#this is extremely incoherent

[bheem-ki-shakti]

this is such a little thing but while reading the book it never really struck me that they never technically…got the chance to change clothes. i mean yeah it was obvious but it’s only when seeing the show that i am fully realising that it has been THREE EPISODES of them in these clothes and percy has been DUNKED into water so many times that it’s a miracle his clothes aren’t stiff as wood.

it’s a really small detail but idk it really emphasises the way these kids have put EVERYTHING into this quest and have consequently gotten no time to do anything else and i know i was a little shit as a twelve-year old who needed two changes of clothes PER DAY.

[aturinfortheworse]

Columbo is so fucking good you guys. After seven and a half seasons of Castle (and I LIKE Castle), the care and sympathy in this is a fucking relief.

I was gonna say it's still copaganda etc. and that is very possible, but it is at least a different kind of copaganda to eg Midsomer Murders, which is the closest show I can think of in which the detective is a cop.

Because I mean if there is no other lesson in Columbo there is the lesson in every single episode that you shouldn't talk to the police no matter how innocent it may seem.

But anyway that's a side discussion because the thing that's so great about Columbo is that the murderers always come across as very real human people. Many of them are sympathetic, even the ones who don't have a great motive. And Columbo has a genuine connection with most of them (it really stands out when he doesn't.)

The resolution of this episode is the murderer saying to Columbo "What you said to Jane before was a lie. It wasn't true, Janey." Looking at Columbo the whole time. "Tell her that what you said was a lie, Detective. It couldn't matter to anyone but Janey."

And he looks down at the ground and thinks about it and then says "Yes that's right ma'am. I was lying before. I'm sorry."

And the murderer confesses to the murder. To protect a loved one from the truth about something else that happened long ago.

Just the way you can see her offering Columbo this deal, with no one else in the room understanding what's happening, just the two of them. And he takes it. 😭😭😭

[starryalpacasstuff]

The subversion of faen fatale in Last Twilight; and why I love it

Can I just talk for a moment how much I appreciate P'Aof dismantling faen fatale tropes, as well as the notion of 'guys and girls can't be close friends' that is so prevalent in Asian society? Because not only did he do a fabulous job with Ink in Bad Buddy, but he's going above and beyond with it in Last Twilight. We have Gee, who could have so easily been someone who was interested in Day, and come in between their relationship (I was praying for her to not turn out to be a faen fatale when she was introduced). But instead, she's a great friend to Day, and she helps him regain another piece of his life by pushing him to join her at the bar. And then we have Porjai. She's Mhok's ex girlfriend, and the narrative has presented chance after chance for her to regain feelings for Mhok, and present problem for Mhok and Day in so many different ways, but none of them were ever taken.

And part of this feels very intentional to me. Showing us two female characters that could have very easily become barriers to the relationship, they didn't. We see it in the preliminary interactions between Day and Gee, where there's some time where Gee's character could have easily gone one of two ways. And you will not believe how immensely relieved I was when the show made it abundantly clear that Gee is a friend to Day, and nothing more. Similarly, Porjai is introduced to us as Mhok's girlfriend, and later as his ex. It would have been so easy for her to 'catch feelings again', like when Mhok comes to her aid with her ex (forgot his name, won't bother reminding myself). I feel like the show is trying to put the point forward that guys and girls can be friends, and that the girl doesn't always have to be a homewrecker.

And let me tell you this, I absolutely adore that P'Aof is doing this. The trope of female homewreckers, (or faen fatale as we like to call them) is extremely prevalent not only in bls, but in asian media in general. I've seen it everywhere, from bollywood movies to add drama, to serials that have been running for half my lifetime, to keep the viewers watching. I've watched it enough times to have a genuine hatred of it. There's a number of issues with the trope that I'm not going to get into right now, but I'm sure you're all familiar with. But the greatest point is, that it often takes away from a good story. It's a tired trope that serves only to add drama and disinterest the viewers from the story. Last Twilight (and Bad Buddy too) has had a very concrete storyline from the start. The purpose and aim of this story have been clear from the beginning, and in the most recent episode, the show has started to dig a little deeper into Day and Mhok's stories, relationship, and shown us how they're growing together. A faen fatale would absolutely ruin the slow, delicate journey these two are on of growing together, which is where I come to August.

