#I'll probably make some other posts later

[separatedleoau]

He eventually gets better at it, it just takes him a while to get there. One knows mystics and is good at some mystic stuff, so is gonna be specially frustraiting not to be able to control the odashi, Draxum's expectations on him don't really help. but he'll get there!! I do have a few episodes planned that tackle all of these

He doesnt really care about most of the scars, if asked, he's more likely to just shrugg it off and say they are from training or from a mission (not a lie)

there's just a couple of them that would get him excited to actually talk about (some on his shell) and I had thought to make a short comic on it, but it's been a while since I started this au and I've got so liitle out and so much of the story to tell so it's been discarted for now

When it comes specificaly to the ones from the vines, he would never in a million years admit what had happened. everyone is 100% on the dark on how he got them until the event I've dubbed Vine 2: Electric Boogaloo (more here) and even then, he would want and wont talk about them

when it comes to the others reaction those are part of the story I want to keep to myself until I can draw that part and tell the story properly, I believe I've talked about it a little bit before, you can scroll down the #slau seed tag on the askblog to look for more things

thank you!

Shredder stuff pretty much happens the same as canon, there's just a bit of a side quest going on too with Mikey trying to get Draxum and One to actually bond and get along

@jayonlyexisting

1- not really, at least not conciously, but I've realized a few paralells between him and other characters I like, I've never considered the Zuko vibes but I've got a few people mentioned the Hunter vibes, and with that I can agree to (1 / 2 / halloween edition/ theres also a few drawings I've made joking about it but I cant find them rn, I'll post them later... probably)

On a side note, I was watching lilo and stitch and One also has a lot of Stitch vibes if we go for the more gremlin and destructive side of him and I think thats really funny, is also not the first time I've thought about that

2- Splinter knew he existed in the "I know there were 4 turltes" when the whole mutation stuff happened, but as far as he knows at some point while running away he must had dropped one turtle and didnt noticed until it was too late and he couldnt go back for him. He saw the lab explode, so all the time he has thought that turtle died

they actually meet each other after the events of Shadow of Evil, but they have seen each other a couple of times before, one time is a made up episode I have planned and the other is piggybacking on The Fast and the Furriest, being the very first time they see each other, tho is for a very short time as One is already leaving

I dont wanna talk about it much, as I like more when a story tells itself, but Splinter at this point knows his sons have been hangin out with a new friend and that fried is from the Hidden City, they had just balantly hidden the part about knowing Draxum made them and also made this other guy at the same time, but Splinter does recognize One and later the others have to explain on how they know him and what exaclty they know

One doesnt really care about Splinter, he's just this random mutant/yokai that adopted the other experiments and is an obstacle on his mission to get them to join Draxum. One know their dad doesnt like him, cause he thinks One's being a bad infuence on his sons (and One thinks thats funny), One also knows he's the one who thought them to fight, but thats pretty much it

[runwayrunway]

So here's a recap of yesterday. (I still remember getting to sit down, looking at my blog, and realizing my first post was from 14 hours earlier. It went by so fast. I know most people get exhausted by travel and I'm sympathetic to that but I'm the opposite. Sure, I get tired, but only when I'm done. While I'm traveling? I'm about as relaxed as I'm able to get. Even I think this feature of mine is a bit freakish.)

Under a cut, because it's long, but here is some extended waffle about my experiences - mainly how much I like Arizona, how much I hate American Airlines, and miscellaneous thoughts.

(More broadly, I have begun to actually log flights I take on FR24, so behold: probably a third of my total social media presence. I'm slowly populating it with flights from the past whenever I can dig up information on specific flights, but a lot of those require sourcing from other people and some are going to force me to go back through the multiple volumes of journal I've kept to find boarding passes I've saved, so older flights will just occasionally pop up but I will definitely never get all of them. However, the more I add the more graph per graph I get, and that makes me happy, so it's worth doing. Okay, aside done, actual post now.)

First flight: American Airlines flight 1653, Boston to Phoenix.

Plane was N405AN, an A321neo. She did a wonderful job. I don't think I'll ever get used to how quickly neos take off. Very clean, interiors were less cramped and with far nicer upholstry than what I expect from American Airlines...probably because the last several times I've flown with them were planes nearly as old as I am while this airframe is relatively young at five years in service. May also have to do with the fact that the person who paid for my ticket opted for premium economy, but I'll be honest, I did walk past the normal economy section on my way to the restroom and it didn't strike me as too different from where I sat. In fact, even "first class" (I only realized while double-checking some things as I wrote this that it was, in fact, first class, because it was rough even for a business class cabin, more akin to premium economy - I had just assumed this plane didn't have first class) looked basically the same except with a hint more leg-room and 2x2 layout instead of 3x3, but I'll talk about the cabin layout a little more in a second.

This is the first time I can remember getting to see the view of the harbor after takeoff from this angle. It was genuinely stunning, but hardly worth mentioning compared to what I would see later.

I usually just sit in the cheapest available window seat, and that's almost always right at the back. When I fly with people who aren't just buying whatever is cheapest they usually want to sit over the wings because they all say it's the most stable and least nauseating place to sit and I'm sure they're probably right but I don't get planesick anyway and am pretty unbothered by even genuine turbulence so I genuinely don't notice the difference. This flight was an unusal experience for me in that I was actually seated noticeably ahead of the wings (another testament to how much of this plane was high-density coach, that premium economy occupies the rough location you'd normally associate with business or even first class).

I'll be honest, I didn't love it. I had to rotate more than perpendicular to my seat to get a decent shot of the wing and engine, and that also corresponded to what I would need to do in general to look at them myself. Like I said, I am more or less indifferent to minor differences in shakiness and only care about having a wall next to me, so the only difference I actually notice between the back, middle, and front is what parts of the plane I can watch during takeoff and landing, and I can now say with confidence that the front of the plane is actually my least favorite place to sit. This flight was quite smooth but in my past experience one of the few things AAL consistantly does well is that its pilots seem to be really good at avoiding turbulence, so that might not even have anything to do with where I was, and I had to go out of my way to turn around just to see the slats deploy. That feels like a losing trade to me, but people who self-identify as frequent fliers have strong opinions on this to the contrary, so I almost feel a bit wrong saying it. It's somewhat odd remembering that it's actually fairly atypical to care about seeing the plane itself.

(I did, at least, get a pretty good look at the thrust reversers in action. It felt, if anything, way louder and more shuddery during the deceleration process than it does when sitting behind the wings. Just another reminder of how powerful those engines are, though.)

Seeing Arizona from the air for the first time was genuinely quite odd. Most places I fly to are places I've been to already, so or they look similar enough to places I have, so it's rare to see something just...completely different, but god is Arizona different. This isn't quite the southernmost place I've ever been but it's certainly more than I'm used to, and it's also a significantly lower elevation and a completely different climate. I have never lived anywhere that's not right next to an ocean, and I think this is potentially the farthest inland I've ever actually landed in. So, to me, someone who has spent my entire life in the lush jungles of Massachusetts, Arizona is like an alien planet. It's so densely packed with natural features I've never seen before in my life. I've always wanted to come here for that exact reason. A lot of nice cities exist in the world and I would be happy to go to many of them but the places I wishfully think about visiting, my 'bucket list' so to speak, is largely made up of locations with natural features so incomprehensible to someone with my life that they might as well be the moon. Iceland is still right at the top of that list, I want nothing more than to be inside of a glacier and look at a volcano, but Arizona was a very close second because this entire state is just densely packed with the most insanely cool rock formations that somehow exist on this planet and not a different one.

So, like, seeing it from the air? Seeing all the various outlines of giant uneven peaks and valleys interspersed with extremely flat cities? Already this is a brand new world to me and while I never quite like getting off of a plane I was already very excited just seeing it from the air.

I wish I'd gotten to spend some time in Phoenix proper, but given the fact that their airport appears to have been designed by some sort of dark fae trickster it's definitely for the best I didn't try to push my luck. So, on the topic of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, can we talk about American Airlines for a minute?

"Runway Runway," people ask me, "why is it you hate American Airlines so much?" Just kidding. Nobody has ever asked me that because there is nothing hard to understand about hating American Airlines. I think it's fair to say that it would be weirder if I didn't. But I do actually dislike American Airlines a noteworthy amount, comparable to something like Lufthansa, though for different reasons. It's been ages since I've flown Lufthansa, so I can't say much about their quality of service. This is unfortunately not the case for American Airlines.

This is not a hot take: American Airlines sucks. Like, they're not good. I don't think my ranking of US legacy carriers being Hawaiian > Alaska >> Delta >> United > American would be particularly controversial. American Airlines is sort of the thief which keeps on taking. It is actually stunning how every time I think I know how much I dislike them they step in and insist that I'm actually being far too kind in my current condemnation of them, and that I'm missing crucial context that makes them actually worse than I already thought.

