Instinct

Tanja Jeremić, behance

hey do you guys remember razias shadow? cause i just did

halfbaked and basic landoscar fic concept where Lando tends bar at a struggling pub recently passed down to Logan and Alex, who reaches out to Logan’s childhood friend Oscar to help save the bar and over the course of several weeks/months/however Oscar and Lando grow closer trying to do their best to save the pub while Sargbon try to set them up

2024 reads / storygraph

Womb City

cyberpunk horror set in a dystopian future Botswana where people bodyswap to live hundreds of years, and women’s bodies are controlled

follows a woman trapped in a loveless marriage, and heavily monitored because of her body’s previous crimes

after a drug-fueled evening culminates in a car accident, she buries a body to save herself. But afterward she and her family start being hunted by the ghost of her victim, and she desperately tries to uncover the conspiracy the victim was involved in to save herself

motherhood & bodily autonomy

okay but AJR'S new song "Yes I'm A Mess" is one of their coolest concepts to date cause like, AJR has been hyping up the chorus for a long while now and from the frequently tiktoked verses "I could hate my guts when the sun comes up but I like myself like this" and the overall tune of the chorus, the most common impression on the song is that it's a song about the brothers "blowing up their lives" through partying and all that because they "like themselves like this". Basically it's your "wooo let's fucking party song" but in the perspective of them using it as a means of escape in a way. This impression is confirmed with the release of the full song whose lyrics include them wanting to quit their jobs and start over ("I'm in it now, I'm in it now, could I start again somehow?)

And of course, the theme of wanting to escae start over and becoming what you like yourself to be even if you make yourself into a mess is something quite relatable especially for young adults right? So that concept is good in it of itself but what makes this song so much fucking different IS HOW AJR FLIPS IT BY THE BRIDGE. By the time Jack sings "I could hate my guts when the sun comes up but I guess that's what this is. I like myself like this", there is a layer of acknowledged resignation that them blowing up their lives and escaping in the interest of starting over and "liking themselves" is something that's not that all good AND THAT POINT IS ESTABLISHED WITH HOW THE SONG ENDS - WITH THE OUTRO BEING ALL SLOWED DOWN AND REVERBED AS IF THE PARTY IS STOPPING AND YOU'RE COMING DOWN FROM YOUR EUPHORIC PARTY HIGHS.

This part especially took a lot of people off guard because they simply weren't expecting this shift of tempo to happen in a song marketed as a partying fun song and holy shit that's the whole point! The constant escape for a new and clean slate through indulging yourself into becoming someone you like to the point of self sabotage won't ever end up well - cause sooner or later, the tempo will turn slow, verses will be slurred, and the fun beat and whistles will stop. And for a band who prides upon having their songs be fun to dance to while being relatable in its woes of having to grow up and wanting to escape that, holy fuck is that an amazing point to make.

are you going to read tsc when it comes out? and, if not: would you like your acolytes to give you the important kevin day updates or would you rather not?

oh my acolytes huh! well i don’t know :) it’s so nice of you to ask and i’m very touched actually…. nice to me 🥹…. i guess any (good) kevin updates would be nice and probably sway the balance on whether i read it or not, but at first glance i probably won’t read it unless it sparks my curiosity once it’s out and the story starts making its rounds around my circles :) i’m plenty interested in the period where jean stays with the foxes but i don’t much care for the trojans nor the proposed storyline*, though even a picky reader like yours truly can be convinced into buying a story if kevin day’s in it

*by this i don’t mean that i Dislike the process of jean healing but it’s just overall not my favorite theme and, to be frank, i don’t have much interest in reading about a normal well-adjusted team either. from my view tsc is aftg without my favorite parts (namely kevin day as a main character, the foxes’ messy dynamic, problematic and controversial side characters, neil’s narration, The Mafia, andrew in general) and while i am always and forever a ride or die for jean moreau, and i am glad he’s going to get better and be happy, a lot of my feelings for him don’t really stem from the idea that there is a softness underneath all the grit but actually and sincerely the fact that he is crazy. i Love jean because he’s horrible and scared and cruel and i don’t know if i’ll care much for him once he’s out of that state :) i meant it when i said a few months ago that i would’ve been more onboard with a story about the ravens (no matter how gruesome) or even a glimpse of jean’s pov in the nest, though of course nora sakavic should probably choose to be happy every once in a while so i wouldn’t ask her to write that

so tl;dr: you can send me good and relevant kevin updates if you want to and if they’re interesting enough i might read tsc in the future

