#i'm not going to do commissions for this (at least at the moment) bc i still owe a few from the past couple months

[kayleerowena]

adhd meds are costing me $150 this month because of the vyvanse shortage so: if you like my work and have spare change, i'm sliding this link to my tip jar in your direction very subtly

[hachibani]

i'd never seen a dog tear up

I don't think i ever wrote about it here but Bianca died on march 5th of 2021, she got diagnosed cancer in 2020 just before lockdown and major pandemic events and unfortunately every treatment I could get her in such times were not enough or too late and the moment her metastasis became unresponsive to pain medicine i decided to let her go

i know i didn't talk about her a lot here since twitter became my main site of activity for years but i remember when she had her accident back in 2016 i posted about her here too, i got a lot of support and commissions to pay for her treatment and thankfully i got support as well when i opened comms there to pay for her chemo and surgeries, and for that i will always be thankful. I don't know why but I kind of had thought if I ever post about Bianca again here in this little old blog it'd be about her beating her cancer, something happy

i really regret the fact i didn't post more about her when she was alive and once she died my depression got so bad i was either unavailable or tried to ignore the pain by focusing on personal work... to this day it still hurts to think of everything that i could or should have done even if there's no way i cannot go back in time

losing bianca after almost 13 years of being together and more than half of my life at the time with her was more traumatic than i'd like to admit, so i try to rationalize little things like not being able to replace her picture even after so long, the most i've done is sell her stroller and i still kind of regret that haha;; but neither of her brothers fit in and at some point it became too much of a reminder of her illness and last days it felt like i had to, but just that one

(even thinking she was part of my life for 1/2+ of it and that that fraction will become smaller as time passes feels so wrong it might make me cry again)

i didn't get to draw her as much as i wished either, i thought i could never capture her cuteness (i still struggle) but since i drew her again on her first death anniversary i thought "i could somewhat get her to look cute" and i try to draw her looking like this from then on https://twitter.com/hachibani/status/1500315555215126536

because of her i started drawing pets more often, my goal for this year was to draw her at least once a month but... i didn't draw her at all in february, i think i'd like to make up and draw her again this month if my free time allows it, i never thought i'd get to complete a comic (albeit short) about these feelings i've had, i have still, i don't know for how long i'll have

doing personal art like this has never been easy but i somehow feel less heavy now, maybe it's bc of the wall of text i'm leaving haha

[hyunin]

hiiii everyone, this blog hit 1k followers the other day 🥹 tysm to anyone that has followed me here over the years! i'm sure at least a third of my followers are dead blogs from my suju (🤮) era in 2013 before i returned to gifmaking tumblr in 2020, but so many of you joined me once i returned and i'm so thankful for everyone that has reblogged my content and chatted with me and followed me up until this point! 🫶 i wanted to write some fun lil messages for my mutuals and pals below the cut, as well as shout out some people i don't necessarily speak to but like having on my dash also 💗 if u aren't mentioned on here and we're mutuals that doesn't mean i dislike u it just means i'm stupid and missed you 😭 before i get into the messages i also want to ask anyone who can to consider commissioning me for a gifset or writing by donating at least €10 to this fundraiser and sending me a screenshot of your donation! more info on that via this post. thank u so much again everyone!!! 🥳 (edit: i don't think half the mentions in this post are working so please check to see if you were mentioned even if you weren't notified!)

@redvelvetcult hi ele 🫶 i know we don't speak as often anymore but i'm always so happy to see u around and i love you <3 thank u for running yangjeongin with me even if it has been in spirit for 99% of its run LKJSDLFKJSJLKFD still wouldn't be the same without u @bataranqs hi kid! this is going to sound so lame but it's been rly fun watching u grow up over the years through awoo9, every time u use our weird ass humor it's so much funnier coming from u. thank u for hyping up everything we all do, especially my writing!! i really appreciate it and u @anyujins iwin...whew....LLKSJDKLFJLSKF i'm rly happy that we're a lot closer now than when we were last time i made one of these posts. i think we are anyway?? i forgor...but either way ilysm, thank u for your support when i've been going insane over the years and it would appear both of the stories of our love lives that we've been following for so long will have a tragic ending. LJKSDFJLKSLK but i hope we can be friends for many more moments of insanity to come and that we have more good news than bad news to share w each other soon. in the meantime it's always rly fun to talk to u and i am glad i have u in my life @miyawaki ver. i appreciate u v much if only bc u are a major provider of quality shitposts on my dash, u also being into kpop and giffing is a bonus. u are also so funny even if u are also MEAN!!!! it's funny most of the time. and u have also supported me a lot in ur own ver way over the years, and i can always count on u to give me feedback on giffing and such. i'm so happy for u that u are going to uni again and i hope u have so much fun but also don't forget about us 🔫 🫶 @seulggi gfx queen minya! u deserve a shoutout if ONLY bc u are carrying the gfx side of kpop tumblr on ur back fr. and i love seeing what u make on my dash. but u are also an awoo9er so i will give u a long AWOOOOOOOOO of appreciation ❣️ @meongppangz RI omg idk what account is best to tag u on so i tag u here. i rmr the last one of these i made i was like 'hope to talk more under better circumstances' and now we talk nearly every day LJSDFLKSDF i love that for us. thank u crazy person gc for bringing us together fr....love that we can bond over loving ggs and also hating collecting pcs and any other random shit of the day skz is doing. and giffing ofc. talking to u always makes me happy so i hope we continue talking and being friends for a long time to come 🫶 ily. also i'm going through my follow list for this in order of oldest blogs first and i just discovered y'all were one of the first skz blogs i followed. how cute @curiosityjams hi drea, we haven't spoken ages but i wanted to shout u out individually as well because i still enjoy seeing u on my dash and i still consider us friends 🫶 fellow eunbi stan...i will never forget waiting for the 2020 election results w you LMAO abt to do it all again soon...but i hope you're well and hope good things continue coming to u 🙇‍♀️ @hyunjinz agnes, backbone of stayblr that u are, i love u!! i know we don't Personally speak much at all i still feel like u are a dear friend of mine. you were one of the first ppl to support my skz content and i think you're that for a lot of people on stayblr and i think that is so sweet of u and also important for the community. u are so brave for going through the tags all the time and reblogging everything i do not have that kind of energy but i'm so glad u do!! i miss ur gifs but i'm happy that you're still around even when you don't gif. we're some of the last remaining pre-kingdom era skz ccs left 😱 so i will always appreciate ur company here <3 @innielove hi vi, i just want to say i love that u are giffing skz again. i've probably missed a lot of ur sets bc i'm bad at checking tags and dash but when i DO see them i'm like omg vi's gifs r really looking better than ever. thank u for returning to us 🫶 u have also actually been on stayblr for a long time so i'm always happy to see some of the oldies (can u believe we are oldies now...) back on the dash 😌

@kazuhas MS KALE it always makes me happy to see u on my dash here. ur gifs are so lovely and so are u!! i know we mainly know each other from off cc tumblr 🫣 but i wanted to give u a shoutout among all of my other tumblr beloveds bc ily. it's what u deserve @seo-changbinnies marie...another fellow stayblr hag at this point...u are still one of the funniest people on this site i swear. and i'm so glad u are still here and making gifs and blessing us w your funny tags. i hope u always stay just as insane, i love u for that <3 @seungs HI MIAAA we don't talk that much anymore but i wanted u to know that i still always love seeing u and your gifs on my dash 🫶 @felixies luna, legend of stayblr that u are 🙇‍♀️ i think ur work largely goes unappreciated by the fandom but u are an icon for keeping createskz running for all these years despite everything going on in ur life. tysm for your service 🫡 @huiracha marie huiracha...this is how i refer to u in my head btw. like 'huiracha' is ur last name. LKJSDFKLSKLD we have barely spoken but i want to give u your own shoutout just for surviving and continuing to gif on stayblr as long as u have. veterans' discount fr @hyunsung hi mona 🫶 we haven't spoken in a while either omg but i am still always excited to see u on my dash when u gif something or reblog something from me i'm like omg that's my friend mona :D SDKJFSJKLDF so thank u and i hope you're doing well 🙏 @hyunpic VILMA HYUNPIC...u know i am so glad we are better pals now. u are so funny and fun to talk to but also the sweetest ever!! thank u for always listening to me and being kind to me and also making me laugh. every time i feel like an rper named their hyunjin character something dumb i am glad i get to report it to u. some things only u will understand and appreciate. LKJSDKLJFSKLJFKLFD @sungtaro eri <3 we don't talk much anymore and maybe we NEVER HAVE??? but i have always felt like u are a dear friend and beloved mutual. i love seeing u on dash even if we don't have too many groups in common anymore. ur content is always lovely and so are u so we will always be pals as far as i am concerned 🫶 @exocean hi mo!! i must admit i don't have much to say but i wanted to mention you individually because you are so sweet and i love seeing u around and u deserve to know it <3 @hyumjim i don't even know what to say (positive) u know i am so glad ur squirmy wormy tag on one of my hyunjin sets brought us together. idr if we have ever properly spoken like via dm but bc u follow me on all my accounts i feel Seen by u....nd u haven't unfollowed me yet so god bless u. i always enjoy seeing ur thoughts and the posts u put on my dash whether they be a funny text post or someone's hot take getting dismantled or something Thought Provoking. my dash is definitely a better place because of u so thank uu 🫶