But they get so much worse. In fact, they are now too stingy to provide seatback entertainment even in first class on their A320s, instead asking you to watch their 'free entertainment' on your own cell phone, because that's definitely what you want to do on a long flight - strain your eyes looking at a tiny screen to 'enjoy' a selection way more limited than you'd be used to. And look, I've done long-haul flights with no in-flight entertainment of any kind. It's not the end of the world. But it is something you expect from a full-service carrier.

So, that's kind of bad. It didn't bother me, exactly, because I can write things on my laptop without needing an internet connection (though this plane had the worst outlets I've ever seen, forcing me to plug my charger back in every twenty minutes when it slid out of the socket, and on top of that had no USB-C outlets at all on a plane that's only five years old). The thing is that most people are not me, who can entertain myself just fine with a pencil and the back of my boarding pass, or my mother. But the idea of people paying American Airlines $30 USD for the privilege of using their internet connection so they can do something that isn't watching a very limited selection of movies on their pathetic little phone screen makes me very very sad, and even beyond that it's fundamentally inaccessible. I, for example, really struggle to do anything on an object as small as a cell phone because of nausea and eyestrain, and because it's just plain inconvenient. I get that my experiences are not universal but I can't think of any interface more annoying to use and less reliably able to do what I want it to than a tiny little touchscreen. And oh my god, can you imagine how hard it would be to see anything you're trying to watch if you're in a window seat and the glare is particularly bad? "Just close your window", you may say, to which I reply "tell that to the people on either side of me".

Well, okay. American Airlines is not good. But I did in fact eventually escape them (...to their interline partner.)

This flight was operated by "Pride of Contour", a 26-year-old Embraer ERJ-135 registered N16501. She appears to be the only named plane in their fleet. I guess that means she's their favorite. That feels very mean to the others in their fleet - I'm proud of them even if Contour isn't - but I suppose I'm also lucky to have been blessed with the chance to fly on Contour's very own Pride of Contour.

Now, while I've been on big planes and small planes plenty, the ERJ-135 is a big small plane (not to be confused with a small big plane, like the A220 or E190), and that's actually somewhat new territory. In addition, it's the first time I've been on a plane with rear-mounted engines.

For one thing, the ERJ-135 is surprisingly roomy. The ceiling felt higher than the one at Sky Harbor and the cabin was quite spacious. Unlike American Airlines, they do not try to wring the bit of money from you they'd get from charging you to pick your seat (yes, American Airlines does this now! I fail to see what they offer that deserves a full-service price!), so it was absolutely free for me to sit in 2C. Contour's ERJ-135s use a 1x2 configuration, so I was in aisle class!

...I was also in the second row so I couldn't see the wing at all. Boo.

Anyway, you might not be surprised to learn I'm going to talk about Contour more at a slightly later date, so I'll leave it there. The most important thing to mention is the view.

Approaching Phoenix, I found it to be strikingly flat - this means something given the regrettable lengths of time I've spent in Florida. And I think it's pretty easy to understand why. The buildings in Arizona are rather short on average, even in a large city like Phoenix, and obviously you can't exactly build a city on top of an irregular landscape of mesas and canyons.

Approaching Page was nothing like that. We never got higher than FL170 ("Contour don't fly high," to quote word for word what the stewardess said when I asked her if this was really our cruising altitude), which is the altitude I took these photos at, so I had a great view of Arizona's landscape, which is actually as far from flat as you can get.

It was honestly a lot to process. The flight was fairly short but the density of natural formations that resembled nothing I'd ever seen was overwhelming, and I didn't have time to come to terms with one bit of landscape before a completely different one came into view. There just aren't proper boundaries between these things - they're incredibly varied and seem to be lined up almost randomly, in no particular order, even though they've all spent millions or even billions of years forming side by side.

It definitely reassured me that coming here was a fantastic idea.

My god, Page is gorgeous. If I had thought the density of the assorted mesas and gorges and buttes was a little exaggerated by viewing them from altitude, I was completely wrong. The horizon is stuffed full of all sorts of beautiful geologic features, and each step you take reveals new ones. The average rock here is taller than the average building, and it's so red - I used to think that the redness of Arizona sand and rock was a bit overemphasized in photographs, like the yellow filter put over any TV show that takes place in Latin America, but no, it's genuinely that red - when I toured Lower Antelope Canyon the guide informed me that it's that color due to the high iron content.

Before actually arriving I had been very apprehensive about one thing in particular: the weather. I do not do well with hot temperatures, even moderately high ones, for medical reasons, and was prepared to have to primarily go outside in short bursts and suffer through the agonies of the truly frightening numbers in the weather forecasts.

Thing is, this is actually the furthest inland I've ever been in my life by a significant margin. I have always lived either in a harbor town or very close to one, and the only other times I've been this far south were visiting literal islands. So this is the first time I've ever experienced heat that wasn't incredibly humid, and it's...pleasantly balmy?

Don't get me wrong, it's very hot. And that first day I arrived was on the cooler side. Still, immediately after I got off the plane I accidentally spilled hot tea on myself and it felt cool compared to the air, yet I didn't remotely feel like I was dying.

(Okay, yes, I did develop heat exhaustion later, but that was down to physical exertion rather than it just being hot.)

Page definitely doesn't let you forget that you're in the middle of the desert. The moment you leave the area immediately surrounding the airport it becomes miles upon miles of this. I'd never seen this many transmission lines in my life before - not just all at once, but in total. Some of them look like they're T-posing, which I like, but what do you mean those weren't invented for video game settings...

Thankfully, I am actually staying basically across the street from the airport...so getting groceries is a bit annoying, but I am not actually headquartered in the desert desert. You don't have to drive far to find things, either, but the area between them is just so remarkably empty, and I know that the longer you drive the further apart things become.

Even the empty parts aren't actually empty, though. Like I said, you can't walk a couple feet without discovering a new land formation. A lot of them are similar but none of them are the same, and as wide open as the desert feels it's absolutely full of gorgeous natural features.

And I'm right across the street from the airport on top of it. I can just go for a stroll and see who's parked in view.

Honestly? I love it here. I thought I was going to suffer for the sake of seeing Arizona's incredible natural features, and instead I am actually having the time of my life.

Though I could do with less American Airlines.

[priapussdick]

goodbye to my new favorite bl of all time

BE MY FAVORITE (+1)

let's go

disclaimer: i hate doing this posts because i can't really exppress my feelings when my they are too fucking strong

how do i even begin.

be my favorite became my favorite so fucking fast that i was literally baffled. honestly it was love at first sight for us. i am really picky when it comes to bls and it's almost always hit or miss for me. and bmf was THE HIT.

and i truly do not even know the reason. it was such a silly little show about silly little guy and his silly little magic crystal ball, but, oh god, how did i become so fascinated by everything about it.

it was kawi. of course i loved pisaeng soooo much. and max, pear too. but i am not gonna even lie, it was kawi that rocked my world. i can't remember the last time i became this obsessed with a character. i fell in love with him.

the connection i felt to him was just crazy. i related him so fucking much that it was actually pathetic. i saw myself in him in so many ways that it was really unbelievable.

don't want to make this about myself (also i hate to talk about myself and my miserable adult life) but so many things that kawi went through were the exact same things i went through and still going through. i could relate to him at a level that was actually scary. and guess what i don't have a magic crystal ball so fuck this shit 😤

but unlike kawi we "yolo" and we should indeed "yolo"

i loved the final message of the show was like you can't keep worrying about future and you can't change the past. that's really cliché but it was literally the main theme of the series. you can't change the past but start doing things you wanna do in the present before it becomes the past. and shit is going to happen in future, but the good and bad thing is you can't control it. but you can definitely control (at least some things) in present which is definitely gonna effect your future. so live the moment, bitches. (this is me trying to convince myself to live in the present)

so whoever created kawi, thank you so much. i believe so many people also could relate to him in one way or another. even though we don't have magic crystal balls and will probably never find our pisaengs, kawi showed that despite everything the best thing you can do in life is simply living. and it's not actually simple, it scary but it is the only answer. it is about taking risks, it is about doing some dumb shit, it is about doing stuff that your so fucking scared of. but it's also about knowing your limits, it's about accepting, it is about love, it is about friends. it is about trying and failing countless times untill you get what you deserve.

kawi, you silly gremlin. you'll always be in my heart🩵

aaaaaand

the boyfriend of the year award goes to pisaeng.

let's stop being delulu for a sec, first of all, someone like him does not exist.

god. he is just a perfect human being. honestly seeing characters like him in media, especially in a bl is always so fucking amazing.

he was the dictionary definition of loving, caring, kind. bar is on the fucking floor, but he was so understanding and thoughtful towards not just kawi but everyone that watching his character healed something in me.

in every timeline he was kawi's rock, his love for kawi was always a constant. and the way he loved kawi was just unbelievable.

and they got their happy ending 😭😭😭

can you believe?????

anygays

i think that's it for now

I'll be thinking about this show for a while i think.

how do i make everyone in the world watch this show???

