#there are two types of bastards

[miaiminnis]

🐍❄️

[under-lok-n-ki]

saw this post and had some thoughts that I needed to make known

also made a version without words just in case I wanted to post this somewhere else without having to explain anything 💀

[the-girl-with-too-many-ideas]

So, raise your hand if you found yourself thinking that Shen Jiu and OG Shang Qinghua would have made a terrifying power couple. 🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️

[yo-yo-yoshiko]

Oh, for a skeleton key…

Plus a digital mockup to simulate a red ink pass that i discovered could not be achieved well enough with the materials available to me, and the original pencils.

[marshmellowtea]

i'm a "sandra fucking hates raymond bean so much but she's willing to play nice with him because she knows it's important to chris that he respects him and his drama society even though she knows that'll literally never happen for him" truther.......raymond actually likes her and she knows that and will play into that when she's around him because chris keeps looking at them with these pleading, hopeful eyes, like she can somehow help convince his father that this little acting thing he's doing is worth something, but the entire time she's thinking about gutting raymond like a fucking fish because he's an asshole to her and their friends and ESPECIALLY to chris but chris is so blinded by his desire to be loved by him and his absolute paralyzing terror of him to recognize that and her sympathy for him over that has won out over her anger that he brought this man into their theater <3

[urahara-lovepage]

bleach media literacy is actually just a measure of how you read urahara as a character

[james-spooky]

this is a test

[syntia13treeman]

Case files 02.01

what I think happened in:

Case 02.01, the case of "Portrait of Daria Gray" or "The artist becomes the canvas."

Daria's story is pretty straightforward. What we know about Daria: she's a struggling left-handed artist who used to wear a lot of hand-me-down clothes from her sister, and she doesn't like the way she looks. At some point she decides to get a bit of a makeover and, among more mundane things, she starts shopping for a new tattoo. She finds a deal too good to be true (it is) offered by one 'Ink5oul'.

Ink5oul is sketchy as hell, and definitely has something supernatural going on. The tattoo they gives Daria (with no input from her, WTF! - paintbrush, floral patterns and glittering symbols) hurts much more than it should, but also heals almost instantly.

Looking at the tattoo (which is 'perfect') fills Daria with sudden desire to paint an autoportrait (which comes out 'perfect'). And once that is done, looking at it again makes her realize she can adjust herself (and make herself perfect).

So she takes her painting tools, most notably a pallet knife, right to her own face (and soon pretty much every other body part) and gives herself an impromptu plastic surgery. Which goes on uninterrupted for several days (???!?!!?!) until her room-mate Sarah comes home. Poor Sarah walks in on Daria while she has a knife stuck in her jaw, understandably freaks out and punches Daria, at which point half of Daria's face collapses under her hand like putty.

Having no idea that her room-mate has been touched by the spooky, Sarah comes up with the only rational explanation she can think of, which is that Daria poured some acid on her own face (which is very comic-book logic, but maybe Sarah paid more attention to Batman than chemistry and biology class as a teen).

So now Daria has severely disfigured face, and also is officially considered suicidal and a danger to herself and must go to therapy. (Honestly, she needs therapy).

There are two things, aside from the obvious, that grabbed my attention here:

The voice. Narration in the first case was that of a pretty normal email - a little bit rambly, a little bit disjointed, referencing things that the recipient would know about that we can only infer. The second case had a perfectly average forum thread. This case... also starts out with pretty realistic voice - right until the moment Daria stats talking about the tattoo. Then suddenly this story gets ridiculously verbose. The way she describes the studio, the tattooing process, the tattoo itself, the painting process and finally the 'adjustments' - the details, the wording - there's no way a regular person talks that way. Not in real time, not about a traumatic event that they very much don't want to talk about at all. So where is this coming from? I think it's the ink. Until proven otherwise, I'm going to assume that Ink5soul's tattoo somehow infused Daria with power to 'express herself' perfectly in whatever medium she's using - be it words, paint, or her own flesh.

Invasion of privacy issues all over the place. First Daria's tattooing session is streamed for who knows how many Ink5oul's fans without her say-so, and then her be-damned therapy session gets intercepted by some weird basement government branch. Daria glosses over the former and doesn't know about the latter, but they are there. And there was that private email in case of 'Not-Arthur' too. I wonder how present this theme will be in rest of the show. One thing I can bet on: if one of the cases doesn't deal with a conspiracy theorist yelling about government spying on them, I'm gonna eat my hat. (And the poor paranoid guy will be 100% right, just not in the way they think).

