#was thinking abt this scene from ART’s perspective

[sameboot]

Paraphrasing again buuut I wanted to try illustrating this scene!

[arolesbianism]

Sorry for failing to post more than once every 3 am anyways more stalien icons 👍

[voidspiraling]

I gotta get this done before Valentine’s Day

Omg omg guys r u ready for pain an heartbreak this Valentines!!!?!?! I’m not. I just saw the teaser and I’m freaking out!!!!!!!!

I’ll keep this short cuz we’re gonna get the full video anyways I just wanted to point out a few things.

The first scene is MiziSua!!! They’re in a class it seems talking to each other and looking cute. It seems to show a mundane everyday scene from the garden. The thing that stood out to me is the shadow cast against Sua. It’s overall a bright scene but the shadow cast on Sua hints at the darker aspects of Alien Stage. It could also show how Sua is in a dark place, and how she sees Mizi as her sole light. You can tell because of how bright Mizi’s hair is at the right part of the image. Sua is turned facing the right direction and away from the shadow. Like Mizi is the light at the end of the tunnel. Tunnel vision on a single person isn’t healthy but you can see from this picture that this where MiziSua is the happiest.

The second scene we are shown after this first image is the twins!! This shot is more closer in fact you can barely see the background. This to me shows an intimate scene between family where you just focus on your time together. They’re both shadowed by the bright light behind them showing how ephemeral this moment is. It reminds me of a flashback in a movie to show innocence and purity of a character. But overall generally cute and wholesome.

The next scene tho….

Oh man this scene is so eerie. So what my eye was drawn to was the corner of the room. Now whenever we see images of the garden it seems more open and almost warm. We usually see them from the perspective of the other characters so the garden looks big and comforting even though we know that everything is fake. The trees are fake, the fish are fake, the fake flowers have cameras in them. So we know the garden isn’t a safe place. But this shot of baby Luka shows that the garden really is just another cage made to look pretty. It felt like my safe space transformed into a horror scene XD.

Another thing that’s scary is baby Luka himself. Now normally Luka looks angelic and elegant. He looks so beautiful and soft in all the other videos. But even though he’s a baby here I can’t find him cute. The sweaty and dirty face paired with his purple fingertips looks creepy. But what really scared me were his eyes. This is the most emotion I’ve seen on him his wide pale eyes and his outstretched hands and his flushed face, it feels like he’s about to do something with dire consequences. Maybe this is before he gets into that accident with hyunwoo? Whatever it is it’s so unsettling.

Alternatively it could be that what he’s reaching for is shown in the next and final scene I wanna talk about.

IvanTill my babies!!!!!!! We only see the back of their head tho 💔 but it’s ok I can still feel the cuteness coming from them! Look at how small Till is he has to stand on his tip toes to draw ;-; I love him so much. And man the really upped the colors in this teaser his hair almost looks cyan :0 it feels almost fairytale like.

Anyways let’s talk abt what this could potentially mean. So here we see Ivan looking intently at Till drawing on a white wall with a pencil. Till is reaching as high as he can to draw on the wall. And he moves from the left to right, this scene has the most movement and is also the only scene where we don’t see their faces. They’re also farther away from the viewer it feels like an outsider looking in.

Considering that Till is drawing on the wall I think this ties into my earlier post where I compared Tills wall mural to freedom. In this scene we don’t see any part of the fake garden instead we see art of a real garden, a garden created from Till’s imagination.

I think this is what Luka wanted to reach for, freedom and creativity. IvanTill have always been distinct in this way as they show how escape is possible and how humanity thrives even when outside forces tries to removes it from you. Till shows this be always rebelling and always staying true to himself in his art and music. Meanwhile Ivan is always so human in the way he loves Till. Even though he knows how to thrive in the system he still risks his safety to comfort Till when he’s passed out. He throws the match to save the one he loves even though he knows it’s futile. They’re both so tragic and human it makes me cry every time I see them together sigssisbjssbjabxhxgcgdjsis.

Last thing I wanted to mention was that there’s a lot of motion from left to right in the teaser. I think this conveys moving forward into a hopefully brighter future. Maybe there will be a happy ending after all?

[dewwshi]

TRANSFEM DRIZZT MASTERPOST

breaking my usual “only art posts” rule on this blog to write a dissertation on a thought that has been on my mind since literally homeland. LISTEN. i'm gonna proselytize i’m honestly shocked i haven't seen anyone else say this before. i think drizzt do'urden is transfeminine coded, specifically trans lesbian coded. and i have EVIDENCE. (WALL OF TEXT UNDER CUT)

for the record i'm gonna use he/him pronouns for drizzt in this largely because that's what he uses in canon but i feel like he would for sure switch to she/her or something if he did transition. but i feel weird talking abt characters with pronouns other than canon ones

i'm transmasc so for transparency when i speak abt transfem experiences it's from what i have heard and learned from transfems and take all generalizations with a grain of salt blah blah blah nuance vanilla extract be normal please

also i'm currently only on spine of the world. i have no idea what happens in later parts of the series so my evidence is only from books i’ve read + be forgiving if you know smth i don't + try not to spoil too much thank you BUT ALSO I WANNA KNOW what people think on this sooo yea tell me :heart:

OKAY NOW after all those qualifiers. i'm sorting my evidence into a couple categories:

character evidence (about how being a girl would fit into drizzt’s narrative)

relationship evidence (about how drizzt’s relationships are enhanced by/contribute to his girlitude)

and miscellaneous meta stuff & wording evidence (aka wishful thinking)

CHARACTER/NARRATIVE EVIDENCE

firstly. we MUST discuss the backstory. the childhood trauma.

drizzt's primary backstory, i.e. his childhood in and abandonment of menzoberranzan society, places him in the position of someone who is “too soft” and “too weak” for their society and thus becomes ostracized and outcast. this is a REALLY transfem coded position to be in.

in our world transfem kids get ostracized for not being masculine enough and for being a “sissy.” the situation is obviously pretty different in matriarchal menzoberranzan (“girliness”/femininity is not considered a flaw there the way it is in prevailing attitudes in our world) but the parallel still holds

i'm sure everyone remembers the “you’re a dancer” scene. despite excelling in combat, drizzt (at least pre-melee-magthere) is considered too weak and soft for menzoberranzan even by zaknafein, again framing him as being (by surface standards) more traditionally "feminine" than the rest of menzo men

and YES "you're a dancer" is a complicated scene with a lot of emotional shit going on for both characters but my point is specifically that drizzt's alienation from his society REALLY resembles the alienation that a lot of transfem children experience

for the record he is also very autistic. 100% autistic i’m on that wagon all the way. just to put it on the table

but anyway the queer coding is extremely strong here. the other way you could read the “dancer” gncness drizzt exhibits is as gay coding (many of the same tropes and narratives apply to young gay boys as do to young transfems). i have a couple reasons i prefer the transfem reading though

gayness is not treated the same in menzo. bg3 confirms romantic relationships between women are standard fare in menzoberranzan; my hc is that the same is true among men

that's an explanation from the world's perspective though, not from a meta/writing perspective. to me drizzt's infatuation with women (We'll Get To That) makes him read more like a transbian than a gay man though

anyway back on topic. something the books (the ones i’ve read so far at least) don't really talk about but SHOULD is the relationship with gender (and women specifically) that drizzt would have been left with from his upbringing.