Honestly, I was a little afraid when I realized that Day liked August. Because Day and Mhok have been slowly, but surely growing closer, and they're slowly letting down walls built up due to grief, and loss. But August only serves to help us further understand Day. I'm struggling slightly to put this into words, but in the single episode we had with August, I've learned so much more about Day, and how he works. And, his introduction also highlighted Mhok's caregiving instinct once more, his tendency to always put Day first. There are rare instances when introducing a past crush does so much for a story (another being Bad Buddy, P'Aof the wonder that you are), and I'm absolutely eating this up.

The last scene absolutely crushed me in a way that only Ep 5 [4/4] bls by P'Aof can. Once again, the resubversion of the Faen Fatale trope. When I first saw August, my first reaction was expecting faen fatale, 'and now he's going to take away Day's attention and Mhok's going to leave the flower and we'll all be sad". Well, the last part happened but it was so much more heartbreaking the way it was done. Once again, proving how much better a story can be without the trope that with. I won't lie, I'm still scared about how the knowledge that Day likes August will impact Mhok's actions toward Day. But, it's more of a fear for the characters, and less of a fear for the narrative, as in I'm not afraid that it will take away from the story.

Bad Buddy holds a legacy for subverting an innumerable number of tropes, and I'm glad to see that Last Twilight is holding it's own in the department too. The purposeful subversion of faen fatale made my heart incredibly happy (have you noticed how much I hate this trope? You probably have. I'm sick of it. Most Indian kids are)

Side note- I've seen a number of posts ghostshipping Gee and Porjai, and while it may not be very plausible, we did get InkPa, so it's never impossible

[max-nolastname]

when the old guard was like “heres a group of functionally immortal warriors, hundreds, thousands of years old” and then it was like “btw, they can die anytime, still! they will always bounce back until one day, seemingly at random, they dont” and then it was like “what if you came into your immortal life alongside another? they are your partner in every way you dont know immortal life without them but you understand that one day you might just have go on for another thousand years without them” and then it was like “what if an immortal was imprisoned in an environment where they die every minute again and again for hundreds of years with no relief” and then it was like “what if an immortal had severe depression” 

[ritz-regrezzez]

25 days of moodboards day twenty-two! (fashion)

[musical-dash-trash]

okay so a few minutes ago i was sitting up against my bed while my bunny was under my bed. my hand was just under her and she was tolerating me touching her but then she FLOPS ON MY HAND???? I LOVE HER SO MUCH IT WAS SO SWEET BDJDDK <3333333

[cream-and-tea]

oh man the judge/calliope and pallas&agnes thoughts are really eating holes in my brain tonight,,,,,,

[drmslastmorning]

I see a lot of people point out the red riding hood imagery in Kotoko but I think it's also very important to point out that she is also the wolf. Kotoko is the wolf. Kotoko is red riding hood. These aren't exclusive statements.

[tizzymcwizzy]

watched the ml movie

that sure was smth that happened on my screen for real uhuh

[suncaptor]

bothers me April's religion is treated as super extreme when she like. never visibly pushes her beliefs on anyone besides having conflicts with her husband over genuine different philosophies. Like let's be real everyone already thought she was insane and weird for being a virgin BEFORE they found out it was for religious reasons. she's guilt tripped for not wanting an abortion. she specifically reassures people she's not judging them because of her religion. like just cause she's a token Christian on the show doesn't actually mean she like. using it for harm. like can anyone ever respect her.

[lieutenantselnia]

I randomly felt like watching this edit again and ohh ... the feelings😭😭 This video basically carried me through my last semester and final exams at high school, I literally watched it multiple times every day (I swear a couple hundred views are from me alone), on the bus ride to school in the morning, when I got home again, before going to bed, just in between because I felt like it ... Internally I wasn't doing that well at the time, and it just brought me so much comfort. Also I'm pretty sure it plays a significant role in how I fell more and more in love with 2nd Dimension Heinz💕 This edit just means so much to me and I love it so much <3

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

Triage: Initial Thoughts

Hello! Venus back at it again with the 4-5 AM theory time! This time we’re looking at Shidou’s second MV, Triage! 