@wolfchans lau the Actual backbone of stayblr tysm for ur service fr. without u providing files for us i genuinely believe most of stayblr would be lost. not only do u do that but u are also genuinely very kind and make great content so i appreciate u so much!! thank u for making stayblr (and my dash) a better place @hyunebear hi adri i gotta admit i didn't even realize u were back on tumblr until i was going through my following and saw that u posted recently akljsdflkjdsf goes to show how much i'm on my dash...but i wanted to mention you individually even though it's been so long because you have genuinely touched my heart a lot and i will never forget ur compliments 🙏 ok maybe i did forget some of them word for word. but i will never forget how sweet u were to me. how about that. so thank you and i hope to see u around more!! i probably have to be on my dash more for that tho huh... @romanceuntold hi jen 🫶 i miss u on stayblr i'm ngl but i'm also still glad to see u on my dash through all your phases. you are such a warm and kind person and another person who i will never forget being so sweet to me. thank you and i hope you're doing well ❣️ @wearehappiness sidrah <3 the fact that we were both on stayblr but met properly on pc ig first is still so silly to me. me intending to wait on ur mail to get to me then being like 'stayblr perk i'll send ur mail rn' after i found out u were here LKJSDLKFLJKSF but you are suuuuch a sweet person who makes lovely gifs too. i miss ur gifs also!! and just you in general. wishing u the best in life always 💗 @mybodyfails hi oli 🫶 another person who has been soooo sweet to me, i'm so glad i got to help w leeknoween and i still have all the freebies u sent me from it preserved safely in my freebie photocard binder 😌 you are always lovely to talk to whenever we do, and thank u for reading my fic too despite zombies not being ur thing i appreciate u!! @strayklds / @facethesuns em i just think it's so funny that we like didn't speak before i invited u to the gif streaming server and i just did that on a whim bc u passed the vibe check and now i feel like we are good friends. despite still rarely speaking KSLDFLSDLKF but i love that for us and love ur gifs and seeing u around always 💞 @neohyune hi fae <3 i know us speaking is like a very recent development but i also wanted to mention u individually to thank u for your help 🙏 i need to write more of my fic tbh...but i Will be checking our conversation again for Notes. you also seem like a very sweet person so i would love to talk to u more in the future also 💕 @linoyes another very recent friendship (yes i am calling it that already) in my life, but thank u for your generosity, let's meet that fundraising goal together 💪 i hope we're also able to talk more outside of this context too. i just have a feeling i will have a lot more to say about u once i make another one of these!!

i'm ngl i don't know how many of you actually follow me here and i don't have time to check everyone's username individually so i'm just going to list a bunch of blogs i follow who may or may not follow me JKLSDFLKSDF but y'all make my dash a better place, thank u for all u do! 🫶 feel free to talk to me anytime too

@dazzlingkai @theseulgis @joytual @anyujin @cchuu @cherry-heartss @boynextdoors @hyunchans @ambivartence @minzbins @everglowz @chogiwow @ttathinker @minhosblr @minho-knows @yang-innie @leegahyun @bu99erfly

[shadowcatzone]

xingyue child after all the trauma (tm)

Xingyue child buying/sharing lunch with yanqing bc the stupid kid used all his money for swords again and didn't buy food. Despite knowing probably that if they keep feeding him he'll keep wasting all his money on swords rather than starving once or twice and then learning his lesson.

(They probably get any money spent back from jing yuan but don't tell yanqing)

Xingyue child adjusting yanqings age like a slider depending on who asks and what will get them the most benefit out of it. Wanna go to some sort of amusement park? He's 9 so he only pays half. Wanna watch a martial arts movie? He's 14 actually so old enough. Wanna get out of trouble quickly? "Sir, i'm just the attendant of jing yuans young son. You'll have to take any complaints to his father."

(They might get in trouble with jing yuan for this, but they're rather scolded by their "uncle" than a stranger)

Xingyue childs first priority being bailu, second priority yanqing. If something, anything, goes wrong, they'll pick up bailu, (and yanqing, if necessary) then make a run for either the artisanship commission or divination commission.

(Then they'll wait any danger out on a rooftop or in the forge until jing yuan or yanqing come pick them up)

Xingyue child playing with bailu. Neither of them really needs to pretend that they're younger than they actually are, but they will. Both are over 18 technically. Neither is fully grown. Both will absolutely throw a temper tantrum if only to throw off suspicion. Then they'll shit-talk about the preceptors.

(Included but not limited to: playing in yanqings room when he isn't there, playing in jing yuans room when yanqing IS there, playing in the study when jing yuan isn't there.)

Xingyue child trying to fight (and defeat) dan heng, ultimately getting defeated without dan heng making a single attack. Man's just dodging while xingyue child exhausts themself and ultimately falls on their face. Decides that dan heng is mean and will never fight him again (until the next opportunity arises) pouting all day afterwards.

(Jing yuan says he could at least block them. Dan heng claims that would be unfair, considering he's much stronger than them. Jing yuan sighs, dan heng is as stubborn as dan feng)

Xingyue child insisting on calling blade "yingxing" or "dad". That's a problem(tm), kafka never had to fix blade that often, not even during/after the story quest on the luofu.

(Because no one wants to leave the child alone with blade, even though he hasn't done anything to the child and it's unlikely that he will)

Xingyue child most likely picking up smithing (and tinkering) like yingxing and so they try to. Create. But they want blade to show them how, look at what they made, how is it etc. Nobody wants that, least of all blade, but the moment dan heng says he doesn't want it, blade will willingly go, if only to upset dan heng.

(Dan heng will be forced to go as well, to make sure "our child is okay. I mean, your child. I mean, my- no- their child. The child of dan feng and yingxing." Cue beet-red dan heng)

Bonus: xingyue child happily working in the forge, concentrating so hard on whatever they're making. Meanwhile, blade making out with dan heng, occasionally stopping mid-kiss to tell xingyue "you're doing great, keep it up." "Careful with that part, it can be difficult. You'll know what i mean" "just a bit more... [xingyue], heat the metal up a bit more.". Also, pushing his fingers into dan hengs mouth, to make sure he doesn't close it.

(If xingyue child noticed any of that (most likely not) they didn't let it show)

Also, cue blade abruptly stopping when he hears xingyue child call out "done!" Then runs over excitedly. Blade pretends nothing happened. Dan heng pretends the forge is too hot.

[zalrb]

Hey! so what did you think about Claire on the bear? I've seen some people call her a mary sue, a mpdg, a pick me which feels a bit much to me lol. I generally agree w people who say that she wasn't fleshed out and felt out of place bc of how carmy viewed her. My only thing is she never felt like an ER Doctor. Her career was supposed to be equally demanding so it should've affected their relationship in some small way at least but she kinda just seemed available for him at any given moment.

One of them I can see an argument for, the other two no. So before I get into the one I can see an argument for, I really need people to understand that these terms actually mean something. They're not blanket descriptors for female characters who annoy you and while we're at it, just for initiumseries, I'm going to add for the record that there aren't male versions of pick mes and manic pixie dream girls because these stock characters (or in the case of a pick me, viewpoints,) are rooted in misogyny

A Pick Me is specific

A Mary Sue is specific

Mary Sue stories—the adventures of the youngest and smartest ever person to graduate from the academy and ever get a commission at such a tender age. Usually characterized by unprecedented skill in everything from art to zoology, including karate and arm-wrestling [...] She saves the day by her wit and ability, and, if we are lucky, has the good grace to die at the end [...]

