forgive me if i lose tubbo character analysis points (rolls eyes heavily) over this or something but i honestly dont think the date was very ooc or that the frubbo romance is going to be played as something that makes qtubbo better. obviously qtubbo gained a lot of trust issues and lost a lot of hope in others + started to strongly believe that love only hurts after purgatory and the funeral. and hes an extremely defeatist guy at heart

but he also makes exceptions because no matter how much he tries to disconnect himself he still cares so so much about others. he has such a weird fucked up view of love and justifies seeing sunny as an exception by saying they wont hurt each other because their love is unconditional and yet he also claims empanada isnt safe when bagi is around because the eye workers will use that connection to their advantage And Yet he constantly looks after and takes care of sunny anyways. even though hes already mourning her before theyve even died. even though by his own logic it may be safer for sunny to not be with him

and like.. he says dont get attached empathy makes you weak but he tries to ruin fit & pacs date so they dont abandon him. he still jokes around with them and has happy moments with them bc ultimately theyre his friends and even if they dont Really understand what hes going through or what would help him they want to be there for him and make him happy and they Do make him happy. bc qtubbo doesnt spend all of his time with his friends whining and groaning about how theyre going to leave him some day and despite being suicidal and defeatist and at times a fucking jerk that isnt his whole personality

depressed people Have happy days. they have ups and peaks in their life and yeah actually many of them do manage to have nice relationships and theres a lot of depressed people out there who are fully capable of just. not being complete downers to be around all the time (cough a lot of comedians have depression cough). if anything i would argue it isnt just in character but realistic for qtubbo to be able to just. have a normal date where hes a bit of a loser and manages to get through an actual confession

and its not like hes going all in oh we're dating and we're going to get married now bc he doesnt even consider themselves boyfriends and he turns down sunny claiming fred as another parent. he just had a happy day and it boosted his mood a little. i dont think fred is really on his list of trusted people and in fact i feel like him just being very silly and awkward during the date is a Part of him not fully trusting fred or wanting to be super serious around/with her. i think to qtubbo fred symbolizes sure some pain from the whole funeral situation but also still a lot of happier simpler times and ultimately a time where tubbo was happier and openly hopeful

if anything, tubbos relationship with fred is another form of escapism for him. of course it isnt going to make him better. he literally brought fred to him and sunnys island where they plan to live far away from everyone to avoid their problems. its all a fantasy for him, and one that he isnt even allowing himself to fully jump into but will joke about and dance around the subject of nonetheless

perpetually annoyed by character criticism that is just “is this character sympathetic? is this character relatable? does this character get an ending they ‘deserve’ (as it correlates with their own moral goodness)?” so what if they’re unsympathetic. so what if they’re unrelatable. so what if they are made suffer. so what if they’re a symbol. they’re not real! fictional characters are tools in a story, like setting, or tropes, or tone, or style, or pacing, or medium. they are a figment, a fragment. they are not human beings, and they do not exist in a real life moral framework. this is not good analysis. ask better questions.

somewhat kicking a bees nest here, but hear me out-

"homemade and handcrafted goods should cost hundreds and even thousands of dollars" is why attaching a monetary value to esoteric concepts like "time" and "skill" (and, you know, "a human being") is a bad system.

now, before the pitchforks come out, i am not bitching because i want a handcrafted quilt for $20. i do recognize that it would be unbelievably unfair to the quilter. but like...doesn't that sound obscene? that we live in a system where things that used to be pretty mundane are now only available to the upper class, or the creator just fucking dies? where in order for someone to make anything artistic, they need to be independently wealthy or ONLY cater to wealthy people?

again, i am not suggesting that artists should sell me their shit at a horrific loss. im not really suggesting any solution at all here, we're between a bit of a rock and a hard place. but it feels really inherently fucked up to me that the only options are "Artists taken advantage of" and "only rich people get art."

anyways, UBI huh

the fact that pib's story and character doesn't lean into the horror/tragedy side of things as the other neverafter PCs do is part of why i find him so interesting

the motives and stakes that pib faces as an individual are never really as pressing/high as those that the others in the group face. marienne is already destroyed and tomas is already dead, which pib cannot and does not seek to undo (he wants revenge on the giants later on, but he only seeks it when going to snowhold & the land of giants becomes something they have to do anyways. and his starting priority isn't revenge - he's more or less just trying to get by after the fall of marienne), unlike the others, who are either in the throes of their tragedies, or actively attempting to undo what has already come to pass, or, mostly, a mix of both.

there's also the fact that pib isn't a "character" in the way the others are, but rather the archetype of the trickster cat. as both a trickster spirit and an archetype, he already holds a little more agency than the others because he's not bound to being "pib". he does grow an attachment to the identity of pib in a way that doesn't seem typical of the tricksters (the fox says that he's "gotten too caught up in it" when he returns to the trickster forest with no memories of who they are), but, ultimately, if something happens to the story of puss in boots, he's still the cat. he knows there's more for him than just pib, that, although he's still subject to the whims of the authors, he's not bound to one destiny in the same way his friends are.