menzoberranzan culture holds that women are above men and that men are inherently worse. you can't just forget something like that after living in a place where that's simply a fact of life for 30 years. lots could be said on that and i think it must have had an effect on how drizzt views women

however to focus on the trans thing let's state the obvious: menzoberranzan gender roles are RIPE for transmisogyny. it’s a society of terfs. the gender roles are SO defined and SO exclusive that an assumed boy even trying on feminine clothing would probably get physically abused. not so different from parts of our world shrugs forever but for a different reason like i mentioned; it's not “girl shit is gross what are you, gay?” it's “how dare you, a filthy man, attempt to partake of womanhood, which you would sully with your very touch” AND AGAIN. THAT SOUNDS LIKE TERF RHETORIC DOESN'T IT?

i think drizzt would have been left with a deep-rooted sense of shame and self-consciousness about gender (as he was about basically all parts of his identity for the record) and i specifically think that a clear parallel can be drawn between those feelings and the transmisogynistic ideas common in our world, in particular the idea that trans women “steal/appropriate womanhood.” in menzoberranzan’s case the idea is more like that “womanhood is a privilege to which men (who are lesser) have no claim.” 

drizzt seems to generally feel like he doesn't deserve to have things he wants, he doesn't deserve to be happy etc etc. and i think it would make peeeerfect sense for that to extend to gender. that he has to learn that he can and is allowed to express his gender freely

then there's the graduation ceremony.

in a journal entry in spine of the world drizzt says the reason he was so uncomfortable with the melee-magthere graduation ceremony was because 1. he didn't wanna do drugs and 2. because Casual Sex Is Bad And You Should Be In Love Before You Do Sex (he's so. repressed. beautiful stupid baby) and while i for sure think those ARE both PARTS of his discomfort, i think i have a bit of extra sauce to add.

consider: the graduation ceremony's purpose (in addition to being a fun light-hearted celebration by drow standards) is to enforce a specific social/sexual gender role onto the young graduates of melee-magthere (clearly the most desirable sexual partners for noble drow women).

that gender role is specifically placed in opposition to womanhood. there's matrons, and then there's patrons, just like the surface world has husbands and wives

i’m thinking that while drizzt is and is written as being HEAVILY attracted to women (again We Will Discuss This), “pretty lady's boytoy” isn't a gender role he's comfortable inhabiting, and so he felt reflexively bad being forced into it.

of course the social role of men in menzoberranzan isn't a nice position to be in even at the best of times but i don't think that was what was on his mind at the time!! what if part of the reason he was so instinctively against partaking was because he rejected the gendered social role placed on him in that moment, a reminder that melee-magthere, and the kind of warrior role he'd been trained for, is for boys alone?

leading from that. in siege of darkness drizzt imagines what catti-brie’s life would have been like in menzoberranzan if she was drow. consider how easily he chooses to imagine her going to melee-magthere instead of arach-tinilith even though the former is boys only. this is SOME kind of gender fuckery for sure. i'm thinking some part of him feels that melee-magthere (and the kind of combat training taught there, which drizzt excels at) isn’t or shouldn’t be for men exclusively. he enjoys being a warrior and he's good at it, but, for him, that warrior role is DISTINCT from a masculine gender, even though in menzoberranzan it wasn't distinct at all.

i find that drizzt being transfeminine boosts the hell out of all of his other “fuck you"s to menzoberranzan society

not only is he an insult to the way of lolth by rejecting it in favour of empathy, but he's going in the face of the entire gender system of menzoberranzan. just totally blasts it. i feel like it adds a whole new layer to his rejection of the lolthite way of life

of course that's an argument you could make of any queer reading of drizzt as a character but i feel like it hits hardest with SPECIFICALLY transfem drizzt. one brave tgirl's Exodus From Terflandia.

but even then when he does come to the surface, he finds himself alone and apart from society. 

in the early books’ world there is no place in surface faerûn society for a drow, it is designed to exclude him the exact same way existing binary cisnormative gender structures are designed to exclude queer people.

drizzt has to start off on the complete fringes of society and then carve a place and home for himself with like-minded people who love him and who he loves. that's exactly what queer people have to do too. is leaving the underdark a metaphor for coming out??? i guess so.

CAN WE TALK about the shit with the mask of disguise in the halfling's gem? THAT SHIT IS TRANS AS HELL!!! again autism coding runs parallel hand in hand here but like.

“you have the choice to suppress who you are in order to fit into wider society. now will you do that, or will you live as someone visibly outside the norms? is it enough to know no matter what, you will still have your loved ones who accept you no matter who you turn out to be, to know that you will be happier if you let yourself express your true self?”

THAT'S THE QUEEREST SHIT EVER.

also drizzt's fixation on personal freedom makes a lot of sense (a lot more sense than it does as in-canon imho) if you read him as trans. in menzoberranzan he would never have had the freedom to do with his body and presentation what he wants.

being able to be the person he wants to be seems to be a central concern in his mind, for himself. he doesn't just have an “i don't want to kill and torture people” objection to menzo culture, but an “i want to be able to choose the life and identity that i want for myself” objection

as it stands in canon the reason why he's so fixated on this isn't clear (so far at least). it makes more sense if he is transfem, and growing up in a system where he was actively prevented from pursuing his own tgirl happiness left him very invested in standing against that

on a meta level the “freedom is the most important thing ever” thing kinda is weird to me (it's very “can you tell the author is american”) BUT it becomes a lot BETTER if reinterpreted as “my old government wanted me dead for being transgender, so i think everyone can do whatever they want forever”

some of the general stuff about drizzt's queercoding in this section is pretty general but i veeery much think specifically transfem drizzt makes the most sense and adds the most to his character and story. and that's what the post is about. so yeah

RELATIONSHIP EVIDENCE

this section is abt drizzt's relationships! wahoo

1. CATTI-BRIE

ok so there’s a lot to say about catti-brie and why i consider their relationship a lesbian one and how i think drizzt's attraction to and love for women reads as extremely trans lesbian in nature.

bringing back that thing about shame from earlier. drizzt has, as he has in all things, a tendency to be ashamed of and suppress his own emotions in terms of romance.

the way he thinks about his attraction to catti-brie reads a lot like the way a transfem with a lot of internalized transmisogyny and lesbophobia might feel abt her attraction to women:

he acts guilty and embarrassed and tries to keep it a secret, to avoid talking about it, to avoid expressing his wants in any way at all

he's also afraid of being punished for it. think back to his stuff about women in menzo. he feels like he's not allowed to feel this way about women OR - HEAR ME OUT - HIMSELF. to me, a fear that he is encroaching on womanhood (both as a participant and as an enjoyer) is a very natural source for that shame

note that it’s specifically when she isn’t looking. ashamed!

drizzt in that excerpt assumes that bruenor would berate him even though he SHOULD KNOW bruenor trusts and likes him enough to fully give them his blessing. also drizzt blushes immediately after this and acts all flustered about it. ashamed!

in siege of darkness (during the "but for now, friends" scene) drizzt does tell catti that he’s in love with her- and follows it up immediately with “it’s no big deal, don’t even worry about it, i can totally just repress it forever if you’re not comfortable with it” (GUT WRENCHING SCENE THAT THREW ME OUT TO THE CURB BTW. AUGH). it's a COPE. he's terrified of being punished or rejected or ridiculed. i think all of those fears tie deeply and specifically into gender- his own, and hers too.

lesbian culture is known for a level of near-rhapsodic adoration for women and i see that in drizzt. the way he talks and thinks about catti-brie is insanely sapphic. basically every time he thinks about her he’s thinking shit like “god she’s the most beautiful and the best and i would die for her and there’s nobody in the world like her” this is truly a kind of infatuation lesbians are famous for. 

are there men who think about women like this? yes of course. is it a cornerstone of wlw culture to a degree that casts even the most cisgender of those men as almost gender non-conforming? i would say yes.

he spends so much of this scene fawning over her that i don’t even know which parts of it to include

i could keep going but listen the point i’m trying to illustrate is that he’s fucking SMITTEN with her okay? and it's EVIDENCE he is a woman i swear to god this is facts and logic and makes sense THIS IS LESBIAN BEHAVIOUR!!!!

