#there was like no intention for romance stuff at all so i really didnt know what to do for a while 😂

[aroanthy]

hi!! i know u talk a lot about aromanticism a lot on here, but i don’t think i’ve ever seen u talk about aromantic anthy. would u mind discussing/elaborating on it or linking to a post where u do because i’m very curious!!

i got a similar ask half a year ago or something ridiculous like that on my main blog, but i’d like to really do justice to my url right now and explain it in more concrete terms.

i will say, it’s important to bear in mind that this reading of anthy’s character is very much informed by my own experiences, and a lot of those experiences are ones im not keen to talk in depth about. but you know. let’s make some nebulous gestures towards ideas of being traumatised, being autistic, struggling to meaningfully connect with others and honestly not really wanting to do such because of how they treat you.

like ive previously said, an aromantic perspective on the world would, i think, really benefit anthy. when youve lived your whole life experiencing violence at the hands of these patriarchal structures, of which romance is absolutely one, it’s kinda like. damn. im uncomfortable buying into those ideas.

anthy also has this lovely line in ep 19 where she says to utena ‘romance either happens or it doesn’t’ and it’s just sooooooo. so very interesting to me, actually, that anthy would say something so black and white about ‘romance’, a topic that anthy knows better than a lot of rgu characters is hopelessly confused and arbitrary and often enabling violence. and utena (fellow aromantic gaybo) says 'yeah, i know, but...'. these simplifications, these elisions. what is and isn't articulated. but what? maybe things are much more complicated than we'd like to think.

anyway enough of that tangent. one thing i as a trans and aromantic person always return to when discussing trans and aromantic readings of characters/texts more broadly is that there's no singular piece of evidence that can really cement these readings as Undeniable. it's like. okay. there's a critique of romance as a patriarchal structure in revolutionary girl utena. there's an ambiguity about anthy's feelings towards characters like utena, where there is clearly a queer connection but it takes shape in unconventional and complex ways. me, i'm aromantic, i see all of these pieces and i go oh well that's because she's an aromantic lesbian. you know, there's plenty of little moments i can evidence but those moments can be used to argue for an alloromantic lesbian anthy too. romance is a very arbitrary thing and i think everyone should take their own approach to it unapologetically. of course, mine is that it's hellish and i want nothing to do with it, but im just one guy. and im okay with that. i feel strongly about this reading and it is personal, and id be dishonest to say otherwise, but i do also find that it's well-evidenced in the text. as one of my lecturers once said, don't worry about authorial intent, it isn't real <3

[bulbabutt]

I haven’t watched TFP, but I was curious about your tag mentioning the TFP hated women so much that it drove you crazy on your Arcee design post, so may I ask what you mean?

(And like, yeah, Transformers being misogynistic isn’t a big surprise, but I’m asking for the specific problems TFP has, rather than say TFA, which I’m more familiar with)

((Still really fucking pissed at TFA Arcee’s treatment too, btw))

OOF OKAY WELL LETS SEE HOW LONG THIS GETS

number 1: agreed on the animated arcee treatment. that show suffered from the blackarachnia versus arcee dichotomy of women, the good and the bad, on top of the using a womans tragic backstory to push forward a mans character motivation. they did it TWO TIMES, with BOTH their female characters. their characters dont end up being their own because their backstories both feed in to their respective male counterparts motivations (optimus and ratchet) and like...... while i LOVE animated they didnt do a very good job at all with the women (sari is more so a child character as a whole than a woman character, but also something something all 3 women are like biologically weird plot devices? so thats. hrm. also the oversexualization of sari when shes forcibly aged. also shes south asian and so the oversexualizing hits harder etc etc) basically its a whole can of worms but a good scene setter to talk about prime with.

so animated is cancelled because "the hub" network is making its own transformers show, but this ones written by the live action movie writers. uh oh. those arent written very well at all. i believe their intention was "you can write a movie but way longer and do more stuff" which isnt really... how that should work. anyway the way both minorities and women are represented by those bad movies is really bad, theyre very pro military anti minority conservative garbage that i genuinely think has warped a lot of young minds at the time and its a problem now. human women being objectified and placed as reward in the narrative and all that. robot women WE CANT DO ROBOT WOMEN THATS TOO CONFUSING!!!! oh ok you get one. ok she died. are you happy women? now a show written by them.

now on its surface, here we finally have a girl transformer in the main lineup, thats good! on its surface, arcee is a main character, a badass warrior. if youve been on my blog ive talked before about this weird mid 2000s switch up to making girl characters becoming less girly and more like. idk tomboyish? more cool and into guy stuff, that kind of comes about from the ALL MALE writing teams going "well we dont know how to write a girl/we dont wanna be sexist" but they dont actually know how to write women. so arcee's characterization is like. oh shes cold and serious and has a tragic past. its like a dude character, how do we write tragic backstories for dude characters? we fridge their women. so we just do that in reverse. what they did with her was give her TWO tragic backstories, one being that her "partner" cliffjumper dies and shes mad and wants revenge. and the other is that her "partner" tailgate dies and she wants revenge. basically her motivations allllll revolve around men. its not about what she goes through, its all about that she's a "woman scorned". its not even that it implies romance, the show never gives you a clear picture of what "partner" actually means in either context. this is topped off by pairing her with a teenage boy. in fairness, three of the transformers get paired off with a kid, but oh boy do a lot of problems arise from this specific pairing.

so number one: women being objectified is a problem in general, but it comes across worse when the woman can turn into a literal object and you dont think about the repercussions of that. jack darby sees a cool motorcycle parked and he just... he sits his ass down on it. it violates her personal space, and then he continues to use her body to show off to teenage girls. this is the basis of their relationship, that she looked like a cool vehicle he wanted so he claimed her. yes, he didnt know she was a person, but narratively we do. this will continue to be a thing over the series, arcee is jacks object now, he owns her and thus can use her to show off. what does arcee think of being used this way? not important. outside of her relationships with jack cliffjumper and tailgate, we dont really know a damn thing about arcee. its all about her traumas over MEN. be it romantic or platonic, the show cant tell the difference, because jacks MOM enters the picture like "you seem to be out late with some GIRL who is she" and thus there is beef between the two. because... you know women.

speaking of jacks mom: she should have been in the show as a regular paired off with ratchet. shes a nurse and hes an ambulance. are the writers stupid? its so fucking obvious. but no, she exists to have beef with arcee on behalf of being jacks mom. which makes it more clear that they're trying to say..... SOMETHING weird about jack and arcee.... aaaaaand then as a romantic interest for fowler. shes here because of her son and romance partner.

arcee is this cool warrior whos done all this stuff and is trying to keep the world safe and her people a secret, BUT JACKS MOM THINKS SHES IN THE GARAGE! so she better get back there for his sake! also shes so cool and level headed and doesnt want to drag race a punk kid who's making fun of jack BUT THEN HE SAID SHE WAS FAT SO NOW SHE CANT HELP BUT BE MAD! thats basically her personality as it stands throughout the show. oh she also makes fun of bulkhead for showing emotion one time. cuz like.... girls! being! sexist! to! show! theyre! cool!!!!

anyway. theres an issue with the writing of all the kids, cuz their plot relevance is really weak and felt super forced to keep them all in the story, many other versions of tf have done this better, but they basically force a relationship between characters and say "yep thats it thats the set up every child has their own pet robot, done and done"

one of these kids is MIKO. oh miko. in a world in which this show was good they would have combined the child characters and just had it be miko, because this poor girl is so disrespected by the narrative. she's presented as a "wild child" and thus paired off with bulkhead, whos a big bruiser who now has to act as her handler. she gets into trouble with the transformers a lot, like sneaking on missions and not taking the disguise part seriously. cuz like....shes stupid or something! haha isnt that funny! shes an exchange student from japan, she offhandedly says things about getting detention and things about her home stay parents being afraid of her. we get NO ELABORATION. we meet jacks mom, we see raf's family, THIS PART NEVER COMES UP AGAIN. miko clearly has no support system outside of the transformers, and she is often disrespected and made fun of by jack specifically and the narrative never makes him feel bad about it. each kid feels ownership over their robot, and the most change she ever gets to go through is having bulkhead almost die and so she's sad about it (also this is the only time she has a heart to heart with arcee. ABOUT A MALE CHARACTER) like if we could combine all the kids traits into one kid and have it be miko, a wild child whos good with computers and make june darby her home stay mom who eventually notices she keeps being missing that would make it way stronger of a character. also shes suffering from that alt asian girl colour streak syndrome, cuz she wouldnt be characterful enough if she wasnt also alt. if she didnt like punk music and monster trucks who would she be? the writers dont care.