Like even Nathan Rabin who coined the term MPDG apologized for doing so because it keeps being misused:

I feel deeply weird, if not downright ashamed, at having created a cliché that has been trotted out again and again in an infinite Internet feedback loop. I understand how someone could read the A.V. Club list of Manic Pixie Dream Girls and be offended by the assertion that a character they deeply love and have an enduring affection for, whether it’s Diane Keaton’s Annie Hall or Katharine Hepburn in “Bringing Up Baby,” is nothing more than a representation of a sexist trope or some sad dude’s regressive fantasy.

It doesn't make sense that a character as nuanced and unforgettable as Annie Hall could exist solely to cheer up Alvy Singer. As Kazan has noted, Allen based a lot of Annie Hall on Diane Keaton, who, as far as I know, is a real person and not a ridiculous male fantasy.

From what I can recall, nothing about Claire is "Pick-Meish" or "Mary Sueish", she explains that when they were kids and a girl broke her arm, everyone was freaked out except for her because she wanted to understand the injury, that is not Pick Me-ish.

This is Claire

not this

The fact that she has six months left on her residency doesn't make her a Mary Sue.

Now with regards to being an MPDG, these are the characteristics of one:

That day in 2007, I remember watching "Elizabethtown" and being distracted by the preposterousness of its heroine, Claire. Dunst's psychotically bubbly stewardess seemed to belong in some magical, otherworldly realm -- hence the "pixie" -- offering up her phone number to strangers and drawing whimsical maps to help her man find his way. And as Dunst cavorted across the screen, I thought also of Natalie Portman in "Garden State," a similarly carefree nymphet who is the accessory to Zach Braff's character development. It's an archetype, I realized, that taps into a particular male fantasy: of being saved from depression and ennui by a fantasy woman who sweeps in like a glittery breeze to save you from yourself, then disappears once her work is done.

She isn't quite the "pixie" part of the trope, I don't think she's whimsical enough for that, instead I would say she's the "insufferable female lead in an indie" trope (love this!)

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because she does kind of just appear or sweep in to Carmy's life and has this history with him

and instead of giving Carmy her number, she asks for his, therefore the narrative places the onus of initial pursuit on her

she's been carrying this torch for him since they were kids

and her role is to be someone in his life that makes him feel good, that takes his feelings into consideration,

that gives him peace

that urges him out of his shell

that shows him another way he can be and feel outside of the restaurant

while we basically know nothing about her outside of that role.

What makes this iteration more complex than others is not Claire, it's not that she's a fully fleshed out character and we see more than a glimpse of her life and it's not that we get to know about her personally because we don't really, what we get is this

which just goes back round to Carmy and his complicated relationship with food and cooking anyway

the subversion lies with Carmy and how he needs to heal and still has a lot of unprocessed trauma that doesn't go away because Claire entered his life, the show shits all over the typical outcome of the MPDG coming into the male protagonist's life and making it all better.

I'm not saying that they did that purposefully as in they're trying to say something about MPDG, like I don't think the show purposefully framed her as one or views her as one, I think they just wanted to show how deep-rooted generational trauma is and how it presents itself and how it affects your current relationships and it ended up being subverting an MPDG-esque trope for the male protagonist.

I don't know if any of this makes sense, I haven't slept and it's like 5 AM lmao.

[hydn-jpg]

hello!! i am alive !!!!

how have y'all been? i've definitely been better lol

so... i can explain. or maybe not. i've never been good at talking about things but i'll do my best

under the cut bc a bunch of things happened and this'll probably be very long:

honestly where do i even start?

it has been a very rough almost month and a half for me, it was as if whatever god or entity out there went "lol wouldn't it be funny if we made this person go through several bad things all within the span of a few weeks" and then did just that

in early august i got a call from my mom that my grandmother had passed away. i had just gotten home from class at the time, but i immediately went out again and took the soonest available flight back to korea for her funeral. losing her hit me pretty hard honestly, she was the one i turned to when things were hard, and was also the only one who was generally supportive of my identity and sexuality. she didn't really get it, but she never made homophobic or transphobic comments, and was always kind and unconditionally loving. chuseok this year will be difficult without her around but at least she is in a better place i hope.

i took two weeks off from school to stay with my family after that. when i got back i was mostly catching up on all the classes i missed so i had very little time to do anything else. the stress coupled with all the physical exertion and everything else lead me to have the worst asthma attack i've experienced as of yet, it could've gotten a lot worse if it weren't for my kind neighbours who rushed to help me when they saw me struggling in the hallway

then in late august i got into a car accident. i was driving home from campus (which is an hour away), it was raining very heavily and i guess i lost control of my car. i am not sure what exactly happened honestly, one moment i was driving peacefully (and at appropriate speed for driving in the rain) and the next moment my car was spinning around and hitting the guardrails before crashing. it sounds cliché but everything was in slow motion and i literally saw my life flash before my eyes. i'm really thankful that the highway was basically empty, so no one else was affected. i somehow came out of the accident with only a concussion, a badly sprained arm and neck and some cuts and bruises. those will surely heal with time but the trauma of it will probably stay for quite a while.

so that's what happened. my mental health has not been great but i've been feeling a bit better lately! so that's good. i've been too physically, mentally and emotionally drained to do anything haha.

i probably won't be able to draw for a while thanks to my injury so you won't be seeing any art from me for at least another month or so,, to people i still owe commissions to, i will have to give you an IOU because again, i can't draw rn but also because i lost basically all the art that i haven't backed up during the crash, which unfortunately includes the commission sketches :( i'm so sorry, i'll redraw them as soon as i'm able to. i really wish procreate had an automatic cloud backup system so at least the sketches i did were saved but we can't always get what we want i guess,,

thank you to everyone who reached out and asked about my wellbeing and i'm really sorry for ignoring your messages and tags. i'll get to them as soon as i can!

tldr; my grandma passed, i had a bad asthma attack and i got into a car accident but i am okay. not really but i'll be okay maybe. lmao.

[golden-bk]

Fun fact I've been trying to post this for the past few months but the progress on my draft keeps fucking resetting🔥🧍‍♀️🔥

Anyway refs for my bbgirl's many outfits. The first two are his old look during most of KIU while the third is his current look since he's in a ✨coma✨

You are going to hear more about him this is a threat (I'm gonna lore dump teehee🧙‍♂️⚡💥⚡💥⚡💥⚡💥⚡💥)

Yuè was the previous moon god and ruler of Yutu prior to his younger sister, Bélalune. He was literally born and raised to take up this position after his dad retired, even moreso bc he was basically a child prodigy with his magical abilities. Bc of that, there was a lot of pressure put on him to dedicate a lot of time into training. He rarely had time to have a normal childhood(fork in sink moment bc he's literally space royalty), and if he had the choice he'd be doing literally anything else like studying plants or making weapons.

People were banking hard on Yuè being That Bitch who would one day dictate the future of Yutu for centuries to come, while the second in line and younger child, Bélalune, was free to do whatever. Because of that, he'd have some misguided resentment towards her for a while, and would go out of his way to avoid her as much as possible.

The one reason they were able to find common ground was when Bélalune started picking up weapon forging and asked Yuè to mentor her. This helped break the ice between them and get them to actually get along as siblings for the first time in years. The resentment would slowly subside after that(especially since it was outside forces that really put a rift between them, something something doomed by birth yap yap)

So yea shits cool now-

Sike, aliens now. Also their next door neighbor The Lunar Sanctum recently got destroyed, and it's (one) prisoner flees to Yutu and holes into the palace's walls while most of Yutu's army is occupied with the Aurum. The Chaos Kin pretty much tries to do a test run of what it's going to later do to Palutena and possesses Yuè. Mid-possession, he tries to kill his sister, but she wakes up and retaliates.

With the Chaos Kin already doing a lot of damage to him and Bélalune not knowing how to break its control and attacking him for the most part, Yuè doesn't know if he'll even get out of this alive. So while he has a bit of control over his body, he gives his powers to her so she can finally break its control over him and keep his godly powers in safer hands. Which she successfully does, but all the injuries cause him to go into a coma.

