#essay posting again

[atomicradiogirl]

house md is in a way extremely groundbreaking and no show has gotten even close to what it managed to do. house is a disabled character who stays disabled for the whole series and yes he is a flawed and damaged person and his bad actions are in line with his character and dealing with chronic pain. he changes even though he is adamant for the whole show that people don’t change. house becomes self sacrificing and learns to love in his own flawed way. he goes to therapy and seeks help and support and he is 100% not the same person he started out the series as. there are canon queer characters that aren’t only treated as jokes and have actual three dimensional character arcs. there are unhealthy relationships and healthy relationships. there is loss but it’s not treated as shock value. actions have consequences. characters stay and go. house md is just as real as it is outlandish at times. it skirts the line with absurdity and realism. it’s beautiful and tragic and at it’s core it is a story of love and becoming a better person despite your trauma and flaws. it doesn’t treat house’s trauma and disability as an excuse for his actions but it’s why he is who he is. and despite all of this, house is happy at the end of the show even though the one person he truly loves, his male best friend, is dying. they could have gone the conventional route and gave wilson a female love interest who is actually good for him at the end of the show and yet they choose to have him run away to spend his final days alive with house. and this show ended before gay marriage was legalized. oh my god.

#house md #finally gathered my thoughts #this show is all about love #this show is from 2004 #i’m totally normal about house md #hilson is endgame #and canon #they love each other your honor #literally they do #this is what happens when show runners aren’t cowards #there was never a show like this ever again #my thoughts #i love this show #despite its flaws #in this essay i will #essay posting again

[ironunderstands]

The way some of yall mischaracterize Ratio as being stoic in chill when in reality he is 24/7 resisting the urge to rip everyone around him a new one is crazy to me like. He cares so much, so much. It’s unhealthy, he loses the idgaf war every time because Ratio is the least nonchalant person ever like

He was this close to breaking character and throttling Sunday like you cannot tell me he wasn’t planning a murder in this scene. Ratio straight up calls Sunday a crazy bitch but everyone brushed it aside 😭

Honestly his entire conversation with Screwllum is just him tweaking, watch it on YouTube the VAs performance is amazing, you can here just how much He Cares

Genuinely, Aventurine is way better at concealing his true feelings that Ratio. Ratio may be acting for the sake of the plan but the way he truly feels about anything he’s doing always seeps through, it’s why he apologizes to Aventurine in 2.0 in their staged argument scene. It’s why he is as mean to Sunday as he can be. It’s why him pretending that he “hates” Aventurine makes him act so silly. Ratio can’t fully commit to the bit, he can’t force himself to not care or to be someone he isn’t, because fundamentally Ratio CARES and that is something he is incapable of hiding, alabaster bust or not.

The problem is that him expressing his care is often done in a rude and/or blunt manner which people tend to interpret as stoicism or apathy when it’s anything but. Ratio’s vial that he gives to Aventurine is short, sweet and gets straight to the point, because that’s the easiest way for Ratio to express his emotions, even if it’s often detrimental for him and anyone else around him. However Aventurine understands him quite well, and knows that although brief, Ratio telling him to “stay alive, survive this and keep on living” is how he truly feels towards Aventurine, and that’s enough to keep him going.

Underneath Ratios carefully crafted marble facade is a man who cares so much and is so bad at expressing it and I wish the community in general, especially Aventio shippers would acknowledge that more. Ratios true moments of sincerity are brief, but they are anything but stoic. Let the man be soft, it’s in character.

#This turned into a mini essay whoops #I hold Ratios party voiceline for Aven so close to my heart #Not the EN one idk what the translators were on but CN is UGHH it’s so good #Someone else can point out the potentially ableist undertones to how people view Ratio #I’m not gonna do that again because the last time was a disaster #“He’s selfish and cruel and narcissistic” *concerned glance* #Like I know some of it is just hoyo players having the media literacy of rocks #But like theres something wrong there just is it sits so wrong with me #Begging yall to write him correctly in fan content PLEASSEEE #dr ratio #aventurine #aventio #Not necessarily a ship post though