[mintjeru]

hypothetically speaking, these would be cute sticker designs ^^

open for better quality | no reposts

[sayakxmi]

Saiouma Puella Magi AU, but Kokichi takes Madoka's role and Shuichi takes Homura's.

For one, Kokichi's too naturally distrustful to just hear "I can grant you any wish :)" and not think ok where's the hook. So he just does what no one ever has & essentially interrogates Kyubey, so he knows it all even before he gets to make a contract. So, some of his classmstes are MGs & he won't become one himself BUT he still ends up tagging along to just protect them in his Kokichi ways. (Though I'm entertaining Kokichi lying about being a magical girl, because, well, it's Kokichi).

(I also got a small idea of Gonta being a magical girls and Kokichi originally tagging along him into labyrinths, Gonta also makes him a magic gun from the toy one he had, and at some point witches out & Kokichi manages to kill him with that gun. So he always has that spare Grief Seed on himself, bc it's still his best friend & he can't handle the idea of just giving it away or using it himself (he does anyway in the end).)

Shuichi prolly ends up being a new kid & it isn't like MadoHomu, the ppl who reach him first are Kaede & Kaito, classic. Kokichi's there, too, but he's his usual sus self. He's actually discouraging ppl from making a contract when they find out magic and miracles are real, which absolutely includes Shuichi. He's very vocal abt it, but he won't explain stutf, bc 1) he's a liar, so who'd believe him? and 2) he doesn't want them to witch out upon finding out the truth or, idk, murder everybody Mami-style.

Anyway, fast forward, bad things happen bingo & by the end of the run most charas are dead, there's Walpurgis nachting, and he makes his wish to bring back the ppl who died notably not as magical girls. Contract signed, he fights & fails, rip. I also thought it was similar to how he thought he could end the killing game by himself - he though he could finish Walpurgisnacht by himself, too. And he failed in both times. Whatevs.

Shuichi doesn't actually make his time travel wish for Ouma specifically, he wants to save all his friends. Timelines are messy esp at first bc he either tells then or it backfires or just makes himself look very sus bc he's trying not to tell them. He also realizes why Kokichi hadn't told anybody aby witches at some point, bc, yeah, it messes them a lot, assuming they believe it.

Still, Kokichi ends up one of the few people who are nearly always giving him a chance, not necessarily out of belief, but out of pragmatism - bro can stop time & knows the truth, that's just too useful. So they often work together & Shuichi grows closer to him but still we ain't there yet. But the thing is, Shuichi's time travel still makes Kokichi more & more powerful with each timeline, bc Shuichi usually goes back after Kokichi dies, so the universe figured out this guy's life's important. Anyway, another notable thing is the iconic Homura kills Madoka scene, but it's Saiouma with guest stars of Kaito & Maki. It's Walpy, it's not defeated yet, but the training trio are spent & just kinda accept their fate of turning into witches together. And then, boom, Kokichi appears & steals their Soul Gems for a sec & he's like did u know you can cleanse your Soul Gem with a darkened one? But it's a lie & he quickly tells them so, he just had a spare Grief Seed after cleansing his Soul Gem & he needs them to do some stuff. Shuichi can travel back in time & fix things, and Maki & Kaito are needed to fight Walpy here. He actually questions what happens to the timelines Shuichi leaves behin, and ofc he doesn't know. There's a chance they remain, so Kokichi needs Maki & Kaito to fight Walpy here.

Kaimaki leave, and Shuichi finally looks at Kokichi & realizes sth is Wrong. Kokichi struggles to hide how he's trembling & grimacing, and it's Kokichi, so obviously it must be extremely bad. Shuichi dreadfully realizes something worse, and he weakly asks Kokichi why aren't his wounds healing. And Kokichi just falls, laughing weakly, and Shuichi catches him & searches for his Soul Gem and, God, he knew it. It's nearly completely black. Kokichi laughs & admits he lied abt having two Grief Seeds, he only had one he never wanted to use. But they'll have the second one soon, so no need to worry. He asks Shuichi to maybe destroy his witch form as it's hatching, so he'll have the Grief Seed without any fighting… and he admits that he hates fighting, he hates this magical world and all its violence. He says that Kaito was right in calling him a coward, even here he just can't handle the idea of fighting any longer, he's so sorry. And Shuichi tells him he ISN'T a coward. He was scared, but he always followed everybody, trying to help, and when push came to shove he would always make a contract for the benefit of others rather than himself. He's a lot of things, but a coward isn't one. Kokichi actually tears up hearing that, and Shuichi promises he won't let him fight ever again, and especially he won't let him turn into a witch and hurt anybody, because he knows it's the last thing he's ever wanted. Even now he only accepts turning into a witch to help them fight to keep others safe. So Shuichi won't let him. Kokichi probably apologizes and thanks him and then he dies.

Keeping Kokichi from fighting starts off as a side quest that gains importance with time, bc it's something Shuichi won't compromise on (ah, trauma), which leads him to occassionally neglect others a bit, which makes them more likely to get hurt & ironically Kokichi more likely to make a contract, especially since he gets more powerful & Kyubey is more interested in him with each timeline. And that also makes him witch out super quick. Shuichi's paying more attention to him & over time grows resentful of others for how they're treating him. To Shuichi it's no question that Kokichi cares & is just doing his best to help, but nobody realizes that.

But the biggest obstacle in keeping Kokichi from fighting is actually Kokichi himself, bc he's too smart and nosy, lmao. Even if he knows nothing, he will find out quickly. Doesn't help that Kyubey wants him to make a contract.

Also, obviously Kaito is Sayaka-coded and Maki could be Kyouko-coded, so that's a thing, BUT it's usually Maki that witches out. Kaito is usually pretty close, but Kokichi intervenes & he survives, but Maki later cracks on her own (and since in the new timeline Kokichi isn't there, Kaito's the one to die, so he's still the secretary). So it's Kaito who gets the dramatic sacrifice. I imagine he genuinely hoped you could bring somebody back if you tried Very Hard & Kokichi called him a moron bc obviously it's not possible. If it was there'd be far less witches that there are. But it's Kaito, he doesn't listen to reason. So, Kokichi follows him to the labyrinth. At first Kaito's mad cuz what if Kokichi being there ruins the plan? Maki hates his guts! But eventually he gets hit pretty hard, and Kokichi is near immediately by his side, trying to help him get up, which kinda makes Kaito short circuit a little bc wait Kokichi's trying to help? But witch!Maki attacks them & Kokichi pushes Kaito away & gets caught himself (and choked until unconsciousness, naturally). Anyway, Kaito gets him away, Shuichi catches Kokichi & Kaito makes up his mind about going down with Maki & asks Shuichi to tell Kokichi that he's sorry. He doesn't get him, but he got hurt trying to protect him, so he'll believe in that if nothing else. F.

As for The WishTM, in the last timeline Shuichi lashes out at Kokichi for his willingness to just become part of the system. In no timeline has his wish actually helped, it did NOTHINHG, which OUCH but it also makes Kokichi think out of the box more & he becomes the Law of Cycles. And Shuichi realizes what is happening & freaks out bc Kokichi's doing it bc of what he told him & like Homura they end up having a momentTM in space & Shuichi remembers. He feels a lot of guilt even tho he also questions whether anything was real, but if it was, he pushed somebody he far too realized he loved into erasing himself from existence.

[dootznbootz]

Which Greek mythology character would you like to see talked about more?

OHoho. you all already know this.

It's Penelope.

And I am being so fucking serious about it. I'm also sleepy and angry and mother nature is stabbing my gut so I'm putting a lot of my emotions into this ask.

BUT her fangirling, angry, bitchy rant of mine, I will save for the end. (and I'll explain it more down there) Not gonna lie, I will probably be mean. Don't take it too personally. (Some folks I know genuinely love her and have stuff for her. Y'all are fine :D )

I have many other characters I wish would be seen more, but hers rant is ooooh. it's been boiling angrily for a long time and this is the perfect ask to let loose.

Take note: This is more about characters who I feel are either underrated and/or not really given love. It's a whole other can of worms about characters who ARE given a lot of attention but are either fandomized to the point of being unrecognizable or people just...really see them wrong.

