analysis#appreciation post#jujutsu kaisen#manga#king of curses#itadori yuji#sorry i did NOT mean to write another huge post i only meant to write the first initial paragraph but then yknow what happens..#the post writes itself#and i truly do not have any control over it#man i have some pent up feelings on this subject because i'm currently drawing something related to it and its hitting the feels lowkey#this is me trying to focus on the food gege DID give us the rest i will fill up with my hc#anywhos did you guys know Sukuna and Yuuji's dynamics are extremely important to me?
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jamie + learning
#when jamie doesn't know something he seeks to fix that and remembers for next time#and apart from 'philistines' (still not sure what he was going for there) it's clear what he MEANS to say#he just mixes up the words a little#and like the pavlovian thing the term itself he probably just wasn't educated in#but he grasped the concept immediately#he's not stupid#jamie tartt#keeley jones#ted lasso#coach beard#tl#tedlassoedit#tledit#mine
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Faiza performing the Kagnoma Odo (pretty literally 'lion dance'), a weapons dance and one of the more important ritual duties of Odonii priestesses. A relatively new addition to this traditional dance involves the musket as the primary weapon, which is fired mid-twirl into the ground at the climax of the dance. Faiza is experiencing an 'oh fuck' moment because her shot is more than ideally diagonal, but she’s being so cool with it.
This is a wholly ceremonial performance at the onset of the pilgrimage, performed in full regalia and lion skin (of the small, semi-domesticated strain) but no armor. It’s also distinctly a display of political allegiance between the powerful and beloved Odonii priesthood (and its loyal military) with the increasingly reviled and destabilized imperial family, with Faiza prominently wearing a bracelet of the royal serpent, which was gifted (along with the musket) by the usoma Stavis Amanti himself (Usoma is the Wardi word for king, which has been retained in the context of emperors).
The Kagnoma Odo is the ultimate demonstration of the Odonii as an embodiment of the Lion Face of God and living vessel of military might and sovereignty, demonstrating her fitness and proficiency with weapons and as a spiritual unifier for soldiers. It is accompanied by drumming and occurs in stages, running through the three keymost weapons used in war- the spear, the sword, and the musket. The musket is of the most significance, given the weapon has developed a particular esteem as the ultimate embodiment of might and superiority. Assistants (almost always other priestesses, occasionally high ranking soldiers) load and prime the musket to be fired at the climax of the dance, where it is shot into the ground as the priestess leaps out of range of the shot. The firing signals the end of the dance and the rite itself.
While not the utmost exemplar of trigger discipline, only fully inducted and senior (and therefore very thoroughly trained) Odonii are permitted to perform the dance, and injuries during actual performances are quite rare (though are known to occur during training, more than a few Odonii have burns and wounds on their feet).
The most important renditions of this dance are performed upon declarations of war and before battles (in this case, generally done in full armor along with the lion pelt). It is also done during some trainings (while a dance, it is carefully choreographed to include naturalistic maneuvers of the weapons involved and helps soldiers limber up and learn to move their weapons). It is regarded as an impressive and motivating sight and a morale booster, and, seen at a distance, potentially intimidating to enemies.
A special variant of this dance is performed as means of fully incarnating the Odomache, which is done in full nudity with the body covered in the blood of the freshly sacrificed lion and cloaked in its raw pelt (the lion has become the corpse of Odomache in the moment of death, as part of its recreation of God's sacrifice). Her public, full nude appearance once (and only once) in this act is what allows the Lion Face of God to incarnate within her. Those in attendance see the spiritually vulnerable, naked human body obscured with the sanctified and deified blood and cloaked in the sanctified and deified skin. It is a merger of the contradictions of mortality and divinity, the boundaries between the two indistinct in flickering firelight and the flash of musketfire. She is witnessed by her people, dangling in between humanity and divinity and leading them in dance, and and is thus transformed.
