bloody mary! boo

This is just one panel of the desert duo piece I was complaining about rendering

Tbh this might be all I share bc I've sort of given up on it

youve heard of sex flowers get ready for the flower that makes you into a celestial shoujo herione complete with particle effects you cannot turn the fuck off and creates a wifebeam so powerful it can incapacitate and maim and keeps making you burst into tears and fall on your ass which makes the wifebeam More Powerful and you also cannot turn this off either. and is also still, sort of, a sex flower

from one of my favorite fanfictions, Celestial Afterglow by elanor_pam, a fic that defies description in the best possible way

One of the things that I was always a little confused about was how Mei Nianqing describes that over the centuries, as Jun Wu watched Xie Lian during his second banishment, he 'calmed down' from the displeasure of Xie Lian failing to meet Jun Wu's expectations in Lang'er Bay. Why would he calm down, watching Xie Lian? After all, he was suffering, sure, but we can see from Yong'an and Banyue that he was still living in accordance with his principles, standing strong despite his experiences. What made Jun Wu think that what he was seeing was a sign that Xie Lian, upon ascending and witnessing the sins of the gods up close and personal, would finally give in and become the second White No-Face?

And I realized that, just like he does across the entire series, he was probably projecting on Xie Lian, wasn't he? He probably thought (or, decided to believe) that deep down, each indignity Xie Lian suffered built up resentment and frustration, that he bargained with himself at every hardship, that he was struggling not only physically but also mentally. Surely a man like that would falter, to see that such indignities continue even among the gods.

And I wonder if this is perhaps a look into Jun Wu himself. Is this a sentiment Jun Wu developed over the years, accustomed to hiding away all the ugly and angry pieces of himself, waiting until he was alone to let them out? Or is this perhaps a sentiment that he always carried, deep down? Even as a prince, did he feel some little niggle of resentment when things didn't go his way? When soldiers killed civilians to take their land? When worshipers turned away but still expected to benefit off of him?

When his friends said he'd changed, to suggest human sacrifice, had he truly? Or was he simply finally showing a part of himself that he'd never expressed before? One that grew stronger the more he endured, but that had always been there, deep down?

Or maybe Jun Wu didn't think any of this at all, and he just wanted to see Xie Lian crack, one way or another. But I wonder if we can read deeper into this than that.

And if the sun comes up

Will it tear the skin right off our bones?

And then, as razor sharp white teeth

Rip out our necks, I saw you there

Timeswap!Vettonso(I blame @ayceeofspades for this)

Thoughts:

References HEHEHEHE:

So the dynamics would be: STR!Seb x Aston!Fernando and Post-Retirement!Seb x Ferarri!Fernando(~2011-2012)

The former would be a Seb who is very hungry for Fernando's attention, but now he's with a Fernando is actually now very willing to give him that attention. Fernando is constantly repeating in his head: "Don't fuck the twink don't fuck the twink don't fuck the twink", but every time they end up on the podium together, Seb always ends up being all over him and "accidentally" groping him. So Seb is still a brat but is with a Fernando who's not gonna just be cold to him but will indulge him instead 🤭

The latter is more angsty AAAHHH!! Cause its a Fernando who is in Ferrari hell and Seb who is post-catharsis. And to quote C, Fernando is like "why are you so happy??? Did you win!?" and Seb responds: "no :)" But also I am not immune to Seb being coy and playing with Fernando. He now understands why Fernando was the way he was back then because he's now gone through the same thing with Ferrari, but also wants him to stop being so gloomy and angsty about it.

Don't ask about how these AUs work, just know that they have knowledge of what their original counterparts were like so it's weird for the younger versions to get to see what ends up happening to the other, and then allows the olders to gain a new perspective instead of their biased memories(i.e.: "you're not who I was villainizing you as in my head" = both of them realize that they were building the other up as such an antagonist in their head but then, oh, he's just like me fr)(but for younger Seb, Fernando realizes Seb just wanted to be friends :( and so now he's trying to be more of a mentor.)

radfem help !!

