#anyway I think what makes sense is the exact opposite instead

[egg-emperor]

a lot of people in fandom are so susceptible to nuclear family propaganda and let it shape their views and goals of a successful life and see it as what makes all people and characters "complete". but I am so aro and have such low empathy and am so uninterested in having kids that there's nothing you can do to make all that shit appealing to me, no matter how much it's romanticized and has so emotional please cry moments to sway you lol

not saying this is in the Sonic games, it's obviously not. but some people genuinely really want Eggman to become part of a nuclear family so bad to the point of asking officials if it's gonna happen and they do crossovers of it with media that is propaganda for it. not even surprising that they're mad that I don't like that at all because they're easily won by that while I'm very immune :P

[krisp-xyz]

Was experimenting with halftone effects after watching this video and it almost has spiderverse vibes honestly. I actually learned some neat things about why printers use CMYK instead of just CMY so I thought I'd share !!

So in our optimal little computer space, Cyan (0,255,255), Magenta (255,0,255) and Yellow (255,255,0) all multiplied together gives us a perfect black (0,0,0) Awesome! The issue is that ink colors irl arent exactly perfect like this, and color is a bit more complicated irl compared to how computers represent it, so they aren't the greatest at combining into black if they aren't those perfect CMY values:

Left: CMY

Right: CMYK

(thats not even black, its a dark blue in the original image but dark colors just look so much richer)

An important step to make sure you arent doubling up on the black values though is to divide the image by it's own "value" (the max of all 3 color channels) that way the value is equal to 1 everywhere, and you're letting the black ink take care of the value on its own.

Left: CMY (normalized value)

Middle: K (black)

Right: Combined

Now obviously the grids of dots cant be aligned perfectly with each other because you'd just get a bunch of black dots in unwanted areas, but if the grids are misaligned, then some dots become more prominent than others which tints the whole image. This was an issue because older printing methods didn't have great accuracy and these grids were often misaligned.

The solution was to rotate these grids such that they can move around freely while getting rid of that tint effect if they aren't perfectly aligned :D

(I have no idea how they came up with these angles but that might be something to look into in the future who knows)

SPEAKING OF MISALIGNMENT

I wanted to implement that in my own filter to get some cool effects, and I discovered another reason CMYK is better than CMY for lots of stuff !!

With CMY, you're relying on the combination of 3 color channels to make the color black. This means if you have thin lines or just details in general, misalignment can make those details very fuzzy. Since CMYK uses a single color of ink to handle value, it reduces color fringing and improves clarity a lot even if you have the exact same misalignment as CMY!

Left: CMY

Right: You guessed it! CMYK

(yes these comparisons have the exact same color misalignment, the only difference is using a fourth ink color for black)

ANYWAY I just thought there was a lot of cool information in this tiny little day project, I also just think it looks really neat and wanted to share what I learned :3c

EDITING BECAUSE THERE'S ONE MORE THING I WANTED TO ADD

So, I talked about how to get K in addition to CMY instead of just CMY, but how exactly do you separate CMY from an image in the first place?

Well, CMY is a subtractive color space, meaning the "absence of color" is white, compared to RGB where it's black. This makes sense because ofc ink is printed on white paper. You can use dot product to get the "similarity" between two vectors, and this can be used to separate RGB actually! Using the dot product of a color and red (255,0,0) will give you just the red values of the image. This is cool though because if we get the dot product of our image and the color cyan (0,255,255), we can get the cyan values from our image too! If we first divide our colors by their value to separate the value from them, then separate CMY using those dot product values, and using K for our final black color value, our individual color passes end up looking like this:

While it's called a "subtractive" color space, I find it more intuitive to treat white as the absence of color here, and then multiply all these passes together. It makes it much easier to understand how the colors are combined imo. Notice how cyan is the opposite of red: (255,0,0) vs (0,255,255) and magenta and yellow are the opposites of green and blue respectively! This means you can actually kinda get away with separating the RGB values and just inverting some stuff to optimize this, but this example is much more intuitive and readable so I won't go too deep into that. THANKS FOR READING I know it's a very long post but I hope people find it interesting! I try my best to explain things in a clear and concise way :3

oh thank you I realized I should probably add an eyestrain tag

[orphiclovers]

Secretive Plotter voice appreciation post.

He makes it a habit to speak in his 'true voice' 99% of the time, so we get a lot of descriptions of it  - it's very distinctive.

Kim Dokja calls it 'sharp and clear' the first time he hears it.

Sun Wukong is less complementary and says it's 'insidious-sounding' - both descriptions give the impression it's a grating and harsh sound to the ears.

It makes sense - he's an Outer God, after all. Usually the effect hearing their voice has is bleeding from your ears and terror - unless you're sufficently powerful to withstand the effects.

And despite that Secretive Plotter very delibaretly choses to speak in his 'true voice' anyway, a little bit as an intimidation tactic but mostly as part of his artificial persona of 'frightening Outer God called Secretive Plotter.' And so no one forgets what he is for even a second, not even himself.

But then of course the fearsome illusion shatters when he drops the voice whenever children are around. There are only two times we ever hear his real voice - not so coincidentally, the only times when he's not pretending to be the 'Secretive Plotter' but is instead just 'himself'.

The first time, for a brief moment when he talks to Yoo Mia. The switch is never called out, even though Yoo Joonghyuk's narration notices it. And Secretive Plotter doesn't point it out either, because he does it automatically and without thinking - because it would never occur to him to hurt or frighten a child on purpose, no matter how villanous he is acting.

Most significantly he tells the honest truth here, to both Yoo Mia and Yoo Joonghyuk. But it doesn't last and then the next sentence after he puts Yoo Mia to sleep he's back to 'true voice'.

The second time we hear his real voice is here.

Again, he's speaking to a little kid here and at the same time dropping the 'Secretive Plotter' persona - for the final time. During the rest of this scene he never goes back to speaking in the 'true voice', even though the rest of the 999th turns outer gods do - Oldest Dream can obviously handle it, but it means something different to Secretive Plotter to speak in his real voice, he only does it when he's being entirely honest and candid - when he's not keeping up appearences. And he was definitely brutally honest during this whole conversation.

(It's also interesting that despite it being called a 'true voice' it's often very much the opposite. It's a lie for Secretive Plotter, a mask he wears, as I pointed out in this post - but also for Kim Dokja too, in the same exact way. Kim Dokja only uses it to intimidate his enemies (for example, when he was defending Yoo Joonghyuk from Asmodeus) or paint himself as someoen frightening, irredeamable, inhuman (when he was trying to convince Anna Croft he was evil and no better than any other constellation). In this, Secretive Plotter and Kim Dokja are exactly the same - except the Plotter has done it longer and gotten used to keeping up the facade at all times, whereas Kim Dokja speaks in his real voice most of the time.)