Ariadne:

A young princess who helped out Theseus to end the cycle of violence against the youth of Athens. Despite the fact that she was going against her family by helping Theseus she did. When he left her, for whatever reason, she was rescued by Dionysus. In which these two have a loving and healthy marriage. There is so much potential here and it makes me sad that she gets butchered and/or just ignored.

Danae:

She was locked up by her father because of a prophecy that happened anyway. She is now pregnant with Zeus' child. She is then locked into a chest in which she is sent floating in the sea. She washes up on Seriphos. Her son is sent on an impossible quest in order to keep her from a forced marriage. Her story is inspiring and ugh sdkf j badass mama! ;~;

Telemachus:

Got that right here :)

Sthenelus:

Fucking love this lil hotheaded cheerleader man. Go boy, go! He got yeeted by Athena from the chariot. Diomedes and him tell each other that they love each other. Tells off Agamemnon for mocking Diomedes' and his dad. He was a child soldier alongside Diomedes. I love this weird lil guy.

Hephaestus:

It makes me sad how people only see him as the "cuck" of Aphrodite and Ares. (no hate to them. do not hate either of them) He's badass in his own right! He does that bigass fire in the Iliad! And one of my favorite scenes in that epic, is him welcoming Thetis! I think he's neat :D

Hebe:

Ganymede isn't the only cupbearer on Olympus you know.

Menelaus:

I love me a goofy wifeman...But if that's all you see him as, I'm sad. What about the sealy man? (aka him wrestling a god for a while and making him tell him answers) The exiled prince? The younger brother? The angry charioteer who yelled at Antilochus? The man who interfered with his brother's letter to his wife to warn to not bring their daughter? Being the sweet uncle figure for Telemachus? (he and Penelope get a lot of the same treatment in a way. with the whole "just the spouse" ;~; )

Psyche:

I think she's pretty popular, but shout out to her anyway :D Because I love her story a lot.

And last but absolutely not least,

Penelope

Heads up once more, but I'm going to be so fucking mean right now. I'm very tired and runnin on 4 hours of sleep and my tummy hurts. This is all over the place and I'm sad.

I think some of you treat the fact that Odysseus is (rightfully) obsessed with her and adores her as if that's HER personality trait... as while it's adorable to see him simping over her as he does, she's not just there for him (and me) to simp for. In the same vein, I think some of y'all only see her for her love of Odysseus and nothing more. Some folks don't see her as anything more than what she is for Odysseus.

AS IF HER HUSBAND ISN'T JUST AS INTERTWINED WITH HER AS SHE IS WITH HIM!

And yet, there is so much stuff with him about the other people in his life. The other Achaeans, Polites and Eurylochus, Athena, etc. You know Penelope has people in her life other than her husband and her son, right?

Even stuff that's just her, it's usually her weaving the shroud...That still ties back to Odysseus. If you wanna have her weave, maybe have her weave something happily. Maybe her chatting with Anticlea or Athena while she does! Or Helen! or her sister!

There's the saying of "the characters respect women but the author does not" and I'm noticing that a LOT in this fandom. I don't think it's intentional, but it's very telling with what people prioritize in their creations how they feel. (and no, I'm not talking about Homer. He wrote incredible women.)

I'm not saying you're not allowed to have favorites. But even if Odysseus IS your favorite, if you have Penelope so one note or with such weak characterization while having so much for Odysseus, FOR THE MEN WHO HE IS NEAR... It's just really telling.

I've even seen some shit with "Well, there's not much to do with her." as if y'all don't make OCs with less. I've seen people give Astyanax, an AU baby, more characterization than her. (Have him alive in your AUs but if you give him more character than Peenlope, I am side-eying you so hard.)

It genuinely pisses me off how overlooked she is. I hate how her tags are basically empty (honestly? I might start tagging my silliness for her correctly because it has so lil.)

Hey, why do followers of the other tags show up but not for #penelope of ithaca? It's clearly because she has SO many followers/fans that she broke tumblr! Especially with the fact that you can scroll all the way to the bottom pretty quickly! /sarcasm

(btw, before you say something, I know there's no consistent tag for Penelope. I follow many of them. #penelope odyssey is kind of the best bet I believe. #penelope of sparta is mostly about that new show that's coming out and hyping about it. still not about HER. #penelope mostly has some bridgerton character. so yeah. Not much on tumblr)

(shoutout to the artists who got their art on front of the tag! That's exciting! I'm being a mean bitch right now but that's fun and exciting!)

I hate how people see her as so one-note. I hate how she's often just "Odysseus' wife". MOST CONTENT OF HER IS HIM SIMPING OVER HER. (that's something I'm guilty of too! I plan to fix that soon. I have so many wips and so lil time and too high of personal standards because since she has so little content of her, I WILL make it good. I'll TRY to make it good.)

EVEN HEADCANONS! SO MUCH OF FANDOM STILL ONLY HAS HEADCANONS THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ODYSSEUS OR TELEMACHUS. GIVE ME SOMETHING ABOUT HER CHILDHOOD. GIVE ME LIL QUIRKS SHE HAS. What does she struggle with? What's her favorite color? Does she like dancing? ANYTHING.

Feelings about how fandom sees her are also summed up by this and this. (Edit: This one too. She's not even dead in the Odyssey but people act like she doesn't exist until Odysseus is there.)

...Do you see my problem? Just one of my problems?

So many people genuinely read the Odyssey and just see her as the "crying wife". People diminish her character and her intelligence all the fucking time. You wanna know something I've noticed? PEOPLE ONLY TALK ABOUT HER INTELLIGENCE WHEN ODYSSEUS IS THERE. Like with how she tricks him and how she tricks the suitors. Nobody talks about the moment when Athena appears as her sister in her dream and she is immediately like "hey, if you're some god, is my husband still alive?" she clocks her as Athena RIGHT AWAY.

People constantly forget her violent thoughts against the suitors! Or when she sasses Telemachus and Euryclea. When she scolds and threatens the maids. (she's not always nice y'all!) Do you really think Odysseus would be obsessed with someone who isn't on his level?

We all know that he loves her. BUT WHY?! "Because she's smart like him." Yeah, we know. WHAT ELSE?

They are Likeminded! Thinking and acting alike! You know how fun that is?!

Homer, you absolute mad lad genius. You made her a mystery to the narrator, Odysseus, and for some reason, people see that as her just being a straight up mystery. You wrote her so wonderfully and so complex with how she is so sneaky in her own way that people are literally tricked by her as readers as well!

Or sadly, more likely, people fucking blackout when she's in the scene and there's no Odysseus. 🙄

Look, even if you have Penelope be the "braincell" who keeps her husband in line, MAKE SURE SHE'S NOT ACTING LIKE ODYSSEUS' FUCKING MOM. They're both grown ass adults for fuck's sake!

Also...please...PLEASE have her be more than a prop for the men around her. I've read some things that could literally have her be replaced by Euryclea, as Penelope is sometimes just used as a sounding board.

I'll be even more bitchier. Even in the OT3 she's commonly in. It wasn't a NOTP until I noticed most creations of that ship was just "Odysseus and this person for 6000+ words... Oh, and Penelope making an appearance in the footnotes." If it's an OT3, they all love each other right? Where's the PenDio fics/art, cowards?

I have a weird theory about how people treat her that way. (other than fandom prioritizing men)

So there's "girlbossing" and "uwu sad victim" that fandom can never seem to leave. I think People do this with Helen and Clytemnestra and that's why THEY are "blorbo-able". (not saying they shouldn't be but they definitely get more love than Penelope)

Helen, despite not always being a victim in her story, has been through so much. Kidnapped and some people blame her for it (irl and some people in canon do blame the war on her). Very easy to cling to. I cling to her too! (she's on the "UwU always victim. tragic blorbo" end)

Clytemnestra, is a victim in the sense that she's a grieving and angry mother and wife. And so she killed Agamemnon. Her violence and anger is seen as "girlboss" despite all the horrible stuff she also did to her children. (she's more on the "girlboss" end)

Penelope, is not a victim to the same degree as Helen nor does she murder anyone (how could she? it was 108 people against her and the Odyssey shows that the suitors' parents were enraged. Even Odysseus was skeptical he could beat them.)

She's not on either end of the "scales" for people to find her "blorbo-able". She doesn't murder her husband or the suitors by herself or is a victim to them in the same way Helen is.

And that's just for people who know her husband didn't cheat. I think with people who think Odysseus did cheat, they hate her because "she let it slide". That she's "weakwilled" for knowing her husband went through literal hell and wanting him to be happy and safe.

Idk, It's a little lonely being one of the few "Penelope crazy" blogs.