AND THE SLOW BURN. the slow burn is lesbian coded as well. wlw stories are LEGENDARY for the extended periods of mutual pining that they often feature. pining is basically a classic feature of lesbian romance.

catti-brie and drizzt spent SIX FUCKING YEARS on the sea sprite together in the time skip between siege of darkness and passage to dawn, the ENTIRETY of which drizzt spent HOPELESSLY IN LOVE with her, and they did NOTHING together. if pining was a song these motherfuckers would have gone triple platinum. and that? oh BABY, is it yuri to me

i could make a whole other post exclusively about a lesbian reading of catti-brie and her relationship with wulfgar being comphet. honestly i could make a lot of posts about catti-brie she's insanely interesting and i have SOOO many thoughts about her. but suffice it to say: i think she’s gay as hell

for the record you may be thinking “okay he’s just in love with catti that’s why he’s like that” true but he is also fascinated with and identifies himself with a lot of the women he meets on the surface. and of course there is The Guenhwyvar Thing

2. THE GUENHWYVAR THING

let's discuss The Guenhwyvar Thing

you guys remember the fucking poem from homeland? about how beautiful and incredible guen is? literally the first time i saw that i was like “this is the most tgirl shit i've ever seen.”

are you guys seeing this??? “you, girl panther, are how i feel inside, i wish i could be you for realsies." reflection from mulan core. on all levels except physical i am a giant female panther

the fact that drizzt is so utterly enamoured with, again, a Female magical panther reads as extremely transfem coded to me. i truly feel like guenhwyvar's gender is a core facet of why drizzt adores her so much.

drizzt's relationship with guenhwyvar is – and was from the beginning – a place where he could freely admire and relate to femininity without shame.

guen’s femininity (by virtue of its animalness and magicalness) is very different from the femininity of menzoberranzan’s matron mothers. drizzt grew up in with an exclusive and abusive femininity that left him as an outsider, always unable to partake of or even genuinely admire womanhood. but he always wanted to and, when he gets the chance, he does. HARD.

i maintain a headcanon that if drizzt were to play dnd with the companions of the hall, he would play a conspicuously female druid every single time and never explain why it had to be a woman. but i know. I Know Why it has to be a woman.

3. ARTEMIS

god the queer reading here is sooo potent. here's my thoughts

artemis and drizzt’s struggle (at least as far as i've read) is one of a person who pursues happiness even under the risk of being outcast or hurt by society, and a person who has suppressed the need for happiness to secure survival. this can be easily expanded to a queer context:

artemis is closeted or stealth, dismissive of his own queerness. he sees an out and proud drizzt, publically living as a queer person, pursuing queer happiness. (not that drizzt is actually out and proud as a tgirl BUT HE HAS THAT ENERGY! LIFE COULD BE DREAM)

in other words artemis sees drizzt living a life that he (artemis) subconsciously decided long ago was impossible, unattainable, something he had to give up to survive. a kind of life that he hates his own desire to have. he hates drizzt for being happy in a way he wants but has decided he cannot have and thus nobody should even try for. he envies him.

you may be thinking “that sounds a lot like the dynamic drizzt and artemis already have in canon” EXACTLY MOTHERFUCKER!!!!

i really enjoy transmasc artemis who's been stealth since age 10 but i'll admit i'm not as dedicated to that headcanon as i am to transfem drizzt. idk where he's getting that beard from. maybe the crime guilds of calimport have access to magic hrt

bet when you started reading this post you weren't expecting kalvin garrah artemis entreri

anyway the point is that artemis’ redemption arc is the journey from he/him transmasc to he/they transmasc. DOESN'T HE JUST HAVE HE/THEY ENERGY?

MISCELLANEOUS EVIDENCE

this section deals a few other little random things that don't mean much but boy do they add spice to my life

UNICORN SYMBOLISM. drizzt's ranger symbol is a unicorn. a symbol of mielikki of course but also perhaps the most feminine of all mythological creatures and he chose it specifically to represent himself as well. and as a ranger/ nature guardian drizzt occupies a very typically feminine role. like who speaks to animals often? disney princesses do. my girl drizzt is a disney princess deep in his heart and i know this to be true.

now last but not least these ones�� these are clearly unintended from salvatore’s pov but i find them FASCINATING

supposed to be a reference to his age i think BUT STILL HOLY SHIT? HE SAYS THAT. DRIZZT HIMSELF OBJECTS TO BEING CALLED A MAN. I'M DOING A LITTLE HAPPY DANCE THIS IS THE GOLD STANDARD FOR TGIRL HEADCANON EVIDENCE

let’s parse this okay because it’s pretty weird and confusing wording. the hag says it is “not for any man; it’s for two and only two” and those two are catti-brie and drizzt, implying NEITHER of them is a man.

the second half conspicuously shifts from “man” to “male,” again avoiding calling drizzt a man and implying he may be male (biologically), but he ISN’T a man. it’s also kind of tacked on to the end, to single drizzt out. almost like the hag was like “shit they’re not going to figure out who the other not-man is so let me add this second thing to it”

and yes of course the author-intent reason it’s phrased like that probably has to do with the word “man” which is sometimes used in these books to mean “human” HOWEVER given that everyone there immediately assumed “no man” referred to catti-brie (who IS human but NOT a man in the gender sense) supports the reading that it does mean gender

IN CONCLUSION

i think drizzt do'urden is a tgirl. i’m just about 100% certain this was not RAS' intent but nonetheless i think a reading of drizzt as transfem based on the evidence present in the books both makes sense and adds a lot to his character AND the other characters AND the story and themes. basically he’s a girl. thanks for readingg

[mathisntreal]

Thinking of posting art of my Mouthwashing oc?? Wanted to write abt her a bit and see if anyone would be interested!

So, her name is Kat, she’d be about 20 and another intern on board. However, her insertion onto the ship wouldn’t be so last-minute, and she’d be studying under Anya. She’s hoping to go to college, after the freighter haul’s landed and she’s been payed, to train to become an emergency medical specialist(EMS). Her character would contrast with Daisuke’s a lot, as she is very goal-oriented and working toward a good future.

In the story, she’d kind of stand solely as an annoyance from Jimmy’s perspective. I think it’d be fun if she was conceptualized to be a non-interact-able character when playing as Jimmy; the player would have to talk to other characters in order to trigger an action from Kat. She’s kind of a brick wall and she’d probably be seen as annoying and condescending by the player (until the story later develops.) the only time she’d talk would be in group chats, during Curly’s POV, or when another character is talking to her. This would also support the overall theme of complicity/lack of action toward Jimmy in the game.

I have a vague idea of her death?? I think? I’m thinking that after Daisuke dies, she’d be crouched over Anya’s body in the med room(crying bc she had a big ol girl crush on her) and Jimmy would try to talk to her. However, when clicked/talked at, she would only respond with “…” I think this would, then, drive Jimmy to kill her out of frustration(built up overtime from her ignoring him) using blunt force. I think maybe this would be better if it took place in the cockpit during the small Swansea scene, though, because then he could use the pipe to crack her head open.(I love it when MW ocs have horrific deaths omg)

She’d be kind of representative of other women who, despite knowing the abuse happening to a woman, don’t speak up because they feel helpless and vulnerable. Her silence could be seen from Jimmy’s perspective as hostile, but really, it’s fearful.