[officialspec]

ill be honest as much as i love to criticise the use of fatphobia for comedy ill never be able to hold the fatphobic jokes in kung fu panda against it

like yea those movies are guilty of dipping into The Usual Tropes for a cheap laugh but not only is the character writing for the fat characters the strongest and most sympathetic ive Ever seen literally just the character designs of the pandas in the 3rd movie get me choked up sometimes. theyre all so appealing and clearly treated with the same care and attention as everyone else without copping out and making them Barely Fat. po is already a size that doesnt exist in film protags and hes still the thinnest person in that whole village and that meant a lot to me

#i havent seen the movies in ages but the design of the ribbon dancer is sooo . AUGH #like not just to have that many fat characters but have them be REALLY fat without being treated as ugly or nasty #OR THEIR FATNESS BEING TEMPORARY !!! its their natural state thats how theyre meant to look!!!! #its easy to get caught in the thinking of like. having fat characters be a minority in a lineup to reflect 'real life' #EVEN THO that isnt always true but regardless #having a cast where the nonfat characters are so few and far between theyre hardly present at all. so fucking enriching 2 me #imo writing-wise the third one is by far the weakest but it still is just so important to me that they designed the pandas like that #can i kfp post on main is that allowed #idk i watched a video essay im emotional abt this again

[buglaur]

this is kit, please commission some art from them on social bunny 🙏

#ts4 #sims 4 #just wanted to test out relight but now i have a whole new gameplay i wanna do #my house wifi's been down since friday so i'd nothing better to do lol #assignments shouldn't exist. i should be able to play video games all day >:( #i think i'm going to remove this font replacement cus it can't do accented letters :( #i had to uninstall wickedwhims cus my uni friend wants to play sims on my laptop tomorrow LOL #anyways kits cool though #they're in the same save as virgil's tjol :) #so they might meet him! #uuughhh i fuckin hate thursdays. i'm out of the house for like 14 hours :(( #going to england in 8 days tho i'm so excited to see my family again :) they got a new dog too!! a jack russell named paddy lmaooo #i got tagged in kmik posts but i'm saving them for friday night when i'm not busy <3 #goodnight simblr #it's 11:50pm and i need to start writing my essay due tomorrow D:

[artsubject13]

#rwby #pyrrha nikos #jaune arc #jaune x pyrrha #arkos #arkos art #arkos fanart #fan art #my art #digital art #artists on tumblr #guess who's back. back again posting arkos!!!!!! #i will never be over them they have taken over my brain completely in this essay i will-

[neproxrezi]

someone else could write it better than me but i love how the fucked up nasty shit you can make harry do/say/be in disco elysium isn't just like, random stuff caused simply by the player having free will and control over him but they're parts of who he is and who he has been

you're not a tabula rasa. you're a sudden shock of blank pages in a big, aged, damaged book and sometimes the paper you're trying to write a better man on is torn and you see something through the gaps nobody needed to see ever again. and it's just there now again, back to the surface

#sorry for some reason i feel like i write about DE better in tags than the post. idk why. TAG ESSAY AHEAD. #the gap between tags is a nigh irreplacable form of punctuation #to me #anyway #the one that really got me thinking was how failing an authority check can make you call kim a racial epithet #even if you've played a vocally anti-racist harry up to that point #that line feels like the underbelly of a calving iceberg you were never meant to see #floating to the surface as the whole thing turns and rights itself #the joyous moment is over. the celebrations end #you stop dancing and you step outside with kim #you can profusely apologise #but that thing #that piece of harry before he forgot everything #it doesn't come out of nowhere #nobody just randomly blurts out something like that #it crests the surface #and then it's just... gone again #under the waves #disco elysium #dibi

[seventh-fantasy]

道是无情却有情

dihua + 情 | 莲花楼 mysterious lotus casebook

#莲花楼 #mysterious lotus casebook #asiandramasource #dailyasiandramas #cdramasource #asiandramanet #cdramagifs #cdramanet #gifshistorical #cdrama #xiao shun yao #dihua #lhlgifs #jielin's edits #my posts #stole 道是无情却有情 from the 央视 interview. officially endorsed. #i need to rewatch the twfx video essay and combust all over again while i think of dfs and lxy/llh

