#turned into a bit of a rant

[starseed-awakening]

Now.... What the hell is this logic? Maybe the demon tamers should die, but that's not really my point. Like idk continuing demon is not really helping to make a case for the humans here. Also, I do not trust this new king, even is he is supposed to be better than the old ones.

About to turn into "the friend that's to woke" for a moment and point out that this logic is more or less the same that was used to argue against abolition of slavery in the state, against (iirc) ending apartheid in South Africa, and is used today against the free Palestine movement. I mean yeah, this is xianxia/wuxia so maybe "it's not that deep" or whatever but I'm still giving this guy a brief side eye.

[morrriigan]

beautiful games i've played ➤ final fantasy x

"Die and be free of pain, or live and fight your sorrow! Now is the time to shape your stories! Your fate is in your hands!"

[aalexan]

no shade at all to my fellow radfems and you guys can believe whatever about if chappell roan is actually a lesbian or not but I can’t really understand the amount of people willing to mindlessly shit on her…like yeah maybe she’s male centred. maybe she’s actually bisexual and not really lesbian. but I can never bring myself to say such hateful things about a woman who hasn’t really done anything truly awful because I know the normalized misogyny and patriarchal double standards that actually fuel those words. famous woman are already treated so awfully, if you hate chappell and disagree with her male centred attitude, just choose to ignore her - at least for the sake of discouraging misogynistic hate campaigns that all young famous women receive.

[edwardteachswombtattoo]

This isn't related directly to the current Discourse (TM) about Iggy Fingers and racism, but I'd like to point out that the two most thematically important people in Ed's life are Mama Teach and Stede. And there is a lot to be said about how indigenous women are treated (i.e. discarded) in various narratives, but there is something to be said about how Mama Teach influences and permeates the narrative despite having so little screen time. Ed's actions as a young boy, spurred by his desperate need to protect himself and his mama from his abusive father, are corrosive and defining moment of his entire childhood. He literally carries a piece of his mama (the red silk) close to his heart. We spend so little time with Mama Teach, but she's also kind of...always there, she's been there since the very first time we meet Ed (he's had the red silk the entire time, let's not forget).

One of the big reasons all this "Ed is abusive/Ed has anger issues/Ed is just like his dad!!!" stuff confuses and pisses me off so damn much is because like. Back in June of 2022, soon after I finished bingeing all of Season 1, I saw a lot of completely serious takes equating Ed's behavior towards Iggy as equivalent to Ed's dad abusing his mother. And those takes made me uncomfortable and baffled, but, you know, didn't want to start shit so I just blocked and moved on. But those takes have stuck with me all this time, not just because they are so blatantly wrong and very anti-canon but also because they kind of miss a fundamental aspect of Edward Teach that the show clearly wants us to notice. And you know, I made a post about this before, but I'm going to say it again.

During this scene that is being played for comedy (because, you know, it's a romantic comedy) where Ed is essentially recreating a family unit that is familiar to him, there are likely intentional parallels between this recreated family unit (father, son, mother) and the family unit he grew up in. But in this recreated family unit, Ed is taking on the role of his mama. We even have a (comical, but again I'm sure they did this on purpose) rehash of what we see in that Season 1 flashback, violence breaking out during a meal! Yeah, sure, this is being played for laughs but I really can't imagine the writers would make such strong parallels completely by accident and not intend this to mean something. Also, I have watched a lot of shows that have very serious scenes being played for laughs because the comedy aspect is meant to off-set what would otherwise be deeply uncomfortable and a jarring shift in tone. Ed's suicidal spiral at the start of Season 2 also does this, blending comedy with drama. I actually think it's a keystone of how Ed is written and in general how this show approaches these serious topics while maintaining tone. The "snail fork" scene being the perfect example. The racist French captain calling Ed what amounts to/is clearly meant to be read by the audience as a racial slur and Ed (understandably!!) getting very angry and having the guy skinned with a snail fork in what is meant to be both serious and a comedy beat in context.

