#so i can't be ~spoiled~

[bogunicorn]

"Doesn't tag Absolution spoilers" and "boneheaded takes on Absolution" are part of my unfollow/block criteria now oops

[kathaynesart]

REPLICA PLAYLIST

MUSIC UNDER CUT

I have been receiving requests for any songs that inspired Replica, so here, have my personal playlist. Sorry it’s not Spotify/Soundcloud but they don’t have some of these songs available so uh… guess you’re stuck with YouTube vids. For fun I'll include my personal titles for them (which might give a few hints of what to expect in the future/end).

Replica Main Theme - “Die for You” by Grabbitz Like Father Like Son Like Brother (Omega and Shelldon) - "As Above So Below" by Alistair Lindsay Mikey's Theme / The 1st Vision - "Suzume no Tojimari" by Nanoka Hara Military (Mad) Dogs / Central Park Colony - "Imperium" by Madeon Shanghai - "Icarus" by Madeon Boom Goes the Donnie-mite (Mikey/Donnie vs the Sweeper) - "The Red Zone" by Mitsuoto Suzuki The Day the Sky Bled Red - "7 Seconds Till the End" by Nobuo Uematsu Going Out Like a Boss (Raph and Leo) - "Agape" by Nicholas Britell Remembering the Right Way (Mikey and Leo) - "The Souls of Many" - by Alistair Lindsay Mystic Hands / The 2nd Vision - "Am I Dreaming" by Metro Boomin x A$AP Book 2 Trailer - "Sea Dragon" by Covet 7 Years Later - "Iron" by Woodkid Leo's Theme / Attack on the Labor Camp - "Ego Death" by Polyphia Omega's Theme - "Touch" by Daft Punk Flat Lines (Omega Alone) - "Die Toteninsel Emptiness" by 1000 Eyes Spear - "Monsters" by Tommee Profitt Final Protocol - "The Kraken" by Katie Dey Rise / Epilogue - "Close in the Distance" by Masayoshi Soken & Tom Mills

I will admit, it's a little embarrassing since you can easily see the patterns of what I've been listening to for the past year or two. I swear I listen to more than just videogame OSTs, these songs just jive well with the story and I often find lyrics distracting when brainstorming scenes. Regardless, the music I listen to is such an important part of my creative process and some of these songs really defined the scenes I now have locked in my head. So I figured it was only fair to give them the credit they're due.

I will continue to add to this playlist, and will note in comic updates when one of these songs is applicable!

[insertsomthinawesome]

Welcome to the Intergalatic Super Show!!

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[lastknownstatus-alive]

unsurprisingly, he is my favourite bad kid

[flos-obsessivus]

what if someone other than us broke the curse? would lillian fall out of love with us?

That's impossible as the curse only breaks if the cursed persons true love kisses them. It doesn't matter if some people consider Lilian as their true love, what only matters is that YOU are his true love. It will always be YOU, nobody in the kingdom or the neighboring kingdom could ever replace you.

[jellogram]

reblog to kill it faster

[pigeon-noises]

Finished In Stars and Time last weekend and I have a lot of feelings to work through

[warlock-enthusiast]

[revenantghost]

HEY BABE WAKE UP, THE ENTIRE FUCKING STUDIO ORANGE TRISTAMP OTAKON PANEL JUST DROPPED

[archiveofliterature]

i see a lot of criticism about the friendships between the babel characters and how we were told a lot of things about their positive dynamic, yet shown barely any of it (but are instead mostly presented with the negative aspects). i don’t know if other people clocked this but i feel like it was intentional

rf kuang was commenting on friendships made through trauma-bonding: they were doomed from the start

tldr; the characterisation is (one of) the subtly(ies) people were looking for in the colonial theme. they criticise the latter but i love the fact colonialism is more of an upfront theme because lord knows i am tired of it being subtle so people can ignore it

robin says from the very beginning after they formed their little friend group:

“why had they been so quick, so carelessly eager to trust one another? why had they refused to see the myriad of ways they could hurt each other? why had they not paused to interrogate their differences in birth, in raising, that meant they were not and could never be on the same side?”

the next small paragraph goes into a raft metaphor about how they saw themselves in each other and that’s why they stuck together. they shared one thing they could not ignore – their otherness. their friendship was purely built on the fact they were discriminated against and that they had to spent the next 4 years with each other. their first pleasant conversation is them discussing how they were treated at oxford. of course, the characters didn’t see this because they had never really befriended people their age before. this feeling of belonging felt like love to them (considering their upbringings, ramy’s i will discuss in a bit)

it makes perfect sense why robin would repeatedly imply that they loved and cared about each other. in his eyes, they did. what was it they had if not love? robin, who has ignored so many problems in the past before babel as he knew it would cause him issues, wouldn’t address their friendship dynamic or how strong the arguments and animosity were. he, an abused child, would rather have this than nothing at all

in actuality (demonstrated, i think, through the photograph they took at the end of chapter 9), they were together because of academia’s and discrimination’s forced proximity. robin feels specific emotions about them that feel strong to him because he’s never experienced it before, but that doesn’t mean they are strong enough to keep them together, which is why when they see the photo, they feel weird about it because why isn’t it portraying their dynamic ‘correctly’?