I sometimes wonder if people kind of come to my blog in a "Hey, can you love her for me? Can you think about her for us?" as I have seen very little on her childhood for example. It's STILL mostly in relation to others.

It's not even the "sharing ideas" that bugs me. it's the feeling of people not wanting to come up with headcanons/ideas for her OUTSIDE of canon.

"She was in Helen's shadow." Okay, well, how did she feel about it? What did she do about it? Did she hide away? Did she internalize that? Did she find that freeing? To not be the center of attention?

Stuff like that. Dive DEEPER. PLEASE

It makes me happy that people love my Penelope as I love her too, clearly. But I really fucking hope you love the CANON Penelope too. If you think I made Penelope "better" or anything like that, then leave. She's already fantastic on her own.

I want to talk about her more. I want her to be seen more.

[fellamarsh]

another thing i've been trying to do recently is read more self-published stuff. "but fell," you say, "you're a self-published author. surely you've been reading self-published stuff all along" and then i laugh for so long in response we both become uncomfortable.

see, the fear (which has for a long time been killing my mind) that i'll read other self-published stuff and find out that it's so much better than mine that i might as well stop writing forever kept me from doing that basically ever. i have a hard time not unfavorably comparing my work to others and had convinced myself i was being smart by withholding an avenue of de-motivation (reader: i was not being smart). it also doesn't help that i'm pretty low income and have a hard time spending money on books i haven't already read, and that self-published stuff isn't always available at the library---but really a lot of it was just me being a coward. which i'm working on. i could talk about how this particular cowardice is Very Silly, but i think enough has been said about it on writeblr and in the Writing Space in general that i don't feel the need to (though i will if anyone wants me to).

instead, i wanna talk about the self-published things i have read in the past few months and ask about the self-published things you love!

so: what happened was i got real sick, and while i was real sick i (naturally) read over 200,000 words of ace attorney fan fiction in the span of a few days. eventually i got bored of it (and also maybe annoyed at how people were characterizing some of my guys), but i still wanted to read something gay and romantic and nice, something i knew was gonna end happily, which isn't my typical fare.

now you may be saying (having gotten over all the uncomfortable laughter from earlier) "fell, you write gay romance. what do you mean that's not your typical fare?" listen. until a couple months ago i hadn't read a cut and dry romance novel since before i finished college. for context: i graduated in 2015. i know it doesn't make sense. i'm a guy who doesn't make sense.

but in this case it worked to my advantage. not the not making sense thing, but the not having read Published Romance in 1000 years thing. I didn't know where to start. I was very skeptical of everything the library had Available Now in the Gay Fantasy Romance category. what if it was all bad and also not good?

and then i scrolled past the familiar cover of our very own @ashen-crest's A Rival Most Vial.

now this was comfortable territory! this was a novel by a very nice writeblr person whose posts i enjoy! i already loosely knew the plot, i was familiar with the characters, i knew the names of things like rosemond street and the griffin's claw and that ambrose had blue hair and that at the end of it all there would definitely be Boyfriends. i didn't have to worry that this would be bad! i only had to worry that it would be really good!

but i wasn't worried about that, because i was officially Not Writing at the time, and because why the hell hadn't i read this book yet Ash literally emailed me some very kind words last year when my cat died??

Y'all, I devoured ARMV. If you haven't read it yet---especially if cozy fantasy is more your thing than it is mine---you should check it out Immediately. It was fun! It was heartwarming! It was sweet and earnest and confident! I was delighted to find it was occasionally hot! Ambrose and Eli snuggled up into my sick exhausted heart and found a permanent little place there. (Especially Ambrose. I have such a thing for Stiff Guys who Kind of Suck for Tragic Backstory Reasons and are So So Lonely They Don't Even Realize It. gawd)

(And a very small part of my brain spent the whole time wondering why I had been so afraid to really engage with the work my community is doing. The community that I'm in. The one I'm a part of. Why?! Maybe more on that later.)

But from there the curse was broken! I immediately devoured @stjohnstarling's What Manner of Man in a similar sort of frenzy (and hooooly shit guys am I excited for the expanded, finalized version to come out at the end of next month!) and started digging into @lurinatftbn's The Flower that Bloomed Nowhere (which I can already tell is going to be an All Time Favorite).

And now I want to ask you what your favorite self-published books are so that I can read them, too, but I think I will in another post that doesn't dedicate so much space to talking about my various and sundry Issues and isn't Terminally Long

[cescalr]

Oooh, definitely glee for the fandom asks! <3

Always with the hornets' nests with these ones, I see! Though i don't think there's a fandom out there that isn't in some way a hornets' nest once it gets large enough... hm. Alright. I'm just gonna be as honest as i can be about this, and tag accordingly.

Glee:

my favourite female character: augh. argh. ouph. so difficult. so hard. Since I'm working off of half-remembered show and half recently-rewatched show... its a tossup. Mercedes, Santana, Quinn. Probably Mercedes. She did nothing wrong ever in her entire life <3 well okay maybe except that one time she smashed kurt's car windows (but it was a banger song, though). Can't say Santana because of the Biphobia TM and other things like excessive use of bigotry-based insults, and Quinn. Oh god girl. Cheating is not cool! Funnily enough! So I find them really interesting but 'favourite' is hard to say. Mercedes. Mercedes for sure <3

my favourite male character: Blaine sam blaine sam blaine sam yes. I am imitating ripping petals off of flowers and coming to a conclusion based on which is the last name i said. So I guess that means Sam! But really this is a tie.

my favourite book/season/etc: Mannnnn idk. I don't like shows for seasons as-a-whole. Also i could not tell you what happened in any given season if you held a gun to my head. I'm not good at that. The only shows i know 'seasons' of are Buffy and Teen Wolf because i've watched them like 100000000000 times (exaggeration) for various reasons (mostly fanfiction research).

my favourite episode (if its a tv show): I can tell you my LEAST favourite episode (blame it on the alcohol, thank you Kurt king of biphobia! this is a persona foible it's not the worst episode in the show. by far. by far. it's kind of an average one. I'm just angry at it.) BUT er. Favourite? Idk. Genuinely some of the earlier Kurt-centric stuff was really well done (his convo with Burt... <3) and the Quinn giving birth accompanied by bohemian rhapsody was obviously iconic, but if I'll be honest I couldn't name any episodes of this show (other than That One previously stated, anyway). And yeah most of the time they were named after song titles and No i don't remember those song titles either. I'm just so bad at this. My memory is that of a goldfish's being haphazardly bounced around on a sieve.

my favourite cast member: it would be really funny if I said Demi Lovato [she counts!] but the truth is N/A: i don't know these people !!! They are strangers!! (i don't. follow celebrities. at all. I couldn't even name most of them. They're just people doing a job and their lives are irrelevant to me beyond their ability to perform that job well. I do not need to know where they live and what coffee they drink. Stalker shit tbh. I'm kind of a very private person myself, so rpf-adjacent stuff just... creeps me out. I've never watched a single cast interview in my lifetime and I'm not about to start!)

my favourite ship: Difficult to say! Grave and obvious lie. Blam. It's blam. Quintana is a close runner up though Santana really needs to stop dating people who cheat on the regular (I'll accept Quinn has grown enough not to do this by the time a Quintana coupling would be viable - and satisfying in terms of character arcs - narratively speaking).

a character I’d die defending: Blaine Anderson did something wrong for sure but like Kurt did it first so shrugs. Cancels out. Bad for each other! Case closed!

