#they framed it as a happy ending

[monstermoviedean]

dean loved cas for years. years. and he thought he couldn't have him, and he didn't want to lose him. so he shoved it down and he smiled and he tried not to get too close because he thought cas didn't want that. and cas would be better off anyway, right? anyone dean loves will get hurt. cas got hurt anyway. dean got hurt anyway. dean never even got to tell him.

[spiders-and-swords]

After creating an oc animation I deserve to post three different fanarts in one day

Terezi :]

[sparring-spirals]

I was initially clipping this to capture the overwhelmingly accurate, absolutely devastating hilarity of "you went for realistic, and sadly, you nailed it". And then just kept recording because I really fucking love the discussion about how to balance the line between like:

You are trying to tell a story that feels good and gives you the kind of lift you might be looking for in an explicitly fantasy story,

vs

How to ensure it still feels grounded and rewarding in a way where you can "bring this good feeling back to earth" at the end.

Like they're talking about TTRPG's but they clearly make parallels to other forms of storytelling/worldbuilding mediums, like movies, and. like. Yeah. Yeah.

Like the framing of "you really recreated the feeling of powerlessness..." and wanting the fantasy element to manifest in there being the clearer, straightforward ways to solve complex issues, vs trying to ensure that you can have a victory and it feels feasible and substantial and applicable in some way, and has something you can take out of the fantasy world and hold with you back on "terra firma".

Its tricky! Its a tricky thing to balance, and I don't think there's a single "right" answer nor should there be because it depends. It depends on the story, and the intent, and the setting, and the medium, and etc. Big fan of this framework to explain it.

[nite-puff]

when are they getting their modern day cgi reboot??

(just a small line up of the main characters from taka’s in universe cartoon. celeste enters the picture after mondo gets kicked off)

reblogs are greatly appreciated!! :)

closeups under the cut:

[red-moon-at-night]

I find it so SO interesting that as soon as Kazui's breaking their marriage vows and revealing his true feelings (literally tearing apart the dove), the wife is already falling off the balcony

Her hair is fluttering in the wind. The apple fucking splatters on the ground this whole sequence is so visceral I'm spinning it around in my mind. Kazui views his truth telling as a violent act, the killing blow.

[elderwisp]

◁ || ▷

Atlas: I can’t believe you’re gonna let me read this.

Taryn: Only a paragraph.

Atlas: gimmie. Holy shit you’re blind.

Taryn: No me digas. Wait, let me skip over that-

Atlas: Why?

Taryn: Because I don’t want you to read it-

Atlas: It’s fine.

Taryn: Uh, no. Close your eyes. 

Atlas: Is it smut? Oh my god it’s smut-

Taryn: It’s not smut!

Atlas: Hah… HAHA! Let me see.

Taryn: No!

Atlas: Lemme see!

Taryn: Please no!

Atlas: Alright! Alright! Although I'm curious why you're so afraid of me looking. 

Taryn: It isn’t smut, it’s a really rough draft of some poetry. That’s all you gotta know. 

Atlas: Ah, top secret. I see, I see. 

Taryn: You sure about that? Your eyes are twitching. 

Atlas: My eyes hurt a bit. 

Taryn: Well duh. 

Atlas: No because I have contacts in as well. 

Taryn: Are you- WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?! 

Atlas: hehe

[ door opens ]

Atlas: Hola, chaparrito.

Kai: [ mumbles ] Hey guys.

Taryn: I left you some food in the fridge.

Kai: Thanks.

Atlas: I’ll be back. So…

Kai: So?

Atlas: How are… Things?

Kai: Things… Huh. I don’t know, maybe if you were around more, you’d know.

Atlas: I apologize, I know I haven’t been the best friend but I’m working on it.

Kai: Right, you look like you’re doing such a wonderful job.

Atlas: Kai, do not get snarky with me. I said I was sorry, okay?!

Kai: Atlas! Be fucking forreal, you disappear into the fucking back rooms for weeks and pop out like nothing happens.

