#HOW I DIDN'T THINK THIS SOONER

[koko-loco-urlocalbbgirl]

SDJ IS AN ADULT VN MINORS DNI. PUT YOUR AGE IN BIO OR YOU'LL BE BLOCKED

The tape "Incident 84" probably is a original copy of the show and contains the last episode of the original Sunny Day Jack, aka the one where Jack died/killed (was shot?) while filming. Everything directs that after said incident the producers tried to bury all clues related to it to protect themselves.

(In Jambeebot's drawings there was one with two formers actors of the show in what it seemed an interview or talking with someone who was asking them about the incident and the woman said they didn't let them hold a funeral for Joseph/Jacktor. AND in this drawing his grave seemed improvised God knows where by someone who knew him, no grave per se just a which further proves he didn't get a proper funeral and only the people who worked in the show knew he died at the age 25 under turbulent circumstances.)

So that tape was the only existing one that proved his death/murder, the person who kept it died and somebody donate their things or they get rid of it themselves and that's why Jack was trapped in there.

After all, it contained his death, but also the last moments of his life and who killed him or why he died. The first element his soul could cling to this realm, well, before you.

[dittobooty]

Thinking a lot about how in One Piece there's a continuing theme of self sacrifice that often doesn't meet its end (I won't say always because there are some characters who have eaten shit for a cause). But I just think about how easy it would be to just accept their sacrifice but the narrative won't allow that. Robin, Zoro, Sanji, Jinbe, they've all tried to give their life for the sake of others but they can't because they really don't have to. I think about Robin's "I want to live" regularly. It's so easy to die for someone but it's so much harder to live for them. And living for them gives back so much more than dying for them does. Dying is just a moment but living lets you have more moments and more time to show how much you care and lets you do so much for others. I feel like a lot of other shonen show dying as one of the bravest things you can do but One Piece is so different because it shows you that living is actually the bravest thing.

[benevolenterrancy]

Can I ask what was your first impression of TGCF and if it turned out wrong or right?

My first impression of TGCF was "this goof continuously ascends to -- and gets kicked out of -- heaven, this is going to be clown town isn't it?"

And honestly I stand by that one, I think I was completely correct**

(**barring the fact that this goof will then go on to experience ever conceivable horror known to man but honestly I mostly expected it after MDZS)

[dykedvonte]

wanted to say I appreciate your nuanced takes on MW and especially Curly. i don't get the claim that the fandom is full of Curly apologists when majority (esp yt and tiktok) say he's worse than Jimmy. Yes there's commentary about bro culture defending people, he def messed up in trying to placate Jimmy (tbh "we'll fix this" sounded more like trying to keep someone prone to outbursts like Jim calm and not hurt Anya/himself) but I don't think he did nothing to help Anya, since she continued to confide in him and he had less than a week to resolve it before the crash (I also don't get everyone saying he knew for ages when it seems like Anya told him that same week). I get Jimmy's a pos but saying stuff like Curly should've known he'd crash the ship or that Jim had a criminal record he ignored, reducing them to obviously horrible villain and willfully ignorant sidekick feels like a disservice to the game. If your best friend turned out to be horrible, what would you do in a confined space in the span of a few days to respond? I'd say some of the horror comes from trying to do good but ultimately failing, Curly's state after the crash is meant to be tragic horror not revenge/punishment

Thank you and this is what I want to get across.

A lot of information we have to supplement when it comes to how long things have been happening on this current ship. I think people try to add on to the horror and negligence by making things more obvious so it can feel like it was easier to avoid when, true to life, its not. Jimmy clearly didn't deserve or appreciate what Curly did for him in getting him the job, but do you think if Jimmy was that big of a menace on Earth he would've given him a position where he could have that level of power over people's lives? There's something in the fact he specifically chose to pick a position so close to himself where he could watch Jimmy.

