so much happened in this whole episode but i’m still on fig infiltrating ruben’s dream, making it look like the place where his friend was murdered, and then disguising herself as kipperlilly & repeatedly saying different variants of “somebody needs to take the fall for this, and it’s not going to be me. it’s going to be you.” while adaine as the elven oracle shows up next to her. can you imagine waking up from that, the idea of a horrible truth being pinned on you by your friend to save her own skin while the personification of fate and destiny stands there, almost as a promise that this is GOING to happen to you. we don’t even know if this kid is guilty. my god.
after some experimentation, i've found that "clean-shaven and hair hidden under a beanie" gets me gendered as male way more reliably than "hair loose, full moustache". no idea why long hair provokes such a strong "that's a girl" reaction, but there we go.
rewatched TG:M all the way through for the first time in a couple months, and god. hans zimmer did not have to put everything he owned into that singular swell. and neither did literally everyone else.
maverick: terrified and alone, realizing his son basically just blew up in front of him
cyclone warlock and hondo: different levels of hopelessness, expediting the mourning process so they can continue with the mission
hangman: physically stops breathing. can’t focus. he has to hyperventilate to get oxygen back in his body. all he’s thinking about is bradley seven summers ago, when they were still okay. and now he’s never going to be able to apologize for everything. it’s his fault. he’s the better pilot, everyone knows it, but bradley had the winning hand, the ace in the hole. so he should’ve tried harder with maverick, not picked as many fights, flown better, flown faster, fought harder, been different, done everything different. you can physically pinpoint something inside himself dying alongside bradley.
the way you drew kokichi .. i think im ascending to the heavens .. i see the light .. chest collapsing .. heartbeat flatlining ..
oho, a Kokichi enjoyer!! tysm!! it was my first time drawing him at the time so im glad i didnt fail him. i dont want to fail any of the kyoto group. i love them all!! even w my clear favoritism
he's nice too, a bit more expressive than Noritoshi so i can finally draw something that isnt :| or >:( even if it isnt by much- i like him too
I like how he's both a dick but also kinda sweet. He's a different flavor of tsun... i can use this. my knowledge on him is limited but FROM WHAT I SAW IN THE WIKI OH MY GOD???????? OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!! KOKICHI!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Have an itty bitty tiny piece of stasis in darkness, just so you all have an idea of where the story is going after the godly reveal. and also have proof that i am, in fact, still toiling away at this (as well as hawkins halfway house.)
A week and a half later, Steve entered a town he’d never seen before. He wore simple traveling clothes and carried no weapons aside from a couple of carefully hidden knives. He’d left his armor and shield behind. His satchel held only the essentials one needed for travel and a single stone as large as his fist. The stone was wrapped in layers of cloth to keep it safe during the journey.
I need you to find someone.
He felt very bare but he hadn’t been given much of a choice. Speed was of the essence for his quest, and little no-name towns tended to be wary of strangers in plain clothes, even more so around strangers decked out for battle. Steve wasn’t sure this place could be called a town. It was so small it hadn’t been on any official map. It didn’t even have an inn. Hopefully, Steve wouldn’t be needing an inn once he found who he was looking for.
He’s too far from me to reach.
He asked around, laying on the charm generously. He explained he had been a friend of a friend and had been trusted to deliver something. Eventually, he was told where to go. The house he found far beyond the village’s boundary was small. It looked like it had once been well cared for but it was old and had fallen to disrepair. Steve took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
A sallow old man opened the door. He was bald but had some scruff on his face still. His shoulders, stooped from age, trembled. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked so tired.
He’s my very last worshiper in all the world.
“Wayne Munson?” Steve asked.
“Who wants to know?” The man’s voice was phlegmy and rough. He coughed into the crook of his elbow almost before he could finish speaking.
“I’m Steve. Ser Steve Harrington, pledged to the Lord of Night.”
Wayne’s eyes widened. His grip on the open door weakened and slipped. Steve caught the door before it could hit Wayne.
“He sent me to you,” Steve explained. “May I come in?”
yep, that's it for now. i told you it was small. i'm not even gonna bother with a read-more here.
I’m going to paint you a picture of modern communication, and how it is fundamentally broken.
Let’s look at one friend. You chat pretty much everyday, and mostly talk to this person on twitter and discord, with occasional tumblr DMs. That’s three places you talk. But that’s actually not true, because you also have each other’s priv twitters and talk there as well. That’s four. Now account for, let’s say, one post reply per account per person, in addition to your DMs. That’s eight. But that’s ALSO not true, because not only do you talk in discord DMs with each other, but you’re in a friend group server as well! And you talk in those channels together! That’s nine.
This is one friend.
Now look around you. How many friends, how many mutuals are you in contact with. A few, a handful, a dozen, more? How many accounts per person do you have, how many places can you send each other posts, devolve into separate topics and conversations? How many people text you as well. Friends, family, coworkers? What do you do day to day around catching up, what IRL commitments will rip you away long enough to let the pile build again?
