#im thinking of posting the companion to this

[astrangeavenue]

drew some totally normal sadnesses

blank bg and individuals below the cut

edit: i posted some of my thoughts that went into these designs! if youd like to read you can find it in the reblogs

[tradingjack]

citrus trees are odd. like why are they allowed to happen?? wild

[rad-fever]

idk what to caption this, have some nick

[silverview]

"I think we have got some sort of insight into it. Without just thinking, Oh, these people are mad. And they love something too much."

[streetcorner-2inthemorning]

Thinking about how in season 2, the Doctor asked Rose "How long are you going to stay with me?" He could have asked her that in so many ways. "How long do you want to travel with me?" "When do you want to go home?" But he chose those words specifically. And Rose could have answered in just as many ways. "As long as I live." "As long as you'll have me." But instead she said one word. "Forever."

And the sad thing is that her answer was truer than any other answer she could have given. Because whether she realized it or not she wasn't saying how long they would be together. She was telling him how long she would be with him. As a memory, as a ghost, in his hearts. No matter who the Doctor is or how old they get, somewhere deep inside their soul, Rose will remain. Forever.

[quietwingsinthesky]

i really do think the desire to paint ten as unambiguously The Worst™️ when it comes to his relationship with martha is out of this desire to uncomplicate their relationship. to decouple them as friends and people who profoundly impacted each other’s lives. it’s just an easier narrative to swallow: that ten was Awful to her and then martha kicked him to the curb when she realized she was too good for him. easier, maybe, then dealing with the troubles of unrequited affection don’t have to be anyone’s fault, or that ten shut martha out in a lot of ways but let her in in others that he wouldn’t let any other companion near, or that they were still friends, they still wanted to see each other and be around each other, even though it was messy and sometimes hurt. you know?

[pasta-pardner]

sixguns & innuendo

[shkika]

do you think slugcats actually wawa? It is a fairly popular fanon sure but I have been wondering for the last few days. We know slugcats must have some decent hearing - some of the map markers are explicitly the slugcat using its hearing to differentiate between other living creatures in other rooms and so on (although the actual passages they apparently just commit to the memory). Probably not as good as black lizard hearing but pretty good. However this part of gameplay as proof of canon worldbuilding might be taken with a grain of salt

that may suggest that audial communication between slugcats may actually be pretty hard to hear for humans - similar to how we cannot hear most of audible signals of various rodents. The problem is, well, it is a gameplay concession for the most part and tbh the way gameplay is integrated with worldbuiding - the devs made an attempt but the realization is imho wonky at best and misleading at worst.

back to wawas, we can try to draw a comparison between domestic cats and slugcats wherein meow is something mostly relegated to 'babytalk' and a specific type of call which some cats, especially those who grew up with humans, adopt for cat to human communication (with cats who grew up without much human interaction sometimes never taking up a habit of meowing even if they end up living with humans later on and actively engaging with them positively). In this case a wawa is a specific signal that is either used for example in danger (owing to how we hear a wawa like sound in one of the danger alert osts) or during communication with the young.

this assumes we take danger osts as actually symbolically reflective of something.

Howerver! While just like the map it seems to be largely a gameplay concession, most of slugcat out of cutscene (aka the gourmand ending slides) communication is reliant on body language. Pointing, jumping, things like that. Even with the pups we mostly interact via those things. Which... either suggests a dimension of pup interaction we do not see because of the gameplay limitations or we should take it as wawa not being a slugcat 'babytalk'.

Which leaves wawas with a very dubious space as a potential 'can be fit into canon' or not.

Oh I'm SO sorry, but I don't think slugcats wawa at all,,

I just think Rivulet ONLY can scream.

Slightly longer ramble under cut!

I think lore and gameplay are mostly done pretty well! For example the cycle mechanic is something you can only really theorize on if you look at both gameplay and lore. You get to experience the pain of cycles all on your own!

As for wawas.. as you have mentioned, they mostly use body language and art. Picture from Gourmand campaign ↓

Spearmaster draws too, and uses sign language to communicate with Suns. And I hear you. "Spearmaster is domesticated, they don't count" and you're right!

BUT

The fact they can learn such complicated sign language would imply they have the capacity for it in their brain to learn and memorize a language so complicated in the first place. Unless that was modified as well.

