#because he perceives himself as so unlovable he assumes any feelings he has would be unrequited

[duchess-doodles]

He did the crimes your honor but you see even though he didn't feel remorse while committing them when he looked in my eye and saw the disappointment on my face a wave of guilt crashed over him and he cried in my arms and asked for my forgiveness like a sinner would to god so I think we can let him off the hook this time. As a treat.

[avelera]

Last point on the whole "If Hob has ADHD, he might also suffer from rejection sensitivity dysphoria (RSD) and if he does, here's a few moments in the show that might lend to that interpretation," headcanon I've been batting around but I did laugh at myself to realize that not once, but t w i c e in Giving Sanctuary that I thought were just me writing normal, if passionate, reactions to events by both Hob and Dream and only in retrospect realize are actually textbook cases of RSD.

The first one is in ch. 11 and it's actually Dream who has it. He and Hob are discussing Dream's past relationship with Calliope and how Orpheus was conceived and Hob trips over his words a bit. He accidentally implies that only an idiot would want to marry Dream, when really he was saying the opposite. But Dream, already in a sensitive place because they're about to visit his son's grave, leaps to the worst possible conclusion, which is rejection by the man he's starting to crush on hard, and flips the fuck out, stalking off and threatening to abandon Hob on that beach in a fit of, well, rejection-sensitive dysphoria.

I literally wrote it that his perceived rejection by Hob hits Dream so hard right in the chest that it feels like he's been stabbed. He's starting to fall in love and when discussing his past love life with the person he's in love with, he hears that he's totally unlovable on this topic he's very sensitive about. Dream's flip-out might be informed by my own experiences with RSD, but it is also informed by his reaction in 1889 to Hob suggesting Dream has changed and that he's lonely.

It's interesting to note, that in the 1889 beat of the canon episode, Dream views someone suggesting he's lonely as if it were rejection and reacts like someone with ADHD/RSD. Any attempt to help him at all is treated as a sign of his own failure and he reacts with incredibly powerful emotion. When Hob offers sympathy, Dream only hears weakness in canon.

(It should be noted that Hob also has a panic attack in the face of Dream's-rejection-based-on-Hob's-perceived-rejection which also matches RSD.)

The second time I accidentally depicted RSD is in ch. 16, after Hob awakens and thinks he's "disrespected" Dream in his sleep. In truth, the evidence of their love making is because they actually made love, but Hob doesn't know that or have any reason to understand that Dream was really there in Hob's actual dream of him.

Dream doesn't reject Hob here but he doesn't have to. Hob has the full "knife in the chest" moment of terror that he will be caught that he will be found out for having sexual thoughts about his friend and for being in love with him before he could bring up the possibility of a romantic relationship between them under more cautious, dignified terms.

Perceiving Dream's rejection as inevitable, because Hob is so disgusted at himself for what he believes is a loss of control in his sleep, Hob fully freaks out and very nearly has a panic attack. Dream, seeing only that their lovemaking ended with Hob's full unmitigated freakout, is also left with a sense of rejection but in this case he also thinks it's his fault and he took Hob's interest in his dreams as far too literal and may have possibly forced himself upon Hob in that light. So they both feel sick and awful about it pretty much until they reunite, another ADHD/RSD reaction.

Anyway! I am laughing at myself a bit for thinking I was writing anything remotely adjacent to neurotypical reaction. Some what I assume to be neurotypical readers even commented that their sense of rejection seemed disproportionate and I scoffed because uh, isn't that just what rejection or perceived rejection feels like?

Yeah. It does. If you have ADHD/RSD.

[randomsnakesimp]

Okay. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna take the leap and say: Phobos is the victim (sorta).

Quick disclaimer: I am going to abuse plot holes and cartoon logic for my cause in a very nitpicky way. If you dislike that, I can completely understand, and I hope this warning will save you a lot of reading.

Also, this won't go into just headcanon territory, I'll put those in a separate post. Everything here I'll try to keep based on actual information from the comics and what I made of them.

That said...

Let's take a look at this scene:

(for a quick translation of the important part, the mother says: "No, Phobos, Meridian is meant for your sister. That's the law. The crown is hers.)

What we can see here are a few very important things:

1. Phobos is at most 5 years older than Elyon.

2. The name "Phobos" is not an edgy nickname he gave himself. Five-year-olds don't go around calling themselves Phobos. So his parents, for some reason, gave him that name.

3. His mother is very adamant about him not even touching the crown and reminding him of his sisters' birthright.

So, after establishing what I would call more or less facts, what else can, relatively savely, be deduced here?

- Since Elyon never noticed anything weird about herself, she can't have aged slower than earth children. So neither can Phobos. This would mean that, as she was kidnapped after her mothers death as a baby, he would have been five. So, he either tried his best to rule at age five, or the council we see as Elyon rules stepped in for him for a while

- this would then mean two things: we need an explanation as to why Miriadel, Alborn and Galgheita fled explicitly from Phobos (I'll give my explanation a bit further down) and second, Phobos' reign of terror wasn't even thirteen years, and a lot of that time he was a child/teen and could not even have been mature enough to rule.

- This also means that Kandrakar pulled up the veil when Phobos was at most five, likely younger, and that the so called "Seal of Phobos" also existed at that time, as both the veil and the seal are seen in the flashback depicting Elyons abduction. For Kandrakar, this, too, I will try to explain soon, but as for the seal, I find it most plausible that the theory @ror-witch used in their fanfiction, of the seal being a royal heirloom and named after each ruler, is true.

- His and his mother's relationship was neither as bad as some assumptions go, but neither was it that good, probably, or at least it wasn't in his perception. See how his memory is of her cradling the baby the entire time and talking more about his sisters birthright than about what he has/can do? Yes, it's only a short memory, but I think it's clear that it's a summary of what he remembers of his mother.

- Phobos desire to rule Meridian does not stem from something deeply sinister, but rather from a childish spite. Five year old Phobos probably just wanted the crown cause it looked nice and shiny, and he was fabulous even back then, but after his mothers words, he sulked and decided to show her. That's his motivation.

So, now let's go a bit further and look at some other things we can deduce from the rest of the comics:

- Phobos has a huge dungeon, a wall of roses that turn people into more roses if they touch it and his plan for the annihilation of Meridian is "Well, Cedric and I hide in the castle and...we'll see". He hates the people of Meridian, but he doesn't seem to have it in him to directly attack anyone until Elyon is there and even here, when he has her knocked out in their duel or locked up as Endarno, he isn't unnecessarily cruel. He's not evil in nature, he's more of a very dangerous child throwing tantrums. ( Cedric is kinda similar, and they both start losing it toward the coronation, but I sincerely believe that before that, there would have been a chance for them to come around )

- The only person he ever tortures or even hurts directly is Cedric. Because one, he likes Cedric and so gets more extreme emotions around him, and two, Cedric never says anything, and just plays it of afterwards, so I don't know if he even fully realizes what he's doing, like a child hitting someone. If Cedric ever just said "Stop it, you're hurting me", Phobos would probably need an entire week to process that input.

- Phobos is VERY reclusive, and he doesn't want anyone to have even pictures of him, and while that could be a God complex, I get some highly insecure vibes out of it, in a vulnerable narcissist kinda way, in that he is massively overcompensating. I gotta admit, though, that I cannot put my finger on why, so maybe take this with a grain of salt and decide for yourself if you agree.

- Kandrakar never orders the guardians to help Meridian in any way, just to make sure nothing oozes out. They likely pulled up the veil for their own protection, so Phobos wouldn't be able to spread far enough to become a real danger, rather than to protect innocent people, as clearly the Meridian people mean shit to them

- while the guards are widely feared in Meridian, Cedric seems to be viewed as... not very frightening or important, as some random merchant feels comfortable clinging to his cape (and rightfully so, apparently, as Cedric just tells him to piss off and doesn't care any further). This further leads me to believe that Cedric is rather unhealthy devoted to Phobos and his tantrums while their shitty ass reign leaves a lot of free space for unsuited people to become guards and tyranize the people.

- the King and Queen seem to have died in rapid succession, and shortly after the scene shown above, yet she looks perfectly healthy in that scene.

Now, what do I make of all this?

I believe the line of events to be as follows:

I don't think Phobos traveling back in time is a viable theory for mainly two reasons: I think his mother would be less chill around him if she saw/heard about his reign herself, and I believe that it would have been mentioned somewhere along the way if that were the case. Instead, what I believe happened is that the oracle had a vague vision of Phobos nearly taking over Kandrakar. Deciding in their random mood swings that today was a day of action, they had the people of Meridian informed that the next male born to a queen would become a dangerous tyrant, pulled up a veil and set their guardians to make sure nothing oozed out.

The veil, of course, made the people of Meridian feel trapped and a horror of the unborn prince who would ruin their lives spread.

So, when Weira gave birth to that prince, a full blown panic spread, so much so that she, in a fit of hysterical emotion, named him after that boust of panic. Of course, people tried to kill the prince basically from the moment he was born, and he was met with barely concealed resentment.

Soon after, Weira and her husband died - whether they were killed, or fell ill, or died in an accident, I have no idea, but I wouldn't completely rule out an assassination either aimed at Phobos and accidentally hitting them or the strain making at least one of them fall terminally ill.

Either the people rioted and Phobos' magic panic reaction or the leftover loyal guard was enough to fight them back, or the people succumbed to their fate at this point, slumping into the state of despair seen throughout the comics. But in the end, five year old Phobos had to be handed the throne. I assume the council still had some say at this point, but he did manage to get all pictures of him destroyed - this order was likely due to the fact that they were mostly caricatures.

So he grew up with the very volatile combination of a shitton of power and no one able to tell him if he was being stupid on one hand, and feeling unloved and unwanted on the other. He withdrew, likely also due to countless assassination attempts or things he perceived as such, and went into a negative feedback loop of being unable to mature and take responsibility, therefore being a shit ruler, therefore being hated, therefore having no one to help him, therefore being unable to face and grow from his mistakes, rinse and repeat.

So, Meridian was plunged into chaos, yet he seemed fine more or less just sitting in the new playroom he made for himself in the gardens, sporadically giving out an order or two and having generally no idea about anything that didn't directly concern him.

Enter Elyon. Now, she send him of the rails, as she was a danger to his lifestyle AND a reminder of all the sentiments he'd be drowning in alcohol if he wasn't too much of a recluse and education denier to know of that option. He doesn't even try. He just lets Cedric, the one person he trusts, handle her, like everything else, and somewhat plays along sometimes, when he feels like it. This is where he passes the point of no return and starts actually trying to kill people, culminating in him creating an army to wipe out Meridian. I still believe that even at this point, in his head, what he's doing is just throwing a nice toy out the window just so his sister won't have it.

[linkspooky]

What do you think about Kaneki x Eto?

It’s my favorite Tokyo Ghoul ship? If you want to know my opinion of it, I did write a whole fanfiction on the ship. However, I can also explain my reasons for liking the ship with some character analysis. Basically, Kaneki and Eto are the same person. Kaneki loving Eto is him learning to reconcile the ugliest parts of himself. Falling in love with someone who’s just basically you in the mirror is a good way to learn some self esteem. Kaneki and Eto are the same because they’ve felt ostractized and unloved their entire lives due to having selfish and manipulative mothers, and uncaring or entirely absent fathers. 

