#also this is from one of the discords im in

[ceasarslegion]

wait, now im really interested in the silica gel drama. how did hlrp sex ed lead to eating a gel packet?

This is going to require a novel's length of context.

To begin, I want to underline that this is not meant to be a callout post, and I will not be providing any identifying traits that could be used to single this person out. The most you will get out of that are she/her pronouns, and her age at the time this happened, which was years ago, and I will not specify what year. I genuinely do hope she got the help she needed after this, because LORD knows she needs it and didn't find it at home. This is also not meant to be a character assassination, nor should anybody who reads this post consider it to be a takedown of any sort, and if you try to find this person through me or any of our mutual friends, you will not be met with kind words. The only thing this is meant to be is a wild-ass story of some of the most off the wall experiences I personally had with this person from my specific side of the story, with a few no-username screenshots attached to prove I am not bullshitting you.

With that in mind, let's get started. This is going to be very long, so I'm throwing in a read more

Back when I was in uni, I joined a growing group of Half Life roleplay blogs. The whole idea of our group was that we each chose a character, canon or OC, and we would blog as if the pre-Black Mesa incident moment in the timeline was a workplace comedy a la The Office or Superstore. I played Barney, because I was already working night shift security at this point and thought it would be funny. Plus, it gave me something to do that wasn't staring at CCTV feeds all night tossing a ball against the wall. We played off of each other very well, yes-anding our way through funny little situations and plotlines we put together. At one point we had roleplayed enough that one of the scientist rpers created a discord server for us to talk as the actual people we are instead of through characters.

Great idea at the time. None of us saw the "Pandora's box" label on the tin before we opened it. Would I still join it if I knew what was about to transpire? Yes, because I met my boyfriend and many genuinely lovely friends through it. Would I hesitate for a second first, though, as the events that are about to transpire flashed before my eyes? Oh, abso-fucking-lutely.

We started off as many fandom servers do: chill for the most part, very loud minority of a few assholes who ruined it for the rest of us, but unlike most fandom servers, we actually won and it ended in them getting banned and the server itself surviving to this day. But the other two lunatics are not who you came here for. You want the christian lunatic.

Let's give her a nickname to make this easier. I have the Sylveon build a bear on my PC desk. Let's call her Syl.

Syl was not there for Half Life, she was there for Portal. She LOVED Portal, Half Life was just part of the same universe for her. Portal wasn't just a game for her, it was her entire personality. Which I didn't see much of an issue with at the time, because she said she was 15. Whatever, I thought; she'll learn to control her emotional attachment to things as she gets older. Syl also said that she was christian. I am a flaming atheist who doesn't even believe in the concept of a soul in comparison and I am NOT the biggest fan of christianity as an institution to put it mildly, but I'm not gonna like, be a dick to you for your personal religion if you are not a dick about my beliefs, so I didn't think much of it at the time.

It quickly became apparent that Syl looked up to me more than any of the other adults in the group the more I would talk about my life growing up as a third culture kid and moving out on my own at 19, working 2 jobs and going to a good university. She would ask me a lot about growing up and uni and moving out and yes, sex ed, and it became even more apparent that she didn't get any actual guidance from her parents or pastors or ANYBODY beyond bible studies and homeschooling, so I kinda stumbled into a mentorship role in her life. I wasn't cold, but I was aware of the age and maturity difference between us and established the appropriate boundaries with her and made it very clear that I am an internet friend, not an irl friend or an educator, but if no one else was going to give her information that wasn't actively harmful then fuck, I guess SOMEONE had to do it. I could not in good conscience watch some kid go through life with harmful inaccuracies about the world and basic human biology when I could have done something about it, y'know?

