#we need to condense

[chillychive]

Forget debating which quark grian and scar would be, (strange and charm for that matter) but I am objectively correct when I say that Scott would be the Bottom quark. Also known as the Beauty quark. If that isn’t perfect, I don’t know what is.

#life series quark au #quarks #life series #traffic life series #traffic smp #trafficblr #traffic life smp #why are there so many tags y’all #we need to condense #scott major #smajor1995 #scott smajor #last life #life series winners

[ultimateyakazoo]

chapter 1 trial

#i think my biggest achievements in making these was being able to condense the trials into a few basic panels #each trial ended up needing more n more dialogue but seeing how long the in game trials are im pretty proud of myself #i only did ever sketch out the first three trials tho my sketches have taken me just up to the chapt 4 trial which i ever started at all #oh also i made sure to always keep the order of the characters in the trials true to the game #everyone is placed in the exact same 'seats' as they are in the real game #that was tough at times bc sometimes i wanted dialogue between characters who were nowhere near each other #but it was also a good opportunity to make me use characters i normally wouldnt have thought to use #and i couldnt just give dialogue to my favourite characters lol #and sometimes it worked out really well where the characters i wanted interacting did happen to be next to each other #sdr2 #super danganronpa 2 #ok here we go #hajime hinata #teruteru hanamura #mikan tsumiki #chiaki namani #nagito komaeda #peko pekoyama #is that everyone #mahiru koizumi #there we go #my art

[kindlespark]

godddddd rereading the canton scene is so fucked up like robin is finally apologising to ramy about hermes with genuine understanding and regret. before that moment he couldn't reconcile babel's bloody foundations with his own enjoyment of it; couldn't grasp how everything he'd worked for had always been this death and exploitation until he saw it with his own eyes. how ramy knows that he's finally opening his eyes to something ramy had known his whole life; that he and robin are tragically, horrifically connected by that web of exploitation, not just through babel but through their own countries that are being forced to serve empire and destroy each other in the process!!! their countries and their lives are irreversibly undeniably caught up in the other's downfall, thrust together by no choice of their own, but by the systems of exploitation that ensure only the british can win. LIKE IS ROBINRAMY NOT THE MOST DOOMED TRAGIC FUCKED UP RELATIONSHIP IN EXISTENCE IM GOING TO THROW UP i just can't get over it i can't get over how robin and ramy as people and as cogs in the imperialist system were given no other choice but to cling to each other in britain, to help each other as the only other boys of colour around, but then to ultimately doom and work against each other and their countries for the crown. im srsly going to pass out and die

#sam speaks #sorry this is just a condensed version of a convo i already had in the babel discord #i just need people to understand how crazy fucked up they are like auhuahuhuauhugahughugha #this is why i don't subscribe to the robinramy soulmate isms like! they shouldn't have had to meet each other like this!! #faizaan saying they're that line in joy ride that's like. we only became friends because we were the only two asian ppl in that town. like #they’re besties bc they were the first boys of colour the other had ever met like its sooooo tragic to meeee #babel

[doccywhomst]

that certainly was an episode of doctor who

#i liked it! i loved the characters and the references #i need to give it another watch before i start condensing my thoughts - but i felt generally positive about it #especially the second half once we got past all the expository dialogue #potd #power of the doctor #spoilers tag #doctor who

[mashedmangos]

Ren and Lizzie last life doodles

Silly fairy and her dog

#rendog #ldshadowlady #last life lizzie #last life ren #ren #lizzie #fairy allience #i literally love this allience we need more ren and Lizzie duo stuff #why is ren kinda... #not in my doodle he just is kinda... in general #emmaaaa the condensation

[fumifooms]

The core of Fullmetal Alchemist: All is one and Dwarf in the flask

Dwarf in a bottle is in my top 5 favorite FMA characters. No, not Father, that emotionless bland white bread empty husk, Dwarf, the whole. The sort of ball of void, the existential anomaly, so inhumanely human full with sins and individuality.

Fullmetal Alchemist is about willpower. About determination, about pursuing your goals without relenting. It is also about humility and about knowledge.

