Ghost From Gotham

💜 She/Her 💜 🖤 Straight ally 🖤 🖌️ Artist 🎨 📗 I write every once in a blue moon 🖊️

[mimosa-sexypeople-contests-2026]

Tumblr Sexyman Contest 2026 Round 5 Part 4

Stanley Pines (Gravity Falls)

Ryland Grace (Project Hail Mary)

Remaining time: 1 day 23 minutes

[demilypyro]

No spoilers, just themes.

With the finale out now I think a central theme that I've recognized and really adore is "all of these characters are more complex than an audience would appreciate." They are all being squished into a child-friendly set of archetypes, be that by Caine, Jax, or metatextually, the fandom. Caine doesn't want them complaining, swearing or having sex, they just have to go on endless, mindless, youtube-monetizable adventures. He's the ringmaster, he puts them in a bright poppy's playtime ass stage and demands for funny to happen. Meanwhile, Jax doesn't want to address the dire reality of their situation and copes by playing along, treating himself and all the characters as flat archetypes with no internality, so that the elephants in the room can safely be ignored. The fandom, meanwhile, is quietly guilty of all the same things. "Why isn't my favorite character acting in accordance with my headcanon? Which characters are flatly evil so we can hate them? Will they achieve my perfect happy ending? Because if not I'll be mad about it."

It doesn't work. Because they're more complex than that. They're people, they need more, they have emotions and traumas and wants and needs. Ragatha isn't always cheerful, she's not just the mom friend, and she's not some manipulator either. She's a person, trying her best, and very often failing. Pomni isn't always anxious, she's a natural leader and she wants the best for everyone, but she's not perfect either. She's a person, trying her best, and very often failing. And Jax isn't just a villain, he's a very complicated ball of traumas whose consistent first instinct is to push everyone away, hurting others so that he won't get hurt himself. He's a person, trying his best, and very often failing. She might even be a girl. Zooble isn't just a grump, Gangle isn't just a wimp, Kinger isn't just crazy. They're humans. And humans aren't always good. They're messy, screwed up, complicated things. They're things that can't be flattened down to archetypes, no matter how much Caine, Jax, or the fandom wants it.

The fandom wanted a bunch of cookie cutter adventures with good guys and bad guys, but what we got is just a bunch of people, stuck together, their traumas rubbing up against eachother until something catches fire and explodes. And I think that's way more interesting. I'm glad the show is that. I understand not everyone feels that way, though. A lot of people wanted something less nuanced. But I don't think the show not matching your expectations is the show's fault. I think people just need to come at it with the right mindset. Meet the story where it's at.

People are always more complicated than an audience wants them to be.

[demilypyro]

"if Jax is a trans woman she's still an abuser so she's bad representation so the show is transphobic" you're an idiot. you want your blorbos to be perfect ideal angels, I want my blorbos to be realistic, nuanced, flawed human beings, we are not the same. I LIKE that she's messy and fucked up and problematic, I think it's a realistic depiction of how a lot of repressed and traumatized trans women are. I think the show goes to great lengths to explore how and why she is the way she is, and to evoke sympathy for this kind of person. it doesn't excuse her actions but it does make them understandable. and I think the fact women like that deserve sympathy is an idea worth stating and worth shouting. yes she's a bully and she hurt everyone around her and that may never change. she still deserves sympathy.

[edettethegreat]

I believe Michael Distortion was overridden for the same reason Peter Lukas died; giving a statement went against the essence of his being. And not only did he give a statement, but he outright asked Jon to take one from him.

The Distortion should be more opposed to giving a statement than an avatar of the Lonely, and yet whatever piece of Michael was still left in there was able to reach out for some form of honest human connection one last time. and that's what killed him.

[notholaenas]

don’t ever put him in a situation

[ultrawhalnar]

Anyway i love how the movie uses this very abstract out-there horror premise to represent the human tendency to get stuck on something and obsess over it and become trapped in a never-ending cycle and to resist change so hard that you still change anyway but in a way that degrades and warps and destroys you and the fallibility of human memory and how every time you recall something it gets a little less accurate which means the more you obsess over something the further entrenched in it you become the more you choose to live here the worse it gets the less you understand it until your perspective on the objective reality of it is completely destroyed. The backrooms are a brain the whole thing is a brain. The horror is the human brain. CAN ANYBODY HEAR MEEEEE

[shmuzzieheart]

The backrooms are a failing brain trying to hold onto even the most basic of memories, even as they warp and decay.

The backrooms are generative AI trying to capture something real but only achieving a malformed, mindless imitation.

The backrooms are stagnation, an unwillingness to step into the new and uncomfortable effort of changing, instead running through the same old routine even as it starts to fall in on itself.

The backrooms are nostalgia cannibalizing itself, trying to remake and remake what it already knows without making anything new, until the familiar is so bastardized it's barely recognizable.

[hollenix]

for the good of all mankind

[oriixxc]

[minty86823]

子アヒルたちの水遊び

Ducklings Playing the River

[notaplaceofhonour]

Ryan Gosling’s career has just been one long quest to climb the Warner Bros water tower

[notaplaceofhonour]

that man has been trying to climb this tower since he was 16. he has asked multiple times, and every time they said no, but now he’s famous enough & variety was able to convince them to do a shoot on the tower. it all led here. it was all for this.

