#this would be a point of discussion

[b0tsbby]

Do (personally) enjoy when an author questions or outright explores knives and conforming to a human constructed gender binary cause honestly like, yea. Why.

[descendant-of-truth]

Shipping is fun and all but I swear every single time someone makes a comment, whether as a joke or in a legitimate analysis, about there being "no other explanation" for a pair's interactions, I lose just a bit more of my sanity

Like, no, you guys don't get it. Romance is not about the Amount of devotion, it's about the COLOR. the FLAVOR of it all. a character can be just as devoted to their platonic friend as they are to their romantic partner, and they don't love either of them more, just differently.

But because the majority of people still have it stuck in their minds that romance exists on the highest tier of love, I'm stuck seeing endless takes that boil down to "these two care about each other too much for it to NOT be romantic" as if that's the core determining factor to how literally any of this works

In conclusion: stop telling me that I don't understand the story if I don't interpret the leads as romantic, I am TIRED

[kingofmyborrowedheart]

The thing that is striking me the most about this album is just how messy and human it is. She’s not holding anything back or trying to appear one way or another. She’s just letting it all out regardless of what anyone might say. She found that trying to be polished and keep all the ugly, imperfect, human stuff in to be stifling and just said fuck it I need to do this for me. This album was an exorcism for her.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

What a lovely family portrait👨🏻‍👨🏻‍👦🏻🖼️

Enhanced image of A-Yuan's first sword flight.

[lucabyte]

Different standards

[forgettable-au]

Something about hands....

Pssttt if you haven't seen it already, check out the new forgettable-au amv These are some of the still frames from that animation hehe

[andstuffsketches]

Cass should try dating impulse next, just to complete as much of the yj core four set as she can (and annoy tim)

I love bart allen a lot but i think it would never happen lol

[stump-not-found]

hrgh rambled on vc about theraprism bill for hours and i woulda kept doing it . will tuck it safely under the read more

institutes are banal in their cruelty . agency is a complicated subject . bill is a cornered rat who's always been a cornered rat . what does he look like in a scenario where he's back at square one ?

i think he'd lock tf in honestly . tbob wasn't a bad attempt . like the book was a mess of him oversharing, but he managed to get something out the door that wasn't meant to . high security facility for tyrants and he still slipped something thru the cracks -- that's interesting ! i wanna play in that space which takes into account bill cipher is competent and more than willing to rip his fate out of the jaws of whatever sick punchline the universe is setting up for him

i think bill cipher can have his moments of patheticness . he's fun to put in the blender for a lil bit i also enjoy a bill cipher jamba juice from time to time

i just also think he got where he was in life for a reason . he's charismatic . he's funny . people genuinely like him, a natural born cult leader . he's extremely smart, and knowledgeable . he's willing to do a lotta shit most people wouldn't which already puts him ahead of the game

i think the thing that's the most fun about bill being in the theraprism is when you acknowledge he's a person . he's been put in a place where he no longer has any agency . his entire life has been chasing any scrap of agency he can get, and never feeling like he's got it . i love that thread, because this wouldn't be anything new for him -- bill's never had agency as far as he's concerned . always clawing his way for the right to exist

he's a cornered rat, he's always been a cornered rat, and he's gotten pretty god damn good at clawing his way back to the top . i think it's fun being able to explore what that looks like, how that power struggle would function in a place where he is pretty well and truly powerless

then if you throw ford into the mix, now he's got a wedge . and it's fun playing with bill trying to reconcile the ways he wants to use ford as leverage, with the reality that ford is his weakness . that doesn't change just because bill beefed it big time . the fact he won't acknowledge that just about dooms him to it, and that's awesome . i love cycles man. keep pretending that love did not undo you in a mind-bogglingly brief amount of time, i'm clapping and cheering about it yippeeeeee

ohhh it's just so fun . take my man and have him lock tf in . i wanna see him clawing at those walls and being a genuine threat to the system, while coming to terms with the fact that reincarnation is just about inevitable