a character I just can’t sympathize with: genuinely don't remember if I had one of those the first time around because I was like 10 and just didn't pay attention if I didn't care, but Terri and her racist self take that 'prize' this time, alongside the obvious predator in the room [original choir teacher. Sandy? I forget his name immediately after hearing it. He doesn't deserve to be remembered]. Also JBI is just.... a yikes character all around. I mean, he's a blatant stereotype for one, in a the people who wrote this person don't like jews kind of way. Unfortunately common stereotype too, for the era, so not only is he that, he's also lazy. Just a one-note pervert who's the butt of various antisemitic 'jokes' you've heard from era-peer shows a million times over, tired and awful and a sour reminder of bigotry that continues to this day. Really regrettable character who's lack of redeeming qualities was probably purposeful. (I know Rachel and tina are also jewish, but this comes up very rarely and mostly only when santana needs to say something kind of fucked up, as is her modus operandi, for 'comic relief'. Tina's jewish-ness wasn't even canon for several seasons, because she didn't have a surname or a family or anything resembling complex character depth for several seasons. The one time I really remember Rachel's religion being important was when she was pressuring Kurt into believing in some kind of god, which??? don't do that. Bad example. Trying to guilt trip a friend into faith sucks. I take back what i said earlier Mercedes did that too. Boo. Girls try again that was a bad showing all around. Though i have no idea why Kurt went the acupuncture route as his 'secular' option but i think that has to do a lot with the writers doing literally no research ever once in their lives (you can tell they don't by the way they write the football segments of the show, which make no sense according to football fans who watch Glee, of which there are numerous because real life isn't like fiction where you can only like music or sports. Most of the kids in my school year were doing the most of everything ever if they were the 'popular' ones - we do that differently; popularity isn't really based on who know know; for some bizzare reason literally everyone knew who I was? Even people I'd never spoken to?? - but more about like... how much you can do, I guess. Overachievers, but I'm not saying that negatively; these people were generally - generally - very nice, and surprisingly chill for people who had no spare time whatsoever. I'm not entirely sure when they slept; A* across the board, at least one sport, at least one instrument, several extracurriculars, parties every weekend, dozens of friends and an s.o. . Eh? Way too much going on. Scary lifestyle! Impressive burnout rate, probably. Er. Tangent! Back to the scheduled programming).) There's uhhhh there's a lot of bad characters on the show, but i'd say Sandy and Terri and her equally but more loudly racist sister are truly completely irredeemable ones. Like they're not interesting or anything, they're just there to be narrative annoyances (which, in the case of Sandy specifically, is insane. Arrest that man!!! He has actively sexually assaulted minors!!!).

a character I grew to love: difficult to say because I tend to just make an opinion and stick to it. Also i don't remember who i liked at first and who i didn't, this show came out when i was eight. I didn't watch it until I was a little older than that, of course, but I frankly have spotty memory until my late teens, so! I'm not sure!! Quinn, probably. Pink-hair-era Quinn helped me understand her more, and seeing the moments of kindness hidden behind practical cruelty, when you understand her family and situation, makes things make a lot more sense. It takes a lot to get me to sympathise with a cheater, but I can see where Quinn was getting all turned around in her head about life because of her upbringing and socialisation, not to mention the profoundly negative impact cheerios had on her mentally and that the school's culture in general was not exactly a breeding ground for empathy and optimism.

my anti otp: can you tell (klaine). I don't dislike Kurt!!! Please let him have a fun chillaxed boyfriend in new york with his vogue friends. But also please stop attempting to control other people's diets thank you!! Thank you!! I'm of mixed feelings. Blaine and Kurt both did at least one bad, relationship-ending thing, and proved over and over again that they just weren't on the same wavelength in regards to life goals and ways of living it. They can't even share the same living space, which is kind of required for a functional marriage. I don't know, it just seems like they settled for their first proper, serious boyfriend even if that's not really the best match, and I... wish they'd just got to see more of life first, you know? They got married at like 20! Or something! I'm 23, I cannot imagine getting married at 20. That's a baby. Let them live first!

(same for Santana and Brittney, imo. I also don't really like them together because Santana and Brittney have very different ideas regarding monogamy, which is just never going to go down well in the long run. If your girl cheats on you like twenty times and tells you to your face its not cheating in her view of things, but you think it is, break up with her because you'll just make each other miserable. Brittney sort of seems incapable of feeling guilt but if she were, this kind of moral pressure would be Not Good, and obviously Santana isn't comfortable with the idea and doesn't have to be!! Just move on!!! Find other people!!!! Don't marry your first girlfriend if you've broken up like ten times this is simple!!!! Please!!!! But Klaine wins out over Brittana because - in my opinion, glee fandom please do not persecute me, I am known for this specific thing - I see... interactions that verge on abusive between Klaine that I don't see in Brittana. So. Oof? Ex; use of public perception to disguise attack; deliberately hurting Blaine in a stage-combat fencing match (you are not meant to make actual contact in these) and thus using Blaine's own dislike of making his difficulties common knowledge against him in order to 'punish' him. This is no good! Don't do this!!.[Also just to err vaguepost about a comment.... that is. not. what i would call passive aggressive. Physically attacking someone with a sword - no matter the type of sword, fencing foils hurt just as much, they're just not stab-you sharp... er, these days - is just straight-up aggressive.]).

Note that negative things stick in the mind better than positive ones; on a rewatch I may well alter my opinion!

But also I'm really, really stubborn. So it's not likely. Klaine.

[silusvesuius]

g*lmar rly has to be the best skajrim character on the real like even if you don't like him he just is . literally The best one i think......... on dat note i also imagine that he and ulfr*c despite being fairydust BFFs for lyfe genuinely have the worst communication skills ever seen

[wonder-worker]

After the exile and attainder of her husband, Henry Holland, duke of Exeter, [Anne of York] acquired the bulk of his inheritance in 1462 with custody over her daughter and heiress, Anne Holland. The decision to make Anne femme sole was legalised in parliament. It was a testament to Edward’s willingness to bend the law for his family as the family ignored the rightful claim of the Holland family descendants such as Ralph, Lord Neville. Although it was enrolled as a royal grant, the original bill suggests it was in fact made at the duchess’s request as it bears the king’s sign manual, a note of the commons’ consent, and the royal response ‘le roy le voet’.

Alexander R. Brondarbit, Power Brockers and the Yorkist State, 1461-1485

[pnsge]

"unrequited_love.png"

[pillowenvelopchair]

Hey guys!! this is just my insane ramble on Still Waters Run Deep that's made by the lovely @un-local. I've had so so sooooo many thoughts about this fic and I decided to try and put it all coherently in a post :)

Probably not a lot of new insights, just many, many rambles

Magdalene analysis and her view on Rogier + some other stuff

Magdalene, at the start of the story, is aimless and refuses to follow any line of Grace, putting off whatever it leads to and going in the opposite direction. Yet Grace is fickle, and it all eventually converges, so she gives in. (aaaand a life-changing partnership ensues)

She wants out of the competition of becoming Elden Lord, and she wants nothing to do with it. Someone else to take lordship is what she wants. Magdalene, in her eyes, is not worthy to take the throne. But Rogier on the other hand…

Rogier is, quite literally, built different. He thinks differently compared to Magdalene (a STR vs INT user difference lol). He’s able to pick out all the details that she would miss. Be able to extrapolate and examine it all and be able to learn from it. Magdalene can't do that.

It's basically:

Rogier: says some fun facts about the most random thing in the room, saying all the history behind it, and what the tiny details could mean Magdalene: yeah, that's a rock.

So instead, she becomes a tool for Rogier to be able to use, because that's the least she can do for him.

“She can already feel the faint grin forming on her lips at the thought. She never wanted to be Elden Lord. She’d finally picked up and followed grace to... to get away, with no idea what it called her to do. When Melina told her where it led her, she felt only dread. But Rogier... To save Those Who Live in Death... Two birds, one stone. She meets his eyes, and doesn’t look away. In them, she doesn’t see pride, or avarice. She doesn't see a man who wants to rule the world. Not at all. The path forward is clear now.” -Chapter 22

For once, she really sees a light from the dark future she sees. She's hopeful that she won't have to take the throne, that Rogier can burden it instead of her. He's worthy in her eyes and because of that, she devotes herself to him with all she can do. (Ah but… I believe Rogier wants her to be Elden Lord? Not sure but her not wanting to be Elden Lord doesn’t quite fit with what he has planned)

Magdalene really holds onto Rogier, and his guidance (a comfort wizard, if you will). And so the idea that he won’t make it… that she’ll be left alone with Grace again, forced to join back into the competition for lordship... It's sickening to her. So she really clings to him, desperate to not be left alone with a destiny that she despises.

Magdalene is always pulled into different directions. Grace pulls her to one but she pulls herself to the opposite one. Fia and D are both on extreme sides of the spectrum on Rogier's survival, and Magdalene is caught right in the middle of it.

But for her, Rogier will survive, he has to survive otherwise... that light, that small hope she has will all fade into obscurity.

Ghosts from the past (Lorens and Ida)

I absolutely love how something, or rather, someone haunts both of them.

Lorens had been the catalyst of all of what Rogier does now. Why he’s so desperate to save those who live in death. He's literally devoted his body and mind to Lorens just to see him alive (maybe Rogier's devoting all of himself to finding a solution to death because he wants it to come back to the old times when it was just him and Lorens in the Rise, or maybe not!! I'm just rambling lol).

Every thought of Lorens is painted with a sort of bittersweetness to it. From Rogier's perspective, at the very least (I'm super curious as to how Lorens would view Rogier but we'll probably never get it because... you know...). He's almost obsessed with him, and it's all pretty unhealthy lol.

Magdalene, who’s haunted by Ida who's probably a sort of lover that hadn't been fully brought to fruition. Different opinions on what they have had made Magdalene leave with (from what I have seen at least, we have scrapes of her, people! I can't wait to see more of Ida though)

Now with Ida... Magdalene absolutely shakes herself out of every thought she has about Ida. Spurning every single thought or imagination she has of that woman.

