#but theres no way for me to know that considering i generally see the same 20 ppl in my notes

[freakinator]

see idk why people get on your case and claim you'er misogynistic against kaboodle. There is a lot of misogyny against kaboodle rn in general in the fandom but you are not doing it and neither are your followers. All kaboodle does is swear too much and be vulgar, argumentative and has revenge plots and people on twitter have been hating on her for that because they don't expect a girl mcyt to act like that, they expect girl mcyts to be more passive but a boy mcyt would be fine in their case if he acted like how kab was acting. The kab fans can be annoying too when they attack random people for this, like I'm talking about your past anons, I don't get why they come here and hate on you or your friends.

...thats not all kab does lol but i get your point i think?? at least the part where misogynists expect fem/fem-presenting mcytbers to just be passive and hate on them when theyre not

as for the anons coming here, my guess is that theyre part of the population of twitter users who came here after hearing that ccs liked using this site and are unused to tumblr culture which is that we criticize whoever at the drop of a hat if we dont like what we're seeing and think that we're targetting kab specifically and think shes the devil or something when in reality shes just been the one whos been pulling this shit at a frequent and consistent basis, towards zam no less who plenty of us watch so naturally her pattern of behaviour towards him is gonna be really noticeable for a lot of us and so we're gonna complain about it in our own blogs if we dont like it considering. yknow. its our own blogs

[pencileraser1]

things i noticed/thoughts about most recent rewatches of dps (plus laserdisk deleted scenes):

whenever theres a group scene i've started watching the characters that the story isn't focusing on to see what they do and i've been having a fun time with that. pitts and cameron specifically seem to almost always be doing something interesting in the background.

hopkins!!!! my favorite minor character who somehow got character development despite having like 2 lines!!!! the last guy to stand on the desk but he did it!!!

sometimes i do like to think about what the rest of the students thought about the dead poets society, esp in alternate timeline neil lives dps keeps meeting universe. like yeah theres this guy in their class whose one of the most credited students in the school and we think he maybe started a cult. idk though. but that group runs out into the woods every few days to do god knows what and one of them keeps talking about "dead poets honor" whatever that means and holy shit welton star student neil perry started a cult.

i watched the movie with headphones. and maybe it's because ive seen this movie Far too many times and mabe i'm listening too hard but it was Really obvious sometimes when audio was added in post production. llke in the sweaty toothed madman scene when you can hear laughing and to be fair the camera is behind their heads. but it does Not look like anyone's laughing. my favorite is at the end of the phone call to chris scene where knox is like i'm gonna seize the day!! and runs up the stairs and the poets are cheering him on and neil is sort of yelling "carpe!!!!" and i could be wrong but i'm like 75% certain that the person singing is Also rsl so now neil is just speaking two times at once somehow. anyways it didn't ruin the experience for me or anything it was maybe just a little bit funny to notice but very sorry if this did ruin anyone's viewing.

people talk a lot about how rsl and ethan hawke really made their characters what they are but i have to add dylan kussman to that list. I get the impression that older versions of the movie didn't really give as much depth to cameron and watching dylan kussmans performance is like. he Knew who his character was so fucking well and it shows!! like the deleted scene of them getting clubs assigned. like i could tell So Much about cameron from that scene

for how little she actually appeared, there is an emphasis put on the fact that neil's mom smokes pretty frequently. and i think that's interesting considering neil is one of two poets shown actively smoking. neil's mom doesn't appear for very long in the movie but during that time it definitely seems like the movie is intentionally making parallels between the two, particularly in the last argument with neil's father. neil and his mother are both sitting for almost the whole time, which contrasts with his father who is standing. they are both almost powerless in this scene. they stand up at almost the same time. anyways there's a couple different possibilities for what this could mean? that i've though of? 1. to show that neil's mother is in a similar situation to the one neil is in in regards to neil's father and 2. maybe a stretch here but the theory that neil inherited his mental illness at least partially from his mother. i'm pretty sure 1 was fully intentional on the directors part, not entirely sure about 2 though

unmanned flying desket scene: it's probably cause he and ethan wrote the scene themselves but the way rsl talks in this scene feels more like the way he talks in general than the rest of the script. like briefly neil perry is talking in rsl's voice. one of my absolute favorite scenes though the sarcastic dialogue is so good.

the light of knowledge at the first shot of the film vs. todd standing on his desk at the last shot of the film paralel

[entering--hyperspace]

(Legion) Charr relationships always facinated me in some way, I think despite taking inspiration from real world cultures Charr really crank the Militaristic culture to the max. I think you can play with the cultural inspiration for the charr while also taking in their animalistic nsture to form a sort of mix of the two. It makes sense that legion charr don't have a hand in raising their own children, it makes sense these children then go to form the strongest bonds with their bandmates in hopes of that giving them the motivation of a deep connection to fight better and fight harder.

But the Individual relationships strike me as the most interesting. We know that its uncommon (though not given a specific statistic) that Charr have a life-long partner, and most relationships are casual or with the goal to have children, cement a legacy, and move on. We Also know that Charr value Loyalty above all else, its deeply ingrained into every part of them to be loyal to their legion, their warband, how does this loyalty transfer to personal relationships? For the few charr that decide to form long-term partnerships I say...A Lot.

Since the concept of marriage doesn't really have a stake within the legions, I think that the charr forming long term relationships take these relationships extremely seriously! (Usually, there will always be exceptions.) Loyalty to the person you chose is a hell of a thing, and I can see the reason for these relationships being discouraged is because having a very specific relationship like that can be detrimental if the couple cant shake the loyalty to each other over the loyalty to the Whole. Of course the same could be said for both platonic and Familial relationships, but for the sake of talking about romantic ones, it does come with different connotations.

humans (Generalized/ this is for my essay lets just all go along with it) tend to follow the steady road of Meeting/Friendship-> Dating -> Engaged -> Married

Charr, then, would only have Meeting/friendship -> Mate

I may be silly for thinking this but in the legions I cannot really see there being the same in between stages we have bc there is simply No time for it, but I also wouldn't Necessarily say that charr partnerships jump straight to the equivalent of Marriage, I do think it Does encompass a much deeper bond that over time just evolved to that equivalent.

So Deciding to form that sort of long-term partnership /is/ quite a big deal to the Charr that do.

And, to slightly pivot from this, I do think its fun and probably fitting that Charr are a sex-positive culture espeically if most of their relationships Are Casual. I remember that one dialogue between two charr insinuating theres a sort of unqiue code Charr have to signal preferences which is so fun these guys are freaky thats great.

BUT ANYWAY. Ive just been thinking about this a lot for erm. Obvious reasons. I do think a legion's charr opinions on long-term vs casual relationships would actually be quite a deep insight into their character considering the type of culture they come from or even if they have broken free of that mindset if theyve been seperated from the legions for a while! Anyway!

[ganondoodle]

seeing all the crazy stuff people build in totk kinda ... it feels like that is also a factor in why it turned out like this, like the insane things people did in botw and the (i keep saying devs when i actually mean the directors .. producers?) directors saw it and build totk just around letting people do it all 100 times more

to be clear, i think its impressive as hell what some people build (i just saw like .. a movie scene with a functioning mech gozilla and tanks made with totks building stuff ... what the fuck) and those things go pretty viral (understandibly so) but i also gotta question

as creative, free, and impressive as it is ... should that have been the focus in a zelda game? like .. is building mechas and tanks like that something that should be in a zelda game? can it be in there without inevitably sacrificing so much else? theres building games just for that? and if you want to make it zelda themed you can make it a spin off?

like i get it, people did crazy things in botw, they saw what people had fun with and dialed it up to a 1000 in totk, which in itself is not bad, even pretty good if you consider gamedevs and feeback and all that bc in general you should embrace what people had fun with in your game even if it wasnt the intent, given that nintendy listens to feedback (perhaps even a bit too much at times) and creative solutions was a central point to botw design philosophy but

i feel like totk kinda .. missed the balance?

if its really a reason why totk is build around enabling that in a purely player centered toy box kind of way without it actually mattering in the story .. or even themes ... was it worth it? not to sound like an oldschool boomer tm but in a franchise that iconic, lore and story focused, should you really abandon nigh all lore/story cohesion just to give the player a big box of toys in a world where i feel that doesnt ,, really belong? in a direct sequel in the same world with the same characters no less? that point is perhaps the biggest issue with it, bc again lots of games even if somwhat a sequel, had strange new tech or things in the world but in all of those cases it was some alternative universe, millenia after the other game, or on an entire different continent; while totk is supposedly just a few years after botw in the very same hyrule

(still doesnt explain the erasing of all shiekah things and replacing it with sonau- tho suddendly revealing the shiekah had actual rockets, wheels with suspension and grenade-launchers, might have been confusing too- you could have enabled the player creativity with shiekah too imo, and personally i would have found it way more fun ... lil guardian leg crawlies ..)

having thought about it feels rather logical why they did it in alot of ways, but also ... totk is build around it, while its also not build around it at all- its build around the PLAYER, not the world, not the story, not the theme, not the character, but YOU (especialyl those that dont realyl care about anythign story or lore stuff and just want to have fun with the gameplay loop, which isnt wrong, but i question whether thats the right kind if player to center in a zelda game .... also not saying all of those that build these crazy things are like that but- ... i hope you know what i mean)

(i know games are always build around the player, or should be, but .. do you get what i mean????? playing in a world that doesnt make sense anymore bc its all a box of toys yeeted into my face isnt fun to me, bc im here not only for gameplay fun but for the world .. theme .. characters, its something that has to be harmonical as a whole for me and totk just .. isnt)

i say it alot but i do really mean it, its very difficult to get my thoughts and feelings written out and to have them come across correctly

[laithraihan]

now i’m kinda curious to hear what you think of proshipping.. if you don’t mind of course

I'll share my thoughts, and if theres anything I say that doesnt make sense feel free to point it out to me because I mostly write with the help of a translator. Under the cut because I wrote too much stuff.