it's such a weird fucking situation . you can talk so much about personhood, and agency, and how he took those things from others, but like . dude you still deserve to be a person . you still deserve to be treated well . so did all the people you hurt . theraprism presents such a good pressure chamber to have a narrative exploring how someone like bill reconciles those facts, if ever

rooting for you man . i think your success is more narratively interesting than failure

oh goddd and don't get me started on the meta implications of reincarnation as a narrative representation of how so frequently "character redemption" equals the death of the original character, replacing them with someone completely different, usually "good" and "domestic" hhhhhhh

turn him into a moth . turn him into a human . at the end of the day his personality has been so twisted and warped it's not even the same person anyways

my tuoyyyyys

[mega-banette]

anyway i think the funniest way to hc teru as trans is to have him not know that there are trans people other than him. he woke up one day when he was 11 and was like oh of course i can be a boy i am the main character and most special person and then he just attacked anyone who said he couldn’t with his psychic powers.

[bonefall]

Splashtail and Atheism

Hello. I am an Atheist and I call Splashstar an Atheist because he is based on widespread bigoted depictions of godless people like myself. There have now been several posts about this written as if they're trying to "correct a misconception," and I am tired of vagueposts completely missing the point of the criticism to get caught up on arguing semantics.

The misanthropic, god-hating "Atheist" character in Christian propaganda, which I feel Splashstar has some alarming similarities with, does not come from the writer's correctable "misconception" of irreligious labels. It is born from a hatred of nonbelievers.

Specifically, my point that Splashtail is a mashup of two popular anti-secular tropes common in religious media;

The assertion that there's no such thing as a "real" nonbeliever, and that Atheists are just "rebelling" against God because we're mad at him, want to do bad things without guilt, or have "lost our way."

The belief that morality itself stems from faith in a higher moral being, asserting that the irreligious are "evil" in contrast to the faithful.

Even passing familiarity with the arguments of Christian apologia seen in Chick Tracts, Pureflix films, PragerU videos, and so on, will have put these tropes in front of you. They are false and harmful, and they target Atheists.

For more on this, TVTropes has an entire article dedicated to the Hollywood Atheist and its sub-tropes. Note how many of these Curlfeather and Splashtail fall into, regardless of if you're arguing that they are "real atheists" or not.

Those that hate us do not care about semantic labels. To them, we are without God, A-Theistic, and they do not actually care what is at the core of your beliefs if it contradicts their narrative.

But, even worse, the "Splashtail Can't Be An Atheist" crowd isn't even totally correct on the semantics they're trying to have a pedant battle about.

Most atheistic organizations and online atheists define Atheism as "one who does not believe in God" and attempt to push a sliding scale of "agnosticism" on how hard of a "maybe" you're feeling about your lack of faith. In the sliding agnostic scale, Agnostic Atheists are a "probably no god" and Gnostic Atheists are a "definitely no god." Others describe that scale as "hard" and "soft" Atheism-- but there is NOT universal agreement on that definition.

There other definitions of an "Atheist," and even those who reject the "agnostic scale" completely (I am one of them). "Atheism" was historically the catch-all term for what we might now call "Irreligious," and more.

The Encyclopedia of Philosophy explores its many meanings, and proposes that what defines an Atheist is an active choice to distance oneself from faith; "Someone who rejects the premise of gods either based on lack of belief, or meaninglessness of the question." Matt Dillahunty, a prominent educator and activist, intentionally refers to himself as an Atheist when others (including religious people!) have tried to pressure him into using the label Agnostic, for reasons he covers in great depth. Historically, "atheist" simply meant anyone who denied the gods or acted impiously, evolving into use as a broad label for irreligious practices around the 1500s, until attempts to narrow it to "nonbelievers in deities" in the 1800s.

By EoP's expanded definition alone, Splashstar qualifies as an Atheist. The rejection does not have to come from a belief that Theism is false, but that the question is meaningless. He doesn't have to "believe" in StarClan any more than you have to "believe" in a total stranger. He rejects faith in it and lives without their influence.

