#i love a character thats always experiencing The Horrors

[bioluminesced]

elzar, the force

[the-lonelyshepherd]

"fanon lottienatters please stay away from me" oh!! shots fired!! 2,000 dead, 10,000 injured!! BUT curious about your specific definition for fanon lottienat and what you dislike about it <33

ohhhhh okay... alrrrrrr

this is like. one of my biggest issues. im not like a shipper, never rlly have been until yj but i dont like engage in discourse bc thats stupid.

But basically? Fanon lottienat just kinda strips anything thats interesting about the ship away. and makes it like. punk x preppy. loser x popular. ive even heard black cat and golden retriever which makes me want to rip my eyes out.

And its not even accurate to their characterization? at all? like youre flanderizing them but like..... not even their main traits. like ive seen people say "precrash lottie would be like charlotte from status update (curse that movie btw. the things i do for u courtney eaton) which is just. like not at all.

first off lottie is not popular. yeah, shes rich, but shes clearly somewhat of a loner (WHICH PARALLELS NAT?? WHICH MAKES IT MORE INTERESTING???) even courtney has said this in interviews. she feels ostracized, and a lot of it can be traced back to the flashback scenes we see, esp those about her relationship w her parents and her supposed mental illness. the 90s, especially the 90s in a high pressure rich family, was NOT a good place to have schizophrenia (and yeah theres the "she wasnt actually mentally ill" argument but that changes nothing because atp in the story her whole family and probably herself believed she was.

Then we have the nat characterization. The fanon "grumpy" to fanon lotties "sunshine". guys canonically nat smiles more than lottie. girlie was always grinning while lottie was experiencing the horrors all of s1. ofc they both went THROUGH it but that specific stereotype pissed me off sm i had to address it.

also, nat gets shown a lot as masc?? which is a fine headcanon but like for her style like the whole punk thing? she acc dresses relatively femininely.those are little irks abt nat but they bother me idc. too tired to write more on this rn but feel free to ask!

so basically taking this stuff into account - fanon lottienat uses a gross mischaracterization of both characters, especially lottie (also that suspiciously align w stereotypes HMMMMM) to literally make the ship more boring. You are making it a stupid and lame trope. You literally have these two insanely complex characters who mirror each other. Theyre not opposites attract, they are the same character in different skins. They're both loners, one because of her punk/rebel nature and nasty rumors, the other because of her mental illness and lack of closeness to people. Theyre both loners because of their social status and their fucked up home life. Theyre both providers - nat the hunter, bringer of physical and real food like the deer. Lottie the prophet, bringer of hope and, through the teams eyes, the birds, the bear, etc. Lottie who begs to be a martyr but is denied nat who runs from it but shoulders it anyways. They're both bleeding hearts they both give soul to the team and are some of the most genuine characters but they present it so differently.

The fact that the majority of content grossly mischaracterizes them and is the widely accepted fanon just.. sucks tbh. and the fact that people get so up in arms about them, and literally attack fans of other characters (lottielee fans... travis fans....) for no reason?? all these other characters do is contribute to what makes lottienat such a compelling and fucked up and interesting ship. i love them so much but lwk most of yall are insane and dont even appreciate them for what they really are.

thoughts questions comments concerns hmu

[actually-a-fish]

the best supernatural episodes

according to an autistic person with a special interest and the ability to make a list.

if youre really serious about supernatural spoilers then maybe stay away :)

None of the season one episodes made in on the list but I will give an honorable mention to S1 E2 Wendigo.

S2 E11 Playthings - A classic, creepy girls in a creepy hotel. Special call out to Sam getting SLOPPY

S2 E16 Roadkill - There's a ghost haunting the highway. the Boys help the spirit move on. This is an early example of monster empathy

S2 E18 Hollywood Babylon - Dean loves hollywood. I love dean. this episode makes me kick my feet like a little girl and i will not defend myself.

S2 EP 20 What Was Shall Never Be - all I have in my notes for this one is "Dean Djinn Dream" which was enough for me to remember the episode and get misty eyes. This is SEASON 2 my son will never know peace.

S3 E5 Bedtime Stories -I had to check the wiki on this one, I think i liked it cause it referenced classic fairytales

S3 Ep11 Mystery Spot - "HEAT OF THE MOMENT" RISE AND SHINE SAMMY!

S3 E13 Ghostfacers! - Im a Facer through and through

S3 E16 No Rest for the Wicked - S3 finale and the Boys are facing consequences! Classic Dean, Sam and Bobby episode.

S4 E1 Lazerus Rising - First Cas Episode. That handprint makes me feel things.

S4 E6 Yellow Fever - What if Dean had anxiety (The Eye of the Tiger blooper is also at the end of the episode which gives it bonus points.

S4 E17 Wishful Thinking - Make a wish? was it for your teddy bear to be diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder? Well thats what youre getting!

S4 E17 It's a Terrible Life - Sam ~ the sales rep. Dean ~ middle management.

S4 E18 The Monster at the End of the Book - There are books about Sam and Dean?! Written by this guy who loves self insert character? Surely the entire show isn't about to take a tone shift?

S5 E3 Free to be You and Me - Sam and Dean are fighting again, but this time Dean has a new heavenly boy toy to play with instead. (Cas has no rizz yet it's actually a little painful to watch)

S5 E5 Fallen Idol - Okay the Wax People episode is on here for one reason and one reason only. Paris Hilton.

S5 E7 The Curious Case of Dean Winchester - Old man Dean and old man Bobby. This is also the episode for HH Husk kinnies.

S5 E8 Changing Channels - Dr Sexy MD is that you?!

S5 E9 The Real Ghostbuster - *in a grizzly voice* "I'm Dean Winchester, this is my brother Sam. Have you experienced anything strange?" "Dude that was so good! Now we can go solve the puzzle" "Man you're breaking the immersion!"

S5 E10 Abandon All Hope - This is here for Crowley's first appearance and not because the end will make you cry.

S5 E12 Swap Meat - "uh... its Audi Nos". Freaky Friday starring Sam Winchester! An angsty teen and April Kepner from Grey/Sloan Memorial Hospital.

S5 E16 Dark Side of the Moon - The Boys lives flash before their eyes. Dean is pissed forever about Sams.

S5 E19 Hammer of the Gods - this is for all my pagans out there!

S6 E4 A Weekend at Bobby's - What do you think this episodes about idjit.

S6 E15 The French Mistake -  “For whatever reason, our life is a TV show.” “Why?” “I don't know.” “No, seriously. Why? Why would anybody want to watch our lives?” 

S7 E4 Defending your Life - consequences? for fucking people over? how about you stand trial.

S7 E20 The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo - The self insert character made for us :) Luv u 4ever Charlie XD

S8 E4 Bitten - found footage will always scare. this one reminds me that this show started as a psuedo horror.