TLDR: proshippers hate me because I dont want to look at glorified depictions of pedophilia/incest/etc, antis hate me because my content isnt 100% sanitized. I stay around anti circles because I find it slightly easier for me to talk about my headcanons with them even though I think they can be insufferable.

So the thing about proshipping. From what I've seen it means being "anti-harassment" and being in support of curating your online experience, which sounds great on paper and that's practically what I do. I have over 3k accounts blocked on my personal twitter to navigate the website more easily and I also dont care if someone blocks me if they dont like my stuff.

Except proshippers never consider me a proshipper because I am uncomfortable with viewing glorified depictions of topics like pedophilia, incest, rape, all that stuff. The same way people are uncomfortable with excessive blood and gore (which I also can't really handle seeing). Whether or not it's always easy to tell if it's glorified is an entirely different topic, which is precisely why I stay away from all depictions in general to avoid being intrusive.

And what's interesting is that I do not label myself an "anti". Mainly because I don't even know what the term "anti" is supposed to mean ("anti-" what exactly. Genuinely please tell me because I actually dont know) But the ones who label themselves "proship" always call me an anti, because again I do not wish to engage with content related to pedophilia etc, and that alone apparently enough to be considered "a person who harasses others over fiction" even if I mind my own business and have no interest in forcing my personal tastes on others, especially if they make it clear that they wont change their mind. Which makes me believe that for a lot of self-identified proshippers, the definition of being "proship" would be more similar to "I love fucked up stuff and if you dont then youre lame and it obviously means you can't tell the difference between fiction and reality" which honestly seems like insecurity to me.

Forgive me for bringing up this up once again but I want to mention an example to make it easier for me to explain: yknow the whole thing with me drawing Minori and Reigen and labelling it "non-cp" which caused a wave of both self-identified antis and proshippers harassing me over that (I'll say that proshippers were more bold about it since the antis harassing me were all anonymous). Proshippers saw me saying "I dont ship that" and interpreted it as me being defensive and in denial, as if I said "guys I swear Im an anti !!! please dont think im a proshipper !!! ", when I meant "I dont want to discuss this with others in a shipping manner because thats not how I see it and I dont want to enter a space Im not comfortable with"

I admit I responded to this situation in a petty manner, but this was after several days of harassment done directly in my inbox and publicly (sometimes I wish yall remembered that group chats and priv accounts exist). My point is that simply saying you don't like seeing pedophilia in fiction is enough for proshippers to believe it's justified for them to harass you over it (and I'm fully aware they'll say it's not harassment, only when antis and "puriteens" do this to them then it's harassment)

Now about the anti side. Don't get me started on them either. If proshippers see me as an enemy then this must mean that I always get along with the ones who call themselves "antis" (I do not). Note that Im only talking about adults here, I dislike beefing with children and I think their feelings about this are entirely reasonable (I'll elaborate on this when talking about internet safety)

But anyways. I think a lot of adults are discourse-brained and do way too much. Im thinking of nonsense like "this ship is problematic because they are 'sibling-coded' so thats basically incest" "siblings giving each other a hug gives me proship vibes" things of that nature. And you're not allowed to do anything that even has the smallest possibility of being interpreted as "problematic", because then they'll harass you for it, and if you clarify your intentions, they expect you to apologize for "misleading" them because clearly they didnt do anything wrong by making assumptions about you.

There's almost no room allowed for creativity with them, everyone has to follow fanon because they consider it canon, if you ever want to try something other than the same boring domestic fluff then it's "too much" (and not even platonic affection is acceptable to draw in certain cases). Which is incredibly fucking boring to me who wants to see different types of content. People even said I was enjoying incest for drawing Reigen selfcest, and that I was "making others uncomfortable" by drawing it. Genuinely seems to me that they only care about moral superiority, that they never think about anything in depth, and I dont think they realize that it also shows in what they create: boring and repeated fanart and headcanons where the only thing you can say about it is "thats cute", nothing more because you saw it ten billion times already. You cant draw two people showing platonic affection that absolutely nobody would bat an eye if it happened in real life, you cant discuss something specific in more depth without people saying you have a fetish for it, and then they'll harass you based on their speculation that it's a fetish. I dont think many realize this, but fandoms are full of autistic people, so it's normal to see people who are interested in very specific things that dont make sense to others! I wish people were less judgmental, but at the same time I dont care if people think Im weird. I think what I mean is theres no reason to mistreat weird people who do no harm to others.

So yeah if you call yourself an "anti" I'll assume youre spend too much time engaging in fandom discourse and you're the type of person to believe that fanart where two people are holding hands is the equivalent to drawing them fucking each other. Which I think is a very childish mindset to have and it's worrying that many adults think this way. I also think that as an adult they should be capable of blocking stuff they hate instead of constantly arguing with people online because at this point it's just mental torture.

The thing about internet safety I mentioned earlier, I'd say this is the one thing that I'll always prioritize discussing whenever proship discourse comes up.... To put it simply: filter and limit the visibility of your content, do not put triggering stuff in the main tags, stay in your own circles. Whether or not you believe fictional rape/pedophilia/etc is bad is irrelevant, my point is that these are objectively triggering topics and should be filtered just like how there are warnings for violence and blood even if it's not real.

"But it's the parents' responsibility to control what kids look at online, this has nothing to do with me!" and I agree with the parents being the ones Primarily responsible. However the reality is that children are online and there's nothing you can do to stop it from happening. Kids will also enter spaces theyre not allowed in, theyre children and children are rebellious especially teenagers, I was like this as a teenager too. You'd be lying if you said you were always obedient since childhood and never did anything you were told Not to do. And you can't really expect teenagers to always block and not interact if they see something triggering. It's your responsibility to block them if they interact with you, because what I see most of the time is adults bickering with teenagers who are uncomfortable, calling them "puriteens", putting them on blast and allowing other adults including NSFW accounts to dunk on them.

Humiliating and degrading teenagers does not "teach them a lesson", it only makes the teenager more stubborn and reactive. Adults must accept that kids will always find their way in there even if your content isnt easily accessible. So I think it's stupid to feel offended at a child because they got upset when they found upsetting content like how any normal child would react. Which is why I wish more adults would keep blocking without saying anything petty to provoke teenagers.

Before someone pancake-waffles me and says "so youre fine with antis doxxing people" no I do not support doxxing. Ive been doxxed so I know it sucks. However the only times Ive seen it go this far is after continuous arguing because nobody knows when to stop. Im not saying this applies all the time nor am I saying doxxing is fine, but there are ways to minimize this sort of outcome as much as possible. Both sides have doxxed people over petty arguments that couldve easily been avoided if they just blocked each other and moved on.

The topic above (internet safety) is probably the only thing related to this where Im actively telling others what they should be doing. It's not only teenagers who are triggered by depictions of pedophilia etc but also adults like myself. In my case Im old enough to block content I dislike without saying a word, however I cant help but think that there's not enough being done about filtering especially when I do not search for this type of content and I still see it all the time.

I also think it's important for me to mention that I have a very poor sense of morality. I do not have a personal moral code that I adhere to, and I mostly stick to the basic universal ones that make sense to me. So I will not discuss the "morals" of consuming this stuff because I am not adequate to share an opinion on this, and I know the most popular topic of discussion related to proship discourse is morality which I frankly find counterproductive. I dont understand why people should care so much if I find something morally correct or not, unless it's to make themselves feel better about having a "superior opinion" to mine. Though I will say that if a man tells me he's into rape "but only in fiction!" then I dont think it will stop me of imagining myself bashing his skull repeatedly with large rocks. Maybe Im too mistrustful of men in general.

Final point I want to clarify is that I am not trying to assert some sort of superiority over people by disliking both sides, like saying "Im not an anti or a proshipper Im a Normal person" or something like that, and Im not expressing a "neutral" stance on the topic of fiction's influence on reality either. There are topics like racism and orientalism in fiction that Im vocal about (which is expected since Im Algerian). I genuinely believe there are many things that are interesting to discuss and should be prioritized, but too many people are chronically online, subjective and defensive, at this point I dont even think it's accurate to say that disliking one side automatically means you support the other side regarding fiction. To me, "proship discourse" is not about the debate of the effects of fiction on reality, censorship in media, etc. It's about everything I described earlier that happens online.

[just-some-sorta-person]

Reo, Nagi, and Reo and Nagi

Getting lots of thoughts about Nagi and Reo in anticipation for the new epinagi chapter cus I'm just nervous and they have lots of brainrot potential. Like they're just so cute but also heartbreaking but also but also- not just together but separate too.

