#but at least i've actually posted some of that

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

ok i am not coping well with having a post on which a high percentage of rebloggers have many things to say be as popular as this one is and i am too much of an anxious control freak to turn off notes without also turning off reblogs so i am turning off reblogs but not before saying a few quick things that have come up in the notes (because see above re: anxious control freak lol):

first and foremost i would like to formally apologize for saying megalodon instead of megalosaurus when i sat down to type this post in (this is true) an attempt to wake myself up more fully after a nap

i have also just been informed that i typed the title of the study wrong... lessons here for all of us perhaps.........

i don't think this study is like perfect or "proof" of anything in particular (in fact of course no study is...) although for what it's worth at least some of the complaints about the study's methodology get basic facts about its design wrong lol (in particular, it's stated that students had the option to read silently if they were uncomfortable reading out loud). i appreciate this study because as a person who encounters students professional who really struggle to read - including proficient-seeming students who completely fall apart whenever they have to read anything more than like 75 years old - i have come to feel more and more intensely over time that people who discuss literacy and reading pedagogy have a real gap in their understanding of what struggling readers are actually doing when they read. nothing i encountered in my master's degree, even among the material that was not lies (lol), and nothing i've encountered in reading about literacy and reading pedagogy since, has really seemed like it captured what i was seeing in students who were not missing a detail or two, or confused by a sentence here or there, but totally and completely lost in ways that i have come to believe people who can read proficiently honestly have difficulty envisioning. and the qualitative observations made of this study's problematic readers are the first time i've ever seen anyone in the ed space other than Me On My Own Blog Or Texts To Friends put to words the phenomenon i have encountered both in the classroom at the third grade level (and younger but third grade is when it got really obvious because of the nature of the books being read) and as a tutor working with affluent, academically successful 11th- and 12th-graders who cannot make it through a single paragraph of a speech by lincoln. i'm not really attached to the specific cut-off points determined by the study or numerical distribution in the article and i almost regret sharing the attention-grabbing 58% because what i find most of value here is the qualitative description of something i have seen, have struggled to put into words, and have come to believe that - whatever its actual prevalence - is much more common than is assumed by the vast majority of educators tasked with some form of teaching reading, from early elementary all the way through the college level.

you don't know me from adam so i guess you have no real reason to believe that i am coming at this from the accumulation of going on a decade of professional experience i have spent considering the hidden cognitive processes of struggling readers and am not just ungenerously overgeneralizing from a handful of student comments that have perfectly reasonable alternative explanations... but... i am. lmao.

some people seem to feel inclined to "defend" the problematic readers either by critiquing the study (which see above) or by saying "well of course they struggled, dickens is hard/they don't know anything about victorian england." two notes here: (1) neither i nor the authors of the study are attacking these students by attempting to describe what they can or can't do when faced with some complicated prose (2) i'm not really sure how this stands in contradiction to my own argument that the educational system has seriously failed these students... like i don't know what your vision of successful education is that does not include learning to read complex text written in a mode distinct from contemporary daily language use or enough general knowledge about the world to be able to plug in to a novel written in victorian england.

also... alright i said this in a separate post but i am putting it here too i guess: the problem with accepting that people will not be able to read the complex syntax that was common in older times (dickens - at least in those 7 paragraphs - is not actually particularly longwinded or syntactically complex when considered among many other pre-twentieth century authors) is that we live in a country quite literally founded on syntactically complicated documents written hundreds of years ago. i believe citizens - all citizens! not just the english majors even! - have the right to an education that prepares them to read for themselves the written history of their country. i will not ever accept that this is an unreasonable standard.

much of the point of my list of bulletpoints was to try to head off at the pass people trying to identify the sole cause of this because people fucking love One Weird Trick education takes but some people managed this anyway... the persistence of the human spirit i guess lmao. anyway education is one of the most complex topics out there and nobody who claims to say "it's all [blank]" knows what the fuck they're talking about :)

also the reason i highlighted the date of data collection was to avoid people turning this into a gen z thing, but for the record i don't think we have any evidence to suggest this was new in 2015 either. i think it's always important to remember in literacy conversations that the idea of universal college-level literacy is historically a very new one and many problematic readers currently in college are people who in previous generations simply would have ended their formal schooling much earlier than they have. if you look at this table from the national center for education statistics, you can see that the percentage of US adults over twenty-five with a high school diploma crosses into more than half the population sometime in the 60s (it jumps from 1960 to 1970 so we can't see the exact year).

students/children vary wildly in how much support they need to learn to read, which i say mostly to share that your own ability to read well is not necessarily proof that the people who taught you how to read did a good job, nor are your own memories of learning how to read necessarily useful guides for the right way to teach people how to read. in particular - and i am not trying to be harsh in this correction because it's a common myth and an understandable assumption - i do want to push back on the idea that the key to better reading is parents reading to their children, because parents of dyslexic children have shared how personally hurtful to them and genuinely harmful to their children's education it was to be told over and over "make sure you're reading to them at home" when they were already doing that and it was not helping their dyslexic children learn how to read. (i think this might come up in sold a story... if not then i saw it on twitter back when sold a story was rolling out and i was obsessively following the convos about it to a degree where i had to force myself to stop because it was bad for my mental health lmao.)

charles dickens did not get paid by the fucking word!!

i appreciated this study: "They Can't Read Very Well: A Study of the Reading Comprehension Skills Of English Majors At Two Midwestern Universities"

essentially, a pair of professors set out to test their intuitive sense that students at the college level were struggling with complex text. they recruited 85 students, a mix of english majors and english education majors - so, theoretically, people focusing on literature, and people preparing to teach adolescents how to read literature - and had them read-while-summarizing the first seven paragraphs of dickens's bleak house (or as much as they made it through in the 20 minute session). they provided dictionaries and also said students could use their phones to look up whatever they wanted, including any unfamiliar words or references. they found that the majority of the students - 58%, or 49 out of the 85 students - functionally could not understand dickens at all, and only 5% - a mere 4 out of the 85 students - proved themselves proficient readers (leaving the remaining 38%, or 32 students, as what the study authors deemed "competent" students, most of whom could understand about half the literal meaning - pretty low bar for competence - although a few of whom, they note, did much better than the rest in this group if not quite well enough to be considered proficient).

what i really appreciated about this study was its qualitative descriptions of the challenges and reading behaviors of what the authors call "problematic readers" (that bottom 58%), which resonated strongly with my own experiences of students who struggle with reading. here's their blunt big picture overview of these 49 students:

The majority of these subjects could understand very little of Bleak House and did not have effective reading tactics. All had so much trouble comprehending concrete detail in consecutive clauses and phrases that they could not link the meaning of one sentence to the next. Although it was clear that these subjects did try to use various tactics while they read the passage, they were not able to use those tactics successfully. For example, 43 percent of the problematic readers tried to look up words they did not understand, but only five percent were able to look up the meaning of a word and place it back correctly into a sentence. The subjects frequently looked up a word they did not know, realized that they did not understand the sentence the word had come from, and skipped translating the sentence altogether.

the idea that they had so many trouble with every small piece of a text that they could not connect ideas on a sentence by sentence basis is very familiar to me from teaching and tutoring, as was the habit of thought seen in the example of the student who gloms on to the word "whiskers" in a sea of confusion and guesses incorrectly that a cat is present - struggling readers, in my experience, seem to use familiar nouns as stepping stones in a flood of overwhelm, hopping as best they can from one seemingly familiar image to the next. so was this observation, building off the example of a student who misses the fact that dickens is being figurative when he imagines a megalodon stalking the streets of london:

She first guesses that the dinosaur is just “bones” and then is stuck stating that the bones are “waddling, um, all up the hill” because she can see that Dickens has the dinosaur moving. Because she cannot logically tie the ideas together, she just leaves her interpretation as is and goes on to the next sentence. Like this subject, most of the problematic readers were not concerned if their literal translations of Bleak House were not coherent, so obvious logical errors never seemed to affect them. In fact, none of the readers in this category ever questioned their own interpretations of figures of speech, no matter how irrational the results. Worse, their inability to understand figurative language was constant, even though most of the subjects had spent at least two years in literature classes that discussed figures of speech. Some could correctly identify a figure of speech, and even explain its use in a sentence, but correct responses were inconsistent and haphazard. None of the problematic readers showed any evidence that they could read recursively or fix previous errors in comprehension. They would stick to their reading tactics even if they were unhappy with the results.

i have seen this repeatedly, too - actually i was particularly taken with how similar this is to the behavior of struggling readers at much younger ages - and would summarize the hypothesis i have forged over time as: struggling readers do not expect what they read to make sense. my hypothesis for why this is the case is that their reading deficits were not attended to or remediated adequately early enough, and so, in their formative years - the early to mid elementary grades - they spent a lot of time "reading" things that did not make sense to them - in fact they spent much more time doing this than they ever did reading things that did make sense to them - and so they did not internalize a meaningful subjective sense of what it feels like to actually read things.

like, i've said this before, but the year i taught third grade i had multiple students who told me they loved reading and then when i asked them about a book they were reading revealed that they had absolutely no idea what was going on - on a really basic literal level like "didn't know who said which lines of dialogue" and "couldn't identify which things or characters given pronouns referred to" - and were as best as i could tell sort of constructing their own story along the way using these little bits of things they thought they understood. that's what "reading" was, in their heads. and they were, in the curriculum/model that we used at the private school where i taught, receiving basically no support to clarify that that was not what reading was, nor any instruction that would actually help them with what they needed to do to improve (understand sentences) - and i realized over the course of that year that the master's program that had certified me in teaching elementary school had provided me with very little understanding of how to help these kids (with perhaps the sole exception of the class i took on communications disorders, not because these kids had communications disorders but because that was the only class where we ever talked, even briefly, about things like sentence structures that students may need instruction in and practice with to comprehend independently). when it comes to the literal, basic understanding of a text, the model of reading pedagogy i was taught has about 6 million little "tools" that all boil down to telling kids who functionally can't read to try harder to read. this is not productive, in my experience and opinion, for kids whose maximum effort persistently yields confusion. but things are so dysfunctional all the way up and down the ladder that you can be a senior in college majoring in english without anyone but a pair of professors with a strong work ethic noticing that you can't actually read.

