#yeah I need to work on humans bc this in comparison to my human art is really a stark difference lmfao

[achillean-knight]

REDRAW TIME! 3-year difference ;0;!

[striving-artist]

Your genuine delight over Goncharov made me really happy ☺️ If you have more thoughts on how/why this happened on a meta level, I’d love to hear them! 💕

Look. Look at me. Look at my face. This is the compounding and expanding creation you see in something like tiktok going ham over sea shanties (loved that, shanties are great) and the original one, that ended up with like, 9... mixes? add ons? idefk i don't use tiktok. But see. see. tiktok has fame and engagement baked into the mix. Its your face. you want followers for it. Your followers can gain you money or influence or whatever the hell. and this doesn't have that. in part because this is tumblr, we couldn't create a market friendly influencer if our lives depended on it

But this is ALSO a joint collaboration in the scope of something like fucking qanon. and yes, qanon is a full on fascist breeding ground so I hate to use it but thats how desperate i am to find a reference point. Bc it started as a single drop on a website that one person encourage and then it spiralled into full offshoots. BUT its also totally not the same bc it was made wiht an agenda and purpose and the intent to convert and persuade people

And sure, maybe some of the first posts were people going 'haha this'll be funny' and yeah, looking at the note counts, some people are drowning in the reactions for the elements they made, but this isn't done with an agenda. It's all Yes, And, never a disagreement except in the sense of people bickering over which of their meta analyses of a non existent movie is more accurate.

Maybe something like Cicada? or or. the way they dropped the joker image??? Or the album that dropped early by leaving random fucking USB drives in bathrooms at concerts???? But cicada was secretive and antagonistic to each other in a lot of ways. And Joker was built by a marketing team. and the USB drives weren't as effective as they wanted?

Geocaching?? but there's an element of accumlating clout and bragging rights there that excludes it from comparison.

But its such a pure creation that I keep reaching back to the kinds of myths that that we told before we left africa. the stories that pervade humanity so far back in time that we can't find the origin. They were made and told and retold solely because we are humans and we want to share this thing we made so others can see it and enjoy it and share it again.

LOOK. This. it's. Look at my face. This is a work of spontaneous public art. This is a thing that the greatest artists of the last hundred years would saw off their testicles to achieve. They would with a smile on their face. People literally HAVE spent millions and millions of dollars trying to force this stuff. they have tried to carve this out of people. This kind of genuine engagment. People hire teams to work for years to make a tiny fragment of this happen and they cant bc it always feel false???

And! This! Just! Happened! Spontaneously! That first rush was in like. 30 hours?? idk, I need to build a timeline. But even if it happened over 72, this is. this is. idefk its so amazing send help I'm back to rambling

[prosciuttulipa]

RAAAAAAH i want a match ngl LMAO

Jjk match because Im a fucking simp, and a guy bcs I am in fact a straight woman thanks

I'm a big nerd. Like, a very big nerd. I do math for fun and I am not ashamed at all when I interrupt someone to correct them (I have autism and ADHD, how could you tell?)

I'm relatively closed off, and most of the time, insecure. I'm shy and I barely ever make the first move (unless I've had a couple of drinks or a lot of eyeliner). I think what people most define me as is the "old soul, young body). I'm like the mom of the group, though I am absolutely reckless when there's another mom in the group, since it takes the responsibility away from me.

I hate going out, and it's really hard to get me to go to the beach, for example. I think my best quality personality-wise is that I'm down to earth and realistic about my goals. A problem is probably how much self-doubt I have, since people constantly tell me I am capable of achieving more than I think I can. I don't settle for seconds, but I'm not too excited when I rech first, because there's always a new competition.

Oh yeah, I'm competitive. Very.

I'm a pessimist, though I like to say it's realism, because why be positive, hype myself up, only for it to go wrong and the disappointment hurt me? As I said, emotionally closed off.

My personality is the infamous black cat, and I think (though I'm not sure), that a golden retriever boy is what would fit me best. (even though I simp for other black cat guys)

For hobbies, I'm boring, though I do have many. I play the guitar, do martial arts (krav maga), draw, sing, write absolutely filthy smut, and, most important of all: do math and study. Yeah, my main hobby is studying.

I'm not sure how I show my love? I don't, usually. I can love someone unconditionally and be absolutely lovesick, but only after a very heavy emotional session, may it be a fight or drinks, will I tell soemone how much they mean to me. I spent the last four years with my best friend, and only after a day's worth of drinking and crying did I tell her how much she meant to me.

I'm a bit icky with physical touch, but if I trust them, I'll let them cling to me. Initially push people away and only after knowing them do I let them hug me, kiss me, cuddle me. I am awful when dealing with compliments, and I cannot take a gift. So probably quality time is my love-receiving language when generally speaking. A boyfriend/husband would probably work with physical touch and words of affirmation, though.

I dont think there's any big turn-off or turn-on in relationships? Maybe not giving me enough attention and helping me emotionally, because I'm easily falling into insecurity, feeling like I'm not enough.

I have like medium curly dark hair and dark eyes. Eyebags, and a lot of moles all over my face. My body is relatively fit? I have a bit of fat ngl but I also have muscles. A bit of a tummy and thicc thighs (they do, in fact, save lives) that double the size when I sit (insecurity alert!) I'm pale, though I am a mixed baby. I dress in all-black most of the time, and all the color variations are like red or dark blue. (I AM NOT EMO). I wear eyeliner from the moment I wake to the moment I sleep and I have pierced ears. I also plan on getting nip piercings and plan on getting

I think i need more songs to listen to, so I'm going with the three songs he associates wit me.

Congratulations! You have been matched with...

Choso Kamo

When people see you and Choso together, they immediately assume that you're just another average emo couple, quick to place stereotypes. But under the heavy eyeliner and dark clothes, are two people who are just trying to figure out life in their own way.

Choso is fascinated by your contradictions: insecure yet quick to correct others, pessimistic but burning with a competitive drive for more. Where some people may see indecision, he sees something much more real and human in comparison to the single-minded characters he's met during his time alive. Living is hard, has experienced it for himself, so he doesn't shun you for your contrasting perspectives. Instead, he wants to learn about the world alongside you, unpicking the way you think, wondering about your insecurities. Although he's been through a lot, there's something inherently innocent and simplistic in the way Choso sees the world. If you're an old soul in a young body, then he's a young soul in an old one. Perhaps by meeting somewhere in the middle, the two of you will get closer to unravelling the mystery that is life.

Choso doesn't mind that you don't like going out, but you often find yourself tagging along as he explores the world in small ways. A trip to the convenience store may as well be a museum visit, with the way he asks you about the products, eyeing them with confusion. He also admires the fact that you study math—to dedicate yourself to understanding anything in such depth is no small feat—and he's happy to sit next to you while you work, occasionally asking questions about your interest in the subject. His most common form of affection is just leaning his head against your shoulder, watching silently as you work.

Dates with Choso are pretty laid back, since he's happy to take the lead on whatever makes you comfortable. It doesn't matter to him where you two are. For him, understanding your mind (and falling in love with the way you think, the way you are) is what matters to him the most.

The Matchmaker's Gift:

Contrary to popular belief, Choso's music taste is rather soft. This song reminds him of the inherent dependence that comes with being connected.

Offering you this song with a curious tilt of his head, Choso asks you if this is how your pessimism feels like.

This is the song Choso uses to confess to you. His feelings are one of the few things he has to his name, and he wants to share them with you.

[melancholiepeufiable]

hello!

i know it's been some time since the final renaissance update, but it impacted me a lot and i needed to collect my thoughts,, so, sorry if this is a very late contribution to the debate. also obligatory warning that i am not a native speaker so my explanations might be a little wonky at times hahshd

to say it plainly: i sobbed, i laughed, i trembled and i melted with this fic. it had the perfect dose of everything; of pain, doubts, things being broken and then fixed with enough love and understanding that it reeked through the screen into my feelings as well. and you got my heart racing with every update!! my week revolved around your scheduled updates, however crazy that sounds.

like you said, it was cathartic. and painful. god, my heart ached so much every single time charles doubted himself and seb's view on him, and it ached when he longed for something as human as love with such resentment towards himself. but in the end, your brilliant writing soothed me like - pardon my perhaps nonsensical comparisons - those rays of sunlight in winter, when you've been freezing outside and they hit the skin of your hands and for a moment you think, wow, there is something more to this than just suffering. your writing style evoked such vivid emotions in me i thought i might be one with charles, lol. i love it, love it, love it.

you helped me realise a lot about myself in the process of reading too - and again, i am sorry for this little oversharing, but you also helped me realise that just like charles found out in the end, getting help might be worth it, and i will be getting it. it probably seems insincere,, but yeah. i am being genuine. your take on daddy issues hurt in a way where you realise that, damn, this is too realistic and hits too close to home, unlike those glorified scenarios on certain social media. bravo.

while i'm here, i would also like to mention that i read your other works, rouge et blanc and act of god. the latter in particular made it hard to breathe at times - not in the anxiety way, but in the in-awe-thanks-to-the-genius-storytelling way. you have this skill of uniting the reader and the main character to the point where they think alike, and it was only in the end when i noticed the escalation of the obsessive elements, that's how immersed i was in seb's unreliable narration. bravo again. (also, the religious imagery? chef's fucking kiss good LORD)

i don't want to go into detail over specific scenes in renaissance because this would be even longer than it is, so i'm just gonna wrap it up by saying: please, if you can, keep creating!! i don't mean it as putting pressure on you, the thing i want to say is that your art is absolutely brilliant and loved, if you ever doubt it. thank you for creating this fic and i am soo looking forward to anything you create in the future!!

