special operatives (silly interaction beneath read more)

[ID: Digital Art in color of Trigun Maximum, characters included are Wolfwood, Elendira, and Legato in a casual meeting situation. The piece consists of orangey yellow lighting and purple shadows. Wolfwood sits on the left side, facing Elendira who’s on the right. He’s seated on a plain wooden chair with one knee up and he’s holding the strap to his Punisher in his left hand while his right sits against his thigh, He has an irritated expression as he speaks to Elendira. Elendira is sitting in a fancier seat, her right arm rests against Wolfwood’s propped up knee, her left hand holds her suitcase. She’s sitting cross legged with an amused expression. Legato can be seen in the back at the center of the image in his mobile body case, one of his eyes shown to be glaring at Wolfwood. End ID]

[ID: Sketch, uncolored comic. Elendira says to Wolfwood, “I’m not telling you to dedicate yourself to him, but just accept the situation at hand. We could get along better if we were on the same page.” Wolfwood responds, “Don’t peg me me for an optimist. I’m not dumb. But, I’m also not going to just live in resignation. Plus, I don’t have any interest in getting along with ya.” Elendira coos, “Aw, you sure? I have a wonderful shoulder to cry on when the weak people you’re trying to protect eventually dies in the coming months. Though, I guess it’s fine. Someone like you might just die before then anyway...” She snickers in her hand while Wolfwood is speechless and just glares. Legato is faintly drawn in the back, glaring at Wolfwood, muttering “worthless” repetitively. End ID]

there are a lot of daddy issues to go around on DS9 in general, but odo, bashir and garak are really in their own special little fucked up 'what am I but wrought in my father's image' club

@bigboobyhalo Your sacrifices have been accepted by the great Dapper. I'm so sorry but I don't think you'll be getting them back anytime soon. Or ever.

thinkingg

about things

in the alt text with some notes

I’ve made a billion fucking drafts and can’t find the words to talk about cellbit and bagi from today. how the fuck do you explain the intricacies between a brother who has lived a life that has sharpened him to cut what he touches, and a sister who had to live with his absence? a man who has to see the childhood he never got to have whenever he looks at the woman he now knows is his twin? said twin who cannot understand why her brother would be anything but glad they are reunited? how do you get across that tangled mess of emotions cellbit had to get him to burn his old pet worm? the paradox of longing for what could have been while desperate to get rid of any reminder, with a healthy dose of paranoia that anything could be a federation bug. or the pure devotion bagi has to decide to stick with her brother even though he is not close to the same as he was when he went missing? the unfairness of it all, of cellbit being taken and made into a killer before he turned 14, of bagi looking for him at the detriment of her own safety and self, of ripped up childhoods and everything that could have been? the fact that the first thing cellbit asks is what he could have done to deserve it? the disgust he holds for himself for what he’s done, and the anger he has for the federation that’s taken everything from him, and the resentment he has towards bagi no matter how unfair it is because she never had to go through what he did? how after bagi swore to help him burn the federation down, cellbit went to bad instead, because bad was there and fought alongside him, and he trusts bad because he’s seen him at his worst, and all he feels like doing is his worst right now? the two of them so similar still because they’re consumed by their need for revenge, while bagi just wants to leave the island? how the fuck can you summarize all this and the emotions that accompany it?

I have been thinking on the nature of mdzs as a deliberately vague text that leaves many things up to interpretation, and how i've slowly come to understand "up for interpretation" less as "there is One True version of this story i must find" and not even as " Everyone has a different One True Version of this story inside their head be based on their interpretations and the differences don't make one wrong and the other right" but as "There is no One True Version. Even in my own subjective interpretation of the text multiple things can be true at once" specifically, in regard to Jin Guangyao and the many things which are left up in the air as to whether he did them or not, most notably killing his son.

There's evidence for this, but it's non conclusuve (jgy saying he killed him while also saying he killed Qin Su, who very much killed herself. The speculations on how he'd have killed him being sect leader yao just saying shit. ) it is, esentially, just up in the air enough that if you decisively fall on one side of the debate is probably says more about you and your general opinion of jgy than it does about the "true" events of canon.

I have, as a proud apologist, always fallen on the "he didn't kill him but felt in some way responsible for his death." Side but recently have become more okay with the interpretation that maybe he DID kill him, and that at the very least, that when he tells Qin Su their son "needed to die" he is being genuine. Which, once you look at it beyond. "Is jgy a poor lil meow meow who it is Okay to Like or an irredeemable baby murderer" becomes both INCREDIBLY tragic and deeply interesting. Because here is a man condemned for who his parents were and who wants nothing more than to live, saying that it is possible to be so cursed by your heritage that you need to die. There is no existence for you. The exact same thing that has been said to him.

Of course being born out of wedlock to a sex worker and being a product of incest are different things, but that begs the question: where is the line? What crimes of the father can mean death for the son? How cursed can you be until your existence is so incompatible with society it is you who needs to give? And if there is... where is it? Qin su clearly thought she was past it. Was his son really past it? Is he?

Yk I never did truly recover from the sick fic chapter

MAILMAN - SOUNDGARDEN

BABYGIRL WHAT IF THE SINGLE PLANK PATH TURNED MY YOUTHFUL INNOCENCE INTO A TOXIC COCKTAIL OF HUBRIS AND MORBID RESIGNATION

yeah. follow for more of the character of all time XO

weather is starting to feel like i need to rewatch jatp

trying to plot out a xichen/huaisang emma au solely for the purposes of slotting jin guangyao and nie mingjue into the already married siblings role. in theory this leaves us with no one to play emma's dad but no they're both emma's dad for maximum impact. and obviously jin guangyao is also the nanny. and it ends with huaisang vowing to be worse, actually.

*sigh* is anybody else gonna write the AU where Sejanus Plinth lives and aids the rebellion 65 years later, or do I need to do it myself?

Clash of sensibilities (Patreon)

how will we ever get the spark to wonder, question, and think deeply about art when someone says a prompt or two into a generator, and out comes a painting that doesnt mean anything, because nobody took the time to tell a story within it? how can anybody do that if the art has no meaning like with ai art? when it isnt meticulously crafted by the complex mind of a creative human?

you cant tell an ai to convey the hurt and betrayal of a mortal against their own hubris as they fall off of the high horse they pitched themselves upon the way that a human would, because ai isnt human. it will never be human. and to compare ai art to human art and call them equals is dehumanization, and it strips art of every power it has ever had across the whole of human history.

last Sandman observation of the night but I like how all the moments of Morpheus being a dick are, from his pov, just him telling it as it is

“Joanna I can’t do anything for your ex” she’s dying! That’s Death job and even she can’t interfere here!

“yeah Lyta I’ll be taking your baby later” that’s how this works! It’s going to happen whether any of us want it to or not!

“sorry Rose I will be killing you now” it’s literally that or the universe ending. Sucks but it’s gotta happen!

there are The Rules and that they Must Be Followed and he has a hard time understanding why humans get all upset when he tells them this

he treats people terribly, but (for the most part) he’s not doing so maliciously. He just…doesn’t think

“Time is not a limited resource, Goncharov, and it is not alive. It is not running out on you. Time has been with you since the moment you were born and will continue to be with you till your last breaths. Tell me, люби́мый, what would you say at the end?”

“I would say it was time well spent if the last I ever saw was you.”

“Ah, a flatterer! I suppose I’ll let you live, then.”

“Time flies, Andrey, I have places to be.”

“Yes, we certainly do.”

-Andrey Daddano and Goncharov, from the movie Goncharov (1973)