#I WANT THE HUMAN REALIZED FUTURE

[aquamonstra]

I think it says a lot about the sad state of Hollywood that none of the live action nutrek series have had the balls to set their stories after Voyager, and I think it's because they're too big of fucking cowards to address the issues of the rights and autonomy behind artificial intelligence set in motion in both Voyager and TNG.

Like I get it there's a bunch of interesting stuff that happened between present day and TOS but FUCK THAT SHIT WHAT HAPPENS AFTER VOYAGER!?!?!?!?!?!?

[tangledinink]

ODETTES A CHILD?!??!!! :0

[wybienova]

third time’s the charm - part 2

[masterpost]

decided im going to make more of this :] we doin a whole comic now!

part 1 here

[protect-namine]

I am about to start a neji route (because I feel that I need at least three playthroughs to fully understand neji and his plays, so I can't leave him for last). so my thoughts on this may change, but for the moment, my thesis is that neji and kisa are the same kind of thespian, just in different fonts.

(I am slightly exaggerating kisa'a character here. there are hints and I do think pushing the envelope of what her character could be is part of what makes kisa... kisa. as I'll explain later, for better and worse, kisa is constrained by the conventions of being an otome heroine.)

anyway. in essence. neji turns Other Persons into stories,

and kisa turns Other Persons into performances,

while they both simultaneously run away from, avoid, or sacrifice Becoming Persons themselves, for the sake of theater

or maybe it's the other way around. something something discovery if not recognition of the self through the other... except they're both unreliable narrators so who's to say if the recognition actually takes hold, really. kisa at least is a little bit self aware. neji, on the other hand, deals with realizations of the self through writing, without actually processing them (e.g. ms robin, domina, etc).

I keep thinking about (novel) kisa closing her eyes and feeling like her sense of self would melt away until tsuki centers her and gives her theater as a way to heal from the grief of losing her mother. it happens again during tsuki's univeil performance: kisa curling in on herself and tsuki pulling her back to theater as way to help kisa move forward with her dreams. pretending to be others is more fun than being herself.

and then there is neji (insert spiderman pointing at spiderman meme). but in his case, he would rather play eccentric roles, caricatures, comic relief, than be a Person With Depth on stage. neji is always either a seer of some kind (a fortune teller, a ghost who sees 10 seconds into the future) or a bit character (employee A), or... whatever he initially planned for domina. he is the mechanic behind the stage, but never the lead actor. his vulnerabilities do not need to "stolen" for the story, though others' are fair game.

kisa does not think about gender as it applies to herself in her daily life (mostly) and only sees it through the lens of acting and theater. how does she act mukai vs maiden, charles vs chicchi? the same way that neji does not think about the motifs and characters he writes as a window to himself, but rather as objects to be put on stage. rukiora is based on a younger neji, mary jane is I Am Death: Revisited (mary jane is to takihime as gashadokuro is to jacob), sissia is always meant to be the foil to I Am Death. but neji doeen't really understand that just like how he didn't understand oh rama havenna. sissia (kisa route, jack jeanne ver) is to kisa as domina is to neji.

literally kisa at her most extreme is just theater thoughts 24/7

kisa "I don't like being me; I'd rather be other people" tachibana 🤝 kokuto "I need to experiment and witness visions I can't create or I'll die" neji: this is a totally sane and Normal way to cope with abandonment and grief 👍

(it is not implied in the game, but since kisa turned to theater to cope with grief as a child, I wonder if the reason she never looks too deeply into tsuki's disappearance is because she's once again using theater as an excuse to conveniently Not Think About It. out of sight, out of mind. tsuki must be doing well, wherever he is, whatever it is he's doing.)

there is also the meta perspective of how kisa in-game inhabits a role where the player can (and is expected to) self-insert. otome dictates that protagonist kisa must be malleable to the player (who can choose to focus on a variety of relationships in her stead), and the plot dictates that actor kisa must be malleable to her stage roles (jack or jeanne, maiden or hero, flower or vessel), and novel kisa dictates that kisa must malleable to pretending to be other people because it's more preferable to being herself.