But it is more intuitive for slugcats to understand gestures than speech, which is why they need the mark of communication as they otherwise just hear incomprehensible garble. Their brains weren't made for many complicated noises. Yet when they DO have the mark they are capable of understanding extremely complicated sentences and such.

The wawas in threat themes are just the track not actual noise your slugcat makes. A lot of tracks have quite the bizarre sounds in them.

I think slugcats draw, point and jump to communicate. They're rodents that sign!

My only self-indulgent funny headcanon is.. as forementioned, that Rivulet can scream. There is no proof or basis for this. It's just incredibly creepy and funny to me.

This is why that creature wanders alone. Cursed being.

[arom-antix]

Happy birthday to the man, the myth, the legend, trophy husband of Yuuri Katsuki, Viktor Nikiforov!

[lifeaspect]

Feel free to reply with your reasoning!

[cloudysonder]

BirdRick: Trust, Home, and Return

Rick C137 meets BP at a rough point in his life--his wife is dead across the multiverse, and he's decided to dedicate his entire life to finding and killing the man who did it.

He's tired, he's grieving, he's numbing himself with drugs and alcohol and hedonistic, short-term relationships that he can quickly leave behind for the next universe. And at first, it seems like his meeting with BP is gonna end up the same--they start a band on a whim while high off their ass, and they have a wacky, contained adventure--

But after...

Rick stays.

Rick stays with that version of BP in that universe. (we see that version of BP's memories in Rickternal Friendshine, we see him with our Rick, we know they share those memories because of how they travel through his mind) He stays even when things start getting uncool, stays when even when things start becoming "work." He stayed with BP from start to finish fighting a revolution he didn't care about!

He gets that impulse again--that need to get out of this universe and travel to another that's slightly different, that's more fun--Rick is an adventure-junkie before all else, and he needs his fix.

But now it's not so easy to leave.

Now, he has someone by his side who he can leave his back to in a war, who makes the time between adventures less unbearable, who's honest and sincere and believes in the value of life and freedom and is willing to die for it. Rick knows for a fact that nothing matters, that the revolution fails before it begins in infinite universes, that in some universes, the oppressed are the oppressors, that infinity dies and is recreated every millisecond across universes--but he... he likes that BP believes. (He makes Rick feel like life isn't meaningless.)

So...

Come with me. Anywhere. Everywhere.

(Notice how Rick's eye bags have gotten better since meeting BP, notice the soft look in his eyes, the way he moves closer instead of moving away)

BP's the first person he's wanted to stay with since Diane. He tells him everything--the portal travel, the multiverse, the fact that infinite universes exist so none matter--nothing matters! Nothing matters, but you matter... to me.

It's Crowley telling Aziraphale they can go off together, it's Grantaire believing in nothing but Enjolras who believes in everything, it's someone in pain who hates everything but loves one person so, so dearly that they grab their hand and tell them to run away with them--

And BP says no.

The very reason why Rick wants BP to come with him is the reason he can't. Rick, against all odds, likes BP's sincerity, his belief that life matters. And BP, with that sincerity and belief, tells Rick that he cannot follow him, because his universe matters to him.

And Rick leaves, hurt. He shoots a portal, walks through, and it's over.

He can find another BP easily. One that wouldn't say no to him, one that would travel the multiverse with him, that sounds like him, moves like him, acts like him.

But he doesn't.

BP tells him to use the beacon if he needs him. We never see Rick use it. Not because Rick doesn't need him,

but because Rick keeps coming back.

We see a picture of Rick holding a baby Morty in BP's house, even though our Morty has only known Rick for 2 years. Even while traveling the multiverse, exchanging Beths and Mortys and Jerrys, Rick keeps coming to see that Birdperson, in that universe.

There's not much that Rick comes back to. Being able to travel anywhere all the time means that he doesn't really have a home.

His original universe is soaked in grief and self-loathing. Diane's voice blares from his garage speakers and blames him for her death. Everything in that garage is dedicated to finding her killer. Rick only wakes up there sometimes in a miserable haze, torturing himself with photos of her.