I’m going to be going through my various thoughts on everything as usual, going point by point to analyze each thing. I’ll be referencing Triage, his first MV Throwdown, and the always-fast audio drama translation by @onigiriico​! 

Alright, let’s do this!

Shidou’s kids died immediately, but his wife had a chance to live.

I’m basically just going to give a quick play by play of what I think happened in the video.

Surprise, Shidou has kids! And a wife, but we figured that already. They’re all very cute and all until they fade out like ghosts pretty early on. Before that happens, though, I think that, chronologically, the opening sequence of Shidou walking with some groceries happens first.

He’s just going about his day, walking around, having a great time. He’s intending to take stuff back to his family and cook dinner or whatever he usually does that we see in the cute scenes.

Then, though, he gets a phone call. He answers it (this is the untranslated “Kirisaki desu” part; please let us know if you find a full translation of what he says on the call there!) and we move on to the next scene. However, later, at 1:57, we hear the line die. I think that this is probably Shidou getting a phone call from the hospital. He sounds casual in his initial response because he probably assumes it’s work related, but once he hears what happened, he drops the line and immediately heads over.

I think Shidou’s kids must have died immediately because of Throwdown. Throwdown has absolutely no references to his kids (though he does mention liking children and stuff like that in his first audio drama, which now kinda stings) and, were he also trying to save them, I’m sure there would’ve been at least some references. 

I think it’s far more likely that, whatever happened, both his kids died immediately, but his wife was in a condition where he could still try to save her. That’s when Throwdown occurs. Shidou probably focused intensely on trying to save his wife as a way to cope with the death of his children. Then, after his wife officially died, it really hit him that he had nothing left, and he was forced to process it. That’s when he started feeling all the guilt and wishing for death. 

This isn’t really relevant, but my best bet is a car crash. It seems like a likely and viable way that his kids could’ve died instantly while the wife could’ve kept living. As a minor note on that, he’s also walking back with groceries, which could indicate that someone else (the rest of his family) might’ve had a car. I don’t remember if Shidou mentions anything about driving or anything like that at any time, but if I had to call a method of death right now, that’s what I’d go for.

NOTE: I do want to disclaim this by saying it’s also possible that one of his kids was the flower person in Throwdown. He gives a receipt to one of his kids, so that could make some sense. I need to go back and compare the flower person in Throwdown with the people in Shidou’s family now that they have appearances. I also need to reread his first audio drama; he says something about it being fitting that Es is judging him, which could check out if his crime relates to trying to save his kid instead. If I am wrong and it was one of his kids that he was trying to save, then everything about what I’m saying still checks out; just swap everything I say about his wife with one of the kids.

Shidou purposefully showed us the least forgivable parts of his crime in Throwdown.

Looking back on it, Shidou painted himself in an awful light in Throwdown, and I’m sure it was intentional. After all, he was trying to get us to give him a guilty verdict. If you say that a prisoner like Muu might have been altering what part of her story we received in order to get her desired verdict in the first round (innocent), Shidou could absolutely do the same thing with a guilty verdict.

He doesn’t show us any of the context of his loved ones and how much he loved them; that was all stuff we had to read between the lines of. We see him butchering plant after plant only to end in horrific failure without ever seeing him succeed at anything surgical. (He still should’ve hypothetically been saving lives while doing all of this; it’s not like he was ONLY killing people.) 

He even shows us the horrified reactions of the loved ones of patients he killed. I can only imagine that he would do that if he was trying to spark a negative reaction in us.

In contrast, this MV is very straightforwardly showing how the day he lost his family went for Shidou and directly examines what verdict Shidou wants (more on this later). I think, therefore, that this is probably a much more honest view of the situation than Throwdown, at least in terms of how Shidou perceives the truth. 

Shidou is constantly plagued by the guilt of what happened.

The simplest way to explain this is with this image: 

When showing Shidou’s family turning to ghosts, he views the man that he used to be as dying with them. Shidou, as he was, is dead. Still, what happened clearly still impacts him. That’s pretty obvious, but I’m talking down to the details. He mentions kids and liking them in both of his audio dramas. Further, take this lovely image: 

Pancakes. Shidou made pancakes for his kids. In BOTH Minigrams 3 (Pancake) and 24 (Pancake: a Second Trial) Shidou is directly shown talking about pancakes and their relation to children. He really wants Amane, the young child, to try some. It seems like he used to make pancakes for his kids before they died. He’s very clearly not recovered in any sense. That’s not surprising, but it’s still something to point out.