#faiza haidamane#Not really relevant to the core post itself but I don't have anywhere to put this#Faiza is a pretty extreme cultural rarity in that she's something along the lines of agnostic (regardless of her priestesshood)#It's a culturally specific form of agnosticism where the notion that God continues to exist and interact with the world in spirit form is#questioned. She personally gets the distinct vibe that God truly and wholly died in the act of creation and is no longer present#This isn't just a Her Thing it's a concept that comes up in some strains of religious philosophy but it's pretty rare#Orthopraxy is SIGNIFICANTLY more important to the faith of the seven faced god than orthodoxy so her merely thinking this isn't#a fundamental issue as long as she performs all expected rites and behaviors and etc (which she does quite devotedly) but it would#definitely not be socially accepted to openly proclaim (least of all from a senior priestess devoted to maintaining the connection of God's#spirit to Its lands and people) and she keeps it to herself.#She is the only main character who WHOLLY doesn't expect the pilgrimage and rites to end the drought. She doesn't fully DISbelieve#either (kind of like 'well maybe?') but for her this is all a very pragmatic political maneuver to stabilize the crumbling empire and#regain the people's faith in its leadership. It's not fully cynical like it means a lot to her but in a sense of very practically protectin#her beloved empire rather than a more spiritual sentiment.#It's very complicated for her like she takes her role very seriously and cares deeply for her faith while not actually believing#in it in any personal sense. More about what it represents to her than what it's supposed to literally be.#the white calf
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Details in Stan's letter that still haunt me
(how long will I continue thinking about a two page letter that's technically not even that long because Stan's handwriting is fricking large? .....you don't need to worry about that.)
The bro code only shows up in the Lost Journal pages, and to me Stan's message feels like it purposely echoes Ford's "miss you" in the college photo (and for some reason the message doesn't appear in the website version of the photo?) ....or alternatively Stan simply noticed how distressed Ford was about this entire thing and wanted to support him in a way so he can be sappy but without the kids knowing, or both!
Stan's claim about the Oregon lottery contradicts what the Lost Legends website said about Tate McGucket's ability to predict the winning numbers!! ...but also breaking into the Lottery HQ is definitely a very Stan thing to do and it's not the first time small gags have been retconned
Despite spending most of his letter nonchalantly destroying him, the taunt about ripping a dollar bill in half is the only part where Stan is directly responding to Bill. Maybe it's the two of them having similar ways of thinking but it's rather specific considering Bill taunts the reader about it...
And after Bill spends an entire book calling Ford Sixer despite normally using a pretty wide range of nicknames for him, Stan then spends his letter mainly referring to Ford as Sixer, even though post-Weirdmageddon he tends to use a mix of nicknames. And it's not like he'd gotten to see Bill himself for long, let alone see him steal that childhood nickname (that is only used twice in the actual show btw!). Did Ford tell him what happened or...?
With all this and the website's "still on your mind" message, what I'm getting at is my tinfoil hat theory of Stan somehow seeing some of the pages the irl readers saw, even when it should be personalised to the specific reader, and he's been lying about it for some reason. Considering that the book flat out doesn't make an attempt at convincing Soos, I find it a stretch that whatever Bill was telling Stan via the book was an attempt to convince him either.
Wouldn't be the first time Stan's skimmed through a book and lied about what it meant to him.
(...Now I kinda wanna see a story about the family reading their versions of the book and making fun of it while Stan is improvising every single one of his pages and blatantly ignoring Bill's attempts to mock and taunt him)
But also I'm fascinated by the letters that only showed up on the website (aka the Soos+Wendy+McGucket+Pacifica ones). I'm assuming that Mabel had stuck them on after Stan's letter... but they were basically eaten by the book itself because seeing Stan's letter kick-started Bill's breakdown which takes up the rest of the book
#im wearing this tinfoil hat with pride i know something is up!!!!#like three things in one letter??? ...i mean the handwriting is another thing but for another reason that i already mentioned elsewhere#(of course i also love the idea of same coin theory being flat out the reason why stan's perceiving the book differently)#gf meta#stanley pines#stan pines#ford pines#book of bill#bill cipher#also i'm still kinda annoyed that pacifica got a letter over candy and grenda cos like.... she didn't really do anything in w3 lmao#meanwhile grenda literally ripped bill's eye out and the girls were the main ones holding him off!!! give them respect hirsch!!!!#they helped with the unicorn spell!!!! they're an extended part of the group!!!! they saved stan before!! give my girls respect!!!!!!#also some folks are assuming that the 'miss you' message was directed at mcgucket but if it was for him#i feel like it'd be scribbled on the page itself and not be part of college ford notes in the bg (and ford would use a different cipher)#mind you the photo itself is a day after he met mcgucket so there's no reason why ford would direct it at him#they literally just became besties!!!#and this is a ford recently estranged from his brother and is still trying to convince himself he only feels anger towards him#(i saw some saying that ford shared the bro code with mcgucket too and im ??? theres an entire page about him hiding his childhood stuff#i get there's the 'oh disney!!!' easter egg now but ford at that time was pretty touchy about anything regarding stan#(alex saying that if mcgucket had found his stan o war photo ford wouldve lied and#brushed it off as an inspiration to his career in science instead admitting that he's holding onto it cos he misses his twin)#plus he'd show another recent code that wasn't made by literally kids if he really wanted to share one imo#but also j3 is him using them to hide info from mcgucket!!!)#two sides of the same dollar bill#thisisnotawebsitedotcom
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now and then, 2023
wikipedia / john’s version, handwritten / genius / @m1ssunderstanding / hey jude / get back documentary / the guardian
#something something the title of the song itself conveys everything you need to know about its meaning.#back then it was john’s and now it’s paul’s but all along they’ve ***** each other#.txt#the beatles#mclennon#john lennon#paul mccartney#jp#now and then#web weaving#im soooo normal about them#greatest hits
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i do not consume media. the media consumes me.