With Yuè out of commission, Bélalune, the least experienced of the two, becomes the next moon god and ruler of Yutu. By the time KI:R rolls around, she's getting desperate to wake him up, and this desperation causes some of the plot points in the story🤸

So yeah that's my eepy king Yuè. I hope this is all legible bc I typed a good chunk of this down at 4am

[mugiwara--ya]

I've been applying to jobs like crazy for months and months and months and every interview feels like this time its finally gonna happen and when it doesn't i just feel this crushing fucking hopelessness and i try not to get discouraged and stay positive etc but. god.

right now im super sick and i took the day off to rest and i keep feeling guilty that im not using every waking second to look for a job. i feel like i should start taking commissions but i KNOW i cant commit to it. i could work on graphic design but they fucking kicked me out of school after nearly 2 goddamn years of them wasting my time so i dont even have a degree and i dont even want to look at my apps n tools most days bc of the sheer fucking burn out im in. i could post the tons n tons of finished art i got collecting dust on my folders and maybe maybe maybe get some tips from it but i simply cannot move past my anxiety so i just dont. i wanna do so much stuff but im paralyzed bc my absolute priority is to find a job that can get me out of here and i literally cannot think of anything else. i feel ungrateful all the goddamn time bc at least i dont have to worry about food bills and a roof over my head.

i am 28 years old and 100% dependent on my family. i don't and WON'T have a degree. i'm chronically ill. i've been on psych meds for about a year and while mentally ive literally never been better, i'm dealing with the consequences of 27 years of untreated adhd, undiagnosed autism, several mental illnesses, plus extremely fresh and violent trauma from the massive fires where i live and i keep fucking having nightmares and panic attacks over it and its been like two months and i'm so fucking tired. i have next to no work experience and my last "real" job was on 2015 so i have to bullshit my way through interviews and so far no one has fucking called me back.

im just complaining rn bc fuck its getting real fucking dark over here but rn im just worried sick about my partners. they're living together at the moment and they can barely get by. i already reblogged their donation posts and i'll make one linking to them just for idk reach or whatever so please if you read til here wait for that post to go up and please please please help them so at least i can have that peace of mind, if nothing else.

[lucifer-is-that-weird-uncle]

look this might be a little too LinkedIn here, but I have this coworker who is consistently late, like so consistently late I can depend on her rolling in 45 minutes late with her her starbies in hand. she will also make comments about how much of a shit show the store is, how rude and disrespectful everyone is, and will not take any direction from other leaders, nor allow anyone else to help her when she clearly needs help. it's her thing. that's who she is as a person.

she asked me yesterday, in a lull of customers after doing a $10k day with only three people working, how I stay so motivated to come to work and be willing to be here, as she had stated the last couple of days that now she is late on purpose, like her job is not her responsibility.

first things first, money is fucking nice to have and while I don't count my commissions as a part of my budget, they do go towards credit card payments so that I can fill my "oh shit" fund. coming to work means I get my salary pay plus if I can sell something, I get my commission pay.

secondly, it's a difference of work ethic, and that's okay between us. the way I was always taught to come into work was be there at least 10 minutes before your shift starts so you can get clocked in, situated, and ready to start the day. bc I live so far out of town, I have to plan out what I need to bring from the house, what I'm going to wear, what traffic is going to be like, do I need to run any errands for myself in the morning, what about the store, etc. I'm usually leaving my house an hour before my shift starts, if not an hour and a half if there's any errands. then there's the manager chat. if I know someone isn't gonna be coming in bc of illness or their own life is getting in the way, I'm going to be coming in and working an open to close shift bc it benefits the whole store.

I told her that I needed to stop holding my work ethic against her bc I can't force her to change, but I did tell her it'd be more appreciated if she'd show up more, especially now that one of our other managers isn't going to be around as often and the other manager, the main one, is dealing with some pretty heavy personal stuff at the moment and it's draining for me to be the one everyone relies on, herself included. I think she took it to heart but I hope she also saw my side of things.

[chirpsythismorning]

re Lettergate: Lettergate, but it's El's pre-spring break letter laying crumpled somewhere in Mike's room. Reminding him what El said about the painting. Making Mike wonder in a letter of mostly lies was the part about Will also one? Mike's gears spinning-> Why did Will have it at the airport not El? Why did Will bring it with him? Why wait to give it to him if it had been from her all along? What would make Will lie to him like that? Questions for both Mike and to some casual viewers to think about if they hadn't already. We know it doesn't add up and why, but does Mike?

Right?!?!? Like it's such a mind fuck.

I'm still not certain about that scene, and that's probably what I love about it so much.

I could see it being bunch of different scenarios.

Initially when s4 came out, I was very confident Mike didn't see Will crying. I even made this post about it that blew up, bc I could genuinely relate to Will's situation, where you're facing the window in the car, crying as quietly as you can in hopes that no will notice.

But then as time passed, I rewatched the scene more and I started to notice all of Mike's micro-expressions (the first time I watched it, I didn't notice any of them...), with him going from bright and happy upon thinking the painting for Will's crush (according to El), was actually for him, only for Will to say it was commissioned by El and with Mike now looking extremely confused.

I kind of take that first reaction as something the entire fandom overlooks, both ga and bylers. Because it's clear from the start of that moment Mike WANTS the painting to be for him from Will, and he's visibly relieved to find out it is, only to be visibly dejected when he finds out that it's not.

And like you said, then comes the uncertainty for Mike that this could have been just another thing El lied about in her letter, so him assuming Will was painting something for his crush might have not even based in reality in the first place?

Also, why would Will lie to him? Will never lies to him! At least not something as big as this. Which is why fans have acknowledged some of the notes from the score Being Different matching both parts of The First I love You and The First Lie. There is something sort of special about Mike just believing Will, and the importance of that being conveyed through that score basically. I do get that. Then again, Being Different is mostly Will's perspective on the situation at hand (and he's known to be an unreliable narrator). This is him saying I love you to Mike for the first time (veiled) and this is him also lying to him about something big for the first time.

But again, after rewatching that scene god knows how many times now, it's clear based on Mike's emotions throughout that he is having some sort of realization and conundrum.

In fact, he looks most emotional and effected when Will starts describing the situation of their relationship, not him and El's.

When Will starts talking about feeling different and like a mistake and how Mike makes him feel like he's none those things, we know that can't possibly apply to Mike and El's dynamic at all. In fact, we just saw that that was the whole reason for their big fight, with El being convinced Mike just saw her as a monster like everyone else, with him deflecting by saying she was a superhero, not acknowledging the core of the issue at all. This is something him and El never touch on again, face to face. All we have is their fight, them reuniting and saying they missed each other, followed by Mike jumping into saying much of what he said in their fight during his monologue, things that literally upset her last time (denying he never said I love you), mixed with some inspiration from Will, and with a dash of trauma bonding phrasing that would come off as romantic to the majority, but also arguably as platonic and yet just as meaningful. But the pressure of it being romantic is what made it so hard to watch, because we know Mike's heart is conflicted right now.

The issue I have with the interpretation that Mike didn't pick up on Will's feelings at all though, is that there is something so much more impactful than all of that stuff I have just said combined, and it's the whole I didn't say it/You didn't have to line. That was really beautiful exchange that sort of encapsulated their whole relationship, and so having that ring true in the moment when it mattered most? Epic.

It meant everything for Mike to read between the lines in the van scene, as it would have cemented this truth between them that the love they feel for each other doesn't need to be outright said, they just know based on how they make each other feel. Like that's the whole point.

And by the end of that scene, Mike looks like someone who understands.

When Will is emotional looking out the window talking about being a mistake, we get Mike out of focus in the background looking Will up and down very sympathetic. I don't know why he would have such strong indicators of feeling sympathy for an emotional Will, describing things that sound an awful lot like their circumstances, unless he somehow picked up on what Will was saying despite Will not outright saying it?

The way Mike literally looks stunned and amazed when Will starts rambling and saying things that word for word describe him and Will? Why would he react like that if he had absolutely no thoughts in his head?

Gonna be honest and say the most obvious reason he would figure out Will is lying, is that El does not know an iota about DND... Like she doesn't know anything. She would have to have asked Will to dig deep and do something personal for her to give to Mike... And that just feels like it would be a quick obvious indicator for Mike that this has to be how Will feel's if it's coming from his knowledge about all of it? That in and of itself makes me feel like Mike would easily come to that conclusion that this is Will's feelings for him and he goes from being happy to sad to happy again bc he is relieved that the truth is it is for him, even if neither of them can face it rn.

More than anything on the Mike and El front, I think Mike knows that El deserves so much more than being settled for, which is why he's having a hard time playing along for much longer.

