#stuck in hell together

[sdd-mod]

id like to thank the one singular person that still vaguely gives a shit about the => arc. idk who you are but youre probably out there somewhere so thanks for that

and as for everyone else sorry yall im a stubborn motherfucker were seeing this shit through to the end and then im never doing anything like this again because jesus christ. the effort

[itseghost]

a few meager cr3 sketches :] ft feywild fearne, orym's sending stone blues, and the revival scene from blood and dust that i sketched ages ago and decided i was never going to finish lmao

[anakirui]

hot take ??

the only reason people say that "mafuyu and tsukasa have nothing in common" when presented with mafukasa parallels is because they equate mafuyu and tsukasa being similar to "tsukasa has depression" because the fandom equates mafuyu's personality to being depressed and nothing else.

it doesn't help that people (primarily younger people in the fandom) who DO believe in mafukasa parallels end up making the mistake of portraying tsukasa as depressed because as of right now he is not (although it's possible he was in past because of his Very Unclear Middle School Backstory but that's irrelevant)

anyways, mafuyu and tsukasa are narrative foils because their core personalities are built off of the concept of wanting to make the people around them— especially their families— happy.

they both developed personalities at a young age based on someone they looked up to. for tsukasa, it was seiichi amami's performance that inspired him to be a star— a hero that could cheer anyone up. for mafuyu, it was her mother taking care of her that inspired her to be a nurse— and you can see the similarities from there.

for mafuyu, her identity would first come into conflict when her mother expressed her want for mafuyu to be a doctor— suddenly, "everyone's" happiness didn't match what she wanted to do, leaving her in a state of disorder and eventual depression.

for tsukasa, his identity was something he nearly forgot in its entirety at the start of the main story— becoming arrogant and fully absorbed in a hero persona, forgetting the kind person he truly is. furthermore, his current character arc seems to be foreshadowing that what "being a star" to him is going to be called into question— maybe it is something more than just being the main character that saves everyone.

their insecurities are incredibly similar.

in mafuyu's first mixed, mafuyu feels insecure towards ichika because unlike ichika, she feels as if her lyrics have no genuine meaning to be expressed to other people— despite them being her very real feelings. this is brought up again in her second mixed as well.

in tsukasa's third focus event, something similar happens. when watching seiichi's performance, he thinks that his acting is "real" and feels inferior towards him, which is ironic because tsukasa has been method acting this whole time. when tsukasa is acting out rio or bartlett or really anyone at this point in the story, it's not just those characters— it's a reflection of his traumas.

just like mafuyu, tsukasa undermines his passions he's poured his feelings into because someone else's work is more genuine in his eyes.

now, then, foils have many similarities and parallels (and i could honestly list a lot more), but how i define them is that they usually have some kind of major branching difference that MAKES them foils.

for mafuyu and tsukasa it's pretty straightforward.

mafuyu's people pleasing behavior comes from external expectations and pressures— her mother's demands.

tsukasa's people pleasing behavior comes internally, from himself— if he can't meet his own standards, if he can't be the perfect big brother or the perfect star, then he is nothing.

and even then, there's some overlap.

tsukasa's behavior was indirectly encouraged by his mother praising him for being a "good big brother" over the phone instead of asking him if he was okay while home alone.

mafuyu's terrified to be herself around other people because she doesn't want to worry or bother them— she doesn't want to be a burden— and projects her mother's expectations onto them, not realizing that they would prefer the real mafuyu if they knew the truth.

and the concept of mafukasa being foils is most perfectly and blatantly portrayed in these two cards.

mafuyu, the marionette, sitting limp on the floor— puppeteered by her mother's demands and donning a mask to hide her true self.

tsukasa, the jester, standing above everything else— puppeteering silenced plushies— his feelings. he's not being completely honest with himself, and he doesn't even realize it.

mafuyu has cut her strings and ripped her mask in half. she has acknowledged her true feelings and expressed them to her mother, even if she had to run away in the end.

tsukasa has not yet cut his.

[blueskittlesart]

*sigh* thoughts on Nintendo's botw/totk timeline shenanigans and tomfoolery?

tbh. my maybe-unpopular opinion is that the timeline is only important when a game's place on the timeline seriously informs the way their narrative progresses. the problem is that before botw we almost NEVER got games where it didn't matter. it matters for skyward sword because it's the beginning, and it matters for tp/ww/alttp (and their respective sequels) because the choices the hero of time makes explicitly inform the narrative of those games in one way or another. it matters which timeline we're in for those games because these cycles we're seeing are close enough to oot's cycle that they're still feeling the effects of his choices. botw, however, takes place at minimum 10 thousand years after oot, so its place on the timeline actually functionally means nothing. botw is completely divorced from the hero of time & his story, so what he does is a nonissue in the context of botw link and zelda's story. thus, which timeline botw happens in is a nonissue. honestly I kind of liked the idea that it happened in all of them. i think there's a cool idea of inevitability that can be played with there. but the point is that the timeline exists to enhance and fill in the lore of games that need it, and botw/totk don't really need it because the devs finally realized they could make a game without the hero of time in it.

