#zero: you need help
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monkiinart · 10 months ago
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blondes have more fun
mild fungi/parasite related body horror in readmore i guess
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The perfect match, you and me I adapt, contagious You open up, say welcome Bjork - Virus lyrics because this is the ultimate bios song
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inumbrapugnabimus-maybe · 2 months ago
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I draw normal things
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sleepiestoken · 2 months ago
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you know sometimes it just hits me how insane it is to be one of the biggest and fastest rising bands right now and still do zero tv performances zero interviews zero specials zero social media zero anything other than purely making and releasing the music you want. imagine how talented you have to be for this formula to work. INSANE
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ohgreat-moretapes · 10 months ago
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Tim I noticed a lot of indigenous patches on your jacket, are you Native?
Idk what my dad was 'cause I never knew him, but yeah my mom is (or... Was.. I guess..) Muscogee, the tribe native to the part of Alabama I'm in.
If I remember correctly she came to Alabama from Oklahoma (where a lot of Natives were displaced to in the 1800s) to "get back to her roots."
But yknow, I was separated from her in childhood (which tbh is upsettingly common for Native families) and I was raised in a very white very Catholic asylum so I'm not as connected to the culture as I'd like to be.
-Tim
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m-inntii · 6 months ago
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HARUMASA IS AFUCKING LIAR AND A HALF AND I HSTE HIM SM RIWNFKSG
RAGGHH I HATE THIS MAN SM HES SO SAD AND DEPRESSING SJFOJEKFND.
ONE OF HIS TRACES OR WHATEVER THE FHCK THEY CALL CONS IN ZZZ IS LITERALLY NAMED "WHITE LIES" HE LITERALLY LIES ABOUT THE SERVERITY OF HIS ILLNESS SONOTHERS WONT WORRY AJGJIWJD
AND YOU CANNOT TELL ME HE WASNT PRETENDINGNTO BE FINE IN THE AFTERMATH OF HIS STORYR QUEST. HE NEARLY FUCKING DIED (HELL THE WAY HE TALKED BEFORE GOING INTONTHE ECHO MADE IT SEEM LIKE HE KNEW HE WAS GOINGNTO DIE LKKE WTF), SAW HIS MASTER, THE SAME PERSON WHO HAD HELPED EXPERIMENT AND TEST ON HIM, TRYING TO PROTECT THE CASE WHICH HAD THE THING WHICH WOULD HELP HIM EVEN IN FUCKING ETHERAL FORM, AND HAD EVEN GAVE HIS OWN SPINAL FLUID SO THE KIDS WOJLDNT HAVE TO, AND HE COMES OUT SEEMJNGLY OKAY?? NAH I AINT BELIEVING THIS FACADE NO WAY BITCH
AND HIS TRAILERS. OH MY GOD. LIKE THIS MAN APPEARS ALL GOOF5 AND SHIT BUT THEN OFFSCREEN HE LITERALLY SUFFERING FROM FUCKING NIGHTMARES, BELIEVS HES NOT WORTH LOVING JUST BECAUSE HE HAS AN ILLNESS, USES A CHOCKER TO HIDE THE INJECTION SCARS, AND THEN DRILL PRETENDS TO BE OKAY AND PLAYS OFF HIS ISSUES TO AVOID WORRYIJJG PEOPLE
*exhales* anyway thanks for coming to my Ted talk if you couldn't tell I'm obsessed with this man
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agentc0rn · 1 year ago
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Lonely earth-bound monarch figures whose existences and legacies extend past the bounds of time and space.
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tagarilaghost · 21 days ago
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Krako's first few visits to Zero Isle went about as well as you'd expect.