couple other notes:

obviously it's a small study but i'm not sure i see a reason to believe these are particularly outlierish results (ACT scores - an imperfect metric but not a meritless one IMO for reading specifically, where the task mostly really is to read a set of texts written for the educated layperson and answer factual questions about them - were a little bit above the national average)

the study was published last year, but the research was conducted january to april 2015. so there's no pandemic influence, no AI issue - these are millennials who now would span roughly ages 28-32 (i guess it's possible one of the four first-year students was one of the very first members of gen z lol). if you're in your late 20s or early 30s, we are talking about people your age, and whatever the culprit is here, it was happening when you were in school.

i think some people might want to blame this on NCLB but i find this unconvincing for a variety of reasons. first of all, NCLB did not pass because everyone in 2001 agreed that education was super hunky-dory; in fact, the sold a story podcast outlines how an explicit goal of NCLB was to train teachers in systematic phonics instruction, because that was not the norm when NCLB was passed, and an unfortunate outcome was that phonics became politicized in ed world. second, anyone who understands anything about reading should need about ten minutes max to spend some time on standardized test prep and recognize that if your goal is truly to maximize scores... then the vast majority of your instructional time should be spent on improving actual reading skills because you actually can't meaningfully game these tests by "practicing main idea questions" (timothy shanahan addresses this briefly near the top of this post). so i find it very difficult to believe that any school that pivoted to multiple choice drill time in an attempt to boost reading scores was teaching reading effectively pre-NCLB, because no set of competent literacy professionals would think that would work even for the goal of raising test scores. third, NCLB mandated yearly testing in grades 3-8 but only one test year in high school; kansas set its reading and math test year in high school as tenth grade. so theoretically these kids all had two years of sweet sweet freedom from NCLB in which their teachers could have done whatever the fuck they wanted to teach these kids to actually read. the fact that they didn't suggests perhaps there were other problems afoot. fourth, and maybe most saliently for this particular study, the sample text was the first seven paragraphs of a novel - in other words, the exact kind of short incomplete text that NCLB allegedly demanded excessive time spent on. i'm not really sure what universe it makes sense in that students who can't read the first seven paragraphs of a novel would have become much better reader if everything else had been the same but they had been making completely wack associations based on nonsense guesses for all 300 pages instead. (if you read the study it's really clear that for problematic readers, things go off the rails immediately, in a way that a good program targeted at teaching mastery of text of 500 words or less would have done something about.)

all but 3 of the students reported A's and B's in their english classes and, again, 69% of them are juniors and seniors, so like... i mean idk kudos to these professors for being like "hold up can these kids actually read?" but clearly something is wack at the college level too [in 2015] if you can make your way through nearly an entire english major without being able to read the first seven paragraphs of a dickens novel. (once again i really do encourage you to look at the qualitative samples in the study, lest you think i am being uncharitable by summarizing understandable misunderstandings or areas of confusion that may resolve themselves with further exposure to the text as "can't read.") not to mention the fact that most students could not what they had learned in previous or current english classes and when asked to name british and american authors and/or works of the nineteenth century, roughly half the sample at each college could name at most one.

the authors of the study are struck by the fact that students who cannot parse the first 3 sentences of bleak house feel very confident about their ability to read the entire novel, and discover that this seeming disconnect is resolved by the fact that these students seem to conceptualize "reading" as "skimming and then reading sparknotes." i think it's really tempting to Kids These Days this phenomenon (although again these are people who in some cases have now been in the workforce for a decade) and categorize it as laziness or a lack of effort, but i think that there is, as i described above, a real and sincere confusion over what "reading" is in which this makes a certain logical sense because it's not like they have some store of actual reading experiences to compare it to. i also think it's pretty obvious looking at just how wildly severed from actual textual comprehension their readings are that these are not - or at least not entirely - students who could just work harder and master the entirety of bleak house all on their own. like i don't think you get from "charles dickens is describing a bunch of dinosaur bones actually walking the streets of london" to comfortably reading nineteenth century literature by just trying harder. i really just don't (and i say that acknowledging i personally have had students who like... were good readers if i was forcing them to work at it constantly... but i have also had students, including ones getting ready to enter college, who were clearly giving me everything they had and what they had was at the present moment insufficient). i think that speaks to a missing skillset that they don't know are missing, because they don't have any other experience of "reading" to compare it to.

just wanna highlight again that although they don't give the breakdown some of these students are not just english majors but english education majors a.k.a. the high school english teachers of tomorrow. some of them may be teaching high school english right now, in case anyone wishes to consider whether "maybe some high school english teachers can't read the first seven paragraphs of bleak house?" should be kept in mind when we discuss present-day educational ills.

[rcmclachlan]

I don't know if the comparison between Eddie and Tommy is intentional on the writers part, but they're turning me into an Eddie hater and I don't really want that, but it's so fucking hard to like Eddie at this point, even taking grief and regression due to grief into account. I mean am i supposed to like this fella who doesn't apologize or do what he promised and belittles his best friend? When I see that there's a Tommy who genuinely likes Buck and treats him well and risks his life and/or career willingly for his ex-colleagues and his ex-boyfriend? The contrast just highlights how much Eddie isn't bringing to the table in their friendship and it sucks so much because I do think he's an interesting character and I want to like him

PQ, I'ma be honest about something I've forced myself to downplay ever since I started watching 9-1-1 last May: I don't like Eddie, full stop. Never have. I just never clicked with the character, and the more I saw of him, the less I liked. But he's loved by so many in this fandom that I felt it prudent to keep my mouth shut about how much I don't like him—mostly because I was trying to make friends 'round these parts. Also, I'm not here to yuck on anyone's yum.

I really feel for the people who have loved this character, or at least loved the potential of what he could be, for years—and who have given him a lot more grace than I think he deserves—just to have him turn around and be the worst version of his worst self when faced with a supposed loved one's pain. To be deliberately cruel and weaponize the love Buck has for his son against him. To have the audacity to call Buck selfish for grieving his surrogate father's death.

Eddie's been a terrible friend to Buck from the get go and their relationship has always been incredibly one-sided, but this episode really exposed the imbalance. Like, Eddie may be Buck's best friend, but Buck sure isn't Eddie's.

And nothing made it clearer than 8x17's opening scene when Hen asks Eddie when he's going to tell Buck he's going back to El Paso. And Eddie asks Hen to do it. Actually, he doesn't ask Hen—he says something like, "I was hoping his acting captain would do it." Eddie wants Buck to hear the news in a professional capacity so he doesn't have to deal with Buck getting emotional about it. What kind of fuckass prick would do that to a "friend"?

I said to @screamlet a couple of days ago that if Eddie had posted any of this in r/amitheasshole, there'd be 6.1k comments all saying variations of "YTA, your friend should've left your ass in the dust ages ago, and you should probably live alone in the woods until you get that bitch-ass attitude under control."

Meanwhile, Tommy—who is operating under the impression that Buck feels nothing for him and that he's good for no-strings sex and nothing else—gets one (1) phone call from the man after weeks of radio silence and happily steals another helicopter so Buck can commit some light domestic terrorism.

Like, Tommy, my lad, you have nothing to worry about. There's no competition in this game. Eddie's name isn't even on the roster.

[mecachrome]

📊 LANDOSCAR AO3 STATS (may 2025)

notes

sorry this literally took 2 weeks to write... unfortunately the data was retrieved april 28 and it is now may 12.

other work: i previously wrote a stats overview that covered landoscar's fic growth and breakout in 2023 :) i've kept some of the formatting and graphs that i showed there, while other things have been removed or refined because i felt they'd become redundant or unnecessary (aka they were basically just a reflection of fandom growth in general, and not unique or interesting to landoscar as a ship specifically).

methodology: i simply scraped the metadata for every fic in the landoscar tag (until april 28, 2025) and then imported it into google sheets to clean, with most visualizations done in tableau. again, all temporal data is by date updated (not posted) unless noted otherwise. this is because the date that appears on the parent view of the ao3 archives is the updated one, so it's the only feasible datapoint to collect for 3000+ fics.

content: this post does not mention any individual authors or concern itself with kudos, hits, comments, etc. i purely describe archive growth and overall analysis of metadata like word count and tagging metrics.

cleaning: after importing my data, i standardized ship spelling, removed extra "814" or "landoscar" tags, and merged all versions of one-sided, background, implied, past, mentioned etc. into a single "(side)" modifier. i also removed one fic entirely from the dataset because the "loscar" tag was being mistakenly wrangled as landoscar, but otherwise was not actually tagged as landoscar. i also removed extra commentary tags in the ships sets that did not pertain to any ships.

overall stats

before we get into any detailed distributions, let's first look at an overview of the archive as of 2025! in their 2-and-change years as teammates, landoscar have had over 3,409 fics written for them, good enough for 3rd overall in the f1 archives (behind lestappen and maxiel).

most landoscar fics are completed one-shots (although note that a one-shot could easily be 80k words—in fact they have about 30 single-chapter fics that are at least 50k words long), and they also benefit from a lot of first-tagged fic, which is to say 82.3% of landoscar-tagged fics have them as the first ship, implying that they aren't often used as a fleeting side pairing and artificially skewing perception of their popularity. in fact, over half of landoscar fics are PURELY tagged as landoscar (aka otp: true), with no other side pairings tagged at all.

this percentage has actually gone down a bit since 2023 (65.5%), which makes sense since more lando and oscar ships have become established and grown in popularity over the years, but it's also not a very big difference yet...

ship growth

of course, landoscar have grown at a frankly terrifying rate since 2023. remember this annotated graph i posted comparing their growth during the 2023 season to that of carlando and loscar, respectively their other biggest ship at the time? THIS IS HER NOW:

yes... that tiny squished down little rectangle... (wipes away stray tear) they grow up so fast. i also tried to annotate this graph to show other "big" landoscar moments in the timeline since, but i honestly struggled with this because they've just grown SO exponentially and consistently that i don't even feel like i can point to anything as a proper catalyst of production anymore. that is to say, i think landoscar are popular enough now that they have a large amount of dedicated fans/writers who will continuously work on certain drafts and stories regardless of what happens irl, so it's hard to point at certain events as inspiring a meaningful amount of work.