And the more things I taught her about the real world and how things actually work rather than how her republican bible-thumping rural town said they did, the more I realized she was born into a full-blown cult under the guise of a christian congregation. Oh goody, I had my work cut out for me. I will not get into the details of how messed up this group was because it will be a dead giveaway of where she lives and potentially who she is, but let's just say that one time I said that I appreciated the gesture of praying for me during a stressful week I was having but it didn't really do anything for my mental health because I was an atheist, and she sent me a bunch of bible verses begging me to start believing and said "I just don't want you to go to hell because you're so nice :((" EXCUSE ME??? Another time she said that death was only sad for non-christians because their loved ones were in hell and that proper christians deaths were a good thing because they were in heaven now. Hi, that's the most insensitive death cult shit I've ever heard in my goddamn life.

Okay, set up is done. All of these details will tie in like the world's worst reboot of Pulp Fiction, I prommy.

After a good long while learning about the world from me (which like... a uni kid working night shift security is not exactly an academic source but we take what we can get) and exposure to viewpoints outside of her in-group, Syl began that very painful journey of realizing that what the cult taught you was a lie. Except that she just wasn't grasping that unlearning things was an active process. She started to flip to the opposite side very quickly, but kept all the fundamental brainwashing of the cult that raised her. The concepts were all the same, just slapped a different label on them. This created a noticeable pull between two sides of the same personality: the cult personality, and the person beyond the cult who wanted to break free. Mix that with how fucking 15 years old every 15 year old is, and you have a LETHAL concoction just waiting to blow up at the first sign of a spark.

Remember how I said that Portal was her whole personality? Syl decided that she wanted to be a scientist, and go into an ivy league program like I was in (I was in a SOCIAL science, but sure). Problem was, she didn't have the grades or the ambition, really. I had told her that I still got into an ivy league when I failed math in high school, and she seemed to completely miss the part where I said that I also joined every extra-curricular, then worked for 2 gap years for recognized institutions, and wrote an essay about why my math grade is not relevant to my program. I did it with one bad grade, so she was justified in basically just slacking off and then excusing it with "but its haaarrrdd" when we'd tell her she needs to put the fucking work in NOW if that's what she wants to do.

It quickly derailed from here. Not only was she going to be a scientist, she was going to be like Cave Johnson. And she was going to... replace her body with robot parts so she could be like glados. I don't... think she actually knew what science is, because she would just publically fantasize about running unethical experiments on people in the name of "science," and talk about how one day she wants to basically establish aperture labs for real. All of us who were there kind of agree that we don't think she was joking based on what we knew about her and the cadence of her tone. Here's something she said at the time to give you an idea of what direction she was nosediving in:

This was after a session with her therapist where said therapist said that she definitely has some kind of personality disorder, after which she was weirdly proud of having one and treated it like a badge of honour.

Syl then made a separate group chat for all the best friends she made on the server. There was her, me, @false-pyre, and @imtheaura. She titled it "My Family," despite the fact that we were all adults and she was 15 and she only knew us over a discord half life server where one person in it stepped up to somewhat equip her for real life outside of a cult. Regardless though that GC was more the vibe of a group of friends sharing memes and chatting about the day than the wider server was at the time. The others began to also take on a sort of mentorship role towards her as well, because that's kind of inevitable when you get someone talking about teenager problems in a room full of adults who all made the same mistakes before in their own lives. Well, minus the cult.

And remember how I said that she didn't unlearn any of the cult shit? Well, there was a lot of proselytizing. She decided she wasn't christian for a spell, but still wanted us and everyone to know that jesus was the lord and savior and we had to accept him or we'd burn in hell. Usually said after we'd make some joke about satan being daddy or declaring ourselves god instead, because that is just the type of humor the others and i have with each other. She took it so personally whenever one of us would go "oh my god" "you called?" it was fucking annoying. I lost count of the amount of lectures she gave us, all of which I'd shut down and tell her to get a grip about because I have a big stupid mouth.

