#it's just so much fun to dissect!!!

[blackkatdraws2]

I have a lot of leftover drawings in my gallery. [Blank Scripts AU]

[Content Warning: Images below contain Gore, Death, and Disturbing/Uncomfortable Imagery]

I find it a bit cute knowing they start out as crazy and then slowly settle into something calmer and relatively healthier after learning to adapt to each other's lust-turned-love. [Stanley did it first but hey :3]

[genericpuff]

vent post

[tequiilasunriise]

Annabel Lee & Fears: A Short Essay Based On Ep70

Here it is, folks, the truest crux of Annabel’s character, her deepest fears is not going mad or even people discovering she’s not as put together as she tries to appear, but rather:

Was that gambit of constant scheming and using others worth it, Annabel? Was always trying to think ten steps ahead and always keep yourself in a position of power and control truly worth it, because how can you ever be trusted when all you do is play 5D chess with everyone?

There is is, folks!!! Just like her greatest strength- her cunning willpower- is centered around a certain bright moon, Annabel’s greatest fear is rooted in Lenore. The deepest, darkest trenches of her soul, the one thing that would shatter her heart and send her lungs choking fer breath? The killing blow that would end her and make all these charades worthless? It’s Lenore seeing her constant conniving and asking Annabel, “Why would I be any different? You already have no problem using everyone else as a pawn, how could I ever possibly trust you, Annabel Lee?”

The way Annabel is SUCH a great morally grey character, y’all tell me you love hot villains yet many a time I’ve seen people calling Annabel too heartless. She’s the opposite! She cares!! SO MUCH!!! She would burn the world down if it meant kissing Lenore one last time, to the point where her deepest fear is losing Lenore in the process of trying to protect her. All Annabel knows is using manipulation to gain the upper hand because simply being born a woman in the Victorian era she was so throughly disadvantaged by such a horribly misogynistic society that girlypop had to scrape together any form of control she could. Annabel wants so badly to protect Lenore but all she knows are her own methods of protecting herself, which involves plausibility deniability and facades and sometimes sheer cruelty, and that’s where the conflict arises. From the start Annabel assumed Lenore and her had the same understanding of this ‘fake enemies’ ploy going on but surprise surprise babygirl, not everyone is overthinking four parallel universes ahead like you do. This boils over into her lover having doubts on what’s real and what’s not, which then culminates into Lenore asking if Annabel is using her affections as empty currency to get what she wants, and Annabel’s first move to tell Lenore to fucken kill her????

“To you alone, I have left myself completely defenseless.”

The drama of it all!! The shattered facade leading to exploding vulnerability of it all!! The dim sun sparking out into a heat death just to prove her sincerity of it all!!! The exposed innermost organs ripping out my heart with my bare hands and begging you, “Do you see it now? Do you see the way it beats for you and only you? Tell me you see it, tell me you see me…” of it all!!

Oh baby the way Annabel still retains this deep fear of Lenore not truly believing in the “only thing that’s real” to her, the way her lover’s ghost still lingers and haunts her and is then ripped up from her innermost psyche like a desecrated grave and given form by Ada’s power. The way, after all this time- and I mean all this time from Lenore’s constructed resurrection, to their relationship blossoming into a wedding, all the fucking way up to that bell tower scene, the fucken way Annabel still never truly let go of her fear that Lenore doesn’t see her, doesn’t see how she alone bashed through all of Annabel’s walls and made a home where her heart laid. I’m sure during their living relationship all the way until the wedding Annabel’s fears were greatly settled, but it’s the fucken way these panels implied that this wretched heartache never completely left Annabel’s guilt-wracked soul.

I just know, okay I just KNOW, that even up until she was putting her wedding dress on Annabel still questioned if she even deserved this happy ending because she still feel phantoms of guilt fer this betrayal. This comic only furthers this implication of unabsolved guilt when it’s made clear as day that Annabel’s biggest fear is Lenore not believing in her love. And before anyone argues how Annabel can currently feel guilt fer betraying Lenore when she hasn’t recovered the memory yet, I’ll argue back that from the very beginning of the comic these two were inexplicably drawn to each other even when they had NO memories. Therefore, even if she doesn’t have the explicit memory, I highly doubt Annabel’s subconscious would ever let go of something as huge as deeply hurting the one person she truly cared about in such a wretched way.

