#i realize that doesnt make sense without context but trust me it's better this way haha

[spinaroos-47]

Batdr is fine. When you take only the game itself into account but yeah its pretty much impossible to remove it from all the context of what went down with the studio. Buuuut Im not well versed on that and i want to talk about some stuff about the game in itself.

Batim used to be a spin some years ago, from before i even created this blog. So i kinda wanted to check it out, just out of curiosity

Gotta admit, i had a better time watching it than i thought id have. Though i literally just finished watching a playthrough a few hours ago so my opinions might change in the future, probably will be my only post of this game here

Out of the gate i have to say, i didn't really like the talking animations. Like, the gestures dont feel like gestures you do when you're talking with someone. Theyre too floaty and simmetrical. A good example of the floaty thing is in the intro where Audrey is tapping her fingers on the desk. Doesnt look super right.

The style took me a while to get used to. I was more fond of the style in the first game but it grew on me. They really expanded on the style, made it more detailed and really worked with the sepia and black in a way to give everything a lot of depth while still keeping it cartoony. Dont know how to feel about the addition of new colors.

The story was pretty interesting! I do like how they messed with the concept of the loop without outright conflicting with the canon Batim estabilished. It makes sense, its very interesting! I liked the flow of the story, but i did get a little ehhhh when it began showing that Audrey was trusting Wilson to do the right thing. Because like, the man fucking drowned you and trapped you in an inky hellscape. Even when you dont know his plans, why would you trust him? Yes, he's a familiar face but still doesnt make sense.

Joey making Audrey is something i really liked for some reason, its very interesting. Maybe because of the toh brainrot fjdndnf. Though it does contradict his line at the end of Batim where he says that Henry got a loving family and he only got a crooked empire. There was a lot of small things from the first game that they seemed to forget or just contradict, which is odd because there also was a lot that was consistent.

One thing that didn't sit well with me was how more at the end it seemed to go in a direction of showing how Joey changed for the better, but never really adressed all the workplace abuse and overall shittyness he brought onto his employees. Though what else could we expect from the kindlybeast?

For a while i was thinking they would pull the "oh the loop is better than the world Wilson has made" and while Wilson's whole dictatorship thing was very bad, i don't think the loop was good either. So i like that it was framed more as something that really couldnt be changed without being paused and put into stasis like Wilson did. Neither is good but one keeps the balance of that world, and Audrey is doing her best to make it more bearable.

Also Audrey basically managed to get Joey's wish from the first game, to bring the cartoon characters to life in a good way. But the credit scene with Gent taking the ink machine intrigues me. Because wouldn't she need it? She found another way to do that?

It suffered the same thing as Batim where some stuff was just brought up and not expanded as it kinda led you to believe. Actually it felt even more here, Batim felt more tightly packed in the story department. The father thing with Wilson felt kinda out of nowhere/underdeveloped. Like, if you dont pay much attention to it, it doesnt hurt much but it sure is weird.

Im not a really well versed guy on gameplay stuff, and i watched a playthrough instead of playing the game myself, but the problems in the first game seemed to be improved in this one. Definitely didn't get all solved some of them, but improved for sure, especially the combate.

When Audrey got the flow hability i realized they were sticking close to a formula like dishonored, with that and the way they did all the collectibles (the batteries, slugs, etc), which i think it might have been a good choice since dishonored is considered a pretty good game.

So, yeah, a fine game, though the enjoyment is tainted by the irl stuff that revolves around the game and the studio

#long post #batdr #alec talks

[seffjatur]

"why didnt he just say something"

so we already know yaoyan communicate VERY well with each other to the point where they can convincingly con bai xiaosheng into believing they were a genuine couple even when they werent

the dude who has managed to call out plenty of other couples who were actually together

tianyao just ran into his ex gf who gave him severe ptsd

she just killed another one of his loved ones while hurting him

she is threatening him with the lives of MORE loved ones with a TIME LIMIT on things

"well then why didnt he say something like asking her to trust him and telling her that she wont die"

again, my dude just met his ex gf who gave him severe ptsd and triggered him very badly

if you think you can be emotionally regulated, calm and logical in the face of such a horrible situation, please be my guest but i am certainly not shitting on tianyao for not being able to

also i have a feeling tianyao knew yanhui wouldnt just take it at face value and believe that she would be fine if he STABBED HER IN HER CHEST

he didnt have a choice he HAD to stab her and he knew that nothing he said would change the fact that he had to stab her and he didnt!!! have!!! the!!! time!!! to explain jack to her

the whole scenario is frustrating but it makes perfect sense to me and doesnt feel ooc in line with the drama characterization of tianyao

ofc if you read the novel and you're like novel!tianyao would never have done that!!! but novel!tianyao was never put in the kind of shitty situation where he had to choose between yanhui or someone else he loves because novel!tianyao ONLY has yanhui

was it a shit move? yes. but it was tianyao's only move and he faced the consequences of those actions without being let off scot free as if he has plot armour.

if people were upset about the producers and writers deciding to throw this curveball at yaoyan, i agree because there are better ways for tianyao to have realized his feelings for yanhui rather than having yanhui withdraw her affection for him as a consequence of his actions. but so far everyone seems upset about his actions themselves when they make sense in the context of the show and his established character

#kowalski analysis #b watches huxin

[suckishima]

my hq valentine’s day gift exchange fic is juuust about done, just gotta edit and maybe add some more details in places

#tbh really good timing bc my fingers have been acting up again and its been getting really annoying to type lol #but im pretty happy with the little fic #i was struggling a bit at first bc i felt like i was rushing it buuuuut i just took out a scene at the end and that solved like everything #lol it cant be rushed if there's nothing to rush to lmao #i realize that doesnt make sense without context but trust me it's better this way haha #now it's simpler and let me focus on the feelings of the main moment from my giftee's prompt instead of also trying to work in another #thing following that soOo it might not be as 'exciting' as what i originally intended but i like this a lot more #and focusing on one change/development and lingering in that is much more my style too than just like explaining beat for beat what happens #next. anywaaaays im excited to just Not look at it for a week or so and then reread it and add in extra details lol #v v excited to post it eventually too. hope my giftee likes it #👀 #aaaaand of course i typed a shitton in the tags and now my hands hurt lol okay bye #x

[silverjirachi]

I know that it's a somewhat personal question but what can you do when you lost the thing that gave your life meaning. I understand if you don't want to answer but I was just wondering about it.

Oh boy oh buddy well like for me, that became witchcraft. What basically happened when my life tanked was that I lost all sense of identity and faith in reality (I was really bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and naive, which isnt bad, but it set me up bigtime for what happened). The witchcraft thing kind of started out of desperation bc I wanted to force things to go back to normal- which clearly didnt work- but over time I started to see value in it and realized how it comforted me when I had nothing else. Like I was super religious and this thing kind of shattered my trust in god for a variety of reasons, so i figured like whether or not he was real i wanted to stick my middle finger to him and find something else.

