#year end 2016

[xamitras]

For many of years I had this tradition of drawing Wirt and the beast once a year to see how much I have improved, then depression hit in 2023 and couldn't continue, but it left so really amazing art in the process

[divorcedfiddleford]

You made a post saying “it has been zero days since our last alex hirsch hates ford so much bullshit” and i know it was mostly hyperbole, but you have some really good takes that I would love to be elaborated on in terms of how ford is written

it really wasn't hyperbolic. over the years he's just really shown a lot of hatred towards this one character.

content warning: discussion of abuse

i want to start with this clip from the commentary which i think of as a microcosm for how the writers and especially alex think about ford.

transcript:

rob renzetti: i mean he [mcgucket] should've basically knocked ford out, and... and destroyed the... you know, tied him up, and, destroyed... and... alex hirsch, speaking over him: yeah he should've beat ford with a wrench and taken this thing apart piece by piece! he's the one who understood how to built [sic] it, but...

... so that seems like a pretty violent course of action. shall we unpack that?

ford is a character who's pretty explicitly written as a victim of abuse, and who now has c-ptsd as a direct result of the abuse he experienced. alex hirsch believes that ford deserved everything bad that happened to him, that it's ford's own fault, and that he also deserved worse things to happen to him. this is why, given every narrative chance, alex hirsch has piled more suffering onto ford's plate. the biggest example of this i can think of is in the journal, when he wrote that fiddleford was actively erasing ford's memory (despite this being a massive timeline contradiction which i still refuse to accept). because god forbid ford even have one remotely healthy relationship with somebody. that would be too good for him. ford was manipulated and lied to by bill, but alex repeatedly compares him to icarus, a teenager whose demise was the result of his own ignorance. this comparison is still so fucking offensive to me. the sun did not lie to icarus, did not guarantee icarus all of the happiness and success and sense of belonging which he had been denied all his life, did not actively shut out the voices of those around him who would try to help him.

alex in general has a very strange relationship with abuse. he seems to get really upset when people read his characters as victims of abuse. the strongest instance of this is actually not with ford, it's with pacifica - especially in the nwmm episode commentary. the episode says "pacifica's parents have conditioned her to respond to a bell" and alex says people got "the wrong idea" about it. like. dude. what the fuck. you wrote abuse. even if you didn't mean to, that's what you wrote. you can't say people got "the wrong idea" just because you didn't think about the subtext of what you were writing. anyway, back to ford: i believe this extends to him as well. alex wanted to write a character who's a foil to stan and who was a selfish unlikable victim of his own arrogance. however that's not what he wrote. he somehow seemingly accidentally wrote a really compelling and relatable awesome autistic guy who had to fight for every good thing he he ever had in his life only for it to be taken from him every single time. but alex can't let go of seeing ford as just "the opposite of stan". when he talks about "how someone as smart as ford could fall for bill's tricks", he refuses to realize he wrote a situation in which a man was being psychologically manipulated and tortured.

it goes back further, too. people repeatedly theorized that filbrick was... not a very good father, to say the least. on top of the very explicit and canon fact that he threw one of his children out on the street (seriously, there is no defense for this), people pointed out that stan would flinch at filbrick, that ford seemed upset by things filbrick said but dared not talk back, that filbrick was mad at stan not for hurting his brother, but for "costing the family potential millions". but alex can't have people seeing ford as sympathetic. ford can't have it bad like stan did. ford had to have everything and he lost it all because he sucks so much. so he wrote the graphic novel story where ford is filbrick's favorite child and filbrick also is not even a bad parent you guys he's just stoic. ignore the whole thing in dreamscaperers where stan perpetuates the abuse that filbrick did to him. ignore the fact that ford was shouting at stan and then completely shut up as soon as filbrick entered the room and did not say another word for the rest of the night. ignore all that because i just made up this story where he cries at a present from stan. filbrick loved his boys for sure you guys!!!

i'm not even touching on how alex repeatedly villainizes traits commonly associated with mental illness and neurodivergence. ford's hypervigilance becomes arrogance. his passion for knowledge means he's a know-it-all. his difficulty socializing and making friends means he's a misanthrope. his lingering resentment for the way he was raised means he hates his brother and is the worst human being to ever have lived. i could go on, go even further into how the finale reaffirms this, but i feel weird talking about this too much.

