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“no one’s ever mad at me unless they tell me so” is the best assumption i’ve ever made

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I think the way I make sense of it in my mind is that even though we've cycled back to just mundane maid activities, now that the specter of sex is there, the literary interpretation has changed. The original maids are mostly using tropes about servants, while the burnt out unsexy maid is drawing in part on the tropes and portrayals of sex workers. Real life maids (or real life sex workers, for that matter) have very little to do with it.

I'm usually annoyed when folks try to subvert something that was itself a subversion and end up just taking it full circle while being smug about it, but I make a specific exception for OCs based on sexified versions of mundane professions because it's almost always hilarious. "They're a sexy clown who's bad at being sexy" so, like, a regular clown?

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探訪

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shes singing pictures ;_;

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our new job launched its mandatory ai transcription program designed to streamline our workflow and not only does it melt down the moment it has to transcribe non-white customers but it keeps hallucinating the existence of a mysterious boy named dorian who shows up in every third call summary

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太极taiji basketball street dance in chengdu, sichuan, china

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I don't understand why all these characters are surnamed Kong. It appears to reflect some kind of-- like not ALL the apes are named Kong, so it has to mean something, no??

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"whoa there pal! looks like your favorite web service is getting hit with enshittification. you should try this NEW PLATFORM, that is only mildly alike in function, has no stable source of funding, and is being ran by some people in their home office as a hobby. this will be a long-term solution for you that you can build a community on, i promise!" <- sentiment i see a lot on here lately. like. lol

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mechamiwa got me feeling like T_____________T

Mechamiwa is such a well-written tragedy. It’s rare that in a shonen manga such a flawed love story gets to be told. How the characters feel about each other is so clear, and also why they can’t be together is just as clear. Just to make you cry anon, an analysis of MechaMiwa under the cut. 

1. Strong and Weak

Mechamaru and Miwa both embody one of the central themes of the series, there’s strength in weakness, and there’s weakness in strength. 

Mechamaru is most likely the strongest Kyoto student, not only that but he has a measure of control because of his puppetry technique, he can doctor records, manipulate people, and is smart enough to play double agent for awhile to further his own goals. 

Mechamaru is very strong as an individual. He’s very selfish as an individual As a person he’s weak, however. Not because of his disability, but rather his inability to handle his own emotions. Of course, Mechamaru has a right to resetnment, he even has a right to hate the whole Jujutsu System, but the way he chooses to handle his emotions by lashing out is not healthy for him ultimately. 

Mechamaru hates himself, and hates his own weakness. Rather than trying to live with his own weakness, or be open about it, he hides behind his strength. Which is why rather than accepting other people’s help, he tends to be secretive, keep his distance, and he prefers attacking them rather than opening up to them. 

Mechamaru has this assumption that other people are going to look down on him, dislike him if they meet the real him, and that’s why he’s so defensive. That’s why he goes on the attack right away when he meets Panda. To stop others from looking down on him, he looks down on them first. 

Mechamaru is a strong person who can’t bear his own weakness, and can’t bear to see himself as weak. 

He has his reasons for this of course, but his primary strategy of keeping distance from others so they never have to meet the real, weak him gets in the way of what he wants. 

Miwa wanted to see Mechamaru as he was, in person. He didn’t need to be strong for her. The only ones who told him Mechamaru couldn’t be with his friends were Mechamaru himself, and the society around him, but his friends were always willing to accept him for who he was. Mechamaru can’t accept himself because he interanlized too much of what the Jujutsu Society taught him about weakness and it became a part of his own self loathing. 

Mechamaru wanted nothing more than to stand with his friends, but he did everything, manipulate them, betray them, protect them from afar, instead of taking the first step out himself to go see them. 

All because of his fear of being weak, and being seen as weak. 

Then, there’s Miwa who while not a fully developed character is a change of pace from a lot of the Jujutsu Kaisen characters because she accepts how weak she is. 

Miwa is the opposite of Mechamaru, a weak person, who doesn’t see her own strength, and doesn’t try as hard as she could to be strong. 

Miwa isn’t motivated to fight for herself, but her siblings she’s currently trying to take care of, so she lacks Maki and Nobara’s complete self possession. She’s not obsessed with the world of Jujutsu and treats it more like a dayjob, so she’s not motivated by saving others like Yuji or Megumi are either. 

However, in the Jujutsu World there’s someone a common sentiment that if you get stronger you’ll never have to lose anything. Characters believe everything is decided on strength alone, and an individually strong person will never have to face any loss. You can fight your feelings somehow. You can punch your feelings in the face, and you’ll never have to be sad again.

When losing Yuji for the first time, Megumi and Nobara’s response is to hide their feelings, and then try to fight the loss. If they get stronger they’ll never have to lose again. The motivation to get stronger isn’t wrong per se, but even the absolute strongest Satoru Gojo could not save his best friend. 