Reo

I get lots of thoughts about how Reo interprets reality. Like, he's just so delusional sometimes?? Like from the light novel

"Although Reo's strength was a modest number, his speed, stamina, agility, and jumping ability already surpassed the youth team's average. However, Reo was greatly unsatisfied, thinking, 'I'm so lame'" I understand being dissatisfied with average among the best, but thinking that you're lame... The perfectionism also shows in how he insists that Nagi make it clear when he's not good enough for them to play together as the best in the world, when Nagi starts out complimenting him. He seems to have self esteem issues in general. There's also when Nagi left, and in Epinagi he wonders if Nagi thinks he'll make it past 2nd selection, and asks why when Chigiri and Kunigami want him to join their team, surprised at their answer.

Then there's when Nagi thanks Reo for introducing him to soccer and Reo is so shocked, he thinks Nagi is dying. And when its established that Nagi is not dying, Reo says that he's matured, which I would interpret as Reo simply not taking that thanks as true gratefulness, but rather politeness that Nagi has matured into giving, since he's usually so insensitive. He doesn't consider that maybe Nagi has felt this way for awhile, and simply wanted to express his honest thoughts because he thinks it can't be true, to some extent. Or at least that's how I read it.

But as someone who knows how straightforward Nagi is, I feel like he should know that Nagi is just straightforwardly expressing his emotions. Reo sees, he just can't bring himself to believe or trust in it..

I mean, I'll be honest a lot of his delulu moments come from how he interprets his relationship with Nagi. And I think he's aware of it too- that irrational emotion that overwhelms him when it comes to Nagi. I think its because he let his guard down, and got really attached.

As Reo says, "He might be able to experience a storm of infatuation and obsession with this person. No. He can definitely do so."

(Also, can I just take this moment to make fun of Reo for saying this immediately after "The fact that he's playing games by himself during lunch break means that he's a game otaku. Zero exercise factor..." , "The face that looked up at him had an emotionless and cold expression...It was so drained of spirit that Reo thought that he looked half dead.", and "That person thinks that Reo will give him money if he asks for it. Weirdo." Like what haha)

And, the thing is, theres some evidence in epinagi that Reo is very aware of this weakness of his, and hates it. Like, he seems so crazy in the anime during the toothbrush pulling additional time, and even his response to Nagi leaving him behind for Isagi seems pretty extreme from an outsider perspective (I think some people will disagree with me?), since Nagi isn't saying they should stop being friends, nor is he denouncing Reo as a whole. He just wants to play soccer with someone else for a bit. If you take a step back from the metaphor of playing together as a romantic relationship, this really isn't that unreasonable? But it causes Reo to develop a vendetta against Nagi. It almost makes it seem like Reo is upset that he got his thing taken away from him, with how much he apparently needed to play on the same team as Nagi always. (This isn't the case). It's a jealous obsession, and you can see Reo's awareness of this in chapter 14 of Epinagi

"I dont want to remember. We've both moved on to new teams. I should cut my feelings short there. All I'm doing is dragging it out. I wonder if he even thinks I'll advance to the next round? If I wash out here, what'll happen to him? He told me we'd be together until the end... But he left me. What if he's living it up with Isagi and he's already forgotten about me? These thoughts just keep running through my head. Over and Over..."

The conclusion being- "I hate myself right now". There's an interpretation of this involving the relationship=soccer metaphor, but tbh I kinda refuse to go along with that because I think its much more interesting to see Reo's interpretation of playing soccer with Nagi being the same as being friends with Nagi as like a misinterpretation on Reo's part, rather than some kinda metaphor-made-reality thing. And I think by the way this is prompted by Kunigiri banter instead of anything soccer related makes it clear that this is not about soccer. If it was about soccer, the action that would trigger Reo's feelings would be Kunigiri doing some sorta soccer combo, not them being super good friends.

(Epinagi really is a gay shoujo romance masquerading as a sports shonen manga ehehehe)

In any case! We can see with this final sentence that he can't stop thinking about Nagi and hates himself for it. Can also see him being delulu with the Nagi/Isagi besties thing lol. Also, the way he says "We've both moved on to new teams. I should cut my feelings short there." it really does seem like Reo equates playing with Nagi to being able to be friends with him, and I think part of what plays into this is Reo's insecurity. I mean, he's been shown to view relationships as somewhat transactional, right? With how he brings Team Y together with food bargaining, with how he gets his highschool team together using similar bargaining tactics, by promising them idols and fancy meat, with his relationship with his parents where they will only let him pursue soccer if he can prove that he can become one of the best. Even in his relationship with Nagi, he spoils him a lot in return for being able to use his talent. Everything is conditional.

In that context, it kinda makes sense why Reo assumes everything is over when Nagi no longer needs him for soccer. Reo doesn't really get that even if Nagi doesn't improve through Reo or need Reo, that Nagi would still want to be partners, because its never really been like that for Reo. The focus his parents put on rationality and practicality and performance also helps to explain why he's so bad at figuring out what to do with his obsessive/jealous feelings, and why he hates himself for it. He's not allowed to be emotional or imperfect, so he was never taught how to deal with those feelings. I mean I think in general, always being the competent person good at pleasing the masses, at popularity, at everything, does not prepare one well for these kinda things. Having emotions beyond your control, I think.

Even beyond this, we can see how Nagi has effected him emotionally in how his dreams change. Getting Nagi was originially all for winning the World Cup, but somewhere along the way, it got to the point where when they entered Bluelock, Reo's goal wasn't to become the best himself so that he could win the World Cup, but rather to make Nagi the Best. A goal that literally has nothing to do with winning the world cup...

It makes me SO CURIOUS where he's at by 207. I think before Nagi asked him for help he'd managed to bury them, and make a path toward abandoning them entirely. Afterwards? I don't think he's gotten any better. He's still possessive, seems to want Nagi to have eyes only for him, and when Nagi gets sappy with him he laughs it off and refuses to accept it. When he dismisses Nagi's thanks as deathbed confessions, was it to protect himself from trusting? Knowing how little Reo thinks Nagi thinks of him, it seems like something he would have been overjoyed to hear, which really makes his response seem like a cautious dismissal. Especially his panel of shock, I wonder if there's that fear of assuming too much again, getting too close again. I'm really curious.

Nagi

Nagi gives me brainrot in a less angsty way, since he started so low that things can only really go up from him now. He went from having to buy a cactus to talk to to having a rich bf who adored him and did everything for him, to being able to escape his apathy and develop a passion that he really seems to be enjoying. Reo really made his life better and he knows it - writes poetry to Reo in his head constantly, joined a weird soccer cult for Reo, even after Reo slapped him away, Nagi remained dedicated to their dream. If Reo is underconfident in the security of the Nagireo situationship, Nagi is overconfident. He really seems to think Reo can read his mind? Lol.

Even so, because he's less soccer obsessed, he's at least a bit more grounded. He doesn't mind if Reo plays with people better than him, didnt want to join Bluelock because he didn't want him and Reo to be rivals, all that really seemed to matter to him at first was being with Reo. So, while Reo equated their partnership to being a soccer duo, Nagi saw it as an extension of their friendship. Unlike Reo, He's not particularly possessive. Like I said, he said he wouldn't mind if Reo chose to play with another player at the start. But he does care a lot about him - gets angry at Barou, plays soccer for him (at the start), wants piggyback rides, lets him pet his head... It really feels like while Reo needs Nagi more, Nagi admires Reo more, trusts him more, has more faith. It's quieter, but arguably more intense. (Reo fell first Nagi fell harder agenda) He actually seems to have an idealized vision of Reo in his head - An example of him thinking of Reo as greater and more perfect than the real person would be when he tells a despairing Isagi that Reo wouldn't act like this, and then epinagi jumps straight to a despairing Reo. Nagi really thinks Reo is more perfect than he actually is. Rose colored glasses. Wonder how this would interact with Reo's perfectionism.

There's that one interaction with Zantetsu I really like where Zantetsu asks him why he plays football and Nagi replies that its because of Reo, and all he's doing is tagging along. Zantetsu recognizes that Nagi, the hassle guy, is certainly doing a lot for Reo and asks what's so great about him, to which Nagi replies that its the first time anyone has been interested in a slacker like him

To which Zantentsu responds " ...You're down bad for Reo a wierdo." and "You're so loyal don't seem like a bad guy".

There uh wasnt really a point to that. I just wanted to talk about it because the respect they have for each others motives lives rent free in my head. And I think its interesting how Zantetsu immediately gets how much Reo means to Nagi, but Reo still doesn't understand after all this time.

Something I wonder is if part of the reason why Nagi is so bad at communicating and anticipating Reo's emotions is because he was apathetic and friendless for so long - disconnected from the world. Or well, I do theorize that part of his communication issues come from talking exclusively to a cactus for awhile.

Episode Nagi vs. Blue Lock

One image that I think really illustrates the difference between Epinagi and the main manga is Isagi's flabbergasted face when Nagi is having that moment with Reo where his hand gets slapped away.

He's so confused because they are not speaking his language. Reo's all like "you didn't choose me" And Isagi is like "And what does this have to do with soccer?"

Meanwhile once Reo switches gears to "I'll crush you" (expressing some form of ego/competition) Isagi is back to being the soccer manga MC.

It makes me wonder tho what's in store for our duo. Because in the main manga, they're back together, but they're not doing so great (if you look at the greater picture). There's tons of foreshadowing that Nagi is meant to fall from grace after reuniting with Reo, with Ego saying he'll get overconfident because of that dangerous goal, and Agi saying he's lost interest, as well as Isagi himself saying that there will be no more miracle goals. In the context of the main manga, it seems like while being a duo makes Reo and Nagi happy, its bad for their football. In the grander theme of Egoism, Reo seems doomed due to playing for Nagi instead of himself (tho this may not be as much of an issue due to his goal not being becoming a striker necessarily), and Nagi seems doomed because he's so comfortable with Reo that he won't experience despair and grow. The solution to this seems to be another fight or separation, maybe from Reo this time (thus breaking my heart).