and then for our LAST girl character we have blackarachnia I MEAN AIRACHNID. totally new character. uh. okay so you know how blackarachnia in animated was just like.... a succubus? which felt bad there? its worse here. shes a very one dimensional villain, which is fine, but they couldnt even keep her as being arcee's arch nemesis without literally redoing the same backstory they had just given her with cliffjumper. first they write cliffjumper as her partner and he's killed by starscream. then okay, arcee has an old nemesis from cybertron and thats airachnid what did she do? kill her PREVIOUS partner tailgate.

o_____O

you just....... you did it again? are you serious? they could only think of ONE way a woman would have any motivation and they just. did it two times. and they made that the basis of the whole beef, so even though this story could be the one to give you some toxic yuri ass relationship between these two women, it literally ends up being about men. AND THEN it's "shes gonna kill jack, arcees NEW partner"

do you see what im getting at? every woman revolves around men. they cant have motivations outside of men. they cant have any traits that make them interesting on their own. and even then, they dont know what to do with airachnid when she joins the decepticons so they just have megatron try to get her killed and she fucks off for a while, coming back to be turned into a LITERAL. LIIIIITERAL SUCCUBUS at the end. im not joking, they make her suck the energon out of men and shes on moon somewhere just doing that and thats how her story ends. like you can tell they casted a lot of bigger voice actors and had to get rid of them somehow but JESUS. double down on the issue with animated blackarachnia here ffs

aaaand. im pretty sure thats all the women. but yeah. none of them are well characterized, none of them have much agency if any at all. and on top of that, they are NOT allowed to be girly. arcee isnt pink PURELY because it would be weird to have a boy ride a pink motorcycle. arcee actually HATES pink (even though she is partially pink) and the writers literally make her say that. like why. just to show off "see shes not a GIRLY girl. shes just a girl"

like prime is bad for many reasons, like its depiction of disabled characters, turning bumblebee into raf's pet robot (who raf can magically understand without ANY explanation) without a care in the world for what he thinks or feels until he can speak again. like theres smalllll amounts of times he gets some good characterization, but for the most part he has no agency (see speed metal, an episode where jack asks RAF's permission to use bumblebee in a race, not bumblebee cuz he cant talk how could he have a choice). theres also weird characterization of bulkhead, which didnt really hit me until seeing him in RID alongside that grimlock, its only 2 black voiced characters who are very violent and clumsy and not very smart. uh. thats not good! there's also levels of homophobia to its depictions of starscream and knockout, things we can look back on now like "haha its camp" but at the time like. no they were writing it that way cuz its funny that they're queer. starscream being a complete fop IS the joke. calling him a "stiletto heeled freak" IS the joke. its a really bigoted show on top of just being written SUPER poorly. so you can all around TELL its written by the writers of the movies.

this got ramble-y but you activated my trap card, prime is the worst show because its presents itself as super cool and serious and dark while being written by bigoted idiots who couldnt write their way out of a wet paper back. "oh we ran out of money to pay this actor so we killed their character" THEN STOP MAKING BRAND NEW CHARACTERS MAKING YOUR TEAM DESIGN MODEL AND RIG THEM AND HIRING BRAND NEW PEOPLE TO PLAY THEM EVERY 2 EPISODES JUST TO HAVE THEM NARRATIVELY DO NOTHING AND THEN DIE!!! dumb. dumb show. dumb show so stupid. so stupid and it thinks its not stupid because its so so stupid. (doing the frankie from community bit cuz this is the way i calm myself down cuz the show makes me so mad because its so stupid lmfao)

[butchtwelfthdoctor]

i got peer reviewed on this post by @pikechris (sorry for the tag hope you dont mind) but still had way more thoughts hehe anyways i was gonna leave tags but it got pretty long sooo those tags and the rest of my Thoughts under the cut cos damn this did get really really long

i looked in the replies of that post & people you're not getting it he didnt kiss rory with romantic feeling behind rory was just there and eleven got excited about something else and rory visibly looks weirded out afterwards. it was practically eleven kissing as stimming. like when he kissed jenny. it wasnt out of romantic feelings at all he knows madame vastra would kill him & he isnt interested he was just happy to be able to move after the crimson horror thingy. kissing rory was also played as a joke it was a funny haha yknow. i also dont remember eleven kissing the james corden character but like whatever i cant imagine that being meaningful in any way either.

OH in the same way that nardole having a crush on twelve (canon btw nardole practically says as much is played as a joke. like with the post i mention above, like thats played as a joke because can you imagine the cool very beautiful twelfth doctor having romantic or sexual feelings towards nardole, who is literally, as missy puts it, comic relief? i dont think that its queer is a part of that but idk it might be.

but in any case. the doctor hasnt kissed or been kissed by a man with romantic intent onscreen since 2005. we COULD have had a thirteen and yaz kiss but we didnt which is i think why? people forget? about them? doctor was confimred queer she had lesbian attraction but nothing really. happened about it. so yeah. also apparently a lot of people didnt watch thirteen like cmonnnnnnnnnnn it really isnt as bad as people make it out to be.

twelve kissed missy who was probably the only person he would have kissed at that point. he's horrified when she kisses him before he knows who she is but then the very next episode he kisses her in a... if not exactly romantic a very emotionally charged way. and she knows that. we dont see them kiss again even as their relationship grows more and more romantically inclined (which i actually support any amount of canon thoschei conventional romance would probably be. bad and kill the appeal immediately) because like i said. she turns every dead body on earth into a cyberman then lies about where gallifrey is then fakes her own death then tries to get the doctor to kill clara then he leaves her on skaro iirc then he is supposed to kill her but doesnt and instead locks her in a vault for ~70 years but its okay cos they have takeaway food in there together sometimes. and then world enough and time / the doctor falls happens which i cant even start talking about or i'll never stop & thirteen was 1) aroace and 2) too emotionally repressed to even get close to kissing Anyone, let alone the master after all the timeless child stuff, even though she probably?? wanted to kiss yaz?? a bit??? at least?? yaz wanted to kiss her but there was too much emotional repression going on on both sides but mainly the doctor Which Brings Me To My Point.

Fifteen is the most, shall we say, flirty doctor we've had for a while, and Ncuti is also the first openly queer actor to play the doctor on tv, and while of course everyone on tumblr is Very familiar with all of the ways the doctor is queer (and neurodivergent) without any need for the show to specifically say so, it is really really great that a) the doctor is played by a gay actor b) there are more queer characters and c) we got an actual episode where The Doctor Is Gay With A Man. especially after the. somewhat odd. way yaz & thirteen's relationship was dealt with at the end of thirteen's run, which even though was a queer relationship was like....... not really. shown. they just talked about it. and had icecream. okayyy i guesssssssssss

BUt NOW fifteen gets an entire episode where his mutual attraction to another male character (assuming the doctor is actually a man, pretty sure i read somewhere Ncuti was he/they-ing the doctor but he might have meant the doctor in general, not just fifteen) is a Main Focus of the episode. its the main tension, the main drama, the main interest - you pretty much know from the 'okay we'll teleport the chuldur away' that thats whats going to happen, and i for one went 'oh my god rouge is going to get teleported' from the moment the doctor fixed it to carry six. the Main Focus is now their flirting, their dynamic, the way Those Two Interact, their almost kiss (which the doctor was so ready to duck out of as soon at the thing beeped, but you can tell by the look on rouge's face that he's for sure trying that again later). the doctor showing actual episode-arc spanning romantic interest in a character, let alone a specifically queer one... that doesnt happen a lot.

(the girl in the fireplace has a lot of superficial similarities, though you could also argue that madame de pompadour was far more romantically into ten than he was into her. thirteen's characteristically very awkward attempt at flirting towards yaz in the sea devils special didnt have nearly as much focus on it)

but really the point is the doctor was kissed! for the first time on tv in ten years!!!! and it was a queer kiss!! and that romance was The Major Part of the episode!! the doctor doctorwho was gay kissing a man on out television screens after a genuinely quite good build up!!!!!!!!!!! it would of of course be amazing if rouge makes another appearance (i think he will, most likely in a later season instead of the next 2 eps), and even better if we had a longer arc of that romance, but we got it!!! actual canonical queer romance for the doctor!! their first canon kiss in like at least a couple hundred years of their life, and while i am an aspec doctor who believer there are 100% time when he feels attraction and this was for sure one if them. and it was really beautiful & emotional & the flirting was fun & rouge was a good character & their dynamic was really good and yay!!!!

