#I didn't start from the beginning

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

(Anon only please) I'm the same with Leasebound. I love Riley and I love Jaden but I can't see them as a couple. Jalexis should be the endgame ship.

I'M FUCKING SAYING. However, I'm well aware that Jaden and Riley have a lot more development to go through so I don't think we should focus too hard on them not seeming couple-worthy just yet. If they have their first kiss and STILL seem like they shouldn't be together, Rusty is gonna get an earful from me 💀 Imma slide her 20 dollars like "bring my girl Alexis back, PLEASE"

#The first leasebound chapter I read was Jaden's #I didn't start from the beginning #I tried but I didn't find it interesting #But then Jaden's story? #I was actually checking for updates #I never did that before #And then I was so enamored with Jaden that I actually DID go back to the beginning when her chapter was over #I'm so in love with her and Alexis #My heart aches so bad for them #So much of Jaden's story is tied to Alexis #I can't help falling for them a little bit #I'm sure Rusty has something cooking for us so I'm not gonna complain too much #But Alexis is my baby girl #I know it won't happen but if Rusty pulls an uno reverse card on us then leasebound will be the greatest lesbian love story in history

[inkskinned]

sometimes we just need someone to pay enough attention.

for the longest time i had been trying to read The Lord of The Rings. everyone had sung the praises for it, over and over. i'd seen clips of the movie and it seemed like it could be fun, but actually reading it was fucking horrible.

my parents had the omnibus - all the books squished into one big tome - and in the 4th grade i started sort of an annual tradition: i would start trying to read TLR and get frustrated after about a month and put it back down. at first i figured i was just too young for it, and that it would eventually make sense.

but every time i came back to it, i would find myself having the exact same experience: it was confusing, weird, and dry as a fucking bone. i couldn't figure it out. how had everyone else on earth read this book and enjoyed it? how had they made movies out of this thing? it was, like, barely coherent. i would see it on "classics" list and on every fantasy/sci-fi list and everyone said i should read it; but i figured that it was like my opinion of great expectations - just because it's a classic doesn't mean i'm going to like experiencing it.

at 20, i began the process of forcing myself through it. if i had to treat the experience like a self-inflicted textbook, i would - but i was going to read it.

my mom came across me taking notes at our kitchen table. i was on the last few pages of the first book in the omnibus, and i was dreading moving on to the next. she smiled down at me. only you would take notes on creative writing. then she sat down and her brow wrinkled. wait. why are you taking notes on this?

i said the thing i always said - it's boring, and i forget what's happening in it because it's so weird, and dense. and strange.

she nodded a little, and started to stand up. and then sat back down and said - wait, will you show me the book?

i was happy to hand it over, annoyed with the fact i'd barely made a dent in the monster of a thing. she pulled it to herself, pushing her glasses up so she could read the tiny writing. for a moment, she was silent, and then she let out a cackle. she wouldn't stop laughing. oh my god. i cannot wait to tell your father.

i was immediately defensive. okay, maybe i'm stupid but i've been trying to read this since the 4th grade and -

she shook her head. raquel, this is the Silmarillion. you've been reading the Silmarillion, not the lord of the rings.

anyway, it turns out that the hobbit and lord of the rings series are all super good and i understand why they're recommended reading. but good lord (of the rings), i wish somebody had just asked - wait. this kind of thing is right up your alley. you love fantasy. it sounds like something might be wrong. why do you think it's so boring?

#thanks for reminding me this happened #writeblr #warm up #i don't think this story translates well to the page #IRONIC!!!! :) #but yeah man i read the Silmarillion before i read the hobbit #the omnibus didn't explain what it was and i figured - you start at the beginning and then you read from the beginning #that's how books work #how was i supposed to know #EDIT IN THE TAGS: hi i think i worded this in a confusing way #the omnibus had ALL the stories in it - the silm #the hobbit #and all of LOTR #they just put the silm in the front so i thought logically it was the first book #that's how an omnibus usually works after all - the first book in the series is the first book in the tome #to be fair i GUESS the silm takes place “before” the hobbit????

[vaxxman]

Do you like red oktoberfest (like romantically)?

Aha! Interesting and very valid thing to ask! Thanks for your question!

