#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!?!?!?!?!?!?

[moeblob]

Simon, my beloved, in a Sea World hoodie because the colors really fit him.

[recent-rose]

intrigued by the idea that jayce dooms viktor to become the herald because he loves viktor too much to let him die. but mage!viktor could also choose not to save jayce from the storm in order to save himself from that fate, and yet he too loves too much to let go of jayce. endless cycle only broken by their choice to go together.

[souenkun]

"I wish you could see it, too" got a whole new meaning when it's revealed that takashi has all these precious people he could actually enjoy pretty, interesting sceneries with (even if he didn't get to see them together for some instances), while reiko likely had no one to do that after what had happened with souko 💔

[carnithing]

when r they gonna come out with technology that can reform your bones and muscles and turn ur skin transparent so the flesh underneath is visible

[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

[psychopomp-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 that 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 liveblogging thoughts and I know some spoilers to neji's route but I'm only just about to actually start his playthrough so. yeah. this was drafted all the way back in may lol, opinions may change and all 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

[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.

[hanavbara]

support HUMAN artists, not AI‼️

AI generated images are NOT art. art is CREATED, not GENERATED.

this is not just about taking jobs from artists (which is already a huge deal), it’s also about devaluing art itself, turning it into mass-produced, empty and soulless content. it’s heartbreaking to see AI stealing from real artists: from Studio Ghibli to smaller creators like us.

personally, we started our art journey by reinterpreting what we love: music, TV series, anime and transforming it into our vision inspired by the 90’s anime that we grew up with. when we create our illustrations, we try to capture the emotion and love we feel for the subject, aiming to tell a story with each drawing. ever since AI was created, we have had many people asking if our art is AI generated. honestly, it’s heartbreaking every single time. for us, art is a deeply human experience that we’ve been dedicating ourselves to for seven years. creating from nothing takes dedication, skill, and an emotional investment that, in our opinion, AI simply can’t capture.

you’ve probably seen your feed flooded with AI generated images in a “Studio Ghibli style”. trends like these reinforce the idea that art can be easily replicated and devalued. the future of artists is more uncertain than ever. we don’t know if in a few years we’ll still be able to make a living from this, since many companies are adopting the mindset of “why should i pay someone for their well-earned work when a machine can do it for free in an instant?” that mindset is the real problem: the way society is starting to perceive art.

art is essential to human life. many people realized this during the pandemic: what would we do without music, movies, books, that bring us comfort? art is more than just the final product. it’s about the process, struggles, and personal growth that comes with it. when you create, you grow, learn, and challenge yourself. AI erases that, replacing it with instant and shallow replication. real art brings people together, evoking emotions and reminding us of what it means to be human.

relying on AI to make art isn’t innovation, it’s avoiding the challenge of creating something meaningful. AI tools like these are being pushed as "the future," but what does that say about us? replacing human artistry with shallow, mass-produced content takes away humanity from art, do we really want to be part of a world where art is just another disposable product? what value do we place on creativity?

if you’ve made it this far, it means you care about these issues. let’s raise our voices together and speak up. don’t consume AI generated images. value and respect creativity. SUPPORT REAL HUMAN ARTISTS.

[meticulousmaker]

another random thing that stands out to me rewatching Steven Universe as an adult:

throughout the show there's this clear Vibe that Steven has inherited some big magical destiny, right? and it makes sense narratively: he's the son of Rose Quartz, leader of the rebellion, now being raised by her friends who were the last remaining survivors of an interstellar war. he's like a human child in most ways, except he has magical powers that start to become more obvious as he's getting older. no one like him has ever existed before. it's a big deal. raising him and figuring out how he's going to grow is its own unique challenge, because nobody knows what to expect. so of course there's this magical destiny vibe, given all that.

What's interesting to me, though, is that this magical destiny is in no way literally, physically present in the story, it's just something everyone kinda feels. Like, there's not some ancient prophecy about a half-gem, half-human savior. He's not the Chosen One in any literal sense, he just happens to give off Chosen One vibes. And I say that's interesting because it means that the fact he was kinda raised with this Chosen One vibe is completely a decision everyone around him made, for better or for worse. And the show is aware of this, because the weight of Rose's legacy and everyone's expectations of him is a constant theme, and as Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl all grow and develop, they also realize the downsides of them putting those expectations on a child. Like, Steven spends his whole childhood being told about how great Rose was, and how because he's inherited her gem he will probably inherit her powers - and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Imagine how awful things could have been if Steven had no exposure to the Gems and no knowledge of what they were or how they worked, and then his powers started coming in? It was hard enough even when he was surrounded by the most qualified Gem Experts on Earth. But being primed for all of this "you're going to have your mother's magical powers" stuff put a heavy weight on his shoulders, and then the fact that nobody else quite knew how his abilities worked meant he was constantly faced with the adults in his life looking to him with concern because they didn't know what was happening with him. That's gotta leave an impression on a kid - and, well, throughout the show and especially in SU Future we definitely see that it does.

I like the way the show handles the pressure that's put on him, and the fact that everyone is just... trying their best in a completely unprecedented situation. Nobody knows what to do or how to raise this kid, and that inevitably causes problems but everyone is trying. And Steven can feel that everyone is trying without knowing what to do and he just wants to help and not be a burden and none of his caretakers have said that he's a burden but he can feel everyone's confusion and concern and the expectations he's not living up to and he cares so much, about everyone, about everything. He's in an extremely unique position that grants him opportunities to help that nobody else has, and he feels like he's failing everyone if he can't fulfill that, and in the end it never should have been his job to fix things but somebody had to try. Somebody had to try, and he was one of the only people with the ability to stop the Diamonds, stop the war, stop the lies, stop his world and everyone on it from being destroyed... and he was just a kid.

[theanonymousninja247]

THIS

Papa Leo is my most favourite thing in the world