But even more than that, "atheist" is a broad, stigmatized term with a history you can't erase. Hundreds of combinations of philosophies, spiritual beliefs, and logical positions have been called "Atheism."

"Atheist" can refer to Agnostics (those who aren't sure if there is a god or not), Antitheists (opposition to the belief in and/or worship of gods), Igtheists (those that feel that "god" is such a nebulous term that the question of belief is meaningless), Apatheists (people who just don't care), practitioners of Non-Deistic religions (such as Humanistic Judaism and some sects of Buddhism), and even heretics who spoke against religion like Diagoras of Melos (gay guy who chopped up a statue of hercules and used it to bake beans. king.)

In a fantasy universe where gods are provably, visibly real, the term "Atheist" is going to look a lot more like those historic and expansive uses.

Unless you want to argue that "atheism" by the narrow, popular definition of "believing in deities" can't exist in such a setting. So, arguing that Cloudtail stopped being an Atheist when he saw demons in OotS, in spite of this not affecting his spiritual practices. Or, dancing around using one uniting term, you could specifically say Curlfeather is a Misotheist, Splashstar is an Antitheist or Agnostic, Mothwing is Deist, etc.

You could have a discussion about how applicable these words even are in the setting. Or make up terms that satisfy yourself. You could do this forever. But I choose not to.

I think it's counterproductive to push people to learn a bunch of terms for hyperspecific branches of irreligious philosophy just to discuss clear anti-secular sentiment within the text of a book, actually. Or push people to abandon a useful word because fantasy isn't exactly the same as real life. Functionally, imo, all of those aforementioned cats are Atheists within this setting, living "without god" by rejecting belief-- and many of them invoke real world bigotry, with tropes much older than WC itself.

So the simple fact is; Calling Splashtail an "Evil Atheist" immediately communicates the narrative tropes I am criticizing.

Either by authorial accident or on purpose, Splashstar's lack of morality being tied to his rejection of StarClan invokes the demonized atheist trope, very much like the ones seen in PureFlix's God's Not Dead or Jack Chick's The Last Generation.

All the arbitrary wishing that the terms were more narrow and exclusive will not change the reality that those characters are intended by bigots as atheists. The terms of the discussion reflect that. Trying to tut-tut the fandom for calling a spade a spade is a smug way to phrase you completely missed the damn point.

[rimatsu]

setting pessimism aside to daydream about my ideal bucktommy makeup scenario and i just... keep oscillating between buck extending an olive branch and tommy reaching out first. there's merit in both. yes i'd love for buck to discard passivity and fight for this salvageable relationship — for buck to look tommy straight in the eyes and tell him that his sharp edges and his vulnerable insides don't make him any less deserving of love. that he's not blinded by the excitement of novelty or misguided admiration — even without the full picture, buck has seen enough pieces of the puzzle that makes up tommy's whole to know that he loves the entirety of him, unspoken faults and past sins included. that buck can't guarantee forever but he sure as hell can try to build the sturdy foundation of a shared life based on the hope for more. that sometimes you just luck out on the first draw and there's nothing wrong with good fortune.

but it would also be extremely healing if tommy knocked on buck's door to chase after his own second chance. to say "i want you more than i'm scared of hurting" when buck asks him what's changed in 4 months — because tommy would rather live with scars than be haunted by regrets and what-ifs. because buck is worth the risk of never recovering from having loved him

[chronicsyd]

I'm gonna be so serious, y'all are remembering POWDER and Ekko and not JINX and Ekko when screaming about how much you "wanted Timebomb endgame over Caitvi"

shoving JINX in a relationship with her current mental state is not a good writing choice whatsoever, because Ekko literally had to keep rewinding time because she kept trying to kill herself. If Anything, That relationship would be rushed and fanservice because they would have jumped the gun in 2 episodes vs the 2 seasons it took for Caitvi and showing their ups and downs throughout their whole relationship.

The alternate universe works because Powder doesn't become Jinx and the two don't separate, unlike this universe where the two have been at odds for 7 years and almost kill each other back in Ep 7 of S1.