[quinn-pop]

let’s do some autistic meta knight headcanons!! over explaining my interpretation of meta knight yet again wooooo

this orb has NO idea how to talk to people!!! outside of work anyway. a lot of this is partially due to upbringing (suppressing his emotions all the time) but he does not know how to express emotions, like…at all.

this goes into a few things

1. yeah talking is hard. even after figuring out what he wants to communicate he will struggle. conversation can be so overwhelming, especially under pressure. he will need time lol

2. because of that, forming connections is hard. i really don’t think meta is much for shallow relationships, and certainly not early in the timeline. which also means he has very little experience with friendship. so a lot of the relationships he did have went kinda neglected, and issues that probably could’ve been worked on by talking became…*cough romk* escalated.

3. honestly i wouldn’t be surprised if meta convinced himself he couldn’t feel emotion (anymore) until like. katam-ish. he tried very hard lol

vulnerability is terrifying. (though this gesture here is also just comforting, like his little cape cocoon thing he does.)

unmasking—yeah im taking the mask thing very literally here—is a big deal and a very slow process for mk. i’m sure he has a lot of feelings on that lol. it served as a way to ensure no one could ever, y’know, see him.

i can’t say i think he’d ever fully ditch it—there’s always gonna be some days that are more stressful than others and if having it could help him get through it, it just makes sense. mainly when working.

it really is about vulnerability. granted, i don’t think he has the most expressive face (in my head every astral just tends to stare at things) but i doubt he has much control over it. can’t fake a smile but also can’t hide it. probably blushes easy because yeah, astrals; just look at kirby’s face.

just the idea that someone might be able to read his expression and know what he’s feeling before he’s ready for them to (or even understands it himself…) yeah he doesn’t want that

but emotional turmoil aside, i think his mask also hides a lot of his stims

remember that whole “suppressing your feelings” thing? yeah turns out that ignoring half your instincts isn’t a good idea. so in true meta knight style, he tries to stim as subtly as possible

1. he has the least control over his wings, so they will flick and twitch on their own. they’re usually a good indicator of how he’s feeling, not unlike the body language usually seen in cat ears and tails lol. flapping is also an extension of this of course, though he probably suppresses it more.

2. this also effects when he takes his wings out. pretty much every time he’s excited or nervous it just happens. kinda makes me wonder if his wing cape ordeal might also go into the suppression thing… (i’d say yes, but using a cape is also very comforting so it’s not necessarily a bad thing)

3. going back to the mask thing; he stims a lot underneath it. think like biting or pursing your lips. he bites his tongue and clicks his mouth. that sort of thing. his mask also makes it harder to notice that he is constantly sighing, humming, grumbling…all that

one nice thing about the mask though is that it helps a little bit with lights!!! woo

(look at him and his magically floating glasses)

sensory stuff—i think he’s mostly bothered by light and sound. maybe a bit of texture. he’s pretty sensory avoidant and perfectly happy standing off to the side not touching anything.

the one exception to this is physical affection, which is, despite all of this, most of how he shows affection. it’s a lot easier to hug someone than to try to explain your feelings for them, after all.

i think he would like pressure though. so that’s probably part of it. and i’m pretty sure there’s some connection in here to fighting (dang, is that the only way he knows how to get his energy out?)

anyway, pretty much all of this is in contrast to kirby, who i would gladly nominate as the champion of Doing Whatever He Wants. he might pick up a few bad habits, but he will never mask the way meta knight does. he might not understand how he feels, but he’s in tune enough to express it…usually.

this is a very good thing for meta because it helps him to do the same thing. kirby’s so energetic, it’s hard to not want to stim with him. it reminds meta to be kinder to himself and explore his own emotions. he can also help kirby understand themselves, so this connection is very important.

yeah, at the end of the day, everything kinda just boils down to kirby and mk as parallels

this is the conclusion i promise

to me, meta’s arc is about growing stronger by growing kinder, and this is mostly by learning to be kind to himself. letting himself be a person again, loving and understanding other people, and eventually, letting go of all the expectations placed on him and doing the things he’s always wanted to do…

autism headcanons are fun for me because it’s cathartic to write, but at the same time, it just makes sense in this sort of narrative. meta is, to me, inseparable from these things. and so is kirby! that’s a dynamic that’s a lot of fun to play with, and it’s at the heart of my kirby interpretation.