[nanistar]

How did you go about making your story Saltburn's Clan? I really love how fleshed out and interconnected things are, it's really good! I want to make my own story, too, but I'm struggling to know what steps to take to get there and where to start. So, how did you go about it?

this one is really hard. i get a decent amount of people asking me how to start/how to write a comic, but never how to start/write a story.

truthfully, i don't really know. i have always been a more oc oriented person rather than fandom oriented. when i was in middle school i tried writing fanfiction but was never as attached to the canon character as i was with ocs. now oc x canon, however, i could roll with. all this to say, i have always had oc stories floating around in my head, so starting a story itself is easy for me. following through is not, i have to really hit a vein early on.

so when it comes to story, what do you like? i like 70s and 80s grungy sci-fi and gory/campy horror (alien, event horizon, the thing, evil dead) niche and hostile biomes with highly adapted creatures (like deep sea or deep desert) and i love specbio, even if i'm far from an actual scientist. i also love bastardizing Christianity because the themes and motifs are. (chef kiss) Delicious. (a lot of these inspirations don't come into play for SBC but since i was 15 or so i've been working on another story, starting the comic, cancelling it, rewriting it, completely wiping everything but the core characters. most of these themes are more appropriate for them)

and what sort of character tropes do you like/don't like? i personally am uninterested in writing stories of younger people discovering the world around them and discovering who they are. i love to read them, but i've already lived through that situation and don't want to have to work through it again. another thing i'm personally bad at writing is will they/wont they romance stuff. that's why i like established adult characters with established relationships. Saltburn and hollowspur are both 5 years old and have been dating for about 4 of those years. we know that they love each other, as they visit and play around, and sleep over often, but we also know that they are independent and self-sufficient without each othersince we know that they live apart and have no interest in moving in together. (this is all shown, not told, in chapter 1) i did not start saltburn's story and setting with the intention of making it into a comic, or even to share it with tumblr or anyone other than my friends, outside of drawings that i did for myself and posted. she was just a little kitty cat who lived in my head for a while. i talk a bit more about it here, but basically when it came to actually coming up with the setting, i knew i wanted it in the desert so i researched biomes and found ones that would be good for clans.

warrior cats in particular lends itself to a really good jumping off point for stories, as it already has an established hierarchy and society so you dont have to think TOO hard about it. but also you can modify it to your own discretion. i'm personally sick of starclan's interference so i didn't want them to have anything to do with the story, plus there are a lot of better "starclan is evil/fucked up/has bad intentions" stories out there than i could do (@the-exiled-comic, the dog star, ect) . i also didnt want any clan v clan drama because weve had enough in canon. from there i established that cross clan relationships are fine and joining a clan that fits you better is okay too. then i filled out the clans, i started with sunclan and did marshclan last. through drawing that huge list of characters i was able to set them up with families and histories along the way because i could look at similar coat patterns and stuff and assign them as family. briskwater and hollowspur were always siblings, but hawkwasp being from briskwater's litter came a bit later. i knew i wanted flickerstar to have exes and a lot of kids so i came up with a bunch of names first and figured the rest out later. having these established histories that go back helps make the world feel lived in.

saltburn's unusual design came before the creation of moonclan, though i knew i wanted a 4th clan at this point. i decided there would be a clan that lived in the mines and came out at night, and then eventually worked them back so that they were instead banished away deep into the mines. there is a lot of moonclan lore that i have not revealed yet (we will learn all about them this upcoming chapter) and most of it has stemmed from the question: If life is so bad for them down there, why hasn't anyone left yet? because a major plot point form moonclan is that nobody knows they exist. SO there has to be something, physical or otherwise, keeping them down there. when you build a world you gotta ask yourself WHY a lot, and figure that out too. why are the surface clans so friendly with each other? because they don't need to compete for resources and are able to spare some. why hasn't anyone left moonclan? well...

anyway a lot of these things will come naturally the more you think about it. and tbqh, i did not go into the comic with all this lore and stuff planned. it has come to me as i work. moonclan's [Redacted] has been rewritten like a dozen times as i come up with cooler ideas. when i plan a scene, i usually wrote a short kinda vague script for it, and then work through it as i do the pages. an 8 page scene takes a month to do, so I have a lot of time to mull over the dialogue, so i don't worry about writing it all down ahead of time.

but beyond all that. i personally can't go "i want to write a story" and then do it. i have to work it over in my head and as doodles for a long time before i get anywhere that i'm happy with it. it comes naturally to me i just sorta zone in and focus on stuff.

[kenjiyabuki]

DMD FTR: finale thoughts

i forgot to put this out because i've been in the process of being an employed adult human person these days, unfortunately (no one who saw my previous DMD FTR posts is surprised that i was unemployed). now i wont even get to have my weekly crisply shot and edited hang outs w Gen 3 besties while this new job is sucking my soul... but this was a pleasant finale to this sweet and chill and incredibly unsurprising show!

here's the thing: i dont even know who Domundi is trying to fool w this double win stuff cause they did literally announce the new gen would be acting in TWO (2) new series during their 2023 Line Up event???????

so the double win wasn't a surprise AT ALL but it's okay, it didnt really diminish my enjoyment out of the show at all. i wanted both couples to have series anyway!

as i've said in my first post about this show, it has been very obvious that this shows' intention isn't to be a competition, it's more of a new gen "inauguration". they could've just put the boys through bunch of workshops and let them choose partners off camera too but they chose to put money and time in to make it a whole show, so people could witness their journey and premature fan clubs would form and develop. i think its fun and clever marketing but did it work???

well, the boys def have more fans now BUT on the same day this episode was premiering, some ZNN fans were crying about their faves (who just had a movie come out, also filming a show rn AND scheduled to film another one after) being slighted by the company and they didn't need to "add more". like i said, i don't really follow Domundi closely, if the fans are right about artist management i might not know... but their Gen 2 was extremely successful after all and people are BEGGING for more series, so it's not a bad move for a company to want to grow. i wish fans would be more mature and learn more the industry the person they "stan" works in! why would a growing company would just make shows w 2 actors over and over man, cmon 😭

okay now that i got that out of me, back to the finale. some notes about the general:

the group performance of the theme song was a bit cringe to me bc i just hate that kind of music. but everyone's ending fairies were really cuteeeee so i forgive them

real winners of the episode is the background dancers because they literally did all the performances and acted too, very well!!

Domundi members and variety of industry people in the audience was sweet to see and added valuable comments/advice for the boys. i was especially happy to see Jimmy and Tommy, whom i ADORE!!!!

i was laughing at that LOUD ASS clapping and hollering track they kept playing to add some more noise to the audience's. like i know why they did it but how much that big sound didn't match w that small crowd just tickled me..

well, yeah, i cant get into idol-ing stuff personally so i was kind of bored during the solo performances. i dont really have comments that hasn't already been said by the judges. i thought all the boys did what they were supposed to do and showcased their talents, EXCEPT Latte........ my dude, what happened? i think he could've lip sync to the song, which IS a skill (Rupaul's Drag Race battles and just drag performances in general as evidence...) that would add a lot to his performance.

Firstone leaving the competition w Best Friendship & Best Performance Awards in his pocket and two guys wanting to be his partner. What a little star... Deserved and love his cocky attitude.

about couple jukebox musicals:

in my last episode commentary, i joked about Mandee getting inspired from my ideas but then they actually kinda happened lol🧐🧐🧐🧐 ThomasKong's performance was a coming of age, young love story while KengNamping's story was more complex romance w an angsty core, almost exactly like i wished for.

all in all, KengNamping's performance grabbed my attention the most. mostly because their acting & chemistry seemed improved to me (that kiss fake out at the end, what the hell??? you guys couldn't hold an eye contact couple eps ago...) AND their storyline just ATEEEE. i dont know who came up w the forbidden romance between kinda out of touch but well meaning rich boy & his "i suffer through love quietly" village boy bodyguard, w humour sprinkled in, but they need to get their ass eaten regularly...

ThomasKong don't even need to try that hard, they are just natural born charmers!!!! i liked their friends to lovers, nerdy guy cant believe popular one' love bc he doesnt see his value storyline (Thomas could've busted out One Direction's "What Makes You Beautiful"). With the romantic prom climax, it reminded me of American high school movies and fit their vibes perfectly. i wish it was more humorous, because i think comedy is one of their strong suits. like how did it ended up that shy kings KengNamping got more laughs than ThomasKong, the goofballs themselves??? whoever is writing their series, please take notes, now that i know you are reading these...

after the glorious double win and the cute four-way hug, Aof said that two shows would be announced this year which clearly meant that most we are getting this year are pilot trailers. which is fine. not easy to be patient but i get that they are a smaller company w lots on their plates already. i hope they will use that time to work and work and work on the shows!!!!

i honestly want Domundi to kind of change up things in their filmmaking/producing styles, maybe switch directors sometimes and try diffferent styles idk... this show and Gen 3 in general felt very refreshing and i hope they keep that vibe going! and maybe i will finally watch a Domundi show till the last episode.

