#but ive put so much thought into it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

a-land-lacking-sleep · 15 days

Text

A brief thought on the parallels of the Subway Bosses, The Tao Trio, and Warden Ingo's place

@waywardstation just made an amazing post on her thoughts of Warden Ingo's parallels to Kyurem. Nothing in the game directly connects the two, just like nothing in the game connects the Subway Bosses to the Dragons in Generation V. But the connections are still there regardless, because Game Freak made sure to fill Unova with so much symbolism.

These are the basic thoughts that connect each Man to their Dragon.

Subway Boss Ingo - Ideals; Aspire to greatness, never give up in your journey

Subway Boss Emmet - Truth; You are who you are, there is no need for a mask

Warden Ingo - Void; What is there when you lose who you are? No drive for greatness, nothing to mask. Ideals, Truths, nothing matters except the ground beneath your feet.

In each game that they appear, Ingo and Emmet are relatively flat characters. In Gen 5, they have enough personality to stick in your mind, and nothing past. And in PLA, Ingo's whole personality is "I lost my memory and am depressed, but have hope". Instead, we end up looking at word choice, and in the Subway Bosses cases, other media.

Subway Boss Ingo, across most media, embodies Ideals. He has his eyes to the future, always pushing himself and others to continue onwards. He frames battling and training as a journey ("What can I see after winning, winning, and winning? Where is my destination?"; "Your talent has brought you to the destination called Victory!"; "There is no terminal called End in your life!"), most often when he is victorious. He seeks to create his Ideal self, and wants to push others to do the same.

This comes up in Pokemon Masters EX as well, where the "no terminal" line returns (in an appropriately spooky tone), he also spends time in the Day With Ingo story event talking about how he seeks to better himself and "break through the mold of [his] past self". This event is also the first time he mentions the phrase "greater heights", which appears another 6 times in various snippets in Masters. And finally, we have a triple whammy of travel metaphors for growth in his level up lines.

For Subway Boss Emmet, his connection to Truth is admittedly a bit more tenuous. He doesn't have any tendency for truth-seeking or investigations (outside of the famous behavior in the manga where he likes to eavesdrop on drama, which gossip isn't exactly truthful), but what he has is a strong showing of being truthful, even if he ends up being blunt or disrespectful.

As a consequence of his writing in Japanese giving him a very casual way of speaking, the English translation has him speak in shorter clips, just the bare essentials. The naked truths of his thoughts. He doesn't seek the Truth, or give a Universal Truth; Emmet is True to himself and to those around him. (As a side note, I love when people give power to other usages of the word True through Reshiram. I did it in my fic with a turn of phrase, but I've seen it done beautifully in other works too).

In Pokemon Special, Emmet doesn't hide the truth of why they asked White to train on the Battle Subway ("We're studying you as an example of a Trainer who gets overwhelmed and loses every battle!" "That's not nice, Emmet."), not because he is intending to be rude (Ok, a little bit), but because that *is* what they are using her for. In the games, he speaks of how Pokemon battles can be decided on luck ("I won against you. But I think I just got lucky."), because the Truth of the matter is, you can be highly trained and just have a bad day or get hit by a critical hit. But, most importantly, he believes that battles must be serious for them to be fun. Because what fun is there in putting up a fake fight, when you could just be True to yourself?

Now, to speak on the connection of Warden Ingo to Kyurem, we must first understand what Kyurem is to Zekrom and Reshiram. On a surface level, it is a Husk, a leftover revenant that can be reassembled into a simulacrum of the Original being. But looking into the actual symbolism of them all is where you find threads of connection to the Warden.

Reshiram, the Dragon of Yin, is representative of a more static element, receptive of change but passive in how it does so. It is a recursive existence that reaches out and pulls back towards itself - Everyone has an individual Truth, but that is still able to be changed by The Truth. However, one does not go out and change The Truth, only altering the perception of it while it passively exists. You cannot change what is already there, only create something new. In comparison, Emmet is never really shown to focus on the future, but rather on the present. He knows of the Truth in his life, and while it can be changed by present actions, he knows that he cannot go back to change it, so there is no need to try, or to hide it.

