#i hope the wording is appropriate

[multidimensional-trashcan]

[Image ID: A meme of Bugs Bunny in a tuxedo which says 'i wish all Jews a very meaningful Yom Kippur'. /End ID]

גמר חתימה טובה

gmar chatima tova (a good final sealing)

[lupismaris]

Back from ptown and truly if I could only share one thing with you all it's this - You're gonna make it. Hold fast. Be true.

[troius]

The Kids in the Room

The Fullbringer Arc is tighter and more coherent than anything in the manga so far, telling a very straightforward story about a young person’s alienation from the world he lives in. It has very specific things to say about the role of parents, mentors, and friends in the process of a kid becoming an adult and does a pretty decent job of looking at how different organizations (the state, gangs) can play into that young person’s life. And then, at the climax of the story, it very intentionally takes all that hard work, and for what I must assume were business reasons, tosses it all away.

The Arrancar Arc was a glorious, grandiose mess. It featured no fewer than three separate worlds, four distinct factions, and probably around twenty characters with active character arcs. Although it started off with the truly breathtaking ambition of weaving all of this together, by the end Kubo had cut a considerable amount of the subplots in favor of actually getting to the end of the story he was telling. And it still mostly worked! Ichigo’s character arc, at least, ended where I think it was always going to: sacrificing his nigh-unlimited power after understanding the price of that power.

But of course, giving up all of your powers isn’t really a long-term solution for Ichigo, just like it isn’t for any of us in life. Ruling over three worlds might tend to corrupt a person, but we all want—and need—to feel like we have some power over our own lives. Ichigo, in his final year of high school, living on the precipice of adulthood, feels this in more than one way. He had this power. He sacrificed it. And yet now, he’d do anything to get it back. Anything except ask for help.

You see, asking for help is hard, but especially in the context of “seeking power”, which in this story is an even less veiled metaphor for “growing up” than it usually is in shonen manga. Asking for help means admitting both weakness (you don’t have the power to get what you want right now) and discontentment (there is something you want that you don’t have). For Ichigo, whose primary method of coping with his mother’s death was asserting a premature independence, this would be difficult even if the thing he was seeking wasn’t something he had very publicly given up in front of his friends and family. Yes, there are times when he doesn’t want to involve them to protect them, but a big part of his self-imposed isolation is his own ego, his unwillingness to reveal to people who love him just how miserable he is, out of fear that it will reveal him to be somebody they won’t love anymore.

And that’s where the Fullbringers come in. Ginjo puts in a tremendous amount of work into getting close to Ichigo—lying to him, giving him little bits of information piecemeal without telling him the whole thing, and of course, offering him power that Ichigo desperately wants. But none of it would be possible if Ichigo didn’t have this preexisting desire to do it all himself, or at least to appear to his friends and family like he’s doing it himself. Ginjo does what nobody else in Ichigo’s life does—offers him assistance without making him ask for it. Hook, line, sinker.

The body of the arc covers this masterclass in manipulation from Ginjo, and it’s a huge change from what has, up until this point, been a very standard shonen battle manga in terms of content, where the fights happen on a more or less weekly basis. Here, it takes over half the arc for Ichigo to fight anybody! It’s all character development, even for the side characters like Orihime and Chad, who don’t get fights of their own but do get to express themselves and show initiative in ways they were largely denied in the previous arc. It’s all a long, slow burn to the climax, where Tsukishima suddenly strips away the support system that Ichigo had so undervalued, leaving him defenseless against Ginjo’s theft of his power.

And that’s my big frustration with the climax. It’s not that I like the Karakura kids more than I like the Soul Reapers, although I very well might. It’s that so much work has been put into drawing out and developing these relationships, so much effort put into showing how this is affecting all of them. And it’s not just metatextual effort either—yes, we spend a lot of pagetime with Chad and Orihime and Uryu, but Xcution also targets them all because of their importance to Ichigo! The very story itself recognizes that they’re the support system that Ichigo needs to be an emotionally healthy adult! Any logical resolution must therefore involve them!