2 of my little cousins (14yrs and 15yrs) are both girls dating boys right now, and together we are coming up with a "dealbreaker list" of things they will never put up with from their bfs! and also we are including positives, like so they aren't just looking for the absence of bad things, but actual positive things

what do yall think are the most important things to add? (i put extra info in tags)

Thank you so much!!!

alright everybody. its finally time for my ace attorney investigations 2 retrospective/excuse to talk about the von karma-edgeworth family soap opera for a few thousand words. ive never been good at intro paragraphs so we're just gonna get right into it. this is gonna get long probably so be warned - i was originally going to put it under a cut but unfortunately doing that breaks the image format for some reason so uhhhh we're both just gonna have to live with it 😔 obviously this post is going to have major unmarked spoilers so if you havent played this game for some reason yet you should definitely get on that. anyways. without further ado:

investigations 2 is kind of ultimately about who edgeworth was and who edgeworth is and who edgeworth wants to be, explored via the lens of the nature of parent-child relationships and how parents' legacies impact the decisions their children make and the people they become.

at the end of aa1 (+rfta), edgeworth is confronted with the harsh reality that his mentor/adopted father & the man who taught him everything he knows about prosecuting is 1) a terrible person and 2) did actually have a habit of using forged evidence to keep his 40 year streak going. after being accused of corruption for having used fake evidence himself (unknowingly, but still), edgeworth goes on his whole journey of "what does being a prosecutor even mean, anyways" by means of worlds most melodramatic fake suicide. the answer he ends up arriving at is that defense lawyers and prosecutors, when they have relatively upstanding morals and are given the tools to actually do their jobs, serve as vehicles for the truth, and cannot reliably fulfill this duty without each other. however, the question has always kind of lingered - "well, what about being a defense attorney like gregory?"

phoenix routinely brings up the class trial as like the most formative memory of his own childhood - that experience is inherently tied to who phoenix is as a person - but that trial literally only exists because edgeworth was imitating his father in being a defense attorney. the main character of the main series' inspiration for becoming a defense attorney is intrinsically tied to "back when edgeworth was "good", before manfred "corrupted" him". its because edgeworth becomes a corrupt prosecutor that phoenix chases after him into law school - this apparent complete and entire betrayal of phoenix's whole understanding of him as a person.

so then, now that edgeworth is "good" again, why doesnt he quit the whole prosecutor thing and go back to his childhood dream of becoming like his father?

this question is kind of just left up in the air until investigations 2. with the prosecutor investigation committee being completely corrupted, they make it abundantly clear they dont appreciate edgeworth sticking out of line in an attempt to do his literal job, and try to control him by threatening to take away his badge. furthermore, shields, gregory's old companion, shows back up and works with edgeworth to find the the truth of a handful of incidents that would've otherwise been covered up by the p.i.c. - including gregory's last case, in which he proved that manfred, who prosecuted that same case, did indeed forge evidence.

after relinquishing his badge in a protest against what is clearly an injustice, manfred's old habits being dredged back up, and the extended hand of the man in charge of his father's old law firm, edgeworth is getting pulled in a number of different directions - will he capitulate, give up on prosecuting entirely, run away from his past, and become a defender of the people and an attorney like his father? or will he reject manfred's terrible methods while working to rectify his mentor/adopted father's wrongdoings, face his past head-on, and seek the truth as a prosecutor, regardless of his mentor's legacy and reputation?

both of the paths offered to edgeworth hinge on who he used to be - a boy who wanted nothing more than to be like his father, a phenomenal defense attorney who stood up for those who had nobody to stand up for them, and a young adult who saw the injustice in the world and wanted to punish it in the best way he could think of - becoming like his adopted father who never failed to put a (seemingly) guilty person behind bars.

investigations 2 gives us..... a whole slew of parent-child relationships. like what can only be described as truly an impressive amount: gregory & miles & manfred, master & katherine, sebastian & debeste, gustavia & simon, dover & knightley, blaise & sebastian, courtney & john, lang's dad & lang, and more tangentially manfred & franziska and byrne & kay. for our purposes, though, we're going to focus on the most immediately relevant ones to edgeworth's development specifically - sebastian & blaise and gustavia & simon.

for starters, i think it would probably be best to get the von karma-edgeworth family soap opera soapboxing out of the way.

edgeworth's arc in this game primarily revolves around what he wants to do with his life - he talks a whole lot about his "path", but doesnt really know what that means outside of seeking the truth at all costs. the people around him like to slot him into either "defense attorney" or "prosecutor" for a variety of reasons, but more often than not it ends up boiling down to his fathers in at least some capacity.

