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originalaccountname · 8 months

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in Storm Bringer, Iceman mentions Chuuya punching a guy through (several) ceilings for having asked him about his past. That guy was a wholeseller Chuuya was supposed to be making a deal with for the jewel trade he was in charge of. That incident happened July 18th, and it took the guy 3 months to heal.

Now, we know both halves of skk were 15 in, well, Fifteen, and that at this time in SB, they should both be 16. Chuuya's birthday is in April, and Dazai's, June.

Since there was a time skip of a month at the end of Fifteen, the punching incident can't have been from then, as we need at least that amount of time for Dazai's birthday to have already passed. So this was after the boys' 16th birthdays, July 18th +3 months, placing SB's events at somewhere at least mid-October, even November.

The events of SB take place over like, at most, 2 weeks, between the Flags' deaths and the final fight. Then, there's another one-month skip in the epilogue, +1.5 month, so we're now at minimum in December-January range.

The Dragon's Head Conflict is said to have happened "shortly after the King of Assassins incident". Skk should still be 16 during the conflict, so we have until the end of April to get there. The conflict lasted for 88 days, nearly 3 months, bringing us to a bare minimum of it starting at the tail end of January.

What I'm saying is there was barely 6 months, most likely even less, between SB and the end of the Dragon's Head Conflict. The PM might have mostly avoided taking part in it (canon reason why they managed to take over the underworld in its wake), but they still suffered from it all the same, especially since they had just spent and lost a lot of resources during their fight against Verlaine.

Also Chuuya must have had like 3 months to make those friends before losing them too.

#it's not even a hell year it's more like a hell 5 months #and NO chuuya wasn't an executive that was a mistranslation in the novel he was a CANDIDATE for the title like dazai #see: fifteen's epilogue it's written right there #dazai got the promotion and chuuya got the arahabaki papers mori was witholding as a prize #mori probably had to balance it out because my boy was Going Through It and skk need to stay on equal footing more or less for it to work #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #bsd #bsd analysis #storm bringer #stormbringer #bsd stormbringer #bsd fifteen #apparently i talk sometimes #bsd timeline #this should be a tag

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rawliverandgoronspice · 5 months

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I think what chronically upsets me about TotK is that. So much of it could have been so good with so little change.

I am into Zelda as a sacrificial, wondrous and silenced creature who must literally carry the blade of the hero as a wound inside her forehead and silently wait to be humanized again --and the injustice of a kingdom built on such a premice doomed to repeat itself, especially if the kingdom was founded on such dubious grounds to begin with. I am into Ganondorf forcing the present to reckon with the past through the most violent clash, forsaking everything that made him a person while sinking down into petty vindictiveness until no connection and no humanity remains, even though independance was what he was trying to protect in the first place. I am into Link as somebody trying to hold onto his most important connection to the world he once knew being used to force him into a conflict that has ultimately nothing to do with him (sure that's SS again but, it could have been explored even further). I am into Rauru as this self-important, self-made king who used his own association to godhood to live out a power fantasy that refuses to ever be acknowledge as such, maybe compounded by the fact he is one of the last of his species and feel, himself, the crushing weight of their fading heritage?

I don't know, the Tears of the Kingdom or something????

But, it all tragically depends on one crucial thing, which is to allow hylians to be wrong sometimes.

And it's wild to me how all of this incredible potential to comment on the series' history and the characters' role in it is just. Flattened into nothing, because Good must be Good and Evil must be Evil, and Hyrule must be righteous at literally every cost --even if it means nervously rewriting their own history through convoluted logic that rejects conflict and depth and vulnerability at every turn.

#totk #totk critical #rauru #zelda #link #ganondorf #when will my brain return from the imprisoning war...#what offends me personally is that the game pretends to have written this heartwrenching tragedy #when objectively nothing has consequences and nobody (except maybe rauru and that's weak af) learns anything about their own flaws #look nintendo tragedies are My Shit you can't fool me into pretending you did a good job #especially when the execution is so so botched #you can't punch sonia's spine off and have ganondorf make a gary's mode face about it and pretend you wrote a good story like come on #also “man sad because wife died because bad guy is bad :(” is beyond level 0 of tragedy #it *can* be pulled off without making me roll my eyes with enough depth given to everybody involved #but this just wasn't it

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makerofmadness · 6 months

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I swear I have something I've found something

From "the making of" (with the earthbound Halloween hack)

you know how sometimes people will take their old bad fanworks and remake it into something like actually good and also probably an original work? I've done that a few times. Anyway:

Can you see what I'm getting at here?