[coldwind-shiningstars]

my recent surgery will hopefully help my bladder/bowel stuff so lately I have been thinking about continence a lot, and the ways it is so important to me that we talk about it frankly and openly and the reasons why it is so difficult for people (including me) to do so. and I think there are a few different sides to the shame that comes with talking about it that are differently important?

there's the TMI aspect ("nobody needs to hear that!") where even if you're presenting information in a very educational, straightforward way people think of it as much too personal. and I think if your personal sense of privacy works such that you don't feel comfortable talking about these things you should listen to that and not talk about it, but if someone is offering information, even if you personally decide you don't want to hear it don't make disparaging comments about their choice to share it? I also think sometimes people overcorrect -- over the years I've had many conversations about continence when talking about disability and also disabled fictional characters and a number of years ago a friend told me that they were interested in exploring it but were afraid it was voyeuristic, and while I think it can be and there's a lot to criticize about the culture of "tell your entire medical details to the internet" it's not inherently more voyeuristic than other aspects of disability.

there's a disgust reaction which I also think is valid and reasonable to have, a lot of people have cleanliness related triggers etc, but again that's not the fault of the person actually talking about continence? everyone uses the bathroom. you can be polite and make your own choices about what you want to see and learn about but people should not stop talking about these things just in fear that someone else will find it disgusting

and, on the other end, there's the kink aspect which is the exact opposite problem. I want to be clear that I think kinks are morally neutral, if you have a piss/scat kink that's fine, you do you. but I also find myself worrying, when I talk about it, that people will think I'm speaking from a place of Being Horny For It instead of a place of "this is an important aspect of disability for many people." this aspect is worse when I'm speaking fictionally/fandomwise, and of course that's much less important than when I'm talking about Real Life Stuff, but I don't like feeling like I need to preface things with "I Have Incontinence Myself" because I don't think you need an experience yourself to write it compassionately or well and I don't like Telling My Business To Everyone On The Internet. there's a dialectics! moment where I genuinely believe there's nothing wrong with kinks but it's exhausting that that's the primary people talking about something like this, and also again I want what I say to be engaged with seriously.

anyway it's really tiring to me how even in a lot of disability spaces it feels like incontinence is still either shameful, a kink, or a joke. I'm tired of diaper jokes about people you don't like, I'm tired of one-off gags, I'm tired of "ewww" or "TMI!" as reactions. many MANY people have incontinence issues, and the shame around them really does prevent a lot of people from getting help for them! I want it to be something we can talk about

[artsycloudysleepy]

aaaaaa tysm!!!! this helps so much, you have no idea! have a great rest of your day and thanks again :D

(warning that the tags are long and lengthy!)

hiya nye!! hope you're doing good :3

looking for some OC advice if that's okay: i have an OC who has MDD, but afaik i don't have it myself and i really want to avoid harmful stereotyping or unrealistic portrayals!

was wondering if you have any tips on writing it, if there's anything specific i should know (if there's treatment, side-effects, etc.) or just anything to avoid in terms of stereotypes?

obviously don't answer this if you don't want to, it's probably very personal, and take your time if you do! i want to avoid screwing up, and while i am also going to check out articles and do my research, i also want to make sure i'm not accidentally being a prick or looking at misinformation and ask you if you have any advice :)

thank you so much! have a nice day nye, stay hydrated :D

Heeyyyy Artsy :3

I'd be happy to help in whatever way I can, but heads up I'm not professionally diagnosed or anything and am definitely not an expert on the topic, so this will just be from my personal experience

So of course maladaptive daydreaming is different for everyone, I think the most common interpretation of it is someone who might use their persona to self insert themselves into media they might like, or a personally written story. Sometimes they might be pre-written and played out (I personally believe this is what "shifters" do). A second common one might be writing a story by thinking about it as a show, where you yourself may not be involved. Many people wrote brilliant stories using this method.

My personal experience is that I can count multiple times where my maladaptive daydreaming was more prominent throughout my life, but I can't really pick it out if childhood experiences as it was kind of like the hit thing to be good at imagining when you were 5.

My standout experience with MDD is ongoing. It started five years ago and it involves myself and other people consistently. There is no change in plot or reboots, I consider these people consistent as any other person I might know. Plainly, I consider the maladaptive daydreaming characters that I have created (ocs) AND have not created to exist as people in some way, so I treat them as such.

Part of my MDD is that these people I know through my head interact with people from the real world, having casual conversations and such.

My level of focus on my MDD varies on my mental health and environment, it usually ranges from maybe 1 interaction a day to things I have planned for the day being cancelled because I'm busy daydreaming. My daydreaming friends will often grow distressed if I don't speak to them for long periods of time. Some of them (my ocs) fear that they'd cease to exist, while others may fear their friends could disappear, including me.

Something well known for MDD is repetitive motions, personally I find my stims outside of MDD are larger and more noticable, while I'm daydreaming sometimes my repetitive motions will be spinning a pen or something as miniscule as timed blinking or eye movement. It's like keeping pace to me, like they tell you to associate a smell with sleeping if you have a hard time sleeping. The motions help keep me focused on my daydreams.

I don't like closing my eyes when I daydream, but I do like dark rooms. I also prefer background noise. It's also well known people like to listen to music while they daydream, and I do, but the noise doesn't have to be music. It just has to be constant and have some kind of pattern that I can tune out to. The noise helps distract me from what I see visually!

I haven't researched treatment because recently I've been quite good at regulating my daydreams, and in the past it's been a fear of mine. I think the only treatment there would be for MDD is finding other coping mechanisms.

As for side effects, I'm not sure what would qualify. I can get angry at daydreams the same way I would anything else, same goes for every emotion. Sometimes it just makes my mood seem out of place, I think. I also think it's obvious when I'm daydreaming, because people usually poke me or wave a hand in front of my face (THIS IS SO ANNOYING DON'T DO THIS I'M DAYDREAMING FOR A REASON). MDD sometimes restricts my real life experiences, socializing, sometimes makes me forget meals, it also makes my memory of everything worse, instead replaced by memories of daydreams. MDD is something that I deal with, while I know it's a negative thing it's something that I don't have any desire to detach myself from. That's a scary idea to me, so I suppose that's a side effect in itself.

As far as writing a character with MDD goes, you'd have to know what they were daydreaming about first. A lot of the rest of the traits, such as what noise or actions they use, would be down to their other characteristics. If I was going to avoid something, it would be to not make everything they daydream about separate to reality. Almost everyone I've known with MDD has integrated their realities in some way, whether it be having their persona personality shine through, their daydreams interact with people around them, writing about it, drawing or infodumping. Of course this might not be everyone, but I think it also depends how private of a person they are. People who have MDD tend to know they're creating something complex.

Thanks for asking me Artsy, again, this is just from personal experiences. Hope this helped! :3

[stupditysholy]

I have to get this off my chest because the amount of Curly love on tik tok actually stresses me out and I’ll tell you why:

So to my understanding having experienced the game multiple times, Curly absolutely fails to advocate for/help Anya. She hides the gun to keep it away from Jim because Curly will not allow her to protect herself. He straight up calls her crazy to her face, too: “You never had to get psych evals like the rest of us. I should’ve known” or something along those lines. When Curly confronts Jim before Jim crashes the ship, he doesn’t say ANYTHING in defense of Anya, instead consoling Jim that they would figure it out, and he’d been in rough spots before.

For all intents and purposes, Curly does not see that Jim has done something inexcusable, and rather he has made a series of mistakes. He does not for one single moment consider how Anya’s life has been permanently altered, how her autonomy has been entirely stolen from her.

Until he experiences it himself.

Curly being reduced to a mostly immobile spring sausage is his way of experiencing the pain he allowed to be inflicted upon Anya, full stop. Even more ironic? Anya can’t bare to give him his pain killers, so he is left completely at Jim’s mercy, a fun-house mirror of how Curly could not bare to hold his friend accountable, and therefore left Anya at Jim’s mercy pre-crash.