I can’t do it. I cannot live an actual life in the real world and balance this much interaction, it’s crushing. I reply to a friend’s post because I’m interested in the subject, I want to have a discussion! I WANT to talk about it with them, but I immediately kick myself for adding another conversation to the pile. Day by day, I ignore messages for hours on end and watch mountains pile around me, to reply en masse at the end of the night to let the cycle repeat. I wake up to six discord DMs and as I clear the third, the first replies back again.
We weren’t meant to have thirty simultaneous conversations. We weren’t. And you know in your bones that the number isn’t an exaggeration.
I think a very normal amount about Crocodile and Mihawk genuinely seeing Buggy's value. Genuinely appreciating his dream and his sense of adventure. Mihawk (bored-to-death swordsman who desperately needs something new) and Crocodile (the man who only cares about business because the last time he wanted something a kid with flip-flops sent him flying) seeing that the clown they're only using as bait and punching bag is actually the one with the biggest pirate heart. They realize he has charisma and followers for a reason and it's the fact that his "fake it til you make it" persona is actually built above his true dream. The words of fake confidence he speaks are actually words he genuinely wants to believe, but always fears will backfire because he doesn't have anything to rely on (unlike Shanks. Because even if Shanks doesn't need to rely on anything, he used to wear the trust and love of their captain in his head and everyone else supported him to be his legacy). So they end up seeing that they can do more with him. Together. Mihawk and Crocodile might have the money and the people but Buggy has the dream. They can go higher. They can be more than what they thought they were. Buggy shows them this side of himself between tears and sudden yelling and they have to admit that... They used to have dreams. Long forgotten ones. And okay, Buggy might not be the king of the pirates. They're so not saying that. But they can go higher.
They see this side of him and they never say it out loud (and even if they did, Buggy wouldn't even notice because he's busy begging them not to kill him. Which, y'know, fair) but something changes inside of them. Perhaps it's a faint, tiny sense of protectiveness. Maybe affection. Some type of appreciation they can't quite name because it would be too embarrassing for them to even say they care for this clown but- But it's there. Something.
So they keep Buggy around and he starts to feel less like a punching bag and more like somebody they care about. Kind of. And you know what? Maybe the damn clown can become the king of the pirates if he has already made the impossible happen once.
kai winn’s relationship to religion really is just so interesting to me in a way I come back to sometimes like. she’s the leader of a faith and her gods will not speak to her. they will speak to other people in front of her and they will make a human from a society that did not interfere with her planet’s suffering their emissary but they will not speak to her. and I’m sure she can do a lot to justify it in her mind because she would have to be able to in order to keep any faith, and she has to keep her faith because she says herself that’s all she had in the camps, but that’s still a terrible thing to experience. and I’m sure a lot of people would argue that it’s not real faith, it’s ambition, but I think it’s some of both, and most importantly I think on the most immediate levels she believes it’s faith.
and like I think she and a lot of other bajorans have a reason to have a really complicated relationship with the prophets because the more demonstrably real and powerful they are, the more they’re willing to interfere in things like the dominion war, the harder it would be for a lot of people to justify to themselves why the prophets didn’t do anything to stop the genocide of their chosen people. I think the pah wraiths plotline ultimately fell kind of flat when it kind of boiled down to “dukat’s weird cult” and it was also a victim of the season’s pacing issues, but it has some interesting implications regarding this divide in the bajoran people, particularly when their religious leader’s faith is being so seriously called into question.
these valentines day cards for scarabia got me blushing, giggling, and kicking my feet fr
(also featuring me unnecessarily analyzing them) (i really hope the cards are in the right order i think they are or else everything that i say here will look incredibly silly)
━━━━━━━━━━━━✦
kalim al-asim:
To my dear friend—
Thanks for the present! What colorful and sparkly sweets. They look delicious!
I just had an idea! How about we eat them together after school? Gifts like this taste better when shared, after all.
I'll pick out a good tea to go with them. Can't wait to see you later!
━━━━━━━━━━━━✦
To my dear friend—
Thanks for the gift! It's flattering to know you picked this out for me! I'll treat you to anything you like in return—food, live entertainment, an item you've been pining after... You just say the word.
...On second thought, no. I'll come up with something myself!
Just like you came up with this gift to give me.
━━━━━━━━━━━━✦
Hey love,
Thank you for that wonderful gift! Getting something like this from you just put a smile on my face!
Let me throw you a feast to show my gratitude!
After that, I'll take you on a magic carpet ride, it'll be really fun!
━━━━━━━━━━━━✦
SO LET ME TALK ABOUT THE PROGRESSION BETWEEN THE CARDS???
on kalim's first card, it's really cute but it also feels just like his usual demeanor where he treats everyone as a friend.
but on to the second card, it looks like he's definitely feeling more strongly enough about you to think "hey let me get you something too!! let me be your genie of the lamp!" at least right before realizing it would be more meaningful to give you a surprise gift as well like you did.
his "dear friend" on the second card is more real this time.