I shall not answer straightforwardly!

Doodle (1) and rambles you didn't ask for below the cut. The answer is in the last paragraph.

Clown language.

I admit I personally prefer showing characters interact with each other and allowing their interaction to be interpreted as either romantic, platonic, or even nothing at all.

I think this approach makes relationships less framed by "signpost cues" of friendship/attraction/love (not that I do not enjoy seeing these either). I think it leaves more room for interesting human interactions, independent of what expectations the reader has for the two characters. Some people seem to search for actions like kissing, hugging, confessions, in order to confirm whether something was supposed to be romantic or not. But then, the absence of such cues make them arrive at conclusions that ignore other forms of relationship-building interactions all together :(

(Fig.1: The unparalleled amount of different flavours of intimate feelings that are evoked from "getting shot and dying on your shoulder" - disease)

So for me, it's Schroedinger's character relationships, with a generous amount of "the true value of this relationship is the collection of interactions we have made along the way" and it doesn't need a name. So with that out of the way:

I am not averted to the idea of Medic and Heavy finally getting their hot steamy Tf2 Sex Update thanks for readin-

#tf2 medic #tf2 heavy #tf2 #team fortress 2 #60 seconds till mission begins rambles #Generally I like Doc just “mein Freund”ing everyone and keeping it ambiguous what he means oh the broad road that is camaraderie and romanc #Its 100% ok if you want to tag anything I drew with a romantic couple tag even though I myself didn't tag it as such #Be free :) - just dont start to tag something unethical :( #This ask is from nearly 2 months ago apologies that it took so long #I wanted to answer things chronologically but alas impulsive posting got the better of me

[helsensm]

me: I think this art block is behind me now, I feel like drawing again

hormonal imbalance and self-deprecating thoughts: no you don't

aaaanyway, railao sketchbook doodles! ⚡🌸

#all of them except the last Raiden are back from the beginning of march #I think #Raiden sketch was done yesterday during warm-up #that's all I can draw now. warm-ups. C': #I really want to finish all the stuff I started... #but time is a weird soup #I didn't even realize how many days passed since my last art #kung lao #raiden #mk raiden #railao #mortal kombat #mortal kombat 1 #mk1 #helsensm art

[sugusearrings]

( ' glass children. ' )

violet wrists and then her ankles, silent pain. then he slowly saw their nightmares were his dreams. monster, how should I feel? creatures lie here, looking through the windows i will hear their voices. i'm a glass child, i am hannah's regrets.

— summary: with the star plasma vessel dead, satoru and suguru need you (fem!reader) to lead them to their next path. — genre: angst. heartbreak. — playing: monster by meg & dia — note(s): i'm a sucker for what ifs. i love what ifs. good and bad. i thought about this what if a lot. i wanted to write about this since halloween and didn't have time to post it. i just know suguru and satoru are better than me cause everyone would have gotten this smoke. that's all imma say. anyways, mentions of blood & death. probably some spelling errors here and there. — word count: 866

Those beautiful cerulean blue hues still sparkled as the light down on them.

But the spark of life was gone. They were dull. Lifeless. Emotionless. You never saw them like this before.

You could feel the anxiety swallowing you whole. If someone looked closely, they can see your legs trembling slightly. The two boys in front of you were having a brief conversation but you couldn’t hear it. You couldn’t hear anything over the loud sounds of your heart rate picking up at a rapid pace. You couldn’t even hear the round of applause the strangers that crowded around the white hair teenager who held the lifeless body like he did the first time meeting her.

They were clapping for Satoru. Fucking clapping.

You just stared at the crowd in disbelief. What kind of people would approve of this? What kind of people are happy over this? The death of a young girl.

A young girl you considered your friend.

Monsters...monsters... “Suguru...should we kill these guys? The way I am right now I doubt I’d feel anything.” His voice was hoarse. But what made your heart ache was hearing no emotion in his tone. It matched his stare. Dull. Lifeless. Emotionless. Your eyes went over to Suguru. His back was faced to Satoru but you saw his almond shaped eyes were as wide as they can be but soon he pulled himself back together. He always does. He has too. “No. There’s no point. It’ll be dissolved soon enough.” His voice mimic the tone Satoru set. He began to walk towards the door to get out of there. He was sick of the clapping and the smell of the dried blood that lingeried. He was sick of this. He was sick of this life. He was sick of death. He was sick of curses. “No point, huh? Does there really need to be any point to it?” Satoru asked or stated. You couldn’t really tell. You went to follow behind Suguru like a lost puppy but Satoru called out your name.