Idk guys. Maybe let's stop focusing on Iggy Fingers for a hot second and think about how Ed's love for his mama is so strong and beautiful and eternal and in many ways the show seems to want us to draw parallels between Ed and his mother? Like. You can argue about how "people who are abused abuse people" and shit like that, but OFMD doesn't seem interested in turning abuse victims into abusers. It seems more interested in exploring how abuse victims (like Ed and Stede, for example) can easily fall back into the pattern of seeking out abusive relationships and/or validation from people who remind them of their abusers. Yeah, obviously abuse victims can abuse people, but they can also be trapped in a cycle of victimhood because they seek comfort in relationships that recreate this abusive dynamic.

And I'd just like to point this out: Stede also had an abusive dad who treated him like shit. And he was physically and emotionally bullied for a great deal of his life!! But the worst thing we ever see Stede do is neglect his wife and kids, which is bad but he never like. Treats them the way his dad treated him. And Stede isn't perfect especially at the start of the show, he has some racist tendencies to unlearn and some realizations he needs to make, but even when he's putting himself in the role of patriarch on The Revenge he never abuses any members of his crew, even though he is literally part of a culture where stuff like that is normalized. For all of Stede's faults, he genuinely doesn't want his crew to experience what he did as a child (an angry emotionally and physically abusive patriarch, constant bullying from his peers, etc.). And you know, if we can accept that Stede grew up with an abusive dad and actively chose to never recreate that abusive dynamic even in an environment where such actions are encouraged, I think we can also make the very easy realization that we are not meant to read Ed as an abuser/future abuser who takes after his dad. Because a big part of this show is that neither of these men take after their shitty dads.

Anywayyy go listen to "Suffocation" by Against Me!, a song that I feel encapsulates Ed and Stede so well. And while you're listening to that, I'd also recommend "Delicate, Petite, & Other Things I'll Never Be", which is an Edward Teach song if I've ever heard one. Peace and love on Planet Earth.

[mewtwoandme]

As i tell myself "Take a break and eat a cake". Do not push yourself to do art or feel the need to do it AND! Don't apologize because you need a break, if you need one just say it, No apologies needed ever

If the hug helps even though it isnt real

I just have to stop making promises I know I can't keep and letting my ambition get the better of me XD

Real talk though?...There's other things hindering me continuing the story too. Aside from irl things, i've had a lot of time to think about my focus and direction with drawing my interests lately since the holidays. I've been at it with these pokemon/mewtwo comics, this whole blog, for almost 5 years now...straight. I haven't focused on much else art-wise really, accept for a few non related pokemon doodles sprinkled in here and there...and as much as I'm hesitant coming to terms with it and hate to say it...I guess constantly drawing the same thing for a couple of years has finally caught up to me. So there's currently an ADHD mind barrier preventing me from picking up my pen and finishing the next comic.

I have other interests and fandoms I'd like to draw for and had thoughts of making another blog about one of them. That's a small part of why my mind is a bit unfocused as of late. I feel divided, my motivation specifically feels divided. I'd like to pursue drawing other things but I've been suppressing the urge to until this current baby arc is done. Maybe that's my mistake. Perhaps I won't feel satisfied unless I doodle some of my other interests first before returning my current story...but that also means prolonging the arc further when I've been so close to the end of it for what feels like ages now! It's a frustrating feeling.

[repurposedmeatlocker]

Guess who just graduated university

[drenched-in-sunlight]

Hey, so I remembered in one of your earlier post you said something along the lines of souls women only really falling into the helpless victim or serious sword lady trop. And how Ema was a great subversion of it, I was wondering if you had any thoughts on

I’m making a souls-like and trying to avoid the pitfalls where I can

Btw, I love your art so much I would love to support you but I am broke

sorry i let this reply marinate in the docs for months (along with a lot of other replies like im having a catalogue of Fromsoft replies that read like thesis at this point *crying* my job is not letting me sit down and edit them) but here it is.

firstly, thank you for your message, kind encouragement already means a lot to me, so don’t worry about not being able to support me or anything ! After all I’m not putting out any new books or fan merch haha.

