#i have such a huge disconnect with my emotions and i do genuinely think a lot of it ties back to religion

[wolfythewitch]

i have so much rage in me one day i think i will explode. i dont think i know how to forgive as much as i know how to forget

#art #wolfy religious tedtalks #sketch #comic #i have such a huge disconnect with my emotions and i do genuinely think a lot of it ties back to religion #crazy how that happens #whats funny is i now have a lot of people i vaguely dislike but cant remember why. #crazy what happens when you treat forgiveness like an instruction and not a process

[aihoshiino]

chapter 137 thoughts!

so sorry in advance for how long this chapter review is but anyone who has spoken to me for more than 5 seconds on the topic of oshi no ko probably saw this coming the instant they read the chapter

Picking up immediately where we left off, this chapter feels sort of like a pause to inhale and reiterate Themes and Ideas to really drill them into the readers' head. Technically, none of this is new information (especially as pertains to Ai) so I could see it being repetitive for people who are keyed into Ai as a character but like… I am STILL seeing people in discussions of the manga just flat out not understanding Ai even when the text lays it out so I kind of I can't blame Aka for just clobbering us around the skull with it at this point: There was no horrible dark secret or ZOMG SECRETLY EVIL AI reveal waiting in the wings. It was always just that Ai was a normal girl doing her utmost to live and find normal happiness in a deeply abnormally cruel and lonely life.

With that in mind, I can't help but wonder if the film crew's reactions to this Ruby adlib aren't, to some degree, a reflection of that willful ignorance in the text for the purpose of refuting it — similar to the way Tsukuyomi was used to shut down the "Reincarnator Ai" theories popping up in the wake of new fandom blood back in chapter 118.

Like, these are all people who knew what they were signing up for, who are aware that this is a movie about depicting the "real" Hoshino Ai and yet their reaction is alarm and even dismay - the same instinctive rejection of Ai's vulnerability we see mirrored in Nino and even Aqua to an extent. Even while filming a movie that's all about her pain, they still value and instinctively prioritize the clean and perfect image of the invincible idol, Ai.

By contrast, Gotanda won back a lot of my goodwill this chapter with the monologue that took up most of its first pages. As I've alluded to in some previous chapter reviews, I was having a lot of mixed feelings about Gotanda's role in the movie and 15YL as a whole, but this chapter has reframed things in a way I am tentatively on board with. In this new light, 15YL is about crafting a narrative of Ai's life that may not be literally the events that occurred - it may even take huge liberties with them - but is all in service of conveying a much more important series of emotional truths about the cruelty she was subjected to.

This is mirrored by the visuals that accompany Gotanda's words, a series of disconnected images that do not themselves portray a coherent series of events but paint an emotional narrative of the loneliness, abuse and abandonment that created Hoshino Ai. This honestly might be one of my all-time favourite sequences in OnK so far just on the strength of its imagery alone. Those final two pages especially are just breathtaking: the grotesquely detailed and toothy maw of a B-Komachi fan sandwiched between two pure, sanitized images of Ai, the sea of huge, grasping hands reaching out of the void, on the verge of swallowing her.

I especially want to highlight that final panel of Ai's eerie, perfect smile. I genuinely can't overstate what phenomenal fucking expression work this is from Mengo and once again, I think this might have jumped into my top 5 favourite panels in the series already. It's so frightening — there's nothing technically wrong with it, but it looks wrong, it feels wrong. Even in the confines of a still image, I still somehow got the impression of it being a mask, unnaturally frozen and fixed in place. It honestly jumpscared me a little bit when I first saw it. My friend Silvie (@relares) also pointed out that the panel is framed in such a way that Ai appears to be trapped — backed into the corner of a closed box, pressed up against a wall to cover her vitals like a caged animal. It's really genuinely unsettling.

On that note; scooting back a bit, something I was really gratified to see as a girlie who constantly reaches for this idea in writing for Ai elsewhere: referring to Ai as an animal brings into text something that had, prior to this, only really been a happy accident of associative imagery, where her role as B-Komachi's bunny brought to mind a timid, easily frightened and physically weak little domesticated animal. This chapter makes it very clear this is not accidental but an extremely intentional choice to further emphasize both her vulnerability and dehumanisation. Being a helpless prey animal, rolling over and showing her belly, is less scary than being human

The Japanese text of the chapter the text takes this dehumanisation a step further: Rather than the wasei-eigo term アイドル (aidoru), when calling her an idol, Gotanda uses the word 偶像 (guzou) - an idol by its original definition. It goes beyond just reducing her to an animal - it's objectification in the very literal sense. Ai is an idol, a ceremonial object of worship, an inanimate vessel for the dirty desires of the people around her. That's the nature of the "idolhood" that was inflicted on Ai and it was killing her long before Ryosuke ever picked up a knife

This is especially interesting to see in the wake of Ichibanboshi no Spica, which essentially depicts the moment that Ai starts down this road, committing herself to being an idol who will love and support everyone, even people who hate and scorn her. This is framed by the novel as being something of a breakthrough for her and being liberating for it but I came out of it feeling deeply unsettled in a way I don't think the novel wanted me to be. I couldn't quite articulate why at the time but I think this chapter has given me the language to do so: Spica depicts the moment that Ai goes from アイドル to 偶像 without seeming to realise that's what it's doing and thus does so in a way that is not just uncritical but wholly celebratory.

In a lot of ways, this makes sense - Spica, broadly speaking, is about the "oshi" part of Oshi no Ko: the emotional fulfillment of not just receiving support but in the act of giving support yourself, in cheering someone on and seeing them succeed. Spica depicts these sorts of relationships in a straightforwardly and uncritically positive light, even in cases of parasocial relationships between fans and celebrities but this chapter, by contrast, paints a much more honestly ugly picture, of oppressive expectations, fear and dehumanisation inflicted by the supporters on their "oshi'.

At least in terms of OnK's narrative as a whole, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle: the bad certainty outweighed the good in the end, but it does not erase the ways that Ai was able to find genuine joy and fulfillment in what she did as an idol. But as far as this chapter goes, this is as unflinchingly honest about idol and stan culture as OnK has been, honestly, since the LoveNow arc and maybe even the prologue. It decries it as ugly, visualizing it as grasping hands, drooling teeth and a quivering, terrified prey animal on the verge of being consumed.

This is why (if you'll forgive me for briefly jumping ahead) the RBKN talk at the end ultimately fell so flat for me, among other reasons: it felt extremely out of place to the point of being a little tone-deaf to go from a whole half a chapter so brutally tearing into celeb culture to Ruby brightly talking about her own celebrity ambitions. I don't need Ruby's arc to end with her giving up on being an idol or anything, but it nevertheless feels completely insane to go from the first have of this chapter to the second with absolutely no in-text acknowledgement of how incongruous these two perspectives are.

Given that this is paired with her declaring that she isn't going to be like Ai, I can only take this to mean that Ruby is declaring her intent to never cross the line of アイドル to 偶像 like Ai did but I think that ultimately just kind of misses the point. The only way I can make any sense of it is if the narrative itself is drawing a distinction between アイドル and 偶像 and trying to pretend that the former is something that can be purely good and wholesome.

This frames Ai's situation as being somehow unique to her and while it's true that Ai was a person pushed to extremes by many contributing factors, none of the pressures placed on her by idol culture were unique or unusual. Hell, I've even said before that the premise of Oshi no Ko is more or less the result of the friction of idol culture's obsession with purity and the fantasy it promises of an eternally virginial child-wife and the reality of Hoshino Ai as a dirty, messy human with adult desires and sexual autonomy. When you get down to it, what happened to Ai is really the logical end point of celebrity culture as a whole: dehumanisation, commodification and reduction of people to ceremonial objects of worship. Why else would we call them "idols"?

oh my god. i'm not even halfway through the chapter. i. sorry i';m like this. anyway.