Atlas: [ stifled laughter ] …Backrooms? Sorry, okay serious. 

Kai: You’re such a- GOD you piss me off. 

Atlas: I’m aware. Listen, I’ll make it up to you. Next week let’s go skating with Dan, yeah?

Kai: …

Atlas: Come on, Kai, say something.

Kai: Don’t be late.

Atlas: I won’t! Promise.

Kai: Fine. [ smek! ]

Atlas: Ow!

[patentedsun]

love this shot sm it's so wholesome and they look so adorable :,,,))))

[fxllingout]

cross stitched chopper on 14 count aida cloth with dmc threads. this ended up being 8439 stitches + the outlines!

for my first piece of fanart ever i am really really happy with how this turned out :]

screenshot of chopper i was.... re-cross stitching???? is below the cut

[twig-tea]

The Jack and Joker ending ended up falling on the side of 'organized crime is for the good of community', which I could maybe see the argument for if it had been positioned in terms of a balancing force against state and police corruption, or even if they'd shown the Four Horsemen to be doing anything other than playing with people's lives, exploiting them, and cheerfully sending people to their deaths for their own amusement. I am flabbergasted.

[merlinunderpressure]

who's ready for 4 months of waitinngg (I AM! ME! ME!)

[chirpsythismorning]

Milkvans complaining about bylers not mentioning Finn’s response about about the monologue is so funny, as if it didn’t support byler endgame even more 🤣

Finn saying I think he knows she thinks all this, bc I think there’s a reason why he says it, is because she— she— he’s been waiting to say it for a long time and she’s been waiting for him to say it for a long time. I think it’s an interesting thought, having that reciprocated. Yeah I think so. I don’t… I don’t know. I would hope… idk… great question and thought tho…

Like he literally cuts himself off before implying that Mike knows how El feels and that she wanted him to say I love you for a while, which is the very reason why he said it in the first place, despite seasons of attempting to say it, stalling repeatedly, only to fail each time up until now when there was literally no option not to in his eyes…

How is that a milkvan win?…

Not only that, but he didn’t make it sound hopeful for their future either. It’s still up in the air according to him. He makes a point of just saying interesting question over and over, only to not actually come up with an answer…

The assumption for many viewers, specifically milkvans, is that everything is great for Mike and El right now bc the monologue fixed everything. If that’s the case why does Finn end that question on a sort of question mark with it still up in the air? Least of all when you’re dealing with a queer ship on the other end, with him making much more of an effort to imply that it will be addressed. It’ll pay off vs. idk?…

This is like the casts reaction to the monologue all over again. The interviewer asked about Mike and El’s future and Finn basically danced around it saying he’s looking forward to all of their endings and is mostly interested to know if Mike will stay in Hawkins, adding at the end that he hopes Mike and El you know, find… happiness.

He’s always giving answers that work both ways. Byler endgame still fits in with whatever he says, whether milkvans want to acknowledge that or not.

Otherwise there would be no reason for him to try so hard to be ambiguous about Mike and El’s feelings, as if it’s this big spoiler… unless what’s about to go down is something most the audience won’t expect…

[limeartichoke]

mmm idk how i feel abt this but I'm posting it anyway cause i know someone will appreciate it ‼️‼️

[dpurut]

a little treat for merry crisis :) franziska forever. Art ig- @acepostale

edit: on youtube now! the channel is dpurut.

[phoenixcatch7]

Just finished oracle of ages!!! Good game, good game. I have Thoughts.

I actually really enjoyed the story and characters! I figured going into the oracle games that it'd be a simple, cliché story, not much nuance or depth, and with Seasons that's basically what I got: din gets fridged in a crystal at the start of the game -> go get her -> you need a set of maguffins to do so -> fight big monster.

Admittedly it was the first game, which meant less story, but even if I hadn't linked (heh) the games for extra end game content Ages just did so much more.