However, from Episode Nagi's perspective, them being together in some fashion is integral to Nagi's goals. The manga starts with a remark on Reo's effect on Nagi, and so a permanent separation seems unlikely.

So is the ReoNagi duo good or bad for their soccer? It may function well if they reach some sort of arrangement that satisfies the ego rhetoric of the main manga, though I'm not sure what that would be. From the perspective of the main manga though, I can't see the duo ending well. From the perspective of Episode Nagi, however, their duo has to be maintained. It feels like two contradicting forces pulling at each other. How could this be resolved? There are some possibilities.

One possibility (though I don't like it so much) is becoming egoistic rivals who play together and push each other to their limits. The reason I don't like this is because this concept of rivalry and devouring is too similar to the main manga, and its kinda boring for a spinoff to take so much effort to just tell the same story in a different font.

Another possibility is that they fail in the main manga, and the spinoff is a tragedy about how Reo's discovery of Nagi doomed his soccer? Not a fan of this one because it would make me a lil sad. Though maybe it would be paired with the emergence of a friendship or relationship (I am not optimistic enough to hope for romance so at most hinted) that does not rely on soccer. It'd be a cool subversion, if a bit unsatisfying to see their dream abandoned. Honestly, I'd find this kinda path to be very interesting, but it seems to risky for it to actually be taken. It would explore the negative impact of tying your relationships to the sport, and suggest a mindset of happiness above mindless success. Seems risky though... very risky and subversive. And given the codependent nature of some sport duos, very satisfying to see the necessary separation of sport and friendship explored. Taking a positive spin, that would mean that because Reo is the one that nurtured Nagi's soccer genius, Nagi doesnt become the best soccer player but he does end up being happy :)

Another possibility would be Nagi just straight up leaving Reo and keeping him in thoughts only. That would hurt tho. Make me sad and depressed. I dont know if Reo could survive this.

Maybe Reo learns to motivate Nagi by becoming so good that now Nagi has to chase him instead of the way it was the other way round before. Not a fan of the manipulation undertones to that, so it may depend on the execution. Also just doesn't make much sense to me since it doesnt seem sustainable. Though maybe it could just be Reo learning to give Nagi more space to grow, and their friendship could just mend on the side separately. That could be nice.

Something else that doesn't seem likely to me, but I would like is for the point of Episode Nagi to be for Nagi and Reo to disentangle their situationship from its dependence on soccer, freeing them to be individual egoists while not necessarily pitting them against each other as rivals. This allows them to develop by the standards of the main manga, though it does make them a bit boring since they wouldn't really be taking an alternate path to star strikerhood. I like this path though because disentangling the situationship from soccer would have to involve them COMMUNICATING THEIR FEELINGS such that Nagi understood Reo's needs/insecurities and Reo understood Nagi's devotion. Reo would get affirmation that regardless of his performance, Nagi would still be his partner outside of soccer. And Nagi could be his, but outside of soccer. And they don't need each other. They want to be around each other. And I also think that a story leaning away from the codependency could show that once you realize you can function without the other, it makes it all the more meaningful when you choose to be together anyways. Because it's not a need, but a want. A want powerful enough to last. 

But that would really solidify that Epinagi is not about soccer, and while I joke that it is not about soccer, because it really doesn't feel like it is, I cant quite trust that it isn't because it is a spinoff of a soccer manga.

Something else that could happen is Nagi finding that his ego is realizing his and Reo's dream.. something that is romantic, but given how his ego and interest was kickstarted by Isagi seems a lil unlikely? But not impossible. Just because it was kickstarted by Bluelock doesnt mean it can't manifest and be fueled with Reo. ehhh idk if this really fits with the concept of Ego tho. I also feel like this won't force them to communicate or help Reo be more focused on his own performance, as opposed to only Nagi's goals (something I think he has to do, since serving Nagi makes him predictable and is reminiscent of that transactional relationship thing I mentioned earlier that he should probably learn is not the case). It would be consistent with the start and focus of epinagi tho.

At the end of the day, I don't know what will happen. Sure is fun to theorize tho!! :D

Nagireo, Reonagi

From a shipping perspective, I think their relationship is so interesting because its so complicated, and influences their lives so much. They are also polar opposites in a way that highlights their personalities. I think a meaningful exploration of Nagireo inevitably becomes an exploration of Nagi and Reo as characters. I'm not usually a fan of the miscommunication trope, but its a little different with these two because it really makes sense to me that they would miscommunicate- in fact, it seems inevitable that they would end up misunderstanding each other. Because of that, the misunderstanding feels meaningful instead of frustratingly inserted or forced.

Nagi idolizes Reo because Reo saved him from apathy. And because Nagi was apathetic and disengaged from society for so long, his communication skills suck, and he probably has a habit of not putting as much effort into conversations. When you combine those things, of course Nagi would act like Reo can read his mind.

Reo is used to getting what he wants, deems anything below genius boring or lame, and thus doesn't necessarily think highly of himself despite his accomplishments and hardworking nature - especially if you take into account his upbringing and parents. He feels trapped, and finds freedom in playing soccer with Nagi. With the transactional way Reo views relationships (I wonder, what it means for someone who views things as transactional to give so much to someone?) , and his perfectionism, it makes sense that the moment he wasn't the center of Nagi's world, he'd come away with the most despairing interpretation. An interpretation Nagi would be really bad at correcting.

So really, a misunderstanding feels inevitable with those two. Reo assumes the worst, Nagi is the worst at anticipating that and correcting it.

Despite that, I really like them together, not because they're the most functional, but because they care about each other. I really get why Nagi would be so grateful and devoted to someone that helped that drowning dull sense of apathy subside, giving him a chance to live an explore a world that didn't previously feel like his. And I really get why Reo would crave the freedom that Nagi granted him by making soccer possible for him. And also I think he kinda likes how much of a loser Nagi is lol, because its unconventional, and therefore interesting.

And I also get that sense of insecurity and drive, like if you fail you're nothing, and all your relationships depend on your success and ability to prove your skill - if you can't do the thing you're worthless and if you're worthless you're alone.

And also the loneliness of apathy, the sense that you're in your own world and there's no one around..

And I really feel like that devotion could help heal that wounded pride, and that sort of gleeful drive could really drive the apathy away...

The comfort in that is precious, I think

[nekropsii]

im thinking about the relationship between kankri and porrim because its just so fucking WEIRD like theyre obviously important to eachother or care about eachother to some extent but we dont really know why?? like they dont seem to get along very well

she patronizes him constantly (which is VERY loaded considering they lived on fucking beforus) and ignores his boundaries (calling him patronizing nicknames he doesnt like, wiping his face while he tried to push her off) and he constantly makes insensitive bitchy bigoted comments that go against all of her values and make her angry

and theres not the same dynamic dolorosa and signless had where she raised him like theyre the same age so why do they even talk to eachother?? what is their relationship?? like were they childhood friends or something?? itd make sense if they were both a little different as kids and therefore got along better but then why do they still talk to eachother when they really dont now ITS SO WEIRD

It's... Complicated. They go way back, as far as I can tell.

The way I see it, they do not have a "Mother and Son" relationship- I find that most who assert this often place far too much maturity onto Porrim, who is literally 19 years old. It's more like an Adoptive/Found Sibling relationship between someone with a severe case of Eldest Daughter Syndrome and the social conditioning of a higher-end Midblood on Beforus, and someone with a chronic case of Only Child and the social conditioning of a Mutant Lime on Beforus. The relationship makes more sense to me when you view it this way. It's just... A fraught sibling relationship, formed under societal pressures we can't even fathom. Porrim Maryam, trained by society to cull those beneath her, trying hard not to, and for the most succeeding outside of someone very close to her, and Kankri Vantas, culled and isolated his whole life, becoming a total suck-up to the deeply misogynistic, ableist, hemoloyal culling system as both a method of self defense and as a wielding of the only weapon he really knows. It was used against him all the time, and it works, doesn't it? If sucking up to Able-Bodied Male Highbloods and ridiculing everyone beneath that golden standard is the best way to ensure safety, then he's gonna do it. He's essentially a lifelong voter for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.

Ultimately, I think what keeps Porrim by his side is that... I think she believes in him. It's like watching yourself lose your sibling to the Alt-Right Pipeline. I think she thinks he doesn't actually believe most of what he's saying, and that this is all deeply reflexive. She's smart enough to recognize the real systemic issues at play here, and that he's essentially caught in chains between 5 different machines that all want him dead. And she's right. When you actually read the shit Kankri's saying, it becomes almost immediately apparent that he's spouting bullshit, and that he absolutely knows this. I think what keeps Kankri by her side is that he knows she cares about him. There isn't any denying it. She might infringe on boundaries, or be generally annoying to him, and keeps doing that frustrating little thing called seeing through his and everyone else's bullshit and calling them out on it- not just including but especially his- but she cares. I think he knows that at the end of all things what he'd have left is her. Is this to say that if you got Kankri to grow a spine and genuinely believe in things that aren't spoonfeedings of the latest Conservative Highblood Talking Point/Psy-Op, he'd be a good person? Hell no. No way. He has a raging savior complex and is way too eager to throw other people under the bus and insult/ridicule them to their faces. He's an asshole. Just completely slimy.