I hate the bro code argument because that is a whole can of worms people really don't get. That sort of mentality is born from the general respect and preference of male matter over female ones. Curly is clearly not that guy, he is absent minded about the issue and inadvertently dismissive but he clearly believes Anya, he just can't understand what she's going through. It's an onslaught of information that no one really reacts right to. Additonally, the entire discussion of her assualt plays to heavy into the idea that there is fault outside of the perpertratior when it comes to SA. It's too close if she only did this or if Curly had protected her better but the fact of the matter is Jimmy did what he did. He did it before any of the conversations with Anya about it and it's why her behavior seemed to change so drastically in those last two days.

He has other conflicting thought and while his role as a Captain should've taken over, people act like it's not a very human thing to have such a toxic presence cloud your judgement. It is never easy to separate friend from coworker once that connection is formed, you want to help them, especially if they were friend first and for a long while like in this case. It's not right, but people act like it would be easy when the game clearly points out that no choice is easy to make, especially when you have to make it for more than one person. You have the weigh the consequences, look at all the options and make a plan. People can headcanon and decide how long things where happening, but if we look at what we were presented through the characters eyes, the only person given time to do that was Jimmy.

He waited two months after the crash to appoint himself Captain. Every time a problem was brought up he immediately took action and refused to sit on it and find a better solution. I think it's important to look at the warped way Jimmy takes initiative where Curly didn't as it works as a good contrast of why you don't just run in to "fix" things. The quickest and easiest option may not be the safest or most beneficial. I think some thoughts on the game suffer from the black and white thinking the game doesn't operate on along with us being voyeurs. We see what exactly led to what but the characters don't. They don't have the hindsight and foresight we do and even ours is scrambled by the non-linear story telling.

Like it's hard to talk abuou those grey zones without sounding like an apologist because you're explaining why taking responsibility isn't easy. It's not and it's weird to act like it would be in a scenerio that led up to the events of the game knowing what we know. We see all these characters in such isolated moments with various things before, in between, after and even during we aren't privy too. The idea that Jimmy is worse than Curly heavily banks on the words Jimmy was saying to Jimmy before he crashed the ship. That whatever happened on the ship was his responsibility to bare, which is true due to his position. But, are they not still not responsible for taking the actions Curly then must bare?

Like i feel like people think that these are situation that become easier with age or when you are in a postion of authority and they aren't. You don't lose your biases or gain some sudden knowledge that makes it easier. It just becomes more tiring as you keep dealing with it. I would be first in line to say Curly fucked up and should've done more but the idea he knew how bad it could get or he really saw the worst in the people around him and ignored it pretty much ignores a huge aspect of his character and the game.

[yuraimi-lee-bunny]

OK, seriously, it's been 5 years of keeping this with me, but I think it's been too long and I need to get it out:

Gray isn't white skinned. Gray isn't a "white guy".

Whithe person is Tigress, Maelstrom, Paper Star, Chase Devineaux, Julie Argent, Zach and Ivy.

But Gray isn't. Gray has a "beige" skin tone, it's an almost orange skin tone. He isn't as white as other characters that if you put them in the light they almost shine like a Twilight's vampire.

And I have never understood why some call him "white man" because throughout the entire series it's very clear that he isn't. Yeah, ok, he's not brown, but he isn't white either. In Spanish we have a term called "apiñonado" (a middle term between white and brown, which people who are a mix between an indigenous person and someone with white skin tend to have. You know, the consequences of miscegenation)

Which has sometimes led me to think that Gray is a person with Aboriginal roots (that's another topic. And although I have no proof, I have no doubt either.)

Even here I leave you the best proof. In a place with little light. Chase and Gray. Chase is white, not Gray!

And well, I could put more proof, but I think these are the clearest. I'm not mad at anyone, but I'm not going to understand why even Gray's wiki says "Skin: white" when it's VERY obvious that it's not, and there have always been other terms to describe different skin tones, not just "black and white"

[purgaytorysupremacy]

oh nuts. a life experience has given me a new layer of perspective on Cas's homosexual declaration of love to Dean.

recently I had occasion to tell a person I had feelings for them knowing full well they didn't feel even a twinge of the same thing for me. while the whole thing was a decidedly unpleasant experience, I kept laughing at myself internally bc I didn't want to say "the happiness is just in saying it" like fucking Castiel over here. (we don't need to talk about it, it's fine.) (I am happier having said it and it's kind of bullshit, but I digress.)