Their response to their total sense of isolation and status as outsiders is to write a story. They both have a narrative coping mechanism of the world, that’s why of all the characters they are the most highly associated with reading and books. It’s just they assign themselves different roles in the narrative. Kaneki is the protagonist of the tragedy, and Eto is the author of the tragedy. It doesn’t change the fact they see the whole world as one big tragedy. More under the cut. 

1. The Protagonist of the Tragedy

Kaneki’s coping mechanism has always been to imagine himself as the long suffering protagonist of the tragedy. His statement is twofold. “I’m not a protagonist or anything” and then “However if you were to write a story with me in the lead role it would certainly be a tragedy.” 

This is paradoxical thinking. What Kaneki is saying essentially is that he is not a protagonist, but he is. The difference between a protagonist of say, a heroic epic, and the protagonist of a tragedy is that a tragic protagonist is ultimately helpless before their flaws. 

Kaneki has always been outside of things. He is someone extremely isolated and lonely. He has difficulty connecting even to his lifelong best friend. Hide describes him as thus, he’s always pretending around other people and hiding his true self. Kaneki has this genuine fear of being well... genuine. He avoids emotional intimacy at any cost even though it’s the thing he craves the most. 

Which is why it’s easier for him to cope with things through a fictitious lens. He wants to be important to people, but he doesn’t really know how to be loved, so he always, always, always, chooses fighting for their sake instead. He plays pretend hero, pretend vigilante, and even pretend king depending on the circumstances. He is always, playing roles for the sake of others instead of trying to be his own self. He pretends to be a protagonist. 

However, because of his abuse from his mother Kaneki is also unnaturally fixated on being a good person. He can’t bear to think he’s unkind, or cruel, or even violent like his mother was to him. He has such a strong, nauseous reaction to violence, he can’t even accept it within himself even when circumstances have dirven him to become violent. 

So, rather than the protagonist he also wants to keep playing the victim. The victim is helpless. The victim is sympathetic. The victim isn’t to blame for their actions. Kaneki is afraid of being in control of his own actions, because he finds it hard to face himself and his own flaws and bear that responsibility. Kaneki’s coping mechanism is to feign helpelessness. To never truly make decisions because therefore he’s not responsible when he makes the wrong one. 

It’s not just Kaneki who is coping poorly however. Whether or not he intends to his actions will always affect the people around him. Kaneki isn’t a protagonist, he’s merely pretending to be one. The problem with pretending to be a protagonist is that as a result you assign other people as supporting characters in your story, and forget that they have feelings outside of what you perceive their feelings to be. 

This is specificallly what Touka calls out in 120. She doesn’t want to be the heroine of his tragedy. She didn’t ask for him to protect her. Kaneki does all of these things without thinking or consulting her about her feelings at all and just assumes he knows best. Pretending you’re the protagonist gives you a self-centered view of the world. Kaneki can’t be with Touka at this point, because he can’t accept Touka’s feelings for him. 

The most poweful sign of Eto and Kaneki’s connection ever is the fact that Eto has Kaneki completely read like an open book, without even really meeting him in person. It’s because they are in essence the same person. She understands Kaneki’s total sense of isolation because she’s lived it as well for her entire life. 

Kaneki feels unloved and disconnected from others, and everything he does ultimately is in response to the lack of love he was shown as a child. That’s why Takatsuki’s lines, your parents failed in raising you. Echo so strongly for both of them. 

Now kiss you two. 

2. The Author of the Tragedy

If Kaneki is someone who will feign helplessness, and avoid being in control of his own life then Eto is the opposite. Eto will pretend to be in control of everything because helplessness is what she fears the most. Eto was born outside of any framework or sense of stability for the world she can’t handle any of it. She longs to knock all of the structures down because they will always reject her and never include her, in the same way that Kaneki longs to be accepted by others.

Eto reacts to the whole world like a book too, but she sees herself as the author in control of things. She’s the one writing the scenario. She chooses to bloody her own hands bcause it makes her feel in control of the violence that’s been inflicted upon her, her entire life. The things that Kaneki avoids because he’s afraid of being seen as a monster, Eto embraces willfully and becomes the monster. Eto, just like Kaneki sees everyone else as a fictional character. Whereas, Kaneki assigns them the role of support to his story, Eto sees herself as the author pitting all of the fictional characters against each other. 

Kaneki lets himself be manipulated and Eto manipulates. Eto never sees herself as backed into a corner, or desperate. Everything is a planned move on her part. Everything is an intentional sacrifice. If she’s captured, it’s because she willfully walked into their plan and let herself be captured. She’s here because she wants to be. She pretends at all time that everyone is doing what she wants them to.

Even when captured and imprisoned in the cochlea, Eto intentionally walked in as a part of her big plan. The thing about Eto’s plans, and plans, and plans is that she’s bad at admitting when she’s losing or things are out of her control. Aogiri could never win an all out war against the CCG. Which is why Eto was too quick to burn Aogiri in a deliberate sacrifice to try to weaken the CCG as a part of her plan, rather than try to take her hands off and try a different approach. 

The same way that Kaneki never wants to take control of his own life, Eto never wants to let go of her sense of control. Which is why she’ll pretend to be control even when she isn’t. Eto is just good enough at reading and manipulating people that she can delude herself into thinking that the situation is always in the palm of her hand when it’s not. Which is why things that are genuinely out of her control and impossible to predict have a tendency to explode in her face. 

Even when Eto loses, she always sees it as a controlled lost. She wanted Kaneki to defeat her on the Tsukiyama Tower and devour her Kagune. She gave him that victory. She is still in control. She is always the author writing down the tragedy.

The key difference between both of them is that Eto externalizes, and Kaneki internalizes. Eto is trying to fix the world to make up for the inadequacy she sees inside of herself. Kaneki is trying to fix something in himself so people will find him lovable. 

We see in Takatsuki’s flashback chapter that Eto’s resentment of Kuzen and his cowardice, has just as much to do with her desire to destroy V and as her wish for a better world. Kaneki and Eto’s trauma informs their actions just as much as their genuine desire to improve the world. They are wholly created by the traumatic circumstances that have affected them and been poorly coping all of their lives. 

The best example to show them poorly coping with trauma is to show how they lash out. Kaneki and Eto are both children raised without any love, and they’ve come to two different conclusions. Kaneki sees himself as unlovable. That nobody is capable of loving him so he sees all relationships as a transaction and services rendered. Eto is the opposite, rather than an internal quality she focuses on an external one. She believes actual love doesn’t exist. That all love is selfish, just like her parents’ love for her ultimately was.

It’s shockingly different the way Eto and Kuzen tell the stories of her birth. Kuzen focuses on the love story aspect, as if Eto was genuinely the product of a love that bridged the gap between two different worlds. Eto believes that her mother was only using Kuzen and sleeping with him to get information, and that she was just an unplanned pregnancy. Eto is incapable of understanding her mother’s love for both her, and her father and chooses to believe no love exists at all. Kaneki on the other hand is incapable of understanding his mother’s contradictory love for him, and chooses to believe himself unlovable.

The person I loved so greatly beat me. I loved my mother, didn’t I? 

Kaneki and Eto are hurt not because they don’t love their mothers, but they do. Their mothers are extremely important to both of them. Yet, neither mother seems to love them back. Ukina chose Kuzen over protecting her child. Kaneki’s mother chose her sister, and everyone else in the neighborhood to take care of while neglecting and outright beating her child when he asked for basic care. Eto does everything she does in Ukina’s memory to complete her mission, and Kaneki does everything to try to be the good boy his mother wanted him to be for a good portion of his life but neither of them feel loved by that mother figure. Kaneki and Eto were failed on the most basic level by the parents who were meant to be responsible for them and loved them and as a result they are continually coping with that lack of love. 

The difference in their coping can be seen how they both treat Kanae. Kanae has an incredible amount in common for both of them. She lives seeking love, she has been orphaned and unloved and treated like an outsider in the Tsukiyama household her entire life even though they were supposed to take care of her as her direct family. She always had a close relationship with her mother before she died. She lives by pretending to be something she’s not in order to look stronger.

Eto’s response is to insist that Kanae’s love is selfish. That she’s an ugly, monster for trying to force her feelings upon Tsukiyama. Eto goes out of her way to try to prove that love is a lie. 

However, Kaneki much more passively also resents the hell out of Kanae. Kaneki’s wish to be loved is the same as Kanae. Kaneki will even become violent for the sake of that wish. 

However, this is his response to Kanae at her lowest point. 

Kaneki’s choice to internalize all of his trauma inside of himself is one that also results in destruction. Remember that this is after Tsukiyama begged Kaneki for mercy on Kanae. 

Kaneki’s habits of pretending to be helpless to avoid conflict, lead him into as much conflict as Eto gets into. The coping mechanism is different. The end result is the same. As Haise he spent the entire arc putting off conflict, but he ends up fighting Tsukiyama anyway, ends up brutalizing Kanae in the worst way possible, and even ignores Yoshimura’s wish to save Eto. 

They cope very differently. Kaneki is always trying to change himself to suit the needs of other people. Eto is always trying to change other people to suit her own needs. However, the end result is the same. Kaneki’s seems more selfless. He’s letting himself suffer rather than make others suffer. He’s trying to hold it all in, rather than Eto who pushes all of it out. But, both are unhealthy. Eto wants to destroy the world, Kaneki wants to destroy himself. 

The result is still destruction regardless. Which is why the way Kaneki and Eto both treat Kanae is so important, they’ve both projected themselves onto Kanae, and want to destroy her because of it. They’re coping mechanisms which are meant to preserve them are instead self destructive. Which means ultimately they’re both terribly unhealthy people. The question of which one is good or bad doesn’t really have anything to do with it. 

Kaneki and Eto’s relationship is so interesting because they’ve both been pushed to the point, where they’ve stopped hoping for things, and just want to destroy everything. It’s just what they choose to destroy is different, Kaneki wants to self destruct, and Eto wants to take the whole world down with her. That’s why I think they should work together to smash everything into tiny little pieces, and maybe kiss a little bit. There’s just something to be said about a relationship that’s built around learning to love the unhealthiest parts of yourself. 

[vroenis]

Part 2

This is part 1.

Can you tell how tired I was getting by the end? This is life under meds, but given the other benefits (I think?), I’ll take it for now.

When I woke up the next morning, I had a whole lot I was thinking about and it’s stuff I want to say given I said a lot, but didn’t cover this stuff. I’m still happy with part 1, I think that’s just how I write, moving from subject to subject more or less organically and it does show me to more unstructured even if there is a vague plan for how I want the piece to go.

Anyway let’s get going.

As always, mild spoilers for well, everything. If you haven’t seen this stuff and are mildly interested in watching them then ah, you may have a lot of catching up to do. I don’t think I’ll drop any real hard spoilers for anything but you never know.

Ghost In The Shell is an Outsider story

There are whole stacks of lore you could dive into with Stand Alone Complex in particular, with Motoko having been in an aircraft accident and getting her first shell (cyber-body) at a very early age, what that means, the thing with Kuze (avoiding spoilers here), and the extended cast - not that Paz, Boma and even Ishikawa get a whole lot of time anyway - but it’s not really that important.