The others and I also like to talk about evolution, and speculate about where we're going from here. My fucking god, did she not like that. She bit our heads off about how evolution isn't real and god made everyone as we are and there's no scientific evidence or whatever the hell. Like yeah good luck getting into STEM with that mindset. Whenever we pointed out that she was objectively wrong about that, she'd have a big stupid meltdown about how much we're slandering god and how jesus died for us and we're spitting in his face or whatever. He should spit in MY face inste-*GUNSHOT*

Eventually, we were making some actual progress with her. She was still one fry short of a happy meal and going off about how much she wanted to put living subjects in test tubes in between knocking on our doors and reciting Hello from the Book of Mormon musical, but we were getting somewhere. And then she went back to in person school, and her favourite teacher got fired.

The schoolboard did not say why she got fired, but we all had our suspicions that it was because she openly supported queer rights in a cult town. She was coincidentally retired shortly after making a declaration that queer people are still welcome in god's kingdom. This teacher was the first in person adult Syl had for guidance, so that incident shook her to her core, and she fell right back into the extremism. Hook, line, and sinker, even more extreme than before.

She was WEIRD that week, man. Suddenly everything was about how great god was, how amazing jesus was. Suddenly she understood why her cult member parents "just wanted to protect her" from gay characters on disney+ originals. Suddenly no one could say "jesus christ lol" around her or she'd have a fit. I said "I hate cycle counts lmao i wanna kms" because my then-job (I had graduated at this point) made me do inventory management spontaneously and wouldn't let me go home until I had counted every product in the store, and she bit my head off accusing me of turning suicide into a joke.

It was that incident that made us tell her to knock it off already, that we understood it was a hard week for her and she was in a period of grief, but that is no excuse for how she had been acting towards everyone around her that wasnt christian, and that she was actively relapsing. I'll let the exchange speak for itself:

So uh. After years of helping Syl through this she goes and pulls this bullshit. And then has the fucking AUDACITY to act like nothing ever happened in the wider server. I am genuinely gobsmacked by the balls on her to act like it was all sunshine and rainbows in the wider server after sending this and immediately leaving the same GC SHE made and titled "My Family" just because we told her to stop acting like a goddamn Jonestown citizen after all the work we'd put in to get her out of that mentality at this point.

So I dragged her up in front of everyone and essentially said "no, nuh uh, you don't get to say that shit to the people who have lost sleep and asked for nothing in return trying to help you escape a cult over the last 2 years and then act like we're all buddy buddy to everybody else. You don't get to be that arrogant and self-righteous without any consequences. I don't give a fuck how young you are, you DON'T treat the people who have helped you this much like that, you selfish little shit. How dare you treat us like this after all we've done for you over the years."

Unfortunately, no one involved had surviving screenshots of this, but they can back me up on it if they so choose. And oh boy, DID she face the consequences of her own actions. The whole server basically turned their heads and went "what the FUCK is wrong with you, Syl??" and asked her to at least like, apologize. She proceeded to double down with the added audacity of "you guys taught me how to establish healthy boundaries, that's all I'm doing right now :(( oh woe is me :(((" like WOW, okay. Someone's really going for the persecution complex.

Here's her last goodbye to us all before the mass block fest occured:

Oh, boohoo. You're so hard done by. You spat in the faces of everyone who stayed up all night multiple times helping you through crises and spent the last 2 years teaching you about how the world really worked and then they asked you to apologize after you tried to escape accountability. You truly are god's strongest soldier, the most persecuted minority in the world. Let me play you an ode to how righteous and holy you are and how this was the most important hill to sacrifice all your outsider friendships on on the world's smallest violin.

Syl then went on to post on her roleplay blog that she "was banned because I spoke up for what was right, and they didn't like that" before deleting it. Truly no one has suffered as much as you.

Anyway, the day after that went down, I called in from work, bought this book, and read the whole thing purely out of spite:

It was greatly therapeutic. After that incident, I vowed to never sanitize my own atheistic beliefs for the benefit of others again. If they don't like them, they don't have to talk to me. But I am not changing them for other people or keeping them quiet just to spare your feelings anymore, I have as much a right to my beliefs as anyone else does, including the world's most persecuted minority here.