This chapter also does a lot to reframe what 15YL even is as a movie, both through Gotanda's monologue and his take on Ruby's performance as Ai — rather than pure authenticity, it is a blend of Ruby's compassion for and understanding of her mother and her anger and disgust at the people who exploited her, an indictment of the public and all the people who were complicit in her suffering. The end note of the chapter even points out that aiming for "the real thing" is no longer the point of the movie if it ever was and this frees it, to an extent, of the hypocrisy of purporting itself to be a movie about "the real Ai" while dramatising and rewriting aspects of her life and identity to better suit its narrative

As good as this recontextualization of 15YL is, I do think its portrayal in this chapter feels a bit inconsistent with what has been leading up to it. Prior to this, there had been a lot of focus on contrasting the movie's supposed dedication to the authenticity of the real Ai with the number of changes and dramatizations it made of her life and character. This new framing of it is certainly not bad and honestly preferable to what came before, but it does still kind of feel like an overt overcorrection, as if someone finally pointed out to Akasaka what I've been saying this whole time about how fucking ghoulish this movie feels.

anyway. oh my god. moving on at last: wow! mid filming script rewrites!! historically always a great sign for the health of a production! … obviously, actors giving a character a different energy in their performance that contrasts the script and requires adjustment is not UNHEARD of and has resulted in solid movies but that Gotanda makes this decision so lightly and without consulting like… any of his cowriters does speak to Akasaka's comparative level of ignorance as to how movie making works Vs the much more real and in depth experience in TV and music production other parts of the manga reflect.

I do really like that the discussion here ends on a note of asking Ichigo for his thoughts because like… yeah, actually, of course Ichigo should have opinions about this! Even putting aside the That Is Her Dad of it all, Ichigo is the only person involved here who knew Ai before she became and idol and can properly speak to her early experiences. That said, Ichigo being involved here brings something else back up: BRO…. WHERE THE HELL IS MIYAKO!!!!

it is getting so beyond absurd at this point that she is not involved in things. I know people are probably so sick of hearing me harp on about this but her absence is so, so baffling and there really is no good excuse for it. Even if they just said some shit like "Miyako is busting her ass managing our other talents while we make the movie" I'd take that. But that it goes SO uncommented on when she was so involved in getting all this together and just had a whole chapter dedicated to her talking about how strongly she feels about the twins as their mother… it's so baffling!

This goes QUADRUPLE for the total absence of Aqua this chapter, despite him being right there and getting a dedicated reaction panel in 136. The lack of focus on him lately was something I was willing to buy into as an intentional choice that would make sense when viewing the arc in hindsight but at this point, his lack of engagement with the things going on around him is just getting ridiculous, regardless of its intentionality. This is the guy who spent over a month emotionally self harming to the point where images of Ai's face would give him a panic attack and now that he's at, arguably, the lowest emotional point he's been at in his life, we have no reaction to basically seeing her walking and talking in the flesh again?

Hell, given that this is Ruby of all people and this is coming so close on the heels of the GRSR reveal, I'd expect an even stronger reaction from Aqua than anyone else but… nope! Nothing. We've barely had any meaningful AQRB interactions and it all adds up to making that past life reveal and the tease of Ruby's feelings in the wake of it feel totally flaccid as a plot development because nothing is coming of it. I know we will inevitably have to circle back around to it given that the HKAI scenes are on the horizon but there were surely ways to weave this more organically into the ongoing conflict that didn't result in me feeling like I'm sat at a kantenzushi place and waiting for something to come back around on the belt. Gah!!

Speaking of conflict, I want to at last move onto the RBKN talk that makes up the back half of this chapter. As I alluded to earlier, this talk fell incredibly flat for me, both as a character beat for these two characters and as a conclusion to this chapter in particular. I already talked about why Ruby's resolution here didn't click with me but more broadly, I simply don't like this as the resolution to the RBKN conflict which is seems to be presented as.

To touch on the things I do like about it… thematically, I enjoy this as a continuation of the ongoing idea of the New B-Komachi learning from and correcting the mistakes of the group that came before them. In practice, though… have they actually done that? This talk doesn't meaningfully address or even really acknowledge all the ways New B-Komachi is repeating old mistakes or the way the group quite literally does exist purely for Ruby's sake and that her taking that for granted left both Kana and Mem feeling used, as if they were just accessories to decorate Ruby's idol career that her CEO mommy bought for her. Instead, they just touch on the very surface level issue of their staged argument and then move on as if things are resolved. There's obviously still room in the future for us to circle back to it with Kana's graduation concert set but as things stand now, it's an unsatisfying note to end this thread on.

Ruby is robbed of the opportunity to do any real introspection and we as readers don't even see the moment she realizes what Kana is doing and why, or get any real insight into her feelings on this fight outside of vouyeristically goggling at her in the immediate aftermath of her pain. There was some really great potential here for Ruby's behaviour during her Black Hoshigan arc to finally catch up to her and make her face the consequences of her poor treatment of Kana and Memcho. She could've had a chance to confront her own inner ugliness and her potential for buying into the same bullshit perpetuated by the rest of the industry that hurt her mom so badly. Instead, we get an endpoint in lieu of any real work necessary to get there without any indication that she has learned anything meaningful from this arc or that her relationship with Kana has changed at all.

Kana, too, is done exceptionally dirty here. We get a lot of great Kana introspection in this arc, digging into both her feelings of insecurity towards Ruby specifically and the sense of empathy she developed through playing Nino, who she saw as being in a similar position to her. Kana's jealousy towards Ruby and her sense of being Ruby's extra, an accessory, is something that's been brewing in the background honestly since the First Concert Arc and I initially found it incredibly cathartic to see her finally expressing that to Ruby and getting those feelings off her chest. I was looking forward to seeing how she would work through this and resolve it, confronting her inner demons and coming to have a healthier relationship with Ruby as a result. But again… it just doesn't happen. Kana gets no closure over the hurt she expressed in this arc — instead, she's once again used as a stepping stone to prop Ruby up and make her shine.

And like… what are we supposed to take away from this? That Kana — and Nino by extension — were correct? That Ruby is just The Most Special by default (never mind her CEO mommy explicitly favouring her for work and opportunities) and that the only way Kana can deal with it is by quitting as an idol altogether? I'm going to be totally frank: as both a Kana enjoyer and a Ruby enjoyer, I think this sucks shit as a resolution for both of them! It's not only unfair to Kana but it's also just so boring as a way of characterizing Ruby. I think there's a space in OnK for really interesting discussions about like, natural talent VS hard work and how much of someone's success is one or the other but this conflict absolutely is not that.

In general, this chapter just felt… uneven, I guess. The first half of it, as you can probably gather by my completely unhinged ramblings, was one of my favourites we'd gotten out of OnK in a long time but with the back half falling so flat for me, it just ends up feeling kind of jarring and a bit less than the sum of its parts. It's definitely not a BAD chapter by any stretch and it very clearly gave me a lot to chew on and think about. It's just kind of a let down that a chapter and a shared character arc I was otherwise enjoying so much ended on such an incredibly nothing note.

#oshi no ko #oshi no posting #onk spoilers #ai hoshino #ruby hoshino #kana arima

[powerfulblob]

Hello, I am a normal person with a normal amount of enthusiasm wondering with normal innocence: what entropic float character did you get unreasonably attached to?

Oooh that’s a good question!

OK, so basically all of them, but I think my favourite is probably Ame: Just the character of all time honestly (like I was nearly crying at some parts in the backstory stuff arc: I was totally projecting not going to lie there). The whole idea of feeling worthless without work? Feeling disconnected from yourself? aaaaaah the themes the themes (also I genuinely think he has a great sense of style, because I have a similarly bad sense of style: I would totally wear those mismatched patterns.)

OK I also love Abel though: I think what really secured that for me was going through the Memory Collection Route! The whole idea of being raised for a specific purpose really got to me, and I hope that in the next game, we can get an indication of how he’s doing!

True’s an absolute gem of a character, and all of his dialogue is just amazing (The fact that he said ‘group chat’ with quotation marks nearly got to me: He’s totally an old lady, absolute boomer, and it’s great)! He’s the epitome of “mysterious knowledge seeker that’s also extremely silly” which is one of my favourite tropes honestly...

Malcom’s absolutely great too! I was reading part of his backstory on the subway and I swear, it was a rollercoaster of emotions. Also he has a bird pet on his shoulder. What’s not to be happy about?