Looking at just Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 film, and even more-so his 2004 film Innocence (not really a sequel but usually regarded as such), the narratives cast the characters very much as Outsiders. In the first film, Section 9 is already at odds with the government in general and while it’s subtle, Aramaki as a department head is certainly different from his contemporaries, even if we don’t see much of it - again, so much more of this in Stand Alone Complex. Motoko’s early conversation with Togusa in the first film is probably the most telling as far as playing it loud. She speaks in pragmatic terms to why he’s there, but this is a precursor to what will ultimately transpire for herself at the conclusion of the film, something very intentionally written into the film. Batou is also an Outsider in more ways than one, not only in the role he plays in the department but in the very clear personal boundary between him and Motoko. There are boundaries between Batou and everyone and they become more apparent in the second film. Togusa is easy pickings so I’ll leave him alone, suffice to say if the film needs one, he’s the audience’s window of ignorance which is why he’s discarded so willingly half way in. He gets his time in the spotlight in Stand Alone Complex and it’s pretty amazing.

As for Motoko... I admit it is difficult separating my understanding of her character from Stand Alone Complex and attempting to just isolate what’s shown of her in the first film but I’ll try.

I mentioned the film’s centrepiece montage in my previous journal, in which we might say Motoko is the centrepiece but if so, she probably shares it with the city itself, and I feel much more is being said about the two together rather than separated simultaneously. This would be one of the first indications of Motoko’s sense of identity, of otherness, isolation, questioning. Again the scene that plays it most loud would be diving on the boat and her speech to Batou. There are other moments tho; single frames of her face, looks, movements that are lingered on, I feel like Oshii is constantly telling us about her and what she’s going to do, but more important than that, why she’s going to do it and how she feels.

Ghost in the Shell is a film about great emotion, and not like I’d know because it’s been a long time since I’ve looked into the discourse around it, but I suspect no-one really talks about it as a film about feelings.

I realise these days I talk more and more about moods and art being mood pieces. I labelled my Instagram account as being “A catalogue of moods” and I’m very fond of the use of the word in vernacular. It might seem flippant but it’s immensely empowered, especially for me as an individual when I understand my moods and can translate them into, via and thru art. I do appreciate many struggle with Oshii’s cinematic language as it can appear cold and detached and that’s fine, but it’s anything but for me - it’s immensely emotionally charged, it just appears differently to what audiences are perhaps accustomed to seeing. It’s a different language that perhaps takes time to learn, but it’s all there.

This couldn’t become more evident than in Innocence (the Ghost in the Shell 2 moniker I think was a western addendum). Batou takes centre stage and is  immediately presented as bluntly as possible as an Outsider, reaffirmed later by Aramaki who also cements Togusa’s position in limbo.

I should pause and say that within the GitS canon, I feel Togusa is definitely embraced by Section 9, so he’s not wholly an Outsider to the department, but for obvious reasons, he doesn’t fully share all of their daily or philosophical concerns - hence not wholly. He would also definitely be an Outsider to most other members of the force after joining Section 9, but unfortunately I’m not here to love Togusa, poor guy - I feel like he’s always a bit unloved. Someone write a giant essay in service to his greatness. He actually is great.

But I adore Batou in Innocence. I love his story, his struggle, his emotion. I love how present Motoko is without ever appearing on screen and then when she does, the impact she has on everything, especially with the lines she delivers, one of which I quoted to open the last journal. Batou is in many ways a shadow of what Motoko was and is/has become, just in physical form, mirroring her in a real world manifestation with the natural physical limitations that comes with.

For some reason I feel like I need to inject a comment about Batou putting the jacket/vest on Motoko’s body. I don’t know if people perceive this as an act of masculine modesty but it’s not how I read it. I did stumble on this action for years but as I began to interpret the films as Outsider stories, I realised that he does this as an act of inclusion, and that Motoko consents, permits him to and doesn’t immediately react with violence or technological recourse we know she is well capable of, indicates it’s mutual. Their inclusion isn’t just about the boundaries of the Section 9 department but extends beyond that, an inner circle that may only contain the two of them - inside which there are still boundaries between them Batou can never cross. Those boundaries become infinitely more apparent after the final events of the first film, and the second film effectively is all about how he feels about them. He is an ultimate Outsider, but so is Motoko in the state she now is in.

Section 9 is a department of stray dogs. Individuals who haven’t quite fit in where they belong, and found belonging with one another. Then, after a time, one of them moves on - at the conclusion of the first film, and then another feels an almost permanent and ultimate sense of separation - more or less the duration of the second film.

Ghost in the Shell isn’t about technology and sentience and hacking and corporations at all. It’s about loneliness and belonging and acceptance and affection. It’s about how that feels.

I’m Not Sure Why People Struggle With David Lynch Films

I need to stop talking about anime. Honestly I looked at the list at the start of the last journal and thought hell yea Sky Crawlers, Jin-Roh, Haibane Renmei and Lain let’s unpack some shit! but honestly I’ll run out of time and I should really draw from a variety of mediums and sources.

OK I’m not being facetious when I say Lynch’s films are fairly straight-forward narrative-wise. Again, it’s hard for me to position myself in a place where I’m not into the stuff I’m into and maybe that’s what gives me the cinematic language familiarity to parse them but that just sounds like wanker bullshit to me. I don’t mind if folks don’t like Lynch films, that’s fine. But they aren’t difficult.

So in the context of everything else, even on that short list on the last journal, plus how I keep trying to shift the discussion of works from the pragmatic reading of them to an emotional reading of them from a mood perspective, I feel as tho the same process can be applied to Lynch. So much about his films are about how they make you feel, or I’ll say - how they make *me* feel. It might be grandiose to assume I’m feeling the correct emotion, that these are the moods that David Lynch himself is attempting to create and evoke and thus, I am interpreting them correctly but hey - I enjoy the hell out of the films, feel I understand them and watch them over and over again so that’s all I’m basing it on.

That’s not to say there are things I dismiss as meaningless or that I don’t understand in his films, it’s just that I don’t have to parse them immediately at first watch and perhaps that’s the audience’s problem. I don’t know if reverse-diagnosis is appropriate but looking at how much hand-holding there is in other directors’ films might be just as telling. I mean I saw Nolan’s Tenet and was about the least confusing thing I’d ever seen in my life but apparently *that* confused people, and you know hey that’s fair I guess, but I mean Nolan did a whooooole lot of audience hand-holding in that film, I mean, the dialogue was terrible. There was so much unnecessary exposition, which I generally find in all of his films, so if an audience can’t follow that then OK sure, Lynch is going to be a problem.

The thing is popcorn cinema is totally OK. I watch it. I really love it, I’ve written about it before, it’s good Industry. There’s a lot of great creativity in popular cinema, I don’t at all think poorly of it and I love seeing a really well produced, Hollywood picture... but I guess if that’s all you consume, and I guess if folks’ short-format episodic media (aka series - think Netflix, HVO etc.) is more or less to the same standard, then it begins to make sense that anything outside of that isn’t going to make sense.

Long story short - Lynch films tell simple stories where the feeling of the film is as important as the narrative of the film. To understand the story, you have to understand the feeling, and vice-versa.

Surprise surprise, it turns out independent and deemed “fringe” film-makers... aka Outsiders... make films about Outsiders.

Now I wouldn’t know if any of the Marvel films thematically are about Outsiders or Outsider culture, they probably are and very loudly at that, but the reason I’ve never included one in my catalogue of moods is they all read the same way. Not only are Marvel films mostly indistinct from one other to me, they’re also mostly indistinct from much of popular culture in general. That doesn’t make them bad, some of them still have some pretty awesome stunts, visfx, even parts of the narratives, funny jokes etc. in them, but on the whole they’re not useful to me as things I deem truly valuable in the long-term.

It’s OK, I’m not at all going to lament the proliferation of Marvel films, a lot of them have been pretty cool and they keep people in work. Meow meow meow “the death of cinema” mate, sure - I find it more difficult to find the sorts of films I like but that’s always been the case. Humans will do what they do, it’s not a read on cinema, it’s about being an Outsider and what that’s all about. True, maybe weird shit like Lynch and Noe might be more difficult to make, but the weird-indie corner was also dominated by white men and that needs to change, so who knows what the future holds.

Can you detect the point at which I took my meds and started getting tired?

Ghost in the Shell // Innocence // What We Want // What We’re Left With

Growing up as an Outsider, I feel as tho the first Ghost in the Shell film carries the weight of isolation, questions of identity and belonging, ultimately of acceptance, empowerment and liberation. Then Innocence brings to bear very similar moods but states that things may not necessarily change for the better, they simply change state. I love that in both narratives, the main texts of hacking or corrupt corporations, crime etc. are the least common denominators and barely relevant to heart of the films. I think about the theme of icons in Innocence, icons operatively being the dolls throughout the film, and the final image of Togusa’s daughter’s gift. As humans we assume we’re to take the position of biological humanity as representative of sentience, taking moral priority over all other beings. Earlier in the film we think Togusa is in limbo, but  at the conclusion Motoko asks the question, or perhaps states that perhaps we’re all in limbo together.

I think that’s a significant part of what growing up as and being an Outsider is like, what it feels like. Christians have this saying about “living in the world but not of the world” (derived from a bible verse) and honestly I don’t think they know what it means because they just operate like a cult, but I think queers and folks with long term mental health conditions have a better idea. We are pushed out to the fringes of our social groups from an early age, long before we know or understand what’s different about us. Our peers and the adults around us do this to us because their social behaviours are so well hard-coded, even they may not even know precisely what’s different about us, they just do - and they’re right. We are different. And they don’t accept us.

Maybe I am starting to get a little more upset that weird/different art is becoming more difficult to fund and make, because it’s for us, for me. It speaks to me. You already have so much, and representation and inclusion is so important. I don’t just need queer cinema, I need weird cinema, I need moods. I need quiet, introspective, pensive, reflective, Outsider moods.

I still feel like an Outsider. I have a few people who understand more about me, but I don’t think I have a place, not in a real sense. I have never felt that. Art is one of the few places I feel any connection with anything, and connecting with people is a very odd thing to consider - honestly, I actually would really like to connect with people but the unique combination of being queer *and* autistic comorbid with bipolar makes it really tough, more difficult the older I get. And now all you want to do is fund Marvel movies. I can’t feed off of that.

I’m getting tired, I’m not making any sense. It’s time for bed.

[tokiro07]

Though LEK left me feeling not the best, I will say that I think the villain was the best part, mostly because their arc perfectly matches my ideal for how Crests shape the arcs of the Digidestined, so I’m going to take this opportunity to once again talk about Crests

As I’ve said many times, I feel that Digimon is at its peak when the characters are given a specific characteristic that needs to be balanced between a lack and excess of said characteristic.