But it doesn’t. Instead, it’s the Soul Reapers, who have not been physically or even narratively present at all for four volumes, who come in and repower Ichigo. They’re the ones who pair up for the fights against Xcution, fights that are very light on the sort of character work that is so characteristic of Bleach fights because there just isn’t the grounding for it! Even the fights that show character are mostly showing development that seemingly occurred off-panel, leaving you wondering when exactly Toshiro and Ikkaku achieved their newfound maturity. But the supporting characters from the bulk of the arc are written out, and even the personal feelings of Shigekuni Genryusai Yamamoto wind up being more important to the narrative.

This isn’t just unsatisfactory on the level of the supporting characters, it also fatally undercuts Ichigo’s own development. We expect the story to end with him overcoming the challenge set in front of him, which at the beginning is clearly his alienation from the people he loves. But he doesn’t really do that—instead, the Soul Reapers showing up is what solves his problems, which suggests that the actual problem in his life is just “they weren’t around”. I don’t think that’s actually what we’re meant to take away here, and the narrative doesn’t seem to think so either, which is why we end with the character development being passed on to Soul Society instead. They learn something in this arc, which is to trust Ichigo. But he doesn’t seem to have learned a damn thing.

And that’s what frustrates me so much about this arc: the lost potential, the fact that there was a very obvious story being told that was abruptly discarded, right at the moment it mattered most. There was probably no way Kubo could have fulfilled all the potential of the Arrancar Arc: there were just to many characters, too many storylines. But here, he condensed his writing, narrowed his scope, and still told a compelling story up until he suddenly threw it all away. Whatever the reason for it-- and I have no insight into the editing or business pressures that might have motivated a climax so different from that the story was obviously building to-- it’s disappointing.

[funnierasafictive]

about your most recent post, what do you mean by white people having to watch out and think about what they’re doing when it comes to introjecting?

Regarding this post

Specifically like, if white bodied people (reminder that white-passing people are still POC though!) want to change their name to a name that's for example traditionally Japanese, etc. (I'm not just pointing out that this "only applies to Asian names", this is just a common example!).

Obviously we (our system) can't stop anyone from doing what they want with their legal powers, but it's something we hope white systems really think about before they change their name so easily to something like that

Because of white privilege, white people most likely won't know what POC or SOC (systems of color) go through. People with less-white sounding names get racially profiled and/or deal with their names constantly being mispronounced to the point of changing their name legally to sound more white, or adopting an "English name". I don't think I have to explain the leaked Flight Ban/Watchlist and why the people on that list were there, for example

I hope that explains it! If white people want to change their name to something "different", I literally can't do anything abt that! In short, we brought that up because of racism, xenophobia, and bullying that's been done to people with less-white-sounding names.

[roylustang]

Psspspsps hey so uh I need your uh fanfiction. I've been thinking about it alot and need to read it but I don't have an account so I don't have it bookmarked and uh yeah. Can't find it. Soo...

How aptly timed. I was actually gonna post a link to it here anyway since I just updated it so here you go <3 I hope you enjoy wild fuckin rides lol

[mariaalenkoshepard]

'don't watch ******* because of x reasons!' well jee buddy not sure how you expect me to avoid it if you won't even type out the fucking title but okay

[captainofthenautilus]

snake update! (at last)

So! I joined my university’s reptile physiology research lab a few months ago (it’s been really cool and fun and fulfilling so far but that’s a separate post). And one day, my professor (/faculty advisor/interim dean/whatever the appropriate title is idk. everyone just calls her by her first name anyway) sends this message in the lab groupme:

[image id: a screenshot from June 8, 2023 at 1:40pm where the name and profile picture of the sender have been redacted for privacy and replaced with the word “Professor.” There is an image of a normal morph ball python in its enclosure, followed by a message that reads, “Baby ball python available. Free, comes with cage. This is a 20+ year commitment. Who wants it?” end id]

as far as I see it, the story is that a kid (~17yo) got the snake, but couldn’t keep it since his dad’s lease specified no pets 😔 so the family reached out to my advisor to try and rehome it.

now see, I love snakes, but I don’t know as much about ball pythons as I do about corn snakes (I was researching snake care and doing all the planning for Ophelia for *years* before I actually got her, which is what led me to being so passionate about herpetology in the first place), so I was hesitant to volunteer, especially on such short notice.