Curly only becomes Jim’s victim because he allows Anya’s victimization to go on unchecked. He thought he was exempt from Jim’s abuse, and that is his biggest mistake.

Also, I have to say the idea that Curly get’s rescued and lives happily ever after does the narrative no justice. In fact, it completely undermines Jim’s entire character arc. Curly living happily ever after would, in some sense, redeem a little of Jim’s character—redemption he did not remotely earn because he did NOT take responsibility. At all.

Jim putting Curly in the pod at the end is no act of mercy. It’s actually the worst and most selfish thing he could have done. It’s the exact freaking opposite of taking responsibility. When he has his big talk with Polle before the very end, he is spouting complete and utter bullshit. Why?

The crash and Curly are NOT the things he is supposed to be taking responsibility for. The thing he is supposed to be taking responsibility for is ANYA’S TORMENT. That is the thing which started all of this, which lead to the crash, which fried Curly. That is the inciting incident.

That’s the freaking irony!

Anya get’s completely and utterly forgotten in this moment. In my opinion, this is why Polle says:

If all of that is true… why are you still so concerned with him?

Because right before that, Jim is about to say “Our worst moments don’t make us monsters.”

And Polle knows, then, in that moment, that when Jim thinks of his worst moments, he thinks of the accident, what happened to Curly, rather than the immeasurable pain he inflicted on Anya PURPOSEFULLY. Jim completely fucking ignores his worst moment, and that DOES make him a monster.

So when Jim puts Curly in that pod, not only is he righting the WRONG wrong, but he is actively choosing to believe this is what it means to take responsibility. He is making his amends to a man he accidentally hurt rather than the person who suffered the most at his hand.

It’s also pretty evil of Jim to put him in there because he knows: a good captain goes down with his ship. He makes Curly out to be a selfish and pitiful. He may even be setting him up for failure depending on how the authorities reason out what happened.

I just think at the end of the day Jim is the villian of the story, and Curly is a freaking bystander. Obviously post-crash this is inevitable, but that’s almost funny—not gonna do anything to stop him, Curly? Guess what, now you don’t even have a freaking choice.

Anyway please stop glazing the spaghetti man you can love his complexity but he is not a good guy or uwu cutie pie. He sucks. Straight up.

Feel free to start discourse in the comments I’m okay with being wrong about him I guess I just don’t think I am.

[littlekiara96]

Hey, Penacony spoilers ahead for up to the end of 2.3. THEORY AHEAD. (kinda crack, kinda not, I'm talking about Gallagher)

Y'know, it's funny how Gallagher, a History Fictionologist, told like 1 lie.

And then, Mr. Reca, a Memokeeper, told some guy "Love the unknown" once.

Like, guys, switch places, please. That would make more sense.

I remember when I found inconsistencies with how people treated Gallagher; one of two Bloodhounds "recognising" him, another Bloodhound going "Who?" and then the receptionist at the Family's mansion acting as if he's some important person who's rarely sought out by people?

I swear, this still makes no sense... unless......

And Reca is sometimes a well-known director. Sometimes a self-proclaimed one.

Chabro and Aideen? Love the guy. Nobodies? Who does this dude think he is.

But hey. You know what makes me go "What the HELL is going on here"?

I have two questions.

Why "Mr. Reca"? And not Mr. Reca?

How the hell does this guy know about Gallagher AND HIS DEATH.

Okay, so I guess this Reca is indeed a Memokeeper who uses camera and film to record (rec - Reca) stuff and retell stories. He should be the same Memokeeper Black Swan mentions at the Studios.

And I suspect this censored movie to be his work.

Hey, remember who did so much to make sure that some people's names and true stories would be restored?

Yeah, funny coincidences.

And then, nobody remembers Gallagher, ironically. Except us, Nameless.

And except Reca, SOMEHOW. (Aideen. Gallagher is the guy thanked BEFORE YOUR OWN BRAND, DID YOU EVEN WATCH THE MOVIE.)

But ultimately, Aideen is right. Gallagher wasn't made to be remembered.

Sorry, I mean, "Gallagher the History Fictionologist" isn't meant to be remembered.

We know "Gallagher" is fake. And I'm not just talking about his appearance; ALL OF HIM is fictional. He is a character, a role. And like any role... there has to be an actor playing the part. The person who came up with "Gallagher". The person who is still there once the character isn't needed anymore.

The person we didn't see when "Gallagher" disappeared off-screen.

And I guess that person would also be the real Gallagher... The one who was so loyal to Mikhail.

Or... was he all that loyal to Mikhail?

There's something so fickle about calling an unshakable loyalty "imaginary". I know it's meant positively here, but it's so easy to turn this upside-down...

I mean, the purpose of "Gallagher" was to fulfill one promise to Mikhail. And once that has been done... the real Gallagher could do whatever, afterwards. He's free of his role as "Gallagher" the History Fictionologist... who did the exact opposite of what a Fictionologist would do...... by restoring the truth of the past.........

Gallagher is the worst at his job, isn't he. Almost like he should be a Memokeeper, instead.

Anyway. I have a technical question.

Where did Reca get the memory segments to recreate Firefly for the Scorchsand Venue movie?

I see two possibilities:

Got them from someone else (Aideen, other witnesses, maybe from the surroundings themselves?)

Himself

In the first case, it makes sense, I have no further question.

In the second case, though... When did Reca meet Firefly? Did he need to actually meet her or would just seeing her from afar suffice? Depending on the answers to those questions, things might get complicated.

Okay, it's time I stopped beating around the bush. I've been drawing mirrored parallels between "Gallagher" and "Mr. Reca" from the very start of this post. You're probably guessing what my point is by now.

But first... Remember Sleepie? a.k.a. Dormancy?

Poor thing came to Scorchsand searching for Gallagher...

But there was no trace of him there anymore since... before Sleepie arrived... Right?

And there's no way Gallagher would still be around... Right?

... why would you say that if you know your whole being will disappear once you're done with your final task...

i mean, it's not like there was yet another Hound statue in Dreamflux Reef, next to the three epitaphs of the Nameless, right?! Grmbl...

Remember when Himeko said "In the end, we still failed to figure out his true identity, or if he was even a "living person"? Because I SURE REMEMBER.

Anyway, we don't know where Reca was when Sleepie arrived at Scorchsand, but-

I think it's safe to say that they interracted to some extent.

BUT that's in fact still not what made me go "WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL IS GOING ON HERE???!!"

Remember how the movie started?

With the phrase: "Even now, the world is still filled with characters that we've played."

The hell do you mean by that, Reca.

And it ended with the phrase: "We will keep playing our roles, drunken and foolish in the moment, playing at life but never thinking to celebrate it." Then the credits roll.

Heyyyy, I know someone else who talks about celebrating life. And used bits of other people's lives to create a whole new "character". Kinda like how you can pick pieces of different stories to make a whole new story. Or movie, for that matter.

And hey... Reca told us "My lens is upon you… Don't let me down. And more importantly, don't let the audience down."

You know who told us we had interesting life stories? YEAH.

Hey. Let's go back to Brina. The receptionist.

You know how we could easily explain this?

If the real Gallagher's full name was Gallagher Reca.

Or maybe "Mr. Reca" is just yet another pseudonym. I mean, why would he credit himself as "Mr. Reca" and not Reca. That's fishy.