Zekrom, the Dragon of Yang, is active, ever expanding, and pushes up against those around it in it's search for Ideals. Ideals cause you to seek out a goal, to leave your home, your comfort zone, and push away from the past. To represent Ideals is to be in constant flux; Settling into a form makes you into a Truth, as an Ideal is a goal, something attainable, yet unreachable. We've gone over Ingo's future-forward gaze, constantly thinking about what is to come. Life is a journey, and every step you take in life is a step to self-improvement.

Kyurem is a Husk, a Shell. According to Bulbapedia, it is representative of Wuji ("Without a roof"), the absense of Yin and Yang, or "The Ultimate Nothingness". For this reason, I personally also attribute to it Mu, a concept of non-existence and negative space, specifically the lack of something normally there (modern Japanese actually uses "mu-" as a prefix the same way English has the suffix "-less"). Interestingly, the Japanese transliteration of Wuji is "Mukyoku" (lit. Non-polar, another translation of Wuji), connecting the two concepts neatly. In short, Kyurem represents Nothing and Everything.

Kyurem was supposedly the Original Dragon, the deity of Unova that represented Truths and Ideals in unison, a embodiment of Yin and Yang's harmony. In a sense, the Original Dragon was an embodiment of Everything, Unova's spirit of unity. Then, with the war between the Twin Princes (another pair also frequently compared to Ingo and Emmet, in case you think I forgot my boys), it was split into 2, but secretly 3, parts. This third secret part became Kyurem, a being lacking in its original qualities, leaving Nothing but the Husk.

Now, finally, we can get to everyone's favorite uncle, Warden Ingo. His connection to Kyurem is probably the least intentional of them all (which is saying something, because I'm honestly convinced that the Subway Bosses' own connections aren't intentional, but rather just a result of how Unova games were written with Truth vs. Ideal being ingrained heavily), but there still is one. As Wayward says in her fateful post, "Warden Ingo is an empty husk of who he once was ever since he was separated from his life, and from Emmet." Ingo as the Subway Boss may not have embodies the Everything that the Original Dragon has, but pairing with Emmet so closely still meant that Truth and Ideals mixed so cleanly that it might as well have been Everything.

However, the most important connection for Warden Ingo are the concepts of Wuji and Mu. To be "the Ultimate Nothingness" or "Non-Polar" means to be devoid of Everything, yet still have the capability to be far more than Nothing. The singular concept of Mu may mean that Warden Ingo is missing who he is and was, but that is not who we grow know in the game; We connect with a man who is slowly piecing together his sense of self, remembering facets of his past and growing happier with who he can be. Thus, the Mu transitions into Wuji, a void that isn't Empty so much as lacking.

The importance of distinction is that Mu is by nature Empty, while Wuji is Empty and Everything, limitless and confined. Similarly, Ingo is devoid of what made him him (His drive for self-improvement is impaired, even while he pushes the player to climb to greater heights), but becomes something new in the meta-narrative of the story. His actual, plot-related story ends when you quell Electrode and he becomes a challengeable NPC at the Training Grounds, but he becomes something of a kindred spirit in the greater plot of the game. He's like you, a Faller who has lost themselves, and also like you, an avid battler who pushes the system to it's limits (especially in the Path of Solitude).

In short, the connection between Kyurem and Warden Ingo isn't anything in the text, as Kyurem has no explicit in-game theming attached to it like Zekrom and Reshiram, and Warden Ingo doesn't have strong philosophical points that seeps out of the words he says to you. But when you look at the meta-theming for Kyurem, and subsequently Warden Ingo's meta-narrative, the connections become clearer.

Does some of this make no sense? Of course! A lot of this is extrapolating what was said in Wayward's post, and what came from my head as I thought of it. A lot of the connections of the twins to the Dragons has been discussed since 2010, but for all intents and purposes, Warden Ingo is a different character from Subway Boss Ingo. Narratively, he is the same person, hence why his appearance is a tragedy in Legends Arceus, one which we never get to solve. But on a meta level, he functions so differently, and lives so differently, that the themes he inhabits do not match up to the Subway Boss in any way. To end this on a sad note, Warden Ingo is exactly like Kyurem - Broken. He has lost what made him whole, and we've been shown that just reinserting Ideals isn't enough. Hopefully, if Game Freak decides to touch upon the Warden once more, we can find a way to reinsert his Truths as well.