franziska is personally betrayed and frankly disgusted by edgeworth giving up his badge (which makes plenty of sense, particularly after their conversation at the end of aa2 and which i have talked about here), and a notable portion of that does have to do with her & manfred's relationship to edgeworth. manfred's influence was a huge factor in miles' decision to become a prosecutor, and they both know it. of course, the more pressing issue for her is the fact that miles is abandoning her again - but the point remains that had it not been for manfred, the likelihood of miles becoming a prosecutor would be, frankly, much lower.

shields, on the other hand, spends a whole lot of the game projecting gregory onto miles. he wants edgeworth to follow in his fathers footsteps and play the role of the returning prodigal son, because he misses gregory and sees a lot of his influence and mannerisms in miles. actually, something i kind of found particularly interesting is that at one point, shields remarks that edgeworth's trademark glare was the same as that of gregory's. theres a whole lot of remarks made on that glare, actually, particularly in combination with edgeworths furrowed brow.

but... shields himself is the one who says this

about - would you guess it - a certain manfred von karma. its no secret that miles has picked up a whole number of manfred's mannerisms and attitudes, even as he's unlearning some of the more harmful ones, but what i found particularly fascinating is that shields saw something that miles picked up from manfred and saw gregory in it instead. while part of it certainly could be that miles did pick part of it up from gregory (which is something that has a basis in the sprites - something i may actually get into a little bit later), its also very possible that this is shields projecting what he wants to see onto miles as opposed to what's actually there. its even more interesting though, because when they first meet, shields actually mistakes edgeworth for manfred because of that glare

shields is so caught up in wanting gregory back from the dead that he occasionally blinds himself from acknowledging that miles is an entirely different person.

and, of course, throughout both this game and the previous investigations game, there's more than a few moments in which edgeworth personally accused of using falsified evidence to convict people - specifically harkening back to our good friend manfred von karma, posterchild of world's most corrupt prosecutors and edgeworth's adopted father/mentor. shields even expresses immense distrust of miles at first simply on this fact, acknowledging that miles was indeed like a son to manfred (..... for whatever that's worth)

actually. while we're here on this point i want to speak briefly about sprite similarities

this game does a whole lot of calling attention to the influence manfred & gregory have had on miles - obviously theres the furrowed brow & piercing gaze and terrible people skills that miles got from manfred, but he also has gregory's affinity for tea and dorky camera face. the sprites also do a great job in visually establishing his inherited mannerisms though - while manfred's influence has done a lot, gregory's habits still peek through the cracks.

ive talked about this a little bit on another post, but i feel like it warrants repeating here anyways. the sprite animations in ace attorney are great for a lot of reasons, but one of the most interesting ones is how they're frequently used to imply connections between characters and the influence of certain relationships.

we know that miles definitely did not get his bowing from manfred, but with gregory's sprites in this game it becomes abundantly clear where they originated from (of course, with the over-the-top melodrama of the von karmas added on top). similarly with miles' hand bounding sprite, its a pointed finger (giving it an accusatory tint, definitely coming from manfred), while gregory's is an open hand (much more inviting), but the bounce nonetheless remains. the sprite similarities between miles & manfred are a bit more straightforward, but something i find tremendously interesting is how the mannerisms miles picked up from his father have the von karma influence absorbed into them - it really is a brilliant visual indicator of the impact both his fathers have had on his character.

i've talked about this general topic semi-extensively on this blog simply because i am truly a bit obsessed with the von karma-edgeworth family soap opera, but i feel like it warrants repeating here anyways since it comes up in this came so often. miles' relationship with gregory is... honestly not really explored terribly much? like shields will reference him a lot and both him and the game itself absolutely loves comparing the two, but as far as edgeworth's personal feelings on gregory go... we. honestly don't get much, either directly or indirectly. which makes sense, obviously - edgeworth was like 9 when he died - but its still interesting. we obviously know that gregory loved edgeworth a lot (see: him thinking about miles periodically throughout the investigation . which is. for the record. absolutely adorable)

but miles doesn't get much of anything at all in terms of internal or external dialogue about gregory. his relationship with manfred, however, is... a lot more messy, but also explored a fair bit through implications.

mr von karma gets brought up a lot in both investigations 1 & 2, and miles' reaction is largely the same - he'll comment on objective facts (usually ones that were brought up in the first by the people around him) whether its manfred's skill in prosecuting or his tendency towards forgery, but blatantly refuses to ever give any sort of subjective opinion on him (franziska is, for the record, the exact same way). theyll dance around the topic, sure, but never genuinely engage with it - as much can be seen if you make edgeworth present his badge to amano in investigations 1.