How about you? Sorry for the huge rant

#minor spoilers #entropic float

[pyporapy]

Hey Jay :) give me a rundown of your OCs >:)

This has been sitting in my askbox for a while and I forgor to reply sorry Birby 😭🙏

Anyway!!! Let me give you the shortest possible rundown of my ocs as I try not to die in the process:

This is Grisha. He’s a bitch and can see dead people but it’s not a good thing. Chronically ill because of the dead people thing and has Some Issues regarding religion. Suffers of the godforsaken combination of “too many trust issues” x “very desperate for human connection”. God’s little chew toy and very painfully aware of it

This is Felix. He tries to be cool but is actually just some guy (and a kinda lame one at that but in a good way, at least). Has some deep-seated issues regarding himself and his sense of identity after years of pretending to be someone he isn’t for people that were never all that worth it but surely this won’t ever come back to bite him in the ass at some point. Neither will the fact he keeps running away from the past. Very emotionally congested but acts like he’s alright and chilling. Loves his daughter and is a true doñita at heart. Also he’s half ecuadorian which is important to mention to Me, an ecuadorian

This is Laura. She’s as close as we get to the only normal person in the cast but if anything she’s just the Least fucked up one. Constantly stressed and an overachiever. Enough caffeine in her blood to kill a horse. She does a good job at making people respect her but also she’s a girlfailure at heart. Not nearly enough social skills which is why her best friend is the only other guy in the office who doesn’t have friends either. Needs a hug and a nap but is too proud to ask for any of those. Doesn’t believe in the supernatural at all so she feels like everyone around her is pulling an incredibly elaborate prank to which she doesn’t get the punchline

This is Viktoria. She’s a bodyguard and a trained assassin since childhood. Feels incredibly disconnected from her emotions due to this that when they hit her on like a random tuesday at 3 AM she doesn’t know what to do. Feels more like a tool than a person and is so used to people not actually paying attention to her as a human being that when someone does she’s too awkward to keep the interaction going. Can and will kill you but she just wants to retire at this point. Tough and terrifying but also kinda lame but she’s allowed to be. As a treat

This is Cain. He’s a priest but he doesn’t actually believe in God, at least not in the orthodox way. Only reason he has the job is that they found him outside the church like a kitten in a wet box and decided to take him in, and the only reason he keeps the job is that somehow he’s good enough at it that more people join the church. A huge asshole so people either genuinely like having him around or just put up with him. Can also see dead people but it’s not nearly as catastrophic as Grisha’s case. Also incapable of forming healthy connections with people but that’s a problem he refuses to unpack

This is Gabrijel. He’s a millionaire and a model and a celebrity and a philantropist and a cult leader but the public is unaware of only one (1) of those things, and you can probably guess which one. Manipulative and cunning and overall a pretty terrible guy but charismatic enough for people to think there’s nothing wrong with him. Completely derranged but composed enough….until he Isn’t. Viktoria can’t stand him and anyone that works directly under him doesn’t like him but he’s too pretty to be bothered I suppose. Wants to bring literal Hell onto the world bc he thinks he’s Jesus or something bigger. Wouldn’t want him to haunt the narrative or anything, that would suck

The very general plot is that a bunch of people are being murdered. Grisha and Laura investigate it. Felix gets involved because he knew one of the victims and has mysteriously large amounts of information. Gabrijel is responsible for it and it’s all linked to his evil plan(TM). He first tasks Viktoria with killing them but Viktoria is done with his shit so she acts as a double agent for him and for Laura so she can Maybe get a day of peace in her life for once. Everything goes to shit at some point but I can talk abt it later since I feel like this is already too convoluted(?). And Cain is just There for the drama of it all ig

That’s it ty for asking and sorry for taking so long avdhebfhej hopefully I will share some more canon stuff here or on instagram instead of silly things 🙏 they haven’t left my head in over six years and I might start making it everyone’s problem I’m afraid

#forgot to add that homosexual sheananigans ensue but i think that was obvious #grisha is living in a horror thriller #laura and felix in a crime procedural #viktoria in a psychological drama #gabrijel in those movies abt girls having the craziest summer of their lives #and cain in a telenovela #that’s the summary of the summary dhufnfjfnfjrj #anyway i had fun doing this so if yall have any more questions drop them in my askbox i promise i’ll try to not forget ehe…… #long post #pyporapy oc

[raionmimi]

Someone once told me that they loathe Medb because she objectifies people, and I can't help but agree. From her creation of Cu Alter to her relationship with Skadi, and then something Fergus mentioned twice, once in the manga and once in Summer 4. But, rather than seeing this in a negative light, as the person who mentioned this, I couldn't help but find this an interesting fault because the story, for the most part, treats this as neither fully bad or completely good Because viewing it through this lens makes Skadi and her relationship uniquely realistic because, while Medb is doing it for completely warped and selfish motives, it also highlights the fact that Skadi needs a self-severing person in her life to get over her troubles and eluvates her in such a intersting manner. Or, in another situation, how she basically earns Cu alter's respect via sheer tenacity through that viewpoint but also caused the american singularity. I had these thoughts swriling around my head the past few days I couldn't help but to wonder what the biggest Medb fan would think about this.

A lot of people, including your friend, view America as a "I have you now, my pretty" scenarios from what I've seen. America plays it up that Medb "gets to have" Cu as an object of affection. Higashide specifically wanted the player to think that, so it comes off as a surprise in the reveal when Alter admits that he's fighting for Medb's wish on his own free will the whole entire time.

(TL;DR: at the bottom before the cut)

When you go back, you realize that there is a lot of foreshadowing that this was the case the whole time. Namely that Cu Alter has so much autonomy and free will for someone who is supposedly "under control." Medb never gets mad at him when he disagrees with her, and the fact that he would debate with her at all is extremely telling when she's usually pretty pushy as a person when it comes to what she thinks is the correct line of action

Both Medb and Cu have their own ideas of what it means to be a king and a hero. For Cu, we know that he doesn't care for honors and titles, but Medb had to work her ass off to get a title for her own safety and to be taken seriously by others. Cu (probably) thought he was well meaning for telling Medb that he didn't want to hurt or kill her because she was a woman, but to her, it was insulting that he wouldn't view her as a warrior when she had gone through a fuckton to get to where she was. He accepted that he was going to die in a blaze of glory, while she can't understand how he can just go throw his life away without ever properly taking her on when everyone thinks of her as the villain of his story.

So there's an obvious disconnect between the two. The fact that they DO talk about this, change each other's minds, and disagree is where the development lays. By the end of the singularity, Alter is able to recognize Medb's efforts as a queen, which was the main validation she wanted from him. Medb also arguably understands that Cu isn't how she thought he’d be that if you notice, anytime they're together, she no longer brings up how she thinks he should act. She just thinks what he does is really cool instead, so they’ve basically gotten the chance to get to know each other better and come to some sort of understanding

The only problem is that Higashide never actually addresses the issue on Cu's end. Personally, I don't really mind tooo too much because Medb's emotions is what I care more so about in the dynamic, but it still leaves a very huge "What even are his thoughts about this?" And I dont mean Alter, I mean the original Cu. It's very clear by the stark difference in how Medb talks to Alter and Cu that she thinks Cu is much colder to her than he actually is. But she also was able to talk to Alter more genuinely because with his emotions suppressed, it was like talking to someone who would never actually respond in a way that would be too overwhelming where she'd have to be on guard. But that's only a stepping stone to the actual problem.

Cu cares a great deal about Medb as a person because if he wasn't aware of her circumstances when they were alive, he does now that they're servants. He mentioned her in HA before she was even in FGO and says that a ton of bad things happened to her and she's a product of what happened to her. But he still doesn't do anything about it in a way that's actually helpful. He treats Medb like someone he feels like he has to take care of, even if she's troublesome, instead of acknowledging his own flaws that got him into the situation with her in the first place.

He still has chivalrous view of women that can be seen as patronizing like telling Medusa in Extella that he doesnt want to fight or kill women when Medusa had the clear advantage. He chooses Nero over Tamamo because Tamamo reminded him too much of Medb. He talks about how he wants to be more reliable to Medb in his voiceline, even to the point of making a promise to her that we still have NO idea what it could possibly have been about. He avoids Medb when she's up to mischief, yet when she asks for help he is immediately willing to do whatever. Even to the point that Knocknarea in LB6 is confused as to why he's so eager and willing to help her.