note also that this is all going by date updated, so it's not a true reflection of ~growth~ as a ficdom. thankfully ao3 does have a date_created filter that you can manually enter into the search, but because of this limitation i can't create graphs with the granularity and complexity that scraping an entire archive allows me. nevertheless, i picked a few big ships that landoscar have overtaken over the last 2 years and created this graph using actual date created metrics!!!

this is pretty self-explanatory of course but i think it's fun to look at... :) it's especially satisfying to see how many ships they casually crossed over before the end of 2024.

distributions

some quick graphs this time. rating distribution remains extremely similar to the 2023 graph, with explicit fic coming out on top at 28%:

last time i noted a skew in ratings between the overall f1 rpf tag and the landoscar tag (i.e. landoscar had a higher prevalence of e fic), but looking at it a second time i honestly believe this is more of a cultural shift in (f1? sports rpf? who knows) fandom at large and not specific to landoscar as a ship — filtering the f1 rpf tag to works updated from 2023 onward shows that explicit has since become the most popular rating in general, even when excluding landoscar-tagged fics. is it because fandom is getting more horny in general, or because the etiquette surrounding what constitutes t / m / e has changed, or because people are less afraid to post e fic publicly and no longer quarantine it to locked livejournal posts? or something else altogether? Well i don't know and this is a landoscar stats post so it doesn't matter but that could be something for another thought experiment. regardless because of that i feel like further graphs aren't really necessary 🤷‍♀️

onto word distribution:

still similar to last time, although i will note that there's a higher representation of longfic now!!! it might not seem like much, but i noted last year that 85% of landoscar fics were under 10k & 97% under 25k — these numbers are now 78% and 92% respectively, which adds up in the grand scheme of a much larger archive. you'll also notice that the prevalence of <1k fic has gone down as well.

for the fun of it here's the wc distribution but with a further rating breakdown; as previously discussed you're more likely to get G ratings in flashfic because there's less wordspace to Make The Porn Happen. of course there are nuances to this but that's just a broad overview

side ships

what other ships are landoscar shippers shipping these days??? a lot of these ships are familiar from last time, but there are two new entries in ham/ros and pia/sai overtaking nor/ric and gas/lec to enter the top 10. ships that include at least one of lando or oscar are highlighted in orange:

of course, i pulled other 814-adjacent ships, but unfortunately i've realized that a lot of them simply aren't that popular/prevalent (context: within the 814 tag specifically) so they didn't make the top 10... because of that, here's a graph with only ships that include lando or oscar and have a minimum of 10 works within the landoscar tag:

eta: other primarily includes oscar & lily and maxf & lando. lando doesn't really have that many popular pairings within landoscar shippers otherwise...

i had wanted to explore these ships further and look at their growth/do some more in depth breakdowns of their popularity, but atm they're simply not popular enough for me to really do anything here. maybe next year?!

that being said, i did make a table comparing the prevalence of side ships within the 814 tag to the global f1 archives, so as to contextualize the popularity of each ship (see 2023). as usually, maxiel is very underrepresented in the landoscar tag, with galex actually receiving quite a boost compared to before!

additional tags

so last time i only had about 400 fics to work with and i did some analysis on additional tags / essentially au tagging. however, the problem is that there are now 3000 fics in my set, and the limitations of web scraping means that i'm not privy to the tag wrangling that happens in Da Backend of ao3. basically i'm being given all the raw versions of these au tags, whereas on ao3 "a/b/o" and "alpha/beta/omega dynamics" and "au - alpha/beta/omega" and "alternate universe - a/b/o" are all being wrangled together. because it would take way too long for me to do all of this manually and i frankly just don't want to clean that many fics after already going through all the ship tags, i've decided to not do any au analysis because i don't think it would be an accurate reflection of the data...

that being said, i had one new little experiment! as landoscar get more and more competitive, i wanted to chart how ~angsty~ they've gotten as a ship on ao3. i wanted to make a cumulative graph that shows how the overall fluff % - angst % difference has shifted over time, but ummmm... tableau and i had a disagreement. so instead here is a graph of the MoM change in angst % (so basically what percentage of the fics updated in that month specifically were tagged angst?):

the overall number is still not very drastic at all and fluff still prevails over angst in the landoscar archive. to be clear, there are 33.2% fics tagged some variation of fluff and 21.4% fics tagged some variation of angst overall, so there's a fluff surplus of 11.8%. but there has definitely been a slight growth in angst metrics over the past few months!

—

i will leave this here for now... if there's anything specific that you're interested in lmk and i can whip it up!!! hehe ty for reading 🧡

[alllgator-blood]

updates/vent/idk

feel the need to post SOMETHING on here cause I've been gone so long, I don't think I'm going on a long hiatus or anything, I just don't like posting/replying to anything when I'm not doing well. I haven't been able to draw in a few weeks but I HAVE been working on plushies. I'll try to post some pics when they're done, I think you guys will really like them- I have shamura pretty much done aside from their robe, and aym + baal just need their faces and clothing details. About to start work on leshy but idk if he'll be done anytime soon, he's gonna be ginormous I hope. Actually the amount of cotl plush toys I've made is in the double digits and I haven't bothered to post any of them so I should really do that sometime...

give me til this weekend and I'll try to get some pics! Shamura in particular is my fave but I'm biased so that's no big surprise...

anyway vent type stuff below the cut, I can't get into detail about anything so it's a lot of nothing but it's mostly just an explanation for not being on much recently I guess.

I want to apologize for not responding to messages or asks or mentions or anything. I'm at a point where I can't mask like at all, and I feel sick thinking about posting or talking to anyone and pretending I'm alright, but I can't really talk about what happened either- so I'm at an impasse. I don't really know how to describe the year I've been having without getting into detail of what's been going on, and that's not terribly appropriate I don't think.

I wish I could concisely convey my feelings recently in a way that's not overshare-y, especially because there's not anything anyone can do to help, so I don't want to startle anyone?? I just don't feel good knowing there's people who want to talk to me but all my stupid ass can do is lay in bed and imagine I'm dead instead of typing some words back to them. I have a laundry list of conditions (big surprise huh?) so I easily crumple under any kind of stress, and when it's this prolonged with no reprieve or clear way out, it's hard to make it to the next day. It's hard to go online and seeing everyone able to act so normal while I feel like I'm in hell, idk. Waow it's just like that kallamar comic I did where he wanted 1 day off.....

All this stuff below the cut is pretty pointless but I think I just wanted to feel like I at least put it out there *somewhere* that I'm not alright, so I don't feel as guilty isolating. I promise there is a reason I've not responded to anyone in weeks or opened my messages. With time I'll get over it, I've lived this long so w/e, I just need time to feel shitty I think.

[artbyblastweave]

It seems like both Nolan's Batman trilogy and The Batman (2022) are attempting to interrogate/deconstruct/reconstruct/whatever the inherent problems with the Batman character, but (imo) these depictions don't go nearly far enough. Do you agree? If you could make a Batman movie how would you go about it?

It's been a very long time since I've watched it, but my read on the The Nolan Trilogy is that to the extent that it's interrogating anything about Batman Specifically- vs trying to make some high-falutin' Nolanian point about the nature of Myth and Heroism Yadda yadda yadda- it's interrogating the difficulty in getting audiences to take the character seriously, with the long shadow of Adam West, Tim Burton and the 90s Cartoon hanging over the property- the cocktail of camp and dreamlike otherworldly stylization that all previous installments used to carry the character over the finish line of believability. The result is 21st-century Batman (derogatory), all tacticool body armor and ripped-from-the-headlines surveillance state gizmos and military-industrial surplus tank-cars and antagonists who're laundered through the anxieties of the post-9/11 zeitgeist of the Foreign Anarcho-Orientalist cultists Out To Destroy Our Way Of Life, For Reasons. It's still irreducibly a story about a guy dressed as a bat beating the shit out of a clown, but it's the least about that that it can get away with being. And from an engineering perspective, it clearly worked- it was an incredibly popular installment, even before we'd crossed the cultural rubicon of superheroes being truly mainstreamed. But it's pretty obvious from my tone that I've soured on the project pretty thoroughly.

The Batman (along with it's companion piece The Penguin) is actually much, much closer to being a deliberate mediation on the core dynamic of the character and the implications thereof, in a way I personally found extremely satisfying; it manages to strike a balance between portraying Being Batman as a fundamentally juvenile and half-baked response to the problems that he's attempting to address (real) and portraying Being Batman as fundamentally really really really really cool. Any time he's shown doing Batman Shit it's framed as genuinely awesome; it falls into a vaguely similar zone as Nolan, except instead of feeling like it's trying to be as little like a comic book as it can get away with, it's trying to feel as much like a comic book as it can get away with without having someone like Clayface or Solomon Grundy show up. At the same time the story is adamant in its thesis that even if it works, you would have to be an incredibly weird person to think of, and then commit to, Being Batman. This six-foot weirdo in body armor is the biggest freak in any room that doesn't also contain The Riddler. Everyone is a little on edge when he's in the room, and consequentially a lot of the film reads like an extremely deadpan comedy- the polar opposite of the camp of Batman 66, where everyone treating this guy as perfectly normal is part of the gag. Of course, this comes back around thematically in that Bruce is afforded his eccentricities because he's incredibly rich- nobody else could get away with ignoring their own finances (and the massive graft at play) in order to go ride a motorcycle around attacking muggers, and he only solves the last puzzle because a cop who happens to be in the room has a blue-collar brother who works with a flooring tool that Bruce (who spent an extended sequence vandalizing the incredibly expensive floor of his penthouse!) can't even recognize. If you can't tell from my tone, I like this movie a lot! Anyway, In terms of how I'd do it, I think the currently unexplored option is a live-action film where due to the cranked-up four-color peak-comic-book insanity of the world around him, Batman comes across as the only sane one, despite the fact that he's dressed as a bat. This would a story about a relatively well-adjusted if somewhat taciturn and subdued guy doing a thankless job, except the thankless job is Being Batman. He'd have the same ridiculous Bat-everything overpreparation as Batman 66, deployed with significantly less verbal fanfare but without ever missing a beat. The first scene in the movie would be him getting bodied out a second story window by one of the genuinely superhuman bruisers like Grundy or Clayface before regaining his footing and squaring up, and the rest of the opening would be a montage covering a Day in the Life of Batman. Kevin Conroy's deadpan, matter-of-fact characterization translated into live action. Do You See My Vision

[greatwritenorth]

Some Thoughts On Sunrise on the Reaping & Haymitch Abernathy

I haven't written anything on any of my tumblr accounts in years. However, I had a shower thought that I simply had to shout into the void, in case anyone saw it too, and tumblr still seemed like the best form to do it.

