#Boy Howdy im fucking exhausted

[idlebirdsparagon]

Putting in my formal request for life to stop dicking me around, where do I mail it?

[angelstrawbabie420]

Sent you a little something I hope it helps, here's to better days ahead 💜

thank you ily it helps A TON!!! im always blown away by how generous ppl are 😭💕 ive been working my ass off physically emotionally mentally to get this shit figured out u best believe. literally all i want is stability atp

[werewolfcave]

GOD OK I was getting my psych degree when it was announced they'd be adding Maruki

and I was sitting here like "Atlus is gonna fumble this so hard i just know it." because in collectivist countries/cultures like japan, you mind your business and don't air out your problems.

AND I WAS RIGHT I WAS SO RIGHT AND IM SO MAD ABOUT IT.

like thanks for making a prominent to the story therapist be a big time bad guy you CLOWNS. BUFFOONS.

Sorry I just. I needed to say! I AGREE hes interesting and I see a lot of traits that would make a good therapist but BOY HOWDY. He makes me so fucking mad the way he was handled lmao

Okay I totally get where you're coming from and do agree framing a therapist in a bad light especially as the first therapist in the series is going to have negative consequences. BUT when I was talking to my own therapist yesterday it occurred to me that Maruki is a genuinely a fascinating critique of the clinical psych field. Because, as my therapist pointed out; "[Maruki] makes you realize how silly and unrealistic the idea of no one experiencing pain is. It makes you stand back and stop idealizing that idea of no one experiencing that pain because it's so absurd and harmful."

I then added onto that by pointing out how a lot of his ideals are a very interesting reflection of the psychology field when you look at it from a Western Standpoint (I am not sure how it is from an Eastern Standpoint I do apologize about that), because in the West we are very caught in the idea of Intervention instead of Prevention, and Maruki is obviously under the same idea.

See the Clinical Psychology field fails when it views things under the medical model, that mental health problems are something one can just "cure". Viewing pain as unique to the individual and that it's something that can be fixed is a very temporary solution. Instead there needs to be prevention, which is focusing on that pain comes from systemic places, and that we need to reform society rather than focus exclusively on individual pain. I will get into how we can tell Maruki is focusing on intervention exclusively in a moment, but first let me further lay out what Intervention vs Prevention is using an excerpt for a Reflection Essay I wrote for my Community Psychology Class:

"The concept of Prevention vs Intervention can best be explained up with a parable often credited to sociologist Irving Zola. The parable tells of man standing on the edge of a river, when suddenly he spots someone drowning. The man jumps into the river and drags the person out, and just when he manages to get that person out, he hears someone else. So he goes in to drag that person out as well. And it repeats. Eventually the man is exhausted and there is still people falling into the river. It is then that he realizes he never even thought to go upstream to check how people were falling in in the first place. This parable tells of the way that intervention by itself will never be truly successful, because there will always be people falling in, and never enough resources to keep pulling people out. This most efficient solution would be to fix whatever is causing people to fall in."

It should be stated that Intervention is not wholly unnecessary, as I go on to say in that same essay:

"Yes there has to be someone who goes upstream to address what is getting people in the river in the first place, but that isn’t possible with someone staying downstream. Because of we yet to prevent the harm from being done, we do still need intervention. To allow the preventionists to do their work they need the interventionists to keep that hurt at bay until we can prevent the hurt from happening in the first place."

Now, returning to Maruki. Maruki obviously has the idea in his head that he can remove points of pain for people, and that at all costs someone, to be healthy, must avoid a situation in which they get hurt. We take all of this with the fact that capitalism, corporations, etc still exist in this world. Let me break that down as to how this itself is a prime example of how his idea of a world with no pain does not take into account systemic oppression nor works as a long term solution.

A.) If one's pain stems from, say, low wages making it hard to pay rent and thus having to work multiple jobs, Maruki's solution would likely be to raise the amount of pay for whatever job is preferred by the person and continue from there. We do know that he makes it so that way Okumura Foods is a more idealized company that treats its workers fairly and has more ethical sources for its food. But this only works within the short term, as there is still a need to get money to put food on the table, to keep a roof over your head. Economic stress is still there even when paid well enough, because there is still the fact that you must keep getting more of a limited resource to pay for the ability to live. There are still people who come out on top, there are still people who are working the factories, there are still people who must do backbreaking work. Additionally Maruki is of the mindset that if your dream isn't working out you must abandon it, which will leave those whose dreams lie in underpaying jobs (such as an artist who makes a living through their art, and is hit with art block that keeps them from producing work) they are to abandon that for something that will keep a roof over their head. This leads to a rather soulless existence.