Unlike din, naryu has someone else willing to help her. Ralph (the twinkiest twink to ever twink) was a young man who was her devoted friend (there was a weird crush triangle thing going on with him, Link and naryu, I always felt like I was missing subtext) and, spoilers for a 20yo game?? I guess?

He was the dethroned descendant of the ancient queen Ami. His family definitely still have big money though. He was pretty clearly supposed to be a comic relief character with a twist, but I ended up really liking him! He was over enthusiastic and over confident, but not unintelligent, a decent swordsman (I think) who was incredibly loyal to his friends and held some deep rooted responsibility for the people his family used to rule. Kind, determined, good with kids and people in general, he was terrified but willing to sacrifice his very existence to save the people.

The world building was also great! I don't think I've ever played a zelda game without gorons, but hylians were in short supply. To be expected outside of hyrule, I guess? Anyway, there were also lizard people on an island (tokay!) whose entire deal was.. A bit outdated? Rude, brazen and aggressive to outsiders, they lived in crude huts, worshipped things they didn't quite understand and were generally the old Hollywood stereotype of an isolated jungle tribe.

There was also, like, zora racism? There's a zora village underwater, and one of them was like 'us sea zora are nothing like those river zora 😒' which handily solved both my question of if the river/ocean zora divide was canon or fanon and the relationships between the two. Are they even the same species?? It just makes the rito even weirder but hey lmao. In all honesty I was pretty sick of the river zora at that point too, I swear there were two of them popping up in every screen that had even a sliver of water deeper than the knees and they CONSTANTLY shot fireballs istg they were such a pain. They were literally everywhere and so hard to kill.

On the plus side mermaid suit ^u^!! A dungeon item (the mermaids cave), the item had a desc like 'the skin of the mythical beast' which raised SO many more questions than it answered. The zora were delighted to see a young mermaid! The use of 'maid' implied either a) the zora all thought link was a girl and he didn't correct them (eyo genderqueer androgeny) b) the zora don't subscribe to gender the way humans do (eyo genderqueer androgeny) or c) all fish people look like mermaids regardless of their specific gender (eyo genderqueer androgeny). It literally could have been all three who knows. Maybe one day we'll actually meet a mermaid in zelda.

Also, there's a mini game in Seasons, which I played first, the subrosian dance. It's a pretty popular part of their culture, it's got music, it's got professional dancers. In Ages, you find the gorons doing the exact same dance! Rosa, a subrosian performer you meet in Seasons, is also there, saying her people's dance is better (tbf it is), but if you go to the past you'll find the gorons actually invented the dance first, as part of their love of games and entertainment, and you can talk to two subrosians who are talking about bringing the dance home! It's so interesting to see little details like this, where the travelling subrosians visited their fellow cave dweller lava eating people centuries ago, brought it back home where it exploded in popularity and centuries later became refined as a whole folk dance with spinning and everything, with the people forgetting where it came from, where the gorons keep their dance exactly the same (having to do a rhythm game without rhythm is hard).

Actually, there was so much political fantasy drama going on in the past?? Like, you've got the childless queen taking care of her people, a budding village and a few more settlements across the kingdom. Early in her reign she tried to build a tower to act as a beacon to her fiancé lost at sea, which is a romance story all on its own, but it was cut short (maybe because of funding?). Centuries in the future, it's just ruins. You've got people living on an ACTIVE VOLCANO starting a symmetry cult around a artifact called 'tuni nut' which, presumably, stabilises the volcano? And it's entirely cut off from the outside world. The goron elder is crushed under rocks and their economy is failing. The zora king got poisoned and he's about to die without an heir because a witch turned the fairy queen into an octorock, but the man in charge of the only cure refuses to hand it over until someone passes his tests.