Fuck, dude, I mean Annabel’s greatest fear wasn’t even Lenore dying- which was already a huge thing if y’all remember her tearstreaked, panicked, “What is left? If she’s not here, what’s the point?”- no her greatest is Lenore!!! Not!!! Believing!! Her!!! Like yeah losing Lenore physically definitely would’ve cut so deep even her bones would bear the scars, but losing Lenore in the form of the other woman walking the same ground as her but choosing to stay away?? Call her fucking selfish because some people would rather have their other half still be alive even if they’re not by their side, but Annabel ain’t one of them that’s fer sure. Babygirl has spent a lifetime perfecting the craft of deceiving others fer her own gain, but the ONE TIME she’s genuine her heart is to be called nothing more but empty??? Oh babbyyy that’s gotta fucken hurt.

The thing is, I don’t think Annabel really loves herself all that much. I really don’t. A huge focus on self-preservation doesn’t necessarily mean one really loves themselves, and when we add the aforementioned guilt she carries? Plus, the fact that Annabel being forced to swallow down her anxiety attacks from a young age could easily lead to her having a rather sour view of her 'not normal' self? Yeah no yeah, I truly don’t think Annabel loves herself that much, if at all. So really, this line is adding immense insult to already grievous injury. Not only does Annabel deeply fear Lenore not believing her affections to be true, she also fears the New Yorker misconstruing her as nothing more but a shallow as hell, prissy, little pampered damsel, a role pretty much everyone else regulates her into whether she wants it or not (right from the beginning, before she even set her schemes in full effect, Annabel was already explaining, “Ada wanted a queen, so I gave her one”). Lenore, the only one Annabel had believed to ever really see her fer her, is now discrediting Annabel’s vulnerable affections AND seeing her as that unloving ice queen like everyone else?? Horrible terrible horrible!!! She may have a ribbon threatening to strangle her right now, but it’s clear that ghost!Lenore’s words are what truly cut her down to size. Y’all seeing that fucken pain in Annabel’s eyes? Her worst fear is just so… personal.

Which actually leads me to my next point, which is how just before Annabel’s worst fear is revealed in stark, horrifying detail, we see Prospero’s. Lemme just preface this by saying what Prospero went through is n o t any less terrible and is a super fucken mega valid fear/trauma, but let me cook y’all just hear me out. Prospero’s fear seems to be about medical malpractice and/or being conscious during a painful operation that likely went south (aka ‘oh shiiitttt he fucken DEAD-‘), and that’s fucking tragic as all hell. Yet, okay let me cook here, it’s more… I don’t want to say general, because that does NOT mean his fear is any less significant but it’s like. Way back when, death via medical bullshit was more or less fairly common, especially during wartimes (which is the era I headcanon Prospero to be from); meanwhile, Annabel’s fear is so uniquely hers, it’s borne of a culmination of specific experiences tied together by her relationship with Lenore.

By contrast of a more common fear vs something so deeply personal and specific to this one person- because it’s not just unrequited love, it’s being so vehemently denied and misunderstood by the ONE (1!) person who you wholeheartedly trusted in your entire life who also oops mega died on you- this distinction gives way to an almost more raw, more visceral feeling to Annabel’s fear sequence. Again!!! I am not undermining Prospero’s own trauma, I promise!!! But you have to admit that there’s something, from a narrative standpoint, that hits so much harder with how deeply personal Annabel’s fear is. The contrast is even more great when you look at how Prospero’s involved a buncha bloodied hands not really tied to any faces or even any indication of personhood like accessories, scars, etc etc. It could’ve been a group of anyone holding him down hurting him; on the flipside, Annabel is being restrained by one very specific person we see in full view. The faceless crowd who could’ve been anyone at anytime vs the lone perpetrator whose history you know like a second name. It’s just!!! So personal!!!