Thinking about how for two episodes in a row, the teens couldn't harm someone because it would harm another person. (willy and cass, doodler and scary) Thinking about how this connects to the theme of violence vs empathy + the collateral damage and lasting truama of violence. hmmm. hmmmmmm.

akekita disdainful of you .png

Happy birthday! I have a bit of a strange question but it is Eiffel-related so:

How much (if any) of his personality do you think would be intact post-memory wipe? (Not in the sense of how much would he choose to keep, I mean what parts of him would the memory wipe not get rid of, given that it didn’t wipe his muscle memory, knowledge of English, etc)

this is such a difficult question because, like... as much as i like to speculate about it, there's no real answer re: what wolf 359 defines as "memory" in the first place. like you said, he remembers so much stuff that should be tied to memory - not just his knowledge of english but like, broadly... the concepts and context and consequences for those words and the things he encounters. he understands the weight of what he did back on earth, etc. and that makes the line of "memory" and "information" kind of fuzzy, in a whole bunch of different ways that would also apply to, like... what part of "personality" is inherent, and what part is determined by things we'd classify as memory? how much of personality is flexible and relational, anyway?

and we don't have much to go on re: how he behaves post memory wipe, either, like... there's not much of the show after that; we don't see him in Situations (tm) at all. and he might have different reactions to similar things, depending on other factors, even with his memory! but, like... there's not much to compare or contrast.

with that said: so much of how eiffel communicates is filtered through pop culture - it's not even on purpose, that's just... how his brain works, how he makes connections. everything else aside, i think it's completely understandable he would seem quieter if the primary framework he communicates through is suddenly no longer accessible to him. even if he doesn't consciously know what he's missing, there has to be a gap between what he intends and what he can say, and that has to be frustrating. the context is different, but when he's feeling bad for himself around constructive criticism and doesn't make any pop culture references for a week - that's similarly "uncharacteristic" in how unusually quiet and reserved he seems. for perspective.

short version: "personality" is hard to define, but i think whatever makes eiffel "eiffel" is still intact, whatever that means. i think he still remembers how he feels about things, on some level, even if the memories those feelings are attached to are inaccessible. i think he probably either has or will develop the same values and preferences and sense of humor and annoying habits, but even if his interior world is very similar to what it was before, people might think he's different because he can't communicate those ideas the same way, and that potentially creates a feedback loop where he also feels he must be different than he was. but, over time... i mean, i do think eiffel will get his memories back at some point, but even before that... i think just being exposed to stuff will gradually lessen that gap for him anyway.

i have finally finished the paper i’ve spent 10 hours on today

So is anyone else going rabid thinking about ostaros and nightshade parallels or is it just me

Recuperation

Tanja Jeremić, behance, society6, redbubble, displate

No but even beyond the heathcliffean air of his story as a kid, Nelly scene and revenge fantasies included, and even beyond the identification of the self with the craft, the entire concept of Yingxing is so good.

The glimpse we get of the relationship he has with his master has so much potential. What it says about him, what it says about everyone around them, what it says about the kid.

The fact that already as a child Yingxing was vindictive, as he will be as Blade.

His self-consciousness about being a short life species, and how he is right to be self-conscious about it. How in such a short time, being so young, he's had to deal with enormous tragedy, so that he can even as a kid look the truth in the eye and admit it. Admit that he has to work harder, longer, more obsessively, and that still nonetheless there's little chance to get ever at the level of the long life species that look down on him and take him for granted. How he is able to overcome it.

It's incredible also in the context of Dan Feng. How both struggle with their identities and how they get new ones, but in totally opposite ways. Dan Feng is weighted down by what he is and what he can do, and wants to escape that fate, and dreams of a new life in which he can be something else; and Dan Heng is born. Yingxing takes pride in that which he can do, something he wasn't born into, something he had to work very hard to achieve, and that was the path to overcome the prejudices and undermining gazes he had to bear as a short life species. He crafts his place into the Xianzhou society and becomes the legendary Furnace Master. Even on a more personal level, one could argue this is his way of maneuvering his life, of expressing himself, this is how he deals with things; like his relationship with Jing Yuan having a turning point after giving him his weapon, or how he crafted that jade flask. And then he loses his ability to create and loses himself; he becomes Blade.