Art by the wonderful wonderful @ghostovniart who I somehow dragged into this <3
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veiledquill · 23 days ago
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I wonder how gajevy shippers feel knowing they're god's favourites
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some info…: i’d be open to taking smutty reqs, but with a fair amount of hard nos TvT !! same goes for yan content (though darker/gritty concepts in general are of course very welcome!) additionally, i would be writing for all fandoms i’m even loosely in LOL (jjk, csm, hsr, wbk, bllk, fate, etc etc …..)
i don’t have a good grasp on what price would be appropriate just yet — right now i’d say probably 10$ for every thousand words! (possiblyyy a lil more).
links to some of my recent pieces under the cut !!
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qiu-yan · 11 months ago
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based on this poll it seems we don't want lan wangji as chief cultivator
someone help him he's too morally good for politics :(
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becauseimamastermind · 17 days ago
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"thinking about how the districts were starving, famished, and still didn't eat each other, meanwhile the Capitol was eating corpses in their streets"
I'm gonna wrap my hands around your throat and squeeze really tightly.
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dahliasheep · 11 months ago
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yes, absolutely @306saint ! if you're interested in a time period in particular, let me know and maybe i can give you specific advice, but otherwise :
the first thing i do if i want to learn about fashion in an era is to find art by contemporaries of that era, and to identify and compare people by social class and age. what shows up again and again? what do people wear in the street? at home? for my own research into the 1790s, i went to a museum and took a bunch of pictures of people in crowd scenes
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if there's a very popular silhouette that defines that time (like the empire waist dress, the miniskirt in the 1960s), i try to identity what it's inspired by, and what comes before it : is it a natural evolution of that silhouette, or is it reacting to and opposing it? what are they trying to tell people with their clothes? comparing an outfit to what comes immediately before it will tell you so much about it, and even more if there's a specific historical event that happened around that time : a war, a revolution, a drastic regime change
usually what i will do is look at some art and draw my impressions based on that, and then i try to refine them in smaller details, that i might not have seen at first glance but will become more obvious to me as i become more familiar with the era. you also start picking up on popular fabrics, colors, hairstyles, accessories. and the thing is that there's really some small but key details that will firmly place your designs in an era, and that's something you will get a sense for as you go
so my concrete advice is to compare and contrast, and get some idea of major events and trends contemporary to the fashion that you're interested in, because that often really makes things click for me
but do beware of the misattributed pinterest dress ! try to find blogs, instagram accounts etc that list dates and creators for fashion. if you google "1880s women fashion", you WILL get a bunch of very wrong results. i would suggest doing research through specific designers or painters instead, or newspapers if these are around, and really pay attention to the years. post 1780s, fashion moves fast and the exact year can be important
also ! beware the treacherous 19th century artist! they will paint historical scenes but use contemporary fashion. it's fun though, i love being able to identify that a painting of marie-antoinette was made in the 1880s because of the shape of her skirt
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(art by georges cain and james tissot respectively : james tissot is a great painter for fashion research, the clothes in his paintings are so detailed)
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strangersteddierthings · 2 years ago
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Steve, Gareth and Chrissy are cousins AU (sad edition) [prologue] [part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4] [part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Final Part]
"So," Robin says after they clink their molotov cocktails together, "do we also get to talk about the whole cousin situation now?"
Steve looks across the field, where Eddie and Dustin are defending themselves from invisible enemies. Gareth and Lucas are swinging the finished spears at each other while Erica shakes her head at them, working on a third. It looks like Nancy is showing Max the proper way to hold a shotgun, which isn't nearly as bizarre as it probably should be.
"What's there to talk about?"
"Are you doing okay?" Robin asks.
Steve doesn't mean to making a scoffing noise. It just leaves his body involuntarily. "No. But I'm not the only one not doing okay. Now that we know Vecna doesn't have to do the whole weeklong build up to murder town, that he could get any of us, as any time and he's just being a sadistic bastard-"
"Steve. He'll take the bait. If nothing else, we have to believe that."
Steve looks from Max to Gareth, then back to Robin. "Yeah. Right."
Robin is quiet for a moment, before her eyes flick away and back to him again. "Do you want to talk to Gareth? He was... God, Steve, it was awful, hearing him scream for you. While Vecna was... Anyway, I know you two are like avoiding each other for whatever reason, but I think you can let go of whatever it was."