In conclusion, on the surface level, one would think a character so deeply ingrained in using deceptions and manipulation would have her greatest fear tie into having her true nature revealed to everyone she’d fooled, but then it turns out it’s the complete fucking opposite. What homegirl fears the most is her truest, innermost self not being believed and accepted by just one (1!) person. The way it’s framed is just so heartstabbingly personal, especially when you parallel it to a previous fear sequence just a few panels preceding it. This is it, your honor, this is Annabel’s deepest driving force broken down to its bare essentials. To hell with whatever reputation she’s carefully crafted! Who cares what anyone else thinks of her if she doesn’t believe her, if she doesn’t SEE her. Really, truly see her. Lenore is the defining point that Annabel has revolves around so wholeheartedly, and there’s no point to anything anymore if Annabel loses her. This crux of her character, OHHH BBAAABBYY it’s just so well done because we, as the audience, have been given clear evidence to build up this narrative of Annabel’s characterization fer so long now and to finally see it come together in a fiery explosion of lesbian angst with this latest chapter??? Gods, the writing of Nevermore will never not drive me absolutely insane in the membrane.

[ottosbigtop]

In other news ive finally started playing baldurs gate 3 and despite being a glorified hater about it when it got mega-hyped i am enjoying myself a lot actually. They weren’t kidding about the level of detail in this game we love to see media living up to the hype.

[sysig]

Haha, this Winterkov stuff is fun- where did all these other feelings come from (Patreon)

[myaoiboy]

The Boss being John's emotional pillar and base to what he thinks relationships are supposed to be like/end up really fucks him up and i dont think people talk enough about that...

and yea she definitely slept with him at some point and all that, theres so many implications that she was more than one thing at the same time (master, mother girlfriend thing) and it just makes sense yknow? I wonder if part of his attraction to Ocelot is motivated by the fact he looks so much like her,,,, ouch

Anon you have no idea how much you fed my brainworms today lmao

Like, we definitely know the Boss and Snake were involved. We hear people talk about it on Mother Base in V, and when asked if she was his lover Snake doesn't deny it but says it was "deeper than that"

But ALSO Kojima literally said this:

so I mean idk maybe we're all crazy and The Boss would never fuck the kid she picked up as a replacement for the one the Philosophers stole, and we're the sick ones. lmao.

I love The Boss bc she really is this all-encompassing icon of femininity and nurturing (naive Maiden/mature Mother/wise Crone roles vs Lover/Mommy Figure/Mentor) while being completely untameable. You've heard of a domestic housewife? The Boss is a feral wildwife.

And then you bring me to the thing that I think is the most hair-pulling, teeth-grindingly tragic thing about Bosselot: the fact that they're just perpetually loving *past* each other. Big Boss wants a solution for his mommy issues, and Ocelot just wants to be seen and cherished, even used, for just a fucking taste of love and appreciation from Big Boss (that he doesn't even get in death, god i will cry about this forever).

The worst part is, Ocelot is by far the Boss's son that has the most inherent capacity to be most like her, but he has neither the environment nor the inclination to foster that in himself.

If he had ever listened to anything BB said, he would know that the fact that he lived with the Boss as an equal, someone who challenged him, was exactly why he loved her. He had the capacity to be exactly what BB wanted, but instead he went the low risk/low reward route of making (or trying to) himself indispensable as a tool, a weapon, an attack dog for BB to command, a possession instead of a partner.

But it's better to be appreciated by the love of your life for what you aren't than potentially lose them for what you are, right?

Also the same people who want to talk about how Bosselot is the better mgs3 ship bc of the mommy figure situation totally ignore the fact that that makes them like...adoptive brothers? Wouldn't be a Kojima game without a strong undercurrent of incest themes.

[mid-nightowl]

…can i ask you to share more of your thoughts on fem!jaytim vibes

hi cory!!!! yes, yes i can :) <3

most of my thoughts come from this lil snippet and my tags.

my thoughts on fem!jaytim can be boiled down to this line: “Her successor fascinates her. She kind of wants to let him dissect her, little freak that he is.” 

like tim is a freak who would absolutely want to dissect and take jaye apart piece by piece just to get to the bottom of whatever the hell is wrong with her (obsessive) and jaye would let him bc she wants to know what the hell is wrong with him (affectionate). 

