#anyway. metaphors and stuff

[smile-files]

you have your way of looking at it. with the egg. and it's a great analogy!

thanks.

for me, though, i don't see an egg. i see... a chrysalis.

oh?

yeah... y'know, i wonder if caterpillars know how beautiful they'll become. and i wonder if that'd make metamorphosis any less scary.

hm.

well, at least for me, i know how beautiful i'll become. or... at least i'm told. everybody i've met has told me that i'll go on to live an incredibly happy, fulfilling, successful life. a beautiful life.

there's a reason for that, y'know!

well, golly! but that's not important. the point is that i'm a caterpillar on the verge of metamorphosis and everyone around me is telling me how beautiful i'm gonna be.

isn't that a good thing?

yeah, kinda. it's also really scary!

how?

well... i've done well so far in life. i've been relatively happy and fulfilled and successful. my life has been pretty beautiful so far.

mhm.

but y'know... i'm a four-leaf clover. how do i know that wasn't just... a fluke? a big lucky break? how do i know that once i exit that chrysalis i'll actually be as beautiful as everyone thinks i'll be?

hm...

i can't keep banking on that forever. and now, like everyone our age, i have to start making that chrysalis. i guess i'm just worried that my lucky streak will end and my life will go down the drain. no more beautiful butterfly.

...

what makes you think it's all luck?

well, i... well, you know it has some factor in this.

well, sure. but you've had control over your life too. and so have other people. you shouldn't call yourself "lucky" that i decided to be your friend - it was my decision based on my own thoughts and emotions. and the way you are, how nice you are to be around - that's based on your own thoughts and emotions.

i guess...

...

listen. i'm not going to say that every success you've had is one you've built from scratch. everyone starts with something - heck, you started with a lot! but that alone will never get you the whole way there. to like... genuine, meaningful success.

what about all those super rich people who're only rich because of their super rich parents? they started with a lot and they got the whole way there with just that.

yeah, they're successful, but you can't seriously tell me that their success is meaningful.

i suppose not.

you can't make friends with luck. even if literally every other good thing you've done is because of dumb luck... the fact that so many people love you and love to hang out with you is proof that you're a genuinely good person.

...

hey, i never said i wasn't a genuinely good person.

well it comes with the territory. i should know... and y'know, it is really hard to admit to yourself that you are a good person who deserves all of the success they have. but it's important. i think we all should say it more. so it... so it doesn't have to be something to admit. i don't think it should be a secret.

...

so...?

so what?

so spit it out, then, you goofball! say you're a good person.

well, i... well goodness, now i'm just proving my point.

say it!

only if you do!

fine.

...

i'm... i'm a good person.

...

me too.

hey, that doesn't count, you actually have to say the words.

what words?

"i'm a good person".

ha, you said it again!

...clover.

...

...

clover. i'm not going to force you to say that you're a good person. i'm not going to force you to believe in yourself or anything. but i want you to, because i want you to be happy.

...

...

and i want... i want you to want you to be happy. it shouldn't matter whether or not i want that.

...

...

you don't owe it to anyone else to live a good life... you owe it to yourself. and i know you don't believe me. don't tell me i'm lying because i know, trust me, i might as well be.

...

...fan...

and i guess sometimes you just have to tell that lie to yourself over and over and over again. i know it feels wrong to tell the world that you love the person you are because it feels like a lie. but you know everyone else already believes it. you just have to lie to yourself enough that you start to believe it too.

...heh, and just be delusional?

yeah. delusional. but by the time you believe it along with the rest of the world, you'll forget that it was ever a lie to begin with!

i suppose so.

...

...

...

...so, clover, do you think you'll turn into that beautiful butterfly?

no.

no?

i'll be a moth.