"I just wanted to keep them safe, Robbie," Steve swallows down the sob that wants to break free. "I never wanted them involved in this. I was so scared that I'd somehow infect them with the Upside Down that I just kept them away and it took Chrissy anyway. It-it-"
"It hasn't taken Gareth, though," Robin says softly, cutting Steve's spiral off. "It hasn't taken him. But he needs you. I think you need him, too. You should talk. Before we drop him at the Creel house. Because."
She doesn't finish, but that's fine. Steve knows what she's saying. They could die today. Any one of them. Chrissy died without Steve making it right. He'd started to work on hanging out with Chrissy again, but it was all surface level. He didn't even apologize. With Gareth he could justify, however shitty that was to do, that he was staying away because Gareth asked him to.
Chrissy hadn't asked for Steve to step out of her life. He'd done that himself in '83.
He can't do right by Chrissy anymore, but he can try with Gareth.
He stands and Robin gives his knee two solid pats before he walks away.
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"Dustin, you piss off Steve somehow?" Eddie asks.
Gareth, in the middle of facing off with Lucas, pauses to look around, which gains him a light tap to his side by Lucas' spear. Sure enough, Steve is stalking their direction with a grim determination on his face.
"What, why am I the one getting the blame?" Dustin says, offended.
"It is usually you," Lucas adds, which earns him a squawk of indignation from Dustin, who shoots back, "he could be coming to lecture you for making Erica do all the spear making!"
Steve doesn't approach either boy, though.
"Hey, can we talk?" Steve asks once he comes to a stop in front of him.
"Got some end of the world regrets, Harrington?" Gareth says, trying to keep his voice lighter than he feels. He wants to tease Steve, not bully him.
He must succeed because Steve gives a chuckle and says, "I don't think we have time for all the end of the world regrets, so, uhh, just the one for now."
"We're cool, dude," Gareth says, eyes flicking from Steve to Eddie. The kids know, Gareth told them himself, but Eddie doesn't. "I started it."
"Yeah, but I graduated and still pretended you didn't exist. Which isn't what you asked for."
Gareth shrugs, because he doesn't know everything but he knows enough. Learned this isn't anyone else's (besides Eddie and his) first rodeo or whatever. That there have been other times, dating back to the year Will Byers was lost for a week. "Dude. Seriously. We're cool. You've been dealing with... whatever the fuck this is. So, just, like promise to be around more once we all survive this."
Steve looks pained but before he can reply, Eddie cuts in, "I'm sorry. How do you know each other?"
Gareth looks to Steve, who just shrugs as if to say your friend, you responsibility and honestly? Fuck Steve Harrington. Keeps traumatizing secrets and pushes Gareth away and also throws him to the wolves. Except, this is the secret Gareth has been keeping from Eddie. He sighs and turns to Eddie. "Well, uh, Steve's my cousin. We used to be super close before I started high school. Actually, Steve here is the reason I joined Hellfire!"
Eddie seems to go through all 7 stages of grief before settling into a confused. "I'm sorry. Steve talked you into joining Hellfire?"
"That is not what I did!" Steve defends himself.
"God no. He just went into great detail about how loud and obnoxious and attention-grabbing the current president was, as if that would make me want to not meet you for some reason."
"It was a warning!" Steve yelps at the same time Eddie sing-songs, "You think I'm attention-grabbing, Harrington?"
Dustin, Lucas, and Erica are all laughing at Steve has he tries to sputter through what he meant by attention-grabbing ("It's hard to not pay attention when he's shouting from the top of a lunch table!"), and Gareth just watches on, amused.
After they fight an... evil wizard? Vecna or whatever his name is. Once this is over, Gareth is going to sit Steve down and make him tell him everything, but that can wait.
He wants to watch Steve flounder trying to defend himself from the accusations of watching Eddie just a bit too much back in high school.