But, again, sibling relationships know no bounds. This kind of dynamic just feels so... Realistic to me. The way their relationship is so strained but still so strong and ongoing just feels so human. I don't know. This is pretty meandering, I just think about them a lot.

[headshotters]

my experiences with emotion.

i feel like a lot of people have a strange misconception that people with ASPD dont feel emotions, so im going to be explaining how i experience various emotions. feel free to share your experiences as well, either in comments or reblogs, i think its interesting to see how other people experience things

happiness - happiness for me is like... "i enjoy this situation" i guess?? like i wouldnt say its necessarily fun or entertainment but just a situation that i enjoy and find positive, usually not an intense feeling for me but not super dull either, intensity levels can vary ofc

sadness - more of a feeling of disappointment, i think? like "ohh that sucks" kinda?? idk i dont really ever get deeply sad, not to the point of hopelessness like some people i know do, more just a disappointment that i can quickly move on from

fear - not much of an emotion as it is activation of fight or flight, theres generally not much emotion or thought behind it, just instinct. i dont really tend to get anxious either, although i occasionally can overthink

anger - probably one of the most intense emotions i experience, its all consuming when i feel it, and physically will feel like hot ice rushing through my veins, impulsivity will also get harder to control

boredom - also one of the most intense emotions i feel, i feel bored most of the time, its like a soulcrushing lack of stimulation. like... being so understimulated that its overwhelming. usually leads to impulsive behavior because i really only feel entertained when there is risk involved

love - love is something i rarely ever feel, i can only think of 1 person in my life who i can say i love without a doubt, for me when i love someone ill find the persons presence calming and they will make me happy to be around, to the extent that ill sit around doing things i find boring just to be around the person. i also notice that when i love someone ill actually consider them a lot more in my decisions, usually im apathetic to most people and dont typically care how my choices or actions will impact people around me, but if i love someone i will go out of my way to not harm them (even if it means avoiding doing something i want to do)

hate - hate is like... caring about someone but in the opposite way of love. i generally disregard my actions impacts on others, but if i hate someone, i will try to hurt them if at all possible. theyre considered in my decisions but in the opposite way of people i love. being around people i hate will make me angry and impulsive

empathy - i dont experience emotional empathy at all, the closest thing i experience to any form of empathy is being able to determine what someone is feeling and sometimes a possible reason as to why. it doesnt mean ill care that theyre upset (in a good or bad way, as in i dont want them to be upset or find it good that theyre upset, but i also dont really feel bad that theyre upset) or even agree that the situation should be upsetting, but i can recognize that they are. depending who they are and how i feel towards them, ill either try to help or just ignore them

guilt - i also dont really experience guilt, the closest thing i can experience is regret i think?? i can acknowledge that i should not have done something because it had a consequence that i dont like, but i dont really feel bad about it, its more of "damn. whyd i do that. now i have to deal with this." instead of an actual guilty feeling. i think my lack of guilt makes it a lot harder to actually learn from my mistakes, because even when something i do has a consequence i dont like, i usually just feel mild disappointment or irritation but not strong enough to keep me from doing the same action in the future

[soudakuwunmoment]

i feel like theres smth to say about the relationship between dirk and hal compared to the relationship between dave and davesprite. like i dont know what, but theres parallels and differences that i think are interesting, and you could use them to come to some kind of interesting conclusion about the differences between dirk and dave

hal was created to be a tool for dirk to use for convenience and to utilize as an upperhand in sburb (multitasking mostly) hal did not want to exist as a tool. hal wanted to exist as the person using the tool but got the short end of the stick by pure chance and has to live with his actions after not having thought them through.

davesprite decided to become a tool for dave to use to have better chances at winning sburb. dont take this as me saying that davesprite enjoys being what he is. simply that he was prototyped by his own will.

hal is considered to be a false version of dirk. he is technically dirk, but he is different enough that dirks friends do not perceive him the same way, and in some cases, do not consider him their friend.

davesprite is considered to be a fake dave. not that anyone doubts the validity of his existence as Dave Strider; more-so that people consider dave to be "the real dave" and davesprite to be an iteration of him, despite them both being real daves who lived different lives.

dirk and hal have an antagonistic relationship. they accuse the other of being exactly the same, while sometimes switching to claiming they are the superior version - dirk for his existence in the physical plane and being The Original, and hal for his intelligence and capabilities as a digital being with access to any information he desires in an instant.

dave and davesprite have a very subtle relationship. we assume davesprite struggles with feeling inferior to the alpha timeline dave, but dave doesnt reflect those feelings. dave sees davesprite as simply another him, maybe since hes used to meeting other versions of himself. they are generally friendly to each other, davesprite offers dave any information he might need about the game without being cryptic, but dave doesnt really take the offer. other than this, they dont interact all that much.

dirk and hals relationship is somewhat of a fight for dominance, constant low-blows, social gymnastics and psychological warfare, which reflects the self-loathing nature of dirk and his splinters.

dave and davesprites relationship has similar themes of inferiority, jealousy, and being seen as the "real dave" but its much more constructive and dave seems eager to assure davesprite of his validity.

maybe its representation of how dirk and dave deal with.. emotions? trauma? something like that. dirk is defensive and lashes out at others who he sees himself in, while dave is empathetic and reaches out to other iterations of himself because he understands how they feel. im not saying either is better than the other, just interested in how their personalities have an impact on how they react to having themselves reflected back at them.

you could also add jade onto this!! i was really interested in how she was so cruel to a reflection of herself despite how nice she normally is, and how she was able to recognize that about herself. shes somewhat like dirk in that sense, but i think shes more... self aware than him? something like that.

this post was more meant to be about dirk and dave tho :3

[miifu666]

I seen your thoughts on suklha thoughts on black myth characters; now I’m wondering what would suklha thoughts on the LMK cast be 🤔

Helloo♡♡

😭😭 god this is gonna be so long please bear with me— ANYWAY

The main Crew

MK - Suklha doesn't hate him, but she DOES get irritated at how hyperactively clumsy he is. She's walking through her life with a poised and perfect form and he's coming in. SIMILAR to wukong in terms of how slobby they can be and impatient. It irritates her like a mother would to a child who couldn't eat his food properly. Besides that, she keeps track of him and makes sure he's improving far more than the monkey king would let on. Might buy him a noodle or two just to spend time, just a little repay for trying to fix Suklha and Monkey King's relationship

Mei - aww She likes her, probably has a good relationship with her ancestor and some of her family. She's a trusted lawyer to them since the olde days, Suklha sees Mei more like a niece along with MK. Suklha is more involved in her family and works behind closed doors, probably a good reason why Mei doesn't acknowledge Suklha till her reveal. The small chance of Mei recognizing Suklha is probably from Media social, and thats only from her name and reputation.

Red Son - has met Suklha a couple of time to accompany his mother's visit. Knows she's bad news and tries to get the gang see how powerful she is. To stop being so clumsy and speedread everything she gave them without double checking. Trust her enough to ask her advice but not enough to help his "friends"

Pigsy - There's some time in her career where Suklha bought more noodles than people think she could handle. She doesn't know the chef personally, but she has a good review of the restaurant. Also, every time she orders the noodles, it gives her a good reason to talk to MK. Funny enough, Pigsy remembers her order (its always consistent) and her fake name she used.

Mr.Tang - generally sees him as a dork. A dork with a dork ancestor and insanely powerful ability for a human, he's a loyal reader at her library. Theres a wicked sense of pride everytime she sees Tang being more knowledgeable than the rest of the crew when it comes to history, she thinks its because of her books. Mr. Tang, as he always is. Would fangirl over Suklha if they were to meet face to face.

Sandy - has seen him around, bately interacted with him. Even if she did, Sandy won't recognize her much. He's not that up to date with drama.

Macaque - has a good relationship with him. Considering this macaque is different than the JTTW one, Suklha has a much closer bond to him than the rest. Theres a couple of time where Macaque sneaks in Suklha's office just to talk, to vent or to check up on her. She greatly appreciates his Company, both of them had a problem towards the same person. They bond a little bit over that.

Rest ××××××

Princess Iron Fan - Both has a similar way of talking, of viewing the world. With the difference of Suklha having a little bit hope of interacting with humanity, while PIF prefers her solitude. They acknowledge eachothers power, enough to be friends. One might sass the other every time they meet, of course this is from a friendly spite.

Demon Bull King - too spiteful to be friends with Suklha, still clings on to her past actions. Which is understandable to Suklha, she doesn't dare force someone to forgive her. He's a bit grateful for her to give his wife her company though, quietly he thanks her.

Brotherhood - They tried to recruit Suklha once back then, she denied. Some of them thought of her quite cowardly, Azure was one of the few that looked up to her a bit. Yet, pity her for the sense of loneliness she's walking in. The brotherhood believed if they managed to recruit her in the past, she could help them overthrow the jade emperor using her strategies. She barely bats an eye over them, besides Azure.

Gold and Silver demons - afraid of her. Has been sued for Intentional misrepresentation (Fraud), Tax evasion, and property damage. They went poor for a while.

Lady Bone Demon - Seeks Suklha knowledge and wisdom in one of her life, to make her plan a fruition. LBD tried to make a pact with Suklha, after flattering her with gifts and sacrifices. Unfortunately, One of the two know better than what meets the eye. Ever since then, LBD had tried to put down Suklha. In a way, to show her if she can't help her, then theres no need for a god of wisdom.