"But Cait never said sorry!" she didn't really have to, because Vi never stopped being in love with the girl that she Knows Cait is at heart, the Cocktail Molotov scene in Act 2 makes that VERY apparent. Cait saying that she was waiting for Vi to recover to address Jinx is the start of it because Act 1 Cait wouldn't have even Considered doing that, because she was so gung-ho about putting a bullet into Jinx that she Demanded Vi move out of the way for her to do so. She holds herself accountable with the mistakes she's made ("We can't erase our mistakes. None of us." that wasn't just a line targeted at Jinx to prove a point, there's deeper meaning behind it), and moving the guards out of the cell proving that she trusts Vi and her judgment on Jinx is that apology, Caitlyn has always been an "acts of service" kinda person over being a "verbal" kinda person; it's all over the place in S1 but Especially here in S2. But even after she takes Vi's shirt off, you could tell by her eyes and body language that she was most likely going to stop herself again to apologize for hitting her because the wound was in the same spot she initially hit, which was part of the lead up for This wound to even happen, but Vi's the one that just pulls her back in instead.

I'm also gonna add on that Vi thinks she made the wrong choice in trusting Jinx and thinking Jinx's changed because Jinx locked her in the cell and ran away again. So why in the Hell would Vi go chasing after her Again to be met with the same result time and time again? Vi isn't responsible for Jinx's mental health and y'all saying that are just weird. And I think it's apparent that Stillwater probably wasn't even in the top 10 things in her head being with Caitlyn, she was just running wild on emotions that she hasn't allowed herself to feel like-- Ever. And even if it Was Vi probably would have said she wasn't comfortable being in a jail cell of all places.

What was I talking about? Oh right, Timebomb.

Like Yes, it's shitty that Ekko doesn't get a happy ending considering he's the most unproblematic in the entire show. But people tend to forget that at the end of the day, Arcane is a TRADGEDY. It's not She-ra, it's not The Owl House, it wasn't going to be wrapped up in a neat little bow where everyone gets to smile and walk into the sunset with their loved ones, especially considering the fact that this season's being used as build ups to other stories, it's relatively clear that this isn't the last we're going to see of a lot of these characters. When they come back into play? well... who's to say?

But also, let's address that a lot of the Caitvi hate is just straight up homophobia at this point because a lot of people can understand Mel's admission to manipulating Jayce as an apology but Cait's actions we're suddenly braindead and need shit completely spelled out. like good lord I'm so tired of this. Y'all would NEVER have survived Catradora let me tell ya...

(My next post is gonna be a long winded rant about Maddie so stay tuned for that...)

[cryingjayb1rd]

fucked up dickjay where they have a 24/7 roleplay that dick had molested jason when he was robin. they slip into it without thinking. they've been doing it for long enough that they have a whole series of intricate lore associated with it. events that never happened that they reference while fucking. that they reference even while just sitting on the couch next to each other. "remember how much fun we had that time bruce went out of town for two weeks and dropped you off with me? when i told you that you had no where else to go?" "remember how you tried to drown me in the tub? how you held me down until i gave in?"

[quicksilversnails]

The Princess contains death within her multitudes, and no vessels embody death and the fear that it inspires more strongly than the Nightmare and Moment of Clarity.

It's a major theme to her route, from how you get to it in the first place - ruminating in fear of what she could be until her presence is enough to make you die of fright - to the Paranoid's chant constantly reminding you of your (perceived) mortality, to her goal to make the world afraid in the same way that she makes you afraid.

Because of the Nightmare's close connection to death, I think there's a lot of interesting comparisons to be drawn between her and the Narrator. I'm writing this post to explore some of their connections and also to spread my vision (TLDR they are foils. To me.)

As we know, the Narrator is characterized by His fear of death, both by His own admission...

...and by the Shifting Mound:

Meanwhile, the Nightmare is defined by the fear she brings, which she acknowledges and seems to relish in:

I think it's noteworthy that the Nightmare wants to inflict this fear onto the world as a whole, unlike many other Princesses who are mainly just focused on you and/or her own personal freedom.

