#it's the loss of identity for me

[nightside101]

Do you guys remember in arc 1 when people used to call the wizard by their name? And then by late game no one ever uses their name anymore and they're referred to exclusively as The Wizard, even by people who consider themselves to be friends? Even by people who once used to call them by their actual name? Even though they live in a wizarding world that is, ostensibly, mostly made up of wizards?

and then by Lemuria they're introducing themselves to people as The Wizard too...

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker.

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[nyaskitten]

And if I said most of Garmadon’s designs ranged from okay to awful, what then?

[trashinyourpockets]

Uh

Uhuh.

[saturdaysky]

SOMEbody failed his wisdom save to resist unlimited tadpole power, and that somebody is definitely my tav Mayhew. a WIP:

mindflayers are incredibly fun to draw fwiw, do recommend

[virtualflowerbatathlete]

I am 100% open to all headcanons, I love bisexual!Piper and bisexual! Jason, but gay! Jason and lesbian! Piper scratch an itch for me that can’t quite be explained.

[feroluce]

Thinking tonight about Caelus, and the nature of his loss and his grief after the Everything that went down in Penacony during 2.0.

Because Acheron, Black Swan, and Misha kind of knew of Firefly, they at least met her, but they didn't like really know her, and Caelus never even got the chance to introduce her to the rest of the Astral Express Crew. The only person who would have talked to her much was Sparkle, who is. Probably not really someone Caelus is interested in grieving with skznmsks

Anyway, all this to say, I like thinking about how alone poor Caelus is in his grief, because he was the only one who knew Firefly. He's the only one really mourning her. There's no one to talk about her with. There's no stories to trade or memories to reminisce with anyone over. It's not as though he knew her for long, but still. No one else knew her at all.

And I love the thought of all of this coming bubbling up, hot and acidic and bitter, during a conversation with Sampo, who Caelus just so happens to run into in the Golden Hour. Poor Sampo is kinda blindsided, he knew shit was going down in Penacony, but yeesh. And he just. Isn't quite sure what to say about it all, because he's never really encountered this before. His feelings about the Masked Fools are...a mixed bag, but he's been a part of them for a very long time, and when you're with a close organization like that, it's hard to feel alone, in grief or otherwise.

So Sampo sits there on their little bench that the two of them have occupied, and he thinks of his old friend April, how she'd died in his arms cackling and spitting her own blood after a heist gone wrong, and how after he'd dragged himself back to the World's End Tavern they'd all held a Fool's Funeral- which is basically just a big party where everyone gets really really drunk and reminisces and toasts the dead and celebrates their life.

He still thinks about her a lot, and he remembers how the time he'd most keenly felt her absence was on Jarilo-VI, the one place where he couldn't talk about her because he couldn't say anything to give himself away as an alien. The Fools still tell stories about her every time he goes back to the Tavern. His first toast of the night is always in her name. Even now, all these years after she'd died, Sampo is still learning new things about her. He's never had to grieve her alone.

Caelus doesn't have any of that.

He might never have that. As they speak, Caelus has no proof that Firefly was even her real name, or if she dreamt with her true appearance. He might not ever find out who she even was.

And just imagining that kind of loneliness hollows out a strange little pit, right behind his sternum, deep between his ribs.

So Sampo claps Caelus' shoulder and offers him a deal. Come find him outside of the dream. He knows a guy who can get them a lot of beer for really cheap-

("Is that guy you and your five finger discounts?" "Whatever do you mean, dear friend, I don't even know the meaning of the phrase, hehee.")

-and they can hole up in a bar or a hotel room or something, and get completely shitcanned. Tell him all about Firefly, tell him everything, and he'll tell Caelus about April and everyone else he's ever lost. Sampo will carry Caelus' memories of Firefly with him, and at least this way, Caelus will be a little less alone in remembering her. And the next time they cross paths, Sampo will be the one to bring her up, and to tell her stories, and Caelus can get to be the one listening. He won't have to be the only person to talk about her anymore.

Caelus rolls his eyes when Sampo avoids another remark about sticky fingers, but...ok, yeah. That sounds good. Nice, even. Thank you. Caelus bumps his shoulder against Sampo's. Sampo bumps back.

(They find each other again the next day, and true to their word, get themselves completely and utterly shitcanned. Caelus talks more than Sampo has ever heard him; every minute detail, every word choice, Firefly's every odd little mannerism and habit. Because Caelus wants to make sure this will outlive him, that even if the Stellaron dwelling within him finally burns him to a crisp and he really does up and kick the bucket, or even, godforbid, if he forgets, he wants to make sure someone remembers her. She deserved that.)

