#im. i hate myself. i hate how i think

[hinamie]

growth // decay

[naes-dairy]

I didn't know talking to someone can make you feel better

[ethosiab]

beating artblocks ass with a more steampunk-y tango

[thekeythief]

Just your average Cassian & Bix yard encounter...

I too would not be able to keep it together if my mechanic wife was looking like a badass on the yard every day 😔❤️

[aulerean]

gem's angler fish? pretty cool.

[ladykyriaa]

I think one thing I'm gonna say to the people who are, in a way conflicted and/or waiting to watch the series is that you're honestly gonna have to be okay with grey areas. That's literally it.

KnH isn't going to explicitly show nor tell you how good/bad things are. it's an incredibly realistic story set in ancient China tackling its many issues; starting from societal problems, political, norms, gender roles, and so on. What might be problematic now isn't necessarily something the characters are going to think about more than twice.

I think a slightly controversial example would have to be abt the pedo emperor. YES, an incredibly horrible person and deserves to die in the most painful way possible. But KnH also tackled the issue that he had been human, all too pathetic and pitiful to rightfully rule the empire-never had the spine to talk to proper women thus resulting in him only talking and being attracted to (gag) little girls. You're not gonna see the characters talk ill of him more than necessary, they know its fucked up and frankly weird, but there's nothing to be done but to live with the consequences of his actions.

(Why I set this as a grey example is because I've seen people expecting the pedo to be this horrid-abusive person-and he is of course- but they certainly weren't expecting him to be depicted so pitifully and hurt, like he himself was a literal child still in need of protecting.)

don't also expect the characters to do one good thing after another just because you expect them to. Under different situations, different feelings, different place, their choices vary from one another depending on what's necessary. Don't even expect their relationship to be one linear from start to finish, thinking you can guess which way its gonna go.

in fact this is what maomao says when Jinshi questions her explicitly about their relationship

and i just think this genuinely applies to the series as a whole. Natsu Hyuuga isn't going to outrightly spell it out for y'all what Maomao nor Jinshi feels for each other, what the empress dowager feels for the pedo, what Ah-duo feels for the emperor and vice versa. She expects people to understand and come to their own conclusion.

She pieces together puzzles and expects you to fit them together, if you somehow got a different result from the way she intended then, well, that's on you I guess.

don't expect a "yes" or "no" answer to whatever questions you're about to ask. There's always gonna be a "but" and "however" to it, I think. At least from my experience of reading the novel and questioning the choices they've made.

People in this fandom throw away the word SA so easily, TOO easily I'd say. from here on out you're gonna read a lot more "problematic" things that other characters have done that they think are more or less for the good-whether that be their own good or other characters' sake.

The anime honestly does paint the series in a lighthearted way, and compared to other series it's certainly not as "dark". However I do think the strength of this series lay in its realistic choices and stories, how the characters feel so utterly human, not just driven by plot.

[glossoholicc]

Pest the kind of guy to space out and daydream about building his own motorcycle. Flame decals and all.

[lwiann]

Play teeth by 5sos

[gophergal]

Behold, the sloppy sketch from early* this morning

*actually more like from around 10 am but I normally draw in the evenings, so cut me some slack

[woolying]

bow down to them!!!!

based on tetro idol units ideas and RulerxRuler by REIRIE !!

this was the first song to come to mind for them after thinking about it for approximately 5 seconds

i think they would make music thats upbeat and playful and confident and lowkey a little noisy and self centered maybe bc i think its fun and they would have fun yay

also i suck at coming up with group names so i have nothing taking suggestions PLEASE HELP

ok needed to get this out of my head im normal now (lying)

[ulteri0rm0tives]

It's every iteration.

It's every iteration of V that will always find Johnny. Every iteration of V that Johnny grows to care about. It's every iteration of each other, in every universe, that will always find each other. They'll always become inseparable, tied together in unfathomable ways. Ways they could never truly unravel from each other in the end, no matter the end.

They'll always be destined for one another. No matter what face is worn. No matter what universe. No matter what, they're always meant to be. No matter what, the stars will always align for them, just to come crashing down from the sky.

[crossbackpoke-check]

blessed be (lorscher bienensegen) | telling the bees (wiþ ymbe)

"Bees" [remixed, abridged], Claudia Emerson // "Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now" [remixed, abridged], Matthew Olzmann // "Letter to my Great, Great Grandchild" [remixed, abridged], J.P. Grasser | Len Redkole, Nina Weiss, Brian Babineau, Christian Peterson, Mitchell Leff, Dave Isaac, Megan DeRuchie

[ducktracy]

again, can i just say that it's genuinely been wonderful and heartwarming and amazing and vindicating and spectacular seeing the rest of the world (well. my world) care about these cartoon characters that i have dedicated the past half decade+ of my life to. Daffy and Porky are genuinely one of the most important things to me in my entire life, and i do have many convoluted explanations for this that make it sound less pathetic and terminally online than it sounds i PROMISE. but it's just genuinely really wonderful seeing people care about them or discover them or have their curiosity piqued about them. i act like i made them myself here, but i genuinely have been waiting so many years for this moment, and i also think that's a huge reason why i'm just so gung-ho on being their cheerleader and being as loud and proud about this film and the hard work that went into it as i can. i keep joking about how ridiculous this analogy is because these guys are a median of 65 years older than i am, but i genuinely feel like an obnoxious soccer or PTA mom showing off pictures of her kid on her iphone to you, and you really just wish she would shut up, and the only way to do that is to humor her but you're just kind of uncomfortable the whole time because she will not stop gushing about her kids. i'm so proud of my boys. and my friends who put my boys on the big screen. genuinely heaven for me right now

[sollucets]

love for love's sake || episode four

[liauditore]

cw// implied character death, double life nonsense

because you are love itself.