because the thing is, the happiness isn't in just saying it, right? the happiness is in the having. I made a whole TikTok "proving" that the Empty didn't come for Cas when he confessed his love, but rather when he realized Dean loved him back. even for Cas, the happiness was in the having, not in the saying, however brief it was.

and I've always been one of those people who rolled their eyes at the whole concept. why would the happiness be in just being, in just saying it, if it's right there in front of you to have. and then it hit me like a tonne of bricks (as I was washing my kitchen counters).

Cas really didn't think he could have Dean.

at all. in any capacity. he really, truly, and honestly felt to the depths of himself that Dean did not have any twinge of similar feelings, that this really was a Hail Mary shot-in-the-dark. and I think me, personally, really didn't understand that about Cas. that his belief in his love being unrequited was that unshakable.

something else I've been pondering is how audiences have so much more empathy for fictional characters who share traits that IRL they find objectionable and unappealing. but the thing is about fictional characters is that we follow them around in their most private, vulnerable moments. we see Dean mourning Cas when he dies, literally killing himself because he can't live without him, but it's so easy to forget that we're the omniscient ones here.

Cas never knew.

Dean's whole thing was pushing him away, keeping him at arm's length, making it seem like whatever heroic thing he does for Cas he'd do for anyone. he downplays how important it is for Dean to share the Deancave with him, to show him his favourite movies, share his favourite songs. he acts like the things Cas does for him don't mean that much to hide how much they do mean. he uses "we" whenever he even gets in the vicinity of expressing a feeling. "We were worried." "We're glad you're back." "We needed a win." "You're our brother." The audience knew the difference. We saw how he'd clench his jaw or swallow hard or make a face that said "God, I'm being such an idiot". Because we saw him in those little moments. We got to see the cracks in the mask.

but Cas never knew.

the self-hating angel of Thursday was never going to think it was all a way for Dean to protect himself. obviously, that's the delicious tragedy of it all, but what I think I realized at the end of all that is Cas confessing his love to a Dean who didn't love him back wouldn't have worked. Because the happiness really is in the having. If happiness was just in saying it, then The Empty would have come before Cas even finished getting the words out of his mouth.

so Cas's plan wouldn't have worked if Dean didn't love him back.

this is just me yapping on about my own nonsense, but I do think it's really interesting. there's contentment in "just saying it". there's freedom and relief and an unburdening. I think one can argue that it makes being happy in the being easier. there is certainly some joy in telling a person you think that highly of them. but true happiness?

nah.

true happiness is always going to only be in the having. Cas didn't understand the difference until he experienced it, and by then, it was too late.

[mangatxt]

top 10 manga i read in 2024:

(please note these are not necessarily published in 2024. just things i read or picked up this year)

the fable / ザ・ファブル by minami katsuhisa (seinen / hitman, yakuza, action, comedy / complete) a famed hitman must lay low under the care of a local yakuza group in osaka for a year, blending into a society he is deeply unfamiliar with. some of the most thoughtful and funniest character writing i've ever read.

adults' picture book / otona no zukan kaiteiban / おとなのずかん改訂版 by itoi kei (seinen / childcare, drama / complete) when his late best friend (and maybe more) passes away, an adult comics mangaka must get his act together to take care of his orphaned daughter, even enlisting the help of a local tax accountant to his new odd family. i think this is one of those series that caught me at the exact right moment. you too can read vol 1 as a creative in your late 20s to max out emotional damage.

sketchy / スケッチー by maki hirochi (seinen / sports, slice of life / complete) burnt out and feeling lost, ako stumbles into a group of female skateboarders one night on the way home — invigorated with hope and excitement, she, along with a great cast of women, take up the sport too. absolutely delightful and inspiring, through and through.

colette decides to die / colette wa shinu koto ni shita / コレットは死ぬことにした by yukimura alto (shoujo / fantasy, mythology, romance / complete) (tw: suicide) a village doctor, desperate for a break from overwork, jumps into a well. when she arrives in the land of the dead, she meets its king -- hades -- who is sick and needs her care. a very unique take on greek myth with wonderful slowburn romance between the leads.