if you actually read all this WOW thank you

#i almost considered not posting this on a wednesday but then i wrote everything and uhhh yeah i think i gotta so #happy cringe day wednesday #for as many notes as i have on these characters i really don’t talk about it much #but meta knight is a special case because i am terrible at subtlety and he wouldn’t be meta knight without it #so this is to contextualize some things #because of what ill have in the next few days haha #basically these are just things i consider when writing meta #but a lot of it is subtextual and i dont know how well it comes across #kirbyposting #kirby #meta knight #headcanons #autism headcanon #this is practically an essay lol oops #i have like 2/3 of a fic that explores most of this in a way i probably won’t do again #but we’ll see if i ever finish it #god kirby concepts are so fun to chew on #i overthink everything i make so much lol

[lazycranberrydoodles]

its prosecutor jiang wanyin!!!! oh fuck!!! / gifs + au rambling below the cut / follow for more mdzs x aa crossover stuff :3

all the gifs i made (poses traced off franziska):

hes so similar to franziska when you think about it. theyre both deeply insecure tsundere adoptive younger sibling of successful main characters. who carry whips. something something edgeworth choosing death and wwx actually dying also

his share code is HWFEFF if you wanna use him in a trial! you can't share backgrounds but heres the scenery from the donghua i used.

the easiest way to put custom stuff into objection.lol is to send it in discord and then use the link from opening it in your browser :)

a whole lot of AU stuff

the art im making is for if mdzs was an ace attorney game, playing from WWX's POV to solve various mysteries/cases over the course of the plot. so this scene would be from turnabout goddess, which would loosely cover the dafan mountain mystery.

cases include:

Turnabout Revenge (Mo Manor, quick introductory first case)

Turnabout Goddess (Dafan mountain, the good times flashback)

Turnabout Saber (the man-eating castle (omg hiii nhs))

The Blind Turnabout (Yi City arc)

Turnabout Deviation (the Koi Tower conference, Empathy on NMJ ala turnabout memories or beginnings. opening cutscene is his qi deviation)

The Blood-Soaked Turnabout (second Burial Mounds siege, flashbacks: Xuanwu, Sunshot, YLLZ, Nightless City massacre)

Turnabout Lotus Seeds (testimony about JGY, tree scene, golden core reveal, bathtub scene. opening cutscene could be JGS' death but that would make it canon rather than ambiguous)

Turnabout Confession (Guanyin temple)

the problem with splitting novel!mdzs into turnabouts is that flashbacks are a huge chunk of the book but they don't have mysteries/ cases to solve so they've gotta be lumped together with present day stuff. imo? many of the flashbacks would likely have to be abridged so they could be retold ala DL-6, SL-9, or the fourth grade incident, where characters talk about it over some pieces of art. this is really difficult when theres a metric ton of unspoken, complex, and signifcant history between every character lmao

there's not as much of a problem with the cql timeline but i have not finished it. so.

the opening cutscenes in ace attorney always show the murder and/or the murderer plotting. the first cutscene of the game would be MXY summoning WWX, muttering about getting revenge on his family (it would also be good for him to mention the yllz being dead because that's how the novel starts.) cut to WWX's POV as he wakes up covered in blood and the investigation segment begins.

for investigations of monsters (goddess, saber, etc) the cutscene would be a scene of some poor throwaway cultivator getting their shit wrecked.

it would be cool to make a breakdown for JGY but again I need to review that scene cause I don't know who I'd base him on. maybe Vasquez or Dahlia.

tell me your thoughts!! i'm working off of a mdzs summary/ skimming the novel because i don't remember it too well so if i get anything wrong please yell at me