-diem

hi anon ❤️

dw about it being late! my own reply is late as well haha, sorry (also dw about the english, you’re perfectly fine).

aw shucks, thank you so much. it’s always so lovely to see how much a work can reach someone, and to hear how it is has affected you is simultaneously joyous and tear-jerking (sorry about the pain it caused).

ahhh i love love LOVE that comparison to the sunlight during winter. might be one of my favourite compliments ever! it’s always sooooo pleasing for a writer to know that the reader is experiencing things almost as if they were the character themselves. thank you!

getting help is absolutely nothing to be shameful of, and i’m so proud of you going to get it. i wish you the best ❤️ (thank you again! i didn’t want the father complex to be dramatised bc in reality, it’s a lot different than what’s shown on tv).

ahhh and you read the others??? thank you omg! haha, thank you for liking act of god sm, i’m so happy that the general consensus has been positive. i was so nervous to post it, but i’m glad the religious imagery and seb’s unreliability managed to get through to the reader.

yes!! i will keep creating as soon as i get out of the writer’s block. i’m so grateful for your message and the support. have a great day! all the love <3

[1ore]

Usually the stories that I make up just to keep me company will sit in my head until most of the ambiguities start to clear up, and it becomes A Thing ™. Or it’s so novel I have to do art about it, or it just lives in obscurity. But I want to try to document that early ideation because I think it’s fun and funny in this case.

morbifying the unmorbifiable. The morbifying ordeal of being known. You wouldn’t download a skitarius. Or: Can I put the chief and reyes into moribund in a satisfying and cohesive way, or is this kind of a jesse cauldwell situation.

Things I’m pretty sure about:

I stand by shoving the endlings into the fucked up thunderdome that’s under Sond, yeah (which, believe it or not, existed long before the warhammy ripoff.) I think it’s funny if there’s a weird petri dish down there.

Things I’m just thinkin’ about:

Reyes is probably Norbasti if I had to draw some kind of near-earth comparison between the wasteland, Fennoscandia, and morb. Norbast is a Mainland arctic-subarctic region and former vassal of the Empire with a capital E (that is, believe it or not, also older than the warhammy ripoff and not really meaningfully similar apart from being an empire. I just call it that because I wasn’t very good at conlang when I started working on Moribund all of ~9 years ago, and “The Twin Principalities of Sirrec” doesn’t hit the same way it did in 2013.)

Anyway Norbast floats around in the peripheries of Moribund, because the Mainland West is something that is intentionally vague and distant but parallel to themes that I care about. If an Empire ™ collapses, it’s something that happened “way out there” or “back in the day,” and we only get to experience it through the remains of their failed penal colony at Mercasor. I say that things like colonization and imperialism never happened in morb, but what I really mean is whenever something like it is attempted, it fails so spectacularly that people kvetch about it 100 years later.

Not that Norbast really needs to be peripheral just because of its proximity to a collapsed empire. It’s just “out there” and I haven’t had the impetus to leave Mercasor or Asthaom or Basedt.

Culturally and geographically, Asthaom and Norbast could not be more distant, but also they kinda aren’t that far apart. Norbast is just opposite of Basedt and the western face of Scaiuq, on the other side of the inner sea. In the same way that the arctic circle shares a lot in common in both human culture and biotic communities, there is. Something there.

I am thinking of how to make these connections because it’s a big leap to pluck Reyes, the outsider, out of Norbast and shove her into the fucked up thunderdome under Sond (hold that thought.) Being an outsider in an empire is extremely different from being an outsider in Sond. There are completely incongruous themes of existing in a fucked up hellstate that just don’t exist in morb, and that’s why I did not consider chief+the r.a. as something that could circle the toiletbowl of morb later.

… Not that she has to come from Norbast just bc she’s Norbasti. She could be Mercasian or just a random Xanti expat and that’s equally funny if not more funny. But I have some kind of angle here I think.  Which brings me to my thesis .

I’m tickled with how deeply moribund the concept of “god is wearing black” is, and I think that’s a fun place to start building out Norbast, and maybe find a home for some of the wasteland stuff kicking around in the back of my brain. I think Reyes’ driving impetus is the same, in that there is something Deeply Wrong at home and she can’t fix it on her own. But rather than being backed into a corner by the empire as the only agent capable of fixing the problem (or so she thinks), she willingly goes to Sond to petition the Powers That Be for help, as one is wont to do at Sond.

Or in other words, “all my gods are dead, do you have any spares >:{“

I also think it’s fun if the consequences of Sond’s fucked up thunderdome aren’t immediately felt by Asthaom, but instead have far-reaching consequences in a completely different part of the globe. All OUR gods are dead, but now YOUR gods are causing problems and you need to do something about it. The Sentinels being forced to confront the incomprehensible evil that is the god-prison 1 mile under their feet is fun spinoff novel material for them. Luv that.

Don’t mind the fact that I don’t know what the actual problem is. I don’t think I can legally unleash the endeme on morb (HOLD THAT THOUGHT.)

Things that I think are fun but dubiously legal for moribund:

Mark moribund is inherently hysterical I don’t think I can elucidate on that in any other way. That being said two roads DO diverge in a yellow wood. obviously he can be a 2936727633782 year old cyborg from the collapsed ancestral sarikote culture, and probably some kind of disgraced archivist shaper or bureaucrat or whatever. But once again I do Not think the beyenti-asthaom interchange happened until after the Akiat Diaspora left Asthaom, and it feels weird if he’s just like… there, randomly, as the one beyenti dude in the company of an indigenous people whose whole thesis is realizing that their  ~hyper-advanced~ ancestors were dumb as shitt and not worth modeling, except as a cautionary tale of What Not To Do. That’s an intimate relationship that Sond has with itself for him to be just some guy.

Which opens door #2: It would be equally funny if he was a disgraced bureaucrat in the days of Motu’s Lexarcs, who got cannibalized for his organs right around when the Lexarcs realized “oh shit there’s STUFF down there” @ Sond. I;m just saying this guy looks like a member of the Dai family. Doing some treason and getting gutted like a fish and thrown to the dogs is Dai behavior. And so is having a revelatory experience in the catacombs of Sond that changes who you are fundamentally as a person. This one just happens to involve bodily transfiguration.

… yes I think it’s hysterical if he’s Dai Hei’s cousin or something. Look at them

There are some significant hurdles for all of this, but watching myself eat shit on them is half the fun .

Things that I think are fun but extremely illegal for moribund:

Ironically the Chief is giving me the hardest time. Her relationship with Mark as his cranky bodyguard that 180s completely after he gets lobotomized is a significant component of their relationship. Also the fact that she becomes a larger fuzzier woman later. And needs deprogramming for the rest of her life.

Well now that I’m writing this out, this just sounds like typical lexarc behavior, and I’m not sure where the problem was. Except becoming a larger fuzzier woman. Ironically I have very arbitrary reservations about shoving her in with the endlings, mostly bc I like her design as a vat-grown supersoldier vs. the relatively inorganic endlings. But growing anything in a vat is decidedly unmorb. And so is werewolf transformation weirdly enough. Basedt has similar bodily transformation, but it makes absolutely zero sense to tie in Basedt and would come waaaaaaaay after the events of Asthaom anyway.

so like... that endeme, huh

This doesn’t have a solution (yet?) I’m just thinking about it. rotating it in my brain. It’s almost 2 AM so it’s probably time to stop anyway.

absolutely deranged.

[musashi]

sending u this ask as an opportunity for u to talk to me abt fi!! i love ur thoughts n words on things nd i don't send asks as much bc i don't have. good words to talk to u abt stuff but i rlly enjoy just. ur Passion nd stuff. autistic people r the best at talking abt stuff i stand by that we r just Epic. anyways if u wanna, i'd love to hear more about just... how fi sorta. changes, over the game? like the Little Things that show her starting 2 care abt link more, or becoming more "human"!

i love this whole ask. you’re right autistic folks r sexy as hell idk how the divine powers that be fit so much passion into my tiny body but i’m glad they made the attempt. 