B.) To quote the Combahee River Collective, a Black Feminist organization that is responsible for intersectionality really making it's way into the collective consciousness, in their Coalition Statement:

"We realize that the liberation of all oppressed peoples necessitates the destruction of the political-economic systems of capitalism and imperialism as well as patriarchy."

That is to say that systemic oppression cannot be undone without the removal of capitalism. Scholars such as Cedric Robinson and Ruth Wilson Gilmore talk of how capitalism itself is rooted in the oppression of racial minorities, especially Black people. This is a concept called Racial Capitalism, which put as simply as possible in the Wikipedia entry for this concept is:

Racial capitalism is a concept reframing the history of capitalism as grounded in the extraction of social and economic value from people of marginalized racial identities, typically from Black people. 

While not a study on Japan itself, and instead China, here is a fascinating chapter on Racial Capitalism in China wherein it states:

Emptied of their former political content, the disarticulated concepts of race and ethnicity have often been reduced to foreign and domestic modes of social differentiation in the reform era, which can allow nationalists to claim that there is no racism in their country and can allow China scholars to deny the relevance of race to the field. Yet, the externalization of race and racism is particularly dubious these days as China’s participation in global capitalism has been accompanied by prominent examples of Islamophobia and anti-Blackness.

And to address how Racial Capitalism is relevant to Japan itself, we are to look at Race Relations and the Capitalist State: A Case Study of Koreans in Japan, 1917 through the mid—1920s by Kazuhiro Abe. From the Abstract:

"Expansionist Japanese capitalism developed racist ideologies toward Korea and the Koreans. In 1910 Japan annexed Korea. After 1917, Korean labor was imported on a large scale into Japanese society, where racist attitudes were rapidly taking shape. However, cheap Korean labor produced a wage differential that caused a split in the labor market along ethnic lines. Thus, competition for jobs between Japanese workers and Korean immigrants transformed racial prejudice into overt ethnic antagonism."

From the talk of the Theoretical Framework at play:

"The analytical framework employed here is the synthesis of several current theories of race and ethnicity. It draws heavily on Marxist theories of race relations, and especially on the split-labor-market theory. In the Marxist tradition, as Wilson argues (1978, pp. 4-9), there are two major approaches to race relations. One is orthodox Marxist theory emphasizing the manipulative role of capitalists who seek to divide the working class racially by exploiting racist ideologies so as to preclude the emergence of a unified working class. (For an example of this position see Reich 1971 and 1981). The other approach is the split-labor-market theory systematically developed and elaborate by Edna Bonacich (1972, 1975, 1976). This theory involves three groups of actors: business, higher paid labor, and cheap labor. The labor market becomes split when cheaper labor is introduced into the market. Capitalists prefer to use the cheap labor, and the higher-paid labor consequently faces threat of displacement. The higher-paid labor group attempts to forestall such displacement by excluding cheap labor from its territory. If exclusion is not possible, the higher-paid labor establishes a caste system to systematically block the access of cheap labor by certain occupations. The success or failure of these attempts largely depends on the amount of political resources the higher-paid labor group can mobilize"

All of this is to say is that while not on purpose, the game implies to us a complete lack of understanding of systemic injustice that causes much pain in the first place. Maruki is very purely intervention and has no interest in prevention.

Maruki himself talks about totalitarianism and how it is something that forces everyone under one ideal, and Goro himself points out (in an implied sense) that that is precisely what Maruki is doing. He is forcing people into his idea of intervention and no pain, while doing nothing to rid the world of the root cause of unjust pain. He is creating a totalitarian dystopian world without any sort of self-awareness.

[ankhisms]

To quote my coworker: "today is probably going to be the worst day of work we will have in this entire season of work" and boy howdy. Today sucked ass

As a warning ill be mentioning throwing up in this so just skip to the end if u dont want to hear me even mention that 👍

Anyway. Started out the day having to drive THEE WORST truck in the entire park district where i truly think that truck is not safe for anyone to drive and i had a panic attack because of how bad trying to drive it was- not one of the worst panic attacks ive had in my life but it still sucked and set the mood for the day

The thing about today is that okay. Genuinely this was not a case of workers being exploited. Our boss was working right alongside us and working just as hard if not harder than all of us. And he kept asking if we were okay or if we wanted to take a break, kept reminding us to stop to drink water every 5-10 minutes. But we basically worked 6-7 hours non stop today in the 90 degree F heat plus humidity without any shade. And the reason why we had to do this was we planted over a thousand very rare important native prairie plants in our prairie restoration and we have been preparing to plant these for WEEKS and if we did not get all of these plants into the ground and watered properly today they wouldve died and we wouldve wasted thousands of dollars (buying the plants) as well as all of the weeks of hard work we did to prepare for planting. We NEEDED to get it all in or else it wouldve all died.