It’s almost a scientist and their never-ending experiment, but not quite?

like the dissection, its the act, the intimacy, the trust in being vulnerable and completely open on the table for them to see, a show and a sight but not a performance, it's the ‘i’m going to take you apart piece by piece, not to fix you or change you, but just to understand you’, and 'i’m going to get my hands dirty and dig into you, and it can be voluntarily or not, it can be with anesthesia or nothing but im going to know you whether you like it or not,' paired with 'you are going to have to cut me open to get to know me, it has to be cold and violent, it has to be artful and methodological.'

but jaye started off with ‘i want to destroy you, take you to the brink, the edge of despair and fury and hatred and let you go without any catharsis,’ kind of like capturing a wild animal, testing on it, and then releasing it back into the wild with a tag to see what it will do after being changed (will it return back to it’s normal routine or will it come back for more?)

and then tim kept coming back. and that's when jaye is like alright yeah, i'll let you rip me open and give me a name (or maybe give me back my name?) and tim does, and he does it carefully, adoringly, obsessively.

and i think tim’s obsessive focus, paired with the idea of the knife/scalpel = love, is what jaye would respond to best. she was raised in violence, and probably thinks that fighting and pain is caring and love, AND she’s never been a priority in anyone’s life. so for tim to obsess and know her in ways that no one else has before (or have even bothered) is captivating, exciting, and absolutely mind-boggling, and i think jaye would get possessive, like ‘this robin, this little freak is mine.'

i, hmmm. running out of coherent thoughts after this, so um i guess enjoy? <3

[avatarofwar]

i saw you talk about wolf a few times from sekiro and was wondering if you'd want to share more of your thoughts on him or sekiro as a whole, the game really interests me compared to other dark souls games so i wanted to ask

sorry for the late reply but oh boy do I have thoughts abt wolf. trying not to spoil the game, so I'm gonna refrain from talking about the story. might go into just restating known things about the game, but I'd much rather play it safe and not spoil the story

before going to that. the game is very much different from dark souls (setting wise, while taking place in a fictional country it is in a historical setting. I cannot comment on the setting properly bc I don't know much about the time period, however), most notably in the combat (primarily shifting from a dodge-centric playstyle to a parry-centric playstyle (significantly easier than dark souls/elden ring parrying, however), with dodges having significantly shorter i-frames and being very unreliable for dodging attacks). it's very different but something I really enjoy, even if I'm not as good as I am at typical soulsborne combat. it's really fun when you get the hang of it, and while I might not be The Best at it (which is mostly bc of how different it is from soulsborne games, so ofc I'm not as good at is as I am at the other fromsoft games I've played), it's something I can still enjoy

a huge thing about sekiro is the difference in how the story is told. in soulsborne games the story is something you have to figure out; progressing through the main path doesn't give you enough to piece everything together if you don't read any lore. with sekiro, however, the story is significantly more obvious, on account of the playable character having unique ties to the world and its characters, rather than going the soulsborne route of being one of many people (wording hard, but the chosen undead for example is no one special, just one of many undead trying to link the flame). it's a very different method of storytelling, but is still something really good. for as much as I adore having to actively hunt down lore and story in soulsborne games, it's also great experiencing story through natural game progression

wolf is also canonically disabled (loses his left arm at the start of the game) and has a really fucking cool prosthetic that is a whole part of the combat system (even though I personally keep forgetting to use it). so good for him. he deserves a prosthetic that can have deadly weaponry attached to it. like a mini-flamethrower. he deserves a mini-flamethrower, as a treat.

putting the wolf thoughts beneath a read more because this is getting long and I might spoil some stuff (mostly relationship with another character, I'll try to refrain from story spoilers. also spoilers in general, but there might be some), and he has definitely become a blorbo (additionally, content warning for abuse)

first of all. wolf makes me want to throw myself off a cliff and I mean this in the most positive way ever. he is great and I love him but man he needs so much fucking therapy and he doesn't even realise it (therapy probably doesn't exist in that time period, but besides the point). he is very much traumatised and has been heavily shaped by it and doesn't even know it.

