#analysis is so fun i want to know to create each emotion

[retrograde-raven]

Must I contribute to society is it not enough to have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge?

[lopsidedgryffins]

green’s inner conflict and how it is manifested through greenscreen: an analysis

TLDR at end!

disclaimer: this is probably really ooc, and is mostly speculation by a mediocre at best student of literature ++ i’ve never been good at lit, so this analysis is likely not gonna be great :/ feel free to criticise/comment on this analysis! i’m open to feedback if there’s any :)

SPOILERS FOR INFLUENCER ARC EPS 1 AND 2 AHEAD!

we first see greenscreen when the cg abandons an overdone/overedited video of theirs - he is quite literally borne of neglect, and is thus a symbol of green’s negligence towards his friends and the inner turmoil he faces in trying to cater to all his viewers. 

why does greenscreen appear as, well, green? green is basically fighting with himself, a form of inner conflict manifested through the CG’s fight with what is essentially green’s neglect and negative emotions. 

this is also super interesting because inner conflict is usually internal and invisible: that’s what most of it is about. however, alan and the team present it here through actual physical conflict, which parallels green’s fight with himself - to make the content that he and his friends want to make, or to cater to the viewers and leave his friends behind, becoming increasingly self-centred? 

in the first fight with greenscreen, the CG beat him as a group, and green even takes a photo of them together post-fight to upload to instagram. this symbolises green’s (temporary) triumph over his neglect for others, still caring for his friends. 

however, over time, green starts to drift from his friends. he distances himself from them, isolating himself in a minecraft room by himself to make videos, neglecting friendships, genuine feelings and enjoyment in preference for catering to his viewers and all their preferences, taking each piece of criticism too seriously. therefore, as green’s neglect toward his friendships with the CG continues and increases, greenscreen grows in power as the negativity and abandonment become worse.  

before we continue with that though, let’s talk about the recycle bin!

the recycle bin is a recurring figure across AvA - being used in both AvA and AvM to get rid of applications. that’s what a recycle bin is at its core - a receptacle for waste, left to be neglected, never truly emptied. both greenscreen and the deleted videos of the CG are thrown into the recycle bin, where they perhaps fester into who-knows-what in ep 3. you know who else was also unceremoniously thrown into a recycle bin/deleted? victim! after he escaped from the animator’s neglect towards his feelings and sentience, victim is out to get his revenge. the recycle bin takes it’s inhabitants’ negativity (in greenscreen’s case, neglect), and turns it stronger upon their escape. green’s dunking of greenscreen into the recycle bin in ep 1 is symbolic of him ignoring his tendency to ignore and leave his friends behind in the pursuit of content creation. he does not actively work on stopping such behaviour, instead leaving it in a metaphorical (and literal) recycle bin, letting his habit of neglecting others in the chase for something he desires to grow. 

my theory is that greenscreen may come back in the last episode of the influencer arc, beating green at first, symbolising green’s negligence towards his friends’ feelings consuming him in his pursuit of content creation, but this is overcome as he realises the situation he is in - where he finally beats greenscreen and with him, his internal conflict, not by throwing him into the recycle bin where the neglect will be left to fester, but by coming to terms with his plight, communicating with his friends and agreeing to create the content that they want to create, putting an end to the negligence and laying greenscreen to rest.

(as of writing this, green’s newest video (reacting to my friends having fun without me) shows the rest of the CG being thrown around? it looks like they’re fighting something/someone, which is very likely whatever spawned from the recycle bin - i’m guessing this is greenscreen.)

TLDR: greenscreen is a physical manifestation of green’s neglect towards his friends AND his internal conflict, who will return in ep3 of the influencer arc, but will ultimately be beaten by green which symbolises him stepping back from content creation.

thanks for reading till the end! really appreciate it if you read the whole thing - once again this is purely my own speculation, opinions and theory!

[54625]

I'm not sure if this is the end for the QSMP, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were shut down soon after this.

The eggs have been the lifeblood of the server since they were introduced, and having some of them permanently gone from the server is devastating for so many reasons, and bodes terribly for the future of this project. My optimism has run out. I will still wait for updates but I have no hope.

However, I wanted to write a piece for the community here on Tumblr. I know we're all very emotional right now, because while we have no confirmation that the QSMP will permanently close, we now have good reason to assume there might just be no other clear path out of this.

To the community:

Do not feel like you have to stop loving the server and everything it created. Do not stop creating art. Do not stop sharing why you loved the characters and the story and the world.

To completely boycott everything QSMP, you are discrediting the incredible work that the admins put into the server purely out of passion and the kindness of their hearts. Do not waste their sacrifices. Talk about the server and everything they did for it, give them recognition, let them know we love and appreciate all the time and care they poured into this project. Thank them by caring about their work that they put so much of themselves into.

To completely boycott everything QSMP, you are ignoring the beautiful friendships it created between content creators who otherwise would never have met, and the way it ignited such a fierce determination to learn about others' cultures in them. You are forgetting how much these streamers strived to tell engaging, relatable, fun stories, by themselves or with each other, and to have their fans talk about how much they liked their newest lore. You are refusing to acknowledge the effort put in by everyone on the project to tell amazing stories through the language barrier.

And to completely boycott the QSMP, you are denying yourself the fact that you loved this server; the eggs, the streamers, the stories, the cultural events, the laughter, the sadness, the friendships, the ship ships, the builds, the mods, the languages. You are part of this server for enjoying it's wonderful vitality and beauty and hilarity. As a community, we all are.

I have had my gripes with the QSMP fanbase, as anyone has gripes with the dysfunctional mad household they live in, but at the end of the day, I love it so much. This has been my first time actually being part of a fandom; interacting with people and sharing my art and my ideas, getting into silly debates and arguments, running my mouth off more than I should. I love this bizarre toxic fandom for all of it's worth; I love the fanfic writers (even if I think their characterisation is terrible), I love the fanartists (even if they give Pac those yellow scleras that always make me think of jaundice), I love the live bloggers (even if they clog up the main tag), I love the people who write analysis, the people who make animations and animatics, the people who webweave, and all the other things people in this fandom do to interact with the media we all collectively love and bond over.

We do not need to let this be the end of our community, as we can still share our admiration for the hard work put into this project, lift each other up, express praise where it is warranted.

And we can talk to each other, we can vent about how this has negatively effected us (provided we tag it appropriately 👁️👁️) and respond in kind to those seeking someone to speak to who relates.

The QSMP taught us the value of communication. While behind the scenes, it itself did not abide by it's own rules, we can. The QSMP itself is not the figurehead of communication; the content creators and the fans it sent this message to are. We can be an example of what the QSMP should have stood for.

I do not love the deeply flawed execution of the QSMP, but with my whole heart I love the idea; the ambition, the goal. It was noble. It, to some extent, worked.

It united communities.

Let it unite ours.

[mapoeggplant]

skip to loafer chapter 69 analysis // spoilers

the iwakura family finally arrives in tokyo! and with that, we are gifted not only with a cute and light chapter, but one that shows the sisters' maturity.

i love when sensei brings us a really light and fun chapter after many heavy ones. i feel that this balance is a characteristic that i really like in her writing, because it makes the reader even more engaged, since the balance between the serious and the fun is very welcomed.

whenever we see mitsumi's family, it becomes very clear why her personality is always so welcoming and respectful. she grew up with people who transmit so much warmth and love, who still do everything they can to be close to her in her most important moments. and the way they brag about her is very cute!! it is very clear how proud they feel for mitsumi.

the key point of this chapter for me is mitsumi's sisterhood with maharu. it's been a while since we last saw how the two of them interact. i really like seeing how mitsumi connects with the whole family, but i like even more seeing her acting like the older sister, the responsible one, the "coolest sister in the world", as she wants to be seen.

the way maharu's growth was told is very, very cute. in chapter 52, we see maharu struggling with many different feelings. there is jealousy and envy of her sister who, in her eyes, has been receiving constant attention from her parents and really believes that mitsumi is the favorite because she is a great student. but there is also the lack of having her big sister by her side, the emptiness she leaves every time she has to go back to tokyo. and this makes her end up taking this confusion out on the biggest cause of her problems, in her eyes: mitsumi.

