#beautifully handled

[omvimo]

after luz died and the camera went over to camila crying i actually like threw up from all the tears, its my personal but sad headcannon that she knew

[repressedqueen]

okay, our boy has impeccable taste in men....

[emoangel44]

i think the thing that makes people mischaracterize and completely miss the point of chara is that theyre written to be two very different things concurrently that dont really mesh together.

from what we know concretely about chara as a character, they were a very mentally ill child and complicated person who simultaneously hurt and helped people around them, who held both a lot of love and hate in their heart. they are fairly vague but also have specific character traits such as liking chocolate and filling up water glasses to the brim to maximize efficiency. they take speaking patterns from toriel and an interest in gardening from asgore. if you believe in the narrachara theory, they even have a character arc that changes depending on the route you take. they are inarguably a character who haunts the narrative due to their decisions in life having lead to tragedy that shapes the very plot of the game inextricably; and arguably a character that haunts the narrative and shapes the story much more literally in being a conscious force and companion that accompanies our journey.

at the same time, chara isnt treated as a character at all and is instead a meta-narrative device meant to act as an in-universe player stand-in. in this way chara isnt actually a person with character traits, but a vehicle for toby to provide commentary about the people who play video games. they are a concept that represents the state of thoughtless exp grinding. in the no mercy route their main purpose is to be a reflection of you and your mindset, even more directly than flowey. the reason theyre named after you is because, for a number of aspects in the game, they are supposed to be you; with no notable separation like there is with frisk.

this problem also heavily applies to frisk, for who there is an effort to separate their identity from yours at the end of the pacifist route but who still ends up with no real character traits of their own. people compensate for this by using black-and-white thinking; which results both in assigning frisk and chara a sort of "good-and-evil" dichotomy leading to their early fan interpretations, and in thinking that frisk and chara can only be either fully fleshed out characters or mindless player inserts leading to people favouring option one and basically ignoring the player as a concept except to occasionally use it as a generic big bad.

i think toby prioritized meta-textual implications over actual textual characterization for the human characters in undertale. this left chara as a character feeling unclear, unfocused, and incongruent due to them trying to be several things at once with no real through-line; and frisk as a character feeling practically non-existent outside of being a vessel. there are effectively two different charas in undertale, the character and the plot device, which makes it hard to talk about them as one consistent whole. i think this is why in tobys second game hes been putting such a focus on kris as a character and their separation from the player, as to improve on what he didnt properly touch on in undertale.

[knight-princess]

I actually really loved how they managed to make Kit and Jade a slow burn after having them kiss in episode one. Like, yeah, on one level it’s funny watching them insist they’re just friends when they are clearly, obviously not just, but it’s a real stroke of storytelling genius on another level. Just because these girls have clearly been smitten with each other for ages by the start of the show doesn’t mean they were ready to talk about it openly. Kit dreamed of adventuring, saying to Jade “don’t you dream of getting out there?” But Jade looks only at Kit. She doesn’t dream of going beyond the barrier, only of the girl standing beside her. But Jade can’t see a future where their paths lead anywhere together; Kit is engaged to Graydon, she’ll be Queen, and Jade’s going to be a knight. Any possible relationship is naught but dreams for Kit and Jade in episode one. But dreams sustain us so they hang onto it for as long as possible, never speaking it. Until it’s broken the night of the engagement. The precious bubble of the dream pops. Kit can’t imagine staying, can’t imagine marrying someone she doesn’t know, someone who isn’t Jade. So she goes to say goodbye, and she kisses her, a reckless goodbye kiss with no consequences because she’s leaving and she’s never going to see Jade again. Except that doesn’t happen. The attack happens, and suddenly they’re on a quest together, beyond their rules and roles. They weren’t ready to discuss it before and still aren’t, but the kiss is there, lingering between them, a dancing edge of tension to their friendship. They can try and go back to the way it was when they were just friends and pining after each other, ever longing, but they can’t. They don’t really want to. They want this, they want each other, a life with each other, but they don’t know how to say it, how to start. But watching them grapple with it, with their feelings, and eventually come to speak them to each other in such beautiful scenes, is a joy and a delight

[revenantghost]

I forget who in bookclub mentioned this (pls call yourself out and I'll @ you with credit in this post), but someone pointed out that we don't know if anyone knows what Meryl went through. What she knows. Wolfwood has a conversation with her earlier, but it's just about what Vash is, probably clueless as to their shared memories. Vash doesn't give any hints he has any idea what she's witnessed--he's so fearful of what he is and what he's capable of, it's possible he doesn't know what his powers are. Eventually, at the very earliest, it's seven months from now before we see her admit aloud what she's seen. And, hell. With how much Wolfwood and Vash tuck away and don't talk about, why would she feel like she could talk about it?