[martina-electro]

this came to me in a dream

[cienie-isengardu]

Quan Chi's bio states he was basically born to be a slave in the mines. With Shang it's at least debatable whether he 'chose' to be poor of it he was just unlucky but I don't think Quan Chi chose to be enslaved since he was a child and mined minerals for OutWorld's government.

This seems awfully deliberate, like how Liu Kang had a hand in Smoke's family dying as a way for him to join the Lin Kuei. Like Liu Kang gave Mileena the life most iterations would kill for and whilst he did cripple Shao, Shao got the better deal compared to Quan and Shang.

I don't think there's a really good way to justify that one. It feels like Liu is punishing an incarnation of Quan Chi for something he didn't even do. Unless someone wants to make the assumption that Quan Chi was born evil...which doesn't make any sense since we literally see a good version of him and Shang fighting against Titan Shang Tsung.

Even if he was born evil, erasing him probably would've been preferable than subjecting him to slavery given how slaves are treated.

Last time I checked mortalkombat.com there was no official BIO for Quan Chi so I can’t address something I did not read yet by myself - not that I don’t believe your word, I just like be familiar with officially released source material and context before I start throwing the stones at any characters, especially since MK1 already proved with Shang Tsung that BIO, story mode and intros may approach differently character’s origin.

That said, I don’t have a doubt that Liu Kang is biased when it comes to certain people as it is visible in story mode alone how he interacts with the Royal Family or his Champions he considered his friends and for example Lin Kuei serving him and Earthrealm from centuries. He on purpose get involved with characters lives, be it choosing Johnny, Kenshi, Kung Lao and Raiden for Earthrealm’s Champions or deciding that Shang Tsung and Quan Chi won’t get a chance to obtain any power (magic) however the same story mode proved that Liu Kang’s plans could be - and in fact were - foiled by actions of others. Shang Tsung and Quan Chi learned magic due to Titan Shang Tsung’s scheming, Kenshi lost his eyesight again, despite Liu Kang’s hope for different means for his bonding with Sento

so it is not like every character’s life is set in stone and the once made Keeper of Time’s decisions won’t change due to outside forces.

My main problem with accusation that Liu Kang intended Quan Chi to be born in slavery or Shang Tsung in poverty is the implication he intended slavery and poverty to be part of his new era in the first place - and with that he chose to doom billions beings to unimaginable hardship solely to punish two people he personally dislike for things done in previous timeline steered by Titan Kronika who cared only for balance between good and bad, not for the living beings who were her own creations. 

Because Shang Tsung is not the only character we could see living in miserable conditions, as the Edenians infected with Tarkat sickness lived in literal poverty, banished and shunned by society, with little food or basic goods to survive on their own. Quan Chi may be a slave working in mines, but we have the whole Umgadi system that literally takes away freedom from the first-born daughters of edenian families, who from childhood are trained and indoctrinated to put Royal Family’s best interest before anyone and anything, because apparently the monarch is more important that the lives of common people. 

If we agree that Liu Kang in fact decided to include slavery and poverty in his new timeline just to punish two people, following that logic we should also assume that by making Johnny the USA’s famous movie star (with all the references to Hollywood and pop culture we know from previous timelines and our own word), he also allowed history to repeat itself with the European colonization of Americas and coming with it irreversible destruction of native cultures followed by unjust and cruel treatment of the indigenous population and ever further consequence: the Atlantic slave trade and the racial segregation that was part of America’s history preceding the official independence of USA (and racism being part of its history for another ages). All just to put Johnny in comfortable life as close to what his friend had in previous timeline.