[trashogram]

Sooooo tired of the idea that a character "following their heart for once 🥺" makes them a good person.

Anakin Skywalker's whole story is literally about that.

He chose love over his responsibility to the Jedi and the people in the universe and ended up killing the very woman he chose over everything and everyone else.

Rose Quartz's story is exactly the same. She followed her heart and escaped her abusive family but was too naïve to deal with and truly understand the consequences of her actions and it led to centuries of war, thousands of deaths, and her son blaming himself for things he wasn't even alive for.

Sometimes responsibility and duty DO come before love. Sometimes you DO have to make sacrifices for the greater good even if it destroys you. Because that is what a good person actually does. A good person puts others their own fucking daughter over themselves and wants to do right by them.

Yes, and at the very least the creators for both of those characters understood that the “following your heart” route for their respective characters would lead to tragedy. That was actually the whole point for Anakin and Rose.

Vivziepop appears to really believe Stolas is in the right for doing terrible things for the sake of his own selfish desires, and yet to make it justifiable to her audience she’s destroyed the story, the characters, and completely abandoned the worldbuilding in Helluva Boss, specifically the class system and commentary, so that Stolas comes out looking sympathetic. I can’t stand it and I can’t stand the thousands of misguided yet hostile fans that accept that BS.

[starry-bi-sky]

honestly your dpxdc clone au gives me life, its adorable as all hell and im a sucker for found family but with that being said, its so freaking hysterical to me that Danny is going full feral liminal menace at Wes any time hes near and Wes himself is still 100% into it the freak (affectionate) and thats not even pointing out the paralles it could possible create since danny and dames gives massive parallels to dick and damian and dick does have a thing for redheads.

yeesSSSSS! I was planning on hoarding this to myself but i can't not reply. and i'll be able to find this again with the clone^2 tag so win WIN. i'm so glad you are as delighted by this as me. It's so hilarious to me that Danny just becomes a complete freak whenever he spots Wes, and I'm the one who wrote it into existence. Like- like i don't know how to explain my vision in words but like, its like Danny sees Wes and immediately goes 'what can I do to make his day worse'. And then he goes and does it.

(honorary read more because i talk a lot)

He's relatively normal around his friends too, which makes him going full-fledged unhinged around Wes even funnier to me. Like, Danny will spout weird shit sometimes to Sam and Tucker, but usually its prefaced with him talking about patrol or there would be context before he said anything. With Wes? Though?? he will just. say anything, completely unprompted. Slings an arm around his shoulder like they've been buddies since primary school and then spits out a weird new fun fact he learned about the bodily anatomy while researching his latest cold case. All vaguely-threatening but utterly insane things to say as way to start a conversation.

And sometimes its not even that, he'll walk up to Wes and ask him if he saw the latest daytime fight between Phantom and Skulker. And then he'll say "yeah i missed it myself but I saw clips of it being posted online" and then watch Wes mentally explode him with his mind. or he'll disparage Phantom for having such a young partner with him, "Can you believe he'd let a kid fight ghosts with him? I'd never let my brother ghosthunt with me if I was Phantom."

All of this with such a deceptive look on his face but the most delighted, shit-eating gleam in his eyes. Wes is chewing glass and he wants to yell that he does let his brother fight ghosts with him. Also you told him yourself that nothing would've stopped your demonic (Wes' words) little brother from joining you.

Damian gets in on the fuckery occasionally, but since he's not around often with Wes about, it doesn't happen nearly as often as it does between Wes and Danny. Sam and Tucker know he's screwing with him too, and both of them are a little wary about him being careless with his secret id. But he's been doing this since he was 14-ish and it hasn't backfired yet. So. They're not actively stopping him.

Danny walks back to his lunch table after terrorizing Wes and Tucker just asks him what he said, because Wes was about as red as a tomato when he walked away. Danny offhandedly sighs and innocently says he tried to have a conversation about Phantom with him. Wes didn't seem to like it all that much. Weird.

And yes, yes. Wes is totally into it and is slightly enraged about this fact, because not even he knows why he's into it. The freak (affectionate). Danny gives him this troublemaker smirk, and i did say smirk, and Wes doesn't know whether or not if he wants to smack him or kiss him. Or both. Like, yeah, pine, white boy, pine.

