#a huge tangent

[gemini-forest]

What happened to your twitter? I went to follow but it wasn't there? Did something happen to it? Like did Elon take it down??

What? No Elon didn't take my twitter down.

I did. I have been meaning to take it down for a while actually. The environment Rise Twitter made it really hostile for me to really wanna post or do anything. That and it genuinely was messing with my mental health. So I took it down.

More of an extensive reason and tangent under cut if you wanna read

I don't necessarily hide that I draw NSFW. I never post it on a public platform because well, it's smut, and I am aware I have those udnerage following me and when my following here got bigger I stopped hinting to it or promoting mainly for THEIR saftey.

Everyone I draw are of age, very clearly of age, and I'm personally not ashamed of it. I'm an adult and on my own private platforms I can post it. Whatever.

But Rise Twitter made it a much and I do mean MUCH bigger deal than it needs to be. Attacking artists who draw F!Leo (who is a 38-41 year old MAN) smut or suggestive for example and got mad and they start that shit like every week.

I've seen Don get canceled with the same misinformation multiple times with no evidence, I've seen Pine get attacked for drawing an adult man. I got attacked and blocked out by half the community because I defended those who draw adult FICTIONAL MEN.

I get if you're not wanting to see that stuff or it's not your thing, or even it makes you uncomfortable. Like for me my Patreon is ABSOLUTELY optional. You're of age and wanna see that? Cool. I draw a lot of Jayden n Leo there, even some Eliot sprinkled in.

But don't attack us accusing us artists of the WORST TITLES EVER. I've seen an artist get called a fucking pedophile. Or a zoophile. It's honestly just disgusting. People's mental healths have been effected so negatively and not wanting to draw turtles IN GENERAL.

Again you're more than entitled to not like that kind of stuff. That's absolutely okay and you're valid. I fully and 100% understand, you're seen and you're heard.

But don't go at adult artists drawing ADULT CHARACTERS because you don't want to see it, especially if you're underage. We're in our own spaces. We don't want those who are uncomfortable with that to see that our stuff.

In the end it's just feels hyper hypocritical that we're treated like predators for staying in OUR OWN lane when those same people who call us the worst things possible, also draw underage characters getting mauled, eaten, excessive gore, experiencing extremely traumatic events, oh and drawing a 16 year old shoving his tongue down another minor's throat on a public platform.

This isn't me bashing those who draw that stuff, it's okay to tackle that kind of topics. But I find it hypocritical of people who is willing to villainize NSFW artists posting privately and respecting public platforms, who then draw the most horrendous and gruesome shit I've seen with minors.

If one isn't allowed to exist the other shouldn't either.

[journen]

Simon encounters a creature

[joanofexys]

something something Jean’s magnets being broken so they can’t be glued back together and they don’t stick representing how Jean and Kevin’s relationship is still recognizable but can never be what it once was

[mamawasatesttube]

it's like, i really do enjoy most of the bats as characters and i really do like a lot of their comics. but also i am sooooo tired of them being hailed as better than literally everyone else. both in fanon but also in comics (modern ones are esp egregious imo, like WHAT was that shit about batman and the joker being the most dangerous men on the planet. hi. have you heard of lanterns? speedsters? supers? actually if i keep listing groups who could kick batman's ass we'd be here all day). they're like kudzu. that shit needs to stay in its native environment (funky little neo-noir detective stories) and stop being an invasive species (putting down everyone else to make them seem cooler). put bruce wayne back into a murder mystery setting that isn't about saving the world but is about saving one person or one family that no one else would've saved right now or so help me god. the whole invasive species cross contamination thing is unhealthy for both him And the other ecosystems he keeps getting transplanted into. please. it's so dark in here

[parfumd-etoiles]

the freelancer is this pokémon to me. i can't explain it

[lovelylittlelosers]

If iwtv s3 doesn’t open with Lestat doing a genius lyric breakdown video or wired autocomplete interview mimicking s1 opening with the Daniel Molloy ad,,,, that’s a missed opportunity

[uncanny-tranny]

I just find it very interesting that all the labour classed as lesser (most often seen as "women's labour") becomes indispensable in moments of crisis. It's just interesting to see how quickly people turn to that labour and then discard it in moments of peace or prosperity, devaluing it until another crisis hits.