S8 E8 hunteri heroci - Cas tries his hand at being a hunter

S8 E12 As Time Goes By - FINALLY THEY ARE CARVING TRAPS INTO BULLETS

S8 E17 Goodbye Stranger - verbatim here are my notes for this episode "Cas chooses Dean, but the way he handles Meg... Fuck Naomi"

S8 E18 Clip Show - If you only want to watch just one episode of Supernatural this should be it. It's not actually a clip show, theres a broment, bonding time with favorite characters and crazy plots that only supernatural could get away with.

S9 E5 Dog Dean Afternoon - Dean is finally a dog person

S9 E11 First Born - Another bro fight leads to shipping <3 SamxCas + DeanxCrowley <3

S9 E15 #thinman - the slender episode feat. GHOSTFACERS. You come away from this episode thinking "supernatural is so fucking gay why wont the boys kiss"

S9 E21 King of the Damned - my favorite crowley era change my mind. Also the way the Boys interrogate an angel is so funny

S10 E5 Fan Fiction - I would unironically fuck w a supernatural musical and if helluva/hazbin taught me anything the rest of you would too

S10 E6 Ask Jeeves - The Clue episode. (Pay attention to the improvised weapons Dean chooses. It brings me joy)

S10 E9 The Things we Left Behind - Cas is suffering a midlife crisis and his besties are there to help him repair his relationship with his daughter. Funnily enough, Crowley is also getting some family bonding in.

Okay, I'm all caught up on my list. Should I have stayed up late transcribing this with an 8am class tommarow?

Probably not but it did bring me great joy. Tell me your favorite episode! I'll continue to add to my list as I continue my rewatch :)

[lokorum]

Pls rant about non romance cole…he’s my favorite character in anything, ever and it feels so sad that we never got to have a deeper relationship w him. Like the mechanics/possible lore of having a romance with a spirit are so tantalizingly interesting but no…also doubting we will see him in veil guard which leaves me so so broken …

*looks at their pile of unpacked feelings about cole*

so ૮( ◡̀_◡́)ა where to start....................

first of all uh! im not good at talking! that's why i draw phphp but i'll try my best to resurrect my memories from 2014 and share it with you!! sorry if it will sound weird, english is not my native language! 

well WELL from the begining then. i remember spending hours  more like days hhhh thinking about how weird and cool the recruiting scene with cole is? later when he is already with the inquisition, our party is either on guard around him or kinda treats him like he is helpless and needs special attention or guidance or something like that? demonising someone like him or framing them as in need of help are like textbook behavior ofc and im not here to be a hater, i just noticed it? moments with solas and varric fighting over him like a divorced couple are super cute for sure!!

but i remember being confused because excuse me, out of all of them, this guy??, this feral bat that is chilling on the ceiling like it's a lounge-zone inside Lucius' head, created especially for him?

he is confident. also a little bit nervous, a bunch mysterious and just ghostly cool. but also confident. (im not saying this confidence is not misplaced sometimes btw x) he even tells you that if you'll leave your head you'll die! what a jokester (҂ ꒦ິヮ꒦ິ)

and the whole quest with templars and envy are soooo horror coded, i love it!! it looked a bit silly, sure

(even after so many years im not able to get rid of the image in my brain phphphp) 

but it's still a very interesting quest!! dorian is ✨the bestie✨ but i'm always picking templars bc the implications of the story are just so good

1. its placed at the beginning of the game and your character is probably confused and anxious and dont yet worked out the routine of how to deal with their new title\powers + not every inquisitor character would want to be in the spotlight.

imagine you suddenly got yourself into position where a lot of people looking up to you, listening to what you saying, placing their hopes on you or waiting for you to fail? this is terrible! id 1000% just jumped out of a cliff!!! a small one, but still 

2. you meeting the guy who basically came from a place you now have unlimited access to.

he is: a) almost as confused as you are b) possibly came to this world without knowing consequences of that decision c) along the way he is figuring out how to be himself in the environment that is nothing like where he used to live. wow thats just like forced immigration *nervous laugh*

3. and let's not forget that you are meeting him inside your head and you can say to him "you look familiar".

dont know about you but apparently i dont need much to start screaming ¯(ツ)/¯

also can i just spend the moment to say that this is three (3) identical dialogue options??????????

the screenshot is from here btw

how awesome would it be to be able to figure out stuff together? to find comfort in someone, with someone who barely experienced it this way? to build on your strong sides? like "hope" for cole and i guess "unhingedness" for the inquisitor? i bet they would ground each other easily as well: cole distracting inq by being unintentionally mischievous and inq would have a notepad with cole's "firsts ____" or they would just read together. oh im such a sucker for hurt\comfort\some things cant be healed stuff uaaaaaaaaa

ALSO THE "FORGET" THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the drama the horror the tension!!!!!!!! you can fight me over this but heres the thought:

cole being so stressed that he is erasing\being on the edge of erasing the inquisitor's memories??????

i got the feeling that cole's confidence in the concept of "help" is, among other things, makes him being able to zoom in on something borderline obsessively? or vise versa - dismissively, not noticing "it hurts, its not for the better"? he thanks you when you promise to kill him, he cries when you do not. i swear this man (─ ‿ ─)

+quick addition bc im not entirely sure: so if i got it right, the anchor makes the inquisitor "too bright" to read? so among all the people we know about inq is the one that cole can't truly empathise on this lvl? on spiritual lvl you might say lsdkjflksdjflkj sorry!!!!! but jokes aside,this is like the perfect ground to build both comforting stories 

"someone from the party notices that cole is hanging near inq before inq do, and when asked he explains it by saying something like "dry warm skin. the air is stilled with quiet, easy to breathe. i followed the shining whispers and then i was followed no more" with the most plain face possible? "

and "today for lunch i have glass" kind of stories, like "the inquisitor is cornered and possibly bleeding and probably on the verge of passing out and they know that situation is bad and no one should follow/find them, "it's better to wait it out and deal with it on my own" kind of clown behavior. so they laugh tiredly at how pathetic they are, maybe remembering something similar from their childhood, remarks from their sibling for ex., and just trying their best to not think about how they need cole's help, cole's presence. the sense of safety that comes when he is around" 

uh!!! that wasnt neither quick or painless so i'll go make a tea wait a second please

im back!! so since i talked about the forget thing i must confess - i dont really like cole's personal quest???? again, im not complaining or anything but i remember feeling kinda empty while playing it? like deep inside me, there was something sad, but it was so far away,i coudn't even feel it properly?

both human and spirit versions of his ending made me feel like the distance between you and him lengthened, and maybe you could do something about it before but now? this "something" is missing and you're lost and can't even tell for sure if theres was a chance to do something in the first place? and cole just moved on? its super logical considering he is not a romance option but phphph so, i rarely romance someone in games, partly bc rpg tends to be a little horny and im that kind of ace who is not interested in this, partly bc i tend to pay attention to non-romanceable characters, so when i started to explore last da:i dlc and i saw cole having gf i was like "well ouch".