Later, as they all pack up and load up in the RV, Nancy stops Steve from entering the RV, ushering everyone past until Gareth and Steve are the only ones left outside.
"Are we acknowledging that you're cousins, now?" she asks.
"You knew!?" Steve sounds surprised. Gareth's surprised, too.
Nancy just rolls her eyes. "Steve, I've been to your house." When that just makes Steve look confused, she rolls her eyes and says, "there are family pictures covering almost every inch of your living room."
"Why didn't you say anything sooner?" Robin pipes in, appearing in the doorway with an angry expression.
"It wasn't really my thing to talk about, was it?"
"Yeah, but did you even check in with Steve? If you knew, and knew what happened to Chrissy- you didn't even ask if he wanted to go to the funeral!"
"Robin!" Steve hisses.
Nancy doesn't look upset by whatever accusation Robin seems to be trying to make. "If Steve wanted to go, he could have said something. We aren't his keepers. But, also," her gaze goes from Robin to Steve, "I didn't want to pry or seem pushy. I figured you'd tell us when you were ready."
Robin frowns but doesn't say anything else, disappearing back into the RV. Gareth gestures for Steve and Nancy to go first, and then he's closing and locking the door behind him before heading to sit by Eddie along the back bench seat. A bunch of shit has been piled there, so Gareth shoves it off the seat and to the floor. The pile of things ends up being a hazard and he almost brains himself while turning to sit down; something under his foot slides and Eddie saves him, yanking him to fall onto Eddie. After some fussing and laughter from those around, Gareth gets seated and looks down to see what almost killed him.
It's a phone book.
Eddie leans in close once they're back on the road to town to whisper, "so, you just let me go on all those rants about King Steve and never once thought to tell me you were related?"
Gareth just gives him his best impression of a King Steve smirk and says, "I would have hate to have deterred you from talking about your favorite school subject."
It's worth seeing the scandalized look on Eddie's face, even as the man socks him in the leg for the comment. "I hate you, man."
Gareth rubs his leg and says, "you don't mean that."
There's a long silence from Eddie after that before he says, "you're right. I don't mean that. And. Uh. In case I don't- in case it goes south down there but ends up fine up here, I just-"
"No," Gareth growls. "Fuck you, Eddie. We're going to be fine. All you gotta do is shred on your guitar and get the hell out. You're going to be fine."
"You didn't see the bats."
"Eddie."
"Fine. It's gonna be fine," Eddie agrees and falls silent.
Gareth frowns at that. Eddie must really be worried, to not argue back like he usually does. Gareth's worried, too, but what can he do?
He thinks about his mom. When did he last tell her he loves her? If they don't succeed tonight, will he get a chance to say it again? Will anyone get a chance to say it again?
Gareth looks down at the phone book at his feet.
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"Wait, does anyone have change for a payphone?" Gareth asks from somewhere behind him. Steve turns in his seat to look into the back of the RV.
"Uh, yeah," Robin digs into her pockets, but then narrows her eyes at Gareth and asks, "wait. Who are you calling?"
"I have to let my mom know I'm alive. Just... hear my voice," Gareth says. "She needs to know I'm okay. It's already been too long since last we talked and... after Chrissy she was..."
Robin's face drops into the guiltiest look Steve's ever seen on her face and she produces her wallet, dropping the whole thing into Gareth's open hand. "Yeah, no. Sorry. There's still plenty of time for a phone call before the end of the world. You better return my wallet, Cunningham."
"I'm not going to rob you, Buckley," Gareth says before ducking out the RV with Max, Lucas, and Erica.
Steve tries not to let the guilt well up in him as they drive away. Gareth had wanted to come with Team Kill Vecna but Steve had quickly argued against that. He wasn't going to let Gareth anywhere near the Upside Down.
So it was decided. Max, Lucas, Erica, and Gareth at the Creel house, Dustin and Eddie on distraction, and Nancy, Robin, and Steve were going to face down Vecna.