[notaplaceofhonour]

I’m obsessed with the implication that this was a coming-of-age ritual where a boy becomes a man, like a bar mitzvah

[chirasul]

we got a full redbox and now we're playing go fish with the redbox movies

[chirasul]

I would never pay money for a redbox. if you ask politely and are very very persistent (i.e. annoying) they will let you take it away

here's my dad and i taking it away

a redbox makes a wonderful addition to your patio

[fishmech]

for those wondering why they're free to take now, it's because the company that made those "chicken soup for the soul" books bought them a few years ago and then completely collapsed so bad they couldn't afford to dispose of or even take the blu rays and dvds out of their kiosks all over.

so any of them is free game because they're all located on other business' property and they usually don't want to have to pay to get rid of them either. so asking the store manager usually gets you the ok to pull it out and keep it.

[chirasul]

there was a period of time right after their bankruptcy where you could put in any debit or credit card and it would spit out movies without charging you. you could even put in like an expired or deactivated card, or a visa gift card with a $0 balance, didnt matter, they'd just start spitting discs out. a lotta people raided redboxes for movies for a couple months, with some people doing what me and my brother and my dad did here, taking the whole box and signs and marquees as well. because managers sure as hell don't want a big abandoned piece of trash on their sidewalk disappointing customers. BUT they're also often too cheap to pay someone to remove it. so they just sit there.

luckily there are no shortage of freaks like us who will just take them away on our own volition. we did it all "by the book", too: we set up cones and caution tape, disconnected electricity properly, used an angle grinder to grind down the bolts in the concrete so nobody would trip on them, then cleaned everything up afterward and sealed off the electrical panel so the store would know everything is safe and tidy. though they were hesitant when we were first contacting them, they were honestly very relieved and grateful when we finally took it away, especially once they saw that we "knew what we were doing" (we don't) and look like we've "done this before" (we haven't).

the fun part: the reason why this redbox, in particular, was completely full and unraided is because the computer hardware inside had failed some months before the bankruptcy, and a failing company sure as hell wasn't gonna send a tech out to our podunk dipshit city to fix it, so it was impossible to rent movies or take any discs out. plus, for who knows how long, people were returning old redbox discs to this machine and not taking any out, leading to a much higher variety of movies than your average redbox.

there is a thriving community of redbox hackers and modders out there, as well, creating open-source software for repurposing the machines and not letting their very interesting and robust disc-management hardware go to waste. this one belongs to my brother (who was very annoying persistent and did all the legwork of contacting managers and securing permission) who is a programmer by trade and will be hacking it into a family-access movie library, with whatever discs we want. i mean the machine is completely weatherproof and has a built-in AC unit, it would be such a waste to not try to turn it into something cool.

if we get another one, i'm gonna try to mod it into some sort of art or zine vending machine. the disc boxes are just the right size for small print art or stickers. would make a great "little free library" too.

remember: the rules are made up. act like you belong there and you can get away with anything. this applies to your own life

[thecraftgremlin]

Where’s that one post that’s like Reasons Why My Wife Cried This Week and when are we gonna get a fanfic of that but Ryland Grace.

[stargirl-and-potts]

Reasons my human has cried:

* New student, very small. Grace said it was pebble. Pebble is small Earth rock. Pebble likes name.

* He found out Eridians have no gender rules.

* Students brought him mineral sample. After he stopped crying he said he loves show-and-tell game. Human naming conventions oddly literal.

* I told him Earthsun grew bright.

* I took him up atop atmosphere bypass elevator to look at stars.

* He woke up from nap and found me still with him. I did not wait on his chest; he says I am heavy like “elephant” and he “couldn’t breathe.” I laid my arm over him instead, kept him close, feeling safe. He said “cuddle” was warm.

* Before class he heard younglings singing.

* He has plants in house from sprouts on ship. Plant grew “bud.”

* Engineers got seawater temperature right. He took off shoes and stood in water, sighing. He didn’t care about pants getting damp. Cried until shirt was also damp. Humans very endlessly wet.

* He missed “Doritos.”

* Adrian helped food scientists make taumoeba dried paste. Made it crunchy after heating. We fused it into triangle form. Told him it was Tauritos. That made him laugh-cry. Laugh-cry is rare and precious.

* He remembered Eridians have no gender rules.

* We made him celebration outfit. Used metals he calls pretty. He can see frequencies named “colorful” and “shiny.” These make humans happiest.

* I gave him hug when he wasn’t expecting it. Easier to hug close now with exosuit. Hug when Grace sitting down so he does not fall over.

* Told him to think long time, stay with me as long as he can.

[this-site-isnt-safe-for-me]

[pomodoko]

touch-starved

i graduated and finally have time to escape my jail cell *chewing on iron bars* also there's a different version with a pink filter below i couldn't pick which is my favorite

[beardedmrbean]

this sounds like a party to me

[grand-theft-carbohydrates]

[spectrelike-art]

Dannymay Day 15: Favourite AU

My favourite AU of all time will always be dragon-related (I also love the concept of portal! dragon)