Triage takes place almost entirely before and after Throwdown.

That sounds a little confusing, but all I mean is that Throwdown is completely isolated from this MV. Some parts of this MV happen before the events of Throwdown; those are the ones featuring Shidou’s wife and kids, as well as the ones where he simply looks younger. The other parts are clearly looking back at the same time frame, but are from Shidou’s present perspective, here in Milgram. Those are the ones where he reflects on his verdict or directly addresses what verdict he wants.

Most directly, I think the part at 2:14 indicates this. Shidou, looking back on the death he caused (knives in the pomegranates and other food, dead flowers, receipts from the surgeries that we also saw in Throwdown), says “I want to be INNOCENT / I want to live.” That’s him, in the Milgram prison, right now, coming to terms with the fact that he actually, genuinely wants to live right now.

In the audio drama, he’s clearly conflicted. He still says that he wants to die, that he wants to atone for his sins and that dying is the only way he can make it up to the people he killed. He also, though, says that, at least for right now, he wants to live. Futa and especially Mahiru are on death’s door, and there’s no telling what other injury might occur. He believes he’s essential to saving lives within the Milgram prison (and I think he’s 100% right).

He even directly references this in the song lyrics, talking about “extracting the fang.” The fang is clearly Kotoko, given that Milgram has referred to the damage Kotoko does with fang imagery before and given that that’s what he’s currently healing. He has to be the one to save them because he’s the only one who can; as a result, to save lives, he has to care about his life right now. While he’s still unsure of what final verdict he wants, he knows that he needs to stay alive, at least going into trial 3.

VOTE: INNOCENT

Personally, this one’s a no-brainer. Es theorizes in the audio drama that Shidou only harvested organs from braindead patients, and though he never outright confirms it, based on his responses, it seems to me like that’s true. That means his crime isn’t as severe as we initially thought it was.

Additionally, he’s right; he is indispensable to us right now. He outright says in the audio drama that if he stops giving Mahiru care, she’ll die, whether or not anything else happens to her. That basically tells us that voting Shidou guilty means Mahiru dies. That’s not good, and I’d rather avoid prisoner death when we think it’s possible.

I also just don’t think it’s smart to change verdicts on him here. If we decide that, after all is said and done, we can’t forgive Shidou, we should do that with the third verdict. Here, we want to leave both options open. Right now, Shidou is torn between wanting to live and wanting to die. If we switch to guilty, we’ll ruin any chance he has at recovering a will to live and a will to atone through any means other than death. If we want to preserve the option of forgiving him in the end, I think we have to forgive him here. We can debate whether his actions were forgivable or not in the last round.

[chibishortdeath]

Ok, I’m sick of seeing only Netflix posts lately so I’m ranting about Simon lol

Unfortunately I had some nice paragraphs written for this but tumblr crashed while I was writing so this is my second time making this post (TwT)

TL;DR with the rant under a cut for easy scrolling, I am deranged and have studied all of Simon’s outfits, here’s some fun tidbits and I guess kinda a guide about his fashion sense :3

Oh boy, where to start XD. Castlevania has a lot of intricately detailed usually gothic and/or visual kei inspired fashion designs, usually with some amount of historical accuracy, thanks to Ayami Kojima, that the series is known for. But before this, the character design style was very different. From the very 90s shonen anime inspired Richter, to Christopher being deadass shirtless in a skirt at one point, to John Morris being in basically casual clothes, there’s a lot of variety in it.

Well, being the silly Simon super fan I am, I’ve studied all his outfits a ton over the years I’ve been a fan of the series and oh boy they are INTERESTING :3. I’ve noticed a lot of elements are consistently reoccurring, specific to him, and some are very much not specific to him lol. Anyway, just trust me on this one, overanalyzing the closet of an NES barbarian to be able to make new outfits for him is FUN >:3c.