Here is a whole rant about Ema but somehow my grievances with how they handle Malenia's story in comparison to Messmer also pops up.

Regarding your question about Ema, I love her because of how complete her story feels and how her personal motivation and personality are written as coherently as the male characters.

She’s a war orphan who did her best to survive, learned the sword from the best swordman but with the only purpose is to kill demons. Ema saw firsthand how violence and meaningless killing did to people, so her aim can be seen as trying to offer those lost souls a mercy death, so they don’t have to suffer as a mindless demon for eternity (as in shura ending).

Yet, she's actually more interested in being a doctor & saving life and it’s not something expected of her because she’s a woman or whatnot, she chose that.

(+ she's skilled enough with the blade that it shows in her mannerism to the point Wolf, who had never seen her hold a sword, knows that she's good with one).

she was ready to kill Scuptor - someone akin to a parental figure to her, should he succumb to grief and hatred. because she loved him. not to mention she saw Tomoe - someone in a way is also her mentor, tried to take her own life, while her childhood friend Gennichiro slowly went apeshit. like that girl witnessed so many insane stuffs & they spur her to be strong & steadfast in her ideal to protect her loved ones, even when it means to lay them to rest by her own hands.

her dialogue in Shura ending "maybe i should have killed you long ago" feels like being punched in the guts to me, because she knew Wolf turning out that way meant that somewhere along the way, all of them had failed him, had ignored the signs that all the killings he was tasked to carry out was taking a toll on him. And so she took upon herself the responsibility to offer him a mercy death, even as it broke her heart.

It’s the passionate drive and decisions made as her own person, not out of blind devotion to another character, and how much we know of that because the game let us find more about her, that makes her stands out from the epic sword lady category, while the violence and steely resolve she was capable of makes her stands out from the helpless maiden one.

-kinda lose the plot here with Elden Ring rant jumping out-

This is one of the main points I have about the difference between Messmer and Malenia, how even though their stories parallel each other, I think Messmer has the better writing and gets a more complete story. He’s super devote to Marika, but in his own way, not what Marika wants of him. Evidently with how he still fights the Tarnished because he deems us unworthy, despite knowing Marika sanctioned us for Lordship.

We see a lot of sides to him outside of just a filial son, his rage and sorrow and love and a moment of stubborn selfishness that results in him willingly become a curse that clings to Marika than to let go. We see his relationship with other characters and even though his love for Marika outweighs all else, it doesn’t negate completely others that exist outside of it.

And precisely because of that, it’s more heartbreaking to see despite all these connections he has with other people, he yearns to be reunited with his Mother above all else. That kind of devotion is more hard hitting to me than the writing for the Empyrean twins.

Like, Malenia…. outside of Finnlay (whose description says more about herself than shedding any new light on Malenia) and the mentor that we actually don’t even know much about yet, what are other personal connection she has outside of Miq? I could argue the Marika’s Soreseal in the Haligtree was meant for her and that she still loved her Mother in some kind of way all I want, but at the end of the day that’s a headcahon I have to theorize from item placement, and not many ppl will notice that. We don’t know for sure what Malenia thinks of anyone else but her twin and it drives me up the wall.

Another comparison I want to bring up is DS2 Lucatiel.

I fr think even Lucatiel gets a better story arc than Malenia, despite also largely being shaped by her relationship with her brother.

Loss frightens me no end. Loss of memory, loss of self. If I were told that by killing you, I would be freed of this curse… Then I would draw my sword without hesitation. I don't want to die, I want to exist. I would sacrifice anything, anything at all for this. It shames me, but it is the truth. Sometimes, I feel obsessed… with this insignificant thing called "self". But even so, I am compelled to preserve it. Am I wrong to feel so? Surely you'd do the same, in my shoes?