Jin Ling's sprites & Nie Huaisang's sprites / masterpost

#PLEAAAASE send it to me if you do actually use my animations in a case🥺 #here im adapting mdzs to aa gameplay rather than making a mdzs AU where they are lawyers #so jiang cheng is not a prosecutor in this hes just angry. and on the right side of the screen #that man has not graduated law school but then again no one in ace attorney has either #the names are based off of how ace attorney cases are either named after a distinctive item/location (bigtop bridge samurai etc) #or the main emotional/character type thing that happens (goodbyes reminiscence farewell) #the mdzs/aa au where the stories get blended (ie my tags on the nhs post) is very interesting but i would have to think about it very hard #and i dont want to . i would rather think about what the court record would look like (its full of severed limbs) #MDZS' EXPLORATIONS OF MORALITY MAKE ME CHEW ON ROCKS #urrgh i got carried away writing this post & wrote a couple hundred words comparing aa and mdzs' attitudes towards morality & public opinio #i could write an essay on this topic tbh. #can i call this an au? its the same story in the same universe just in a different format. hmm #mdzs #aa #art #mo dao zu shi #ace attorney #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #cql #the untamed #jiang cheng #jin ling #objection.lol #flashing image tw #pixel art #animation #my art #franziska von karma #i guess?? #mdzs aa au

[sourkitsch]

Critics have found that many of the Yiddish proverbs draw similarities with Kafka’s narratives, including, “What will become of the sheep if the wolf is judge?” and, “The hat is fine but the head is too small” (Furman). Through the Yiddish language, Kafka discovered how he could use words to fill his writings with the irony, paradoxes, and symbolism that characterized Jewish literary culture and the plays that he loved. With the motivation to create, and the influence of what he considered to be authentic Judaism, he wrote, eventually developing a style that was so distinctive the term Kafkaesque was coined to describe it. Despite the abundant evidence to support the influence that Jewish culture had on Kafka, several literary scholars have questioned the role that it takes in his writing due to the “virtual absence of direct allusions” (Scott 7). Unfortunately, such statements arise from a lack of understanding of Jewish culture, and more importantly Jewish literary devices. These critics fail to recognize the multifaceted nature of the literary technique that Kafka employs. It is for this reason that much of Kafka’s work is shrouded in debate and mystery.

Illuminating Kafka: An Analysis of Jewish Literary Culture in Kafka’s Work by Joseph F. Allen

#sorry for Kafka posting again but this is really such a good essay #franz kafka #fascinating that you could read something like Jackals and Arabs and not see the jackals are presented as matrilineal & know immediately. #how do goyim read his work. truly . Im baffled

[magnolia-sunrise]

Did he who made the Lamb make thee? - this is heavily referencing Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty's "Anatomical Angel" illustration, it's also inspired by William Blake's art, specifically "The Great Red Dragon" and his poem "The Tyger"

#art #painting #original character #artists on tumblr #wolfgang #artistic nudity #id in alt #happy peeled wolfgang wednesday once again!!!!!!§ #very happy to have this finished!! #i will be smart and not write an essay in the tags abotu this and instead write a separate post so look out for that #i know the tyger is like lit 101 but ive always really loved the poem and the progression of it. it just stuck with me for so long #robot fuckers i hope you find this

[atomicradiogirl]

hot take: seasons 5 and 6 hilson is peak and in this essay i will tell you why.

spoiler alert obviously.

season 5 deals with the aftermath of amber’s death. an event that deeply affects house and wilson. house since he blames himself for her death and wilson since he and amber had a healthy and happy growing relationship, although it was short lived. amber’s relationship with wilson also was one of the only ones that house seemingly “approved” of and amber warmed up to house quickly. house held some underlying romantic feelings towards amber but this was never confessed or really confirmed out of house’s own imagination and hallucinations.

season 5 of house sees house spiraling after the death of amber, trying to get wilson back into his life while he goes through grief, and abusing vicodin in a much worse way than before. this is the ultimate test for house and wilson at that point of the show up until season 8. house attempts to emotionally blackmail wilson and hires a PI to try to get him back. these actions are irrelevant since in ‘birthmarks’ wilson is forced to take house to his “father’s” funeral where the way their friendship started is revealed and where wilson sees a more emotional side of house. house digs through wilson’s insecurity that he needs house and left him because he’s afraid of losing him. their relationship is essentially healed back again after opening up to each other and house allowing himself to be vulnerable about his father.