ANYWAY, this theory has been on my mind for maybe 4 months now, so I'm glad I've finally manage to write all of my thoughts down.

[max1461]

The meaning of an utterance is dependent on context and shared knowledge. This is true in a weak sense and in a strong sense. The weak sense has traditionally more interested philosophers, while the strong sense has more interested linguists.

The weak sense is this:

You and I both learned the words we know through exposure to them in context. Because our life experiences have been slightly different, the meanings we have picked up for these words will differ slightly. So, for instance, when I hear the word "tree", I picture in my mind a certain thing, and when you hear the word "tree", you picture a slightly different thing. And so when someone says "there's a tree outside", the image you get in your mind will be slightly different than the one I get in mine. This doesn't so much matter with "tree", but with subtler ideas like "responsibility" or "inherent" or "help" or so on, this can be a significant impediment to communication.

The strong sense is this:

Contained within the grammar of every human language are explicit references to context, which directly affect the semantics of sentences. The most obvious examples are deictics: words whose referent is contextually determined. English deictics include words like this, that, here, there, etc. The place to which "here" refers is not an absolute, it varies on a sentence-to-sentence basis in response to context. If I am in Munich and I say "this here is a lovely city", I am making a different claim than if I said the exact same words while standing in Paris. This is not a subtlety in the process of interpretation generally, it is an explicit element of English grammar. Every known language has deictics, and languages have subtler grammatical references to context, too.

Another place where this manifests is in the referent tracking of pronouns. Imagine the following exchange:

Alice: "I met my new neighbor yesterday. Interesting guy. And he a dog named Bertrand, which is kinda funny." Bob: "Yeah that is kinda funny. So what's he do, what's his job?"

In this exchange, "he" in the second sentence refers to the neighbor. Of course you can intentionally interpret it as referring to the dog instead, and this is a common way to make a joke:

Alice: "I met my new neighbor yesterday. Interesting guy. And he a dog named Bertrand, which is kinda funny." Bob: "Yeah that is kinda funny. So what's he do, what's his job?" Alice: "He's the world's first canine philosopher!"

Ba-dum-tss.

But this interpretation is not the default one. However, you can shift the default interpretation by changing the context a little, for instance like this:

Alice: "I love dogs with jobs—you know, guide dogs, sled dogs, that kinda thing. I think that's so cute. So anyway, I met my new neighbor yesterday. Interesting guy. And he a dog named Bertrand, which is kinda funny." Bob: "Yeah that is kinda funny. So what's he do, what's his job?"

These examples pull on shared context in different ways. The first exchange uses general knowledge about the world to disambiguate pronoun referents: people have jobs and dogs don't. In the third example, immediate conversational context overrides this general context: we're talking about dogs with jobs, so "he" probably refers to the dog here.

There are even subtler cases of interpretation determined by context in these examples that you might have missed. For instance:

Alice: "I met my new neighbor yesterday. Interesting guy. And he a dog named Bertrand, which is kinda funny."

What's funny? That your neighbor has a dog? No, that's not it. It's that the dog's name is Bertrand. Why? Because we know Bertrand isn't a common dog name. Someone from a culture where, say, dogs are usually kept in zoos rather than owned as pets, but where Bertrand is a perfectly common name for one, might interpret this sentence in the opposite way.

Language is absolutely rich with this kind of context dependent semantics. And I mean basic, everyday language, too—not just literature or poetry or places where metaphor and linguistic ambiguity are employed intentionally.

There are basically three points I want to make here:

For the linguists: world knowledge is part of linguistic competence, or is at least a load-bearing pillar on which linguistic competence depends. Much of language can be characterized formally, in a way that a computer can understand. Indeed, large fragments of the referent tracking of pronouns can be formally described. But there are places where these formal systems abdicate responsibility; they defer to the speaker's world-model and say "you figure it out". Modeling these situations is very hard.

For the historian or the reader of history: you're screwed. Ok, that's an exaggeration. But when the basic structure of a sentence can often only be disambiguated using contextual information, much less the subtleties of the meaning of words, parsing ancient texts whose contexts you lack can be a very fraught affair. This opens up the door both for misinterpretation and for bad-faith reinterpretation, where someone comes along and supplies spurious or spuriously-relevant "contextualization" that actually does not bring you closer to the intended meaning. Cf. the Sumerian bar joke that no one understands.

For those who treat language as basically transparent (that is to say, those who think they can be confident in what things mean without devoting any meta-thinking to the question): this will probably not be a consistently successful strategy.

[synthetickitsune]

The8 (Seventeen) | Morning anxiety fluff | 0.9k

You knew you were fucked as soon as you woke up. Something didn't feel right - a sense of wrongness permeating everything. The darkness was thicker than it should be. The light from the outside seemed too red. It triggered something inside you that caused your mind to spiral. You knew you wouldn't fall asleep again. 

And that would be fine. You could handle getting through the day sleep deprived, having years of experience at this point. But lying back down, you couldn't find a comfortable position and even as the sky became bright outside, you kept tossing and turning. Also fine. If your boyfriend wasn't as light of a sleeper as he is.

“Can’t sleep?” Minghao asks, barely awake, voice heavy and thick. It has this comforting heft to it - just as his arm that prods at your waist and sneaks under your body, wrapping around you and pulling you closer. 

“Yeah,” you sigh, “Too many thoughts. Sorry I woke you up.”

He hums, thoughtfully, and falls silent. You feel his breath on your skin, so even and calm you think he’s already asleep. Meanwhile, inside your head it’s the exact opposite. You pick out details from previous days, all the ifs that could go wrong, the tone someone used in a conversation. Outside, the sky shifts closer to different hues of blue with each passing minute when suddenly - darkness. 

The world goes black.

His hand is warm, and some deep brownish orange comes in lines between his fingers as he covers your eyes. You hear him move and feel the bed dip right behind you until your body is tilting and only stops when your back meets his chest.

“What-”

“Just listen to the birds sing,” he murmurs. There are birds outside, loud and noisy, but you can’t say that listening to them is what you wanna be doing. 

"Hao…" you whine. Your dismay for the exercise is clear in your voice.

"You let me blind you," he reprimands gently, "So trust me."

You do trust him. Even if you can’t see, you’d do anything he tells you - except apparently right now, except with something as simple as just being present in the moment. As if he could sense your reluctance, he disarms you by pressing his lips against the back of your neck.

“Shhhh,” he breathes and it sends shivers down your spine, “Do it for me, darling.”

You don’t dare roll your eyes even if he couldn’t see it anyway. Instead you close them and try to do as he says. Now that you’re focused, you can hear a variety of bird voices.

It's almost like a conversation in a different language, a multitude of them, and usually you'd love it, would be excited by it, but right now you're defiantly infuriated by it. You can't even say why.

"Hear the birds sing," Hao whispers again, pulling you closer. That works much better - his voice and touch, "Hear the wind in the trees. Remember the one we saw yesterday?"

You nod, and despite yourself you smile. "Yeah. It was in full bloom. I haven't noticed before."

You feel his smile on your skin. Much better than listening to stupid birds.

"Then listen and imagine. The wind blowing past, carrying the petals all around. Can you hear the birds?"

Yes, you want to tell him, but I'd love to listen to you instead. Yet you don't, because you know he's tired and he needs to sleep as much as you do. So you listen again, and nod.