She is trying to find her brother, but at the same time wrestling with her own troubles and limitations. We get to know a lot of her own motivation and her fear. I mean one could argue that it's because she's an NPC while Malenia is a boss, but the same thing could also be said for Messmer like I explained above.

-back to Ema-

As the extra sauce, I love that Ema boss music has such layers to it. the theme of her - someone clinging to her humanity to the very end because she has ppl love & support her, also acts as an elegy for Wolf's lost of humanity, of him not being able to escape the abuse trauma he grew up in. its opening instrument also appears in Demon of Hatred's OST. Her presence and theme affects other characters’ life, and we get to see her marks on a personal level in the story’s overarching narrative.

Which is the same as how Marika’s presence is everywhere in the Elden Ring OST, that little soft piano. A little in Radagon’s theme, in Shaman’s Village, in the final DLC boss ost where the female vocals starts belting out “Hail, Marika the Eternal”, in a boss arena where she had walked through to scavenge the remains of her fallen family and ascended to an existence she knew would kill her all the same, but she would do it again every single time. Walking down that hell with her eyes wide open.

When a character that could get me to write paragraphs about like that… man you know how much the writing cooks.

[ownhill]

A Study of Polites

Polites, died at arc 2 out of 9, whose presence lingered and lingered until it dared to fade away.

He had, what, one full song to his name? Maybe. But I'd argue that it's one of the most important songs in the whole Odyssey.

I asked my sibling once, if they thought Odysseus and his crew would've lived through The Underworld if Odysseus encountered his mother first, without Polites undying optimism to ground him.

The downward spiral of five hundred fifty-eight men, the men he cared for and fought desperately to bring home, who all died in one fell swoop. The men who now spend their afterlife screaming for their captain, asking why he had forsaken them.

Only to immediately transition into a mother's lament? A mother he shed tears for?

Would Odysseus have been able to leave?

I told my sibling that Polites was haunting Odysseus in a way, because every time Odysseus was in the brink of death he hears Polites.

I've said my piece about The Underworld, how he softened the blow of Odysseus learning about his mother's fate.

The next moment would be during Love in Paradise, with Odysseus up on the edge of that cliff. He's beaten down and hopeless, marinated in depression for 7 whole years.

I fully believe he was seconds away from jumping then. The heavy toll of time had numbed him, made the faces and voices of those he love blurry and muffled. He barely heard Calypso's pleas up until she said "open arms" and all at once it floods back to him. You could even hear it in the swell of the music. Polites snaps him awake and, granted, everyone else pipes in but it was Polites that broke the dam.

Then of course during Get in the Water as Odysseus drowns, because how do you fight a god who made it his entire life's goal to spite you. To wait until you're a breath away from the finish line and politely ask you to die. He's holding the lives of your wife and son above your head and he says he won't hurt them if you drowned but how do you know? (Gods are fickle beings after all). Do you take the easy way out and hope Poseidon keeps his word?

With his voice already half faded, aiming for one final push, Polites sings again and I can almost imagine him gently grabbing at Odysseus' arms, slowly pushing him up, and as everyone joins in more hands help. Again, it's not just Polites, but he's always at the forefront isn't he? And Odysseus gets a second wind.

So yeah Polites, the first of his men to die, always the first to help him out of it.

[shitty-skyblings-doodles-daily]

today, it’s pearl’s turn to yap! grian and jimmy just got to know a lot more moth facts!

