#the 2 week wait is too much

[beaulesbian]

I was once again thinking about this goofy Luffy moment after his Lucci punch™ and i had to see it frame by frame.

first the force of it throws them both away, and while Lucci is seen on screen tumbling for a long moment, Luffy is just away in a blink of an eye.

and then his funny scene - his legs are like jelly that he tries to get under control,

he stumbles, falls, rolls into a mix of all his limbs and eyes,

and then only the cloud behind him cushions his fall

- which would be interesting if he can subconsciously control that while he tries to regain the control over his movements - that the environment around him still adapts to his awakened Devil Fruit abilities and morphs to help him. Where others would probably fall through that cloud, for Luffy that cloud backs him up like a trampoline.

It's just fascinating!

[meamiiikiii]

[reverse entry AU]

so glad the work week is over!

no more meetings!

what do you mean its only tuesday.

[rui-drawsbox]

Comm for @ SproutAstro :3c

[2hoothoots]

Revisiting P2 since the docu epilogue dropped and your AMV (<3) popped up as a sign for me to ask something that hopefully you haven't already spoken about years ago: What did you think of the in-game psych explanation for Maligula, that she's the primitive savage part of the mind? P2 is a weird mix of sketchy Freud/Jung concepts that Tim likes meshed with modern psych, and Maligula's deal seems like something they probably wrote a lot of different versions of but never quite solved elegantly

yeah, i think you totally hit the nail on the head - it's always felt like one of the parts of the story that they couldn't quite give enough polish to before they had to finalize it and move on with development. like - i went to go get my artbook to see if it had any insight into the writing process, and did you know that Nona and Maligula being the same person was apparently added way later in development? that's wild! i didn't know that until literally right now! i may or may not have skipped straight to my favourite characters when my artbook arrived and then put it on my shelf without reading the whole thing

ANYWAY, retrospectively i think it being a twist that was added later actually makes a lot of sense in the context of everything you mentioned. the Maligula problem, to me, is the fact that they're trying to juggle a bunch of different things that she has to be in the story. there's Maligula, the ruthless big bad, and Nona, the beloved grandma, and if you suddenly have to also make them both the same person... well, it ends up being kind of a thorny writing problem to make that work, haha.

here's some art i made so this isn't just a wall of text, rest of the answer under the cut

i think one thing they could have done when they needed to rehabilitate a mass-murderer into a lovable old lady was pull back on either end of the spectrum. make your villain softer and more sympathetic, or give grandma a mean streak like she's one bad day away from a tragedy at the crochet club. and to give the story credit, i'm really glad they didn't. Nona is relentlessly sweet and endearing - and that's great! she needs to be in order to make the audience care about her, otherwise the emotional beats are never going to land. likewise, Maligula is a great villain, she's vicious and ruthless and at the culmination of her arc we see she simply does not give a shit about murdering hundreds of people. i love that for her, honestly, you go girl

but then, like - how do you connect the dots? how do you frame grandma having a violently murderous streak in a way that doesn't make the ending of "but she's over it now" feel kinda weird and hollow? and how do you do that while also being sympathetic to the game's themes around mental health? Maligula's informed by the traumatic things that happened to Lucrecia during the war, but she can't just be a manifestation of trauma, because the moral of the story being that trauma makes you a mass-murderer (until you beat up your trauma and shove it in a giant pit) would feel... really tonally dissonant!

so i think you're totally right that the sprinkling of pop-psych concepts we get ends up feeling a little bit like an awkward band-aid. Maligula's story is about how the horrors of war can shape you into a terrible person, who does terrible things - ...but there's also, like, special circumstances, so it doesn't feel weird that she goes back to being Raz's sweet grandma afterwards. special psychic circumstances! she's not just any war criminal, she's the fight or flight response gone out of control!

which - i dunno, i think that line in particular always stood out to me, because that's not really what the fight or flight (or freeze or fawn) response is, right? it's a temporary boost of adrenaline to the system to rev you up for getting out of a dangerous situation. an overactive fight or flight response is called chronic stress and anxiety. i know the games are pop-psych and not actual science, but it always stood out to me as a little awkward.

if it were me in the writer's seat - with the benefit of all the time in the world to workshop it, and no looming deadlines, and the hindsight of having a full completed game in front of me to think about - i might have tried to frame it around connection. i think you could swing the lens to instead focus on how violence, stress, trauma etc., make it harder to understand and empathise with the people around you. the tragedy of Lucrecia's story is that she came home to try and help her countrymen, the people she cared so dearly about. but the more time passed, the less she cared, the less she was able to see them as people. after Marona's death, the Maligula that remains is one who's unable to even care about killing her own sister. the alternative is too raw, too painful - instead, she sheds her last vestiges of remorse, and throws herself into the easy relief of violence. (we see this again, when Nona "awakens" as Maligula - when confronted with the baggage of her past, she chooses to wash it all away with force, unable and unwilling to care about the people she used to call friends.)

and i think shifting the focus like that ties it in thematically, too. a big theme (of both games, but especially the sequel) is how important connection is, how being able to understand and reach out to and rely on other people is a lifeline during hard times. PN2 touches on how there aren't really "good people" and "bad people" - everyone has the capacity to do wonderful or terrible things, and i think Raz's line to Maligula about how "everybody's got something like you" works. Lucrecia was never a monster, no matter how everyone tried to pretend she was. she was just a person, the same as everyone else - and just like everyone else, she could be pushed to extremes under the right circumstances. it just feels kind of odd when the implicit context is "everybody's got a mass-murderer hidden in the primal recesses of their brain", hahaha.