[luminnara]

PLEASE WHAT ARE YOUR HEADCANONS ON RHE HARPIES GIRLS??? I love them sm and theres so little info out there for them and you are one of the very few ppl who created stuff for them theyre so underrated its insane

Anything raging from the names and thoughts/drabbles you have about their personality, relationships, blah blah that you might want to share literally ANYTHING for them plz thank you sm if you do share🙏🙏🙏

I HAVE SO MANY AT THIS POINT also some of these will be appearing in unheavenly creatures part 3 which I HAVE been working on!!

okay so in my series Unheavenly Creatures, I named the two non-reader harpies Issa and Yarina because I thought they matched the Russian/Scandinavian/Eastern European inspired names for House Harkonnen, and I like to think that the harpies are considered extra beautiful on Giedi Prime so they need really ethereal, beautiful names that are equal parts solid yet airy

I don’t necessarily think they’re from the Bene Tleilax, because they’re SO human, yknow? The creatures we’ve seen in DV Duniverse that may be from the Bene Tleilax are the spider thing in part 1 and then the jester rodeo clown things in the arena in 2, and they’re all just significantly less “human” than the harpies

I like the idea that they’re like beauty and fashion icons on Giedi Prime and everybody wants to know what treatments and procedures they’re doing. They’d definitely be on the cover of Harkonnen Cosmopolitan magazine

They speak, just not much

They’re simultaneously one combined unit, and their own individual selves. Three parts of a whole.

The one with the line on her forehead has been with Feyd the longest/is in charge

They’ve been modified via Harkonnen beauty procedures, but on Giedi Prime, their values are a bit different than those of current day earth, so instead of JUST “I want a nose job/I’m gonna tattoo my eyeballs/whatever” it’s more “Genetically Modify Me So That I May Become The Most Shockingly Sickeningly Beautiful Taboo Creature, Pain And Pleasure Are As One, There Are Such Sights To See”

Why do they kind of make me think of cenobites from hellraiser

Feyd genuinely cares for them, in his way, and they care for him

They are maybe sterile, either as a result of wacko Harkonnen radiation beauty treatments, Giedi Prime’s population having lower fertility rates in general, or because Feyd wants them to be

They’ve sort of transcended humanity and that’s why they eat people meat; they don’t really care nor consider themselves to be the same as the people they eat. Also cannibalism is maybe just more normalized for House Harkonnen, possibly due to the harshness of Giedi Prime and the culture that came from that?

Their world is Feyd. They exist within his parameters. They don’t really care about things outside those lines, and not in a sheltered way, in a “the rest of the world doesn’t interest me” way

[lynn-tged-posting]

tged webtoon ep 153 spoilers n thoughts below yadda yadda

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.

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THE RENDERING BEING BLOWN AWAY IS SO GOOD ABDBDHSHAHAHAHAHA

i LOOOVE visual gags like this WAHAHAHAA like i thought itd be the usual "jesus fuck hes tonedeaf", still silly haha but like we saw already BUT THIS RESOLD IT FOR ME HAHAHAAA LMAO

i had to double take too i had to scroll back up (while giggling like mad) and really Look at it and confirm "WAIT HOLY SHIT LMAO ITS NOT RENDERED"

extremely obsessed w verkis' expressions this chapter in general HEHEHEHE

LIKE HE LOOKS SO DAMN HAPPY IN THIS PANEL HERE ITS A LIL FREAKY ALMOST WAHAHA

gigglin a lot at the two of them just. spinning and sinking down LOL verkis just couldnt bother w a better portal style, thats so real of him tbh like if it works dont fix it

ALSO SUHO'S BODY IS STILL THERE EXISTINF yknow i thought itd be like a case where he like, died or smth but ig not!!! yippee for still being alive but also,,,, what state is he in,,,,,,

like. time HAS to have passed on earth, theres no way it was paused; when cheong shim (i hope that was her name its been a while) got transported and later verkis checked on her dad, its clear that time had passed since she "died"

so suho has to be in like, a coma or smth like that right? cause hes not dead, but then whos taking care of him??? his whole family has passed and bro only had that one friend and who knows where or what that friend is up to,,,

is this like a magical coma?!?!? where hes just. still in the boardroom suspended in. uuh soullessness??? im so curious,,,, need the next ep now

or well, wait he might not be in the boardroom i feel like someone would HAVE to find him n like. idk bring him to a hospital, bc he has to pay rent for that n like the moment rent stops rolling in of course a landlord would notice 😭 aaghh so many questions im genuinely so excited for this arc

AND JAVIER

JAVIER RESOLVING TO BRING HIM BACK OOOHHH OOOOOHHHHH shaking him shaking him shaking him

idk hwo to explain how this makes me feel but ooghh my silly boy,,,, ASK HIM IF HE PLANS ON STAYING,,,,,,, u goofball,,,,,,,,,

god javiers come to love lloyd sm that he'd fight him to keep him by his side EXPLODES EXPLODES EXPLODES PUNCHJNG THE WALL

"i will use my powe- wait wtf MY MANA"

ITS SO INTERESTING THAT HE DOESNT HAVE ACCESS TO HIS MANA HERE NOW

ik its like "duh its another world" but tbh i thought since he had a manaheart, the mana comes from that, or like he just. has mana in his body? idk if it makes sense but yeah, i didnt think of mana being an energy that comes from their world, i thought it came from them themselves if that makes sense

SO HIM BEING MANALESS IS SUUPER INTERESTING tho im sure javier could still like drag lloyd back hes a strong guy lol

i wonder then if lloyd feels it too?!?!? the lack of mana?? especially bc of his heart being yknow. all kinds of shit goin on w it

like can he still use his skills?? will the status windows still appear?? his mana in lorasia does seem to be unique after all, considering javiers interaction w it when fighting the bone dragon; maybe he still has mana?!?!?!

SEOULLLL HERE IT IS!!! wow its polluted damn omg quite the poor first impression for javier 😭 "its like hell,,," nah bud ur just in the city youll b ok 😭

AND THE LAST PANEL OH MY GOD

LLOYD AAAAHHH AAAAAAA IS HE OKAY

HE LOOKS SO,,, NERVOUS? SCARED?? HOLY SHIT AAH GOD HIS EXPRESSION

we dont see him being terrified a lot but when we do its like OUCHH YEEEOUCH god i hope he will b alright U HAVE JAVIER W U ITS OK

im wondering what it is specifically that hes worried abt,,,, being in the same world as himself? seeing the place where he lost his past family all over again? a combination of those maybe?? or maybe its an old anxiety of being out in seoul and not in his boardroom/in class/working, not entirely sure,,, or maybe im overthinking it and its the whole earth being manaless thing fucking w his body like i mentioned earlier lol

either way oooohh i hope he'll b ok,,,,

VERY excited for next week PLS I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS,,,,!!!! see yall then o7

[autisticlalna]

"You Were Right" (and a behind the scenes on how we got here)

initially i was gonna make a post going over all of Anathra's lore so far but then i realized i do not quite have the spoons for it, and also i'd like to break it up into easier to cover parts anyway. so let's jump straight into the most recent mystery!

i've already talked before about the hidden messages in Rubyco's videos, and about the split-second easter eggs in Viking's. encrypted messages aren't exactly new to Skyblock Kingdoms.

but, okay, let's rewind a little. it's 1 am, a couple days before Anathra's episode 8 premieres. i'm winding down for bed, see the premiere on my homepage, and go: hey! i wonder what Anathra's doing next episode!

hey what the fuck is that. why is there elder furthark

a bit of backstory on me: i love translating things. you probably know this by now. i also knew a guy who was big into norse mythology stuff, and that included him knowing elder furthark. so i immediately peg that as "oh, shit, that's elder furthark" and track down a translation tool.

("why are you going into backstory" we'll get to that. lol lmao.)

anyway, its 1 am, i run it through the first tool i find, and get:

someþiŋ ' weird ' happened

...or "something weird happened".

COOL. THAT'S OMINOUS.

i go to bed. when i wake up, Moxi has shared something from Anathra's discord:

...but i can't figure out what it translates to.

timeskip to the premiere.

Anathra gets a delivery from the End Kingdom after helping Josh out with villager stuff. he goes to place the shulker down, it's suddenly nighttime, and...

hey, what

iou were right

...okay, here's where we loop back to that backstory bit, and also i pull back the curtain to showcase how hilariously bad this went for the dnerds.

i recognized the alphabet as elder furthark

(and yet my dyslexic ass doesnt realize theres two rs in it until now. it has been 5 years.)

trying to translate the box name gave me gibberish ("io nht tuil")

i also knew from the "something weird happened" message that elder furthark isnt 1:1 with the english alphabet

oops there are two translator tools. oops they use different runes for "y"

due to [gestures at cherry and doak], there is a minor scuffle about if it says "you" or if it actually IS supposed to say "iou"

we still cant translate the box

still cant translate the discord message either. this is about to be really funny

people in the sbkcd are also translating it, so we compare notes

anathra steps in to save us:

THANK YOU ANATHRA <3

i am immediately embarrassed because, oops, turns out Angerthas (dwarven runs from Lord of the Rings) has alphabet overlap with elder furthark, so that's where the confusion came from. seeing as it's a post-filming decision, that does mean that the episode description and chat message were translated correctly, but the box is in Angerthas and, despite having the same runes, they do not correspond to the same english letters.

i spend a bit alternating between bonking myself for my mistake and bonking my very tired head against Angerthas for a bit until WhiteQry suggests that maybe what Anathra said in chat is the same thing. later, Aquelon is able to translate it as "IU WER RAIT". or,

YOU WERE RIGHT

...right about what?

skipping back to the events of the episode: Anathra realizes that he's lost time. he says he's only felt this "once before", doesn't know what the writing is, and is generally thrown off by... whatever just happened.

i need to rewatch Anathra's pov before i can dig into what i think the message means-- my initial guess is that it has something to do with his ?nightmare? from episode 5, although im not sure past that. considering his pov plays with the concept of the fourth wall a bit as-is, the message also might not be for Anathra (and he can't read it with glasses on either way).