there is an underlying theme of grief throughout this season and especially the unhealthy ways to cope with it. the middle of season 5 sees house and wilson slowly gaining each other’s trust back but house is still spiraling behind the scenes. up until the season finale where he abuses so much vicodin that he hallucinates a dead amber and is forced to finally seek help and go to a psychiatric hospital to get clean.

this moves us to season 6 where house finally opens up in therapy and gets clean from vicodin. he is at his best mental health of the show and is genuinely slowly healing from his insecurities and issues. house grows hugely in this season and this also shows through his relationship with wilson. he still uses wilson as a crutch but much less so than before. he genuinely does nice things for wilson like stealing his speech at a conference so wilson doesn’t get in trouble for killing a patient. house and wilson also move in together to their own apartment and are genuinely happy and stable up until when sam, wilson’s first wife, comes back and uproots house, forcing him to move out, and destroys what stability house had. however house is healthy enough that he discusses this in therapy and doesn’t relapse. season 6 is the theme of acceptance and healing. the season 6 finale has house face another heartbreak of a patient dying because he amputated her leg, something he convinced her to do even though she didn’t want it, directly relating to his relationship with his leg. cuddy tells house that she’s moving on from him and wilson is moving on from him, he has nothing now and he’d be alone. this coupled with the patient dying no matter what he did almost gets him to relapse. yet house doesn’t and is held together in the end by cuddy confessing that she loves him even though she wishes she didn’t.

house’s growth in seasons 5 and 6 is punctuated by wilson’s stability in his life. when wilson’s prescience wavers, house falters. this makes their codependency especially obvious. even in season 6, wilson’s guilt of leaving house behind and hurting him deals house a serious blow even though he’s in therapy and is more mentally stable. this highlights the importance of their relationship and how house and wilson’s relationship is the backbone of the show and house himself. they need each other and when one stumbles, the other falls like dominos. seasons 5 and 6 is, in my opinion, the best example of the importance of house and wilson’s relationship and the ultimate example of their dedication to each other.

#house md #meta #hilson #house md season 5 #house md season 6 #in this essay i will #essay posting again #they’re driving me crazy #i actually wrote an essay about them #i promised didn’t i? #my thoughts #james wilson #gregory house #amber volakis #lisa cuddy

[ai-higurashi]

Do you think after the triplets first moved in, Scrooge was just-

#ai's random art #bentina beakley #ducktales 2017 #ducktales #mrs beakley #scrooge mcduck #huey duck #going around shaking people by their shoulders like LISTEN- #once again spreading the Beakley-triplets agenda #Beakley seeing Huey go through a similar arc as she did after meeting Scrooge like 'first time?' #I'm sorry but Scrooge definitely saw Huey with his guidebook and had a déjà vu like 'ah shit here we go again (affectionate)' #I'm just saying. Huey could definitely get Beakley to end up knowing his guidebook by heart too just by infodumping at her #have a whole incoherent essay about how they could work #OKAY SO APPARENTLY THIS IS MY 100TH POST? HUH

[ghostlyarchaeologist]

Eliot in glasses compendium.

(Jake)

(Alex)

#leverage #leverage redemption #eliot spencer #christian kane #this guy in glasses #yes please #the detail that he originally wore them because he needed them got lost along the way #somewhere after the new glasses line from jailhouse job #although he did wear them again for reading purposes once in redemption #i mean canonically he probably wears contacts #cause getting punched wearing glasses sucks #but also consider that this is the reason why he's always scowling in redemption #he's not grumpy he's squinting #because he's too stubborn to go and put his glasses on #yeah he needs to wear them more in redemption #tag essay #long post #ghostly'sgifs

[and-his-hands-were-24-crows]

So... listen. I'm almost out of my 30s. Really, genuinely almost out of my 30s. I am standing at the threshold of middle age, getting ready to knock on the fucking door. I self-label as queer. I'm masculine-leaning nonbinary of some variety or another. I am, as I generally put it, Extremely Divorced.

(I might have also said "MEGA-Divorced" at one point or another. Probably multiple points. Including last Friday.)

Shows like GO and OFMD feel so resonant and important for me because I'm objectively and unavoidably getting older and I need to see older queer folks developing relationships that are actually deep and good for them, even if they're also messy and imperfect and interrupted. You've got middle-aged men and man-shaped people(?) trying to figure their shit out and be together, and absolutely fucking it up along the way but in a way that's beautiful and genuine and ultimately survivable.