“Name...”

"Y-yes...Satoru?" your gentle voice trembled.

"What do you think we should do?" Satoru asked you. His eyes didn’t look at you. They just looked straight ahead into nothing. Suguru's eyes went over to you almost forgetting you were even there. Your eyes was puffy and red from crying. You were the emotional one out of the three. That's why Satoru would tease you about being weak. You were a crybaby. But Suguru didn't see an issue with it, he likes you like this. So did Satoru but he wouldn't openly admit it. You reminded him about those certain emotions he swore he couldn’t feel anymore. "Name...what should we do?" Suguru also asked willing to do anything you said. The self proclaimed brains of this trio couldn’t think straight or logically. So it was up to you.

The boys looked over at you for an answer. An answer you didn't have. This wasn't fair. These higher ups using you children. Not caring if you killed one another or died in front of each other. You loved your best friends. Especially Satoru and Suguru, willing to do anything to protect them. Even Riko. They were the only family you have. But would the higher ups mourn you? Would the higher ups sink into a dark hole of depression? Would the higher ups get revenge on you? Or would they replace you like a piece of livestock. They would probably replace you in a matter of days.

They probably would assign Satoru and Suguru a mission while your ashes are still warm.

Satoru and Suguru.

The thought of leaving them behind made you feel sick at the pit of your stomach. How would Satoru handle it? You knew Suguru would break in a matter of days. He bottles so much inside of him it would just burst out. Would they keep it together if you were to die? Or would they lose it themselves.

You know you would lose it if either of them or both of them were to die. Leaving you all alone. To defend yourself. To love yourself. You couldn’t imagine a world without them. The three of you were glued to each other, couldn’t really function without the other.

You could feel the anger replacing the fear and anxiety. On the inside your morals and humanity was being teared apart, stripped away from you the more you stared at Riko's lifeless body in Satoru's arms covered by a thin white cloth. "Name..." Suguru called out to you once more. There wasn’t much time to make a decision. "Kill them," you finally answered losing all emotions you had that day, "kill them all." That's all Satoru needed to hear. His lips formed a wicked grin as Suguru silently summoned the rainbow dragon. You stood watched the blood being splattered on the walls and floors. The screams made you smile like that day on the beach with your best friends.

That’s where your mind was. The day on the beach with Riko and Satoru laughing at the sea cucumber while you, Suguru, and Misato were on the beach towels just watching them with smile of your faces.

#i had to re-write the beginning because tumblr didn't save it in my drafts yay ✨ #they were fucking kids bro 😢 #and if geto didn't stop gojo he would've been the villian #geto did that stopping gojo from turning evil #like thats why gojo was so mad not because geto became bad because he left him behind #i can go all day about this #dont get me started #satosugu drabble #satosugu x you #satosugu x reader #satosugu angst #( sugusearrings writing * ) #jjk fanfic #jjk drabble #jjk x reader #jjk x fem!reader #jjk x you #jjk angst #jujutsu kaisen x reader

[hedgehog-moss]

Inspired by your last ask! What are the best French books you’ve read that have no English translation yet? I read Play Boy and Qui a tué mon père (really loved the latter) last year and it feels so fun to read something that other Americans can’t access yet

I'm too nervous to make any list of the Best XYZ Books because I don't want to raise your expectations too high! But okay, here's my No English Translation-themed list of books I've enjoyed in recent years. I tried to make it eclectic in terms of genre as I don't know what you prefer :)

Biographies

• Le dernier inventeur, Héloïse Guay de Bellissen: I just love prehistory and unusual narrators so I enjoyed this one; it's about the kids who discovered the cave of Lascaux, and some of the narration is written from the perspective of the cave <3 I posted a little excerpt here (in English).