At the time I was just relieved I had found something that could make me feel better. It all happened bc for me this survival instinct kind of kicked in that was like “if you do not find a way to cope with this and keep moving you are going to waste away and die.” So like even though I was severely struggling and just keeping my head above water, the more important thing is that I was still swimming and witchcraft gave me the energy to do it until the life boats started coming in. It wasn’t easy.

But on a macro scale, in terms of like what can you “DO” if witchcraft isn’t your thing, is like 1) go to therapy if you have the means to do it, and 2) make a commitment to healing and reframing your state of mind. Witchcraft helped me do those things and I say therapy as well bc it’s a more direct way to help you learn to reframe. I did not stick with therapy bc it hurt so much it felt like nothing was happening, but I think if I did, this all probably would have taken less time, but it also made me take the necessary steps to do what I needed to do for me.

I think I actually took the video down, and it is more of like a circular rant, but I had a video on my channel called “Is Witchcraft Real” bc this is an issue I struggle with a lot still, I fluctuate a lot in terms of my beliefs in god/magic/afterlife, probably bc of this baggage. But the gist is for me, it’s more important that I stick with something that helps me create more meaning for myself, regardless of if these things are real. That’s not for everyone, not everybody wants to believe in god or magic without proof, but for me I guess it’s not really about whether or not those things are “real” but whether or not I make them real and special to me.

The reason I reached this conclusion is when I studied ritual in an academic context. When you study anthropology/performance studies, you deconstruct ritual and understand its function on a base level. Essentially, in a very brief version, the act of doing the ritual itself creates the meaning of the ritual. By choosing to set aside time to do specific actions and words that interrupt the flow of your daily life for a purpose, you’ve assigned a sense of meaning and (long story short) enter a “liminal space” where you pick the rules of reality and not the other way around (that might not sound true unless i spent more time breaking it down, but just understand the gist is that). When that’s the case, it doesnt actually matter if these other things are “actually” real, although it’d be cool if they were. They can become real to you- in the ritual- momentarily, and that’s how you- and how I do- can continue to build a working relationship with spirituality/life without belief. Because of that you don’t even need a sense of god or magic if thats not where you are in life rn.

So to me that works on a larger scale too. If witchcraft and ritual aren’t your thing, the idea is it’s ultimately up to you to make the own meaning in your life. You decide what is special to you and what you identify with. Inherently, in the act of making something special- you’ve assigned meaning and created a relationship with it. That’s what I was doing even back then, but I wasn’t conscious that that’s what was happening, and so I let a few very small things define my existence. So that’s why when the rug was ripped out from under me everything went with it. Back then, I made all these things special to me and they were taken from me, but ultimately they were still special to me bc I chose to reframe them and now those things and events have a different place in my life, but no one singular thing- or few things- control that now bc I can consciously identify how I am responsible for my own meaning and not any kind of external forces who dictate that meaning to me.

Sorry I’m so wordy, it’s me being a writer and an ex grad student, but long story short is make a commitment to healing and reframing, and, to sum it up in a meme, you just kinda gotta go

#long post #witchcraft #advice #anon

[wickymicky]

you know, i used to say that Egoist or Hi High were my number one favorite kpop songs (it went back and forth, i think i was most vocal about Egoist being my number one but there were times when i felt like it was Hi High), but like... idk... like aside from So What, i feel like i’ve barely listened to Loona at all so far this year, and honestly it’s been like six or seven months, maybe eight or nine, since i regularly listened to Loona every day (again, aside from So What).... i’ve listened to Egoist, a song that i considered my favorite kpop song hands down for the majority of the time i’ve been into kpop, like ten times this year and that’s it... and some of those times were because i had the thought “oh jeez i havent listened to this song in a long time, i should do that... i’m betraying it...”

i wonder if i only kept saying/thinking that egoist is my favorite kpop song because i said it once and i had to stick to it... i think its pretty clear to any mutuals i have that my actual favorite kpop song is something like picky picky though, a song i actually post about all the time and listen to really frequently...

:/

so yeah, there’s no easy way to say this, but it really feels like i’m hanging on to Loona out of a sense of loyalty more than anything else :( it’s hard to put into words but listening to Loona feels kinda different these days. knowing more about how they decided things on the fly and how rushed the selection of the final members was (and how little the members were told) kinda... like... doesn’t it change how you listen to a song like New or Egoist? it certainly gives a lot more context to Yves being really shy in those first loonatvs she was in... and Olivia’s experience with her debut was such a whirlwind, like, she was just kind of thrust into the group... i have soooo much respect for all the members for being able to handle it, and i think it’s a fuckin miracle that it worked and they ended up with twelve incredible members, all of whom are so talented and any group would be lucky to have them, but even still just... some of the fun is lost a little bit for me. and I can’t listen to Everyday I Love You, one of my favorite Loona songs, without thinking of how much Vivi’s potential has been wasted. it turned a song that i have fun while listening to into one that makes me frustrated or sad. 

for whatever reason, i feel less of that when listening to ot12 stuff, even if some members get shit for lines, tho tbh, and this is a really hot take and i’m sorry... but i’m really mostly just into their three title tracks (and Favorite i guess), i rarely listen to their bsides.. they don’t hit me the same way, i guess. anyway though it’s the predebut stuff that makes me frustrated or sad. i cant help but empathize and think of what they must be feeling in the predebut era... happiness and excitement sure, but also nervousness, anxiety, stress, etc... the one by one debut concept was novel and it ended up working out in a sense, but at what cost? it was able to work out because the yyxy members were brought in at the last minute, Hyeju literally with only like 24 hours before they were gonna reveal the next member, and with all the changes we know about like Vivi probably being intended to be in OEC and things like that, and trainees that BBC had who for whatever reason ended up being rejected also probably at the last minute in favor of the yyxy members who were brought on... sigh... idk

it feels like it’s getting harder and harder to be a fan of this group, too. as they get more popular and more recognition, the fandom is growing, and with that comes a lot more drama, none of which i particularly care about (aside from the stuff relating to the group itself, as i’ve been talking about). they got their first win, and i was happy at the time, but... i’m worried about their future. it’s not that i wish they didnt get their first win, it’s just... i hope this doesnt make BBC feel validated in overworking and over-controlling them, you know? i want to believe that a lot has changed for the better since after Butterfly, especially when Jaden Jeong left, but we just have no way of knowing that for sure. there’s evidence for both sides, so at the end of the day, all we can do is speculate, and that doesnt really help anything. 