while franziska's feelings on her father are a lot more obscured, miles' are a little more openly messy - after all, he still keeps his prosecutors badge in his pocket all these years after manfred told him prosecutors who wore their badges are tacky. he still wears the jabot, an integral and iconic bit of manfreds attire (and another thing that made shields briefly think he was manfred). he still has no problem connecting with and helping manfred's old friends (amano, for example). and, mostly damning of all, he still keeps his old prosecutors outfit - the outfit manfred gave him based off of his own suit - plastered to his office wall. its clear that he doesnt approve of manfred's methods of prosecution and recognizes that he was definitely corrupt, but even with all the murder and framing and so on and so forth... manfred was still his dad. even if its not logical for miles to still hold on to that filial love, you cant really argue your emotions into changing into something rational.

with the repeated importance being placed on the influence of gregory and manfred on miles' life, their relationship to him, and other people's expectations for miles based on their legacies established, i think we can probably try to get into sebastian now. gonna be copy-pasting most of my sebastian vs miles & franziska mini-essay here because i dont want to retype it.

sebastian is actually a kind of interesting foil for franziska and miles - its pretty clear that franziska didnt become a prosecutor specifically for manfreds approval (see: miles’ comment on her always having been a prosecutor) and likewise with edgeworth (see: his statement on his motivation for becoming a prosecutor having been to chase down criminals after what happened to gregory), but throughout the flashback case in investigations 1 it is so obvious that both of them desperately crave manfred’s approval even to the point of competing over it.

while this competition follows the usual format of franziska insisting on something and miles passively going along with it as opposed to actively engaging, he spends the entire case literally trying to be a mini-manfred (its very sad and also kind of cute), and its made pretty clear that at the very least he would not be the prosecutor he is without manfred’s influence. furthermore, at the end of aa2, franziska also comments on the pressures and expectations being placed on her by virtue of being manfred’s daughter - she felt that she was obligated to become a genius prosecutor simply because of her birth. while the wording indicated to me outside pressure rather than manfred specifically, the point remains that manfred, while not the sole driving reason, did have a significant impact on their career choice.

sebastian, however, specifically says he became a prosecutor for the purpose of getting his dad's approval. blaise routinely speaks ill of sebastian, calling him stupid and an idiot and embarrassing and so on and so forth, but its incredibly clear that sebastian is genuinely desperate for any sort of positive affirmation from his father. he unknowingly cheated his way through law school, graduating at the top of his class purely through blaise's connections, and is genuinely distraught when he finds out that everything he built his adult life on was a lie. the game spends a fair amount of time showing you how wildly terrible sebastian is at being a prosecutor, only to reveal that the reason he's like this is, like, 80% his dad's fault.

unlike sebastian, however, franziska and miles are both quite competent at their jobs and manfred, unlike blaise, actually has confidence in their ability to perform to his expectations (see: him bullying badd into letting them try to solve the case in the investigations 1 flashback case). sebastian & blaise are like a worse and caricatured version of the von karma family soap - basically, they're what would happen if miles & franziska 1) were absolutely dependent on manfreds approval and 2) weren't terribly good at prosecuting, and if manfred was 1) prone to coddling and 2) actively verbally abusive.

theres also the added parallel of “oops! my dad actually really sucks as a person” and the ensuing Complicated Feelings On Dad after this. franziska expresses an egregious amount of disdain for sebastian before we really get into the blaise debacle because she doesnt respect him as a person at all, but is honestly surprisingly sympathetic when it turns out his dad is a criminal. futhermore, she willingly relinquishes her place at the prosecutor's bench for him when its clear he's ready to stand up to blaise, even if hes crying and sobbing the whole way through. its this shared experience and his subsequent growing of a spine that earns her respect.

edgeworth, for his part, also doesnt seem to respect sebastian much at all before the kidnapping incident. however, upon trying to prod him into telling what happened, edgeworth recognizes a part of his old self in sebastian, as well as sebastians willingness to grow up and move past his desperation for his father's approval.