#i am physically unable to just enjoy something#it has to root itself in my brain and loop itself on repeat for a month until i get so disgustingly sick of it#i either dislike something or it takes up my every waking thought. there is no in between.#gideon the ninth#the locked tomb#our flag means death#ofmd#tfc#aftg#all for the game#good omens#hoo#pjo#heroes of olympus#riordanverse#the raven cycle#trc#mine
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One thing I really love about Marcille is that despite her deep fear of outliving her loved ones, she never, never let's it get in the way of her making bonds and getting close to people. She loves deeply and strongly and she doesn't try to supress that! She embraces it wholeheartedly! Her friends are so important to her and she's not ashamed or scared of it!
Actually, out of all the characters, I'd say Marcille is one of the ones who care the most about bonds of friendship. She's angry at Namari for leaving after Falin got eaten and holds that grudge up until Namari helps defeat the Undine (and therefore having 'proven' herself). She's shocked and upset when Chilchuck explains his policy of payment and that he's not really here bc of friendship. She puts a lot of focus on the party being a Group Of Friends rather than a team of hired hands dedicated to the specific role(s) they are paid for. Which of course makes sense since she joined the party to begin with because of her friend! To her, the party has always been 'Falin and her brothers' friend group' rather than a hired party. (A little reminder: Marcille was the most recent member when the story starts. She never met the previous members who left so the team of Laios, Falin, Chilchuck, Namari and 'Shuro' is what she's always known it as.)
When she becomes dungeon lord, the thing that manages to snap her out of the Winged Lions grasp is the earnest care and love her party is showing her. Literally 'power of friendship'ed their way through the Lions hold and gave her her clarity of mind back.
And!!!! At the end of the feast right before they're about to attempt to revive Falin again, she says!!! this!!!!
She's ready to accept that Falin might not come back, even after everything. The entire story she's been running away from death, from having to outlive her loved ones (in this case: Falin). But here she is, ready to let her stay dead if this last attempt doesn't work.
And it's not giving up. It's realizing that she did all she could, and that it's okay. Because she still got to meet and be friends with Falin. That time with her might be just a speck in the length of life Marcille will have to live still, but it still happened and that's what matters.
It's not about escaping death; it's about cherising the moments before it.