I dunno! I’ll stop rambling here or else I’ll write a novel, but tell me what you guys think! And give me any ideas for character development activities (i.e. my character’s what’s in your bag, her work card) if you have any! Ask LITERALLY anything you want abt her:) Idk if anyone will read this but I needed motivation to actually work on her so :p

[wizardempires]

re: your challengers playlist!

are you thinking of hot and heavy from Patrick's perspective?? coz i love that song sm but when i was listening to your playlist it was the first time i like listened to the lyrics and thought about challengers and patrick specifically and it was melting my brain woooooow

OKAY. this is amazing. thank you for actually reaching out i'm giggling and kicking my feet

short answer: YES!!!!!

long answer: yes. ↓

like obviously right from the beginning the "couldn't look away even if i wanted / try to walk away but i come back to the start" is the new rochelle challenger, seeing tashi in the lobby and art across the tennis court and everything from the past 13 years just floods back to him. i have more to say abt this chorus trust but i'll circle back.

to me, the next verse is after tashi tears her ACL and patrick comes just to see her with art: "how could i deny a diamond in the rough? /... how did i believe i had a hold on you? / you were always stronger than people suspected / underestimated and overprotected", which i interpreted as directed towards art saying like how could you do this to me? i didn't think you had it in you. but also even a little bit of a snarky dig about how, like, yeah. i didn't think you fucking had it in you. which is SO patrick. maybe even a little bit about art's tennis ability, how patrick knows he's always been a little bit better than him and feels like rubbing it in his face just to be a bitch.

this is followed by "when i went away, it was the only option / couldn't trust myself to proceed with caution / the most that i could give to you is nothing at all / the best that i could offer was to miss your calls". of course patrick is angry after all this, his girlfriend so publicly breaking up with him and even WORSE the betrayal of his best friend!! so when they call, he doesn't answer (at the very least, art calls. tashi might be too stubborn). he can't trust himself not to lash out so he leaves, and eventually they just stop chasing him.

then back at the chorus again. "being back here makes me hot in the face / hot blood in my pulsing veins / heavy memories weighing on my brain"—again: the new rochelle challenger !!! though patrick has not Literally been here before, it's the same situation as in 2006, playing for tashi's number. he's hot in the face because like yeah they're all smokeshows WE KNOW THIS but he is also pissed the hell off... how dare they dump him like he's trash and then sweep through his life again, tashi telling him to lose to art, art telling him he means nothing, not even to the most obsessive tennis fan in the world. even when patrick is trying to be vulnerable, to bridge that gap (we can argue about how genuine he's being in the sauna scene but my personal take is that he's using this taunting demeanor as an excuse in case his attempts to reconnect go awry. which they do), he is still being pushed away.

the next lines, "you used to be so sweet / now you're a firecracker on a crowded street" are about art. when they were in school together art was very boy next door and now he's like. the most famous tennis player in the world and he's been on a tailspin trying to come back from this injury. he's a firecracker, bright and brilliant, but he's taking everyone on this crowded street (tashi) down with him. and he's MEAN now (see above not even to the most obsessive tennis fan etc etc).

and then we have those lyrics from my first paragraph again, but a slightly different interpretation. "couldn't look away even if i wanted / try to walk away but i come back to the start": patrick, against all odds, is really fucking enjoying this match. he and art haven't played in over a decade and this is fun. he doesn't want to look away. he's tried to walk away, taking the easy way out by agreeing to let art win, but now that he's playing this match he can't let it be over so easily. he goes back to the start of their schism. he places the ball in the centre of his racket.

next we get "and it happens over and over and over and over again / i wish i was over it, over it, over it, over it". like yeah. they have been playing this game back and forth since the junior open. tashi has always been in the stands assessing their performance and art has always been SO desperate for the win. tashi has always ended up with patrick, whether he wins her number or it's a one night stand. art has never ONCE told him or tashi how he really feels about any of this. over and over and over again. even if this is fun, it's so fucking weary.

the tone of the song shifts here, getting a little softer, a little more intimate !!! "a hidden gem / my own goldmine / ... you were a secret to yourself / you couldn't keep from anyone else". patrick grew up with art. he knows how good he is, and obviously other people do too because he's made it so far, but nobody else until tashi has ever told him you should win like patrick has. he is no longer the person whose job it is to remind art that he is a GOOD FUCKING TENNIS PLAYER and that is bad. especially because tashi is doing a terrible job at it (you know. sleeping with patrick in order to get him to throw the game).

these next lyrics harken back to the firecracker ones, "now you're the biggest brightest flame / you are a fire that can't be tamed". here, art is the first lyric, tashi is the second. what a fucking power couple. art is the public star, the brightest flame, but it's tashi's fire that propels them. tashi NEEDS him to succeed, and patrick knows that almost better than art does (see again: sleeping with him in order to get him to throw the game). they are gamechangers PLURAL for a reason.

so close to the end. now we get "you're better than ever, but i knew you when". art is finally getting to be on level playing field with patrick. he has never beaten him before, but now patrick isn't even throwing the game and art might win. even tashi, who has recovered so well from her injury in every aspect except actually playing tennis, shaping art into the player he is now. but of course it wouldn't be patrick without a little bit of snark.... he knew art when he couldn't beat him even in a game that meant nothing. he knew tashi when she was the biggest up-and-coming player in the world. and so now, confronted with him again, they're forced to reckon with who they used to be. they're forced to reckon with the question of whether who they are NOW is worth it after all that. and patrick Lives for this chaos

the very last lyric of the song is really the thesis statement of the whole thing. "it's bittersweet to see you again".

if you read all the way to the end of this fucking essay i will give you an award LMAOOO... but i am so serious when i say if you have questions about any of my playlist choices. please reach out. i have thoughts about ALL of them.

anyways i can't write all this and then NOT link the playlist so. Here you go! thank you for reading and reaching out. i love you and i love challengers.

[arty-holly]

I never thought I'll enjoy Ep Nagi so much, but this spinoff has me feeling all kinds of things.

Stalker Reo 😭. The extents he goes to be Nagi's friend. Nagireo was never my thing, but I'm starting to see the appeal.

I think we as a fandom collectively ignore how funny Nagi is. The "legs broken" , " cells dead" 😂, Relatable icon.

The expression in his eyes... they did such a great job with the art. And Reo clearly didn't understand how much of a big deal Nagi saying this was, bcz from a person who considers existing a pain, this is HIGH praise. Yep, definitely shipping Nagireo now.

God really isn't.🥲 Why does my boy Niko have to go through this?? From his perspective, this must look so horrifying. "Hugs Niko through screen".

Glad we have zantetsu's backstory now. I am LIVING for this friendship.

The Nagi- Zantetsu scene in the bath was so so cute. A depressed weirdo and a ostracized idiot finding a tentative comfort in each other. It really makes me wonder how Zantetsu is doing in PxG with all the ...interesting combination of people there. He seems like the type to straight up ask Loki why is a 17 yr old teaching them. Wonder how he'll bond with members like Tokimitsu and Rin. And his whole dynamic with PxG.

Protective Nagi!!

The "Nagi-kun" 😂 . Even Reo is sweating at how unnaturally angry Nagi is at Barou for hurting Reo. And I don't blame him at all. Bcz this chapter reminded me of why I dislike Barou so much.

I mean his behaviour here,

My heart is breaking for the other team. The desperation in the eyes of that blond kid , the bangs kid's sobbing... It really makes you feel for the rest of players who got locked off like Naruhaya and had an even worse time bcz of a bitch like Barou. Worst part is he meant every word he says here.

