#i literally mean it when i say this is becoming less and less of a childish dislike and more and more of an adult grudge. which is far wors

[sepdet]

Oh but this is fascinating.

If "it's fictional because it doesn't exist in nature," then anything that exists through human intervention doesn't exist!

house. Eiffel Tower. crime. tin. Australia. bread. dog. ink. oranges. music. job. tunnel. Sony.

Have they' conflated fictional with fabricated, meaning both "made" and "made up"?

That's an example of polysemy, a word containing multiple meanings.

Polysemy is common in most languages. Less so for English, which is about 5 languages in a teenchcoat, so it has a huge vocabulary. Different shades of meaning have become associated with different words, and the scope of each word has tended to shrink.

I wonder if that contributes to some English-speakers' literalism.

Here's another example of polysemy from [problematic] Joseph Campbell, whose descriptive ideas about mythology tend to be misapplied proscriptively;

The [interviewer] began argumentatively, “The word ‘myth,’ means ‘a lie.’ Myth is a lie.”

So I replied with my definition of myth. “No, myth is not a lie. A whole mythology is an organization of symbolic images and narratives, metaphorical of the possibilities of human experience and the fulfillment of a given culture at a given time.”

“It’s a lie,” he countered.

“It’s a metaphor.”

“It’s a lie.”

This went on for about twenty minutes. Around four or five minutes before the end of the program, I realized that this interviewer did not really know what a metaphor was. I decided to treat him as he was treating me.

“No,” I said, “I tell you it’s metaphorical. You give me an example of a metaphor.”

He replied, “You give me an example.”

I resisted, “No, I’m asking the question this time.” I had not taught school for thirty years for nothing. “And I want you to give me an example of a metaphor.”

[...]

Finally, with something like a minute and a half to go, he rose to the occasion at said, “I’ll try. My friend John runs very fast. People say he runs like a deer. There’s a metaphor.”

As the last seconds of the interview ticked off, I replied, “That is not the metaphor. The metaphor is: John is a deer.”

He shot back, “That’s a li v e.”

“No,” I said, “That is a metaphor.”

And the show ended. What does that incident suggest about our common understanding of metaphor?

It made me reflect that half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.

This argument goes all the way back to Plato and Socrates, who redefined mythos "story, utterance, thing said/told" as pseudos "lie, falsehood,"

It seems to me the problem is not only literalism, the refusal to recognize polysemy or nuance, but a tendency to insist on one meaning of a word when, in context, it means another.

Campbell was concerned with literalism in religion. Now, it's creeping into science, which you'd think would be a better fit for literalism, but not if we latch omto the wrong meanings of words.

Think of the scientific use of "theory" to mean a widely-accepted explanation of something supported by evidence, experiments, and a large body of scientific research by many different research, vs the general public's dismissive use of "theory' to mean hypothesis.

If we've got a lot of people who think scientific theories are unproven guesses, and even that fabricated materials are imaginary, no wonder trust in science is eroding.

or else I'm reading way way way too much into one person's post. 😅

i logged on to twitter.com and saw somebody say “plutonium is fictional because it doesnt exist in nature”. which, one, i dont think is entirely true, im fairly certain trace amounts of plutonium exist in natural uranium deposits, and two, that is such a frankly wonderfully incorrect definition of fictional and im deeply intrigued by the implications. concrete is fictional. polyester doesnt exist

[opal-owl-flight]

John. John Splatoon. The man, the goofball the sweetest man youll see. Chatty, bubbly, and gives really good team morale.

But things arent all sweet.

I wonder if he shuts himself up when he feels hes being *too* jolly.

His family is kind. Its not their fault. Yknow how people are fucking mean to those who are very excited abt things.

I think he had an experience like that. Tanara was thankfully there when things started getting really bad.

John was made fun of when he first started turfing. He was just sooo excited abt it all. So enthusiastic!! He studied abt the greats, the top players, all that. And the bitchass mean kids thought itd be funny to crush his dreams.

They made fun of him when he rambles abt strategy. They mocked him whenever he tries to be a hero and gets fucking splatted for it (OH GEE, IF HIS TEAMMATES WERE ACTUALLY *HELPING* HIM HE WOULDNT HAVE GOTTEN GOT).

One time I think some bastard jammed his weapon so it was unusuable for a while, and he was unable to turf.

"Good riddance," the team had said. "That beak is finally quiet for once."

Tanara saw this happening and decided to stand up for him.

They saw this boy getting picked on, and didnt hesitate in open firing at the bastards. Didnt care if theyll get banned for a week for firing a weapon off the field.

"|Hey, are you the guy who cornered me in the last match? Color me impressed.|"

Tanara doesnt stand for bullies. Ever. They hate seeing these kinds of people in the leagues. They hate the fact that these nutjobs are so good at the game!!! they want to make the leagues a fun place for everyone. None of this fuckinh bullshit. From a young age theyve already defended others. Wanted to make a better world where everyone can just be who they wanted to be, grow into their best selves.

The orange squid was a big help. With them actually recognizing his talent and running by his side,,,

They made him believe in himself. Fuck what everyone else says.

"|We won because of your strategy,|" they sign. "|If it werent for you, we'd have lost the tournament.|"

And hes given a smile of encouragement. Oh, sweet understanding, sweet recognition.

For a tender year they and John built a strong team and friendship. John became this cheery man bc of them.

They helped him stand up for himself. Helped him in the art of not giving a fuck. Or raining retribution where it is applicable (the duo have sent bullies crying after giving fjem say -- a 20 second rainmaker match)

Whenever someone tries to make fun of him in the later years, or now -- even if Tanara is out of the picture bc theyre getting blended -- he will literally ignore the naysayers. Bc he knows. He knows Tanara believes in him. He knows his team believes in him. He knows many others do, as well.

He knows his own capabilities. He knows what his limits. And hes. God, theres a reason hes second in command. Hes smart about the sport. Hes scary on the field. Dont let the goofy attitude fool you. Hes having fun but you on enemy team wont!

Some people are recently saying that Tanara left their old team bc John was lagging too far behind them, that Ink Typh∞n is the natural next step for them.

Dead wrong dipshits. If anything, those two are eye to eye.

If Tanara wasnt forced to retire, theyf still be fighting by his side.

-----------

Ofc its not all perfect. He still shuts down sometimes. Shuts himself up if he gets scared of offending someone/in general.

If he doesnt get reassurance or proves to himself/his naysayers of his own capabilities, he starts going quiet, smiling less.

Those wounds still hurt, Im afraid....

-----------

And what about after Octo Expansion.

What was going through his mind?

Like....this is your best friend. The one who helped you become the man you are. They were your role model. Theyre so strong, so assured. Confident. Ruthless on the turf. So skilled that nothing can faze them. Believed in you like no one else did.

And youre watching them seem to get worse day by day.

Theyre closing up. Theyre not telling you anything. You reach out but they dismiss you. And their colors only get more desaturated with time. They still believe in you, but its clear that theres something bothering them.

You try to share your joy with them, talking about the things you liked. Like old times. It turns out however, that the character you idolized in the media you consume, is them.

And it explains everything.

An entire secret double life and they didnt tell you.