I think he would have preferred they stay friends at the end of s3 with them having been that way for the last 3 months before the epilogue, but it's not like Mike could say no thanks? That wasn't an option in any shape/form. After everything El just went through, and everything she's done for him and his friends, how could Mike hear her say I love you, and reject that? The fact that he does care for her very much is what makes it so tragic that he is suffering and not allowing himself to open up about it, bc he feels like if he did, he would be selfish. It would be selfish to break it off when she wants to be together now and is approaching their relationship romantically, only for him to go against that. And so he plays the part, and he does it really unconvincingly...

As he is having these moments in s4, I think it is him sort of accepting something that he has just started to see as inevitable because it's not like he can hide from the truth forever. Unless he wants to be miserable like his parents, and clearly he is feeling the pressure to just go along with it, while also deep down wanting to reject it, and we see how that blows over in the end, with it being way worse than he ever imagined (apocalypse proportions? Like, Jesus Mike).

I will say, that as a boy that is still technically in a relationship with someone, Mike probably felt like he couldn't be like Yes Will, I like you back. The best he could do was give him a look that said that reassuringly and then try to process it. Him facing the truth in that moment was never an option while him and El still hadn't talked things over. Also him facing a crying Will, would have only made him cry himself arguably, meaning his only option was to sit there looking as emotionless as possible (rink-o-mania teas). I think what we have here is honestly a s3 ending parallel right in front of us but without us being able to see Mike's side of it. We've got Will and Mike and even Jonathan. Will cried hoping Jonathan wouldn't notice, but he did. Mike biked home and hugged his mom looking just heartbroken. But imagine those s3 shots with Mike out of focus? You probably wouldn't know for certain if he was sad or not? I honestly feel like if we had seen Mike in the van, he would have looked like he was holding back everything he could, making those parallels overlap perfectly.

Then after the van scene, Mike's reuniting with El again and he's saying I'm here I'm here and you can see it on his face, he's worrying too much about El again. He's worried that he's going to break her if things end romantically between them and as a result she won't be in his life anymore. That's not what he wants at all. But then his eyes search for Will and he's so conflicted, bc he literally just days ago confided in Will that he didn't want to do this anymore. And yet still, he doesn't want to hurt El, nor does he want to hurt Will. *enter explosion in the background behind Mike, followed by Argyle going AW SHIT AW SHIT AW SHIT as Will and El hug and Mike watches....*

Then Surfer Boy happens, and El is reaching to hold his hands and now she's saying she missed him. I imagine he was terrified that because of their fight, she wouldn't want him in her life anymore, and so he was relieved on that front. But then the pressure is back again. He's back to square one, at the end of s3 where he feels like the only way El will ever want him is romantically, and he has to fit that role in order to be in her life. Not only is it something he feels obligated to do to stay connected to El, but also it seems like the most safest option in the world he lives in. It's what is expected from everyone around him. It makes sense. So it doesn't really matter if Mike is having doubts or that now he's hopeful Will feels the same, he starts to second guess himself.

And this then leads to part ?/? of Mike stalling (2 scenes before this, Yuri gets called out for being a coward because of his stalling, all while he hides the truth about the stalling in his coat chest pocket...). Mike is yet again stalling because he can't find it in himself to be honest and tell El he doesn't love her and play along and lie for any longer, and yet he also can't tell the truth because that also terrifies him (which is that he knows he doesn't love El because he has those feelings for Will...)

He stalls until it's not an option anymore, regardless of how he feels about the whole situation. And Will is pushing him and telling him to do it and Mike looks heartbroken. I think in this moment he is feeling doubts about Will's feelings, but also I think he is mostly convinced both El and Will want to be with him, so he is having to choose in this moment to be selfless like Will in order to save El's life, putting what he perceives to be her happiness, above his own (a vicious cycle we have going on here).

Now, a large part of why I subscribe to this, is because of a lot of details that fit, but I have also touched on this next detail here. Basically, I think Mike went from thinking the painting was from Will initially, to thinking it was from El by the end of the season.

I think the scene at the hospital is when this major shift happens. When Lucas says that El saving Max was a miracle, I think this is when Mike starts to now believe that El does love him, and that apparently his words did work, and so therefore the painting had to commissioned by her, right? The scene starts with the painting in the background behind Will, but directly after the miracle drop, Mike quickly shares a look with him, only to slowly, nervously look over at El, confused and then almost sad, with the painting now in the background behind her.

And so now the question becomes, does Mike want to keep up this act (unconvincingly) with El? Or does he want to follow his heart?

You could say that the ending of s4 answers that question...

I think that this means that starting in s5, Mike will definitely still have mixed feelings and emotions about the painting, along with his perception of El and Will's feelings for him.

I think that it makes sense that he would be upset if he's being sort of whipped back and forth about the truth. Lying was like a big deal in s4 with him and El (along with the whole series in general), but I think it's going to be a lot more impactful and intense seeing that confrontation happening with Will and Mike. Not because Mike is going to hate him or be mean over it, but just sort of be more upset than anything else.

Is Mike maybe thinking that this could be a testament to the state of their relationship? That apparently Will's gotten to the point where he lies about something like this? It's going to be a lot to process seeing as he ended s4, for the first time, making an active choice to choose for himself instead of basing that choice on other peoples emotions.

Because apparently that is what happened isn't it? He literally ended s4 thinking the painting was commissioned by El and yet he still chose Will, also while now probably assuming he was wrong about Will's feelings and he doesn't actually feel the same.

Let that sink in.

Mike made that choice for the first time based on his own emotions and not others, even all while assuming it was going to be doomed...

I'm sort of proud honestly, because that's not an easy thing to do.

Being true to yourself and risking hurting and losing others is a scary thing. And it's also why they've got themselves in this situation in the first place, because all of them are sacrificing their own truth, under the assumption that this is what everyone wants.

It's tragically epic.

[cryoweaving]

late night word vomit about the caiying character arc in fontaine bc i will make it happen there.

caiying accompanies you to fontaine for a commission for one of her embroidery pieces for a close family friend and you both have a relatively wonderful adventure where she confesses she's always wanted to go adventuring. anyway, it's all just set up by reinforcing that caiying is a nice person and she frets over you just about the entire trip there. she can't fight so the only alternative is to be support or help with your wounds after battles.

of course the first detour or little mission you have there that you must complete before you can finish the fontaine story is helping caiying deliver her embroidery piece to this family friend. it's just the usual running to find this person around fontaine and the convo between caiying and them is all good from the outside, but when she hands the embroidery over ... they pause. it just looks a regular depiction of some nature scenery but it can possibly be misconstrued to have some deeper meaning but caiying profusely apologizes if it came across that way. they relax afterwards and you part ways with this individual for a while.

i'm sure fucked up shit will be happening in fontaine but i don't read spoilers but i don't need to. caiying is just acting oddly while you all are dealing with shit in fontaine. even when you have breaks, you find she is writing letters or talking to people or is out and about more than she should be. she assures you she just has business to take care of - no big deal. of course, you trust her -- how can you not ? she's so sweet and speaks in a way that disarms almost everyone.

so how is it that you're standing there, watching this person you thought you knew exact revenge without any oversight from anyone else ? it's disturbing to hear caiying recount how she's been waiting for this moment -- to kill someone who has ruined her entire life -- for over ten years now, how she has laid out this plan to corner them for years and years, feigned appreciation and closeness with the person destroyed her mother's family because she knew she didn't have any usable evidence, and she gets to have it now.

" i disturb the water to catch the fish i so desire " -- she's led them here one step at a time, pretending to be unknowing and innocent.

fontaine is the nation of justice but caiying confesses she's not much of a believer anyway and would rather take care of things on herself; nobody and nothing will uphold justice for her after all.

she promises to send them off cleanly, make sure they are given proper funeral rites and not touch their other family members at the very least. and it's over in a moment -- with the simple flick of her wrist and the sharp ice ends her entire rage. and you see how stunned she is, how relieved she is, how heavy it feels to do this. and you realize you didn't know her all that much as you originally thought you did.

i'd like to leave the choice to turn her in or not up to the player. either way i think in game it'd trigger an update to voice lines -- deliveries become a little more mellow afterwards and some lines are just changed entirely.

[erigold13261]

How did the NSR cast forgive B2J post revolution? Bc I just find it nearly impossible for the NSRtists to forgive those two after they’ve done massive damage to everyone although they helped.

I mean, there was music magic that helped a lot. I'm sure that there was some bitterness between the NSRtists and B2J, but not a lot. They SEEMED okay with B2J at the end of the game, but that was honestly a crisis situation that was happening, so we can't really use that as how everyone feels about each other.