P.S.: Extra clips were released this week and KengNamping's was sweet. i was kinda laughing at how much of a set up it was like, them conveniently sharing a blanket, all mic'd up, getting filmed w lights on etc. but their conversation and mood in the moment seemed sincere, which is enough. it was nice to see the context for ep 5, when they found each other at the other end of the red ribbon and said that so much happened on that bridge. what a perfect circle moment, from comforting each other about not winning a challenge to winning the show!

[spookfished]

sept+ oct media roundup

hi again :3 this month in september i was really busy with school so busy that i didnt make a media post for a whole month!!!! lol and also ive been getting back into FINAL FANTASY XIV: ENDWALKER grind lmfaooo so i wasnt really on that #mediagrind as much as i could be… but i still have some things to talk about :3 by sakshis (@.lilquill) suggestion, im also talking a bit about the music ive been listening to! this is also being crossposted onto my extremely barebones neocities

books/comics:

paladins strength by t kingfisher: m/m romance about a coroner and another former paladin! still psrt of the saint of steel series. i thought it was, once again really charming and grounded! also it involves a death room and i love those. the authors idea of 'these two characters are hiding something from each other' feels a little bit more contrived this time on pipers end, but i still had fun :3

home comforts: the art and science of keeping house by cheryl mendelson: nonfiction instructional manual on how to do various homemaking activities: cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc. ok ngl i got this book bc a book i was reading about 27/7 service..? was like "if you have never cared about housekeeping before this ones pretty useful." bc of various life and medical issues, the house i grew up in never really cared much about this kind of thing, except for cooking and self sufficiency. home comfort was written by a full time lawyer who was raised w the idea that she would grow up to be a stay at home wife, which i think is pretty interesting! it manages not to fall into tradwife ideas (imo?) by reframing these tasks as like.. a cyclical, rhythmic kind of self care that serve to make your home feel more safe and cozy. kind of like the marie kondo idea that folding all your clothes by hand puts like intent into your them; not practical for everybody, but sometimes a nice idea! also has a bunch of practical stuff, much of which is not particularly useful if you live in a college dorm. this book made me make my bed more often lol. i wish it had an updated section about tech (especially cord management)

the maid by nita prose (dnf): thriller about a (strongly autistic coded) maid who gets caught up in a murder at her hotel. i dont know i feel like i could have powered through this, but the way that the maids autism, and the way she interprets situations vs how the audience interprets situations is either played for pathos or laughs (its sometimes hard to tell which) rubbed me the wrong way. her life just… sucks? so bad? i feel like other people reading it may find some validating representation, and the voice is certainly interesting and brisk.

lolita by nabokov: doesnt really need much of an introduction. not going to lie, i read this bc i like nabokov but also to silently feel superior to all of the discourse girlies on tumblr. i did enjoy it though! in a way, at least? it's definitely a novel that can only be taken in small bites. i feel like a lot of the wordplay went over my head, and i'm not sure how much of that is due to me not knowing french and how much of it is due to the english language evolving so much after publication (and how much of it is just my own lack of knowledge. close reading is not really one of my strongest suits) . i was relieved to find that people call it funny, because it honestly was at some points. its really interesting when people can balance revulsion and humor and sick fascination, but that ratio is a pretty personal thing

she who became the sun by shelley parker chan: a retelling of the rebellion against the yuan dynasty, except the future ming emperor is a woman instead; part 1 of a duology. i really liked it! i liked the idea of like ummm sort of the two genders being Agency and No Agency. i thought baoxiang was pretty great love a fruity queerbaiting bureaucrat. thought it was pretty interesting that he continually tried to assert the importance of his own work and also worked really hard despite the fact that approval was obvioiusly never going to happen--so was it really that kind of futile endeavor, or for other ends….?! ooh so mystrious very excited to see him feature more in the second book. (spoilers for the book) some scenes that especially stood out were actually with some of the side characters! such as the mayors wife :3 the climactic scene with ouyang and esen was very delicious

he who drowned the world by shelley parker chan: sequel to she who became the sun! zhu yuanzhang has clawed her way up to her very own army and the yuans power has been destabilized, but everyone else is still racing for the crown. dude. i liked this book so freaking much. sooooo freaking cool it expands on a lot of the ideas and i also liked the development of the yingzi/yuanzhang relationship. additionally it managed to display the kind of like. trans horniness that (DISCLAIMER: I DONT FUCK) i dont really see in a lot of published books.. pretty cool! reminded me of when i went to a burlesque show and saw a woman (medical horror cwwww?) stick a needle through her hand lol. fantastically well balanced cast. do you think about the EROTICISM OF VIOLENCE? and GENDER ROLES? please read this book it made me so stressed. i really believe that at the end of the book baoxiang becomes a stay at home prisoner war

an unkindness of ghosts by rivers solomon: scifi about "exploring the conjunction between structural racism and generation ships" where medic aster uncovers a grand conspiracy! i thought the world building was reallyyy fun ship that has Been Voyaging Forever is an old and good trope, and this book goes hey but class and race will still exist though. to the point of like um recreating plantation dynamics i think? very anti utopian in a way i enjoyed. the mix of advanced scifi stuff and also having no resources was interesting :3 i liked giselle and theo a lot, and pretty much all the supporting (+sympathetic) characters besides aster? who took a lot longer for me to warm up to--shes definitely given a lot of nuance and life, but i think overly literal autistic/coded characters are a bit cringe..? im sure it meant a lot to someone (esp having a black autistic char?) just not me personally. oh but i really enjoyed the difference in voice between all the povs they were really distinct and fun. also aster and giselles rship! i think it would have been nice to have more intense moments, but thats also a personal preference for dramatics kind of thing--a lot gets glossed over in a 'past trauma' kind of way.. neil is right that i mostly have been reading books that blast you though lol. i really liked the scene at the end though like wow.. returning to the earth.. that was really good honestly. the stuff about archives and memory keeping was interesting --there was definitely like a thread through but i wouldn't have caught it w/out leo mentioning it. something about multiple interpretations..? something about history being passed from person to person rather than through physical means….?? its a strong debut i think :3 felt kinda movielike in an interesting way. rlly wish theyd went into The Gender more although i guess it mostly wasnt about that yeah and i wish the ending had more to do w like. her doctor stuff lmfao it was a little disconnected

video games:

13 sentinels: 13 teens intertwined stories come together in a story about love, mechs, and every scifi trope in the universe. also, the past and the future! the background art is sooo gorgeous i think my usual attention span for visual novels was increased significantly just by being able to walk around while dialogue was playing… if you have a low tolerance for heterosexual "pair the spares" type behavior, this may not be for you--i really liked some of the romances though, like with fuyusaka and sekigahara.. i liked the themes of like. idk you can try to relive the past, but all itll do is stall you from moving forward--we can examine past mistakes but we cant ever get a 'redo.' alsooo people were haters about the battle segments but i played it all on hard and really enjoyed it. tbh anyways would recommend!

boyfriend dungeon: dungeon crawler where you can date your weapons. well i 100%d this (except for the whip) but for all of the gameplay bits i was mostly thinking "man i wish i was playing hades". probably not a fair comparison, but it does lack some polish in that department, and overall. all the same, i enjoyed this game! it has a nice soundtrack and art, and i thought some of the love interests were pretty charming :3 also appreciated the flexibility in love routes. it really got a bad rap from the stalker plot huh…pretty solid game and worth playing if the initial concept grabs you. i did borrow neils copy though

hades: after beating bf dungeon i immediately redownloaded hades lmfao. sooo good theres not a lot to say about it. still havent managed to beat the final boss even after all this time bc im too stubborn to turn on godmode >:T

dave the diver: casual sort of dungeon crawler, except instead of killling monsters you catch fish for your sushi restaurant, which you also run. dave the diver stacks on a bunch of mechanics in a way thats… surprisingly manageable? and really charming honestly. im having a lot of fun with it :3 a few awkward boss fights that werent really that fun (and stealth segments..my enemy) havent gotten in the way of like all the rest of it i loooove exploring the ocean and finding new ways to get fish and all of the gorgeous pixel art and also the FALL GUYS GUY is doing the OST. this game is blowing up a little bit rn but honestly for good reason. such a good gameplay loop that also adds in variety over time

manga:

hirayasumi: slice of life about a part-timer working in tokyo who inherits an old womans house--its all about slowing down and enjoying the pace of life--and also how hard that actually is. dude hirayasumi is sooo fucking good im always trying to get people to read this manga i think its adorable and also beautiful and bittersweet. its about growing out of your 20s and the friends around you who are moving up or moving on or even just stuck in place. super awesome