more than just being a funhouse mirror version of the von karmas, blaise and sebastians relationship highlights the dangers of blindly chasing after your parents, critical thinking long forgotten, which has a twofold meaning in regards to miles. obviously, theres the pretty straightforward parallel to his blatant idolization of manfred as a young prosecutor - while the situation wasnt necessarily the same, it still possesses those echoes of a desperate need for acknowledgement/approval, to the point of following their fathers' examples even in the worst ways. @/pkducklett left some really great tags on one of my posts which hits the nail on the head:

but it also begs the question: is blindly chasing after his childhood dream of being like gregory really what miles wants to do with his life? a point we'll loop back around to in a bit, but important to keep in mind for edgeworth's overall arc.

so onto simon & gustavia! simon's relationship with his murderous father gustavia also serves as a foil to miles and one of his dads like sebastian & blaise - however, instead of our notoriously trigger happy friend manfred von karma, it's actually.... gregory! which is, for the record, tremendously fun. simon & miles both became orphans at a young age - which is a notable part of the reason edgeworth agrees to take his case in the jail episode, even. the camaraderie between two people who have shared in the same traumatizing experience and so on and so forth - but instead of being taken from his son like gregory was, gustavia purposely abandons simon once he's deemed him worthless.

post-orphaning, both miles & sebastian are taken under the wing of men of questionable character - miles is adopted by manfred von karma, gregory's rival, murderer, and the anti-thesis of everything he stood for, and sebastian becomes the apprentice to dogen, a ruthless assassin. interestingly enough, though, this parallel diverges in the end - manfred throws miles under the bus and backs up over him like three separate times, metaphorically speaking, while dogen actively puts his life on the line to save sebastian.

miles & simon both experienced the injustice of the law system - miles in the absolute failure of the courts to find his father's true murderer, and simon in his personal experience in its utter corruption. their reactions to this injustice leads them both to commit further injustices - miles in uncritically adopting manfred's ideals and teachings, and in this process definitely sending innocent people to jail at some point or another, and simon in his attempt at semi-vigilante justice via manipulating all the people who ruined his life into either ending or ruining each others', regardless of anybody innocent who got caught in the crossfire.

of course, the narrative purpose of making simon a foil to miles is the final confrontation on three main points - 1) what does miles fight for? why is he a prosecutor? 2) how do you deal with the absolutely rotten law system in japanifornia? 3) are we simply doomed to become our parents, or can we become more than just their continued legacies? which naturally leads us to the final question posed in the thesis - the heart of the game - who does miles want to be?

shields spends a lot of time trying to convince miles to pick up gregory's mantle and join him back at the law offices, but the problem is that miles simply isn't the starry-eyed child who would do anything to be like his father anymore (growing up under the roof of one of the greatest prosecutors of one's time will do that to you). he's no longer the sebastian to blaise for either of his fathers - he cannot simply throw everything he's learned and experienced away in an attempt to imitate gregory, but also has soundly rejected many of manfred's most staunchly held ideals. while not all of them remain, a major part of the reasons he became a prosecutor still hold - even as he's abandoned his badge.

simon was what edgeworth could have become under slightly different circumstances, and he says as much himself. he recognizes that the law isn't perfect and more often than not is wildly abused by everybody in power to subject everybody else to their whims - and that, no matter how hard a defense attorney tries.... if the courts are inherently stacked against them, a corrupt prosecutor will inevitably win. at the end of aa2, edgeworth returns from his wildly melodramatic sabbatical with the answer that the prosecution and the defense need to work hand in hand to reveal the truth - which is, obviously, a correct statement - but there's more to it than that.

there's more than just the defendant at stake in trial - the protection of the victims (whether recognized as the victim by the law or not) are why the laws exist in the first place - this is the reason that edgeworth arrives at for his reason for being a prosecutor. its simon who reminds him of why he started down this path in the first place - the visceral pain edgeworth felt at his father's death and the desire for justice to be done for gregory and himself mirroring simon's feelings after being abandoned by his father and his flight after being the witness to a crime wildly corrupt people in power committed. to be what phoenix was for him in turnabout goodbyes - to be a beacon of hope and justice for the wronged - that is miles' duty.

edgeworth speaks a lot about following "his path" to truth, wherever that might lead, but at the beginning of the game doesnt seem to have a clear idea of what he actually wants to do. he stalls out on shields' many wink wink nudge nudge offers to join the defense attorney firm and be like his dad and continues acting like a prosecutor (indicting people, investigating, the likes) even while being stripped of his authority as one (by his own choice!).