"Varik is almost dead, and yet he can't stop moving because you keep pushing those buttons."

#I love it when you can just like SEE the improvement from a work and its themes and concepts. With your own two eyeballs.#undertale #deltarune #utdr #kris dreemurr #susie deltarune #papyrus #frisk #varik #earthbound halloween hack #Toby fox #The hack like definitely wasn't that good execution wise and was definitely Edgy but like I love that Toby reused and refined so many #Of the concepts for Undertale and Deltarune. Particularly in the Genocide Route of Undertale. Like look at the hack and read the making of.#You'll probably notice like several parallels and it's just. I love seeing it it reminds me of how I got a lot of my own OCs-

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yoru-kage · 8 months

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Everyone's favourite doctor looking positively unhinged as per usual :vD A redraw of this from 2020 because I was looking at it and went "I can do better"

Prints are available :V

#tf2 #team fortress 2 #tf2 medic #medic #tf2 fanart #blood #gore #stuff #cringed too hard at old pic #technically more of a proper execution rather than just a redraw #because I wasn't going for a full composition back then so didn't bother with a background #different stylistic choices #anyhoo I got my Inprnt up because I have access to paypal again wooooooooo #i'd like to open commissions some time in the near future :')

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lampfacedstudios · 25 days

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a little peek at a revisit to some old alien friends from 10-ish years ago

#nonfandom #alien #alien oc #doodle #wip #the base concept wasn't bad but my old execution was not great #I want things to look like they make more sense #there are SO many bug collages on this canvas #tauric

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nguyenfinity · 1 month

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Long post incoming 'cause I really enjoyed making this but timeline project!! Parameters were to show a timeline using pop culture references so I did the life of a neutron star with Madoka Magica (specifically Homura's arc during the main series)!!

For some meta/symbolic/design purposes I inlaid it in a clock :]

This is a 16-inch clock btw, the design itself is like 14 inches-- Stages Nebula: Inception of a star; the gravitational collapse of dust clouds forms its base. Akemi-san's been in the hospital for some time due to a heart condition. She hasn't been to school in quite a while, so I'm sure she'll run into a lot of difficulties. Make sure you all help her out, okay?

Protostar: The protostar spinds rapidly, causing further collapse of the nebula. The star keeps spinning, trying to reach equilibrium between its internal forces and gravity. I-I'm A-Akemi H-Homura... I, uh... I-It's nice to meet all of you. T-Tauri: Energy comes from gravitational forces since the temperature is too low for nuclear fusion. The star enters the main part of its life when it can finally start nuclear fusion and achieves equilibrium. Hey, don't be so nervous. We're classmates, after all. Main Sequence: 90% of the star's life; fusion continuously occurs until hydrogen is depleted, initiating the death of the star. Homura-chan, I'm really glad we became friends. Red Supergiant: The star swells up to a massive size; nuclear fusion can still occur until the star forms an iron core. We can do this together. We'll beat the Walpurgisnacht, just the two of us.

Supernova: As soon as an iron core forms, the star instantly collapses in on itself from the sheer force of gravity. THIS time, instead of her protecting me, I want to become strong enough to protect her!

Research/more design notes below the cut

There were so many directions to take (as you can see, like lifespan of a star would also be very viable for Rinne) but pmmm is so near and dear to my heart that it would've felt criminal not to do it and especially for like. A golden idea, like I think I hit conceptual gold--

It was so hard picking a singular route 'cause there's so many ways a star's life plays out and so many fitting storylines (Godoka for a neutron star, Akumura for black hole, magical girls in general etc) but I also had to take the physical presentation into account 'cause we were allowed to do that however, and Homura's main story arc fit really well because of the time loop and how clocks are. Yeah (and also the symbolic meaning of it being a clock)

There's more symbolism in the specific route I chose being a neutron star because those are the densest object ever, like how Homura repeating that month over and over again kept converging fate onto Madoka worse and worse--

i literally had a presentation with this and I couldn't think of what to say and if i recall anything i'll add it in the replies but MAN this project was so so fun (not the illustration part. i hit major artblock when trying to figure out how to draw it.)