What frankly, does not sit well with me knowing what kind of person Liu Kang was once and is currently as Earthrealm Protector. He was not a flawless human and definitely he is not the flawless and all-knowing god now - he doesn’t pretend to be one either. And sure, some of his decisions led to bigger tragedies but the fact he stepped down from Keeper of Time’s position to be just a mere Earthrealm’s deity implies he truly wished to allow people make their own choices. Because as Keeper of Time he could manipulate time and events to his own liking at any given time, but as a mere deity he is forced to play alongside the unfolding events and mortals choices - he may guide people, he may punish those disturbing the established peace, but he does not fulfill characters’ wishes or demand to erase the problems of their world because he did not give himself such power, as intro dialogues suggest is the case:

Li Mei: Why permit crime to fester in this timeline? Geras: It was beyond Liu Kang's power to prevent it. 

or

Liu Kang: It is beyond my power to prevent all injustice. Li Mei: Then it shall always fester. 

or

Scorpion: As Time’s Keeper, you could have abolished kombat. Liu Kang: Even a Titan’s power has limits.

or

Kenshi: With Liu Kang's help, maybe they'll find a cure. Baraka: If he could've helped, he would have done so by now. 

or

Baraka: If you're a god, then cure me. Liu Kang: I did not give myself that power.

or

Baraka: Tarkat is a cruel fate, Geras. Geras: As Liu Kang has told you, we cannot cure it. 

My point is: when a god gives mortals a free will then he must also accept that people will choose the wrong, even outright evil things. Not because anyone is born inherently good or bad, but because things like greed, pettines, fear, curiosity, ignorance or love exist and emotions are as strong an impulse, if not stronger, as is common sense. 

As much as I would really like if Liu Kang gave everyone the same, fair chance for a good life, I think we need to take into account that each character's life does not exist in a vacuum and was preceded by hundreds of lives and choices of other people that lead to this point in time. Choices that could get in the Keeper of Time’s way and push events in different paths that he intended. Like Smoke’s family - did he truly decide to kill them to get Tomas into Lin Kuei as the best way of action or did the Lin Kuei warriors, who found outsiders on the protected by them territory, acted too aggressively on their own and their choices lead to unplanned tragedy? Or Shao’s sickness - was it Liu Kang’s choice to prevent the possibility he will raise one day against Sindel but the plan was foiled by one stubborn father who wouldn’t accept his child’s sickness as it was or the iron discipline of father was a part of the plan from the start? My point is, it is hard to tell where Keeper of Time’s will ends and where start the will of mortals that make each day their own choices, for good or bad. 

Sindel is the best example, as Liu Kang intended her to rule Edenia as a firm yet fair queen and for all we know she indeed is one compared to the previous rulers. Yet what we learn from story mode and intro dialogues put a great shadow of doubt on whether she was truly so great Queen, if the sick Edenians are banished and forced to live in poverty, as their assets were taken according to Sindel's own edict, and in general treated like unwanted trashes. Not only that - Li Mei's intro dialogues says that Outworld has organized crime and Sun Do's beauty hides its darker side as it is far from the peaceful city Earthrealms think it is. Since people often are pushed into crimes by the bad circumstances (poverty, seeking refuge from persecutors) rather than inherent evil, should we accuse Liu Kang he planned such misery for those mortals or we accept that Sindel - generally seen as a good person, even admired by vast number of characters, including Liu Kang himself - made a choices that in fact have endangered or literally destroyed hundreds of innocent lives for ages? The Royal Family got rich off the harm of others, its power was secured by people deprived of their own civil freedom (Umgadi, the Palace Guard). Who should we blame for that? Liu Kang who destined Sindel to be Queen or Sindel herself, who had a power and free will to decide?

Like I said, no one lives in a vacuum and there were countless numbers of mortals before our main heroes were even born. Kenshi is dealing with his ancestors’ desperate choice to join Yakuza for protection and born out of it shame and crimes; their choices affect who he is and what drives him. Bi-Han is affected by his father’s decision and decisions of Lin Kuei Grandmasters before him that shaped reality in which Bi-Han lives now and considers an enslavement, because someone in the centuries old past chose to pledge their clan to serve Earthrealm and by extension, Fire Lord. Did Liu Kang intend such a turn of events or is it an effect of countless choices made by mortals preceding Bi-Han and Kenshi existence?

And so we come back to Quan Chi and the question, did Liu Kang decide to introduce slavery to his new timeline solely so Quan Chi could end in one or did mortals (Edenian aristocracy/government) at some point make the choice to enslave other living beings, including Quan Chi’s family, for their own gain? Because for Quan Chi to be born in slavery it means:

his parents or at least mother - and that alone may implies Quan Chi's being a result or rape - would need be a slave in the first place and

mother was punished for her son’s crimes he did not commit - and if Liu Kang’s plan had succeeded, he would never have committed either.

We can go on with questions like that but I think it comes down to this one matter: do we believe that Liu Kang would intentionally damn a billions of innocents to either punish Shang Tsung and Quan Chi or secure the well-being of his favorites like Royal Family and Johnny or not.