• Ces femmes du Grand Siècle, Juliette Benzoni: Just a fun collection of portraits of notable noblewomen during the reign of Louis XIV, I really liked it. For people who like the 17th century. I think it was Emil Cioran who said his favourite historical periods were the Stone Age and the 17th century but tragically the age of salons led to the Reign of Terror and Prehistory led to History.

• La Comtesse Greffulhe, Laure Hillerin: I've mentioned this one before, it's about the fascinating Belle Époque French socialite who was (among other things) the inspiration for Proust's Duchess of Guermantes. I initially picked it up because I will read anything that's even vaguely about Proust but it was also a nice aperçu of the Belle Époque which I didn't know much about.

• Nous les filles, Marie Rouanet: I've also recommended this one before but it's such a sweet little viennoiserie of a book. The author talks about her 1950s childhood in a town in the South of France in the most detailed, colourful, earnest way—she mentions everything, describes all the daft little games children invent like she wants ageless aliens to grasp the concept of human childhood, it's great.

I'll add Trésors d'enfance by Christian SIgnol and La Maison by Madeleine Chapsal which are slightly less great but also sweet short nostalgic books about childhood that I enjoyed.

Fantasy

• Mers mortes, Aurélie Wellenstein: I read this one last year and I found the characters a bit underwhelming / underexplored but I always enjoy SFF books that do interesting things with oceans (like Solaris with its sentient ocean-planet), so I liked the atmosphere here, with the characters trying to navigate a ghost ship in ghost seas...

• Janua Vera, Jean-Philippe Jaworski: Not much to say about it other than they're short stories set in a mediaeval fantasy world and no part of this description is usually my cup of tea, but I really enjoyed this read!

Essays / literary criticism / philosophy

• Eloge du temps perdu, Frank Lanot: I thought this was going to be about idleness, as the title suggests, and I love books about idleness. But it's actually a collection of short essays about (French) literature and some of them made me appreciate new things about authors and books I thought I knew by heart, so I enjoyed it

• Le Pont flottant des rêves, Corinne Atlan: Poetic musings about translation <3 that's all

• Sisyphe est une femme, Geneviève Brisac: Reflections about the works of female writers (Natalia Ginzburg, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner, etc) that systematically made me want to go read the author in question, even when I'd already read & disliked said author. That's how you know it's good literary criticism

Let's add L'Esprit de solitude by Jacqueline Kelen which as the title suggests, ponders the notion of solitude, and Le Roman du monde by Henri Peña-Ruiz which was so lovely to read in terms of literary style I don't even care what it was about (it's philosophy of foundational myths & stories) (probably difficult to read if you're not fully fluent in French though)

Did not fit in the above categories:

• Entre deux mondes by Olivier Norek—it's been translated in half a dozen languages, I was surprised to find no English translation! It's a crime novel and a pretty bleak read on account of the setting (the Calais migrant camp) but I'd recommend it

• Saga, Tonino Benacquista: Also seems to have been translated in a whole bunch of languages but not English? :( I read it ages ago but I remember it as a really fun read. It's a group of loser screenwriters who get hired to write a TV series, their budget is 15 francs and a stale croissant and it's going to air at 4am so they can do whatever they want seeing as no one will watch it. So they start writing this intentionally ridiculous unhinged show, and of course it acquires Devoted Fans

Books that I didn't think existed in English translation but they do! but you can still read them in French if you want

• Scrabble: A Chadian Childhood, Michaël Ferrier: What it says on the tin! It's a short and well-written account of the author's childhood in Chad just before the civil war. I read it a few days ago and it was a good read, but then again I just love bittersweet stories of childhood

• On the Line, Joseph Ponthus: A short diary-like account of the author's assembly line work in a fish factory. I liked the contrast between the robotic aspect of the job and the poetic nature of the text; how the author used free verse / repetition / scansion to give a very immediate sense of the monotony and rhythm of his work (I don't know if it's good in English)

• The End of Eddy, Edouard Louis: The memoir of a gay man growing up in a poor industrial town in Northern France—pretty brutal but really good

• And There Was Light, Jacques Lusseyran: Yet another memoir sorry, I love people's lives! Jacques Lusseyran lost his sight as a child, and was in the Resistance during WWII despite being blind. It's a great story, both for the historical aspects and for the descriptions of how the author experiences his blindness