This focus on the world specifically positions her ideology in direct opposition to the Narrator's. The Nightmare wants a world of terror, while the Narrator wants a world void of terror. The Nightmare believes that experiencing fear and suffering is necessary to make the good times meaningful, while the Narrator thinks goodness is self-evident, with forgetting it all being core to the structure of His ideal world.

To accept the Nightmare's vision for the world and leave with her is described as overcoming a fear of the unknown by Shifty:

…and this makes sense - what bigger unknown is there than death? But the Narrator wouldn't see this as something to be celebrated.

To the Narrator, the unknown is always worse than the known. To Him, death is unknowable, uncontrollable, chaotic, horrifying. The cowardly thing to do is accept the unknown, while the heroic thing to do is to fight for something better. This "something better", in His eyes, being the Known: defined by its deterministic, eternally repeating pattern.

Getting back to the Nightmare herself, I think it's telling how much the Narrator HATES her, even more intensely than the average vessel. A great example of this happens just before leaving the cabin with the blade:

Like, this is big for the Narrator! In most routes He goes out of His way to distinguish slaying from killing, but here, His desire to "do things right" is overtaken by the need to see her DEAD.

Also, if you waste the opportunity by not taking the blade with you in the first place, He gets a stiff drink for himself lol

(afaik this is one of only 3 times that he gets a drink… not a common occurrence)

He also briefly seems afraid of Nightmare in her first appearance:

Tbh the screenshot doesn’t do justice to the uncertainty and fear in Jonny's delivery. It's noteworthy to me because the Princess takes on plenty of scary and immediately life-threatening forms throughout the game, but the Narrator usually reacts to the sight of those horrors with indifference or mild indignation, not terror. The Nightmare specifically inspires fear in Him.

And this all comes to a head when she removes her mask, bearing the contents of her heart for you to witness… and he completely gives up.

The sequence leading to the Moment of Clarity is one of the most abstract in the game, and there are plenty of abstract sequences in this game lol. While there are multiple ways to interpret it (and my own interpretation of it has changed many times over time), I do still want to talk about it here because it's so significant to both Nightmare and Narrator's characters.

In my mind, the key to interpreting it is in the inverted linework, which implies that we're seeing things from the Princess' perspective, reflected in the Narrator describing the Princess' experience.

Then, "the complete reality of your existence" refers to the complete reality of the Princess' existence: the capacity to change. And the Nightmare, in all her self-loathing, reveals the darkest, most horrific possibilities of that change. Change as something that hurts everything it touches. As something agonizing to experience and traumatizing to witness. As something that can tear you from the ones you love at any moment, as something that leaves you worse than where you started, as something the world would be better off without.

It all sounds a lot like how the Narrator sees change, doesn't it? "Your existence hurts them" in particular stands out to me as something the Narrator, or the cabin, would say to her directly; the sort of thing she's likely had repeated to her over and over and over throughout her isolation, until deep in her heart she begins to believe it.

The tragic irony of it is that so much of the Princess' suffering is specifically at the hands of the Narrator's construct, and yet she comes to view it as inherent to her own existence. He has convinced her of her own irredeemability. The worms have found their orifices.

(Sidenote but it's neat how the Narrator is occasionally associated with worms. Tower calls Him a "shrivelling little worm stretched beyond its limits", and P&tD's End of Everything poem describes how "the worm in your heart came for us"… which makes this visualization hit that much harder as a representation of the Princess' experience.)

All of this raw emotional vulnerability from the Nightmare seems to stand in total contrast to the Narrator, who withholds himself from you emotionally throughout the game, preventing you from meaningfully connecting with him.

But there's also something about how Nightmare sharing her heart parallels Smitten sharing his heart in the lead-up to HEA. Because HEA Smitten and the Narrator have many parallels of their own, don't they?