Courage (standing up to challenges and upholding what one believes is right) 

Lack = Fear (Tai realizing that he’s mortal and being too afraid to fight)

Excess = Recklessness (Tai jumping into danger on purpose to try to force Greymon’s evolution)

Friendship (working together and identifying with others) 

Lack = Isolation (Matt distancing himself and TK from the group)

Excess = Deindividualization (Matt falling into a groupthink mentality and othering Tai when he disagrees with the group’s decision)

Love (showing affection and caring for the wellbeing of another)

Lack = Rejection (Sora feeling unlovable and uncomfortable when Biyomon tried to show her affection) 

Excess = Desperation (Sora chasing after and smothering the amnesiac Biyomon) [Jealousy and Obsession could work too, but I don’t think Sora ever really had any moments that could be characterized as such]

Knowledge (understanding the world around oneself and applying said understanding practically)

Lack = Ignorance (Izzy ignoring his own needs and health when trying to understand the virus in Tri) [can also be read as Frustration or Obsession]

Excess = Overfocus (Izzy ignoring the people around him because of his focus on information)

Sincerity/Purity (being true to oneself and speaking one’s mind)

Lack = Self-doubt (Mimi questioning if her behavior and tendency to stand out is acceptable) 

Excess = Haughtiness (Mimi generally acting spoiled, eventually peaking as she takes advantage of a group of Digimon that need her help by requiring payment in the form of their servitude)

Reliability/Faith (taking responsibility and living up to expectations) 

Lack = Neglect (Joe justifying his refusal to fight as others being able to do so in his place)

Excess = Anxiety (Joe becoming overwhelmed by the weight of the responsibilities and expectations put on him)

Hope (perseverance towards a goal) 

Lack = Despair (TK feeling paralyzed when everything seems to be going wrong in Tri)

Excess = Naivete/blind optimism (TK assuming everything will work out on its own as a child)

Light (unclear, but possibly meant to be joy, happiness or positivity, since Nefertimon’s epithet is “the Light of Smiles”)

Lack = Pessimism (Kari losing her composure when she found herself in the Dark Ocean and when she thought Tai had been killed during Tri)

Excess = [unknown, as Kari doesn’t have any clear moments of excess, though “Mania” seems to be a likely abundance of joy, either not taking things seriously or deliberately ignoring or denying the negative aspects of situations; either would have been a believable character arc for Kari]

Kindness (courteousness, consideration and generosity)

Lack = Cruelty (Ken’s time as the Digimon Emperor, sadistically enslaving and torturing Digimon for personal gain)

Excess = Guilt (Ken’s tendency towards self-sacrifice in an attempt to make reparations for his actions as Digimon Emperor)

Again, as I’ve said in the past, none of the other characters have Crests of their own, but do have character arcs that can reasonably be extrapolated to characteristics suitable to Crests

Acceptance/Forgiveness (the capacity to look past another’s faults and differences)

Lack = Petulance (Davis viewing TK as a love rival over Kari without any actual evidence and hating Ken before meeting him just because he’s talented)

Excess = Gullibility [never comes up, but after accepting Ken, a moment of betrayal or deception would have been a compelling arc for Davis]

Honor (strong adherence to a moral code that one can be proud of)

Lack = Shame (Cody’s regrets of breaking promises, lying, and even killing what he thinks is a Digimon, despite the fact that all were contextually necessary)

Excess = Self-righteousness (Cody’s refusal to work together with TK due to a difference in values, specifically whether it’s ethical to kill a Digimon to protect others)

Passion (possessing high energy and the determination to see tasks through to completion)

Lack = Complacency/Despondence [never comes up to my recollection, but given Yolei’s themes of determination, having a moment where she gives up would be appropriate]

Excess = Carelessness (Yolei’s obsession with giving her all leads to her wearing herself out and getting Hawkmon hurt)

Gratitude (appreciation and reciprocation for what others have done for oneself) [Meiko has a number of themes such as a lack of confidence or a focus on her memories with Meicoomon, but the keyword of Tri being an expression of gratitude strongly implies that it was meant to be a major theme even if it wasn’t properly capitalized on]

Lack = Entitlement (not quite a problem of Meiko’s, but rather Meicoomon’s tantrums when misunderstanding and thinking that she’s been abandoned by Meiko; this could have been mirrored in Meiko, giving her a similar tantrum or interaction with the cast)

Excess = Indebtment [I don’t recall this coming up, but Meiko’s lack of confidence could have been extrapolated into feelings of inadequacy and not being able to pull her weight]

And finally we come to Menoa, the antagonist of Last Evolution Kizuna, who has a host of synonyms that can be used to adequately describe not only her arc, but the arc of the film as a whole

Change/Maturity/Growth/Potential (one’s progression through life and their own journey of self discovery) [given that it’s a common symbol for change and that it was literally the symbol for change in the film, the Crest of Change would likely be made to resemble a butterfly]

Lack = Stagnation/Regression (Menoa’s obsession not only with returning to and staying in her own past, but forcing that ideal onto others)

Excess = Precociousness (Menoa’s rapid advancement at an early age, sacrificing her formative years because of a perceived need to be mature, ultimately resulting in her losing her best friend, Morphomon, before she was emotionally capable of coping with that loss)

[johnlockficclub]

Author Q&A Recap

We have to say, @prettysherlocksoldier was very lovely and everyone had a great time bantering back and forth.  So much fun, that for space we’ve kept it to just the questions and answers:

@sherlock-nanowrimo: Did you have any headcanons as you wrote this fic, that didn't make it into the story?

@prettysherlocksoldier: Not exactly, but I did sort of come up with the whole idea originally with the concept for Irene's radio show, and I wanted initially to have her somehow in that capacity work to set John and Sherlock up, but it didn't really come together that way and I wish I could have spent more time with her radio show.

@elwinglyre:  I loved the bantering that you included in this story. What inspiration did you use to write it?

@prettysherlocksoldier: Truthfully, I tend to write dialogue how I speak. And I'm EXTREMELY dry and sarcastic with my friends, so it just comes out of that with a characterized twist.  WELL OKAY so they are all like different sides I guess. John bridges the gap between sarcastic Dani and supportive friend Dani, and Sherlock is "I would never dare say this to your face but I am thinking it very loudly" Dani.

@elwinglyre: It sounds like you like to write kind of stream of consciousness at times. How much do you generally plan out in your writing. The dialogue is spontaneous but the rest is…? I’m always interested about this.

@prettysherlocksoldier: I always try to be a planner but I am a pantser at heart. Any time I attempt to outline it goes off the rails fairly quickly and I just let it, so most of it ends up being spontaneous. The only thing I pay fairly close attention to is the chronology, especially with a holiday story which has a set deadline (ie Christmas). I don't want to mention it's been a week and that would be New Years or something, so I keep track of that but otherwise I'm a mess.

@blue-posey: I love the play on words and puns and turns in your writing, but esp ‘every silver lining

@prettysherlocksoldier: I really don't know haha! Again, I guess I just sort of write like I talk. And, being an English major and a writer and generally a hopeless romantic, I am also occasionally very poetic (coughmelodramaticcough).

@blue-posey: Well, it is poetic.  As is the way Sherlock sees John throughout the book: golden hair, snowflake on his cheek etc.

@prettysherlocksoldier:  I've seen too many Hallmark movies, I will put a snowflake on every eyelash within reach.

@sherlock-nanowrimo: What draws you to writing unilock stories?  This was our first time reading unilock as a group and some folks hadn't ever read that trope before. It was a big hit

@prettysherlocksoldier: Well, at the time, I was in university, so that was a big part of it, but then I also just think it's a time of such potential, whether undergrad or grad school. I mean, school takes up so much of some people's lives, especially someone like John going into medicine, and those are formative years. So I like playing with the idea of meeting someone at this point in your life where everything is changing and you're trying to find your footing and settle into your own skin, and then here comes someone who shakes all that up and you sort of have to decide if you're going to grow TOGETHER or just keep forging your own path. It's a high-stakes time period and I'm just drawn to the dramatic potential in it, I suppose.

@elwinglyre: I also liked your foreshadowing in this with the elevator (going up and going down—so naughty and nice). And your whole pulling out the angst at the end with Sherlock. Great build up.

@prettysherlocksoldier: I love sort of...innocuous foreshadowing. Like it won't be HORRIBLE nothing TERRIBLE is going to happen because that's simply not what I write, but anything could come around again and suddenly have new meaning. It's just harmless turnabout haha.

@blue-posey:  Can I say I did a fist-in-the-air jig when John said about ‘nice’ boys asking for nudes!  It was really good to see it spelled out like that, esp coming from a male character.

@prettysherlocksoldier: I love John being this like...perfect stereotype of a Jock Jackass and then he's just...not. And it sort of unseats everyone around him and that's fun too. And I make everyone as raging liberal feminist as I am so there's also just that haha.

@elwinglyre: So… the big question: how do you feel about writing sex scenes???

@prettysherlocksoldier: OH MY GOD SO AWKWARD OH MY GOD I don't do it very often because I just... It is so difficult for me, I can't put my finger on why. When I do write them, they're either harried or I'm focusing more on the emotion because I just don't know how to make "thrust" sound sexy I just don't knowwww.

@sherlock-nanowrimo:  There were a number of details we loved, departures from frustrating aspects of canon. Like Molly not having a crush on Sherlock because everyone knows he's gay.  And John happily admitting he's bi. Did you have any intent to knock down some canon stuff or did it just come natural?

@prettysherlocksoldier: I think a lot of that comes out of unilock more than any particular intent of mine. Like, it's 2016 or whatever it was at the time, they're young, they're at a liberal universe in a world city, like I just...can't fathom Sherlock would not be out. Especially with someone like Irene around him, who I always make a supportive influence. John is a little more complication because of that jock persona and he might have some reservations about being open about his sexuality, but I just... I mean, growing up in a conservative home and environment that did not take kindly to me coming out, I just don't make much time for it in the worlds I get to create. Maybe I'm trying to rewrite my own history, but hey, the world's rough enough with even fictional gay people having to feel unsafe being themselves

@blue-posey: And talking about openness, I love how casually John says he’s bi

@prettysherlocksoldier: That moment actually meant a lot to me because it's like a chance for him to correct an assumption, and yes Sherlock is listening and that's part of it, but it's I think the moment when we're like OH WAIT HE MIGHT BE INTO IT and it's So Softe.

@wildishmazz:  When they nearly got pornographic near the end, were you toying with the idea of someone having to say the title to them?

@prettysherlocksoldier: I almost ALMOST had them do the classic bump-the-microphone-and-everyone-hears-you-boning, but decided against it haha.

@sherlock-nanowrimo: as we were reading the part with Mary, I know I tensed up wondering just how it was going to go.  But it wasn't toxic at all - -she made an effort to reconnect, but accepted her defeat with grace.

@prettysherlocksoldier: I have a hard time making Mary a rival. Maybe because I don't think she ever really was haha! But also I was disappointed in where her character ended up going and she deserved better and I am going to give it to her goshdarnit.

@blue-posey: I also loved this:

“Love conquers all,” the blond quipped, slowly lowering himself down beside Sherlock, back scraping against the wall. “No, it doesn’t,” Sherlock scoffed, turning through the pages. “It merely temporarily blinds people to flaws; it doesn’t actually conquer anything.”

I know it reads a bit defeatist, but I think it’s not.

@prettysherlocksoldier: I love a Sherlock who has sort of...put up this shield of cynicism around love simply because he doesn't think he'll find it, so it's easier to think the whole thing is stupid.  I mean we've all had a bad breakup and been like NEVERMIND LOVE IS A SHAM for a while.  Not to be a monster, but I always thought of Sherlock as someone who loves very deeply, just never expresses it because he perceives himself as unloveable.

@wildishmazz:  did John assume they were on the same page re: having been on dates and so therefore being dating?