ao no flag: romance coming of age w lgbt themes. a timid high school girl is trying to work up the courage to confess to her crush, and enlists the help of her crush's childhood friend to do it. the mixed-up shenanigans of adolescence ensue. man you know i really love the art for this manga (faces and expressions! so good!) and i think all the characters are really compelling! the trio just have such a cute dynamic and like all of the waffling over feelings honestly feels real. the ending was really disappointing though honestly. still worth a read imo but prepare to be mad. ok here is my longer rant about it (spoilers) ughhh ok its like. initially i thought masumi getting a boyfriend was SO fucking disappointing. especially given that she kinda got the least focus out of the main 4? some reddit comments were like "maybe her boyfriend is trans" but i think that something like that would be……….really complicated honestly? and something that id really want to have explored more outside of just a singular epilogue chapter? and i dont think the implications were that strong there. and given that it would have been good to see more indications that they were actually happy together bc its like the first thing you think when you see her is "oh, she gave up" WHICH IS SO FUCKING DEPRESSING AUGH and she never even confessed to futaba :| futaba and taichi breaking up makes a lot of sense and im like, whatever not really going to object to that esp bc the whole theme is like youthful love. but then on the SAME SIDE OF THE COIN its like it makes no sense for taichi and touma to get together either then!!!!!!!!!!!!! like what a copout. it kinda breaks the whole original premise. AND it feels like its just (whats that word thats like playing to? favoring?) fujos reading the comic and all those ppl are like the girl should DIE for getting in the way of my two gayboys. and aslo the convo with kensuke and the other girls and especially that other guy really felt like i was reading a reddit thread. or like some of the most frustrating conversations that ive had and overheard. like hmm i sort of get what it was trying to say. and i agree that peoples frustration and idea of whats 'right' usually isnt the best rhetoric.. and above all sometimes youre not focusing on your ideas of correctness Or proper rhetoric but having an honest and open communication? but its likeeee well i kinda dont care? sorry

nana: coming of ageish? nana, a flighty girl who's quick to fall in love, and nana, a tough rocker trying to make it big in the city, coincidentally become roommates, and become fast friends despite their disparate lives/personalities. this one is one of the classics! i still havent finished it yet (its also unfinished) but idk i really like it. always fond of flop women like hachi lmfao. the older art style did take a bit to get used to for me

i want to hold aono kun so bad i could die: horror manga about a high school girl who gets her first boyfriend--who then dies only a couple days afterwards. yuki kariya is willing to do anything to make sure aono stays with her, even letting her possess her body. but should the dead and the living really be so closely intertwined? ok the art in the first couple volumes may be a little offputting but this is REALLY good ok. and it has some really chilling panels that i love a lot. aono kun begins with the pretty classic "awkward loner girl x popular boy", but it quickly starts getting into ideas about like…. purity and "the filthiness of desire" and stuff like that. recently has been getting more into why the characters are the way they are? in some uh, really chilling and realistic depictions of abuse within a family. check the cws but mr chainsaw man recommended this manga so you should read it too.

movies/tv:

skibidi toilet: humor/action webseries?? ok so its about this war between the skibidis and the cameraheads, which escalates in technology over time as the cameraheads bring in other objecthead allies and the skibidis grow stronger. me and neil and alena watched all compiled 40 minutes of this in a straight shot, which was kind of like frying our brains in a microwave. kind of like those stickfight videos for a cocomelon generation, the relentless pacing will suck you in kinda like…. a skibidi toilet…. really well made imo but probably only worth watching if you really like cool fights and/or gmod

the shining: prestige? slash? horror a father and his family take care of a hotel only to find out things are FUCKED.. i really didnt know what this was about besides the here's johnny scene before i watched it :3 pretty crazy it really just is a good movie. sucks that the filming was so terrible though

fight club: ok so to me this movie is about colelctive action and gay people. like they had so many people mobilized for radical action and whatever and all they did was blow up a bank. LAME! anyways i really liked it a lot despite the everything. ive been entering my film bro era with neil i hope we watch pulp fiction next <3

music:

this is a couple albums ive been listening to over the past couple months!

THE CLOD(瓦合) by no party for cao dong: taiwanese post rock. im a big fan of this band so i listened to a bunch of the album tracks as they released!! like the first album, each track flows together into a coherent whole, and it retains the upbeat despondency from the servile. however, it feels like theyve also been more willing to branch out musically! especially with tracks like damn and daydream. overall, the album has a grittier, grungier feeling as well. also i know more chinese so i can sing along a bit now :3 (also, their lyric translations are always so good?) a few highlight tracks for me are lie (床) and the human the hole and the mountain. (人洞山).

CRAWLER by idles: british "crankwave", whatever that means. idles is also a band that i really like :3 sometimes i try and listen to other things in its genre and im like well…. this isnt idles though… sorry.. i like things that are the same forever…. i listen to this music a lot when im cleaning haha. it has such a feeling of overwhelm and tearing through rock bottom thats very satisfying! crawling hurts but it works for me and so on. with crawler and the clod both, every time i listen i have a couple favorite new tracks but rn i like the end and progress.

UMURANGI GENERATION OST primarily by adolf nomura: jungle music for a photography-based game (umurangi means "red sky" in te reo). i mostly end up listening to the tutorial + mauao view tracks. well….. i have a huge jungle music bias. unfortunately. but i think a lot of this music really captures the sort of "flow" feeling that you get when working on something creative! this game has an incredible sense of atmosphere i would really recommend checking it out. highlight tracks are swears in ps1 and BEAT THE POLICE

SCALES by king isis: indie pop. i saw them perform live at a concert this august!! so freaking cool :3 to me has all of the self indulgent sadness and rich vocals of an early mitski track but ALSO is an ''indie gem''' (this is their debut album). songs are fun to sing along to :3 my favorite songs from her are 4 leaf clover and im fine thx for asking! but apparently their new mv has sexy vampires in it so maybe go check it out?

as always if you read (or skimmed) to the end, thanks :3

[puppetlanebug]

rambling

anyway! time to talk about why wally's my favorite i like wally a lot. i know people who dont and i dont get why. he makes it a point to tell people he loves them, even if he doesnt know them very well. he is a painter. he loves apples but probably cant gather the appeal of things with apples in them (i.e desserts) because they arent the apples hes used to. (same could go for varieties of apples. he loves red, after all.) he loves eye contact, probably because it means he knows you're there and you're listening to him, he never frowns, he has such nice hair, i also really enjoy his goofy little outfits. pretty much everything about wally i sort of enjoy. as my girlfriend has pointed out before, its said that wally behaves a little abnormally. not that he is inherently a good or bad dude, but that he is a slow learner and enjoys learning. as a result that may make him susceptible to doing bad things because he's curious how things may turn out, not out of ill intention. she's pointed out that he didnt know what clowns were and had to ask frank, for example, indicating that he is a curious but doesnt really know much (or just simply cant grasp concepts very well. which is endearing.) so like. say what u will about him being a menace or evil or whatever you want. i dont believe you. i believe he may be a bit goofy but not bad. i think the creepiness may come from the fact he is sentient and he's aware he's sentient and stuff. but that's just a theory

also as ive seen in a clown post he's also not great at picking up romance. what with the whole 'handful of roses' thing. which me personally? yes

hes overall just a rly uhhhh. charismatic character. i gravitate towards him. that isnt to say i dont like any of the other characters, theres just a reason why wallys my favorite. well, several

and the more i hear about wally the more i just wanna hug him. i dunno. why do you or do you not like wally?

[spikeinthepunch]

i wanna say i hate to compare BG3 and DAI buuuuut you know they have similar intentions not including the combat system. theyre both high fantasy RPGs that focus on major story choices/consequences and making a protag that you can shape based on personality options, along with class/race specific effects on the way characters mold with you.

so. i think they can be compared, without any note of the technical advancements from since DAI came out of course.

and i say this just based on my current progress (i guess the first 'part'? i just got to the end of the druid grove stuff). i think the bg3 protag is fine! no issue there really, its different but i like what i can do. but i can feel the issues with romance in this game creeping up, as i had heard some things started before by others... that theres a very quick focus to romance. and honestly.... is it romance even at this starting point? immediately i am just asked about who i want to fuck. i like to fuck, i like the sexual relationships. but i can see where ppl may have their issues here.

on this first celebration with the party members, the woman who i helped do the raid with, who i literally dont know, before i even got to the party was like- i am talking to you in your mind and i want to fuck you in thanks for this. and she is the one character you can just fuck without any relation with. and then i talk to Astarion who is like, who do you want to fuck tonight lol? and even if i hadnt talked w him, every other character there except Gale had the option to suggest i wanted to fuck them. bro i hardly even know these guys still. i want to fuck astarion eventually and im glad he turned me down bc honestly why would he accept?. but shadowheart and laezel were totally up for it!!! and man i hard travelled with laezel bc i dont like her lol.

and listen i am sure i will get to learn way more abt these characters that i romance but the fact i am opened up to the sex option immediately is just. so strange when i compare it to the romances of DAI. i think i could take a few characters who just want sex. thats normal. not everyone wants commitment and i would actually like that nuance. but also, really putting the sex on so quick and so blatantly is a surprise to me even as someone who wants to have sex stuff all the time!! but i like good writing too! and i imagine its even more uncomfy for others who really didnt expect or want that. to just assume you character wants to have sex so fast is weird and the only other option denying everything (no implication you want just romance/are interest but dont want sex) is just wild to me too.