imagine your inq has a crush on cole but they never were able to say it clearly?

mb it was a melancholic slowburn, and your character was going through too much and felt like burdening cole with their problems would be unfair?

maybe they tried but the timing was wrong, the words felt stupid, and their hands felt too dirty, too guilty?

oh anon its been ten years and its still huuuuuurts!!!! if you following me for a while you know that im an edge lord in poor disguise so its not surprising for neither you or me that i ended up rumbling about inexplicable sadness and crushing existential guilt, but sorry for that anyway!! if anyone would want me to talk about something specific, or to draw something - im here, staring at the wall, listening to cole's banter :') thank you for the wonderful question tho, it was more than just nice to return back to this ship. im so agreeing with you about cole being the fave character from everything, but i also understand that this could mean being very unsatisfied with the way he was portrayed at some points or just with the fact that characters like him are rare so im sending you warm and tight hugs and a little sketch!! <3 

let's collectively accept the fact that dav gonna be a beautiful mess, we gonna love it (passionately), we gonna be hurt by it (not surprisingly) and COLE FOREVER WILL BE THE BEST DA CHARACTER EVER IM NOT GONNA CHANGE MY MIND FIGHT ME

[bunnidid-reviews]

DID Short Films

Something I really enjoy is watching short films about DID :) it's always intriguing to see what sort of representation can be showed in a few short minutes, and just how much care and attention to detail is put into it.

I don't have the energy to do a full review of each, but here's a lil list of my favorite short DID films, along with some trigger warnings!

___________

Petals of a Rose

Triggers to watch out for:

a non-explicit incestuous childhood sexual abuse flashback (there's a safe version to watch with this part cut out in the same link!)

a safe and gentle non-explicit sex scene

dissociating and switching during sex

spiraling, hitting self, friction between parts

over-crowded dialogue

Things I love about this short:

We get multiple stellar scenes of what it can feel like to have DID - like being overwhelmed in the grocery store, talking yourself through the steps of it all. I really related to a lot of this

A good representation of how both positive and negative triggers can cause switches

communication between parts!

the implication of there being more parts yet to be found and how that's just kind of an accepted reality? I don't know if thats relatable for anyone else, but it really is for me

A LOVING AND HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP :DDD a partner who loves and supports and listens even if he doesn't fully understands, but clearly wants to. The amount of relief I felt when the partner STAYED with her after experiencing triggers during sex!!

The reiterations at the end that Now Time Is Safe and also, We Deserve to be Loved, and also, Each and every part is appreciated and loved

________________

Alter

Triggers to watch out for:

mild friction between parts

time loss + confusion

Things I love about this short:

The actress who portrayed the parts did a really stunning job with expressing complicated emotions surrounding time loss and the acceptance of a new part showing up

portraying a well-established system with functional multiplicity!

the use of color to portray parts is something I always remember about this one! I love that each part represents a color! I love that you can see all those colors throughout the home and in the outfits!! I love the rainbow-striped shirt she wore in the end with all the alters' colors + extra space, as if to signify that they're ready to accept more parts!!! aaaa!!! Such a great aesthetic to this film

I was SO pleased there really isnt anything triggering about this film. It's important to indicate that trauma creates the disorder, but it's SO nice when we get a bit of a break from the Horrors

supportive therapist :D

_____________

Alters and Me

Triggers to watch out for:

Mentions of trauma/abuse (very general + vague)

use of Alcohol to cope

self harm, visible scars

yelling/crying

Things I love about this short:

I like that this one's more like a general overview of the alters and how our main character came to understand and accept her DID

nonhuman alter representation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (a doggo)

The alter who struggles with alcoholic coping and self harm has a realistic reformation arc and turns out to be a cherished caretaker!!

Overall this one's pretty short, but very down to earth and realistic without being too triggering. I liked it a lot!

_______________________

I'm sure there are others that are good too, but that's my list for now! I tried to choose ones that didn't lean too far into horror trope editing or twists so they're safe for anyone to watch :) I might add to this sometime in the future if I see more

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy! Feel free to let me know your thoughts or share some of your favorites with me, you know I'm always curious to hear about this stuff

[aslongasimhereyoureinvincible]

haikyuu!! the dumpster battle ramblings

saw it earlier today and am going to see it again tomorow with a friend, am very Full Of Thoughts, if u dont wont spoilers for the movie well take this as your warning ig

okay first of all the sound direction, the sound direction was INSANELY good

this is absolutely a movie that needs to be experienced in cinema, the soundscape of tokyo gymnasium and the karasuno v nekoma match felt so vividly real it was like i was at an actual game

the soundtrack was great too, i mean it always is w/ hayashi yuuki

there were i think two tracks that used the leitmotif from 'above', good shit

the animation was also really great, overall it didnt look massively better than season 4 of the anime

which is fine, season 4 looked great imo (minus that outsourced episode)

but holy shit when the sakuga hit it hit HARD

tsukki and lev blocking, kageyama doing his thing, kenma and kuroo's quick, there were lots of really great sakuga moments

they also reused some shots from earlier on in the anime and idk maybe thats 'lazy' or whatever but i liked it, it was very nostalgic :')

they did re-animate and i think re-voice hinata and kenma's first meeting tho, framing it from kenma's POV, loved that

i think my favourite sakuga shot had to be hinata and kenma with the knives at each other's throats tho, that ate

not sure how i didnt know about this before hand but it made perfect sense to me when i saw studio trigger in the end credits, some of the sakuga, esp the blocking, had a bit of that trigger flair to it

so obviously they werent gonna fit in everything from the manga, and the movie definitely had kenma as its focus, but i think overall they did a decent job in picking and chosing what to cut

the one thing im annoyed about is the removal of old coach ukai and coach nekomata's backstory, i really i think it makes the handshake at the end of the game hit that much harder

other than that tho i dont think the movie suffered from not adapting everything in the manga, i mean obviously i wouldve LIKED it, but i dont think the movie NEEDED it to be a good movie

it very much felt like kenma was the main character of the movie, and the main focus, with kuroo and hinata as his deuteragonists

which i liked!!! i think framing the match from kenma's POV for the most part makes sense, and its fun to spend more time in outsider POVs of karasuno

rlly loved the adaptation of kuroo and kenma's childhood flashback, im pretty sure kaji yuuki voiced kid kenma too

watching their friendship grow and seeing them play togther now as high schoolers, AUGH RIGHT IN THE FEELS

theres also a montage of kid kuroo barging into kenma's room to demand they go play volleyball together that ends on kuroo doing so whilst kenma's changing/putting on trousers which was rlly funny and silly

the stuff with kuroo and tsukki was so good too

'thanks to everyone, occasionally it's fun', 'thank god i wasnt wrong', 'he's a man who walks ahead of me'

AUUUGHHHHHH IT WAS SO GOOD :')

the scene that completely stole my breath away though was kageyama setting the open toss to hinata

i know ive already lost my mind over the whole 'threat of trust' thing and truly, the inarizaki match goes insane with that concept i will always adore it

but holy shit that scene smacked me over the head, HARD, with the concept of 'setting as a love language'

i just... i literally dont even have words for it it was SO amazingly good, i legitimately teared up in the cinema

speaking of other great scenes;

'stay interesting, 'kay?'