You were their best friend. They were by your side when you struggled to make it in this city. They gave you assurance when your confidence started to fail.

They were your hero.

Where were you then, when they needed one themself?

They slump into John's arms,,

Theyre only older than him by a year. but they feel so,,

They feel so frail. A shadow of how they used to be. A body broken by war, a mind and heart ravaged by worry and vigilance and the weight of the world on their shoulders.

They tell him that they dont want him to take this load. They tell him he doesnt deserve it.

He says he has no plans of getting into this, not directly. He just wants them to come back to him after duty, or allow him to help in any way he can.

He'll just wait by the door, like he always has.

And hes holding them. He wants to keep them there til everything becomes okay again.

[bwat5-blog]

Saying Goodbye: Arcane's Songs Of Grief

**Spoilers For Arcane**

Working on a Jinx post the other day it occurred to me I'd never really delved too much into the music even though it is SO IMPORTANT to the story. This is less critical analysis and more just something that interested me so if you don't care I don't blame you! But I get something out of it every time I get to spend time thinking on and digging into this show, so maybe you will to. This won't be too long as quite honestly I feel that-

A: These are fairly self-explanatory

B: I don't have the mind for lyric/poetry analysis and never have

1. Vi's world falling apart

Goodbye: song by Arcane, Ramsey, and Riot Games Music Team ‧ 2021

So this is the song that plays at the end of season 1 act 1 when we were all collectively saying something to the tune of "OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?!?"

It was a beautiful and tragic moment in the show and seriously set the tone for the rest of the story. I see this song as Vi's perspective as her world is completely falling apart around her.

Vander is dead

Mylo & Claggor are dead

Her possible last interaction ever with her little sister was deeply traumatic for the both of them, leaving her with crushing guilt over her loss of control and hurting Powder

She has literally been kidnapped and imprisoned in an adult prison without cause or trial (there is no pit of hell deep enough for you Marcus)

"I can hear the sound of a heartbeat before it goes out Won't ever leave my memory of bloodshed all around, And I can see a tear on my father's face before it falls out" :

Vi is hearing Vander die and telling us she won't ever be able to shake the memory of all this death and pain. And that comes back around unfortunately...

"Oh, my enemy, how could I have ever let you down?

Oh When all these trees saw us grow Cut our teeth and make our bones right here We'd play with shields made of stone Share our dreams and sit our thrones":

I see this as all about Powder/Jinx and Vi's crushing guilt over how they were parted. The trees watching them grow and the place where they played and dreamed of better days clearly being Zaun. But the line that is so indicative of Vi's trauma here is "how could I have ever let you down". As her guilt over how things happened will go to impact the course of her entire life.

"Be still, 'cause I see smoke up ahead and I got steel in my hands We will return like warriors, I swear, that we'll find glory up ahead Tell me

Where is my home? I don't recognize the faces anymore, no Where is my friend? The one I've known since I was only just a kid

I think it's time to say goodbye Goodbye, goodbye Goodbye, goodbye, woah":

This entire last section speaks to Vi's future when she returns to Zaun. Her entire world has changed. Powder has become Jinx. Ekko is a rebel leader and a warrior. The demon (don't yell at me Silco people I'm talking Vi's POV) who took her entire world away from her sits in her father's house. And when Vi returns she returns with fury and steel aiming to reclaim what she lost. Until she has no choice but to admit the world she knew is gone. Which takes us into our next song.

2. Jinx loses everyone

What Could Have Been: Song by Ray Chen and Sting ‧ 2021

I'd call this the song that captured the world's attention from Arcane. I mean having Sting alone was huge but this whole sequence was once again so beautiful and horrifying at the same time. Vi spends the whole show trying to get through to Jinx up until this point and you want to believe she is going to pull it off. Jinx is recognizing what Silco took from them, and the Council is starting the vote for Zaunite independence.

But it all falls apart. Silco is dead, and Jinx feels like Vi cannot love her anymore and feels rejected by her after everything that has happened. And this song begins, taking us into Jinx's POV as she lashes out in this moment of terrible grief and loss and angry. I'm not going to do the lyrics for this one like I did above because they are all pretty clear and direct. As Jinx makes the long walk to her destiny and fires the weapon that will destroy her people's chance at independence, she is telling Vi, Silco and the world how they have wronged her.

But the trick with Jinx is to remember she is an unreliable narrator. So when we are with her in this moment seeing it through her eyes we have to remember we cannot take everything at face value. So even though throughout the show we have seen Vi's guilt over what Jinx has become driving her, and after Silco's death Jinx essentially seems to blame Vi for what follows because she cannot "love her like she used to" because they are different. Where does that missile actually go?

I am the monster you created You ripped out all my parts And worst of all, for me to live, I gotta kill the part of me that saw That I needed you more

I hope you know we had everything And you broke me and left these pieces I want you to hurt like you hurt me today and I want you to lose like I lose when I play what could have been Oh, what could have been

Why don't you love who I am? What we could have been

I am your ghost, a fallen angel You ripped out all my parts I couldn't care what invention you made me 'Cause I, I was meant to be yours

I hope you know we had everything And you broke me and left these pieces I want you to hurt like you hurt me today and I want you to lose like I lose when I play

I want you to hurt like you hurt me today and I want you to lose like I lose when I play What could have been

3. Death touches Caitlyn Kiramman

I Can't Hear It Now: Song by Arcane, Freya Ridings, and League of Legends ‧ 2024

This song takes us into Caitlyn Kiramman's POV as she is plunged into the darkness of her mothers death at the hands of Jinx. Once again visually and musically it is a stunning moment. There is a notable difference to this one compared to the other two that I wanted to mention.

Vi's song-"Be still, cause I see smoke up ahead and I got steel in my hands, We will return like warriors, I swear, that we'll find glory up ahead Tell me"

Even with all of the loss and grief and pain in the rest of the lyrics there is a moment of hope. A promise of justice and righteous return

Jinx's song- "I want you to hurt like you hurt me today and I want you to lose like I lose when I play What could have been"

Full of anger and blame and hurt . Nothing positive but A LOT of emotion.

Now let's look at Caitlyn's lyrics:

There is an ocean so dark down below the waves Where you watch while these dreams gently float away And there is a silence so soft it's only memory Like the way your voice always sounds when you sing to me

But I can't hear it now Just tell me how to keep breathing while pretending I'm not drowning I don't know if I could I watched the door close for good 'Cause I couldn't keep it open

I just watched as the door closed for good 'Cause I couldn't keep it open

Just tell me how to keep breathing while pretending I'm not drowning I don't know if I could I watched the door close for good 'Cause I couldn't keep it open

Vi and Jinx are full of emotion and pain and loss but they are expressing it, even if it is misguided or negative. Caitlyn is drowning in her grief but trying to force herself to keep going and failing, and blames herself.

"But I can't hear it now ,Just tell me how to keep breathing while pretending I'm not drowning"-

Caitlyn so badly wants to hear her mother's voice again but she cannot. And she is trying to go on, be the new head of her house, testify before the council and everything else while maintaining her composure when inside she is completely and utterly destroyed. I mean for gods sake, revisit the moment she finally is alone with the person she can show vulnerability with:

it's like she barely makes it to Vi before her legs give out...