#submas #pokemon black and white #pokemon legends arceus #pokemon ingo #subway boss ingo #pokemon emmet #subway boss emmet #warden ingo #zekrom #reshiram #kyurem #gen 5 has so much symbolism that it bleeds out into every other game that it cameos into #“Oh you thought that this Sinnoh remake would only touch upon the themes of Gen IV? Well. We put a conductor in the game have fun”

173 notes · View notes

batcavescolony · 4 months

Text

I feel like people aren't getting it. In. The. Books. Perseus. Jackson. Is. An. Unreliable. Narrator. This goes for everything he thinks. Percy loves his mother, so he writes her praises. In the show we get to see what Sally does from an outside POV not filtered through a child that idolizes his mother. It's not ooc for Sally to act like she does in the show. she's a single mother raising a neurodivergent, Demigod, and she's scared that when the Gods get to him they'll corrupt him. She's not suddenly a girl boss we're getting to see her for how she is.

#percy jackson #sally jackson #“sHe sToOd uP tO gABe sHe wOuLdnT dO tHat' she did it because percy needed to get to montock so she could tell him about how hes a demigod #sally as a character will do anything for her son. gabe being abusive doesnt negate what she needs to. do for her son. in in the book the #second gabe was no longer needed she turned him into a statue and sold him to to the highest bidder. she was putting up with the abuse for #percys sake. and this is then woman that grebbed a gun and started fighting in the battle of Manhattan. shes not weak. you can be two things #she can be motherly and strong. and obviously she has her douts. she thinks shes failing. she called posiden when it was too much and he #reassured her she was doing her best and she needs to do what she thinks is best. and we are only seeing some scenes #we're seeing whats relevant to the plot and whats relative is sally preparing Percy. and she obviously cares for her son and her son for her #she has to be a good mother cus percy is literally going to the underworld to save her. just stfu about the book #ive read the books to but some of you are awful. like no adaptation is to the letter. somethings had to be cut or glossed over and some are #changed because money or that a book is a different medium then a show or movie! you cant do everything cus its impossible.#were in a completely different pov. we're not in Percys head seeing his thoughts.#pjo series #pjo #pjo tv show #percy jackson and the olympians #percy series #batcavescoloy watches the PJO tv show #batcavescolony watches

164 notes · View notes

birbwell · 5 months

Text

my first post of the year obviously has to be my post-trial waleran headcanon, with my oc, his sister Wynflaed :)

i have another post about it but the basics is that he gets exiled from Shiring, becomes a vagrant for a bit on the way to Lincoln and is taken in by his estranged family which run a tailor workshop, becoming the local weird old man(tm).

#pillars of the earth #the pillars of the earth #waleran bigod #birbwelldraws #birb's ocs #wynflaed tailor #me when i love a guy so much that i make up a whole family for him. to whip him into shape but also to love him. im ill #UM if any of you want to hear more about this im hehe.. ermmm twirls hair #he has multiple siblings! ive just never shown them before i think #ive put So much thought into his exile arc. hi #also of course catface factors into it. i cant forget the gay people god bless

152 notes · View notes

spearxwind · 4 months

Text

Ough tomorrow if ppl are interested i can talk abt my new oc ideas from today bc Im actually really excited about them 👉👈

#thunderclap #i know I can't draw as fast or as much anymore but hopefully i can show stuff soon even if its from my sketchbook #which ive taken up again at least for a little bit #i have plans for HR that I mentioned earlier today and i also have plans for CD that Im really hyped about including a bunch of design #tweaks and i also started working on a new map for it too! which im really excited about bc I'm putting more thought into it #and im gonna change graves' hairstyle too and im rly excited for that as well #and also back to HR im really hyped to be putting the other ocs in it and having everyone fight and interact it really fit so well instantly #its actually making me crazy like if this works im gonna feel like such a huge genius fr

135 notes · View notes

cheeriochat · 1 month

Text

Hmmmm DMC headcannons 3!!!!