There was still hours to go before they'd try, with a time set for 9:20ish, since that's the time Vecna's been enacting his curse according to Eddie's broken watch. Plenty of time to fortify Eddie's house in the Upside Down, plus the almost 40 minute walk to the Creel house from Forest Hills.
This was going to work. It had to.
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Max and Lucas opt for hiding around the back of the house, waiting for time to pass until it's closer to dark, and Erica said she was going to snoop around the abandoned playground, so Gareth decided to head to the payphone a couple of blocks down the street.
He makes it halfway there before Erica scares the shit out of him by saying, "why do you need a phone book?"
Gareth yelps and spins, stupidly trying to hid the book behind his back even though he knows she already saw it. "I- uh, no. No reason."
Erica eyes him and he's suddenly very aware of whatever Eddie saw in her that night at Hellfire, that let her join the club. She's pretty scary for a middle schooler. "Do I look stupid? Who are you calling." It's not a question. It's a demand.
"I'm going to try and get a hold of Eddie's uncle," Gareth answers, trying to sound like an authority figure. "Tell him he'll find Eddie at his home at eight tonight. I know you all are so used to not telling people but this is- we need a real adult and Wayne's an army vet. He'll know how to help. He'll want to help."
She purses her lips, stays quiet for a moment before she nods. "I'm usually surrounded by stupid people, but you're kind of not one. I've got more change if you need it."
Gareth calls the plant and asks to speak to Wayne Munson. It's a bit of back and forth before the secretary agrees, but only if Wayne agrees to speak to a Gareth Cunningham. The plant must be getting calls from angry locals.
"Are ya really Gareth, or are ya just wantin' ta yell at me for helpin' raise the devil incarnate?" Wayne sounds tired and Gareth feels bad for him.
"Eddie would love for you to call him that to his face when you see him again."
"Thank God, son," Wayne sounds relieved. He must recognize Gareth's voice. "Ya okay? No one's harrassin' ya, are they?"
"No. Listen Wayne, I'm going to say something crazy but please just listen and do your best to be casual. I know where Eddie is. Or, where he will be at eight tonight. He's.... not physically hurt but he's going to need you. He might hate me for telling you this but I had to."
There is a pause where all he hears through the phone is a long inhale followed by a slow exhale. "Mmm hmm. I appreciate yer concern and glad ta hear no one's botherin' ya just for knowin' Eddie."
Gareth is only confused for a moment before he realizes Wayne is trying to make this conversation sound routine from his end. "Just. He's going home. But please don't show up until after eight. If you... if you beat him home he might run. Try to keep you out of this, y'know?" Gareth is just lying now, but he's a teenage boy in a garage band that plays in a dingy bar at the edge of town. That is to say, he knows how to lie off the cuff.
"I read ya loud and clear. I'll let ya know as soon as Eddie's been found safe so ya can quit worryin'. I gotta get back to it, but thanks for reachin' out."
Gareth hangs up and looks to Erica. "Well. Let's hope I haven't ruined everything."
"Let's hope that you know Wayne as well as you think you do."