Most of it is solved relatively easily by link and a copious amount of time travel, but the thing with the ruling queen only gets worse. When the evil witch invades the kingdom, she possesses the oracle of ages, naryu (who's a little implied to be the Actual Creation Goddess Naryu reincarnated) and travels back to the past to bring about an age of despair in the present. She does this by slipping into the royal court and befriending the queen as a serving girl, rising up the ranks to become her closest advisor and corrupting her (pretty sure mind control magic is used a li'l). She convinces her to restart the black tower project, pouring all of her and the towns resources into it - forcibly conscripting every able bodied worker and working them to the bone, all while monsters start to circle the tower. With all the fear and resentment, it quickly becomes a beacon of dark energy, a perfect focal point to perform black magics.

Link (and Ralph) end up in the past and get hauled in front of the queen, with possessed naryu at her side, who basically jeers at them and ensures the queen won't listen to their untrustworthy lies. The townsfolk are getting increasingly stressed as their village fills with rubble and their men are worked to the point of collapse. Armed guards start to appear to keep the workers under control. Eventually, Ralph uncovers a hole in the guard rotation, and he and link sneak into the palace through a secret entrance Ralph oh so casually knows about. Link and naryu fight, but with stupendous timing the queen walks in to see naryu collapsed on the floor, Link standing over her with a sword. She calls for the guards, but before anyone can react, the witch, banished form her first vessel, leaps into the queen herself instead. Ralph shoves past the arriving guards and into naryus arms, while link moves in from of them. The queen orders the guards to attack, but naryu, reawakened, pulls them back to the present in the nick of time. In the present, the black tower is magically growing, reaching higher and higher into the sky, terrifying the people of the city.

Then! Ralph, who at this point is suspiciously invested now his actual goal is completed and naryu is safe, vows to go back into time again, away from naryu, to live under the now evil queen and bring protection and comfort to the villagers as a direct act of resistance, because the witch is feeding on their sorrow to power an unknown ritual (link knows. Link, canonically, has told nobody). So this teen in fancy robes and cape goes back to the oppressed, poverty stricken town under the thumb if someone who wants him dead and lives there for weeks if not months dedicating himself to supporting the village and bringing people's hopes and spirits back up, presumably while living out of someone else's wooden hut. In the middle of a literal depression inducing miasma that's sapping everyone's joy and will to live.

That just. Takes insane strength of character. That's a feat of pure, distilled, compassion as anarchy.

Link's off bouncing between past and present doing dungeons and solving easier issues through either sword or magic item, but Ralph is out here doing the long hard slog for little reward.

Link finally returns to the black tower completed, affecting even the people of the present, and, preparations complete, rushes to the past. Ralph is nowhere be seen. Talking to the villagers reveals several have a crush on him, but an old man saw him running for the tower, sword drawn. There's a man pacing by the entrance, who saw the kid run in, tried to stop him. He said Ralph said that he no longer cared what happened to him. That the man realised that Ralph had quietly succumbed to the same curse of despair they all were under. Link fights his way up to the top of the tower, where Ralph confronts the evil queen, sword at her heart, but every step she takes into it, he steps back. The witch laughs. She asks him if he's really willing to write himself out of existence - being the queens descendant, and all. Ralph leaps back, into links chest. He's shaking and stuttering, but he lunges, and is knocked out in one blow. The queen now asks link the same question: is he willing to erase Ralph? If he strikes her, kills her, the queen will die, childless, and he will never live. She leaves, and link rushes to Ralph. He's awake but unresponsive, defeated. With a heavy heart, Link leaves him to chase the queen. It's naryu who finds him, brings him out of the tower.

When the witch is defeated, the curse is lifted, and Ralph is once more energetic and kind. He's a little quieter now, though, sticking close to naryu. For all he was a loud and headstrong kid, I gotta say I was very impressed.

He would have made a good king.

[lilfriezatyrant]

✨I dub thee King Roach! ✨

[3zethe3zr]

I love Sora because of the atrocities. The way unreconciled grief destroys someone, so wrapped up in a 'eye for an eye' than she became worse than the person she wanted to kill. I love the tragedy in that! I hope one day she sees her sisters spirit, and all Crane can do is look at her in disgust.