OHHHHH GODDDDDDDDDD

they did it perfectly

the music and the soundscape completely cutting out, the background whiting out so its just kenma and the net, kaji yuuki's delivery of the line

it genuinely felt like something out of a horror movie, it was creepy, and unsettling, and PERFECT

also;

hinata's reaction after kenma collapses and says 'that was fun'

murase ayumu's delivery was so VISCERAL, dude got in that booth and CHEERED

you really felt hinata's sheer utter come through in that little scene, same with kuroo's incredulous laugh

the end of the match was slightly a mixed bag for me

on the good hand;

having done from kenma's first person POV was cool, i dont think haikyuu's ever really done that before, and it looked awesome

cutting back on the music and background soundscaping so we just focus on kenma's breathing and the sound of the ball/players jumping/shoes squeaking etc was a great way to really immerse the viewer in the scene, and put us inside kenma's head

on the bad hand;

it was anticlimatic, and i KNOW the whole point of the end of the match is that its anticlimatic,

but i had always imagined the scene with dramatic swelling music and the characters running frantically, only for it to all cut away when the ball slips and all you can hear is kenma's 'ah-' and there'd be a close-up of his facial expression

the stage play did a very similar thing and it worked EXTREMELY well imo

instead by doing it in the first person POV and already not having music it just,,, didnt feel quite as impactful as it shouldve imo??

like the match points for the seijoh, shiratorizawa, or inarizaki matches were done really dramatically

and i know the whole point is that the nekoma match is kinda an outlier in that it ends in that anticlimatic way with the ball slipping, and theres that big beat with hinata calling out 'nice serve' to tanaka before the realisation sets in that theyve won, but jusstttt

idk like it certainly wasnt BAD, i still DEEPLY DEEPLY enjoyed it, but just personally if i'd been the director i wouldve done it differently

also!! because it was from his first person POV we didnt get to see kenma's face on the 'idiot! the ball hasn't dropped yet!!!' line, which was pretty disapointing ngl i rlly love that scene how it is in the manga

ok enough complaining tho back to the infinite list of stuff i loved about the movie

the camera work! good god the camera work was so fucking cool

it really made the space of the gymnasium feel 3d and real, the way the camera would move over and through the net with the ball helped emphasise the physicality of the players and the court

i know jack shit about cinematography but yeah, after the sound design the camera work was prolly the best thing

the post credits scene was great!! daishou trying and failing to neg kuroo cracks me up every damn time

and the set up for the kamomedai match was so hype

speaking of; the very vague forshadowing for hinata's fever of him having flushed cheeks and not being all exhausted after the game like the others, auughhh my heartttt

if he isnt already, this movie will make kenma one of your top 5 haikyuu characters

seriously i love how they switched the perspective and framing so it was a bit more like kenma was the 'main character' of this match and hinata was the 'rival'

overall the movie was cool, creative, and a really clearly loving adaptation, im more than happy to be paying to see it again tmr lol

i'll probably have even more to say after seeing it a 2nd time so tune in for that ig

[dontbelasagne]

"did we ever stop to think...what the hell?"

as much as i admire RTDs attempt to give The Doctor some emotional closure for their collective past traumas, im just confused as to how this fits in with them simply having been Twelve?? the whole point of that incarnation was having the veil lifted, seeing The Doctor for who they actually are, a weary traveller with no home who didnt stop running because they dare not look back in fear of what they have seen. people mistake Twelves attitude with rudeness or being direct, but i always took that as the tiredness The Doctor felt. how after all this time they're fed up of false hope and the lies of "what if". the time war left them more broken than ever and Nine, Ten, and Eleven ignored what it had done to them up until the moments they couldn't. sure Nine and Ten wore their grief and sorrow on their sleeves, but it was so important to see how Eleven kept up their cheery and juvenile persona because if they weren't filling their time with how wondrous everything is, there'd be nothing left but to dwell on how ragged the past couple centuries have left them. Even finding the Ponds and the comfort of family never cured that anguish inside them, when the only way was to confront what their time meant in this universe. The Doctor looked young not just for their companions, but to live a life of quiet melancholy. no one expects the young to have experienced grief, so how could they with that sort of appearance?

but along came Twelve with their big sad eyes, charismatic honestly, and willingness to not let past horrors be relived. for the first time in a long while they were unsure and afraid of who they are. whether kindness was something that they were allowed to hold for others. whether their hazardous life was actually worth all the potential heartbreak and ghosts of future loss. they were stubborn and ruthless because they cared so much about saving people, saving anyone they can. The Doctor chose that face because it would be hard to lie to themselves when it was already grey and wrinkled from years of never having stopped. sure, even in their twelfth incarnation The Doctor rarely paused to consider what being so close to others would mean. how much it would hurt to have another learn what the life of a time traveller led to. how maybe being The Doctor was more about saving someone, even if it didn't mean everyone. it was a face of harsh reality, with emotions on full display and nothing to hide behind.

Twelve got their face to tell themselves who they still are, and im just a little annoyed we got a rehash of tentoo rtd era fanfic bigeneration to give The Doctor a "happy ending" when thats not the point of them as a character. The Doctor is always running to others before they fade, and part of why this show is amazing is the constant reminder that everything ends, but everything begins again...and it's always happy. we got that hope of renewal with Thirteen. the idea that having grief does not make you a tiresome character, but what you do with that history and the nuance that follows every decision that matters. how it didnt matter if you still stumbled and faltered in your reach towards something better. how easy it could be to crumble at the first hurdle and close yourself off again. how Thirteen desperately wanted to keep to their promises of kindness and hope. how they had made the important steps toward moving on.

regeneration meant passing on the torch, one face telling the other i trust you with our heavy heart, now keep running and love all. it just feels like we have lost that.