That is reflected in both the protagonist and the villain, though it is a theme common in most characters.  Both Edward and Dwarf in a bottle pursue their goals with great determination and will. Then, what is good with the manner of one and wrong with the other’s?

I believe a lot of it is about the very concept Dwarf symbolizes. Dwarf in the flask is artificiality.

An alchemy-made life. An artificial family. An artificial pursuit of knowledge and power, without caring about the journey of self-betterment that comes along with it, without caring to understand alchemy and its place in the world. Not only an artifical physical being, but also artificial emotionally; ripping apart his feelings and personality traits deemed negative to make himself into a “superior” being.

I think it’s also worth noting that yes, purging sins out of himself makes him lose those traits, even feelings. Then, if not greed, if not it all, what is pushing Father to pursue power? Greed said it himself: greed isn’t inherently bad, it’s the act of wanting. Father isn’t spiraling into a mad passion for alchemy, a pursuit of knowledge for innovation, or anything, he pursued his plan because he went through the motions, simply. As his feelings left him, all that stayed was the conviction without reasoning that since it was his plan before, he should see it to the end. Or perhaps it’s the course of action he logically came to. Perhaps alchemical enlightenment was deemed the obvious ultimate goal to have, without being interested in why it is or why it should be. Regardless, he lacks the passion and emotional intelligence to actually see the value in what he is doing, in alchemy, and ultimately that is what is punished.

I want to do a full dissection of the whole homunculus family, but I’m going to touch on some aspects of it here because it’s such an interesting topic to me. Disregarding Lust’s claim that homunculi are all individuals with a full range of emotions for a moment, I want to analyze what their traits mean in the angle that they fundamentally formed a whole all together as Father, or Dwarf in the flask.  The homunculus that is shown to be the most attached to his family members is Gluttony. The homunculus that is shown to be the most attached to relationships, in general, is Greed. Greed and Gluttony are then the homunculi, the traits, that care about people the most. And that makes sense, no? You don’t want to lose things you care about, you want to bathe in their love and their presence, and you want to keep having them for as long as you want, greed and gluttony aren’t unsimilar. Greed is interested in friendship and having companions, in possessing people’s hearts and loyalties, in making new connections and bonding with new faces. Gluttony is more interested in getting more of what he already has, more love in that way he already likes by the person he already loves, like wanting more of the familiar taste of its favorite meal. Other similar traits are pride and envy, the traits that affect your self-image. The feeling that you are remarkable and great and the feeling of wanting what others have or are, valuing yourself vs comparing yourself to others. By detaching parts of a whole, things get lost; Pride feels wholly superior but is ready to do anything to preserve himself including lowering himself to inferior beings going against his own code, while Envy only covers up his self-hatred and jealousy but would rather end himself before accepting to sully himself with the compassion of someone he looks down upon. Pride makes one value self-preservation, while envy is self-destructive by nature, perhaps. It is interesting that both feel prideful, yet Pride doesn’t reflect the fact that as part of a whole it also felt shame and low self-esteem, otherized, and Envy doesn’t reflect that Dwarf actually feels pride over traits they possess, as well. The truth is that these things coexisted in the one being that was Dwarf. Fragmented as they are, they only tell an uncomplete and incoherent story, like a puzzle. It’s ironic that maybe together, all these sins balance each other out to become healthier, less dysfunctional. Like a family, they can offer counterbalance to a trait when it becomes too central to the individual, offer support through their grounding presence. Someone slothful may feel unmotivated without greed to give them goals, pride without envy will make you stop striving to better yourself and envy without pride will give you self-loathing.