All three make some kind of painful sacrifice, revealing a deep vulnerability, in order to force their perspective onto those who experience it. The original Creator goes through death itself - his greatest fear - and inflicts an eternal torment onto his Echoes in order to create His better world, regardless of whether the people of His world would actually want that. The Smitten rips out his heart and calls it a sacrifice in order to give the Princess everything she "doesn't know she wants". The Nightmare takes off her mask, revealing the full weight of her suffering, in order to be let out (not only from the cabin but from her abandonment, from being misunderstood), even if doing so crushes you.

In describing the complete reality of her existence, The Narrator bears witness to everything He'd woven into her, and all the hatred He taught her to feel towards herself. He witnesses the darkest horrors of change, the agony He was so terrified of, and how she experiences all that same agony. And in His creation, the thing He hates and fears more than anything, He also sees a reflection of Himself.

Of course it breaks Him.

If the Nightmare embodies the fear of death, the Moment of Clarity embodies Death itself. If the Nightmare is possibility, MOC is inevitability. If the Nightmare is a dying star, MOC is a black hole.

Like how the Narrator and HEA Smitten become echoes of their original desire, MOC becomes an echo of Nightmare's desires. She is emaciated, her face an empty void. You can't speak to her anymore, can barely engage with her at all. She's more of a memory than a person, and so are you. She has molded you into the tool that she needs, like how the Echo molded TLQ & the Princess into their designated roles, how He also molded Himself into your guide. Time has eroded everything else, but still she remains, now singular in her purpose.

Where the Narrator and the people outside were once consumed by thoughts of oblivion, so too are the voices. They each attempt to grapple with the inevitable in their own ways. They challenge her, run from her, bargain with her, submit to her, romanticize her, philosophize over her, become numb to her.

But you cannot escape from death, from something that only gets closer, and closer, and closer, and closer.

There is no other ending here. There is nothing to do but accept her.

There's something about how TSM describes her as wise, in stark contrast to how she calls the Narrator deluded. I didn't really know what to make of that descriptor when it first got changed, but viewing MOC as death made it click for me, and now it's one of my favourite vessel descriptions.

Where the Narrator wants to change the inevitable, MOC accepts and embraces it. If all the vessels are a reflection of some aspect of the Shifting Mound, MOC reflects the divine wisdom Shifty holds towards death, as well as the inevitability of Shifty herself - the inevitable destination where every route ends, who gently takes the vessels as life leaves their eyes, who always asks for you not to mourn them. (She also reflects all the arms)

....So after all of this, what are we left with? What does all this say about the Narrator and Nightmare?

Well, they're both deeply tied to death and fear. They're diametrically opposed in their beliefs, yet in many ways, they're exactly the same. They're both victims of a cruel world, who then become cruel to others, while also becoming cruel to themselves. They bend you and the world to their will while turning themselves into echoes of what they were.

They're such incredible foils. They're everything to me

[mensahbots]

compilation of mensah moments i liked a whole lot in episode 5

[dxxtruction]

There's an argument to be made (neither here or there on it) about Armand being resistant to having or allowing an open dialogue on race and racial differences between him and Louis, namely on the matter of the lynching, if anything. But I quite enjoy looking at it in the opposite way where it was rather very encouraged in their home to talk about it, and such history. Maybe they don't necessarily touch that particular matter often, as it's sensitive, and conflict prone, and clearly Armand has things to hide about it, but I can really picture Loumand having some thorough discussions on race and colonialism more generally. They have clearly different perspectives, as they have very different backgrounds, but this more informs the others ideas about it and about them than it does take from the thoughts formed about it or them. Unlike Loustat there is a mode of relation they can have on the matter, and I don't see why it would've gone to waste. It seems implied, just by looking at the art they have in their home, and the kinds of books Louis is reading at the time - which seem to inform his artistic tastes - they just do have discussions about how they are forming an understanding of the world, and their racial identities is a part of this. I don't know. Would you purchase 'slave auction' without having a very in depth discussion about it?

When one of you was a slave brought to a foreign land [from India] on a boat, as is shown in this painting, and one of you is a black creole man only a generation removed from the end of chattel slavery? These 'reminders' they place around their home seem like informed decisions, not absent ones.