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meowsticmarvels · 6 months ago
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the concept of delta engineering the decision game so he and phi can be born is kinda funny he's like ok so i have to worsen my parents' existing ptsd so me and my Stupid ass sister I Guess will be born witj magic powers and shes also gonna have worsened ptsd as a result. this is a Necessary evil Life is Simply Unfair :/
#zero escape#ztd#zero time dilemma#ztd spoilers#zero escape delta#zero escape phi#this is a draft i had from like. august i need to post more of my drafts i kinda cooked?#but fucking help me. its so funny#like i know he has to do it but based on how he and phi interact i know he does not give a shit about her#in the last few minutes of ztd they HAAATE eachother in response to phi being pissed about being used for this whole thing he literally is#like 'does that make you angry#in the most condescending tone ever#like Are you mad? Are you seething? You have fallen into my trap dear sister#being real + unrelated to post: i kinda wish they had more of an actual dynamic/some interaction. or like delta had more of An Opinion on#phi rather than just He dgaf. like bestie she's patient zero for YOUR virus. and he's also the guy who started a cult with clones of his#dead adoptive brother out of grief. you would think that guy would care a little more about having a secret long lost twin sister#even if he just fucking hated her and had beef with her i think that would be more interesting. and really funny. or maybe he pities her#but no his characterization is just Evil Complex Motives Old Guy. whereee is the moral greyness of zero like sigma or akane.....#on the topic of him singling out phi though for the line i mentioned i wanna say towards everyone else he responds normally to her he's jus#Interesting. Does that make you angry? Are you upset with how your life has been toyed with? Are you? and shes just like . what#anyways. sorry for rambling in the tags i just think delta and phis sibling dynamic could have been interesting but also REALLY funny#trevor.txt
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kelpermoosee · 4 months ago
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Knocking them over and watching them scramble to get up with those big ass heads
#kelperambles#captainshipping#tw eyestrain#eye strain#the captainshipping brainrot is so bad right now oh my god it’s like something wormed into my brain and started destroying everything#to constantly think about them but not have enough time to draw them. torture.#Nintendo yaoi is what could save me.#the last time I tried to draw Captainshipping I drew ONE (1!!!!) line on Falcon’s chin and went ‘ok that’s pretty good. I should lay down’#AND THEN I FELL ASLEEP FOR 5 HOURS#wiping a tear from my eyes as I look at captainshipping photo album on my phone before bed#life is beautiful#I love drawing them and just looking back at my art months later and thinking ‘dude I actually killed it. this is everything I ever wanted’#because it’s true!!! It’s exactly what I want to see because it came from ME?!? CRAZY IDEA.#I imagine their dynamic as something genuinely so sweet. hopefully I can articulate it well enough here#Like from subspace emissary you can already see how Falcon (quite literally) pushes Olimar to try new things and be more adventurous#(even if Olimar doesn’t need it after his time on PNF-404 LMAOO)#and Olimar encourages Falcon to slow down and live in the moment#plus. between the two Olimar definitely talks the most about nearly anything and everything#EXCEPT for his true feelings because if there’s one thing he’s good at. it’s bottling his emotions until he explodes in the worst crash out#But falcon is observant and provides Olimar the space he needs to vent any issues#even if Olimar thinks they’re probably insignificant in the face of CAPTAIN FALCON of all people#like dude…the infamous bounty hunter and rich award winning F-Zero racer? CRAZY.#Falcon doesn’t mind though. He cares about Olimar and genuinely wants to listen.#if its about financial issues he could definitely help but olimar adamantly refuses#Olimar doesn’t want to ‘take advantage’ of his relationship with Falcon and he’s always been super self-reliant so it’s hard to adjust#and guess what. Falcon could care less. he has too much money to count and would probably spend it on another custom racetrack#istg he’s so obsessed with racing I wouldn’t be surprised if he LIVED in the blue falcon instead of getting a place to stay#Olimar and Falcon are opposites attract taken to the extreme dude I love it so much#and consider the tropes????? LIKE DUDE FALCON IS LITERALLY GETTING HUNTED DOWN BY VILLAINS IMAGINE IF THEY FOUND OUT ABT OLIMAR#AND THE HELMET. THEYLL NEVER BE ABLE TO KISS AND ITS SO GOOD I EAT IT UP!!! FOREVER YEARNING LONGING REALNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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floorpancakes · 2 months ago
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Are you excited about xxxHOLIC Rei coming back in less than a week?? (Also, a lot of blogs got flagged lately, you can read more about it on the wip blog!)
my answer is yes. but also no. but also im terrified. but also im so fucking excited. but i will be WATCHING CLAMP LIKE A HAWK... lemme explain.