"I watched the door close for good 'Cause I couldn't keep it open"-

These are the last words of her goodbye to her mother. Not a lament of how the world is changed and she has to say goodbye. Not an angry accusation at those who wronged her. But blaming herself...

Conclusion:

Anyway! I hope you get something out of this. I did by writing it. I love the music of this show, and as a life-long band nerd and music lover seeing a show weave it's music into the storytelling in such an original way was truly special to me. Thank you for reading and take care!

[nabi-unveiled]

With each rewatch of When It Rains, It Pours, I had become increasingly uncomfortable. A question had begun to plague me.

How did I miss it?

It's no secret that I've been in the "don't trust Fujisawa" camp for a while. But I felt bad for him during the early episodes. After all, it really is a nightmare situation for him too. Why did it take me until my THIRD watch of ep4 to fully convince myself of Fujisawa's nature?

Missing sounds? Not a surprise.

But COMPLETELY missing something that's literally GLARING at me? Not even having it on my radar? That's unusual.

I always have multiple theories and numerous potential scenarios running in my head. It's not like I was watching this series casually.

And make no mistake - the man's been glaring since episode 1. It wasn't constant, but the glaring is not a new development.

Even Fujisawa's words have never been subtle.

So how did I miss it? Why did it take me so long?

I realized the answer yesterday, and I don't like it.

I missed the signs, because I was trained to miss them.

I see these dynamics all the time in my community. And when you see something all the time, you begin to notice it less.

Being uncomfortable with sex?

Growing up ensconced in purity culture means I know A LOT of people with very complex relationships with sex.

Some want it but would NEVER dare talk about it.

Some see it as something shameful.

Some see it as something to be feared.

It's what happens when you're constantly told libido is a swamp.

So this...

I didn't see it as a problem beyond them wanting different things. Either Fujisawa was ace or had issues with sex. He had been open about it with Sei, and he was doing the best he could.

This is fine as long as both parties are content. But Fujisawa is controlling and manipulative. Note the "bars" in the picture above.

Matching your partner's preferences?

I was taught catering to my partner's commands was an expectation. It was required to be a "good" partner. So this....

At one point WAS me. And even if I don't obey the rules anymore, I still see this type of "consideration" in most relationships around me.

IT'S NOT HEALTHY.

Consideration should not mean self-sacrifice.

At one point I thought, "Well, it's Sei's choice."

And that's true. But I know better than to fall for that logic.

It ignores his trauma.

It ignores his low self-esteem.

It ignores his fear of being left alone.

It ignores the difficulty of leaving those you care about and the life you know.

It ignores the manipulation.

Because this type of statement? It's tricky. It can be completely innocuous. But it can also be controlling, and a lot of that comes down to the power dynamics of the relationship.

Fujisawa holds the power here. He HAS been controlling and trying to manipulate Sei. I questioned last week what the purpose was of the editor if Fujisawa wasn't having an affair. However, it became clear when watching for the sizzle. Sei says he will go to the party and Fujisawa IMMEDIATELY says "I'll introduce you to my editor."

The unspoken words are if you don't go to the party. Mentioning the editor was a manipulation tactic. A subtle one, but it was there.

I give Sei credit. He went to the party. He kept emailing Hagiwara. He pushes back on occasion. He doesn't always follow commands.

But well.... damn.

I thought I could at least recognize when my raising was influencing interpretations. I thought I had worked through those issues.

So thanks When it Rains for reminding me not to forget my ID.

I sure as hell don't plan on getting trapped in that room again.

Break out Sei. It's not easy, but BREAK OUT.

There's a beautiful world waiting.

[mysteryanimator]

Ok so this a word ramble that I originally shared to a few folks, and then went “what the hell sure” and I’m sharing this here. Though this is more word ramble rather than structured then anything I’ve written analysis wise. The only reason why it’s less structured then what I normally do is because if I were to do this properly, I would genuinely go make a PowerPoint and multiple animatic examples to prove a point for a made up what-if 😭 I have to go be productive haha

Ok here we go

How we could have a Mizrak and Olrox intimacy scene actually work

This is hypotheticals I’m not actually trying to say it should be this way, I’m just really interested on this concept because it CAN work and it makes my brain excited. Also side point- you can also very easily achieve all of these scenes without a sexual intimacy scene as well, it’s honestly just up for can be portrayed and want needs to be conveyed to the audience. As long as the main ideas that need to be said are said!

I’ll preface beforehand too, this will be having Mizrak in particularly lean into a more positive viewpoint on it simply because I think we need more positive accepting sex scenes in animated queer scenes, especially with a repressed gay man coming to accept vampirism aka queerness. I think that’s neat in contrast to a lot of intimate scenes that aren’t so positive :D this also means a lot of it will come with my a lot of my own personal opinions!!

First of all, it would build an entirely new perspective on mizrak for us as an audience! There is so much we viewers that we do not know about him. Yet Olrox is so comfortable sharing alot of his emotional vulnerabilities to him, unlike Drolta in the graveyard scene. This type of physical intimacy literally has some baring their entire self to someone else. Nakedness is vulnerability. Mizrak is also a ‘warrior monk’ who wears armour. So you’re literally stripping him of not only his armour, we’re stripping him of the label he’s had since who knows how long. We go from warrior monk to just Mizrak. Every single scene of him in Nocturne is just defined by his monk title, never Mizrak. Which is also why it’s hard for a lot of us to imagine him in clothes other than his monk attire.

His monk attire is now however gone because drum roll. He’s a VAMPIRE. This is important I swear!

(Side tangent his ‘rebirth’ scene at the end of episode 08 when he’s revealed to be a vampire was unbelievably really fucking good)

He’s going to be dealing with a lot of self identity issues, his self image and how he feels about himself. He was already pretty repressed beforehand, and now all the walls are crashing down. Firstly as mentioned before, nakedness is a form of vulnerability. It would be such an interesting and unique way to showcase an acceptance of his identity. It’s both of his new identity of vampirism but also his identity of being queer. Almost as if having the reverse occur in the story of Genesis, where Adam and Eve become ashamed when they realised they’re naked. The opposite happening for Mizrak would be just interesting!

Another point is that we can explore Mizrak’s acceptance of vampire’s having a soul/life! I semi-explored the concept in an animatic not that long ago just because the idea just intrigues me sooooo much. I kinda want to explore it further but busy atm 😔, though I would genuinely make space and time to work on something like that regardless of what show/film it is. Emmanuel learns the concept that vampires/night creatures have souls, that they remember their lives beforehand when he turns Drolta into a night creature. It is totally up to audience interpretation if Mizrak recognises learns vampires have souls through this line:

“If you have a soul Olrox, and maybe you do, I hope it finds peace.”