• The Adversary: A True Story of Monstrous Deception, Emmanuel Carrère: an account of the Jean-Claude Romand case—a French man who murdered his whole family to avoid being discovered as a fraud, after spending his entire adult life pretending to be a doctor working at the WHO and fooling everyone he knew. Just morbidly fascinating, if you like true crime stuff

#ask #book recs #the book i started reading last night is The Naked Neanderthal by Ludovic Slimak and i also didn't #expect it to have an english translation but it does #i'm only at the beginning and so far it's philosophical ponderings about what kind of creature the neanderthals were #if they were humans in a different way than us. with a different kind of intelligence #and how to understand it without projecting our own way of being in the world onto this other humanity #sorry to quote cioran again but it reminds me of when he said every generation misses the good old days and #if we retrace our steps from regret to regret we'll find the original regret #our nostalgia for a time when humans weren't yet human

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

if you're wondering why I kind of abandoned this blog, there's several reasons (fandom just doesn't feel fun anymore, I'm trying to cut back on screen time, I've been feeling like my faith is in contradiction to what I see/read/interact with on here is for years and years now) but the final straw has been what I see on my dash every day about Israel/Palestine.

I keep seeing people I used to interact with and used to like now peddling conspiracy theories, debunked claims, inflammatory headlines, and even bloodthirsty rhetoric with tens of thousands of notes (when corrections of those posts get ~500 notes at best), and reacting to nuanced conversations like they're calls for hatred, all while turning a blind eye to the very literal vicious hatred or sheer ignorance in many of those big posts. The level of black-and-white thinking is so strong that we are wayyyy past 'us-vs-them,' we're in the kind of discourse where even 'know thy enemy' (being interested in understanding the opposing arguments even just so you can dismantle them) is considered hatred - people can't be bothered to know what they're arguing for or against, nothing short of plugging your ears and screaming for the death of the Bad People is enough. This is a wave of just about the most hypocritical, callous and uninformed 'activism' this website has ever been guilty of and it's too much. I'm done with this.

And yes, this is about antisemitism. You can all shout 'not antisemitic, just anti-zionist' all day long but you have done jack shit to prove you don't hate Jews beside chanting 'punch a nazi' in the same breath you use KKK slurs and cheer for groups that have 'curse the Jews' in their slogan. I trust none of you anymore.

#israel palestine conflict #israel hamas war #antisemitism #I should have taken a stand from the beginning and I was afraid to. makes me a pretty shitty ally I guess #I also didn't want to talk about current events on a fandom blog bc who am I to give my two cents? #and how can I justify having an opinion unless I back it up with constantly up to date and rigorously examined info #and how can I stop talking about current events once i've started? making my fandom blog no longer about fandom #I still don't know what the right thing to do is #I still don't think it's my place to speak out on much of what's going on in I/P because of how hard it is to be accurate and objective #but if I'm on any 'side' it's certainly not the side of the western 'activists' #i'm on the 'side' of the innocent people suffering in both countries and on the side of the jewish people you've made feel afraid #i'm on the side of life #you GLORIFIED TERRORISM AND SUICIDE

[fleshadept]

the love story being so central to our flag means death really is mindblowing. i haven’t stopped thinking about it for months. it is, to its core, a romance. that was the point. the queer romance wasn’t written in in the second or third season because the fandom picked up on the homoeroticism and made a ship popular. it wasn’t added in because the fans demanded it or because the actors pushed for it later on it wasn’t forced into slowburn by a network it was there the whole time.

when stede showed ed his secret closet that was on purpose an allegory, when they shared the marmalade bread that was romantic intentionally, when they rowed away from the burning party boat and ed was looking at stede that was him FALLING IN LOVE . that's how it was WRITTEN. ed really actually leaned in and almost kissed stede in the moonlight scene. and then. they actually kissed! like i know this is months old news now but i can’t get over how fucking different this feels to other queer romances i’ve seen. it is the core and central plot of the show and it’s beautiful. it’s funny it’s cute it’s heartwarming it’s GOOD. they did it.