((And it takes quite a while, after that. Caelus doesn't see Sampo again until after everything has settled down. On his last day in Penacony, he finds the guy slinking out of a seedy back alley and all but runs right into him. Sampo happily leads him to some dive bar in an even seedier back alley that Caelus has never even heard of, and Sampo raises his glass. "To Firefly! Who sounds like she probably would have hated me at first, but I would have liked to have met her anyway."

And Caelus stares at him, almost looking startled, long enough that Sampo worries that he's read him wrong and brought this up too soon. He's halfway into planning how to talk himself out of this situation when Caelus finally throws back his head back and laughs, tells him that yeah, Firefly would have politely called him out on every lie he told, and all their conversations would take twice as long with the way Sampo is so full of shit.

And he can see it, the same way he watches and sees through everyone, that Caelus' eyes have a tightness to them, his knuckles are nearly white around the handle of his mug. But he smiles. He hits his glass against Sampo's far too hard and throws it back and gets foam everywhere like he does every time they drink because the guy's about as elegant as a raging bull, but those things don't lessen the genuineness of his smile.

The grief is there, but so is the elation, and those emotions aren't a sliding scale between one or the other. It is all of both and both at once, and that's what contents Sampo enough to throw his own mug back when Caelus makes a toast of his own, "to April!!".))

[artheresy]

The legacy of a craftsman

The amount of space that Blade and Yingxing takes up in my brain is feeling increasingly concerning. I can't stop thinking about them...

Like now that it's finally not just a leak, has anyone else read Baiheng's Travelogues about the Xianzhou Zhuming? Featuring Baby Yingxing??

Literally the second one devastates me emotionally I can't even explain it. Yingxing being so discouraged by the masters on the Zhuming who are long life species degrading him to the point he, a child, talks about how he'll probably never live to see his parents be avenged after what the Borisin did???

THAT HURTS

And God I can't even,

GOD if I could properly put into words the fact that Yingxing is a craftsman being so important to his character and identity and how Hoyoverse making a point to specify the injuries that occurred to his hands in whatever gray transition period happened between Yingxing and Blade that made him unable to craft weapons again is such a tragic visual to completely severe the two identities, that is ALL you would hear from me ever.

Because see the thing about Yingxing being a craftsman is that all stems from a goal in his past. As a child his home planet was taken over and turned into a weapons nursery, his parents were slaughtered, it became his goal as a child to create technology and weapons for the Cloud Knights to fight terrifying monsters like the Borisin. And that goal ended up defining the rest of his life, going on to become the Legendary Furnace Master on the Xianzhoh Luofu. That ended up becoming part of his legacy with the HCQ. It's clear how heavily important that part of his identity is defining not just his time in the HCQ but his time on the Zhuming, and everything that occurred to him as a child to lead him to that exact goal. His whole past.

And for Hoyoverse to specify how Blade's hands have been hurt to the point of no longer being dexterous, to the point of no longer being able to forge a weapon ever again, as those injuries cannot be healed by whatever Abundance shit he has going on since they likely happened before he became immortal(?). It just... it is devastating. It's something used as a way to severely separate the two of them so people realize they are two different identities on top of Blade already making it clear he sees Yingxing as dead. The way that they went about his hands... it's not merely that he relinquished that identity, which would be him no longer making weapons out of choice. It is that he can't connect to that identity anymore, the change he went through was far too severe. Thus he cannot make weapons anymore, he has been stripped of any ability to.

I'll make like a better post explaining this later, but I believe the use of Yingxing status as a craftsman and Blade's inability after he was revived TO craft anything is fundamentally used as a tie to the separate of identity between them and it's so well used and so tragically used.

Because again, it is not that he lost Yingxing's passion for it or decided on a different path. It is a wall that separates him from being able to do what Yingxing did in the past just as he is unable to connect to the identity his body held before death.

[maegalkarven]

"Durge came back different", "Durge didn't really come back", "the person who Durge originally was is dead" are all good takes, but what if.

If Durge came back exactly as they were? The brain damage, additional trauma and memory loss are the big altering factors, but underneath that it's still them.

They didn't change drastically, their former self is not dead.

How about one single fragile mortal soul still keeping a hold on itself, how about Durge who was never allowed anything for themselves still retaining them.

How about Durge who has lost everything: power, memories, purpose, sense of self, still being themselves, despite it all.