Like Eve had a full on conversation with Zuke and was able to reconcile with him right then and there. So I doubt she was all that upset at getting her ass kicked a bunch since she and Zuke were now on good terms (and he even implied of him hanging out with her so she could get to know Mayday).

Sayu's Crew seemed more scared of getting hurt by Mayday than anything else, and when they were not hurt and Mayday was just looking out for them, I doubt they would hold a grudge against her or Zuke.

Yinu honestly cared more about her piano than anything in the moment, and when it was musically magicked to perfect condition she probably let go of any and all anger she felt. Mama is probably still bitter toward B2J until they fully apologize and probably do some things to make up for their actions.

DJSS seemed fine with them at the end, saying they weren't as bad as they thought. His ego was put in check and he was a bit more humble because of B2J's actions. His head was also fixed thanks to music magic. I can see him making snide comments here and there, or trying to get them to do something for him. Like imagine B2J hanging out with DJ and they tell the two to get them an ice pop, which at first the two refuse until DJ goes like "So cracking my head open is easy but getting an ice pop is hard?" And then May or Zuke go and get ice pops for all three which DJ kinda protests but in the end doesn't care since he has a pop at least.

Neon also seemed fine with them, especially when May started crying and he went into dad mode. I can see him being a bit more wary of B2J at first, trying to make sure his kids aren't in danger or anything. But soon he would warm right up to them and try to help them out of the sewers or get better instruments. He's try to collab with them and get their ideas for how to better reconstruct NSR for the people. Neon would just try to be really nice and all that to them. He would be pretty easy to forgive once he sees the hard work they did to rectify their actions.

1010 on the other hand would be the least easy to forgive B2J. At least at first. 1010 were out of commission whenever B2J apologized to all the NSRtists, so when 1010 did end up at a meeting with B2J they were all super wary and kinda scared because no one really told them what happened (Neon just forgot). Most of 1010 tried to act the usual way with Mayday like they did in their boss fight, with the exception of Eloni and Purl.

Eloni was just terrified of B2J, only warming up to them once Rin, Zimelu, and Haym became friends with them. Purl though was not only scared, but hateful too. They hated B2J but were also terrified to say anything. The hostility coming off of Purl was seen by everyone. They didn't even try to hide it like the others. Purl never said WHY they were acting like that, but it was obvious they hated B2J.

Their fear was not as easy to see. If you watched their movements you could see them flinch whenever May or Zuke raised their instruments, or step back while the two walked by. Even when trying to sleep, Purl would have nightmares and bad thoughts about losing everything and everyone to B2J, which only made any kind of friendship with them that much more difficult. It took a very long time for Purl to forgive B2J, but at some point they do and even though they aren't the best of friends with May and Zuke, they respect the two.

[brother-emperors]

Could you please write some more facts/thoughts about ascanio&ludovico's relationship? (or really any other sforza-related thing - that is if you want to, ofc)

I also adore your blog, I was so happy when I found another sforza enthusiast! And your art is gorgeous as well :)

yes yes YES 👏👏👏 I absolutely can, I spend. a lot of time thinking about the Sforzas/Ascanio. (also tysm anon!!! 💓💖💞)

A General Preface: at least half of the texts I'll cite are going to be in italian for obvious reasons (and for less obvious reasons, on the absence of english scholarship on Milanese history: here), and I do not translate*, so where I can, I'll try to provide english texts discussing the event as an attempt at a middle ground

I will be sticking to Ascanio and Ludovico (and probably mostly Ascanio) because if I start talking about the Sforza family as a whole, I'll dive really deep into Leonardo da Vinci's time in Milan, or the impact they had on the arts, or Galeazzo Maria Sforza and tennis, or I'll get started on Milan's history of plague protocols and how they came to the conclusion that illnesses were spread through contact and created an early form of contact tracing on top of everything else. Shout out to the Viscontis, I would LOVE to have you in charge of the country I'm living in right now bc I sure do hate it here.

Contagion Theory and Contagion Practice in Fifteenth Century Milan, Ann G. Carmichael

so. Ascanio and Ludovico are interesting. Ascanio is his mother's son in a couple of ways: in 1448, Francesco Sforza was in Pavia, and Venice attacked Cremona, so Bianca Visconti put on parade armor, pulled together the some troops, and defended city, and later would go on to handle the administrative affairs of Milan when Francesco was either away or ill. (there is a set of armor out there that is may have been commissioned by Ascanio, but either way it's attributed to him

(this link goes to a power point pdf from the University of Milan because, and I cannot emphasize this enough, it is Difficult to get a hold of italian books where I live without paying an arm and a leg for shipping)

Now! if we look slightly to the left at Ascanio. Here's someone who path in life has already been more or less set in stone on the basis of his birth (second youngest son in a set of 8 children): getting married to the Catholic Church. (There was a brief moment where he was considered for a political alliance marriage, but it fell through) One time he declared he would rather be a military captain, but. well. it's Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza for a reason.

Popes, Cardinals and War: The Military Church in Renaissance and Early Modern Europe, David Chambers

Politics and Dynasty: Underaged Cardinals, 1420-1605, Jennifer Mara DeSilva

And I'll now put the rest of this under a cut because this gets long.

Okay, so: didn't work because Ludovico still married him off to the Church (there was a good reason for this, since Milan's power structure was shaky after Galeazzo's death, and having someone in a position of power with Milan's interests at heart in the Vatican would be a good strategic move since a lot of Italian politics played out in Vatican rooms)

Ascanio Maria Sforza: la parabola politica di un cardinale-principe del Rinascimento, Marco Pellegrini

but not before Ascanio decided to go in with the father-son relationship comparison. so. that was something.

Ascanio Maria Sforza: la parabola politica di un cardinale-principe del Rinascimento, Marco Pellegrini

Ascanio did go on to raise and fund armies for his brother's causes as cardinal (king shit tbh, since the cardinalate was supposed to function as an extension of the pope) in direct opposition to the Church's position and in defiance of the pope, and also worked the political scene in favor for Milan constantly (there is a definable faction of cardinals that are associated with Ascanio, and by extension of Ascanio, Milan), so in a way he did get to play at being a military captain, on top of everything else he was doing.

Popes, Cardinals and War: The Military Church in Renaissance and Early Modern Europe, David Chambers

anyway, Ascanio traded his compliance with Ludovico's wishes for a fuck ton of money.

Ascanio Maria Sforza: la parabola politica di un cardinale-principe del Rinascimento, Marco Pellegrini

on the topic of Ascanio and Money, the Marco Pellegrini biography talks about Rodrigo Borgia won Ascanio in the conclave vote with money and it's. Interesting.

Ascanio Maria Sforza: la parabola politica di un cardinale-principe del Rinascimento, Marco Pellegrini

(It also goes on to say that Ascanio played literally everyone in the Vatican court like a fiddle, so that scene in Showtime's Borgias show where della Roveer talks about Ascanio playing the cardinals against each other before taking down the one left standing without breaking a sweat was accurate, actually)

There is something™ Gender Adjacent to being Socially Othered

Popes, Cardinals and War: The Military Church in Renaissance and Early Modern Europe, D.S. Chambers

and while we won't forget that Ascanio was a rich motherfucker and Milanese nobility on top of being a cardinal prince (Catholic cardinals existed in a similar function to a secular Prince for reasons of politic, since the Church was (is) a political entity), regional prejudices, city-state-kingdom bickering, and like. uh. well all of That with Ascanio and della Rovere. did exist.

Ascanio Maria Sforza: la parabola politica di un cardinale-principe del Rinascimento, Marco Pellegrini

and now to jump to the year 1497, which sure was a year that happened! Ludovico's wife Beatrice d'Este dies, and within a very close time frame, his brother Ascanio falls seriously ill**.

Like, ill enough that he tries to change his will, and Rodrigo Borgia refuses to finalize it because he's betting on Ascanio dying and being able to seize his assets on his death to fund Cesare's adventures (there is a letter in which Cesare complains that the two cardinals they were hoping would die did not, in fact, die).

Ascanio Maria Sforza: la parabola politica di un cardinale-principe del Rinascimento, Marco Pellegrini

A Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal

Rodrigo wasn't exactly wrong to hedge his bets on Ascanio dying, it was pretty bad! Everyone except the Sforza family thought he was dead for sure

Ascanio Maria Sforza: la parabola politica di un cardinale-principe del Rinascimento, Marco Pellegrini

That said, I'm still killing Rodrigo with my mind. It's not enough that he's already dead, I need to go Doom Guy on him in hell.