@prettysherlocksoldier: John, god bless him, I think totally thought he was like courting this dude and doing it up right and being Super Romantic, and then Sherlock is just like BUT YOU DID NOT EXPLICITLY STATE.

@blue-posey:  @tildathings wanted to ask how you choose the radio station for the set up.

@prettysherlocksoldier: Oh god that is actually kind of embarrassing, so to be fair it was VERY LATE and I was DRIVING and I was VERY BORED but do y'all know that like late night advice radio show with that gravelly voice woman, Delilah??  I just thought what an Irene version of that would be like and everyone else just kind of came out of that and got their own shows and then it was just at a radio station and it's all Delilah's fault.

Thanks everyone for joining us for back to school fic! Many thanks to @prettysherlocksoldier for chatting with us!

[awastelandheart]

Sebastian’s personality analyzed through his theory-crafted natal chart, in game dialogue & conclusion included: The perspective of an experienced astrologer.

PART TWO: MOON SIGN. SEE PART ONE: SUN SIGN.

i apologize in advance to any leo moons i unintentionally read to filth in this post.

          so, in my last post i talked about Sebastian’s sun sign. to those who don’t know much about astrology, i’ll take a second at the beginning of this post to explain what a moon sign is   &   recap my opinions on the other post. to the people who know enough about astrology to already understand this much   &   have read the first installment, feel free to skip ahead !

          there is far more to astrology than just the first sign that almost everyone knows about themselves. the second most basic concept to astrology is that each typical planet   ( moon, mars, mercury, etc )   influences different aspects of our personality in unique ways depending on what constellation   ( read: sign )   they were in when a person was born. in my last post i talked about Sebastian’s sun sign, which i headcanon as Capricorn. 

          key sentences from my last post:

Capricorn is an earth sign, reveling in stability with a handful of almost toxic traits to display if that stability isn’t achieved. between their earthly reliability   &   love of practicality, Capricorns are viewed as the traditional fathers of the zodiac sphere. they guard their values of yesteryear close to their chest. anything too different is cast far away from themselves. a Capricorn’s independence is almost panic charged in this way. they so dearly want to be seen as capable that they will shred their own livelihood as a price. they are masters at self control for it, each having taught themselves the art of stoicism from a young age. Capricorns are at best, friendly in a superficial way. knowing their loneliness is created by their own hands but never knowing how to move passed their own cold   &   distant heart to enact any change necessary to improve their relationships. something that is often associated with Capricorns   &   the other earth signs is the act of earning money. Capricorns crave for their income to be stable   &   plentiful in order to provide for their loved ones, or for the more lonely Capricorns, to provide for themselves.

          our sun signs are the most rudimentary of our personality descriptors. it’s an accessible way of understanding ourselves as the position usually hosts our mannerisms   &   ambition. from there, the planets get more niche. our moon sign, which is the position i’ll be talking about in this post, homes our emotional experiences. where this planet is describes how we approach our emotions, how we process   &   cope with them. questions that this position answers are about what we need to feel secure in life   &   how we respond to emotional challenges. our moon sign is the universal experience of knowing what we mean but not being able to articulate it. so in this post i’ll be talking about Sebastian’s nuanced experience. 

          Sebastian’s main struggle is with feeling angry over his family’s neglect   &   Maru’s clear favoritism. aside from a couple instances like his snowgoon lines, we don’t actually see very much tangible favoritism. because of this, i think Sebastian has very sensitive emotions   &   maybe even a fragile ego to boot. it would be less that Demetrius   &   Robin actually treat him unfairly   &   more that he just feels this way;   that on an emotional level, it’s something perceptible but not explainable. Sebastian’s experience with his family’s neglect is less moments that he can list off or define   &   more in the subtleties. i’m not saying he doesn’t get treated unfairly at times, he most definitely does, but to other people these slights may seem superficial;   for Sebastian, they are deeply wounding.

          leo is a fire sign with the modality of fixed. many people assume that fire signs are always extroverted   &   loud, however it can be quite the opposite. this element is more about passion for their interests, innate creativity,   &   how quickly their moods fizzle out. the emotions of a fire sign come fast   &   burn through just as quickly, often leaving some form of destruction in the wake of their excitement. fixed signs are always slightly obsessive about the things that pique their interest. like a dog’s locked jaw, they end up spending more time than other people on one activity. off the top of my head, this is exactly how concernedape describes Sebastian in his dev update #12, saying;   “ he tends to get deeply absorbed in computer games, comic books,   &   sci-fi novels,   &   will sometimes spend great lengths of time pursuing these hobbies alone in his room. ”

          leo specifically is a very intelligent   &   creative sign. their interests are usually a bit nerdier than most in modern times since high fantasy lends well to a unique blend of intellectualism   &   creativity. leo moons tie their emotions to what they create   &   can be very defensive about their interests. others opinions, if differing to their own, can result in a damaged relationship. as a result, leo moons more than most tend to surround themselves with people they find relatable. i find the fact that, unlike with other bachelors, when you answer ‘incorrectly’ to Sebastian asking you your opinion on things, the system actively deducts friendship points, indicating that by not agreeing with him, you’re damaging your relationship.

          when it comes to their friend groups, leo tends to be in charge, whether by force or charm. there’s a duality to leo moons that pegs them as both the overbearing   &   pushy friend that has an opinion on everything   &   the friend that offers structure   &   inspiration to plans or events. it’s natural for a leo position to enjoy attention but more sensitive ones will prefer it only from loved ones   &   those they’re comfortable around. another canon instance to support this deduction is how Sebastian mentions that he enjoys having friends, but has a hard time being around people. he clearly enjoys attention, or else Maru’s favoritism wouldn’t eat at him so much as well, but is too much of an introvert to seek it out from anyone but those he’s comfortable around   ( ie;   Sam   &   Abby ).

          leo moon is a rather emotional position, requiring lots of love   &   care in order to function well. they feel slighted easily   &   console themselves with bouts of sulking as a result. being conscious of their appearance   &   what people think of them often means this sulking won’t happen in public but will be saved for their alone time. for more healthy leo moons, these bouts pass quickly, resulting in a healed ego   &   the ability to ‘get back out there.’ however for leo moons who feel neglected   &   unloved frequently, this brooding may become apart of their personality. anyone who spends more than a moment interacting with Sebastian in game will probably describe him as seeming like the brooding type   --   in one of his first interactions with the player, he delivers an almost poetic yet depressing line that insinuates he spends a lot of time thinking to himself.

          so, in summary, i believe Sebastian has a Leo moon because he shares many qualities with how astrologers perceive the position. he is complicated & a man with a lot of internal conflict   --   someone who enjoys all things extroverted but due to his sensitive emotions, has developed a guarded personality to compensate. of course this is all just my personal interpretation, but i hope this was an interesting read   &   shed some light on the kind of person Sebastian is !

[fleetofshippyships-archive]

K

👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

oh my god how can I pick just one???? 😱 

Hmmmmmmm, the main ones I want to mention are ones I also want to keep to myself until I write them/finish writing them because I feel like they’re very unique...I don’t wanna hear if they’ve been done before cos then I won’t want to write them anymore XD

Let’s see...something I’m not super protective over....tbh I lot of my super angsty ideas involve sad/hopeless endings tbh. I’m a sucker for them.

I had a really angsty time travel idea where character A goes back in time to save Character B from dying, and they do, but then after that conflict passes, another springs up and Character B dies again. So A time travels again and saves them from that too, and lo and behold, a third conflict springs up and B dies again. And so on, A is just completely incapable of letting B die, and suffers over and over again because B’s death is inevitable and unchangeable, but they also don’t get desensitised to it cos it’s always different and they can have months and years in between giving them false hope that they’ve finally saved them. And then, ooh boy, compromised morals as they get more and more desperate to save them, until they can’t even recognise the person they are anymore and maybe Character B even ends their relationship over how much they’ve changed (may or may not be aware of what’s happening, who knows, not me)

Actually...that’s not that angsty enough that’s kind of bland and done to death

dammit

I really like angst ideas where for whatever reason, a character is going through hell in the story, suffering a lot, for a perceived purpose. I have a few ideas like this, but then when it comes down to it, at the end, their suffering was pointless for whatever reason (there are a few alternatives) and that’s like, oooh that hits where it hurts, even with a happy ending, there’s a lingering sense of just...despair, cos they could have avoided so much suffering but they didn’t notice something, or were too in their heads and perpetuating their own misery because of it etc. Those ‘what if’s man, they hurt.

The long soulmate au I wrote three years ago was like that, Draco suffering through the years keeping quiet about Harry being his soulmate (and not even Harry knew) and he was telling himself he was protecting Harry (only slightly true, but once he made the initial dumb decision he was kind of locked into it since he stupidly decided to keep Harry away by making him hate him *cue eyeroll* Draco you dumb fuck), and everything happens as in canon, but with that undercurrent of him loving Harry because they’re soulmates (but also hating him because when he starts suffering (and oh boy I made him suffer from after GoF onwards, torture and nastiness from the DE for sport and all that, and he blames Harry, if it wasn’t for Harry being his soulmate, and he feels so afraid all the time of someone finding out and using him to get to Harry and suffering even more, and maybe he’d be better and not get hurt so much if not for Harry and blah blah) and then near the end (8th year) they’re sort of becoming friends, and Draco went on a killing spree when Harry died, so he’s known as a hero now and fucking hates it cos he only sees himself as a weak coward for always running away and hiding from the DE and only fighting because he was mad with grief when he realised Harry had died and didn’t actually mean to save any of the people he saved, and he still hasn’t told Harry, even though Harry talks to him about soulmates a lot once they start talking, cos Harry still wonders where his is (papers printed a pic of his mark in 1st year so everyone knows what his mark is, and Harry assumes his soulmate just doesn’t want him) and Draco is fucking miserable, and trapped in his habit of hiding and completely incapable of telling him, so when Harry makes a move on him, Draco pushes him away because he’s so afraid XD 

I mean, it ended happily, eventually, but all his suffering, esp his angsting about how Harry would react after being made to feel unloved and unwanted for those years, and how miserable he made himself with it, was pointless and for nothing because Harry accepted him, even if they moved very slow after that to build trust (cos Harry is no idiot and Draco gave a lot away when they talked about soulmates even if Harry didn’t realise at the time Draco was talking about them)

I got so much fucking hate over that though, which is why that fic is not online and won’t ever go back online. and yeah. That actually might be my angsiest, just from the sheer pointlessness of his suffering, which was the point (lol), but very very unsatisfying for readers even though they got a happy ending, and oh boy they let me know and I was a wee baby writer only on my second fic so yah. Never written anything that angsty again actually, now that I think about it...

I mean, the technical writing of that fic was shit (no, really it was terrible) because it was only my second fic and I didn’t edit as I posted, but no one said a word about the writing quality, it was all hate for the plot and my handling of the characters and that damn ending, but everything they hated was intentional and what I loved about the idea myself soooooooooooo, awkward

Anyway, yeah that soulmate au is probably my angstiest thing, just cos the suffering has no purpose or meaning and could have been avoided if the character had just made different choices, and it dragged on for 7+ years. And it’s just delightful the way he shifts between loving Harry because of being soulmates and all the societal conditioning therein (but also knowing they’re soulmates making him really pay attention to Harry and see what kind of person he really is and all that) and then hating Harry and wishing he was dead, and then feeling overwhelming guilt for feeling that way about his soulmate, and then cycling back around to rage, and then relief to see him again after every summer of suffering, and just, ughhhhhhhhhhhhh that’s my kind of angst right there, so good.