We were short handed because one of my coworkers unfortunately had a really serious family emergency and so she wasnt able to be in at work today so it was really all hands on deck. However i ended up pushing myself way too hard and because of the medicine i take i overheat easier and am prone to heat exhaustion/heat sickness and so i got overheated and threw up twice- which i almost NEVER throw up and you know something is really wrong with me if i throw up. But my coworkers and boss are all so very kind and worried about me and as soon as i threw up they were like ok rey youre done working for now we will take over you need to go lay down in the truck with the ac blasting and drink water you NEED to rest. And because of that i was able to recover and i mean im still fucking whiped out but i dont have to pass out right now yknow. They were very attentive to me and did not at all make me feel bad they were asking how i was and then when we were done we finally were able to get lunch around 2 and our boss bought us all a shit ton of really good ice cream.

So yeah tldr insane day at work i worked for 6-7 hours straight no break in the 90 degree heat but i did it TO RESTORE OUR BELOVED PRAIRIE. And tomorrow i will be back out there. Planting again but this time in the shade and MUCH less plants

[blightdaddy]

15 and 17 for pasha, 31 for orin, annnddd 39 for linnarel 💖

HELL YEA TY!!

for refence: pasha, orin, and linnarel!

as usual, under the cut just in case! bc spoilers (definite spoilers this time)

15) Who else has a crush on Rook?

so, like, maybe i had this whole silly thing in my head where pasha had a messy on-and-off situationship with varric. messy in the sense that, like, they knew it would never actually work - their work would constantly pull them away and deep, deep down, pasha wants to settle. varric wasn't really the settling down type of dude. AND ALSO following world ending catastrophes for over a decade is exhausting and they don't wanna be pulled into it anymore! but when they had some down time and found each other, shit just made sense. he was one of their best friends!! and while pasha would never say they were in love with him, they did love him. they did some real mental gymnastics to just accept they'd never get what they wanted from him. and like... pulling them into the inquisition and then having them come with him to chase down solas AND THEN DYING was a very shitty thing to do!! also the way pasha kicks shit open and is ripped as hell, who wouldn't have a crush on them???? this was a long-winded one im sorry!!

17) Any companions they don’t get along with? How does Rook navigate this?

SO. LIKE. i am going to preface this with i am weak for good ol' enemies to lovers type shit. jessie, when i tell you i am WEAK for it... pasha is a lil gruff, rough around the edges. emmrich is gentle and kind in a way they just weren't used to. like yes, he's competent and powerful and very good at what he does but people suck and he's going to get himself killed. and WHAAAAAT the fuck do city mages know about roughin' it up??? they have different views on the world around them and they butt heads. but pasha quickly realizes they've underestimated him, choosing to see good in people doesn't mean pushover, it doesn't mean weakness. he can keep up with the rest of them and he's sharp as hell (with the tiniest bit of a bitchy streak if you press the right [wrong?] buttons). and pasha is not immune to the charm of a smooth talker. and ok maybe they like how proper and put together he looks all the time. maybe they also really like how he can and will roll up his sleeves and get a lil dirty. maybe they like the way he talks and the way he words things. maybe they look at him one day and they're like "oh no he's hot." he softens those rough edges and she likes that about him. hey listen, i sat here for like a minute in a voice call with some friends and i went "hmm who WOULD pasha dislike, they don't dislike anyb--OH MY GOD WAIT." you did this, this happened bc of you.

31) Which locations (Docktown, Arlathan etc) does Rook like to visit the most? And the least?

is harding's lil green house an acceptable location??? orin likes the shade of harding's hair and her optimism and her freckles the plants! least favorite place is treviso, he doesn't have fond memories. and while there are people there that he cares about, he thought he'd be gone for good after he left. dee's least favorite place is dock town bc my computer does not like it when i go there. between the rain and the architecture, my pc sounds like a jet engine during take off.

39) What’s it been like, living in the Lighthouse?

linnarel is decidedly not a people person and he's just hyper aware of everybody's presence. my beautiful princess with a disorder can put personal feelings aside when on a job but he's not very good with people. the others will be the first time in a very long time he's had to be around others for more than a few days and boy howdy do they test him. while he would warm up to them eventually, it takes a good while. ALSO FUCK THE FADE HE HATES IT HERE WHY IS THEIR HOUSE FLOATING WHY IS THAT GHOST THANG ROWING A BOAT THERE'S NO WATER THEY'RE IN THE AIR

[voidsumbrella]

gonna be obnoxious re: that last post on fandomification; i do think the worst version of that ive been in was the les mis 2012 explosion. the primary fandom source material was already two layers off of the original novel- movie was an alteration* of the musical which was an alteration of the book, which is dense and hard to parse- and then you remove that even further by your interpretation in fanart** and then people who are more interested in engaging with the tropes than the Themes And Narratives lean on those interpretations until the result is something completely divorced and/or directly contradicts the novel.