every thought she has about herself must be tied to acting, somehow. kisa's personhood is defined through stagecraft. she is the maiden, and mukai, and charles, and chicchi, and sissia. she can romance anyone in the school, of the player's choosing. she can be jack, and jeanne, and jack jeanne. don't get me wrong; kisa is her own character and has a strongly defined personality, but the story also demands for her to be malleable. a painting and a blank canvass at the same time.

neji externalizes where kisa internalizes. where kisa Must Perform™ to function and to avoid herself, neji Must Create™ to function and to avoid himself. scriptwriter neji dictates that neji must use everything at his disposal — his memories, his classmates, his obscure knowledge — as inspiration for stories. director neji dictates that he must use everything he knows about his actors — their complexes, their relationships, their weaknesses and strengths — as inspiration for stories. from the cook (mitsuki) needing apricots for a recipe and wanting to harvest honey from a beehive, to mary jane (fumi) being good at sewing and wanting an equal in jacob. suzu and sou fighting and developing a rivalry leads to jire and fugio fighting over chicchi. kai limits himself as a vessel in hasekura, and kai learns to embrace his desires as the priest. from the water/ocean/drowning themes, to rukiora being based on neji's younger self, and her family life and relationship with domina.

every thought neji has must be tied to stories, somehow. neji's personhood is scattered through stagecraft. the more you read his plays and lyrics, the more you get a glimpse of who he is. it is to the point that neji himself doesn't... really see how his stories reflect himself. ms robin being a "random" song the jazz lounge singer sings thay hasekura and ando can dance to, oh rama havenna being a so-so throwaway play that neji doesn't understand why it's entertaining. lmao. neji, please.

and this is why when problems arise, neji becomes a demanding director and kisa becomes a chameleon actor with a shaky sense of self (we don't really see this a lot because jack jeanne is not that dark of a story and kisa is still an otome heroine of an uplifting game, but it's a reasonable conclusion if you push hard on the kisa from neji's "good morning" exercise, or kisa going ham on method acting as charles. kinda wish the game explored more of that. I think a very stressed kisa can get lost in method acting, just as a very stressed neji is almost paralyzed by the fear of the death of talent).

idk where I was going with this. just. them. they have the same issues, just in different fonts. and I think that's actually what first attracts neji to kisa. kisa "steals" (to borrow neji's own words) just like him. kisa is a fountain of inspiration, an ever changing muse. and neji provides kisa with an endless amount of prompts and characters for her to inhabit. kisa does like to play pretend a lot. that's why she's in theater!

kisa and neji: Art Imitates Life people stuck in a Life Imitates Art video game

ANYWAY usual disclaimer that I'm jotting down livebloghing thoughts and I know some spoilers to neji's route but I'm only just about to actualy start his playthrough so. yeah. this was drafted all the way back in may lol, opinions may change and all that

[icewindandboringhorror]

There's always a slight yearning in the back of my mind wishing I had been born in the right place, time, family situation, income level, etc. to have just lived in one single house for my entire life. Imagine being born in a place that still suits you, even through all of your personal evolutions and etc. The idea of deep familiarity with an area because you've lived and explored it for 40+ years, being encased in a web of memories and connections. Being able to clean out your old childhood bedroom and find personal artifacts, to dig in the yard and remember. I know those lives can still be plenty imperfect, but there's just something so seemingly solid and stable and Grounding about it that I sometimes wish I could have.. (At least from my outside perspective as someone who's moved around a bit geographically and even within the same area, never lives in the same house/ apartment /etc. for more than a few years usually.) Like... having a place that is printed upon, fully your own, rather than chronically a visitor, every thought of a space always tempered with the notion that one day soon you'll have to pack it all up again, etc. There's something peaceful about the permanence.