Fuck I rambled so much. probably littered with typos and shit. ugh I’m tired I’m just gonna post it how it is XD

Send me a letter for this fanfic ask meme if you’re curious =)

[youwillcallher]

something that’s been bothering me about this season is how little dennis’ absence has been addressed, even as a joke! we know rcg and they literally never leave any plot point unaddressed, they love bringing back even tiny things from previous seasons and showing the later consequences of them (for instance, dennis continuing to impersonate brian lefevre leading to mandy and north dakota etc etc etc) so why would they not focus on it? it feels like they’re purposefully starving us for an explanation and dragging it out much longer than literally any other show would. i remember seeing an interview where glenn said something like “dennis, the character, decided to leave the bar, and we’re going to take that decision and development seriously.” but the thing is, they haven’t! 

or at least, not yet.

(putting it under a read more because this got long)

as we all know, there’s some timeline fuckery happening this season -- the gang beats boggs 2: ladies reboot happens after the super bowl (see: guigino’s waiter). this is the first time the super bowl episode has been brought up. we see it mentioned again in time’s up for the gang. rcg is clearly laying breadcrumbs leading up to the episode, and it must have some significance. 

we all know rex is back in the episode, and i don’t think it’s unreasonable whatsoever to theorize that out gay beefcake mac and rex, someone mac has been outwardly attracted to since season three, will definitely at the very least do some intense flirting, and seeing as it is the super bowl, it also wouldn’t be unreasonable to think hmm! maybe there’s a kiss cam moment in there! maybe with rex, maybe not, but i think we’re definitely going to see some very gay mac in that episode, hopefully making out with some beefcake on live television.

if that happens, which honestly seems pretty possible (why else bring rex back if not for a symbol of mac’s gay awakening and maybe the first time we see him actually getting with a guy?), i think it’s entirely plausible that it sets off the sequence of events leading to dennis coming back to philly. 

say dennis is sitting at home in ND, watching the big game (cause even if you take the man out of philly, you can’t take philly out of the man!), and the kiss cam starts rolling. he doesn’t pay much attention at first -- watching people that aren’t him make out is one of his top pet peeves, why should he give a shit if other people kiss? it’s not like they’re fucking, and more importantly, if he’s not involved, there is literally no reason to care -- but then suddenly he sees a familiar face and freezes in place. his eyes are glued to the screen, his hand stops digging through the bowl of popcorn he’s holding, his face contorts into shock then confusion then disgust: mac is making out with a guy on live tv. mac is making out with a guy on live tv. mac is making out with a guy on live tv. mac is making out with a guy on live tv.

the very next morning, dennis’ bags are packed, and he’s back to philly. not because he finally realizes he’s in love with mac and is returning to confess his undying adoration for him and win him back, like some shitty rom com. no, it’s because dennis can deal with a lot of things, sure, but watching the one person he thought would always worship and love him, someone who’s unending admiration and devotion to him has always been as constant, expected, and without deviation as (as @rcgrights brilliantly put it) the air dennis needs to breathe -- watching that person immediately move on without a second thought, on live tv, no less? this is the ultimate humiliation and betrayal in dennis’ eyes. he has no idea what the fuck the emotions he’s currently feeling are, but he knows none of them are positive, and that he wants them to stop. reminder that this is dennis “i just want everything to go back to normal” reynolds, a man who hides his dependence and insecurities under layers and layers of superiority. but yet, in a split second, all of his carefully constructed walls had come crashing down because mac, the one person he thought would always adore and desire him, apparently no longer does. if mac’s no longer in love with him, who even is he? mac’s love for him has become so deeply intertwined in the dynamic of the gang, the only people on earth he cares about, so deeply intertwined in his life, so deeply intertwined in his own psyche, that now that it’s no longer obvious he has no idea what to do with himself. he never thought it would come to this. so something has to change.

mac is, as we all know, an extremely dependent and emotionally stunted person. he had a horrible and depressing upbringing, and now, after a lifetime of being neglected, avoided, and unloved, he is stuck in the freudian pregenital stage, which is marked by feelings of intense deprivation and loss. this is something that’s always been woven into his character, even though it became clearer and clearer as time went on. back in the season five commentary for mac and dennis break up, dr. drew pinsky (an actual psychologist and doctor from celebrity rehab that, for whatever reason, rcg brought on) says about mac’s fear of abandonment in relation to dennis: “everything threatens him because he’s in an abandonment crisis right now. he got close to being abandoned so anything now is a threat.” this is a pretty accurate explanation for almost all of mac’s interactions with dennis -- the more it seems like dennis is moving away from him, the more desperate he is to have him back, and the more outwardly affectionate he is out of fear of abandonment. however, part of being as emotionally stunted as mac is not being able to properly understand what happens when people distance themselves, be that physically, emotionally, or both. to quote dr. drew talking about mac, “one thing about little kids, like, two-year-olds, they can’t tolerate coming and going. when somebody’s out of sight, they cease to exist. very primitive way of perceiving other people” to which charlie day responds “yes, mac’s very primitive.” this knowledge makes it easy to understand mac’s apparent lack of response to dennis’ absence -- out of sight, out of mind. if he’s not there, he ceases to exist. obviously, it’s not that simple, but having dennis be gone is almost a relief for mac: he doesn’t have to worry about pleasing him and gaining his love and respect anymore, because he’s not in the picture. there’s no way mac can even screw it up because he’s just not there. this is a weird and unwelcome but surprisingly freeing feeling that mac isn’t quite sure how to deal with. 

unfortunately, he doesn’t get much opportunity to find out, because before he knows it, dennis is back.

dennis is back, refusing to explain what happened, telling them to just move past it, which is strange because no one, not even dennis, leaves their family and retcons a major life decision they felt confident in for absolutely no reason. if the reason was that he got tired of being a dad, or he didn’t like mandy, or that the north dakota life was boring and just not for him, why wouldn’t he tell the gang, even in a split second off hand manner? it’s strange that he wouldn’t mention it whatsoever. unless, of course, the only reason he came back is one that dennis can’t wrap his mind around, one that for all logical conclusions shouldn’t be a reason at all. it’s just like the part of the gang does a clip show where they ask him to name one good thing about living with mac, and he can’t. mac is annoying, doesn’t pay rent or do any work, all he does is go on the dildo bike, etc.. there is no reason why dennis should keep living with him, and dennis knows that. so why has he lived with him for twenty years, why has he not taken any of the many opportunities he’s been given to move out for good, why did he not get a new apartment after coming back from north dakota, why does he still stay with mac when there’s absolutely no logical explanation for it? these are the questions that dennis desperately tries to avoid thinking about, for fear of finding out something he doesn’t want to know about himself, about mac, about them. so, he replaces these insecurities with the only things he knows how: superiority complexes, cockiness, and being an absolute dick to mac. because that means that dennis is above mac, right? he’s still himself, he’s still awesome, he doesn’t need mac, right? if he insults mac and makes it clear he’s not interested in him, then on some level that has to be true, right? 

let’s say he’s more self aware than he seems to be, though. let’s say he has some vague idea of what’s going on, or at the very least, knows he wants mac back to normal. if he wants mac to dote on him again, then why would he treat him 10x shittier than he has any other time? well, dennis prides himself on his minoring in psychology, as we all know, and even if he kind of sucks at it, there’s no way anyone with even the tiniest background in psych wouldn’t have picked up on mac’s abandonment issues. and knowing that dennis 1) knows mac so well, and 2) most likely knows how the pre-genital stage/fear of abandonment works from his past education, it’s fitting to assume that he knows that the best way to get mac immediately back under his influence is to be completely and totally awful to him. the worse dennis is to mac, the harder mac tries. and dennis is desperate for mac to try, he’s so used to having mac’s constant approval of him that now that he feels like he’s lost it, he needs it back, and needs it stronger than ever. this may be why dennis has been so awful to mac all season, but, of course, continues living with him, continues being around him, and is even back in philly in the first place. again, why else could he possibly be back? maybe this is entirely speculation and i’m reading way too deeply into everything, but it really seems as if this is one of the only explanations for dennis’ admittedly strange behavior this season. 

let’s just say that i’m anxiously and apprehensively awaiting the gang wins the big game. 

[someonetotaketheedgeoff-blog]

15.09.2018 - Journal

(Some of this was written when I travelled with my family in America in the last 2 months)

4.07.2018

I picked a good time to quit comedy… just moments before Nanette. Maybe I’ll actually do something good if I make music instead of making jokes about fucking myself with an ex-girlfriend’s dildo.

I wont stay up late waiting to go on. Or be brutalised by Open Mic magazine on Facebook. Anything not to upset my fragile sense of self-esteem. There’s not much that's funny to me anymore… oh well… who gives a fuck anyway…

… So Liam goes into his little room and quietly dreams up his last open mic set…. hahaha… comedy can get you pretty fucked up! ... who gives a fuck anyway…

9.07.2018

Whenever I’m in a big city all I hear is it whispering (or perhaps screaming) to me - ‘can I just have some fucking money?!’  

I wonder how much I’m a product of my own fear. And also how much of what I make is a response to that fear.

It’s mostly been about death for me for the last 3 - 5 years. All I’ve done is use death to explain everything. I’ve used it to draw a line under certain things within myself and the exterior world. Seems lazy to me now.

Is laziness the fear of pain? Is a lack of motivation due to fear? A fear of failing?

It seems fear’s only a good motivator when you’re aware of what you’re afraid of and why.

23.07.2018

Travelling in America/being in America’s like being in GTA but you’re not any of the main characters.

24.07.2018

Not doing anything or not trying IS FAILING!

25.07.2018

Saw a guy stop in the subway, put his bag on the ground and re-adjust himself to get out a camera so he could take a photo of some graffiti on the wall that said ‘I love porno’.

Being in an all black neighbourhood I feel as if the black people are annoyed at me or my presence.

I keep think about the word ‘nigger’ and I keep thinking about the word ‘cracker’.

The current most popular, agreed upon philosophy on slur usage is do not say any word that has negative history associated with it and do not say ‘nigger’ if you’re not black.

Recently ‘retarded’ has been considered more offensive than it used to be and if you happen to use it you’re now accused of being an immoral person and presumably you think people that suffer mental deficiencies are bags of shit and you want to set them all on fire.

I have no problem with discussing words and I’m not even so much of a Doug Stanhope/iDubbbzTV nerd that I think the best world is a world where you say everything all the time in every context.

What I have a massive problem with is the presumption of hate and the pompousness of people downright attacking people that slip out ‘x’ word when a word is still in the process of being fazed out. It’s bloody political correctness gone quickly without open discussion and kindness!

Words are simply the end point of a vortex of shit and ideas and slang and culture. They are the bookend to a concept and when people get really caught up with words it kinda scares me.

The problem with these kinda bullshit discussions (especially on the internet) is that when you argue or discuss this shit the assumed reason for your questioning is that I want to be able to say ‘nigga’ with my friends for some unknown reason. But I don’t and I don’t understand why anyone would want to other than the fact that they’ve been told they can’t or they’re at a Klan meeting.