Cu's thoughts are a huge piece of the puzzle missing that if you don't pay attention to how he handles Medb, it comes off as one sided when it's more like two people avoiding communicating the root of a problem.

I highly doubt that his side would ever occur as the closest there has come to being critical of Cu's actions is the consequences of his thing with Fand and Emer in the Vday events with Caren and Bazett. Do agree that sometimes, other writers will just use Medb's love for him as a gag to idk fill up the spaces or something. It can be funny but if that's all she does, then ya I get the criticisms esp when their actual convos are way funnier. I have more thoughts on them, but I've already wrote so much lmao

Very cool and poggers of the manga to have Cu Alter kneeling down and accepting a kiss from her tho

TL;DR: Medb and Cu have lore to build off of + that there are flaws to be addressed. Makes the subtle growth very cool and leeway for further Medb development and complexities.

---

Putting the rest under the cut because I'm critical of the way Sakurai writes Medb and Skadi. Read if u want, but know that I'm kind of a hater so I'd rather you look at something you like instead.

Sakurai's writing with Skadi doesn't have the benefit of lore to easily play around with though. TL;DR at the bottom.

The problem is that the writers never really fleshed out Scathach that much, nor did they have the latter interact much with Medb. The whole premise of this dynamic is that Medb thinks Skadi is Scathach and she's surprised that "Scathach is acting different than she usually does" and keeps trying to get Skadi to act "like she usually does"

But Medb doesn't even really know Scathach, they hardly talked. Like ever. There's like 5 lines of dialogue from between 2018 to now between the two across the American singularity to events and voice lines. Most of the time, they don't even directly talk to each other. Unlike her thing with Alter, Medb has never come to an understanding with Scathach, nor does she really have any reason to care about her

The writing has to rely on existing character dynamics that... was hardly there to begin with makes it crumble that much faster to me personally. It'd make more sense if they had actually written a LOT of interaction with each other to the point of them influencing each other's characters, whether in a positive or negative way. But as it stands, it'd make more sense for Medb to react to the gap difference between Ushi and Taira than Scathach and Skadi because the writers chose to give more depth to Ushi and Medb as frenemies.

I was never a fan of Medb Skadi writing because it comes off as a cheap way to introduce Skadi into the Chaldea dynamics. It's nothing like Ushi or Ex and Medb, Knocknarea and Castoria's level of development, where it'd make sense. Not to mention, nothing about Skadi is remotely what Medb is interested in. If it had been the other way around, where Skadi was introduced first and then Scathach showed up, it'd make a bit more sense given who Medb usually hangs out with or talks to

Sakurai mainly utilizes Medb as a mouthpiece of how cute and uwu Skadi is rather than having any meaningful development between the two across multiple events. It just gets weird and sometimes even creepy at times, esp when you remember Higashide's Medb had never been sexual towards Alter. But Sakurai's Medb sexually harasses Skadi when Medb herself is a SA victim?? And she writes Medb as calling herself tainted in a diff event????? Even Minase treated Medb better in the Prisma Illya event. Like, I don't hate Sakurai, but she can be very hit or miss with me on certain things.

You can compare Skadi to almost any other character that Medb has interacted with, and it's severely lacking. Neither one's lore is really addressed until Skadi's interlude and even then, Medb doesn't really have much to do with it, she's just "I will lend you a Cu (caster) because I'm already holding two Cu's hands right now"

I don't mind if people like Skadi, but I just don't think Sakurai handles Medb and Skadi well together. It comes off as either shoe horned yuri bait at worst, and not knowing where to put Skadi since she didn't have much connection to any character in her LB at best that she just slapped her onto Medb for the vague Scathach connection. There is no lessons learned, no real understanding of each other, and it's just Medb doing what she wants. There's no balance or substance that I personally like

I admit that I have not read her summer event parts to know how she develops with other characters though. I'm still very :// about the transphobia with her changing Caeneus's spirit origin without his consent because she "wanted Caeneus to fit in with the other girls" which doesn't help much when she calls Caeneus tainted because of their SA in the lostbelt.

I just don't really care much for the character or the writing between her and medb, so that's why you'll hardly ever see me talk about her.

Apologies because I know you went in talking positively, but I agree with your friend on this one. It does come heavily across as objectification and one of those ships you'd meme on as "gay ship for straight ppl (with a male audience in mind specifically)" and is not treated well, so I personally ignore it.

TL;DR: I dont like Skadi writing or Medb/Skadi writing. I do not mind if other do tho, so like its just do ya own thing, yfeel?

Anyways, ship Castoria x Knocknarea

#magical college girl #critical #LONG post #VERY LONG POST #Im so sorry anon #Tumblr deleted a bunch of my paragraphs when I posted this oops is there a word limit

[mcl38]

I think the disproportion in show of affection from lando and carlos comes from the age difference, lando is young, and soaks up attention so he’s being pass around between djs, streamers and close knit friends and just has so many ppls around that for him it’s (just may be) like whtvr, yeah carlos is my friend like many other friends I have.

Carlos being more mature now and centered, more low key, seems to cherish and take care of the ppl he considers close to him, respect is a really big thing to him and so if he respects you, you automatically have a place in his life and would get out of his way (as much as he can) to help I somehow.

Also in the interview he does say that he saw the mercs getting closer and that if they passed lando who has similar tire wear to him, they would def pass him so he decided to help lando and in doing so help himself. I’m not saying that the one behind him being lando didn’t absolutely contribute but he’s also not that consumed by emotion.

oh yea sorry if it sounded if i implied carlos's emotionality clouds his judgement in the car - hes one of the drivers where ive genuinely never seen that happen (and we've all witnessed it with others). its just that i do actually rly like to hear drivers admitting that the way they think inside the car is slightly different to the macho tough utra-rational mentalities a driver is usually expected to present. carlos saying he does treat lando and fernando slightly more gently, lewis in 2018(?) saying he engages w max more carefully during wheel-to-wheels, lando often explicitly mentioning how scared he is in certain situations or at certain tracks (singapore and monaco specifically), etc. i find it refreshing, relatable, and like also very true in a delightful way

aside from that - i did see that interview, and im aware 99% of carlos's strategy was dictated by the circumstances that happened to b behind him, and i do believe he wouldve done that with whoever else wouldve been in p2 if lando wasnt there. that said, i do ALSO believe he thinks its nicer or more special bc lando was the one in p2. thats what i was trying to say

and yea i deffo think carlos and lando treat friendships differently - maybe its stages in life, or personalities, or a combination of the two. carlos has always been big into respect, & i rly think he respects lando a whole bunch, and thats deffo never left him. meanwhile lando - "he’s being pass around between djs, streamers and close knit friends" is v funny and also quite true. i think after the pandemic left him like, quite lonely, and maybe in a bit of a panic abt how lonely he was, he made an effort to solidify an old and trusted group of friends around him, which he's basically now settled into. and now he's in a phase where he's kind of exploring his boundaries beyond that, going on vacations w martin garrix n his friends or whatever. also like, lando is very gen z in ways carlos clearly isnt, and that means a lot of his socialising is done online (to the point where when he was living w max they sometimes texted more than actually talking to each other). so that inherently means that sometimes the friends who have access to landos time and energy arent those he chooses to prioritise, but like those who happen to be online on discord - whether that be angryginge or filly or matt gallagher or bankai or whoever, ykwim (and max) (usually max lmao). which means carlos will naturally have a disconnect w lando in that area

but yea i get what u mean for sure. its also like, 2019-2020, carlos and lando's interactions were not only v much facilitated by them being teammates, but also in huge part filmed or televised, which means that we had so much more of a grasp on what they were like w each other. now its genuinely just guesswork, ykwim

#anon #ask #lando #carlos

[briefcasejuice]

my favourite part about marty mcfly's character is that for a character in an 80s movie, i can't figure him out at all. like i get he's supposed to be relatable for the average usamerican at the time hence why he's not a part of a specific cliché nor does he have a ton of friends who are of a particular archetype; he's specifically created so that people are able to project onto him. like not to say that micheal j. fox isn't attractive but there's a reason eric stoltz was switched out for him and it was most definitely because eric has the typical, attractive popular, artsy, very boyfriend-ish guy look that was wanted for mainly romance movies, which isn't what the average usamerican is nor did his look target the kind of fanbase zemeckis probably wanted (which was a set of nerdy teens/adults). but yeah my point is that despite the very obvious parts about the way marty was written and why he was written that way there are still some very unique and, in my own head, intriguing parts about his character.