So, like many people, I read Sunrise on the Reaping, and then immediately had to reread the entire Hunger Games universe. I took a while to get into Sunrise (I wasn't emotionally ready when it came out), so I've only just finished re-reading the first novel, and, of course, consuming any media that shows up on my accounts (usually Pinterest these days). As I was showering tonight, I started thinking about things, and had a bit of a moment that I had to share. So, here I am about to write a text post that's going to get so long no one will actually read it.

All through the original The Hunger Games series, the parallels between Haymitch and Katniss are endless. Katniss is the one who understands him in the arena. He and Katniss are both "difficult people", and of course, Peeta insists that Katniss is Haymitch's favourite. It's true, at this point in his life, Haymitch is more like Katniss. He understands her, some of her trauma, and her general wariness of people. If you love people, they can hurt you, and be used to hurt you. That is a lesson that, sadly, by this point, both Katniss and Haymitch have learned.

However, the Haymitch that we see in Sunrise on the Reaping, isn't Katniss. He isn't angry (at least not as much as Katniss is), or guarded. He doesn't struggle with people. Before the hunger games, Haymitch wasn't Katniss—he was Peeta.

Haymitch wanted his death to mean something; he wanted to end the hunger games, stick it to the captiol. For most of the games, Katniss just wanted to survive. Peeta was the one who was thinking about his identity, how the capitol was using them, and how he wanted to do something to stop that.

Haymitch understood almost immediately, once he was told, why he needed to play to the audience during his interviews, and he fell into his role as "the rake" easily. He was nervous, but he did it. Katniss, initially, couldn't play the charm game for the cameras before her interview to save her life (literally). Peeta knew exactly what he was going to do and how to play it.

Most importantly of all, Haymitch loved a girl with a beautiful singing voice (and did things her own way) more than his own life. He connected with Katniss. He understood her pain, and he couldn't help seeing Louella in her style (and, likely, her father who he once loved too). However, I think he empathized with Peeta. Haymitch would have lost his mind if Lenore Dove was in the games instead of him. And, in the second novel, when Peeta expresses frustration with having to pretend to love Katniss when he really loves Katniss, Haymitch can emphasize with his pain in a way that Katniss (who is still struggling with her feelings, and sees things in a black and white way more often then not) cannot. I'm sure he could imagine what it'd be like to play act a life with Lenore Dove, for The Capitol of all people, when she didn't seem to care for you (or so you think), but you love her "like all fire".

I also think that this, among other factors (the right time, and more support), is what made Katniss and Peeta "smarter or more lucky". Yes, Katniss became the face of the revolution, but she couldn't have done it without Peeta. Peeta brought what Haymitch already had in his games, and Katniss brought the survival instincts, the anger, that Haymitch has an an adult.

[raemirs]

What is special about SifLoop to you?

OH BOY WHAT A LOADED QUESTION!!! to be honest if i explained everything we would be here for 2 weeks and also that's a lot of spoons that i dont have so. i will offer a heavily, HEAVILY abridged bullet pointed version.

-oh, that one person who will understand you more than anyone else in the world. that person who is always on the same wavelength as you, who understands why you do all the things you do, who you never have to explain anything to, who you can simply look in the eyes and have telepathic conversations with... they are that person, to each other <3 on virtue of being the same person, but still! i have always been a sucker for this type of dynamic due to being socially ostracized as a ND child growing up. i yearned for the longest time to find that one person who i didnt have to explain or hide any of my strange quirks from (i have since found that one person for me, and boy it is sweet!) and i think it's awesome that sifloop can be that person for each other :)

-sifloop as an allegory for self love is not something i explore too often (which is a crime!!! i should explore it more!!!!), but ohhhhh, is it juiiiicy. these goobers deserve to love themselves, but if they can't bring themselves to do it for now, loving the other is a good first step. one of my all-time favorite sifloop fanfics, simple as existing (please please PLEASE read it, it's soooo good) has most of the things i love about this interpretation of sifloop! aghhh... loop taking care of siffrin's body because it was once theirs... ughhghhhhhhhhhhhh im normal im so normal im normal

-you can take sifloop in so many interesting angles! do they love each other in an actual romantic way? is it some form of fucked up self love? does it no longer count as selfcest because they've undergone such different life-altering experiences? is it such a deep emotional bond that it transcends mere romance or platonic love and cannot be described with words? well, no need to fear, because you get to pick! and the dynamic will be guaranteed to be juicy anyhow <3

-mashing the above two bullet points together creates one of my favorite interpretations of sifloop i've seen yet! something something an annoying trait present in yourself becomes endearing when present in someone else you love. something something by learning to love the traits they hate in themselves in the other, sifloop can begin to learn how to love themselves again. by loving the other, they can start to heal. im normal im normal im normal

-as a touch-starved little freak myself i love love love how sifloop are both touch-starved to hell and back because!! they can fix this with each other!!!! make those fuckers hang off each other like wet clothes!!! they will never let go of each other ever again!!! at every possible scenario they will be at least holding hands or something more!!! both of them want so so much touch and they can give this to each other in precisely the way they want!! it's so fucking good!!!

on the flip side, you can take sifloop's craving for touch in an angsty direction as well! again, love how you can take sifloop's dynamics in so many ways and have all of them be just as compelling and correct. i explore this angstier direction in another post of mine <3

-siffrin is really easy and fun to draw and loop being siffrin means i can turn them human and then boom i get to make cute ship art while drawing the little guy i love twice. what a steal! (i've also recently figured out loop's star form and it is quite fun to draw as well hehehe)

-i'm sure there's WAYYYY more i've missed talking about, this is just the stuff that's come to mind first. as you can tell by this short and abridged summary (/sar) of why i love sifloop, i have a normal amount of thoughts about them <3 here's to many more moons of being insane about sifloop!

[moremysteries]

I know I've reblogged this before, but I want to reblog it again because yeah, this is so real. A trend I've noticed is some people just despise redemptive villains. I'm not talking about people who rightfully criticize badly written redemptive villains. I'm talking about the people who, if you so much as mention the idea of a redemptive villain, will immediatly act as if you've created a major writing error. I imagine this is one of the trends this post is discussing. "It's harder to just let your villains stay evil," It really isn't, actually. At least not from my experience. I say this as someone who has written both. Letting villains remain horrific is very easy, but writing in an arc where said character decides to do better is far harder.

It sucks that sometimes it feels like the only thing I can do to make a character need redemption is say a few mean words, otherwise they'll be seen as "past the point of no return". And don't get me wrong, though redemption stories are also important. I just wish people realized letting horrific characters redeem themselves also makes for great stories, and that there is such an importance for them.

the concept and idea of “you can always start trying to be a better person” is extremely important to me both in media and irl and i continue to be deeply deeply disturbed by the trend on this site pushing that these ideas in media are bad writing or even morally reprehensible

because theyd rather someone stay terrible or just straight up die than become a better person 

from a compassionate point of view it’s deeply distressing and from a pragmatic point of view it’s outright frustrating

it’s fucked up. 

[atlasdoe]

i'm sorry yall i know i've made like 5 posts about this fanfilm already but i'm just so fucking mad

it's bothering me so much that not only has this film been published but that hardly anyone is fighting against it. i thought this fandom was supposed to be about community and coming together to make something great but y'all are letting these guys get away with the use of ai???? seriously???

and i know it's only because they have so many followers between them that you're letting this happen because there are countless examples of shitty things happening in this fandom and everyone speaking up on it and taking some sort of stand (the jegulus fic writers literally went on strike a few years ago. don't act like there's nothing we can do)

and majority of those who are posting about it here and on tiktok aren't even saying the problem at hand. it's like they're just sub tweeting about the fanfilm because they don't want the supporters to come after them.

i'm sorry yall i will fight this so hard. ai has no place in fandom spaces and insuring this will always be more important then a harry potter fanfilm.

I am begging y'all to actually say something and not allow this to be normalised, because the film that's currently up is labelled as "part one" meaning that there will be at least another video posted and that will probably only do more harm then the first one has

we cannot let these things be swept under the rug, all it's doing is normalising the use of ai in fandom and telling people that so long as they have a big enough following they can get away with anything

[dancing-dawn]

atsushi for the ask game 🙏

Oh my darling boy, my sweetest joy, oh, how this ask has brought the brightest smile upon my face. Hihi this is gonna be a long one, I tried my best to restrain myself, I swear!

Favourite thing

Boldsushi! SASSUSHI! I love how unapologetically cocky and no-bullshit he gets when surrounded by utter madness and at some (many) points he feels like the only reasonable person in the room. He is also literally the most unique and lovable (once you get to really know him) protagonist I've ever read. My boy is so complex and to me, out of the whole cast, he feels the most like a real person.

Least favourite thing

Atp I adore canon Atsushi so much, the only thing I dislike is his fanon perception. In particular - people who just do not get why he's a compelling protagonist and not a "weak pathetic crybaby." I am pointing knives at everyone who still dares to STILL utter those lies this after recent chapters.

Favourite line

*clears throat*

"Away with you... you fool."

...but! Considering that is not an original thought but a shamelessly stolen flirty dramatic ass pick-up line from our second best boy xD I'll give you another, the silly and the serious:

"All this cause of Dazai, well, Dazai, my ass!"

-> oh the amount of times I have rewided to hear this over and over, laughing hysterically every single time, oh dear

Ok now for the serious one:

"Akutagawaaaaaa!"

"People need to be told they're worthy of being alive by someone else or they can't go on."

-> I love this one because of how blatantly wrong he is. And by wrong, I mean having an unhealthy mindset plagued by deep-rooted trauma, and this being the only way he's learned to cope. That's why he's a fascinating character. He's not saying this as a "lesson" or "moral" to the audience, nor as an objective truth - he's simply stating what he believes in and what drives him to keep going. Obviously this is an incredibly dangerous life policy to have because if you surround yourself by people who don't have your best interest in mind, and you rely on them to tell you what your worth is and why you're allowed to live - then you're just doomed, you're playing with the hazard of life and walking the thinnest line between hope and despair.