[porter-pumpkim]

just rambling

Ngl I'm kinda hoping the "mephone dies" and the "mephone is the missing shimmer" theories are cannon cause like, imagine dude straight up dying, somehow waking up, then realizing his life was even faker than he thought it was, he wasn't even actually a mephone, he was just some kid shoved in a body he wasn't supposed to be in that wasn't even supposed to last as long as it did, dude was kidnapped just to be killed off when he wasn't useful anymore,

Like, on one had there woukd be the realization he's technically free now, but at the same time one hell of a crisis cause his entire life has been a lie from a greedy business man, and I don't think he even knows what the hell a shimmer is so that's even more questions for him

I'd also like to point out with every other meeple product none of them seem to start with proper emotions, 5s, meepad, they both needed time to develop their emotions beyond what was pre programmed, they started blank or one note, while meephone4 seems to have just had them, which also kinda fits with why he's a bit irrational compared to the other bots, sense his emotions didn't come at a manageable time later in life for him, they just were there and were likely overwhelming sense logically he's only in his teens right now and was expected to act like an adult at age 1, and unlike meepad, he just can't do that.

Either mephone4 was just built different, or cobs just stopped giving his products emotion after 4 to make them easeir to control (sense we can't rule out 3gs or the computer that suitcase talked to, but we dont know if they started with emotion or developed it later)

Anyway I'm just rambling nonsense, Hella hyped for when the ending comes out and how everything ties together!

[huginsmemory]

Trigun and Christianity

In lieu of trigun Stampedes choice to make Wolfwood an undertaker instead of a priest (to, well, my disappointment), I thought it might be interesting to look at some of the Christian themes in Trigun, and then also look at why they might have decided to choose for Wolfwood to be a undertaker then a preist, and a potential reason to why Trigun has these Christian themes. Also, btw, this is chock full of manga spoilers so, beware!

To start it off... trigun is actually... pretty heavy on Christian themes. Fuck man, the main character is basically an angel, and in one of the first volumes they literally describe the plants as something divine (although they are later declared to be something humans made... But nevertheless the very clear imagery is there). Also what features very strongly is pacifism and the themes of unconditional love; Vash's refusal to kill coming from believing that going forward, anyone can change, even when he is literally being harmed or attempted to be killed by others. These themes of pacifism and unconditional love are very Christian, and Vash's actions very much centre him as a Jesus-like character. In fact, even the way that he (and knives) was born, a virgin birth, also could be seen as an allusion, as well as the way that he holds a physical form as a human while being more than human- Jesus being considered a 'son of man' while also being the son of God; ie, something in-between, something both divine and human. Knives as well is written in that angelic and divine light, although he is done so in a dark opposite of Vash, with an emphasis on his 'divinity' for imagery as he is obsessed with it. Interestingly, contrast to Knives, Vash, who goes around as a human, is multiple times called a Devil for his reputation, although he is the one that actually is virtuous... This in a way also alludes to him as a Jesus-like figure, as that Jesus was ultimately sought after by the authorities and in some places hated and even driven away by people.

12 disciples

As well, Nightow is pretty blatant that the gung ho guns, of which there are 12, is a allusion to the 12 disciples; hell, Wolfwood calls them straight up disciples when he is at Jeneora Rock. One might argue that then whether that posits Knives as a Jesus figure as that they follow Knives directions, or if one would consider Vash to be the Jesus figure, as the 12 literally seek out, and 'follow' Vash, and of which one of them literally betrays (although, technically, Wolfwoods betrayal goes both ways). However, I don't think that argument is really one that matters, as it's more of the aesthetic of Christianity that Nightow likes in this matter, not the philosophical implications.