like for example, for a kid that's perpetually confused about science and everything to do with it, how the hell did he become friends with the doc? honestly there aren't any straight forward canon hints to this but i like to think that it's because he had a ton of cool stuff at his house and let marty, a teen with (previously) disconnected yet strict and lower income parents, mess around with them without consequence—hence, the opening scene with him turning that huge speaker all the way up and blowing it out with his guitar (which he didn't have when he got to the house so does he leave his guitar at the doc's house because of this? wait, did he become friends with the doc because his house was a place for him to practice playing the guitar?) and trashing the previously already messy living room.

another thing about his character is definitely related to the fact that he's supposed to be project-able (is that a word) but i find it intriguing that he's a pretty nuanced character for a popular 80s movie. he's not one thing that exists to be moved along in the narrative, marty is often the thing that pushes the narrative along because he's consistently multifaceted which is a nice change of pace from the usual stereotyped/caricatured teenager for characters in his age group and typical for similar target audiences; he's cool and confident but he's also awkward and his voice cracks and he's always out of breath and sweaty because he always has some place to be, has something to do and some situation to get out of. he's extremely expressive and even when he's not supposed to he can't help but gesture or verbalise his emotions. he's authoritative and even sometimes a little bossy and dismissive but not of his own fault (always has someplace to be yada yada). he's also selfless and determined and displays character traits indicating that he's definitely in the same 'inherently good' archetype as someone from a superhero movie or something but he's also human and buys that almanac first because he's a nerd and thinks it's something about being in the future that's genuinely cool and then he realises (through external intervention (someone pointed it out)), 'holy shit i can genuinely make money off of this' but then his much older friend steps in and turns into a parent for a split second to reprimand him about buying that almanac which he then backs off from (not entirely, because he is pretty salty about biff stealing his idea to get rich off that book), eventually learning, through experience, how absolutely awfully his actions have backfired which is something else that happens pretty often in the trilogy—marty messes up but he isn't immune to consequences with plot armour, the plot armour comes in other ways like their plans working out perfectly or things working out after the fact, the movies often revolve around a plot set in motion as a consequence to an action of his and he consistently shows real growth (so i guess they could also double as coming of age if you really wanted them to or if you can genuinely really stretch it that far).

also speaking of which doc brown and marty's dynamic is interesting; it's very sibling-like. while they can banter and converse like friends, there is very obviously a difference in their lives and the way they experience it but that's what they live and understand about each other. their differences aren't hated or resented by either of them either, if anything it brings them closer. there's a post about how doc emmett bends his knees so that he's at marty's height whenever he's talking to him and i thought it was very interesting because i agree with op: at no point in any of the six (6!) hours of content is it condescending; the doc understands the difference in the way they think and is more than happy to breach that chasm of difference so that marty can understand, or begin to understand. i also think it's interesting that the doc stepping up and becoming a voice of reason for marty goes the other way as well, marty's naïvity and teenage skepticism about trying new things also briefly becomes the doc's voice or reason or at least a reminder for his own principles at several points in the film. the doc keeps the note marty made for him all those years ago despite his own belief of how one should handle future events about oneself because he trusted marty's insistence that the information he needed to know was just that important.

going back to my point about marty showing real growth by the end of the films; it's kind of really obvious that the last two movies are more cohesive than if they were to be grouped with the first and one of my favourite pieces of character consistency is the concept of marty and his tendency to be manipulated into conflict by means of name calling. i find this one to be especially fascinating because this concept isn't even introduced with marty, it's introduced by onlooking characters (conversation between his family members and is found out by jennifer) while it's simultaneously being demonstrated with marty in café 80s. it's never brought up by other characters either and there isn't any explicit intervention by them in the sense that they bring it to his attention and they stop him, marty recognises the danger of it himself—it's not explicit that he recognises that his impulsivity is directly related to said name calling ('chicken' lol) but he does learn to access the situation and think before he acts. this can sound pretty basic on it's own but i genuinely really do enjoy how it's executed—which can be said for most concepts relating to marty's character which i think is what makes him great. he also happens to be super cute:

td;rl — marty mcfly is the most character ever. the character that became, that started, the cliché.

#'i can't figure him out at all' *continues to talk about how much ive figured him out* #marty mcfly #back to the future #musing more like shmusing #long post

[ainulindaelynn]

The craziest symptom of cPTSD is the complete detachment from my own body. I don’t know if there’s a name for that, but if there’s not, there should be.

Warning: much mental health rambling ahead 😅

In a nutshell, there’s a tiny adjustment happening in my house that I’ve been genuinely excited about forever, but realized last night my body and my brain are on completely different pages about it.

Emotionally, I’ve been fine for a long time, but tonight I caught myself randomly sucking in a huge anxiety breath. I did this last week once too, while leaving my tagalong at preschool for the first time, which he was pretty upset about, and I thought it weird then too, because I felt fine at the time. Sympathetic, but personally okay.

As soon as I made the connection, I realized this is much bigger. The source (separation) and the symptoms line up perfectly with the first (ish) event of my PTSD series. Looking back, I think I’ve been experiencing a somatic flashback for a month without realizing. It started during fire season (the second event), and kicked up worse in the last week or two.

Taking stock, my circadian rhythm has been severely fucked up. Executive function is out of whack. My sense of time is funkier than usual. Body dysmorphia has spiked a little. Heartburn. My skin is acting weird. I have people I want to see, but am not responding to? My hair is falling out, ffs. The list goes on and on, but it’s all subtle. I assumed it was related to sleep and season change, but no.

My body is re-experiencing all the grief and strain of the first event in my PTSD series and somehow I have not felt it on the surface at all. Emotionally I’ve been fine. It is the strangest feeling.

I’m always grateful when I finally recognize these weird cPTSD symptoms, because now that I see what’s happening, I can wave the ‘you’re not falling apart, it just feels like it’ flag and give myself permission to listen to my body for a while. Ease back at work. Curl up and do nothing sometimes. Take naps. Meditate. Dissolve into a game when I need to. For short periods, the bare minimum can be a beautiful thing. Finding the bottom instead of fighting it, and use it to come back up in time. That’s the theory at least. It worked with catastrophizing. Just cutting myself slack and backing off for a bit.

I knew I shut myself out of my own emotional experience sometimes, but forgot the body disconnect can be so severe that I wouldn’t even feel it until I was literally gasping for air.

I still feel more like an observer than a participant, but this is a big step.

#mental health #cptsd #ptsd #somatic flashbacks #so grateful for other people talking about their experience #without them I would never have realized this #so putting this out there for anyone else going through it #medical tw #mental health tw #parenthood tw #ainulindaelynn #Spotify

[septembersghost]

genuine question and not at all a gotcha or anything, I'm wondering this for myself as well - if/when she splits from the rat, do we go back to normal? is the damage done? I love her and her music so much and don't want to lose that, but I'm hurt right now, so is it hypocritical to want to keep that? to keep posting her? not to sound insane but I don't know what the best choice is here.

there was a post in the sub that touched my heart about how rare it is to see huge groups of women happy and excited together, and i mention it not only because it's sweet, but because i think it's important, and also speaks to why the fandom is upset right now. we love sharing something together and having a community and an escape. we love having something connective and that resonates so deeply for us. and i think we don't want other fans, marginalized women especially, to feel shut out. it's just something to keep in mind about why her music is special to us.

you're asking valid questions for anyone who IS upset, and i don't know the answer. i don't think there is one singular answer, because we're all different and making our own decisions. some people are upset and distancing, some people are upset but still posting content (totally understandable imho because many fans love the community and supporting creators too, and that's a part of the experience. fans make the most beautiful edits/gifs here and it makes me happy to see them, so...do i take that away from myself and those people, and to what end if it doesn't really make a difference? which it doesn't. plus reblogging content isn't monetizing anything. it all comes down to personal choices and comfort levels here), and you know...we're human and nobody's perfect and most of us are trying to have fun in our cozy little online spaces. not posting doesn't necessarily affect anyone but you. is it making you sadder not to? or do you need some time away? any response there is okay.