However, through an intimacy scene, you could absolutely cement Mizrak learning then and there Olrox does indeed have a soul. Solely because, I’m going to get pretty NSFW here, Olrox is reacting to Mizrak, he’s reacting to what’s happening to each other BAHAHA. He’s getting emotionally invested in the moment, beyond the physicality, which could click something in Mizrak’s brain. There is a life to Olrox because that vampire is sweating and moaning HAHAHAH, which if he were to be truly soulless and lifeless, he would not be doing all of that. He’s a breathing, living person who has a soul. Ensue Mizrak accepting and giving in 🏃

Sure this probably happened between episode 3 and episode 4 in season 1, but for us to only see it now would mark an importance for Mizrak. It’s important for us as an audience to see this recognition because it will fundamentally change him and progress both their narratives. Every Mizrak and Olrox scene from episode 03 of season 1 to episode 08, something changes and something moves forward.

Speaking of life, Olrox has not been living. He’s depressed and traumatised. He’s the what-if he just killed the person who killed his lover dilemma for Dracula (thank you Tack for that!) He hasn’t lived since his lover died UNTIL Mizrak. I personally haven’t had seen so much life in him until he was fighting Drolta, saw Mizrak wounded and then started RUNNING??? It’d be really interesting conceptually to see Olrox be ‘alive’ in a much more safer private space, just between him and Mizrak!

This is also something you can very very easily achieve in 2-3 minutes, which is how long most of their scenes together are because they’re side characters. Or even less, 30 seconds it’s entirely possible to convey all of the above in little time. Power of visuals is important!!! Censoring is also not an issue too, I think you could censor this to hell and back but with smart and powerful storyboard choices from whoever gets the blessing to do it, concrete writing, you can actually have something that goes along narratively with the love theme in Nocturne and it’s positive influence on people. Mizrak’s self-acceptance and Olrox’s life reinvigorated. Of course everything beforehand has to build this up to this before it happens. Me, the brainrot person I am, recognises how hands are like a super important thing for them so it would be very cool to have that incorporated in somehow. Also, having the Olrox holding Mizrak from behind thing come up again, but with Mizrak accepting it properly and leaning back into him (or even Mizrak holding Olrox from behind) during a scene like this?? During a emotionally and physically vulnerable moment? Actual shockwaves I tell you, I think you’d have the whole fan base in tears.

There are nuances here, visual metaphors to play off, unique storytelling pathways it could go down, interesting characterisation you specific to sex and so forth!

Anyways that’s my proper ramble for the week, I hope you enjoyed my season 3 episode 6 pitch (massive joke I’m joking I’m joking, tho honestly would be so funny though if I could pitch something like because I will do my proper research, I will pull up statistics if I must and make visuals. Though I generally do understand how intimacy scenes don’t happen often, though Cativi winning an Annie award would prove to help strength the argument I’m making :D )

[according2thelore]

No, because that post you reblogged, about season one Sammy basically going stop hanging out with me and joking about season 15 Sam with “where are my kisses form mommmy?”

Yeah. YEAH. That’s the main draw from ls Sam/esdean for me. Because that shit lines up PERFECCTLY. A Sam that WANTS Dean to baby him and adore him? Dean would lose his mind. He would become psychopathic. He would somehow get WORSE. Because Sammy has been resisting that shit after he turned like 13. And Dean just got him back from college (the ultimate “get away from me Dean” move). And he gets to see this affection desperate ls! Sam that’s so blatant about it and centers out Dean loud?! Omgggggggg. Omgfg. It’s like being on restrictive diet every day for 20 years, and then someone just giving you 15 chocolate cakes and telling you to go crazy. (Also thinking the LS Dean is insane and a shitty brother, because why is ls Sam starved for affection?! What are you DOING?!)

And LsSam, who probably has definitely thought about how he didn’t appreciate being deans obsession back when it was still around? Literally would roll around in the mud. The mud of deans affection. Glut himself. Obsessed. Everything he thought he’d never have again. Everything he licked himself over not appreciating. Delivered.

Of course LS! Dean has probably taught himself over the years, and all the trauma, to be really careful about showing his sam obsession TO Sam- and is bewildered and horrified and jealous, and ripping himself apart. Because you don’t really notice every personality change you go though over time, you know? And I’m not sure Dean would even realize he’s gotten less “mommy” and affectionate over the years. They still have their big emotional “I love you so much” thing at least once an apocalypse. Maybe he doesn’t see that’s it’s…different.

And ES Sam isn’t there because that’s not my thing 😂

hello!!! (the post in question!)

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!

ES!Dean would become UNHINGED the first time he calls LS!Sam "sammy" when LS!Sam gets his shit rocked on a hunt and LS!Sam just kind of melts into the arm around his shoulder, joking lightly about how dean's going to have to carry him out of there.

dean's entire brain does a hard-reboot. blue screen and high pitched whirring and the whole thing.

he actually tries, legs shaking and stumbling underneath the weight of a full-grown thirty-something year old sam, who huffs and pained laugh and asks to be let down. ES!Dean is obsessed. because what the fuck do you MEAN LS!Sam leans into his arm and laughs gently and loves being called sammy and looks up at him with big, wet eyes and lets dean pet over his busted ribs??? WHAT THE FUCK??

ES!Dean goes full mommy-mode, lmao. they limp back to the impala, ES!Dean insisting that sammy take a few breaks, because he's looking pale. sam obeys every time, leaning a little more into dean while he gasps for breath, making little jokes about the monster or the weather or dean's fucking face--dean has no idea, his brain is on fire.

when they make it back to the car, dean insists on getting in the back with LS!Sam, and to LS!Dean's shock, LS!Sam agrees. ES!Sam awkwardly slides into the front seat while ES!Dean coos over LS!Sam in the backseat. LS!Dean almost crashes the fucking car when ES!Dean pushes LS!Sam's hair off of his forehead.

"it's gonna be okay, little brother, gonna get you patched up." ES!Dean says, just loud enough for LS!Sam to hear over the rumbling guitar of the radio. LS!Sam's entire world has shifted a little bit, because ES!Dean is so naked about it.

usually, if nothing's broken, LS!Dean will give him a clap on the shoulder and an opened beer, and chat with him to take his mind off of it. but ES!Dean is babbling about nothing in particular while his hands are all over him, his aching ribs and shoulder and hair and denim-clad knee and--LS!Sam's eyes almost roll back into his head like he just got a hit of his drug of choice--dean wipes a bit of dirt off of the side of his face with his shirtsleeve, absently, like he's not even thinking about it. he hasn't done shit like that since sam was...fuck, eight? eleven?

LS!Sam is so fucking exhausted after such a terrible week culminating in a clumsy hunt, and needs dean so acutely that he's sick with it, that he lets ES!Dean help him out of the car with a bracing hand on his stomach and an arm around his shoulder, and lead him away to LS!Sam's room for first aid. he doesn't wait for LS!Dean, because the hands on him are so warm and the familiar rumble of his voice and the lulling scent of cologne that dean stopped wearing years ago is soaking in every sinus in his skull.