maharu is just a pre-teen, with all her feelings burning up ready to explode. it's normal for her to see her sister as an inspiration, but also as the enemy who abandoned her/whom her parents prefer more. and that's one of the reasons why this reunion is even cuter. it's cute to see maharu opening up and letting herself be carried away by her age. there's a lot to see, a lot of places she saw online to visit. now, tokyo is no longer the city that stole her sister, but rather a completely new world to be explored!!

without even knowing it, maharu had a first day very similar to her sister, who also got lost on her first day in the big city and needed to be saved. i think this little callback and coincidence is really amazing, because it creates even more of a connection between the sisters.

and of course we can't forget to mention mitsumi's growth and maturity.

it's not just in this chapter that we can see how much mitsumi has changed since the beginning of the story. she has been winning us over more and more with her growing empathy, her emotional intelligence and her courage to always take risks, try new things and find herself in the world. so much so that, as soon as she found out what had happened to maharu, she didn't hesitate to take the lead and explore harajuku in search of her sister.

the scene of maharu looking at her older sister's back and the panel showing them walking hand in hand demonstrates how mitsumi has been growing before our eyes, but without losing her essence. on the contrary: with each passing year, she has been getting to know herself even more and discovering sides of herself to be explored. and i think it's really cute how she acts like a "super cool" sister without even trying.

it's hard not to fall in love with a character as beautiful as mitsumi. i really like seeing how her family works, how she relates to them, how she was raised. she has a lot of the affection of her parents, the curiosity of her brother kippei, the innocence of maharu and the strength of her grandmother. and she shows gratitude for all this love that was given to her in an even more beautiful way: by sharing it with everyone around her.

the change of scenery was a great choice. we were able to travel back to mitsumi’s hometown a lot of times and see how she behaves there, but now we’re about to see a grown up mitsumi that has taken tokyo with her own hands. she’s the one who needs to be in front row and show her family her day to day life, her favorite places and how we adjusted she is. it’s her time to shine, to be cool, to be the big sister her siblings love and look up to so much. 

i really hope we’ll be able to see them interacting with mitsumi’s friends once again and maybe see nao joining them. i really hope she does, because it would be beautiful to see her watching mitsumi as the responsible student council president, because she followed mitsumi’s growth in the big city very closely. and maybe, juuuuust maybe, we can have families interacting with each other? that would be fun as well!

another month, another beautiful chapter!! so excited to see what this new arc has in store for us. i bet it will be a rollercoaster, changing constantly from dark to light chapters. we’ll see!

thank you for reading it! don’t forget to support sensei if you can. i’m always here to discuss anything you guys feel like discussing!! 💛💛

[droppingartintotheinfinite]

ok so i’ve watched a stream of chapters 3 and 4 and also read a bunch of posts about them and now that i’ve had some time to process i have a variety of Thoughts

said Thoughts are very spoilery and also very long, so i’ll place them under a read more:

note: i missed the first 15 minutes or so of chapter 3 because i was slightly late to the stream, so i’m not going to comment on that until i’ve had a chance to go back and watch a video of it.

alright so starting with tenna: he’s fun! i didn’t really follow All of the theorizing about him so i wasn’t sure what to expect going in, but he’s definitely Completely dissimilar to the little sprite hint we got (the tv face with the big grin and spamton eyes) despite nominally having all of these features on account of being a fucking. 3d model?

i love this. fucking hilarious design choice. no idea how i’m supposed to translate it to fanart without losing the impact but that’s a me problem lmao. his stupid little dances, him growing or shrinking for comedic purposes, the fucking. 3d text? god he’s so good

you can also really see why him and spamton would get along (and have an explosive break-up) - they are very much the same brand of guy. in a lot of ways tenna feels like we’re seeing what spamton would have been if we’d met him before his fall from grace. i’ve seen some people complaining about how similar they are but tbh i like it. they very much feel like foils to one another i think

it’s fun how darkners get knowledge of things that happened around the objects they’re created from. it’s especially fun how this means tenna had a front seat to the dreemurr divorce drama!

i was already on board with the theory that each dark world is designed around a different character, but i’m even more in support of it now. the chapter 3 dark world is very obviously built around kris and their lingering Feelings about the divorce and asriel leaving, which they don’t seem to be handling amazingly well

i get the vibe kris wants their parents to get back together and that part of their character arc will probably be accepting that this is a bad idea - tying into deltarune’s existing themes re: decay and inevitability and accepting loss

if not kris, asgore definitely seems to be on this track, jumping ahead a bit to chapter four: whatever happened with dess and with him leaving the police force, he seems to think that if he Just Solves It then everything will go back to how it was before, and i think accepting that life doesn't work like that is going to necessary for him. especially if he ends up being chapter 5's secret boss which is my current pet theory on account of some sus dialogue during the free-roaming soul section and some of gerson’s battle dialogue

or maybe i'm just projecting. could go either way

back to chapter 3: who the FUCK is mike, seriously. is he gaster? is he not gaster? i am increasingly unsure what the fuck is going on there. i'll wait for the theorycrafters and lore analysis guys to catch up on that one. i don't even know if his door opens. hazard of writing this literally the day after the game came out L

the zelda-esque section of chapter 3 is definitely interesting. the secret version even moreso. it felt very fnaf (in a good way) though that might just be because fnaf was my first exposure to that kind of thing. the fact that kris is alone for the secret portions is Very loaded, albeit not in a new way as it went much the same with both spamton neo and the weird route in chapter 2

the fact that in the last section you do actually have susie and ralsei's game characters with you (though still not the real ones) and you have to kill them to progress is Very Something. that entire section was intensely evocative of the weird route, but that bit is a fully original kind of fucked up!

though it's plausible it was just a stand-in for berdly ig. though the penguin thingy seems to be More that it doesn't really carry the same emotional weight so i could definitely see that bit being there to preserve the "you are straight up killing people" aspect of the original weird route

"it was used up. she was used up. you were used up." i'm going to be insane about these lines forever. what the fuck. also: disconcerting implications for the eventual fates of kris and noelle in the weird route! or perhaps the fates of noelle and the soul? tough to say for sure. narrator uses "you" for kris and for us with about equal frequency iirc

the shadow mantle is. uh. a loaded name for it. already made one "taking up the mantle" pun in an art piece i did but that is very much the vibe i'm getting here. suspect in the weird route we may end up taking the place of the normal route's main villain, whether that villain ends up being the knight or gaster or something else

though i think the mantle itself is a neutral item, since kris is just playing a video game so who cares if we're having them kill people? though then again WE'RE just playing a video game… lot of thematic depth to that entire section, honestly. it's definitely capital I Important

toriel remains ignorant of dark worlds and undyne's been fucking kidnapped?? wild shit. i am So curious about the Implications of how worried tenna was about toriel waking up, though. suspect we'll see followthrough on that with her being brought into another dark world at some point and get to learn why tenna was so freaked out about it

also: HOLY FUCK IT'S THE FUCKING KNIGHT WHAT THE SHIT

toby's definitely firmly jossed the theories that deltarune would be an episodic "dark world of the week" type structure with the end of chapter 3 and all of chapter 4, and he starts that by throwing the fucking roaring knight at us as chapter 3's secret boss!

who isn't even a real secret boss, the secret is just that you can actually beat them because they're so fucking difficult!

but at last we have some solid clues to the knight's identity! i'd say at this point there are 3 main possibilities for who it could be, with some allowance for changing my mind if i see a good theory for someone else

option a: dess

a classic theory. i've never been a dessknight truther myself but i'll admit when i first saw the ending of chapter 3 i was fully convinced it was her for a Solid bit of time. like, the knight has antlers, their weapon looks like a bat, dess is associated with the shelter (the official name for the bunker because guess what! we know that now! god so many reveals in these chapters), etc.