This one's a bit wordy

☆•☆•☆•☆•☆•☆•☆•☆•☆•☆•☆•☆•☆•☆•☆

• Dante and Vergil are the type of twins that when they are close by, are touching in any way possible. Sitting together? Dante is leaning on Vergil. Standing together? Vergil has his arm resting on Dantes shoulder. Walking together? They keep bashing into eachothers side. They can spend time apart (obviously) but when they are close there is always some form of contact.

• Nero felt phantom pains where his hand used to be, but when his arm grew back they kind of just became ordinary pains. He wasn't sure if it was a side affect of growing a whole ass arm back or something but he was happy when they went away.

• I kind of think Kyrie would have depression. I mean she went through a lot and lost her parents and brother but she lived, so I feel like she would have survivors guilt but due to constantly being busy she wouldn't really have the time to process it. It's a sad headcannon but I feel like it just seems right :(((

• On a bit of a lighter note, I feel like Kyrie would have a good support system though. I mean she has Nero obviously, but also I think she would have Lady, Trish and Dante there for her and eventually Vergil too.

• Talking about Trish, Lady and Dante. I feel like Lady and Trish would go shopping Bayonetta 2 style, and have Dante carry all their stuff around. (He gets compensated for his work when they stop at a Cafe and he gets a parfait, although he doesnt mind helping his friends)

• Nero has a huge sweet tooth, but because of the kids, he can't keep anything to satisfy his need for sugar around long enough. Vergil likes to buy him sweet stuff though as a form of peace offering. He's found Nero likes Lemon Sherbets, Sour patch kids, and controversially, Liquorice.

• Vergil likes Hotpot and Shabu Shabu. I don't know, I just feel this in my soul.

• Dante is jealous that Vergil gets a tail and he doesn't. Vergil is jealous Dante's horns are fancier than his. They are both content with the wings that they have. (Also vergil has long skinny fangs with sharp teeth and Dante has wider, stubbier (but still as equally sharp) fangs with more "human" teeth)

72 notes · View notes

luxrayz64 · 3 months

Text

do u ever in your mind have a vision so beautiful you mourn that it doesnt exist and then remember that u can draw. anyway heres the glass coffin scene if they were pikmin

#like i cant eveb explain it. i cant remember why i even thought of this. divine intervention i think #saw #hoffstrahm #coffinshipping #peter strahm #mark hoffman #pikmin #DELIGHTED i can tag a post with saw and pikmin. this is so stupid #i havent tried painting in a while i found a cool new tool in photoshop to make this #i was so locked in i dont think ive had this much fun with a drawing in. well. i dont remember #i thot abt making strahm a white pikmin (angry + deeply toxic + autism eyes) and hoffman an ourple pikmin (built like a fridge)#but decided against it bc strahm being taller is important to me. also red pikmin (violent + pointy nose) and blue (mouth) works just as we #putting deep and immense thought into saw characters pikminsonas #espeon draws #ALSO made strahm a leaf pikmin bc he woulda just gone thru the cube and never gave himself a chance to recover #unlike hoffman who was prepared for this and in a better state physicallty after his fake trap #really tempted to do trhe water cube like thius too it would be so funny #added alt text :thumbsup: i hope thats good enough

104 notes · View notes

cali · 8 months

Text

darkraiiiiii

#art #i was brewing up a complicated picture in my head too many factors intermingling and i put a requirement on myself that i would need to #feel a certain mood to create said picture cuz only then would it feel good and true but it was an impossible to achieve mood #and it made me miserable for a week i went to bed as soon as possible everyday to skip to the next one but today i woke up at 2am #and thought well maybe i should just draw something simple that i like it doesnt have to be high concept #so its just darkrai!!!! cuz its such a cooly! and its made out of shapes ive enjoyed drawing recently #smoking fire plumelike stuff u kno...#and i got to try out the spraypaint thing again cuz there was stuff i realized i coulda done better after the red 3 head hybrid pic #so i wanted to do it again. do u like these- with the spraypaint rendering? i will make more of them no matter what u say #but im about to go to bed now. i started the pic at 11am and finished at 8pm so 9hrs spent?! well the stenciling takes a long while in pain #i did the spraying in ms paint again and then composited it in paint net like usually.#also im typing much because the combination of coffee (which i try to make special and rare for me so it hits more cutely)#+ the euphoria that drawing gives me makes me talkative. but now.- ! im tired !! goodnight #pokemon #darkrai

177 notes · View notes

uter-us · 1 month

Text

radfem help !!