"What do they look like?" he asks, but you’re distracted by him nuzzling into your shoulder.

“I don’t know,” you say quicker than you can realize you’re snapping at him, and you’re immediately trying to make amends, “Sorry.”

“Just imagine,” fortunately, your boyfriend is a very patient man. 

Ashamed by your earlier outburst, you do imagine the birds behind the sounds. And doing so, you realize you know some of those birds. Like the tiny brown and gray one who just has to be the culprit behind the happy chirping. The majestic black birds who must be the ones cawing. And then-

“The sharp sound - that’s the one that used to sit on our kitchen window,” you say, receiving a hum and another kiss, “The one that stopped coming.”

You keep emotions out of your voice even though you’re admittedly still bitter about being abandoned without any good reason by a bird you thought liked your window. What did you do wrong? You left it alone, you were mindful of it, you even avoided your own kitchen when it sat there to let it rest. Sometimes you even left it seeds to snack on…

Before you realize, tension is melting away from your body as you remember the bird. The paranoid thoughts quieten down faced with wonder. Your mind drifts all over the place. You feel like you’re floating among the blue and the birds. 

You get startled when Hao’s chest vibrates with a chuckle. Still smiling, he kisses your shoulder. 

“Better?” he asks, softly, already falling asleep now that his mission’s accomplished. You snuggle further under the covers.

“Thank you,” you say, even though you really mean i love you. You have a feeling he knows anyway.

[pouletaulait]

"Do you even intend to quit – not really" 🧐

After reading Chapter 58 I thought about this exchange between Yashiro and Kage for a bit:

At first sight this might suggest that Yashiro actually considers staying in the Yakuza. I think based on what we know and how this statement is framed though, I come to the conclusion that this suggests the exact opposite in fact; Yashiro’s reluctance to stay in the Yakuza shines through yet again.

Granted, in the above scene Yashiro does in fact say that he doesn’t really want to quit BUT what he said before that stood out to me. Confronted by Kage about how he’s still affiliated with the Yakuza he first diverts his question by saying „don’t say things as if you’re an ordinary person“; I think this points out that Yashiro doesn’t like to think of himself as that different from Kage (or „civilian“ people in general, probably), he’s sorta putting the two of them onto the same level… outwardly he appears to lower Kage’s „status“ as a law-abiding citizen to his own, but, objectively speaking they both know that Kage is not in fact a shady person (at least from what I can tell, after all, he doesn’t appear to be affiliated with any „shady“ people apart from Yashiro and Kage always complains about Yashiro dragging him into these affairs). So, what this ends up doing is lifting Yashiro’s status up (I hope I’m phrasing this in a way that makes sense). Anyway, I think what this conveys is that Yashiro still looks down on Yakuza members (he’s definitely not proud of being one) and that he’s still not fully comfortable with people viewing him as a member or even acknowledging his Yakuza-status himself. He then goes on to say that it’s not easy to leave. Now, this could suggest a) that it has been on his mind (which we already know to be true) and b) that he feels the need to justify the fact that he’s still affiliated with them. Only when Kage questions him again Yashiro finally says that he doesn’t REALLY want to leave. His way of phrasing it doesn’t sound super convincing and he probably says that to get Kageyama off his case and also because, if he is honest with himself, he still can’t see himself actually taking that step after all. I know I might be reading too much into this but it stood out to me that Yashiro didn’t just throw Kage a snarky comment like „why the hell wouldn’t I still be a member?“, in the same vein as his first comment „what kind of upstanding guy runs a shady illegal casino?“ Instead he is somewhat opening up to Kage in his own way.

Anyway, this conversation is yet another puzzle piece that plays into the theory I’ve had from the beginning, that Yashiro will leave the Yakuza eventually. From all we know so far, Yashiro has never really come to terms with being a Yakuza and has generally a very negative opinion of them. The topic of Yashiro struggling to accept this role and the re-occurring questioning of what makes a Yakuza, who’s a good Yakuza, who’s not fit to be one, etc. strongly suggests to me that this is an integral part of this story as a whole and is most probably gonna be relevant to the conclusion of the story. It’s made clear that Yashiro never wanted to be Yakuza in the first place and he’s still reluctant, like… some 20 long years later 😯. I don't want to include too many quotes here because there are far too many instances that could be mentioned and this post is already getting too loooong, as you'll see 🫣, but there are some I'd like to mention. First I'd like to point to one quote from Yashiro that leads me to believe that to him being a Yakuza is not in fact his real identity but rather a role he is playing. He says to Ryuuzaki in Chapter 5:

He sees himself more as an actor rather than a real Yakuza and interestingly enough, that’s what he had aspired to become as a teenager: (aspire might be too strong of a word here but I think in a way he really did):

Now, I know that I'm arguing that Yashiro is talking about himself here ,even though, he's not just referring to himself in his comment to Ryuuzaki but the fact that he talks about Yakuza being just like actors in general and then further generalizing his statement to „people spend their lives acting“ still plays nicely into Yashiro's perception of his own life which will become relevant in a bit *bear with me*; it suggests that he thinks that people are not really free to be themselves because they have to play their role which emphasizes his passive approach to life in general „I have lived my life accepting it all“ (I reference this quote further down).

Every time Misumi tries to drag him in deeper, Yashiro is acting completely reluctant. We first saw this in the very beginning of the story when Misumi and Yashiro talk about the succession and Misumi says to Yashiro „be mine once more“ (Yashiro doesn’t want to give him an answer), when we learn through Hirata’s secret recordings about the details of another conversation between Misumi and Yashiro in Chapter 14 (Yashiro still doesn’t give a straight answer) and we see it again in Chapter 36 when Misumi basically says to Yashiro „don’t forget what you are“ after the time-skip (Yashiro distracts Misumi from the conversation by provoking him). He doesn't agree to anything but he never outright refuses either (he's completely passive).

His reluctance is further demonstrated by the fact that after the time-skip Yashiro’s not really a full member anymore. He used what happened after Hirata’s attack on him to the best of his abilities in a way to distance himself from the group but he couldn’t take the last step. But this clearly points to Yashiro wanting to get out for good.

I think it’s noteworthy that the only time he completely rejects the idea of quitting (as far as I remember), is in Chapter 27 when he speaks to Ryuuzaki in the back of the police car:

This stands out to me because he says this after he’d made up his mind that he was gonna die. So why keep fighting it at this point? (I’m so glad our cute boy is not in such a dark place anymore 😭)

Yashiro has also tried to keep Doumeki out of this world because he cares so much about him. Unfortunately, he wasn’t successful but the statement Yashiro made about the Yakuza in Chapter 22 becomes relevant again, now that Doumeki got a back tattoo (which as we all know made Yashiro furious beyond belief). Yashiro said something along the lines of „do you have any idea how many upright citizens walk around out there with full body tattoos? And how many Yakuza wear normal business suits?“( I hope this translation is somewhat accurate . I had to take it from the official German translation which is not the most exact at times but the only English translation I could find, didn’t seem to be correct 😅) Basically he’s saying, it’s never too late to quit. This was some unfortunate foreshadowing if you ask me but it gives me hope that Doumeki’s status as a full-fledged member and him getting a tattoo won’t prevent them from leaving the Yakuza world behind.