#sana school stuff #madoka magica #pmmm #this actually got done way way back in february but i hadn't posted it until now dgfhjhkjgkh #'cause i wasn't 100% sure of the execution at the time but i worked hard on it so #or how to like. structure the actual post #in the future i'd like to revisit this or make other variations #every neuron in my brain activating when madoka magica #weeeeeeeee #do. do you like how main sequence. where 90% of the star's life. is their friendship and the leadup to walpurgis. i do. i love it

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adhd-merlin · 11 months

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What if my father's attitude to magic is wrong?

#idk. is this anything?#i literally don't know where i was going with this #just playing around #i am still thinking about that meta about ep 5x10 :(#this is literally made in canva like. that's the extent of my editing skills (0).#tw: experimenting #i know kara wasn't executed for using magic btw #it's about the symbolism okay.#merlinedit #merlin #arthur pendragon #screencaps from s5 are super crisp full HD #and then screencaps from s1-3 are like. potato quality 😭#gif makers how do you do it!!!!#i don't even mind the grainy quality too much its just #when you've got to use them together :(#anyway I wanted to start rewatching s1 tonight but #I wasted over 1 hour on this and now it's too late #oh well

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simgerale · 2 months

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PROLOGUE

TRANSCRIPT:

In a far corner of the world, there was a continent once torn apart by war and greed, fighting over old grudges and forgotten slights.

With time came new rulers, and against all odds, the neighboring empires built an alliance.

The unexpected love between an empress and an enemy prince brought on peace after decades of strife.

Together, they bravely fought for the future.

For themselves... and then for their children.

#progeny #ts4 story #back to regal NOW PROGENY Fridays? 🤔 not consistently but I think I might go back to the whole weekend posting thing #patting myself on the back for this one!!!!!!!!!!!#i would like to imagine maggie's expression is due to the fact she unexpectedly have triplets #luca is so proud of his wife..... so so proud #sure it's not realistic that the babies are left to their own devices IN DIAPERS but......... i struggled so hard to find a triplet pose #that fit what was in my head #even tried the realistic birthing mod 😔 i know it has one for the hospital but i don't think it has one for home births????? IDK #i wasn't going to spend any longer on that #so this is just a teaser for what's to come eventually!! going to show some moments of their childhood #hmm probably just one post #i've got a cute idea and we will see if i can execute it #and then! we will be on to the main story!!!!!!!!#WOOP WOOP #oh and i've got extras to post (^:!!!! but i won't get to that until next week i figure. i have a work trip D:

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utilitycaster · 4 months

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As a frequent "ugh, fanon," person it's not that I don't like non-canonical character designs or interpretations as a concept. I love unique and creative ideas about fictional characters that are informed by canon but diverge from it in interesting ways that build upon the original vision! I almost never see this in fanon.

#this is about a bunch of things but rn i'm thinking about halfling tails...uninteresting repetitive pointless and in conflict with canon #more generally i get that fanworks are derivative by nature and that's the point but there's similar and there's The Same.#like. my beef with fanon is not ultimately one of HOW DARE YOU DEVIATE FROM THE HOLY WRIT #it's that it's often dull and poorly executed by people who are gathering around a single kind of stupid headcanon #there are many great individual headcanons out there but they almost never make it to fanon status #bc fanon is not a garden of many new interesting ideas. it's a single dirty pink flamingo haphazardly stabbed into the lawn.#99% of the time canon was better bc it wasn't passed through a committee that stripped it of anything interesting and made it reproducible #anyway follow for more musing on how i believe that while capitalism has DEFINITELY made art worse social media also has #most of my favorite creators end up being the ones who are either very offline or at least have very hard boundaries #and most of my favorite fan creators are involved in fandom but are also fanon (derogatory) people