Anathra's in the middle of something. there's a lot going on with him, inside and outside, and i really want to do more overviews of his lore because it's very fun. until then, keep an eye out for more strange messages i guess.

-

"hey leo you didn't translate the furthark in the 'glasses off' message, what gives" WELL, YOU SEE. I WAS TOO BUSY BEING EMBARRASSED AT THE TIME TO PROCESS IT. AND IT WASNT UNTIL WRITING THIS POST AND GETTING THAT SCREENSHOT THAT I SAW IT AND WENT "wait. hold on" AND RAN IT THROUGH THE TRANSLATOR.

AND THEN REALIZED, AFTER FOUR DAYS, THAT ITS THE URL OF THE SITE IM USING TO TRANSLATE THIS AND IT JUST GOT KINDA MANGLED BECAUSE OF THE "NOT 1:1 WITH ENGLISH ALPHABET" THING.

im in hysterics. how did this happen. please dont ever think im professional. all of these super cool in-depth explainer posts are the end result of so much clownery but i needed to show you guys just how much of a MESS this is lmao

[a-court-of-moonlight-and-ire]

Okay, second post, this ones mostly about Feyre because honestly, as of chapter 3 I havent really noticed Tamlin being out of character and from what Ive heard his character assassination was supposed to happen very quickly. Idk, right now he just seems like the same guy but traumatized although I'll fully admit that I didnt care that much for him outside of the Feylin romance (which was pretty sweet but too boring for me) so maybe I just didnt pay enough attention to him to fully grasp his character

Feyre is frustrating to me right now because I dont think shes out of character either, right now shes also just the same woman but traumatized, but like, I already know the extent to which her character will be bent for the sake of Rhysand. In these first three chapters she literally thinks something along the lines of "What's there for me to do but sit at home and spend Tamlin's money" Tell me, what does she end up doing in the night court huh????

Another thing thats frustrating is that Feyre clearly has issues communicating her feelings and wants, I know because I also had issues with that, and instead of learning that very valuable skill of telling others about your inner world and trying to work on her relationships (with both Tamlin and with her sisters), shes just gonna end up with a guy who can read her mind so theres no need for her to challenge herself and grow in any way. Yay. One thing especially stuck out to me in this regard was her attituide towards wearing dresses. Feyre does not like wearing dresses, its not like she never got to wear them back at home even though she wanted to, she just doesnt like wearing them in her day-to-day life, but she feels like she has to because she thinks its what Tamlin wants and because she thinks that if she wears pants its gonna somehow signal to the citizens of the spring court that something is incredibly wrong. But again, she doesnt tell anyone this, she doesnt ask Tamlin if he can just explain to everyone that everything is fine and that Feyre just has an unconventional way of dressing, which he would probably be fine with if its still the same guy from the first book. And it doesnt even seem like Tamlin directly made any kind of comment to her about the dresses she wears, she just saw that he was happy when he saw her wear them, which couldve well been him being happy to see her in general but she doesnt even consider that

Theres also the fact that its very unclear what she wants/what her problem is. Now, this actually isnt something that bothers me that much on its own, Feyre is traumatized and lost, obviously she doesnt know exactly what she wants at this point beyond "the situation Im in sucks and makes me feels bad, I want to get out", I think what bothers me is mostly the knowledge that Tamlin is gonna get blamed for a lot of this stuff when its really not his fault.

And I do want to make it clear that I dont think hes doing a great job handling this situation, I know a lot of people in the acotar critical sphere find his actions understandable and justifiable from his perspective and thats true, but hes still doing a bad job handling Feyre's emotional state. Like, one of your beloved's main issues is that she feels horrible because she feels trapped at home, for the love of god just let her go outside on her own. Maybe send her to village thats far inland or close to the border to the mortal realm, surely those monsters are not gonna manage to come that far if youre all going on patrols to kill them as soon as possible. And even if they do, the people of any village are gonna bend over backwards in order to protect their capital c Cursebreaker, shes gonna be fine

But, to get back to my original point, even if Tamlin was a daemati or whatever like Rhys and could read her mind the way she needs it to be read, he would still not be able to figure out what exactly Feyre needs right now because she doesnt know it herself! I literally read all of her thoughts and I dont know! Does she want to help others and be responsible for a whole bunch of people because its what shes always known to do? Does she want to avoid resonsibility for now because she wants to recover from her traumatic childhood of having the responsibility of keeping her family alive on top of all the new UTM-trauma? Its hard to say and that makes sense for Feyre at this point in her life, but she cant just blame people for not understanding her when she doesnt properly understand herself and refuses tl verbalize her feelings

Anyway, thats it for today, hope you enjoyed this

[self-loving-vampire]

theres this cohort of transfems that overlaps with the tma/tme discourse who seem to spend all their time reinforcing an intense doomerism and fear of the world that feels very maladaptive to me. its very demoralizing to watch

I think they're definitely sympathetic in that regard, though. If you look through the tag I linked there has definitely been a major reactionary backlash in multiple countries that are increasingly trying to legislate trans people (and GNC people, and others) out of public life entirely. There was even a proposed bill that would have made going out while trans into "obscenity".

I think that's definitely worth being aware of and talking about. I'd just do it with different language and a different framing. To me, the main things to be critical of here are:

1- Essentialist assumptions about gender based on oppositional sexism. The idea that men are inherently one way and women are inherently another way and there can be no overlap, no third categories, no understanding, etc.

These ideas are unfortunately extremely ingrained even in queer people.

2- Cissexist social norms that treat being trans as inherently undesirable. We see this in things like medical gatekeeping that treats letting people transition as a last resort or a failure state. Something to try only after all efforts to make someone cis have failed, if that.

3- General obstacles to bodily autonomy. The idea that you should be able to do what you want with your own body is still considered extreme, especially if you have any kind of disability. People just assume they know what you want better than you do and so they must control your life and your body. I have also mentioned before that trans rights are tied to abortion, disability rights, and more. Attacks on one are often recycled to attack the others.

4- The efforts of specific far-right groups like Alliance Defending Freedom and the Heritage Foundation. A lot of the recent attacks on trans rights (both legal and social) have links to the same handful of wealthy christian conservative organizations, and they also cooperate with transphobic governments abroad.

...And lots of other things.

So there's clearly a lot of substantial barriers to trans rights there, and I think that's important to understand at least on a basic level even if it's scary or depressing. Without that knowledge it is much more difficult to change anything, or even make personal plans about how to navigate the situation.

There's also good news, of course. A lot of the conservative attacks in the US specifically are unpopular and failing, there's legal challenges on the way regarding the recent situation in the UK, various anti-trans groups involved in crafting this legislation have been officially designated as hate groups, and generally as trans people have become a normal part of people's lives acceptance has somewhat increased even if panic among the right also has.

But there's still dangers to be aware of and prepared for, and the hate has been so overt and extreme since forever that it's hard to blame people for being so wary. Like, I am someone who had to become an international refugee because of transphobia so I know it can really be a sort of nightmare situation. I only survived it by making precise plans and deceiving dangerous people.

[dateamonster]

webcomics*! webcomics baby!!! i grew up reading these bad boys like they were the sunday funnies. im serious i would get up early in so i could check my daily roster of webcomic updates before leaving for school.

webcomics sort of feel to me like my generations version of zines. not that both those things arent still around, i just mean that, in the same way that there was this big boom of super creative zine self-publishing in the 70s through the 90s thanks to the increasing access to copy machines, and later home printing, the early 00s-10s was sort of the moment people seemed to collectively realize they could kind of just upload whatever they wanted to the internet and people would actually see it, leading naturally to another boom in indie art and storytelling.

a lot of the comics that popped up around this time were sort of... rough. raw. weird. there were no rules about what a webcomic had to be other than 1) a comic and 2) on the web, so there was some freedom to be as messy or as precise as the author wanted. this led to some real bangers, and some absolute flops. but regardless of how it turned out i think theres something to be admired about the sheer amount of creativity going into these projects that, for the most part, were purely passion-driven without any guarantee of greater recognition or success.

obviously webcomics are still around, but the culture surrounding them has shifted quite a bit. most people who are willing to put in the work of a longform serialized comic In This Economy are also doing so with the hope of being able to profit or at least sustain themselves financially on their work. theres no shame in that! but it has made the webcomic scene more competitive, more polished, less experimental. capitalism at work, you know.

people arent really as incentivized to try new things and dare i say get a little weird with it when innovation doesnt pay the pills. however that doesnt mean that there arent still artists out there who are challenging that.