*said neutrally- you should make the story fit the medium, which will inherently mean changing some aspects, and despite everything i still like the 2012 movie a lot-

**i can... absolutely trace this in lm to two specific artists, who both made work that was simplified for the sake of comedy but recognizably based in the source, and then people took the simplification as gospel.

but no seriously everything ive been Into has the abstraction problem. amnesia's Lore™ is easy to miss, and there were/are a lot of people who watched ppl' lps the game and never actually played it themselves. which is not a inherently a bad thing! survival horror is not a genre for everyone, and the earlier games don't have a story mode and are much harder to digest. but it means their view of the game is already biased, which when added to the fandom tropification machine or just generalized misogyny be normal about justine or ill kill you leads to a lot more shit takes.

yume nikki/fangames run into people hinging their theories on other people's theories being The Only Accurate Read and not something subjective based on symbolic interpretation and the player's actions; metal gear has the curse of being stupidly overcomplicated in difficult to connect ways and very popular with the standard #gamer crowd, who can't fuvking read anyway; asscreed has the same issue but with worse intial writing and a more pointlessly drawn out canon.

ff7 is a shitshow and deserves its own post, which im probably not going to make, because it iiiiis exhausting. its fucking wild how just prioritizing* the original story over the later retcons and thematic contradictions causes ppl to bitch at you for being a Fake Fan™. cant say im big on it.

*those of you who reject the compilation entirely... i salute you, y'all are stronger than god.

anyway. it's healthy to embrace the zen of letting people be wrong on the internet, but boy howdy does it not stop them from being wrong in new and exciting ways. i would study some people in a lab if i thought it wouldn't drive me nuts.

[anguilliforme]

Tagged by my fave jellyfish @theladyfinger, thank u

When you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk? 

If I can I eat cereal dry. Otherwise minimum milk.

Do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day? 

God I thrive on that feeling

How do you take your coffee/tea? 

Not allowed to drink coffee. I like my tea green.

Do you keep plants?

I love my succulent collective with all my soul. Same with my marigolds and herb garden.

What artistic medium do you use to express your feelings? 

Words mainly, or stupid little doodles in the edges of notebooks

Do you like singing/humming to yourself?

The real problem is getting me to stop

What’s something that made you smile today? 

I am having the shittiest day today I have not smiled once

What’s your favorite pasta dish? 

Spinach and ricotta ravioli served with a drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkle of pine nuts and a tiny bit of mustard fruits

What’s your favorite eye colour?

???????? 

What’s your favorite bubblegum flavour? 

Original is king

What is your opinion of socks? Do you like wearing weird socks? Do you sleep with socks? Do you confine yourself to white sock hell? Really, just talk about socks.

God I cant express how much I hate socks. I avoid wearing anything on my feet if I can.

What’s your fave pastry? 

Fruit flan (or filo if ur talking about actual pastry)

Tell us about your pet peeves!

People who force a conversation to go on for far longer than it should

Loud eating

People who ignore obvious signs of others distress

Think of a piece of jewelry you own: what’s it’s story? does it have any meaning to you? 

On my 18th birthday my father gave me his mothers engagement ring, it’s an heirloom thats passed down my family, and I wear it every day

Do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it! 

The Nutella cafe on campus. Their hot chocolates are the single best in the world.

Do you trust your instincts?

My instincts are either incredibly shitty or spot on there’s no in between

What food do you think should be banned from the universe? 

Please remove asparagus.

Do you like buying CDs and records? What was the last one you bought?
 

I love physical CDs but I hardly ever buy them anymore. Last one I bought was at the last musical I saw

Think of a person. what song do you associate with them? 

I dont usually associate songs with people I know, sorry.

Do you like poetry? what are some of your faves? 

I have a book of poetry that was gifted to me at birth. Its full of all my favourite poetry.

What’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever received? 

Nothing really comes to mind

What’s winter like where you live?

Pretty dry nowadays thanks to global warming, usually its just lower than 15 and greater than 0 with some occasional showers and strong winds

What are your favorite board games? 

That weird auction game that Dillz pulled out one day. Also monopoly is fun if im feeling manipulative.

Is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t? 

Almost definitely

Are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub? 

I was entirely indifferent towards minions until they caused the horror that is faces on tic tacs. Now I hate them.

Are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones? 

Not really. I dont think I'd ever like anything enough to have it permanently etched

Are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy? 

When people make pretty things idk

Talk about your one of you favorite cities. 

Uhh the city I live in now is pretty good I enjoy the cultural diversity and the general lifestyle, but my short visit to Tokyo was p fun too

Where do you plan on traveling this year? 