however, my conviction that dess was the knight unfortunately only lasted until the stream i was watching finished the holiday house section in chapter 4 because holy fuck. hollllly fuck

option b: carol holiday

first of all, holy shit her name is actually carol we were right! second of all, oh shit she's definitely an antagonist. i'm not going to say she's evil because we all remember how that went with the spade king in chapter one - toby makes a habit of avoiding "evil" characters, and has been doing so since undertale. i would be Very surprised if he suddenly switched gears and made carol a one dimensional villain

she is, however, DEFINITELY an antagonist. also she knows about the soul and appears to be on friendly terms with it?? i wonder if the soul might actually be another frisk style fakeout where the apparent player character is actually a separate entity all-along… i mean doing that for the soul on top of kris would be a hell of a twist but i wouldn't put it past toby to do something like that

anyway carol apparently has a fucking katana according to noelle, and this combined with her apparent knowledge of the soul and the fact that she seems to be who kris called about the guitar given she came home early (something we know is Very unusual for her, she's been established as a workaholic) makes her by far the most likely candidate for the knight right now.

of course, there could still be a fakeout, we all know toby loves defying expectation, but as far as canon evidence? carol is definitely in the lead.

option c: left field option

while the knight being a holiday definitely seems most likely right now, given the antlers, it's not Completely certain. one thing i noticed is that the knight's design is eerily reminiscent of the titan, especially when they do their big attack, which is weird for a lightner? plus they have holes in their hands which we all know is a classic gaster signifier. i don't think the knight Is a titan, as we've been told titans aren't actually sapient and the knight appears to be, but major lore reveals remain a possibility for future chapters, so i'm keeping this option for "something we currently have no way to anticipate"

the knight is apparently in cahoots with kris, given their Extremely sus interaction post "beating" the knight. kris is also in cahoots with an unknown party they contact over the phone. i think it's probably carol both times but again, toby loves curveballs so there's no way to be sure barring more evidence

THE FUCKING SHELTER/BUNKER HOLY SHIT

ok so kris definitely seems to know the code. the code is almost definitely 1225, aka christmas day. we know this and kris knows this and carol knows this and poor susie knows absolutely fuck all, she still thinks she's having her hero's journey she is completely unaware of all the insane nonsense happening in the background

the fact that the code is in dess' guitar and is also, again, christmas fucking day, is further support for the theory that dess has something to do with the shelter. tbh i don't think that even is a theory anymore. it's just true. the exact details are still mysterious as fuck though, please asgore let me look at your conspiracy board

susie is so main character coded it's insane. she is the hero of this story. she gets a solo segment in every chapter, her character arc is perpetually front and center, she's the one who makes dramatic heroic speeches… she's the hero of this story, not us

i think kris will be an antagonist to susie at some point, given their apparent cahoots with the knight, but will ultimately side with susie after some sort of dramatic confrontation and will end the story solidly a hero. i think this partially because of observable facts about them as a character and partially because i think toby is deliberately playing into archetypes with the main heroes, just not the ones you'd initially assume in chapter one

susie is telegraphed as a zuko but she's actually the main hero, kris is telegraphed as the main hero but they're actually a zuko, and ralsei is almost exactly what he looks like but there's several layers of fakeout in between

…is my current read on it, at least. we'll see how things develop.

i'm not really sure how the soul will play into things. we aren't exactly an "evil" character either, at least outside of snowgrave, but the whole possession thing does remain a thing and barring the soul turning out to be its own character outside of us, it can't stay with kris forever because eventually the game has to end

like there's no happy ending with the cast for the soul. we have to leave eventually. the story can't keep going forever. but the context of how we get to the inevitable split will change a lot about it feels. we might be an antagonist or even a full on villain. we might be an antihero whose existence isn't fair to kris but who still tries to do good where we can. we might be something else entirely

deltarune only has one ending, but how we get there will change the context significantly. the more of the story we see, the more i feel like i understand that.

or maybe i'm completely off base who knows

this is over 2000 words long so i'm going to leave off here, but god i have So Many Thoughts. i didn't even get to the gerson thing or the song lyrics or the other gerson thing or the weird route dialogue or the FUCKING TITAN HOLY FUCK-

but no. i must resist. i have finals this week

[padawan-snack-packer]

🌌✧ PΛDΛWΛПS' SNΛCK PΛCKΞR ✧🌌

— ❝ᴍɪssɪᴏɴ ʟᴏɢ n°1: ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ғʀᴏᴍ ʙᴀsᴇ ❞ —

📆 Date: 0502.25 (GSY) 📍 Location: Somewhere between Clone barracks and the Ghost crew’s emotional baggage

Hey Peeps! 🎉

So, uh, first edition of this official log (read: update), I guess? (if there’s any official-ness left in this galaxy, I don’t know anymore) But heeeyyy, I’m here, a real live person behind this account, typing words and getting too into the Star Wars universe!!!

First, major shoutout to everyone who’s been following along because I just hit +80 followers! 🎉💖 I see you, and I’m genuinely flattered you want to hear my chaos!!!💌

Little personal update: I’m deep into a rewatch of Ahsoka (yes, again, I have no self-control) because I’m putting together a full-blown essay on Sabine’s grief representation in the series and, of course, a Sabine/Ezra analysis from both their POVs (Aka "Lover boy is just as down bad as she is" and "Sabine Wren aka' 'how to giftwrap the fate of the galaxy to your enemy to get your boyfriend back (as you should btw)'".

It’s a lot, but it's gonna be good. If I start rambling about their trauma and emotional baggage, just know it’s part of the process!!

So here are the updates from the field, a.k.a. my brain which is currently 83% clone chaos, 10% Sabezra angst, and 7% caf and stubbornness.

Secondly: the clone requests. There are four of them in progress right now and let me tell you—they're like babysitting four feral emotional support war veterans who each think they know best. As I finish them, I’ll be posting them to AO3 as a single work, with each request slotted in as a chapter. Same for the already posted ficlets besties!!! (Unless, of course, one of them decides to expand into a multi-chapter dramatic arc, in which case I will pretend I have control over my life and continue writing anyway.)

Meanwhile, the Sabezra post-Ahsoka one-shot that was supposed to be a sweet little emotional knife to the ribs has casually evolved into a ficlet. It's not massive—don’t panic—but it’s definitely longer than planned because apparently Sabine and Ezra had Things To Say™ and refused to shut up about it. Also they're being soft and he's being unhinged and making her laugh and MY GIRL DESERVES THAT SO YOU KNOW WHAT- Expect angst, accidental tenderness, and at least one line that made me go “oh noooo”, puns and maybe one (1) song about a womp rat lady. It’s that kind of vibe.

Also—and I say this with full awareness that this is my Roman Empire—I’m once again thinking about Mandalorian clans because I, a humble goblin with both daddy issues AND mommy issues, find deep comfort in a culture where love is expressed through teaching you how to stab someone correctly and handing you armor plates like they’re affection. I’m obsessed. I would absolutely love to dust off my old Mando OCs (yes, they all have tragic backstories, yes, I’m fine, stop looking at me like that) or even create new ones for fics or inspo for peeps.

The urge to build a whole found family of emotionally repressed warriors who show care via knife training and shared trauma is simply too strong.

If I start posting about “Clan Unnecessary Emotional Baggage” featuring a foundling who’s never been hugged and a riduur who communicates exclusively in sighs and forehead touches—just know it’s a cry for help, but make it worldbuilding.

✨ Anyway, back to schedule! 🫡📋 Thank you so so much for all the love on the posts, headcanons, metas, and general chaos!!!💖 Y’all are the best, and I’m sending snacks (emotional and actual) to everyone 🧃🍪💫

(Oh and also!! 👀 Just so you know—I do have things planned for May the Fourth 👽✨ (yes, it is currently May 2nd, yes, I am making intense eye contact with the calendar, yes, I am operating entirely on ✨vibes and panic✨). Expect something fun, mildly unhinged, and definitely made with love (and probably at 2am). The Force is strong with my procrastination but SO IS THE CONTENT, OKAY.)

[watchthisqqq]

Random Rambley commentary about Until We Meet Again

Everyone recommends this show and they are right. It's great and kind of a must watch if you want be familiar with bl history. I'm glad I waited to watch though because you need to be in the right head space. You expect it to be emotional and it is. I cried multiple times. The surprise for me was how fun it was throughout as well.