#there is something in here about how the 'tragic immortality' trope is done w/ her#in that the tragedy doesnt lie in the fact shes denying herself of bonds bc she knows theyre temporary#its the fact she refuses to and is 'setting herself up' for repeated losses#i have soooo many feelings about her whole deal#OH ALSO. i didnt mention it in the post itself bc its not the Point BUT#i love that despite her journey by all means being about accepting the losses she has and will experience#her goal hasnt changed#she still strives for a way to even out lifespans#her friends have promised to do all they can to live as long as is possible#just so she wont be alone for as long#in a way saying that her efforts werent in vain even if there isnt any direct results just yet. that it can be possible#ooough marcille. marcille. bbygirl i love u#marcille donato#dungeon meshi#delicious in dungeon#dungeon meshi spoilers#delicious in dungeon spoilers#dunmeshi spoilers#like so many spoilers#xander rambles
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I can’t believe a boyfriend made a silly sex joke to lighten the mood after both partners had a moment of vulnerability. The audacity. The horror. The normalcy! Unbelievable. How dare a conversation about feelings turn to levity. How dare a couple have a light chat about trauma-related things over dinner that doesn’t turn into an incredibly deep heart to heart instead of a joke and moving on. Unbelievable. I’m never watching this show again! 👎🏻
#911 spoilers#bucktommy#Evan buckley#Tommy kinard#look#as a queer person in a relationship with another queer person#both of whom have major familial trauma#trust me when I say you generally DONT WANT ever reference to your feelings and trauma to turn into a huge deep discussion#sometimes you just say something vulnerable#and the other person does too#and then you joke about it and move on#humour is powerful coping mechanism as well#one that is pretty common especially among guys#people need to freaking relax ffs#Tommy is not a horrible person for making a flirty joke#things were said and feelings were acknowledged#and then they moved on#this is all perfectly freaking natural#Buck is not some sensitive flower that can’t handle a silly joke about daddy issues#please I beg you all to look at this at a distance with some common sense#rather than the ‘but Buck is traumatized and must always be treated delicately!!’ lens#and I am saying all of this as someone who really doesn’t give two fucks about the joke itself#I’m not into daddy kink idgaf#but if the idea that a queer couple isn’t allowed to insert a flirty joke to lighten a moment of vulnerability#then I don’t know what to tell you#you personally finding something innapropriate does not mean it’s actually innapropriate#please just chill out ffs#no one wants to hear about how evil Tommy is for hitting on his boyfriend for months and months to come
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[Start ID. A redraw of the official icons of the ten named slugcats from Rain World, arranged in two rows: Survivor, Monk, Hunter, Nightcat, and Gourmand in the first, Artificer, Rivulet, Spearmaster, Saint and Enot/Inv in the second. Each is drawn in roughly the same pose as in the original art and fitted with speculative interpretations of their biology, and the second image is a “dead” version of this. For example, all ten have slug-like rhinophores in place of ears, cuttlefish-like colorful eyes with strangely-shaped pupils, cephalopod-like beak "teeth", expressive barbels or oral tentacles at the corners of mouths, spiny radulas, and the frilly mantle fringes of sea slugs, though otherwise their faces are squishy, simple and mammalian-shaped.
Cream-colored Survivor and yellow Monk both share triangular, bicolored spots matching their eyes (which are tan and brown, and two shades of blue, respectively), small, bumpy fringes, and relatively neutral looks on their faces. Defensive-looking Hunter is mostly a dull orange-pink, though their blobby fringe is a more violent red and their back is purple and marred with lumps. Nightcat is navy blue and flecked with dots of yellow and teal, their rolled rhinophores are a lighter blue, and their shading fractures into stars in some places. Gourmand is almost uniformly tan, their wide, very ruffly white mantle fringe bordered by a spray of white spots, and their beak sticks out from either corner of their smile. Primarily red Artificer, snarling, has yellow markings of multiple sorts, a prominent yellow dewlap and their characteristic dark scar taking out a chunk of its face. Rivulet is a darker blue than usual, with long barbels, red gills and rings, countershading, and a cheerful expression, sticking out their radula. Spearmaster is purple with orange accents, eyes and spots, a large fringe and spines down their back. Saint’s green caryophyllidia are marked by small, yellow diamonds, and their long, thin radula extends far below them. Enot is decorated with mottled red stripes, blue patches, yellow stars, and an uneven and almost cartoonish imitation of blush, though generally the same deep blue as Nightcat, a passive or almost slightly smug look on their face and their rolled rhinophores out to either side.
In the second image, nine of the slugcats’ eyes are crossed out, indicating that these are death icons. They look fairly the same, with mostly expression differences. Survivor is caught in the beginning of a threat display, a karma flower sprouts from Monk’s side, Hunter is burdened with overgrowing, purple and blue rot, Nightcat’s rhinophores are pinned back, and Gourmand looks mildly disheartened. For the final row, Artificer bites its radula between small plumes of smoke, Rivulet drops their expression, Spearmaster looks very startled, Saint looks almost entirely the same besides half-open eyes and their markings greater in number, and Enot grins confusedly. End ID]
If you'll excuse the unusually lengthy ID: the arena meme introduced by @pansear-doodles at long last after a nearly year-long wip status (or, rather, finished a month ago today to honor my own first time playing it!)