I'm sorry to all the Barou stans here, if you don't like what I'm saying, simply block me.

Ppl can call on-field Isagi and Rin rude all they want. Hell, even Sae does’nt bring people down in this manner. But nothing comes close to Barou spouting this kind of trash to his team. That they shouldn't even consider themselves human bcz they couldn't score a goal against Nagi.

And the way he was so insensitive to Snuffy opening up about Mick's death. Who tf actually tells a grieving person they won't end up like said dead guy bcz they're better or whatever, high key insulting Mick. Not a drop of compassion in him. Snuffy has the most patience in this entire facility for putting up with his bs.

Sae is rude to reporters, Barou is simply a deplorable human being with no excuse for his actions. I will be cheering Isagi on when he humiliates this guy in my reread. The only good thing I can say about him is that he's a great antagonist. If you stan Barou, atleast stan him as the jerk he is and not excuse his actions.

You tell him, babe! ( the way he caught Reo I- )

What. A. Badass.

Said it before and I'll say it again. The art in Ep Nagi is absolutely phenomenal. Esp, the shading on the other side of Nagi's face is stunning. Well, that's abt it for the first part of Ep Nagi.

[ontosgold]

hi! first off i wanted to say that i love your art so much its so so pretty and secondly i was wondering, since youre like the ceo of ryomina, if you had any good ryomina fanfic recommendations ? :>

THANK YOU :D !! and hehe thank u for giving me the chance to ramble abt the two ryomina fics that have been consuming my brain lately (that are both written by my lovely fellow ryomina ceos <3)

first off !! the twilight wants him back by @chatlote

it's a canon divergent fix-it fic that takes place from november onwards featuring sees ryoji :> I think my favourite thing abt this fic is the way lina characterises both ryoji and makoto, like I genuinely adore how she writes them in this fic. both of their inner worlds feel so rich and detailed and i adore how the pov switches give us a look into makoto and ryoji's different outlooks !! seeing makoto and ryoji's different perspectives on the same events is so interesting and it adds so much depth of their interactions. it's been such a joy so far to watch those two slowly get to know each other while also exploring how makoto's dealing with everything he's experienced up until then (the way she shows how makoto's been dealing with loss is so. augh <3) and I'm so excited to see where this fic is headed ^_^ every update has me kicking my feet in excitement hehe

and then there's persephone's curse by @sweet-sirin

this fic took me on such an emotional rollercoaster that it hasn't stopped rolling around in my brain since I read it. it takes place post canon and if u know abt persephone than u can probably take a guess as to where this fic is going. I don't wanna say too much bcs I think this fic is best experienced knowing as little abt it as possible but its just a beautiful exploration of ryoji and makoto's characters and just how stubborn they can be in their own ways, especially ryoji. there's so many scenes in this fic that are just stuck in my brain. it felt like every single scene and every piece of dialogue has some sort of underlying/second meaning and it was a ride unpacking everything as I was reading. everything feels so purposeful and meaningful its just so. augh. it emotionally destroyed me and I don't think I'll ever recover <3 it'll live in a special corner of my brain forever

Also !! I haven't really gone down the ryomina fic rabbit hole myself yet so if you or anyone reading has some fic recs of their own please send them my way !! 🙏🙏

[sleepyyghostt]

wait??? how did you (almost) end up in a mrbeast video?? :O

ohmygosh okay so

with my good old lifelong youtube special interest, i had a period where i was just FASCINATED by all the actual workings behind the various mrbeast channels (and the story of how he got there), particularly mrbeast gaming (which was basically just minecraft videos)

and- ok this might just turn into an infodump for a sec cause i find the operations of it rlly interesting sdfsdk. i had a wonderful rabbit hole week where i watched a ton of videos from the perspectives of ppl who were actually in those challenges, which led me to find out about the mrbeast gaming discord server...

A monstrous thing with 60,000 members and zero channels you can talk in (thank god). It took a while to even JOIN cause it was always at member limit.

The whole thing basically got nuked last year and reformed into some sort of fortnite thing that ive never quite looked at since, but the way it worked was members would fill out a google form with their discord info, and anytime they needed people for a video they'd use some kind of bot that randomly selected a bunch of those form submissions, and checked them against people whose discord accounts were currently online. those accounts would be given a role that let them into some extra discord channels that held the relevant details for whatever the event was.

I joined the server, filled out the thing, and months later, ACTUALLY GOT SELECTED

a couple hundred people, if i recall correctly, had been as well, and the mods announced they were going to hold interviews over a couple hour period later that week, looking for people to be in a future unspecified video.

the odds of me having even gotten to this were crazy so i was already hyped, but i kept my hopes low just to manage it all sbjdhf

The interviews were done in five voice chats, with enough room for one player and a mod. someone would join, get interviewed, then leave the call, then there was a split second opportunity to click on that call with just the right timing as a hundred other people tried to do the same.

somehow, i got in one! i was interviewed by a guy called brethoodie, who was the actual head of mrbeast gaming behind the scenes?? I think??? and like-it actually went super well. we were vibing and it was just a really nice conversation tbh. he had a question they asked like 'if you won 100k and had to spend it on something for urself (rather than donate it, pay off debt, all the other realistic but generic responses), what would you do?' and i thought abt it and realised that in this fantasy land, i'd go all out crazy on materials for some kind of massive art project or sculpture type creation, and he said that was one of the most interesting responses he'd had!!

after that i continued to watch the voice channels and i realised that at the rate they went, they really couldve only interviewed like. i dunno. 20-40 people max? so i was feeling PRETTY good about my chances. he said theyd get back to me in a week or two if i'm in, but I just never heard anything back.

which was like, fine? was disappointed ofc but like. Oh Well. it was an interesting time regardless

a couple months later a video came out, i figure this was the one they'd been working on so i have a look and...

thats

well, that's not me. but it is someone with a STRIKINGLY similar username to the sleepyyghostt that i am

Now, its perfectly possible that i just simply didn't get picked. but a part of me..... like really wonders if they got the usernames mixed up somewhere along the line. like maybe the hoodie guy was like, oh who was that person i talked to, sleepy something? (grabs a different sleepy someone) You!

or maybe, they just picked other people. which is fine! i just.. i told this whole story to my friend a couple weeks ago and they were INSISTENT that they totally meant to pick me and my conspiracy theory was correct x_x

either way!!!!! an interesting story!!!