Ludovico sends a physician from Milan to Rome, and the King of Naples sends his own personal physician.

Ascanio Maria Sforza: la parabola politica di un cardinale-principe del Rinascimento, Marco Pellegrini

While Ascanio's fate is unsure, Ludovico begins making plans to have Ascanio's body brought back to Milan to be interred in Santa Maria delle Grazie, which is where Ludovico's wife had been buried. And if you just. look a little to the right. Ludovico's reaction to Beatrice d'Este's death. Was A Lot. As in Ludovico spent more time in the Santa Maria delle Grazie than he did in his own home. There is a definitive before and after with Ludovico as a person, and the event that marks it is the death of Beatrice.

Ascanio Maria Sforza: la parabola politica di un cardinale-principe del Rinascimento, Marco Pellegrini

Great news, unless you're Cesare or Rodrigo Borgia! Ascanio doesn't die!

Ascanio Maria Sforza: la parabola politica di un cardinale-principe del Rinascimento, Marco Pellegrini

After, when Ascanio began recovering/Ludovico heard his brother was on the mend, they respectively poured a truly spectacular amount of money into the arts, donations, charitable works, and so forth.

Ascanio Maria Sforza: la parabola politica di un cardinale-principe del Rinascimento, Marco Pellegrini

This is....getting very long so I'm going to end it here, before I start talking about Ascanio's relationship with Bernardino Lonati, with my favorite piece of Ascanio trivia (besides his entire life): he had a baton of command that had a hidden dagger built into it, which was very sexy and fun of him!! also he was considered a prime suspect in the murder of Juan Borgia, Duke of Gandia. and----

*Ah! you might say. Cardinal! haven't you said you're translating the Ascanio biography? Yes! it's not good! since it's largely for my own reference, it's very clunky and blunt, like oh my god I cannot emphasize how clunky it is. professional translators deserve to have stacks of cash thrown at them.

**So several scholars attribute this to syphilis on the grounds that Sanuto writes that Ascanio was afflicted with the French Disease, and there are a number of problems with this assumption, starting with the fact that Sanuto wasn't one of the physicians or doctors attending to Ascanio and that we have records from those people that should be treated as a primary source before fucking Sanuto. Also the immediate assumption that the French Disease automatically is syphilis is problematic because the diagnosing process of the time period meant that several other illnesses could all be diagnosed as the French Disease without it being syphilis. The physical signs of syphilis weren't mysterious or unknown either, and the timeline/symptoms/length of time Ascanio was ill and spent recovering vs the conclusions scholars have reached citing only Sanuto isn't enough for me. But also take all of this with a grain of salt, I went to art school and all I have on my side is uh. like a decade long obsession with how plagues and diseases spread throughout history, coupled with an interest in historical medical practices, which does not make me an academic or a historian or scholar by any stretch of the imagination.

Gender, Sexuality, and Syphilis in Early Modern Venice, Laura J. McGough

[yoiku]

Just feeling like unpacking and sorting out some thoughts on this wonderfully rainy morning (begone, roadside dust!!)

Now, I've always been the type to post new art the moment it's done. Posting stuff only on Patreon has still proven easier than I expected. Perhaps since i am still posting stuff -somewhere- it doesn't feel as weird, even though I do miss the interaction from posting on socials. But that'll be back once I have a buffer big enough to keep Patreon relevant. It's also getting easier on letting posting on social wait as time goes by, lol. Actually thought that what if I make the publish gap with the comic even bigger, like several months between Patreon/other sites. But aaaah, I really do want to get it out. It might create more of a gap with time anyway. And the best way to get new people interested in my Patreon is to have interesting stuff out there in the wild. And I'll be honest, it feels validating af to see even a few people willing to spend money to access my Patreon.

It's still conflicting sometimes, because I would really want to keep my stuff available to everyone without paywalls. Art in general is meant to be shared and should be accessible to everyone, this is something I feel on a larger scale. Things like commissioned, unique pieces are luxurious though. They are after all often personal as well. Artists don't live on grants and stipends, hell, even those are usually available for artists who have already made a name for themselves on a larger scale/are well connected. Majority I know struggle with part time jobs, unemployment, studying or are disabled, barely scraping by what they can get in terms of welfare etc. I'm no different. I'm on welfare due to health reasons + in debt, so basically I don't have any "extra" money at the end of each month left for nice things™. And if I do, it usually goes to paying a larger portion of debt away. Sometimes I spend and always regret it later, lol. But if you -never- get to treat yourself even a little, life starts to feel quite depressing. I know so many people are in the same kind of position, where it's just not possible to pay for more than 1-2 subscription services monthly, or none. So having my art behind a Patreon paywall of any kind feels bad, knowing I would likely not be able to afford it myself, lol. Will it ever be easy to combine the thought of art + money without having dreadful crapitalism thoughts creep in? Probably not.

I still want to do my best to pick up some commissions as well, I need to create some sort of hidden stash of money now that I have the cat. Because when (inevitably at some point) a trip to the vet happens, that's going to be at least a hundo no matter what. And when the last trip to the vet arrives, that's gonna be closer to 300-400 with all the cheapest options. (hopefully not anytime soon, but something i have to take into account) I am currently working on a painting comm and might have another one coming up as well, which is giving me much joy. Watercolours are a lot of work, but they're less taxing in the sense that there's only so much detail you can do compared to digital, and tradi allows the happy little accidents with the medium. So it's easier to feel like I did my best wihtout having the thought "ah... i should've kept fixing it"(without asking for more money bc I gotta do better ad infinitum) So I'm really happy peeps have shown interest in tradi comms, even though I'm not very well versed in techniques with those. Learning tho!

My head's been in a relatively good place for a good while now, all things considered. But I have to pull the brakes on myself every now and then because I know it only takes one hard hit in the old mental health for all of it going to shit in the blink of an eye. So I'm trying to tread carefully, prep and plan while keeping the bar set low enough.

Mom has moved to hospice care, which also means that getting the phonecall about her passing can also be any day now. I feel like I've made my peace with it, but even if it doesn't initially hit hard, I'm pretty sure it will bring some mental struggle later. And there will be the whole episode of handling her stuff afterwards. Thankfully there won't be any wealth to distribute, so likely all the mandatory/legal expenses will be handled by welfare. How dreadful that even in that, money is the first thing to have to worry about, huh.

At least the sun has returned from the winter jail, bright days lighten the mind.

[grimvestige]

Oh there are new artist asks in town!

You know the drill, numbers 2 and 5 if you please?

There are indeed!

2. 5 favourites of your own work?

I cannot believe you'd do this to me. Make me choose favorites? MY GOSH AAAAA. I will try my best!

This one's the first and most obvious one! It's one of the largest pieces I've done in a while, and took me like, at least 18hrs. (Also I linked it's post in the source bc like...it just didn't get a lot of love which makes me sad adfkjdhkjh)

I think for my second piece, I'll actually choose a piece of writing I did! I'm still learning how to write, and it took me ages to finish this, but I'm really proud of a one-shot I wrote about Tiarnan and his partner going to explore a forgotten archive as one of their dates. I'll put a teensy excerpt here, and link to the whole thing here.

“You’re not going out to explore alone, are you?” a low voice rings out from behind Tiarnán.

“I…uhm, well,” the librarian stammers for a moment, before straightening up and turning to face the source. Leaning in the door frame behind him is a grinning crimson summer sidhe, donning cranberry and charcoal colored robes and crystalline ruby pauldrons. Strapped on their back is a large great sword, its jagged hilt glittering with magenta crystals. “I didn’t want to be a burden Móirín, you have your duties and all,” Tiarnán quickly ripostes, tucking his hands behind his back and smiling expectantly.

Móirín rolls their eyes before standing up and walking over to join Tiarnán. “Your silver tongue won’t keep the wisps from you, and I much prefer you alive than an empty husk.”

Oh god I've only picked two pieces! #3 is a commission I did for @eldritch-goth! I finally felt like I was getting a good grasp of all the tools I had available in CSP for this one!

BECAUSE I HAVE A REALLY HARD TIME PICKING (its mostly being chronically bad at enjoying my own art, not just loving all of it) I'M JUST GONNA GO WITH SOME RECENTS I LIKE!

#4 is a reinterpretation of some dialogue from Hellboy in Hell, but for one of my NPC's in my D&D campaign, Hanzou!