ES!Dean deposits him gently on LS!Sam's bed and spends over an hour gently combing LS!Sam for cuts and scrapes and bumps. he whispers gentle and warm in his ear when he finally tests his ribs, apologizing softly when sam winces. sam is practically asleep at this point, even through the pain, so comforted and lulled and adored. he feels like he flopped back into a bed in a home he hasn't been allowed into for years. he's completely pliant in dean's arms, and dean finally pulls his boots off and leaves him mostly asleep on his bed, and switches the lights out.

their dynamic doesn't really change.

when ES!Dean makes breakfast for all of them the next morning, he slaps LS!Dean's hand with the spatula when LS!Dean reaches for the waffle already set aside on a plate. "that's sammy's." he says, sharply. he almost gets his ass beat, but when LS!Sam shuffles in, looking more well-rested than he has in years, ES!Dean hops to it and delivers him a perfectly-buttered waffle. just how he likes it.

he brings LS!Sam coffee and tea and snacks at all hours of all days. he follows LS!Sam around like a puppy, yapping excitedly about whatever's going on or whatever he's thinking about. he recaps an entire season of "la casa de los malvados," a telenovela he binged in 2003, and he's expected sam to tell him to shut the fuck up, but sam never does. he nods along and smiles and rolls his eyes at all the right points.

he and sam go about archiving one of the bunker's storage rooms, and dean gets distracted while trying to detangle some wires and just ends up staring right at LS!sam while he finishes writing an object's description in his ledger. it takes a few minutes for him to notice, but when he does, he doesn't snap or get uncomfortable like ES!Dean is expecting.

"yeah?" he asks, smiling warmly, an eyebrow raised gently. and fuck, if it doesn't sound hopeful. dean passes out and dies.

he notices a rip in LS!Sam's shirt, and when LS!Sam pouts a little because this was his favourite shirt, ES!Dean is practically tearing it off of his body to see if he can fix it.

ANDDDD lest we forget, ES!Dean has his amulet. LS!Sam can't take his eyes off of it. he's constantly finding reasons to touch it. he fixes it when the little knot of the leather cord travels down to sit against the pendant. naturally, he has to get closer, hands arms circling dean's neck like they're about to slow dance or some other ridiculous shit that makes ES!Dean flush from just the proximity of him. he pats ES!Dean on the chest for a job well done instead of the back. his eyes are constantly drawn to it like a magnet. when they fuck he insists ES!Dean be on top so he can see/feel it swing against his body WHO SAID THAT

LS!Sam goes to grab a spoonful of mac-and-cheese off the top of the pot ES!Dean is making, and ES!Dean smacks the spoon out of sam's hand, telling him he's not going to spoil his dinner, dammit. you'll eat when i tell you and not a second before. LS!Sam blinks owlishly at him before obeying and sitting down at the kitchen table, eyes pinned on ES!Dean like magnets.

ES!Dean asks LS!Sam if he blow dries his long princess hair, and LS!Sam jokes that, no, LS!Dean usually does that instead. ES!Dean falls asleep dreaming about getting to take a blow dryer to LS!Sam's hair, fingers scratching against his scalp, sam pliant and trusting underneath him as dean moves him this way and that. he becomes a little obsessed. when he's in the shower room brushing his teeth one morning, does he sniff LS!Sam's towel? mind your business.

ES!Dean is literally walking around with brass proof that he adores him. it's like all the parts of dean that LS!Sam beat himself up over taking advantage of is here and in sam's lap, begging to be acknowledged and loved and to smell sam's clothes. LS!Sam, for his part, can't get enough of ES!Dean's attention. ES!Dean's constantly checking in with him and bringing him coffee or water or chips, under the guise of doing something else. he hadn't realized how much he had missed dean being in his space. ES!Dean is trying to take care of him, as crazy as it sounds, and so LS!Sam is going to let him, dammit. he hasn't been taken care of, not in the unique way dean used to, in years. longer. a decade or more.

LS!Sam starts to seek ES!Dean out if he hasn't heard from him in a few hours. he asks ES!Dean if he wants to go do something, or asks if he wants help with dinner, or asks if he's busy. ES!Dean--more often than not--perks right up because he had tried to find something to do to keep him busy because he figured LS!Sam was tired of spending time with him.

ES!Dean thinks LS!Dean is an absolutely insane asshole. LS!Sam sighs happily when ES!Dean brings him a blanket before their weekly movie night. he tilts his face into ES!Dean's shoulder and inhales deeply when ES!Dean pulls him into a rare hug. LS!Sam has clearly been starving. and LS!Dean has clearly been starving him.

LS!Dean is slowly losing his mind.

LS!Dean makes sure to buy LS!Sam's favourite weird health chips and fancy shampoo. he brings LS!Sam an opened beer to find ES!Dean already there, yapping wildly about season one of "lost" like someone has a gun to his head. LS!Sam is leaning against him, seemingly completely unaware that ES!Dean has the edge of his flannel in his hands, worrying it between thumb and forefinger like a goddamn mother cat licking her kitten.

LS!Dean knew that ES!Dean was going kind of crazy over him--to LS!Dean's mortification. he knew how much sam despised his attention when they were that age. he would push dean's questing hands away after an injury, would need his personal space, would snap at dean if he caught him staring.

but LS!Dean finds himself staring at ES!Dean staring at LS!Sam while he reads. they're sitting right next to each other, while LS!Dean sits across the table. LS!Sam looks up and catches him staring. ES!Dean flushes madly but doesn't say anything. LS!Sam...smiles. and he doesn't stop smiling. even after ES!Dean goes back to his reading, LS!Sam sits quietly pleased and messing with the long ends of his hair at the back of his neck, like he does when he's content.

LS!Dean is kind of shell-shocked.

he didn't think LS!Sam wanted or needed that. hell, for years, sam had been telling him in explicit terms that he didn't. LS!Dean tells sam that he loves him when it really counts. like in that church.

but...even as LS!Dean thinks about it, he can't remember the last time he doted on sam like that. when he finds out that LS!Sam has been seeking ES!Dean out to spend even more time with him, he's kind of devastated. he doesn't even know how to be that version of himself anymore. it's so raw and open and vulnerable that it hurts to look at.

he wants to kill something when he sees the two of them, heads bent low and laughing to each other. he shrivels up and dies whenever he sees LS!Sam bend down so ES!Dean can laughingly wipe jam off of LS!Sam's forehead. he's going to be sick.

he awkwardly tries to do something similar one afternoon, and LS!Sam just stares at him with wide, confused eyes. when LS!Sam comes to bed one night, LS!Dean holds him so tightly his knuckles turn white. he feels like he's losing him, to a part of him he doesn't even know if he can find anymore.

you phrased it so perfectly!!! ES!Dean GLUTS himself, he can't handle it. LS!Sam rolls around in the mud of ES!Dean's affection!!!!!!!!!

thank you so much for sending in this ask, and thank you for your patience in me responding!!!! <3333 i am wishing you the most blessed of mommy dean mondays.

-lizzy

[thewadapan]

School Days review

Yeah, School Days is actually pretty good after all.

When you google "School Days", on the first page of results there's a reddit thread asking "hey, why do people hate this show?" OP gives a succinct summary of the show's themes and praises it for its tight focus and psychological depth.

The comments in that thread are fucking crazy. The top-voted comment includes this absolute gem: "Sekai is an emotionally manipulative bitch". Some users gesture towards a faint understanding that School Days is a deconstruction of harem anime, but almost to a one they claim the character writing is unrealistic. Nobody seems able to look past the show's metatextual meaning to just look at it on a straightup subtextual level—that is to say, it's not just being different to other anime for the sake of contrarianism, it's making a serious point about misogyny and toxic masculinity. Describing Makoto as a "character" at all is almost missing the point; he's practically a force of nature, and the vast majority of the show is concerned with the psychological manoeuvring of the girls in his class trying to manage and shape his behaviour.

