Have a meme because I have no self control

Lucifer just seems like the kinda guy who’d lose his mind over ppl being too hot (our bi short king)

I spent way too much effort on this pls like it ily 🙏

Bonus (radioapple) doodles as always (edit: I. I just realised I forgot Al’s monocle in both doodles. I am dying inside. Why did no one tell me.):

So while I've seen a thousand jokes about this scene and Noé slapping a snapchat filter over the rat bastard in his memories, I do think it's worth analyzing what goes on here, because it's just a really well-executed example of how memories change with time and fondness.

Most of the posts I've seen have contrasted this shot of Vanitas to this one from chapter 1:

and that makes sense! They're both similar shots of him standing at the top of the steps in front of the windows, and they're also the faces that make for the biggest contrast between the two versions of the scene.

However! If you look at the actual dialogue, this super-romanticized shot of Vani isn't entirely from Noé's memory of Vanitas's speech on the podium. It's more complicated than that. Just like what often happens with real memories, when Noé recollects Vanitas's request to use his strength, he blends it with other memories of the same scene.

In the original version of this conversation, the "lend me your strength" line comes while Vanitas and Noé are still standing on the same level. This is the moment that the dialogue from the romanticized memory comes from,

and you can see immediately before and after this moment that Noé and Vanitas are still together on the lower church floor.

Vanitas only heads up the stairs to the windows/podium once he's well into his final "I will save you whether you like it or not" speech, which is what he's saying in that especially manic/bloody panel that I posted above.

When this moment flashes through Noé's mind at the start of chapter 52, he blurs the whole thing together rather than pulling any accurate memory. He puts Vanitas on top of the stairs by the window, the most dramatic and memorable staging from that scene, and has him say his "be my shield" line, the part where he's reaching out to Noé personally. Beyond the romanticized snapchat filter aesthetic of the memory, the very basics of the words and staging of the scene betray how Noé misremembers that moment.

In chapter 1, Noé reacts to "lend me your strength" with flat disinterest and "I will save you without fail" with borderline horror. In 52, however, memory Noé reacts to the blended mix of those two moments with tender admiration, showing how he's now come to view Vanitas.

Every single thing about those two pages of flashback works to show how Noé's view of Vanitas has changed. (And also to provide a contrast to the violence that immediately follows it, lol).

It's just a really well-executed example of how romanticized memories actually work in people's heads. Everything blurs together until only the best and grandest parts of the moment are left, and only then does it get the fluffy beautiful filter. And this treatment tells us so much about Noé's feelings on Vanitas at the time.

I'm tired! So no gif! Slim month for reading, but I did some neat crafts and made great progress on Secret Knitting Project I. Kicked some ass at Project Sekai, started rewatching Leverage, life goes on.

The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten ⭐⭐ - A strong start, but it quickly went downhill once we got to the court. It was boring, everyone sucks, and the magic is not as cool as it originally seemed to be.

Among Thieves by MJ Kuhn ⭐½ - I was SO hyped for this when it was released. It's been sitting on my shelf since because of who I am as a person, like an IMPOSTER. Took more than half the book just to get to the heist, and the heist wasn't even GOOD. Too many POVs, no one felt fleshed out enough, and the Secrets were just handed to the reader in the first third. It will no longer live on my shelf.

Mislaid in Parts Half Know by Seanan McGuire ⭐⭐⭐⭐ - not my favorite Wayward book, but still enjoyable. I thought it rehashed the ending of Antsy's last book a little too much, but it was nice to see more of her and go back to the Store. Also loved seeing Kade's Door and Cora's ending.

I have one (1) concrete book plan for April, and that's Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch. Consider me successfully bullied (friendly). I very much want to finish Secret Knitting Project I so I can move on to Secret Sewing Projects and Momther's Blanket I'm still waiting on a few audio holds too, so that will be fun for crafting purposes. Haven't been in the mood to do much art, but I have some fun ideas for paint! Let's go!

the concept of a maid still baffles me. you mean there's just some lady in your house??? that does your stuff for you???? lol are you five