it sucks to admit this to myself but i feel like i’m losing interest in this group because of all this. whenever i’ve watched loona content from the So What era, sometimes they do seem happy, but even then there’s this feeling that they’re stressed and tired. are they happy? again, we can only speculate, so it’s best not to, but i cant stop my idiot brain from assuming the worst and picking up on signals that might not even actually be there, it’s just confirmation bias. maybe i only feel like theyre not at 100% because i’m already worried theyre not at 100%, you know? hmmm. also, i just... don’t think i feel the same connection with this group that i used to. maybe i never really did, tbh. they were my first group, my introduction to kpop, and i genuinely love some of their stuff still, but i feel like as i’ve gotten sooooo much more understanding of this whole kpop industry and i can put loona’s discography in context with aaaaaallllllll the other kpop songs i’ve listened to.... i feel like a lot of their stuff hasn’t aged as well as i would want, for me. you know how sometimes you wonder how much of what you like is really stuff you like, and how much is only because other people like it so you subconsciously feel you have to too? well, at first i would have said i genuinely love all of it and i could explain why, but idk i think i was convincing myself of some of it... as ive found more stuff that i genuinely love, it becomes clearer what are my things and what arent, you know? when i only knew 30 kpop songs and had 5 super-favorites, it was easier to overestimate some things, but now that i know hundreds and have a really deep pool of super-favorites, some of that early stuff i found is overshadowed, i guess. maybe egoist isnt as special to me anymore cause like.. at the time, i hadnt heard many kpop songs like it, but now... i have. and some of them do what it does just as well................. if not better............... sigh, i feel like im punching my past self in the gut

if this hurts you to read cause you’re a huge orbit, trust me, i know what you mean, it hurts to admit this. it kinda sucks to realize that you’re slowly losing interest in something you once loved and was incredibly important to you. 

oh and by the way, when i talk about losing interest, i dont mean that i dont care about loona anymore lmao, i just mean theyre going from my number 1 or 2 or 3 spot down to like my number 5 or 6 or 7 spot haha, alongside other groups that i like a lot but don’t follow the same way i follow my ults. so like even if i continue feeling this way about them, theyre still one of my favorite groups lol. like i guess i would kinda place them around where i would place twice or another group like that in my top 10? anyway... i just had to get this all off my chest. it started out being a post just about egoist and kinda hi high too, but then i realized i had a lot more to say haha, sorry. hopefully this doesnt upset anyone, idk, i hope you understand where im coming from :(

#ive realized the exact same thing about fromis 9 too.. theyve actually been hit harder by this than loona for me #but thats not as much of an existential crisis lol #for me #long post #really long post #writing #personal #and before anyone says that its not a big deal and i can like whatever i want.... i know that #it kinda is a big deal to me though and genuinely makes me feel like im betraying my roots lol #even tho ive only been into kpop in general since like february 2019 #its been an intense year since then though... in terms of discovery... and my journey into this kpop mess... #so i formed strong attachments really fast

[someguy1023]

Nobody’s gonna care about this, but maybe someone will

i think it’ll help convey why im so stuck on this, and why i seem to be focusing more on Holly and, according to messages i kept getting, “white knighting” for her. I’m not gonna justify Holly’s behavior. thats not what this is about. I just want this off my chest.

(im gonna regret this)

also, just to preemptively defend myself, i know how cheesy all this is gonna sound. But its the truth.

so. i guess i should preface this by explaining when I first heard about Holly. Maybe it’ll help this make sense in context. Maybe not. I don’t know but it doesnt hurt to try.

I didn’t actually learn about Holly through the internet like i assume most others did. I actually first found her through TV. More specifically, through that Heroes of Cosplay show SciFi has produced a few years back. I enjoyed it, but found myself mainly enjoying the work Holly and Jessica did while on the show. They were my favorite team, and I always tried to watch whenever they were in an episode. After a while though, I, like a lot of others apparently, got bored and moved on, and eventually forgot about Holly.

It was a few years later that I would find her again. This time, like many others, through Grumps. More specifically, through Ross and Steam Train. I was surprised when it turns out that one of my favorite members of GG was also married to one of my favorite people on HoC. Small world. I stayed a more casual fan, watching the occasional playthrough or crafting episode on her channel. I was more of a fan of GG and Ross, so I tended to watch more of his stuff than hers, but I still made sure to keep watching her stuff. It wasn’t anything major, she just made me smile.

A few years later, it meant something more to me.

In 2016, my father died. Normally, that wouldn’t be such a big deal for something like this. It was everything leading up to his death that was the problem. I always had a very “problematic” relationship with my father. He was abusive towards me when I was younger, lashing out at me for really minor problems. (for example, one time he had lifted me up in the air by my throat and began strangling me when I was ~6. Why? Because I had used some money our neighbor gave me for cleaning up his lawn to buy a popsicle from an ice cream truck, ate half of it, then put the other half in the fridge. He found it, got mad at me, and then began to yell at me. I had a nervous tic when I was younger where I giggled uncontrollably when I was scared. Sure enough, I began to giggle and could stop it, and then he, enraged, lifted me up. I realize years later he was probably drunk, considering he smelled really weird. It isnt a good memory.) He eventually left my mom and I when I was almost 7, moving down to Alabama with this lady he met in a bar, and proceeded to do pretty much every major drug imaginable. I didn’t see/hear from him again until a few years later at his mother’s funeral. He seemed remorseful for what he did to me, and a year or two later, moved in with his cousin back in the state I was living in at the time. I began visiting him when I was 13, and he seemed to be better. He apologized to me for what he did, he tried to be a good dad, and I believed him. That was my first mistake.

Flash forward to January 3rd, 2016. I was visiting him for the weekend after staying at my cousin’s, and was sorting through my things to make sure i didnt forget anything. We had visited one of his friends to get something he borrowed (according to him) then got back to his house. He was sitting on the couch, watching TV, and I thought he fell asleep. I noticed he had a cigarette in his mouth he was going to light before he passed out, so I went over to put it aside. I figured out he wasn’t sleeping. It turns out, he was overdosing, and what I thought was snoring was his throat closed shut and the air escaping his lungs. He was dying. I told his wife (at the time) what what happening, she called 911, and I went upstairs to hide in my bedroom. A lil while later, the ambulance came by, and the paramedics gave him whatever that stuff is they give addicts who OD. (At the time, I didnt know what was going on. He had really bad lungs, and I thought they were shutting down or something. I was told it was from him overdosing later that night.) He woke up, and they drove him to the hospital to make sure he was okay. I went back to my moms house, and stayed there. That was the last time I saw him alive

As it turns out, my dad had been using me for over 2 or 3 years. He was not only stealing money from me under the pretense of helping him with driving for over an hour to pick up/drop me off from my moms place to visit, but had also been heavily manipulating me for years in order to control me. He had tried to turn me against my mother and her side of the family, claiming she had used me to verbally abuse and control him when they were married, telling me lies in order to keep me under his thumb. (like how she threatened to abort me if he didnt marry her after knocking her up, or how she had him steal from his sister during her wedding, etc.) I began to despise my mother, arguing with her constantly, and, on his insistence, never told her anything about what he was doing or what he told me. It wasnt until after that day that I learned it was all lies.