ANYWAYS FI. i don’t think i’ve ever actually laid this out because for the most part it is incredibly subtle and requires a lot of filling in gaps yourself, and i think that someone who cares less abt her can probably come away from it with an entirely different interpretation. fi’s development of actual feelings are a very sudden a mysterious thing, and i have a LOT of thoughts about them going in a lot of different directions so forgive me if this answer isn’t particularly linear or coherent. i’m not just gonna talk about her slow burn into feeling things, i’m also gonna talk about... why i think it happens.

we don’t get to learn a lot about sword spirits and how they come into being, other than it takes great power to enchant a sword with a spirit/temper a sword with one inside it. hylia obviously created fi and, presumably, demise created ghirahim, and they are pretty much as opposite as two people can be with their only real characteristic in common being precision, intelligence & otherworldly loyalty to their respective masters. 

we thus don’t get to learn how much control the creator of a sword spirit has over what kind of spirit comes of it, if their personalities are organic to their experiences or crafted from the moment they awaken. what i mean by this is like... ghirahim could have been a cold, calculating AI like fi when he was first tempered and gained his dramatics over time, we have no idea how long he’s been alive in comparison to her, if his personality is so much more extroverted because he was allowed a life outside his blade whereas fi was isolated in hers for millennia. or if he just came into creation immediately ready to scream and stick his tongue in ppl’s ears.

i swear to god i’m going somewhere with this. ok. anyways.

fi in the beginning of skyward sword is, i think, how most people remember her--data-interested, icy, and detached. there is a reverence in how she addresses link from the start, even before he formally becomes her wielder, but beyond that she is calculating and precise and rarely wastes words. all of this kinda paints a picture of hylia creating fi, to me--breathing life into the spirit and willing her to be effective, be efficient, be loyal, and be sharp. when you have that image in your head, a lot of how fi operates makes sense--she wasn’t created to have emotions, because emotions get in the way of what her purpose is. hylia made a weapon and a servant, not a friend. it sucks to think about, but that is fi’s purpose.

the game is very careful, however, to show you it’s not that simple from the beginning. because hidden in Ice Queen Fi’s introduction is... a surprising amount of personality.

like this shit, where she straightup just dunks gaepora in the trash because his #Lore is out of date. it’s hysterical because you really do not know if she’s just a) an AI who doesn’t understand when she’s being kinda Rude or b) being snarky On Purpose. and that ambiguity in itself crafts this beautiful air of mystery where you, from the get go, don’t entirely know what to expect of fi all the time.

or this, which she says directly after link hesitates to accept the blade:

this scene, which people who have edgier takes on fi constantly use to paint her as intentionally manipulative, where all i see is... her using emotional validation to calm link down enough for him to take in what’s happening. a really important thing about fi is that she’s paradoxically an empath? she can read auras and detect emotion with extreme precision even if she’s incapable of feeling it herself in the beginning. so she knows everything link is experiencing here, understands that it’s holding him back, and takes care to deconstruct the whirlwind of emotion he’s collapsing under and explain to him why he can and should trust her words.

again this is all in her introductory scene. they write her very specifically to be a seemingly flat character with this... rumbling of something more going on under the surface. so much so that the first time you get to a sacred spring and fi, completely randomly, just starts skating across the water’s surface and speaking ancient poeticisms to you, you don’t question it. you’re not like hey, why is sword alexa doing a little dance? you just accept it as something fi is doing, because fi always feels like she’s at her job, and you don’t know how she acts outside of work, but you kinda feel like maybe you want to.

fi’s affinity for music is another way they insert humanity into an AI without making you think too hard about it. singing and dancing are inherently human, artforms are something we associate with the heart and soul. even teaching a robot to paint is, in itself, an art project crafted by a human hand. but you don’t really... consciously think about that, when you watch her do these things. you just kind of accept that she is this otherworldly thing guiding you. you don’t think about the contrast of this programmed assistant performing music alongside you in a sacred ritual. you’re just kind of like, yeah? i can’t JUST play nayru’s wisdom on my harp, i need someone who can sing and god put a vocaloid in my sword???

throughout the game, fi’s dialogue chains when you summon her don’t change in any meaningful way (besides based on what you’re carrying, where you are, etc) but as you near the end, there are a couple things of note. one that sticks out to me is what she says about one of the mid-game minibosses, who is also an artificial intelligence--

a lot of people laugh abt this line and make jokes about fi being hot for the tall handsome robot pirate and they’re valid. but the thing is, like, from the beginning of her mission, fi knew she’d essentially be dying once the world was saved. and early game fi has no hesitations about her part in things regardless, because, as we know, she wasn’t created to feel things like that. she wasn’t created to fear death, to grow attached to life or anyone in it, or to experience sorrow at the idea of saying goodbye. but this is mid-game fi, who still... never says anything she doesn’t deem entirely necessary, but she says this. for no discernible reason, she says this. it’s an unskippable dialogue option, one they WANT you to see and one that is different when you know where she ends up. admiration is already something you wouldn’t really expect of her, but it’s more than that--she’s longing for her own story to mirror it. by the sand sea, fi has started to realize she doesn’t want to go to sleep.

it’s another one of those moments where you’re kinda like, ‘haha, what, fi?' and then move on. another one of those moments where she kinda does something a little unexpected, but not so unexpected you question it too hard. fi excels at those.

before you go off to fight demise, fi stops you to warn you that it is the final battle, and you cannot return. and when you tell her you’re ready, she says this:

as i’ve said, fi doesn’t waste words. almost always, everything she says is for the purpose of efficiency, and rarely does she offer thoughts without fixed probabilities and ultimate endgoals in mind.

this is a sentiment.

it serves no purpose. it is purely an expression of devotion.

and because of EVERYTHING i’ve mentioned thus far, this line both hits you HARD as significant and foreboding in how suddenly tender it is, AND manages to read as in-character for her to say. because the way they write fi’s humanity is so beneath the surface, so easily missable, so hard for me to even lay out with concrete evidence despite the fact that i’m a person who reads a text dump of all her dialogue before bed every night.

but to me, what lays out fi’s inner workings best is actually her actual goodbye, and... not the moment most people would think, tbh? it’s not her tender farewell that speaks her emotions loudest to me, but the moment right before:

these lines, which would read as perfectly in character if it were early game fi, cut you. her complete and utter flippancy, the way she talks about all you’ve been through together as though it were nothing to her, the absolute coldness here after everything. you as a player feel kind of pathetic when she says this, like you were misguided in growing attached to her and thinking of her as a friend. and you KNOW thats the intended effect, because this is what link looks like:

he takes a moment in that last shot to like. swallow sadness and turn away from her, but even as he’s turning his head, he doesn’t take his eyes off her until the last possible moment. she hurts his feelings! why.

because it’s an act, is why. of COURSE fi loves him. of course she’s grown attached to him, of course she’s happy to have known him, of COURSE they’re friends. but fi was NEVER supposed to feel that way, she was never supposed to have the capability to love, and there’s no calculation she can run to set the uncertainties of that at ease within herself. so those lines up above is her trying her best to reset herself to who she was in the beginning, to snap herself back into the role of an emotionless servant to the goddess, to convince herself--not link--that saying goodbye won’t hurt. she’s trying to cope with something she has no idea was in the cards for her, and that’s why she’s seemingly so cruel for a moment.

all of this becomes apparent when she calls him back moments later and tells him how she really feels. there’s major whiplash because fi herself is Going Thru It. but essentially what’s happening in that moment is she thinks she knows what will hurt the least, but she miscalculates and backpedals and realizes even if saying goodbye hurts, it hurts less than pretending she doesn’t want to.

i think a lot of people overlook that line--“the most precious data i have on record.” fi, who contains multitudes within her. who contains knowledge immeasurable, the thoughts and feelings and stories of thousands. of civilizations, of gods, of countless ages passed. everything she holds within her is dwarfed entirely by what she feels for link, beside link. nothing in her encyclopedic knowledge can even compare to her friendship with him in the significance it has to her. like all things, fi has her own way of communicating her meanings, and this is her way of saying she really, truly loves him. 

in addition, she very carefully does this after he abandons the sword, so it’s clear that it’s of her own will, not a part of her purpose as his servant. for this whole cutscene, up until she end, she drops the honourific and calls him just Link. 

and while i see a lot of people debate if she truly does ‘feel,’ anything, like... she says it right here, she does. whether or not she was able to feel from the beginning or not, she can feel now. she has trouble putting words to those feelings, or explaining to herself and others where on earth they came from... but she feels now. that cannot be disputed.

happiness that she was able to know him. loyalty she wants to transcend lifetimes. sorrow at the idea of them having to part. gratitude that he took the chance, and did so beside her.

let’s talk about gratitude.