And well, the silica gel incident?

There was one incident, during the height of Syl's "I am the irl cave johnson and only want to get into STEM to conduct unethical experiments on people. follow jesus" era, the rest of us were joking about how silica gel packets are the ultimate forbidden snack, and said "haha would eating it make you see shrimp colours" knowing full well it can kill you.

Syl proceeded to actually eat a silica gel packet and then send in "it has a sandy texture and tastes bad" prompting the rest of us to go "WE WERE FUCKING JOKING FIND YOUR POISON CONTROL HOTLINE RIGHT NOW"

And because i didnt get this done until now, I'll tag everyone who said they wanted to read this or expressed interest: @captainjonnitkessler @formydarlingtoread @cra-zwizard @chasingnightrainbows

#ramblings #what do i even tag this

[tabooiart]

this hot pink bitch was named breakfast!!!

#my art #fanart #starkid #team starkid #npmd #nerdy prudes must die #nibbly #nibblenephim #kim whalen #this one was significantly more difficult than tinky.. something about the angle of the head #also having to spend a lot of effort on the mouth which i usually dont like doing but cmon. its nibbly. the mouth is like his whole deal #ALSO THE HAIR WAS SUCH A BITCH TO PAINT #and the bedazzled visor...... honestly the whole thing #i like how it turned out tho!! #oh also if u look closely i gave him pig eyes!!! something about the lib human forms looking pretty normal aside from freaky eyes #alas i once again had to shrink it because the canvas was the same size as tink's #cmon man discord can handle my giant canvases tumblr needs to get it together #speaking of are there any like starkid/hatchetfield discord servers that are active someone let me in im pawing at the door like a kitty ca

[dragoncarrion]

requests are done! g1 nightbird for @classychassiss cyberverse grimlock for @hellyeahpancakes tfa jazz for @benadrylcandlewhack and tfp arcee for a friend on discord 🤯

#maccadam #transformers g1 #nightbird #transformers cyberverse #grimlock #transformers animated #tfa jazz #tfp #arcee #tfg1 #tfcbv #tf #idkkkkk how to tag my shit #ik i said they'd be three but shit happened and i forgot to say i got a third rq from discord when i got a new one on the og post #so that one's on me. also im sorry jazz looks straight up like his in show model. im tireddd and i havent watched tfa so idk what hes like #also picking a bg color is so hardddd #my art

[crispywizardtale]

#im surprised nobody made a begging Kenta set so here i am #i also need one for my discord #Kenta is so pretty #fuck tony #i hate him from the bottom of my soul #come to me Kenta ill take care of you #pit babe #pit babe series #pit babe the series

[seeliragh-fr]

two normal-looking obelisks next to each other

#i havent been able to draw much recently but rest assured im still thinking about beasts #the fr art academy discord is like atlas holding up rhe earth for me right now for finding the will to draw despite all my classwork #this is just iraia from that one angle again but its okay #also someday ill fix my levels in post but whatever. darkmode iraia sorry #seeliragh art

[suntails]

I’m going to paint you a picture of modern communication, and how it is fundamentally broken.

Let’s look at one friend. You chat pretty much everyday, and mostly talk to this person on twitter and discord, with occasional tumblr DMs. That’s three places you talk. But that’s actually not true, because you also have each other’s priv twitters and talk there as well. That’s four. Now account for, let’s say, one post reply per account per person, in addition to your DMs. That’s eight. But that’s ALSO not true, because not only do you talk in discord DMs with each other, but you’re in a friend group server as well! And you talk in those channels together! That’s nine.

This is one friend.

Now look around you. How many friends, how many mutuals are you in contact with. A few, a handful, a dozen, more? How many accounts per person do you have, how many places can you send each other posts, devolve into separate topics and conversations? How many people text you as well. Friends, family, coworkers? What do you do day to day around catching up, what IRL commitments will rip you away long enough to let the pile build again?