How about not even Orin's daggers, tadpole and Bhaal combined being able to rob them of their core? How about all of that just revealed who Durge has always been underneath all those expectations Father dearest put on them?

How about: "After all this time, it's still you."

[whiskeysorrows]

you ever think about how omnipresent the themes of colonialism are in hozier's discography. like right from the onset we have songs like foreigner's god and run, then later swan upon leda, butchered tongue, empire now and eat your young talking about ireland and the brutality of the consequences of british rule and how it defines people even generations later. you ever think about that???

[justafriend-ql]

This is the problem I will face for the rest of my life. NEVER LET ME GO Episode 10

[theshadowrealmitself]

Something something something angst about the mantle of hero identities getting passed around to new people, the duty of other heroes to accept this because it’s important that civilians keep feeling safe, villains being the only ones to truly get to mourn the original heroes and choosing to step out of their villain identities because they liked fighting the person not the hero, etc etc etc

[girl4music]

It really is interesting to me that the most multi-dimensional characters in ‘BtVS’ to me are the ones that are most known for their performative behaviour as opposed always authentic: Willow. Spike. Buffy.

Or rather - it’s the characters that have an arc where the theme of identity is incredibly significant for them to the point where their usual attire and choice of dress every now and again away from their usual attire reveals something juicy about their characterization and therefore gives greater character representation.

I am not usually a person particularly interested in image or appearance on the outside unless it informs who the person is/isn’t on the inside and provides depth of character in such a way that feels divine.

The times when the external affects the internal. Even if not intentionally. Subconsciously and indirectly.

And I haven’t seen a show do this better than ‘BtVS’. I haven’t seen another TV show that knows how to fuse the use and purpose of the narrative, the theme and the characterization as well as this show can. And as pointed out below by @spuffybot’s meta, that may be because it wasn’t intentional at all. It was either fate’s intervention or just a happy accident. And sometimes some of the best TV art/entertainment comes from the fact that nobody ever actually intended anything… rather everybody just interprets differently and adds on to what was already there. Making it insightful.

This is why shows like ‘BtVS’ are timeless shows.

Because technically… the show is still being created. I’ve said this before in a Xena post but no one goes to see the Mona Lisa to learn what da Vinci intended.

They might think that’s what they’re doing but they’re not. What they’re actually doing is still painting it.

We can give the creators of any TV art/entertainment that provided the scope and space for the audience to be able to do this all the credit if we want. But I think we should start considering and acknowledging that we have a lot more to do with why and how a TV show thematically resonates with us than them at some point. Because WE are actually the reason why all this stuff matters so much to us. We put it there ourselves. It has nothing to do with the original creators really…

All they did was allowed their creation to breathe so that it could have a life of its own. But we’re the ones actually keeping it alive by throwing our two cents in. I absolutely understand appreciating and praising the original creators for all of this stuff we come up with in regards to our favourite art/entertainment but the fact of the matter is they never intended any of it. We should be appreciating and praising and crediting ourselves on our creative abilities of using the high skills and qualities of attention to detail and passion.

Whether it’s writing meta, making videos, graphics designing or any kind of artistic or creative contribution we assign to our favourite TV shows/movies or books or video games or comic illustrations.

It’s really all us. Especially with a TV show like ‘BtVS’.

And we’re teaching each other so much every time. I don’t know about you guys but I think it’s fucking incredible the power a fandom can have in this way.

[creatively-cosmic]

missing numbers was secretly a ploy to get really really into doing worldbuilding based on this extremely specific in-universe pseudo-meta horror based in the pokemon franchise. a lot of stuff we're cooking past gens 1+2 is original content based in the spirit of the classic trainerpastas based on those games... something something its all about the natural next step and the world of Pokemon is so fundamentally fucked. idkkkk smiles

[kira-the-whump-enthusiast]

The silence eats him alive.

@figuwhump

@whump-in-the-closet (Isaac fan club)

[sol-insidious]

“Din Djarin’s identity as a Mandalorian will always be central to his character, and his devotion to his orthodox religion, warrior’s creed, and its chivalrous code of honor is a truly noble one.”

and

“Din Djarin’s devotion to his creed has fundamentally isolated him from love, his role as The Tribe’s breadwinner was as unsustainable as it gave him purpose, and the fierceness of his faith stems from unprocessed trauma and the guilt he feels as an orphan and a foundling. His views on what it means to be a Mandalorian were narrow until he met others who didn’t conform to his own creed, and in this, his status as an voluntary oathbreaker is equally as integral to his character.”

…are both takes that co-exist in my mind.