arvion-creates

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compilation of jing qi and zhou zishu talking each other up to everyone else. i can't believe they found time to invent bromance in between all the plotting and scheming and murder and kidnapping and

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"becomes" 🤨🙄

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Average night out. w the boys the fellas

Og image

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Director ZZH vs. Hugging Fiend GJ

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too much monogamy in fandom in general

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chell twitch streamer. is this anything

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Announcing Qi Ye Week 2025

We're happy to announce another anniversary celebration of Priest's novel Qi Ye/Lord Seventh!

This year will feature a bingo card filled with several low-stakes novel-inspired games for everyone to enjoy, and a writing and art challenge made to accommodate the short turn around time.

Check out our Carrd for more details, and stay tuned for more announcements!

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Hello, friends!

I reworked the ol' "Schweizer Guide to Spotting Tangents" lecture from my comics-teaching days, figured I'd share it here. If you want a free, printable PDF for yourself or to share (especially if you're an educator), you can find it at the bottom of this same lesson on my website.

-Chris

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laios and izutsumi shadow battle

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again and again (speedpaint)

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wanted to draw something for maid day and who better than my favorite black and white trio

naturally Qiao Ling's the one who makes sure sht actually gets done in this household

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I think the other reason I don't really get into ships as portrayed by fandom culture is that it seems like the mindset is more like. "I want these characters to be in a Romantic Relationship(TM)" instead of "I want these characters' relationship to be romantic"

What I mean here is that, so often I see pairings enacting romance tropes to the point of heavily altering or downright replacing their original dynamic - as if the people behind it only understand romance as a series of checklists to tick off. Couples like to kiss and sleep in the same bed and flirt with each other, so it doesn't matter who the characters are, if they're a couple then naturally they'll do those things, right??

And that's where the whole thing starts to lose me, because I would assume that the appeal of shipping characters is, y'know... the characters? Rather than just, the idea of a couple? If I'm thinking about how it'd be cool for them to be in love, my first thought is always "so how would they show it," because just like everything else about a person, the answer is going to be different on a case-by-case basis.

Maybe the characters involved aren't really into kissing, but they like arranging date activities. Maybe they aren't committed to the structure of dating at all, and just want to be around each other whenever they can. And even if they are the types to like doing traditionally romantic things, that doesn't suddenly erase whatever else they had going on before they started adding that on top of it.

I'm not saying that the more typical romance tropes and activities are bad, just that they're applied kind of excessively, regardless of whether or not they actually work for the characters involved. I want to see my favorite characters having relationships that are true to who they are, not what the stock depiction of a couple says they should be.

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Animorphs #8: The Alien thoughts (pt. 4):

It's perfect that Ax is the first person to encounter a semi-sympathic yeerk, of any Animorph. Eslin 359 is so... humanized, for lack of a better word. He's motivated out of love, and revenge. He's right that he and Ax have something in common: Visser Three killed someone they love, and now they're willing to risk everything killing him. Ax has just been slapped in the face with the reality of the andalites' imperialism. And now along comes this yeerk who — unlike Ithileran, unlike Lirem, unlike even Noorlin, very like Elfangor — is willing to break the rules in order to do the right thing. Maybe the war isn't as simple as he's been led to think.

Also, I love all the andalite lip service to "freedom" in combination with their obsession with rule-following. Ax has to pledge allegiance perform a ritual to "freedom" every morning and will be reprimanded if he rushes it. Lirem cites the importance of "defending freedom" to explain why they let the hork-bajir get enslaved. The War Council says "our freedom" is the reason they can never communicate freely with other species. Applegate couldn't possibly be satirizing a different hyper-militarized imperialistic society, now could she?

"'I can almost understand the part about not giving us... megaweapons or whatever' Prince Jake said. 'But why all the other secrets?'... 'It's about keeping control of us,' Marco said. 'It's about power,' Rachel agreed. ...'No,' Cassie said... 'It's about guilt. Shame.'" —p. 128 A+ character-establishing, 10/10, no notes.

Actual Rules Lawyer Tobias Fangor! He promised Ax he wouldn't tell anyone about their mission... so he doesn't. He just shows up in Cassie's barn with a bloody piece of shirt, and tells them that only Ax can answer their questions about why. He promised Ax to follow andalite law on promises... so he does. He just hints that Jake should probably order him to tell the truth until Jake does, and then whoopsie, he's been ordered by his prince to spill the beans so he has no choice. Sir, I love him.

Animorphs books can be read here | Book Club schedule is here

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Then Mensah said quietly, “SecUnit, do you have a name?” I wasn’t sure what she wanted. “No.” “It calls itself ‘Murderbot,’” Gurathin said. I opened my eyes and looked at him; I couldn’t stop myself. From their expressions I knew everything I felt was showing on my face, and I hate that. I grated out, “That was private.”

This. This is important. Before that, it never refered to SecUnits as SecUnits, only as Murderbots. After that the amount of the use of the word "murderbot" refering to SecUnits in general and not to it specifically decreases (yes, I searched). I choose to believe that this is the moment Murderbot fully accepted it as it's name and started differentiating between itself and the other SecUbits more.

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salvation.

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coughing as fuck

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Profile picture close up ✨️

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Lu Guang from Link Click (Bridon Arc)