I just cannot imagine Yoneda-sensei making this aspect such an integral part of Yashiro’s character and bringing this topic up again and again if it isn’t gonna be relevant in the end… I know it might be a red herring but I really doubt it at this point. I read the manga as a story of a traumatized survivor of SA finding happiness in life (yes, I’m very hopeful that both Doumeki and Yashiro are gonna make it out alive because anything else would be too cruel🫣). For Yashiro the Yakuza is a hindrance to his freedom and happiness because it’s not who he truly is as a person and as long as he stays he’s going to be under Misumi’s control and Misumi is gonna try to use him, just like his stepfather and all the other men who SAed him when he was a teenager used him. In a way he’s still this powerless child getting used by others. He was an easy target for Misumi because Yashiro was „completely indifferent about himself“ as Misumi put it. This indifference stems from the abuse he suffered. When Yashiro got shot he remembered the SA and he says: „I have lived my life accepting it all. I’ve felt no sorrow. I’ve blamed no one. My life can’t be said to be anyone else’s fault.“ This expresses exactly what Misumi saw in Yashiro: He’s so broken that he doesn't even feel anger, he is beyond caring about himself, his well-being, his future. Putting it differently; he doesn’t love himself and he doesn’t think that he deserves love or a different, better life. This is why he doesn’t really put up a fight against this fate. He’s still passively accepting everything.

To sum this up, it’s mainly his trauma that prevents him from quitting, just like it keeps him from being able to accept Doumeki’s love. Since I believe this story is about Yashiro overcoming his trauma and finding happiness, I think it would only be fitting that once he’ll be able to accept that he is deserving of love, hope and happiness, he’d finally find the courage to take control of his own fate and break away from the path that he felt forced to follow.

And yes, I'm aware that quitting won't be that easy because of Misumi's obsession over Yashiro BUT even though I don't like Misumi too much and I think he's a creep, he's in his own way quite lenient when it comes to Yashiro, I have to give him that. So, I have high hopes that he actually meant what he said about "caring about Yashiro as a person" and will let him leave without too much trouble.

Of course we don’t know much about Doumeki’s plans for his future but if Yashiro and him end up together (which is what I’m hoping for) he’ll most likely go along with Yashiro’s wishes, I guess 😉 And I know, sweet Nanahara would be disappointed but I bet Yashiro and Doumeki would still find a way to adopt their big baby boy into their little family 😜

maybe they’re gonna open up a beach bar in Hawai’i and Nanahara would flirt with the guests and give away all the drinks for free 🤣

On a more serious note, I hope I didn’t get any of the quotes completely wrong. Nuances tend to get lost in translation so it’s kinda "risky" to base a theory like this solely on translations but most of it comes down to my personal interpretation of the story anyways. And I’m sorry if most of this seemed too obvious but I got the impression that I seem to feel more strongly about the fact that Yashiro might gonna leave his days as a Yakuza behind than others in the fandom and I felt the need to present my case 😉

If you actually made it through my ramblings to down here, you deserve some 🍪🍪🍪 😘

[hotchocolatefanfics]

Kung Fu Panda 4 Movie Thoughts (I finally watched it)

Firstly, why the HECK are the Furious Five not in this movie?? There are TONS of situations and moments that could have been prevented, minimized or made better if they were here. Tigeress ALONE would have made this movie better by just BEING THERE. 

But the absence of the Furious Five is only the first problem with this movie. It may be the most glaring but trust me, it gets way worse from there. 

Zen Zahn?! She sounds the same no matter what emotion she’s supposed to portray. Sad? Sarcastic and board. Scared? Sarcastic. Betrayed? Hurt? Happy? Sarcastic. Uggh! 

Ok, theres a lot here so let me break it down here: 

The Plot:

What the heck is going on here?! It really feels like a fever dream near the end. In fact, here’s my alternative plot for you! Po has to travel to the underworld in order to free all his enemies and defeat a monstrous demon who wants to take over the living world. Would it have made any sense? I don’t know, but it would have given us more time with Tai Lung and the other villains (which was my favorite part-Tai Lung not knowing who to cheer for was just priceless! Why didn’t we get Lord Shen or Kai talking?!).

“See you on the other side, Dragon Warrior.” Damn. Maybe it’s just my cold talking but I’m mad we didn’t get this plot instead now.

It’s also sad because fans of this franchise (me included) have wanted to see Tai Lung return and maybe get a redemption storyline for him (maybe even joining Po and the Furious Five) and that (to me anyway) seem to spark interest for the movie if it meant we might actually get that. I guess the only redemption for Tai Lung here is that he accepts Po as the Dragon Warrior and is at peace with that.

Zhen:

I didn’t think it was possible but here we are. Zhen is forgettable and boring. 

Honesty it’s sad because she (like Po) was an orphan and adopted (also like Po) but this aspect was never utilized and she and the Chameleon clearly didn’t have that kind of relationship but there WAS something like that between them (the Chameleon telling her to not slouch for instance). Also, why is the Chameleon just ‘the chameleon’? Does she not have a real name??

Basically, Zhen could have been the exact opposite of Po; literally coming from nothing, fighting for validation but ultimately wanting to be loved and wanted more than anything else. If we were to see it as Po having everything that Zhen ever dreamed of having for herself, then we get a better idea of her as a character than what we actually got.

Po:

I just don’t get it. Po doesn’t look like he aged much since the last movie so WHY is he looking for his successor already?! How about we show him age a bit first? Aren’t we supposed to wait for Shifu to pass away first?! Not that I want him to die but it would show the passage of time in this universe! 

Po, you’re doing just fine. This movie is flawed, not you!

The only good thing in this movie? Li and Ping. They may not be romantically involved but they embrace each other as Po’s dads and they work together to make sure that he gets home safely. 

Most annoying thing about this movie? The Chameleon being ‘too small for kung fu’…Mantis! Fricken Mantis! is the SMALLEST of the Furious Five! If HE can do kung fu, so can YOU CHAMELEON!!

Honestly, this just doesn’t work! Maybe it would have if it was all internalized discrimination (possibly made worse by relatives who didn’t think she could do it) and severe self-hatred but on it’s own it makes absolutely no sense.

Final thoughts:

Kung Fu Panda 4 is a fever dream that makes even less sense than whatever heck I dreamt about last night.Seriously, I cannot think of any movie (sequel or not) that has left me more confused, frustrated, and out of it than this movie did. It wasn’t ‘boring’ since there were interesting moments in the movie but those moments were under utilized and it feels like there should have been more than what we got. 

Tldr: You’ll find better Kung Fu Panda stories on AO3 than you will with this movie.