ultimately it all boils back down to these three questions miles asks sebastian in the logic chess game post kidnapping - "what are you going to do now? will you walk the same path as your father? will you continue to be a prosecutor?"

much, much earlier in the game, shields says to edgeworth, "to fight crime as a prosecutor, or to save people as a defense attorney. i want you to think carefully about how you want to live your life from now on." - which, taken with the context of the game as an essay on parents and inheritance and manfred & gregory's influence on miles, is... pretty much the game in a nutshell, actually.

miles spends the entire time playing both defense attorney and prosecutor, indicting certain people and defending others throughout. this is arguably most notable in the flashback/flashforward case where all the members of the original is-7 investigation are there, except for manfred and gregory, who are both being stood in for by - would you guess it - our very own miles edgeworth. he is their legacy, their successor, and their inheritor. in the end, he takes the skills they taught him and the values they imbued him with and the lessons he learned from them to forge his own path - it really is just his final answer to shields' question in the finale of the game: "i want to save people as a prosecutor."

i was being a completely sane person today (/s) and was creating a timeline tree for snm would anyone even be interested in that. and collecting my shipping thoughts (or specifics about them being a couple etc). know that i still consider my knowledge of the franchise as poor. its just tidying it up in my head so when i talk about something i can pinpoint a specific thing (i was too deep in fnaf theorizing so now i have to suffer thru a franchise that doesnt even have a canon)

in short/tldr the comics are the base that happened in every possible timeline and everything else is derived from that, happening after, except the cartoon, which shows some events the same way so that would be more intertwined; not everything is connected/within one timeline. and the cartoon is my most fav and where i see them as a true couple.

long rant ahead

on one hand i really like the time travel theory where its like comics -> ttg -> cartoon etc by them travelling back in time for that, however there are many holes especially thinking about their families and stuff so

i like the idea of things branching off. one branch is comics - htr - cartoon, as something more intertwined

second is comics -> ttg -> poker night 2 (since it references ttg events) (idk bout 1 i havent played/seen that)

third would be comics -> ttiv (or comics -> htr -> ttiv, i have no idea atm if bosco's is mentioned in the comics but it is in htr and mentioned in ttiv. ttiv is also set in the year it came out, so theres a huge gap inbetween ttiv and htr but i wouldnt say its where the ttg games happened!)

and i dont mean this in like a multiverse way, since the creator seems to dislike that, its simply just a very loose canon that differs with each installment (simply due to different people working on these imo. nothing too deep imo)

but the juicy part!! i even made brackets that im too lazy to remake digitally so i will just write it out for each bigger installment. im excluding poker night 1 as i havent played it nor watched much gameplay

M = married, BF = best friends (in all technically)

comics: M - unlikely; BF - yes absolutely

htr: M - possible; BF - yes

cartoons: M - i take it as canon here. BF - yes million percent

ttg all seasons: M - no; BF - yes.

poker night 2: M - not sure, implied dating, i take that as good enough; BF - yes

ttiv: M - absolutely not. not a couple at all. BF - they seem too tense, yes, but from my experience playing, their interactions were imo the worst in all of their media, so i wasnt buying it at some points

note - ttiv has to be like the straightest they ever were and i also see it in S.P.'s more recent work. im looking too deep into that, perhaps, but im just thinking were never gonna get anything similar to what we got from back in the 90s again, if theres any future projects

people are also saying they got married like 4 times and its making me a bit confused here. do people mean cartoon, htr dress up card, cake topper and tdph ring scene or am i missing something big?? because to me that is married once, other ones being just for jokes (first one as well but its less vague), and in the ttg games its so extremely vague i cant count that (being realistic here) that said its still fun to joke about them getting married several times, but in this case wouldnt it be more of a marriage per timeline?

and to end this, a personal tierlist

my most fave obviously is the cartoon. not only is it the easiest to work with for me, with the fast pacing and short watch time (but ofc i wish it was longer) i absolutely love how their relationship is depicted there, even if a lot of stuff there is just jokes, but if everything is a joke then its also fine to take everything as canon within this media, to me! like when haters say that people only take the wedding scene out of the intro and ignore the rest - as if the other stuff couldnt happen (isnt one of the shots them fighting a giant octopus, which they end up having an episode about too. like cmon. anything goes here) even if it was contained within this specific part of the franchise, im ok with calling them a couple here. and its S tier overall

another S tier is the comics. nothing else to say

HTR is like A tier to me, only taking off points because its soooo sloooowwww and playing it after watching the series took 3 years off my life immediately. otherwise gud game.