As well, as mentioned above, Wolfwood is very Judas-coded; he gets close to Vash, only to inevitably betray him and deliver him up to his fate, while clearly being torn up about it. Vash is not surprised at all when Wolfwood tells him that he was one of the gung ho guns, and you get the sense that he knew about it all along, and knew exactly what he was walking into. Yet he still loves and forgives Wolfwood for all of it. Which... is exactly the same thing that occurs between Judas and Jesus, Jesus willingly going with Judas even though he knew what lay before him.

Wolfwood

As well, quite obviously adding to the heavy Christian themes of trigun, is that Wolfwood calls himself a priest. Although indeed it's part of his front, it's clear Wolfwood in the manga is religious, challenging and calling upon God in response to seeing the Knives born, and his response to the fifth moon incidence where he questions if it was the hand of God (which, actually, is caused by Vash's hand... again alluding to the 'divinity' of Vash and Knives). This clear religious affiliation continues through the series, such as when he is rescuing Vash from Knives, and even praying while he is on the ship with the people that helped vash.

Wolfwood also throughout the series is very clearly is morally wraught with guilt over his choices and sins... Something that's very Catholic/Christian. Hell, the fact that the punisher, the insignia of his murderous profession, is a literal heavy cross that Wolfwood carries with him, is poetic irony; he's literally carrying around the embodiment of his sins and his guilt from his profession and choices, which weighs both heavily on his physical body but also him emotionally. Wolfwood's guilt over his sins and choices comes to its climax when he's about to die when rescuing Vash from Knives, after betraying him; where he questions whether he can be forgiven for what he has done and whether he was wrong, and in response Vash saves him, declaring that he is not wrong; not wrong to go against orders, leaving his vocation of being a murderer behind, in trying to save Vash and moving forward. In declaring Wolfwood that he was not wrong, what Vash (heavily implied divine, Jesus-like character) is declaring is that Wolfwood can be forgiven for his sins, is already forgiven for his betrayal (unconditional love, anyone?), and that Wolfwood can change, that his past doesn't define him, because his future is also a blank ticket.

As well, this is followed up later by Wolfwoods confession to Vash that he hates killing:

The confession and the way he phrases it- seeing all humans as his brethren (although, in this sense he may be speaking tangentially about Livio) is something that also has Christian overtones. (Also, the way that they mention Vash sees the whole of humans as his relatives, also ties into that; except personally I'd argue that's more of a Indigenous view then a Christian, but theres plenty of things that overlap with other theologies and philosophies within the manga that aren't just characteristics of Christianity).

Redemption via acts

There's also a theme of redemption via acts, which both Wolfwood and Vash lean into heavily as a result of guilt from their 'sins', something that is very... Well, again, Christian, especially Catholic. Vash, from being unable to stop Knives and having obliterated July and just his and knives general existence, and Wolfwood from his profession, and so they both struggle with immense feelings of guilt. As a result both are very self-sacrificing; Vash very obviously so throughout the series, and Wolfwood in a quieter way, in choosing to continue to work to protect the orphanage, even though he desperately wants to escape the life he leads and hates killing people. They both don't believe they deserve to be loved because of the weight of their sins, and so they redeem themselves the only way they know how by self-sacrifice; this literally causing Wolfwoods death as he didn't reach our to Vash for help, and is evident in the way Legato looks at Vash at the end and realizes he sees a man that only sees himself as a tool and hates himself. This belief of Vash's that he doesn't deserve love/nice things is something that is also interesting, because he so aggressively pushes the 'blank ticket of the future', ie, unconditional love, while clearly being unable to apply it to himself.

Tldr: the point is, Trigun is very heavily Christian themed, both in aesthetic and philosophy, and the characterization of both Vash and Wolfwood reflect that. The show is rampant with such Christian philosophical themes as unconditional love, sin and guilt, confessions, forgiveness and redemption through self-sacrifice; for aesthetic ones, well, literal 'angels' as main characters, Wolfwood being a priest and carrying a cross, the 12 gung ho guns as 12 disciples.