There have probably been a million things said about this show already. But the question at the top of my mind is why is the pacing so good? For my personal preferences I often feel like certain shows drag on but not this one. I think because they put the climax at the start so we know we are building up to something versus yes ok this is cute but where is this going. They could have left it a mystery but I think this is much more suspenseful. Also I think because the show does have a weighty important premise which keeps you invested.

We do also switch perspective to Korn/In which because we do not how it ends leads you to being curious why things ended tragically. A mix of everyday life with this underlying supernatural element.

It's really interesting to see New's earlier work. I've seen some of We are and Perfect 10 Liners. UWMA is clearly his best work.

I think the long run time allows for a lot of time for the friends to interact with each other and then teasing. I also really liked Dean and Phram getting together pretty early which allowed for a slow build up of physical affection and figuring out what they are like as partners.

Sometimes time is good when it's utilized well lol. Episode never felt like filler or that they dragged on.

I love that this show did not pull punches. Love your fucking kids or they might kill themselves. Homophobia is disease with devastating consequences. Phram/Intouch's anger towards Dean for killing himself. So many layers. Parents finally accepting things after it's too late. Intouch’s dad crying at the funeral. Intouch's dad dying and him never seeing Intouch reborn into Phram.

I wish the dad apologized instead of the uncle speaking for him. Dean apologized way more times for his suicide versus the dad admitting his wrongs.

I liked that they addressed that Pharm and Dean have put Intouch and Korn aside and create their own relationship.

I'm going to read others analysis on this show now

@waitmyturtles tagging you to let you know I finished and I loved it.

[katyspersonal]

Can we talk about how, despite everything, you have managed to create a community where truth and fairness are a priority in the midst of a fandom where social hierarchy, black and white puritanical morality, and narrow-minded judgements were the norm?

And how fucking good it feels to know that just being honest and trying to point out double-standards and fighting back by being loud in support of nuanced, open-minded discussion and analysis instead of adding to the cycle of hating/lashing out has managed to craft a safe haven for people who think this way too?

Your haven may not be “popular” but it’s real and it’s an oasis for people who don’t weaponize their narrow morality or past experiences to justify bullying and lying and “calling out” every sign of flawed behavior in others.

*reads your recent emotional longpost in your blog and connects the dots with this ask*

sdfjhhdssd Okay okay fine, sorry XD (you are still a chicken tho)

I am glad that you really like the little "group" that self-organised around us the way you do, really.; Tbh I never expected it to ever become anything BUT us four (you, Val and Fantomette). However, not only other people tagged along with us, but we were also able to infect others with "put one's speaking against toxic kind of fans in the main tags" virus so now it is even EASIER for us to find each other!

Though to be honest, you guys only see me 'safe' because you are generally used to a kind of "moody" and complicated people in your lives. Before you guys met me, you've already dealt with relatives with hardcore depression and them dreaded "bad victims", so I was not someone outlandishly troublesome for you. Otherwise, ironically, whereas I attract people with my post, I am also the one who pushes them away by saying something heavily opinionated or reacting poorly to something. I am not ashamed of this, I am proud; I don't want people who are unable to handle any form of inconvenience and work the conflicts out, they are stressed by life in a different way and they have different small groups to form. I just want to point out that our idea of safety, with brutal honesty and letting flaws and conflicts happen freely is certainly not a universal standard sdhdsh (Shallow people like hopepunks who just clutch at "good vibes" and "being neutral" when their friends are bullied, on the other hand, I just can't stand)

I don't even know what I am trying to say anymore, sorry. It is just kind of hard to uphold this group when no boundaries set and the only filter is whether I can yap something "inconvenient" consistently. But if I don't, I will attract people who 'just like cute art and elaborate loredigging' and this is just not what I want of internet. I am not online to chill before I go back to ✨real✨ world and hang out with ✨real✨ people, I am here for legit human interactions and bonds. Internet used to be a place to rest from hardships of reality, but now things have changed, and it is the other way around: you are not allowed to avoid the internet spaces anymore for many reasons (for example if you live in the country that "protects" you from truthful news and from sane people COUGH COUGH). So, it is the real world where you rest from the internet now. Or, perhaps, we no longer have a place to rest, so why bother? x)

And I sure don't want to elaborately describe my preferences in fandom and add some sort of BYF/DNFI field in a pinned post to help people to preemptively "curate their experience". If I am to be rejected by a fellow fan, then only and only after they actually come in contact with something they don't like about me. Like, no! You won't get to decide against following me for fun lore posts when you read that I can be rude and explosive! You will decide against it when you actually see a post when I am rude and explosive!! I am against the mindset of frantically avoiding feeling anything that might make one uncomfortable, and I WILL make it everyone else's problem!!!

Okay this is all to say that we are probably insane for what our idea of "safe oasis" is and a type of people who dread the promises of Heaven where no negative thing can be ever experienced. I would not have had it any other way tho

[mikuni14]

The last 2 weeks have provided me with amazing experiences from the BL series fan community. Moments when several series with very active fandoms are aired at the same time are very rare, and with the end of 2 series this week, I'm already mourning this wonderful, one-of-a-kind experience.

I have been camping in the following tags for many days and each one is different and unique: Love For Love's Sake I can't put into words what this show and fandom has given me. The number of absolutely insane analyses, meta, touching declarations of love to this series from moved viewers, and beautiful gifs is staggering. The series is excellent, the audience's reaction is also wonderful, it was such a great experience. Which doesn't surprise me, because it was people's reaction to real ART, which is always something special. The series itself is 10/10 for me in every category: love story, plot, actors, emotions, my investment in the story, quality, execution, even the "heat", because even though there were no love scenes, the guys were able to convey that they are very into each other 🥰

Dead Friend Forever I also enjoy the fandom experience immensely, the tag is full of great analysis and meta. The plot is so interesting and full of surprising twists and turns that there is always something new to discuss and come up with wild theories. The series is still ongoing, but for this moment it's also perfect for me and 10/10: love story (hehe), plot, actors, emotions, my investment in the story, quality, execution, also the "heat" (hehe).

Pit Babe I rate the fandom experience as *chef's kiss*. Tag is also full of interesting analyzes and meta, amazing gifs of Way. The fandom is generally very cheerful and unhinged, which is GREAT ✨ But what's most interesting is that if someone who didn't know Pit Babe checked the tag now, they would never guess who the main character and main couple of the series are (and this doesn't only apply to tumblr!). I find this incredibly funny 🤡 I'm not that interested in the series itself, so I won't rate it. I treat it as pure fun and entertainment, so I have zero expectations for the finale, especially since, of course, I've already stumbled upon possible spoilers. Personally, what I will take away from the entire series is my deepened love for Nut and a fascination with Way, whom I want like little girls want a new Barbie doll.