I was devastated. I felt hurt, used, and betrayed. (I realize now...its because I actually was.) I was a wreck. It didnt help that 4 months later...he died. Needless to say, it was a very, very tough grieving period. I locked myself away in my room, unable to summon the energy to even get up in the morning. I had suffered from mild depression prior to this, but it was much worse. I couldn’t find a way to get through this, suffering for months, and eventually, began to think about suicide.

Thats where Holly came back in.

Besided the playthroughs helping cheer me up a lil whenever I put them on, it was her advice that really began my path to healing. Her kind words and support to others began to help me sort through the baggage I had been dealing with about my dad. I began to follow her advice on how to deal with my depression, and began to slowly ull myself back from the edge, and, over time, began to pull myself back up. Eventually, with her help, I began to attend regular therapy sessions, and managed to fully come to terms with what my father had done to me, as well as properly manage both my depression and anxiety problems. I honestly don’t know where I’d be right now if it wasn’t for Holly. She helped keep me going when I really needed it. She, for lack of a better expression, helped save my life. I’ll always be grateful to her for that...despite all of this. Ever since then, whenever I felt my depression weighing me down, or felt my anxiety creep back up on me, I could rely on her to help keep me grounded.

When all this happened, I couldnt help but notice I felt the same way as I did all those years ago. Despite the fact that its just some random lady on the internet, and shouldnt have mattered as much as it did...it still hurt on a personal level. The worst part of this whole thing? I can’t go back to the thing that helped me out whenever I felt this way. Not without being reminded everywhere I go of how everyone thinks of her.

So...maybe thats why I’m doing all this. Not just to stop people from spreading hate and rumors based on speculation...but because part of me cant/doesnt want to believe one of the people I relied on and put trust in could be the bad guy. Because part of me just refuses to let go or lose someone who meant so much to me. Because part of me wants to believe that things will get better...even if I know they wont.

If you read through this, thank you. Maybe someone out there feels the same way I do. Maybe, if they dont, someone can understand. Its been a rough month for me. I just hope things will look up somehow. I dont know if I’m gonna come back to this. Im realizing it probably isnt healthy. The only thing I have left to say, then, if I dont come back; please, try to spread good. I know this is the internet, and even worse, tumblr...but i think people need some light nowadays. and constantly spreading hate and cruelty...that wont help anyone. I know nothing i say matters, that nothing i’ve done has changed any minds. but even if you cant trust Holly anymore, or dont believe anything she says...at least believe in one of her beliefs. That kindness is the greatest thing to spread to others, and the world can sure use a lot more of it.

Good night.

#atelierheidi #commander holly #heidi o'farrell #heidi o'ferrall #holly conrad #jared knabenbauer #projared #projared scandal

[gg-astrology]

Helloooo :) I don't know if it is too late but, what do you think of cap sun taurus moon? :o

HAH WE HAVE THE SAME PLACEMENTS!!!! 💕 ITS CALL OUT TIME!! 💕💕

(and no ure not too late don’t worry 💕 thank u for dropping by anyways!!)

[Below Cut: Capricorn Sun - Taurus Moon 🍃]

We’re a lot more earthier than our usual earthy counterparts, like if anything if we’re not surrounded by atleast 5 trees we Will Die

It gets especially hard living in an urban city because….we might not be accessible to parks all the time.

Although we might like leafy greens and fauna, some of us may have a hard time motivating ourselves to keeping them alive/grow our own garden even when we like the ~aesthetic~

Second most self-praise thing is our voice. With the combination of Capricorn/Taurus you might realize that we tend to have influential voices when speaking to others (others see reasons/listens to us– can be kind of like the ‘therapist’ in groups of friends because they tend to give solid advice and tries to make it practical for others)

It’s a persuasive ability, where we give other people nudges towards the right direction usually through a socratic dialogue (like asking them questions and letting them find the answer themselves)

Because Taurus is ruled by Venus, we appeal to the emphathy/putting ourselves in other people’s shoes (social relationships) to show others how to view things differently

There’a terrible stubborn streak amongst us, where we feel like we constantly need time to ‘digest’ experiences in order to utilize them fully.

Our time works differently than others, 2 days weekend isn’t enough to do that. And once things start picking up we switch gears from ‘oh no I don’t have time to absorb’ into ‘fuck I gotta find my pattern’ in order to survive

Always in survival mode, the bare minimum. Keep a straight-focused outlook on things so we could concentrate on it instead (while in the moment)

Switches between moments of independency (and cherishing it) and wanting support/to be surrounded by others and help them (in the domestic life/sphere).

If your bed and your room is your friend. This is your ‘safe space’ and you can never work here. You’ll have delegated ‘spaces’ for working/productivity. Thus it becomes a conditioned ‘motive/pattern’ you set for yourself.

You can try to be soft an gentle, but you will Realize that you are a very straight-forward and blunt person. We all look constipated when we try to phrase something in a different way, often we don’t come up with a gentler phrase so we just– drag it out, cautiously to see if the other person is receptive to it or not.

Surprisingly we say ‘sorry’ quite often bc we Know other people might put it gentler than us but we don’t know how to Do It

AH most important thing— quiet doesn’t mean shy. Although we can tend to be shy early on in our childhood (*if it comes to that). Quiet is just comfortable, like ‘I don’t have to say stuff if I don’t have anything to say’ when you’re comfortable with urself/ur company y know

Most people might think we’re being ‘unnaturally quiet’ if you have an active Mercury/Venus that says otherwise— but there are moments where you’re just— chilling, and people are concerned even when you’re just ‘absorbing’ the view

When you’re stress, it shows. When you’re really anxiety ridden and nervous, others can tell it in your oppressive silence. Your face blanks out, and that normally doesn’t happen. Your eyes vacant, and your close friend can pick that up pretty quickly.

Although you like to touch and be touched, you can also be demanding about it. Like ‘pet my hair’ ‘squeeze me tight’ or something specific like ‘hold onto my rib-cage/sides’ — it’s weird I know. But it’s like, if you want something you ask for it or you go get it. 

Emotions are— hard. Because you tend to hide your own pains/bury them a lot. You’re not even aware that you feel more than what you feel in the moment. Capricorn suppresses and Taurus redirects. So you’re not even sure where your emotions go when in hiding.

Sometimes you can be in the shower and think ‘have i ever felt jealous?? envious of people???’ and it takes a little more time and retrospection to get familiar with emotions

Accepting ‘negative’ emotions and ‘ugly’ behaviors in yourself is extremely hard to do. This is because you pride yourself in being ‘kind’ to others. Thus you may be much stricter on yourself than you are with anyone else.

Doesn’t mean you don’t get strict with the people around you, you do. Especially when they’re doing detrimental things to themselves. You’re much better at dealing with them than your own problems though.