Wolfwood as an Undertaker

Since Trigun is so heavily Christian themed, it makes it... well, a bit of a strange choice to pull the fact that Wolfwood is a preist out, since him as a preist further emphasizes the moral quandries within the story and the themes of sins/guilt/forgiveness and unconditional love. However, as one other post here on tumblr mentioned, stampede as an iteration of trigun is more directed towards a more modern and Japanese audience, some of which can be seen with the revamp of the character designs to make them more relatable, and I think they mentioned some specific character traits with Meryl. This re-vamping, especially one specifically for a Japanese audience might explain why Wolfwood becomes a undertaker instead of being a Christian priest. Nightow in the back panels in the manga is clearly is very enthralled with American culture- and his knowledge and love of the American genres shows pretty strongly in the themes and the setting for Trigun. In fact, the 1998 anime was better recieved in the west then in Japan, and a possible likelihood for it's higher popularity within the Americas is going to be directly because of the western audience being more familiar with the Western genre, as well as specifically, the Christian themes within the show (since western countries cultures are Christian based, even if one wasn't raised religious). As well, compared to the other typical gunslinging space western anime, Cowboy bebop, Trigun contains more Christian themes, which would make it less relatable, and less popular to the Japanese audience (of course there are many other differences in the shows, so I would be reluctant to chalk it up to just the religious themes in trigun- hell, Cowboy Bebop makes some great criticisms of capitalism that is not present in Trigun). Circling back to them revamping the show, if they are trying to make it more relatable to a Japanese audience, then removing more overly American influences, such as one of the characters literally being a Christian priest, would fit that bill quite well.

Trigun and Christianity... Why?

Also, I personally think that Nightow didn't exactly mean to make a story that is really heavily Christian themed. My sneaking suspicion from reading chapter 0, is the Nightow thought that writing a western with a main character gunslinger that is a pacifist would be a fun and interesting prospect, and then when he began to elaborate on it, he began to pull in more western (both cultural and genre wise) themes and aesthetics into the story, resulting in something that is very heavily Christian themed in the end.

EDIT: it's been raised to my attention by the lovely @trigum, that it says in the wikipedia on Nightow that he was raised buddhist and converted to Catholicism, although there is no source for that information. If so, this would, well, very obviously explain why Trigun is so heavy on Christian themes and negates the paragraph above. I'm not giving him enough credit then, my apologies Nightow!

EDIT 2:

Edit 3 (Feb 3): made a somewhat part 2, specifically looking at the phrase the 'bride of Christ'.

[sweetest-honeybee]

was cleaning my fridge when I randomly thought "a clean home is a happy home" and now I'm thinkin how infuriated Home would be if he gets dirty or to add even more fuel to the already blazing fire, how much of a clean freak Grey Au!Wally would be to keep Home happy

Ohh! A clean home is definitely a happy home! I’m seeing this more like Home being such a clean freak haha!

[imminent-danger-came]

Ok- so I recognize that this is a stretch but:

"You heard a story about a guy who had everything, who never had to work for anything, and thought you were the other guy?"

Mei: Has always had a family, has a rich history, also literally rich, doesn’t seem to have a job (possibly an influencer? Not sure), never struggled/needed training with her dragon powers (that I can remember at least)

MK: Doesn’t have a blood family/Didn‘t originally have a family, someone with no past, not necessarily poor- but by no means wealthy, works as a delivery boy, struggles with his powers on a regular basis (emotionally and literally)

LOOK ANON YOU'RE NOT WRONG.

"I don't have a family—I don't have anything."

I think one thing pre-s4 that really set off my theory-ometer is the fact that MK, for the first 3 seasons, does not have a single flashback or implication of past history. We see child Mei in 1x03, Pigsy has those photos on his wall in 2x04, Tang "met [Pigsy's] parents", Sandy has flashbacks to whatever war he was a part of in 2x08. Wukong and DBK and LBD have flashbacks. And MK, despite being the main character, does not get anything of the sort until 4x06—and even then it's him struggling to recall his own childhood. Like, MK truly is a paradigm of that "no past, no family, and no name" description we get from Scroll Subodhi.

All this to say that Mei's (and by extension the rest of the gang's) "rich history" v.s. MK's "no past" intrigues me to know end. Like, let's look at this scene from 3x09:

Mei: "Does anyone else feel like- " Sandy: "-we've been here before? Yeah, it's weird right? But I know I haven't." Tang: "Me neither. And yet this places feels so familiar!"