[clonedchaos]

Welp, as I was googling some images for Yasammy week, I came across a thread and turns out one of my favorite Jurassic YouTubers is homophobic and a Yasammy hater…

(More ranting in the tags)

[yumenari]

Guys did you know today is the birthday of the loml (and their snake familiar)

[arrayoflightarchives]

Brave as a noun by AJJ is soso Melanie King coded in this essay I will-

No, but fr I'm going to in probably a very unserious way bc this is the best translation of the little autism creature in my brain who comes up with these ideas:

"I could go off the deep end / I could kill all my best friends" -> Peak Melanie in her meme breakdown I fear but also adding in her trying to keep calm for everything but there is a lot of built-up rage (which is part of what attracts the bullet) which is why the first line

"I could follow those stylish trends / And God knows I could make amends / But I've got an angry heart / Filled with cancers and poppy tarts" -> woahhhhh so Melanie core my god, her whole monologue abt how her anger is important to her and her life post bullet when she's talking to Jon pls my god I love that monologue and these lines really capture it in my mind

"If this is how you folks make art / It's fuckin' depressing" -> it's giving her view on the institute and the archives in genal and how everyone else just seems fine with it

"And it's sad to know that we are not alone / And it's sad to know there's no honest way out" -> Finding out abt the entities and the control that the eye has over the institute and the fact that they can't leave and the whole Elias business with her tryna kill him to get out of the grips of the institute (this is a repeated line so I will add to it later trust me)

"I'm afraid to leave the house / I'm as timid as a mouse / I'm afraid if I go out / I'll outwear my welcome" -> Now while this obviously makes me immediately think of my boy Martin K Blackwood, I think it can also be applied to Melanie when you think of how she actually has had to push against a lot of things 'outstaying her welcome' just to get to where she is because she is a woman and I see this as almost this is how people perceive me (which we can see she gets rightfully annoyed at canonically when she's like ik the archives is your little boys club but I work here so deal with it basically) I hope that was coherent if not well it makes somewhat sense to me so that's what ur getting

"I am not a courageous man / I don't have any big, lasting plans / I'm too cowardly to take a stand / I wanna keep my nose clean" -> okay so similar to the last part of this verse, it's giving this is how everyone perceives me bc I am a woman and I still have to abide by that (like putting up with bloody Andy for the sake of her channel and then when she actually lose it at everything, she loses it all so as much as she is angry and feisty, she knows that she needs to try and put that down because otherwise she knew what did end up happening where everyone left would happen

"And it's sad to know that we are not alone / And it's sad to know there's no honest way out" -> Now that we're further into her story, this line changes to being even her colleagues are turning into the monsters they keep talking abt wanting to stop, and then Jon tells her that she can leave, but it involves blinding herself for the rest of her lif,e and she can't just leave without doing something incredibly painful and life-altering, but this one is more resigned as she knows that she is going to do it no matter the other consequences

"In this life we lead, we could conquer everything / If we could just get the braves to get out of bed in the morning" -> She starts the job both with GHUK and at the Institue with the hope that she can do something good with them and entertain people or now that she can't do that outside of being a meme, that she can at least learn more about these things. But it then turns out that there is nothing that she can do to change the events that transpire, she gives up on working at the institute and is just there because she can't not be there and she has lost a lot of the drive she once had, especially once the bullet is removed even without her permission, she literally has lost all of her drive to do anything until she leaves the institute which is where I think this song takes her to because after that she starts to heal. Like the bullet is removed, and she realises that she has to heal, and then once she leaves, she can then focus fully on that, and at that point, she has outgrown the song because she has moved onto healing and trying to be away from anything to do with the institute.

[awkwardrocker]

I know there's a lot of Yuki hype and Liam hate happening but I think everyone is jumping the gun.

Just the same as the reporters asking Horner if they were giving up on the car and switching to 2026 designs after 2 races when one of their drivers is still 2nd in the championship.

Everyone needs to calm down.

Redbull have been saying since testing that they focused on fixing the balance and kerb issues. They seem to have done that and now it's about optimizing the car to find more pace.