[theoldkyokodied]

Uploading all my Tomgreg art at once from the past few week before season 4 hits, who knows in what kind of mental state i'm gonna be once it does :')

[fluentisonus]

(typing this as I walk to work so this is not articulate but) thinking a lot abt how les mis w javert sort of. hm. questions? problematizes? the Idea of dogs & the domestication of dogs (metaphorically ofc) like it sort of looks past the 'man's best friend' angle entirely & makes you think things like. kind of fucked up of humans [the social order] to domesticate the wolf [person outside of society for whatever reason] expressly to turn against & cause harm to other wolves in order to keep them out [away from respectable society] & keep themselves safe but never truly consider it an equal [it'll always just be a dog]. kind of fucked up that the dog finds enjoyment & life's purpose in this

[clay-pidgeon]

being a rarepair fan means you will see the characters names in the same paragraph one (1) time and youll react in the same way a dog reacts to the word treat

[synthshenanigans]

I miiiight color this properly but have a funky soul design i did for fun :}

[close up + a small text about the guy below and then some]

While it is mainly just for fun & not my main design for Soul, i think Soul's form would change throughout Cacophony a fair amount. There's still some things it cant change but depending on its view on himself, Heart & Mind, or Whole would alter how his apperance looks. Not necessarily a bad thing either, just a form on how he feels or views himself. Kinda like when you make a persona i guess? He just swaps a lot between them.

Also smaller thing being that it's "tail" can change as well! More obvious being the relation to the instrumental album cover but also it can changed into other things as well. An Umbrella for Spring and a Storm, a gavel for parts of Mucka Blucka, TSE & The Bidding, or it being one of those bid cards youd hold up to bid your amount [also during The Bidding]. Can also change to the trident during TSE & The Bidding too, the red guitar in Two Wuv as well. Just generally whatever he want/feels like!

[pandorem]

Okay so I don’t feel the most qualified to talk about this, especially to make any value judgements on how any of this was handled, so I would love other people to add in if they feel like it, but this is eating my brain actually so.

Esther Finch is a funny villain. She’s a joy to watch on screen, even if part of that joy is in hating her. But there’s something that feels very deliberate in the fact that the only two girls (barring in the animated flashback) we see her target are black girls. Becky Aspen and Crystal. I don’t think we’re supposed to infer from this that she only ever targets black girls, but the casting of Becky feels deliberate. While there’s plenty of in universe explanation for why she wants to use Crystal to feed to her snake afterwards and doesn’t ever say, specifically target Niko, it’s still there. And though Niko was just hurt because she got in the way, she’s also another woman of colour we see Esther hurt.

And then at the end Crystal, who many have pointed out has been a voice for women throughout the whole season, stands in front of Lilith, the goddess of wronged women, and screams to her about who gets justice for all the little girls Esther hurt. And then Lilith, played by a black woman, is the one to drag Esther away.

Crystal says to Esther that she knows how anger can poison you. Esther says she learned to be predator instead of prey a long time ago. Do I think that the show literally wants us to think that Esther is a racist who deliberately targets black girls? No. Do I think the casting choices that they made bring up themes of the kind of people who, because they have been hurt or marginalized, want to push others down to have others that they can have power over instead? Whose problems with societal oppression is not that it exists, but that they aren’t the ones who get to benefit from it? I think so.

[deoidesign]

Thinks about my next series again... I drew the icon for it!

I'm planning to have it launched within a year! I'm hoping for summer 2025. I want to make a prelaunch page before Time and Time Again ends so people can subscribe if they're interested, but I'm worried the series return would be too early...

[aroanthy]

i love how fraught and complicated discourse around various utena characters ‘dying’ is when anthy is literally stabbed to death eternally by a million swords imbued with human hatred. and then utena gets stabbed to death by them also. like. ‘death’ is incredibly interesting in rgu because most of the time it’s this ambiguous figurative thing that has interesting implications re: ohtori as a closed-off world one can escape. we are all trapped in our coffins. mamiya is the only named character with a grave. nemuro memorial hall functions as one all the same. ruka is implied to have died in the hospital— was he dead all along? who was the boy we saw for these two episodes? is this dead boy the same boy, or is this just another coincidence from the shadow girls, cutting like a knife? it’s heavily implied that akio and anthy murder kanae by poisoning her, adding to the previous implication that they were poisoning mr ohtori too, but there are no perceptible consequences of this. kanae’s absence is not felt. she’s fed an apple slice. what happens to the bodies? we know what happened to the 100 boys, but what about everyone else? and so on and so forth. ‘death’ is a tricky thing in utena, i think it’s constantly functioning on figurative and literal levels in very different ways for very different purposes. dios died. dios was dying. dios didn’t die. he grew up. etc etc