do not call it mystery / mystery to iu nakare / ミステ��と言う勿れ by tamura yumi (josei / detective, mystery, drama / ongoing) totonou kunou is arrested for the murder of a classmate he doesn't know. after he successfully deduces each cop's backstory while in custody, the police consult his detective skills for other cases, including his own. if you liked basara or seven seeds, i probably don't need to sell this to you.

smoking behind the supermarket with you / super no ura de yani suu futaru / スーパーの裏でヤニ吸うふたり by jinushi (web comic / slice of life, romance / ongoing) overworked and stressed out, sasaki regularly visits his local supermarket for one reason only: the cute cashier yamada. on one visit, he doesn't see her. disappointed, he takes a smoke break behind the store and encounters tayama, a mischievous coworker who seems oddly familiar. a friendship between the two grows with every shared cigarette. if you liked wotakoi but want something more down to earth, this is for you.

gazing at the star next door / tonari no stella / 隣のステラ by ammitsu (shoujo / romance / ongoing) chiaki reckons with her feelings for her next door neighbor and best friend subaru, who's quickly rising through the ranks to become the most popular actor in japan. read this for a classic, butterflies-in-your-stomach shoujo romance feeling.

orb: on the movements of the earth / chi. chikyuu no undou ni tsuite / チ。―地球の運動について― by uoto (seinen / historical, drama / complete) this manga follows several generations in a fictional retelling of the discovery of heliocentrism in the solar system. when claiming that the earth revolves around the sun will get you killed for heresy, these figures must work together in secret, so that church's terrifying inquisitors cannot find them. this fucks, and the anime fucks even harder.

a condition called love / hananoi-kun to koi no yomai / 花野井くんと恋の病 by morino megumi (shoujo / romance, drama / ongoing) a girl who struggles to understand romance and a boy with debilitating abandonment issues enter a trial relationship after a kind act makes him fall in "love." a tough read at times, but to me, this is a welcome commentary on the "obsessive male lead" trope in romance manga.

lost lad london / ロスト・ラッド・ロンドン by shinya shima (seinen / mystery, drama / complete) a young part-time worker, al adley, is framed in the fatal stabbing of london's mayor. when by-the-book detective ellis gives him the benefit of the doubt, the two work together evade arrest to unravel the murder -- and the reason al has been targeted. short (3 vols) and underrated with a unique and delightful art style and some keen social commentary.

[fullmetal-scar-simping]

Miles is literally so delusional for thinking he can single handedly change the entire country from his far off nowhere posting when every single ishvalan in the army has been killed. When he himself barely escaped death and i'm pretty sure he will be killed if the gov is suspicious of any actions on his part I don't even know where to start with his mind. And somehow I don't think Olivier or any of her soldiers will even bat an eye if that happens. Afterall, they have let their ishvalan colleagues be "purged" before, what makes him any special? They believe in "survival of the fittest" after all🙄 if the ishvalans died, they were probably not "fit" to begin with. So much for their fanatic loyalty to Olivier. So much for the comradeship and team spirit that exists between the briggs team BH keeps telling me about. Yeah fuckers lets ask your ishvalan comrade's ghosts what they think about that. Because from what it sounds like, Olivier either tried to save all of them and miles was the only one she could from who knows how many, or she found only miles to be "fit" to try and save and she shrugged her shoulders and went on with her career. Either way, she's a very, very fucked up woman. Not to mention how literally every other military character in the series, including ed & al knew about the "purge" that happened in the military ranks before the genocide? during? after? I don't think we know the exact timeline of it, and I'm still somehow supposed to believe they want the best for ishvalans😬. Sorry for the rant lol. I'm sure you already have a lot of asks to get to. But I have been watching BH again and well, it's been infuriating me in a way It didn't when I watched it as a teenager. No need to hurry in answering👍

Genuinely, how do you write a character that's meant to singlehandedly counteract any argument about destroying the military or taking genociders to task for their atrocities, and bungle the execution this badly?