MK: "Nope! Not me man—this is all new to me!"

-

And let's also set it right beside this scene from 4x05:

MK: "I wonder when we're gonna meet my ancestor." Mei: "I thought Monkey King was your dad!" MK: "He's not my dad—Pigsy's my dad." Pigsy: "Uh, kid? I'm not exactly yer uh..."

-

So, MK clearly isn't connected to anyone who was there to seal the Samadhi Fire, and we don't meet an "ancestor" in the scroll for MK like we do for everyone else, but you know who we do meet?

HM.

We go from "I wonder when we're gonna meet my ancestor" in 4x05 to "A simple creature, with no past, no family, and no name" in 4x06 to meeting Curse MK in 4x07, to MK saying that he doesn't "have a family—[he] doesn't have anything" in 4x08. Those sure are some dots.

[meteor-moon]

another bipper thing but this time it's a little better than my other one

(quality? what's quality?)

[marley-manson]

hawkeye's effeminacy being a point of pride and appeal in the first half of the show and shifting to, not always but much more often, a point of derision in the last few seasons like the vast majority of other unmasculine men in media is disappointing but so emblematic of the shift in portrayals of men from the 70s to the 80s in hollywood media

[moe-broey]

HELP maybe this is influenced by how I'm writing this, or maybe it was supposed to be gleaned from canon and I just. Haven't fully thought about it til now. Haven't Deeply analyzed it beyond the blaring alarm bells that go off when reading this. But. Alfonse's,

Straight into.

This isn't him doubling down. This is him BACKTRACKING. This is him going, "oh fuck I think maybe I came on a little too strong maybe I was a bit too vulnerable and that's really scary. How do I fix this" and he's running through all the dialogue options in his head like Okay. Play it Cool. Keep it Casual. Proclaim your undying loyalty and devotion to your Trusted Partner (person he just told in the beginning of this conversation that he didn't intend to become friends with) by making yourself a blade and shield for them. NAILED IT 👍

[uncanny-tranny]

Big reminder that your country is not immune to bigotry. I've seen so many people, for example, pretend like antisemitism doesn't exist in the USA because we were part of the allied forces in WWII (of course, they conveniently don't remember that we rejected jewish refugees when WWII broke out and we only really joined because Pearl Harbor was bombed, but I digress).

If you think your country is immune from antisemitism, racism (including anti-Indigenous racism), class issues, ableism, whatever else it may be, look deeper because you will find it.

[my-current-obsession]

To be fair, the whole, “I’ll come back to you even if you don’t promise to wait,” is a line pulled directly from OG FFVII. It’s mentioned late game by Cid (who hilariously went to see a showing of loveless in Midgar but fell asleep then woke up just in time to view this ending scene 😂). But if you wanna deep dive on the meaning of this line, it’s worth noting that a version of the line is used in FFVIII in reference to the main ship of that installment — Rinoa and Squall — who also happen to be another mage/swordsman pair. And if you wanna go big brain square enix energy, there’s also the famous, “I’ll come back to you; I promise…I know you will,” between Sora and Kairi in Kingdom Hearts when he goes off on another journey while she awaits his return. If you go down those rabbit holes, it seems square really has a type for their main pairs, no?

I don't remember that line in OG FF7, but it's been years since I played it so I'll take your word for it. But you're right that similar lines/sentiments pop up frequently in other FF and KH games, so yeah, Square has a type. I still think the conversation between Cloud and Aerith in KH2 is the quickest and easiest parallel to make here though, considering the same pair can have basically the same interaction, in an entirely different game. Yes, Cloud could also have this conversation in the play with T or Y. But only Aerith's would have the added depth of being a potential callback/reference to another moment the pair shared.

And considering this game liked to callback to several moments between Cloud and Aerith in the previous game (him remembering their first meeting being what snaps him out of Sephiroth's control, the "will you be okay getting back", "if I said I wasn't" in the ending...) I think it's totally reasonable to assume that Square might have subtly referenced at least one Clerith moment from outside the compilation.