in skyward sword, gratitude is a tangible source of magic. it opposes malice, which as of botw is a reoccurring thing in zelda lore. skyward sword has two items--evil crystals and gratitude crystals--that represent malice and gratitude respectively. while the first isn’t entirely relevant, the second is something you’re actively encouraged to more or less harvest by helping people and basking in their thanks toward you. these feelings of gratitude are so canonically powerful in the zelda universe that they can turn monsters into humans entirely, and the outpouring of energy that event causes makes every monster & hostile creature within all of skyloft turn docile at once. 

according to batreaux, the monster in question, this is well-established legend, the idea of gratitude granting humanity to the nonhuman. skyward sword literally said the power of love was canon.

the song that plays over the goodbye, of course, is called fi’s gratitude.

this is just one theory i have on the matter, but... whether hylia intended or foresaw fi to be capable of feeling human emotion or not, i do believe it was gratitude that woke her heart up. whether she was meant to love or not, link’s spirit contained within it enough love for the both of them, enough to touch her soul and rouse her from her cold and emotionless state. as always, through everything, they work in perfect tandem--his passionate heart touches hers as it sleeps, her wisdom holds him steady and level-headed. 

when fi says “may we meet again in another life,” she says it like a prayer, because it is one--she knows hylia, knows that hylia loved link’s spirit just as she did, and knows that hylia of all people understands what the sword spirit is going through. and fi also knows that hylia immortalizes those she loves with cycles, with reincarnation, eternal life without the pain of never dying. fi doesn’t have a soul that hylia can bring back from death nor a physical body to revive, but she works with what she can--and so long as link’s spirit breathes anew, he finds fi. in a sunlit grove, with light bearing down on her, safe and warm and always loyal, even as the world rages on outside. fidelis, she was named for--“faithful.”

the fandom doesn’t really talk abt it, but fi is an angel. she’s an angel god sent to watch over one human, and when god said your mission is complete fi faced god and walked backwards into hell. her divine mission is long passed, but it stopped being about what she was fated to do long ago.

fi began to watch over link because he was her master. and fi resolved to stay forever because he was link.

[shadowtongued]

𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝟗 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫.

this was SO MUCH fun i spent all day on it and was pretty hard since sliske is already his own thing, but there ARE indeed characters my own interpretation of him plays off of since jagex shoveled his characterization into a garbage disposal post TWW.

𝐈.   ·   𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐁𝐀𝐋 :  anyone who has spent some time as a mutual knows i relate sliske a lot to dr. lecter. it’s the cold, cunning, and charming with and ability to measure ones steps without faltering. the ability to lure someone in with polite, harmless demeanor, only to RIP the carpet out from under them with some of the most scathing, deep insults from all the things he’s gleaned from your psych. the soft analytical approach and patience to wait for things to fall into place. also, neither of these fuckers BLINK often enough and remain fixated on their prey eerily. this includes book lecter which, imo, was p superior in magnificent little details. 

𝐈𝐈.    ·     𝐕 : i am a simple woman, i see an enigmatic anti-hero with knives and smooth moves and i go ‘ooh ahh’. v was a real showman with a mask and worked very cloak and dagger, his personality almost too happy and charismatic despite the domino effects he had planned, much like sliske. i wouldn’t call sliske an anti-hero but he had his moments of bringing about cruel but deserved justice to a few individuals who deserved it and even in endgame, made sure people were very aware of some of the lesser gods flaws and hidden crimes. plus uh, knives man. the knife fighting holy shit.

𝐈𝐈𝐈.    ·     𝐉𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐇 : c’mon, who am i if i don’t put the only man who wore a collar maybe bigger than sliske? even as a kid i was really just taken by the goblin king. i mean just look at the dude. the fandom has already made enough jareth comparisons to sliske and goddamn i’m glad. the outfits, the labyrinths, optical illusions, the slight of hand tricks, enigma and soreness over love. plus i just love bowie and theres not a day i don’t miss him with immense fondness. :c

𝐈𝐕.    ·     𝐋𝐔𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐄𝐑 (𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐕𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐓) :  have you seen the show? good, then you literally have the majority of my interpretation of sliske’s personality. playful, charismatic, subtly suggestive, and hiding a really emotional side ft. bad temper. sliske is a lot like lucifer in the sense of only living for the pleasure of life and all it holds with a rich sense of hedonism to fill a void of complex emotions and spite under that mask. plus his human glamor just looks so similar, even before i started watching ( and still need to catch up. :/c )

  𝐕.    ·     𝐃𝐎𝐂𝐓𝐎𝐑 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄 : i’mma be real with y’all. i know jack shit abt doc strange outside the mar.v.el movie(s), which if i had the time to sink into comics i would bc i just like the aesthetic of the magic and the world he is in. i may have only seen the movie but the magic is a wet dream of what i WISH magic in runescape looked like. which at one point in concept arts, the whole magic circles shit WAS supposed to be canon but design/graphics restraints kept it from being real. sliske also heavily uses illusions, projection, and the psych in his magic. plus the outfit. the cape, the collar, y’know?

𝐕𝐈.    ·     𝐋𝐔𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐄𝐑 ( 𝐁𝐈𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐕𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐓 ) : gee channy, why does sliske get (2) versions of lucifer? bc i said so. i rambled about this comparison in this post , tl:dr;  lucifer wanted free thought, individualism, and self pride before god found this an offense and cast him out. hmm that’s really familiar, innit?

𝐕𝐈𝐈.    ·     𝐌𝐄𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐏𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐒 : okay yes, this is quasi-“devil” entry number three, but good old mephistopheles the demon is very campy, germanic devil in jester flavor who tempts and manipulates you.... with humor because he can sense you’re on the path to hell anyways. plus his name means “scatterer or plasterer of lies”. that’s metal as fuck. google him, look at his smile and nubby little horns and tell me that’s not sliske.

𝐕𝐈𝐈𝐈.    ·     𝐆𝐑𝐈𝐌 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐏𝐄𝐑 : death man in hood and shadows who comes to collect your soul and might take a deal to let you live longer just fits the bill. have you seen grim in all the old paintings? shadowy, wraithy, ominous? yeah, you get it.

𝐈𝐗.    ·     𝐇𝐄𝐗𝐗𝐔𝐒 : your honor, i ain’t explaining shit. i plead the fucking fifth. if you’ve fuckin’ seen it, you know.  ( mr. curry sir, this is a children’s film but PLEASE go on i guess. )

tagged by: @sylvansoldier ! ♥ tagging: IDK STEAL IT PLEASE, just don’t ramble like i did.

[imaginarycircus]

Today is my birthday and all well wishes are giddily accepted. I’m going to level with you. I’ve felt disappointed in myself lately more and more. For the last few years I’ve been increasingly selfconscious and kind of embarrassed about my age, my appearance, and my lack of success for a given value of success. Like I’m an old washing machine that needs to be taken out back and disassembled for parts or used as a fire pit. The worst part is that I knew I was selling myself a bill of goods and I couldn’t stop.

This is venting. I’d love it if you have time and energy to listen, but please don’t give me advice. If you want to share your experiences or feelings that is cool. I’d love to hear about you. I’m sorry this is like a 3 TED talk series, but you do not have to read it and I don’t expect anyone to do so.

If a friend told me they felt like this I’d theoretically grab their face in both hands and look into their eyes and say, “You precious, wonderful, jar of dumbass jam.”

“You have a messy life and stuff that gets in the way and maybe you’re not always doing your best, but you try to and you’re nice to animals and you sure do cry about them a lot. This writing deal is hard. You started 17 years ago, which was a bit late, and you’ve worked really hard. Despite every rejection, you have not stopped. Do you realize how much better you’ve become than you were? Sure. You’ve had some bad luck. Everyone has, but yours is yours. It sucks, but don’t let it define you. Oh. You already let it define you. Past-you is gone and now-you can stop doing that.

You got the MFA. You wrote a novel and your agent couldn’t sell it, but you did it. And you got an agent, which is pretty good. You did well in that Penguin contest. You didn’t win, but top 50 out of 5,000 isn’t too bad. You created two scripted series and wrote the first season of one of them 2-3 times and planned the other in exquisite detail. It’s in development hell and I know you’re tired and you’ve kind of given up hope, but the people negotiating stuff believe in your work (also @kyrieanne‘s work.) You’ve written a lot. You’re writing a novel right now and your agent is on board. Plus you’re still riding around on this planet. There were times you wanted to get off the ride, but you didn’t.

No one else but you swims in the alchemical product of your past, your traumas, your joys, your education, your hard work, your chronic health issues, and your many mistakes. Own it and fucking walk up the chest of anyone who says you’re not good enough. Yeah. You got walk up your own chest now, buddy. Take some advil. I love you. Take out the trash. And remember you had three separate cancer scares this year. Two surgeries. Two biopsies, one of them a total nightmare, and you were bleeding so much because of that uterine polyp you had no iron for carrying oxygen to your bits and bobs or your brainbox. Take a breath. Take a shower. Drink water. Go out this evening and eat a warm buttered lobster roll and drink some good wine and realize how fucking lucky you are to be able to do that. I love you, you beautiful, dumbass jar of jam.”