ttg is like A to B tier for me, because of some specifics and preferences but thats just me being nitpicky so, the games overall are good. A- it is. thats all

poker night 2 is fun, i watch the gameplay a lot lately when im too tired at midnight to do anything else, A tier

ttiv. oh how mixed i am about you. gameplay by itself and my first experience with the game - S tier. it made me so giddy more than one time and i kept wanting to come back until i finished the game fully. i dont mind the bugs, its just what i expect in VR games and even tho it made me a bit frustrated at times it wasnt all that bad. its also the only vr game i played for over an hour once and didnt get motion sick - the exception was the level at the store which seemed too bright and actually made me nauseous. which is a feeling that somehow comes back whenever i think about this game. what i dislike was the dialogue, while most of it was fun and fine, i had moments where i just burst out laughing, they (or max especially) were way too mean towards the player. i know its a joke and you could chalk it up to max being unhappy with us/jealous, but it got like, generally unpleasant very quickly. with stuff like good throw - "nice!" bad throw - *neverending insults* and the second was how painfully straight it was and like. the vibes i got from them two was like, oh theyre fed up with each other and my shipping self was just left quite disappointed. i did not get all lines during my gameplay which made it great but upon going thru every line manually after, i was just more and more uncomfortable with what they said in their banter. this drops the game to like C for me? maybe B if i squint. being generous. i also got sick of their talking animations over time... the models are fine just got to be too much. bonus points for max ragdoll physics tho. coming up with a conclusion that this is a completely separate timeline and has nothing to do with anything other than the comics and perhaps HTR. i talked so long about this one cause its the one thing that prompted all of this lol.

but its not that serious! i just knew this franchise for ages as "oh its the two animal guys that are married and its funny" and now that i got into it fully, i see a lot of the shippers are obviously daydreaming and taking things out of context - which is fun, i agree!! i also do that. but it just painted a completely different picture for me. so no. theyre not married, theyre not a couple, except for the cartoon, where its implied, which stays on top for me. but in ttg at least, they love each other, its not as romantic, but i can ship them there (so i ship them in the context of the cartoon and ttg basically)

anyway. nothing is canon for them, everything is canon for them, and everything they say or do is a joke so. its not that deep at all. they gay tho

I was alone, staring over the ledge

Had a sad thought today about how I'm actually nobody's favourite person. Like, I know I've got friends and people who like me, but I'm nobody's Favourite.

If I was getting picked for a team nobody I know would choose me first

I don't know, just lonely thoughts today I guess

"I don't believe in a god who does nothing but watch from afar. I believe in that stupid girl."

ISTG THIS LINE HAS ME AT A CHOKEHOLD

Like it's not even particularly emphasized and it really wasnt the highlight of the chapter, but it's just so meaningful to me. That line was what really encompassed (to me) Medea, Psyche, and their relationship at the beginning.

Medea not believing in God despite standing right before them. She was raised harshly, God never gave her answers nor shone their light on her, she found them herself and forged her own path.

But when she called God someone that only watches from afar, I think she was also talking about Psyche. After all, she saw how God didn't save Psyche, even if she was supposed to be their chosen one and beloved.

And "I believe in that stupid girl"?? To Medea, Psyche's character, her kindness and pureness, are objectively weak. As a Solon, she was raised in an environment where kindness isn't something she could afford. Being pure is naivety, which is also a weakness.

Not to mention that it's not just Medea that saw kindness as a weakness, it was their world's "objective truth." They (Eros and co) used it to exploit and manipulate her. Yet Medea recognized that with Psyche, kindness wasn't just a weakness, it was her strength. It made people want to believe in her; it made Medea want to believe in her.

But also, the inherent deepness of their bond? Idk? gayness? homoeroticism? of rejecting a god and believing in Psyche instead when she herself knows it's stupid?

i know animation budget and its a kids show etc etc but i need the spectres to be physically scarred. kanan's torso is littered with blaster burns and stab wounds and burns from the electricity in s1. i need his malachor scar to be borderline grotesque i dont think lightsaber burns are pretty. i want to be able to see the shape of the lightsaber from the side of his face. i need ezra to have a bunch of cuts that got infected or healed wrong and a bunch of injuries he just doesnt remember getting but are on him forever.