And yet, despite all that. Despite having trauma unlike anything she's ever known in her life before. Despite having trauma that no human should have to bear. Despite not being sure what to even do with that, with herself, with Vash (who she's seen witness and commit unspeakable horrors!). She still chooses kindness. She still chooses love and peace. She still chooses Vash.

We see a lot of people handle their trauma in really shitty ways in this story; in many ways, it's a story deeply about trauma. And Meryl, isolated and afraid and with this pain fresh within her, doesn't turn away from what she knows is good and worth saving on this hellhole planet. And, idk, I think that's beautiful, and I love her for it.

[goodcastlegazette]

ep 9 of the fireside chat hit me upside the head into the astral realm and I saw her say this

[buskerjaskier]

So I saw a post floating about questioning the intentions behind Jaskier’s sexuality in S3, and I want to kindly remind everyone that respectful queer representation in media is still sorely lacking and so damn important (perhaps now more than ever) no matter its intentions, and Joey and Hugh handled it beautifully.

[hal-o-ween]

Sweet Dreams <3

[goodmorninglovelies42]

They are so unserious and I love them so much

[trashpocket]

((excerpt taken from Plain White Beach Houses // part 3 of "Impossible Things and the Tin Can" by gibbouslunation ))

more pacrim steddie for tumblr, cause this series that i threw ideas with at myk (the author) has severely killed me

[ejunkiet]

I just finished an incredibly dark and smutty original fiction novel on ao3 and I am not the same.

it's gorgeous. I want it on my bookshelf. why can't i find this in published romance.

[lover-of-mine]

I had a theory I wanted to share but bear with me while I get to it.

Thinking about how now we know for sure Eddie & Marisol are actually having sex regularly got me thinking about how Eddie & Shannon's problem was never their sex life and wondering how/if that plays into Eddie being with Marisol? Because we know things never seemed to click with Ana both emotionally and physically but they are clicking physically with Marisol up until the whole nun thing after which Eddie seemed to be like "well I guess we'll break up now" but didn't seem too devastated by it? If anything he felt more like someone in the beginning of relationship not someone after months of dating & then moving in together. Which of course they decided to slow that because he realized they were going too fast but he said he really wants this time to work out but I'm not seeing a convincing reason why? They're friendly sure & having good sex I guess but what's their emotional connection? How close actually are they? I'm having a hard time understanding it. But this is only his like 3rd ever relationship right? He doesn't have a lot to compare it to & so maybe because he clicked in a way he didn't with Ana that maybe reminds him of what he had with Shannon? Except he & Shannon were best friends, they had a deep emotional connection in addition to a pretty good sex life. So I don't know but maybe Eddie is thinking they needed to move in because it would help them get closer and now maybe they need more time or something? We know he hates dating and feeling like he needs to perform so maybe it's like this is the first woman since Shannon he's able to/enjoys sleeping with so he figures that must mean something more? And I love the idea of he's never considered men being an option before and him now starting on that journey or realizing he did like men or at least Buck and he's now realizing Buck could be an option, like any of those theories and then realizing maybe what he's actually missing in his relationship with Marisol he already has with Buck and realizing he can also have that good sexual part of it (not that he has to but it does seem important to him) too. Because for all of the problems that he & Shannon had they did love and care about each other. I like to think if she'd lived they would have still gotten divorced & actually settled into a solid friendship with each other. But that's neither here nor there.

Is this a crazy stretch? Maybe. I'm just trying to make sense of it all. And I'm a Buddie girlie at heart always so it makes me feel more hopeful.