[shazzbaa]

I just found your blog and I really love both your art and seeing the world of Fallen London through a less experienced player! (And, as a fellow ex-Boatman, fond memories of that experience)

Aw, thank you so much!! I'm having an absolute blast, and I've been uTTERLY DELIGHTED by the response from the fallen londons here on tumblr; you guys are the best. I got so many tags on recent art of Sam that were along the lines of "this guy is always ending up in situations" AND MAN THATS IT ISNT IT, that's one of the things I love about Fallen London, it's just a place to put your guy in so many situations LMAO

LMAO IM SO DELIGHTED AT ALL THE BISHOP ENJOYERS COMING OUT OF THE WOODWORK, THANK U

Fallen London is a browser game you can find here! Basically, you go through stories, make choices, unravel the consequences of your choices, and slowly learn what's going on in this very strange world where Victorian-Era London has SUNKEN INTO THE EARTH and found a world of supernatural strangeness down in the 'Neath. The writing is sort of horror + darkly funny + very British, and the story/game is HUGE; I've been playing for a few months and feel like I've barely scratched the surface.

Samuel Ashman aka The Bloodstained Deacon is my Fallen London character, a wayward deacon of the Catholic church who ran away to London and immediately got involved in monster hunting and illegal fighting rings, as one does. I based him on Sammy originally because I thought that would be a fun character to explore this world through (and I was just in one of those modes where everything revolves around your blorbo), but I adjusted his name so that he could be his own character rather than just a silly fandom reference. Through the choices I've made and intriguing possibilities the game has presented me with, Samuel has become a completely separate guy to that source of inspiration I started with.

[ditsy-pink]

looking for players for a DND 5e campaign!

set in my homebrew world of Deorum, players will be able to explore and uncover the secret of this ancient land, be it by serious hard work or shenanigans!

both new and experienced players are welcome!

About the campaign:

starting with level 1 characters

any race or class (as long as homebrew is run by me)!

the world is classic dnd fantasy! mostly magic, a burgeoning world of science!

this is a world of ancient secrets and separated societies (political storms are always brewing!)

i love a serious, sad or dramatic moment, so be prepared for those, but for the most part, goofs and shenanigans are most welcome, and in fact wanted!

how we start the campaign will depend on the characters, but likely will start at a festival, one which peoples from around the continent come around for!

any and all character archetypes are wonderful and allowed, however, no matter your character, you have to be ready and willing to work WITH your fellow players (just because you're a loner or kind of evil, doesn't mean you can't be a team player! get out there and made some friends, possible edgelords!)

pirates? hell yeah! witches? absolutely! a fantasy old-timey version of a modern day group or job? thats funny as hell! literally go wild, excited to see what characters you come up with! i'll give a lowdown on the history and civilizations at session zero, where characters will be made/hammered down :)

About me and my table:

i'm queer! my pronouns are they/she :)

i'm in the EST timezone!

i want to play at least once a month, I'd prefer weekly or every other week (and likely on weekend evenings), but people get busy, so its not a strict schedule.

I'll be creating a discord for this, and will likely be using Roll20 for fights (unless i find a better site!)

i tend to be pretty "rule of cool" loving, so while rules still apply, never be afraid to ask to do some crazy shit! (i absolutely love that stuff!)

no hatred or bigotry at my table y'all, obviously. no racism, no homophobia, no transphobia, no ableism, no religious hatred, etc, etc!

anything that could possibly be triggering (i.e. body horror, sexual things, etc.) will be discussed in session 0, i want everyone to be comfortable and having fun at the table!

If any more details are wanted, or if you want to join, feel free to ask here or in my dms!

[sout999]

I *finally* watched your animation today and I am at awe... oh my god sout!!! I got goosebumps at the end.. creating life from merging two creatures (whether animated or not) is one of my favourite tropes and it was thrilling to watch..!!! I love how the style feels like a VHS, reminded me of these old russian fairytale animations ♥ The music is so good too ahh <33 I wish I could leave an essay comment on YT but that's fine, thank you for having your ask box open ♥ I feel so lucky to have experienced your work, it's truly wonderful! I always loved your animations, characters & creatures and admired the vocality in your works about the 90's anime and anything revolving that era in the early 2000's (and anything else you're mixing in your magic pot, haha!!). //cries IT'S SO SO BEAUTIFUL!! ♥ You're amazingg, I hope you have a wonderful day!!!! ♥

MY DARLINGGG KONVEE thank you so much for the amazing words and for believing in me all these years ;_ ; I hope this is ok to answer publicly because I think you've put it all beautifully and also it's extremely validating to know my work has paid off in some capacity. I'm glad you caught the themes of generational abuse and all the merging/transformation stuff, these are all really the heart of the film but i didn't want to express the too overtly because thats just Not My Style. I think it's beautiful that everyone can take away something that resonates with them. Maybe someday I'll be brave enough to turn Youtube comments on and hear what everyone got from it but for now those two words fill me with fear hahah.

If you wanna read my dissertation I've put it up on Drive, please be nice because I had to partially phone it in to concentrate on the film instead (sad bc i love to write but also picking your battles etc), but it does express a lot of themes that I liked to explore in this project and in art as a whole. If you want to read something shorter I'm also attaching an essay I did for Honours year that got 95/100 score but maybe my professor was just really nice. Dissertation (Time-Image, Gender and Folk Horror): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MlURE-furI_z19jrlX_XyxUsNPnO_vPR/view?usp=share_link Essay (The Monstrous Queer): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CPAMIhlVx3h2LC-cZTdB73ehGJK0LLHP/view?usp=sharing

[namethatghostling]

Please tell us EVERYTHING about your dyke scarecrow au🎃🐦‍⬛

ghjk its not even rly like a full fledged au or anything i just resonate so heavily w the character and i was like. sure ok everyones making their own version of their fav rogues, why not me? so basically shes just like a mishmash of all my favorite interpretations and adaptations of the character with a heavy sprinkling of Gender

(also some vaguely paranormal spooky shit bc im so obsessed w scarecrows potential as like an actual horror character. in my version its left deliberately unclear if scarecrow the villain is %100 a persona made up by jon or if its a literal possessing force that has haunted her from childhood. make of it what u will.)

the whole origin story thing goes a little like this. jon crane (she/he/they/it), born johanna keeny, was raised by his fundie xtian grandma, mary keeny, in a farming town in georgia. from childhood she was kind of an oddball, and had a strange preoccupation with fear, loving ghost stories and occasionally menacing the crows that were common on the family land just to see them scatter.

they were always booksmart but also pretty socially inept. bullied at school and either ignored or brutally "disciplined" at home, she found consolation and comfort in books, everything from classic literature to dense scientific texts to trashy pulp horror. jon also struggled with (largely undiagnosed/untreated) chronic pain and, as a result, sleep issues. when she was able to sleep she often experienced sleep paralysis which manifested in nightmares and waking hallucinations of the scarecrow in the field outside the window speaking to her. its voice was wretched like nails scraping glass, but it spoke kindly to them, promising to protect them from the true nightmare that was yet to come. jon tried not to listen. she considered herself too sensible to believe in boogiemen. but as she got older things got worse, her body and mind continued to act against her, certain secrets regarding her sexuality came to light, followed by a confrontation with her granny after she began to threaten her with the promise of "exorcism"...

