vaggie, miss "im not used to fighting with long hair" who's out of practice actually battling someone or really stabbing ppl...
...still had the arm and hand strength, the REFLEXES, to do a bare handed blade catch on a SWORD, who's user had been doing an aerial dive with it aimed at vaggie's FACE
then sling around and THROW her opponent with it
i know she wants a peaceful-ish life with charlie, but i really wouldn't mind seeing her getting into just a FEW more fights >:D
also also side note:
carmilla was able to eff her up earlier so easily bc vaggie fought like an exorcist, no thought to getting hurt or personal defense, the headspace of 'i can't get killed! wheee! DIE DIE DIE' that got that other exorcist killed
and the main advice vaggie got from carmilla was take advantage of that sure, but first and more importantly, defend yourself better
which kinda plays into the whole "be out for love thing" too
aka the fight isn't important, it's what you're fighting to still have Afterwards that matters- the people you love, having a life with them
(the hotel, the hazbins, charlie)
carmilla doesn't send vaggie off with a 'you're ready to go kill angels'. she's only satisfied and ends their little lesson / sparring match when she can say "you might just survive this"
feels like she wasn't teaching vaggie to take out angels. she was reminding her and showing her how NOT to get KILLED
so it's just so nice seeing vaggie blocking, dodging, and grappling lute later. how good she is at focusing on avoiding or neutralizing those attacks aimed at her. how Seriously she takes them
binding lute's both lute's arms and wedging them into her own body so lute's sword CAN'T be angled towards her
the way this shot emphasis's the THREAT of the sword hanging over vaggie
and how her flash-fast recovery and block shows she's READY for it
dodging, not attacking
she's not in this for blood or vengeance, this lady is trying to stay the fuck alive. she's got things and people to live for
things like the idea of mercy. that thing both her and charlie show their enemies, people who came down to hell for murder and spent this fight trying to kill them and got damn close to doing it.
and sure there's a pretty big tone difference between charlie's "Whoa whoa dad. He's had enough" and vaggie's "No, live. Live knowing that you only do because I let you" but both end at the same place, with someone who hates them still getting a second chance
(UNLESS ITS NIFFTY WITH THE ANGELIC BLAAADE)
and vaggie wants that second chance too. she wants a life with charlie, and fights hard so she can stick around for it
epic fail, lute... have you considered getting a hobby...?
truly fucking incredible btw how they showed claudia's descent (or ascension) into being evil just like lestat. taking entertainment in killing and laughing as her victims die in front of her, she truly is made in his image. to beat lestat you have to become lestat. like mother like daughter. filth teaches filth
I want to make a longer post about this someday but: I think Arya's TWOW arc is going to include her coming to terms with her identity as a Lady. This has been an ongoing conflict with her since her first chapter and I think her flowering in winds is going to mark a turning point. The theory of her having an apprenticeship with the courtesans holds a lot of weight and the idea of Arya going through puberty among a group of unconventional women she's fostered a positive relationship with is just too perfect. It would really have an impact on Arya reconciling her personal idea of what a Lady should be. There's also a lot that she could learn from them in terms of courtesies, communication, appearances, body-language, etc. that would elevate her current skill-set and ways her relationship with them could push the plot.
Not to mention she will undoubtedly reclaim her identity as Arya Stark, and her being a Lady is inseparable from that. Arya Stark is a Lady Stark and being a Lady is a social position, not a measure of how well someone preforms feminine tasks. She shouldn't have to relinquish her position because she doesn't fit patriarchal standards. That's not to say that she's ever going to be the perfect example of a traditional Lady but what I think will happen is that she becomes capable of playing the part. She plays several identities throughout the series but she's always been Arya underneath, so I think it's appropriate that she learns to adopt a "persona" that's part of her. Her remembering Ned putting on his "Lord's face" (+ the various examples of other characters being separate from their ruling persona) makes me think that Arya will be donning her "Lady's face" when she makes a return to Westeros.
i dont think the comic version's end of nimona is negative specifically because the villain she happens to attach herself to is a villain by label only. blackheart is pretty much the kindest and most noble character in the book, if she happened to associate with anyone else, she probably would have been different, her killing everyone in the beginning wasnt exactly fake and i think she couldve easily been influenced to actually be worse if it was an actual villain, lol.