I feel like HypMic is at this weird point where they are lingering on how they want to proceed forward. I feel like the music for the 2nd DRB was very experimental, and I did appreciate that even if I didn't like all the music (except for that DragonAsh song tho that was ass LOL). It feels like KR is struggling with how to move forward with telling a story while using the voting system, as such they've kinda written themselves into a corner. Like it was obvious they wanted FP to win the 2nd DRB because it was needed for plot. But at the same time it really feels like the plot has slowed to a crawl at the same time, and between that and the music creeping away from rap you're kinda left with a feeling of disappointment overall. It esp hits harder when you're a fan of BAT and DH given how under utilized they still are in the grand scheme of things. But given how they placed them geographically it feels like yet another instance of KR accidentally writing them into a corner and struggling to rectify that so they can be more relevant but also make it make sense, idk. I still love Kuko no matter what even if the series is currently languishing. (it also doesn't help that there isn't really any unified fandom because of politics, too much content too fast, and people being so oshi-pilled they have no interest in touching content that doesn't interest them. Which again, sucks as BAT fan cuz we don't really have a translator solider for us.)

what’s really really annoying about that, is that it has been put out there that we’ve entered the third act in hypmic’s story and tho it’s not always necessarily the case, usually that means we are heading towards an end. and we are starting to see an end with a lot of og division plot threads so to be closer to the end than not and still having like a third of your cast floundering around is not good!!!!! at all lol!!!! unless there’s a max effort push to bring nagosaka into the fold, it really does feel like nagosaka, no matter what, will feel under utilised

hypmic’s slow to come plot bombs have been a staple since the beginning so i’m not mad at it, esp since i suspect those long waits have something to do with production values and making the next shiny, economically stimulating thing lol, but you’re right about it not being great rn when everything else is not great lol

but i will say hypmic has its formulas. like the way first solos were surface level character introduction raps and the second solos went into depth, for the og divisions, their first drb and preceding dramas were introductory and the 2nd drb dramas really dug deep into them. so hopefully the same will happen for nagosaka when the 3rd drb drama hits them lol 🤞

i’m sorry to bring this up again, but i wanted to ask how are you making sense of harry having his former girlfriend’s name tattooed on his thigh if you don’t think they were really together? i’m not a larrie and i follow you for your louis content, but i respect your opinions, so i guess i’m coming more from a place of curiosity rather than seeking reassurance. do you not even entertain for one second the idea that you might’ve been wrong about things? that harry was really in a relationship with olivia? that he might actually be attracted to women? that he might’ve been with louis once upon a time but not anymore? have you ever challenged your confirmation bias? again, i’m not trying to attack you, i really just want to understand where you stand. i hope u don’t take this the wrong way.

well first of all you bring up the very good point that there are actually multiple Qs at play and not just one, despite the fandom's (and my) attempts to simplify things. I personally am open to the possibility that Harry and Louis are no longer together- we don't have enough info to say for sure either way about that, and I am constantly recalibrating and considering and I'm going to be totally honest, getting flat out ANNOYED at how often I find myself being like oh damn they ARE still (or again) together ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? Because it seems so improbable and illogical! You think I don't KNOW I sound fucking crazy?! Absolutely infuriating, and yet there are just all these little Things all the time. Plus ofc the fact that they both constantly wink wink larrie stuff to the fandom which could just be playing to the crowd... except then they both continually take it that little extra way that makes me go oh but... you really didn't NEED to go THERE that seems VERY pointed?? But also sometimes I go well. Okay, maybe not. Since they both seem super happy at this point, it doesn't stress me out to think they might have split, the way it would if they seemed miserable and were still churning out heartbreak songs, but it's schrodingers relationship and with all the savvy they've acquired around this stuff and all the balls they're keeping in the air wrt to fandom etc that's unlikely to change in favor of us knowing anything for sure for a very long time, if ever. But I do not doubt that they WERE together, it's simply not realistic. The evidence of it is overwhelming and imo undeniable when taken all together. And the thing is that knowing one thing with certainty (that they were together back when), having really looked at the things that happened during that time, does actually have a lot of bearing on the rest of it even if they aren't together anymore. Because knowing that and having seen the way fake relationships to make them seem straight were managed back then means that when I see the EXACT SAME things being done in the current day, like they are working from a fucking blueprint, no, I don't look at that and think it might be real. I know that Louis and Eleanor wasn't real in... whenever they allegedly got together lol, that story still isn't even quite straight, so why would I believe they were together in 2020? And if I know Louis has a tattoo for a fake girlfriend why would it change my mind about a million things I can see with my own eyes if Harry did the same (if indeed he even has who tf knows)? So despite what I said at the beginning, in the end it kind of does just come down to the one question people are always asking, are you a larrie? Because when you've actually been down the rabbit hole of details that ends up with you saying yes to that question, it's like acquiring a rosetta stone that unlocks the ability to read everything else, like putting on xray glasses, and I look at what is so obviously a publicity relationship (holivia) and whether H and L are still together has nothing to do with why I don't think it's real. Like could a celeb relationship be both used in typical ways for publicity and be or become real on some level (looking at you Liam, heyyy), sure, but for this question the fact that I have never seen Harry show the slightest sign of attraction to a woman in his whole life and he so clearly embraces and identifies so strongly with gay male culture in every possible way and never shuts up about how much he loves cock does play into my thinking; I simply do not think he is attracted to women, no, and I have yet to see him do anything that doesn't seem consistent with things a closeted pop star might chose to do. So in conclusion yes I have challenged my bias and decided I'm right lol! But for real- all the time I consider that they perhaps aren't together but that isn't really the point when it comes to believing they are gay.