I only know about School Days because @weaselandfriends is constantly banging a drum about it being a secret masterpiece. Gee, I wonder who the OP of that thread was! Cannot imagine being on a "School Days slaps" grindset for eight fucking years now.

(CW: discussion of underage sex, full spoilers follow)

I'm going to take a cowardly centrist route and say that School Days does in fact slap on a conceptual level, but that the execution in many places leaves a bit to be desired. It often feels repetitive. I watched the thing on 1.5x speed because, as someone who reads fast, watching subbed anime is like watching paint dry. The dialogue often feels awkward (unintentionally so, as in), which I'm willing to partially chalk up to the translation; maybe some of the clunkier lines feel more natural in the original Japanese. The imagery is often kind of laughably blunt: in some cases it works, like Kotonoha's red yarn like she's pulling her own fucking arteries out of her body, and in other cases it feels derivative and hackneyed, like the whistling kettle in the final episode. Maybe that was more original in 2007, I don't know—I would've seen the same thing in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire two years prior.

School Days does set out to pull the wool over the eyes of its presumably-mostly-young-men audience, by putting them in Makoto's POV. The show is adapted from an eroge, where the player literally would have inhabited Makoto and made his choices for him, and the "objective" of the game would have been to unlock sex scenes with all the schoolgirls. The trick with the anime is that it removes the possibility of choice, creating an impactful dissonance as Makoto's actions become increasingly alien and harmful. Inversely, as Makoto's sexual exploits escalate, we see less and less of them; by the end, the whole thing is routine, not eroticised in the slightest, we see people putting clothes on afterwards, sneaking around darkened rooms.

At the start, though, it's all panty shots and boobs. And like, how do you depict the objectification of women, from an internal perspective, without just... objectifying women? This has basically always been the classic problem with satire. If there is a way of doing it, School Days hasn't figured it out, so it just rolls up its sleeves and gets on with it. Where School Days stumbles, in my opinion, is that the fanservice shots leak out of Makoto's POV and into the scenes where it's just the girls on their own. Nevertheless, I think that even pretty early on School Days is unmistakably saying, "this is a bad thing". There's a discordant note to everything, a threat of another shoe waiting to drop. At the start, it takes the form of these innocuous remarks as the characters try to interact in good faith: Sekai is constantly like, "There's nothing wrong with feeling attracted to a girl! But maybe she doesn't feel comfortable with it! Have you thought about how she might feel?"

That's the great tension of Sekai, and indeed of much of the show's conflict: there is a world where Makoto and Sekai are just friends, and where Makoto is faithful to Kotonoha, and everyone lives happily ever after. Maybe Sekai really is earnestly trying to cross this gulf between genders, and wants to just make Makoto understand, so everyone can be happy. But from the start, there's a question of Sekai's motives; embodied by Sekai's friend Setsuna, who trails after her constantly asking, "But do you like him really?"

Setsuna is an interesting character with her own motives. There's a reading where she has a crush on Sekai, but can't pursue it because of her family's impending emigration; she ends up hanging around Makoto and desperately attempting to protect him from the consequences of his actions to preserve his relationship with Sekai, expressly stating that she wants Makoto to be a proxy for her after she's gone (though leaving any romantic feelings unspoken, that's just my interpretation). This escalates to the point of her having sex with Makoto on the condition that he breaks off another engagement with Otome, which is such a self-defeatingly doomed gambit that it becomes tragically clear Setsuna has lost all control over the situation. I got the impression that Setsuna somewhat envied the other girls' entanglements with Makoto: the bit where she kisses him while he's asleep, in an attempt to create a personal memory before she leaves forever, is haunting. Like Sekai, Setsuna ends up manufacturing a romance between herself and Makoto as a way to be with him "by proxy", without earnestly confronting her own feelings.

Anyway, my point is that early on, everyone is treating Makoto like a person, which is sort of their mistake. They're like, oh, a boy with a crush, how cute! What's the worst that could come of this? He's a bit clumsy, but I'm sure he means well! And progressively, mercilessly, the show is like: no, he does not mean well. This dude has absolutely nothing in his life except sex. Girls only exist to him as people to have sex with. Guys practically don't exist, as he can't have sex with them. And for these teenagers who are discovering their sexuality, the very fact that Makoto soon starts having these rumours circulating around him is what gives him some allure: he's a sexual entity, he can be thought of in that way, there must be some reason all these girls are acting so crazy over him. Even a character like Hikari, who early on was crushing heavily on the anime's one (1) other male character, Taisuke, ends up taking her turn with Makoto; whatever feelings she had for Taisuke are forgotten, the anime doesn't even bother establishing how that romance works, because it doesn't need to, we've already seen Makoto use his exact same wiles on like three girls already.

School Days has aged well not just because the years since have yielded a better cultural understanding of its subject matter, but for its "production design": what would have been a timely present-day setting at the point of its release ends up turning the whole thing into an early-2000s period-piece. The fashion and environments are distinctly noughties. Perhaps the most consistent bit of visual symbolism in the whole thing is the flip-phone: whenever a character is holding their phone, you can think of them holding their heart in their hands. They're like the fucking soul gems from Madoka Magica. Sometimes, people leave their hearts in the other room, or block each others' hearts, or search their hearts for good memories. The "cell phone charm" from the first episode is brought up towards the very end, seeming bitterly quaint in retrospect. Right before she kills him, Sekai sends Makoto a text which just reads "sorry" copied and pasted hundreds of times. And of course, the ED shows a propped-open cellphone with a slideshow of photos of the girls.

I think in terms of its place in history, School Days speaks to this information age where young girls are being bombarded with cultural messaging that the best way to get ahead is to sexualise oneself while simultaneously slamming everyone else for their sexuality. Girls aren't just competing with one another for the attention of boys; now, they're competing with online pornography. Sekai works as a waitress at a maid cafe (?), and sometimes wears the outfit for Makoto when they have sex. During the School Festival, the girls theme their class as a maid cafe (drawing on Sekai's experience, I think?), and are shown using "absolute territory" as a last-ditch resort to steal people from the other classes. As part of the festival, they have a secluded area curtained off with a bed, encouraging couples to go there for sex acts—but later, it turns out some of the girls have set up a camcorder, and they use the footage to reveal how everyone is cheating on everyone else. While the exact events are obviously taken to an extreme, subtextually everything in School Days tracks 100% with my own experience growing up in a Bri'ish high school, and it feels like things have only gotten worse since social media really tightened its grip on our society.