I didn’t want to make an impulsive decision and regret it later, so I messaged a whole bunch of people (including my girlfriend, my mom, my housemates, several online friends, and other people in the lab), but everyone I talked to about it encouraged me to get the snake, citing the fact that I already have experience with keeping snakes (I’ve had Ophelia since October) and that I actually had the capacity to take it in (other people wanted to, but couldn’t due to circumstance).

so I volunteered.

[image id: a screenshot from June 8, 2023 at 3:08pm where the name and profile picture of the sender have been redacted for privacy and replaced with the word “Me” with a message that reads “I’ll take him!” end id]

I had also volunteered to go to an outreach event with my advisor just a few days later, so we stopped by after the event to pick up the tank and I was able to bring her home! the tank fits perfectly on my desk right next to Ophelia.

[image id: two glass terrariums placed next to each other on a large desk. end id]

I had assumed it was a male since that’s how other people were referring to it, but based on the length of it’s tail I think it’s a female. I also tried the “popping” method and didn’t see any hemipenes, but I’m not too experienced with that so I could be wrong. All this to say, I originally named her Horatio, but the name didn’t really stick.

(for the record, I’m not against giving a female snake the name of a male character, gender is a social construct and the snake literally would not care, but she just didn’t seem like a Horatio. I did the same thing with Ophelia when I first got her.)

this is already a long post, so I’ll cut to the chase.

Behold, Gertrude!

[image id: two pictures of the same normal morph ball python from the image at the beginning of the post, this time being held by OP. In the first picture, the snake is resting, curled up in the palm of OP’s hand. In the second picture, the snake is in a more active position and is climbing around OP’s wrist and lower arm. end id]

[savage-rhi]

MAGENTA.

[deamare]

lyssamania: the irrational fear that someone you know is angry with you.

obscure sorrows

Some days you are the world's very center.

Adorned with jewels and showered with praise; you are a goddess. You are because he tells you so, because he smiles as he watches your handmaid clasp his latest gift around your throat. It's a pretty thing -- heavy and expensive -- and you know mother will be overjoyed when she sees it.

And you are overjoyed too, because you know this means that he loves you.

It means he loves you even when, on other days, you are no longer a goddess but instead just a girl. On days where he looks through instead of at you, when he is bored of decorating you with gold. Those are the days that his love weighs at your wrists like fetters, that it tightens around your throat and threatens your very breath.

You know to be quiet these days, to fade into the background and to do nothing but what you are told. It is better that way, because love only hurts when you give it a reason to. Somewhere you fell out of line, you are sure. Somewhere you asked for this ache.

You tell yourself it will not happen again, swear that you will give your love no more reason to twist the knife it has buried in your heart. Though you know it will twist anyway, know it will carve deeper and deeper still no matter your efforts.

And you do not mind, because love that hurts is better than none at all.

[chuck-e-wheeze]

hmm

[midnightliar]

seeing reviews of the prospects calling it "high heat" none of u know what that means. it's clearly medium heat it's not THAT smutty

[steveharrington]

imagine not voting the girl who has carried the entire show since s1 and has saved every one of your favs from death. the one who has had the most trauma and defeat and you're going to pick the rich white cis man over her.

first of all i’m voting for my favorite character that’s what polls are for second of all girl….. el is white too. you’re taking a very real issue and using it in a discussion where it has no relevancy because you’re mad over a fictional character, and you think you can use the topic of racism to win a “which character is better” debate when talking about two white characters. the same goes for them both being cis! i think that’s kinda fucked up. no one is voting steve over el based on him being “white and cis” when el is also white and cis can you use your brain i’m actually begging

[achillessulks]

are you arabic?

...no.

[crabussy]

RRARAAAAAAAAAUUAUUAAGHHHHH

[ginkovskij]

interesting much how when introducing the tavern where raskol'nikov and marmeladov are going to meet the phrasing is something along the line of "a set of stairs that lead down into the underground" considering the meaning of the underground in the wider production of dostoevskij much to think about