Miwa desires to get closer to others in a way most Jujutsu sorcerers just don’t. She’s a bit of a parallel for Utahime, who unlike Gojo was able to become someone who tethered Shoko and kept her connected to others. This is in part because Utahime is someone much more open with her weakness. 

Miwa tries to get close to Mechamaru anyway, despite knowing she might lose him, and the end result is she does. When she loses him, she feels weak, useless, she cries over it. It’s also the most emotionally open I’ve seen a character be with their grief in this manga.

There’s an emotional strength in being able to process sadness, and grief and yet still want to get close to others, instead of keeping your distance to shield yourself from those negative emotions. That was Miwa’s strength, but also Miwa didn’t push hard enough. Miwa sees herself as weak and because of that she’s desperately lacking in the ambition Nobara, and Maki ust have naturally. 

Miwa also could have been fighting by Mechamaru’s side. She could have pushed harder, she could have confronted him and challenged him more, but she was ultimately too passive until it was too late. 

Mechamaru was unwilling to give up his control, Miwa was unwilling to take his control. Mechamaru and Miwa both saw themselves as too weak individually, to stand by each other’s side, which is why they couldn’t be together. No matter how much both of them wanted it. 

Mechamaru and Miwa could have lended each other that strength: we see this in the fight against Mahito. Mechamaru uses Miwa’s techniques, his main motivation to fight is Miwa’s words to him.

Simple Domain is a pwoerful technique, especially when cooperating with others. There’s a first grade who uses simple domain. Mei Mei uses simple domain as a part of her ultimate attack. It seems really well suited towards cooperation, which is also Miwa’s strongest character trait her desire to connect with others in spite of the pain.

However, Miwa didn’t assert herself. 

The last symbol of Mechamaru and Miwa’s relationship is the distance between them. mechamaru can’t be there for her in person, in any way, emotionally or physically. They are two people who love each other deeply, but couldn’t be together because of their individual flaws. 

It’s because they both avoided each other in a sense. Miwa doesn’t think she’s strong enough to fight with others. Mechamaru is so afraid of being weak, just naturally assumes people will project her, that he preferred to protect MIwa from afar the whole time instead of being close to her. 

While it is a failed relationship, I think Mechamaru’s love for her was very real, and if Miwa processes the grief from this she has potential to grow as a character. There is set up for MIwa, her parallels to Utahime, the fact that there’s a simple domain user who’s a first grade right now who uses shadow style the same as her. 

What I hope is this will be the push Miwa needs to get stronger, not so she can fight as an individual, but so she can drop the “Miwa the Useless” attitude and fight together with the others. 

There’s something to be gained even by loss, which is why I think it’s better for characters not to lose fearing this loss. I don’t think Miwa regretted opening up to Mechamaru, or loving him, even if in the end he died, and all it did was hurt her, because she can still carry on his wish and that is their way of being together. Accepting loss also means accepting the people you’ve lost, and being able to struggle together with them even though they’re no longer there.

Yuji can take on Nanami’s suffering, Miwa can take on both Kokichi’s suffering and the happiness he wished to give her. 

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He's just sleeping he's just sleeping he's just sleeping he's jus

Ko-Fi

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Ominous sites –sulfur lake by qing ying

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Some of my favourite fan-works are the ones where it's not initially obvious that they're fan-works. You'll be reading a grindingly realistic depiction of the protagonist's minimum wage service industry job and struggles with gender dysphoria and clinical depression, then thirty-five pages in Pikachu shows up.

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in a way it's a relief to read multiple books by the same author, and have some impact you so devastatingly that you feel like a different person afterward, and then have others be the worst crap you've ever read. it gives you the freedom to put out your own crap, without it defining your potential.

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Achilles was a mighty warrior, but his Achilles’ heel was his heel.

Canon [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Cueball talks to White Hat while reading a book. Both are standing.] Cueball: It's so weird reading these 18th century scholars argue about minor biblical details. It's like they're an online fandom or something - they've developed this whole elaborate canon.

[Caption below] It's fun when a word's usage goes full circle and, by analogy, lands back on its original meaning.

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Reinventing the light novel title from first principles

K-Pop Demon Hunters does look really good but it also is part of a naming trend for stuff that I don't really like where the name of the show is also a functional elevator pitch for the show, exactly what it says on the tin. More Creative Names Are Possible If We Believe

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Cheesy garlic bread for anon <3 (1 & 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 & 6)

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Given that the number of people who go through cis puberty and regret is later is so much higher than the number of people who take hrt and regret it later, really we ought to consider whether these teenagers who think they're "cisgender" can make an informed decision to go through puberty in their early teens, or whether it might better to put them on puberty blockers until their brains are developed enough to decide if they want to make that kind of permanent life-altering decision. Like maybe some time in their mid-20s or so they should be able to have that figured out?