I can’t do it. I cannot live an actual life in the real world and balance this much interaction, it’s crushing. I reply to a friend’s post because I’m interested in the subject, I want to have a discussion! I WANT to talk about it with them, but I immediately kick myself for adding another conversation to the pile. Day by day, I ignore messages for hours on end and watch mountains pile around me, to reply en masse at the end of the night to let the cycle repeat. I wake up to six discord DMs and as I clear the third, the first replies back again.

We weren’t meant to have thirty simultaneous conversations. We weren’t. And you know in your bones that the number isn’t an exaggeration.

#hush catríona #this is essentially copy pasted from my twt last week but made a touch more coherent #iiiii spiral about this pretty regularly. i think this is the 4th or 5th time ive gone on this spiel bc its agonizing #i feel horrific guilt for ignoring messages for so long. and its absolutely voluntary. but i cant FUNCTION like this i cant DO it #i have friends where we talk Every Single Day and i LOVE them so much. so unfathomably much. but it KILLS me #hell take my roomie for example. one of my fav ppl in the world. we text- twit dm- discord dm- ig dm- reply to posts. thats five right? #i guess!!! but we also LIVE TOGETHER. i see them in real life and talk to them out loud with my voice and its still this much to add on!!!! #and i feel like nobody else talks abt this shit and it makes me feel crazy. am i the only person completely debilitated by this??? #i dont want this to come across as like ‘boohoo we get it ur sooo popular’ that is NOT what this post means #i think a lot of ppl big acct or small. fandom or otherwise. talk to a dozen ppl online. and i dont get how anyone copes #this is agony. and every single time i ever make a post? its another opportunity to add to the pile #i only reply to comments on posts on twt and this is why. i cant DO it i cant keep up. i see every tag and im so grateful but i cant ever #reach out. i cant add to the pile. theyre already taller than me

[yaoicoreren]

discord mod ed

(insta request)

#edward nashton #fanart #doodles #b&w #i had fun doing this one #i have no idea what discord mods are like #im a touch too old to be fully into discord server cultures #also im horribly socially anxious even online so on group chats i mostly lurk historically #so i did this is fully from the prompt and what ive seen on memes about discord mods #i wish i had cat ear headphones like that.....

[the-dragon-girl-27]

this is one of those things where it was funny in my head but now that i drew it i realize it was probably not worth the effort  but no point in not posting it i guess i find watching the Mu saga unfold extreamilly funny for some reason i wish i had a quality pic of the % being even lower

#milgram #mikoto kayano #muu kusunoki #milgram project #meme art #i was one of the people who with the first trial video was like aww i fweel so bad for muu im glad shes voted innocent #then second trial vid drops and imediate NOPE NOPE NOPE #i think the only people voting muu innocent are just haruka fans and not people who actually forgive her lmao #tbh i thought haruka was also guilty from the start and the second trial reienforced that so #oh yeah also mikoto is here people who know me from discord or watched that one stream i did must find that funny #i have a long rant agaisnt why meme is overrated and how dumb i think mikoto looks but i think he looks less dumb when i drew him #also i just noticed the way i drew his hair literally almost looks like a recolor of one of my ocs.... oh god #i made that oc in like 2018 or 2019 tho so i dont have to worry about the implications of that because there are none #fr mikoto's hair looks like it has the texture of wet mud #oh god that was a lot of tags for a drawing i feel so incredibilly netruial about

[ftm-radio]

Today's gender euphoria was kindly delivered to me by:

brushing my teeth in my underwear, freshly showered and waiting for my T gel to dry

#bonus: last night's euphoria was from one of my dearest friends calling me 'thon' on discord 🥰 #<3 #anyway feel free to rb with what's giving you gender euphoria today #also feel free to not do that idc im not ur dad #im not even ur uncle #ftm radio #transgender #trans #ftm #trans guy #nonbinary trans guy #trans masc #trans man #trans masculine #nonbinary guy #nonbinary man #trans positivity #gender euphoria #trans nonbinary