in any case, whether we're talking about pib or the cat, he doesn't need to fight in the way his friends do. he doesn't need to care the way he does, or maybe even shouldn't care in the way that he does (the fox overall seems to suggest that pib is softer compared to the other tricksters; "it was a mistake to send him", "you're more the hero than you think", etc, and almost seems to look down on him for it) but he does anyways. he fights and tricks for the sake of his friends, for the sake of tomas, for the sake of the neverafter. and he does it because he chooses to. he's a trickster, who we might expect to act in a self-serving way, but he chooses to be, for the most part, selfless. he has a little more agency than the others and, instead of taking it and running, he uses it to help, to choose to be good, because he cares about the people around him. he's a little asshole with a heart goddamnit

dark justiciar shadowheart is genuinely so interesting to me as like... a facet to her character. like it really hammers home how desperate she is for shar's love and affection (+ the validation and love from other worshipers of shar). like in a lot of ways I get that it seems shocking to others / some fans because it really does contradict some of the morals we see her express BUT imo that just speaks to the level of desperation she feels. her comments on how shar "must" love her for her to survive the shadowcursed lands, or the bit where she talks about shar nurturing her and loving her and sounds... almost more like shes trying to convince herself more than shes trying to convince you. theres a bit about other sharrans not thinking she had earned her name, and of course the mother superior not thinking she was ready / worthy of being a dark justiciar. like shes just so completely desperate to feel unconditionally and securely loved, and to earn the approval of others that shes entirely willing to injure herself in the process (as well as.... the people who actually love her, of course).

not to mention that mechanically, afaik, she can only end up there if shes encouraged to by the player. ie... she needs to know someone else approves.

Hi! Not sure if you've posted about this before, I had a quick look and couldn't find anything, but what are your thoughts on the fanon idea of Sokka having chronic pain from his injury during sozin's comet? Sorry if you've talked about this before and I couldn't find it, I'm interested in what you think about this 'cause your posts about Sokka are incredible and I love your insights on the character 💙

well i love it as both a chronic pain haver and a sokka tormentor. one thing about me is that i DONT want sokka to heal i want to keep putting him in miserable situations until he dies <3 (except for him reuniting with yue in the spirit world which i do recognize is totally self-indulgent fluff. anyway)

i definitely think that sokka would not only fuck up his leg from falling on it wrong on the airships but also fuck up his shoulder from the angle at which he was holding toph (it was like?? entirely twisted back??? the fact that he managed to kill two people while in that much pain and at that angle is insane btw. whatever) and then exacerbate the injuries by refusing to get any help for it (he doesn’t have TIME for PT!!!!) or tell anyone about it at all. like obviously katara would heal his leg, and we see it in a cast in the finale, but he still wouldn’t actually bother taking good care of it, he’d just walk on it all the time and pretend he’s not in pain. same goes for his arm. since he’s ambidextrous, he’d just use his good arm for everything without bothering to do exercises to retain the strength and mobility in his bad arm until it gradually gets worse and worse.

and he wouldn’t actually communicate this pain to anyone, obviously. i think toph would be the only one who actually knows, both because she was there when it happened and because she can tell via her seismic sense. but toph isn’t in the business of airing out people’s secrets (especially not sokka’s) so as much as she confronts him privately about it she’s not gonna push it, even though maybe she should. and sokka is very grateful for that because the thought of katara yelling at him for not telling her about his pain is something he absolutely cannot bear to think about. also, in a kind of perverse way, he does kind of enjoy the pain. it’s like a punishment. serves him right for nearly letting toph die. serves him right for still being alive.

toph would be the only one who could ever potentially get through to him just by being like “you shouldn’t be ashamed of your disability” to which sokka is like “im not ASHAMED and im NOT DISABLED!!!!!!” and then she just kinda stares flatly at him until he concedes. at which point he decides that he will try doing physical therapy and sometimes use a cane. which is still not much, but hey. it’s progress.

Take care of him (Patreon)

Betty really likes to throw things at and throw Simon often

For real tho health freaks who scream about how sugar and salt will kill us all and try to push for restrictions on things like candy and chips for SNAP recipients or politicians who try from time to time to replace food stamps all together and give out Government Approved Staples like bread and peanut butter and Government Cheese are gonna kill a whole lotta sick and disabled people like

Diabetics

POTS sufferers

Hypotensives

People with peanut allergies

People with celiac disease or wheat allergies

The lactose intolerant

People who can't eat solid food

People who are undernourished for any reason and need all the calories they can pack on

So-called "picky eaters" who can't tolerate certain tastes and textures without getting violently ill

A myriad of other human conditions that cannot be neatly tallied into categories because the human body and human experience is vast and infinitely variable

But I don't think ableds really care about us and our health like they like to claim so they can harass us about it, do you?

if you dont “believe” in aftercare you deserve to get run over by a bus btw

Tubbo is going to be so ecstatic and happy for Fit and Pac but there’s going to be a little voice in the back of his head that reminds him of how he truly has no one but Sunny to care about him

this is kinda old and i almost didnt post it. i kinda gave up on making a full rainer ref like i did with daniel soooo take this ^}^

this is after 1997 and before 2000 when he went missing for good.

basically do you prefer to play solo or do you prefer to get the story run with the scions and then play with others or do you hate support/trust etc etc

this occurred to me when I was making the least favorite dungeons polls and people were mentioning other players as reasons they didn't like certain dungeons which is something I didn't consider for my own choices in later dungeons since I always run them as trusts unless I'm with a friend

Genuinely unfortunate that I’m attracted to men bc a lot of straight men these days r so embarrassing my heart can’t take it anymore

missa, after his self resentment and lamenting about how he doesn’t feel worthy or like he should be accepted, after telling himself and the capybaras that he doesn’t have a home, not really - after all is said and done, he returns to phil & missa, leaving his mini mi in the house on the wall. as if he’d consider anywhere other than the house he shared with phil safe enough. seeking out safety and home brought him right back where he started.

something about how despite his internal conflicts and issues about what he thinks he deserves, he’ll still come back. and for all he worries that he is not enough to be loved in return, his name is still on the warp stone.

ok so given that pandorica radio (part one at least) is my thesis project and so has to be completed before december, i had to do a lot of reworking to get it to a point where it was something i could reasonably do within like. seven months. and while i was super bummed about it at first im so so so happy with how the final form of this is turning out :-)) i love working on pandorica and im so excited for everybody to see part one soon!!!!