flengtinamoon

[flengtinamoon]

the insane experience of missing a fictional character . like you can always go back and reread the book , replay the game , rewatch the show or movie , you can always go back & see them , but you can never experience them & their story for the first time again . its absurd to miss them because they'll always be there , but you'll miss when there were still new things for them to say .

for a small time they were real & growing and changing and you hung onto every new word, but now all they can do is repeat the same story forever&ever & they're not real anymore because you know everything they're going to do. & you miss them. its fucked man...

[flengtinamoon]

Nit true, I feel worst about myself when I wake up

i love that post thats like “never trust how you feel about your life after 9pm” that shit changed my life. every time i feel bad i look at the clock and i’m like Aha It’s 10:26 PM You Cannot Fucking Fool Me

[flengtinamoon]

I have rewatched it 1039390304 times as a child

oughhh i miss when TI community was at it's peak

[flengtinamoon]

Watchdog Blaster 3D Model

The more realistic render:

More variants under the cut.

The cartoon view Solidworks render I edited:

The more realistic render from the same side (sans slight cheated angle):

Retro

Retro game:

[flengtinamoon]

Thoughts about Oboro

One of the most compelling aspects of Oboro's character is that he was Shouyou's first student, yet ultimately betrayed him out of jealousy. At first, his motivations seemed selfless; he allowed Shouyou to roam free, believing that doing so would grant his master and fellow students a happy life. But over time, that selflessness twisted into selfishness; he wanted to be the one by his master's side, regardless of what happened to the others. In the end, he turned him in and burned their school, destroying their home both symbolically and pshysically.

His presence at Shouyou's execution and the fact that he was responsible for Takasugi's last image in his left eye being Gintoki's tears adds another layer of personal conflict that shaped Gintoki, Takasugi, and Katsura. Yet, despite his actions, he intervened to stop others from killing them, arguing that as samurai, they'd "already died," a moment that reveals there's more to his character. With these connections, he felt like he was being positioned as a major antagonist. He was the first student, the source of their greatest suffering, and a servant of the Tendoushuu, the overarching threat of the series. Yet, once Utsuro was introduced, Oboro lost much of his individuality, eventually feeling like little more than Utsuro's lackey.

The more I reflect on it, the more I believe Oboro would've been a better final villain. He didn't need immortality for it to work, his story already embodied the themes of emptiness and loss in a way that paralleled Gintoki's journey far better than Utsuro ever did. Oboro had a family, lost it, found another, and lost it again. He represented what Gintoki could become if he lost the Yorozuya and his friends in Kabukicho, a man who, to avoid pain, chose to live on empty, refusing to let anyone else fill his heart (except for the memory of his master).

Unlike Utsuro, who was an all-powerful immortal, Oboro's inability to escape his cycle of servitude felt more grounded. Taken as a child, molded into a tool, he was never given the chance to break free. That made him a bigger threat than most foes Gintoki had faced, someone who couldn't be swayed, had nothing left to fight for or lose, yet remained just another pawn in a larger system, one that wouldn't simply disappear even if he were defeated.

Some might argue that because Oboro followed orders of the Tendoushuu, he wouldn't have worked as the final antagonist. But in my view, that actually aligns better with what Gintama was always about. The series was never about overthrowing entire power structures, it was about protecting what mattered within them. At most, victories came in small, personal ways: saving a single town from a tyrant, forcing the government's hand for the sake of two lovers, etc. Even in victory, the world's problems remained. That's why one of the biggest issues with the final arc was its scale. While I understand why Sorachi wanted to go bigger, it never quite fit the series' core themes.

Had Oboro been the final villain, the theme of emptiness could still have been explored, perhaps even more effectively than with Utsuro. His character was already set up for it. He shut his heart after losing everything, but that very loss could've been used to push Gintoki further, forcing him to confront his greatest fear: losing someone precious again. If Oboro had killed someone in Kabukicho or critically injured Kagura or Shinpachi, it would've cemented his role in the narrative, making the conflict deeply personal.

In the end, like Utsuro, he too could've realized that because people are empty, they seek to fill their hearts with others. His final moment (like his actual death in the series) where he was acknowledged as part of the Shouka Sonjuku, could've been even more impactful if he chose to protect his fellow students as their older brother, sacrificing himself against the Tendoushuu. By breaking free from the organization that had controlled him since childhood and allowing others to fill the void within him, his conclusion would've been far more meaningful, adding greater depth to his character and the story as a whole.

[flengtinamoon]

psychic: *reads my mind*

me: gintama was supposed to be a story for the common man, a small tale about a former war veteran/hero who started out with nothing, learned to love, and lost everything. gintoki was just a regular guy who didn’t need any big dreams or huge aspirations, he just wanted to learn to forgive himself for his past mistakes and live a good life, nothing big. the plot wasn’t really much of a plot at all, just showing how even the most broken person can become whole again by trusting himself and the people around him. gintama aims to show people how you don’t need your entire life planned out and have an overarching goal to work toward. gintoki and the rest of the characters show that it’s okay to live out one day at a time. take things slow, embrace your flaws and seek to become a better person one small step at a time. but now? the sensei who was a light in the lives of gintoki and his disciples, who helped them understand that it’s all right to not always know the answer, became an extravagant Main Villain that Gintoki the Main Protagonist is Destined to Defeat. the once ordinary child trying to live his life to the fullest became an object of karma. where is the natural, everyday gintoki, the one we all looked up to as a Protagonist and a Main Character precisely because he wasn’t? where is the boy thrown into war and suffering and now learning to heal himself with others, representing a journey so many depressed people have to face? why is the kid who wasn’t destined to become anything, who just wanted to live his life standing tall and proud, now suddenly a cheap plot twist used to emphasize the role of fate and clichéd Good vs. Evil drama? perhaps it is too soon to be disappointed abut this storyline yet, but when will gintama truly be the gintama we once loved again? when will we return to the hero who was extraordinary because he wasn’t, who represents the small things precious to us that we try to protect everyday, who tells us what it really means to be happy?

psychic: what the hell

[flengtinamoon]

honestly fucking fascinating that people will pretty universally understand that thin people can be naturally predisposed to thinness regardless of what they eat or their activity level, but that so many of the same people cannot possibly fathom that fat people could have similar dispositions or that there could be any factors more complex than a "lack of self control."