BUT OMG THE WHIPLASH TO THE THIRD CARD
"HEY LOVE" ???? KALIM WHAT
WHEN I TELL YOU MY HEART JUST WENT HFDSNSFHDJFDK
PLSS HE CANT DO THIS TO ME 💀💀💀
THE "MY DEAR FRIEND" -> "HEY LOVE" PROGRESSION
YOUR HONOR HE IS IN LOVE(???)
NO IT’S PROBABLY JUST A REALLY AFFECTIONATE TERM OF ENDEARMENT CONSIDERING THAT IT’S KALIM
(*denial* *denial* *denial*)
the closest ones (that are available) to doing something similar is jade who goes from "my good friend" -> "my dearest" and vil who goes from "dearest friend" to "my dear"
anyways, the third card is kalim finally wanting to go ALL OUT as a way to show you how he feels about you and how thankful he is. he's literally all about having fun with the person he cares about. making every moment memorable.
kalim's love language is also very much extravagant gifts since he's raised in a wealthy family where everything has been handed to him. that's probably how he got the mindset that gifts are the way to show love and affection because that's how his family did it for him. so the bigger the gift the better he can show you how he feels.
━━━━━━━━━━━━✦
jamil viper:
Hello—
I was surprised to see you gifted me sweets.
At first I wondered if you were hinting for me to make you something similar... But when I pulled the gift out of the bag, I saw all the details you put into it, right down to the ribbon. It's clear this was a heartfelt gesture.
I'll treasure these treats as I eat them. Thank you.
━━━━━━━━━━━━✦
Hello—
I'll admit it. I'm beyond surprised.
I suppose a heartfelt "thank you" is in order.
In fact, why don't we meet at the school store after class tomorrow?
Hopefully I'll be able to find you something to return the favor.
━━━━━━━━━━━━✦
Dear friend,
Thank you for the gift. To think I would receive something from you... Well, it caught me off guard. I'd like to give you something in return.
Hmm... What should it be? What might you like?
Why don't you come down to Scarabia sometime and we'll discuss over a cup of tea.
━━━━━━━━━━━━✦
jamillll;;;
on the first card, he was suspicious of receiving a gift. at first he's like "are you just giving me something so i could give you something as well?" until he realized "oh this is legit" and that you’re not expecting anything back. and then he just enjoys it which is hella cute.
on the second card (unlike the last one) he's now like "let me get you something in return because i really appreciate the gesture". here i think he's still genuinely confused that you still decided to give him a gift. but at this point it feels like he's only offering to get you something in return because he feels like he has to just to show his gratitude. kinda like a fair transaction.
it seems that jamil is still like "why me". like, you cared enough to see and acknowledge him to even consider getting him a gift. which i believe is something he's not used to. so he just wants to "return the favor" by offering you to go find something you like :)
and the third card;;;
"DEAR FRIEND" GOT. MEEE.
YOUR HONOR I LOVE HIMMMMM
i know for other people "friend" is not on the same level as the romantic "love" but i personally feel as strong with platonic relationships as with romantic ones (if not more) and this hit me HARD.
for the third one he's finally comfortable enough to consider you a friend. but he still sounds flabbergasted that you still even thought of him (and **you** specifically) (like he didn't imagine that you'd even give him a gift).
and now this is less of a transaction but more of like he *wants* to make sure that he gets you something that you'd really like. it's not simply just "hey let's go to the school store and see what's available as a thanks", this time it's "hey i really appreciate that you got me something so let's discuss what i can get you as well. i'll be your genie of the lamp, anything is possible (within reason)"
okay but listen,,, listen,,, are you listening,,, I cannot stop thinking about how the cauldron loves elain and its just... SO interesting to me that the MOMENT she pops out from the depths she's given a mate. there were any number of people there that could have been "assigned" to her ( if ur picking up what I'm putting down lmao ) the cauldron peered into her soul and saw all of her wants and needs and gifted her with the person that embodied all of those things and then some.
if sasuke was the main character then he probably would've been a LOT more sympathised with than he is now (which is to say rarely). like the narrative wouldn't even need to change to show his pains or 'his side of the story', bc it does that plenty. it's just that he is not the main character. and idk what it is about our human minds but we tend to sympathise with main characters automatically (unless ofc you go off the rockers insane and do something like obliterate almost everyone from the planet *cough* eren yeager *cough*)
an instance that comes to my mind where this does happen is with lelouch from code geass. while i don't agree with his character motivations, people generally do sympathise with him as he is the mc and as viewers we know he isn't inherently evil. sasuke's goal towards the end is slightly similar but ofc people love to hate him so they don't even try to understand where he is coming from.
my point is, most people while engaging with the naruto story don't read between the lines and so don't see how traumatised and in pain sasuke is and hence don't understand his character motivations. heck, they don't understand a single bit about him and so they automatically hate him, as he is supposedly going against the main character's goals.
which is really sad given all that he has been through.