Design notes and shout-outs under cut! :]
The following people are some of those who’ve inspired my designs most since I started this eight months ago (or just inspired me to get a little weirder with slugcat biology), among many others for sure, and I thank them for it–but this is simply to bring attention to artists I find cool, and in no way an obligation to interact or anything :]
> @saturncoyote , @carpsoup , @charseraph , @gallusgalluss , @bitsbug , @dopscratch , and @0hmanit (and a special mention to dddeerbo and hunterlonglegs, who’ve since deactivated)!
Survivor: Surprisingly the hardest to pin down the colors for, since nothing with its sibling's palette seemed to match up right (I did have to add in a little blue somewhere for Monk, the beginning of making it clear how much I’m simply going based off of vibes for the colors of scug innards). I consider them, Monk and Gourmand to be part of the same gene pool of slugcats, and even possibly the same colony even if the latter isn't really related, so took a bit of Gourmand's coloring and fit them in with their inspiration: Goniobranchus verrieri. They serve as a bit of an introduction to my ideas of scug traits (i find it really fun how many people have thought to add so many silly sluglike fixtures of biology completely independent of me, buuut here I’m mostly talking about species variation), and like in-game they’re pretty average! They, Monk and Hunter have a couple scars sourced from a piece of Joar's concept art that I'm failing to find, those across the bridge of the nose, under the eyes, and across the rhinophores, respectively, and my Survivor interpretation features many on the back of the neck, as a result of survived lizard bites.
Monk: Their coloring is primarily based off the fact that I associate them with blue fruits, honestly, a bit because I was compelled to establish a familiarity with Rivulet, and lastly inspired by the spots of Goniobranchus kuniei (and geminus, less important to me as one of my characters is a kuniei instead, but more fitting). Between the yellow + blue and the circular marking in the center of their face, they’re meant to bear a little resemblance to an iterator that shares similarities with the characterization I’ve given them, and similar coding of her sibling can be seen on Survivor’s markings around the eyes. As both a “default” slugcat and one whose campaign I haven’t played, though, I can’t say I have much more to point out about em.
Hunter: The whole rot thing made for a really fun time drawing them, and while the color change on their back is a result of this, it’s also an excuse to relate them to Babakina festiva, arguably my favorite sea slug (mostly for sentimental purposes). And to Spearmaster, a fellow messenger slugcat, and it serves as a gradient between Hunter’s pink and the “traditional” color of Rot seen in the DLLs. Aside from their affliction, they’d actually be the plainest in terms of design, as they don’t have any patterns or quirks of body type, just the red + purple and strange lumps + possible malnutrition. I can’t remember if NSH had created them in particular or just...caught + released or something, but it probably wouldn’t be strange for a lab-grown slugcat to be simple like that.
Gourmand: Like the two above, they’re rather plain in terms of coloring and adaptation, and like the two above, I find that fun. I decided it would be nice to avert the “all slugcats being of the same body type, and Gourmand’s out of place as the exception” thing by just...adding more fat to all of them, really. I did want to emphasize their sheer bulk even so, both fat and muscular (not like I couldn’t have still gone further with it, of course, but slugcat anatomy can be a little obfuscating sometimes, and they were intended to look rather plush considering personal size headcanons and therefore the lack of proper gravity), and the thick and flounced mantle looked like a good addition, as per their sea slug Glossodoris hikuerensis. Unlike Survivor and Monk, I didn’t attempt to hold their resemblance to any particular other character (which means a little less to balance out the “default gene pool” thing), so those are all the design notes I have for em.
Artificer: The second slugcat I’ve ever played, or finished the campaign of, my favorite for at least a long time, and the first thing I did was give them yellow accents, the shape of which have troubled me slightly (not quite like the spots or stripes of the others). They’re both a little more appealing and more explosive-looking to me, and considering how early on I played Arti, actually present in some of my older art. It does give them a little resemblance to Saint (completely intentional, two slugcats with strange relations to karma), as well as the fact that its radula is green for familiarity with one of its children (at some point it was going to have all-green markings, even!). I’m generous with their scars, partly because it was fun to overemphasize the one on their face and partly because it does seem like a reckless slugcat, on top of the dangers of its explosive abilities–I’ll probably just keep adding more forever. Mostly-red sea slugs aren’t too common, but Hexabranchus sanguineus works for sure. The ridged, yellow dewlap can expand for combustion purposes, or something along those lines. Arti’s where I began experimenting with a lot of the mildly-offkilter features seen in my interpretation of slugcats, as they’ve once again been a favorite from the start.