Sometimes your retrospection eats away at your thoughts at night, things to do, functions to execute, where are you now? What have you done? Are you going to be happy in say 5 years? What do you have for your ambitions?

You can be protective of people around you, especially after you see them cry or in pain. Your protective instinct kicks in really strongly, and you may have trouble letting them have autonomy without atleast giving them a hard look and saying shit like ‘ok, if that’s what you think/makes you happy’. 

With your best friends, you may used to have the idea that they’re yours. 

Your best friends. Your people. Especially in early childhood, having to ‘open yourself up’ and your friendship up to accepting new people throws you into an internal tantrum.

Still now, you might find that you better with one-on-one approaches to ‘getting close/to know people’ than large group settings. If you’re truly going to have a personal opinion on someone, you have to see them outside the context of a barrier– your mutual friends.

Your own chemistry with other people (one-on-one) matters a lot, because it lets you know how you’re doing. Who you are, what your flaws are and whether you have a different ‘side’ to you that comes out when you’re with them as well.

The thing about you is– you’re inherently honest. To the point where you can’t hide it or stifle it, even if you try your body/mind will scream at you for even attempting to do so. You’re a slave to your own honesty, but it’s also your advantage and your disadvantage.

You have immense capabilities to be understanding to others, and to help others who trust you because of this honesty. 

And because you hold yourself valuable for your integrity to people (heart-to-heart, one-on-one) you don’t ever let yourself consciously try to bring them down or let them have a reason to doubt you otherwise.

Even thinking about how people could misinterpret your actions as something with ulterior motive (threaten to discredit your integrity) you take pre-cautions to make sure everyone is on the same page, everyone understands where it’s coming from.

You don’t leave a stone unturned when you do something, you want to do your best but that also requires preparation works. Ground works, for you to focus on just diving into it later. You don’t deter from it at all, and meticulously prepare the ‘grounds’ for yourself every time.

Your humbleness comes from your core. But since you’re so focused on working/preparing and your side of the story all the time. You have a harder time ‘switching’ gears to being on the receiving end of things.

You’d have learnt earlier on in your life that you can usually have an ‘automated’ response to things/circumstances that requires responses. But you don’t ever want to appear insincere or disingenuine so you try your best to put yourself 100% in giving people sincerity at all times.

You’ll learn– that this tends to wear you out. And you require time away from people in your own space. You might like to bury yourself under 10 blankets, give yourself a good scrub in the bathroom or get tucked away in a corner doing your own thing. Personal comfort is rejuvenating to you, but you can let it get too far and make a bad habit of not going out because of it too.

You’re a homebody but you may pride yourself in the opposite. You bring attention and light to when you go out, what you did with people, what you saw today. Watch that you aren’t doing this to subconsciously ‘persuade’ yourself that you deserve to relax at home because you’ve ‘earned it’ (going out becomes an ‘achievement’, which in itself isn’t terrible but you tend to let yourself get comfortable/have a pattern that may be harder to break out of– and that generally leads to a sense of dread for you later on when you want to ‘switch gears’ to something else)

You’re a creature of habit, so try to make a journal or ‘check list’ for things whenever it appears (like ‘you have a meeting at 3pm, this has to get done by thursday, do groceries on this specific day because otherwise you won’t have time – use it like you have a secretary). 

Whenever you need to check, you have the journal to remind you of ‘obligations’ you have to work through.

If you don’t, you can let your days get past you or forget about things you have to do.   

Grocery shopping, especially when you have time to journey alone (and not talk to anyone)– is less of a chore and more like a place where you can enjoy self-care without feeling unproductive about yourself.

If you ever feel like you’re having a bad day, go grocery shopping. Splurge on some meats and make yourself a steak. If you’re a vegetarian, try looking for new things to try in these moment of vulnerabilities.

Also, don’t be afraid to buy dolls. Especially the big ones that are like 9′ tall and towers over you. You’re going to enjoy having a new seating space for yourself. Lie on it’s stomach, play on your laptop. 

You’ll do better with a cuddle buddy who doesn’t have their own needs (inanimate) when your partner/friends are less free to spend time with you. 

Don’t be afraid to initiate physical contact, if you want someone to kiss your checks. Ask to kiss theirs. Show them– through demonstration and response – how to physically care for you the way you might want/need it to.

You can be disgustingly cute with people even when you’re not in a romantic relationship with them, mostly because you think everyone deserves to feel loved even without it being romantic. Everyone deserves to feel cared for, adored and not less than a romantic partner.

There’s no shame in craving intimacy, from friends or from lovers. You know it’s different because your ‘shades’ with romantic partners are a lot more intense/directed. But that doesn’t mean you put your love for your friends second to your lovers.

Let yourself get giggly and bubbly, feel loved and adored. Let yourself open up about past experiences, situations you need help with. Let yourself admit to your friends/people around you how you feel, so that they can support you when you can’t support yourself.

That’s all I have for now 💕 This one is quite long mostly because I was thinking about it too much 💕 I hope it’s applicable to you ;; 💕💕    

#capricorn sun #taurus moon #capricorn-taurus #anon #asks

[flockofdoves]

hello i need input if anyone wants to help idk what im doing lol

ok so theres more context to this but i’m too exhausted to write it out right now but like . im at home 15 hours by car away from school even though spring break just ended because im realizing that i don’t think its sustainable for me to be able to catch up and do okay with school until i sort certain mental illness (which exacerbates my physical illness) things out but also id screw myself over so bad by withdrawing medically for the rest of the semester because its very likely theyd take away my scholarship and a whole host of other things

so like . i gotta figure out what the hell i’m doing soon lol ive already missed so much school this semester

so

how should i approach the topic that my time management or w/e isn’t nearly the root of the issue here, how the fact that i know time management techniques that really work but i’m still doing terribly and im doing terribly in a lot more aspects than just that have made me realize theres something a lot deeper going on

and like . that deeper thing i’ve recently come to realize probably has a lot to do with cptsd-ish stuff

that feels so heavy and dramatic for me even to admit to myself so like how the hell am i supposed to explain that to my mom without her taking it personally against her parenting when shes trying to help me right now, or like the 1 year anniversary of my dads death is in almost a week so thats not great either for bringing this up now

and at that like i don’t even know where to go from there??? i guess i vaguely know things like CBT and DBT sound helpful but like . idk what type of program i should propose or if its better to be on my own or what. i want to be guided at least somewhat personally right now though because i don’t trust myself to get through this on my own and don’t have the resources but also i don’t have the best psychiatric field experiences so i both feel like i wish i was in inpatient and know itd terrify me.

maybe inpatient doesnt make sense in this context but like . regardless i have such a history of medical authorities dismissing my problems and when i barely can admit this just now myself and when ive only heard talks about how cptsd can manifest in different ways and for seemingly more mundane things often in autistics bc of our lack of support systems and feelings of isolation growing up from other autistics in one on one conversation it feels very likely i’ll be dismissed yet again and wont get the help i’m just admitting i need

so like ....... Yeah lol any input/advice/resources/etc is super appreciated idk how to navigate this

#cpost

[hipsofsteel]

I got challenged (long version)

Alright, so yesterday, @macarici made this post where she challenged us to do a character study using astrology natal charts, for one of our favorite OCs. 