[johnslittlespoon]

https://www.tumblr.com/johnslittlespoon/744374471821017088/would-just-like-to-point-out-that-once-again-a

i love this so much omgggg. imagine bucky is in a mood one day with buck but still just collapses onto buck’s bunk and curls into the sheets. buck would think it was the most endearing thing ever. maybe buck is standing in bucky’s way, forcing bucky to grumble out an excuse me that’s just dripping with attitude but buck can’t even be upset about it because bucky proceeds to shove past him and throw himself into buck’s bunk and bury his face in his pillow. or imagine buck coming over to talk to bucky and bucky rolls away from him but it’s like. that kind of loses its effect when ur in BUCK’s bunk😭

linked post | gigglingsjdgk yes omg. this is so so THEM i'm gone

it doesn't matter how much they bicker or fight during the day or what type of mood either of them might be in– john will not sleep in his own bunk if his life depends on it once he gets a taste of sleeping in gale's. over the winter, the bunking for warmth excuse works just fine, but as the weather starts to heat up, his new excuse is "your bunk is comfier."

gale doesn't point out that this makes no sense with all of their bunks being the exact same; he'd love to tease john about it, but he doesn't want to scare him out of climbing into his bunk night after night, and he makes damn sure the other guys don't rib on him for it either. everyone's got their coping mechanisms, and they all know john's hanging on by a thread, so they're not going to question his vices.

imagine what goes down after that scuffle in the yard? john spends the rest of the evening pacing the yard, cooling off until it's time for lock–in, and gale's waiting leaning against his bunk when john comes back into the room, expecting a conversation. but john doesn't even look at him fully, just brushes past with a short bratty "scuse me" and drags himself into gale's bunk and curls up as close to the wall as he can get without another word.

gale turns and stares at him in disbelief, shaking his head but still feeling so fond because they can have the worst fight of their friendship and john still crawls into his bed at the end of the day like it belongs to him just as much as gale, even in his silent treatment.

gale half wants to go crawl into john's bunk instead to make a point, but he's not sure he can even fall asleep alone anymore after so many months of sharing a bunk, and he knows it's not really him that john's mad at– they're all mad at the world right now, and john's just taking it out on him because he's there and real and he subconsciously tries to sabotage anything good because he feels undeserving. the silent treatment is as much geared towards gale as it is john punishing himself for the guilt he feels after lashing out at him.

john presses his face into gale's pillow when gale climbs in behind him with a huff, pulling the thin blanket up over both of them, only hesitating for a moment before he slings his arm over john's waist all the same, deciding he's not gonna lay awkward and uncomfortable facing the opposite direction with nowhere for his arms to go; if john wants to be touchy, he can lay somewhere else.

john barely manages to put on a show of being tense against him for more than a few minutes before he's relaxing into his arms anyway, back pressing to his chest, a quiet sigh puffing out against the pillow. gale steals a gentle press of his lips to the nape of his neck, a silent apology, because he knows they'll talk properly in the morning once john's not as antsy and worked up, and john squeezes gale's hand where it rests over his stomach, and everything feels okay again. <3

[chirpsythismorning]

Some of the evidence supporting Mike not being in love with El is brutal. No, but seriously.

In s3, when El's leg is injured, instead of Mike putting his arm around her waist, allowing him to take some of the weight off her injured leg, he puts his arm around her shoulder, basically having the exact opposite affect of taking the weight off of her, instead just adding more weight for her to have to carry.

Now, I’m not coming at Mike here, I’m actually coming at the writers, because this choice here has everything to do with them using this gesture to signal Mike’s lack of feelings for El, even at the expense of realism.

I say this bc any person with common sense, including Finn and everyone around him and Millie filming these shots, would've known it looked unnatural for Mike to be adding more weight onto El as opposed to taking some off of her.

This means that what Mike did here, Finn was directed to do, and therefore it was for a specific reason.

And we know they could have easily made the opposite choice, because they show us Max AND Lucas doing it.

See how putting an arm around El's waist looks so much more natural? Because homegirl is injured and clearly needs help taking weight off her leg to qualm some of the pain she's experiencing there, which is why Max and Lucas are shown here doing it the correct way.

And so, why can't Mike do the same? Why are the writers making a point to show Mike being incapable of simply taking some weight off of El, instead doing the exact opposite?

I don't think it's as deep as Mike not being able to do something intimate, and that's bc, again we see Max and Lucas doing it.

I honestly think what they're trying to convey with this choice here, is that Mike thinks he's helping El, when he is in fact doing the opposite despite his best efforts. The implications of that and how that sort of aligns with their romantic relationship and what it leads to at the end of s3, going into s4, is pretty spot on.

I do think Mike thinks he's doing the right thing by being with El instead of voicing any doubts at the end of s3, because he is under the assumption that she is in love with him. I do think he believes he is indebted to her and that this is the least he can do after everything they've been through together, which has mostly been riddled with romantic pressures and so continuing that instead of disputing it seems like the only option anyways. Not to mention, he does care for her deeply, so it's not hard to imagine that he's a teenage boy confusing deep care for love (he literally tells us this is his problem when he can only say care and not love to El's face... but that's a whole other conversation).

Still, when it's all said and done, Mike's not actually doing El any favors by being with her romantically, if that is not what he truly wants.

Because that's the sad truth about all of this, which is that you would never want someone to be with you just because you want them. If you knew that they truly couldn't have those feelings for you, you'd want to know, right? You don't deserve someone just because you have deep feelings for them. And I think there's so many layers to this idea, bc many people are capable of not giving Byler a chance bc they truly believe Mike could never return Will's feelings. Will also feels this way atp, so though it hurts, he rips the band aid off, because he would never want Mike to be with him just out of pity or something. No one would want that. And so it all really comes down to who Mike truly loves romantically and wants to be with. And the right thing to do, even if it hurts someone, is to be honest, because being with them just bc you think that will make them happy is never going to be enough if you aren't truly feeling it, or worse, feel it for someone else.

We see how Mike's inability to be honest with El at the end of s3, leads to a season of Mike feeling deeply insecure and undeserving of the love El has to offer him, and even though he does try, he always comes up short. Despite Mike putting up this front that they are the perfect couple, the details are telling us something is off. And it gives him away.

Another example that I think is very similar to this loaded gesture from Mike to El in s3, is the scene in s4 when they hug in the airport.

Common sense ppl, picture this: You're reuniting with your long distance girlfriend. Then suddenly, she runs up to you, with her arms wide open, and instead of opening your arms wide to embrace her properly, you take the bouquet of flowers you brought her as a gift, and shove them against your chest just as she approaches to hug you, effectively squishing the present you got for her (a pretty delicate present at that) for no reason other than to... what exactly?

Like?? El isn't even squishing the present Mike, she's trying to hug you, dude! Your gf is trying to hug you properly and you threw the gift you got for her in between you so you could throw in a careful! x3??

Again, this has less to do with Mike's thoughts and reasoning behind this gesture in a literal sense, and more to do with the simple fact that this is a narrative choice! Mike is not a real person! There are real people sitting down and writing this and actors are having to do multiple takes to act it out. What feels natural for a situation is going to be what is often chosen 9 times out of 10, because of realism and wanting the audience to see stuff happening that is believable. That 1 time though, when it's not being done the way it would usually be, is usually because there's a specific reason for it.!

So the question really is, not why is Mike doing this, but why are the writers having Mike do this, and what message are they trying to convey about Mike's feelings based on his behavior, in these moments where he's just not capable of committing to El genuinely, one way or another?