[pseudophan]

do you ever think back to asks you've gotten? like are there some that just stand out in your mind even tho it's been years since you got them? cause I can imagine you get some weird shit sometimes lmao

#ive gotten so much unhinged shit but you just cannot beat this one im sorry #also the one from someone who got kicked from my discord server as a joke (like everyone did frequently) and took it deeply personally #and then lola made a birthday graphic for me with the whole ask on it #beautiful #answered

[helios-kirbs]

(late) halloween drawings of the sillies

#tales from the stinky dragon #tftsd #kyborg #art #fan art #infinights interns #little guys #brink tussler #bartholomew finn #gumgum #happy halloweeeeeeen #late but like who cares #also just realized #im missing mudd so im gonna have to make a silly little drawing of him too and post it later #dont think just brink #you can only have the context for the gumgum one if ur in the discord 💔 #trickshot

[fleouriarts]

feeling bad about my art lately. will probably not post for a while. but i wanted to at least dump some stuff here before i retreat into my hidey hole

#hivemind tv #riley savage #graydon weaver #hmfcu #quadeca #jane remover #eden burke #my art #2023 #fanart #doodles #its like. augh. longtime fleouriarts followers are familiar with my eternal tango with posting art online #doing this since i was 11 has like rotted my brain and made me rely wayyyy too much on external validation to motivate myself #and every year or so it gets bad enough that i take a break. but the break usually only lasts a month before i miss the feeling #and come back and then the cycle repeats #its probably worse now bc this is a fandom where getting seen by the creators is not really that hard #so there have been times where im like 'well idk if i wanna draw this. but if i do maybe hivemind will rt it :-)' #NO!!! THATS NOT WHAT ART IS ABOUT!!!!! i cant keep letting myself get addicted to the numbers going up man i gotta get out of here #and i was reading a quad interview from around when idmthy got released. cus hes also brain poisoned like this. but he managed to get out #and now just kinda comes online to release music and then leave #i need to be like that. i need to take a break from art posting thats so long that i come back as a changed man odysseus style #idk. its been so long since i drew stuff that no one gets to see but me. all the art i keep to myself is just out of embarrassment #i need to relearn how to draw stuff just for the love of creation and not “maybe people online will like this one” #or “this new thing came out i need to prove my love of it by drawing it” #sometimes it leads to good art but more often than not it just makes me feel worse #whatever. if any of yall are in the hivemind jane or quadeca discord i MIGHT still post stuff there. but otherwise ill keep to myself and m #friends for a while i think #woooooo this is queued to post while im in orgo lab everyone wish me luck with my thin layer chromatography

[bloodheartz]

Self proclaimed empaths on their way to "advocate for the mentally ill 🥺" by demonizing every cluster b personality disorder

#you tell them having a personality disorder doesnt inherently make someone more capable of abuse than someone without one #and they go fucking ballisitc! Assflash newshole! everyones capable of harming others! it came free with your being a person! #and oohh they just love flooding the NPD safe tag with as much hate as possible which is! Not normal behavior! What the fuck! #also when i say “self proclaimed empaths” i do NOT mean high empathy ppl! thats completely different! #we have fluctuating empathy so we'll go from completely without out it to overwhelmed by it at random #its just atjglejkwgk agifeli #be nice to people with personality disorders! we're people too! and more often than not we're victims of abuse! #graaah sorry just #got harrassed in a fucking emoji server on discord by some dickwad who noticed i had NPD in my intro like bro? Im here for funny cat emojis #wawawewa #npd #npd safe #cluster b safe #cluster b #empath

[synthshenanigans]

Okay so that means whoever makes it to the year 2100 alive, can claim themselves as the ultimate chonny jash fan