the main run of xxxholic is almost untouchably impressively perfectly good. i change my opinion depending on the day but rou is simultaneously insanely impressive and real as fuck but also where a couple of the endgame decisions really begin to feel like the wrong ones - I fucking LOVE it especially how it portrays barely restrained want and depressive decay with adult characters, but we all know how I feel about how utterly optional and avoidable the kohane thing was (they could've done the exact same non romantic oomf marriage agreement that watanuki inevitably chooses to misconstrue to beat himself up thing w the same effects w hima and it would've been more interesting but we know how much clamp likes to shove teacher student age gap into shit even when it ISNT romantic and they would not fucking do that...) and I don't like that the moral of the story for 99 percent of chapters is 'watanuki fucking suffers with no end in sight and retracts into himself instead of growing from trauma', but also I love tragedy and angst and mental health and mutual situationship metaphors and watanuki in this era is more relatable to me than ever before unfortunately so I hold my mixed feelings but I also enjoy it super super hard for the most part. Pls note that the moral dilemma I have about rou isn't that watanuki is suffering at all, but that he's suffering seemingly with no ...exit??? In sight? Like. We don't have any relief for him in his future, so I guess that's what sours me on some of it as a whole rather than actually abt the media quality itself. Long story I hope this makes sense. We all know how much I love rouposting so I hope it checks out.
So I was already very much a fan when Rei became a thing. I remember watching new stuff come out so I was one of the people 'fooled' in the beginning by the fake reboot setup. I knew something was happening but I wasn't sure what, and the series slowly showing its hand was super interesting. I famously love the ominous chasing hands and the thing with the phone, and imo the STRONGEST part of rei that we found out later is the interactions between characters influenced by their adult selves jumping out (think watanuki clearly leaning in to yuuko's jabs, watanuki taking the wife jokes with way less resistance, watanuki having a more platonic stronger bond with hima, watanuki accidentally slipping into the slutty boss persona then fucking exploding blushing while talking to doumeki LOL, among other things). I find that aspect really interesting and it's something only clamp could do in this specific situation which is rly rly fun. So umm. I guess we knew this would end eventually but when the end of arc was approaching I think I had my first real time groan with the series: yuuko is saying watanuki can choose, and noone will judge, and either choice is ok, he can stay with the people he loves or he can go home to his old life: but is that really true? Perhaps yuuko thinks so, but the way the story shows it to us, watanuki HAS to reply to those hands. There's so many, they're so in need, they need his presence in the universe too badly, they put pressure on him and weigh the decision so it's like 'go into the dream world and get what you want and just let everyone else get fucked up forever', it just feels like. He doesn't really have an option if he wants to not come off like a dick, and that's quite weird to me, it paints him in a weird light if he wants to choose happiness for himself, even if it's a slightly more hollow one. It feels like the sort of thing holic wouldn't typically do since it's a series that likes to play with the idea that choosing things for yourself and your own happiness is a kind of selfishness that's often VERY necessary, especially if you're someone that's hurting and needs their people around them.
....So imagine the look on my face when it turned out all of this was a massive fetch quest for tsubasa reservoir chronicle.
I've never finished tsuba, I read like half of it a year or so ago and unfortunately it hasn't clicked with me yet, and neither have most of the characters. I plan on finishing it eventually and I know it gets juicy in the back half, but I've always had mixed opinions on holitsuba being marketed as a pair, especially when especially on the western side people like both but tsuba is their ACTUAL favourite, or they like both but tsuba gets more attention, or more discussion, or more merch, or more whatever. I'm aware I'm a bit of a hater about it but it's mostly nothing personal and I do really WANT to like it, but they're fundamentally very different kinds of stories and inevitably people will have their preferences or perhaps be more into one than the other yaknow. I'm aware all of my oomfs are tsuba enjoyers. I promise my haterdom isn't that serious. I'm happy for yall.