An analysis of Dwarf isn’t complicated to do: it was a being brought about by scholars and complex alchemy, enslaved, and it wished to get the power to free itself and become an individual equal/superior to everyone else. Unable to become physically and fundamentally human, he attempted to become a proxy, close enough to it; making a family, gaining a human form, etc. It ultimately wished to pursue superiority through alchemical power and knowledge when he found the result lacking, when it still didn’t feel human, couldn’t connect with others, still felt fundamentally different, like his place in the universe was somewhere else, like striving for that higher calling would solve it. Blinded by lust to find belonging, wether it be in a place or in a role, it pushed itself to extremes of alchemy in the hope it will all make sense once he gets there. Ultimately futile, as he will end up feeling betrayed and abandoned by Truth itself, not able to rise up to its own expectations once more: because there’s no magic able to make one feel whole. He seeked to sculpt himself into a perfect being, one that could be anything and do anything, one that couldn’t be reproached, if not by humans, then the world itself would confirm and showcase his objective superiority for all to see.

Much like with Shou Tucker, this pursuit for knowledge and power is all for external factors, there is no inner fuel for it besides pride, shame, desperate want that was displaced onto alchemy instead of the self-introspection that alchemy promotes and necessitates. Dwarf ended up missing what was right under his nose, and subsequently failed the test of Truth and lost everything. What he was working towards ultimately meant nothing, not to anyone and not even to himself.

Edward was able to face Truth right because he took the time to understand, learned to not abuse it, reflected on what it all meant, on the place of things in the universe. That is terrifying for Dwarf, who is terrified he may simply have no place in it, but it is nonetheless essential. The other homunculi are proof enough: Greed had friends, was accepted in the friend group of our heroes as a trustworthy and dependable person, Ling would have preferred him to stay with him forever instead of leaving. Selim gets a second chance at life with someone who has loved him with all her heart… Which is the most confusing part of FMA I have no idea how he didn’t die ngl but I’m glad for the precious lil guy~ Even Lust and Gluttony found companionship and care in being together.

Dwarf has always had a place. He simply refused to philosophizes, and alchemists are ultimately philosophers. Not thinking power through, not analyzing it, is what leads to corrupt military states. Dwarf wanted to be recognized and accepted by god and the world itself, by showing himself worthy of it and demanding it, but he was the one who rejected the nature of the world first:

One is all, all is one.

He is the very embodiment of refusing that. Dwarf always had a place in the world, artificial anomaly as he was. Perhaps Dwarf wasn’t meant to be part of this all or this one initially, not created by the world, but. Dwarf seeked to become both all and none at once. He was born artificial, but never cared to learn the rules of nature and accept the limits of the world, seeking to destroy and warp them; he was the one that desired to make himself even more distinct from the world and label himself as a perfect, artificial being. Rejecting individuality to become some empty looking glass was the mistake Edward Elric didn’t make, growing to find the value in every type of life and finding the strength to keep going through every horror of the world. Dwarf’s folly was thinking that he was separate from the rest of existence.

The philosophical dimension to the value of gold or philosopher’s stones are the important part of alchemy, power isn’t what you achieve enlightenment through. May your pursuit of knowledge be wise and your resolve aim true.

–+–+–+–+–+–+–

I recommend this analysis by another tumblr user as complementary reading!! It goes over way more than I did and encompasses more of fma than this post, I just wanted to focus on a fraction of the themes and narrative that I found summed up the story’s key points well… Idk idk I’m a humble Dwarf enjoyer I don’t want to come across as pretentious 🙇 I can only hope this was a nice read. If you don’t remember the ending of the manga/brotherhood well I imagine this being very confusing, I should do something about that

#fullmetal alchemist #fmab #i might spice this post with screenshots and pics one day #dwarf in the flask #father fma #edward elric #Analysis #Homunculi fma #Envy fma #Pride fma #gluttony fma #greed fma #The lesson of Pride & Envy: If you only have Pride you’ll only remember that you love yourself #But you need Envy too to remind you that you… Hate others and yourself…? #Jkjk envy in a way represents humility when in a not so extreme condensed form but I found that funny #Spoilers #fma spoilers #It isn’t to say that Dwarf’s fragmenting is all bad though like we see with Greed. #As much as traits may balance each other out and as much as the homunculi clashed together sometimes in ways that impeded their progress #we saw how unhealthy of an individual dwarf in the flask already was before splitting itself. #With Greed we see that a tiny part of this all that’s itself part of a bigger all aka the world #can still be part of it and do the bettering and thinking needed to become someone with values #character analysis #Me watching Dwarf absorb god and tearing up bc it’s so tragic that he was fueled by a desperate want to belong and prove himself and #Bitterness and a sense of superiority #Tfw u a lil science experiment made by scholars who thinks that it is through research and pursuit of scientific and academic knowledge onl #That u can achieve anything completely missing the emotional or ethical dimension… Or like u know. Just like. Wondering if it’ll make u #Actually happy #What if trying to bring himself closer to smth like a human was just bc all the alchemical research and results are made by humans so he #Thinks it’ll up his chance bc the method was already tailored and scientific method and whatnot…