#i cannot emphasize how good it feels to have a queer story #at all first of all #but also a queer romance that didn't require the writers/network to be held at gunpoint for several seasons before allowing it to happen #comparing it to hannibal is interesting because hannibal was very much trying to be an openly queer story it was just airing on NBC #from 2013-2015 #so they couldn't #but even that wasn't planned until later on like it wasn't MEANT to be queer from the beginning #i have said before this show healed a part of my soul #sorry guys i'm emo today! #cricket chirps #just like. i knew they kissed when i STARTED the show and even then i refused to look at the obviously romantic scenes as romantic!!! #because so many fucking shows play it off as a joke or use it as queerbait or WHATEVER #ofmd #our flag means death #5k

[silver-horse]

it really annoys me that during Astarion's confession scene there isn't a dialogue option to just say "I knew you were dishonest from the beginning" there are multiple shocked/surprised responses and that's especially ridiculous given the fact that he is now even more fake sounding than he was in early access.

#seriously... they made it so obvious... right from the beginning.. he seems very fake in a lot of scenes #even the generic clicked on him dialogue.. in the start it has two versions... one over the top happy smiling ''what can I do for you?'' #other times he is looking extremely sad and just says ''yes?'' ... and these two go back and forth ... one or the other if you click on him #bg3 #astarion #baldur's gate 3 #and all of his romance lines are super cheesy fake...very bullshitting the other person...which always bothered me in EA but now it works #and when we start the romance there is an option to say ''you shouldn't do this just because you owe me something'' which he shrugs off #(and honestly kudos to them for including that line... later on I would have felt weird if I didn't pick that dialogue at the start) #bg3 spoilers #bg3 mine #my thoughts #my posts #my post #textposts #text post

[sapphim]

obsessed with Shepard dying and being reconstructed by Cerberus. waking in a body you don't recognize, free of scars, a clean slate, unlived in. minor tweaks here and there, "upgrades" unasked for, cybernetic or bioengineered. 20/10 vision, too crisp and clear. a more efficient liver. old L3 biotic implant replaced with cutting-edge technology. forcibly assigned übermensch. have you been cloned, or merely Ship of Theseus'd? if they cloned you once, would they do it again? could you be activated as a sleeper agent? would you have any way of knowing? they say that paranoia is a sign of reaper Indoctrination. is it really paranoia if you have good cause?

#obsessed with how a shepard clone is laughed off for jokes in that dlc #haha oh well we obviously know our shepard is the REAL shepard. GIRL IS IT THAT OBVIOUS THO #anyway ''cerberus upgraded shepard's liver'' started as my jokey headcanon to explain the ''knocking back krogan liquor and surviving'' gag #but when you think about it... #roxene shepard #waking up on that table is really the beginning of the end for her. it's all downhill from here #(I think the liver thing is just my hc anyway I don't recall if it was hinted at in canon.) #(iirc canon miri had line about how they didn't change anything so dw? but imo she would and she'd consider it a favor) #(and anyway it's CERBERUS) #spectreposting

[lab-gr0wn-lambs]

A brief review of The Walking Dead

#mommy? sorry. mommy? #idk I'm procrastinating #I need to draw some real art #I just had to get this out of my system #the walking dead #scribbles #I love when characters do this to me #I like her MORE because I didn't like her to begin with yk? #tbh if she was like how she is now from the start? I wouldn't care for her as much #she's kind of evil #but because I know what she was like before? she can do whatever she wants. good for her. #the walking dead fanart

[darlin-collins]

hot take: the main reason why nomads tales and audios' channel doesn't get the attention it deserves, is that the videos are not organized into playlists

#i l o v e his audios #he's such a good VA #but he doesn't organize worth a damn #like there at least a dozen characters in westhaven(?) that do not have playlists #like if you didn't start following him from the very beginning audio by audio #you won't be able to even start on his channel #and if you did manage to start you can't pressed over the 4 playlist that are existing #to me it ain't worth the effort #and believe me i put it effort. i made my own playlists n everything but each time im surprises by an old audio that i didn't notice 1/2 #and i can't know where it falls in canon #and his (old) thumbnail style doesn't help #nomads tales and audios

[inksandpensblog]

We completely misinterpreted the hug scene

I was going to make this into a nice, well-composed essay, with each section talking about a different aspect of the episode's construction or execution, and about narrative theming and character arcs, and about why so many people thought this scene was enough to ruin the episode for them. I was going to do that, but then it took me eleven hours to try and narrow down what the actual problem with the scene was, when taken into context with the entire rest of the episode and episode 29; and then another three hours to realize what the actual intent of the scene had probably been and why nobody, including myself, seemed to have picked up on it (except for Lui and @k1ttyadventurer apparently-). So instead of the nice essay, you're getting a conceptual overview of my entire thought process, from beginning to end, as I tried to figure out the deeper reasons behind why everyone hated this scene so much, and then why we all had it wrong. You're welcome.