The fact that even as an adult, as an exceedingly arrogant craftsman, something of the shy self-conscious kid remains is both endearing and heartbreaking as well. In some ways we still see that in Blade.

We also see echoes of that personality in Mr. Xiao, who worked under him. And that alongside his craftsmanship, his ability to fix and create auromatons even though they are vanishing in the civilian landscape, live on through Mr. Xiao. And die alongside him, for Mr. Xiao too has become but a relic of another time.

The way the other stories of craftsmen enhance facets of Yingxing's is so good too. Mainly in the story of Master Ryan and Chengjie, with the insight we get of the struggles of short life species in the Xianzhou, especially those dedicated to a craft, and how hard it is for them to reach positions of prestige. It also poses the question of how we can transcend time, if it's possible at all, and how the sharing of knowledge, the passing down of skills, the shared loved, is one of the answers. This was all already significant before, but the information gains weight with the existence of Mr. Xiao. I'd argue there's echoes of Yingxing even in Master Gongshu. His love for his automatons, his sincere fondness for them, his pride on his job, his loyalty to his position and duties, the way he is both hard and stern as well as loving with his apprentices, and how he talks about short life species.

On a sort of ontological way, it's very interesting to see how Yingxing goes from craftsman to tool or weapon, from creator to creation, from subject to object. The potential in the context of Abundance/Destruction is also extremely intriguing, I think. He who created is unmade by a curse of Abundance. He who forged weapons now follows that path of destruction. There's so much going on with Yingxing conceptually around the cycles of death and rebirth, destruction and creation; it's so fitting that now Blade is stuck in such a cycle in the most literal way.

And it's so fitting too that, in all this context, given Yingxing's entire story, Blade's entire being, that which he made unmade him. That which he created and gave him so much pride was the weapon that killed him. And now he wields it himself, his tool of revenge while he follows the path to eternal and irrevocable death.

I need to make my funger OC......

A 3am Oberon Vortigern doodle

reasons to cup a face / always accepting / @gloryseized ( Shion )

LIFT, sender gently cups the receiver's face and lifts their chin so the receiver is looking up at them.

     It takes a heavy intention for Kane to ignore the rustle of the front curtain being drawn aside. He twitches on instinct, head turning just the slightest, before he remembers he's supposed to be Very Upset right now and coils into a tighter, stonier lump on his bed.

     "Go 'way," he tells his brother, 'cause only his brother would have the guts to approach Kane as he is right now. Well, that and he's the only one who gets to enter their house without needing to announce himself. Even his footsteps are recognisable — tha-thump, tha-thump — and Kane feels his shoulders involuntarily unclench from where they've hunched up around his neck.

     Still, he holds onto the anger that's been simmering in the arch of his brow and under his fingernails since he stamped up their ladder. "M'not...sayin' sor-ry," he preemptively huffs, just in case Shion's here to make him be nice. Kane doesn't wanna be nice. Not to Mido, who doesn't deserve any apologies from him for anything — even hitting him and causing a fight — when he was being a stupid little weed.

     He shouldn't have worried, really. Shion may not have been there when it happened, no doubt hearing the story from others, but this is his brother. A hand lands on his shoulder, gentle and sympathetic. It's such a Shion thing that Kane has to deflate at it.

     "He...was bein'...mean," he mumbles, glare turning into something sadder as he stares at the wall. Mean doesn't even feel like the right word for it. Mido can get prickly, sure, but there was a bite to all his mocking this time that practically barrelled over the line of annoying and into genuinely hurtful — worse that half of it was aimed at someone who wasn't there to defend himself. Kane has only had six years of experience in handling emotions, much less Big Ones, and loves his brother very much. Pouncing on Mido had seemed like the best thing to do.

     Fingers press against his exposed cheek, patting lightly, before they trail down to cup his chin. Shion pulls. Kane lets him. The look that greets him as he turns gets a corner of his lips to start tugging upwards, and the smile is fully complete when he sees what's being held in the other hand.

     Forget him, Shion says without saying anything. Kites, freshly made with how big and green the core leaves still are, promise a much better time than being Very Upset. Kane laughs, soft, and follows his brother's hand the rest of the way out of their house.