But my inner convo has been like, “Dude. Honey. Me. Plz stop. Comparisons are odious. Yes, we like John Donne. No, we do not usually think about ourselves in the third person, but for this exercise it makes sense that even when I am talking to myself I may be talking to another part of myself I’m so at odds with they seem like a different person. We contain multitudes! We also have the adhd and what were we talking about? Oh, yes. We think we’re old and a failure. We’ve bought into it so hard that it keeps us up at night and stalks us during the day. If it walks like a failure duck and talks like a failure duck...

Okay. The WE thing has to stop. Switching to 2nd person, extremely goddamn familiar.

You’re 48 (49 today) and everyone around you is seems so accomplished and has racked up cool resume worthy successes, which you learn about on that bastion or truth and moral rectitude--the twitter. They ARE things. While you? Are nothing in particular. Mostly a lot of “does not live up to potential.” And what the fuck have you done? 3k NY Times crossword puzzles? You haven’t published anything and maybe that’s because you’re not a very good writer. You’ve written a lot of shit in the last two decades, but where has it gotten you? Maybe you’re a dilettante with no substance. You can’t prove you aren’t.

People 20 years younger have accomplished so much more. Now you’re old and annoying and occasionally confused by the youths and their slang. You’re still never sure of the nuance of bougie because it seems to be used in so many different ways. You got cagey about telling anyone your age bc the number sounds alarming. You know you’re buying into a bullshit patriarchal system that devalues people further if they’re no longer baby factories.

And there was that bullshit when some partially baked people told adults to get out of fandom and you kind of said fuck that noise gently with a chainsaw, but you also felt bad. Like an old cranky dude in a ratty old bathrobe who pours  beer on his generic cheerios (tragically called rings’o’oats) and shovels them into his mouth thinking about how he could have BEEN someone, but was struck down by tragedy, or an ego so fragile a light breeze destroyed it. Who refuses to teach a young whipper snapper the ancient art of smacking an object from one place to another bc he’s golluming over his manpain. An off-brand Obi Wan who must be harassed to rejoin the human race and who starts to live again after helping some prodigy succeed. Except you? You’re in the ratty bathrobe phase, probably for eternity, and no one is coming to ask you to do anything, because you never did anything. You’re getting wrinkles and you feel invisible a lot of the time in a way that makes you want to set things on fire bc you’re a middle aged lady, who is not particularly pretty, accomplished, or a mom so wtf are you? And you know that’s a world of absolute bullshit, but you’re soaking it like it’s the world’s biggest tub of Palmolive and you don’t remember getting into it. You know what would make you feel better and give you an ersatz sense of accomplishment?”

And then I do another crossword puzzle. I went back into therapy with someone who specializes in adhd. It’s helping. I haven’t been around here much bc... welp. You’re reading this. I didn’t want to be No Face in Spirited Away vomiting all this trash on you, especially because I know it’s the most womp womp, irritating, middle aged white lady thinks her life is hard and must tell you about it at great length. But then I remember my shitty feelings are valid and I do not ever expect anyone to read this so I can put here if it helps me.

I will be fine. These are human shaped problems. But if you’ve read this nonsense and thought about it, giggled at it, or wondered if you should call someone like I’m a cat stuck in a tree who did not know fully comprehend the consequences of her actions? Thank you. I appreciate you. As always I hope a dog looks at you and wants to be your friend, or a cat walks on your hair because it loves you. (It should go without saying, but feel free to substitute any animal or item into my well wishes as per your requirements.) If you need an excuse to eat cake today--I have decreed that you must do this in my honor. But only if you feel like it and you can eat cake. Also the cake can be made of anything. The cake could be avocados or mathematical. Use your imagination.

To wit; I am 49 fucking years old today. I’m owning it. I’m owning every wrinkle and sun spot. (I started using a serum to deal with sun damage and it seems to work. People told me to wear sunscreen, but I did not.) I’m owning my own failures (and sun damage). I’m learning to own my successes too, especially the ones that don’t make sense to other people without a power point presentation, a Q&A, and a ritual burning of certain artifacts.

Here’s what I’ve done with my life. I’ve lived it.

[teruthecreator]

if you're comfortable, could you say what specifically you hated about the finale? i never got into amnesty but i liked balance so i would like to know how disappointed i should be ://

okay i’m gonna explain this in-detail exactly Once bc i’m trying rlly hard to just forget about the whole epilogue and keep it moving like that shit never happened, so for anyone else who is asking me why i don’t like the finale (and im not saying you’re wrong for asking, anon, it just seems that when you vocally do not like a thing there are hundreds of people who come out of the woodworks to ask you why and i think thats kinda Huh, Weird of everyone but like whatever) i’m gonna lay it all out here on the table and you can take this as you will. 

i’m not gonna be getting into fistfights with people abt this so if you disagree please don’t try and banter with me. i am running on

also, CRITICISM OF ART DOES NOT MEAN CRITICISM OF THE ARTIST. I AM NOT CRITICIZING THE MCELROYS AS HUMAN BEINGS, BUT RATHER THEIR ARTISTIC DECISIONS IN TAZ: AMNESTY. MORE PEOPLE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS A SEPARATION BETWEEN ART AND ARTIST, AND ONCE YOU (AS AN ARTIST) POST A PIECE, IT BECOMES SUBJECT TO CRITICISM. I AM NOT BRINGING GRIFFIN, JUSTIN, TRAVIS, OR CLINT’S CHARACTERS INTO QUESTION; I AM SIMPLY GIVING A CRITICISM ON THE SHOW THEY’VE CREATED AS A WORK OF ART. 

oh, this goes without saying, but i will anyway: SPOILERS FOR AMNESTY (IN GENERAL, BUT ALSO FOR EPISODE 36) 

i’m gonna start off by saying, i don’t think the whole episode was a total disaster. there are two things mainly that have ruined the whole experience for me, but for the most part i thought the like first 2 hours of this episode were a lot of fun! the fight scene was a little bogged down in the rolls imo, but it didn’t deter me too much from the overarching boss battle. the intro was a sick concept, i enjoyed the callback bits spliced in w newly scripted bits from mentioned past encounters, that was all well and good. i loved beacon in the episode, and god do i wish he stayed for the whole thing. 

my problem mainly sits with the epilogue, which is why i think the whole episode turns sour in my mind. because the epilogue is supposed to be what satiates your desire to know more, right? not to reference balance too much (bc these are two completely different stories w different premises, and for people to so readily compare them is kinda wack. that being said, they are two stories made by the same people that use an epilogue to wrap up the loose ends, so im gonna make this one comparison), but the epilogue told us, the listener, all the things we wanted to know about after the day of story of song. we got to know what they did, a little bit of their interpersonal relationships, and we even got a big group scene with the killarey wedding! 

this epilogue, though, feels like it left so much still on the table. one of those things i will swing back to later because it is the largest part of my argument, but after all of this time we still don’t know why everyone at the lodge got exiled! no one talks about it! we don’t know how dani ended up there, or jake, or barclay, or moira, or anyone! they don’t reference the banishments at all, which i think is a huge shortcoming figuring that is the core premise as to why these characters exist in our pc’s world in the first place. 

i also feel like the concept of the worlds being divided for a long time is kind of a dumb way to go about framing what they do After The Fact. like, they could have had those scenes happen without the looming concept of them being divided, especially when their big reunion scene is like 2 minutes long and basically does nothing. what would have been a cooler premise is if billy connected the worlds, and the worlds worked together in rebuilding themselves. we still could’ve had the same bits happen (for the most part), but i just think that whole separation bit kinda alienated the pc’s (especially thacker). 

but everything up to aubrey’s epilogue bit is fine. i have some problems, but it’s fine. where i started to completely abandon the work itself though is duck’s bit, and i’m gonna get into it by saying this: I know Justin Mcelroy is not legally required to make all of his characters gay, but this whole scene was just a big reminder to me that this show is done by 4 straight white men

and yeah, my big problem with this scene is the fact that justin had to make Duck/Minerva a thing. because it adds nothing to the story while also being a very skeevy concept in-general, and it reduces minerva’s character down to the Hero’s Girlfriend trope and it’s so comphet and she doesn’t deserve it. 

my first grievance with this: It adds nothing to the story. 

had justin not even mentioned the relationship part of their interaction before the scene actually took place, this scene would be like every other scene involving duck and minerva prior to this. duck says honey once, and even that could’ve been played off as duck just being affectionate to his friends (which is a thing, i call several of my friends “my love” irl and it isn’t a big deal). minerva doesn’t even use pet names, she calls duck by his full name, which is exactly how she addressed him in every other scene! duck’s speech is a genuine heart-puller, but it was completely soured by the fact that justin had to premise this entire scene by saying duck and minerva are a thing. 