but a big thing in the comic is that no matter how many times nimona is evasive, lies, threatens him, gets aggressive, whatever, blackheart still forgives her and unconditionally supports her and thats what helps her in the end. him keeping this attitude
and her being able to reflect on all his actions, even if he did end up hurting her in the end, is what helps her go on a new path thats not focused on fearing the possibility of being hurt because shes different
It's that time of year again where it gets a little warmer and I remember that Amphibia is a show I very much enjoy thinking about. Have some Anne outfits, as a treat <3
If you would like to see what aspect of headcanon/ au worldbuilding had consumed my consciousness like a pestering maggot, feel free to continue below.
Hello! Welcome to I focus on researching one very specific detail until I burn out!
My entire day has been consumed by figuring out how Amphibia's farming works. Like... amphibians are carnivores why do they have farms?
Well, I'll tell you why! The Plantars grow animal feed for predominantly crickets but also others such as silkworms, spiders, snails, etc. They grow produce like cabbage, mushrooms, parsnips, potatoes, dandelions, and turnips as well as heartfruit, a fruit not found on Earth.
In the past, the original amphibian hunter/gatherer societies found that mealworms were attracted to fallen heartfruit, among others. They began to use this knowledge to make traps and eventually began both containing the worms as well as growing the fruit.
Despite mealworms historical prominence in the farming and feeding of Amphibia, crickets are more popular nowadays due to their higher levels of protein. They also began growing a larger variety of produce to further increase efficiency.
Heartfruit is a kind of tree grown fruit with the color of a raspberry, size of a kumquat, and shape of a peach (hence the name). The Plantar's orchard is the only producer of this fruit as its traditionally significant but not necessary for frog kind. They are Anne's personal favorite of the Plantar's produce, being chalk full of nutrients and somehow feels nostalgic to her.
Speaking of Anne, she survives mostly on the Plantar's produce along with cricket meat (knowing that she can at least eat crickets).
After discovering that the amphibians hibernate, she begins to plant pole beans, blueberries, elderberries, and other produce and herbs in her greenhouse to cultivate while she forages and stockpiles for winter. She preps and stores wild rice, pecans, and sunflower seeds (discovered through trial and error). She keeps spare root veggies and other product in the basement. The Plantars help her do this, once they understand the situation, drying heartfruit and salting and smoking fish as well as making jerky out of bugs that they know she can have.
Anne's gonna learn to survive, even if the first winter is especially hard.
one thing about hbo is that when they get a journalist coming up to them and going “man do i have a fucked up story i want to follow” they really do let that person go wild. i’ve mentioned the way the ronan farrow one really moved me emotionally and that’s just because ronan knows how to investigate and tell a story to get you righteously angry for who it is he’s defending. he’s good at his job!
but this one, quiet on the set, has genuinely made my jaw drop a few times, even if i think some of the framing could have been better in the last episode. of course i know about all the rumors about dan schneider and the abuse on set, it’s hard to have been into the teen nick scene and not notice, and it’s pretty easy to figure out which kids were being harmed through too much attention and which were being harmed through not enough attention, and there’s been all sorts of rumors floating around for over a decade!
but the build up to the drake bell reveal was well handled, i thought. i was initially skeptical because i think it’s hard to make a documentary about child sexual abuse without leaning into being exploitative in some way. and at first, where you have the actors who left early, like katrina, or who you remember but weren’t mega famous like giovannie, and they’re all saying “this set was so weird & inappropriate, i knew something was wrong but i didn’t have the experience or vocabulary to say what” it feels a little too schlocky. like, oh we’re just kind of speculating on the inappropriate nature of dan’s “friendship” with amanda bynes for two episodes? yeah it is fucked up that two pedophiles were on that set, but did they hurt anyone on set?
and then drake bell walks into the room dressed like timmy turner and says it was me. he hurt me.
i can’t stop thinking about the choice of clothes here and the way it helps drive home the point of the doc. he’s sitting there in fairly odd parents colors as an adult and can’t describe the sexual trauma he experienced as a child still, has never spoken about it, had his mom lie to his father over it because he was so screwed up. really driving home the point that he was just a kid who had a knack for physical comedy and it got him preyed on by dan, a man who should have protected him, set up and handed over to a monster who traumatized him for months and years.