What I’m confused about is if words hold so much apparent power and evil due to their history then isn’t simply being white the most offensive and on the nose thing you can do? Probably, kinda, yeah.

Yet black people don’t fucking loose their shit when you walk into a room being all white and whiting the whole place up by being white. They simply get on with their lives. I believe the same shit could be applied to words. At least in a reactionary sense… it doesn’t make sense to berate a stranger with venom for saying that the fact that none of the self serve screens in Macca’s were working was retarded. I don’t know if this metaphor works. I’m just slightly confused as too why I get all my information on how to best treat minorities forced onto me from young well off white people in beer gardens. I just sit there and listen for a bit and then I stare into the reflective glare coming off their nose ring.

1.08.2018

Saw a full American fat guy in a servo. He was so fat I had to focus on not double-taking at him by staring intently at the fridge at the Dr. Pepper selection.

He looked beyond human.

13.08.2018

For some reason I am smoking again. It’s a never ending battle. Oh well. Strangely I don’t mind.

I smoked a cigarette I crafted from all the butts I could find in my parent’s house. Something I’ve done probably over 100 times in my life.

I find that I clench my jaw all the time. I’ve only noticed it recently. Through meditating and not doing drugs. I’ve noticed it. I thought I had neck cancer but the strange feeling of ache comes from my constantly clenching my jaw.

I worry that maybe I’ve done drugs and drank for so long now and started at a young age that the tracks within my brain are a little fucked. Or maybe I just have too high hopes for a sober life to be a more peaceful, and mentally stable one. Maybe the only thing I’ll gain is a healthier body.

I’m just afraid of all the horrible shit that’s inside my head. I’m afraid of being unlovable because of my desires and my personality. I don’t want to face in fear of losing Tash and revealing to her that I’m evil.

This seems to be the crux of all relationships. All of them. In the whole world. You know that you need to face the truth to get to the next stage. But it seems it will be so lonely, so terrifying and so cold… we don’t want to see the monsters that might lurk within us.

The thing is it’s almost impossible to have an honest relationship and never have turbulence. You can have a dishonest relationship with turbulence but the turbulence will be about bullshit like - ‘you said you were going to clean the extractor fan in the kitchen weeks ago…’ or ‘stop leaving your guitar on the couch…’ and such things might blow into massive arguments.

Relationships are designed to be a nightmare. Not by anyone in particular but by our hope for them and isolation and alienation we all experience internally in this society.

A relationship is a small life within your life.

Dependant on the extremity of a relationship (and obviously that is a relative thing but for sake of argument we’ll say a relationship where you truly considered that you would commit yourself to this other person until you or they or both had died) it could possibly be an interesting simulation of life after death (at least in an abstracted way).

When a relationship of said extremity begins to fall apart (for whatever reason) it’s interesting to note that you feel as if you’re dying and that there’s in fact no perceivable life to lead after the break up or if their is one it will be hellish and a subhuman existence not worth living.

When you survived a relationship that you’d committed everything to how did you feel?

I assume it was horrendous. But assuming you’re still alive and reading this… you must’ve started to feel somewhat normal once again.

Like awaking from a vivid dream it fades away rapidly. You played a different character, you lead a different life. You feel a horribleness deep inside. Not about the person but about the situation. Is this how it has to be? That the people you commit so intensely to, that you fuck and spend countless hours with then have to perish abstractly and then repressed as they fade into the background sometimes never to be spoken about or spoken to again…

I have a girlfriend now. And it terrifies my to think that the pattern may repeat.

***

We believe the internet is everlasting. Whether we research it or not, whether we know it consciously or not.

As much as we might make comments about Facebook and say things like- ‘be careful uploading those photos of your arsehole… you know that stuff will be up there forever’ I believe we’re secretly subconsciously screeching with joy at the fact that these photo’s will be up forever. As much as people have a disdain about Facebook and social media we adore it’s implied permanence. We believe that Facebook will be around after we’re dead. I say ‘believe’ because do you know how the fucking internet works? Do you know how a website is created? I fucking don’t. I don’t know if the internet would still exist if all the power plugs in the world were pulled out of there sockets. I’m a fucking idiot! A fucking idiot that has faith in the permanence of the internet… I mean… obviously… I write a blog mostly about death and existential dread and it put on… the internet.

The internet is now our saviour. It is the modern sleek titanium, bomb proof, indestructible, deathless park bench where you can scratch ‘L.D. was here’ and have a more solidified faith that it’ll be around for a while. And the longer it hangs around the more eye balls will see it, eye balls connected to a concious brain that’ll have no choice but to think ‘hey that guy was there’… and even if it’s just for one second your existence has been stretched just a tiny bit longer.

(People that love us are what we all orbit around all of our lives. If they happen to reject you at some point or disappear we then break away from that orbit and hurtle through abstract nothingness).

17.08.2018

Going to the pub was a bad idea. I went there thinking - ‘well… I kinda want to have just one drink’. The legs were aching and my poor sense of personal entitlement to some kind of ‘treat’ was raging within me. A very problematic thing for anyone that isn’t fulfilled in the work that that do (i.e. most people). I felt as I for some reason I deserved a beer. Also it was freezing cold. My feet were soaking wet and frozen due to my old decrepit shoes. I continued walking up the street. I noticed I had all these thoughts swirling in my mind. They all flew past me whispering - ‘it’s OK to have a beer’.

I watched them all swirl around in my head. I crossed my metaphorical arms and tutted. As I tutted I looked at the swirling thoughts and said - ‘fuck off… are you serious? You know this’s absolute bullshit. We don’t ‘deserve’ a drink… we don’t even probably technically want one… why are we actually going to do this?’

‘Yeah but we’ll only have one! Not even a pint mind you and then we’ll write a new to-do list and then maybe we see someone maybe we don’t and then we head off home and get down to work for a couple of solid hours before we go to bed’ said one of the thoughts.

‘Well OK… when you put it like that… that sounds nearly OK… but don’t you think there’s a chance that we might throw all that shit out the window and because we actually weren’t planning or trying to get drunk…. you’re going to use reverse psychology on me and then we actually will get drunk and most likely indulge in more heavily than if I’d actually planned to indulge…’ I replied.

‘Look don’t read into it just get into that pub… get a beer… have a cigarette in the beer garden, get out you’re little notebook and it’ll be just a quick little pop in, no worries, blah blah, etc, tomato tomato’ ’

‘Well alright then you’ve swung me round, but surely just like a small drink, like a ten ounce… you know we’re trying to focus on money and we’re only starting to face the fact of how much money we piss away on alcohol and other similar shit…’

‘Yea, yea, yea don’t worry just a ten ounce… don’t you worry about that’.

I walked up to the bar.

‘Yes what can I get you?’

‘Ah… could get a ten ounce of Little Creatures?’

‘Ah it’s actually $5 a pint right now and $10 dollars for a jug?’ she grinned slightly.

‘Ah…’.

I turned to the floating thoughts. I gave them a warning look. They all looked back at me like a pack of hyenas.

I began drowning internally - ‘Ah fuck! Na, na, na, I knew some bullshit like this was going to happen… action stations… we gotta think of some other shit… what else do they have on tap… maybe a stubby? Fuck!’

‘Hey this is great news! What a bargain! Don’t worry about it we’ll just drink that one pint and leave… no worries’ cackled the hyenas.

I ended up drinking maybe 5 pints. A bunch of my friends turned up and I talked a bunch of shit for a long, long time. It was as if ‘the plan’ had been completely erased from my mind like the bar lady had men in blacked me with the shine of her bar blade and I was back in the drinking business and also the business of not following my dreams and the business of having no self control.

The arguments in the pub got very heated. I have a few friends that can get heated during argument, (I mean who doesn’t) but I have to say it stresses me out a bit but even more so it confuses me. Every time an argument gets to that stage I don’t really trust anything that’s happening anymore. Your/my emotions are taking over and also everyone’s pissed. I think it’s interesting to me to watch people’s attention spans disintegrate at the pub. The more everyone drinks the quicker a group conversation subject topic can change hands. It’s not hard to do, barely anyone notices it and you can do it in a matter of seconds. You could be having a super intense discussion about anything and if you just interrupt everyone enough and interject a barrage of some current novelty bullshit topic that’s circling you can derail shit very quickly.

21.08.2018

Last week at the pub a friend told me that he basically waits for inspiration. He felt he should never force himself to create anything. Recently I’ve been getting back into the Stephen Pressfield way of thinking that he explains in the book The War Of Art. A book that basically shows you how to be a professional whatever, artist, musician, sports player, whatever. It’s a book that gives tools to fight the part of you that doesn't want to sit down and do the work. In other words it fights the notion of ‘waiting for inspiration’.

Very, very few times in my life have I been struck with overwhelming flaming inspiration to do anything. It happened more when I was a child. When I’d wake up early on a weekend I’d have the inspiration akin to fucking Michelangelo to go and make Lego spaceship car things out of all the see- through green pieces of Lego.

But when you get to around 7, 8, 9, 10 and beyond I think (I’m not a psychologist) you begin to second guess all that shit. You begin to be your own worst critic. Because fascinatingly nearly every kid up until that age will be happy to do a bit of drawing or play various characters in a fictional story they create on the spot. And then it all stops and this horrible awareness kicks in.

I define it as the point where you used to play with toys as a kid in your room. Each character having a crazy back story and way of speaking. You’d play, alone and be completely immersed. Your mum or dad would pop there head into the room to ask if you wanted cornflakes or some shit and you’d be like a focused director waving off an intern - ‘yea yea, sure, just have it on my desk, I’m working right now’. But then something changes around that age and when one of your parents pops their head into the room you freeze and quite your voice. You suddenly feel cripplingly self aware, maybe even stupid. You tell them to go away maybe or wait for them to leave before you get back into to the action.

Then one day you go to the studio (aka your bedroom with a mat on the floor resembling a city that we all had) and the juice is gone, the mojo is gone, you pick up the toys and you try to croak out their particular voice and you just feel stupid, looking quickly back at your bedroom door, making sure no one heard.

All of this stuff reminds me of a Picasso quote [R.I.P. 25.10.1881 - 19.06.2018*] - ‘Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up’.

I’ve always found it interesting. I think encapsulates what I’m saying. Most people have some kind of creativity or at least blissful ignorance of expression at an age and then their brains get bigger or something and they become pimply teenagers that struggle to even walk down the street without worrying about everything detail about themselves and then they learn to just manage that shit as they enter adult life.

*I’ve chose Picasso’s death date to be the release date of Nanette. I can’t really be bothered explaining why that is right now so I guess if you really want to know you’ll have to watch Nanette.

30.08.2018

I’m often confused as to why everyone has an opinion and why you seemingly have to have an opinion.

’I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing’ - Socrates

In my college years I used to be a bit of an air headed stoner art wanker and I still am but the difference is now I have opinions on things. Back then I didn’t really have opinions. And I did it on purpose because I knew that I didn’t know anything. However it didn’t really help me socially and it didn’t help in my relationships and it didn’t really help with my self-esteem. Not initially but eventually I started to feel like I was just drifting away into an abstract world of nothingness. People don’t really take you seriously when you don’t have any solid opinions. It’s probably not a ‘masculine’ trait.