I can get into how this also connects to Akutagawa’s influence on Atsushi as he, subconsciously or not, helps him grow in the direction of living seperately from his past and abiding by his own ideals (something that is mirrored by Aku's own struggles), seeing his self-worth and taking action EVEN if faced with his biggest fear of being alone, even when the world is against him and there's no one there to pat him on the back and tell him he did a good job, even when everything and everyone has fought for is gone and he's left to pick up the pieces and he needs to believe his strength goes beyond the tiger's prowess, that he exists for a reason and he is enough, he is allowed to believe himself worthy of going on...

...but this wall of text is gonna have no end, so maybe another time!

brOTP

Kyouka & Atsushi. There is just no stronger familial relationship than those two and their influence on each other's lives is very sweet and very important. For me this hits especially hard in Beast and makes me tear up, just a bit (totally). I also regularly think about the crepe scene and it fills my heart with warmth and joy. Big brother Atsushi, my love, I will die for you (im almost starting to sound like yk who, jesus).

OTP

Ahem, *clears throat again*

*picks up the microphone* *leans down and whispers*

"Skin Soukoku."

*the crowd claps and cheers, showering me with bouquets of daisies and black roses* *i bow and take my leave, the faintest trace of a smile on my face*

nOTP

mmmm I actually don't have one, I think?? Even tho I will die on my sskk hill, I respect all ships with Atsushi because they're just wholesome and fun if you imagine then in an alternate universe (where Aku somehow doesn't exist *cough*) I guess if you're fooorcing me to choose, I will have to say Dazatsu because it just doesn't make sense to me, I cannot even see it making sense in any universe or scenario - for me they are simply mentor and mentee, barely even friends at max. The hierarchy gap here is just too large, I feel. But I enjoy some cute fanarts here and there for fun nonetheless <3

Random headcanon

He is absolutely ogling every single cutesy tiger-themed article of clothing and furniture he sees but needs to restrain himself due to the imaginary flies coming out of his wallet. Kyouka notices this someday and buys him a baby tiger plushie or some cartoony tiger bedsheets (*cough* which I may or may not have already written into my wip *cough*).

Unpopular opinion

Considering my only habitat is sskk circles with very insighful people who understand his character mmmm it's a bit hard for me to know what is unpopular. But I'm gonna say that his flashbacks to the orphanage are not reduntant at all, no matter how repetitive they get, because it honestly feels like how a real person would experience trauma. It's not sugar-coated or glorified for the interest of the story, it just feels genuine yk?

Song I associate with them

Lacy - Olivia Rodrigo, because of this gorgeous animatic by @piedpip3rrr

For the love of everything, please just drop everything for a minute and watch this, if you haven't already.

Everything about it is sheer perfection - the storytelling, the relation of the characters to the lyrics, the incredibly expressive and gorgeous drawings, the coloring (that has a storytelling of its own even!!), the subtle motions that just pull on your heartstrings with every single beat. I love this thing <3

Favourite picture

*pushes my sunglasses slightly over the bridge of my nose and slides this across our imaginary table*

*disappears into the shadows*

...

*feral shouting resonates through the aforementioned shadows*

Ok OK LIsteN. I think, and I am correct, that we as a fandom have failed spectacularly by getting over this panel WAY so soon. Yes, I have the "you fool" one printed out at my desk and I stare at it lovingly every half hour or so, but THIS ONE! Oh, this belongs in a museum. I would pay money if I had to, just to rest my gaze upon it for a mere second. I believe I need not express myself on why it's so magnificent... but I'm gonna do it anyway, becuz who's stopping me, my blog my rules woooo! :D

1. Peak of Harukawa's new art style. Hands down. The softness of his features. The tender look in his eyes. The composition is strikingly dynamic and just heartbreaking to take it all in. There is a dream-like quality to it that makes it feel ethereal, yet it depicts a living nightmare.

2. Oh, the hand reaching out for Aku. The way he turned his whole body to face him mid fall. As if he's seeking comfort because he's scared to die alone and he's scared of leaving his partner, no matter if he knows his strength and believes in him with his whole being. The way there is not an inkling of regret in his eyes, because he's finally done the right thing. It's his closure, his retribution, his response to a sacrifice in his own name that he didn't believe himself worthy of. But now he understands. Need I say more?

P.S. Link to the Aku sequel because they shall always come as a pair <3

[vanillahealer]

dear followers, this is NOT an agere post

it's a CRK post, so... if you dont want that, dont worry about it! /gen

beast yeast ep 9 spoilers!! also it has angst also this is a VERY LONG post. specifically, below the cut is 3,834 words and 21,377 characters.

cw/tw: cognitive and emotional dissonance, emotional abuse (from a leader and/or mother figure), brainwashing?, cult, the word "pill" and a large part of this revolves around a metaphorical/emotional illness/disease

So I have a lot of thoughts about this episode. Things that I haven't seen talked about yet so I wanted to bring it up for the more-into-crk-lore-than-I-am-people if they see this.

Most people have mentioned or are aware of the things going on with Pavlova Cookie, Sugarfly Cookie, and Eternal Sugar Cookie. I think most believe that Pavlova Cookie and Sugarfly Cookie are and have been being abused by Eternal Sugar Cookie in some way. Some may even think Eternal Sugar Cookie is a cult leader. I've heard that suggestion be tossed around. Some may view her as an abusive mother figure. And all of that, in this post, will be posited. This is the basis of this post.

First, I'd like to point out something that I noticed quite early on in this episode, after everyone got to the Garden. The Sugar Angels—the ones who help heal the other Cookies—didn't seem to ever hate their job. I'm in a line of thinking that Pavlova Cookie, Sugarfly Cookie, and the Sugar Angels are different types of Cookies. I have no idea if there's any evidence to this, but I just sort of get that vibe. Which could mean a bunch of things. We could be seeing a type of hierarchy. The Sugar Angels are the most common type of Cookie there. They could be the main population, for lack of a better term. Pavlova Cookie and Sugarfly Cookie seem to be more-directly-under Eternal Sugar Cookie's commands and orders. Which is... "weird," in a sense—At least, it seems weird. Raspberry Cookie's line of (paraphrased), "Wow, a Cookie from House Raspberry would never shirk off their duty to another Cookie!" comes to mind for Pavlova Cookie. If Pavlova Cookie is as close (in terms of order of command) to Eternal Sugar Cookie, why would he act childishly? Why does he not like his duty? Why isn't he more loyal, like Sugarfly Cookie?

I think it's complicated. I think he actually does like his job. His job is to give Happiness to all, and by proxy, lead everyone to the Garden. And with all that he talks about Love—and his fascination on Love—and it really seems genuine. He DOES want to help all Cookies. He does want to spread Love and Happiness to all. Who wouldn't? I mean, he's been told all his life that Love and Happiness is good. But something's interesting. "Pain and sorrow are not allowed in the Garden." This leads us to, again, multiple things... One, Pavlova Cookie likes pain and sorrow too. The first time we meet him, he talks about a love tragedy. And how that love tragedy is apparently deliciously interesting. It seems that a "normal" Cookie of the Garden (idk what else to call them,) would be crying and deeply hurt about a love tragedy. If Pavlova Cookie shared this news to everyone else, he would be the bringer of bad news. He would make everyone in that Garden sad. But then again, sadness is unacceptable. Pavlova Cookie, being (assumingly) one of—or the only—Cookie of the Garden who can go to the Outside World, is the only Cookie of the Garden who actually sees pain and sorrow. He resonates with it. He understands it—and he loves it because this is the only place where he is also understood. It's very unnatural—and rather impossible—for someone to be happy all the time. Even Eternal Sugar Cookie expresses more emotions than just happiness and bliss in her own Garden. But anything other than Happiness is bad. Any other emotion is bad. Is horrible. Is needed to be snuffed out like a candle's flame. In the Garden, you are not allowed to feel anything other than this one thing. But what causes Happiness? In the game, Eternal Sugar Cookie literally says that Happiness is going after what you want. And that doesn't sound bad at all.

...Except it is. And it is to her, as well. Why else would she get upset at Pavlova Cookie? When he wants Hollyberry and everyone else to stay, he is doing what he wants. In fact, he's doing his job. He fully believes that this is apart of his duty as a member of the Cookies of the Garden. He believes this is what Eternal Sugar Cookie wants of him. And he's right. He is to bring Happiness to all Cookies, which means they are to stay in Eternal Sugar Cookie's Garden. This is what she wants. However, despite doing exactly that, Pavlova Cookie gets scolded by Eternal Sugar Cookie. He is told that this is now wrong. Yet another thing is wrong——exactly what Eternal Sugar Cookie wants is wrong. Now, there was no reason for Eternal Sugar Cookie to get upset at him like how she did. I feel like diffusing the situation would've been nice, unless she did and I just don't remember. Anyway, he objectively did nothing wrong as per her orders. But she fixated her eyes on him, filled with cold, piercing daggers. She told him that she would re-educate him. She does not understand him, and he does not understand her, in a sense. ...Or we can say it's one or the other, simultaneously. She does understand him, and he doesn't. This can be the case because she knows he wants to help, but he doesn't know her plan. Simple as that. Now let's say she doesn't understand him, but he understands her. He knows what she wants. Obviously, for he's acting all of this out and he's doing what he thinks is best. She thinks he is "going against her" by doing this. He is in the way of her plans. Both of these are true. ...They both know that she is leading the Cookies straight to danger. They both know that "pain and sorrow is bad for all Cookies." (Pavlova Cookie can still not know about the plan here. Any Cookie going out of the Garden is bad enough——he knows that himself. Just an added layer onto this.) But somehow, "pain and sorrow" is being allowed by Eternal Sugar Cookie. ...The outsider cookies are free to feel pain. They are free to express how hurt they are. They are free to tell her, "I'm not feeling okay." They are allowed to leave the Garden, get hurt, and come back and be treated with kindness and healings and benevolence. Pavlova Cookie, Sugarfly Cookie, the Sugar Angels, and other Cookies/Desserts of the Garden do NOT have this freedom. To add onto this, the outsider Cookies—Hollyberry, Wildberry, and Raspberry Cookie—judge him too. They judge Pavlova Cookie. Hollyberry Cookie tells Eternal Sugar Cookie that he seems to only prioritize what he wants. (I hear Pavlova Cookie argue, "This is Happiness. This is Eternal Sugar Cookie's blessing! And in doing this, I am helping other Cookies get Happiness too!!") Wildberry Cookie and Raspberry Cookie mock him, telling him he shouldn't pawn off his duties to another. ("Stop it! No one understands! My mother figure tells me I'm wrong when I'm doing exactly what she wants! You outsider Cookies don't understand me either! The only one who understands is Sugarfly Cookie!" I hear Pavlova Cookie vent out his frustrations.) Sugarfly Cookie seems like a sibling to him. They are happy to take the jobs for Pavlova Cookie. They understand how emotionally hurt he is, for his job is to go to the Outside World and view how much pain and sadness is in it, only to be constantly denied his own pain and sadness. He is in the world where this should not happen. He is meeting the Cookies that can help him. He sees where they live, he knows the creatures of the land. He knows pain and sadness exist here, freely, without constraint. If there is one place where he could be understood, it is here.