"Nausea comes in waves. Fever. She can feel delirium taking her—she’s convinced she’s submerged in the very waters of creation, for a while. She vividly feels herself sinking deeper and deeper into a current; cold and dark and inescapable. As it pulls her down, she’s overcome with the instinct to breathe it in— Against her temple she feels a hand, with gentle fingers dragging softly through her hair. Suddenly, every layer of the dream collapses in on itself, and she jolts awake with a gasp.  Here, in Liurnia, she hauls herself up, rubbing at her face. Even the memory is a shock of cold water to her. She’s a woman haunted." -Chapter 23

(I just really love this part- I can't help it)

I think it's also really interesting how Magdalene leaves Ida due to their differences in what they have (?) while Rogier just absolutely hangs onto Lorens no matter what, despite him being... er... him. Not so sure about his personality with the small flashbacks we get of him but he’s probably not good for Rogier.

In short, Rogier venerates Lorens, while Magdalene absolutely rejects Ida. (Opposites!)

Rogier’s overthinking

Also found it interesting that when Rogier thinks he really thinks. He's a professional overthinker, even in the past

"He thinks of the labyrinthian etiquette, the way he’d triple-check every sentence for a double meaning. The secrets, the ruthless political schemes. It all felt like a spider’s web to him. He’d learned the game, and he played it well, but it had been nothing but paranoia and misery for him. Just like it was for everyone else." -Chapter 17

It's what's kept him alive (Ch. 17), and what's been able to pave the way for his findings Yet, it’s also his curse. He tries to pick out every detail that he can and think of every possible reason or motivation. Every single outcome he just needs to know so that he won't get caught by surprise again. He needs to be in control of the situation, he needs to be the master of the chessboard.

Oh and once this guy spirals, he really spirals. He starts thinking and looking at details, rewinding every single thing, every interaction, and trying to label a reason for every little thing. Yet... something emotional seems to break the surface of the water.

I personally think that he was raised to overthink. He was a noble after all, and he dealt with politics. He truly needed to check, double check, triple check, every single sentence and word in case it would have a double meaning. "He’d learned the game, and he played it well" (Ch. 17) . Getting worse after Lorens' death, being fooled by "Only a cut." (Ch. 25) and seeing the aftermath of it.

He can't not do it because if he doesn't, and he gets surprised it would break him (or at the very least, freak him out).

ALSO!! Rogier hating on "saccharine conversations" (Ch. 17) good lord. This guy cannot be real with anyone. Rogier refuses to show vulnerability because:

1. He was raised like that (the whole attachment theory thing) 2. He will absolutely break if he does

Do you guys remember when Fia tells Magdalene that "dear Rogier began to weep as he spoke" (Ch.14)? Fia saw through Rogier's walls through the cracks and he just absolutely breaks down. (Get yourself a man who, after "embracing" tells you all about this thing he's obsessed about and then cries because of it)

It's a mortifying ordeal, that someone's able to see through the walls you've meticulously put up. It hits something deep within that he’s tried to bury.

Despite the walls he puts up people other than Fia see through them. Magdalene (Ch.7) was able to see through the small cracks that have broken, and Roderika... hoo she really hit a nerve didn’t she? (But it also hit one of her nerves too, Rogier vs Roderika am I right?)

Chapter 17 analysis

Also, while we’re on the topic of Roderika, let's talk about chapter 17! Seems I have a lot to talk about.

I absolutely love this chapter so much, it gives us so much insight into Rogier's backstory and the way he thinks. His noble background really shines through here, with how he acts with Roderika who is a fellow ex-noble too.

"His grin is wide and carefree, but it rather feels like he's baring his teeth.  There’s no room for your pity here." -Chapter 17

This guy cannot accept any sign of sympathy/compassion with anyone. It's all pity to him, and he absolutely hates pity. Once Roderika starts to console him too it sickens him and it makes him bare his teeth like an animal, his baser instinct showing just a little bit.

He’s probably bore his teeth to other nobles in the court, or whatever meetings they have with one another. Small threats that get the message across by a vicious smile, is something he is all too familiar with.

I also think that it's a little bit funny how he gives advice to Roderika but then is also a little bit of a hypocrite about it

“It’s hard, to leave it behind. But the old world will keep its claws in you, if you let it.” -Chapter 17

Rogier while it's not his past life that he's stuck but rather, he is stuck on Lorens. Even though Rogier is no longer Lorens' student, even though Lorens is dead, he still has his claws on Rogier. It's his entire motivation, why he's in a "pathetic" state now. He isn't letting those claws go, he lets them dig deeper within him, and they dig in deep.

“You already have it within you," he says. "They were only trying to bury it.” -Chapter 17

Rogier immediately buries his own emotions in this interaction when Roderika tries to console him lol. Just based off of him being an ex-noble and his whole family thing, it's well established that he is very much used to burying it all down his gullet. I mean, is it really Rogier without emotional suppression?

Also Rogier tends to close off all the matters that relate to what he feels in his dialogue both in game and in SWRD. This guy cannot let out just a slight moment of vulnerability

A Color Theory Thing on my read on Rogier's garb:

Rogier, with his background being grounded in nobility has suppressed his baser desires in exchange for meaningless political schemes that have only brought him misery. Yet after coming to these lands, he finds himself with Lorens.

He wears a Raya Lucarian Robe and it has red on it. It's a sign of baser instincts being shown for once. He has grown an infatuation with Lorens despite being his student.

Yet, Rogier is still mostly blue, and he still suppresses that baser desire that he’s developed, that infatuation for Lorens. He never once builds up the courage to be able to tell Lorens what he feels. He would always bury those feelings down, and as a result he can't let go of it. It's far too deep to be buried back up.

But once Lorens has died, Rogier changes too.

He exchanges those garbs for yellow and turquoise (I think?). He's a mix of colors and beliefs.

He still has the blue in the turquoise, which symbolizes calm, intelligence, and emotional control (you can’t spell Rogier without emotional control) But turquoise isn't just blue, it also has green.

Green represents growth, life, and new beginnings. This is a new beginning for Rogier, who's set out for a new goal, to be able to save those who live in death (and perhaps give them life? Not so sure on that but in SWRD that seems to be the case with Lorens).

It's balanced by yellow. Creativity and originality, he's almost the only person we meet who wants to save TWLID. Not only that but yellow also symbolizes illness, which could be a foreshadowing of what happens to him later in his life.

It's not just sickness though, yellow also symbolizes deception. Rogier lies, but I necessarily think he's someone who is always deceptive. He's more like the type of guy who would lie so that an encounter would go well or not hurt someone else's feelings. I think he's like that from that whole ex-nobility thing he's got going on. Political schemes and lying through a smile is something that he's familiar with. (It also doesn't help that he keeps being emotionally suppressed too lol)

Cowardice is another. Rogier is scared to tell anyone about his emotions, to take that risk of being honest with someone. His background in nobility and his family definitely doesn't help either.

Rogier had been too scared to be true to Lorens and tell him his feelings, and because of that, he would never be able to. I feel like he's avoided it even more afterward. He refuses to take that jump of being honest with someone, whether it's about his emotions or his ideals, he doesn't let them go.

But when he does? With D, it completely breaks off everything they've had. Everything that they could have been.

"Beguiled fool. A rotten, sick bastard. Fouled by them. A wicked, two-faced user. Heartless. Loathsome parasite. How could he? Were they not supposed to set this crooked world straight? Profane. A perversion of honor. A madman." -Chapter 5

“Get out of my sight.” “I’m sorry.” He’d said, and he was. But Darian’s lips curled back, and he jerked his head away and locked his eyes on the horizon. His jaw twitched, in the moment he took to reply.  “Don’t talk to me.” There was nothing he could do to fix this. To undo his mistakes, to spare Darian his intentions." -Chapter 5

It's all gone because he had been honest about his goals (presumably). This experience probably strengthened that emotional suppression so as to not be hurt/caught by surprise.

So when Magdalene, someone who wholeheartedly accepts his ideals and sees his side for once, he's cautious. He can't believe that someone can genuinely agree with him because all the times that he has been honest, he's been punished for it. (though, he reminds himself that she's not like that)

In short, this guy's a mixed bag. A mixed bag with problems

(basing this off of the Elden Ring color theory video, it was an absolute joy to watch)

[EDIT]: idk what to call this section but he seems to seek out some form of approval. Lets see how that ties in with his grief!