So I decided to do one of my favorite boys, Christopher, because I love him a lot and he’s a sweet boy. And it devolved into extreme and severe confusion so fast I decided to make this post long under a read more and post a seperate short version. So, without further ado if you love reading my bullshit...

Alright, so, first thing’s first. Despite the fact Chris and Bev celebrate their birthdays on February 14th, and I count their official zodiac sign as Aquarius because of this, they’re actually Leos.

“Now Jess, what the fuck do you mean by this?” I mean I’ve canonically wrote multiple times that they sprung into existence in the summer of 1806, so as of today, I picked August 2nd as their actual birthdays. But they celebrate the state birthday because they’re made of dirt and time isn’t real.

But I figured that would fuck up my results pretty good bc lemme tell you, it has before on other astrology things.

ANYHOW

I set his birthdate as August 2nd, 1997 (Chris and Bev are “22″ on their government records currently), and the time at 8:03 AM, location of “birth” in Joseph, Oregon.

And then, I skimmed through the results.

And applying this to a Chris context, at first I’m mainly 

Seriously, this really isn’t sounding much like him.

BUT I MUST CONTINUE, so I decide to just pull out a list of things that DON’T sound like Chris, because I’m doing this when I should really be in bed and frankly nothing makes sense anymore

AND THEN I REALIZED I FUCKED UP THE BIRTH YEAR (am I literally writing this post as I go so Rici has something fun to read in the morning? Yes)

Okay, so I’m turning 21 next year and was like “that means following the age thing, chris and bev would only be a year younger than me.” no u numbskull theyd be two years older than ur they’re already 22

SO CHART RESUMBITED WITH THE SAME DATE SAVE THE YEAR BEING 1996, I tried again

And instead of CLEARING my confusion, mentally, this happened

jess voice: holy shit this looks less like chris even and im reading more in depth now abort mission abort

SO YEETING BACK TO THE YEAR OF 1997 APPARENTLY SORRY CHRIS IM DEAGING YOU AND BEV BOTH BY A YEAR BC THIS SOUNDS LIKE NEITHER OF YOU

so now im back in 1997, year before i was born, and looking at the chart for a fictional heterosexual dude whose actually an immortal dirt baby this is fun

SO i started removing stuff from Chris’s moon sign results that was definitely not him

THINGS THAT ARE NOT CHRIS -being rather lazy, the boy runs a cattle operation on rangeland for christsakes... -causing big scenes when slighted, whether in private or not. chris is actually much much better than bev about holding his temper, and tends not to go overboard emotionwise. he’d rather cut you to the bone with a few effective sentences than scream at you for an hour. -he lacks firmness and can be a sucker for a sob story. listen, thats only true with exactly one boy which is his son adam, and adams already the constant exception in everyone’s lives. -hard time setting and keeping goals. theres too much angst to explain this one but its not chris -unstable friendships. with the exceptions of a brief period with helen after their breakup, and tensions with clark whenever he pissed off adam, this really isnt chris. hes pretty much a rock to depend on if you’re a friend of his

and then i realize “oh shit that’s way less than i actually thought i was gonna remove” and okay yeah yeeting back to 1997 was def the right choice. i will say im def twisting a solid half of whats left to make it apply to him but hey thats what this is all about, right?

so at least now im doing this emotion

its nearly 1 am almost nothing makes sense but maybe this does

anyhow, so then i move on to the final section (we hope) of this experiment

WHAT DOES CHRISTOPHER LEWIS JOSEPH’S MOON SIGN MEAN IN RELATION TO HIM?

im just gonna steal magicandlight’s bullet point method bc its nearly 1 am

so

Chris is

outgoing WITHIN his inner circle, and quite willing to make a fool of himself in front of those he trusts, but not strangers

he likes organizing things socially and just likes to oversee the going ons in his closest inner circle (adam, clark, helen, and bev)

strong sense of justice, both treating others fairly, as well as acting fairly himself. 

courage in his convictions

pride can be a weakness

can be a bit brooding when he doesnt get the attention he wants (id say this mainly is in romantic endeavors when it comes to him)

needs to feel like he has a place to belong and emotional support from friends within those groups/communities

despises major life changes, and it can reflect in his relationships with others

little changes can also bother him and make him irriatable and stubborn (beverly can vouch for this, she’s heavily on the recieving end of this one)

reality checks can be incredibly brutal when they hit

very perceptive to other people’s emotions

strategist

experiences emotions and feelings pretty intensely

So now it’s 1:11 AM or something around there, I’ve dropped a lot of time into this, and I hope i’ve entertained the shit out of rici in the process when she reads this, and im going to write a shorter version post before i hit the hay so that maybe more people will see this

#aph oregon #nyo oregon #oc chris #macarici #jess talks too much #im not even sure what im doing anymore have fun rici

[accelerando]

thoughts on worldbuilding as art and worldbuilding as ancillary to narrative, not a vauge but a slate of thoughts i’ve had after reading a friend’s post

-- (edit) to clarify beforehand, not all of this is a direct response to my friend (pazi, whom i recommend you follow cause shes a rly cool SF author) i'm partly responding to notions about worldbuilding that i’ve heard from other people and partly elaborating my general thoughts about worldbuilding here, so dont take this as a rebuke of what she’s written on the subject but more as a reframing of the concerns from a worldbuilding-to-worldbuild author’s perspective

i agree there's other ways to go about writing a good story and that worldbuilding in itself doesn't make things inherently more consistent-feeling or less contrived and self-servey feeling but i find it useful

ofc i enjoy the research and so on in itself, and like, learning about these different fields and stuff that i read on and compose my thoughts about... also it's been an important thing in my personal approach of like expanding out in my personal horizons of like... what could be possible. what could we look forward to. though certainly i’m not infallible but i like to think about it from that angle

and ofc not everyone is going to have that goal, or need it. its naive at least for sf/f spaces to try and convince people that if your story is in need of fixing up, what it absolutely/foremost/at root level, needs, is better worldbuilding. i think worldbuilding CAN produce interesting ideas and concepts but its not inherently about that

certainly people who aren’t that into math but don’t know better can get caught up spending ages calculating the exact orbits and day cycles of their fictional planets and such or trying to break into conlang because they think they have to do that. and like tbh... no, but a lot of “smart SF” resources tend to emphasize these kinds of details and like it looks cool to have little number statistics on everything so surely itd be even cooler if those were all worked out to minute accuracy, right?