but like, again, that's the privilege of hindsight, right? i've definitely also been on the other side of the creative process, stuck with something i suddenly need to make work in a story and having to come up with a solution that feels like a band-aid. sometimes you just gotta call it good enough, and move on. and i think the game is overall much stronger for having Nona and Maligula be the same person - it plays into the wider themes, it sets up some great emotional beats, and i think it's overall well-executed, even if there are one or two hiccups in the writing.

anyway, great ask! thank you for the invitation to ramble, this is something that stuck out to me on my first playthrough of the game and it was fun to sit down and get my thoughts in order

[toxiccaves]

By request, here's some of the English dubbed clips I've been posting to twitter. Incase anyone doesn't have access to a VPN, here's a preview of the English dubbed voices for MCB. Still would like if they put the voice actors in the credits for the dubbed version!

You can watch the English dub here.

[deus-ex-mona]

omg it’s yujiro’s first song as “someya yujiro” what if i cried

[cementcornfield]

the way i know it's taking everything in him not to say some ridiculous comment to the press rn 😭

[kanerallels]

For @chenford-prompts 2 Weeks of Chenford, prompt: Injured.

This is set sometime mid season four, and is obviously not canon compliant. It's also technically a deleted scene from a fic I'm posting later this week, but doesn't have any real spoilers. Oh, and it was inspired by a piece of art by @accidental-spice, that I will link here when it's posted!

(TW for hospitals and injury)

Tim felt like he spent a lot of time in hospitals for someone who wasn’t a doctor. Sure, it was bound to be a part of his job— hazard of being a cop was you got hurt. A lot. And he was fine with that.

It was when it was someone else who got hurt on his watch that things were different.

He glanced at the bed he was sitting next to, and his heart twisted in his chest at the sight of Lucy Chen, pale and motionless, hooked up to a heart monitor. He hated seeing her like this. It was unnatural for her to be anything less than bright and energetic and full of life.

She’d been shot on patrol. A shooter had gone after him, and she’d tackled him just in time. Just in time for him to be safe, and for her to be hit herself.

Tim could still feel the panic swelling in his chest at the sight of the blood welling through her shirt as he clung to her, begging her to stay with him. She’d been unconscious by the time the ambulance reached them.

But somehow, miraculously, she was alive. The surgery had been fine, and she was supposed to wake up by the next day. The others had been in to visit her— Jackson for a brief stint, Lopez and Wesley right behind him with Thorsen. Genny had been one of the more recent visitors, carrying a bag with his things, and had walked out again with Nolan. He’d stayed longer than almost any of the others— besides Tamara, who had been right there with him for hours, until the Greys insisted on driving her to their house, where she would stay the night.

Tim hadn’t moved from his spot in hours, and he didn’t intend to. Clasping his hands, he bowed his head, emotions swirling in his chest.

She’d taken a bullet for him. And that had landed her in the hospital. I failed. Again. I couldn’t keep her safe.

“Neck deep in the guilt spiral already?”

Tim’s head snapped up at the sound of Harper’s voice. Handing him a disposable cup, she said, “I thought I’d bring better coffee than what they sell here.”

“Thanks,” Tim muttered, taking a sip. 

He could feel her studying him, and elected to ignore it. Finally, she said, “It wasn’t your fault. Lucy knew what she was doing.”

“She was jumping in front of a bullet meant for me. If I hadn’t—”

“No,” Nyla said flatly. “Don’t try and take the credit for it. Lucy made the choice to protect you, and she wouldn’t want you to be worrying about it like this. Don’t make it about you.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” Tim said. “I just— she shouldn’t have—”

“Shouldn’t have what? Shouldn’t have made the same choice any other cop would have made? Shouldn’t have protected someone she cares about?” Nyla snorted. “Sure. When she wakes up, I’d love to see you sell her on that.”

She turned towards the door, then paused, looking at him. “Accept the fact that she got hurt helping you, and then move on. Wallowing in it isn’t going to help anyone. Got it?”

“Got it,” Tim said, looking back at Lucy. Like it or not, he knew she would have said the same thing.

That didn’t mean he was going anywhere, though. Sliding his chair a little closer, he took her hand, lacing his fingers around hers. He felt Harper watching them for a minute, then she turned and left, leaving them alone together.

[zymstarz]

yeah sure that's how i'll [re]come out

[donaviolet]

Friendship is the most special thing in the world because no award could be give me bigger happiness than jumping around in my room and smiling because my pookie asked me if I wanted to match pfps

[yohankang]

also i didn't tell you guys but i was supposed to get a raise this month when i sign a new contract but they already sent it to me and there was no mention of the raise. so i felt horrible and almost cried at work and it took me a few hours but i actually went to talk to them and i will probably get a raise after all

[ra-vio]

semester is almost over. im dying

[floral-hex]

woke up at 4am feeling the weight of my life crushing me, so I’ve been sitting out in my car for the last couple of hours because I just need. to. be. somewhere else.

[gayvampcentral]

do I post the Alien fanart I made for my fan studies class at uni now or do I wait until a little after I got my grade to do that?

[basiltonpitch]

on losing a mother

[smoothpeanut]

Coloring with Cleo as an attempted distraction during Real Anxiety Hours ™