eventually, jon was left with no choice but to let the scarecrow handle things.

more assorted infodumping below the cut

after using the meager inheritance left by dear departed granny to pursue higher education in gotham, jon legally changed their name both in order to make it harder to track down their history and as a final spiteful gesture, taking the surname of the man grandma keeny had blamed for the corruption of her daughter.

legally she is still johanna and doesnt necessarily mind her given name but still vastly prefers jon. a very select few people are allowed to call her jonny, and NO ONE is allowed to call her joni/joanie any variant thereof.

their rise to villainy is still mostly the same since thats one thing that is generally p consistent in canon. professor of psychology, not well liked by students or staff, secretly working on a pet project involving testing the affects of fear on the human mind with some less than willing test subjects, yadda yadda yadda

scarecrow both is and isnt a separate entity from jon. jon, being scientifically minded, most of the time considers scarecrow to be the natural result of a traumatic childhood manifesting in a protector figure that gains control of their shared body during moments of intense stress or panic. this is true! in certain less rational moments however she believes it to be a completely foreign being, a literal demon that has plagued her family line for generations, like granny always said. this is also true! how can both of those things be factually correct? figure it out yourself!

scarecrow is always eager to wreak some havoc on anyone who gets in jon's way, but as for jon, he has refused to directly inflict violence on anyone since his grandmother. she was his first and last. jon's far from a pacifist, but hes also not bloodthirsty, and scarecrow begrudgingly respects his wishes. after all, its better if the test subjects stay alive as long as possible anyway.

jon has hypermobile eds. as a kid they used to freak out their classmates by messing around with their double joints and stretching out their skin. it became a lot less fun for them in adolescence when the background hum of joint pain suddenly teamed up with their growing pains, also made worse by grannys dislike of doctors delaying their diagnosis for years and their refusal to use mobility aids when they needed them out of fear of the bullying getting any worse. they finally gave in and started regularly using a cane in college but sometimes theyll still try to go without it. not great.

also related to the above, she has had kind of a fucked relationship with self medicating to deal with pain in the past. and in the present to a degree. also kind of a fucked relationship with pain in general.

probably autistic and definitely experiences some flavor of paranoid psychosis and ptsd but was never diagnosed with either because 1) they knew it would impact their ability to pursue their field of choice since they would always be considered "too close" when it came to matters of psychology and 2) theyre pretty sure theres nothing another doctor could tell them about themself that they dont already know and better.

masks like their life depends on it in public and pretty well most of the time. people for sure know theres something up with that crane guy but not enough to really give a shit most of the time. fucking hates stimming around other people. fucking HATES being treated as infantile or less capable.

one of the many benefits of becoming scarecrow, whether in terms of the villain persona or the being that is and isnt jon, is being able to be a lot more visibly bizarre without being treated like a child. instead people just treat it like a threat, which it prefers greatly.

vocal stim of quoting lines from favorite books, old nursery rhymes, and even the occasional half-remembered church song. jons grandmothers religion was largely a burden she dropped as soon as she could, but unfortunately they kinda went off with the southern gospel.

she had her first kiss with a girl from her class after sneaking away from a halloween party together. they got caught and after the news got out the girl hurriedly got back together with her ex boyfriend to protect herself from the inevitable backlash. scarecrow thinks she should have gone the way of dear old granny, but jon stubbornly disagrees to this day despite it all.

people generally think jon is older than he is. this used to bother him but now hes kind of into the whole weathered old butch vibe. certified queer elder moment.

still as much of a nerdass bookworm as she was as a kid. cried until she made herself sick the first time she read carrie. will take this to her grave.

of course theres more but once again this is fuckin long enough already.

[xenosaurus]

NO OKAY BUT THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME THIS CHANCE BECAUSE I NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS ALWAYS (and this ask will immediately identify me to anyone who knows me bc im literally the only person in the world who cares) but please never read N.K. Jemisin's "The City We Became." She's won three hugos in a row and thats very impressive, nothing but love and respect to my sister who has Made It and Paved the Way for more of us to go forward. I haven't actually read her hugo winners and i'd like to, but unfortunately i started with The City We Became and now i hold a Grudge.

Why:

on the surface this book is a Cool Woke Twist on lovecraftian horror set in new york city. the basic premise is fun: the avatars of the boroughs of new york forming together to help their city become a fully fledged cosmic entity of a sort. the villain here is the literal spirit of gentrification, and while theres a lot of good things that could come from that set up, the actual execution makes it an absolute agony to get through. everything is so hamfisted and somehow smug about recognizing the most basic ideas. its too smug and condescending to appeal to anyone in the center, its ideas too juvenile to appeal to anyone in the left, and its weird flat characterization of the villains as The Most Cartoonishly Evil Cops/N*zis You Can Think Of kind of makes the conflict feel... empty. It's hard to explain without experiencing it, but i cannot recommend anyone actually read it. or maybe u should just so i can finally talk to other people about this, maybe im insane for feeling this way.

some favorite moments of mine, in no particular order:

-the multiple instances of a side character being introduced, having their race and tragic backstory exposited in one sentence, and then they vanish, never to appear in the narrative again

-white supremacists attack the indie art museum on twitter. thankfully they start a counter hashtag and the entire situation wraps up in under 24 hours. they go from "we have to fire all of you bc of pressure from these assholes" to "actually its fine" bc of twitter. i dont even think its supposed to be part of the magic of the city or whatever. its an incredible sequence.

-"he shot out of the pool like a child fired from a hot buttered child cannon"

-theres a bit where the author sets up a neat fight between a character who does a cool transformation and a REALLY neat monster. u will not see that fight play out. that scene isnt in the book. just the leadup and the aftermath. why even bother.

-one of the main characters has a tumblr but its obvious the author hasnt like... used tumblr. this isnt a major sin but it is funny

-really have to state again that theres a line in this book that reads "hot buttered child cannon." this also isnt a sin, this is maybe poetry.

-its labeled as adult fiction, it feels like its trying to go for grit and gore and sex in places, but its also weirdly shy about engaging directly with a lot of that stuff. this one might (MIGHT) actually be a style thing, admittedly most of my nitpicks surround one specific character who has a reason to be Like That, but i also have issues with her as a whole that i do not have space 2 get into here. regardless, a lot of this book feels like ya somehow, but the concepts its playing with and some of the scenes DO also make it feel too adult to really suit that either. its... weird.

its kind of a mess in a lot of places, and honest to god it sort of drags in the middle. if you DO pick it up, i recommend the audiobook. the narrator does a fantastic job, and they do some fun sound design in a few places. unfortunately the story itself is kind of hollow. it has a lot of diversity, but the way so many of those diverse characters are tossed out for brownie points and discarded, the way so many characters go into these preachy little rants about VERY basic ideas like "white supremacy bad" its just...

im sure that the author meant well. this book wouldve raised the bar for its representation in like... 2014. maybe thats when she started writing it, idk. unfortunately it came out in 2020 and i think it just feels Dated in a very strange way.

u dont have 2 publish any of this also ofc, im just always here to Unrecommend this book. unfortunately theres a sequel and some part of me is holding out hope that the author fixed some of the things i took issue with in the intervening years, so im bound to this series via curse. even if i hate this one, i know theres gonna be at least one more, and maybe *that* one will fix it-

do not be like me.