And he isn't. And even so, he has a job to do. He is to spread Happiness to others. The Happiness that he doesn't fully know. The Happiness that confuses him. The one that he doesn't know if it's bad or good. He doesn't know why he feels sadness. Why he feels hurt. This is the place where pain and sadness does not exist. The Garden is where all Cookies are cared for. He should not feel this way. He, while feeling these emotions, is betraying Eternal Sugar Cookie herself. He can't admit it to others, let alone admit it to himself. But he still likes giving Happiness to outsider Cookies. Because who doesn't want to be happy? Happiness will be good. Forever. It is impossible for Happiness to be a bad thing. Happiness is good. Happiness is right. It is the way of the Garden, and it is the way of his mother figure. Its importance has been passed down and spread all across the Garden. He would be a fool to say Happiness is bad. Everyone would laugh. Maybe even Sugarfly Cookie. Sugarfly Cookie does not know the Outside World. It's debatable if they once knew it. But as of now, they do not. If they did, it's been far too long for it to mean anything to them anyway. Because they are Happy now. They are in the Garden of Delights, where nothing can hurt them. What Eternal Sugar Cookie does is not hurtful. It is not painful. Her actions cause no pain. Pavlova Cookie complains only because he visits the Outside World, where pain and sorrow reign and reside. He is affected by the outside influences. It is natural that he needs to come back to the Garden and rejuvenate himself.

("But he tells me he experiences Happiness there, too. He says pain and sorrow give him Happiness. He tells me that love tragedies are wonderful. That broken hearts cause his heart to fill," I hear Sugarfly Cookie try to reason with their confused thoughts. "He is sick. He needs help more than anyone. But he tells me—and I understand—why he cannot tell the Sugar Angels. Word will get to Mother. And Pavlova Cookie has tried so hard to keep all of this away from her for so long. However... I still don't know what it is that causes him this odd Happiness. I want to see it for myself. I want to understand him.") And they tell Pavlova Cookie they want to go with him one day. They trust him. They want to help him. They want to understand him. And so they go. They see it with their own eyes what grants Pavlova Cookie this odd Happiness. ...And this could go in so many different directions. The only thing we know for sure (at least this is assumed for this post,) is that Eternal Sugar Cookie found out. However... I think it to be like this. Sugarfly Cookie is terrified. Upon knowing the truth, Pavlova Cookie's situation is more dire than they expected. Crying creatures are granting him inner peace. Tears. Anger. Fits of frustration between lovers. Heartbreak. Violence. Emotions that are not allowed in the Garden is causing Pavlova Cookie "Happiness." This odd Happiness that he calls "Understanding." ("He tells me that he wants to do this. He wants to look like them. He wants to... cry. They are in pain. Their hearts are hurting. Pavlova Cookie... wants pain?" Sugarfly Cookie questions. "He is sick—He is very, very ill. I must tell Mother. I must tell her so she can heal him.") They tell Eternal Sugar Cookie about what transpired. Sugarfly Cookie is mortified of the Outside World. Eternal Sugar Cookie sees how hurt Sugarfly Cookie is—and promises to them that they will never again have to visit that place. They will be safe in the Garden. Forever. The new armor is wonderful. It's a bit heavy—Sugarfly Cookie can't exactly fly correctly, or fly at all. At most, they can hover, but that is alright. Being closer to the Garden is better. Having direct contact with the sweet clouds will surely help. No wonder it takes so long for Pavlova Cookie to heal. He can fly. But Mother did not give him new armor. In fact, she did not change anything about him at all, it seems. At best, she talked to him, and that was all. She told everyone she taught him a new lesson.

("But still, Pavlova Cookie is hurt. He still goes to the Outside World. But he has to. It is his job.... I feel bad for him. He is the only one who can go into the Outside World. He is the only one who can escort the outside Cookies to the Garden. He must witness the pain and sorrow from that world, and must go directly to Mother so she can help him. The Other World is cruel. But it must be this way. Pavlova Cookie is suffering. He mistook his Happiness. He wanted to cry not because he felt understood. He wants to cry because he is a Cookie of the Garden. And we are not to look upon or feel pain. And yet he does. He is the only one who does... While thinking about Pavlova Cookie, something happens to my heart. Something blooms within it. It is not Mother's Happiness. It feels like it droops lower than my wings with this new armor. This.... This is from the Outside World. This... is the disease that Pavlova Cookie is ill with. I contracted it, too, when I went to that sickly place. It... hurts. But in due time, because I am forever in the Garden, I will heal. Pavlova Cookie still has jobs to do. I will happily do anything he asks me to—I must help alleviate his pain. ...Oh, Mother has the same look upon her face when she taught him the new lesson. Pavlova Cookie will get too close to the Outside World—That is why he does not want to lead the outside Cookies back to their world. He does not want to get more sick. I understand. I will escort them for him while Mother reeducates him.")

...

"Pavlova Cookie? Come closer to me," says Eternal Sugar Cookie. "...Yes? You called for me?" responds Pavlova Cookie... ...with fear in his voice. He knows that he was wrong. Pain and sadness can be felt by Outsider Cookies. Of course they can. It originates from their world, of course. ("I hope 'Mother' will heal me this time. I hope it's not just telling me things I already know. That her plans are absolute, that her plans are very planned out. That she knows what she is doing. All I want is for 'Mother' to heal me like Sugarfly Cookie believes. But not like the sculptures... And don't restrict my flight.... And don't ban me from ever visiting the Outside World... No. No, that is impossible. I am useful. I am the only one who has this job. I am useful. I must be kept in this job. I must be doing well. Mother will pardon one mistake. She will keep me in this role. She will. She has to. It is..... healing me. It makes my heart full. Surely, she knows that. She understands me. ...

I keep thinking about Sugarfly Cookie and I's exchange before those outsider Cookies left. I asked if they remembered the pain that cannot be healed... They did, they do remember it. Because we both have it. We both have the disease that came from the Outside World. But... that's what Mother says. To me, I think it's not a disease at all. It helps... It... helps. And no one understands. No one but Sugarfly Cookie, and even they are on the fence about it...") There's a crazy amount of dissonance here. Of ambivalence. I hope you guys are getting what I'm putting down. It's sort of hard to explain to be honest. ...I want to talk about this.

[Image ID: A screenshot of Pavlova Cookie's dialogue from Cookie Run Kingdom. There are two sides of the image, left and right. Left side says the word "Victory." Right side says three quotes. In order, the first is: "Love always wins!" The second is: "Ahh, the power of love!" and the final one is "With love, Pavlova Cookie!" End image ID.]

I want to talk about that last one. "With love, Pavlova Cookie!" Who says their own name? Why would you do that? It's because he's quoting someone else. "With love, Pavlova Cookie!..." said Eternal Sugar Cookie, during one of the "reeducating sessions." It's like she's telling him, reinforcing into him that he is not doing any evil. He is not doing anything bad. Spreading Happiness can NOT be bad. Ever. Shooting arrows at others is not bad. Killing monsters is not bad. Winning, even if the "stubborn Cookies" resisted, is not bad. You won. You achieved victory. And you did it with love. I see a lot of posts talking about the statues/sculptures. I want to add to this.

[ Image ID: A screenshot of a decor from Cookie Run Kingdom. Name of decor: Tender Dream Raspberry Jam. Visual Description: A statue of a Sugar Angel ontop of a raspberry jam jar. Has a small amount of jam on its right wing and head. In-game Description: "May your slumbers be happy in the Garden of Delights! Eternal Sugar Cookie herself has crafted these intricate jars of jam to keep Cookie protected from pain and suffering for all eternity. It is said that this jam tastes like the warmest memory of your life. Those splatters of jam on the statue…? Don't you worry, sweetest!" End image ID.]

I want to focus on the end part. The splatters of jam. So... this is just pure confirmation that these transformations are painful. They bleed. They are in pain when these happen. Have another one.

[ Image ID: A screenshot of a decor from Cookie Run Kingdom. Name of Decor: Sweet Slumber Blueberry Jam. Visual Description: A statue of a Sugar Angel on-top of a jar of blueberry jam. A blue tear comes from its right eye. In-game Description: May your slumbers be happy in the Garden of Delights! Eternal Sugar Cookie herself has crafted these intricate jars of jam to keep Cookies protected from sorrow and suffering for all eternity. it is said that this jam tastes like the fondest memory of your life. Why does the statue look like it's crying…? Those are happy tears, sweetest!" End image ID. ]

The fact that there's two of them—different ones—with either jam or tears... insinuates that there's different types of "petrification"? One that gives physical pain and another that is emotional? That's just a theory though.

[ Image ID: A screenshot of a decor from Cookie Run Kingdom. Decor Name: Sugar Peacock. Visual Description: A purple peacock with seven tails. The peacock's eyes are closed, but eyes are on the ends of the tails. One eye per tail. In-game Description: These majestic birds with feathers of sleek, shiny candy walk gracefully around the Garden of Delights. With their eyes constantly closed, it may seem as though they are dreaming—but make no mistake: their real eyes are on the tips of their tail plumes. Day after day, these eyes witness happy faces. But… what happens if a face is not happy?" End image ID.]