#if you can outlive the song you are the ultimate fan #id be like fuckin 97 #so like if im LUCKY pffft #tbf CJ would also apply since he's 22 so #everyone has a challenge here #i think the youngest cj fans I've seen is like 12-13? so they have a better chance but thats still like 90 years #cj fans fight to the death but in a very very slow manner #living past 20XX & you become The One #chonny jash #moss post #oh yea. pic is from the 20XX Director's Commentary #some aren't in the discord so should explain it lol #can dm me if you want the file for it btw! :D

[kraviolis]

*clings onto any and all characters who show both subtle or explicit signs of plurality from all of my various interests and hyperfixations consistently throughout my entire life* no no its all a coincidence im just fascinated with the concept i certainly dont relate to it haha

#krav talks #princess luna + nightmare moon #oscar pine + ozpin #greed + ling #otto octavius + his actuators #anakin skywalker + darth vader #steven universe's human + gem halves #also permafusions in SU #widowmaker sort of #bucky barnes + the winter soldier #kris deltarune + their soul #asriel dreemurr + flowey #frisk + chara (in some headcanons/AUs) #bill cipher + dipper/ford #The Gravity Falls Hive AU #oh my god remember that. that was actually so fun #when everyone in our little corner of the GF fandom read this one GF fic and then one by one we all edited our icons to have neon green eye #and began preaching about how nice it is to be a part of the hive and it jumped from discord to tumblr and spread even further #im counting cleo shaw here even tho she just dissociates heavily and has amnesia but doesnt really experience plurality #im also counting james randal even tho his plurality manifests more physically than mentally. as in there r several different james randals #he has like the opposite of DID. theyre all the same james randal but just in different places at once #ALSO. unfortunately in my youth i clung so hard to MKR and fake AH crew vagabond. rip #*insert joke about crushing on an internet man as a teen and only finding out as an adult that i actually had a chance*

[distortedmoondisc]

I think we as a fandom don't talk enough about Aira being Hiiro's fan—y'know, as an idol.

It might be because most people don't read the main story, or because it's not blatantly stated in there like other things, but it's something I think is a very unique facet about their relationship.

As we know, Aira separates his professional life and his personal life a lot. He will wait in line to shake hands with Hiyori Tomoe and buy a dozen CDs just to have a couple of extra minutes just talk to him, even though he can do this at any time since they're both idols living in the ES dorms and friends from the same circle.

And while this is admittedly silly from Aira's part, he truly sees this something serious and actually, he's kind of justified in thinking this way? He takes pride in being an idol otaku, and he wants to play as fair as possible with fellow fans, he doesn't want to take advantage of the fact that he's living and working alongside these super stars, and in my eyes that just shows how pure-hearted and honest he is.

With that in mind, it would be obvious to conclude that Aira would be a fan of his unitmates. He's definitely a fan of Tatsumi and Mayoi, but it's explicitly said in the MS that Aira is a fan of Hiiro.

This is from episode 89, "Grace"

(this episode may or may have not changed my brain chemistry forever lol)

Here, Aira makes the statement that he wants to protect Hiiro as an idol.

Hiiro is new to this world; he's a rookie, he's unpolished, far from perfect, but he's brimming with potential and he shines brightly on stage regardless of his imperfections — especially to Aira's eyes, and Aira wants to protect that, he wants to keep Hiiro's shine, and to help him grow and become the great idol Aira sees in him.

And I just can't express how much this means to me??? To their relationship??? This is why I can't understand people who say Aira doesn't care about Hiiro (these are opinions I've read way too often on twitter...), when Aira more than anyone wants to protect him not only as a person (like when he comforts him, cheers him up and motivates him after Rinne disowns him), but also as an idol. Aira trusts in Hiiro the idol. He sees his potential and he admires him deeply — not only as a fellow idol or as a friend, but as a fan.