Rivulet: I've obviously given other slugcats spots, deeply enjoy the bubbly-soda markings of other peoples' slugcats, and thought seal riv would be cute. Despite not too closely resembling it, they've been government-assigned Hypselodoris bennetti, for color reasons and for a couple sentimental ones. Originally, the colors of every scug were meant to match up with the custom colors I gave them at the beginning of their campaigns, (though Arti, Gourm and Spearmy are the only three who actually apply here, since I've only played through half the slugcats: I gave arti the yellow as mentioned above, gourm brown eyes and spearmy light pink spears, furthered by the outskirts pearl accompanying me and that palette all the way to moon. Tolerance training for eternity in hell cause I already knew about the maroon pearl quest). I initially gave them the colors of the bi flag for fun... but with the limited palette of this image, I was left without pink for a while and decided to see how they'd look in red. I then realized how they now wonderfully matched Moon, and besides, red's a sort of camouflage in deep water! As a side-note, the difference between their eyes and those of others always bothered me a little for anatomical purposes, and the cephalopod eyes were probably influenced by this!
Spearmaster: Inspired as much as possible by @notyourfunnyman ’s wonderful spearmy: designed in a way that helps it fit in with scavengers, at least between the long sensory tentacles, big ruff, back spines and slightly thin/distended anatomy, a form of defensive mimicry. I always had annulate rhinophores in mind, for a little diversity sure, but mostly because the shape reminds me of radio antennae and communication towers (seems fitting for the comms array and being a messenger slugcat)! I started searching for a real-life slug to give them just by looking up their rhinophore shape...and was met immediately and coincidentally with annulate-topped nudibranchs that fit them more perfectly than I could've imagined: Flabellina and surrounding clades, I think Paraflabellina ischitana works very nicely. The orange was completely unplanned, but there wasn’t a place for light pink among the other slugcats’ palettes, and importantly it likens them to both Hunter and Seven Red Suns a little more.
Saint: I am very much a non-furred slugcat enjoyer, with respect to those who aren’t, so figuring out the only visibly furred slugcat was an interesting challenge. I’ve decided that they likely have other, milder adaptations for help in the cold, mainly just more efficient fat storage, and what looks vaguely like fur is instead a bunch of tubercles (called caryophillia, for the second reminder out of three). Their inspiration doesn’t have these, however, Miamira sinuata’s numerous yellow and blue spots (not to mention...whatever’s going on with that shape) and general effect of being the only really green nudibranch I could find were probably perfect for a strange green echo. Not pictured, but their beak-teeth are tiny and flat to make a surface for grinding soft food against with the lack of a functioning radula, which is tipped with a specialized spiny “grapple-hook” for better traction/grip (not to mention the numerous little teeth running down the whole thing).
(Best part of hiding this under a readmore means edits will be seen by all reblogs, I'm mostly sure, because I completely forgot to mention! The spots on their forehead are simple eyes. Their camera eyes appear closed in-game, I like to believe their complex eyesight is rather poor anyways or otherwise reason that they aren't seeing out of those, and while this was far from her REASON for attunement with the world, it does help compensate for mainly viewing it through a canvas of simple light and dark. This, and the fact that their swapped-out "fur" is not only to commit to a lack of hairs but contributes to sensory input!)
Nightcat/Enot: I guess you could say I found the “these two are technically the same person” compelling. (E.g. similar colors, both very strange and enigmatic, and Enot/Inv/Sofanthiel’s remark during the dating sim about getting removed from Arena Mode.) I doubt they’re the only two slugcats in their body, considering humans with DID tend to have more than a few (and I find it very funny that a slugcat bearing resemblance to Nightcat appears in Gourmand’s ending. They’re allowed in the colony and Enot isn’t </3), and I have to credit @faelingdraws ’s art for being what convinced me on it! Their design inspirations come down to trying to balance a few different ideas: making the patterns and palettes of both look oddly similar (special mention to the stars, since those are fun to draw), basing them off of Felimare sechurana and juliae respectively, using blocks of color with the same placement as in Enot’s official art, and specifically making Enot look...biologically reasonable and imperfect, whilst also clearly trying to imitate human displays of emotion (what with...the eyes and blush on that one piece of official art).