"What happens if a face is not happy?" Another case of "any emotion except for Happiness is bad" in this place. And apparently, peacocks symbolize beauty, divinity, power, confidence... and "the beautiful things of life." Wow.

[ Image ID: A screenshot of a decor from Cookie Run Kingdom. Decor Name: Mashmallow Candy Pillars (Top). Visual Description: Two pink pillars hold up a small part of a pale white ceiling. The pink part looks soft. In-game Description: A soft marshmallow wraps around a sturdy candy pillar making it completely harmless in the event of a sudden collision. The sensation of its plushy embrace upon impact has some Cookies dreaming of turning this pill-ar into the pill-ow of their dreams… but will they ever succeed?" End image ID.]

Ohhh man. The "pill" part of those words are getting singled out. This inspired the whole "sickness/illness/disease" things above. Like, of course this society would have parallels to sicknesses. They literally heal others... but I didn't expect this in this description.

[ Image ID: A screenshot of a decor from Cookie Run Kingdom. Name of Decor: Winged Tree. Visual Description: A tree with purple angel wings as its leaves. In-game Description: "No one is ever busy in the Garden of Delights! Why soar in the sky when you can slumber in the shade of this tree? Legend has it that is how this tree gained its wings—the previous owner no longer needed them." End image ID.]

"The previous owner no longer needed them..." ...What does this mean. What does this mean??? Does Eternal Sugar Cookie just straight up... you know...? I mean, I guess it makes sense. You can hurt your people as much as you want because they are in the realm of healing and stuff. It won't matter how much pain you experience because you can just get all of that wiped away.

[ Image ID: A screenshot of a decor from Cookie Run Kingdom. Decor Name: Swimming Tooth Rock. Visual Description: A tooth that can…swim… Apparently these are creatures in this world. In-game Description: This Toothling has rotted from drinking too much grape juice flowing through the Garden of Delights. However, it still will not stop, despite the pain… Perhaps, it lives as a testament to the phrase, "All is good in moderation." End image ID.]

...So are we just going to say that everyone in the Garden is raised to be masochistic...? The phrase "All is good in moderation" and like there's no moderation? They genuinely think it's good for them? Is this what this means?

But, yeah, anyway. I think this is crazy. Not to mention the music. I find it absolutely fascinating that the boss battle theme is a remix of the like, main theme of the place, I think. I know that makes sense, but... something about the boss battle theme just seems so... conflicted. The good that you know suddenly becomes bad. Everything you've ever lived for twists itself into disparagement by Eternal Sugar Cookie in-front of your eyes. It feels like the truth is coming out, yet you have a vague idea of said truth... It feels like you don't know which one to believe in.

But anyway. Sorry for this whole very extremely long post. Maybe I'll come back to this again and/or start posting my other ideas about stuff. I didn't even talk about Hollyberry or Eternal Sugar's relationship. My thoughts on it are probably.... different than others. I'll just say I like Eternal Sugar more than Hollyberry. ...Which..... is interesting, given that I don't exactly *like* like Eternal Sugar. Anyone else think Pavlova Cookie and Sugarfly Cookie see each other as siblings btw? Anyway. I'll stop rambling. This has gotten long enough.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

This is the most hilarious post I've read on this trash

I love it when people don't know the difference between people disagreeing wuth them and causing cognitive dissonance, and people being wrong.

I'm lucky to be in a country where the large majority of people don't have guns. So even if I wanted to be a professional home breaker I wouldn't be afraid of being shot because that's not a thing here, especially in cities.

Turns out deadly force is generally considered a justified response to (a threat of) deadly force, regardless of form.

So if someone were menacing you with a knife, a gun would still be a "legit" response.

Also, I'm from a country without "gun culture", with low legal ownership, and I still knew at least three people who were murdered with guns.

Also, I live in the UK, and I've been subject to a home invasion were people were almost beaten to death by unarmed randos.

Also, I love how you discuss guns to say the burglars probably won't get shot, but never acknowledge the fact that the bad guys might be armed with guns.

In fact, I don't think you ever say thieves can use any form of deadly force in any of your posts.

Violating someone's space causes a lot of damages. I don't support that for anyone, no matter their backgrounds, their past, or their beliefs.

Wow! That's some very nice virtue signalling, that does absolutely nothing to walk back or acknowledge your absurd claims about self-defense, or even that the idea of supporting individual self defense rights is "fascist".

I'm being honest when I say this is barbaric and isn't gonna fix the issue, because I have the knowledge and studies supporting that view point.

If you argue it's morally ok to kill people because they hurt you, you have fascist ideas. That's just how it is.

People are saying it's morally okay to kill people who are threatening to use deadly force, or who could be assumed to do so.

You posted downstream of my more moderate view, and you're acting like it wasn't there.

Also, I love how you're so smug and patronizing, yet you haven't said a word actually explaining how this is inherently related to right-wing authoritarian nationalism.

Because I'm pretty sure people had the same sentiment before fascism ever existed.

The only real difference was that they might not use guns.

I would bet money you have no actual reasoning, it just made you uncomfy, so you called it a Bad Thing™.

Just read someone claiming that being ok with killing someone breaking into your house is a "facist usamerican opinion".

As a victim of a home break in, where I got beaten up for the sin of dropping a plastic bag holding snacks I had just bought, where I then had to witness an aunt and her daughter crying their eyes out tied to a bed, fearing they would get raped, myself fearing the same for them after I too was tied and gagged next to them.

And also as the son of another victim of a break in, who got stabbed in the gut and almost died of blood loss half naked right in front of his infant daughter.

I have to say

Kill all home intruders, if they have committed the sin of breaking into the place most safe for you and your family, with the intention of taking everything you worked so hard to get, not to mention the lives of you and your family, you have all the right in the world to respond with deadly force, no questions asked.

[hestzhyen]

Chapter 78 Finally Posting

LET'S! FUCKING! GOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Editor's notes: First Page: 敗れた昼彦...！！ [yabure ta Hiruhiko...!!] "Hiruhiko is defeated...!!" Last Page: 京都にチヒロ、 東京にハクリ！2つの戦場が動き出す！！ [Kyoto ni Chihiro, Tokyo ni Hakuri! 2tsu no senjou ga ugokidasu!!] "Chihiro in Kyoto, Hakuri in Tokyo! The two battlefields heat up!!"

YEAH

THAT'S RIGHT

A whole bunch of stuff happened so let's get into it!

Mechanics and Info Yap

Boy did I struggle to translate all the information that was dropped this chapter. But we learned a ton!

[ominous Latin chanting kicks up in the distance]

One, Suzaku is not infinite. Or it's not supposed to be, at least. It also doesn't actually reverse death, but given how hax Samura is right now, Chihiro's information might be out of date. I'm calling it: Samura is certified OP now. He's cracked. A true raid boss. Whatever he did to prepare for this moment, it fucking worked and now he's apparently the Kagurabachi version of Faker. Good fucking luck, Chihiro. Go for breaking Tobimune! It's the only way you can beat him since he won't expect it!

Samura was also apparently pushed into developing Suzaku during the Seitei War. I wonder if we'll see the moment that inspired the move...

Oh, and one-point-five. Owl can even affect the weather, apparently! Samura's almost a god. Seriously, good luck Chihiro (he'll be fine in the long-run because he's the protagonist, but let's pretend we don't have that meta knowledge).

The edgiest member of the Hishaku is also the master of edging himself.

Two, Kuguri's sorcery! Nice to know it! Not exactly practical, but he's a swordsman for a reason. Given how much he loves to train with the blade he probably got quite a bit stocked up before blowing it all to escape from Samura.

Translation note since I have no idea what the official English version will do with his move. In Japanese it's 破暮 [hagure]. 破 [ha] means rend/rip/tear/break/destroy/defeat/frustrate, while 暮 [ku] means evening/twilight/season's end/livelihood/make a living/spend time; 暮れ [kure] means sunset/nightfall/dusk or end/close or year's end. I'd translate this as "Broken Dusk" because it sounds cool as fuck but there's a lot of room for creative liberty here. I think the official TL is cool as hell too so no complaints from me.

[Matrix vibes intensify]

Three, some Kamunabi lore! They have barriers, of course, which were probably a gimme in terms of defensive measures. This guy also looks cool as hell!

We don't know how many fighting forces they have on-hand but it's alright. The non-combatants of the ~500 members of staff at the Tokyo location will go further underground and we will hopefully get some awesome action from a certain someone I've been wanting to see for ages now.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Let's do some trivia since I'm here!

神奈備 - Kamunabi. It's not just a name, it's an actual word (usually pronounced kannabi) for a mountain or forest where a deity is enshrined. What a fancy, pleasant-sounding way to say your mission is to imprison a guy who went insane and slaughtered about 200,000 people who'd already surrendered.

This chapter, instead of using 防壁 [bouheki] for a defensive military barrier, the term 結界 [kekkai] was used. Kekkai is a mystical barrier rather than a physical one, and folks who frequently read manga/watch anime will probably recognise it because of how common magical barriers are. It's got ties to Buddhism too, of course- it refers to the fence between the inner and outer sanctums in a temple, the prohibition of various things that would hinder Buddhist practice, and is also the Japanese term for Bai Sema.

I just wanted to mention this because the more we see of the Kamunabi the less traditionally military they seem. Leaning on mystical terminology, traditional onmyouji outfits making up the higher-ups uniforms... their whole org appears steeped in spiritual concepts and imagery.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Hiruhiko, Defeated

Oof.

Man, even I feel bad for him at this point. He wanted his own fight with Chihiro to be as hype of a clash as Chihiro vs. Sojo was but all that happened was that he hit rock bottom instead. He overcame nothing, did nothing, and still got his arm sliced off by the arc's main antagonist anyway. That's the only thing really connecting him to Chihiro at this point.

I don't think I've seen a more miserable, pitiable creature.

The ultimate counter to Hiruhiko is apathy. His passion for fighting Chihiro is burning bright, but even someone as emotional as his "rival" can't feel anything for him. Hiruhiko's totally irrelevant and I feel vindicated for thinking all of his stuff in the hotel until now was an annoying side-show.

Chihiro won his reality check fight because he was willing to adapt his mindset. Hiruhiko lost because he was laser-focused on his own interpretation. He's differentiated from Sojo's situation because Sojo actively refused to incorporate more information about Kunishige that would alter his worldview; I have a feeling that Hiruhiko will learn quite a lot from this once the shock wears off.