[junesprince]

im sorry if someone has pointed these out already but i replayed p5t again and i am in absolute SHAMBLES with these new observations. i never actually post my thoughts here but i kinda need people to talk to about p5t IM AUTISTIC AND HYPERFIXATED. anyway onto the real post, sorry if this is unorganized and messy. im just really excited

i really wanna talk about the whole event that happens in the 3rd kingdom, on the rooftop.

soo.. when the school crashes and transforms.. it resembles a clock. a train station??? and. said clock is unmoving. what struck me is the time it was stuck on. 6:00pm, or 18:00, the exact time The Train Incident (tm) takes place, and the exact time eri was pushed onto the train tracks at the station.

i guess you could say, toshiro is stuck in the past, unable to move on and process his trauma. it's the extreme guilt of him losing his closest friend and how standing up and rebelling... just ended up in so many people hurt. he can't possibly live bearing the sin of that.

but here's when it gets more interesting... when shadow toshiro was threatening to kill erina, and when erina/eri inspired toshiro to take a stand, he throws joker's knife through the shadows hand, but more specifically, through the gloved hand, the one damaged from the train.

then with a really good sequence, toshiro runs as fast as he possibly can (i wonder how he did that actually) and with flashing memories of him failing to save eri in between, he manages to catch erina before she falls. and... he catches her with his damaged hand. the same hand that failed to save eri, saved erina.

remember the clock from the beginning? it STARTS MOVING AGAIN right after this.

this whole scene is genuinely such a beautiful and symbolistic way to show that toshiro finally found his resolve, and that despite all that trauma in the past, he's ready to change for the better and move again.

oh, and one more thing. toshiros mask only has one eye shown. the left one... the one that eri lost. they have ONE EYE EACH AAAAGHHH!! their souls really are connected.

what gets me more is that one of toshiros catchphrases in combat iirc is "witness OUR power as ONE" and it makes me go insane because he basically sees eri as his hero (here ill quote a futaba dialogue that hit me hard: "natsuhara's like the undefeated heroine in toshiro's life story, huh?") and she made him feel like he's more than just a puppet of his father. she inspired him to take a stand, and while this resulted badly, it led to his LITERAL SOUL subconsciously manifesting into a being heavily based on her (erina)

he just believes that eri/erina is a huge part of who he is. so "witness our power as one"

the fact he doesn't have a real PT outfit disappoints me a bit, but id like to think it's because eri taught him that he doesn't need to become all cool and change himself to rebel. he just needs to be himself. that's really it.

some extra things i have noticed:

-shadow toshiros 'weapon' is basically just bandages. i first thought this was a twisted more distorted version of the bandages eri gave toshiro when they first met (since shadow toshiro claims to despise eri)?? but someone in yt comments pointed out its probably made from eri's bandages after the incident. and i think that makes much more sense

-toshiro is the only persona user that has a persona opposite of his gender... that's kinda... ����️‍⚧️ if you ask me...heh (im trans)

-i know many know already but erinas character design is GENIUS . like ... the covered eye and the prosthetic leg?? referencing eri?? SO FUCKING WELL DONE. genuinely one of my fav character designs in persona

-not really an observation but remember the 'thank you instead of sorry' hideout talk where toshiro tells the gang about eri more?? when it was finished and toshiro said "natsuhara-senpai...um, thank you." IT TORE MY HEART STRINGS STOOOPPP

-idk im kinda unnormal about eritoshi. that's all

[canonizzyhours]

i read more canyon fic than i should.

it used to be because i was interested in the actual canon edizzy dynamic some other posts here have talked about and i wanted to find good darkfic about izzy topping from the bottom. then i realized i was never going to find that and it became something i did in good faith hope that i would understand the canyon better, maybe i'd find some really good fic about their take on fanon izzy and i would finally get why they found this compelling. at this point it's something i do out of morbid fascination, i'm still trying to understand the canyon but what i keep understanding is that their perspectives are always worse than i expected.

anyway here's what i was thinking about today. at this point i can sort canyon fic into categories and there's this one subgenre that's always fascinated me - and it goes well back into the early post-s1 hiatus era - where izzy becomes a weirdly passive character who never really does anything.

you can see exactly why this is happening. the author is so immersed in canyon meta that they refuse to engage with any of izzy's canonical motivations from s1 - the craving for power, the homophobia, the fetishizing obsession with masculinity, the contempt for the crew who work under him, the cruelty, the sense of entitlement to control ed's life: they've been convinced that none of that stuff is a part of izzy's character. but when you take it all away, you end up with a guy who would never actually do any of the stuff izzy canonically does in s1. and if you gave him any other motivations that pushed him to do other stuff instead it would become really obvious this is just a completely different guy (there's several OTHER genres of canyon fic where they do exactly that and it is super obvious this guy just has nothing to do with izzy anymore). so you end up with a character who does absolutely nothing except stand around in the background of scenes gazing at edward thinking sad thoughts about their dying relationship and every once in a while the author remembers to have him say "fuckin' twats."

so i was thinking about this today and what hit me like a lightning bolt is this exactly predicted what would happen in s2. the writers wanted to redeem him in one season and since all his motivations in s1 existed to push him to be awful, they had to resolve all of them as quickly as possible. so within the first half of the season izzy had let go of his creepy psychosexual obsession with ed and belief that he should control ed's life and his homophobia and contempt for effeminacy and learned to respect others instead of needing to dominate or be dominated.

but just like in those fics, this turned izzy into a character who no longer had any real personality traits besides saying twat sometimes, or any reason to actually do much of anything at all. and since the traits they got rid of so completely defined who he'd been up to that point, giving izzy any NEW motivations or personality traits would just make it really obvious this was functionally an entirely different guy.

this is the exact reason he was so boring in 2x05-2x07. with those traits gone there is no longer any reason for him to do anything in particular. the only thing they can do with him at this point is demonstrate that his redemption arc is complete by repeatedly having him do the opposite of evil stuff he did last season, and once they've checked off every box on that list, they have to kill him off because there is now nothing else he can possibly contribute to the narrative.

it's so funny to me that if i had taken seriously the lessons i learned from reading canyon fic i would have been able to predict at the very beginning of the season, as soon as it became clear they were speedrunning the redemption, that he would be dead at the end of it. those fics showed me exactly why there couldn't possibly be any compelling reason to keep a fully redeemed izzy in the narrative.

#394.

[cacaobean760]

OK GUYS I HAVE BEEN THINKING SOME MORE AND HERE IT IS but it’s kinda a stretch soooo

ok so I think Leander is the Leander from the greek myth that fell in love with Hero. And basically Leander dies and when Hero finds him dead she then joins him in death. This was basically Romeo and Juliet before Romeo and Juliet was a thing. Anyways I think that Leander was brought back to life for some reason but Hero was not. And I think the Triple goddesses brought him back because they represent rebirth and fertility and everything and also he has the triple goddesses symbol on his belt. But then he also has the snake eating itself on his earring which represents the cycle of life orrr destruction and rebirth sooooooo my first inclination is to think that Leander would want to revive Hero but what if it’s actually the exact opposite. Because there is also a dagger that is going through the snake so what if it means that Leander wants to end this cycle. My first thought was that Leander was kinda like Edward and that when he died and was revived he was just stuck in that age forever but what if it’s actually the fact that he lives a normal life he is just always reincarnated as Leander. We know that Leander grew up as the son of a rich hightown family and that Kuras knew Leander when he was younger. So basically Leander lives a normal life but just always get reborn as Leander and retains all his memories from his past life and this cycle never stops. I mean it would explain how he is such a powerful mage if he never got a proper education at the Seniobum. And why he is soooo good at charming and interacting with people because he has had years of experience. And it could explain why he is so interested in curses if he himself is cursed. Also why he is soooo chill hanging out with monsters because I don’t think that’s something mages would normally do even if they were super powerful. Anyways, I think the dagger through the snake represents Leanders want to break this curse or end the cycle because instead of wanting to revive Hero, he wants to join her in the afterlife once again.

Idk if this makes sense but I think it kinda works