[arsenicflame]

hey does anyone wanna bounce bellhands/they all went to pirate school together ideas with me? im trying to figure out the missing pieces of my personal set up and it might be easier with someone else!

#if youve never spoken to me before please be aware i will type a whole paragraph in response to one (1) sentence #but if ur down for that! please. #ive got like. the start and the end and a couple bits in the middle fleshed out but it doesn't f l o w #this is the problem with trying to condense more than a years of ideas into one cohesive narrative. i usually swap and change things as #and when it suits so im like. i don't know what i need in this #its just for my silly little tumblr post but #i would appreciate it <3 #i can send you what ive wrote and we can go from there or we can start from scratch bouncing ideas or u can just ask me questions #or something to help fill in gaps idk whatever works for u! what ive got is like. a fuckin mess honestly its ramblings and half finished #thoughts and just. its. a complete state and thats not even touching on whats missing (like. anything that matters in the middle basically) #nyxtalks #ofmd #bellhands #sam bellamy #izzy hands #israel hands #if you're unfamiliar with the concept: its Hornigold era stuff; jack + ed + izzy + sam all sailing under him and learning the ropes togethe #im not trying to go into too many details; just the underlying structure that is what I think of when i think of them #its probably not something anyone else cares about but i think i need it for some of the more fun 'what if Izzy went with sam' posts #i realised if i wanted to say what the divergence point was i Needed to establish all this lol #'oh yeah its when izzy chooses sam after the mutiny despite their argument' NYX WHAT ARGUMENT. you need to tell us what u mean

[laurasbailey]

i do wish vox machina had dedicated reunion stuff in this era but i’m also happy to accept the fact that they’re so powerful they would probably break the game if they all intervened together (which i’m sure is why matt isolated their most powerful member and swiftly took her out of commission lmao)

#text #like keyleth wants to contact the others… okay but can we see that ‘cause- #i need to be present when vex learns vax is a fucking condensed ball of divinity thanks #also i want to see elderly grog fight like what the fuck does that look like lmao

[lesbx]

i do think it’s perhaps a bit strange just how fucking common and unavoidable porn of zelda is like have we forgotten that’s like an elementary/middle schooler game series. and yet every time there’s a fucking endless flood on every website with nsfw of it. this is something people also do with pokémon but to a lesser extent bc at least that’s usually somewhat limited to the explicit creeps who are doing it intentionally but with loz it’s just seems to be open season i think. i can’t even imagine what it must be like to be an actual kid online these days trying to engage with fandom stuff for stuff in their own demographic when it’s just so saturated with adults who don’t exhibit even the tiniest speck of responsibility about what they put into those spaces

#this is another huge issue with the internet condensing itself into like 5 different websites bc kids literally NEED their own spots online #like what we grew up with. it’s insane

[theinfinitedivides]

second My Dearest related post today but Only Skin from Ys and Divers from the eponymous album 🤝🏼 Ryang Eum longing for a man who will never love them in exactly the way they deserve