[alienaiver]

does any of my fellow writers or readers wanna vibe-read (and minor-minor beta read but thats not a requirement since im confident in my general grammar etc and vibe / general thoughts are more important) my sfw disabled/chronic pain reader insert shinsou fanfic of a fever dream? its currently standing at 30k ish and not even finished, so absolute no stress abt being a fast reader!!

bonus if ur disabled urself in some capacity and able to pick up on my presentation and whether or not i end up making it too vague instead of relatable! tho not at all a requirement! the disability/diagnosis will not be specified, but as i suffer from pots/heds/fibromyalgia myself, those will be the type of experiences i draw from(but dont limit it to). reader is also described as using mobility aids, but it is as a whole described under 'dynamic disability'.

short summary is chronic pain reporter!reader is shinsous self-proclaimed biggest fan, and has a fan twitter about him. they (accidentally) post horrendously ugly pictures of him (if zoomed in) which his friends always does and makes fun of in a groupchat. on a drunken night he dm's the twitter account and a blooming relationship ensues, a will-they-wont-they back and forth as reader learns to let someone in and shinsou learns that he is lovable and worthy. it has minor elements of chatfic and some homemade art included of the horrendous, zoomed-in shinsou faces.

its a slow burn (estimate is 8-9 chapters of ~5-7k words per chapter) with a gender neutral reader in a timeskip world that is semi-canon compliant up until the war. chapter 1 thru 5 are all finished, whereas ch6 is 90 ish percent finished and the last ones are drafted and completely planned, with in-between scenes written down as well.

if youre at all interested send me a dm or an ask and we can discord or google doc it out :3 i have literally zero expectations except u sharing ur own thoughts so no technical knowledge, personal writing experience or anything needed. ive been working on this for a year and i feel im staring at it blindly at this point so a fresh perspective would be nice i think!!! i also dont mind if multiple people wanna do this, since ill just receive more feedback!!

if youre not interested in reading but wanna help me get the word out, id appreciate a reblog but not required 🥺✨

[hinamie]

hi hina! i was wondering what your favorite scenes from jjk s2 are in terms of color/cinematography/animation/anything! really curious to hear about it from an artist's perspective ✨

oh my god ok i'm 100% sure im going to forget some scene that i rly loved because my memory is that of a goldfish and i have no object permanence but ! from what i do remember ! in no particular order:

stsg + riko aquarium scene oh my god the BLUE th IMAGERY th FRAMING of every single shot in tht goddamn scene jesus christ th animation team really said oh so we're going for fleeting summer meets calm before the storm meets Vastness and Power of th ocean and its creatures confined within manmade structures ,, Bet. that and listen im a weak bitch i'll admit it im not immune blue is simply gojo's colour

tojigo fight scene pt 2 electric boogaloo. u know. bc it took me a billion years to actually get around to watching s2 I never *really* understood where all the god/heathen/worshipper religious imagery associated with tojigo came from UNTIL I SAW THIS SCENE JESUS FUCK *icarian fv grows louder in th distance* i am so . god. blood and gold and Mania how r they meeting all my standards how r they ticking all my boxes . who leaked my address and ao3 search history

fushiguro squared fight scene. i did that megu screencap redraw for a reason !!! colour theory comin in HOT in that scene oh my god it's so good and that's not even saying anything abt the animation which was on Full display holy shit . th snappiness the rough frames its all there its all so fucking deliCIOUS god i love art

listen ik everyone and their mother lost their shit at the animation during sukuna's shibuya rampage and fight with jogo but it's /so/ incredibly justified. i mean . gestures. th fire looks like ghibli water.....how did they do that............who let them cook so severely....who on the animation team do i address these flowers to bc i owe them my life fr Sukuna Nocking An Arrow Made Of Fire.gif

Yuuji having a panic attack :( i see him chest heaving clawing at th concrete in my nightmares

Yuuji throwing a car :) i think abt this to combat th angst of #5

[voidspiraling]

Man what is it with IvanTill and being small in the comp but having such meaningful interactions.

TWICE THEY USED THIS COMPOSITION TWICE

UR NOT SLICK I SEE U (I already analyzed the last two pic in another post so imma yap abt something else)

Anyways abt the red sky have you guys heard of the saying “Red sky in morning, sailor take warning, Red sky at night, sailor’s delight”? I think it comes from the Bible but there’s a scientific explanation for that “sunlight traveling through a long path of dirty atmosphere at sunrise or sunset is made up of primarily the reddish wavelengths when it reaches the observer”

(Source:

Hehe I did research)

To sum it up, when it’s a red sky during sunrise that means bad weather is coming. When it’s a red sky during sunset that means good weather is coming! This is in the context of being on a boat in the middle of the ocean but I am delusional so I am applying it here.

Red skies are also used in media to represent doomsday or the end of the world, looking at you Evangelion and Genshin. Red can also symbolize danger. So while Ivan and Till are running through their awful and tragic world, they’re actually heading to a better tomorrow (💔 except they don’t but whatever) The downside however is that they’re running in the opposite directions that the stars, meteors whatever, are falling. There’s a superstition that stars falling to the left symbolize bad luck (not backed by science just superstition). And generally when we see shooting stars depicted in media, the characters generally move in the direction the stars are moving, almost like they’re chasing after it. There’s two conflicting ideas here, running from your awful reality towards a better tomorrow vs. leaving behind your dreams (for Till it’s singing probably) and running to a doomed future.

Another thing I wanna point out is how far IvanTill actually got. The main focus of that part was of Till letting go of Ivan’s hand, sacrificing freedom so he could avoid the unknown. But Till actually went with Ivan most of the way. If only Ivan held on tighter maybe Till would’ve felt more secure and would’ve taken the final step to freedom. 🫠

Anywho the pic of Till looking at Ivan against a background of everyone leaving the garden shows how loving Ivan is associated with freedom to Till. But what does the meteor shower scene symbolize since we’ve only ever seen it from Ivan’s perspective. (A nice person told me that in the art book Till ran away cuz he was afraid of freedom prob bc he’s a kid in an unknown world. So Till def doesn’t have any positive feelings abt this moment… probably. Idk anything abt Till tho so take my yapping with a grain of salt)

Well well well depression my old friend. Here we see Ivan’s distorted perception in real time! Can you spot the inconsistencies here? After my 429th watching Round 3, I noticed that things don’t make sense here. Like specifically the distance between Ivan and Till, right after Till lets go both of them stop moving. So they should be standing closer together, instead Till gets smaller and smaller, the distance between the two becoming larger. Logically after Till lets go he should only be a couple of steps behind Ivan.

Another thing is the shift in focus. Ivan starts out the main focus, probably to highlight his shock. But I think it also shows where Ivan’s attention was in this flashback. Ivan likely assumed he and Till were on the same page, so he just focused on himself and doing what he thought would be the best to do given the situation. However that was just Ivan’s assumption he never actually understood Till, as seen as Ivan being in focus and Till being blurry. He watched Till constantly but he never truly paid attention to Till.

Now we see Till in focus. This is probably when Ivan finally recognizes Till, and realizes that Till feels differently abt this situation. But even though Till is in focus we (Ivan) can’t see his face. In fact we know from the Round 6 video that all Ivan saw was the back of Till’s head as he was running away.

The exaggerated distance and the shift in focus shows the moment where Ivan felt rejected. I think before this Ivan was in love with Till and assumed that Till loved him back. Otherwise why would we spend so much time together? Why would you let me lean on your shoulder as you draw?

If Ivan thought his love was unrequited, that Till never liked him, he wouldn’t have bothered running away with Till. Bc he would have known that Till would never leave with him. However I think he knew that they were mutual and that’s why he schemed to run away together.

This lil idiot forgot to tell Till about it tho. I remember reading that Ivan was actually very quiet and had speech delays. So while Ivan was plotting his getaway with his wife he never told Till what was going on. This left Till disoriented and confused, and generally when we get pushed too far out of our comfort zone we retreat back to what is familiar no matter how unsafe it is.

The main point is that this red sky scene is the moment where Ivan loses all objective perspective on his and Till’s relationship. Its where he gets the (wrong) belief that Till never loved him, never cared about him. Because he assumed that the reason Till left was because he didn’t want to run away with Ivan. To Till it was fear of the freedom and the unknown that made him run back. To Ivan it was rejection that made Till run back.

In essence this scene represents heartbreak moments before their happy ending. IvanTill attempts at happiness have left them in a deeper pit. With Till being haunted by the consequences of his choices, and Ivan spiraling and feeling lonelier than ever. IvanTill is about miscommunication but also about how people who care so much about each other are being ripped apart because of the world they live in.