DAI has such well written romances. really. i saw ppl saying they were excited this game would blow bioware's romance writing out of the water but i dont think i can say that at all rn and im not sure this current impression will change enough for me to say otherwise entirely....

this also goes into why "everyone is bi" isnt always good. because i think it takes a lot of potentially personal weight out of the writing. not even in that if one character is gay then there will be oppression angst between them and you for being gay. or that the straight one will voice their straightness in context of gays existing in world. its about how "everyone is bi" isnt actually good, chosen bi rep. its just a game mechanic thrown in to satisfy all ends. we can have bi characters, we just cant have them all being labelled that in order to fill that check mark.

dorian is a really good example in DAI of how a character being strictly gay and also facing in world oppression makes his romance storyline SO good. its so important for sexuality labels to exist bc it makes you an individual of your own. and for it to be EXPRESSED in some form too. a character should be able to voice their thoughst on their unique sexuality when you romance them. but the 'everyone is bi just because' means like no character is every talking about that, let alone in a meaningful way when the reason applies to every other companion.

sorry did not mean for this to become a rant on romances. im still looking forward to the writing that will unfold with these characters but i think its so important to not get lost in the hype (and the hate to DAI? which i think is just hate to bioware really) bc people ALWAYS get to ahead of themself when they hear "you can romance anyone regardless of gender" without thinking twice about whether or not that makes it good writing or rep

[takasgf]

darling and confession

THANK YOU RIA YOU ARE THE LOVELIEST EVER💞💞💞

darling — what outfits would you both wear on a date? feel free to show pics!

Contrary to popular belief, I am not the most fashion knowledgeable person. Still, I shall try and describe their ideal outfits, as well as try to add some pics that are similar? Or alternatives maybe? I'm writing this before research, so I'm putting this job into future Flake's shaky hands. These would be outfits worn on a date in like, a public area, outside their house. Ishi starts out pretty formal, of course. Nothing over the top, but he does get his prettiest buttoned shirt, a tie and pants that would usually be paired with a suit of the same colour. He really wants to impress her!! She obviously finds him incredibly adorable but can't help to notice that he's a bit more stressed out and anxious when wearing very formal outfits. He's usually lost in his thoughts, trying his hardest to be a model boyfriend for his beloved. Frogeru doesnt want him to be stressed about details when they hang out, so she encourages him to wear more comfortable outfits on dates, like sweaters, jackets, funny socks, all that stuff. She shows him how to combine them in order to create a rather pretty outfit, perfect for a more cozy date. Froggy prefers comfort over everything and tends to wear formal clothing very very rarely. She loves softer clothing, fun patterns, shoes that let her run and jump up and down, fluffy skirts in which she can twirl around and be an absolute cutie. Instead of her bow, she often wears other hair accessories, like multiple ribbons or headbands (with antennae or some other quirky decoration). They both wear their gold necklaces as a matching accessory!

confession — how’d the confession happen, and looking back on it, what are your (and f/o’s) thoughts abt how you both were back then?

As you know, Celeste called them over for a tea party, with the intent of having them finally confess to eachother. At one point she left the room, signing to both of them that "its time." (she talked to them separately before this) Frogeru was the first one to say it. She was very very nervous, and it didnt help that Ishi started crying immediately. But thankfully, they were tears of joy - he was very nervous too. They expressed their gratitude for each other, they hugged and cried a lot, Celeste slightly dying of cringe in the background. No worries, she was happy for them, its just an awkward situation to be witness to.

Neither think poorly of their past selves at that point in their lives. They felt the need to hide their feelings because they were both confused and didnt want to ruin a perfectly good friendship. They are so happy they didnt rush their relationship. They dont regret becoming a couple later than their friends expected, because their friendship is just as strong and special as it is their romance ❤

[irlbkgs]

❣️🚫💓 for anyone you wanna answer for !!

doing all these for daryl lalalala

❣️describe a time one of you almost took a chance at making a move on the other, only to chicken out.

during the farm era daryl still was like. def not feeling it. he doesnt even really think about romantic gestures or whether or not somebodies making a pass at him to begin with unless somebody is very blunt about it and im anything but blunt when it comes to romance stuff bc im a pussy. anyways we were getting friendlier ofc but i started to get my first inkling of a crush here and tried to test the waters. i am a bit of a natural flirt but in a way that i dont even know im doing it so when i flirt with intention its very awkward so he def thought i was just talking to him and maybe nervous for unrelated reasons. i just kinda gave up bc my game is abysmal.

🚫 what was holding you/them back from making a move or confessing your feelings?

im like. so intensely scared of rejection bc my rsd makes me spiral to a point of suicidal ideation (awkward!) so i really just do not confess unless i know its reciprocated and even when its obvious i need like verbal confirmation most of the time. its something im working on but it def prevents me from confessing for yearssss like sure ill flirt and make jokes about us getting together but its just toeing the line of plausible deniability given my general sense of humor and how often i flirt with my friends anyways that i can retract it without too much doubt

daryl on the other hand takes like actual years to develop feelings for anyone so he wasnt really holding back, he just didnt have them for a long time and once he did it was just kind of like. obvious it was reciprocated. anyone with eyes could see how i bad i want his grimy ass.

💓 (if applicable) what moment made you realize you were in love with them?

(light spoilers for s2 if u wanna skip til u watch!!)

it wasnt a specific moment but watching him try so hard to find sofia and go out of his way to comfort carol who he had no prior care for all just because he gets how it feels to lose a loved one kind of sealed the deal for me. like nobody really made her feel safe or like they were going to get her baby back like he did and i dont know if anyone else couldve anyways. he really fought tooth and fucking nail for that girl.

[thatforgottenbasilisk]

Jonathan Sims Is Dead In The End

Chapter 9: Neural Pruning (AO3) (My Fic Masterpost)

Originally Posted on 4/18/2024

Rating: M

Summary:

neural pruning is when neurons die, but like, intentionally.

no, i do not mean intentionally as in "i intentionally killed my brain cells by consuming substances such as alcohol." i mean it in a brain development context- when ur a little baby child, you have a shitton of neurons. you still have a shitton of neurons btw but you had a Bigger shitton when you were a baby (technically speaking you had the Biggest shitton before you were born due to prenatal brain development and apoptosis but whatever it doesnt matter)

so. lots of baby neurons doing their baby neuron thing. except this costs a lot of energy! so then you hit puberty and your brain's like "okay this is fucking untenable like look at how much energy we're wasting here" and cuts certain connections by getting rid of some neurons that weren't really getting used but WERE using energy. so then the remaining neurons shuffle around to increase efficiency in communication bc theyre closer together now

so. you finish puberty and you look back to when you were a child and youre like "man i was dumb." but you werent dumb. you had neural connections you didnt use then (and dont use now) that made things slower and less efficient in terms of the way you think now

Sasha takes his hand.

He stands up as he pulls her upright, moving just enough to free her a little at a time, probably to keep her aware of the fact that she's still at his mercy. They're still in Tim's apartment, and if anything happens, he can claim self-defense, legally speaking- of course, that's assuming that she'll try anything. She won't even breathe wrong right now, not with how tense this all is, not with how scared Tim clearly is, no matter how well he hides it. She knows him better than almost anyone, she can tell when he's afraid.

She loved him, once, in a way that she doesn't think most people would call love, in that classical fairytale way. Still does, sort of. She trusts him, less than she did before, but she still cares about him. He wanted her in that way, he once liked her in that way, and Sasha had tried to let him down easy instead of telling him she'd never reciprocate, but it turns out she failed in that too. She thinks that if she ever felt what everyone else calls "love," the real storybook romance stuff, she would feel it for Tim; but she doesn't, and she hasn't, and she doesn't think she ever will.

She thinks that might be part of the reason why she doesn't feel betrayed the moment he puts the knife against her wrist. It's lighter this time, there's less pressure on it, but the threat to her life is still very much present.

"I don't know what your game is. I don't know what the hell you think you're trying to pull, but if I find out you're exactly what I thought you were? I'll make your death as long and painful as I possibly can." Tim stares her dead in the eye, and says every single word with cold intent. There's nothing warm left in his voice, nothing of the man in the pub a few hours ago, only a man who is completely and totally willing to get blood on his hands.