2 of my little cousins (14yrs and 15yrs) are both girls dating boys right now, and together we are coming up with a "dealbreaker list" of things they will never put up with from their bfs! and also we are including positives, like so they aren't just looking for the absence of bad things, but actual positive things

what do yall think are the most important things to add? (i put extra info in tags)

Thank you so much!!!

#I dont want it just to be “he doesn't hit me” as that's super important but they could end up with awful boys who don't hit them and still #mistreat them. there are certain vulnerabilities that make me worry the most for them. Ive been writing under the deal breakers like exampl #of how it would manifest like things they might say or how they might behave so that way in the moment there will hopefully not be as much #time spent questioning if it counts as a deal breaker. we want to do positives too so like I said in the post it's not just like "he doesn'#put me down“ but also ”he roots for me and encourages me and verbalizes it“.#they are 14/15 so I'm less focused on stuff related to like splitting domestic labor for example but I think a good translation could #be like “he spends as much time as I do planning dates” and “it's clear to me that he put a lot of thought into my birthday gift” or the li #anyway I know they are safer without dating boys (and for the record they both know I do not date men (and only one knows I am SSA) but #they ARE dating and it's much more practical and realistic to reduce harm here since they are doing it!#also this is obviously not the extent of my effort in making sure they are safe and well and not reliant on boys/men;#this list is just one small part!!!#thanks so so much! and if you don't know please share bc maybe someone else has advice! ty!!!#radfem #radical feminist safe #radblr #sex based oppression #mvawg #question tag

54 notes · View notes

marcmorrigan · 2 months

Text

finally delivering on the princess tutu headshots i promised... love these dysfunctional teens 🩰💖💕

LOTS of notes about headcanons/design choices under the cut! like. a lot. dont say i didnt warn you

starting with my specialest guy fakir:

i had a suuuper clear vision for fakir, and i couldnt be happier with how he turned out, he looks exactly how i imagine him! trying to translate his Bird-Shaped Hair into my style gave me SERIOUS homestuck flashbacks. my affinity for knights with Problems knows no bounds...

adding the hyperpigmentation around his eyes and his acne scars is what really solidified this for me-- i put those in and was like oh!!! there you are!!! my boy!!! and you can tell because i gave him acne scars + thick eyebrows that he IS my boy... there are very clear trends among my headcanons for my faves lol. big noses, thick eyebrows, skin imperfections, heavy eyebags, long dark hair... and fakir truly has it all 😤 he is so Ideal Character Design to me

i think fakir is actually pretty self-conscious about his appearance tho! we see characters like pike and lilie say hes handsome to ahiru, but i dont know how often he actually hears that? and im sure its hard not to compare himself to mytho, who is straight out of a fairy tale; being a regular teenager dealing with regular teen body stuff is hard enough without your roommate being a magically beautiful eternally youthful storybook hero. i think he probably internalises more that people see him as scary and angry, and that the girls who do have crushes on him always frame it in contrast to mytho, who is Good and Kind and Handsome, implying (or sometimes outright stating!) that fakir is Bad and Mean and... Well...