For the sake of internal consistency, I'm invoking author's bypass and using the names my server-mates and I have picked up for these characters. King shall henceforth be known as Mango, his child as Apricot, Purple's dadfigure as Cobalt, and Purple's momfigure as Orchid.

--

What started me on this path, was this thought: We didn't like Mango's reconciliation with Purple, but aside from pacing issues, Mango's arc (thematic, character, narrative, etc.) is pretty solid. So if the problem isn't with Mango's side, it must be with Purple's.

So, what was wrong about the way Purple's arc was written? Was it just that reconciliation scene in episode 30, or was it something from back in episode 29 that didn't show its full implications until now?

But, again, Purple's arc in episode 29 alone is pretty solid. So, the problem was just the reconciliation scene. And, again, for Mango's arc the scene works, it's only for Purple's that it doesn't.

So, what's wrong with it? Does this scene contradict episode 29 in some way? That's how a lot of us felt, at first, I think. Purple learned last episode that he didn't need acceptance from Cobalt, and he follows through on that in this episode, choosing to do what HE thinks is right and not what he thinks will earn him approval, and his reward is...symbolic acceptance from Cobalt? It didn't make sense, and sat wrongly with many of us.

--

But I still couldn't pin down why this didn't work, so I circled back. Maybe it was the relationship dynamics? Was that why many of us didn't like the idea of Mango being Apricot's father instead of their older brother, at first?

--

But then I noticed something amazing: if you watch the episode while viewing Apricot as Mango's sibling, and then watch it while viewing Apricot as Mango's child...nothing about Mango's arc actually changes, on a thematic level. It all still works, no matter which interpretation you go with.

Why, then, is the distinction given so much emphasis? Why is it important that we know that Apricot is canonically Mango's child, if it doesn't change anything about Mango's story either way?

Because what it DOES change, is the implied dynamic between Mango and Purple, and the number of inverse parallels in their stories.

--

I also think that at this juncture it's important to note that Mango seeing Apricot in Purple is something nobody seems to have had a problem with, even people who didn't like the episode. It's literally just Purple seeing Cobalt in Mango that people had issues with. Purple's side of the story, again, is the one that seems to be flawed in either its construction or its execution.

--

Now, while the status of who Apricot is, to Mango, doesn't influence Mango's story much, something about Apricot that does hold heavy sway over Mango's story is Mango seeing Apricot in Purple. And, since this seems to be paralleled by Purple seeing Cobalt in Mango,  we'd naturally expect this element to have an equally weighty effect on Purple's story. But what does Purple seeing Cobalt in Mango actually DO, for Purple's story?

--

@kikoqueenofrats and @luizastarry mentioned how after seeing Mango's backstory, seeing him be likened to Cobalt felt wrong. Specifically, that if Mango was meant to become a new parental figure for Purple, then having him become the new Cobalt, instead of, say, the new Orchid, felt really wrong, given how poorly Cobalt treated Purple (and, in my opinion, given how well Mango appears to have treated Apricot, whom he had recently likened to Purple earlier in the scene).

This is when Lui first brought up the idea that maybe the hug scene wasn't supposed to be a comparison after all, but was actually supposed to show how Mango and Cobalt were different. @iluvylalevu brought up pacing issues again, as a possible reason why the idea wasn't communicated clearly enough to the audience. Then they both discussed how some different body language from Purple in reaction to Cobalt's approach would've gotten this story point if it was indeed the intended point of the scene across to the audience a lot better; made the irreconcilable differences between Cobalt as Purple knew him and Mango as whoever he became over the course of this episode a lot clearer. 