The game and intro dialogues won't give us a definite answer to that and each of us will need to settle this dilemma for themselves. I myself still debate whether to believe or not that Liu Kang sat down eons ago and wrote out how numberless generations will live so a few certain characters end in miserable (Shang Tsung & Quan Chi) or happy setting (Sindel). I do however believe that within Liu Kang's timeline, the Keeper of Time's choices shaping people's destiny and free will of characters can and are co-existing. I won't cross out yet the possibility that Liu Kang indeed decided to include slavery just to fuck up Shang Tsung and Quan Chi's lives - and I won't do it at least until I read the new source material.  However, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that slavery and poverty are the outcome of bad choices made by mortals living before the heroes and villains were born.

Of course, this is still not the best scenario and there is no denying Liu Kang wanted a meaningless life for both sorcerers and that he did interfere with events and destinies of mortals. But if he set all life in motion and then immediately step down from Keeper of Time’s position, we need take into account that A) he gave up control over people voluntarily and B) he did it eons before Shang Tsung or Quan Chi - and their families - came to alive and for such a long period of time, many bad things could have happened without his participation or ill will (is Tarkat even part of Liu Kang’s plan or did it happen spontaneously, as a result of the actions of unforeseen forces? As the “forces of nature” balancing things out?). The characters already asked Liu Kang why he did not prevent injustice, why he did not abolish violence, why he did not cure the horrific illness, why he did not make his timeline the better place… but I think to do so he would need to take away the free will, so no mortal could commit a crime again or go against his plan. Which is the total opposition of what he wanted and Liu Kang is aware his world did not improved as he hoped:

Liu Kang: This timeline has not improved as I had hoped. Geras: Thoughts like that led to Kronika’s madness. 

But I guess that is the problem with free will, it allows bad things to happen. There is no win-win scenario and someone will always be harmed - if not by their own choice, then by someone else's, because people do not live in a vacuum.

So, unless Quan Chi’s Bio (that I still didn’t see for myself) outright says Liu Kang decided to made his former enemy born as a slave, I’m willing to give Liu Kang the benefit of doubt that slavery and poverty weren’t on purpose added to his new era just to fuck up two people he didn’t like - even if his dislike is well-understandly considering everything that happened. 

It is easy to look at MK1’s story mode and blame Liu Kang for the characters' background but that is looking at this specific point of time the way we look at NRS and blame them for messing up our favorite heroes for drama’s sake alone. In-universe though? There are plenty of factors outside Liu Kang’s control that shaped the world before any of them came into picture. Like I said, it may not be so easy to determine how much for things to be the way they are now is the fault of god and how much of mortals alone.

Also, in regard to why not just erase them from the timeline, I too myself wondered about that. Or why not make them born in Earthrealm, whereas as mere humans they would pose a threat for a 100, maybe 120 years at best and then be safely tucked in the afterlife. Or why let them both live at the same time and not separate them by ages. My working conclusion for now is that erasing people is not such an easy matter, as people - their histories and relationships - are too well connected threads on time fabric. MK11’s Jacqui ending showed that changing one thing may lead to much more serious consequences. She wanted to spare her father from death at Sindel’s hand and following it the life of revenant. But when she removed that event from his history, in result she erased her own existence, as Jax did not meet Jacqui's mom and thus Jacqui wasn't born. Original Shang Tsung and Quan Chi brought more pain and despair to people than anything else, but since we don’t have an idea how time fabric works or how much it is influenced by the countless erased timelines, maybe Liu Kang couldn’t erase them without erasing more innocent and/or important people? Just a thought to think about.

[indecisive-dizzy]

Some thoughts about Carmen Sánchez <3

💕💕😭😫😭💕 *LOUD UGLY SOBBING* 💕��💥*FLIPS TABLE* 💥💥💕😭😭 *PUNCHING THE WALL* 😭😩💥😩💕💕 *ON MY KNEES* 😭💕 *ROLLING ON THE FLOOR* 😫😭😭😫💕 *MORE LOUD SOBBING* 😭😭😭💕💕

also during "No Matter Where You Are" you can see Carlos has his hand on Carmen's hip. He takes his hand off and Carmen, without looking, grabs his hand and puts it back, holding his hand there for a moment. it's so fucking cute akfhajdha 💕💕😭😩

[tenuuchlegch]

So if anyone is wondering WHY my brain is currently torn between these two fandoms... it's mainly because of these jerks and their similarities.