And what gets me is the wording Aira uses here. He talks about wanting to protect Hiiro, to defend him. This is stated in another chapter and I don't remember exactly where (I believe it's one of the last episodes of the MS, but please correct me if I'm mistaken), but Aira states that he wants to protect Hiiro's purity — and this can be interpreted many ways, be it in that he wants to protect Hiiro's innocence as in his personality trait (his endearing naivety, his trusting and friendly nature, his endless curiosity, his earnestness and sincerity), or his purity as an idol, in the sense that because Hiiro is an idol, he has an appearance to keep, he has to be shining and to be pure and beautiful all the time (because that's the image idols give to the world, to their fans; the image that gives countless of people like Aira hope); this can include protecting Hiiro from the darker sides of the industry, such as toxic fans, unhealthy relationships with fame, corrupted producers or people from the industry, among other things. Aira seems to be aware of these issues (as he mentions in the second chapter of the main story, see below), so it makes sense that he wants to shield Hiiro, who knows absolutely nothing about this industry or the city, from those things.

Episode 24, "Suspicious"

And personally, I think Aira means both. He wants to protect Hiiro's purity as a person: he wants to protect the cheerful and positive Hiiro he knows and loves and admires (Aira himself states this. Multiple times. So much so that Aira often comments about how uncomfortable he feels when Hiiro is gloomy or troubled, that he is always the first to ask what is wrong or if something is bothering him.... but talking about Aira's high perceptiveness for Hiiro's emotions is a topic for another day) — but he also wants to protect Hiiro as an idol, wants to protect the immaculate image he gives to the world and to his fans, because Aira loves him, the same way he loves an idol from a fan standpoint. And he hopes that by protecting this purity, Hiiro will grow to be the talented and shining idol Aira knows he can be.

And what gets me is that after thinking of Hiiro this way, Aira snaps out of his self-deprecating thoughts and decides to give his best in the Ullambana (episode 89). Aira literally overcame his insecurities because of Hiiro. Thinking of having to do his best and keep working hard in order to keep up with him and with Alkaloid gave him the strength he needed to stop spiraling down his own insecurities and focus his efforts into something that was worth it: in keeping Alkaloid alive, and keeping Hiiro The Idol alive, because Aira believes he will become an idol that will soothe, delight and captivate hearts of many like Aira in the future — and Aira has to become an accomplished idol and a strong person if he is to be next to him on stage to protect him and to help him grow.

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I say a lot, mostly jokingly between my friends, that Aira is the biggest HiiroP... but after writing this whole post, I realize I'm not so far off from this assumption. Aira loves Hiiro as a friend, we all know and understand that, but what is often overlooked is that Aira—who divides his professional and personal life so strictly—recognizes the rookie, unpolished, but talented Hiiro as an idol, and he wants to see him grow and succeed not only as his friend and unitmate, but also as a fan. Hiiro is so shining and wonderful on stage that it awakens the idol-ota instinct on Aira, it brings him back to his roots where he watched and admired idols from afar and inspired and soothed his lonely heart. And honestly? I think this is terribly wholesome, if not incredibly beautiful, and I'm getting emotional over hiiai once again, so I'm going to finish the essay here. Thanks for reading ahdjfk

#we also don't talk about aira being the one protecting hiiro enough... #we usually think of hiiro since he's physically stronger and there's been scenes where he acts very protective of aira #like the famous “let go of aira!” scene w rinne #but we as a fandom often forget that aira does protect hiiro #albeit in a more subtle way #but honestly to me that's what makes it even more noble and admirable. #aira is tiny and weak but he's still one of the most determined and hardworking characters in enstars #and if he has as one of his goals to protect Hiiro's purity #then he will #idk man im just very moved by kanojo-kun trying his best to protect hiiro and his smile #and how he wants to nurture his potential as an idol bc he knows hiiro is capable of giving other people hope #the same way idols in the past did for aira #ueueueue #sorry for the long ramble #this was kinda copypasted from a chat w a friend on discord #but i tried changing it a bit so it makes more sense all together #hope it made sense lol #ensemble stars #enstars #enstars alkaloid #alkaloid #aira shiratori #hiiro amagi #hiiai #my post