it’s true that perhaps to get robin’s perspective across, it would’ve been good to see the positive aspects more but i think that would’ve made it harder for us to see how weak their friendship was. people wanted more positive to show that they loved each other, which isn’t the point rf kuang is trying to make

rf kuang chooses to show the negative aspects more because they show where their friendship will end up. when letty did what she did, i didn’t see it as a plot twist, i saw it as an inevitability. this was going to happen. honestly, i feel this with most of the ‘plot twists’ of babel except the end of book iii (i really didn’t see that coming). it was easy for letty to do what she does in book iv because their friendship had such unstable foundations. when they no longer benefitted her, she turned her back on them

the only dynamic i feel was actually strong was robin and ramy. i’m not just saying this because i think they’re queer lol. they were close not just because they were both men of colour and had similar upbringings – they actually liked each other. they admired each other and adored each other’s personalities, they bounced off each other and knew what the other meant when they spoke. when they argued, it was over something that actually considered each other’s beliefs and goals and desires, not over their differences.

(unlike letty and ramy, letty and victoire and maybe even robin and victoire, though i think they lean more to ramy/robin than they do to letty/anyone lol. ramy and victoire have a dynamic that i personally feel like robin didn’t really see because ramy understood victoire in a way robin couldn’t. you kind of see it when robin is the one who letty complains about ramy/victoire to, but that’s it i think?)

speaking of ramy, linking it back to their perspectives of love, it makes a lot of sense why he caused the most disruption in the friend group. he’s the only one with an actual family that he stays in touch with. he knows what love feels like. so of course he’s the one that is strongly anti-empire, compared to robin and victoire who have been emotionally manipulated in their childhood by said empire, the one who argues with letty the most. he still feels what robin and victoire feel, of course, but to a lesser extent

honestly i don’t know how to end this analysis, i just think rf kuang is a genius lmao but i may add more onto this as i continue to reread the book we shall see

[vynnyal]

Turns out Sunlit Trail isn't quite done just yet, so after all that they just send you to a dead end 😂

[oflights]

i know in retellings draco always befriends hermione because he's a nerd or whatever but this morning i was thinking of a retelling where draco befriends ron because he literally just bribes him. like he sees that harry won't bother with him and lbr no one wanted to be friends with first year hermione but ron seems like he'd be easily bought and draco's dad told him those are the easiest people to get on your side. and also wouldn't it be fun to steal away harry potter's anointed best friend?

so he's like "i'm willing to forget you laughed at my name on the train" and literally just buys ron things until he stops being indignant. he buys him a new wardrobe. endless sweets and toys. he writes to his mother like "hello i'm working on something here can u help" and narcissa is immediately on board.

and ron totally is easily bought. he really is. he pretends to still hate draco but also his mother taught him some manners so it's only polite to accept the little git's gifts. his siblings are sick with jealousy, it's great.

and slowly ron's like "maybe he's not so bad" and progresses to "yes he's weird but i've gotten him to stop with the slurs so" to actual friendship that harry and hermione eventually come around to, too.

[bmoreisapunkrocktown]

"Children should be dragged kicking and screaming to school and the doctor's office and grandma's house and the park" is not and never will be a pro-child opinion.

If your kid doesn't want to go to school so much that they throw a temper tantrum and scream until they go hoarse, and your response is "shut up because you have to go" the problem is still you ignoring your kids needs and you're a shitty parent.

[owlyflufff]

NO CAUSE WHY DOES TRISTAMP VASH ACT SO FOND TOWARDS TRISTAMP WOLFWOOD ;-;

Personally so endeared and haunted by the way tristamp vash acts towards wolfwood because, yes they've gotten into disagreements, misunderstandings and moral dilemmas in the short span that trigun stampede's screen time allowed but this version of vashwood feels, so much kinder. There's an unspoken familiarity to their dynamic despite it being different.

The way vash just slowly, and painfully easily, starts becoming more open with tristamp wolfwood throughout the episodes. The last few episodes especially he just looks and acts at wolfwood like he's seen this coming, like them arguing and wolfwood countering his pacifism feels so familiar that when vash gets a glimpse of wolfwood's kindness he just starts smiling. Cause yeah, it feels familiar.

But even he doesn't know why.

This line.

This line, it's meaningful in the context of trigun stampede alone but imagine the weight of what vash could really mean if he remembered wolfwood in both 98 and trimax. I cant word the weight of it due to important events and naturally I don't want to spoil anyone on my blog but if one ever considers putting this with the context of 98 and trimax, to know that vashwood have been there by each other side for that long, to know wolfwood had been there to support vash for that long.

it just puts more weight on this line because vash really is grateful for wolfwood. Whether it's the 98 anime, trimax manga or even the short journey he had with wolfwood in trigun stampede,

Vash will always be grateful for everything.

[scarapanna]

[WIP] Some more updates!!!

I've been quiet recently, but got a bunch of stuff in the works for y'all!!

I'm still working on those paper puppets for a little project regarding intertwined opposites (Possibly one of the most ambitious things I've ever worked on so far) and found a proper way to introduce that new au I'm working on!!

Here are two more paper puppets for the big pmv

And a few sneak peaks for the new au!!

(Doodles+notes alongside a silly little meme with a sprite edit of pewpaw)

I'm working on an info post for it, progress has been slow however since I wanna prioritize the pmv again (Started it on june, stagnated a long period, and went back to work on it. I'm dead set on finishing it this summer AND stubborn/silly).

[Personal reminder: Beetle stop starting wips when you're already busy/silly]