Max unlocked something with the tires in that 2nd stint with the hards. I think Redbull will take that, analyze it, and apply those changes. If Liam still cannot get a handle on the car after those changes, then we should discuss a swap. But 2 races in, with limited practice (in a car with like 16 upgrades on it compared to testing), is insane. The poor kid's had 2 practice sessions in Australia (since the third was cut short due to a mechanical issue) and 1 ahead of a sprint weekend in China. He deserves time to figure it out. It should be limited but 2 races is insane guys. It seems like the tires are struggling to effectively turn on with this car and even Max struggles with it. (Listen to his onboards from the first half of his hard stint in China. He was testing everything trying to get the tires to work and stop the sliding.) Give the whole team a break. If they listened to social media, they should've quit in testing. Know who didn't quit during testing? Mclaren, last year. So chill out for like 2 second please. The team (including Liam) understand the urgency and are clearly trying to improve.

Additionally, the rumors and immediate lack of support for Liam does not do anything but undermine him and the team and adds even more pressure. I get that Yuki looks good this year, but know who else looks good? Isack and the VCARB car just in general. Yuki is a good driver. I am not denying that. But a rookie with no F1 experience hopped in the car, outqualified him in the second race, and matched him on pace all race. Their car is fast, but more importantly, it is driveable. There is absolutely no guarantee that putting anyone else in that Redbull would show an improvement over Liam. But based on how quick Hadjar took to his car, and Liam's past partial seasons, Liam would probably improve in the VCARB. So cut the kid a little bit of slack. He's a person and he's learning a difficult car. And from what I've seen, he is taking full accountability for not learning fast enough and is trying to understand his mistakes and improve his performance. You can think he doesn't deserve it all you want, but let the kid at least try. And if you guys do get your wish for Yuki or Colapinto or whomever else you'd like to drop into that 2nd Redbull seat, you better be prepared for them to fall on their face just as hard because that's the very very likely outcome of replacing Liam right now while Redbull are still learning their 2025 car. Currently, it's not a driver thing. It's a car thing.

[many-gay-magpies]

seeing all these posts talking about payneland as if its some tragic unrequited love drives me insane ngl. or i guess not TRAGIC but the posts that are like "man edwin really got every boy except the one he wanted" HE ALREADY HAD HIM. HE ALREADY FUCKING HAD HIM ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?? MAYBE NOT ROMANTICALLY BUT GOD HE HAD HIM. AND HE STILL HAS HIM.

[ender-of-the-sender]

I like to think that Tim's interest in cars and vehicles is a special interest that he feels guilty about. Because they bring up cars ALOT when talking about Tim, but usually in a "he used to love them", but what if he still did. If your spin was sharks and then your mom got eaten by a shark but you still know so much about them and cannot stop thinking about them (mom related or not), youd feel pretty damn shitty.

[tuesday-teyz]

I've been wondering for a while how long it'd take for BR!Tommy to go into a Macbeth-style spiral without realising that he was in the midst of one the entire time

Isn't he kind of in the middle of one already?

I think the inherent nature of Tommy's thought process and his insightfulness makes it next to impossible for him not to have some level of awareness of what's happening to him. He is not in denial about his own actions and what it means to be a murderer, and he further accenuates that he doesn't want or need excuses in his dialogue with Wilbur in the woods.

He didn't kill Wilbur because he was convinced he didn't have any other options; he killed because it was an option and it was the one he was ready to face the consequences for. The specific reasons and motivations behind the choice don't matter as much as the fact of the choice itself. Tommy asked if he could live with himself if he abdicated his crown and throne, and the answer was no. Tommy asked if he could live with himself if he killed Wilbur, and the answer was yes.

I've seen some people say that Tommy is risking too much, or that he'll get caught. What they don't realize is that Tommy is mentally prepared for the truth to come out one day; he expects it, even, on some level. There are layers to this. First there's the fact that Wilbur's murder was in part an act of retaliation against Philza, and revenge is not sweet if you don't get to take accountability for it. Second is that he is fully aware that he's turning into a monster, and will need to be put an end to eventually.

Cycling back to your original question – which i admittedly strayed quite a lot from – my answer is that br!Tommy is not Macbeth as much as he is the minotaur, patiently waiting for someone to strike him down