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egophiliac · 8 months

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Which do you prefer, Super Sentai or Kamen Rider?

that can...really depend on what the current series are. :') but I think overall I'm more into Rider! Sentai tends to be more consistent quality-wise, but Rider has much more variety in terms of narrative structure and what it tries to do, if that makes sense. not necessarily in terms of theme, but in, like, story beats and pacing and character arcs and things like that. it doesn't always hit (and when it's bad, it's...pretty bad) (stares straight off into middle distance) but usually it's at least making an earnest attempt at doing something interesting. and when it does hit, it hits.

they are both very close to my heart though! :> plus Sentai's been doing some serious shakeups to the formula with Donbros and Kingohger, which I'm very very into. lately it seems like they've been messing around with some of the foundational stuff of both franchises in an interesting way, and I'm excited to see where they go with them!

#children's shows are serious business #there have been several riders where i wasn't a fan of the execution but i did get what it was trying to do and i appreciate that at least #it is a bit ironic because i discovered sentai first and initially had zero interest in rider #(someone who had seen a shin movie and thought all kamen rider was Like That had warned me that it was very much not my thing)#however fate intervened #through a series of contrived circumstances i watched a midseries episode of den-o completely out of context and was like. i must know more #den-o is a particularly insane one to watch a midseries episode of with zero context and frankly i'm glad it happened that way

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stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage · 2 months

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Are there any companions you can't stand?

I wouldn't say I have any that I can't stand. Something that's so engaging to me about DA is that the companions have good, bad, and a lot in between. Honestly, I don't hate any of them. There are companions that I have more issues with than others, but I like them all; even, and sometimes especially, the ones that tend to be heavily hated on by the fandom.

The only companion that might fall into this category for me is Sebastian, but I totally acknowledge that I've yet to make an effort to use him when I play DA2. I legit just forget about him. How am I supposed to have a good grasp of his character when I don't engage with him outside of his companion quests? Plus I usually romance Anders so Sebastian always leaves my party in the end with threats of bringing an army down on Kirkwall for not killing Anders, soooo... yeah. Not the greatest impression he's left me with.

I would like to have a more well-rounded opinion of Sebastian because the concept of him is interesting; he's this chantry brother who is also a prince, but his family was murdered so he puts up a bounty on the chantry board [which admittedly is SO funny] and his companion quests are about avenging his family and helping him decide if he should take back his lands or remain a chantry brother. But then I talk to him, I listen to him talk to the other companions, and it's like... oh, the chantry has become his entire personality because the dude was brainwashed and now he's saying shit like the maker was actually the one who freed Fenris from slavery, and when Fenris tells him a story about how Denarius killed a child in a ritual for more power, Sebastian just doubles down that the maker has his reasons, like....babe, c'mon now.

I feel like I've read pieces about him written by fans who love him that are more compellingly written than he is, if that makes sense. Really, I would love to be educated by those who love him, especially Sebastian romancers because of all the love interests in all of DA, he's the one I look at and go, "....okay but why?" I have a lot of fun with character discussions and other perspectives so I mean that sincerely.

Also I think it's worth noting that when I play, I tend to get super into the roleplay of my warden/hawke/inquisitor, but while they have party members they can't stand, I have opinions that are separate from them, y'know?

For example, since I've talked about it a lot recently, my mage Hawke and Aveline butt heads constantly. By the end of Act 3, they're rivalry is heated and Ed's surprised Aveline even sided with him in the end because THAT is how much their relationship deteriorated over the course of the game... but then there's my warrior Hawke who adored Aveline. The two of them were best friends and Aris always gave her the benefit of the doubt, like she had Aveline's back through and through.

I've complained about Aveline a lot in my posts so it probably does sound like I can't stand her, but that's not true. Aveline's actually a companion that fascinates me, like she makes me go, "God, you're such an asshole, tell me more right now." and it drives me crazy how she and Carver are foils, like I love it so much, I could go on and on about how foiled they are, it makes me want to bite something.