for the record, i don't expect her to be perfect either! i personally have never demanded political stances from her, as she is a musician and celebrity, she is not an activist. i don't expect any artist (or any human) to be perfect, as i've said before, if i demanded unimpeachable behavior, i couldn't be a fan of anyone ever. no one could. i typically think we should be better at understanding flaws, forgiving mistakes when possible, and lending grace and empathy to people - to each other, to artists, and find the humanity and the good there. there are occasions where that becomes untenable. she is nowhere near that point herself. what fans are struggling with here is a specific disconnect, while the majority of criticism lands on him. it's impossible to say what we'll feel in the future. it's just raw right now.

and yeah, being concerned about this isn't activism. yeah, it's easier to be mad at a singular schmuck than it is to combat systemic oppression or social issues on a wide scale. i don't think anyone voicing an opinion here is confused about that. they're feeling an emotional response to gross actions/commentary, and that's okay to express. it's no substitute for any other action, and i don't want to say anyone is hypocritical in their approach. plenty of fans are voicing their concerns while still participating in the fandom and listening to songs and that's fine. like...at the end of the day, she's an extremely famous pop musician we enjoy who doesn't know we exist. your blog is your own. it's whatever you're comfortable with and makes you happy. whatever you want to do is the right thing, and if anyone judges you for it, that's their problem.

for my part, i'm doing my best and playing this day-by-day, the break i needed is because i'm overly sensitive, and seeing/hearing directly from other people who are hurting breaks my heart, and that took priority. i know what it's like to feel as though something dear to you has been damaged, and how you just yearn to get that comfort back, and it has stirred up some other assorted stuff for me. it doesn't mean i'm leaving. it doesn't change what she's meant to me for fifteen years or the many times she's given me joy and solace in the darkest moments. that's all still true. i know i keep saying this, but the music will always be there and its inherent meaning is unchanged. whatever is happening or might happen doesn't diminish that.

tl;dr you're not a hypocrite for loving something that has been so significant to you for so long and wanting to hold onto it.

#anonymous #letterbox #thrown out speeches #❤ you bestie

[rosewinelonging]

.

so theres something i wanted to talk about. <- HOLY SHIT that sounds like the beginning of a youtube drama apology video LOL its actually not serious at all i just wanted talk abt my writing. an umm this is kinda gonna be personal in a way usually wouldnt put on a porn blog but! who cares lol this is my blog an i can do w/e i want

but first i wanted to say like. how genuinely shocked i am abt the amount of attention i recieved. when i started this blog it was just on a whim. i sat down one day and wrote 70+ posts in my drafts before i unprivated and started posting them. i never expected to get more than 10 followers tops but now, if u combine my followers here an on twitter i have over 70 an ill probably hit a hundred in the next couple months. its not a huge number but for me it honestly is. an then i started the server an got to talking with people an i was like wow! people actually really enjoy in content

i deal with a lot of, not shame but just embarrassment around writing super indulgent stuff because its like shit im really bearing my soul out here lol and also as my followers uve probably noticed a common trend of me taking ideas an expanding on them past just the porn aspect by adding plot or headcannons or trying to realistically come up with ideas of why characters would act in certain ways. so i guess im jus gonna explain why i do that

so first things first: i. actually im not that interested in sex. i mean i like masturbating and i like girls and i wouldnt turn it down its just in general im happy with myself an writing. ive honestly questioned if i was asexual for a long time but i dont like to be bogged down by labels so it just is what it is. my sexual fantasys that actually involve myself are usually me jus cuddling an kissing a girl thats literally about it LOL

so because of that i dont really like porn? or just straight up porn? i mean i DO i watch it on the daily an i love lookin at porn art but honestly i can never get off to it. the only thing that really does it for me tho is listening to [real] girls moaning thats hot as hell i would love to get a bitch beneath me jus to hear her sound like that

but for stuff like reading porn fics, unless its REALLY good i dont bother. most jus feel repetitive an boring. not shitting on other ppls writing thats usually completely fine its jus if its straight sex im not interested. bc im not really in it for the sex! im in it for i dont know how to explain it, the more psychological reasons? i enjoy reading about characters an thinking about why they would things and how putting them in different scenarios would make them change. im less interested in them as a character but rather what they represent.

when i say 'playing dolls' im completely serious.

so i get worried a lot that ppl wont like when i treat it like that because theyre usually so far removed from the actual homestuck elements that i try to avoid those aspects entirely which is cutting out a good chunk of content i make or want to make.

ah hmmm i feel like im gonna get misunderstood. SUDDEN SHIFT OF TOPIC! i am autistic obv which probably plays into why i view things so analytically. im not an emotional person at all despite how my typing style may be. i have a generally detached view of the world which definitely translates to my writing. but another thing i havent talked abt is im severely dyslexic. like bad bad. and it makes writing extraordinarily difficult because it heavily effects the way i think and how i put words together in a negative way. its like everything is completely disconnected and i have to figure out a way to put it together in a way that makes sense hence my sometimes over-convulted word choice, blunt writing and a distinct lack of pretty sentences, and the god awful amount of commas and run on sentences

it leads to me struggling really hard with getting the right words. i dont get writers block but i do get a sentence that looks wrong and leaves me sitting confused for 30 minutes to months at a time.

SO what im trying to say is im very. unconfident in my ability to words things in a way thats clear and well strung together ESPECIALLY in rants like this. i dont know what to do about that but im just putting it out there.

anyway. wow ive noticed this is getting so long lol yea i literally never shut up i have too many thoughts at all times BUT with all that being said i think its far enough down that most ppl stop reading but i wanted to talk abt a few of my longfics that ive honestly been too embarrassed to talk abt now that i have an active audience who actually enjoys my content bc 1. its not what most ppl come here for an 2. it makes me feel pretentious when i talk about it LOL

but if youve scrolled long enough through my blog youve probably seen me mentioned psychostriders au a few times. honestly I HATE IT!! I HATE THE AU AND THE ORIGINAL PREMISE IT SUCKS SOOOOO BAD. but also i love the general concept of murderers an kidnapping an torture etc etc. ive developed a few of my own versions of this au [sorry i cant stress this enough, the whole hitman thing is so fucking stupid. it sucks. severely.] one of which im actively writing and the others i have plans to do so one day.

THE REASON! i havent talked abt it is cause idk guys rnt my brand an ive kept it strider / john throughout all the fics. like i love john. hes my little lad, gender? beyond comprehension to others and himself. he/him lesbian vibes tbh but anyway the fics. arent about the characters. like you couldnt switch out the names with other characters and ive kept 'base' traits but honestly i dont know or really care how close it is to canon. all i DO care about is that its realistic in the situation and regarding the personalilites ive settled on.

but as ive said before these fics arent about the characters as characters but also it is but also the main part about them are the themes. the themes and the meanings and the psychological aspect behind their actions and the utter despair john goes through. im not writing these bc 'oh! this would b hot' cause i could go that whenever. i have a million other stories like that. im writing it because i have an abstract concept i want to look into and im simply using these characters to play the part and explore it

so i guess i just get worried abt talking abt that bc! its hugely self-indulgant and its not rlly abt the porn part. honestly the main fic [which is Scarlet Begonias] has few sex scenes scattered about, nothing in the first half. and god! i love this fic i love writing it and im still in the first drafting phase [i have everything written out in bullet points but i need to actually write it out. tho its only the ending chapters. after that ill get into my second draft.] and im so excited to one day have it written out. and its gonna be GOOD. im going to pour my heart and soul into it im going to rewrite it a hundred times until im satisfied and when im done im going to publish a second version with added authors commentary picking it apart.