No, I'm actually with you here. I think Ana was just the first person he thought he could latch onto back then, and she was pretty and nice and Chris liked her, so he thought he could learn to love her eventually. I mean the show does imply that eddieana had sex. I know we like to joke they didn't, but the show very much does imply that with the "you really like to dress me up" "and the other thing" comment at the store before the first panic attack. But they weren't clicking emotionally and we didn't see them connect physically, so Eddie was just "sticking it out". Shannon, the sex worked and I did know how to talk, I don't think you can fight the way they did if you don't know each other. Shannon knew exactly how to disarm Eddie. How to say the thing that would get him questioning his actions. So even if we didn't get to see a lot of moments in their marriage where they were just happy, we know they had good sex and we know they knew how to talk. With Marisol he seems to be connecting with her physically, but he can't seem to connect with her emotionally, because we don't know anything about Marisol because the impression they are giving is that Eddie doesn't know a lot about her. He could have thought that the shock of moving in would bring them closer and then make the relationship better, there is an argument to be made there. And like, he says he really likes her but his brain went to the break up route and he didn't seem that devastated about it. It is canon information that this is Eddie's 3rd relationship, assumed 3rd person he slept with. So he doesn't have a lot of reference points. Which is why he keeps chasing Shannon. But I also think that enough pent up sexual energy can make people see more in a relationship than there actually is, good sex doesn't equal a good relationship (just look at Buck and Taylor and the way they had the chemistry but lacked everything else). But Shannon worked because they had both the friendship and the chemistry. If Shannon was still alive I think they would very much learn to be friends for Chris' sake and eventually settle back into the friendship and figure out who they are together while better equipped to handle what's being thrown at them. But he's lacking the communication aspect of a good relationship with Marisol. He doesn't have the friendship. He does have the friendship with Buck though. And I guess having sex with men in general never occurred to him (but as a demisexual Eddie believer I think sex is not something he worries about a lot unless it's actively creating problems in his life like in merry exmas and you don't know me, both episodes who contain the two sex scenes that lead to problems in the relationship, and it is an interesting way to create problems on Eddie's relationship by calling back to that conflict with Shannon that eventually led Eddie to let Shannon back in but literally led to him kicking Marisol out, also interesting that he sneaks Shannon out of the house and leaves Marisol alone in it) so he never thought about having sex with Buck specifically, but I don't see how Eddie could go "oh maybe I want to have sex with men?" and not instantly attach that to Buck too, because he's Buck. Considering the way I don't think Eddie knows how to qualify who Buck is to him, but does have Buck stored away as the person he trusts the most, I think that attraction to men would instantly attach to the safest person, and that's Buck.

But the question is how they are gonna handle his sexuality. I don't know if they are ever gonna explicitly label him, or Buck for they matter, on the show, but on a meta level Buck is being thought of as bisexual and they are adding to the pieces that are already there to make Buck a bisexual man. I have no idea where Eddie's sexuality is going. I can give you an argument for that man to be demisexual and/or demiromantic with the last episode. The fact that he didn't know that aspect of her killed his boner and his excitement with the relationship. So much so he had to go back to the getting to know her step. But is the show ballsy enough to have a character like Eddie be demisexual? Are they ballzy enough to make the womanizer bi and the single father ace? I don't know. Probably not. I think Eddie has a complicated relationship with sex. Is it the religious trauma? Is the demisexuality? Is it both? ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ I also think that that complicated relationship with sex makes it harder for him to want to date, because dating comes with expectations. He's clearly not romance or sex repulsed, but he does have trouble connecting on a deeper level with these women. He doesn't have trouble connecting with Buck. I think if you plant the attraction to men seed with him, his brain would fill the empty space with Buck. Kinda in the same way he keeps trying to match these women to Shannon. So he could get there. He can absolutely get there. I see this being a route to be taken. I don't know if the show is brave enough to do it though.

[yellowymellon]

Holy, I just saw myrid Celestia so here's a bit of rambling and a silly theory :

As we learned from HI3, honkai is a phenomenon that happens to civilizations as they grow advanced, it's basically a system in the imaginary tree, in theory, all worlds should be a target to the honkai, and each world may name it a different way.

So far everyone agrees that Acheron did come from a world very similar to HI3, some think there's 2 eras too but based on the caption saying "the dual planets were intertwined in each other's tragic destiny" I'll assume they were, well, dual planets.

//"Kevin" says that takamagahara is the one that fell first, and Izumo created the blades, but if we go by prev era then takamagahara didn't serve the same purpose as HI3, and the current era has been the one to do everything, except if it wasn't explicitly said that the herrschers were slayed in PE and only now did Izumo use them to forge the blades//

Izumo was plagued by the honkai, won against the herrschers and took their powers, creating weapons (blades) out of them, each representing the 12 herrschers powers that are later wielded by the flamechasers, who in the end, were defeated, and the blades were broken. It seems like unlike HI3 Acheron was a flamechaser, presumably along with Kevin.