I have an international exchange in Japan this year so yeah

Myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house? 

ISTJ, Pisces, Slytherin 

[sugaggukkie]

IM BACK HOME FROM BORAHAEGAS AND BOY HOWDY IS THE POST CONCERT DEPRESSION

HITTING

[starrypawz]

(fuck my mum got on her bs tonight at 8pm it’s nearly 11pm and SHE’S. STILL. GOING)

[1327-1]

toronto maple leafs lock screens / hockey fights cancer night

+

[evevoli]

Hey Ev! Sorry to pester you again, but I came across your Hunter playlist on Spotify and it is very good!! I was wondering if you would be willing to kinda share yout thoughts on it, or like behind it? Why you chose the songs you chose for it and in that specific order and stuff, it'd be cool to hear! Also just,,, the three last verses of Dear Wormwood after Thanks To Them.... oh.... Oof, even... Anycase have a nice day! 🌻

oh boy howdy i have been waiting to hear these words all my life

i promise you are not pestering me at all bdjfjdjfks i am frothing at the MOUTH at the opportunity to talk about this damn thing lol. this stupid playlist is my magnum opus my baby i have spent like 2 hours meticulously organizing it yes im normal why do you ask

the hunter playlist in question for everyone else

the playlist's structure is generally meant to follow hunter's growth as a person, starting from pre-canon childhood to the present, and is at times loosely based on the five stages of grief. (this "grief" being the revelation that his entire life has been a lie.) to split it into sections, the first 20 songs are meant to catalogue hunter's experience being raised by belos and rise to the position of the golden guard. 21-27 is his gradually expanding worldview through hunting palismen to any sport in a storm, after he meets flapjack and the hexsquad and starts slowly questioning his beliefs. 28-42 is hollow mind and the direct fallout of that—with 33-45 centering around the "anger" stage of grief—and 43-48 is his feelings between labyrinth runners and king's tide. 49-58 is firmly in the "depression" stage, with everything after 59 being when he reaches acceptance and is able to truly start to recover.

putting this under a cut because i swear it is longer than the damn bible, but below you will find a more in-depth song-by-song breakdown. never underestimate the power of a very exhausted college student who drank too much soda's ability to think about one particular fictional character ig.

to start, i put dear wormwood at the very beginning to act as a sort of "prologue" to the playlist and set the stage for what's to come, and also because it is THE Hunter Song(tm) and i need to make sure everyone knows it. that song has had a flashing neon sign with hunter’s name on it in my brain since eclipse lake at least.

bumblebees are out, because it's so short and blatantly "oh this is hunter and belos", acts as a clear divider between dear wormwood and the rest of the playlist, with fish in a birdcage being the official "start" to the narrative. this song and helplessness blues after it then act to sort of sum up hunter's general feelings growing up isolated in the coven.

english house through you're a useless child (君はできない子) is actually from belos's perspective indoctrinating him, and then love me love me love me (愛して愛して愛して) onward is back to hunter. the next several songs detail hunter's experience as the golden guard. life itself is a recent addition mostly just there for vibes and because the first verse fits lol (thanks skit) and honey i'm home and saint bernard are the two obligatory Religious Trauma Bops i hope to make animatics for eventually. icarus (Bird Symbolism #1) through stonewall stone fence is meant to be from the perspective of an outsider looking in (aka the audience) and going "oh this kid is Not Well" it is Necessary. (silhouettes particularly fucks me up lol i need to make a dadrius playlist)

with that all being said there beneath is where his character arc in the show proper actually kicks in. it acts as a divider between the prior songs to say "oh he is Thinking about Things." [insert that shot of him looking out his window at the end of hunting palismen] the songs from notos don't really fit in chronologically—torches would actually fit better earlier, and the other two later—but they flowed better here lol. bad blood is mostly vibes i don't even remember why it's in there, something something it being about god creating man paralleling belos creating the grimwalkers, but i like it too much to take it off lmao. this section is basically all of hunter's beliefs slowly slowly starting to crack throughout his Field Trips With The Good Guys.

uso janai is where shit gets Real; this one is actually from luz's perspective after half-befriending hunter in hunting palismen and then wanting to get him away from belos after You Know. escapism is back to hunter—more questioning, and the line "i'd rather be free" calling back to his desire to choose his own future—before shit goes down.

pale white horse and where is your rider happen specifically during the confrontation with belos in hollow mind. the actual songs are about uhhh,, an abuse victim being approached by the personification of death itself (when the other three horsemen failed to rattle them) and being scared shitless before realizing death had been their abuser disguised the entire time which fits with. well the last 5 minutes of the episode.

the next songs until around whisper encompass the time between hollow mind and labyrinth runners where hunter is alone to process things. the extra oh hellos songs there are him thinking back on his life and all the harm he'd caused working under belos as everything is recontextualized. (plus passerine has that extra bird symbolism fuck yeah)