Last Twilight Another wild fandom experience lol I practically didn't visit the tag of this series at all, but I spent the last two episodes there in full camping mode, in a tent and cooking coffee after coffee over the fire 😄 Fans have once again soared to the heights of perfection, writing amazing analyzes and meta responses to the crap of the last episodes. The criticism was precise, justified, systematized, methodical and accurate 👩‍🎓 As with LFLS, it was an intellectual experience. The fans provided better entertainment than the series itself lol

The Sign hmm, for several weeks the tag has been dominated by BillyBabe, which is not strange because only this couple is responsible for BL aspect in this BL series 😄 I rate my fandom experience with The Sign in two categories: "until episode 7" full of amazing meta, analysis, beautiful gifs and enrichment for me as a fan, overall 10/10 and "after episode 7" which I spent mainly on… liking BillyBabe's photos and videos . Which is ok, because, well, I do like them a lot 😉

Two of the above series have already ended, although fans are still present, two more are ending this week. That's why I would like to take this opportunity and say THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart to all the fans, those who wrote emotional entries, deep and thoughtful meta, funny posts, created beautiful gifs, analyzed endlessly the smallest details and posted photos and videos of their favorite actors. You all made these last few days so interesting and fun. I hope there will be more days like this in 2024! 🥰

And now I'll only have DFF…

[theeio]

HIHI I AM ANON WHO SENT you that ask and oh my gosh like ur art is just. it's so good. it's so good. my friend and i were having a conversation about fanarts that just live in our minds rent-free but i didn't know how i was supposed to tell her that just your art style alone has me screaming kicking hurling and so i was like can we change the question to fanartist and just your blog and the posts that made me AUUHCSSUEUEUEUGH and of course this isn't to put more pressure on you at all omg!! your art is incredible regardless of the fandom or what is portrayed or whatever like it's so incredible because you made it like woah human creation moment?? anyways i hope you are in very good health!!! i think about douxie depression art and your analysis on how good toa handles writing/portraying emotions and that one about hero with many faces or something anyways yeah that. ohuagh. and the jlaire but also hammerhunter involved and the Heavy metal >:[) thing with toby andjust i yeah that OAAUEUGH oh so good SO GOOD like if i got a found family i would prob want it to feel like how ur art makes me feel. like. ur art makes me feel. that is so freaking cool. such a big fan of when that happens. you should be insanely proud of yourself RAHHH!! sending all of the love your way and just yeah AAUUEUEUEGH I LOVE YOUR OCs TOO ARE YOU SERIOUS THEY'RE SO THEY'RE SO AUAUAUGHE???? like alejandro DUDE. NOT ONLy. IS THAT SICK CONCEPT (get it sick like Woah Cool but also like healer >:[)) but also just the art OEUEGH it captures that dilemma SO SO GOOD AND I LOVE THE OTHER CHARACTERS THEY ARE SO EASY ON THE EYE AND ALSO VERY COOL AND I LOVE RHEA RIPLEY AND

this was insanely long but there is just so much to say abt you as a person and as an artist. ur absolutely killing it.!!! i hope life is kind to you and this year is as well :D take care!!

HI ANON!!! AAAH thank you so much again for your very kind words omg T-T yall toa fans are really the sweetest im so grateful for you!!

i'm so glad that the ToA posts ive made over the years have really resonated with you!!! i feel like its only a few years later that i could really talk about ToA, maybe ive just been able to articulate things better which has been nice ;v;

the ToA community is just so cool bc we just run off with each others HCs and create even more art that just becomes A Thing in the fandom, like Charlie Saxton and other crew members retweeting someones cosplay of Punk!Toby! it's all just so incredibly fun and over the years im so grateful for how receptive and kind this fandom has been to me, it was the most confident in art ive ever felt because of how generous everybody is with their love and appreciation of each others works. i think its why this fandom is still really vibrant even after the series finished ..... four years ago omg. while im not as invested in the fandom anymore, i just wanna say that yall r doing good and i hope yall keep this giving spirit up <3!! its a rare and precious thing <3

and thank you SO MUCH for the OC love!! ive been thinking about that story, Hellfire a lot again and GUHHH i have so many feelings about it.

i have so many doubts about it, but a part deep down of me know it comes from my soul and it makes me know its why i have to go through with it all the more. i will make sure to finish it and tell this story, somehow.

my doubts aside, i've been growing to love the characters ive been creating more and more. every time i talk about Hellfire with someone, the story is told so differently depending on which character i introduce first. it is so, so fascinating, and I really think I have something going good with what i made. but because all these characters and their stories are a part of a huge puzzle and are so interwoven, it is IMPOSSIBLE to untangle and so difficult to communicate my ideas HAHA

but i will figure it out somehow!!! one day!!! in the meantime feel free to check out my tag for Hellfire here, and i'm always open to asks if anyone is curious about them!!

again, ty so much for the love!!! i hope u have been well and have a lovely day <3333

[purplepeptobismol]

IWMOY PLAYLIST ANALYSIS BC IM INSANE !!

I could talk for centuries I FEAR but I listened to some of the playlist and I have so many thoughts about links to certain chapters!! So I’m sorry if this reads as disjointed but I just can’t contain myself this was so much fun to do. 💕

Okay so I am indeed the ‘the door is blue because… 🤓’ type of people but ANYWAYS.

Like Him - Tyler, the Creator

So for ‘Like Him’, the song can easily be interpreted as the parallels between Cooper and Kenny. Father and son, and in a way Kenny is indeed the ‘ghost’ in IWMOY.

Cooper knows nothing about Kenny’s curse and for a good portion of his life Cooper was just using his immortality as a ‘super power.’ Unknowing that it was inherited from Kenny.

Another point I’d like to make is how throughout IWMOY - Cooper makes the point that past Kenny is nothing like the Kenny that raised him. This is shown in chapter four and seven.

“You lied to me, too. You told me you were cool.”

“No matter what universe, no matter what timeline, YOU PROMISED YOU WOULD HELP ME!”

-“Yeah well, you got the wrong one,”

I think these parts make the, ‘So do I look like him?’ section hit harder. Because to Cooper, this Kenny is not the same… but he is. It’s the Kenny that has yet to mature into the man he becomes in Cooper’s timeline and I think the almost opposite parallels make this just all the more heartbreaking to read.

Also the fact that, Cooper and Kenny look so much alike. They’re both connected and like one another.

Time in a Bottle - Jim Croce

Okay so I think this song feels quite reminiscent of Kenny’s love/connection to Butters!!

“The box would be empty - except for the memory that they were answered by you.”

You made a post about this already but Kenny’s love being driven by the act of creation is quite prevalent in this song.

Kenny and Leo are each-others rock. They rely on one another for different reasons and in Kenny’s case - one of them is that a lot of what he does is for Leo.

The answer was: Leo.

It started small with the tray and then grew into creating their own little bundle of joy! And the song as well has this lyric that I think is just beautiful and quite reminiscent of one of the later chapters:

“You’re the one I want to go through time with.”

Kenny is WILLING to bend time and space to bring back Leo. He creates a time machine out of love and the answer will always be for Leo.

I think it’s really beautiful but I could be wrong LMAO

St. Chroma (feat. Daniel Caesar) - Tyler, the Creator

I feel like this song could be about Cooper’s determination. He is not going to give up and stay in stand still in the timeline he’s stuck in.

He wants to return home and bring back his FAMILY!! And the lyrics like-

“Mama I’m gon’ make it out, pussy I’m gon’ make it out.”

Feels quite reminiscent to his personality and how he’s like strong willed at the beginning. He doesn’t let Kenny’s denial of the situation stop him and it’s like he’s defying Kenny in these two lines in my head.

The two beginning lines also reminds me as well in chapter four when Cooper tells Leo to not let anything get him down and it’s okay to ‘cause a little chaos.’

While he’s Cooper is the child, it’s like he’s trying to teach past Leo the strength he was taught from his own parents. 🥲

Breezeblocks - Alt-J

I’m not entirely sure how to interpret this one but it feels connected as well to Cooper and Kenny.

Kenny is quite apathetic to Cooper’s situation at least in some instances. So this causes Cooper and Kenny to have their own bickering throughout IWMOY which then leads to the huge fight in chapter 7-8

« your hand grips as my eyes shut. »

I imagine this as Cooper quite literally trying to reach past Kenny for help.

I’ve talked about ‘Death Defied By Will’ before and you did an analysis for it (still emotional as hell over the flashback chapters) but I love how the lyrics quite literally mirror the flip side of how Kenny and Cooper interpret their ‘abilities.’

ALSO I LOVE EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONE!! It’s not like the same concept but the idea of the many alternative universes that was briefly mentioned by Kenny in chapter 12 is really interesting so I can’t wait to see what ‘This is a Life’ could link to.

Okay that’s all for now bye bye 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️

WAAAAA!!! Trust, I was waiting for someone to do an analysis on it 😌🙏💖!!!! SO THANK YOU SO MUCH VOLTA <3333

I’ve stated this multiple times, but the playlist does follow the timeline of the story at some point. The first couple of the songs are vibes/general characterization, and/or dynamics of the characters 🤓☝️.