[amayikes]

Then and now.

[poobirdy]

Oh my gosh, I'm a new fan of Mystic Messenger this year 2024 😁. I'm gotta say I love your art and your Daycare AU. Do you know the song Thank You and Goodnight? Listening to that song make me cry because of nostalgia about this game despite I'm a new fan, also The Night We Met remind me of this game too

omg hello, new mystic messenger fan in the year 2024!!! /SHAKING UR HAND!! i just gave the song a listen, and you're right—it's very nostalgic and also sums up my feelings for mysme very well! the game's given me a lot of fond memories to look back on, and i hope it does the same for you! as for the daycare au, thank you hehe!!! i had fun with it and i had IDEAS... that i no longer remember. the kids would probably be in middle/high school now that i think about it! again, ty for taking the time to message! it's always nice to revisit mysme!

[zabiume]

Have you seen the theory regarding Rukia's origins? I just heard of it, and I think it'll definitely be explored in the hell arc (when/if we get it), especially because Ichika was the first person to notice the hell hollows?? And since Renji didn't see them, we can only assume this could come from Rukia? Anyway, it's mostly based on the differences in how her name is written on chapter covers compared to all the other shinigami (used nanao for comparison, but everyone else has the brush stroke writing). Kubo even mentioned this in klub outside as something intentional!

Your post mentioning hell arc reminded me of this so i wanted to ask what u think :3

yes, i've seen this!!! i haven't been able to stop thinking about it since he said that on klub, but idk if it has anything to do with what you said about ichika, though? the only reason she spotted them first seems to be because a) ichigo and renji are bickering with their backs turned to the hollows, while she's at an angle where she can see them, and b) the reason renji didn't see them/sense them seems to be because the hollows' spiritual pressure was undetectable

it's unclear what exactly rukia got up to in the years between hisana abandoning her and her meeting renji and the other boys, but it looks like she'd already been calling herself "rukia" by the time she met them, so my leading theory is that she chose that name for herself

but it's unclear how or when or why she would do this and why that name in particular. i've always been curious about this blank period in her life and how many questions about her are still unanswered (at least to me).

we also get a birthday for her, which is interesting because, as hitsugaya notes, most people in rukongai don't exactly have birthdays, since they were never born, but in the same chapter we do get rangiku and gin deciding that rangiku's birthday is the day they met, so it's possible that a lot of rukongai "birthdays" are really just days that hold significant meaning to them, so what exactly is significant about january 14th to rukia? granted, this is from her character sketch at the end of volume 1, so it's possible this is a thoughtless "error" that kubo might have made while he was still figuring out the soul society world-building but idk! these are definitely questions i have and the lack of answers frustrate/excite me. i do think kubo's telling the truth about the brush strokes being significant though because he usually owns up to things he did by accident or things he wasn't thinking too deeply about, so i do tend to believe him when he says it's intentional but WHAT does it mean, though?

[falsettos-every-day]

"I intend to upset / this regrettable game"

"I think games are / I think chess is the most / beautiful thing"

"play the game"

"ask me to arouse you / I will rise and obey" "ask me if I love him / it depends on the day" "ask me if I need him / get him out of my way"

"we had fights and games / Marvin called us funny names"

[His family cheers him on at the baseball game.]

"just what I wanted at a Little League game!"

"hit your shoe!" "no it didn't" "yes it did / the game is through."

"sex and games in New York City / have got to be played with flair!"

"I don't like to talk when I'm losing the game"

"please forgive me for winning one game" "no big deal, the game is yours"

"I quit / that's the ball game / it's the chink in the armor, the shit in the karma / the blues"

[girlboyburger]

wish i had a consistent character to show for this, but since i don't i just used icons :0]

blank template for those that want it under the cut

[lafaiette]

The fact that the new DA game will soon be released after ten long years feels insane to me.