This ask was a ride from start to finish. I feel like I was shot out of a hot buttered child cannon.

[feline-evil]

I would love to here you info dump about your ocs if you want to?

Grinning evily, I SHALL DO SO!

So ik its been a while since i've really drawn or talked about my boys but a refresher for everyone is i have an OC universe/story loosely titled Flesh and Bone with is a The Thing inspired story featuring my Oc's Clay, Damien and Jack! All three work on a shady arctic base run by an evil corp unbeknownst to them, and after a sequence of horrible incidence and creature attacks Clay is 'killed' only to come back as! Some sort of slopbeast thing monster! He's cool and chill though, not a threat to anyone; hes a wet bag of nerves desperately trying to maintain his shape as the man he was once before, because thats who he is!! It's a story about identity (both in all my main cast being trans men but also in the more metaphorical and subtextual reading of. Clays whole deal lmao) and exploring what that means, and its also about three gay fruits experiencing THE HORRORS!

I have not written it, it's far too big a task rn, but thats the basic idea <3 everyone can always feel free to check the flesh and bone tag or any oc tags (ie oc: damien, oc: clay, oc: jack ect) on my blog to see stuuuuuuff about it!

MORE BELOW THE CUT, LIKE WAY WAY MORE SO MUCH LMAO, and as always heads up for horror themed when it comes to my lil oc's and their world <3

Lately a lot of what i've been thinking about with my oc's has been the physical changes that happen throughout the time they spend trapped in that research base, because they are there for a LONG time they do look different than they do at the start! Obviously there's the general stuff like Damien's hair growing long and the roots showing, Clay's facial hair getting scruffy and his hair getting long and unruly too, jack cutting all his long hair off (too dangerous to wield a flamethrower frequently with all that hair in the way in his learned opinion); but then there's the more physical side of going through this really tough time too, more than just aesthetic changes like hair and clothing changes. The most obvious is yes, Clay IS just a writhing mass of meat that replicates the appearance he wants to be seen as; yes including his clothes his scarf has a heartbeat don't worry about it. But then there's stuff that's not Whatever the hell Clay's deal is; Jack loses a leg, they all gain a multitude of new scars, this is a long, tough situation to survive and none of them are untouched by this- but thats part of the point! You can go through traumatic stuff and you can make it through, it might change you, it might change stuff about you, sometimes in ways you cant undo, but you can still make it through!! And you can still be loved as you rightfully deserved, and you can live a long happy peaceful life!! Thats a big part of the heart of *waves hands* what i am doing in my head with my oc's.

When i can draw for longer periods again i'd like to make reference sheets with 3 views of each character on each, a before, during, and after.

Another thing i've been thinking of lately is the day comes back after 'dying'! And its both horrific and later funny so i like it a lot.

So. Thing style monster drags him away screaming from the base, he is torn to shreds, the last person to see him alive is Damien and he watches that thing tear him *apart*. Everyones pretty certain he's very dead.

Days pass.

Then Clay wakes up in a hollowed out ice cave, one thats been melted into this larger open space by the pile of dead flesh and meat that has been dumped inside it, the pile that he has also been dumped in. It reeks, its horrific, he has to climb and clamber his way to the top in a state of abject disgust and horror; he doesn't remember how he got here. He doesn't remember anything past that thing getting a hold of him. (Unbeknownst to him he IS that thing but he'll figure that out later, he kind of does know that to an extent but not on any conscious level nor is he willing to accept it to much later, boys in denial. When it killed him and ate his flesh for some reason it fucked the beast up and fully replaced whatever it was before with his memories and consciousness so this is him now, the body he had before is gone, this is Clay now)

The only way out of this cave is a very narrow passage leading up, he starts to try and crawl in. Too tight, he doesn't fit. He keeps trying and trying in sobbing desperation until....he.....does fit. Shoulders give way, he slides in, this gap too small to rightfully fit his head through he is somehow now fitting through. He's going to pretend he isn't, he's not a stupid man but he fully cannot cope with comprehending his body moving as if boneless right now, his brain cannot cope nor begin to even parse the possibility that he is morphing like slimy slipper meatgoop to fit through here. He escapes, collapses out there on the ice for a bit miles from the base. He cries for a bit. Repeats in his head over and over that that hole was big enough for him, it was normal, he crawled normally, it was normal and fine. And then he eventually starts walking through freezing winds and blizzards in the direction he hopes the base is.

NOT FUNNY YET I KNOW, BARE WITH ME. ITS THE NEXT BIT OK

Clay reaches the base eventually and climbs through a window, enters the currently empty dining hall. He's back! He is. So so mentally checked out and traumatised and FUCKED from his experience that all he can think to do is just....go back to normal, pretend it never happened. He sits down. Pours himself a coffee in his favourite mug.

Footsteps echo closer, people are coming.....

jack and Damien walk in and freeze. They stare at Clay.

Clay stares at them.

'H-hey!' He says, waving over, 'you uh! You guys are up early!'

DAMIEN GRABS JACKS ARM, GET THE FLAMETHROWER HE SAYS

CLAY GOES OOP!!!!!

(Art of this moment memorialised forever by my beloved boyfriend @subsequentibis btw!!)

AND CLAY THEN SCHWOOPS LIKE LIQUIDY MEAT UP INTO A CEILING VENT AND REASSURES HIMSELF THAT THE GRATE WAS DEFINITELY OFF THE VENT AND HE DIDNT JUST FIT THROUGH TINY TINY HOLES ITS FINE ITS NORMAL ITS FINE ITS FINE, AND HIDES IN THE VENTS FOR A BIT. LMAO, LOVE MY SILLY COMEDY BIT

[gooopy]

Tell me abt your oc please… looks at you with big sopping wet eyes

YIPPIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE TYSM FOR ASKING!!!! ogogg okay. the characters name is Jude Marshall, and they started out as a side character in a zombie apocalypse style roleplay, as a curious kid who watched the effects of the plague from afar and would explore the ruins left behind with their friend. then they transformed into a mortuary assistant who was medically abused as a child, one with a dry sense of humor and also just autistic swag. their mother encouraged the medical abuse and did not protect Jude from it and so now they struggle around hospitals but find themself at ease in the similarly sterile areas around dead bodies (that being a remnant of their zombie apocalypse form. type opf kid who would poke a body with a stick a few times yknow?)