HOWEVER please imagine me in 2016 reading the chapter when it dropped and you can imagine the worlds biggest crash out of all time. Mind you I'd still feel weird about this even if I loved tsuba to death, and maybe one day I will, but holy fucking SHIT the impact of them weighing all this on watanukis shoulders only to essentially be like 'oh, watanuki got put through ALL of this to grab a Thingamajig for Some Guy (ik he's not just some guy ik the lore but narratively speaking)' . ..... I am sure even if you like tsubasa a lot this is probably a strange fucking thing to do, and this combined with clamp DROPPING THE SERIES FOR LIKE 8 YEARS immediately afterwards...??? I am still fucking baffled by this. It lowkey ruined my trust in clamp forever. What did they mean by this. Why did they think this was a good idea. What the fuck were they cooking ?:?:?:?:
Fun fact: i know there's a small handful of chapters that come after the arc ender. I have not read them since they came out. I barely remember them. I have been avoiding them out of spite. I will re-catch up soon obviously but jesus fucking c hrist 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 clamp you can't just do that to people!!! It makes it look like you hate your characters and your fans!!! Good lord!?
so basically that brings us to the present. I'm super excited, because I love xxxholic and even during Rei the chapter to chapter content was super impressive (my problems are mostly big decisions) but it also makes me think: where do we have to go from here? Where do THEY want to go from here? We've lost almost all of our main characters aside from yokai who brush in and out of watanuki's life and his shop mascot oomfs, watanuki is still depressed, arguably far more now , he has no way out, none of the doumekis have used the egg and we can't see a use for it (in canon at least) where it will even change anything now. There's many directions this could go, but unless they get really gutsy with some deus ex machina (please please please please here's how doumeki could still win please) it's hard to know what they even want to do to round this off or revive it from where it stands.
Unfortunately most of the options I can think of that I think clamp MIGHT do are things I don't really like . I can't tell how much of this is me being overly cautious or if any of this will actually happen but here's some horror stories I have rattling about in my brain that I hope WON'T happen:
- all doumekis are secretly doumeki (i don't like this!! I think they're more interesting as separate people and it would be weird as shit to act like say sayaka x watanuki is the same as shizuka x watanuki. i like the idea that the sameface doesn't mean they're the same kinda people, a la haruka)
- watanuki is secretly clow (please god no. please god no no thank you i don't like that)
- watanuki is egged and just let loose onto the world with no support system (this would be the worst payback for all of his suffering)
- watanuki remains here forever with no hope of seeing anyone of the main cast he loves again (kill)
- im actually someone who prefers yuuko coming back agnosticism to her reincarnating as a random person. i think it's more interesting that way and she wouldn't want him to have to desperately seek her out while crashing out for hundreds of years. she'd want better than that for him even knowing some things are inevitable. so all the yuuko seeking type chapters we've had so far are not of great interest to me. this is actually how I came up with canary from catverse. canary is the endless numb stasis of a life devoted to hunting for yuuko and nothing else regardless of her wishes for him to live a good life.
- idk man. some clamp bullshit
- tsubasa reservoir chronicle fetch quest...2!!
...I don't know what we're gonna get. I don't know what to expect. I am excited and I am nervous and I am dreading it a little bit too. We shall see I guess but the way they left us off with Rei hiatus and the arc ended drove me insane for YEARS OF MY LIFE. so this is how I'm feeling rn. I hope watanuki is freed from his suffering. I hope doumeki, actual doumeki, gets a presence and gets to go crazy go stupid. I hope yuuko gets a presence or non presence that befits her and she's not used as a thing to wrangle around watanuki's suffering to new heights. I hope watanuki gets happiness and progress after at least a hundred years of regression and stasis. I hope they care more about character happiness and the spirit of the story and not trying to connect it to other plots in manga they may or may not prefer and holic doesn't get more weird middle child treatment. I hope we get a w for watanuki and no annoying plot twists that sacrifice character dynamics for drama. I hope doumeki gets a madoka rebellion movie and also we get a whole volume of douwata sex as compensation . I would like to see himawari again and I don't care how. I have lost hope of them doing anything with kohane given how they sidelined her already to limply not quite fulfil the authors obvious fetish. I hope we all get a W for our long wait. I hope watanuki wears more dresses and serves cunt so hard xxxholic goes VIRAL amen
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