Again, she nearly adds to that, but the first time doesn't count. It was in the future, after all, and Tim hasn't even met his murder victim yet. It's not right to hold it against him now, no matter how much she reflexively brings it up in the back of her mind.

Besides, he's justified- more so than he was the last time, anyway. He's justified in his fear and suspicion, all he knows about any of the real kinds of monsters is that there are things that pretend to be people but just a little off, and all of a sudden she shows up in the Archives and she's got different colored eyes? She's surprised he hasn't outright killed her yet. He's probably more impulsive with people he doesn't know as well.

"I'm not. I'm still- I'm still me, I promise. I promise." Her voice is shakier than she wants it to be, too quiet for her liking, but she doesn't look away from Tim's gaze, just holds the same stare as he is. She doesn't say that she's still human; in a technical sense, she's closer to human than a mannequin, which is what he's looking for, but she doesn't think she can call herself fully human anymore. She's done things that no human should do, a hundred thousand times over, for better or for worse, and now she can't rightfully consider herself one of them. A reflection of a refraction, maybe. A copy of a copy of herself as she should have been.

"Prove it." Tim doesn't hesitate to dismiss her word. Why shouldn't he? Why should he trust promises that are, as far as he knows, empty? His voice is quieter, but no less harsh than it was a moment ago. She doesn't know why it hurts more than the knife he's still holding to her wrist- maybe because the knife isn't cutting her, barely even touching her, and his grip on her hand is just firm, not overly tight.

The nerves around the cut on her throat send pain signals to her brain. She ignores them. The stinging isn't anything compared to the things that aren't scars anymore.

How can she prove it, though? How can she prove that she's still herself, beyond what she's already said? There's nothing she can think of as an argument. There's no concrete, golden proof that she can pull out, nothing that something else couldn't guess if it took her over. All there is is to prove that she's from the future, and that's easy and impossible at the same time. What would she tell him? Everything?

If only. No, she's alluded to future events enough that he knows what her story is. He knows she's going to claim she's from the future, and it's up to her to sell him on the truth.

"I'm from about three years in the future. Things... things have changed. A lot. My eyes are the least of it, if only you'd seen all the scars we both picked up- but that's beside the point, isn't it?" She waits for half a moment, waiting for an answer that she knows won't come, and then continues. "There's a Statement in one of the boxes near Jon's desk. It's by a man called Carlos Vittery, he was haunted by some sort of ghost spider. He's dead, so you can break and enter as you please, and in his old basement is where you'll find Jane Prentiss. You know who she is by now, right?" She shifts her tone easily to business. It's easy to Know where Vittery's Statement is, easier still to remember that as the place that Prentiss was hiding out before Martin found her.

"Yeah. Everyone does. You honestly expect me to believe all that?" He acts like he's caught her in a lie, but he doesn't so much as move anything other than his mouth. That's not enough to say he believes her, of course, but it is enough to say that he hasn't decided that she's lying.

"I'm not stopping you from going. What, do you think I'm secretly in contact with her, and friendly enough to give her a location that would be safe to hide out from police and everyone? We can go to the Institute right now and find the address if you'd like." She doesn't keep being all cooperative without at least a little bit of attitude. Does he really believe she can just manipulate things like that? He doesn't, of course not, not unless he's deluding himself.

He hesitates. He keeps hesitating, for longer than she thinks he should, before finally taking the knife away from her wrist and helping her actually stand. The knife doesn't leave his hand- he doesn't trust her, not yet, which is fine because she doesn't quite trust him either, not so much as to believe he wouldn't kill her under the right circumstances- and he backs away by a single step.

"We're leaving in the morning." He says, and she knows he's calling her bluff. She would do the same thing in his shoes, really, so she shouldn't feel it get under her skin the slightest little bit.

"Can I go home, or am I sleeping over?" She doesn't ask if she's being held captive; there are enough clothes of hers over here anyway, from various nights in his bed- without a hookup- that it would almost be like being held prisoner in her own home. She's not even going to word it like that if she can help it.

"The couch is comfortable enough." Tim says, and she really shouldn't have thought it would be any different.

[saym0-0]

trying again. okay.

polymechs is very much a thing i think,, basira gets called to the institute to investigate a very serious murder and stuff but also has to avoid eye contact with jon(ny) so they dont start giggling

after basira gets hired/held ransom tim starts coming in and bringing lunch for the whole archives for no reason beyond wanting to fuck with the other assistant who before this didnt know jon and basira even knew each other. maybe they do the funny bit where he pretends to cheat w jonny but its really healthy happy poly. the possibilities are endless

i think tim would take her name also (tim hussain) this is not because i dont want to figure out how to contort gunpowder into a real last name nope definitely not (it is)(also i think its funny)

also they exclusively refer to him as her wife, when asked why they say its bc tim wore the dress at the wedding and thus deserves the title. also i think basira/ashes will use she/they bc theres something uncomfortable using she/her for ashes exclusively

simply because im not in the mood for angst im gonna say ts was always a Stranger, only they didnt notice for like a week because they were sleep deprived college students and by that point they decided collectively that it was good enough company to Just Not Really Think About It. so they know its some kind of sentient wooden doll with potentially nefarious intentions but they dont really care very much?

as for the other mechs, i dont think any of them are really involved with The Spooky beyond a mark from the stranger each and probably also noticing a little more than the average person off the street

marius is in med school, and takes great glee in adding 'yet!!' after he gets not-a-doctored

ivy works in a library and is consistently mad about jonnys job as archivist ('one day, jonny. one day im going to follow you to work and get that damn archive sorted.. >:(' )

tbh i Dont Know what most of them r doing in their own lives. they show up to perform shows, torment jon(ny) in fromt of his coworkers, and have like cute romance or smth then disappear again

i think jonny and nastya are childhood friends (maybe met a couple years after the web leitner thing) but they've been calling each other siblings since before any of the others met them

with georgie i think shes monogamous but since the mechs polycule is like. open im not sure the exact terminology she dated jon(ny) in college just like. separately from the rest. shes homies w all of them though

maybe they shared a flat in college and carmilla was their landlord & neighbour that sounds really funny actually

atp im more making a regular human mechs au instead of a tma crossover but we ball im having fun

also!! with the exception of jon(ny) and basira/ashes their names & personalities are exclusively based on mechs canon, im not gonna start using actual names because that just leans a little close to rpf for me (mcyt fandom trauma 😔) and they all have mostly human first and last names anyway so im keeping them

like with the georgie bit any tma ships are also possible!! idk which ones i want to include yet (probably jmart or polychives) if any but i do think it would be funny for someone to be like 'shit! hes taken! :(' like four times with different people over the course of a few months then realising 'wait a minute.. maybe my boss doesn't go through partners like candy and is actually polyam. maybe i do have a chance!'

okay this is actually making less sense the more i write so im stopping here you get the jist

need more mechs x tma aus with mechs ships, i feel like this is an unexploited form of comedy. this is entirely because i think ashes-is-basira and ashes-and-tim-are-married are two things that can and should coexist

[cozymochi]

Hey there big fan of your work. I really love your Yamcha art and especially your Marzi art ! I recently found out that Marzi was actually taken from one of those Yamcha's fan girls. My question is, out of all those girls that you picked, why Marzi?

💙thank

AND YEAH she is lol AND AS FOR WHY IN PARTICULAR It was either because she sorta “stood out” the most in a sense. (Kind of happens when you’re right in the center) Or it was like picking a name from a hat where after I was given a hypothetical scenario of: “but what if yamcha DID have a gf?? LIKE PLZ I NEED AN ANSWER” And out of panic I jumped to the closest thing on hand. “uhhhh …THAT one girl. The uh, the blue one with the yellow headband”

…YKNOW WHAT IT WAS PROBABLY A MIX OF BOTH KGHDHDGDG, just kind of happenstance.