[skitskatdacat63]

One makes him up, so the other can break him down.

This is a little terrifying but hello!! Posted my first fic on ao3!! I would've saved the illustrations for the fic's eyes only, but I'm too happy with them haha. Hope you'll still go on to read regardless!!

As always, my thoughts and progress, since I can't help myself:

I'm soooooo proud of these. I never ever really do dramatic lighting, so I'm really surprised that I pulled it off.

It's surreal actually posting this because for a while, I've thought about how if I ever post a fic, I'll have to make illustrations too because I can't do anything not full force. Look at me now! I'm shocked. Also didn't think I'd finish it tonight, but here it sits before you nevertheless(though as always, I'm writing this past my bedtime before class, time efficient as always.) So with that being said, here are some notes, though if I had known I'd be writing this so soon, I would've prepared more lol.

First of all, I hope it's clear both of these are Mark's perception. Gah, the fact that his face is the only one you can see clearly. The first is obviously him unwillingly fantasizing about what exactly went down last night.

Aghhhhh the difference in colors and settings of the two drawings is so important to me. The warmth and intimacy of the bed behind curtains in the first one, and the coldness and openess of the second. It's so clear Mark feels like he's been distanced, like he's been ousted. It's like he's been thrown outside on a cold winter's day, no longer able to feel the heat from the comfortable warm stove inside.

Mark was probably assigned to Seb bcs he has a much greater appreciation for the Spanish etiquette, which Seb has very little interest in. He'll abide by it when he absolutely has to. But he's just a very non-typical Emperor. People find it charming so it's not a public death sentence for him, but it is an issue. Thus, Mark is there to keep him in line. Though important to note that when Fernando, who has an equal if not greater respect for the showmanship of etiquette, realizes Mark is interested in that as well, they start warming up to each other.

The inherent disrespect of Fernando just. Throwing Seb's clothing onto the floor. Meanwhile he probably took like, 20 minutes folding his up(that's what Seb was gonna tell Mark at the end of the fic.) Borderline ripping off Seb's clothes only to edge him. Its not even like the ripping off the clothes is because of passion or anything, he's deliberately being an asshole. Don't worry Nandl, Seb's turned on by it!

So sorry to marknando fans if their dynamic feels like a complete 180 haha. Its not like I'm like, they actually hate each other!! It's just their relationship under completely different circumstances. They're like two dogs in a dog fight, they don't have any real reason to hate each other, but they're put against each other regardless. They don't understand their hatred, just know that they have it and that they're supposed to have it. The inherent hatred the mistress has for the spouse, and vice versa. If they actually were able to talk without barriers, they'd realize they actually get along pretty well. They kinda just hate each other because of their respective relationships to Seb. And then there's Seb who's mostly completely oblivious to his effect, though of course plays with it a bit.

Seb's marriage completely recontextualizes their relationship in Mark's eyes. Though there's something incredibly sado-masochistic about the way he can't blame Seb for it at all. He's a loyal dog after all. But when it was just them, he was obviously Seb's main companion and lover. Seb definitely slept with people on the side, but Mark brushed that off: 1. Bcs its very period typical. 2. He was the main, they were the side, what more needs to be said! But now *he's* the side piece, and is left wondering if their relationship was down to proximity alone. Not to pull a Mark and completely excuse Seb, but it's not. Just very different perceptions of love and relationships. And again, as I've mentioned before, he was raised to always be the most important person in the room, so he obviously has very different understandings, especially since he's always the center.

NANDL!!!!!! In my Habsburg book I've been reading lately, they randomly referred to one of them affectionately as "Nandl" and it's stuck in my head ever since. Can we start a movement to canonize that as an official Fernando nickname? I'm sooooo fond of it, I litrally ended the fic that way just so I could shoehorn that nickname in.

Speaking of the ending. It was really tough, I almost wanted to have Fernando burst in, looking for his ring, and then coming across whatever that is. But I didn't want to disrupt their moment anymore, it felt cruel. Though shame I couldn't mention that the reason why Seb's pants are nowhere to be found is because Fernando accidentally put them on and didn't realize till he was out of the room.

*I FORGOT TO POINT OUT ONE OF MY FAVORITE PARTS! Truly the danger of writing a post while falling asleep. There's something so incredibly funny to me the way they're talking so refined and then Seb just throws out: "that guy." It's a way to show his own disrespect of Fernando, not even using his name, implying he's just some guy(nur ein Kerl.) I laughed writing it cause it reminds me of the random dry humor anecdotes I've read lately.