prior to the events of the game (I forgot how long ago it was) he was orphaned by war and got taken in by owl, a shinobi and also a piece of fucking garbage. owl raises wolf to be a shinobi under the iron code, with the number one rule being loyalty to his father (owl), with his master (kuro, the divine heir) a close second (and also to give his life for his master if necessary. which is also a whole other thing to get into).

owl is very explicitly abusive. he raises wolf as a tool rather than a person, and that upbringing severely affects wolf as a character - he is an incredibly capable shinobi, but lacks any skills other than that; he does not know how to be a proper person, he is a loyal wolf, but he does not know how to be anything other than that. hell, without spoiling too much about the context, there is a cutscene in which owl actively attempts to guilt trip wolf, going as far as using fake tears (saying anything specific is very spoilery. this isn't even the only horrid thing he's done, but I'm trying to refrain from too many spoilers).

wolf canonically does not value himself without anyone to serve (we see this at the beginning of the game, as events prior to the start of the game not yet known about leads him to believe he has no one to serve, and thus no purpose, so he isolates himself from the world in a well for 3 years). while he does have compassion for others (most notable example being concern over victims of dragonrot), he starts off the game driven primarily by duty. he is loyal to a fault, willing to do anything for kuro, but also valuing his service to kuro more than himself (cannot remember the exact wording, but when kuro expresses concern for how many times wolf has died for him, wolf states that it does not matter as it was in service to him).

there's also the fact that wolf canonically eats uncooked rice and genuinely doesn't know - as a fully grown adult - you are supposed to cook it, which is... genuinely something awful if you truly think about it and what more it implies about his upbringing especially considering it's one of the most basic things you could learn how to make (just... says a lot about owl if you seriously think about it).

he is a loyal wolf, but he doesn't know how to be more than that. he doesn't know how to just... exist for himself, to be his own person separate of his duty and he doesn't even recognise just how fucked up it is, because how could he, when he was shaped into this as a child, when his own father wanted him to be nothing more than a tool to use.

I could say a lot more about his relationships with other characters (that are actually good people) and how it just. makes me lose my mind, but this post is almost 1k words. so, simply put, kuro genuinely caring about him makes me so fucking emotional, especially bc of owl; his father might be horrible and an abuser, he might not know how to be more than he was raised, but at the very least he can serve someone who actively cares about him and his wellbeing.

[inf1nyxw0rlds]

i love complexity. except of course if it's about me . hope that helps

[mujori]

time to gut out some stuff out of my mods folder

[playdaze]

Wow it is hard to find blogs that post poppy playtime stuff that aren't just smiling critters yaoi or people who support bigots

[tomiyeee]

(same anon as the raph-heizou question) I have to say, when I thought of how to fit rottmnt on genshin the one I couldn't figure was Mikey the closest was certainly the bow but I couldn't think of how to make his fight style similar to the one on the show and on that regard making him inspired by Yelan and Yoimiya was genius and I need you to know it was genius. Like I have Yelan as one of my mains I can't believe I didn't thought of that. Genius.

eheh tysm!! yeah, early on i was a little torn between catalyst and bow for him since acrobatics + chains aren't...quite the same as long-ranged shooty-type attacks? but i figure raph could only fit catalyst and i wanted them to all have unique weapon classes so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

but i actually went through the wiki and checked out the animations for each of their respective weapons before i started designing them, just to get a feel of the movements and incorporate that into their designs 🤔 yoi and yelan ended up being exactly what i was looking for for mikey! yoimiya in general is so very mikey-like and yelan's animations are so unique they just stuck in my head lol. it'd be so cool to see him swinging his bow and chains around in combat 😭

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

yearly round up of some of my favorite games that i played for the first time this year 💕 + a link to last year's- mainly for personal reference

[mishkakagehishka]

Personally i think mika would be very charmed by my constantly bleeding fingers

[bat-the-misfit]

you know the Si dom i said i mistyped yesterday? i'm starting to think i also got their judging axis wrong lmao

[leoxxii]

do you think maximus accidently "overheard" a bunch of shit purely bc he pretended to not know sign language for like 10 years. like there has to be things bolt signed to medusa bc he thought nobody else in the room would understand anyways. there has to be SOME things medusa didn't translate bc it was just him venting or cursing right. what secrets does maximus have??