It’s mostly jumbled a bit here or there with the first bit cuz even though some of theme are characterization/etc, those songs can fit in multiple instances around the beginning of the story! But after, it basically goes from chapters 5-8 [I’ll give you another clue: ‘Major Tom’ is what I imagine during a montage sequence], (Un)Forbidden Love, flashback arcs, [REDACTED BECAUSE OF SPOILERS]. 

What would ‘come next’ after ch 8 (as it goes in the story), is Kenny and Butters running away and falling deeper in love (ch 13), then shows their progression with raising the kids (13/14) and Cooper discovering his immortality (9-10) and then the incident (10-11). Cooper’s arc and Kenny’s future are happening around the same time, so the playlist has BOTH Kenny’s and Cooper’s song perspectives in chronological order (is that what it is??), so I understand how it can be a bit confusing. 

I would spoil which is which and what songs represent what fraction/scene of the story, but I feel like that would take the fun out of it 🤭 so I leave it up to you guys!! Though, if you’ve read the side story, the placement of ‘Vámonos’ can give you a clue on what part of the timeline you’re on 🙃🙃🙃

When it comes to your interpretations on ‘Like Him’ and ‘Time in a Bottle,’ you basically hit the jackpot 😭☝️☝️☝️ I always said how ‘Like Him’ is literally Kenny and Coop’s song, and it’s the kind that just makes you crumble to your knees and CRY! There was no way in hell I WASN’T going to add ‘Time in a Bottle’ erm??? Time??? In a bottle??? Not on a time-travel/family/love focused fic???? That’s a crime!!!!

For ‘St. Chroma,’ it’s definitely about Cooper’s determination. I placed it in that section of the playlist, because I feel like it was in that moment— the moment he first dared to go into that machine back in chapter 12– that Cooper swore to do everything in his power to finally get to hear his Dad’s voice again. The song starts with:

you are the light it's not on you, it's in you don't you ever in your motherfucking life dim your light for nobody

every time I hear this, I always think back to chapter 9 when Butters is talking to baby Coop and telling him to not listen to Linda because Cooper has his eyes. Then the song continues to:

calm down. sit still. that's one mil for each wheel. top down. big deal. how the fuck he do that? what the fuck i look like? get the fuck up out him way.

And its representative of Cooper’s internal monologue in chapter 12 when all the adults kept telling him to stay out of the project. You can kinda guess where I’m going with this if you hear the song and picture that scene 🤓 hehe

As for ‘Breezeblocks,’ I feel like it’ll make more sense once chapter 15 is out. If you know how chapter 14 ended, and take into consideration what happened in Cooper’s backstory, you can assume what scenes we’re getting next in Kenny’s POV 💔…… 

There are a couple songs before ‘Breezeblocks’ that I would want to talk about and how they relate to parts of the story…. BUT— I’m going to let you guys take a gander at guesses. Hopefully this post was in anyway helpful in understanding my intentions with this playlist 🙂‍↕️✋!!!  (Have fun with this tidbit🥰)

[helenhenny66]

Snap, Crackle & Pop’s Favorite Music Genres: An Analysis (Part 1: The 60s)

Hey everyone! Today, I’m diving into a fun headcanon that’s been brewing in my mind about the US versions of Snap, Crackle & Pop. I’m focusing on my three personal favorite design eras: the 60s, the 80s, and the current CGI redesigns. And yes, if you're wondering, this is absolutely inspired by the absolutely brilliant Canadian ad campaign “Singing With the Bars”—if you know, you know. If you haven’t seen those commercials, they’re worth checking out on YouTube—each character is tied to a music genre that fits their personality and style. In Canada, Rice Krispies Treats are called Rice Krispies Squares, so that’s a fun cultural tidbit!

I’ve been making AI-generated covers recently using Snap, Crackle & Pop voice models on Weights. I actually created the 60’s voice models myself, while the 80’s, 90’s, Canadian, and 2009 versions were crafted by a Weights user named LeilaFan2025. These voice experiments really shaped how I think about these characters musically. So, without further ado, here’s my take on their 60’s music genres—complete with some deep dives into their soulful, rockin’, and heartfelt sounds.

Snap — Soul Music

Snap isn’t just a sprite who snaps his fingers; this elf has pipes dripping with pure soul. Imagine the raw, heartgrabbing vocals of Aaron Neville blended seamlessly with the emotional intensity of Otis Redding. That’s Snap’s essence. His voice carries the warmth and grit of Tyrone Davis, with the silky smoothness of R.B. Greaves, creating a vocal range that’s both powerful and tender. When Snap sings, it’s like he’s channeling the very spirit of soul music’s golden age — he pours emotion into every note, making you feel every beat deep in your chest.

What’s striking about Snap’s soulful style is how effortlessly it bridges joy and melancholy, much like the classic soul ballads that defined the era. Whether it’s a hopeful tune or a heartfelt plea, Snap’s voice cuts through the noise, commanding attention without ever losing that cool, relaxed swagger. The kind of music he embodies isn’t just about entertainment — it’s a storytelling vehicle, carrying tales of love, struggle, and triumph that resonate across generations.

In a way, Snap’s soul genre captures the very essence of the 60’s spirit — a time of cultural shifts, where music became a powerful agent of change and expression. To hear Snap sing is to experience the timeless power of soul music in its purest, most heartfelt form — and believe me, this elf can SANG.

Crackle — Rock & Roll

Now, if Snap’s the soul man, Crackle is pure rock & roll dynamite. Think Buddy Holly’s infectious energy, the wildness of Jerry Lee Lewis, the rebellious edge of Bill Haley and His Comets, and the slick style of Eddie Cochran — that’s Crackle’s musical playground. If you haven't seen that 60's Rice Krispies commercial where Snap, Crackle & Pop are singing a lounge band version of the insanly catchy 'Snap! Crackle! Pop! Rice Krispies!' song (the one with Snap on the piano, Crackle on the acoustic guitar and Pop on the upright bass), you’ll see exactly where this idea came from. In that little moment, you can tell Crackle’s got rhythm in his bones.

Crackle’s rock & roll is that perfect blend of youthful exuberance and catchy hooks that defined the era. It’s music you want to dance to, but also music that’s steeped in a kind of rebellious joy — a sonic embodiment of breaking free from the old and embracing the new. His sound isn’t just nostalgic; it’s alive and kicking, tapping into the roots of what made rock & roll a cultural phenomenon.

Crackle’s musical persona brings the fun and spontaneity of early rock & roll to life. His voice captures that vibrant edge, blending just the right amount of grit and charm. This genre fits him because it highlights his role as the lively middle brother who’s always ready to rock the house and keep things moving forward with a smile. Rock & roll might be vintage, but with Crackle, it’s timeless.

Pop — Teen Idol Ballads

Pop might be the youngest of the trio, but don’t let that fool you — this elf’s voice is a pure, angelic treasure. He’s got the soft, melodic quality that makes you want to hold onto every word, whether it’s a hopeful love song or a heartfelt ballad about heartbreak. Pop channels the era’s teen idols like Johnny Tillotson (may he rest in peace), Bobby Vinton, and Frankie Avalon, capturing that sweet, innocent charm that defined an entire generation’s soundtrack. When he sings, it’s like a warm breeze on a summer night — comforting, tender, and utterly sincere.

His vocal tone is delicate yet confident, with a smoothness that can both soothe and stir emotions deeply. Pop’s ballads would be the kind of songs you hear on late-night radio, the ones that make you reach for a box of tissues because they’re just that good at expressing the bittersweet pangs of young love. You can imagine him topping the charts with heartfelt hits titled “Will You Still Be Mine?” or “Little Star In The Sky,” songs that capture the dreamy, hopeful spirit of the ’60s youth culture. His voice is the perfect vehicle for lyrics that tug at the heartstrings and paint pictures of first loves, long goodbyes, and the innocence of youth.