Lye „Lyke“ Lychen as a sacrifical altar (to Aterika’Kaal) (but he's also kind of the sacrifice)

my @secret-samol gift for @bronanlynch! for the Aterika’Kaal/Lyke prompt of „what if things had gone differently and Aterika'Kaal was still with Lyke“.

notes on this under the readmore!

AU

In this scenario Lyke would succeed in getting the heart of the Motherbeast in Episode 47 and while Alaway would notice & probably still call out to Aterika’Kaal the way he presumably did in canon, Lyke would be there and get to make a compelling case to Aterika’Kaal the likes of „If you stay with me I am going to feed you. I’ve taken care of you until now, I’ll keep doing that“ (argument supported by the fact he’s currently holding the heart of an incredibly powerful dead god). Aterika’kaal agrees and they barely escape through the Sanctum of the Stone Chorus portal. I think it's fun if Lyke then stays there after the hour described in the move is over, maybe knowing he can't convince Pickman & the others that what he's done is actually good, and fine, there's not even anything to worry about he has this totally handled, But yeah he then sets out from whereever in Sangfielle Aterika'Kaals domain is (Austin did say it was an actual place somewhere), and the rest of the Blackwick Group is left to wonder what the hell happened since Lyke just vanished! Alaway has possibly fucked off too after losing the heart. And them getting fired, the Carnival of Moted Light etc. would still happen (and I guess Chine would succeed at what they were doing since Lyke isn’t there?) and who knows if they’d take any action in finding Lyke after that! All that aside though, Lyke basically offers himself to feed on (through blood and/or energy) and to sustain that he keeps consuming(not literally eating) powerful objects/artifacts/resources and possibly eventually living things (I’d imagine he'd still take work as a „please deal with this weird shit for us“ person and when he has to kill a cursed beast or whatnot... might aswell feed Aterika'Kaal?) (What also plays into that decision, and is part of Lyke justifying this to himself, is that without him, Aterika’Kaal would become too powerful. So he aims to function as kind of a conduit & control the power intake so to speak. I think this probably doesn’t work for very long.) I think this eventually goes bad for him because it’s super taxing on his body and the whole deal kind of flips with Aterika’Kaal feeding/keeping HIM alive. He starts finding bodies in the domain again (alternatively, Aterika'Kaal gets better at hiding them because it knows Lyke doesn't particulary like it when it does that). Lyke probably gets stronger due to this power/magic wise, but also way more fragile (he's constantly anemic!). („I love you. I want us both to eat well.“ - Christopher Citro) („When I write of hunger I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and it is all one.“ M.K. Fisher) Notes: I put some resources Lyke’s canonically had in-game + some extra stuff in this picture (the arrow is a reference to Marn’s epilogue, the bugs are bugs (with possibly sinister connotations. If you want them to have those, it’s optional) and the fur is from the Ravening Beast). Another detail I came up with I might aswell tell you because otherwise noone might ever know: the ring with the blue stone is a gift from Es. Sketch Notes: 1. Lyke turning his head to kiss a rose / exposing his neck was one of my very first ideas/sketches I made while working on this, and I liked it too much to not include it. 2. This is supposed to be Aterika'Kaal giving Lyke a blood transfusion but it rather looks like it's feeding on him instead...! I like how the relaxed pose turned out. 3. I wanted to draw something smaller in a simpler style to fill the big canvas I was drawing these on (even though now I put them in separate files anyways...). The day I drew this I saw a tweet about a medieval monks sketchbook, so I was still thinking about that. I didn't even plan to color it originally but I ended up getting invested, haha

Inspired mainly by these 3 quotes: „KEITH: I’m a walking- I am a shrine to Aterika’Kaal.“ (Sangfielle 12: The Secret Ledger of Roseroot Hall Pt. 4) „KEITH: There's a version of dealing with Aterika'Kaal that ends with Lyke being satisfied that he rehabilitated a god or at least it looks […] like what he thinks Aterika'Kaal would have been before the YVEs showed up. That's probably his main retirement path, but it also might kill him instead.” (Sangfielle 47: Wax, Iron, and Ichor Pt. 4) „AUSTIN: As you’re fading, the last thing that you do is make this blood sacrifice to Aterika’Kaal. Your own blood.“ (Sangfielle 52: Six Travelers: Lyke)

...

on a coffee date but Craig won't stop staring