[vaxieth]

thinking about imogen and laudna, telepathy, and the modifying ordeal of being loved unconditionally again

[pissbbyy]

uhh there’s like 3 hours left b4 it ends buut happy trans day of visibility to one of the most t4t couples in media woo!!

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

Ares? Hephaestus? God of War? God of Machines? Please. Put some respect on their names. That's Mr. Frank's Dad and Mr. Charles and Leo's Dad to you, thank you very much.

[borderlandsmostwanted]

I think the twins had the potential to be the best borderlands antagonists if they were handled properly. Like if gearbox pulled more from reality it could have been a really interesting concept about parasocial relationships, the dangers of blurring the lines between online and reality, and how idolization can turn someone into a faux god

[ophiliaclement]

and all the light in the world converges on you.

[aroaceleovaldez]

The himbo, malewife, goofball -fication of percy jackson is such a crime by both the fans and riordan. It has made Mr not like percabeth as a couple because in all posts and in later books annabeth is such a girlboss, while Percy's dumb and can't fight his way out of a paperbag without her. All the posts are about how annabeth will be an architect and percy would love to be a trophy husband.

Even the humor in the books went from Percy's sharp wit and snark to 'my pancakes can't drown because I'm a son of poseidon.'

And now this recommendation letter bullshit.

Honestly now I'd wish percy just separated from annabeth (but they remain best friends.) He stays home with his family, becomes a camp counselor, helps young demigods, holds God's accountable and eventually becomes a social activist. (I also dislike him doing something marine biology related. It's clear he hates academics but he always wants to help people. Him helping demigods and mortals is such a wholesome profession for him.)

I fully agree with the first half of this, though I slightly disagree with part of the latter.

The later-series and fanon mischaracterization of Percy is at least a solid 50% ableism minimum, full stop. He's being warped into a very stereotyped ADHD character and the exact reason why he's being characterized as "dumb" is because of ableism. Percy is a very intelligent character! That's exactly why he's so in sync with Annabeth and they're such a strong duo! It's just generally Annabeth is more book/academically smart.

I disagree with where you say he hates academics - because that's one of the common misconceptions about his character. Percy doesn't hate learning or academic subjects! He's not even bad at them! We know explicitly that when he is in an accommodating environment he is interested in learning and gets significantly better grades! Percy only dislikes school because it is generally an environment that systematically he struggles with. It's literally just he has a learning disability (two, actually)! That's it! When his learning disability is accommodated for he does well! It's almost like that's what accommodations are all about! We know this from the first series! It's discussed pretty in-depth! Percy isn't a dumb character and he doesn't hate learning, he's just been let down by school systems so much that he's inherently distrustful of them. If they actually accommodate him though then he does just fine!

And that's exactly what CHB was all about and why New Rome University was supposed to be such a big thing for him! CHB is a learning environment geared for demigods. NRU is a demigod college. Both inherently imply an environment meant to cater to and accommodate students with ADHD and dyslexia! They are both systematically structured to be able to accommodate him! Heck, CHB and CJ even both address in the wider themes of the series a metaphor about how ADHD and dyslexia are commonly seen as childhood disabilities, and how it can be more difficult to find accommodations into adulthood because of that attitude but those disabilities don't just go away - that's why CHB is a summer camp but they talk about how demigods outside of CHB don't often fare well. The metaphor there is those who are not getting help or accommodations are struggling. Because that's how that works! This is a fully intentional metaphor from the first series! CHB is never framed as being perfect for demigods, because one of the entire central conflicts of the series is Percy and Luke going back and forth about this flawed system meant to help and support them but still letting people fall through the cracks. The "claim your kids by 13" thing is a metaphor about how acknowledging a child's disabilities (and possibly getting a diagnosis) earlier/as early as possible means they will have more time to learn and build up resources and support for themselves to be able to use later in life. One of CHB's major flaws is that it can accommodate demigods to a certain point, but it can only do so much before those demigods have to leave (the metaphor being accommodating school systems when those disabled students do not have any other forms of accommodations in their lives.)