So, I’ve seen him not wearing pants thrown around as a joke before, but it’s actually the truth! Besides the Haunted Castle wedding suit (an outlier that should not be counted lol), I actually have never run into a design where Simon is wearing full length, proper pants. The closest he ever gets is black tights in Simon’s Quest and occasionally shorts, but on that topic, shorts aren’t even his most common choice! Let’s look at some of his oldest designs:

This one is really hard to tell, but based on the angle of the lines, the shadows, and context clues from other art for CV1, I don’t know if that’s actually supposed to be shorts 💀💀💀!

In both his cute little manual doodles and his almost more adorable teeny 8-bit sprite, his outfit is a belted tunic of some sort! So like, the equivalent of a really tiny dress or a long shirt XD. And really, his cover art design is kinda just a more detailed version of these. They both have a distinction between a top and bottom part of the upper half, they both have big belts, they both have the tall boots and arm guards, they both have teeny skirt part, and Fun Fact! They both have red in the hair! I color picked a nice high res scan of the CV1 cover art, and yes, there’s red in his hair!!! It’s like a nice mix of dark reddish blond, it’s a very fun hair color :3.

However, that’s not where CV1 ends in tunic vs shorts debate:

THAT’S A SKORT— DO YOU SEE THAT DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE HALVES, ONE IS DEFINITELY A PANTLEG LMAO. So yeah, skort Simon is also a thing thanks to this particular magazine scan lol, thus leaving us with the possibility that it is both a skirt and shorts on the CV1 cover that he’s wearing X,,,,D. Never change, Simon, never change.

Besides the tunic, there’s some other interesting details to his CV1 era designs! :D In a lot of depictions he has this neat cape, something that returns in some Simon’s Quest art and Smash Bros lol, but he’s never shown wearing it in game. What’s interesting is that Trevor actually gets a cape in his game’s opening as well as Christopher in Belmont’s Revenge if I’m remembering correctly. It’s very neat seeing Simon character design details rubbing off into other characters :3. I like to think lore wise that it’s the same cape that’s been passed down to Simon from those two.

He also has the headband! Iconic! But have you noticed the little ball shapes at the ends of the tails? They’re either knots or, infinitely cooler option, beads :D!!!!!!! And I wouldn’t be surprised if they were because that leads me to another design: X68000–

Now this one is one of my favorites :3. It’s kinda like a forward facing version of his original design but with some new details! And his headband gets this cool lookin, intricate distinctly metallic design on it, something I’ve seen a lot of artists simplify to a general crescent moon shape. But it is kinda similar to the shape on his belt buckle, something that I still have no idea what it’s even supposed to be. Also, his arm guards and the thing at the end of his necklace (which may or may not have vampire teeth on it, they could just be metal spikes though) are similar; it makes me wonder if it was an attempt at a tortoiseshell pattern? Filigree? Whatever it is, they’re all matchy matchy about it.

This design also gives him the staple left shoulder pauldron, of which has these huge stitches holding it on and an added belt that connects to his other belt armor. Get used to belts, he has a lot of those X,,,D. What’s really neat about this one’s belt is that he has both a hilt for the family sword but also one for the whip on the other side, and they’re on the wrong sides for drawing the weapon properly 💀💀💀💀. Which is also funny considering his CV1 cover art has the sword on the other side, which is kinda wrong too? Who knows, maybe he’s ambidextrous and just doesn’t care what sides they’re on lol.

The biggest thing I can say about this design though is that a lot of these accessories and armor pieces look homemade, like as if he just took teeth as a trophy himself and strung them on a cord or made a shoulder piece and put it on an already existing belt he had. Adding onto this, there’s also the possible beads on his headband and the cords around his boots (which could be an attempt at a certain actual historical type of shoe that I cannot remember the name of for the life of me rn, in which case would make these not boots and actually corded shoes with very nice big fluffy socks hehe, I am forcing you to imagine him with big fluffy socks—) and yeah! I can see him making his stuff on his own :3. Which is so cool! I love this idea so much, it makes for a lot of things to imagine him doing hehe. Also gives him a hobby??? Yeah :)

No indication of if he’s got shorts or not in this one, maybe I’ll count how many have skirts or shorts and put that at the end of this lol.