It's very easy to look at Aveline and think she's just a bitch, she's a cop, she's a bad character, #Aveline-critical, bad companion, etc. I see it all the time, and not just with her, but with every companion in dragon age, y'know? I'm not saying that's wrong or anything; some characters just don't vibe with you or you have legit reasons for hating them and that's fine. I'm just saying some of it's very surface level unless you make the effort to elaborate.

If you don't like a character, you're less likely to make an effort to understand or see anything positive about them. You're more likely to have confirmation bias, so whenever they do or say anything, you go looking for the worst interpretation. I try not to do this just because for me, that's the "boring" approach to games like this but as we've seen, I'm not immune either... y'know, Sebastian.

But Carver gets this a lot, too, and I think I've made myself clear that Carver is my favorite, I love him, the Hawke twins are S-tier companions and I would throw everyone in Kirkwall into the ocean if it meant Bethany and Carver's happiness.

Now that I'm thinking about it, the characters a lot of fans can't stand are some of my favorites?

Like a lot of people shit on Sera, and I'm like "Nah, that's my girl! Listen, she's got a LOT of internalized issues, but we're working through them okay! She's getting better!"

And Vivienne? Oh, don't get me started on Vivienne, I have a whole deal about her. She's also an asshole and I love her.

My canon inquisitor is Surana who escaped the circle and joined the dalish, becoming Lavellan. Vivienne is a reflection of what Ash could've been if she hadn't run away with Jowan. She played the game of the circle, she stepped wherever she needed to step because Ash knew she was at a disadvantage by being an elf, for one, and for two, not coming from a family with wealth that would give her special privileges. Her downfall was buying into her own hype and believing she couldn't be wrong about Jowan, believing that she could either prevent them from making him tranquil or help him and Lily run away, and believing she was above punishment because she worked her way into being Irving's favorite. Yet it all bit her in the ass and she had to run… so then years later after living outside of the circle and realizing just what the chantry is, how it conditions and abuses mages and shit, she meets Vivienne who also played the game well and came out on top, who now spouts the same shit Ash used to spout and it's makes their dynamic sooo chewable.

Then there's Cullen who's not a companion but I lump him and Josephine in with the companions anyway. They're advisors, they're in the inner circle, they count.

He's such a spineless ass in DA2 like believe me, I get all the criticisms he gets... but he's also fairly polite to Hawke even if they're openly anti-templar, he's softer spoken, and he's unwell after what happened to him in DAO and Meredith's clearly taking advantage of his state... but then he becomes an advisor in DAI who is so done with people's bullshit and blatantly honest about it, like he looks at Chancellor Roderick like "this fucking guy again" and he's so ready to just go for it, y'know? Well... unless you're a pretty lady who bats her eyes at him, then suddenly he doesn't know how words work. Like sometimes I feel crazy because I find him to be so funny in DAI, and overall a compelling character that I enjoy interacting with even when he's being a total asshole. Yeah, there's issues in his writing but I appreciate the vision the writers were going for, even if they stumbled... except for Sheryl Chee, I don't appreciate her contribution of those few posts on the DA forums that everyone uses as a smoking gun to "prove" awful things about him. Nothing gets under my skin more in character discussions than bad faith arguments and there's so much of that when it comes to Cullen.

Actually, while we're on that, can I just add a note that when I first got into this fandom, I saw someone's post about Chee doing an interview where she said all those bad things about Cullen wanting to assault the mage warden and I was like, "What? An interview? What interview?? Where??" and I couldn't find shit until much later when I read another anti-Cullen post that cited a DA forum as the source for her saying those things... so not an interview. I went digging for the forum, went into the way back machine to find it.... only to discover that this smoking gun comes from a fanfiction forum where Mary Kirby was also talking about Sten and catgirls and y'all expect me to take that seriously?

We can have discussions about whether or not Cullen's a bad person or a bad character, but the moment you bring Sheryl Chee into it, I know you're here in bad faith and your argument is void.

Sorry for the tangent and the long answer but this is the stuff I enjoy. I could talk about the characters of DA for ages unprompted that when someone does throw me a bone, I will discuss and gush about them all.