[flengtinamoon]

rough sketches of some Watchdogs and Peepers.

I am a complete sucker for masks and helmets, especially helmets that cover the entire face. I love the idea of knowing how a character is feeling just from their body language and intonation alone. And in this case, I think it fits with the uniformity of the Hater army. And though it looks goofy, imagine being hunted by a hundred of these guys in the dark, with all those holographic unblinking eyes staring at you.

The Watchdogs are mostly based on deep sea bubble helmets while Commander Peepers’ helmet is a mishmash of a conquistador, spartan, and Cobra Commander’s mirror mask helmet.  (I also threw in a Spaceball styled Watchdog as a gag, though I guess that could be the standard uniform when the Watchdogs aren’t off planet.)

Rest assured, I actually have a face designed under that faceplate, though I’m pretty sure people will have mixed opinions on what I’ve got in mind.

[flengtinamoon]

rough sketches of some Watchdogs and Peepers.

I am a complete sucker for masks and helmets, especially helmets that cover the entire face. I love the idea of knowing how a character is feeling just from their body language and intonation alone. And in this case, I think it fits with the uniformity of the Hater army. And though it looks goofy, imagine being hunted by a hundred of these guys in the dark, with all those holographic unblinking eyes staring at you.

The Watchdogs are mostly based on deep sea bubble helmets while Commander Peepers’ helmet is a mishmash of a conquistador, spartan, and Cobra Commander’s mirror mask helmet.  (I also threw in a Spaceball styled Watchdog as a gag, though I guess that could be the standard uniform when the Watchdogs aren’t off planet.)

Rest assured, I actually have a face designed under that faceplate, though I’m pretty sure people will have mixed opinions on what I’ve got in mind.

[flengtinamoon]

Why have social media largely become so boring and unusable? Tumblr is the least bad platform though.

[flengtinamoon]

Arches National Park, Utah photo: Elliot McGucken

[flengtinamoon]

[flengtinamoon]

so embarrassing to get obsessed with your own oc but it doesn't fuel you creatively or motivate you at all you just sort of sit there. like yeah I've been thinking a lot about blorbo from my mind. no images of them exist in the world and they have maybe 3 personality traits so far. I would rather die than attempt to write about them. I've spent the last 48 hours rotating them in my brain though

[flengtinamoon]

Hey, a little bit about recognizing eugenics. Eugenic logic often consists of 3 steps:

Some people have a trait that makes them less 'productive' or different.

The trait is hereditary / fixed from birth

Actions must be taken to prevent the occurrence of this trait, like preventing the births, killing the current trait-havers or promoting the health and birthrate of the people without this trait and with traits that we like.

And that's bad.

But I see a lot of conversations about whether something is hereditary / fixed from birth, where people assume that the yes/no answer to that is defined by eugenics.

So for clarity: NOT eugenics is:

Some people have a trait that makes them less 'productive' or different

The trait is hereditary / fixed from birth

Being different or less productive is totally fine actually! Everyone has inherent value. Diversity and co-dependency are strengths, even if we can't always see why.

So, ya know, if you see someone arguing that a trait is partly or completely hereditary or fixed from birth, maybe check what value they assign to that before calling someone a eugenicist?

I see some people insisting that any nature/nurture debate must always be settles as 'it's nurture' because anything else would be a slippery slope to eugenics, and that's often just not the case. It's all about what value you assign to difference.

Enforcing a dogmatic insistence that hereditary or unchangeable disabilities or traits don't exist at all isn't the great anti-eugenics strategy that you think it is. At best it's factually inaccurate, at worst the idea that everything must be changeable can lead to the insistence that everyone who is different should just change to become more productive or more normal.

And that's also bad.

[flengtinamoon]

I have this really uncomfortable mental image of Horde Prime cutting Entrapta's hair against her will and using his mind control on her and making her do things that are A Bad Time™ for her in an autistic sensory way. It would be horrible for her, obviously, but with Hordak, there would be this interesting contrast of, "If Horde Prime does something bad to me, it isn't bad and I actually deserve it, but if Horde Prime does something bad to Entrapta, it's literally the end of the world."

You are looking for the Severed AU, written by @luna-tiel.

Enjoy!

[flengtinamoon]

I have this really uncomfortable mental image of Horde Prime cutting Entrapta's hair against her will and using his mind control on her and making her do things that are A Bad Time™ for her in an autistic sensory way. It would be horrible for her, obviously, but with Hordak, there would be this interesting contrast of, "If Horde Prime does something bad to me, it isn't bad and I actually deserve it, but if Horde Prime does something bad to Entrapta, it's literally the end of the world."

You are looking for the Severed AU, written by @luna-tiel.

Enjoy!

[flengtinamoon]