But shorts get another point again cause we’re looking at Chronicles:

Oh Chronicles. Well, the first thing I wanna mention is that, this is Ayami Kojima’s design for him, so here we are seeing a very interesting mix of the visual kei style and 80s barbariancore in a way that honestly slays (figuratively and literally). And, surprisingly, there is something historically accurate about this design, and it’s not what you’d probably expect. Based on the width, material, cross rivets, and the buckle on the front, Simon is wearing an actual dog collar. Like, for dogs. Like it’s dog armor used primarily for hunting dogs I just— Again, never change Simon, never change 💀💀💀.

We also see Simon preferring to put his armor on his left side again with the torn in half coat. It’s also somewhat similar to 1600s coats, not really of any specific country in fashion that I can tell, however the sleeve being that short is not accurate, leading me to believe that he probably tore that off too lol. Very Chrom Fire Emblem of you, Simon, and another example of him D.I.Y.—ing things. The basic elements still stay similar to past designs. Shorts, distinct upper and lower half of shirt, belts, armor on said belt, sword and whip hilts, arm armor and tall boots (shout out to the heels on this one), and armor on the left, unfortunately no headband though. But that distinct bottom half to the shirt part of his outfit in this one is defined with… a corset? Yeah!!! That’s a corset!!! Though the proper name for the time period might be a stay or a girdle, but Simon is straight up wearing a belt over a corset. And said corset over a coat. Half of one. Don’t question him—

But the main entries to his 80s bara-barian half of the wardrobe, let’s get to some knightly aesthetic outfits, of which he does have a good amount, starting with SCV4:

Simon’s knightly outfits are usually a similar silhouette as his original tunic look, just in metal this time and in various colors. SCV4 has his armor as gold on the cover, blue on the Japanese cover and manual art, and green in game! And they’re all pretty much the same with mild variations. On the cover art, his shoes are corded sandals with nothing under them, but in game and in most other artwork they are these metallic boots with the classic X shape of the cords baked into them. Some art gives his middle belt armor section this cross with snakes on it, which is an odd thing to be referencing here. It’s either a staff of Mercury, usually associated now with medicine but was an alchemical symbol before that, or something else I can’t find any info on. There’s also a big ab window because these are all proper half shirts lol. Straight up a metal breastplate with nothing under it, a pretty bad idea tbh 💀.

All in all, these are generally really simple, but there’s one more thing before I stop talking about SCV4:

I LOVE this design. It’s this really nice blend of the older CV1 era style and the metal armor of the later ones, very cool. Shout out to the eye creases and the dead stare shadow over his eyes too, they really conveyed the effects of witnessing the horrors well lmaoooo.

Again, tunic, belt, arm guards, headband, the usual, but, speaking of symbols, there’s something about this one that’s been driving me nuts forever: I cannot find out what that symbol on his paldrons and belt buckle is!!! It’s this upside down triangle with a bent rectangle missing the bottom line over it and it LOOKS distinctly intentional, but I can’t find it or what it means anywhere!!! I tried searching through lists of alchemical symbols, religious symbols, nothing so far has been close (TwT ). Regardless, great design, definitely in my top 5.

And what else is in my top five? Oh yeah babey, it’s Simon’s Quest time:

Ah, Simon’s Quest with his fuck ass bob and the stolen Ravenloft image— but unironically, that armor fucks fr. Again, similar silhouette! If there’s any take aways from this post, it’s definitely that Simon is a little shirt, little pants kind of guy. A severe lack of long sleeves and long pants legs until now, and even then, these are skin tight. Heck even his boots(????) are vacuum sealed, just look at those fabric creases by his ankle!

Now, it’s honestly really hard to tell if his “gloves” and “boots” are supposed to be in some parts metal due to the shading on them and the base armor being very similar. I personally like to depict the forearm and calf parts as metal and the hand and ankle parts as not, but eh. Like most things regarding Simon, I suppose this too is up to interpretation XD. There’s some variation in color in some scans having the underclothes be white, dark blue, or black, and the armor be any range of red to purple to brown too. But towards red and black is probably the most accurate due to his sprite being those colors.

But this is a shockingly rare case of Simon being fully covered in one of his outfits, and I’m inclined to think that there’s probably a reason for that. Not only does he have a rotting curse right now and drawing straight up gore on the cover of an NES game was just not an option lol, but he’s not letting his guard down anymore after being hit. Which would also explain the sudden change to all metal armor as that can’t be cut through as easily as leather.