So this will be the true start of Hiruhiko's story I guess. Chihiro's journey didn't really begin until he had to overcome Sojo forcing him to realise that he didn't know enough about his father. So as Chihiro's self-proclaimed frenemy, Hiruhiko's journey will start with him confronting his own vision of reality being incomplete. What form that takes is up to the author- I just hope his growth is interesting to follow.

Chihiro vs. Samura Round 2

Hype and aura incarnate.

They're finally cleared to start fighting now that the Hishaku have retreated. What will happen? No clue! I won't even try to guess because it could be anything.

We've got our arc boss battle set up. Chihiro and Samura going to clash. Sojo was about death of the author and Chihiro accepting there was more to learn about a situation that was more complex than he grew up believing, Kyora was about what it means to be a good father and the dangers of blind devotion to legacy. Samura... is about condemning oneself to a path that one doesn't necessarily have to walk, I think. The burden of guilt unaddressed leading someone to spiral down and eventually out if no one can help them. Basically, what I thought since chapter 51 or so.

This part broke my heart though.

This is the personal reason.

He thinks back to Iori's sadness and it becomes a core part of his motivation. I mean, of course it did- Chihiro started walking the road to Hell the day he lost his own dad. He's burdened by taking a path that neither his father nor Samura wanted him to follow, but he's going to see it through.

So I think that rather than wanting to put Samura down like the previous two main antagonists, Chihiro wants to save him.

Chihiro's whole reason for being out here in this position is because his dad was murdered; he's not exactly champing at the bit to put other people in his position. He takes it so fucking personally when fathers aren't treating their kids right! He only killed Kyora for actively choosing to be a piss-poor father, perpetuating human suffering on a massive scale, and because Hakuri pleaded with him to do so. But Samura? This man is fundamentally good. He's misguided due to guilt and anxiety, but he's not doing things to make the world a worse place, deliberately or intentionally. He's trying to save people and make the world better for his daughter's sake.

This is why I'm so all-in on Chihiro winning the fight by breaking Tobimune. His ideals aren't going to make it easy for him to cut Samura down- he looked up to the man, he knows he's not a bad person, and he definitely doesn't want to make another orphan out of Iori. So even if he could stat check the raid boss his heart wouldn't be in it. The neatest solution would be to break Tobimune instead -Samura's overwhelming strength born from Soaring Faith- and show him a different way to do things.

I'm open to other outcomes obviously. Chihiro might be forced to kill Samura somehow, Iori and the Masumi might come in and throw a wrench in things, anything can happen. But this clash of ideals of Chihiro wanting Samura to live for Iori and Samura believing he needs to die for her is going to be incredible, I know it. Hokazono's at his best when he's examining these themes of parenthood and legacy after all- he's not fumbled once yet with them.

Man. If Chihiro and Samura are both trying to save each other here, I'm gonna go nuts. This fight is set up to be an absolute masterclass and I can't wait for it to unfold.

Meanwhile, at Kamunabi HQ...

The Kamunabi are mostly up-to-date, blah blah. We got an unexpected narrator here though.

Name, please?

We got Prince Nez's PoV and it makes sense. He was the one who tried to reassure Samura in the flashbacks that the Kamunabi was totally secure. He's got an even read on the situation and helpfully points out that we still don't know the Hishaku's exact plan here is. It's anyone's guess so I'll just slap down a non-existent bet that they're trying to cause the Malediction event here and now.

Okay so, who's gonna fight all seven Hishaku members that we may or may not finally see in full? We finally got confirmation that Shiba and Hiyuki aren't present since they're guarding the other two bearers, so who's left to face the intruders?

A new challenger approaches! NOTE: "Hibiki" is supposed to be "Hiyuki". Another dumb mistake from VIZ.

That's right, my gorilla wife is going to take the field- at long last we will see him in a real fight! Probably! Maybe we'll even get to see his sorcery at long last! And maybe we can have a few less jokes about him being the traitor until there's better reasons to believe he's a suspect!

I wifed Azami based on the very little we've seen of him and it's mostly because I like his design and the promise of his personality. He's the only guy in the whole cast who uses the casual male pronoun 僕 [boku] (even Mr. Inazuma uses the rough and very masculine 俺 [ore])! I won't go on a huge tangent here about why I love him so much but there's a reason for it, I swear. He seems to enjoy brawling despite being a straight-laced government agent and it really gets the braincells movin'. Plus being a powerful sorcerer but choosing to fight in melee with his fists. Being a calm and rational guy on the job but having a short temper when it comes to Shiba. The contrasts intrigue me and I will stand by him no matter what. He's my wife: a handsome, polite, and erudite gorilla in a wizard's robes and hat.

There's someone else who's gonna get some time on screen too, though.

[incomprehensible screeching]

HE'S BACK HE'S BACK HE'S BACK HAKURI I LOVE YOU I MISSED YOU AND I'M ALMOST IN TEARS SEEING YOU AGAIN IT'S BEEN SO LONG AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH NEVER LEAVE ME FOR THAT LONG AGAIN PLEASE I BEG OF YOU

He's still got some scuff marks to show he's not completely healed yet but he's BACK. HE'S HERE. HAKURIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Given the announcement for non-combatants to evacuate preceding his reintroduction, I don't think he'll be in the fighting. Poor guy just woke up and surely won't be asked to overtax himself again, will he? Or more like, surely there will be some responsible adults around him capable of stopping him from overtaxing himself again? But his PoV will be valuable to see what's going on with the Kamunabi while Azami and whoever else is on deck fend off the Hishaku's assault. I have a feeling we will be getting some big reveals to set up the next arc thanks to Hakuri. Hopefully he won't be written out for months in real time again.

A Miscellaneous TL Note

If anyone was curious, 響 [hibiki] means "echo" or "reberveration"

Also, this week's chapter title is 交代 [koutai] which has a bunch of similar-yet-distinct meanings like "switch", "change", "substitution", and "taking turns".

Lastly, perhaps most interestingly...

"Resurrect" here has some fun double meanings. It was written as 黄泉返し [yomikaeshi], which actually means "return to/from Hell" but the Ruby over top reads [yomigae] for 甦, "resurrection". It's got some nice thematic tie-ins to how Chihiro and Samura both think they're headed for hell (but have a very good chance of being redeemed in some way).

OKAY! For the first time in ages I am vibrating in my seat waiting for the next chapter. I'm so freakin' stoked, man. See you next week if I don't explode from anticipation, dear void.

[doberbutts]

Sometimes cishet women can also be really annoyingly petty but not as often as cishet men. Maybe cis gay men and lesbians do this as well? But interestingly I've never heard a trans person complain about dating partners in a way that they did not at least phrase with a grave cadence, even if it was still ridiculous at it's heart. Like the trans version of that is "I hate when my partner has takes pictures of their coffee, because that's a violently bigoted act and makes me feel unsafe." It's like there's a sliding scale of awareness of how absurd something like that can be, and the more aware you are the more you need to jazz it up before you say it with your whole heart.

I mean there's assholes and toxicity in every demographic- so my post isn't specifically about whether it's JUST cishet men who do this. More that in the partnerships I've had and the friendships I enjoy, this is such a foreign concept to me because the people in my life actually idk *like* being around their partner(s) and tbf most of the people in my life aren't cishet and are instead some flavor of queer... with the majority of the cishet people being my family members, who know better than to act like this because my family is incredibly matriarchal and the women would NOT tolerate such nonsense from the men.

It was mostly a "are the straights ok" post that went viral for some reason.

(Also, hrrhrr, jazz it up said to Jaz hrrhrr)

[kestrelsansjesses]

The funniest genre of Reddit ASOIAF discussion post is someone going "omg have you been listening to those people on TUMBLR they're the worst they just say bullshit" and then you go to the various subreddits for the series and at least half the posts are some variant of "who is the best fighter" "who is the manliest man" "why is x woman character such a slut." No platform is perfect, but the quality and insightfulness I've seen in Tumblr posts, as well as the originality in the way people examine the books, is so far superior to Reddit that it's pretty laughable. And at least you can actually discuss the women of the series without it devolving into the typical way reddit views women, which ain't great.

[cowbot-lumberjane]

2 weeks (ish) into my self imposed banishment and I wanted to make a more positive post to leave things on. Getting yourself out of the habit of using social media obsessively is hard! But very rewarding. Ive been finding ways to spend my time that don't make me feel angry and exhausted and it's been lovely. Ive packed quite a bit into 2 weeks (ISH) and im excited to do more! What I've done (so far) instead of being on this website:

Put over 20 gigglebites of music on my phone via soulseek (wow!)

Organize my desktop and files (so clean! so much space on my drives!)

Actually finished two video games! Klonoa: Door to Phantomile and a replay of Black Mesa. (Enjoying my hobbies is fun!)

Go to my local library to check out books and actually read them! (So fun! Go check out YOUR local library! Ive been getting graphic novels and comics made by queer authors/artists!)

Hang out with my friends more! (This one is up and down, we all live together so its kind of a "doing more social things in my house" type beat.)

Done an art trade! (shoutout to @cintailed for doodlin' up my now renamed fursona, Catherine!)

Here's my half of that btw!

Speaking of art! I've been doing art!

Look at this Tanuki version of my sona I made!

CUT MY OWN HAIR! (With the help of a friend but still!!)

Short hair Clair returns for fat girl spring!!!

Went to an overlook with my wife and friends! (We were doing some light rock climbing/hiking!)

We have another hike planned this week! We're gonna be at the bottom of a canyon!

There's some things I'm probably forgetting here and there, but I my point in posting this at all is to say, I'm okay! I'm doing good, I feel good most days, and I'm enjoying my newfound time. Who knows, maybe in a month or so I'll feel like coming back in moderation, but I've set up my itinerary to at least let me be gone for the spring and summer. I know I know, big shocker, logging off the hellsite gives you time to do other things. But it really has kind of surprised me how much more I feel like doing now that I've given myself the chance. Can't recommend it enough. You don't have to swear off the computer forever or anything, but for real, maybe give tumblr a break for a while.

See you when I see you! Go enjoy the spring every once and a while, for me, okay?