[angel13xo]

ITS SOOOO FRICKING ANNOYING WHEN A HORRIBLE BAD ANIME HAS A REALLY GOOD MAGIC PLOT/REALLY AWESOME MAGIC SYSTEM THAT JUST ISNT EXPLAINED WELL LIKE CMON 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 we could be doing so much better be so much more creative DONT BE AFRAID TO GO INTO DEPTH OR EXPLAIN THINGS BECAUSE NOTHING IS TOO OBVIOUS I PROMISE 😭😭😭😭😭😭 lik the plot and the magic system could be so cool and have some serious potential

BUT the writing or the characters/characterisation or the design or WORSE THE PERVY JOKES EWWWWW like it's such a waste 😭😭😭😭😭

[katyspersonal]

Tumblr sorta needs a 'Mute' feature in my opinion. Like what if I don't want to block this user, what if I don't want to become enemies and in some days I'd like to interact. But also most of the time seeing how they avidly encourage everyone else whereas I get the passive-aggressive 'oh yeah very uhh... interesting... (please leave me alone I don't like your art lol)' makes me want to unfollow every single fan of these characters and never draw them again.

I remember two years ago the exact same thing happened when someone liked the same character and the same ship and I swear I was the only person in the fandom they bluntly left out and could not spare a single good word for. I can't even blame this on my art being "ugly" because this type of user always aggressively praises all art styles and all levels of skill, it feels more like 'a personal thing except we never fought a single time'. And now my toxic trait of needing approval from [cool person name] is back to haunt me years later! Add the unability to "abandon" this character/ship/whatever despite wanting to after facing so much unspoken passive spite, because I am a contrarian and the best way to trap me into doing something is to try to exclude me from it. I didn't face attempts to very aggressively bully me out of the yard/class/community/etc, sometimes with physical violence included, only to let something mid like passive aggression online finally do it.

I am really stupid and naive person despite my age, but in like 5% of the cases I will still understand the hint and understand what is going on. Yet I have to pretend to be clueless even in rare situations when I know someone hates me, because since they never admitted it, quitting will be perceived as me being "paranoid". But dear goooood, it hurts sometimes. I hope that one day I will be numbed to being treated as a tumor on an otherwise healthy body of society that someone is dying to amputate- and always a person whose approval I want, of all people. Knowing that this day will come is one of the things that keep me going as both a person and a creator. Things like viruses and diseases still try their best to persist, so even if I am actually one, I should persist. It doesn't matter whether I actually rot everything around me or this is just my self-depreciating delusion upon focusing on people that mistreated me and not people that loved me. What matters is persisting, I just still feel angry that it hurts. I can't respond spite with spite or passive aggression with passive aggression, I can't do the 'smug asshole' when I become aware that someone tries to starve me until I "die". I can just fall over and cry about it like a kicked dog, despite being so old, especially when it is a person I didn't have anything against.

And really.. It is as simple as turning the internet off, so I don't see The Person and can focus on doing stuff that I like, as if they never existed and can't crash my self-esteem. It is just annoying to keep doing this, a feature to not see them unless I am in the mood would be better. Like.. blocking is not an option. Not only it implies being enemies which is not my intention, but also it will be like an "evidence" that I was "crazy". They didn't do anything, right? Well, they know what they did, but it was never verbal, so it is my fault I "imagined things", right?

[crickwater]

okay but what if I dyed my hair white and cosplayed astarion and actually went to the next convention....

[clairvoyantcubes]

📖 

Send me a ‘ 📖 ‘ and I will explain a situation / setting I’ve wanted to place my muse into, but haven’t had the chance to, yet

(I've talked about this with @acoldsovereign at length, but... I would love to do some brotp-related things with Hearts and (a) Cumber at some point. Like maybe Hearts acting as a guide/translator for Cumber to help him navigate 'the modern age' (and/or just generally trying to help him adjust to this new 'era' that he's found himself in, etc.) or Cumber telling Hearts about Ancient Saiyan history and culture and/or teaching him their language. Maybe even have them get up to some mischief or other kind of shenanigans.

I guess I'd just want to do some slice-of-life type of threads or interactions with them because I like the thought of them as a brotp (even if it doesn't make sense, canonically.)