(And this is a dramatized image but I'm also highly entertained by the idea that Wes keeps getting routine dirty looks from various peers because they, too, have a crush on Fenton. Except Fenton doesn't talk to anyone else unless its his friends and sometimes Valerie, and Weston, the guy who keeps accusing him of being the local vigilante, is somehow routinely having conversations with him?? And BLOWING IT?? Like everyone else thinks he's fumbling so bad, and yet fenton keeps tALKING to him.)

And yes!! i'm always so pleased whenever someone brings up the parallels D+D have to Dick and Damian, because that was lowkey my intention when I was making the solo clone damian au. Although it was supposed to be more implied since I don't really know much about Damian and Dick other than they're very close and Dick was Damian's Batman for a year. And then of course the very smaller parallel (??) 'what if' between Bruce and Damian and D+D in clone^2 considering who they are both clones of.

And man this just makes me want to talk about when batfam meet D+D because I just want them to see D+D be so brotherly towards each other. Like I want them to see Bby Dames wearing his goofy fun fact shirts and stealing Danny's hoodies/flannels/etc and blatantly lying about it when Danny asks. Only for Danny to then throw him over his shoulder like Tadashi from BH3 and jump around.

And also. I do not know what Damian Wayne's (DW as I'll call him) stance on being called "Dami" is - the general consensus I've seen is that its usually used as a playful nickname in order to get a rise out of him, and he doesn't really like it.

But baby Dames being called that freely, and often, and its sometimes used to get a rise out of him but thats typically what nicknames do. Its used as easily as his full name is with the same amount of affection. And its like his main go-to nickname. "Dami" and "Dames" with the occasional "Bud/Buddy", "Squirt", "Little man", etc. Not once is he ever called 'demon-spawn'

(which i know is a fanon nickname but its a relatively popular nickname)

but yeah, uhhh. i think thats all of my thoughts on the matter. for now lmAO

[seance]

GOOD OMENS (2019-) / ALL THINGS END (Hozier, 2023)

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

everybody stay with me im shifting back into speculation & analyzing mode, this time about everybody's favorite pair of besties. ill put this under the cut for everyone's sakes

and please, take all of this with a Hefty grain of salt.

so ive been... thinking about a thing. a maybe-possibility. which if this has some merit, the part of me that loves characters having a good time and feeling good feels is screaming in fear. but the louder part of me that loves angst and hurting characters is rubbing its little fly hands together.

short version: i think Barnaby is going to emotionally distance from Wally, if not outright grow to resent him. maybe temporarily, maybe not.

full version: *cracks knuckles* strap in folks. so.

first of all, an entire chunk of Barnaby's bio is dedicated to his character relation to Wally. everyone else only has one-off lines dedicated to their relationships to other neighbors - even Frank & Julie just have single sentences about each other (note that they're described as "partnered with" and "depicted with" respectively. more on that soon). even Wally's bio has his Barnaby mention tacked onto the end of his first paragraph instead of being its own dedicated section

and then there's their character designs - their bios explicitly point out that they share characteristics; color schemes, hearts on their soles, similar outfits.

they were made to be best friends. literally. this quote is what made me start turning this theory over in my mind (sourced from @ /theneighborhoodwatch's collected & absolutely fascinating livestream trivia)

it appears that Barnaby literally did not have a say in whether or not he and Wally are friends. their bios even say "illustrated pages note that they were best friends multiple times." they have to be best friends.

which brings us back to Frank & Julie. they briefly reference each other in their bios, but they aren't described as best friends. it's incredibly likely that they were meant to be a romantic couple - i briefly covered that theory in this post (dont read the first one i was going insane) but they managed to avoid that. Frank and Julie defied the script and chose to be best friends instead.

and then in the trivia document a few more character relationships are briefly touched on, like how Howdy considers Barnaby a close friend, and Sally considers either Barnaby or Poppy as her closest friend, etc.

everyone else seems to be choosing who they're close with. they're forming their own opinions and dynamics and relationships. & its interesting that Barnaby is stated for both of these - as if implying that he may return the friendship feelings, or at the very least he's developed enough of a relationship with them to earn their affection

Barnaby and Wally... i doubt they ever got that. they were best friends from the start, no development, no choice. it's written into them.

and then there's how their relationship has been portrayed so far. i believe i saw an ask where Clown stated that Barnaby is very polite to Wally, which struck me as odd. have you ever had a polite relationship to your best friend? have you ever seen best friends be polite? i'd be surprised!

best friends mess with each other! they tease and rib and roast! what is a best friend for if not mutual tomfuckery?! jesting around? playfully pushing boundaries? a Polite best friendship... that's a straight up oxymoron. no such thing. that sounds boring and exhausting.

not only that, but the fact that Barnaby is often used for Wally's painting segments, and is the go-to guy for teaching Wally something new, is kind of concerning. it gives me the vibe that a big part of Barnaby's literal reason for existing is to be Wally's friend & guide.