What sets Pop apart is the emotional honesty he brings to every performance. Even though he’s young, there’s a timeless quality to his singing—a kind of vulnerability mixed with quiet strength that makes listeners believe in the sincerity of every note. His angelic voice doesn’t just entertain; it connects. Whether singing to a crowd of screaming fans or in a quiet moment by himself, Pop’s ballads remind us all of the power of music to touch the soul and heal the heart. He’s the voice of sweet nostalgia and tender dreams. __________________ That’s the deep dive for Part 1! Next up: Part 2 – The ’80s Designs, where synths, neon colors, and totally tubular tunes take center stage. Can’t wait to share that with you.

[thatpodcastkid]

Magnus Archives Relisten 7, MAG 7 The Piper, Spoiler-Free Version

This is a spoiler-free analysis of Magnus Archives MAG 7, The Piper. One of the best-written episodes in the series. Pure poetry.

Facts: Statement of Seargent Clarence Berry regarding his time serving with Wilfred Owen during World War One. Statement given November 6, 1922.

Statement Notes: "Hey you know Wilfred Owen? The famous poet Wilfred Owen? The guy whose poems you had to read in class Wilfred Owen? Yeah, what if he was possessed? Wouldn't that be fucked?" -Jonny Sims at the Rusty Quill pitch meeting.

In all seriousness, this episode is incredible. The description of the three faces of war is so detailed, yet so brief. I want to take a little time to explore each face and set of arms.

The First Face: "One to play its pipes on scrimshaw bone." This line is apparently where the title "The Piper" comes from. As the story goes on, both Berry and Owen describe hearing strange music. This seems to be the "song of war" that the Piper plays, signaling a truly gruesome battle. This song doesn't necessarily warn off or compel the soldiers, but seems to do a bit of both. A war song doesn't just encourage a soldier to fight, but also warns an enemy. Wilfred Owen believes this being is The War itself, therefore its song should encourage violence from all sides, but also instill a deep fear in every soldier.

To me, this face fits with the hand raised "in a crisp salute." This hand and face prevent a false majesty and honor to war. This face tells the soldiers fighting is good, they will be rewarded, they will be valued. But of course, underneath its muddied green coat, all that the War has is a scarred and bloody body. "Nothing remained but the wounds themselves."

The Second Face: I've chosen to associate the face that "screamed its dying battle cry" with "the arms gripping blades and guns and spears." This face seems to represent the adrenaline violence and war brings, even as it kills you. I've always thought adrenaline not as good or bad, but creating more tangible and real emotions than other things can.

The Third Face: "One that would not open its mouth, for when it did blood and sodden soil flowed out like a waterfall." I associate this face with the hands begging for mercy. Clarence Berry is under 22 when this statement takes place, and (the real) Wilfred Owen would be between 22-24. These are practically children. They are going to die. They are going to die before their time, before it is fair. They are going to beg for mercy. This is the nature of war, and so is the nature of The War.

There is an implication that The War kept Owen alive so he could create poetry that glorifies The War. I wonder if this is out of ego--it wanted to be seen as glorious and beautiful--or simply to drag the battle on longer. If it seems inspirational, it will continue.

Overall I think this episode demonstrates the tentative balance World War One held between being "the writer's war" and "the technological front." The war represented a shift in humanity's ability to be brutal, but also spawned art and innovation. This doesn't justify the violence that occurred, but rather the acts of destruction and creation during the war existed in tandem, like two sides of a coin.

Character Notes: I know that Jon was speaking through the statement when he was making fun of Owen's poetry, but the idea of Jon being a cannon poetry hater is too funny for me to ignore

[actualbird]

Luke Pearce and Conditional Faith: When Does A Skeptic Believe (or When Does He Want To)?

wc: 1.4k

obligatory disclaimer that these are just my own thoughts and interpretations. spoilers ahead for: SSR Shape Of You (the summer breeze card), SSR Overflowing Thoughts (the sott card), SSR Twinkling Eyes (the skadi card), and Main Story 9. 

Luke is a skeptic. 

I feel like anyone who is familiar with his stories knows and fully accepts this fact. While he’s a very emotional and warm guy, when it comes to like, his general view of Reality, he is the type of person to believe more in facts, science, evidence, tangible proof, and empirical explanations. A lighthearted example of this is in Luke’s Sweet Chapter Personal Story 3, where he and MC were investigating that abandoned school that everybody said was haunted by spirits and Luke calmly proved that it was nothing more than faulty circuitry. And in the same scene, MC fondly remembers how in their childhood, when other kids were telling ghost stories, Luke would just exclaim “THAT DOESNT MAKE SENSE” and spoil the fun of the spook. He’s such a STEM guy, it drives me nuts. 

And his skepticism doesn’t just happen there. It pops up over and over across a lot of his stories, and not just in terms of the supernatural. In general, Luke is a skeptic of anything that can’t be empirically proved, including: folk beliefs, spiritual things, the divine/gods.

(sidenote 1: which is REALLY interesting given what I brought up in a previous analysis I did about Luke and Catholic Guilt. Like, so much of his mental framework and morality is something very familiar to the kinds of ways-of-thinking you’d see in this religion. And yet he’s not religious. god gives the biggest ironies to his most skeptical soldiers, or something).

So he’s a skeptic, that’s clear. 

Except it isn’t, because there are times when he does believe in faith. Or wants to believe in it. And these moments are made so striking because of Luke’s general disposition towards skepticism, which is why I’d like to do a deep dive of When Luke “Skeptic Extraordinaire” Pearce Decides Or Desires To Believe.

(sidenote 2: just a disclaimer, all folk beliefs, spiritual things, the different kinds of divine/gods are all obviously very different from each other and I’m not saying that they’re conflate-able, DEFINITELY NOT, but just that in Luke’s stories specifically, they Do serve the same purpose to him; they're something he doesn't believe in)

But before I go into when he Decides Or Desires To Believe, I wanna first tackle why he Doesn’t.

The first reason for why Luke is a skeptic is just his general inclination towards empiricism (things are proven via experience and experimentation) and rationalism (things are proven through logic and reason). Like how it happened in the abandoned school scene I mentioned before. And it makes sense for Luke. He’s a STEM guy, but he’s also a detective. Proof matters, and proof creates reality. 

But another reason is more personal. Sometimes Luke doesn’t believe because of a sense of Betrayal mixed in with a “Fuck It, I’ll Do It Myself” mentality. 

In SSR Overflowing Thoughts, the AU shows Luke originally being trained to be a temple priest while MC was originally trained to be an assassin. But after seeing the sheer suffering MC had to withstand day after day even after praying to the for a peaceful life, Luke took her place and then later remarks “If gods truly exist, then why didn’t they help you despite all your prayers?” and in the flashback, he says “If she dies one day during training [...] then I’ll stop believing in the gods.” 

Here, Luke’s non-belief is due to what he expects higher powers to have responsibility over; taking care of good people. While this card is an AU card, I think it still carries over to regular-Luke because of Luke’s very strong sense of morality, of good and bad. If higher powers are good, but they allow bad to happen, then they can’t be good, or they must not exist in the first place.

So someone else has to do it. In SSR Overflowing Thoughts, it was Luke who saved MC, not the gods. And in SSR Shape of You, during their childhood, Luke had gone missing during the festival to seek the Land God to make a wish to erase himself from existence because Luke believed he was a burden and was robbing MC of the love of her parents buuuuut in the present, Luke remarks that he himself will be the one to repay all the love he had robbed her of.

In a way this is an honestly pretty noble kind of non-belief. There’s a cynical aspect to it, but Luke doesn’t just go “gods aren’t real, cowabummer”. Instead, it’s more like “there are no gods to do the good we want to see in this world, so we have to do that good ourselves.” 

So those are what leads to his non-belief, which is 99.9% of the time. But the few times he does the opposite were interesting because Luke only tends to do it under two circumstances.

1) I Want To Believe In This Because I Love You

Two cards I wanna talk about here: SSR Twinkling Eyes and SSR Shape Of You (again, not sorry, this card is so important to this post and also to mE PERSONALLY AHVKHS). 

In SSR Twinkling Eyes, Luke was his usual skeptical self at the whole local faerie folk beliefs up until Peanut’s messing up that faerie house meant that under the belief system, misfortune might fall upon MC. 