"He still doesn’t understand why. What did he do, specifically? Or was he just past his usefulness? Deemed unfit to rule? He never truly wanted to rule as Lord, but to be cast aside so indifferently—it had shaken him.  Every now and then he fumbles with this, again and again, but he knows. He does. He knows that grace has forsaken him for good reason. He’s a heretic. An apostate. He who does not obediently bow before a faltering, decrepit Order, so ill-equipped to handle the world as it is. " -Chapter 5

"All these years. Couldn’t change a thing. Rather pathetic, I’d say—what a fool, thinking that this crooked world could be made right by mortal hands. Sure, deathblight. Truly, a fitting end for a worthless, rotten bastard." -Chapter 12

Now, speaking from some personal experience, being raised in a family that's of nobility and expects so much out of you from a young age definitely breeds some kind of self-worth issues that really stick with you. Especially if you haven't had anyone to truly support you.

Because of that, I believe that Rogier, in a way, is trying to prove his worth. But not to the Order, I think that he's in some way trying to please Lorens. Even in death.

He puts everything into his studies of Death, searching and scouring for scraps of information just to give him a single lead on anything, and for what?

"Its fulfillment will be a selfish act of altruism. These crooked lands will set right, by his hands, for a reward of nothing at all. But make no mistake: he needs another day. And another after that, and another after that. He needs his questions answered with questions, he needs his notes corrected in an unreadable hand, he needs to hear one more “Well—” followed by the most opaque, convoluted tangle of sentences ever constructed. There’s no reward he seeks, but the warm smile of cold gray eyes and a scoff about just what he’s wearing nowadays. " -Chapter 19

Rogier devotes himself to saving TWLID (saving Lorens, in reality), but it's not because it's all for selfless reasons, he seems to want things to go back to the way things used to be. Back at the Rise, with just him and Lorens once more.

I don't think Rogier ever accepted Lorens' death. He's determined to bring back Lorens, desperately trying to find a solution to bring him back no matter what.

And it’s quite hypocritical isnt it? That Rogier wants to change the Order to be able to sort of… revive Lorens from Death. To go back to the old times that they both had had.

This guy refuses to grieve and is searching (desperately) for a solution for a dead man who's probably not even good for him. Get this man some therapy

This entire post's summary is just me going:

Anyway, that's all for my crazy rambles! I can't wait to see how SWRD will progress, and how everyone will intermingle and grow with one another (Rogier and Mags)!!!! :0)

Have some doodles + a WIP that I'll probably never finish as a treat for reading this! (Mag's torso was wayyy too long on the second one oops)

(bonus boggart because I love him)

[crownedwille]

as much as it's fun being in the fandom and i love having our community i notice sometimes that i just don't vibe with the general opinions of the fandom about plots or characters or the cast and that hearing everyone's opinions or predictions and the 'drama' is too much and overwhelming and i actually don't wanna hear any of it and i realize it tends to annoy and upset me and then you know you need to take a step back from it.

i will definitely try and stay offline when s3 drops in a week and will blacklist tags and probably unfollow some blogs for a while bc i don't want to be exposed to too much content and experience it on my own first and form my own opinions before i dive in on it online. and i don't want to think too much about what the fandom's expectations and wishes are and hear about other's disappointments or gratification or whatever and remove all of that from my brain. my goal is to just enjoy watching season 3 with no pressure and have a good time no matter the outcome of my own wishes and expectations and it can be good even if not all of mine come true bc it doesn't and shouldn’t mean everything

[jadegr8]

god why was i so incredibly dumb to let slip to someone that i had a blog on tumblr and now they're determined to find it

[0pooleart]

I've been churning through so many Sonic character redesigns, here are some of the sketches. I post these and more on my Discord server as I make them, these are just the ones I probably won't bother turning into full drawings. Here's the thoughts on each:

The Freedom Fighters, but I specifically imagined these being their outfits during Sonic Forces since Forces' story could be so similar to SatAM's. Sally and Bunnie have stories and trios before this (Sally with Mighty and Ray, being smol woodland creatures, and Bunnie being with Fang and Trip, being western outlaws hired by Eggman)

Nicole the Holo-lynx. Now looks more holo and more like a lynx. May or may not make an even fleshier version on top of these

Sage, also made to look more digital, but honestly I don't care enough about her character to really consider including her anywhere. Who knows tho

Jewel, made to look like an actual insect. I got the insect Mobian idea first with Charmy of course but I'll probably draw the Chaotix in full later

Jet, honestly one of my favorite redesigns so far. It just ended so perfect, even making his shoes more like bird claws.

Big, basically the same just made more frazzled and wild-looking

Lanolin, made to look like that other kind of sheep and also made chubbier cuz sheep have a chubby aura

Bokkun, now is himself the exploding message. I wanted him to look like Eggman just randomly strapped a rocket to his back, instead of being a normal jetpack. He loves exploding and being rebuilt.

One of the Ancients, now given clothes that match the vibe of some of their creations. I also thought it would be cooler if the Koco were their actual brains/bodies, and the gel exterior is another part of their technology to make them stronger and more versatile.

[ryunumber]

Jimbo (Balatro)?

Jimbo has a Ryu Number of 3/does not have a Ryu Number.

(CORRECTION: Per multiple people, a Balatro crossover update for Don't Starve Together may give Jimbo a Ryu Number.)

(explanation below)

I don't have exact numbers, but I believe Jimbo is the character I've gotten the most requests to find a Ryu Number for since starting the blog, so I think this warrants going a bit more in-depth than normal.

First, I'm going to establish that Jimbo himself is a talking card. More specifically, he is both the literal Joker card that gives you a flat +4 Mult and the talking Joker card that gives you the tutorial and quips about the outcome of your run.

He seems to be unique in this regard; no other card in Balatro talks to you in this way, so while it is possible to obtain multiple copies of any Joker in-game, this flourish is a major defining characteristic of specifically Jimbo.

Next, there's the matter of the "Friends of Jimbo" crossover face card variants. As of the time of this post, there have been 6 Friends of Jimbo updates for a total of 24 properties represented by face cards of certain suits.

I would think that a cursory glance at the rules would make this clear, but I'll state it explicitly: these are not valid appearances by any definition of the existing ruleset. The characters are depicted on literal cards. For this blog's purposes, they have no relevance.

This means that Jimbo is essentially the only character in Balatro at the moment, so the game itself cannot be used for any links.

So has Jimbo been in any other games?

I'm aware of two games that reciprocated the Friends of Jimbo crossover with content updates. The first game is Dave the Diver, whose developers took the wild yet undeniably idiosyncratic move of... just straight up implementing Balatro at a smaller scale as a minigame.

It is called Jimbo's Game, and you can get a copy of the plain Joker that Jimbo ostensibly is, but I don't believe Jimbo ever actually speaks at any point in Dave the Diver, which as stated previously is the one characteristic that really makes Jimbo unique, so I'm not inclined to count the Joker card as an eligible Jimbo appearance.

The second game is Cyberpunk 2077, which gives you a small fetch quest to find Joker cards to get some Balatro-themed cosmetics. The questgiver in question is a fellow named... Jim B.

So no dice there either.

While this is it for reciprocal crossovers, there is one additional appearance I'm aware of: Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers.

Unlike in Dave the Diver, Jimbo does actually talk in this game, so while you can get multiple copies of Jimbo, I'm willing to overlook that as a mechanical trapping of deckbuilders.

As for whether you can go anywhere from Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers is... fraught. No other cards talk like Jimbo or have any other characteristic that suggests they're more than a simple playing card. The actual characters you go up against in the rounds themselves are a bit complicated. There's a couple of opponents in the later acts that resemble classical monsters, but the theming and titles they're given makes saying that they're the singular classical monster in question a bit more of a leap than I'm comfortable with.

There are also opponents that are pretty undeniable references, but there aren't any that I'm so willing to go out on a limb and say actually are the characters or people they reference.

The Actor, for instance, is clearly based on Picard from TNG, but "Actor" suggests that it's not Picard but Patrick Stewart, and I'm not aware of any eligible Stewart appearances in video games.

(There's also an Alucard, but if he's any specific Alucard, he's Alucard from the Son of Dracula movie, which isn't a lot to work with.)

I'd say the closest thing to a slam dunk in this regard is the titular Rain Man, but unsurprisingly, that doesn't give a lot of options.

So if there is a route for Jimbo as of the time of this post (and you might still believe there is one), it's probably through Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers, and while it wouldn't be as unambiguous as I'd feel comfortable posting, it would probably be at least defensible.

(The actual takeaway you should have is that the Friends of Jimbo crossovers are emphatically irrelevant to this blog, and if you bring them up I will personally modify your copy of the game to remove every deck except the Abandoned Deck.)

(I know it's a good deck, it's about the principle of the matter.)