Cuz I did think about all of them equally when I was in the: “eh imma name these random girls, draw them as adults, and give ‘em personalities and stuff” zone. (Something i did on my own time long before that question arrived, except at the time they were all purposely basic)

I didn’t expect to be at this point at all with Marzi at all lol. I had full mind of it just being a one-off novelty for kicks that would be swept under the rug. Buuut then it became one of those things where you’re in so deep you might as well just run with it

I MEAN IT’S GOTTEN QUITE FUN THO 👌🏽👌🏽I ENJOY THIS QUITE A BIT AND IT’S NICE FOLK ENJOY IT 💙💙

[accidentallyadoptedbybatman]

cause its pride im posting my (current) batfam headcanons and any bigotry on my page will be blocked we don’t discriminate here

bruce: bisexual and cis he/him but he sometimes wears makeup (it covers the bags and makes his eyes look pretty)

dick: pansexual and identifies as genderfluid, he uses all the pronouns (masculine but he wears whatever they feels like wearing and uses whatever pronouns she feels each day the batfam check via message or at breakfast each morning)

jason: bisexual with a preference to women and he identifies as male (transgender) he/him (he still likes crops, eyeliner and similar stuff)

cass: the badass lesbian part 2 (kate is part 1, cass is canonically one of the strongest batfam members she’s badass, this didn’t affect how i hc her as lesbian in anyway) and she doesnt understand gender but they use she/they cause they feel right (there was a moment where the fam tried to explain but she never got it. i say this cause cass was raised as a weapon to kill she wasn’t even taught how to read and write so i doubt anyone taught her about stereotypical gender norms or similar things)

tim: you know my boys a canon bisexual and he really doesnt care what pronouns you use for him or how they dress (“no there are cases to solve fuck gender”)

duke: questioning and identifies as cis he/him pronouns (he thought he likes girls but theres a few boys in his classes who are starting to look really attractive)

steph: sapphic and identifies as female (transgender) she/her pronouns(she sticks to masculine clothes tho because “they’re more comfy than skirts and they make my arms looks great tim”)

damian: demi, aroace, pan and he just doesn’t get society’s big deal with gender but he uses he/him pronouns(he doesn’t understand any appeal of sex or romance but he thinks he’d like a partner in the future but more queerplatonic. As for gender he doesn’t understand how someones gender affects them “what do you mean father hows the fact they’re male, female, genderqueer, or trans going to affect me when i fight them??” again raised to kill people without mercy while he may of had a little explaination on stereotypical gender norms and etc i doubt it was the main part of his education when he were with the League of Assassins)

edit: i had to further explain some of my points cause someone thought i was being bigoted and fetishising trans people cause of the wording ‘preferences women and transgender he/him’ i didnt mean he preferenes trans men those were my headcanons for his gender and his pronouns. if anyone finds any other problems like this please tell me i have no intent to bigot or fetishise anyone.

feel free to add these or give your own opinions as long as you keep it polite

[prettyboykatsuki]

Hey Ari. This might be kind of a weird and obvious question? But do you think having a partner has kind of influenced how you look at love? Because I don’t know, you post your thoughts about it a lot and I’ve always been more cynical about people and their intentions and romantic relationships in general because of personal stuff, but I also have never had someone like your boyfriend myself, and I’ve never had someone love me like that I don’t think I ever will because I’m me. I guess what I’m asking is how do you manage to always see life and love as so beautiful?

HI!!!!!

this isn't weird at all. i think in general i get this question a lot and for good reason since generally i have a very optimistic view of the world which is very ironic. i want to be clear im a very flawed person with many things that i personally struggle with especially in love. i struggle a lot with letting people know me or getting to know people. if we talk consistently im putting in a lot of effort bc i have a tendency for solitude. i love the people i talk to very deeply.

my boyfriends influence on my life has been profound. while i'd be devestated if we ever broke up, i think i would still be okay in the long run. before he's that i think he's the person i trust and care about more than any single person in the entire world because he is a profoundly loving partner. but he's also a good, kind, capable person.

i was also under the impression for a long time that i would never find love. there were many points in my relationships where i self-sabotaged because i felt undeserving. i had such a negative image and such a limited self-worth. even when i put in so much effort for so much of my life i couldn't push past the idea that i was a horrible human being. and i didnt want that from him. i tried leaving more than once in a very irrational low.

but i remember at a very low point in my relationship my boyfriend said something like "you trust me with every other choice ive made except loving you" and it completely shifted my view point. he was so right. why was it that i could let him do everything but love me?

ive always beeen enamored with romance. but allowing someone to love me without condition is still very hard because i don't know if i believe im a good person. my biggest lesson for people like that, like me - is that love is not something you earn or ask for. and compassion for life is something you develop with time.

when you find love, the hard part is not loving. it is letting yourself be recognized, acknowledged, cared for. to let someone scold you and know they will still love you the next day. acceptance that you will make mistakes and when you do - it's your responsibility to learn and grow from them. you are born with flaws and you will have flaws until you are dead.

and a persons choice to love you, really love you means that you understand they know that and you work on yourself because you love them too.

love, most of all, is an acknowledgement of a persons agency. their wholeness. when you acknowledge people that way and life that way - you learn peoples treatment of you is reflective of that wholeness. and the only way to see someone and love them is facing the challenge of your own life - you get me?

the best way to believe in love and celebrate life for me was to remember how having hope in my heart has helped me want to live. love and compassion and celebrating the world has helped me heal that discontent in my heart.

you have to learn to stop looking for the exit if you want to live a warm life. my boyfriends consistency was a blessing, but i also worked very hard to reach that in myself.

nothing about me is engimatic. im just one of my many and i think you will also be capable of love and being loved so completely.

i dont consider myself a very warm or bright person. but with time and patience and a lot of self-reflection - i came to terms with the only way to live life for me was to see it with compassion and empathy. i think love saved my life, and love for living is the only thing that helped my grow. it's all about my mindset, and my boyfriend has contributed greatly to changing that mindset.

but most of who i am started with me. it takes time and willpower. ive dedicated much of my life to the cause of wielding love. if you dont know about relationships, you can always start at you. but really there's nothing special about it.

[jupiter-reimagined]

aaAA okay okay okay essay time. imma like. try explaining why i chose each colour for each person so whoop whoop

-----

MISCHA

pink - in this case, i considered it as red instead of pink. and i see him as the type to be really into the flashy bright stuff (see TSIA and enough said) but also like. i dont wanna get into colour meanings cuz theyre absolute BULLSHIT (source - my teachers at art school) but like... romance colour. talia.

yellow - TSIA. hes in gold chains. gold = yellow. enough said. money money cash and money get that goddamn G O L D !!!!

blue - felt right. feels like he'd be into blue. as well as hes one of the most average teenage boys i have living around me, like copy paste, i could see him on the street and not even spare him a second glance and while hes clearly secure in his masculinity, that makes me wanna do the blue even more cuz of how its associated w yk, masculine shit and whatnot. idk.

OCEAN

orange - i am not ashamed to say this but. ginger. thats it.

green - okay so its been a bit since ive seen the actual stage play and not just listen to the soundtrack, but im fairly certain there was a part where its said she was raised on a farm/around nature?? something something idk so. green.

JANE

orange - no reason. literally none, i just figured she'd look cute in orange, plus the whole savannah situation, which i associate with warm colours. so orange.

yellow - again, im not ashamed to say this but shes blonde so she gets yellow

NOEL

pink - monique gibeou. enough said. i think. the modern associations of pink being a feminine colour and thats it. thats the reasoning.

green - specifically, army green. something about the "post war france" line stuck a bit so yeah. green but with the intention of it being army green

blue - similar to mischa, but with the fun gender. which is why i despise him cuz i cant sort him into either pink or blue because of all the gender fuckery going on which i guess is actually good character development but bad for this set of drawings /lh (guess he'll have to be the army gender instead </3)

RICKY

pink; blue; purple - all fall in the same category of space colours which is the obv choice, but like noel, i want to highlight the pink and blue as part of gender fuckery that goes on in the stage play

green - ... i literally dont remember why i put green on that list for him??? so lets ignore this shall we?

CONSTANCE

pink - no reason other than i think she had that cute pink dress in sugar cloud? and shes pretty in pink, what can i say

purple - purple hair. bang bang boom. enough said !!!!!!!!

-----

... i still dont know who should be who so. HELP. this was supposed to help me decide along the way but it didnt aAA

in relation to my prev ask, i cant for the life of me decide what colours to assign to the cast. like my first thoughts are:

pink - mischa orange - ocean yellow - jane green - noel blue - ricky purple - constance

(btw instead of red sticky notes i have pink. its rainbow but w pink instead of red yk? so im pretending pink = red but also red = pink. its both and neither)

and i like that list it fits some arbitrary thing going on in my head but then i started thinking (which is never good !!!) and now the only thing im 43% sure about is orange for ocean, yellow for jane and purple for constance and thats simply cuz of their hair ;-;

cuz it can also be this: (keep in mind theres no thought behind this, just vibes)

pink - noel ; constance ; ricky ; mischa orange - ocean ; jane yellow - mischa ; jane green - noel ; ricky ; ocean blue - mischa ; noel ; ricky purple - constance ; ricky

and i could probably explain my reasoning for ALL of those options and its infuriating. yeah hello hi this is what my brainstorming looks like (i mean it sure is a storm w how all over the place this is. this ask went trough like 5 revisions as is so it couldve been worse) Ghost Help this is consuming me /lh

UGH NO UR SO RIGHT

ocean as orange makes sense to me. so if i were you i’d do that. but like all of the other ones i get too so idk ahhhhh