In SSR Shape Of You, at the very end of the story, he releases lanterns that are all wishes for MC’s benefit.

In both these cases, whether or not he truly believes or simply Wants To is up to debate, but it is clear that he does ascribe to actions under something that requires faith due to his love for MC. 

What happened to Luke the skeptic? He’s still very much there but there’s caveats now. He’ll ascribe to a degree of belief if it means keeping MC safe, if it means ensuring her safety and happiness in the future. Which is so fucking sweet and tender, fucking hell, Luke “I’ll give the divine a chance if only for you” Pearce, OOOAAAUUUGGHH.

But where there’s light, there’s also dark. Because sometimes his reason is…

2) I Want To Believe In This Because I Hate Me

Two stories I wanna talk about here: SSR Shape Of You (this card is a legend, mentioned 3 times in this post alone…) and Main Story 9

In SSR Shape Of You, the entire reason Luke even looks for the Land God (thus implying that, if even for one night, he did believe in the god) was due to self-loathing. He saw himself as a burden, he wanted to wish he never existed and that nobody would remember him because he was convinced his mere presence caused bad.

In Main Story 9…..hoo boy, Main Story 9, HAHA. At the very end of the chapter, we see a flashback where Luke—a little bit after the mission where he was the only survivor—has this exchange with Aaron

Now, it could be argued that this is more psychological than it is spiritual (this whole thing smacks of unaddressed PTSD, after all) and while that Definitely is a factor, it’s key to note the language used here being specific: spirits, gods, believe. 

And why does Luke want to believe? Why does he wish it was real even if his usual inclination is skepticism? 

Because he’s guilty. He’s so guilty. And you only ever feel guilty when you think you’re in the wrong. You only ever apologize when you think you’re responsible for wrong.

He wants to believe because he thinks himself a sinner and that only afterlife can grant him a chance at absolution.

That’s the flipside of his belief. Either he loves another so much or hates himself too much. 

So like, now that we’re here, what does it all “Mean” then? Ehhhh nothing much tbh jHVKJ. It just Struck Me. It’s just something I really liked seeing because it’s such a genuine and human kind of ‘hypocrisy’; no matter how rooted in reality we are, when we’re driven by intense emotion (positive OR negative), we’ll grasp for more.

More what? More Anything. More answers, more possibilities, just…More. Sometimes intense emotion makes Just Reality feel like it isn’t enough to explain or address whatever we’re feeling. 

When Luke is pushed by his devoted love or by his intense self-loathing, the limits of tangible empirical reality just don’t cut it. He’ll believe or want to believe in something more.

[isfjmel-phleg]

Highlights from an interview with Todd Dezago, writer of the earliest Young Justice 1998 stories*

*i.e. The Secret and World Without Grown-Ups

As quoted in Titans Companion 2.

DC marketing came up with the name "Young Justice." Dezago preferrred "Justice League Junior."

On the founding members Robin, Superboy, and Impulse: "I never broke them down and analyzed them like that [i.e. Peter David's id, ego, and superego analysis of the boys]. I just liked them as friends, as characters, and had fun with what they would say to each other in different situations. If you know the characters well enough, and give them a little freedom, they'll tell you what they would say."

Young Justice: The Secret #1 was originally going to be the first issue of Young Justice 1998.

Dezago was excited about this project and had outlined the entire first year and a half of issues and intercharacter developments "'cause that was really the part I was so interested to do." He "wanted to do a really fun book, a bit of a throwback to some of the Justice League's '60s and '70s adventures: battling a young Mxyzptlk, a team of doppelganger monkeys, the kids being turned into cavemen or slaves or insect-and-animal-headed beings, whisked off to Rann on an errant Zeta Beam, etc." But the Batman offices objected because the stories were not grounded in the real world enough for the character of Robin, and Dezago wrote a more serious second version and then a third that was finally conditionally approved.

Dezago ended up leaving the book because of creative differences with the editor.

Secret was one of two new characters created by Dezago to join the three founding members. He did not elaborate on the second one was going to be. Mary Marvel and Inferno were also slated to appear in later issues. "They were going to be the yin and yang of the same situation. Mary was going to be thrilled to be a part of the team, to finally get to hang out with kids her own age and learn about kissing boys and stuff. Inferno was slightly older and less inclined to stay, but deep down felt a closeness because she had nothing else."

"I really loved The Secret and was excited to play out her character arc, one that was going to have an effect on all three boys. She was going to be the glue of the team." (Note that Dezago consistently calls her "the Secret," while Peter David in YJ98 dropped the "the.")

Dezago ended up using much of what he had planned for Secret in the character of Molly in his series The Perhapanauts. (Which I now very much need to read.)

Dezago wanted the book to be "Light-hearted, but still with that touch of emotion and compassion."

When David's Young Justice was running, Dezago didn't read it because "I had been very close to that project--had put a lot of time into it--and had grown very close to the characters. It hurt my feelings not to be doing it, and so it would have been very hard to read it."

Dezago wrote the story in which Bart tries to give Kon powers, reusing one of his earlier ideas. "That was actually one of the silly sub-plots I had for Bart, that he would realize that Robin didn't have any powers, and being the compassionate kid that he was, he would try to give him some, using origin stories from comic books as his guide. [He would expose] him (or try to expose him) to radioactive spiders, cosmic rays, gamma radiation, etc. Robin would tell Bart to cut it out, but Bart would secretly continue until Robin finally just took him down."

[nok-joke]

that fish guy for that character ask game!! sebastian solace i think?

YEAHHHH THE FISH GUY 🎉 Yep his name is Sebastian Solace ! He is a guy who was falsely accused of murder then put on death row for it, only to get snatched up by some corporation, which falsified his death records and used him for experiments

Rambling beneath the cut

How Do I Feel About Them?

He fills me with so much grief you don't understand. Yeah he is The Silly and has a chance to call you "The Skrunkly!" Or smth when walking into his shop, he has really fun dialogue and is a little shit to you when you die. (One of my favorites lines is "(mocking tone) OoOUghHG IS thErE FiRE DamAgE? OOoOUGHh iS thErE FaLL DamAGe??")

But he escaped containment at a chance of freedom he was robbed of. He is gathering research so he can trade it for his freedom. His life was stolen from him and he can *never* be the same again. He frees the other experiments. He's stuck at the bottom of the ocean in some shitty lab for crimes he didn't commit.

Ships?

Did you know he's a married man. I literally only know this because of the wiki have fun finding it out otherwise

Other than that, Sebastian x P.ai.nter is a nice ship. Context: P.ai.nter is an sentient AI that wanted to create landscapes and paintings, but in this research facility was forced to essentially generate an income source for the company (similar to mining bitcoin I think.) As you explore the facility signs with the room number will get hijacked with lines like "I just want to paint landscapes again", "I'm sorry", and "Please die. For my sake" and I just. I hope they both get out of there. I think they could use each other's company. Sebastian saving P.ai.nter from being forced to work and P.ai.nter keeping Sebastian's spirit up in what feels like a hopeless situation, reminding him of what waits above the ocean waves for them

Non-romantic otp?

I think Sebastian and Eyefestation should be friends :]

Eyefestation (I call them eyes for short) is a shark that is also a lab experiment! They have the ability to telepathically communicate with people. Eyes was freed by Sebastian and I like to think in return Eyes helps slow down the people hunting Sebastian down. They're alike at the end of the day. Eyes was scheduled for execution just before Sebastian freed them. They are both subject to the hell that is the experiments they were put through

Unpopular opinion

Guys I know he's hot. Guys. Guys I know "OUGH HOT FISH MAN" Guys. I support every self shipper out there but Guys. Can we PLEASE get some fan content focusing on his backstory and emotions and how he's dealing. I know you all wanna kiss the fish dude but can we pause to get some character analysis going

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GIVE US AN ALTERNATE ENDING WHERE WE CAN HELP P.AI.NTER AND SEBASTIAN PLEASE I DO NOT WANNA HELP FUCKED UP AND EVIL CORP LET ME SAVE THE FISHIE AND THE COMPUTER I LOVE THEM :((((((((((((((((