This moment happened when they were kids and it never got resolved, it was so romantic and hopeful but now it is just another shackle.

That’s IvanTill ig ;-;

Also poor Ivan, that’s why you believed Till never loved you. And why you assume that nothing you do will make Till like you. You and ur low self esteem just self sabotage everything. I mean is it even possible to fall in love with someone who is that indifferent to you. You could be attracted sure, but to go so far for someone who doesn’t even like you. I’m pretty sure Ivan knew on some level that Till liked him, but after this perceived rejection he becomes fearful of being wrong again. Of being rejected again. So now he just assumes the worst all the time.

And the mind is a powerful thing, if you believe something hard enough it becomes a personal truth. This makes it even harder for their relationship to move forward. It’s why their love isn’t just love but obsessive and filled with hate.

God being in love sucks idk why doomed yaoi couples do it anyways.

[gontagokuhara]

Just went on Instagram to look at more DR art (because tumblr won't let me see a lot of DR art for some reason) and saw hinanami discourse out in the wild which made me say, out loud, "oh, are we still doing this 💀"

Like idk if I've just aged out of the fandom (on Instagram) but just seeing that hinanami rant made me realize I've been spoiled by the DR community on Tumblr bc I'll scroll on here for 2 minutes and see a text post that will literally SHIFT my entire view of a character/ship and CHANGE my LIFE in just a small analysis that was probably written by op while they were on the toilet💀

Anyway it made me think of the post about Maki and Chappel Roan that I actually recited by memory out loud to my friend last night [gooning over wlw content together after watching Muriel's Wedding], And also that one post abt Monomi and Monokuma being Junko's satire of her own rivalry with Mukuro, and Junko not liking that her friends don't appreciate her fursona doing stand-up 💀💀 and like compare that to Instagram discourse and it's like "Komahina is stupid bc hinata isn't straight" like 💀

Anyway maybe it was the same on tumblr before [it probably definitely was] but now that I'm older I'm really appreciating mature convos/takes about danganronpa because good fanfiction/fanart/fan interpretations are truly adapting the story+characters in much better ways than the creators could ever imagine circa 2010 [pointy objects] [peaches and cream] [anything w/autistic nagito] [anything w/transmasc hajime]

number one rule of modern fandom experience (at the very least with media that has a propensity to draw Certain Crowds [looking especially hard at danganronpa and p5]) is CURATE YOUR OWN SPACE AND STRAY NO FARTHER ‼️‼️‼️ i personally escaped the early era dr fandom (pre v3 localization/the 2019 Danganronpa Renaissance) but time capsule posts tell me i dodged something of a bullet there ❤️ in that vein 2019/2020/covid era discourse was still crazy insane (<- was a part of it for sure LMFAO) but it had a much different Flavor than it did way back when. and the same is true of present-day: still a little kooky if you search hard enough (insta/tiktok/twitter/tumblr all have their own demons). but at least This go around i have largely avoided that by picking my people that i trust not to be Weird and just living in my own bubble wrt the dr fandom at large. and thats served me very well the past year+ since i got back into dr <3 and i have also seen MANY of those perspective-altering posts in that little curation circle that has deepened and made better my experience THE GOOD IS OUT THERE ‼️‼️‼️

THE JUNKO FURSONA POST ALSO LIVES IN MY BRAIN its so real and just one of many takes i’ve seen fly by in a post and been like This is so real and it’s mine now. many such cases <3 i follow people like that and simply block people expending energy on discourse i DOOOOOONT care about. like simply enjoy kmha (I SURE DO ‼️‼️‼️) if you like it and ignore hnmi/kmnmi if you dont (cant relate I LOVE YOU TOO HINANAMI + KOMANAMI ‼️‼️‼️) and live your life happy not angry ❤️

like re: maki lesbianism (which was written on the toilet no lie) she is The most lesbian of all time i could write 10,000 scholarly articles on her comphet + traumatic past of being made to hurt people keeping her from fully coming to terms with herself as a lesbian and as someone who wants to Protect the people she loves (an integral pillar of butchness!!!!!!!!) and it is so important to me. and MANY people disagree! and i simply just dont worry about it <3 but i DO think about the people that agree (and the people who i Influence to agree…..that makes me so happy to hear you talking about it with people :D) and that makes fandom FUN!!!!! not arguing over word of god or whatever that isn’t going to change anyone’s opinions anyway 😭

there is a LOOOOOT of good discussion and character/scene analysis and genuinely fun unique takes on tumblr (+ im sure other places but i rly only interact with dr on her & Occasionally by liking a twt post on my main) and that’s where i’ve made my niche <3 people having fun with the media they enjoy and trying to salvage its shortcomings and missteps because they love it!!

and putting little old Me up amongst the dr goats (transmasc hajime) (autistic nagito)………..framing this ask tbh the HIGHEST honor 4 me……..thank you my beloved cider as always KISS MWAH MWAH

[lovewithoutresin]

💌 I’m baaaaaaackkkkkk

First: I hope you’re feeling less stressed and burned out these days! Here’s hoping March treats you kindly.

Second, a response to your prev message: I *adore* ILIPW, so I was tickled pink to see it for the start of season three. It applies so well to Jon, who’s obviously been forced into hiding and has all this info in his head he wants to share or crack open or solve, and then misc tapes he’s been getting are almost peeks into the life he had to leave. (And maybe this is just me wanting Jon x Martin to be the ship that makes it out of these rough seas, but I also like it from Martin’s perspective. He has no clue where Jon is but doesn’t suspect him, and everyone around him is indifferent at best. He’s carrying on, but I can imagine him keeping his eyes peeled when he’s out and about. Just in case. “I tried searching faces on streets / what are the chances you’d be downtown?”)

Third: Thank you for all the fan art reblogs!! This is perfect and so helpful. Martin is spot on in my head, and everyone else is solidifying more as I listen, so thank you.

Fourth: I finished episode 92! You probably guessed. Oh, Elias. I don’t trust him, but I have to confess I like how conniving he is. The forethought to call the police, the smug chuckle before they arrive, the casual confessions to murder. Everyone’s in on it and fully connected now. One red string touches every other, people-wise, on the conspiracy board. I’m excited to see how this cracks everything open! I have zero theories yet, I’m just letting it all play out for a bit. What were you thinking at this stage?

Among all this, maybe surprisingly, I find myself most interested in Tim. Everyone involved has some degree of interest and wanting to follow through, but he just wants OUT. Hearing about his impromptu vacation and having to come home was extra interesting to me—he’s mentioned being unable to leave, but actually hearing it was aching. I hope we hear a bit more from him as this goes on.

So. Any more songs?

Sorry for the long message!

LISTENER ANON you could NOT have come at a better time ily.

I've not quite gotten down to 'little stress' but the burnout is definitely improving. My friends have been helping me a good bit with managing the expectations on me a bit more. And don't apologize for the long message, because I'm about to hit you with WAY too long of a reply.

LOVE that you're vibing with ILIPW for S3 because that read absolutely makes sense. I'm also gonna take a moment to share my further interpretation of it in context of the album and of course how it relates to this, because this series actually like redefined the song for me. But basically I Look In People's Windows being abt searching for someone to try to get another glimpse of someone... makes a lot of sense in the context of the album as a whole which is LITERALLY about the attempt to swap someone out in her love story. I see it as sort of like returning to the scene of the crime, metaphorically, looking for places and people you can see this person in. Which... to me this is very Joncore with the intro of season 3, because we finally get context as to why he became interested in the paranormal and why he took up the habits he did. In a sense he's always trying to undo what happened a long time ago and sees this kid he failed to save in everyone else he can't save and everything he can't control. Like maybe if he can fix something going forward, it'll somehow be like changing the past. And I think ILIPW is FASCINATING for that.