The most common talking point I see regarding this show is that the characters are "stupid". And it's like, no, they're not stupid, what planet are you on, they're fucking children! (They're children, fucking!) Most of them have probably never been in a relationship before! Everyone in the show is pursuing their own interests; it's just that often, they're in denial about the reality of the situation, because to acknowledge the reality would run against those interests. It's funny, Makoto hardly changes his behaviour throughout the whole show—it just becomes more extreme—but the only thing that affects whether or not his behaviour with Sekai is good or not is whether or not Kotonoha is his girlfriend. The use of "girlfriend" as a role is weaponised by both Kotonoha and Sekai against the other constantly; like declaring "you're It!" At once point while cooking for the school festival, Makoto starts groping Sekai's ass, and she goes, "Geez, stop it! Stop it I said! What'll you do if someone sees us?", only for Makoto to reply, "Then it's okay if no-one sees us?"; this motif of a private sin recurs with Setsuna's character, particularly in the masked play that crops up a couple of times. In what context is an act of desire okay, or not okay?

Halfway through the show, I remembered Emily is Away, a short Western indie visual novel. Released in 2015, Emily is Away is very consciously an early-2000s period piece, wearing the whole time period as an affectation. The whole game is a series of text conversations on an IM client with a girl; after key choices, you are told "emily will remember that".

I fucking hated Emily is Away when I played it. It made me so, so cross. Because after I finished my first playthrough, and got a miserable, unsatisfying end, I naturally started the whole thing over and tried again. I picked different favourite bands. I acted completely differently. And yet, no matter what I picked, during the timeskips between sections, my viewpoint character would do the exact same shit and the relationship fell apart in exactly the same way. The second playthrough was a complete waste of time. It seemed like I, the player, was being railroaded, that the writer simply hadn't the imagination to conceive of a truly interactive narrative with a wildly diverging chain of events.

But of course, that's the whole point, obviously. Emily is Away plays a mean trick on the player, where it outright lies that "you" are making meaningful choices, when in fact "you" are merely spectating the actions of the viewpoint character, a specific guy who is, by nature, a certain way. It posits that all this shit on the computer just doesn't fucking matter, it has nothing to do with how we feel about each other, that it's only our actions in the real world that matter. The thesis of Emily is Away is that sometimes, for some immutable reason, shit just doesn't work out between two people, and there's nothing you could have done differently that would have changed that.

In the timeline where you go the party, you regret going to the party. In the timeline where you don't go, you regret not going. So, the game says, what's the point in regretting at all?

I totally understood this, after finishing the game. But, fuck, I was still pissed about it. The game lied to my face. It put me in the position of being a shitty person, and I didn't like that. It left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm still not sure if Emily is Away is actually any good; I think I like it conceptually, but maybe the writing sucks, I played it eight years ago. My point is that I think School Days is trying to pull the same trick as this one game, but in a much more mean-spirited way, to much more devastating effect, and I suppose I can't be too surprised that it pissed off a lot of people. If I hadn't known upfront what to expect- well, I wouldn't be watching ecchi anime in the first place, but you get the point, maybe I would've been pissed too.

If you break out of the "anime" mindset for even a second, and allow yourself to think that what you're watching is a frank portrayal of events, rather than some hyperreal cartoon, then Makoto is obviously just a little sexual predator. He's constantly pushing the girls past their limits, groping tits, going in for kisses, often against their express wishes. He initiates all the sex we see, and while in a certain sense it's all consensual, everyone involved is under the age of consent, and the show is making a very strong case for why underaged sex is a problem. When Sekai gets pregnant, Makoto wants nothing to do with her—"It's not my fault!"—but it's made clear he wasn't using any contraception, so, c'mon.

School Days is very deliberate in omitting adult characters entirely. Teachers mostly exist in the form of textbooks being read offscreen. I think we get a line of dialogue from Sekai's mom, if I remember right? It presents this world where Makoto basically has free reign to do whatever he wants to the girls, and everybody knows about it, but nobody is doing anything about it. When Sekai murders Makoto, there isn't a scene where anyone notices his absence, finds out. Kotonoha carries his severed head across town without anyone noticing, kills Sekai, and makes it onto the boat without getting caught. The show ends on a montage of idyllic school scenes, as if to say, "nobody noticed, everything just carried on". And again, to a certain kind of guy, I think this would stretch plausibility to the point of causing offence. For me, I think it's speaking to something very real.

Makoto's bedroom is barren except for his computer and magazines: porn, and porn. In the back half of the show, the void left by the absence of adults is filled by Makoto, Sekai, and Kotonoha, who are thrust into this horrible domestic drama, as everyone else in their class blocks Makoto. Makoto relays Kotonoha's recommendation for an abortion clinic to Sekai. He and Sekai sit diagonally across a table in a living room, and suddenly Makoto's school uniform looks like a salaryman's suit, a size too big for him, like he's walking around in his dad's clothes. Sekai tries to prepare a big meal for him, in a fucked-up parody of domesticity, but ends up destroying the whole thing after Makoto spits in her face yet again; later, she sees the remnants in the trash, an uneaten chicken leg poking out, and sees a little of herself in there, and that's basically when she decides to take the knife and kill Makoto. She stabs him in the belly, which is what Kotonoha will later do to her; both are imitating the original sin of the pregnancy.

Kotonoha explicitly chooses to kill Sekai this way because she believes Sekai is lying about the pregnancy—which we can pretty safely say isn't true, based on the scenes where Sekai is on her own. There's this horrible, horrible shot where the camera is looking out at Kotonoha from inside the gut wound, and she observes, "Just as I thought. There's no-one in there." And it's like, is she talking about this baby, still so early in the gestation that it's scarcely even an idea? Is she talking about Sekai, or Makoto, these two people who turned out not to care about her at all? Or is she peering straight through the screen at the viewer, complicit in this atrocity? The shot mirrors the bag containing Makoto's head earlier in the same scene; when Sekai unzips it, the inside is just a black void, and we aren't shown the contents. It's honestly more unsettling to infer it—that bag's not big enough for all of Makoto—and have it "made real" by that final shot of Kotonoha pressing the severed head into her chest on the boat. The memes were more right than they knew: "Nice boat."

Overall, I think School Days extends a lot of empathy towards its female characters. Or, if nothing else, it takes care to give them complex and distinctive internality, which is more than I can say for a lot of anime. Kotonoha initially represses her feelings for Makoto, and then when she feels pressured into reciprocating his intimacy, she soon gets turned into a social pariah for it. Early on, there's this eye-roll-inducing scene where Kotonoha is like "the other girls used to make fun of me because of my huge boobs", and from Makoto's perspective it's like "great, you've got huge boobs!", but then from Kotonoha's perspective, she spends the whole show getting slut-shamed, doesn't she? As a coping mechanism, she builds up elaborate delusions around Makoto—Makoto wouldn't let this happen to her, would he!?—which make it impossible for her to see how he's harming Sekai at the same time, culminating in the "I think you've made up your pregnancy for attention" beat. Their own internalised misogyny prevents the girls from identifying their common enemy.

If I'm being totally blunt, I feel like I can pretty safely put most of the comments regarding School Days I've seen online into a big bucket labelled "HAS NEVER HAD MORE THAN ONE GIRL INTERESTED IN HIM AT ONCE". Like, "I can't believe this Makoto guy! Why doesn't he just dump Kotonoha and date Sekai, who he's obviously more compatible with?" Bucket. "Makoto is so spineless and needs to stop letting these girls manipulate him!" Bucket. "There's no way the teachers would let him get away with this!" Bucket. "What do these girls see in Makoto anyway?" Bucket. "Sekai is such a bitch!" A new, bigger bucket labelled "NO BITCHES".