they also went through several iterations through this roleplay, such as a ghost, a sorta victorian-era gentleman type, a supervillain, etc. their most recent iteration being my elden ring character. right now though i want to rearrange the story a bit. i however am not good at making stories on my own, so i intend to take some inspiration from frankenstein and shit.

id like to get jude closer to the 'mad scientist' srota area. a tragedy methinks. im going through and gutting their playlist now but im thinking that jude will still have experienced medical trauma, still face trauma from their mother, and still work with dead bodies. still hammering it out but im thinking of sprinkling some classic 'lovecraft pursuit of forbidden knowledge' stuff. to make a name for themself, to be helpful, to be useful. get dragged into something bigger than themself and then have their desperation blind them to the horrors and to lose anyone who may be close to them in that pursuit, then turn back and see that theyve done nothing but create destruction in their path. i dont know, ill figure it out, but i also want jude to be like. a normal guy. like theyre just some guy who lives ina shitty apartment and has a pet turtle (only friend. her names shellsy) and drinks coffee out of a silly novelty mug. its not something they inherently deserve, to hurt those around them.

like i said, writing stories? not my strong point. i get too many ideas and then it turns into a rambling mess. i am a lot more familiar with roleplay anda lot better with that too, but for now thats the sorta direction i want to go with jude. this is sooo long i love jude my babygirl jude <3 heres a drawing of them (couldnt find any good old drawings of them so scribbled one out on the spot <3 they run cold so they always got a sweater)

[image ID: drawing of an indian person with square glasses. they are wearing an orange sweater and a long brown pleated skirt. they have a pontail and are looking forward with an optimistic but anxious expression. /end ID]

[raven]

yea exactly!! and YA fiction is just. fun sometimes u know? like.. i know ppl tend to not like these stories much but i always eat up coming of age stories abt teenagers falling in love and just growing up and stuff, even if its not very exciting. im taking a break from horror stuff to write that exact kind of story & im just rlly attached to these dumb dorky high schoolers i made up in my head just living life and being in relationships. i just think that stuff is heartwarming u know :,) though its definitely a subjective thing

yeah, i love coming of age stuff. and we do need more gay stories that are not just coming of age stories, but i love a gay coming of age story!! its just so classic and like... well i relate, lol. i dislike most ya due to genre conventions so i hope that it can like.. idk, be taken seriously as an art form and accepted by adults more or at least be a little less formulaic but its literally just like.. sometimes u do just need something fun and light. its just a part of life that i think should be represented as a time to reflect on and think about and not just like, for kids who are figuring their own stuff out, but can be interesting for adults who have already experienced it too! its so discouraging that people think "oh you're writing about teenagers.. thats so weird and creepy" like well as a writer i love the entirety of being alive so sue me for respecting a part of life that people either do not take seriously or think is straight up weird to write about. Not everyone makes characters because they want to fuck them... Writing is literally an art. we are capturing and transforming the human experience. Not to bring fandom culture into literally everything but assuming the worst of adults who enjoy or create narratives about teenagers is literally brainrot caused by the phenomenon of large amounts of people who only consume media because they want two characters to fuck. like can we engage with things on a deeper level Pleaze

[taki118]

Go watch Final Space

This poor series that has been jumping from platform to platform is releasing its third season this march on adult swim and HBO maxx and by god it deserves to go the 6 seasons it’s creator Olan Rogers thinks it can go. 

One of the main reasons this show got a bad rap at the start was people insisting that because of its art style and genre it was a Rick & Morty clone let me say it loudly for the people who still think this 

FINAL SPACE IS NOT A KNOCK OFF RICK & MORTY

Rick & Morty is a Sc-Fi comedy series with action Final Space is a Sci-Fi action series with comedy now that might seem like very little difference but it is. Final Spaces in series history and lore is its own unique thing that gets built up and expanded on as the series goes on. It is not a backdrop for things to happen to our protagonist.

Another issue people had when this series came out early was the main character Gary being annoying, and yes he was, and this was done so intentionally as the series goes on he drops a lot of these annoying tendencies as he develops and grows (also he was alone for like 5 years yeah he was desperate for interaction)

But let me tell you some reasons I love Final Space and I’ll try my best to not spoil things, cause you should really give this show your time. While season one is a little rough season 2 really shines and season 3 looks like its going to tear my god damn heart out. 

1: Found Family 

Final Space seems to really love this idea that family is not just the people who share your blood but the people around you who stay. This series showcases both good parents and bad parents BUT also shows good surrogate parental figures AND bad ones and thats something i rarely see. The series goes out of its way to show how vulnerable people desperate for a place to belong will attach themselves to the wrong people. All the while our main cast develops and strengthens their bonds over the seasons making a weird family that is always has room for one more. 

2: Character Growth

I am a sucker for good character growth and Gary Goodspeed gets some get great character growth as well as Little Cato and Knightfall (who was very unexpected as she seemed like one of those character types who wouldnt). Like let me tell you if you think Gary is just a happy go lucky idiot who doesnt have a bunch of emotional trauma you’re wrong, trauma which the show address and he grows from dealing with in healthy ways. 

3: Using the Multiverse as Character Study

Now i could talk forever about this because this show uses the idea of multi realties in a way not many pieces of media do. See normally the idea is just this play ground to explore how characters or the world could be different or as a means to cheaply bring back a character to maintain staus quo. But Final Space does something interesting it explores how this people both are and are not you. They may look, sound, and act like you but they have experienced a live different from your own, and in this way will never fully be you.

Ex. A character comes from an alternate realty the person they loved died there but is alive in this one and while they play with idea of being with this person instead but finds that they just can’t because this just isn’t the person they loved and they never will be. 

They also use this a means of almost existential horror with the inevitably of fate, if in hundred different timelines you tried to do the same thing but failed each time would you still try? Would it even mean anything if what happens after is worse? Like this series really does hit you with these moments and ideas to ponder and it never feels out of place.

4: The Humor is Really Weird and Fun

Like its really hard to pin down exactly what this humor is but I’d say its very character based like these jokes just would not work anywhere else or with anyone else. The series has a very odd sense of humor that you just cant pin down, from like witty dialogue delivered in just the funniest ways, to a literal piss war to a deadpan AI talking about death to an alternate version of yourself telling you you’ll never grow a mustache to a guy who wants to be stabbed cause he thinks it’d be cool to silly background gags you might miss, the shows comedy is just very enjoyable and fun. 

Like honestly there is a lot more I could talk about but its all so specific and spoiler filled like you have no idea how hard this was till now. Anyway I hope this helps some people take the time to give Final Space a chance. Like I said the start is slow and Gary is a bit much at the start but by the season 1 finale you definitely wont feel like you have wasted your time. Final Space is a hell of a ride that’ll go places you definitely did not expect.