Speaking of all metal armor, oh I looooove the detailing on his. The gold accents to his byzantine (a nice in between color of red and purple, a color that is also reused in Smash Bros again in the middle corset section of his outfit) are what I would call stylized floral patterns, kinda in the way that fleur de les don’t really look exactly like flowers but still are supposed to represent one. Not sure what kind exactly, but possibly some sort type of angel’s trumpet? Very neat regardless. The gems inlaid in it are all green on top and around the belt, but the center belt buckle is bright red. It’s a very jewel tones color scheme!!!

Well anyway, if tumblr will let me have more images, I’d like to show off a few other random examples of outfit elements he’s had before I close this off with something :3

This was a pretty recently found scan of Simon wearing get this: a pleated miniskirt. Probably Roman armor inspired, as some of his other magazine scans have depicted him as such. One ad for SCV4 and another (live action even) for Simon’s Quest has him even wearing like a Roman helmet and everything, it’s odd. Add helmets to the list of things Simon might wear. Hmm maybe I should make a tier list of things based on how often he’s worn them…

Moving on!

This one goes for the bold choice of giving Simon not only an expected tiny belted tunic, but side slits on the legs! And uh um a little too much detail but uh— It’s also this kinda white, kinda bluish, kinda silverish color? Add this to Simon’s color palette I guess lol.

Which reminds me that I didn’t mention colors very much until now whoops. Throughout all of hie designs he primarily seems to wear neutrals like various browns, greys, and metal tones. But he also has a lot of color. Like as in there’s enough different colored designs to make a whole rainbow of Simon outfits. Common combinations like dark green, gold, and wine reds; blue and silver; brown, gold, orange, and kinda purplish greys; etc etc. And his HAIR. Oh boy, would this guy love modern hair dye X,,,,,D. He’s had it various blonds, reds, browns, even black at one point, blue, green, unnatural red, pink, and in one concept design white! Personally, I like depicting it as a nice in between of red, blond, and brown, it encompasses the most I think.

The final thing I wanna mention is the Smash Bros design, which I unfortunately can’t show because I’m on mobile and have met the 10 images limit whoopsie— (_ _ ;). This design is really a good culmination of a lot of elements. Not really definitive or anything, but very good :3. And it has something I didn’t mention earlier that I’ve noticed in some Simon designs: random belts or metal around his upper arms and thighs lol. The Smash Bros design in particular has the arm band things on both sides, Chronicles has it on the not half coat one, but this is another thing I’ve seen other characters (Christopher in particular, but his are just gold rings) have. The leg thing is less common, but yeah, that exists lol. Thank you Simon for uh bending two pieces of metal around your leg…? It’s cool XD. The corset also makes a return, as well as, once more, the same basic silhouette with the armor only on the left side, the belt armor pieces, etc etc. He’s very particular about that—

Well, anyway, Simon definitely has a vibe going on, but here’s a brief summary of things he seems to like:

Skirts, tunics, long shirts, and shorts (and skorts I guess), but nothing past about half his thigh, generally over the knees.

No long sleeves or pant legs (unless it’s tights when absolutely necessary).

Armor primarily to the left, unless it’s metal, in that case usually a full plate or paldron set.

Belts, hilts, belts on his arms, and neck, and hanging off of things, and legs, yeah belts—

Boots/tall socks, corded or not, and something on his forearms or wrists.

Headband! Seriously out of every Belmont he is the most dedicated to these lol.

Necklaces and beads and other little accessories and adornments are also cool.