my second grievance: it’s a skeevy-as-all-hell concept. 

this whole premise is nasty seven ways from sunday, and it is my biggest problem with duck’s bit as a whole. for starters, and i think more people need to mention this, minerva meets duck on the night of his 18th birthday. which means duck has literally just stopped being legally considered a minor before minerva appears before him. and honestly, i would still consider duck a minor in this case because he has literally just turned 18!!! his brain has not developed past one of a 17-year-old on the exact date of his birthday, and i argue it will not until he is at least in his twenties. keep in mind, your brain does not stop developing until you are about 25. so while in the legal sense, duck is an adult, in both the mental and emotional sense at that exact moment, duck is still a minor. AND he’s still in high school, as referenced in his response to her call to duty: “i got class tomorrow”. and minerva is old enough to have become the minister of defense for her homeworld, go through an entire war, and have several other chosen ones (including leo tarkesian, who is at least 20 years older than duck) before meeting duck. so that makes her much, much older than duck when she meets him. and i don’t care if they had barely any interaction after that first moment (though they did, as justin legit talks about when he introduces minerva as a concept to the show), that still establishes their initial interaction at a massive age difference. which, regardless of anything, makes their eventual relationship so genuinely messed up. 

sure, you can argue that when you get older age doesn’t make that much of a difference, and i would agree. my mother is 53 and her husband is 63, that’s ten years. but my mother and step mother did not meet at 8 and 18, they met at 50 and 60. the initial interaction makes all the difference between “older people meeting and having a relationship” and “a very messed up situation”. 

also, in this same argument, taking the mentor-student relationship and turning it into a romantic relationship IS SO MESSED UP!!!! GENUINELY AND HONESTLY MESSED UP!!! i feel like i don’t need to explain this because there have been so many examples already as to why this is a relationship you Should Not turn romantic, but i will anyway because it frustrates me so much that justin completely glosses over this!!! the power dynamic of a mentor-student relationship, in whatever way it is portrayed, displays a power balance that is heavily leaning to one side. there is not an equal distribution of power amongst the two because one person is teaching the other. the one person is weak to the others wills and whims because of lack of experience. think of your high school teacher or college professor; if you started a relationship with them, people would raise so many questions because you are not at equals to the teacher/professor. even if they treat you different, and even if they no longer teach you, it all has to do with the initial interaction. and minerva was still duck’s mentor up until either episode 34 or 35, when she handed off the title of Herald of the Astral Mind to duck. that means for nearly all of their interactions, there was a mentor-student dynamic. to have that turn into a romantic relationship is so sketchy and weird and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. 

my third grievance: it reduces minerva’s character down to a girlfriend trope, and it’s comphet as hell 

my friend tin (@taako–waititi) phrased this so well in the big group chat im in w her, so imma just quote her on this and then go into the comphet stuff: 

“i was dming max about it and they also mentioned, quote, ‘her story was never about romance. it reduced her down to ‘competent woman becomes endgame girlfriend’ trope’ and they are so right it makes me fucking pissed. regardless of any ‘mutual respect’ and ‘emotional intimacy’ kind of thing going on that some people are arguing for, it’s something that didn’t need to happen because minerva’s character becomes that. my thing is mutual respect and emotional intimacy between two people can. exist. without it being. romantic. like. friendship is. also valid. i personally don’t think that mutual respect and emotional intimacy are two buttons that you press to make the machine churn out a romance” 

not only does it reduce minerva’s character to tropes, but it also is extremely comphet for a woman who is so heavily wlw-coded or lesbian-coded and it just angers me. you could argue that she could be bi, but if we look at canon for just its face-value, the only romantic interaction she ever has is with a man, which basically makes her straight. this isn’t like aubrey’s situation, where travis clearly states she is a bi woman who is just in a relationship with another woman in amnesty. griffin doesn’t state anything about minerva’s sexuality and then she’s paired off with a man right at the end. and you could argue that she isn’t wlw or lesbian-coded, but i am not the only one who is wlw and thinks this, so i feel like i have more of a ground to stand on in this opinion. and this just feels so, like, textbook compulsory heteronormativity it made me feel physically sick when i heard this bit in the podcast. 

so that’s my first big issue with the finale, fully explained. my second issue with the epilogue is that ned’s death continues to be disappointing and his character arc is never completed, which just tanks the whole show for me. 

i’ve talked about this several times since ep 28 about how ned’s death was stupid and did nothing for his character arc, but i’m gonna reiterate my main points for the people who find this post without knowing my whole blog:

1. ned’s main interpersonal conflicts are just brought to the surface and never fully delved into before his sudden death. ned doesn’t ever get to explain his history with boyd and why he had to steal shade tree to mama or barclay or really anyone besides vaguely to aubrey. 

2. every character is just immediately expected to feel sad about ned’s death, despite the tension that still remains right up until the very end. aubrey shouldn’t have even known that the shapeshifter framed ned because that’s all explained once she goes to sylvain, but i think travis just assumed she did because he heard the interaction between ned, mama, and barclay. so she should’ve had Way more conflicting feelings about the whole thing, but ned’s death is just angst-bait so that doesn’t happen.

3. ned’s death doesn’t make roll sense because clint rolled a mixed success and mixed successes, by definition, are supposed to be less severe moves than a failed roll (which gives the gm the ability to make a hard move). there isn’t really anything harder to do to a character than kill them, but even if you wanted to argue that if clint failed the roll the hard move would’ve been ned failing and letting dani get shot, it still doesn’t change the fact that clint rolled a mixed success when slamming into the pizza hut sign at full velocity and came out of that alive (severely injured, naturally, but still alive). 

so, yeah, there’s that. and then theres the fact that griffin doesn’t ever give us any other scenes involving ned directly. ned only becomes a reference from 28 on, which is so disappointing given ned’s importance to the other two pcs. and i understand that the mcelroys have a lot of trauma related to death, but griffin shouldn’t have killed ned off then if he did not want to talk about death in graphic detail. we all have trauma. we all want to avoid topics. but to kill ned off and then never talk about his death in great relation to the others is a genuine disservice to ned’s character. 

the day episode 28 aired was the same day i buried my grandmother. i would have loved if death wasn’t brought up, but i don’t control the podcast. the mcelroys do; they had the ability to avoid this topic in a more servicing way to the characters and they didn’t. that isn’t to say they are bad people for not doing it, but it makes the finale even more disappointing because it means we never get the full rounding out of ned’s character arc. he becomes this like brief reference that is, once again, angst-bait or emotional fuel and i feel like he didn’t deserve that. he deserved a genuine reference, a genuine moment. even a dream sequence i would have appreciated!!! 

griffin had sylvain directly point at ned in aubrey’s flashback in ep 35, and then did nothing about what that could have implicated in the finale. it sours the entire episode in a major way and disappointed me immensely. there should have been more done with that topic and there wasn’t and i will never forget how deeply it hurt me and turned me away from canon as a whole. not to be ned kin on main, but ned was the backbone of this show and the exact moment he left was the exact moment the whole thing went downhill. it turned less into a story about growth and adversary and amnesty and more into a waiting game for when this very loose end was going to get wrapped up. 

i wanted to enjoy this episode. i tried so hard, y’all. but just the thought of ned loomed over me the entire time and i was waiting for a more proper completion to his arc, and it never happened. and coupled with that very bad and skeevy duck/minerva bit i was just so frustrated and hurt last night. 

so, yeah, that’s my whole spiel. you are free to disagree with me, but keep that opinion to yourself because i’m not getting into it with anyone. i will just block you; it’s better for us both, anyway. 