It makes people like me think that maybe we've still got time to get it right, actually. And I have to imagine that there are other people in the "older set" of the fandom(s) who feel like this as well.

#once again getting way too personal on a platform I've been on for about three whole weeks #good omens #our flag means death #terry pratchett #neil gaiman #text post #I have way too many feelings about this actually #be glad that this post managed to not be a 5 paragraph essay #queer rep

[ouroborosorder]

So, Deepcolor's oprec released, and upon reading a summary of it, I basically felt the entire world of Arknights click into place. Hear me out.

Deepcolor's Oprec details that Deepcolor was convinced by a messenger of the Cult of the Deep to become Seaborn. But she stopped her own assimilation when she realized that the Seaborn do not appreciate aesthetic beauty. She was disgusted, and literally left and stopped her own assimilation entirely due to her love of art, and has been holding it back with her painting.

And this made me realize. This is true of every character with seaborn blood who has resisted assimilation. Skadi sings. Specter sings. Laurentina sculpts. Gladiia dances. Mizuki cooks. Deepcolor is a painter. Amaia still translated books long after she had become Seaborn. Garcia played the piano. Lorenzo cared for the Stultifera.

Which also means...

... Anita was never assimilated. Not fully.

But this makes sense, even outside of a "art holds back the darkness" power of friendship-tier story beat. Assimilation is the surrendering of the individual self to unity, the acceptance that you do not matter, that all that matters is giving your life and your existence to the perpetuation of a greater Whole. They cultivate only to consume. They sing, but their song is a profound silence.

And what is more individualistic, more self-revealing than art? There is no artistic expression without the self, without the understanding that you are a distinct voice, that your perspective matters, that there is only one you.

Perhaps you may have noticed, but this is the same as the Yan-Sui. They hold back the collective with their individual passions. Painting, movies, poetry, games, war.

There's one other thing with a connection to artistic expression - but this time, positively. Originium Arts. Artistic ability has long been associated with Originium Arts capability - Amiya plays the violin, Frostnova sings as she enters the battlefield, Goldenglow's hairdressing, Astesia's divination powering her arts, Lucian the Blood Diamond. I mean they're called Arts for the love of god, it's not exactly subtle.

But the Rhine Lab manga tells us that when an Oripathy carrier dies, the Originium left behind contains their DNA sequence, left behind after death. They may die, but there is something that is always left behind, something that always remains behind. There is always the thing that let them do their Arts. There is always their artistic ability.

There is always their art.

You do your art until you are taken by death, but what remains behind is the traces of it, the artistic DNA you have left behind, your Arts itself. You're gone, but the remnants are still there. And someone else will find it, taking your Arts into themselves to do their own Arts themselves. Sometimes it becomes part of you, living with you and growing inside you, granting you your abilities. Sometimes you simply hold it and use it as fuel and inspiration to make your own Arts.

And this is always what Arknights has been about. Not just metaphorically, but literally.

They hired individual artists, asking them to make characters according to their own sensibilities and style, then putting them into a cohesive world. They got talented musicians and gave them carte blanche to contribute to the musical identity of this game. They got talented voice actors and let them just go ham on the mic. The game's story concept debatably originated because of Lowlight creating Kal'tsit for a make your own OC art game.

It has always been about individuals, putting everything they have, everything that makes them unique, every part of their histories and sensibilities and quirks and personalities and identity and selfish desires and allowing them to shine as a collaborative effort, working together towards a greater goal that means something to people.

An organization of people, Infected by the artistic DNA of those they carry close. People using their Arts to push back the darkness, as best as they can. Even if they stumble and fall, even if they make mistakes, they will always try. To enjoy their life and practice their art.

Because the two greatest threats to the world of Terra, the Seaborn and Sui, are held back by.. simple artistic passion.

The passion and love of the community, the individual given space to shine and collaborate, singing to drown out the terror of the song without sound, the art without beauty, and the collective without the individual.

#arknights #long post #critical analysis #whoops guess who wrote an extended essay about arknights instead of doing her homework again