(Mind you, even if it had been done well I would fully disagree with any notion that militaries are anything beyond the violent arm of the state to maintain borders and power, as well as pilfer land, resources, and people (or wholesale demolish those people and their lands) for the state's benefit. Digressions are my hobby.)

It's almost masterful tbh. Arakawa really needed a token brown guy to puppet on about why being a paid boot in the very institution that eradicates people is a necessary 'good' in order to make a pro-military reformist argument. And she did this while having already established that Ishval was thoroughly genocided while he and some other Ishvalans were already serving the State (so that's a flop). AND that those Ishvalan personnel were not only systematically removed from the military ranks, but imprisoned and even executed (so that's a mega flop).

I'm left stumped. This feels like the perfect set-up for the narrative to slowly unravel what would have been pro-militarism into an indictment of these institutions to begin with (even if done subtly), but no. It's all in service of boldly supporting the military and government under "correct leadership". Which itself contradicts Miles' stated goal in remaining in the anti-Ishvalan fascist Amestrian military, because actually what needed to be done was to overthrow the government itself. Need it be said that even this alone does not lift racial supremacy from a culture, but it does generally accomplish far more material change in that direction than keeping your head down in a border fortress, hiding your Ishvalan eyes behind goggles even amongst your oh-so accepting squadron.

Of course even the coup was all for the purpose of, once again, reforming and maintaining a military government under slightly new leadership, rather than abolition. So that's a giga flop. That's no surprise though, since by the time you're at the Briggs arc you know this series has no teeth whatsoever.

Olivier makes this all a much more baffling headspin. She keeps Miles on board because she sees him as an asset to... Improve their military might and stratagem. Which is...? Just. Such a bizarre angle on why embracing human variance "allows us all to become better thanks to the diversity of experiences" and the the innate value of your fellow people. Take that truth and contort it into a militaristic asset, in order to better protect borders against the wrong types of people, expand borders in order to broaden your hegemony over others, and slaughter those who will not obey (which will naturally incur racist and xenophobic propaganda because bigotry is a fantastic tool for manufactured consent and voluntary conscription).

Big progressive Olivier over here having the same social darwinist fascist beliefs as fucking Kimblee, who as you surmised must have seen the fall of Ishval and the arrests of even her fellow militarymen for being Ishvalan as "survival of the fittest". Except for Miles, because she probably realized she wasn't going to have her token if she passively allowed ALL Ishvalan boots to get the axe.

I'm personally not even convinced by the notion that she might have tried to save more people but could only succeed in saving Miles. Given her place as nobility in a generational noble military family, and all the stops she pulls for her guys, and her fascist beliefs (especially basically disavowing Armstrong as her brother because he disobeyed orders so as to stop murdering Ishvalans), it feels like she would let most of it happen even in cases where she could have extended her reach.

At least based on Brotherhood alone we don't know the timeline for those arrests, but it wouldn't be hard to guess that it had to have roughly coincided with the genocide. If a state is going to flush out the unwanted Other that thoroughly while ethnically cleansing that Other's homeland, they're not going to wait to rid their ranks of them until after the war has subsided. Unsure if the manga clarifies, but I suppose I'll find out soon enough.

It's batshit in the worst way possible. Love the fascist who operates violence on behalf of those who will eventually turn on him. What a compelling character for us to uncritically view as righteous and correct! Scar badman because he kill (for free, not paid for by the State, and also killing State guys).

Broho has to be the kind of show that's bleak to revisit when you used to enjoy it, upon returning with a more solidified political and critical eye.

Thanks for the rant! I live for these asks and the sense of vindication I get that others see the fucked nonsense being peddled under its bombastic shonen package.

[a-larry-retrospective-blog]

The thing that gets me, even 10+ years down the line, is that EVEN IF Harry and Louis were weirded out by people shipping them (which IS fair, but also: I think the blame can be shared 50/50 between fandom and pr people) to the point where it "ruined their friendship", we simply shouldn't have been able to notice it.