[raayllum]

me, remembering my old "amaya and viren have a lot of similarities, specifically in being both fiercely independent and willing to prioritize the world over their family" parallels post (circa august 2021), a latter facet that 5x08 goes out of its way to show callum being Not That

[c00kie-d0e]

Changed their backstory and name now they are called Jewel mWHAHAHAHAGA

[todayisafridaynight]

thinking about vampiric arakawas again just so i can make a 'blood-sucking politician' joke

[ilovettrpgs]

rip Magnus Carter you would have loved causing problems for the general public and also not having mad cow syndrome

[toytulini]

Thank you for your tags on the baeddalism post. As someone who is aroace (formerly biace) and a nb transmasc I've literally watched every identity I have be dragged into discourse time and time again and it's always the exact same rhetoric to a nauseating degree. People are so terminally online that they constantly invent new nonexistent stereotypes of other queer identities to get mad at or just pick a queer identity to be the monster of the week, and it's excruciating to see it repeat the same way everytime.

I wanted to try to respond to this more eloquently after i had some caffeine, but if we wait for eloquence itll go unanswered for years. but lmao yea of course. Im also aroace and enby. I was here since like 2014, I suffered through reading all these same stupid arguments about a-specs and my tolerance for it is so fried. The queer infighting and gatekeeping bullshit is so rotting. I hope we learn one of these days. My disillusion that this keeps fucking happening is at least tempered by the fact that all the blogs who I followed for good takes on inclusionism and queer solidarity during the acecourse are also not tolerating this shit, and they are recognizing it as the same old bullshit its been the whole time.

[astro-b-o-y-d]

Nobody tell this website that egg jokes aren't annoying because the concept of someone potentially being a trans woman instead of a feminine man is somehow bad (it's not in the slightest and if that does turn out to be the case, said woman should be treated with nothing but respect in terms of her gender identity). They're annoying because you do not know that person and misgendering anyone is rude and even if you're right, that's not anyone's business but theirs and you're still misgendering them now.

[timey-fandom-stuff]

... I really gotta stop coming up with wildly ambitious AU ideas.

[eredins-a-king-aint-he]

For the record: I don’t support nor condone using AI for any art/fandom related purposes. Fandom and fandom art, fic, headcanons, etc are great BECAUSE they are made by real people with unique minds!!!

I think that using AI to create art, fic, character interaction, etc not only discourages the real human creators making art/fic for the fandom by taking attention and support away from them, but it provides a better platform for AI to flourish and eventually become more prevalent, continuing to spread and take attention (and work!!) away from real people. For example, as far as I know, painting AI learns from basically stolen artwork and can be trained to emulate the styles of human artists who have spent YEARS to cultivate their skills and style, then take money and attention away from those people. Plus, there was that whole issue where someone was drawing on twitch and someone stole their wip, put it into one of those AI programs to “finish” it before the actual artist, then demanded credit.

I consider myself to be fairly lucky that my work is not in the mainstream eye and that my style changes constantly, otherwise I’d be genuinely worried that someone might try to use AI to undermine the work I’ve done as an artist that has gotten me to where I am.

Maybe I’m just old and jaded but I’ve watched technology grow and spread over my lifetime, and instead of helping people have better lives, it seems to have a habit of taking peoples’ place in work/life and leaving them to either find other work or just fucking cope. AI is not our friend. It’s not a cute, fun way to make fanart or fic— it’s a robot, not a real artist, or a character created by a unique creative mind.

This post pretty much sums it up🤷🏽

[sxnctxxry]

the storytelling in this album i will die

[footnoteinhistory]

I’ve run the gamut of stressful situations this week but I’ve gotten through the worst of it so I’m sleepy and relieved and I have so much to look forward to over the next few weeks (holidays, running, trips) and I feel so good and I love my friends and I want to wrap my life up in a big hug I love you

[citrine-elephant]

is it cringe that half life made me want to attempt to study physics?