(if you think there's a lot of the oh hellos in this beast oh my god. i think i had to physically restrain myself from adding like 70% of their entire discography at first im pretty sure the entirety of dear wormwood was on there for a little bit. it's all hunter. i am deranged.)

from this point onward starting with james picard, the playlist structure really kicks into the 5 stages of grief high gear, with everything before pale white horse generally being denial and these next several songs shifting into anger. this section until time to move on is what i like to call hunter's Religious Trauma Breakdown Arc where he's just thinking things through and gradually becoming angrier and angrier at the universe as it all sets in no im not projecting

(also i should note that the order from here on is a little fucky and songs are mostly chosen by what flows best sound-wise; if we're going just by lyrics it'd be something like where is your rider > the garden > dear god > let it burn > dream with everything else tacked on afterward)

sweet sacrifice specifically gives me mad "angry at your shitty parent for years of Nonsense" vibes no im not projecting and obsolete is. bro come on just listen to the lyrics. "you bring me back to life so you can watch me die" it's out of my hands at this point bsjfkfkd

the Our Last Night Trifecta is meant to be hunter's thoughts upon realizing he's effectively out of the coven after labyrinth runners. sunrise would actually fit better lower in the playlist but i wanted to keep them together in order for the flow bshfksk. lie to me is the Oh He Has Friends To Help Him Through This song and more than this stands as hunter and the hexsquad both vowing to protect each other from belos,, ,, oh he has friends to help him through this,,,,,, arsonist's lullaby is there to sort of say "you're not outta the woods yet kiddo" but it's also mostly there because. philip notably has a fire motif going on with him and im a huge slut for symbolism X)

starting with bird song, we have officially entered Hunter's Depression Era after king's tide. bird song is mostly there because Oops! All Bird Symbolism. the moon will sing grabbed me by the throat with Sad Boy Vibes it's sort of there as a retrospective "wow that whole thing was fucked up" on hunter's part, and unraveling is literally only there because the first verse reminded me of darius but it's got that post-hollow mind "shit ive lost literally everything" feel going for it so in it goes. lyrically these both fit better during the initial anger pain spiral (around where the garden is) but again, flow.

(note that ive barely touched this section moving forward since thanks to them so the songs here are a lot more vague, predictive Being Sad And Healing type shit; i will probably do an overhaul after season 3 is over and his canon character arc is actually complete. i havent added anything with the events of thanks to them in mind because i don't want to disrupt the flow i have, however i am actually planning to add who am i by cami-cat eventually; it gives off MASSIVE post-hollow mind hunter and luz vibes)

welcome home, son gives off a very specific emotion i cannot describe you're just gonna have to trust me on why it's there but let the river in is peak "lmao fuck my dad" energy he needs this . uneven odds is more vibes (+ camila going is anyone gonna parent this and not waiting for a response) but you understand right. He Needs This.

lost in paradise sort of represents a low point during the timeskip in thanks to them; that lingering feeling of "everything is (comparatively) fine now so why can't i be happy and feel like i deserve to be" that will no doubt be haunting him for years. glow is straight-up about grief and i put it there initially looking at it from a "healing from non death-related trauma" angle but after uh. You Know. i am seeing it differently,,,, kokoronashi + can i believe you build off of the thing i said about lost in paradise with that "why can't i feel like i deserve to be happy" thing plus my favorite, "feeling inherently unlovable what do you even see in me."

eight through soap is him clawing out of that mindset and deciding maybe kindness and trust is Good, Actually (said through tears). love like you is love like you and wanderer's lullaby is Me Specifically reaching into the screen and giving him a hug /j (it's actually his like 5 parental figures telling him they love him <3 i have a lot of feelings about this song okay) the author once again plays off hunter's desire to choose his own future with him finally being allowed to do so, and ready now is exactly what it says on the tin. that he's going to be okay.

finally, FINALLY, thus always to tyrants finishes things off with a bookend to dear wormwood. this song ends the dear wormwood album with the victim staying firm in their decision to leave their abuser with a hope that they become a better person someday; hunter is now on the road to recovery away from belos, closing up his character arc while still leaving the path ahead relatively open-ended. (i chose make this one last since it feels less "final" than the prior two songs—signaling that his journey is far from over—and, y'know, bookending.)

this is quite possibly the longest post i have ever written but!! thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about this abomination lol i worked. way too hard on it bhsgsdkh hope that answers your questions and lmk if you have any other thoughts!!! <3

[callmearcturus]

dang arc im so glad i know you every day!! sorry the brain is being bad i hope the bad thoughts kick themselves out soon