i got the idea a while ago that i wanted to put together a list of webcomics that have been really influential to me and my own creative efforts, but i realized that list would be a mile long and wouldnt really give me the breathing room to talk about why those works resonate with me. so i decided instead to make a list specifically of my (currently) most beloved, most influential webcomics that i feel like are doing something unique that sort of pushes the boundaries of what is considered a "normal" comic.

presented in no particular order, with all attempts made to be spoiler-free, below:

nasty red dogs and feast for a king by kosmicdream (18+)

delicious, dark, meaty comics. ffak in particular is like this massive sprawling scifi stream of consciousness thick with blood and viscera and. a lot of highly transsexual erotic cannibalism tbqh.

personally i find nasty red dogs a lot more like easy to get into story-wise, but both are just chockablock full of this beautiful grotesque unapologetic and downright indulgent physicality. its pages dripping with every fluid you can think of and some you cant, and its also compelling surprisingly empathetic characters set against a backdrop of otherworldly rituals, cosmic pre-apocolypses, and worlds inside of worlds inside of worlds. body horror heaven lives here.

mr boop and crimehot by alec robbins (very 18+)

if youre at all into weird webcomics youre probably already well familiar with mr boop, and if you arent theres really nothing i can say other than Please give it a shot, but if you havent been keeping up with alecs work since then you might not be as familiar with his current project crimehot. and thats a damn shame because it is all the comedy, unabashed horniness, and surprisingly understated storytelling of mr boop taken to its absolute max.

crimehot is set in a future where nearly every aspect of human life and culture is controlled by an all-powerful all-seeing computer algorithm. but who cares about all that when theres a ragtag team of ultra sexy ultra horny master thieves going on wacky little misadventures together!

alecs style is blunt and simplistic in a way that comes off as juvenile at first glance, and then uses that presumption to completely blindside you with its actual content, reminding me weirdly enough of memeable classic tails gets trolled. in spite of their potential as works of ironic comedy however alecs comics really give me this impression of total earnestness. crimehot in particular is so blatantly un-erotic, with its complete lack of any subtlety, comically exaggerated (and surprisingly diagetic) anatomy, and impossible physical positions, that it circles back around into becoming, indeed, kind of hot. i think silliness can be hot so sue me!

blind alley by adam de souza

departing completely from my last couple recs, blind alley is a cozy, peanuts-inspired comic strip about the day to day lives of the children of blind alley. its also occasionally a deeply unsettling horror-mystery that has just barely begun to show its hand more than two years in. its distinguishing factor to me comes from the fact that the cozy exterior doesnt seem to be there to conceal or divert your attention away from the growing sense of unease that infiltrates its panels on an increasingly frequent basis as the story progresses. it feels more like the two elements live side by side, horror and mundanity, otherworldly creatures and secret conspiracies living peacefully alongside lazy summer afternoons and goofing off with your friends. it perfectly captures the anxiety of knowing that theres something the grown-ups arent telling you, the powerlessness of being a kid.

blind alley feels to me sort of like if those "what if Nostalgic Cartoon was secretly DARK" media theories were actually real, and actually scary. i might be getting ahead of myself as the series likes to take its time and is really only just starting to peel back the layers, but what ive read so far feels makes me feel like this could be something very special.

boy island by leo fox

beautiful beautiful beautiful first of all. the dreamy, surreal visuals? the colors?? oujhjh.. boy island is set in a world split violently in two, divided into boy island and girl island, and surrounded on all sides by a sea of monsters mutants and ghosts, those sorry souls who committed the trespass of trying to cross from one land to the other, or even live outside of either! a boy named lucille must strike out on his own to make it to boy island, but in doing so begins to discover things about the world and in fact himself that reveal an even greater mission.

im making this all sound very dramatic. its a trans story. its about trans people, being trans. its also about surviving the ripples of a world laid out for you by your parents, managing grief for the ones that didnt, and a funny little blue guy named jounce. also did i mention its gorgeous? hot fuckin diggity it is gooorgeous.

vivians ghost by hal schrieve (18+)

speaking of trans comics!! (plot twist: theyre all trans comics suckerrrr) look, all of hals comics are fucking baller and im sure the book zes got coming out will be too, but ive like Imprinted on this one. its attached itself my brain. much like the main protagonist collin has been attached to by his suicide victim best friend and ex highschool bf viv!

the sketchy art style threw me off at first but it quickly becomes part of the charm and meshes very well with the chaotic pace and gutpunch emotional moments. theres a strong element of magical realism that i honestly think comics as a medium were made for. viv is a ghost, and viv is grief, and guilt, and fantasy, and shame, and glorious trans revenge taken form, and hes not even the only apparition in this story, taking the stage alongside cameos by jesus christ, a detransitioners fursona, almanda palmer, and (checks notes) gonzo for a second there i think.

as a disclaimer (or incentive, depending) no one in this story i think is someone you could really call a good person. some of them are in fact plainly terrible. they are all so undeniably fucking fascinating though. and viv himself gleefully inhabits that moral gray area, deliberately and loudly disturbing any image of himself as a pure perfect victim, blurring lines and thrusting both the characters and audience out of their comfort zone. its a challenging read thats not going to be everyone for sure, but i definitely think its worth the read.

(and if this sounds interesting to you but youre not sure you can handle it, hal has other equally good comics that are still heavy on the trans gay relationship drama but much lighter on the childhood trauma.)

what happens next by maximumgraves

if youre reading this on tumblr i hope that youve at least heard of what happens next by now. thee seminal tumblrina art of our time i swear. it starts with a true crime podcast exploring the strange story of griffin and his accomplice milo, trans teen murderers, the latter of which has since been released from the psych hospital while the former continues to serve his sentence. but thats in the past, and in the present milo still has to figure out how to live the rest of his life.

the story moves rapidly, though not necessarily chronologically, in and out of the real world and the online lives its characters frequently inhabit like its guiding you through a twisted dream. its a comic on the internet about the internet from someone clearly well aware of its more poisonous aspects, as well as the addictive quality it can have for someone who has become otherwise isolated from the world.

at the end of the day though the major appeal i think is the characters, how messy and horrible and tragic they can be, which is all you can really hope for from a largely character-driven narrative. to say much more i think would ruin the experience, but ill say what happens next absolutely delivers on its ominous title, and im waiting on the edge of my seat for the next chapter.

preeny has to repeat 6th grade by momodriller

on a Much lighter note, preeny has to repeat 6th grade is a super cute adventure series about a magical little kitty named preeny who on her first day of sixth grade is called upon to go on a great mission. its a sparklefur comic!! ive been really starting to dive into furry art lately, and if youre the kind of person who raises an eyebrow at that statement, fine, whatever, but im talking to the cool people right now so keep it to yourself.

art from within the furry subculture is such insanely creative and passionate stuff, and the focus on this subset in particular, calling back to the early 2000s deviantart xD rAWR s0 rand0m era of online culture, feels so intensely nostalgic it makes my chest ache, despite never being heavily involved in the sparklefur scene myself.

the author states in the comics description that the story takes inspiration from her experiences as an autistic child, and even before reading that man i felt it. what really makes this comic unique to me though is that the majority of characters that appear are based on adoptables the author purchased off of, as she puts it, the children of deviantart. i LOVE that. not only is that probably amazing for the kids, it makes every character feel truly unique and adds perfectly to the overall flavor of the world shes created. there is just not another comic i can think of that feels alive like this one.

broccoli soup by secretpie

ok so i know how we might feel about webtoon comics but hear me out. broccoli soup is probably the first comic ive seen to really exploit the otherwise sort of bland and restrictive format of webtoons, utilizing the excess of white space to enhance the feeling of emptiness that characterizes the protagonist broccoli's time in the blank void they call home as well as to make the sparse use of color really pop in contrast.

broccoli soup is a mysterious series thats a little hard to pin down in terms of genre. a strange little being named broccoli spends their days in a vast blankness drinking tea with their loving yet highly suspicious Best Friend and benefactor, doris. doris has the ability to move between worlds, coming and going as she pleases, while broccoli is only allowed to leave when they are on a mission on her behalf. these missions vary, but the goal is always the same: make everything Polite and Good.

as the story progresses, little by little more friends and more color come into broccolis still new existence. the art style also changes from world to world, which imo is a very nice touch. and! theres music! its an interesting project that dances back and forth between fantastical whimsy and some surprisingly dark moments. and thats the shit i like to see.

thats all for now! though if im lucky there will be many more fun stories and projects to talk about in the future. keep in mind as well that this is like barely half of all the webcomics im currently reading, just the ones that most stick out to me as really doing something special.

until next time yall!!

oh wait sike honorable mentions time

awful hospital by bogleech

the only reason this isnt up there with the rest is bc im woefully behind at the moment. ill get back to it eventually! awful hospital is an interactive multimedia horror-comedy webcomic about a hospital that is. well this hospital is simply sub-par to say the least.

hedgehog's dilemma by mellodilla

this ones still a little new to say much on but so far it looks like a cute series. what most appeals to me is that the art style looks like something that fit in seamlessly with an early 90s newspaper comic strip. in particular it has a strong calvin and hobbes vibe to me. just, you know, about wacky lil lesbian animals living their lives.

ok now im done for real

*for clarity's sake, im using webcomic here to mean "a series of comics that was first published and predominantly exists online" so even if a print version exists, i still consider it to be first and foremost a webcomic. this also includes comics that contain a multimedia or interactive element. if its a combination of pictures and words to tell a story, its a comic.

also my list is probably going to end up massively favoring serialized fiction because thats just what i like to read, but i dont necessarily think thats a required element.