which would make the fact of him being described as polite to Wally make sense. of course he's not going to push their relationship or try to deepen it - he's forming his own dynamics with the other neighbors. with Wally... it's already established. that is how they are with each other. that is what they are to each other.

and it's not like Wally can be the one to introduce nuances. i don't mean that as a slight or anything - he's just the way he's been described and the things stated about him that make me think that he wouldn't really... know how to? it just wouldn't occur to him. he probably thinks his and Barnaby's relationship is what a best friendship is and is how it should be.

but they have to hang out. they have to refer to each other as best friends. and while i believe that Wally does wholeheartedly think that they're best friends, close as can be... i doubt Barnaby feels the same. like - yes, he probably does care about Wally. everybody likes Wally.

but it's gotta be frustrating for Barnaby, especially as time goes on and he becomes more himself as a person over just being a character playing a part. it probably stunts his relationship growth with others, since his ~best friend spot~ is already taken and who would want to encroach on that? especially since its taken by Wally mcfuckin Darling?

their friendship might become less of a role and more of a responsibility. Barnaby might grow to feel obligated to stick with Wally as his "best friend". someone invites Barnaby to hang out and/or help with something? sorry, he has to pose for Wally's painting. Barnaby is trying to do his own thing? sorry, Wally is knocking on the door and asking for help with something.

i wonder if Barnaby ever hopes that Wally will go to someone else, or feels relief when he does. and then does he feel irritation/guilt over that denied hope or that granted relief? then does he get angry at himself for those emotions?

how would this effect how he treats Wally and acts around him? this confusing muddle of emotions and this strange growing resentment for his painfully earnest friend who only ever means well, if he means at all.

it makes me curious whether or not this theory has merit. and how this could come to a head. what would Barnaby, in this situation, do if/when he discovers that they're puppets on a set, and he's literally written to be Wally's bestie while everyone else changed their scripts and chose their own relationships.

personally, i don't think he'd be happy, and i doubt he'd handle it well.

[the-voldsoy]

this line made me so emotional out of nowhere,,,,,,Jon and Martin trapped together in the computer

[sideblogdotjpeg]

i am not immune to launchpad sol and albin thoughts

[ithinkthiswasabadidea]

Taliesin: NEVER BACK DOWN NEVER WHAT?!

Ashton: never give up.... 😰

Taliesin: NEVER BACK DOWN NEVER WHAT?!?!?!

Ashton: never give up! 😭

[monkee-mobile]

do you think if any of the monkees tried to actually kiss in the 90s special, everything would like glitch out for a bit and a lizard sunning itself of a rock would snap them out of it or would they be able to break free and show the kiss to the people?

[modgirlyreposts-revamped]

I don't really go here, but all the members in The Amazing Digital Circus are in a polyamorous relationship methinks

[beevean]

I love how Isaac getting his final boss fight with Carmilla was literally just the result of Deats being an annoying fanboy to the higher ups

Putting aside how it further proves that Isaac was literally the writers' pet, this raises some questions

1: What was Isaac gonna do originally? Go to Styria, rescue Hector and then go fuck off same place else?

2: How was Carmilla gonna die initially? Did Isaac steal Hector's kill?

I honestly love finding trivia like this. I need to know how much of a clusterfuck the production was <3

Anyway, while I still believe my theory that in the earliest drafts Hector was meant to go on a fiery rampage before the tumor called Lenector warped his arc into being about forgiving his abusive lover, I think that if he was the one who was meant to kill Carmilla, Deats would have said it.

"The story played out exactly the same" implies Carmilla in that version simply... killed herself before Isaac reached her. You know, in an almost seppuku way, to preserve her dignity? If you think about it, the story really would be pretty much the same: Carmilla kills herself out of her insanity, and Isaac steals the castle for himself.

Imagine if we got that version, though. Imagine if Isaac literally won and became king by doing even less than he does already. Imagine if Isaac really contributed nothing to the macroplot. As much as Isaac vs. Carmilla has all the thematic pathos of an average superhero vs. supervillain fight, I don't blame Deats for wanting to at least pretend Isaac did something useful in this story, and the idea that Isaac goes to kill Carmilla at least fits with the theme of him wanting to change the world for the better.

What should have been changed was allowing Hector to at least assist with his Night Creatures: show, at long last, why he was so coveted by the likes of Dracula and Carmilla despite his many shortcomings. Now that would be a satisfying conclusion to his story, and the idea that he's much more capable that he has always let on.

but nah. we have a Lenore-shaped tumor to nurture :)

[elastica1995]

yesterday i found a book covered in black and gray and fuzzy mold <3 it made me say "ooooh no. oh no no no" out loud and then i had to go find my boss mike to ask him what to do with it. mike took it from me and threw it in a dumpster.