So then, the last blades were Forged, the origin and the end, Acheron being the origin did break the end. And that should've been the end of the honkai, it didn't end there, because honkai alone was no longer the threat to izumo.

I think it's pretty deductable from the trailer but just in case: spoiler for acheron's identity

At the very end, she stood under a sky with a black sun (dark hole) , she says "we long since strode in THEIR Shadows" as the last blade gets forged "naught" , and her form changes.

Is that not...when she becomes nihility's emenator?

Would that black hole not be IX's? Would Izumo not be under IX's governance after all has happened?

The last thing acheron does was, slash IX.

That black sun, ix, has always been there from the beginning of the trailer, meaning that, it's not that the despair drew IX, but it's IX who rendered the dual planets efforts useless. You know it's true when even Kevin says that salvation isn't possible.

The pioneer diver of dead waters, a relic set that talks abt Acheron, we know that's true because the flower motif is the same as acheron's. it talks Abt a nameless who was her friend, her goal was to dive in IX, knowing that it's lethal but believing that the journey matters more than her upcoming end.

Acheron's LC's description basically confirms one thing, Acheron acts as a guide to those lost in nihility in an in-between place (existence and nothingness), that very much could be inside IX, since it's a popular sci-fi theory that black holes lead to other dimensions/worlds.

Her LC quotes her friend, in saying that Acheron still has a lot of paths and choices to take before she reaches the end. I'd say that that's proof her friend left a mark on her.

From all of these we can theorize that acheron's current goal could very well be to kill IX, she has the motive to do so after all.

I sadly can't find izumo's ornament story anymore so I can't add more to this xd

What personally peaked my interest is, the existence of IX throughout izumo. Considering HSR to be the higher world, I just recently joked Abt how hooh is cooking With creating the honkai as it's logically under their authority. And that very much can be still be true, but so far, for a world that's supposedly much more advanced such as hsr's, we haven't even heard of a honkai phenomenal. There were early theories that khaenriaah's destruction was means to stop them from attracting honkai into teyvat, Even tho by HI3 standards teyvat isn't developed at all (heck they have every source of energy except electricity), soooo can we blame hi3's inconsistent writing or is their understanding not correct?

I just think it would be interesting that IX's influence might give rise to honkai, as it's basically a death sentence to a world, the faster finality came, the more aligned the world is with IX.

Speaking of which I've also talked Abt how IX is most linked to the path of finality, so there's that

If you read so far, congrats! You're one of the few, here's a cookie : 🍪🥛

[regardingjenmish]

While I loved the Eddie coming out scene, can we just talk about the way the Maddie coming out happened? It was so sweet and cute. Just a little slip up with pronouns and it was just the perfect way to do it with the way their relationship is.

[runawaymun]

tbh with blue eye samurai i just want all of the gender headcannons to get along. "Mizu is a trans man!" stunning. love to see it. "Mizu is bigender" yeahhhhhh!!!! "Mizu is nonbinary" YES TOTALLY "Mizu's gender is Mizu" incredible. chef's kiss. "Mizu is a gnc woman with some gender fuckery going on" uh-huh I'm tracking

Except "Mizu is a cis woman and only disguises herself as a man due to her circumstances and to travel safely. Gosh guys it's not even about her gender and she OBVIOUSLY identifies as a woman" you're wrong. dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow. Watch the show again. The most bad faith incompetent reading imo. There is obviously so much going on with how Mizu interacts with their gender are you BLIND

[thatoneluckybee]

Not sure if this has been mentioned before but it genuinely hasn't set in yet that Q-Taro is DEAD.

It's been a WHILE since I finished the game but it just hasn't registered. I guess it's because it was only minutes before 3-1 ended so we have yet to see the effects of his absence. But whenever I imagine 3-2 I have to remind myself he's gone. And so is Hinako. And Ranmaru. And Anzu. And Maple. And Midori. And Mai, Kurumada, and/or Hayasaka depending on how you play. They died so late it hasn't settled in. There are 5-6 left. FIVE OR SIX. It just hasn't registered because we have yet to see gameplay with that few characters!