But sometimes. Rick finds something wonderful in a different universe. A nice leaf. A pretty seed. A new drug that makes you feel absolutely fantastic.

A grandson.

(Framed photo in BP's house)

And who else would he want to show it to, but BP?

Rick does not have many places to return to. His original family is dead. "Home" is just another word for a base of operations to locate Rick Prime. Staying with Our Morty is just another scheme to get closer to Rick Prime. Rick does not have a home. Rick does not need a home.

Rick Sanchez is a hypocrite.

If he truly didn't care about anything but adventure, there are infinite BPs that would be infinitely more convenient to stay with, to go find and visit, who would say the right things, who would come visit him instead of always making Rick come to him, but, to his great chagrin,

"That's not how any of this works."

Rick Sanchez, the smartest man in the universe, cannot choose who he loves.

He keeps coming back through decades, sharing drinks, stories, his very best discoveries--a moment of peace and companionship between his adventures.

What is that, if not a home?

@birdperselias pls see this

[reblog-house]

Some things can change.

[narzissenkreuz-ordo]

people who scream 'dan heng is NOT dan feng whatsoever' yet always tag any dan feng content as 'dan heng'

[mummer]

the part of the episode where the toymaker was like “look what horrible things and sad endings happen to the companions” and they were just straight up all moffat made me scream laughhhhhhfjfh

[felicitywilds]

also slowly turning around in my brain how rose said she was going to stay with the doctor forever, and then later donna says the same thing (to martha!! the doctor doesnt even hear or know!!! it would make him so happy but hurt him so much if he did!!!!!!), and then when she tells the doctor shes going home in sontaran stratagem he immediately assumes it means shes leaving him for good and accepts it but also launches into all the things he still wanted to show her.

and i know its played for a joke like haha silly martian thats not what i meant! but this is the same man who, when he needed to turn human, loved someone SO DEEP AND HARD that he didnt think he'd ever fall in love again. ever. even with his memory erased. so when you take that moment of "oh you're just popping home for a visit" and like ACTUALLY look at it you're like. this man gets so so so attached to people, and is so incredibly scarred by losing these people he loves that he has no choice but to let them go when they want to leave on good terms, because he knows how bad it could get for them if they stay, no matter how much he wants them to stay.

anyway donna's forever and rose's forever are just different flavors of the same "i need you as much as you need me, so im in it for the long haul, bad stuff included" and its chefs kiss

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

I've been chewing on what fears the bg3 characters would be because I do that with almost every piece of media I like now.

Gale is the Beholding (hubris, pursuit of knowledge above all else, his ex can literally see everything he does in/with the Weave). You could make an argument for Desolation b/c of the orb but I think that's secondary. Wyll is the Hunt imo, but the Desolation works for him too- I think his situation is similar to that Hunter we meet whose name I'm forgetting, whose inciting incident has to do with the Dark. I thought the same thing about Karlach but I think she's Desolation instead of Hunt, both aesthetically and because she was actively betrayed and is, you know, dying. Shadowheart is the Dark. Halsin could honestly be the Lonely: he's pretty isolated from the people around him emotionally. An island unto himself etc etc. Lae'zel is the End imo. You'd think she'd be Hunt but End fits into Vlaakith's whole deal (victim of the End, avatar of the Hunt?). Astarion could be either the Buried (since that covers abuse as well, he was literally kept underground/out of the sunlight, etc etc) or the Hunt. I'm a bit undecided there. I don't know enough about Minthara to make a call on her and I don't want to just say Web because of Lolth. Slaughter, maybe? Since that fear covers war. Jaheira and Minsc are Hunt too, I think (there's a lot of Hunt but that comes with the territory when you're adventuring).

Gortash is Web and you cannot convince me otherwise. I think Orin is Slaughter but, honestly, Durge seems more associated with the Extinction to me because of Bhaal's end goal. The Desolation and the Lonely tag-teamed Ketheric's ass but he's an avatar of the End. Dame Aylin is an avatar of the Hunt, victim of the Dark, and Isobel is an avatar of the End a la the main End avatar we see (Oliver? I really need to re-listen...)

There's obviously a lot of overlap and bleed because there always is. I've been wanting to make art based off of this but it's not happening anytime soon so I figured I'd shout about it into the void a bit lol