fakir is very sensitive but quiet about it, so i think its a very private point of self-consciousness. i think he puts a lot of semi-secret effort into his appearance; canonically he has a lot of very funny and clearly customised clothing, and he chooses to keep his hair long and in a very particular style (i have a whole breakdown in my mind of how he achieves that style and it involves a surprising amount of pins and an unsurprising fuckton of teasing. i think his hair is a little fried from heat damage!), and i think that probably extends to other things, too, like manicuring his eyebrows and doing a lot of very Teenage Skincare that doesnt actually help his acne much lol. i think he probably has a lot of self-injurious habits and BFRBs like skin picking and chewing, mostly at his acne and around his nails (both of which he hates, because he knows he shouldnt but does it anyway). i think if he does it enough that theres noticeable evidence it feels, like, world-ending for him, ESPECIALLY if anyone asks what happened lol. do not perceive him except in the very specific ways and contexts he approves of THANKS

on to the narratives favorite princess, mytho:

again, i had a pretty clear idea of the vibe i wanted mytho to have going into this-- i want him to have, like, extreme prince charming vibes, very Classically Handsome without necessarily being 'conventional.' i thought a lot about 'the happy prince' story while i was working on this, and really wanted him to look like a cross between how the prince statue looks in my head and a porcelain doll. and also a cross between jonny brown and brigitte bardot? lots of very direct influences for him lol. so! lots of gold tones, gemmy eye color, cute little tooth gap, quivering wide-eyed thousand-yard-stare doe eyes and big ol dolly anime lashes, which were the very last thing i added because i was NERVOUS about pulling those off lol. they turned out cute tho! ive only done a handful of pieces for this series and i can already tell princess tutu is gonna make me up my lash drawing game considerably, these kids all look like they blink and cause a hurricane from the gale force wind of their falsies

also wait i lied the very last thing i did was add his freckles/beauty marks because he needed that little extra oomph and those were It. i think he probably has some on his hands/wrists too 💕

i was a little unsure if my idea for his hair would translate with this flat-color approach but im pretty happy with it! its supposed to be afrotextured hair (somewhere between 3b and 4c i think? wide range of potential i knowww but im still kind of hammering out my headcanons okay, this is exploratory lol) thats been rolled and finger-styled into his little feather shapes. i think loose, chunky twists would be another fun way to interpret his hair and twists are one of my fave styles to draw do i might draw him like that at some point too...

i guess fakir is the one who styles his hair for him before mytho gets his heart back? i imagine fakir is pretty meticulous about maintaining mythos health and appearance, even at the worst stages of their relationship. i think itd be hard for fakir to frame the way he treats mytho as For Mythos Sake if he wasnt doing some level of actually beneficial care for him, so being really fastidious about things like mythos diet and sleep hygiene and hair care and such gives fakir an outlet for his 'you just have to do what i tell you' thing that helps him convince himself it really is helping, no really, hes doing this for mythos benefit and he just has to be strict with him because mytho doesnt UNDERSTAND he needs PROTECTING and fakir is the ONLY ONE who can do it so mytho HAS to let him because if he doesnt then why does fakir even EXIST, if he cant manage this then what is he good for, and--

yknow. the usual complexes. and their relationship is so complex!!! but also so simple, but like. in a good way. fakirs behavior is complicated but his motivation regarding mytho is SO straightforward which makes that downward spiral into harm really easy to map out... i wont go much into that in this post since this is about visual/appearance-related headcanons but just. augh. i love this show and i love these characters!!! and i hope its apparent in my work that i do love them so <3

im hoping to do a set of these for the girls next!!! i have some other stuff to finish first but hopefully... Soon... Some Birds...

#princess tutu #fakir #mytho #prince siegfried #my art #i had sooo much fun playing around with style in these... the super strong white highlights + underpainting combo looks SO lovely #i should take this approach more often i almost never do!!! it rules and is fun to do #i was listening to my fakir playlist nonstop for DAYS while working on this and still intermittently since...#it feels like ive been sitting on these for a month but its only been 5 days omg. crazy... good to know tho #anyway i love themmm theyre everything. SO fun to draw i really hope i can do more art of them. i Want To... i have Ideas >:o)#btw is putting notes on my thoughts under a cut like this interesting for yall? its fun for me but idk if yall wanna read all that #i will probably continue regardless bc i love to hear myself talk esp abt my design choices but #im curious if my notes on my thought process are interesting to anyone else #if not oh well! thats what the cut is for 😤 nobodys gotta read it if they dont wanna im doing this for Me #full color

59 notes · View notes