WIP-- I've been working on updating my huge ridiculous Too Many Gnomes height chart recently, and have spent a frankly absurd amount of time just on very minutely adjusting proportions, because that's my idea of a good time, for some reason. Also I added Indigo and it's really funny to me because for some reason between my designing them and now they've taken on a distinctly Tall Energy in my mind, so actually drawing them at their canon size is almost jarring jkghdfkg like OH YEAH SHORT KING, OKAY!!

These are just my guys, but there are currently twelve gnomes in this file! But I'm still fixing a lot of old bad anatomy and stuff, and also I might even fuck around and color it before sharing the full thing 🤔

Shame we never got to actually see Ed put his hair up. Shame we never got him in a crop top either so lemme just-

Hmmyeah, I don’t know why this timeline got angsty. 🤔

Steven Feels a Pregnant Connie’s belly, trying to talk to the baby and see if the newborn infant kicks, he proceeds to kiss Connie's belly for luck. requested by Movie Mayhem at Patreon!

iwtv episode seven

"You speak nonsense" "make some sense" "i dont understand you"

Hahaha babes my mind works in riddles you cant even comprehend, hell even i dont understand it you dumb fuck

i know i’ve said that being able to do the stereotypical insane ao3 authors notes is fun and amusing to me but can the universe NOT take that as a challenge to add more shit to my list of things to add next time i post ???? like. fucking. Calm Down Please.

You thought we wouldn't smell this shit just because they got hetero love interests?

Hey, I don’t know if someone already and this but, do you know how old all of the characters are physically and mentally?

it is beyond frustrating to see the loz series so dedicated to going in such a new & innovative direction in regards to gameplay, yet still so stagnant in regards to the story. like, sorry to be that person but the fact that it's 2023 & you STILL can't play as zelda in any of the main games is mind-boggling to me. even in totk, a major part of the story still revolves around rescuing- sorry, finding her. she has such a deep meaningful story (which is a step in the right direction, for sure!), but the player can only experience it secondhand as link. she is allowed to be a companion character, but only for the first 5 minutes of the 100+ hours you can spend in the game, as a little teaser for the OTHER companions you get much later (who pretty much all suck except tulin & sort of yunobo, but that's another post). we see her sacrifice, but we only get small snippets of the experiences that led up to that sacrifice. she is put through so much trauma & has to make this impossible choice, & we don't even get to grieve her properly or tell anyone what became of her. & by the end of the game, it doesn't matter because she's back to her regular old self, same as she was before she swallowed the stone, with no lasting physical or mental effects whatsoever, because why should her sacrifice actually have any meaning outside of how it served link? & before anyone argues with me for saying that, yes obviously it did have meaning outside of how it served link. but the way she is restored in the most ridiculous deus ex machina i've ever seen in a zelda game cheapens it severely. everything magically gets fixed by rauru & sonia, & just like link's arm, zelda is left no worse for wear, because of course we can't possibly have our main characters permanently changed by any of these horrific events they've lived through, oh no nothing like that.

link saves the day & gets rewarded with the beautiful princess.

this IS the basic story of almost every single zelda game & you can split hairs all you want, but it's the same with totk as well & i'm just so beyond sick of it. i think zelda (the character AND the series as a whole) deserves so much better than that.

Ending the year by overthinking things

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