not necessarily; if your story doesnt absolutely depend on little details like that i do think you can afford to fudge it at least somewhat. an SF story doesn’t have to be a meticulous after-action report of the technical failure of some spaceship, which is often based on wildly fantastical technology anyway, even if NASA scientists wrote a paper on it at some point. the Orion Drive is case in point of this imo; a speculative engineering project based on “existing tech” that never got further than cold war paper in the 50s and yet people claim we could build them “like a battleship” with no ill effects. where are all the tried and trusted Orion shipyards then? how about the completely harmless nuclear tests? who can promise shock absorber technology capable of shielding a ten thousand ton skyscraper against a nuclear bomb every second?

these kinds of inconsistencies show up all the time in hard SF and “hard fantasy” as i might call it, and “good worldbuilding” often gets related to the ability to throw up lots of little details, calculations and citations of physical principles or complex self-consistent magic, which can go unquestioned as long as nobody in the audience has any better idea of what the author is talking about, or cares enough to pick it apart. but calculation without purpose does not necessarily make a story feel more in context or less contrived

that in mind, i find worldbuilding useful. it is an art in itself for one, and (to clarify for my own sake) worldbuilding is enjoyable to me just because it is interesting for its own sake, to me. and at some point, any world implies stories to be crafted, can give good guidelines and details to draw upon. i don’t think that that promise of worldbuilding is inherently vapid, nor that worldbuilding and firming up the setting of a narrative are unrelated. RPG settings of course can give good examples of this; one is given a setting rubric with which to guide the establishment of a finer narrative

and certainly this can become a trap when presented as an ideal, that one must have a setting in order for good stories to spring forth, with background worth exploring. even for those who want to worldbuild, few can give a concise answer as to what “good worldbuilding” entails besides basically, “study more”, and “good worldbuilding = good writing”. study more planetary orbits, more orbital physics, more biology, more linguistics. few can give general roadmaps to aid worldbuilding for creating a... setting, rather than a mess of disparate and unconnected details. so what if the orion battleship’s engine and aerodynamics and life support are meticulously worked out if your story is about a greater interplanetary war and you can’t describe the first thing about what life is like under the war or make the story’s conflict more reasonable and interesting than “good american colonial marines analogue” versus “bad socialists / insectoid aliens” etc? what is the (hi)story tying these things together?

imo, worldbuilding is a strain of storytelling at a different scale - fictional groups and factions and things interacting in fictional relations. and like writing a good story that lends itself to inspiring interest and like, fanwork and headcanons and fanworldbuilds etc, writing an interesting and compelling world that inspires smaller-scale stories is not a mutually inclusive or exclusive separate skill. we don’t have to try and be meticulously dialectical, and account for all relations in the world that led to the realization of each event in the story, although imo it is certainly interesting to see what people come up with in trying. but what makes a world compelling depends on who you ask, and being able to graph out the daycycle of a planet indeed does not correspond to universally increasing appeal, or even making your setting more internally consistent. meticulous and well-connected and interesting/wanted are not, universally, mutually inclusive. ultimately, a story needs to be something you want to write

and personally i do want that. i like exploring how futures or other worlds could come to pass, what conditions might enable them to come to pass, in ways that relate to what i know of “reality”

i also think though, that again, a lot of worldbuilding focuses much on detail over general connectedness, which is important to creating a world that feels... compelling imo. the story of the world becomes disparate as effort is concentrated in unrelated elements.

and i try to connect the elements of my world... how are things in the world constructed, in a general sense? details are important too, but they’re not all-important; there are places they are needed and places where they aren’t. a lot of things can be generalized, which doesn’t necessarily equate to oversimplifying. you can just say “there were multiple factors involved here, but the general arc was ____” rather than “the Zorgon empire did ____ and that was the whole story of it”. it’s like how we don’t have to write out the characters’ detailed lives on all the days between when interesting stuff happens in a novel.

(though claiming realism can easily be disingenuous certainly. if we take studies and accounting of existing “real” things as the rubric for our worldbuilding and storytelling, even people at the “forefronts” of study and thought constantly disagree on and find uncertainties in their interpretations of the world. even if it doesn’t “march on”, science and study are not objective, etc)

but yeah. it’s fun and interesting to me... worldbuilding can be fulfilling, but it isn’t necessary to make a story fulfilling. worldbuilding for a story can have you vastly extending the scope of the story you’re aiming to tell, and not everyone wants to or needs to do this to make a good story about individual people. though i do wish i could get into less meticulous material more easily, or other material in general

what’s the takeaway from this? i guess mostly that imo worldbuilding and storytelling draw on the same skillset of being able to relate actors in a story, although in worldbuilding there are ofc also many minute fields one may be expected to specialize into to create details about the “actors” (factions, machines, etc) in question. and so i agree on the notion that creating a compelling story does not depend on a compelling world, though from the standpoint that i enjoy worldbuilding myself and do think it can produce interesting novel concepts - but you have to be writing with the intent of producing interesting concepts. worldbuilders whose main intent is to remake your standard Colonial Marines but with more NASA are probably going to produce mainly Colonial Marines with more NASA

ultimately a compelling story or world or both is going to be a matter of combining and interacting ideas in interesting ways or ways that speak to you

#worldbuilding #writing

[lilietsblog]

Strike Witches episode 1: first impression

so im gonna try strike witches: the unknown anime i chose to not familiarize myself with the premise beyond 'something like fighter pilots i think?' that i picked up by osmosis

oh hey look a discarded doll. def war is hell vibes here

cant say im a fan of the visuals from the first several seconds, the color scheme and everything seems kinda bland? the only reason im making this observation is bc i had to pause to let it load tho

oh look Very Noticable CGI

(i have a headache and am vaguely nauseous and basically am Very Cranky as a result)

man, there aren't even characters yet. it's been almost two minuets and there still aren't people for me to relate too that's a crime by which i dont mean that literally but just 'this might not be the thing i want to watch right now'

oh hey monsters okay this is better than just straight up war is hell between humans omfg in 1939 subtle 'we wanna play with ww2 era toys but without bringing up the fact japan was on the side of nazi germany' i assume sure im onboard if thats the premise

magitech??? magitech!!!

that's. their legs. in those things. are they evoking Baba Yaga and her travels in a stupa bc thats okay panty shots i think imma quit at the end of this episode

oh i. just realized this is the movie that actually makes it a bit better and gives me more hope lets try the actual first episode first

ok the first shot is of the sky and not a discarded doll that's already better

holy shit whatever this video player is it allows to load external captions from pc or url. technology progresses at an incredible pace

i love that the fighter planes are clearly shown attacking the vortex first 9u9

opening has so many girls wearing shoes but no pants. im just. this entire device's entire point is clearly to fanservice that does not mean this is bad character-wise yet ofc. i watched and liked fucking rosario+vampire. this show has a chance yet. lets see what its got

the op song is nice its also very straightforward about aesthetic of this show being 'girls without pants in absolutely non-sexual situaitons' and i can respect that

and oh look it actually does start with characters interacting right after exposition that's what im talking about

okay so now might be a good time to mention that the first context i heard of strike witches was uh. misogynist porn. like the kind that doesnt go for 'look at these relatable characters being kinky' but for 'consider: what if powerful girls got hurt instead'. so thats the context in my brain and i want to fucking overwrite it

military uniforms+panties are definitely an aesthetic and im incredibly amused by it okay every single girl here doesnt wear pants sure that actually looks like a swimsuit rather than panties and thats nice

also they are characterizing the protagonist! like i know thats not much to ask for but im going into this straight off blogging about madoka and this is just such a relief! she is kind and brave and plucky and talks gently to a scared kitten and I love her also she Does Not Think Things Through shes like the typical shonen protagonist but a girl. im in

Yoshika her name is Yoshika

and her motivation is her dad but eh sure whatever I kind of like the touch of 'it was classified military information' not sure why

theres nothing about Yoshika that qualifies her other than her personality and magic powers huh

yep thats a swimsuit aww shes a healer!