#tv: my dearest #my dearest #mbc my dearest #namgoong min #nam goong min #kim yoon woo #joanna newsom #kdrama #local gay watches My Dearest (and is subsequently f*cked up).txt #local gay watches k-dramas.txt #ok to be fair this is greatly condensing the absolute SCOPE of those two sings bc that sh*t is dissertation level #Only Skin is a seventeen minute long masterpiece that requires several dissertations #but truly i was thinking about the whole thing of Divers where she says 'and never will i wed / i'll hunt the pearl of death to the bottom #of my life / and ever hold my breath / till i may be the diver's wife' and Ryang Eum saying he'd die with Jang Hyun #if he had to. and he wouldn't mind #'the diver is my love and i am his / (if i am not deceived)' but he is!!!!! he is deceived!!!!! he is his love but not in the way he wants #Only Skin's 'and the cities we passed were a flickering wasteland / but his hand / in my hand / made them hale and harmless' #Jang Hyun with his hand in Ryang Eum's hand both at the enemy camp and when he saved him. are you seeing this #sick and twisted but anyway this is once again your daily PSA to get tf into Joanna Newsom if you haven't already #excuse me while i go back to writing that fic ffs i need to finish it

[amemoryofwot]

Anyways somewhat in reference to my previous Siuan post I appreciate how the WoT show is showing Liandrin participating in (being responsible for?) The Vileness

#wheel of time spoilers #obviously in the books it was before her time #but we need to condense characters #and the core of the Tower Schism IS the Vileness so #far beyond the Greens and Reds getting annoyed at Siuan’s leniency towards Moiraine

[leqclerc]

Help girl I’m doing it again (thinking about 2019-2020 until my tummy hurts)

#sometimes im fine and other times i get hit by a crippling wave of nostalgia :))) #charles's early years at ferrari and his meteoric rise and the online shift in response to that and the character study fics #everything to do with seb and charles and how that developed and ebbed and flowed and the massive media coverage of this new big rivalry #the way everyone was gearing up for a continuation of that in 2020 but then the pandemic happened #the insanity of the twitch era in the wake of the lockdowns and the emotional turmoil of seb's announced departure #the condensed 6 month season that somehow felt like it went on forever and was simultaneously far too short esp knowing what's coming #and just....the way things were in the online community at the time?? all that creativity and brainstorming and sense of togetherness #im aware im probably romanticizing it a lot but ironically the further away we get from those times the more i miss them ig?? #we've had some good times since obviously but idk it feels like the zeitgeist of that time can't be replicated & a part of me feels so sad #idk this isnt making any sense but sometimes i'll see a photo or gifset or clip or whatever and think only a time machine could fix me #i need to go touch some grass 😭

[percy-x-luke]

Hii! First of all, I love your stories and especially “Even the thorns have roses”!

Second of all, how do you get the inspiration to write so much? I am currently making my way through your ao3 catalogue (and thoroughly enjoying myself) and it’s so many fics?!

Happy holidays!

Thank you! I'm glad you've been enjoying Even The Thorns Have Roses. And though you didn't ask, I'll tell you now that none of my WIPs have been shelved permanently and they'll all be finished eventually (unless I literally die before I can finish them).

I've been debating how to answer your question about inspiration in a way that doesn't sound completely insane but I can't. I'm addicted to dreaming - both sleeping dreams and wakeful dreams - and writing is like daydreaming except it gives your hands something to do.

#answered asks #probably the most unhinged answer i could have given but ultimately the truest i think #dreaming is a lifelong passion of mine and i used to write my dreams down #as i discovered fan fic it morphed into putting characters into my dreams #and the praise heaped upon me in those early days inspired me to keep writing fan fic #and here we are eighteen years later #that's the condensed version anyway #inspiration comes from my lifelong need to escape reality #and is reinforced by positive comments on my works #hope that isn't too depressing of an answer #happy holidays to you too

[mielgf]

the dopamine hit when an essay felt like it was falling apart but then you manage to pull it back together

#louisa may alcott i just want to do you justice im really doing my best i love you #only two pages left and i have one more body paragraph + conclusion… yikes i might be pushing it but we can condense a little bit if need be #this is the first paper in a WHILE where i’m actually over talking bc I’m so passionate about what i’m saying and making so many connections #rather than just speaking to fill up the word/page count lol #talk time

[sleepyfemme]

still can’t believe how evil it is that spring semester ends may 5th and summer semester starts may 8th............. that’s not a break that’s a weekend and for some of us (me) it’s not even gonna be a relaxing weekend bc it’s graduation at the university in town & it’s gonna be the busiest nightmare weekend of the whole year at my restaurant job