AAAAAND #5 will be a piece I finished like literally this week of a scene from some Hadreon rp! This was fun to put the background together for ^^

OKAY I HOPE THAT WORKS?????? AAAA;;;; it's very hard to pick favorites because I draw so much and just don't get super attached to a lot of my work ^^;

5. Anything you haven’t drawn yet but want to?

I don't think there's a lot, but I definitely want to try more pixel art! I always enjoy it when I do it, but never remember it's an option.

Also I suppose if it counts for drawing, I'd love to do a proper action shot animation at least to relatively clean lines, something along the lines of Castlevania!

[shkspr]

hi. on your post where you may or may not have ended on 'moffat is either your angel or your devil' did you have maybe an elaboration on that somewhere that i could possibly hear about. i'm very much a capaldi era stan and i've never tried to defend the matt smith era even though it had delightful moments sometimes so i wonder where that puts me. i'd love to hear your perspective on moffat as a person with your political perspective. -nicole

hi ok sorry i took so long to respond to this but i dont think you know how LOADED this question is for me but i am so happy to elaborate on that for you. first a few grains of salt to flavor your understanding of the whole situation: a. im unfairly biased against moffat bc im a davies stan and a tennant stan; b. i still very much enjoy and appreciate moffat era who for many reasons; and c. i hate moffat on a personal level far more than i could ever hate his work.

the thing is that its all always gonna be a bit mixed up bc i have to say a bunch of seemingly contradictory things in a row. for instance, a few moffat episodes are some of my absolute favorites of the rtd era, AND the show went way downhill when moffat took over, AND the really good episodes he wrote during the rtd era contained the seeds of his destruction.

like i made that post about the empty child/the doctor dances and it holds true for blink and thats about it bc the girl in the fireplace and silence in the library/forest of the dead are good but not nearly on the same level, and despite the fact that i like them at least nominally, they are also great examples of everything i hate about moffat and how he approached dw as a whole.

basically. doctor who is about people. there are many things about moffats tenure as showrunner that i think are a step up from rtd era who! actual gay people, for one! but i think that can likely be attributed mostly to an evolving Society as opposed to something inherent to him and his work, seeing as rtd is literally gay, and the existence of queer characters in moffats work doesnt mean the existence of good queer characters (ill give him bill but thats it!)

i have a few Primary Grievances with moffat and how he ran dw. all of them are things that got better with capaldi, but didnt go away. they are as follows:

moffat projects his own god complex onto the doctor

rtd era who had a doctor with a god complex. you cant ever be the doctor and not have a god complex. the problem with moffats era specifically is that the god complex was constant and unrepentant and was seen as a fundamental personality trait of the doctor rather than a demon he has to fight. he has the Momence where you feel bad for him, the Momence where he shows his humility or whatever and youre reminded that he doesnt want to be the lonely god, but those are just. moments. in a story where the doctor thinks hes the main character. rtd era doctor was aware that he wasnt the main character. he had to be an authority sometimes and he had to be the loner and he had to be sad about it, but he ultimately understood that he was expendable in a narrative sense.

this is how you get lines like “were the thin fat gay married anglican marines, why would we need names as well?” from the same show that gave you the gut punch moment at the end of midnight when they realize that nobody asked the hostess for her name. and on the one hand, thats a small sticking point, but on the other hand, its just one small example of the simple disregard that moffat has for humanity.

incidentally, this is a huge part of why sherlock sucked so bad: moffats main characters are special bc theyre so much bigger and better than all the normal people, and thats his downfall as a showrunner. he thinks that his audience wants fucking sheldon cooper when what they want is people.

like, ok. think of how many fantastic rtd era eps are based in the scenario “what if the doctor wasnt there? what if he was just out of commission for a bit?” and how those eps are the heart of the show!! bc theyre about people being people!! the thing is that all of the rtd era companions would have died for the doctor but he understood and the story understood that it wasnt about him.

this is like. nine sending rose home to save her life and sacrifice his own vs clara literally metaphysically entwining her existence w the doctor. ten also sending rose with her family to save her life vs river being raised from infancy to be obsessed w the doctor and then falling in love w him. martha leaving bc she values herself enough to make that decision vs amy being treated like a piece of meat.

and this is simultaneously a great callback to when i said that moffats episodes during the rtd era sometimes had the same problems as his show running (bc girl in the fireplace reeks of this), and a great segue into the next grievance.

moffat hates women

he hates women so fucking much. g-d, does steven moffat ever hate women. holy shit, he hates women. especially normal human women who prioritize their normal human lives on an equal or higher level than the doctor. moffat hated rose bc she wasnt special by his standards. the empty child/the doctor dances is the nicest he ever treated her, and she really didnt do much in those eps beyond a fuck ton of flirting.

girl in the fireplace is another shining example of this. youve got rose (who once again has another man to keep her busy, bc moffat doesnt think shes good enough for the doctor) sidelined for no reason only to be saved by the doctor at the last second or whatever. and then youve got reinette, who is pretty and powerful and special!

its just. moffat thinks that the doctor is as shallow and selfish as he is. thats why he thinks the doctor would stay in one place with reinette and not with rose. bc moffat is shallow and sees himself in the doctor and doesnt think he should have to settle for someone boring and normal.

not to mention rose met the doctor as an adult and chose to stay with him whereas reinette is. hm. introduced to the doctor as a child and grows up obsessed with him.

does that sound familiar? it should! bc it is also true of amy and river. and all of them are treated as viable romantic pairings. bc the only women who deserve the doctor are the ones whose entire existence revolves around him. which includes clara as well.

genuinely i think that at least on some level, not even necessarily consciously, that bill was a lesbian in part bc capaldi was too old to appeal to mainstream shippers. like twelve/clara is still a thing but not as universally appealing as eleven/clara but i am just spitballing. but i think they weighed the pros and cons of appealing to the woke crowd over the het shippers and found that gay companion was more profitable. anyway the point is to segue into the next point, which is that moffat hates permanent consequences.

moffat hates permanent consequences

steven moffat does not know how to kill a character. honestly it feels like hes doing it on purpose after a certain point, like he knows he has this habit and hes trying to riff on it to meme his own shit, but it doesnt work. it isnt funny and it isnt harmless, its bad writing.

the end of the doctor dances is so poignant and so meaningful and so fucking good bc its just this once! everybody lives, just this once! and then he does p much the same thing in forest of the dead - this one i could forgive, bc i do think that preserving those peoples consciousnesses did something for the doctor as a character, it wasnt completely meaningless. but everything after that kinda was.

rory died so many times its like. get a hobby lol. amy died at least once iirc but it was all a dream or something. clara died and was erased from the doctors memory. river was in prison and also died. bill? died. all of them sugarcoated or undone or ignored by the narrative to the point of having effectively no impact on the story. the point of a major character death is that its supposed to have a point. and you could argue that a piece of art could be making a point with a pointless death, ie. to put perspective on it and remind you that bad shit just happens, but with moffat the underlying message is always “i can do whatever i want, nothing is permanent or has lasting impact ever.”

basically, with moffat, tragedy exists to be undone. and this was a really brilliant, really wonderful thing in the doctor dances specifically bc it was the doctor clearly having seen his fair share of tragedy that couldnt be helped, now looking on his One Win with pride and delight bc he doesnt get wins like this! and then moffat proceeded to give him the same win over and over and over and over. nobody is ever dead. nobody is ever unable to be saved. and if they are, really truly dead and/or gone, then thats okay bc moffat has decided that [insert mitigating factor here]*

*the mitigating factor is usually some sort of computerized database of souls.

i can hear the moffat stans falling over themselves to remind me that amy and rory definitely died, and they did - after a long and happy life together, they died of old age. i dont consider that a character death any more than any other character choosing to permanently leave the tardis.

and its not just character deaths either, its like, everything. the destruction of gallifrey? never mind lol! character development? scrapped! the same episode four times? lets give it a fifth try and hope nobody notices. bc he doesnt know how to not make the doctor either an omnipotent savior or a self-pitying failure.

it is in nature of doctor who, i believe, for the doctor to win most of the time. like, it wouldnt be a very good show if he didnt win most of the time. but it also wouldnt be a very good show if he won all of the time. my point is that moffats doctor wins too often, and when he doesnt win, it feels empty and hollow rather than genuinely humbling, and you know hes not gonna grow from it pretty much at all.

so like. again, i like all of doctor who i enjoy all of it very much. i just think that steven moffat is a bad show runner and a decent writer at times. and it is frustrating. and im not here to convince or convert anyone im just living my truth. thank you for listening.