[fatedfuturist]

things about my interpretation of tony stark. updated june 07, 2020.

here’s my exhaustive explanation for how i am not canon-compliant with the events and characterization of the mcu.

the reason for this is… well, there are several reasons, but i don’t want to stir shit up or just, in general, stomp on anyone else’s love for the mcu. and don’t get me wrong— i do love the mcu! but there are parts i’m critical of for personal reason, as we all have opinions on certain things. bc, yeah, you can love something, or someone, and still be logically critical about it or them.

anyway, here’s where my interpretation differs…

as per stated on my rules: i take inspiration for tony from multiple sources, including the mcu, marvel comics, the television show: avengers assemble, and my own personal headcanons. TONY IS ALSO ASIAN (SPECIFICALLY CHINESE) AMERICAN!!

i will admit that saying this isn’t particularly helpful if people don’t know, specifically, where i differ in terms of my interpretation of our dumbass genius. some of this info is scattered about on my blog, but here, it’s all consolidated into one post.

chen kun is my face claim, and i do use stuff from tony’s story from the mcu as a base. however, there are events and moments from the movies, that i selectively ignore due to personal preference; and then i build on top of my foundation with ideas, themes, and/or events from other sources such as the aforementioned sources listed above.

throwing this all under a read more because, like i said: exhaustive list. very. very. very fucking long. i’m serious– read at your own risk.

howard stark was an extremely abusive and absent father for all of tony’s childhood; tony did actively seek attention and approval from howard because he was rather aware of how famous he was and wanted the acceptance and validation from his dad; there wasn’t much shown in the mcu regarding his relationship with his father, but my inspiration for his father-son relationship comes from the comics;

an example of his verbal abuse: “you don’t want to be a sissy, now do you? stark men are made of iron!” (Iron Man, 1968);

an example of early exposure to alcohol: at age five, howard forced a drink into tony’s hand (which he did drink), stating that it would teach him “to be a man,” and that it’d “put hair on your chest” (Iron Man, 1968);

yes, this means that tony ‘forgiving’ howard in endgame is completely chucked out the window;

tony loses his parents the night of december 16, 1996 (not 12/16/1991), at the age of seventeen;

jarvis, the family butler, was more of a father to tony than howard ever was, and yes, this is why he names his first fully-functioning AI system jarvis;

tony was close with his mother, maria; she was his safehouse, and she taught him to be gentle and loving, and she also taught him the piano, which tony still periodically practices during his own time in private. in an avengers assemble episode, there is a piano in the tower that tony protects twice, which i reckon is because it has connections to his past with maria;

tony ain’t an old grandpa. i don’t see him being older than, like, 35–40 in the present time for my writing (chen kun is 44). this comes from comic and avengers assemble inspiration, which has been fairly ambiguous since they never mention his age. for plotting purposes in the mcu though, yes, he can be like 42–52 if needed.

tony is, by default, single unless otherwise stated. the reason for this is simply because i’m not big on tony / pepper in the mcu, and it’s not because i don’t like pepper (i love her as a character as an individual), but i just saw that the way they were written (so, this, yes, blames the mcu writers) was completely trash; they sort of redeemed it in endgame, but... in general, they had a lot of potential but then some writing choices pretty much ruined the ship for me;

this means that morgan does not exist unless otherwise specified and discussed, though i do enjoy the concert of tony being a dad to his own kid and breaking that cycle of howard’s shitty parenting;

i’m going to be as honest and transparent as i can: i do, for certain, love writing stevetony. they’re my primary ship. not simply in mcu dynamics, but from the comics and avengers assemble. however, like some can attest to, i will never force a ship on anyone. if you express no interest in them romantically? that’s fine. we can write them simply as good friends and comrades. i won’t stop writing or plotting with you if you don’t like them in a romantic dynamic. if you do like it that way? cool. i know it might be intimidating to discuss this given i look like complete trash for them, but i never choose who i will/will not write with based on whether we ship or not;

tony, publicly, hints toward being bisexual and biromantic a lot of the time as he’ll practically flirt with anyone at all times, but he never really openly admits it due to his oh-so ancient internalized homophobia (thank you for that one, howard and societal expectations of the time);

justin hammer is a long time rival in the industry, and often meddles with tony and his work all the time. it’s nothing new. the lack of foundation established in IM2 doesn’t provide much insight into their relationship. long story short (taken from avengers assemble): hammer is a punk bitch who’s jealous and tony is tired of him and will gladly beat his ass any day of the week whenever he drives a tank into his front door (which happens more often than not).

tony is fantastic with children. he loves getting to interact with children because he knows how excited they are to see him and/or iron man (seen in both the mcu and in the comics). this type of attention he’s okay about. if he can inspire children to do good things and be good people and be heroes in their own right, then he’s doing his job;

tony fosters the intelligence and dreams of bright individuals all the time by offering scholarships for high school graduates and post-secondary students, and also provides internship opportunities (equal opportunities regardless of race, sex, gender, religion, disability status, age, etc.)

we only see this occur with peter and harley in the mcu, but there are other kids— like riri williams! tony sees these kids for the bright minds that they have and he wants to help them and keep them safe as he knows these are the brains of the future.

let me run over iron man 3. like i said, i ignore some shit from the movies. tony doesn’t initiate the clean slate protocol, he doesn’t throw the arc reactor into the ocean, and he doesn’t remove the arc reactor from his chest. he will get surgery to get the shrapnel removed because if i were the follow the pain that comes with the comics, tony would literally be always on the verge of death at all times, requiring a chest plate to be recharged constantly to make sure the shrapnel doesn’t get closer– see? that’s a lot and i’m... lazy.

the reason for those choices are simple: clean slate protocol undoes his character progression;

the arc reactor is just a part of him as a person, stands as his heart;

avengers movie nights, (video/board) game nights, and training days exist and you will never be able to pry that out of my hands. tony always shows up fashionably late with coffee and pays for when shit gets broken by thor. team building exercises exist plenty within avengers assemble, including the fact that they share chores and decides who gets to do the next load of laundry from whoever chooses the short stick from the bunch.

tony has had anxiety and depression since he was a child. it just didn’t really flare up and get identified as a real, tangible mess of emotions and thoughts until he’d been kidnapped (and nearly died, at that). it got worse when he failed to address it until after IM3. into the present-day, tony deals with anxiety, depression, and PTSD all the time, but has improved (…sort of) when it comes to handling all of it, and certainly has grown to recognize similar symptoms in the people he cares about;

on another hand, tony has displayed symptoms of ADHD, but it’s not officially diagnosed, and some of these symptoms include, but are not limited to: hyperactivity (staying awake for days on end) and hyperfocus (hyper-focus on work), distractible (easily distracted when he’s not focused on something), rambling (talks a lot and often makes rather intuitive connections due to how busy his brain functions), impulsivity and recklessness (self explanatory), constant need to move around and/or do something (in meetings, he will be moving somehow, whether it’s tapping fingers or feet, or shifting around in his seat);

there are days where he feels inferior due to how human he knows he is (in comparison to most of his team), and other days, he feels as though he’s more machine than he is man. these feelings fluctuate depending on how he’s doing with his mental health, and/or if he hears and/or sees anything about him that points toward either idea;

there is always overwhelming guilt for those he can’t keep safe or people that die; tony doesn’t like to kill anybody (unless it’s robots, because… they’re robots, not human lives); though, if pushed far enough with no other choice, he will throw conventional morality out the window for the sake of protecting all that he believes to be for the good of the world;

tony isn’t jacked. he isn’t captain america fit, but he isn’t particularly thin, either. his body is sort of like a runner’s build (for visuals, refer to valerio schiti’s comic art of tony). i interpret tony’s body as a slight bit slimmer. he exercises, and being in the suit also is its own form of exercise. god forbid we discuss his eating habits, though. and–– he also isn’t short short, but he isn’t tall, either. he sits at 5’10”, which might be a little below the average male, but that’s about it.

speaking of eating habits, simply put: tony can’t cook for shit and that’s it. he’ll try to cook for his significant others’ on the occasion, but he can’t be blamed if he burns everything.

tony isn’t ‘woke’ or perfect, as it’s imperative to remember he grew up as rich and with financial and some social class privilege (since he was rich), despite the abuse and harassment he experienced during his youth. it’s taken him time to recognize this, and he realizes it really doesn’t cost anything to be a better person, which is why he tries to be better when it comes to his tone of voice when discussing certain topics he has no authority to be speaking of, and by taking action with simple manual labour when it comes to chores (so he doesn’t hire other people to do shit for him). he also knows he can’t be a man of ‘all bark and no bite’ when it comes to supporting people and causes, hence why he actively advocates for female and youth empowerment through both words and actions.

in regards to ca:cw events, i would prefer to ignore them. for specific-plotting purposes, this can be dropped, but i prefer the events of avengers assemble when it comes to ‘civil war’. it’s actually really simple:

tony was not honest about his intentions with the team regarding a robot that was initially made for him by howard, which ended up with an ultron reboot that nearly risked loads of civilian lives and the team’s lives;

steve confronted tony about it when they returned back to avengers tower. with tony’s insistence that everything was now fine, steve decided to resign due to tony’s dishonesty and lack of trust in the team;

this splits the team in half, where steve takes— well, they decided to leave since they didn't like tony's lack of honesty— natasha, the hulk, and the falcon to work under SHIELD as the ‘secret avengers,’ and tony, clint, and thor remain as leftover avengers (later with the addition of ant-man and temporarily, spider-man, in some missions);

in the end, they all join back together after learning to appreciate their differences and reconciling under the fact that there wouldn’t be any more secrets that could risk the world, and the team’s safety;

if i am to follow the events of the mcu— between ca:cw and infinity war, he develops nanotech for his armour, which is embedded into his very skin to accommodate for nanobots, which interacts via neural transmissions (visuals here);

tony recognizes that he lost his temper and let his emotions get to him in the moment, which fucked up shit that could’ve been talked through and fixed;

tony is an alcoholic. he recognizes that he always will be, though he’s always working toward sobriety. he certainly relapses every so often when things are rough and he feels as if he has no other options, but he’s aware that relapsing is part of the process of recovery. he has attended AA meetings (alcoholics anonymous), and has been AA sponsors for people in the past;

to skim through the events of infinity war and endgame should these be part of the things you’re curious about (this is getting really long and i’m sure you’re tired of reading this—how have you gotten this far?):

after returning from space, tony took a few months (~ five) to recover from those three months of malnutrition, dehydration, and the wound of thanos’ stab. tony sealed the front of his injury, but he sure as hell wasn’t seen dealing with the back end. during this time, he’s able to regain some muscle mass;

he lives on his own, retreating to the cabin to escape from the responsibilities of being a fallen hero who ultimately failed the people he was supposed to protect.