it means a whole lot to me because its the culmination of everything i love to write about. but. idk i guess im jus worried abt being that personal now that i have an actual audience bc im a porn writer lol <- THATS NOT TO SAY i dont want to be seen as a porn writer or im annoyed by it bc its literally true but its like. thats my business and then the psychostrider stuff is my pleasure. i dont know if that metaphor makes sense LOL

but i just havent built my audience around this so i truly dont know how u guys would respond. i kind of want to jus never talk about it then one day drop the 50k beast out of nowhere but i have an issue that is 'talks too much' so idk idk

so um i the reason i wanted to talk abt this was i was clearing my drafts and one of the earliest drafts since the beginning of this blog has been me talkin abt the 3 psychostriders fics <- sick in the head fr

heres the post, its slightly dated but w/e:

scarlet begonias:

religion and what it means to be a sinner. concepts of morality and temptation

the motor works in an empty room:

motherhood and the idea of legacy. concepts of inability and paranoia

winter never comes:

self-identity and defiance of systems. concepts of deception and corruption

actually im gonna expand. so scarlet begonias is at its core a story about religious sin and the idea of repenting. what defines a sinner? who gets to punish them if god isnt doing it? is fate avoidable?

winter never comes is about what it means to have humanity. at what point is someone considered to have lost this? this is emphasized by johns fight to keep himself. emphasis on patterns and compliance vs rebellion

the motor works in an empty room is a story about cruelty. its about wanting to make a lasting impact, the relevancy of life, something that is unachievable by most and despised by those who get it.

other details:

motor john is virgin mary while winters john is mary magdelene

winter is a sci-fi dystopian

motors is the most brutal w direct violence / rape an unlike the others wont be done as a multi chapter fic but as a series of interconnected oneshots

these all have playlists an im so fuckin pumped to finish writing them JUST so i can show them LOL i fucking love making playlists and my music taste is actually banger

ok! thats it honestly i always feel a lot better when i write this stuff out. gonna post this an then never acknowledges its existance so if u read this far um good job i guess an have a nice day <33

#putting this under the cut lol #talks #just 1.7k words of me ramblin its not a fic or anything

[a-moth-to-the-light]

Summer of K-pop Tag, 28-31

[introduction/full list of questions]

Felt terrible yesterday, but we're doing a bit better this morning :) Listening to the new Itzy album really cheered me up, I think! "Cake" definitely could have been better--like damn it could have been a "Yeppi Yeppi" if the production hadn't been so amateur-sounding--but I'm used to liking the group's b-sides a lot more, anyway, and the album didn't disappoint. The NewJeans style on "None of My Business" suits them really well, for one!

Also, currently trying to decide if I should reread Heartstopper before I watch S2??

Current Obsessions:

Psychic Lover -- Itzy (i never get tired of rock itzy!)

Kill Shot -- Itzy (oh my GOD this would be a perfect song, if only they didn't keep saying "swish swish")

Más Lejos -- Atalhos (i wish my life was the kind of movie that this song would be in the soundtrack for)

Coming of Age -- Maisie Peters (no but this would be so fun at karaoke???)

Dance the Night -- Dua Lipa (if you get it, you get it--and are also probably a huge betty who fan)

Blame it on Me -- Twice (they can SING.)

Turn it Up -- Twice (was stuck in my head all weekend)

Cool About It -- Boygenius (also stuck in my head all weekend)

Questions of the Day: what do you think of mamamoo’s “egotistic"? do you still listen to it?

This was one of the songs that got me into k-pop!! I remember the way, when I was first obsessed with "Egotistic" in 2020, I would find myself dancing along to it without even trying to--at that point, I struggled with feeling very disconnected from my body, so being able to just lose myself in dancing, to feel so completely in tune with my physical self, was huge for me. And I get why my younger self chose this one to dance to--Mamamoo sing the hell out of "Egotistic", somehow sounding even better than my (already high) expectations for them, and you really can't lose with a dembow beat!

I don't listen to "Egotistic" much anymore, though I still enjoy it when I do--I think it's just been replaced for me by Mamamoo's calmer tracks, like "Emotion" and "Self Camera" and Hwa Sa's "Bless U". I still have a taste for high-energy dance music, but I'm not as obsessed with the style as I used to be!

what’s your favorite song from thrill-ing by the boyz?

"Nightmares". I don't really like when this album tries to be ironic, as if the members are laughing at the songs as they perform them--some groups can make that work, but I'm not sure The Boyz can. I just end up feeling like, why am I listening to this song, if you don't even care about it? In contrast to the title track, then, I like that "Nightmares" feels genuine in its silly moments. It doesn't feel like someone is on the other side of the screen, holding up a sign that says "laugh! this is a joke". Instead, it feels like it's primarily meant to be a nice-sounding song (the vocals are awesome!), with some jokes hidden in there to reward repeat listens.

what’s your favorite song with the word ‘summer’ in the title?

"Our Summer" by TXT. It's such a sweet, tender song, and that wholesomeness has secured it a special place in my heart for years now!

what’s your favorite song released this month?

"Shhh" by Kiss of Life! This is such a perfect match of song and performers--I can hear so much confidence in every second of "Shhh", and that just makes me want to listen to it again and again!

what’s your favorite question from this challenge?

The summer memory one! Songs and memories have always intersected a lot for me, but while brainstorming for that question, it was kind of wild to realize just how clear of an image a song can bring to my mind--I'm someone who doesn't remember things very clearly, especially not visually, but I guess music is a better memory aid for me than I had realized!

#WHOOO I DID IT I DID THIS TAG THING #i can cross it off my summer bucket list! #thank you to everyone who checked out these posts :) #i'll post my most-listened of the month in a bit #summer of kpop 2023 #mamamoo #the boyz #txt #kiss of life

[creaturebehavior]

one thing i will say for sure is i do have bpd. say what you will about bpd being a made up disorder or whatever else you want, i frankly am too ill trying to make sense of my life for that fucking discourse but

i have a lot of comorbid diagnoses that all work together to make me my own special brand of fucked up but good god if the borderline personality experience doesn’t explain my own like holy shit down to the T. i mean i have no doubt in my mind anymore. i know i have bpd among other things. what else could cause me to have every single symptom of bpd? hm?

this experience has just been blowing my mind. as i’ve watched myself come to terms with so many things the last few years. and have felt like a never ending observer of my bpd symptoms since i received this diagnosis because now i finally have at least some vocabulary to describe my experience and im coming to a understanding of what bpd even is and what my symptoms and behaviors even are called and stuff

i continue to watch myself stuck in this pattern of anxious attachment followed by complete disconnection. like genuinely every time i watch this unfold for myself it blows me away. because this isn’t something i have control over, no matter how much i fucking try, i watch myself on repeat again and again. and every single time feels just as raw as the first. the emotions and the lack thereof are so real and intense and unwavering. the sane/rational part of me takes an involuntary backseat. and i watch myself act out based off emotions that feel so huge and so uncontrollable and beyond me. i mentally try to take control until it drains everything out of me. and in the end i’m left with the truth, which is that sometimes i think and feel so strongly one way and the next second everything flips completely and i don’t remember how i felt before or who i was before. at least not completely. god im so dissociated i forget how to conclude this thought i have to stop this post im so drained

#processing

[hypmicawoou]

Hi I know I've been quiet for a while, this semester has just been murder on me and I'm only just now able to catch my breath. Normally I would post this on my Twitter but I have like, actual honest-to-God Chronicles of Darkness writers on there following me and I'm trying to not embarrass myself even more than I already have. But werewolf Kokuri gives me tons of feelings!

Just. One of the things that I think is really characteristic of him is that there's a huge disconnect between what he thinks he is vs. what he can actually do. In his own head, he's this genius mastermind, and eventually the world's going to be bowing before him. But he isn't! He's a great talker but he doesn't have the patience to run longer schemes, he's too impulsive. IMO he has very little emotional intelligence as well (mostly directed at himself-- he doesn't really know how to deal with negative emotions or how to delay gratification, he's able to pick up on other peoples' and think on his feet fast enough to run short-term cons but, well, the second he has a chance to one-up someone who's insulted him in the past he goes and gloats about it and halfway gives away what his plan is.)

Anyway, the end result of this is that when he had his First Change and it turned out he was a Cahalith and not something more subtle or clever (his entire job is to be a loud, aggressive moving target) it felt like a cosmic joke on him. The prophetic dreams made things even worse because he felt like Luna was yanking him around and telling him what to do. He was banking on being an Irraka (clever and sneaky) or an Elodoth (...also clever and sneaky, but more of a social manipulator than a thief and assassin.)