Like, that's the WHOLE POINT of having people who media train you and pr people: to present a nice image to the public. And 1D's image, like EVERY boyband out there, revolved around thinking the boys were all close, they were happy to be together forever. The reason people were so blindsided by Zayn leaving the band is that they had to pretend everything was fine and dandy even when it wasn't, and the public bought it.

I'm not saying that's a good thing, I'm not saying I'm happy with it, I'm saying that's the reason pr people and managements and every other behind the scenes part of the industry even EXISTS: to smooth out the wrinkles of the image presented to us. Boybands are supposed to be a UNITED FRONT. We as the public are not supposed to know about the skirmishes boys get into, because people would not root for a band where they know there's infighting.

If H&L were actually barely speaking during all those Years (and that's the thing that gets me, it was genuinely YEARS, not like, a bad week), as management their job should have been to force them into a Get Along Shirt and have them actually be professional and act like they did not have disagreements. It seriously makes NO SENSE to me after all these years that there were span of Months of interviews in which they barely interacted with each other and acted like the other one didn't exist, because if it was actually them not wanting to speak to each other, a good (by this I mean somewhat professional, not morally good) management would have said "suck it up and pretend you're still friends". That was their job! I cannot stress enough how this was PRECISELY a job for pr people! And they didn't do it!

So either they were so bad at their job they didn't even TRY to fix the public perception of the band, or having them pretending the other didn't exist was the best outcome. Which. You see how insanely suspicious that was? Like, even without taking into account whatever weird glances they threw at people in the crowd or the images of them hesitating to touch each other, the fact that the mainstream narrative was THIS and no one DARED to put a patch on it is insane in and of itself. It's honestly the dumbest thing whoever was in charge ever did for these boys' image

[iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid]

me on my first new vegas playthrough: okay but boone HAS to be my default companion because he shared his tragic backstory with me and now he and my courier are bros for life. i've imprinted. i'm making friendship bracelets as we speak. we're gonna overthrow the slave trade together. sure i'll take on other companions every once in a while but i will NOT be happy about it 😤

me on my second playthrough with a new courier, fighting through cazadors and fiends in west vegas well before my level is high enough so i can get to jacobstown:

[astro-b-o-y-d]

Thinking about Tad Strange's crush on the Woodpecker guy, and how I can still make Love Squared happen even with that information

[araneitela]

Alright, I've been mulling on this for most of the day, and unless a night's sleep changes my mind, I'll be working on returning (remaking) a very old multimuse of mine, that used to be over at iniziare. The blog will be entirely remade, and I'll post it here when it's done!

For those wondering, it will for now house: Guizhong, Yelan, Kafka and Arlecchino. Time to finish up that other WIP theme for this, I suppose! See you guys on the flip-side of this brighter future.

[segernatural]

what is castiel's greatest regret?

link to panel is here, timestamp: 20:54, images below cut

when he was god he could've fixed the world but failed to

'he harboured his feelings for 10 years without actually sharing them, and waited until he was about to die to share his affections'

he never really patched things up with his angel brethren in heaven

he never actually felt like he belonged on earth

(likely connected to above but) he had very few friends

he had a very, very limited wardrobe

as cas looks back on his life, it's probably nothing but one giant sweep of regret

misha did book-end it with:

"Well, I think, in the big picture, Cas... the thing that I like about that character is that he always tried to do the right thing, always tried to do what he thought was good and righteous. And sometimes he made mistakes, but that was always his North Star, and I quite like that about him."

[front-facing-pokemon]

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

Me, when Sebastian joins my party for the first time: Okay, this time I'm not going to forget about you, Sebastian. I'm going to make an effort to use you a lot this playthrough so I can better understand you.

Also me, immediately forgetting about Sebastian while finishing Act 2 and making it halfway through Act 3 before I finally notice his Faith quest: ......................Oh. Right. My bad.

[sassyfever]

Now that the new mini arc is finally starting Imma make a couple predictions. Angelina is now a bizarre doll and ✨coincidentally✨at the hotel. Grelle is also there. For drama's sake you know how it goes.