Lastly, here’s just a lineup with notes on body shape and size. Most of the nicknames (existing to give a little more space, that’s all) are obvious, and while I can’t remember why I shortened Nightcat to Nox, it is in honor of my friend by the same nickname :]
#survivor rain world#monk rain world#hunter rain world#nightcat rain world#gourmand rain world#artificer rain world#rivulet rain world#spearmaster rain world#saint rain world#enot rain world#slugcat rain world#rain world#peridots-art#< feels like too long since that last tag's been used. i can say with certainty that the majority of the reason i haven't been just as#active here (not to mention not drawing as often since that's relevant) is just due to my life getting busier with a new school year but i#do miss putting my stuff here! and would like to reblog more on top of that.... so forgive not remembering exactly how to tag everything#(and how to write everything up there but to be fair it's not like long textposts were a staple of mine. i mostly just rambled and it was#fun hehehe.....some of those notes (parts of riv/spears mostly) were written around the beginning of the drawing itself)#OH i messed something up with the drafting and really did not mean to post it while tags were in progress! but regardless. i would've liked#to post it tomorrow to mirror how i was going to post it on JAN 29 a month ago......but it's not like i'm unhappy with this outcome :]#to sum it up really though it's been strange working on this for so long.....unfortunate to not get a chance to let it be seen and keep#experimenting with odd biology much earlier but i'm just glad it's out now cause i am proud of these!! it's been a lot of fun and slugcats#are still my go-to doodles :] if i had to end this off promptly though what's up with that secret pipeyard shelter as gourm that's not on#the maps. connected to vs_a04. doesn't appear on the miraheze or interactive maps for anyone strangely but i've only been there as gourmand#anyway! i'm sure there's a lot i could've said in the rush but goodbye dear reader anyway :]#i forgot spearmy initially. i'm so sorry
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malevolent is wild because the two main characters are literally Everything all at once. they're a queerplatonic relationship. they're romantically married. they've been thrice divorced. they're constantly learning about each other. they barely know each other at all. they argue every fucking minute. they have an undying loyalty to each other. like i'm SAYING man it just never ends
#malevolent podcast#malevolent#arthur lester#john malevolent#gave up trying to retype my tag rant here's the short version (you got lucky today)#me when being human sometimes means being so many things all at once youd think you contradict yourself but no actually#thats a human thing. a person thing#the privilege and the curse of not knowing what you are now because there's still more that you can be#but maybe that's part of it! maybe you're SUPPOSED to be like that? because sometimes progress isn't knowing what you are#it's knowinf what you want to be#and that's a whole thing itself; it's a wholeass thing to figure out but in the meantime maybe.#maybe you ARE something. and that is: you are doing your best. and you are being better#and maybe that's what john and arthur are yknow maybe that's their thing too
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1/9 - Babs Gordon tarot card designs for Complete Candor by @vexfulfolly as part of the @batfam-big-bang
Read the fic here!
Other cards:
1-Babs 2-Cass 3-Bruce 4-Tim 5-Damian 6-Jason 7-Duke 8-Steph 9-Dick
Image ID
Image 1:
A design of "The High Priestess" tarot card. It has the texture of recycled paper and reads "THE HIGH PRIESTESS". A symbol of an eye is visible behind the numeral "II".
Barbara Gordon sits in her wheelchair facing forward with a laptop that has a glowing Oracle symbol on it. Her glasses are the same green as the symbol. The bottom part of a clock face is visible behind her, illuminating her in a pale yellow.
Image 2:
A design of "The High Priestess" tarot card. It has the texture of recycled paper and reads "THE HIGH PRIESTESS" upside down. A symbol of an eye is visible behind the numeral "II".
Barbara Gordon sits in her wheelchair facing foward with a laptop that has a glowing Oracle symbol on it. She has taken her glasses off and is holding them in her right hand to reveal pupil-less white eyes. Semi-transparent green eyes form the shape of her Batgirl cowl over her face and a large neon green eye glows brightly behind her, backlighting her in the same green. The entire design is upside-down.
#fic rec: complete candor by vexfulfolly#batfam big bang#if prompted I WILL rant in-depth about the process behind these I’m so serious#GOD#I went a bit insane. I’m not going to lie#that is a lie- it was more than a bit#the mind map itself took like…. six hours or something#just to decide what card worked with what fear#and what card worked with what character#and how much I could get away with in overlap and stretching meanings#barbara gordon#oracle#dc comics#the magnus archives#tma#batfam#tarot cards#tarot art#fanart#batman#my scribbles
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