Thanks, Lottie. It's just a pile up of, like, yanno when a lot of small things keep happening and no one of them is big enough to vent about but there are so many they feel like a big one

I got... My predecessor at work got rehired to another position and I've been terrified I was gonna be replaced, my gran totalled her truck and broke her hand and needs help every day, my mother is back to working a job I am super unhappy with, I desperately want a break from making dinner for a while, boy fucking howdy inflation is making food expensive, I think my aunt is going senile, my insurance stopped covering my physical therapy, whoops I forgot to take my pills for three days that's why my shoulder hurts, and I'm a terrible friend lately also I think I'm super boring and exhausting blah blah

Deep breath

There that's most of it

Vent over I guess /jazzhands

[cyberdragoninfinity]

i am Curious what zane and sy’s relationship is like in ur college au. like have they drifted apart or do they still talk? and also generally how is zane doing. im poking him with a stick to see if hes okay

oouughhh my guys.... my fav brothers.... ;_; much like in canon It's Complicated with them--i think they were really close when they were kids, then drifted apart more around the high school years, then almost got back to a semblance of being "close" when Zane was in college (zane and sy are both locals from the town the AU is set in, so zane would visit home often when he was an undergrad, it was like ten minutes away). But then Zane graduated and had his Turbo Meltdown and has been, Difficult to Interact With to say the least and their relationship fell back on the rocks again. I think they had a particularly nasty fight recently (analogous to the shock collar duel lol) and that just made things even worse...

Syrus misses his brother lmao. Like he is TRYING to patch things up and he's worried endlessly about Zane and his myriad of health issues, but it's exhausting work when the other party is, uh, not being very helpful. :/ I think Zane DOES want to patch things up too it's just, buried under his Issues Problems. They'll get there, eventually.

anyway Zane is doing BAD thank you for asking <3 The summer after graduating valedictorian he had an absolutely horrendous week where he got his ass beat at a Midwest Regional Competitive Pokemon Tournament by a smug little 18 year old (oh i wonder who that could be lol) and then on top of everything else, got rejected from several jobs he'd applied for. Except fuckin' Best Buy. And now he's stuck at Best Buy in a rancidly toxic workplace that makes him work like 55 hours a week and oh boy howdy it is doing something REALLY NOT GREAT to his mental state and he is reacting, perhaps not the Best to it. He's going through a little bit of a "catastrophic self isolation and worrying all of his friends" period. I want him to go to therapy so fucking bad. :,)

This is the vibe, essentially. for the love of god someone help him

[grady-coon-ass-travis]

.

[iftadwascool]

I'm curious about the glass table story

When I was like 16ish my mom had just moved into this new house. For the last five years she had been living in a small apartment. Well it wasnt that small, it was two bedrooms, a bath, and a open living room/dining room/kitchen thing. I dunno, I'm not an architect

ANYWAYS!

The night before I had stayed up all night packing while everyone was asleep. I didn't get any sleep till I got in the car. It was a three plus hour trip across Texas and luckily I didn't have to ride in the uHaul with my uncle. But like I passed out before we even got out of the city. I even slept through everyone stopping to get lunch.

When we arrived I was awakened from my slumber to help move the boxes in. We basically put everything in the living room to be sorted out later. All in all it took us about 2 hours. By this time I'm even more exhausted than I was before. So I pass the fuck out on the couch.

Hours later I woke up in the middle of the night starving and having to pee.

So lets recap, I'm in an unfamiliar house, in a room with a crap ton of boxes, in the dark. Needless to say I have to feel my way around. After a couple of minutes navigating this labyrinth I finally think I'm in the clear.

My mom had two of these weird glass tables originally. They were made out of these heavy metal bars with weird metal flowers welded all over it and the feet of them were designed to look like large petals. And boy howdy they were sharp too! The actual table part was just made out of regular old glass. Thinking about it now these might have been made to been put outside in a fancy garden. But yeah these thing were basically a Saw trap in the making, and she had two of them! Funny enough my brother had broken one a year or two prior by accidently dropping his PS2 on it not realizing how breakable glass was.

Two steps forward my foot comes down on the foot of the table. I freak! And not thinking I jump forward. I hit my shin on one of the heavy side metal bar and fall through the table.

My Mom comes running out, with a large butcher knife likes shes Michael Fucking Myers, thinking someone had broken in. Seeing me lying down she starts laughing. Here I am sprawled out awkwardly inside a broken table with glass all around me. Being a brooding 16ish year old, is kind of pissed off about the situation. But not seeing the hilarity of it yet, lashes out asking for her to help me. All the meanwhile my sister is in my moms rooms freaking out.

After a few minutes I get up angrily and make my way to the bathroom to finally pee. All while my mom is calming down my sister and is cleaning up the glass the best she can. As I sit in the bathroom calming myself down I look and notice all the blood on the floor.