#asks #dragon age #dao #da2 #dai #sebastian vael #aveline vallen #carver hawke #dai sera #cullen rutherford #vivienne de fer #i have to stop myself before i go on tangents about morrigan and wynne and anders and isabela and merrill and dorian and varric and-#literally everyone sksksks i can't help it #also on the flip side of this type of discussion i also love looking at characters that most people adore and discussing their flaws #like i love alistair he's my favorite companion in dao BUT it's easy to forgot that he can be just as petty and selfish too y'know?#if you don't execute loghain he can straight up just abandon you and leave and you'll find him in da2 as a drunk like... babe really left #and let you deal with the blight because he was so blinded by revenge and thirst for loghain's death and that's not great??#not really something that gets brought up because it's unflattering it's an ugly part of his character but it's there mingling with the goo #and if you have a good relationship with him but don't know how he'll react when you spare loghain that can be devastating too #but it's also super understandable WHY he reacts like that WHY he leaves even if it's a selfish move on his part and hurts you #i dunno i think sometimes we're scared to talk about the ugly parts of our favorite characters because we love them #and don't want them to be wrong especially in fandom with a lot of pissing matches and bad faith arguments y'know?#i dunno this is my spiel of the night: i love all my companions except sebastian who is just a character that exists to me #i wasn't joking when i said i'd like to be enlighted about sebby and his romance like....... explain elaborate educate

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birdmenmanga · 2 months

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@raventhekittycat

hi okay so I've been mulling this one over for the past day or two and I think I have the answer. not to be using hamburger to explain anything to an american but you're my detco mutual so I'm going to try and explain it in detco terms

There's a post going around recently about how if you've read detco and only detco, the first time hakuba shows up you're going to be totally flummoxed, because damn this guy is clearly important, he gets to be even cooler than Shinichi, he's got a half-page shot of him (in such a panel-dense series such as Detective Conan, no less!!) and he's got a fucking hawk. he's CLEARLY important. everything about the narrative is indicating that you need to PAY ATTENTION to hakuba and that he's the coolest guy and he's important!!!! and then he dies in the case lol (not for real. but still.)!! and you're like huh??? what was that. why did aoyama do that.

But with the context of magic kaito this totally makes sense. He's a beloved character that people have been waiting decades to see again. Of course Aoyama is going to hype him up!! It's his big moment after years of being locked in the backrooms!!!

Anyways reading birdmen for me was kind of like that. The author's previous series, Kekkaishi, was pretty one-dimensional at the beginning, and even after the main plot started picking up at around volume 6, it still felt quite understandable. I knew what she was trying to get at, and the spectacular job she did with the anthropocene and climate change metaphor towards the end of that series really made me interested in the rest of her works. That and the way she writes familial relationships is absolutely DEVASTATING. (I mean this with the highest of praise)

But when I read BIRDMEN for the first time, I was probably in... middle school, maybe? And I read it, sure, but I didn't get it. I could see what was literally happening on the page but the narrative choices were absolutely baffling at times. Why skip over the entire part of the plot where they figure out who the birdman that saved them was? She blatantly doesn't care about that. What does she care about then?? I knew I didn't get it, I knew there were parts of it that were important and I couldn't figure out why and THAT'S how it dug its pretty little claws into me. Even after I finished catching up it nagged at me a little bit, not often at all, but enough that every once in a while I go, huh, right, that was a thing, let me go read it again.

For the record this type of story haunting has happened to me twice. First time was the Heart of Thomas, second time was BIRDMEN. I think the thing is that these are both stories which are not what other people say they are and I think I came into both of these stories with a misconception, trying to look too hard for things that weren't important and therefore missing the things that were.

Because sure, BIRDMEN is about mental illness. Yeah, it's about an evil scientific organization growing mutants in a lab. Yeah, it's about what it means to leave your humanity behind. That's all technically correct, on a surface level, and the fandom at large likely agrees with these takes for the most part, but in my opinion none of that really delves into what the thematic messaging of the story is about.

There are cryptic conversations about authority and human extinction and peculiar outfit and ability choices. You can tell these choices weren't made to serve the purpose of "writing exciting shonen manga" because that was what she did for the most part in Kekkaishi and you can tell she wasn't putting her whole pussy into doing that here. So what was she doing? What's like. All of this. Waves my hands at this.