And that's why Camp Jupiter was framed as being so revolutionary for Percy because it had an environment acknowledging that this is not just a childhood disability, adults with ADHD/dyslexia exist too and still need and deserve accommodations, AND is a place where those accommodations are available. That's why Camp Jupiter and NRU are treated as such special and important things to Percy, because it's essentially Percy being shown this type of thing can and does exist and it is available to him. It is an option he never thought was possible. Percy never thought he'd be able to go to college because he would not be able to go through school without accommodations, but NRU proves otherwise.

The part that's absolutely stupid is Rick then proceeded to retcon NRU so that apparently it's not a full college and Percy still has to take classes at normal mortal college which DEFEATS THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF NRU EXISTING. Rick has fully retconned that demigods struggle past the ages of 16-18 when they're on their own (see above elaborated metaphors) and in doing so we have fully killed all symbolism in literally all of that. It's so stupid. And by having the plot of the CoTG trilogy entirely be that Percy is not actually allowed access to NRU in the first place because he is a son of Poseidon and has to do extra to even be accepted is stupid!

All that to say, I agree the marine biology feels like a huge cop-out and a disservice to his character by reducing him to just a son of Poseidon. The literal only reason why it's the default option people take for him is because oh, fish thing, fish guy. But I feel like everyone ignores the really obvious answer for what Percy would want to do which is - writing. Both his parents are writers/authors and he clearly admires that about them. Percy likes telling stories! He canonically is already a published author in-universe! That's what the books ARE in-universe! The first series fully exists in their universe and Percy is the author! This is explicit canonical information! Percy canonically has help physically writing it down (accommodations) but he is still the credited author! Percy is a writer! Already! Canonically! Why are we making him a marine biologist he already has a profession that ties into his character significantly more. Like you said, Percy likes helping people. That's what the books in-universe are supposed to be for! It's point blank at the beginning of the series! Book one! The thing everybody quotes all the time! The books exist because it is Percy trying to give advice to other demigods who don't know what's going on yet! It's Percy's writing down his experiences to help new demigods understand and contextualize their experiences so they can understand themselves better and figure out what's going on - WHICH IN ITSELF IS ALSO A METAPHOR ABOUT ADHD/DYSLEXIA! Because the core of the series has and always will be built around ADHD/dyslexia! Percy as a protagonist EXPLICITLY was created so that ADHD/dyslexic kids could see themselves as a hero!

Sorry that all was a very tangential rant but my point being: Absolutely. Percy in newer stuff in the franchise and in fanon is horrifically mischaracterized in ways that are functionally either fully ableist (shoutout TSATS for just outright claiming Percy is intentionally lazy and skips school out of disinterest, which is like the number one ableist attitude towards kids with learning disabilities) or a complete erasure of Percy's disabilities. Also I think he should be a writing major not a marine biologist.

[pikkish]

I thought it was hilarious, at first, that everyone’s decided Doomguy is still the protagonist of MyHouse.wad. After all, it doesn’t really have much more to do with Doom than gmod has to do with Half-Life 2. But then I remembered, isn’t that a plot point of Doom II? Visiting the burnt out ruins of your hometown on your way to the portal to Hell? Why couldn’t Doomguy take a few minutes to have a nightmare of an emotional journey in a childhood friend’s home to come to terms with everyone and everything he ever loved being destroyed?

[bunnihearted]

being too weird and unlikable and off putting and always being shunned and turned into an outcast everywhere i go and not having felt the connection and healing friendship has on you for so many years has really done a number on me