There's an inch of glass stuck in the top right of my right foot. Near my toe. Like a dumb idiot I rip that bitch out.

HOLY FUCK ME BATMAN!

My mom comes running, again, asking whats wrong. I scream to her to get some band aids quickly. I am grabbing everything I can to stop the bleeding. Towels, toilet paper, even a couple of gross socks. In my mind I'm going "AW FUCK I'M GOING TO BLEED OUT AND IM GOING TO HAVE TO GET STITCHES." But honestly I think I was more scared of getting stitches because unlike blood, which just makes me a bit queasy, Im deathly afraid of needles.

Im sitting in the middle of floor in the bathroom. With a newly dyed red towel wrapped around my foot almost hyperventilating when in walks my mom. I don't know if it was tiredness from waking up after a long day of moving, but with the most deadpan expression she asks "you alright?"

I LOST MY MIND!

I just start crying. Because in my mind I'm thinking she's super pissed I broke her table and that she's going to have to take me to the hospital. She eventually calms me down and wants to look at my foot.

So I carefully unwrap it and I put it in the tub to wash it off. The cut was about an inch long and bleeding so much blood, but its not hurting. My mom says I probably didn't cut it too deep. So luckily no hospital visit, tonight at least. We put some butterfly bandages and wrap it in another clean towel.

Over the next couple of days I don't do much. I barely walk but luckily it doesn't hurt so we never go to the hospital. By the end of the week it is basically scabbed over like nothing had ever happened. Days later when we meet up with my dad so I can go home the first thing he asks is

"Why arent you wearing your shoe?"

[sevdrag]

dreamwidth update: thinking on drawing

ever since the beginning of this year when i made it one of my goals to get better and more prolific with art, i've been really, really having to reevaluate my approach. overall i think i've made some pretty significant progress with art, and i need to tell myself that, because part of it is just still disappointing to me.

what i want to be able to do with art is sit down and draw something that's in my head and have it come out more or less like what i want. it doesn't have to be total realism -- i'm sure i'll have a style. it doesn't have to be neat - my art is messy by default. but i want to be able to, like, draw a comic panel or something, in a reasonable amount of time. mostly, it's drawing people that i want.

yeah, im nowhere near that.

my FIRST big adjustment this year was finally getting through my own head that using references isn't "cheating." once i got established in my little corner of the good omens fandom and talked to more and more artists, i finally got it through my brain - and i mean this has been years in my brain rent-free - that using references is something a lot of artists do. some of them will even trace a generic pose before going on to make it their own. this is what has substantially improved my art - FUCKING SURPRISE, SURPRISE - because as it turns out, i can draw nearly anything with a reference, and draw it rather well -- or, well enough to satisfy my internal monologue.

but i know not all artists have to look up 4-5 references and mash them all together if they want to make a piece of art? and i know a lot of artists can sit down and do a doodle that looks great in like a half hour with no refs at all? and that's what i want to be able to do, because sometimes, looking for a reference that fits perfectly is exhausting - takes as long as the art lol - and even then there's something about it that doesn't always feel "yours."

the thing is that for me, art takes time, and whine delayed gratification is haaaaard. but i think i have to get it through my head that at the stage i'm in, art is going to take time. if i could work on one piece a week i could probably put out some pretty good stuff, but my brain is still like "we sit down every night and draw A Thing and then judge it" and like .... jklsdhgksjllgk im not sure what i'm trying to say here. lkashflksahgsdhklg coming out wrong.

i think this is the point on that learning-scale graph where you're in the plateau that you can see what's good and what's wrong about your art (and others' art, which is surprising!) but you aren't good enough to get there. which of course means practice, but it's really hard to practice when you're absolutely failing at your actual goal, which is to sketch (let me reiterate - PEOPLE) reasonably well without a reference.

so i think my SECOND art adjustment of 2021 has to be learning that a lot of good art takes a lot of time, even for 'real' artists, and i should allow myself that time when i'm trying to create things of a certain standard -- and also to learn that the more i draw FROM references, the better i will get at being able to draw WITHOUT them.

i've already come this far just with practice, and for the first time ever i signed up as an artist for the GORBB (reverse big bang) (you can see it here: https://ift.tt/2L0PKsS) which was a big milestone too. and the work was in the middle in regards to detail and time put in (i'm not going to say, nor judge, on the quality of other people's works, but i was happy with how it ended up, even if there are still things i'd change). i've done a ton of color studies and portraits and things like that, and it has resulted in actual improvement, so i know it works.

it's just stupid, because my brain is whiiiiiining about it, and i know the answer is "art more and learn", but boy howdy do we not want to.

anyway that's thoughts whats the haps anyone want to gimme an art prompt i guess lmfaoooo

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