I love that the military observers rush to help as soon as they see something is off theres work and then theres helping emergencies

oh!!!! her mom and grandma are around!!! and teaching her!!! im happy!!!

Yoshika why is all that a 'but' to 'you should learn to control your power' i dont think there was any subtext of 'you shouldnt even try' there? or was it? maybe i should just trust her for now

awww Yoshika actually doesn't want to go to war <3 but this woman thinks she will because she wants to help people and she'll help people the most there I I like this ;~; I'm so happy I like this I love Yoshika's 'fuck war' instinct I love her drive to help everyone and in fact the trope of magical healer almost killing themselves to help a patient (despite it being professionally inadvisable) is actually the thing i made my very first rp character sooo :> you know. stuff something is fishy about that letter. its no coincidence it was sent just now... I love Sakamoto and her A+ social skills HA HA HA HA HA also huh... she's not in on whatever's up with that letter

Yoshika so uh alright she'll take her without enlisting her huh interesting but uh what about school I guess military and witches can override all that and it kind of makes sense to me thematically

'Britannia' gee how familiar that name sounds and i dont mean geographically

so hm could Yoshika be a military doctor without actually enlisting? how do the formalities work there i like that Sakamoto doesnt question her dislike of all things military like its unexpected but mostly bc Sakamoto's got a one track mind that has a hard time expecting anything other than what she wants to happen and beyond that its like 'sure ok a conscientous objector got it' even though its weird how there would be conscientous objectors to fighting MONSTERS its not like theres an alternative to not fight I mean also clearly Yoshika is a kid and theres room left for that in other characters' treatment of her opinions and I love that they dont get Offended that she doesn't understand and Have Proper Respect well Sakamoto doesn't at least not sure about how other people will react

man that raccoon on the road sure was convenient though. like i first thought it was Sakamoto's deliberate tactic to gauge Yoshiko's powers. she was opening her eye to i guess do just that visually and then the raccoon appeared and it just felt very natural that one follows from the other? is this foreshadowing or are the writers of this anime just unfamiliar with the concept of 'subtle' i dont mind if its the latter tbh

(im writing a ton of reflection bc the episode broke after i tried to rewind a little and i decided to download it after all, and its doing that)

so far, this show seeems nicely straightforward and fast paced. like, really straightforward. yoshiko's introduction? saving a kitten. making a ww2 era anime without difficult shit? monsters attacked in 1939. motivations and revelations are handled with all the subtlety of a hammer to the face, from the raccoon to the letter. even fanservice has the same charming quality that makes me actually be okay with the entire point of their outfits being gratuitous panty shots. making sense and having pretense is for the weak. this anime knows what it wants to be and is going straight for that. i respect that approach

also its p clear that what it wants is to be character driven and its been Delivering on that since its only half episode one and i already Love two characters personally and also some supporting cast (Yoshiko's entire family)

and like you know that in some other show GASP MIGHT MY DAD BE STILL ALIVE would be a reveal saved for like. the halfway point. but here its literally the starting point spurring everything into action bc all other motivation was just too slow to get the character where she was supposed to go. good job yo

there's this trope where the main character doesn't want to go into the main conflict (Refusal of the Call)... and very often it's handled by either 1) letting them wallow until everything goes to shit showing how wrong they were or 2) immediately conveniently wrecking everything so they have no choice now I uh. am really glad this show went a different way if just joining the conflict isnt a good enough motivation GET A BETTER ONE and IT DOESNT HAVE TO BE ANGST (and it doesn't have to be romance, either!!! why are those two the only things writers seem to be able to think of jfc)

...okay I was more like two thirds through the episode rather than half but my points stand

okay so I think what just happened was Yoshiko realized the parallel between herself and her dad leaving and got scared and her response was to comfort other people and I love that <3

I love that Sakamoto doesn't have a doubt in her mind that Yoshiko isn't going to be useless and will definitely help and also comes to her to discuss this explicitly <3

man I love Sakamoto and her absolute lack of social graces and sense of when enough is enough

and the fact that Yoshiko is working chores now and seems to enjoy it too <3

and it's when it's established that she's part of the team that Sakamoto starts showing off <3 she clearly has a dedicated well thought out campaign of convincing Yoshiko going on and its borne out not of manipulation but of clear conviction that she is right and she just has to show the girl what she doesnt know yet <3

ahaha of course showing off worked <3

so I paused and imma make a bet with myself on whether Sakamoto is going to tell her 'if you liked that you can join' right now or leave that unsaid subtly my bet is that she is, bc subtlety is an entirely foreign concept to this wonderful human being, and if i lose im going to make my bed right now not even waiting for the end of the episode let's see

oh she starts with education huh, this is not widely known? i had no idea anyway lets see if she says the thing

I love that it's her dad and it's this kind thing of 'this is what he said he was going to do, and he did' <3

huh so that was slightly more subtlety than I expected, she offered her to try them rather than trying to recruit her directly so I lost the bet gotta go make the bed now

BAM DONE YAY GOOD SELF CARE

hey more main characters!!!! I love all of you already!!! you have personality and discuss things that make sense!!! including their outfits!!! I love them!!!! the parasol girl is my favorite but also the tiny girl and the red-haired girl they are all my favorites!!!

omfg a month of travel and half a day early Yoshiko gets impatient I love her

YOU ARE A NONCOMBATANT she said with the steely confidence of a commanding officer <3

I love so much that Sakamoto respects Yoshiko's boundaries re: fighting???

OMG THE ENDING SONG I LOVE IT

I love the upbeat and airy tone this show manages to have despite the premise??? like I had trepidations at the start bc I dislike doom&gloom-heaviness of 'war is hell' narratives and I'm not a WW2 affictionado. but instead of shiny boom boom toys and angst it's all character adorableness and so much sky??? even the lack of pants ends up feeling like freedom this is the anime we all deserve

#strike witches #anime #liliet watches strike witches