#everyone in my program is so burnt out bc they've condensed our program way too much and we're all having to learn so much #in way too short of a time & we all need like two weeks off !! #and none of us can slow down our pace bc they're ending the massage program at our school once our class has finished. lmfao #i wish i lived in a larger & better area where the one option for massage school wasn't such a fucking joke oh my god #anyways !! i love massage so it'll all be worth it someday #personal

[red-dyed-sarumane]

theres also something interesting to be said about the time settings of aru sekai series. bc when u have a scifi loop series u expect, u know, u get ur cast, u see them fail, they get brought back into a different timeline & this progresses usually until they can break it. but aru sekai, despite ALSO being a scifi loop, is not that same type of time loop if u can even call it a loop. scenario fits, onset of disaster, world ends, everyone fitting the requirements wakes up in an entirely intact world. but time itself only seems to go forward. as supported by aru sekai shoushitsu itself its less a loop & more a cycle. (as we're told with the whole "toroidal direction" & emphasis on fractal repetitions.) we have a defined past, directly referred to as the past, with entirely different characters from the clearly more modern or current cast handling relatively the same phenomena. theres a definite progression of time despite the world ending time & time again. and even in isolated instances theres a sense of time continuing as we know it to rather than being forced back to any given point. u have the narrator in kanon coming to & noticing the nice after-rain weather. there's the urgency in apoptosis' actions when she realizes theres no way but continuing & trying to fight against that. even what we know of kannagi implies a linear progression of time they cant fight against. & thats just off the top of my head.

not mention a typical aspect of traditional time loops is that only one or a small group of people are aware of the time loop where as here its not even an open secret its just entirely well known. which is to say, again, its a cycle not a loop. the real oddity of which being the recreation of a similar world for everyone to wake up in but that might be something we get more info on later given the trend of this series.

as compared to say kagepro where the characters have their own true time loops or shuuenpro which is more alternate timelines if i remember correctly. aru sekai is nearly entirely linear when it comes to time direction. even though they wake up in an alternate world(or... something. we know the world they're in gets damaged severely & destroyed. hence the shoushitsu. i can't imagine it would heal itself somehow but u never know) theres 11 songs in this series so far & not a single one shows an alternate timeline in the sense as we're used to. its always a succession of events, things & knowledge that build on each other, not ever brought back to a single point to be explored in a different way. even characters going through the same events will only ever describe it from their perspective & not as an entirely new series of events. in fact most of these arent even at the same time! even then its a linear progression! oumen & apoptosis are heavily, heavily based around the same events and yet the overlap of time in them is small. kanon & maximizer are similar. the overlap of time in songs is, currently, very little! even if its only a by few minutes, if u look carefully, theres little details relating to events in other songs where you immediately know from it what happened earlier and what happened after.

we've been told the world "continues in the toroidal direction", its not a perfect circle. even if its only minor there'd be some sort of distortion of whatever it is moving in a donut shape, the inner curves are tighter than the outer, its not a sphere, its not as consistent as a spherical shape would be (though i can see the argument even a sphere could have some sort of distortion at its poles its without a doubt less than what a toroid would have). and we've also had the fractal aspect pushed on us especially in the first two songs. the repetition of a specific pattern, perhaps not always exactly 1:1 but repetition of it nonetheless. thats exactly what the whole series is. the easiest way to get the base idea across to people not into it is to say its a time loop but the truth its its really not. its a desperate struggle to stop a cycle.

#aru sekai series #i LOVE this series so much #i feel like a kid playing with toy cars in a sand box this is the best truly #i repeat once again that aru sekai shoushitsu has nearly EVERYTHING in it we need to know #but because its so condensed it makes no sense without context & explaination #& ONCE AGAIN despite it being 11 minutes long #there is absolutely no way to shorten it anymore without losing so much info & thematic consistency #this is also partially bc whenever i get new followers i need to post essays to weed out the weak #but also also i just like to think about it #could u imagine how long this could be if i wasnt on day 3 of a headache & i went thru the text directly #one day i will