The short answer is that it's really about the interplay between capitalism (represented by humanity) and communism (represented by birdmen), and explores the role institutional white supremacy (EDEN) plays in enforcing capitalism. It is ALSO about queer liberation and the importance of community, but hey, that double-stacks conveniently with the communism metaphor.

But also take this opinion of mine with a grain of salt. As far as I know I'm the only one who really truly deeply believes that it is not only AN interpretation of the work, but one that was fully intended by the author.

So basically, I like it, because I think it says something true and beautiful that I also believe in, even if I didn't have the words for it the first time I read it. But I don't really think that's what people really look for in a media recommendation.

Do I like it? Yes, I love it. Will I recommend it to others? Yeah, sure. But do I think it's deeply flawed? Yeah, absolutely. It's flawed in the same ways as The Witch from Mercury— a rushed ending, too many threads that were opened and never tied together. The pacing and characterization is perfect in the beginning, and too rushed at the end. There are prerequisites you basically HAVE to read in order to understand the story (tempest for G-Witch and the communist manifesto for birdmen). I think a truly good story wouldn't have any of these things so if people don't like it I never blame them.

It's my personal experiences that make birdmen so profound to me. If you are not queer I just don't think Eishi coming out as a birdman to his mom will hit the same, just as an example. Sorry that I wasn't the kid you wanted me to be. I know you love me and you just want the best for me and that's why you're so controlling, because you think I can be saved by conforming to societal expectations. But I can't live like that. I can't be like that. And that's why I must go. etc.

Aesthetically I do love birdmen a lot. If I had to describe it in a few words it would probably be "chilling", "beautiful", and "powerful", which nicely coincides with the type of things I personally like to draw. It's also silly to a small degree but it's so serious and I know Tanabe can be way way way funnier (read kekkaishi for this. kekkaishi and hanazakari no kimitachi he were foundational to my sense of sequential art humor) so that's not really the standout trait of this series.

I can't let it go because I'm chewing this series like a bone. And it's taking me years but I am getting that sweet sweet marrow. By god. We are on year 3 of this shit and I am GOING to understand this series. and I'm going to make 3 video essays about it

#just thinking thoughts...#stray bird thoughts #so it's like... I don't like it because birdmen is good #I think I like it because I am a certain type of person and the author was trying to say something specifically to the type of person I am #OH #I'M THE TARGETED AUDIENCE THATS WHY I LIKE IT.#YEAH THATS REALLY IT!!!#A long time ago I said that birdmen wasn't written for the people who read it at the time it serialized.#it was written for the people they would become.#and I stand by that 100%#if it really stays with you there is going to be a reason even if you can't articulate it yet #and it may APPEAR sloppy to someone who doesn't see the queer or communist metaphor #like 'what is she doing what is she saying here she's not saying anything meaningful and emphasizing the wrong things'#but that sort of presumes she is gunning to make 'the best shonen manga ever'#which she clearly isn't.#I remember when I was reading fma with a bunch of my classmates and I'd lend them a volume or two every day #and a piece of feedback I received that has stuck with me was 'volume 15 was so boring'#(that was the volume recounting the ishval civil war. it was boring because we were middle schoolers and didn't REALLY get it.)#and like. I think to people who are looking for something like kks. the whole thing is going to feel like fma volume 15 #like WHAT is she going on about? ? ?#like witch hat and dunmesh I think are similar types of stories but I think these two are just executed way better than bm #but because of that it is just not as compelling to me you know.#like yeah yeah it's well constructed. we all see it's well constructed.#the metaphor is so well constructed that I don't feel the need to point it out. everyone is saying it already you know #but bm is cryptic enough and just slightly missed that execution enough that I feel like I'm pulling the analysis out of a smoking wreckage #recently I've been watching mentourpilot videos about airplane accidents and like. that's exactly it.#there's nothing to say about a perfectly executed flight.#it's the ones that failed. and in particular the ones that just barely failed by a little bit. that compels people the most.#cue my de communism is failure post. bc that bm sure did fail.

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