during the five year gap, he keeps in contact with the other avengers, but very rarely. they’re the only ones who know where he lives;

like i said— tony does not say any of that forgiving bullcrap to howard. victims of abuse don’t have to forgive their abuser, parent or not. let’s just imagine the entire interaction didn’t happen at all;

tony doesn’t die;

he used the infinity stones; but, to maintain consistency with what the mcu established w/ thanos: he sustained significant damage to his right arm, up to the shoulder and neck. it’s gravely scarred. the overall function of that arm also diminished greatly. vision out of his right eye is not as sharp as it once was, either;

a year of recovery and physiotherapy later, tony decides to amputate and go for a prosthetic. he works with shuri and wakandan tech to build an arm;

despite the end of the looming, world-ending thread, tony still battles resurfacing trauma. not every day is happy, but he is working toward recovery. there are days he doesn’t remember chunks of what happened due to the power of the infinity stones; sometimes, he doesn’t even want to remember it, anyway;

tony retires. sort of. for the most part. if the world really needs iron man, he’ll be there;

tony may have handed CEO-ship to pepper, but he still handles a lot of work for stark industries, and that’s what he primarily does post-endgame.

the multiverse and realm-traveling happens a-fucking-lot 

[freakypumpkin]

dude seeing your art makes me so happy everytime, it's so beautiful i don't even have words. i was just wondering how you practiced drawing bodies when you started out, and if you maybe had an example on how you work on construction lines and such? bc when i draw bodies they always end up looking stiff and the proportions look off and weird and yeah. i'd really want to improve /quickly/ or efficiently but everytime i try to practice i end up frustrated bc it doesnt look like i want it to at all

Thank you very much :) I’m always happy to hear, that people enjoy my art experiments :D and just art in general.

As for your question, I pretty much practiced through trial and error and youtube tutorials. By now there’s great and helpful stuff on youtube. Important is, that you see everything as half-true, nobody has the perfect wisdom for you because nobody draws like you. You should look through some things and see what works for you or what kind of result you want. (The same for whatever I have to say, btw, if it doesn’t work for you, then it’s not because you’re bad, it’s just not the right method for you.)

I hope, something of this will be somehow helpful, but as always feel free to ask when there’s still something unclear or you have more questions. (I always feel like I ramble a lot.)

What I did:

Learning about the general measurements of the body.-> I have a mental checklist by now, I keep in mind when drawing bodies and on there I have different information about how big/long the parts of the body are in comparison to other parts: Most prominently I use - the thighs have about the length of the upper body- your elbows are at the height of your waist- the full length of the arms reaches the middle of your thighs- the hands with fingers are as long as the face- the lower arm is slightly shorter than the upper arm … basically, when you think, something is off, look at your own body and sometimes it also helps recreating the pose and see how it looks and how far, for example, your arms can actually reach, when you make a certain move. 

The same goes for the face. Like, depending on how realistic you want to work, the space between your eyes has the length of your eyes for example. Or that the line of the lips is parallel to the line of the eyes, and that the eyes are usually more in the center of the face, than you’d think. (I have the tendency to place them too far towards the corner of the face.)

These are the proportions, that often help a drawing, when you feel like something is off - at least for me - it tends to be because an arm is longer than the other or something like that, the head is too small/big, etc. If you’re not sure, go through the different parts and look how they behave in size compared to the rest of the body. And when you look at photographs, look at how long something is compared to something else or how thick and also when you want to draw somebody muscular, look at references and look at where the silhouette of the body differs from somebody non-muscular, how do muscles influence the proportions and where are they (you often already get different necklines for different body types).

Then about movement: 

First off: Fluid movement is difficult, don’t beat yourself up about it too much. And I already mean something ‘simple’ like walking or running, because it’s one thing to make a drawing where somebody can recognize ‘Ah, the character is running’ and where they can actually feel them running (sounds cheesy, I know), where the weight is positioned right and the hair moves accordingly and so on.-> So, start small, don’t aim too high too soon, if you try to skip the steps in between, you’re going to hurt yourself.

(Second: With portraying movement well, the composition of your drawing also plays a role, too. So there are a lot of factors, that play into whether or not movement looks good. It’s not something you do on just one level.)

Now, what I mostly did here, is learn and practice foreshortening and  perspective in general, and not just with bodies, just drawing simple objects in a certain perspective can already help to work up your three-dimensional thinking and the awareness of the fact, that in a certain perspective or position for example parts of the body are simply not visible. 

Other than that, I usually look at drawings, that I admire because of their motion and try to analyze why I like them so much, what catches my attention about the motion, then I try to copy that and break the often more complex drawing down into the most basic lines. You don’t need details and shading to sell the motion itself, they help, but don’t carry it. For this, it’s also always interesting to look into behind the scenes drawings of animators and such. Well-animated animes are always great for that study or movies.

Also, first practice proportion, then go into motion. If you don’t have your proportions worked out, your motion won’t look good.

And now just some general things about improving efficiently. 

- Daily practice, just stick to pencil sketches. (If you want to, maybe try out sketching with color pencils, so it’s not always grey.) But do at least one each day, fill your sketchbook pages.

- Concentrate on what you want to practice, choose smaller parts of the body. One week you only draw hands, the next one it’s only feet, then you get to full upper bodies or facial expressions, take your pick, but if you’re having trouble with full bodies, go step by step. (The human body is complex as hell.)

- Watch the people around you (as creepy as that sounds, but try not to be creepy). If you see somebody talking with their hands, look at for example, with what hand gesture which part of the fingers are visible, how big/long are they compared to each other.

- Erase every line, that doesn’t belong. You drew a perfect hand, but it’s not in the right space? Erase it, you will draw great hands again.

Some technical stuff I do:

- For the first sketch, when you hold your pencil, move your fingers a bit further up, so you’ll have less control over where exactly the line goes, which helps to create more dynamic lines and it helps with not putting too much pressure on it right from the start.

- I started sketching with an 0.35 mechanical pencil, which gave me more room for details, which ended up being a lot more relaxing for the sketching process. :)

And in the end: Don’t stress yourself, seriously. If you practice every day, you will notice, how some things will get easier, how you start building up a form of archive of lines for different things, and you will get faster at getting the right expression down on paper.

Be kind to yourself, breathe. If you don’t get anywhere with one sketch, start another, just don’t throw your sketchbook out of the window. :)

P.S.: Unfortunately I don’t have anything, that would show my work with construction lines properly because my sketches tend to get very messy or I just erase the helping lines when I don’t need them anymore. I would have to film the process to show how I do it, I think. Would there be an interest in seeing how I sketch?

[rhyglizzy]

i hate being alive yo it sucks and i’m so bad at it like what even is the point of anything i’m literally not good enough at anything to feel like i have purpose like ??? what am i doing??? and i could go back to school but the thought makes me want to vomit, especially bc i’d have to take the train to get there and ever since i ditched and walked from the train station to buy ***** and did what i did i can’t even think about taking a train again without starting to panic anyways that’s neither here nor there bc im trying to move past it but yeah i didn’t learn shit in school this semester and really it was just the environment and being surrounded by artists that made it feel worthwhile, i half assed all my assignments and the only joy i got out of projects was seeing everyone else’s work. i felt internally inspired i guess but i never expressed anything artistically bc i’m just not creative enough on my own. i always considered art to be the one thing i was good at and now honestly i’m realizing i’m really only interested in representational art and i’m kind of only subpar at that anyway in comparison to others, and i know that’s not a reason not to do it but the fact that i have literally nothing that sets me apart is what makes my work worthless lol. so on top of being fat and gross and not really interesting, the ONE thing i thought would give me a path in life has been the thing that’s created the MOST confusing and pointless time of my life and honestly i really am trying not to slip back into that hopeless feeling but i still have thought to myself at least once a week that i wish i hadn’t called and just moved on and saw what happened to me from there. and i also denied needing any psychiatric treatment bc no matter how badly i need it i really am not in the frame of mind to be completely willing to confront the issues i have. literally all my free time, hours upon hours of my day every single day is spent fucking pacing and thinking about unrealistic shit that’ll never happen bc i can’t just wake the fuck up and act like a normal human being and do the things i want to do!! :) haha but yeah just shitposting you know the fucking vibes ahahaha