Also you're very welcome for the fanart reblogs! I'll add more if I see any interesting (or any that more closely align with my takes, particularly on Georgie, but we may unpack that more later on).

OHHHH EP 92 NOTHING BESIDE REMAINS BELOVED... yeah I'm gonna be so for real this episode made me nuts for a number of reasons. I actually CAN share a bit of what I was thinking at this stage freely. First of all, I did end up going back and seeing a VERY important Elias quote later on that day because it struck me where I stood at one point, although I don't know if you'd have context for it QUITE yet. Let's say I had.. one more critical piece of information than you did going in from the beginning. I also thought it was very interesting that the 'sit back and watch' philosophy described earlier in the episode ran a bit contradictory to the idea of taking an active role in stopping the apocalypse. And then, according to my comments in Roxy's (the one I mentioned recently on here) dms, I didn't have thoughts unrelated to TMA for two days LMAO. Also you're rapidly approaching where I came up with my first major groundbreaking theory in the show. So. Yknow. Red string it up <3

I also think this episode is where the themes of the show really start coming into play, with Elias basically saying there weren't going to be neat little answers to sort the world into boxes. You're smart enough that I'm okay highlighting this quote, because it's come up a few times in the past, and as you could probably tell it's a pretty significant drop to just put out there like that. And I also love the explorations of humanity but that's a given I think.

STOP I'VE ALSO BEEN ON A TIM KICK LATELY. I wonder which of us was psychically affecting the other. Tim is definitely like one of THE characters to focus on this season for sure. ALSO WE HAVE MORE WOMEN AGAIN!! HOPE YOURE EXCITED!

Oh, yes. Songs, songs, songs. First off, for Nothing Beside Remains. THIS is the song for it (funnily enough this song dropped around when I was listening to this exact part of the series. So it's very fitting). But once you HAVE listened to that, I wanted to either introduce you to or remind you to this episode's namesake: a very famous and beloved poem to connect the past to the present (and the future?) as it were. Make of it what you will.

I actuallyyy don't think I have many big ones left for this season, though I may be able to give some sort of collection by the end. Please DO stop by though just so I can see how you're vibing, since we get a LOT of big ones coming up (special mentions to 94, 104, 106, 111, and 114, though honestly any one of the eps upcoming could be seen as pretty huge. And I leave you with this one going through the rest of the season.

LOTS of them I'll be throwing your way in Season 4, so be prepared for that. And do check in if you have any thoughts, theories, feelings, or just want to be taunted at for some reason. People like me are really good listeners, after all 😉

Take care and I'll yknow. Be seeing you!! ily <333

[ruvviks]

okay. first all that's left ost question. pls explain the song in what we leave behind 👀

another one thought/question is that i was thinking abt it while making breakfast and i think all that's left would be v interesting as a video game that's divided into episodes. like whatever remedy's doing with alan wake.

anyway i am soooooooo in love with all that's left btw. i'm not even into zombie stuff but this one is soooooo cool. :]

HEHE THANK YOU SM <3 i love zombie media entirely too much i was obsessed with it when i was younger to the point i had entirely too many dreams about the zombie apocalypse. which is where half my zombie story ideas originated from including parts of the story for all that's left LMAO

so in "what we leave behind" the song playing is everyone dies by parsonsfield which is a song that i've always heavily associated with the story for some reason?? specifically because in an alternative ending i came up with, all the main characters did end up dying in very like. regular human ways to die in a zombie apocalypse in a way to show to the readers that, well, everyone does still die in the end despite how beautiful a journey or story can be etc etc and so on, and to show that there IS an end to all this but the main characters' good deeds end when they die, not when the story is over if that makes sense. they keep on being good even after the story is done. but i ended up kind of scrapping that because i preferred a more open ending that leaves room for own interpretation of what happens between like, the end of the story + when the main characters die. but the song has always stayed in my heart

which is why i added it to that chapter specifically! in "what we leave behind" the different players in the story (it's season two so that's three separate parties whose story you've been following the whole time) have all found themselves in predicaments scattered across los angeles; one group has been separated after a devastating breach in one of the districts, another group has been hunted down in the wasteland around the city, and the third group has been chased out of the city for their smuggling crimes (helping people out of los angeles into the wasteland to find a safe community to live in)

it's a chapter in which all hope seems lost which i think fits with the song in a way. there is very much the threat here that people are going to die, but it's part of how life goes, and i think the upbeat sound of the song contrasts the heaviness of the chapter very well which is something that i keep doing with this story because it creates an almost nostalgic feeling (for me personally, idk if it comes across well)?? as if you as the reader are very much aware that the story has already been told and there's nothing that can be changed about it anymore, and the soundtrack is reminiscing on what happened back then :]

and ooohh i never really thought about that tbh!! i think it could work as a video game but it would be a VERY cinematic game and i personally am not a big fan of that because i do like having things to do and especially with all the different perspectives and whatnot it would be very hard to keep track of the story while also trying to put down an interesting game if that makes sense SHGFDJGHDFGKD i did games & interaction in art school so this is like. the game designer in me talking LMAO

i do think some chapters would work VERY well as video game though, especially ones where a lot of stealth is needed or the more combat focused scenes. for example there's one scene in which they're trying to manage a huge horde of ghouls and like, lead them away from a settlement to then gun them down somewhere, i feel like that would be super cool to see in a video game >:^) but there's also a lot of scenes in which there's just a lot of talking and connecting to other characters going on which would be very boring to sit through i think :(

i've always visualized all that's left as a tv show and it would probably work best as that i think, because there's just so many characters and so many stories to tell that weave into one another very intricately. the visuals of the story would also just work best as a tv show because the way i'm imagining it is like a very vibrant tv show, bright colors and almost like, retro-y vibes?? basically the kind of vibes i put in those playlist edits, it contrasts the heaviness of the story very well + goes well together with the soundtrack!!

on top of all that (sorry i'm Going now) a tv show would give the story enough time to build up correctly, a movie would be entirely too short for that. with actual episodes and actual filler episodes focused more on exposition of the world and character conversations and a bit less action to give everyone including the viewer some breathing space, the story can actually be set up correctly and get people interested in the bigger picture of the universe i think :] it would have about 4 seasons of roughly 20 episodes per season, maybe the first season (book 1) would be a bit shorter on account of just following one group, but especially the next seasons (book 2-4 and Maybe 5 depending on how well i execute book 4) would just need more episodes because you're following around three groups in all those seasons. or at Least three. i can't remember my own lore. there's a lot going on just trust me

[chocosvt]

I’m not finished reading Her part five yet, but I did read the ask where anon asked how you imagined Her- and I just want to say that I think the exact same way when writing/ reading!

I always thought it was quite funny that they’re called “x reader” or “self-insert” fics when I never insert myself or imagine the reader as myself.

Also that scene where Her talks about her pottery class and then breaking what she made- idk if you’ve ever watched Naruto Shippuden before but Her’s little speech about art being ephemeral totally sounded like Deidara. (And I totally agree with that, too)

the thing is i love writing fanfic from second perspective! 😭 so i feel obligated to do a reader insert! at this point it feels the most natural both reading & writing even tho i also never imagine myself :?

well well well... you're talking to the right person 😎

i love naruto! i totally forgot abt deidara's art obsession! art is an explosion guys... something something maniacal laughter. but yes honestly i totally understand his reasoning. sometimes being too attached doesn't allow us to fully appreciate something! or it can hinder us from realizing something deeper!