Reminds of a Dylan Moran bit:

‘Men; strong opinions with no information’

[faelapis]

so i’ve had these jasper asks in my inbox for a while... and it’s about time i addressed them. i’ll be focusing especially on that last one and the idea of “deserving” redemption, + some of my own general thoughts to talk about the su narrative, jasper, her relationship with peridot, trauma, steven, and where we go from here. 

it’s time for another jasper post under the cut. 

steven universe is pretty loyal to the rousseau was right-trope, which basically means that while yes, people are accountable for their actions, everyone are born as a moral blank slate and drawn towards doing what they perceive to be right - if someone is “evil”, it’s because of outside influences, not because they were ‘born’ weak or selfish or cruel. it also implies that anyone has the chance of redemption and renewal. 

one of my more radical stances in fandom is that i don’t think jasper is a bad person. partly because she’s dedicated to a cause she believes is just, and partly because i don’t think any gem is supposed to be “bad”. i think she’s rather selfless - a “neutral good” within her own mind - and to her, the people and places she’s loved are more important than she is. she holds herself to just as high standards as anyone else, if not higher. her views on defects and corrupted gems are incredibly similar to peridot and yellow diamond, and this seems to be the general rule within the yellow sector - your “use” is very much the focus. 

for this reason, it’s deeply unfair to compare her to, say, blue’s quartzes: gems who have spent the last 5000 years with a loving support network of fellow quartzes with and without defects, playing daycare for the zoo humans, not living to fight, under a diamond who wants them to grieve, love, and feel their emotions to the fullest. 

i think it’s also noteworthy that despite living a completely different life, i don’t actually think jasper’s so hardcore against defects as people give her beef for. not really - at least no more so than peridot, who trash-talks pearl and corrupted gems alike. 

jasper’s treatment of peridot herself is the main example of this, and works as an important contrast between how jasper treats gems with defects VS. how say, someone like holly blue treats them (because yes, actions still matter, even if the why makes sense): 

jasper never lays a finger on peridot, insults her, or otherwise mistreats her. in “the return”, she sounds outright bored, because she believes peridot can handle herself when it’s just a handful of gems. she doesn’t define peridot by her defects. peridot, in turn, feels comfortable around jasper - enough to argue with her, roll her eyes or whine (”we can’t leave yet!” “ugh, fine”), and talk shit in a casual way. she doesn’t think jasper will punish her, hurt her or do anything more than argue back.

holly blue seems to terrorize gems on homeworld’s side, physically and verbally. it’s part of her job, but it’s also out of her own perfectionism and impatience, to keep them in line and remind them to defer to superiors. this is before they do anything wrong, and she’s very much wrong to do so. by contrast, peridot can mess up, or even depend on jasper’s help, and the worst jasper will do is tell her how to attack with the ship, or that they gotta get back to homeworld - she’s stressed, but she doesn’t say either in a demeaning, harsh or cruel way. 

jasper is cruel to amethyst, yes, but there is a very important key difference here: amethyst is a crystal gem. jasper doesn’t fight her for shits and giggles, to keep her in line or “just” because of a superiority complex - she sees her as The Enemy(tm). this is such an important difference, because jasper doesn’t treat gems on her own side this way, even when their defects are blatantly obvious. 

peridot, without her enhancers, is basically “useless” - she’s a crystal gem, and she can’t do her job properly without her screen and fingers... but jasper is outraged at what the crystal gems did to her - taking her enhancers, her status, her dignity. she still wants to reason with her, and doesn’t take any shots (physical or verbal) at peridot the entire time - she may have been told someone like peridot no longer has a use, and she does repeat some of yellow diamond’s rhetoric... but a part of her resists that mindset, because jasper’s a very emotionally-driven person. like pink diamond, peridot is in a box labelled “people i care about”, and so anything bad that happens to them is unfair. it’s not what they deserve... and peridot wants to help her. she tries, genuinely, to explain what’s so great about earth. 

this is what i mean when i say jasper holds herself to higher standards of usefulness than anyone else. above all, jasper’s fatalistic mindset is a combination of the “yellow sector” ideology and how she copes with trauma. her base response is that if she didn’t do enough to prevent it, she deserved it. she pities herself, but she sees herself as worthless if she can’t do her job - protecting/avenging herself and others.

she also serves to hold characters accountable, in a way that is reminiscent of lapis in “mirror gem/ocean gem”. jasper’s treatment of the crystal gems seems excessively rude and violent at first, but the show dances a very long dance around her motivations. a lot of the point of jasper’s big episodes is to play with your assumptions - even a relatively straightforward episode like “crack the whip” is really about setting up “beta/earthlings”. not just to show what an empathetic and growing character amethyst has become, but to show why jasper was so desperate for revenge. we got to see her actions before her motivations, so when you find out that oh boy did she have reason, it’s a gut punch. it puts everything that just happened in perspective. 

there’s a reason the show lets steven think jasper is “mean” or “terrible” for a while - and it’s not because she is. it’s because steven, at that point, is holding on to this idea that if jasper’s angry with people he cares about, she’s wrong. everyone he loves are Good. when jasper says something about wanting to beat up rose, or how pissed she is at lapis, that’s just Bad. he “got away” with this mindset with peridot, because peridot was young and didn’t really have any serious beef with the crystal gems. she was “easy mode” - not necessarily a better person, but younger and less cynical about her enemies. 

“why do i never ask follow-up questions?!” is a great line steven says to himself, because that’s exactly how he treated jasper - he eventually tries to help her, but it’s out of wanting to “fix things” more than understanding her. that’s why it needed to fail. steven needed to hear her speech, and to learn the whole story without assuming the other side is evil... and of course, that’s part of what jasper was punished for, too, because that’s how she’s lived her whole life. 

jasper was right about one thing, though - steven only helped after she was declawed. he didn’t care about any of the things she said beforehand. he took every situation at face value, and never considered that maybe she had reason... because that would mean taking a hard look at the crystal gems, his friends, and his worldview. jasper, with her parting words, sort of saved steven from becoming like her - completely entrenched in his own views, never questioning his “side” or the people he cares about. (she wasn’t alone in that, and the whole "bismuth -> bubbled” run was mainly about steven facing hard truths about the people he thinks of as ‘good’, but i digress.)

all of that so he could be punished for not knowing, for assuming, by the show delivering him a failure after harsh truth after failure when trying to help people. jasper being among them, she had to corrupt - a horrible situation born out of assumptions on both sides (that steven is rose and must be held accountable for her actions, that jasper is “bad” and that rose/lapis/ect were right to hurt her). the best way for the show to hurt steven is by hurting others, making him feel both like it’s his responsibility and like he’s helpless... so steven and jasper are a bit alike, in that one, particular self-blaming way.

ok, i’ve gone on and on, but all of that just leads to the current question: where do we go from here? 

after reaching a truly low point, steven had to slowly recover and build himself up again. starting with small human relations - “onion friend” and “future boy zoltron” were both about this, (which is why i’ll fight anyone who says they were just filler). so was “gem harvest”, letting him connect with family he didn’t know he had... and now, after slowly recovering from some pretty harsh trauma, he’s started to explore. he’s asking questions, finally, about the gems on his side. about rose, pink diamond, and about why the crystal gems won’t just tell him everything. this took him to space, to characters he can still help, if he tries to understand them - which is probably gonna be a part of the road ahead.

but then what about jasper? 

...we can’t know for sure, but i think she’ll be back. i really want her to. corruption is still one of the bigger mysteries of the show, as is the whole situation around pink diamond. jasper is the character who is most obviously involved in both of these, so it’s hard to imagine she won’t pop up in either context. by my own view of redemption - which is redemption in the narrative, through learning that she’s a person and not just a “bad” gem - she’s already achieved that. my main focus is really healing, and i think that’s possible. steven wants to help, and he actually understands her now. 

in the same interview we got this gem about jasper, rebecca sugar also talked about wanting to focus on self-love outside of relationships going forward. as someone who’s been alone, isolated and felt completely unlovable, jasper is a great candidate. that doesn’t mean she’ll never get to connect with anyone or have meaningful relationships... but as with steven, she has to recover first, and focus on herself, too.

[mancitynoise]

Assessing where we are with the Leroy Sane to Bayern Munich transfer story that already feels very much like a drawn-out saga takes us down any number of rabbit holes.

On May 30th, The Guardian reported that the back-to back Premier League champions had turned down a bid of £70.7m for their exciting winger. That very same day, Jack Gaughan from the Mail tweeted that no firm bid has yet been made to Manchester City.

City still to field a bid for Leroy Sane. Bayern will make one but hasn’t arrived yet.

— Jack Gaughan (@Jack_Gaughan) May 30, 2019

The same uncertainties surround the player’s intentions. Last week reliable Sky Sports reporter Torben Hoffmann (via Bavarian Football Works) claimed that the Bavarian giants are out of luck because the 19-cap international simply has no desire to return to the Bundesliga. Scroll to the bottom of the link, however, and you will find an update containing a quote from Sportbild’s Christian Falk claiming that Sane was on holiday in Dubai with his family considering his options.

So as per in these situations it is rumour followed by counter-rumour, gossip and outright falsehoods and, as always, to make better sense of what is currently going on – and where it might ultimately lead – it is necessary to stick to facts with some intuition thrown in too.

We can assume that Bayern want Sane and want him badly. We know this because – as is their modus operandi – they have skirted ethics and talked publicly about their target often. To offer one of many examples, Bayern chairman Karl-Heinze Rummenigge said at the season’s end: “We will try. I cannot promise whether it will succeed”, directly referring to their attempt to lure the attacker back home. Furthermore, it’s a switch that is logical from their perspective with Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery moving elsewhere this summer.

Additionally it is a move that segues perfectly with a narrative that has built up some credence in recent months. It’s a narrative that goes something like this: due to Sane’s protracted contract dispute along with a perceived attitude problem, Pep Guardiola has grown weary and distrustful of his flying wide-man. Subsequently, he turned to him less and less as a scintillating title race reached its conclusion. This has resulted in a breakdown in their relationship.

The problem here is that we encounter another grey area. Sane started 21 times in the Premier League this season and another four times in the Champions League, all while competing for a starting berth alongside the likes of Raheem Sterling, Bernardo Silva and Riyad Mahrez. He finished the season with a whopping 16 goals and 18 assists – an incredible return for a player who wasn’t a guaranteed starter.

As for his contract dispute, though, it’s true that Guardiola infamously has little tolerance for players causing distractions, but then that doesn’t explain why Ilkay Gundogan saw his game-time dramatically increase as the campaign wore on, and this despite the German having his own contract dramas.

This though can be balanced out by the winger’s form and impact. In his first 21 matches of 2018/19, Sane was responsible for 10 assists. In his last 10 he made precisely one.

Regarding the relationship between player and coach, it should be noted that Guardiola has always taken a carrot and stick approach to Sane, as illustrated in this Manchester Evening News item. He does so to fire his talented star up; to get the best out of him.

If this is no longer the case however – as the stats above show – then where does this leave us? With a player once integral now on the periphery and feeling unloved. A player coveted by a club that can promise silverware and glory as much as his present employer. A player who feels undervalued in his own country with a hunger to prove himself there.

Frankly it would not be the greatest surprise if Leroy Sane accepted terms should the clubs reach a financial agreement. And few could blame him for doing so.