What I'm interested in is takes from School Days haters who aren't brainpoisoned anime fans, who might even nod along to all my analysis of the show's themes here, but who nevertheless think it's a bad show that deserves to be reviled. What part didn't you like? Is it the part in the OP where you see every female character naked one after the other? Yeah that part's pretty bad. Is it that windowpane-shattering digital transition that gets used once or twice? Is it the utter self-seriousness with which it tackles its ludicrous melodrama? I can see how, if you don't let yourself start to think "oh, those poor girls!", if you don't have that emotional buy-in, the whole thing might just feel comically edgy, sophomoric. I don't think there's any level on which School Days is fun to watch, and I'm not saying it's a secret masterpiece either, but I guess it more-or-less landed for me.

[tea-cat-arts]

I simply think this fandom doesn't give Wei Wuxian enough credit for the various ways in which he saved Lan Wangji

[toddtakefive]

thinking about todd and his resolve toward… not quite isolation, but being alone in a room full of people again. he goes along to the study room to sit on his own and do his homework, he sits at the poets table and follows along with what’s being said while keeping quiet, he goes to the meetings at all but doesn’t necessarily contribute (in fact, if you watch him when cameron is telling the story ‘from camp in sixth grade’, you can see that he recognizes it before any of the other poets but doesn’t voice it until they all have). he’s not alone, necessarily, if you want to get technical about it, he’s just lonely, and he’s generally okay with that. he doesn’t have friends and that’s fine, he doesn’t participate in class and that’s fine, he doesn’t have a relationship with his family and that’s fine—he could live without any real connection and he’d have been, more or less, fine.

the thing about when he says “i can take care of myself just fine!” is that he isn’t really wrong, you can infer that he’s been doing it his entire life anyway, it’s that ‘taking care of yourself’ isn’t the same thing as really living or being happy. todd’s an introvert, certainly, and even as he gets closer to the group he defaults to sitting quietly in the background, but he’s also denying himself community out of fear not introversion. todd isn’t friendless because he’s an introvert, although that definitely plays a part, he’s friendless because he pushes anyone that might want his company away. if anyone has every wanted for his attention in the first place. (neil’s unwavering interest in him is unique (even when it comes to the rest of the poets, who are fine with todd coming along and joining the group, but aren’t really hellbent on him being there in the beginning) and his refusal to accept it is a direct result of being so lonely growing up.)

there’s obviously something to be said about the implications of his parents neglect, and the more than likely fact that he grew up friendless, and how those both play a part in in him being so skilled at dodging social interaction/being so avoidant of it, but by the time we see him in the movie he’s all but accepted his fate as being alone his entire life. he’s already accepted being the family disappointment, and he’s already accepted he’ll never amount to anything, and he obviously doesn’t like it, but he’d have managed living with that knowledge without the confirmation that it was all wrong. would he have been miserable? almost certainly. but he’d have managed. he’d done it for that long already, anyhow.

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

"But why would Sonic still be friends with them why wouldn’t he denounce them or treat them like the villains they are? Why won't he realize they're just evil?"

First of all, has it perhaps occured to you that Sonic loves/cares for them no matter what they do and doesn't want to hurt them if he doesn't have to? Has it perhaps occurred to you that he doesn't see them like irredeemable villains and it's not because he's a dumb dumb idiot?

Second of all, haha keep talking and I'm gonna unroll my character analysis essay. "They're just evil" yeah that's rich. Bet you thought the ending of the series was about "redeeming" them too, huh?

[dream-sans-mogai]

You know what? I'm not done.

The fact y'all white mogais fought tooth and nail to not have to put white in your bios or somewhere readily available was actually insane and confirms my already existing theory that some of you think once you have a certain amount of kins, f/os, irls, mental illnesses, xenogenders, orientation modifiers, alters and neopronouns, you lose white privilege and it absolutely shows that you do not lose that privilege exclusively because y'all have become pretty consistent white saviors lmao

Like y'all literally cried about it being too identifiable about you and being the same as doxxing like you weren't already sharing with everyone the exact percentages of your orientation attraction, age, state you live in, public name, like... I have to wonder hard how many of y'all participate in anti-racism activism to be an ally, actually understand why certain things are actually racist and help POC and how many of you exclusively do it to look better to other (white) activists and ease your white guilt.

Now y'all aren't even including byi/stance pages on top of a total lack of dni and wonder why radqueer beliefs are seeping in and every new term is basically transabled under a different name. I called it when I first saw this new batch pop up and I'm saying it now, they have their radqueer blogs with their radqueer content that you have blocked and they have their other blog named something like prxncxss-of-nxght or something with $50 worth of custom lazy caard graphic edits with needy streamer girl and 17 titles but no public stances for all their normal xenogender content. You didn't fight it so there they are. They ain't saying shit. Hell, no one said shit when ra/diomo/gai litterally reblogged a word for word transabled term. "Internal self" you realize that's just flowery language right? Like the creator themselves already said that it applied "to the soul and not the physical form". Please read a room. "#disability"? Are you actually fucking kidding me? No one batted an eye?

I don't think the community is dead because I don't follow a lot of big names anymore or because a lot of big names have deactivated, y'all just stopped caring and moved on despite all these beliefs you said you cared about. I don't really care, I've pretty much known from day one that a majority of the community is literally just full of shit about all these 8 paragraph basic feminism posts and vents crying about racism from fully white people.

I'm not someone to rip someone apart publicly for being what they say they are, then there's no need, but lieing about it? Damn, at least be shitty honestly.

Don't harass me, the creator of that term or ra/diom/og/ai over this. Just block and move on, I'm not having some public drama back and forth over a clearly transabled term.

[itspileofgoodthings]

you know what I’ve realized lately? that’s really helped? the axiom: it just doesn’t really make that much of a difference. Or at least it doesn’t when you’re talking about good things and not, like, doing good vs. doing evil. Big choices, little choices, decisions, decisions —it’s not just that they don’t matter in the grand scheme of things—because they do! —but just. It won’t make that big of a difference. Life will continue to be wonderful AND difficult, fascinating AND hopelessly mundane, full of roses AND thorns and all the other cliches whether you walk down one road or another. And you’ll get used to the joys and sick of the sorrows whatever they are, and you’ll be ungrateful and bored and dissatisfied in some measure some of the time and you’ll have to work on all the things you have to work on anyways and just. Yeah! It doesn’t make that big of a difference! Even the biggest things!

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

also a warning if you think abt it

[mcybree]

man I wanna get in fh related fandom discourse but in like a quiet way where we all go around and directly share notes with one another. maybe a power point presentation is involved

[yoichls]

siiigh . . .

[kummatty]

back home . this weekend was driving 12 hrs to redacted, getting ready in a rush in full langa voni (half sari) jewelry bangles etc in the hotel (probably took us 2 hrs bc hello), attending my cousins engagement party from 6-11, getting back changing repacking going to bed at 1am, waking up at 7 getting ready and driving 12 hrs back