I missed what Lui had already figured out, though, because my eyes caught on the body-language conversation, and it made me remember something: Cobalt, again and again, no matter what, forcing Purple to get up again when he fell.

--

So, I muted the video, and watched the hug scene again, and observed Purple's body language. He doesn't look like he's expecting he'll need to fight, but...in my opinion, it doesn't look like he's expecting a hug, either.

--

...maybe what he was seeing, during that moment in episode 30, hadn't been Cobalt turned around and returning to accept him, like he'd learned to stop yearning for in episode 29. (And really, would it be in-character for Purple to imagine his dad doing that? I think he knew his father better than that.) Maybe he’d seen Cobalt coming to admonish him, again. He had just defied Mango, after all, and then failed to stop him. And Green and the others weren’t here, to accept him regardless of his failure. And Orchid wasn’t here to catch him, all that was left were petals. And when it wasn’t Orchid standing over him to shelter him, it was always Cobalt, looming. But he knows it’ll be worse, if he stays on the ground. So he gets up.

And then the hug closes in, and Cobalt is gone, and it’s Mango.

--

The episode isn’t trying to compare Mango to Cobalt, like some questionable construction and execution choices for the scene led audiences the web over to believe. Instead, it’s contrasting them. Mango isn’t “the better Cobalt,” he isn’t “who Cobalt should’ve been.” He isn’t “the Cobalt Purple needs,” because episode 29 established that what Purple NEEDS is to get out from under the shadow of Cobalt’s expectations. Mango isn’t Cobalt. Mango is Mango. And Mango accepts Purple, not because of anything Purple did, and not even because he saw Apricot in Purple; the only time Mango saw Purple as Apricot was in the wall drawing, never when they were looking directly at each other, never the same way that Purple mistook Mango for Cobalt. Mango accepts Purple, because he’s Purple. Just like Green said his friends would.

Which is much less of a rancid vibe than what we’d all thought we were seeing, when all of us most of us first saw the episode.

--

I'd like to thank my server-mates for letting me figure this out, and for asking me to make sure it's shared.

#animation vs minecraft #avm shorts #avm purple #avm king orange #avm mango #avm mt #animator vs animation #alan becker #ava enthusiasts #analysis #my thoughts #I am not joking when I say it took me fourteen hours to get from the beginning of this thought process to the end of it #I started around 9:30 am and didn't reach the conclusion until midnight #never try to analyze the thematic structure of an episode you've only viewed once while training new restaurant employees on a weekend

[bluespiritshonour]

Okay so apparently Netflix removed Sokka's sexism in the Kyoshi Island episode...

...which also explains why he wasn't wearing Kyoshi face-paint in the stills.

Because if he was never sexist to begin with, then there's no need for him to change—he doesn't get to dress ‘like a girl’ and feel brave and courageous instead of ashamed. When Suki says ‘it’s a warriors uniform’ and Sokka stands proud and tall in the dress like—

Sokka was the only male character who's sexism was addressed by the narrative. Suki kicked his butt and he drank his respect women juice, like, guys! He learned!

And they just took the whole thing out. It means we wouldn't even get the “I am a warrior and I'm also a girl.”

That was what sold me on Suki’s character tbh. I'm mad. I'm so mad—but, okay, I should wait till the show drops. Then I'll start complaining in the earnest.

#im kind of tired of everyone starts out lily white shit studios been pulling lately #like seriously #now im kinda afraid for zuko #i hope they don't make him too much of a good guy—or cool!—from the very beginning #sokka #suki #kyoshi island #sokka learned a lot in that episode #why must they do it #okay #i should calm down #the show hasn't dropped yet #im hoping they didn't do it ig? #atla #avatar the last airbender

[plein-air-on-gorkhon]

#plein-air-in-progress #look i can't even begin to tell you how back asswards this whole painting went #started with a lovely tree in the foreground that hid all the perspective flaws BUT it just didn't work compositionally #and it just went downhill from there until it didn't #no more rendering like this for a little while

[oliveroctavius]

always be yourself! unless you can be Batman, then always be Batman

#kamala khan #oliverart #there's so many little problems that if I didn't post this now I was gonna go nuts and start redrawing it from the beginning #ms marvel #if I didn't botch the urdu it should read ''be your own hero''