So him siding with the Pure and getting rid of his Auspice was a snap decision like every other bad choice he's made in his life. But being told he was different from humans and, more importantly finally above something by sheer virtue of just being a werewolf was exactly the kind of thing he wanted to hear. The problem is he doesn't really have the dedication to commit himself to bringing back Taga Dam or even to do whatever it takes to win the way the, uh, less scrupulous Sky-Seers prefer. He's gone through four packs in the past six years and either they ran him off for being a liability or he ran off because he got irritated with them for petty reasons that he can't really place because he doesn't do much self-reflection at all.

He's been stuck with North Bastard the longest because they're...not really much in line with their own Tribes' philosophies either, and he still constantly fantasizes about being a lone wolf and telling himself that he'll ditch them too (he won't.) He's just constantly uncomfortable and agitated with where he is and what he's doing but can't place why.

If he'd stopped for a second and tried to think about why he got picked as a Cahalith and accepted it then he'd probably have been both a better person and better at what he does and on some level he knows that. He just can't admit it because he's sunk in so much to his current life and he doesn't want to face the fact he was wrong and he just made a very, very permanent choice that he'll never be able to take back now. If your Auspice is gone, it's gone forever. He might be able to ditch the Sky-Seers for the Eaters of the Dead because there's been rumors for years that Ravening Wolf will maybe, MAYBE welcome in Pure werewolves who are sufficiently contrite and genuinely regret a.) spurning Mother Moon, b.) fighting against their own "family" and c.) generally being werewolf supremacists, but that would require...well, admitting he regrets doing something. So that won't happen. ¯\_(；へ；)_/¯ That and even a lot of the Forsaken can't take the Eaters of the Dead seriously so, you know, he'd be losing some level of prestige there.

#ryozan kokuri #really sorry to people who were hoping for hypsute content and get this gibberish #i hope it's vaguely comprehensible

[marauder-exe]

Self care- p!Tommyinnit x reader

i wish i was bsfriends w tommy :’)

Word count: 1.3k

Warnings:themes of depression, nothing too deep

A/N: Taking Tommy and Wilbur requests!! u cant tell me tommy doesn’t do the classic british X’s on txts to his friends

It had been a rough stream, 8 hours sat in the same chair putting on the same happy face, it was unbelievably exhausting some days. You took of your headset and set it down after pressing ‘end stream’, you ruffled your hair and took in a deep breath, throwing a glance at the clock on your computer. 5am. You tried to throw caution to the wind, maybe it was an off day? But no, you could feel it, deep inside, another episode. You looked directly into the webcam, your face scrunching up as you take note of your appearance, your ruffled hair, your dark eye bags. It felt like hours, just staring at yourself, your famous thousand-yard stare painted across the screen. Suddenly, your phone vibrated from its place on the desk. You lethargically picked it up as the bright screen illuminated your otherwise dark room. It was Tommy.

Big T: ‘bedwars stream tmrw? : ) x’  

You really didn't feel up to it in all honesty, but you didn’t want to let Tommy down like that, he loves bedwars. A sad smile made its way to your face as you drafted your text back.

Gremlin: ‘only if were on duos together : ) x’

Big T: ‘5pm? X’ You responded with a simple yeee.

You discarded your phone to the side and stood up for the first time in hours. Your bones ached as you outstretched your limbs. Pain. You walked over to your bed and sat on the edge, eyes scouring the room, even though you weren't sure what you were looking for, an escape maybe? It wasn’t even like you had anything to be upset over, great friends, successful streamer, everything was going great, but alas, depression does not give a shit. You crawled into bed, putting your phone on charge and grabbed all of your covers over your head, a long sigh making its way from your lips.

The next day/  

Tommy loaded up minecraft on his computer, reading to slay game at bedwars with you. He got unusually excited when he played minecraft with you, even more excited than normal. There was something about you man, but he just couldn’t figure it out. Youd met in high school, same town and everything, and since then you were like a drug. Not a day had gone by since year 9 that you didn’t talk. He decided to drop you a message as you hadn't texted first. He asked if you were still up for bedwars. Surprisingly though, he didn’t receive a response. He waited. Just 5 minutes he said. And then 10. And then 20. Then 30. He decided to ring you just to check. Plus, he wanted to hear your voice. It rang thrice and nothing. His eyebrows drew together in confusion. You were almost always online. He tried not to overthink, but this is Tommy were talking about. Maybe you were still asleep? He wanted to believe that, but there was an itch, in his brain, that told him not to. Just to make sure, he decided to ask some of your mutual friends on the server. He clicked onto the group discord and noticed Wilbur, philza and Nikki in a vc.  

“Hello Hoes and Homies alike” He bellowed when he joined the vc. Wilbur drew a confused look.

“I thought you were doing duo bed wars with (Y/N) today?” Tommy scoffed.

“Well yah, Wilburrrrr, if you let me get a word out” He joked light heartedly “No seriously though has anyone heard from her since her stream last night” They all looked confused and shook their heads. This made him even more concerned than he was. He quickly thanked them before disconnecting. His mind was running rampant. He quickly decided to throw his shoes on, you didn’t live that far, only a bus ride away on the otherside of town. He grabbed his keys and his jacket and rushed down the stairs.

“Going over to (Y/N)s for a bit” He shouted to Motherinnit as he slammed the door shut.  

-------------

You were straing at the roof in a pit of self loathing when you heard your phone ring. Ugh. It seemed so much work to pick it up. Your hand made its way from under the mountain of covers and snatched your phonr from the side. Tommy. You felt a sting in the back of your eyes and tossed your phone on the bed, turning over and curling up in the covers. You stared at the inside of your covers for minutes on end. Your doorbell sent a sharp chime through the house as your mother went to answer it.

“Hello Tommy, what a surprise" He threw her a quickly greeted her and got straight to the point.

“Is (Y/N) in?”

“Shes upstairs I think, I havent heard from her all day though. Go on up” She stood to the side and let him pass.

You heard the entire conversation through your open window, and let out a heavy sigh, although you were secretly thanking Tommy in uour head for checking up on you. You heard his converse hit the steps as your door was threw open. Tommy immediately regretted his actions, wondering if you were asleep as he took note of the heap of covers on the bed. He let out a quiet whisper.

“(Y/N)?”  

You didn’t really feel like talking, but you let out a quiet ‘yeah’. He rushed over to your side upon hearing your weak response.

“is everything alright? We were meant to be playing bedwars like an hour ago” This prompted you to pull the covers off your head and look at him. He took note of your puffy red eyes, and the dark eye bgs lying underneath. He looked around your room, empty energy drink cand and food containers littered your room. It suddenly clicked to him. You weren't doing okay. He looked back at you deeply, something about that look just caused the floodgates to open. Your eyes were glassy, as Tommy practically melted. He hated seeing you like this. Sure he had the bit of him being a big man with no emotions, but you where his weakness. “Hey, cmon don’t cry” He whispered as he opened his arms, welcoming you into a hug. In an instant you where in his arms, leaving tear stains on his TShirt. He didn’t seem to mind though. After a moment of silence, only broken by your sobs, he piped up. “How about, we forget about the stream for today, and ill go to the corner shop and get us some snacks, and marshmallows and whipped cream, and we can have those killer hot chocolates your mom makes. We can watch a bunch of movies, and ill even let you put one of those stupid facemasks on me, yeah?” This caused a laugh to pierce your sobs, which started to lighten up. You sniffled and pulled back from his hug, a huge smile making its way onto your face, the first genuine smile in a while.

“Thats my girl, that’s what I love to see” He matched your smile. You quickly threw your arms around him and pulled him into a long hug.

“Thank you Tommy” You said sincerely.

“Anything for my favourite girl” He smiled, as he pulled back from the hug. “Maybe while im gone you could try to shower?” He knew how tough some simple things where when you felt like this. You nodded smally and sat up. He leapt from the bed and smiled. “Okay, I wont be long!” And with that, he dashed out of the room.  

You lay back on your bed. You werent okay, but that’s okay, because Tommyinnit is your best friend :)

#tommy #tommyinnit #tommyinit #tommyinnitt #tommyinitt #tommyinnit x reader #mcyt #mcyt imagine #mcyt x reader #smp