Alrighty then, have fun Simon-ing and I encourage you to look through his or other characters’ designs and pick them apart a bit sometimes, even if it’s just through what’s on the wiki :3. If anything, I think it’s a good exercise in character design and consistency! But yeah, I wrote all this late at night and can’t think of anything else rn. If I do I’ll do a sequel I guess hehe. Either that or I might rant about another character hmmmmmmm—

[no-1-rosalind-lang-apologist]

What if I said that the part of FHH where Silas’s mom is like ugh so many social calls you’re 18 you should be getting married 🙄✋ and he’s like omg Priest ! haha !! is like in SOC when Inej has a flashback to her parents telling her that someday a boy will learn her favorite flower or whatever and she squints at Kaz like uhh yeahhh ok what if I said that what then

[lord-squiggletits]

One of my least favorite parts of how JRO wrote Optimus is that he wanted so badly to continue his dark and gritty world building making the Autobots problematic, but evidently couldn't reconcile this with Optimus being a Heroic Paragon, so instead he leaned way too hard into "oh Prowl was the one who did this and it was behind Optimus' back" which if anything I think makes Optimus look worse, not better. Because then it's like, okay I know Optimus trusted Prowl a lot as his friend but you CANNOT TELL ME that over the course of 4 million years, Optimus as the leader of the Autobot army who literally would have access to 99.9% of all the records they produce, would never notice or question where some of these odd/inconsistent details were pointing. It just seems really inconsistent with how a real military would actually function, especially regarding Optimus' character, who is incredibly thorough and responsible and wouldn't neglect to keep up with all the details of his army.

Hell, Optimus knows who the Wreckers are and had them on call for tricky operations when he needed them (Stormbringer) so he's literally not at all ignorant of/averse to the use of special wartime units composed of dubious individuals. He's the fucking commander of an entire army, of course he knows that War Is Hell (TM) and no one's hands are clean. That's not even getting into all the stuff he got up to in phase 2/3, I mean everything from the annexation of Earth to OP breaking humans out of prison against Council orders shows that Optimus is no stranger to immoral and/or unlawful means.

It also leads to a lot of annoying fanon where people write Optimus (sometimes unintentionally, sometimes not) as like some sort of ignorant fool who's unaware of the machinations of his own army or has some sort of naiveté of "b-but we can't use bad tactics against the enemy! I would never condone the use of morally gray means in war!" No, IDW Optimus knows perfectly well all of the bullshit he's enacted/condoned for the sake of trying to win the war. Some stuff is definitely out of character for him and was only machinated because of Prowl, but I think this fandom REALLY underestimates Optimus' personal agency/responsibility as the commander of a whole ass army and ESPECIALLY underestimates Optimus' capacity to condone morally gray Bullshit Of War while still being a good person individually as well as, comparatively, the lesser evil compared to Megatron/the Decepticons.

Anyways what I'm saying is JRO may be a good writer but he's really hesitant to make Optimus morally gray and does some asspulls sometimes to justify most of the bad things the Autobots did as "Optimus just didn't know," and since the majority of the IDW1 fandom only reads JRO's stuff they go running with this premise of ignorant/uninformed Optimus when there's evidence elsewhere in canon to show that Optimus is, in fact, very highly aware of the bullshit he's allowed "for the greater good" and the only stuff he was "unaware of" was the stuff he would literally never agree to the ethics of, like bombing innocent neutrals disguised as Decepticons to get them to join the Autobots.

[shimmershy]

Hello! Just wanted to say I absolutely love your art!! And I have a question, What kind of music do you think Chara would like to listen too? =) ( Also, You are a really big inspiration too me!!) Thanks 😊

Aw thank you so much!! :) It always makes me so happy when people tell me I've inspired them!!

Also it's kind of hard for me to decide what kind of music I think they'd listen to. I feel like there's a lot of different music they might like... Dramatic instrumental music for one thing. Like Dullscythe by Porter Robinson is a big one I think they'd like. Go Find Out For Me from the Luca soundtrack... That kind of dramatic instrumental music. And Experience by Daniel Hope, I Virtuosi Italiani, and Ludovico Einaudi. Maybe they'd be into classical music in general too. I also think they might like bands like The Oh Hellos and Of Monsters and Men, and some Coldplay songs (mostly from their early 2000s albums)? Radical Face as well. That could just be me projecting, but I think they might resonate with some of the lyrics and the vibe in general. Like a calm/comforting vibe.

And then on the other hand. They might be an Angry Music kind of person too. This one's definitely me projecting but I think they'd like Mother Mother. Maybe rock music in general sometimes, I don't know. Or maybe not rock music, maybe more like alternative music...? Songs with like a bitter kind of vibe to them. Like Monster by Dodie or Community Gardens by The Scary Jokes. But. Yeah.