but when that reporter said she got a judge to let them unseal the court documents because drake bell told her how much support peck had? my jaw dropped, like yeah this is reporting, this is someone who saw this story and finally fucking cared not about the salacious details but about who knew what and why they did nothing to stop this from happening. it’s not about forcing drake bell or katrina jackson or alexa to live through the worst moments of their life - it’s about how so many people knew what was going on and didn’t do a god damn thing to stop it. it’s about how these monsters, these convicted pedophiles, were given access to little kids to hurt and traumatize and everyone knew and didn’t just look the other way, they actively helped cover it up. THATS the story. Not that it was an isolated tragedy but that it was a clinical, purposeful environment built by people who wanted to harm little kids.
It's crazy that people still uphold show!Sansa as a well-written character and pretend that liking her is the pinnacle of feminism when it would be infinitely more impactful to acknowledge her terrible and misogynistic writing. This is the same character who, while written by two men, was thankful for the abuse she suffered because it allowed her to grow. The same character who we had to be told was smart because the writers were too lazy to develop or show her intelligence. The same character who had to rely heavily on the men surrounding her and ended up accomplishing nothing on her own merit ( and no, thinking that she deserved to be Queen doesn't mean that she earned it). She is not well-written, she is not complex, and she is not a feminist character. Which is fine! If you enjoy her then good on you, but please stop pretending that she's something she isn't just because you feel the need to justify liking her character
While I like her with Dorothea I’m also a HUGE FAN of aroace Edie!!! In her paired endings she only has kids with one person (Ferdie) and even her “romance” endings are more like “she and this person enjoyed each other’s company :)” so I’m absolutely here for aro (and aroace) Edie aaaaaaaaa
Arodelgard Acedie,,,,,,,,,, omg,,,,,,,,,, we're all so real for this I love us all so so so much
Do you think Edelgard would be worried about having children because she's worried that they might inherit her crests? That they might suffer in the way she suffered? I imagine it eats her up inside considering what happened to her and her siblings. She'll have a child or children out of obligation to her empire and her Fodlan but if she didn't have that obligation I think she'd just adopt so she can have kids without the worry of them suffering like she did :)
It always seems like such a good idea in the moment (Patreon)
The first four are in reference to a great idea I had of - since I’ve finished my lower-limit page number testing for making books; shorter fics take up less page space, and just increasing the font size isn’t as handsome! - simply making a mini book! All it would take would be to halve the pages again, right? Just cut them right down the middle! Easy peasy!
As I’m sure you can tell by the second, no. Not easy peasy. Difficult painful un-fun >:(
Obviously I still did it tho! What do you take me for, someone who could have the idea of an even tinier book and then not do something about it?? No
It’s also the only one so far to have a paper bookmark rather than a ribbon!
All told it’s a bit smaller than your average manga (I love the monochrome covers on these under their dust jackets haha <3) - you can see even with effectively doubling up the pages by halving their size, it was still very small-spined!
A quick shot while it was still being made hehe ♪ It’s Out! Paired here - and the earlier one, just without its dust jacket haha - with my Zarla SC2 collection (ft. Family, Negotiations are Going...Well, and With No Obligation) - I absolutely kicked myself after the fact for not including Out as the run-up to everything, I was really trying to make a full collection in probably-chronological order! Out would’ve been a perfect start! And it only would’ve taken like four pages!!
Ah well, it was still quite a learning experience - I probably wouldn’t make another standalone of under 4k-ish just for formatting reasons but I did get some good ideas of how to do so if I wanted to! Although, my next project is going to be even more of a formatting nightmare........I’ll get there when I get there! Lol
Jian is an insufferable brat. unfortunately i love him dearly and want desperately for him to find a happy life. even more unfortunately everyone in the world wants him very dead and its not even for the insufferable brat thing!
“lucas, i’m scared. i’m so scared. i’m so scared. i don't wanna die. i’m not ready. i don't wanna go! i’m not ready.” if the duffers kill max in s5 after that we will be having words.