Inquisition basically saved my mental health, because it was released just three months before my dad's death, so I spent the majority of my 20s playing it, loving it, writing about it, obsessing over it. I remember humming its main theme under my breath while sitting next to dad's bed at the hospital.

I had already played DA:O and DA2 before, enjoying them greatly, but Inquisition came out right when I needed it most, so it's the game that most changed and influenced those years of my life, the one that I hold most dear and close to my heart. All its characters, locations, lore, and music deeply moved me and gave me strength.

Solas and Solavellan in particular were - and still are - very important to me, and my Scarlet is basically the person I would have liked to have at my side during that terrible time - that's why she's so optimistic and kind all the time.

So now that the new game is finally upon us, I'm both elated and terrified at the same time. It's the conclusion of that story that so deeply affected me - what if it isn't as good as I hoped? What if disappoints me or doesn't give us the closure we all wish for?

I know it probably won't be the case - the team seems to have poured all their love and efforts into it -, so I really hope this will be the beautiful goodbye Inquisition deserves.

[lailuhhh]

Mac + Gun + Reflex

Their relationship had been a rollercoaster up until that point, and Mac was sure that they split off for the last time, because he’d never be able to regain whatever trust Jack had given him

Or

Mac shoots Jack

Read it here!

[peligin-eyed]

I am wondering if there is some overlap between FL players and people who were at one point into Homestuck, so: hello Fallen London folks!

[frwalkwithme]

[volume up, it’s an edit!] Does your stomach hurt? [playlist]

[j3rmaballs]

hmmm i wonder who that could be

hes so smitten its so cute. hes just flexin he has a FEMALE staying over :0

they met at a christmas party and 3 weeks later hes gushing over them on discord

also bonus:

[vimbry]

messing me up immensely that "bojack horseman" is a decade old show. it should be 5 years old.

[liquidstar]

right now on youtube there are video essays being made about obscure online artist drama you couldnt even begin to comprehend

[novadreii]

rewatched arrival for the hundredth time. this movie never fails to gut punch me with its approach to determinism. louise embracing her future that she knows every moment of, despite the tremendous loss and pain it contains, with open arms. she doesn't hesitate, or ruminate on how she can try and change it. she accepts it all, the good and the bad, because what she gains is worth it, so many times over for her. she steels herself against a certain future and runs forward to meet it all, to love, learn, and lose, and trusts and leans on herself to live through it all. because that's what life is; it's the joy and the suffering. to try and isolate the joy alone is madness, futility in its purest definition.

comparing her line of thinking to a palindrome (how she named her daughter, hannah), the movie kept emphasizing, "it's the same backwards as it is forwards." it doesn't matter if you can see the end; life is the same whether you live it "forwards" (without knowledge of the future) or "backwards" (with foresight). it doesn't change the significance of your life experiences; to try and avoid certain future pain just because you have the knowledge of it is a zero sum game. you think you win because you avoided pain, but you also avoided the joy that preceded it. the metamorphosis. so you still lose if you try to win, and vice-versa.

all you can do is rush forward and take it all head-on. see this whole beautiful mess as your one most precious gift; this one life, this one chance, a laughably miniature blip on the colossus that is linear time, to experience all there is to feel before you return back to an eternity without perception. it's all worth it, because only in living a full-fledged life open to everything it has to offer does the experience of living turn out to be greater than the sum of its parts; it's in trying to beat the system (avoid pain) that we actually lose.

"if you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?"

"maybe i'd say what i feel more often. i...i don't know."

[kuromi-hoemie]

feels so good being the person in charge of deciding whether our organization will use AI or not. I'm going to write an argument so strong... no we will not waste an ounce of our time and energy on what's essentially a bubble the IT industry Really wants to try forcing on people and is betting on/wanting so badly for it to take off. The real gut punch is at some point I'm going to compare it to NFTs lol